Tired, Tired Hippo

Welcome to the "Sick and Tired" post. No, it's not a blog where I hilariously rant about the inescapable mundane atrocities of life. It's a blog that I write while I am simultaneously sick and tired.

Better sarcastically believe it.

Yep, my head feels like it's filled with marbles, my throat feels like it's smuggling marbles, and my stomach feels like Hitler is playing a game of marbles inside of it. I imagine this is what it must feel like to be a Hungry Hungry Hippo™. That and having really, really low self esteem.

"Food is the only joy I get out of life."

This wonderful bout of illness is happening right as I'm gearing up for production on this short student film, ensuring that I experience every form of headache simultaneously. They should have young adult Girl Scout badges for this kind of stuff.

But amidst all the stress and fatigue, I'm still finding ways to feel rewarded and enriched. I've been doing a lot better at work lately, which didn't seem possible a month ago. Or a week ago. Part of it I attribute to my boss's good mood, but part of it definitely has to do with my gradual evolution into an administrative ninja. I'm nowhere near the multi-tasking prowess of my co-worker who handles all the important paperwork while listening to 80s pop Pandora (...okay, we decided on that station together), but at least I can type an email AND figure out how to rewire a router.

Sweet, sweet victory.

"Well that's all great Jessica, you're sick and you're learning how to send faxes. But what about the reason you came out to LA? How's that working out for you, huh? Your big dreams? Your aspirations? Your third grade avowal to become a writer? Have you done ANYTHING to even remotely move towards that goal?"

Yes.

Remotely.

This is becoming the ongoing issue as I blindly swing my machete through the bamboo forest of young adulthood. Am I on track? Am I getting closer to my goal? Am I not trying hard enough? Am I doing what I need to do? Am I failing?"

Though I'm not entirely certain, it feels like I'm doing all of these things. My life is pretty different from this summer, where I submitted to a million and one Craigslist writing jobs by handing them a piece of paper with "I WRITE GOOD" scribbled across the front. I figured the most logical way to become a TV writer was to start as some kind of writer. But here I am, in the TV side of things and not the writing. Which is apparently a way to do it, too.

Latest accomplishment: I've worked my way up to a polished almost-final draft of my spec script! I still want more feedback than I've received, but I'm to a point where I can say I'm happy with what I produced. Like the 20 grapes I once fit into my mouth, this is a HUGE accomplishment. This marks my first spec script, my first tv script, my first career footpath brick, and my first shot at real world failure.

Speaking of Hungry Hungry Hippo.

I'll be taking the first steps toward "submitting" (a word I hear far too much of in this industry) my work for the first time in just a few weeks... I don't really expect much to come of it, but the anticipation of going out and doing it is still exciting.

I guess that's all I have for tonight. But just so you're at least partially satisfied...

Things I am Sick and Tired Of

• The band F.U.N.
• Moldy grapes
• All this hair on the kitchen floor... whose in our household is THIS hairy?!
• Feeling obligated to include emoticons when I text
• Food trucks blocking my vision on the freeway
• Cleaning up after my beta fish like he's queen of the castle
• Hearing about the Hunger Games. I legitimately do not care. (but J-Law's okay)
• CostCo quantities of student loans
• CostCo quantities of noodles... I will never eat this many noodles
• Chapped lips
• Post-Taco Bell breath
• The recent resurgence of posting quiz results. I don't CARE what Disney landscape most resembles your aura
• Belly fat, which is why I tried Lipozene

Everyone's A Movie/Food Critic

And so we return to the magical kingdom of Work Land, where Jobs grow on Jobbies.

Watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, in case you don't watch Always Sunny and therefore don't get the reference, or admission into heaven.

To be honest I'm pretty exhausted; not so much from work as from going out and doing other shit and then trying to go to work on top of that. The recent source of exhaustion, aside from resuming morning hikes with Casey, has been movie-binging. I can only justify it because they're cool new movies, liiiiiiike:

American Hustle

I'll say this: it was good. They did stuff right. Stuff wasn't wrong. Ultimately? Solid movie, but it's not going to be on anyone's "Top 10 ____," unless they make a list of "Top 10 Ways to See the Space Between Amy Adams' Boobs," where this movie would rank #1. The film had very strong moments but didn't resonate heavily enough to be particularly memorable. I feel like that's putting too negative a spin on it when it was actually very well done, but that's all I can chalk it up to.

