Tragedy of all Tragedies!

I love the New York Times. All the news that's fit to print, indeed!

Don't cry in your Ramen, kiddies.

True Love.

I thought, and still think, that New York is like that great love. It’s that person you meet one day when you’re young and you can’t help but think that the person across from you is the most stunning, intelligent, fun, interesting, challenging, witty, worldly, perfect person you’ve ever met in your life. It’s The One, the one you want to be with forever, but you’re just not ready. It’s like saying, look, I love you, you’re perfect for me, but there’s some stupid stuff I need to take care of first. Like having a stupid love affair with a dumb, hot chick. Los Angeles is that dumb hot chick.
~Me
April 2005
http://beyondsunset.blogpspot.com

It's amusing to me that most people think Los Angeles was the darkest time of my life. It's also amusing for me to look at all these people I have met in my life who graduated college and jumped right into the real world. I don't understand that. I hear from so many of those people that they could never do what I did, and despite the lack of professional growth, the increase of financial debt, and the hours, days, months of total loneliness I spent in Los Angeles, being there for as long as I was will probably always be regarded as the single most difficult and rewarding experiece of my life.

In just over a week I will go back.

Most people want to take their vacations to various tropical islands and exotic destinations. Sure, I'm pipe-dreaming of Paris in the springtime, but not this time. This time I want to go somewhere that feels like home, and to me California will always be part of my home. Not necessarily Los Angeles persay, but the state as a whole.

I almost doubled over in pure joy this morning as I looked at pictures of wine country and Big Sur - places that to most of the world seem fantastical and so far away but to me feel like home. I can't imagine how good it will feel to see the pacific and I will never forget my friend Dylan once saying to me and we lay on a couch in Baltimore one weekend afternoon, "It's just different... I miss the healing power of those waves." I stayed awake the other night thinking about In 'n Out burger and the seafood restaurant north of Malibu where I went one night after drinking a bottle of champagne on the beach while watching the sunset with my friend Anthony.

I think, as we grow older, we start to understand that even the most difficult times are the most special to us, and quite often it's best not to forget them. I will never write off Los Angeles, and I will certainly never write off any city north of San Luis Obispo. I don't want my vacation to be anywhere new. I want my vacation to be the best parts of a life that changed me.

I cannot wait to drive along that coast, to play with my cousins, to taste wine and sleep in a B&B. I can't wait to smell the ocean to stay up late at night with two of my very best friends, to drink vodka tonics, eat a grilled cheese animal style, and remember that without being a little lost, and stumbling along the way, and living it up with the proverbial hot chick that is Los Angeles, I would have never found my way to New York - which has always been, and will always be my one true love.

Boo Big Blue

So I'm laying on my couch with my blanket covering every inch of my body except for my eyes, watching the Giants/Eagles game when my phone rings.

"Whatcha doin?" my friend Mike asks.
"Layin' on my couch under my blanket. You still wanna go out?"
"Nah, we'll rally next game," he says. "Who are you rooting for...?"
"Um... The Eagles, actually, for the first time in my life."
"Totally."
"I feel really weird about it but I'm totally sick of Giants fans after being in NY this year."
"Totally. There's nothing worse than a cocky Giants fan."
"Word."

I hang up the phone and it rings again.

"I'm so sorry I didn't text you back last night, I was totally wasted!" my friend Josh says.
"It's cool"
"Where are you?"
"Layin on my couch, under a blanket, watching the game"
"ME TOO! You know this McDonalds commecial? I see this and it ALWAYS makes me want one, don'tcha think?"
"Um..." I hesitate. "No? I'm a vegatarian, loser, remember?" Josh forgets this fact at least once every other week.
"DAMMIT! I always forget. You always seem so cool then you say things like that and you totally fucking suck!"
"Thanks."
"So... who are you rooting for? Don't you hate both these teams?"
"Yeah... the Eagles actually, for the first time in my life."
"Totally. Me too."
"I'm so over the Giants."
"ME TOO!"

Transplant New Yorkers have deeply-rooted NY Sports Team Affiliation problems. I think we all just want this season to be over so for the next two months everyone will shut up because any self-respecting New Yorker wont go on and on and on (AND ON AND ON) about the Knicks... then April will roll around, and there we'll go again...

