i live here now

so i think it pretty much goes without saying that since i made it to LA, i am now in my final destination: sf bay area. i feel like i ought to apologize for not updating in a while, but if you can possibly imagine moving 3000 miles away from the only place you've ever lived......
it's been complete madness.
i've been living here for about a month and a half now and it still does not feel like home. i'm not really sure if it ever will. i am homesick a large portion of the time. i miss my family, my friends, the corners and smells and flavors of the place i'm from. at the same time, i feel like i can't really go back, at least not yet. it's kinda like i'm trapped in some strange purgatorial no-man's-land and i'm not quite sure how to get out of it and into that place where i live somehwere again.

as much as i thought, upon making the decision to come out here, that the bay area was all rainbows and sunshine and crunchy, granola-y goodness, i've realized that like any other place, it has it's dark side too. I'm living in oakland, in an amazing beautiful house that was once featured in a magazine, on a tree lined street in what looks to be a charming little neighborhood, but just last week as my downstairs neighbor's friend was walking to her car, she had a gun pointed in her face and was forced to hand over her keys to some random stranger who couldn't even figure out how to start her car and ended up just running away, but still, that shit is pretty scary.

i have had two terrible nightmares since i got here and both of them sperately were some of the most unsettling i can ever remember having in the entirety of my life. sometimes the combined forces of working every single day at a job that seems like it will never be finished, plus getting lost all the time and not knowing where things are, and just the unfathomable weight of being totally and completely alone out here makes me think i might be lossing my shit for real this time.

but there are good days too. red velvet cake is pretty trendy out here. i've seen it in a few different incarnations, as cupcakes, sheetcakes, etc. it's all good with me and it makes it kinda hard to stay despondent for too long. the mocha's here are infinitely better than in ct. almost everyone eats their veggies. berkeley bowl trumps whole foods by like, a landslide. one day i managed to run all my errands without the assistance of my gps and i felt really proud and accomplished.

i live with two of the sweetest, most congenial people one could ever hope to meet and also the most adorably goofy yet well-trained boxer in the world. sometimes i get angsty and spend too much time in my room and forget to take advantage of them. i also have the privilege of working with the downest chick that ever lived and she has taken me on some fun adventures to haunted houses and fancy ice-cream shops. the other day we went to ikea and then ate hot dogs, which was really fun. she likes to make fun of twilight as much as i do, which when i really think about it makes all this moving shit almost worth it. her roommates are really rad too.

what i haven't been doing is taking pictures or documenting. i mean, i can barely remember how to breathe sometimes, but even though this is all kind of confusing and uncomfortable, i have a feeling that when it's all said and done, i'll still want to remember it.

love always

road trip, day five: LA

i know, i know, i'm supposed to be writing about LA. I've been working on it, believe me. I've started this entry i don't know how many times, only to abandon it after a few sentences. i guess i just feel like LA is a big deal. I mean, I spent a large chunk of my adolescence reading FLB and fantasizing about living there. I jut don't feel like anything i could say would really do it justice.

Actually, I really don't feel like the time I spent in LA did it justice even. It was towards the end of our trip, so I was tired and cranky. I was feeling all twisted up and conflicted and emotional about the fact that I finally made it to California. Half of me wanted to turn around and speed back the other way towards home. I was burdened with the terrible knowledge that my traveling companion and soulmate would be leaving me soon. I was weird. And confused. And slightly psychotic.

On top of that, LA was fucking intense. Our hotel was like a fucking hipster circus.The fact that our bathroom wall was glass made me really uncomfortable because like, what if I had to take a shit? I mean jon and I are close, but not that close.

Hollywood was even more intense.

At a certain point I think I just shut down and went all numb and apathetic about the whole thing. It was just too much for an angtsy, overtired girl to handle, you know?

The one thing I do remember about Los Angeles with perfect, crystal clarity is the fucking meal that we had there.Pedro took us out for bbq in koreatown, and it was seriously the best, most hauntingly satisfying meal I have ever had.
I have not stopped craving that shit since. (Although I hear there's some pretty good korean bbq in oakland as well).We also drank this weird korean booze that tasted like poison but worked like a charm on my hopelessly frazzled nerves.

Later that night we totally were gonna hit up the rooftop bar at our swanky hotel, but when we saw how busy it was and how under-dressed we were compared to the glammed-out barbies and kens that were swarming all over the place, we decided to just retire to our room and watch harry potter instead.

the next morning we had a really overpriced breakfast that consisted of amazing, fresh squeezed juice and the grossest, runniest eggs I have ever paid $20 for.our waiter looked unnervingly like jon circa 2005.

Oh, LA, I'm sorry we didn't really have a chance to bond. Maybe I'll visit again once I've recovered from this whole ordeal and we'll hit it off smashingly like I always imagined we would.

love always

p.s. on the way to LA we totally stopped at In-N-Out burger and that shit was bangin.sorry y'all, i just couldn't help myself.