Things I Learned From American Hustle
1. White collar crime is too complicated to bother looking into
2. Bradley Cooper looks GREAT with tight little Jew curls
3. Jennifer Lawrence is still doing okay, so that's good

Next on the movie-palooza itinerary was

her

But let's be honest, it was all about him... Joaquin Phoenix, that dreamy fuckin' weirdo. Not gonna lie, for the longest time I could've sworn he was the guy from Lars and the Real Girl, which makes sense, because "her" is essentially the same exact premise set in semi-futuristic Los Angeles. I really appreciated this movie because it's one of the few films I've seen that didn't treat futuristic technology the way the pre-Avatar era treated 3-D movies. Sure, the technology seems cool and at times implausible, but at no point does the film seem to be screaming, "HEY GUYS... GUYS! CHECK OUT THIS TECHNO-MA-ROBO-JIGGER! IT READS MINDS AND CAN COOK YOUR DINNER! THE FUTURE IS WILD!" You don't get knocked over the head with the strangeness of it so you just end up slipping into this ambiguously futuristic place where it's very natural for people to fall in love with robots.

I'll come clean, I did cry a little bit near the end. However, I spent a lot more time tying my brain into philosophical slipknots. This is a very head-y/heart-y movie, and we can all thank writer/director/secret crush Spike Jonze for that. After watching it you'll spend hours contemplating the nature of love AND the difference between humans and robots. Like, there is zero pie-throwing in this movie. Not one pie.

Things I Learned From her

1. Video games are going to be a lot like Sims in the future and I can't wait

2. Amy Adams can go without baring her non-cleavage and still be pretty and infinitely likable

3. Sex with robots. It's gonna happen.

And so, last on the movie-watching list was

Philomena

Ya bish.

I started watching this movie having no idea what it was about, just that it involved old ladies which meant it would probably win an award. After watching it the whole way through, I've decided that I wouldn't hate it if this film won an academy award. I'll try not to spoil the ending, but it's what I liked about this movie. By the end you feel fulfilled, but not how you thought you were going to be fulfilled, so you feel kind of dissatisfied, too. It's a pretty emotional movie. I wasn't sold in the beginning, as I sat in bed cynically rolling my eyes and thinking, "Oh great, nuns. Next thing you know Judi Dench will show up out of nowhere with some Oscar-worthy performance."

Judi nailed it, folks. She plays a spacy old woman and it's simply delightful. Yes, this is definitely a "darling of the critics" type film, but it's well-made and will make you hate nuns.

Things I Learned from Philomena

1. The Irish weren't doing so hot for a while there

2. Even asshole journalists can come to accept Jesus into their heart

3. Being a pregnant nun is not as much fun as it sounds

That concludes my thoughts on the screeners I obtained and viewed through completely legal measures. 

To wrap things up I just wanted to brag about how awesome my Thursday was. Casey and I went to our second LA Artwalk in downtown, this time joining a Meetup group of fellow 20-ishes who just graduated and moved to LA. I'll admit I was very nervous the group would just be a bunch of party-seeking ho bags and a bunch of ho-seeking bro-bags, but everyone turned out to actually be really cool. We were a formidable group of about 12, and spent the evening walking down Spring Street and using the artwork as a convenient conversational buffer. The real bonding happened at the food trucks however, since we were all starving and craved delicious, somewhat overpriced gourmet food. I ate at Tokyo Doggie Style, which is either Japanese food for weird Americans or American food for weird Japanese people. I got the veggie dog, a.k.a. a bunch of different flavors inside a piece of bread. It was delicious, make no mistake, but if you can't even convince me that what I'm eating is pretending to be meat, then you probably shouldn't call it a veggie dog.

And that concludes the self-righteous food snob portion of today's blog.

For dessert Casey and I got beignets which were the beign-omb. We ate them all the way to The Perch, le fantastic rooftop bar where people in blazers go to contemplate how well they've done for themselves.

"Yup, Lizandro, you put your dues in and it all paid off."

There, we just-graduated-and-moved-to-LA-ites hung out, had some drinks, and basked in the smug novelty of the classy rooftop bar. We were a pretty diverse bunch. There was a crazy Swiss dude who kept ordering bottles of champagne and he was pretty cool... there was a friendly guy visiting from Jersey who could sell you a rotting cat carcass if you talked to him long enough... and a girl living not far from my work who could probably solve the world's energy crisis if we hooked cables up to her. I ubiquitously approved of everyone, and hope we get to do more Meetuppinz in the near future. 