Central Park to the Dark

Today I did something I have wanted to do the entire year I've lived here: walk Central Park from the top to the bottom. Photo journey below.


North Woods












The Beresford


Reservoir


Tarantino Reservoir Ducks


Lake


Tavern on the Green


Tavern on the Green


If you build it, they will come!


7th Ave.

Supporting Character

I'm not sure why the recent Gawker article about Ivanka Trump's book list reminded of a party I threw back in December.

OK, I do know why but Ivanka Trump isn't one I would usually associate myself with. Moving forward:

My friend Diana and I used to entirely judge boys we picked up in bars/clubs/Chipotle based on their top 5 lists. For example, I had an on-going lustful relationship in Los Angeles with a boy who read James Joyce and Motley Crue biographies, while I dismissed boys who included movie series in their Top 5 lists (with the exception, of course, of the Godfathter trilogy, though Godfather 3 leaves room for questioning).

OK so flashfoward to December 2006. I'm sitting in bed with yet another boy who likes candles, coffee and owns a copy of Robert McKee's Story when he asks me to define - like oxford dictionary define - the word "character." He was a film major. These things are important.

I hmmed and haaed and mentioned something about where a person is born, what they like.. and he cut me off. "NO NO NO I hate it when people say that!" he exclaimed, then told me that the definition really is the choices a person makes, which will in turn define their character. Even though the guy turned out to be a douchebag (by character) he got me thinking.

So we flashback to December 2. I'm throwing a party in my apartment and it is totally ruling. I give my friend Chris a tour and as I lead him through my roommates room he points a book that is sitting on her dresser. "Awesome book," he says, and for some reason I got wildly offended. I am very proud of my DVD and book collection and sort of anally move them around on a ergular basis and have to have them in my general vicinity at all times. I could probably buy a soho loft if I stopped buying stuff from Amazon.com.

Chris and I retired to my kitchen and my friend Josh joins us. Josh sort of sides up next to me and whispsers, hey Alli do you mind if I go take a look at your books? He understands.

A few minutes later Josh comes back.
"Uhm, Alli," he says, interupting the conversation.
"Yes Josh?"
"Um, I really like your collection." I turn to Chris and smile. "I really like how you have the magazines up top," he says, "sorted by New Yorker and In Style. Then it's grouped by style - with the few select favorites at eye level - and the plays down below. I like." I giggle and look at Chris who rolls his eyes.
"See?" I say, "Josh, he gets it."

Home is Where the Heart Was

Last Tuesday night I wanted to write a really poetic post. It would have involved something about taking the metro to national airport, wandering around alone, paying a Higher-Than-Manhattan price for an organic egg salad sandwich, checking my cell phone for text messages. It would have had some sort of metaphorical theme wherein which I tied together the stark beauty of the airport with the stark beauty of the city I once called home, but as each day passes it seems to slip further and further from that definition. It would have talked about how difficult this year's holidays were, how hard it is for me to let go (referencing a text I received over a year and a half ago), how I feel like nothing is left for me south of the Mason Dixon Line, and probably would have quoted Couting Crows' Long December because it was a long December and Counting Crows always make me think of airplanes.

The problem with this grand plan is that it never came to fruition. See, I bought a book and JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU CAN WRITE SOMETHING AWESOME, someone else does it for you, and the next thing you know you're reading someone else's words and fogetting your own.

I got really distracted on the plane and my poetic thoughts were wildly interrupted by the multiple times I had to shove my head into my book to quiet the laughs I made out loud on a plane full of strangers. You see, Chuck Klosterman might very well be my hero. He makes me want to write lists and be wildly witty pretty much all the time, and every once in a while he comes out with that zinger that is what the kids today are calling "deep" and some might consider "meaningful," so there in my window seat (where I sat so I could see Manhattan when we landed, not Rosslyn when we took off), with my overhead light on and we flew further further from my old home I read:

"In New York, people are unhappy on purpose, beacause unhappiness makes them seem more complex; in Washington DC it just sort of works out that way."