Artwalk Downtown

Last night I went to Artwalk with my roommate Bryan. I have lived downtown for about five years and have never been. I was so impressed and happy. Its really great! So many people. So much art. Its really alive and it felt good to be out and about. Safari Sam's at the Regent is pretty great. It reminds me of the Phoenix Theatre in Petaluma which is a very fond memory. Alas, I did lose 20 bucks somewhere out there on the streets of downtown. It was a sad occurrence not to be repeated.

In summation:

20 bucks lost + free wine + art I connect with + art that I don't connect with + good friends + strangers = A great evening downtown

Goodbye to Flying

Yesterday I cut my wings off and took it to a store to be sold off to someone who needs it more and can afford them. It was a sad day. I had to walk back from Silverlake to Downtown and eventually had to take the bus. Since I don't know the bus lines I ended up a short distance from my apartment and continued to walk from there. It was a mopey day. Hopefully my wings will make someone else very happy.

Review: Wurstküche

A new little place in the Art District just opened recently. It serves all sorts of specialty sausage sandwiches and Bavarian french fries with dipping sauces. It has 48 beers on tap and is super funky fresh. Since I don't eat a lot of meat, the wieners aren't really my thing except if I was craving it but the fries are DELICIOUS!! And the have a ton of dipping sauces for them. Try it out!

Daily Workout: Surfing the Web

Online shopping is making my fingers tired.

Watch This #5

LA I.C.E. episode 2

Black Friday and Cyber Monday

I rarely ever shop on Black Friday. And I wasn't planning on it, but my cousin Justin needed to do some shopping and since I had the keys to Mom's car and a cousin with nothing to do, I agreed to go. First we went to Best Buy. As I've been trolling ebay and Amazon recently, I have realized how much cheaper stuff is if you look for it online. So we didn't get anything there. We then picked up my mom from work (as she had gotten the day off) and went off to Target where I proceeded to sell a woman a camera that was no longer in stock and then watched a crazy fight between and employee and some plain clothed dude who I later found out was an employee also. It was pretty frightening and crowded but kind of exciting to recount.

Holidays can be stressful but not stressful enough to kill someone. I know one man's family is mourning his death after being trampled to death by zealous customers at a Walmart early on Black Friday.

I continued to shop with my mom yesterday. We literally shopped til we dropped. We shopped all over and by the time we were done, I was dragging my body here and there, up and down the isles. And now, I am sitting at Peet's coffee in the Nut Tree complex in Vacaville shopping online for Cyber Monday.

Hi, my name is Eva and I'm a shopaholic.

Review: Thanksgiving

I had a pretty amazing time with my family this year. I had two full Thanksgiving meals. Getting all that food down was kind of difficult but soooo delicious. I had so much food I literally went into a food coma at 10:30 pm. Which for anyone who knows me somewhat well, would know thats crazy early! I got to see many of my family (which was great!!!) and two of my friends joined me for meal #1. My family can be a bit overwhelming from an outsider's point of view, but they took it in stride. Well done Jorjeana and Luke!!

I love turkey!!! Gobble gobble.

Watch This #2.5

I know I already posted this, but this is the final version of it... AND its also the first of our six episodes. I am in I think 4 or 5 of the episodes. I'll post them here but you could also subscribe or favorite it on youtube.

Did you know? #2

That I LOVE rain? I always have. Even it it was shit-storming-rain. A couple days ago on my 7 day weather forecast, it said it was going to rain Tuesday. It was supposed to rain up in the bay area, so I thought I would get doubly lucky, going from LA to the Bay and it would still be raining. As a kid I spent a lot of time playing in the rain. My mom never had a problem with it. It was never, "You're gonna catch your death" kinda thing for her. And I never did, by the way.

Tonight, I dropped my car off at Tim's house so it wouldn't get ticketed or stolen or something. I decided instead of calling for a ride, I would walk to the train station and then home from Union Station. I had enough forsight to take my umbrella with me (as I've been checking the forecast for the hourly "raincast." When I got to the Filmore train station in Pasadena, there was a homeless guy that got off the train before my train came, and I watched him. And he was interesting. Eventually he looked at me and I waved hello to him. I figured I owed him that much after staring at him for a good couple minutes. He was kind of a crazy one. But I think he was probably more scared of me that I was of him (which wasn't much, except for a moment). I would have loved to let my train go and pick his brain but I would have been stranded as it was the last train of the night, I believe. When I got to Union Station everything was quiet. There were people there kind of waiting about, or sleeping in the nice leather seats. Its a beautiful place that everyone should see even if they aren't traveling.

I could have driven all night in the rain. I even considered driving up to the bay in my car that I don't trust to get me there, just so I could drive in the rain. LA doesn't have much rain. I grew up in the Bay Area where there are seasons and generally a good amount of rain in each except the summer. Eventually, I decided against driving up, as I remembered the picture of California's weather for the next couple hours and knew there wasn't going to be rain past a certain point.

For me, rain was always cleansing me. It wiped down the surface of the earth and restarted many natural cycles. It renewed the smell to things or washed away the months of oily cars zooming down its surfaces. On my trip home in the open rain (under my umbrella, of course!) I smelled many different things I normally don't smell. I smelled my Hawaii trip from New Years of 2007. I smelled watermelon, which is a strange one to smell in the middle of downtown LA, in the middle of the night, and in the middle of the rain. I smelled piss on a homeless guy I walked by. I smelled wet asphalt. And while wet asphalt isn't that pleasant of a smell, it's the nostalgia it evokes. Wet days on the school playground, when days were simple and cold and pretty.

Rain makes me happy, it makes me smile and I feel serene. Nothing in the world can be wrong when I am standing in the rain.

Mood Enhancers: Rain

I love you Rain!!! I've been waiting for you.