That's right, it's gettin' pretty social up in here... look at me go!

[goes home on a Friday night to blog and eat take-out Thai food in bed]

Happy Year 1! All Hail Satan!

I've determined that I'm the opposite of a bear. Why? Because I hibernate in reverse. I fall off the map for the winter, and then instead of re-emerging into the sunlight I retreat back into my cave, where I write blogs and work on my pale.

Yes, with being more or less completely off work for the latter half of December, my sense of time's been completely skewed and I've been able to finagle more exciting things to do with my Tuesday evenings. And, look at that, it's not even Tuesday today! What is going on?!

I think we all need to sit down, catch our breath, brew some tea, and have ourselves an

ULTIMATE TUESDAY RECAP SMACKDOWN
(as in, a recap of things that occurred on Tuesdays, not a recap that occurs on Tuesdays. I'm sure you're much less confused now.)

Tuesday, December 24th: I went home to sunny-fuckin'-San-Diego for the best 80 degree Christmas a spoiled SoCal girl could ask for, but earlier that day my dad came up to LA to see the place and spend a day off in the city. It inevitably centered largely around eating Asian food. But we also went ice skating at the rink in Pershing Square, which was fun after the initial 10 minutes of sheer terror.

I don't feel like an Olympic champion! I don't feel like an Olympic champion at all!

As an East Coast native, my dad confidently believed he was just inherently a better skater than any Angeleno on the ice. Naturally, he fell flat on his back and will probably now be Youtube famous.

Another exciting venture was going with my dad to get my Christmas-by-Jews-for-Jews present: my very own bicicleta!

It's time for some extreme on-roading.

I've taken this Jamis Durango 29 for a spin and made it from here to downtown in less than 10 minutes. No single-speed beach cruisers for me-- in my world Los Angeles is both figuratively AND literally a mountain. Luckily, it is now easier than ever for me to explore that mountain. A bike really is the best of both worlds... I get to pretend to be a car, and when there's traffic I get to pretend to be a pedestrian. It truly is the mudskipper of transportation and I love love love it.

That same day my dad and I went out for dinner, and I finally got a chance to try the restaurant above Hop Louie, an anomaly of a dive bar that looks significantly less inviting than anything else in Chinatown Central Plaza.

"That's odd, it was sunny at the gift shop next door..."

It's a strange little place, but as the website states, "Hoplouiela is a place for things to happen." What happened that night was kung pao shrimp and pretty bomb cream cheese wontons. On the other end of the vast and empty restaurant, the servers were sitting and watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" on a 90s t.v. set. It was a perfect Christmas Eve.

Tuesday, December 31st: December 31st... hmm... December 31st... what is special about December 31st? Oh that's right, it's New Year's Eve motha truckers! Which constantly flip-flops between being the most boring or the most exciting night of the year. This past new year's was 10 different kinds of apeshit, due in part to poorly-thought-out mixed drinks and in part to the new LA extravaganza that kicked off this year: a massive 3-D light show at LA City Hall.

Behold: THE FUTURE (future... future... future...)

What the black bar on the bottom of this photo is hiding is the thousands upon thousands of Angelenos who rang in the new year at city hall by dropping acid and staring up at this phallic building while the clock counted down. I made it there just in the nick of time with Casey, Ben, and two friends who came up from San Diego. Somehow, amidst all the crowds, drunken fights and public urination that surrounded us, we managed to stick together and watch city hall get effed up by magical 3-D projections.

AND THEN

as soon as the show was over, my "got connecs" friend led us straight to the heart of the beast... the top of city hall! Complete with breath-taking panoramic balcony views I got to enjoy 4 times, thanks to the quadruple vision I was experiencing the whole night.

Behold: 10 MINUTES IN THE PAST (past... past... past...)

Didn't kiss anyone this year, but that's okay, I just whored myself out on New Year's Day instead.

If I could change one thing about new year's, it would've been my shoes. I stupidly thought that I could be a strong, post-progressive feminist and wear heels, but in the end, there was way too much walking and way too many stairs for a sober person to tackle, much less... me. The next morning felt like I'd undergone Chinese foot-binding. On the whole, however, it was an absolute whirlwind of an evening, as terrific and chaotic as the 364 days before it.

Don't Start With Me, Homey

'Tis the season to enjoy the 3 minutes shaved off my morning commutes since people are taking off for the holidays. I can feel the presence of Our Lord Baby Jesus on the freeway.

This is my last week of super-hyper-crazy-full-time work until the new year, since my boss will be out of town for the holidays. I'll do a little bit of telecommuting, but ultimately the next two weeks are going to be a combination of enjoying time off and finally addressing the mountainous accumulation of to-do's work has kept me from, like buying food and shaving. Seriously, my 5 o' clock shadow is more like a 5 o' clock eclipse. Gentlemen...?

In terms of today: today was a frustrating day of running errands and ultimately not getting much actual shit done, which sucks, because in addition to just making me look bad it also guarantees tomorrow won't be a pocketful of posies.

I WANT THESE POSIES.

So. Meh. Meh. I'm just working for next week. Next week and the sweet, sweet temporary liberation it promises.

Speaking of weekends, this past one was pretty good. I went to Christmas parties both Friday and Saturday; one with college friends, one with high school friends. The college one was definitely a good time; we had a white elephant exchange where I made off with this thing:

*made out with

Does your flask have rainbow fur and giant googly eyes? Oh yeah I forgot, you don't have a flask.

And then Saturday was a classic holiday theme party involving an ugly sweater competition which, frankly, I don't understand how I lost.

True Life: my shoulders are quintuplets

Nicholas Cage is like the ultimate trump card for ugliness! Whatevs, guess I'll just have to try a different angle next year.

Because my friends are anti-Semites, get it?

It was cool hanging out with my old-time high school peeps, especially in a casual setting that involved lots of people and alcohol. My conversation skills follow a very nice little bell curve correlating with how much I drink.

ABRUPT CHANGE OF TOPIC

Remember how in my last post I basically outed myself as a snobby hipster who wants their dining experience to be as much 'experience' as it is 'dining'? Well. I went to a place that I've heard about and is also somewhat close to where I live last weekend, and I must say I was pleased on all fronts. No, there was no patio or courtyard, which I'm sure we can all agree is a darn shame. But what it did have was everything else going for it. I went to Homegirl Cafe, which is a mindfuckingly delicious and small-scale-trendy cafe/bakery located on the outskirts of China Town.

I know, I didn't know there was stuff there either. Mostly because there isn't. Except for this place.

The menu features lots of very delicious and healthy permutations of Mexican dishes, but all organic-free-range-feel-goody shit; shit in the sense of, "Damn, this is some good shit." They also have a lot of vegetarian and vegan items, which made me happy as a soy clam.

But I haven't told you the coolest part about this place, which is that it operates out of Homeboy Industries. You guys, I cannot explain how about this I am. Homeboy Industries is a job placement and rehabilitation organization that provides a million and one services to former convicts and gang members. Homeboy Industries does virtually everything you could ever want as a former-whatever, from substance and domestic abuse rehabilitation programs, to tattoo removal services, to running one of the best damn cafes I've ever eaten at. And it's completely staffed by people in the program-- that is, former convicts and gang members. So in your head you're probably imagining a place that looks something like this:

I'll have a bowl of nails... without any milk.

But it actually looks like this:

And then there's THIS:

Slip me some cupcakes, homegirl!

And (almost) needless to say, everyone there is very friendly and welcoming.

This place is perfect because I can enjoy my hoity-toity food, be relatively healthy about it, and ease my sense of privileged guilt since I'm supporting an incredible cause. Everyone wins!

Especially me, because I'm a white middle class female.

Caffeine for the Work-Stressed Hiker's Soul

Today started off pretty all right with a 6am hike in Griffith Park. I don't know if I've properly bragged about my new leisure/physical activity, so let me take a moment to milk the sweet udder of self-congratulation.

Macy and I have pledged to do pre-work morning hikes, as of now only once a week, but who knows what the future holds. We've gone about 3 times already, and so far it's been great. I wake up super hackin' early at like 5:30am, we meet up, and hike either around Griffith Park or the trail/park behind my apartment for an hour or so. Of course, when I say "hiking" I mean walking in places where there's trees, but there is a little incline involved. And descending the dirt trails in the Hollywood Hills? It's like Survivor Man out there. Okay, maybe Survivor Fetus (coincidentally also the name of my new pro-life reality series), but in the end everything circles back to one infallible argument: what exactly did you do at 6 this morning?

The unexpected bonus is that Macy has work before I do, which means we finish up in time for her to get ready for work, and I have time to go about my morning routine in a luxuriously slow manner. Or, more commonly, completely defeat the purpose of these hikes by going out and getting breakfast before work. In this situation it's very easy to justify "needing" coffee, but not so easy to justify the sumptuous baked good that inevitably goes with it. Not to mention I've just become a snob about dining experiences in general. I'm living the coziest possible version of a poor person's life in the sense that I go to places for the ambiance and then order the cheapest thing on the menu. I've reached that point where I feel like I'm cheating myself if I get coffee from 7/11 or even Starbucks... I have to go to some froofy little fuckin' "niche-y" cafe that's decorated to look like a cave behind a waterfall so anyone who goes there is really just embarrassing themselves if they're at all shocked or disgruntled that the danishes are $6 a pop.

Mitt supports overpriced pastries.

SO OF COURSE let me tell you all about the froof cafe I went to today. I decided to try it out because it was close to my work in Santa Monica and Yelp said it had a patio. Mentions of a 'patio' are always a good sign that a place is going to be smugly quaint and charming, which is exactly what I look for when I'm going out for coffee. the place was called the Coffee Connection, whose patio I would go so far as to say is actually a courtyard. And man, courtyards are the next level-- even better than terraces! Any ol' pizzeria with enough space to put chairs outside can have a patio. But this place had a whole enclosed outdoor area shrouded in vines and greenery and, best of all, a great number of outdoor heaters. I was thoroughly charmed, and sat outside with my organic coffee and my ballin' warmed-up vegan blueberry muffin just reveling in the constructed tranquility.

Yeah. You WISH you had a medium vanilla soy latte with freshly-ground cloves.

Assuming I don't get fired from my job, I will be back.

Speaking of which, the update on the job is that it is still really really hard. My fuck-ups have not been the same magnitude as last week, when I regaled to you a very tidied-up version of the emotional crisis I was undergoing with regards to my work. But I still feel like I'm constantly messing up and for every step forward I'm doing one bunny hop back. The 16th will be the one-month anniversary of my full-time employment as a PA, and I'm dreading the prospect of a "chat" about my work so far, since there's no possible scenario in which I see that going well. There's no way to put it other than I'm still a complete n00b and multi-tasking isn't as inherent in me as I hoped it would be. I keep telling myself that I've only been doing the job for a month, and I should try not to take all the criticism so personally. It's just hard because it's the kind of job where it's hard to see what I've been doing well because the only things that get noticed are the things I do wrong. That takes a toll. It's like if someone was keeping track of how often I fart, and every time I did they sent a mass email to everyone telling them about it. Over time people would think, "Wow, it's disgusting how often that Jessica chick farts." But they're not seeing all the hours of the day when I'm not farting. And of course, I can't go ahead and email them an update every second of the day that I'm non-gassy, it just doesn't work like that.

...And beans are a good fat-free source of protein and fiber. A gassy vegan is a healthy vegan, so you should be happy for me.

That had nothing to do with the metaphor, it was just a side note. And kind of a defense, to no one in particular except maybe me because I'm the only one I have to ride in a car with.

Well, now that I've gone ahead and written all that, you can add it to your ever-growing catalogue of your overall impression of me. To recap:

1. Hikes in the morning
2. Eats breakfast like a hipster
3. Criticizes self very harshly
4. Farts

Oh, and in my seamless segues from one topic to the next I didn't know where to include this, but it was amusing enough to me that I decided to append it here. I asked my co-worker if she had been to Coffee Connection, and she said, "Yeah, but I dunno... it's kind of gaudy."

I was pretty confused because if anything, the place seemed the opposite of tacky and stuffy. It took me a moment to realize she had actually said, "It's kind of God-y" ...because it operates under some sort of church or fellowship. Which I totally didn't realize until after I had ordered my coffee and muffin. Epic miscommunication pun.

Or should I say miscommunicat-pun.
Or should I say mis-communion-cation.
Or should I say mis-communi-stations-of-the-cross.

Out of common human decency and the desire to keep what little reader-base I have I'll stop there. But just know that I could keep going.

A Trip to the Port of Long Bridges

It ain't easy being a personal assistant. And I'm not saying that in the "It ain't easy being cheesy" way. Clearly there is nothing easier for Chester Cheeto than being cheesy. However, it is legitimately extremely difficult to be a personal assistant, and to be honest, the past few days I feel like I've been drowning. Had I taken so much as one course or workshop on business administration I might have a clue as to what the hell I'm supposed to be doing. But nope, I just had to take "Monotheisms" and "The Films of Clint Eastwood."

While there is definite credit to learning something completely through hands-on experience, PAing has got to be one of the most challenging ways to go about that. I seem to only be figuring out what I'm doing right or wrong by making mistakes. Mistakes are healthy and normal, sure. But these mistakes aren't endearing little, "Ohh, you set the margins too wide on this report, but now you know for next time" ones. They are fuck-ups in a person's life schedule. HER LIFE IS IN MY HANDS PEOPLE.

In this example, Hades is the new phone whose voicemail she can't figure out how to access.

Missing doctor appointments, saving all the best typos for emails to wealthy investors... it's no bueno. Which is why I just spent the past hour reading the first twelve Google results for "how to be a good personal assistant." The top thing they all stress is confidentiality, so maybe blogging about everything I do has been my biggest mistake so far. I guess when you're a personal assistant you're not supposed to talk about it. What if 90% of the world population are actually just really really good personal assistants? I have no way of knowing.

Though in this political climate it'd probably be closer to 99%AMIRIGHT?!

That's right, I push the limits with my satirical political humor. Look out.

I've spent all day stressing at work so I'm going to attempt to decompress from that for a bit. Hey, let's talk about that thing that happened when I missed my exit heading down to San Diego this weekend.

Don't ask me how, but one second I was driving on the 110 and the next I was looking up ahead and seeing all these massive curved bridges and thinking to myself, "Whoah, that would probably be super trippy to drive on." And sure enough, 30 seconds later the freeway curved around and my little car was hoofing it up the spine of these gigantic brontosauri. Over water.

Driving Home Alone... 3

Yessir, as it turns out I had somehow navigated myself straight into the Port of Long Beach. For anyone who's never been, it looks like a ship-themed level in a video game... or maybe it just looked that way from the heavy dose of acid I ingested about a half hour prior. It was definitely a weird-looking place of intimidating size. Like if Texas opened a Splash Zone. Everything was just so... big. The bridges must have been several hundred feet high and stretched across open water for close to a mile. Don't believe me? Check out this cRaZy AeRiAl pHoTo:

Yes, Super Stock, we all see you.

And on either end of the bridge were cement platforms stacked with thousands of massive/plentiful cargo crates.

What is in there?! Cheese? Taxidermy buffalos? High-quality imported pornography? There's just no need for that much high-quality pornography. The people have spoken and they want the free cheap kind!

The experience was a little thrilling and terrifying, if not solely because I had no idea this would be the day I would tour the Port of Long Beach. Driving over the bridge was kind of gnarly... but I was braver about it than I probably would have been had I not crossed this bridge earlier this summer:

At least we're in New Orleans, where I know I have nothing to worry about.

It was a very symbolic moment of crossing bridges and achieving new heights, and other things I'll include in my article about children's education.

Hoggy Thanksblogging

Sorry. Sorry. So sorry. I know you must have been waiting around all night long for a good ol' Vida Local post yesterday. But while you were sitting on your ass staring at a computer screen, I'll have you know I was doing that same exact thing for work. My boss figured she would make up for the enjoyment of having the next few days off by having me work long-and-especially-crummy days on Monday and Tuesday. It was just two days of doing the most obvious thing one can do with a Mac, which is hate them. Now, I can use a Mac just fine, but this week the fire got lit under my ass to do all sorts of fancy formatting projects on one, and the whole time that I was scrambling around on that god forsaken contraption I was dreaming of the hour when I would be reunited with my lovable, intuitive, albeit-kind-of-heavy PC (it's okay, I like 'em with a little meat on their bones).

But that's done. Until next week. For now, I am happily lagoon-side at my friend's pad in Carlsbad, eagerly anticipating tomorrow's Thanksgiving festivities. In recent years, Thanksgiving has gone from my least favorite holiday to among my favorites. It all clicked once I realized that Thanksgiving is really just a day set aside for eating shameful amounts of food and feeling you earned some American badge of honor for doing it.

"But it's also a day to remember all that we're grateful for and how much we love--"

No. Shut up. It's about food.

And also the past few years I've fallen into the tradition of Friendsgiving, the noble practice of having Thanksgiving with actual friends instead of a few family members and some awkward assortment of neighbors and family friends you don't really know or have an interest in knowing.

Seriously, who invited the assholes with the collars?

Beyond that, in post-grad life Thanksgiving is my Free Pass for a day or two off to go home, rest, and hang out with friends and family. "But it's Thanksgiving!" is a valid excuse to take time off in the way I wish "But it's Halloween!" or "But it's Thursday!" were. Thanksgiving is like the black poker chip of cultural value, and once a year you get to cash that bad boy in.

Since by this point I've invariably convinced you that I enjoy Thanksgiving for purely selfish, lazy, and generally self-indulgent reasons, I'll provide here a list of some shit I'm grateful for. These are things I don't need to eat a dinner roll to be reminded of, but-- ooh wait, are those Pillsbury crescents? You really went all out this year, Margie.

Some Shit I'm Grateful For

• My pet fish Klaus
• Cookie Butter
• My new job
• My old friends
• My shower, which is miraculously never too hot or too cold
• Cheap rent
• My car, even though I inflict clubbing-baby-seals-caliber cruelties upon it
• My family members' patience with me despite my inability to write prompt e-mail responses
• My landlady (seriously, Barb is the shit)
• The parts of Los Angeles that don't suck (that is, have free parking)
• Dan Harmon, Loren Bouchard, Tina Fey, in no particular order
• Yelp
• My boyfriends (both the real AND the imaginary one... they still don't know about each other yet)
• Celtx, the only script-formatting program sympathetic to its broke-ass user base
• Netflix
• My best friend for letting me use her Netflix
• People who make the world funny
• People who in any small way try not to be terrible
• People who make me food
• People who don't hashtag Facebook posts
• And Thesaurus.com

There you are. Now go mash a potato or something.

Another item on the blog agenda (blogenda) (not to be confused with blogina, which is something entirely different) is a report on the latest in my LA excursions, which was hiking around Griffith Park.

Griffith Park is the massive stretch of hills, trails, parks, and abandoned zoo cages where most Angelenos go for their "outdoorsy" fix. I've been to Griffith Park before, but it was in the picnic area which was essentially a large field with a few little trails zig-zagging away from it. This past week, however, Macy and I went exploring in the trails. These puppies go on for DAYS. You follow a trail along a pretty little human-made creek, duck under a tiny bridge for cars, putt along for a few minutes and BOOM! You are suddenly in the Hollywood Hills, where you can gawk at any number of things. Or at the very least, these four:

1. The snow-topped mountains, to your left
2. The ocean, to your right
3. The city, in between
4. The custom mansions where people unfathomably richer than you house their midget-servants

 It's really kind of a trip. Here you are, standing surrounded by trees and bushes, taking in the panoramic view of all these geographical regions mixed together like an indecisive Subway order.

Tuna, pickles, honey mustard... but what exactly is the vision here?

From atop the hills in Griffith Park, I got a real-time screenshot (I think they used to call those "views") of exactly what there is to love about LA: namely, that there is everything here. It's this obtuse blob of land in which every inch is occupied by something and no two square inches contain the same something. Even if you can't actually enjoy that, you have to at least admire it. From where I live, it could take me 30 minutes to get to the beach or the snow depending which direction I head. Any given radial point surrounding my home base will take me somewhere startlingly distinct from all the others. I don't know about you but I think that shit's pretty magical.

AND in the latest attempt to combat my proclivity towards lethargy/overall fatness, Macy and I are starting a new thing where we attempt once-or-twice-a-week pre-work morning hikes in Griffith Park, which means I'll get to enjoy these lovely panoramic vistas of LA's diversity until it is no longer special or remarkable to me. Hooray!

I originally typed 'huzzah' but I've come to realize that people who shout 'huzzah' are obnoxious, even if they are nice people. I'm going with 'hooray' because I'd rather sound like Elmo than Tobias Funke.

And Elmo is, of course, in no way obnoxious.