The Lights of LA County They Look like Diamonds in the Sky

Soon after I moved to Berkeley, I found out about the “divide” between Northern California (Nor Cal) and Southern California (So Cal) that people from their respective parts of the state liked to talk about. Not being from California, I didn’t have an opinion at first but not too long later, completely enamoured with the Bay Area, I found myself firmly in the Nor Cal camp. I’d been to Los Angeles a few times, and while it seemed like a cool, (mostly) sunny place, it didn’t leave any lasting impression.

Then, however, I realized that a lot of the musicians I liked loved LA, and wrote these really great songs about it. (Listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Under the Bridge - best line ever: "I walk through her hills cause she knows who I am"; and Joni Mitchell’s song Court and Spark where she sings at the end: "But I couldn’t let go of LA, city of the fallen angel"; and Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’, everytime I hear the line about vampires moving west along Ventura Blvd I smile.) On M.’s recommendation I read Anthony Kiedis’ (lead singer of Red Hot Chili Peppers) autobiography and his descriptions of LA, particularly living in the Hollywood Hills made me want to get to know LA much better.

Fortunately, my brother A. moved to LA in the fall of 2006. I first visited him, and (his then girlfriend, now wife,) L. there in the first four days of 2007, and happily S. drove there to see me too. From the fall of 2006 to July 2011, A. and L. lived in Laurel Canyon, this hilly canyon which separates LA from the San Fernando Valley on the other side of the hills. S. described their house like a tree house the first time she saw it, and she was totally right. It was a truly lovely little house. It had so many windows, (the room I always slept in had windows on three walls, and the kitchen sink had a window over it) and two great balconies - one big one with a hammock and a big dining table, and another small, sunny one with two chairs, perfect to sit on and read. The view from their house to the sides and the back was of a few other homes. But the view facing straight was of the side of a bright green and lush hill. Something I never realized until I started going to LA is how green of a city it is, especially in the spring and summer. Laurel Canyon is also a nice neighbourhood to go for steep walks up to Mulholland Drive at the top of the hill which separates LA from Studio City, on the other side. It's a cool view during the daytime, and at night, when you can see so many lights (which really do look like diamonds in the sky, as per Lyle Lovett's song).

Neither S. nor I knew L. very well that first time we visited, and so when A. asked us what we were going to do our first day there we were at a bit of a loss. He then suggested we take Sunset Blvd (which we could pick up at the bottom of Laurel Canyon) all the way through LA until it hit Pacific Coast Highway, and then head north up the coast to Malibu. We followed his suggestion to a T. and soon found ourselves walking on a beach in Malibu, our feet in the Pacific in early January, where the places we both normally lived were covered with snow. After that visit, I started planning my next trip there.

I think it was in May 2008, when S. and I drove my car from Austin to LA, that my conversion to the So Cal camp took place. We did the exact same drive down Sunset Blvd to the PCH and Malibu, walked on the same beach and watched little kids at surfing camp (or maybe gym class since it was still May? either way... so cool!), and while doing these activities it dawned on me how fabulous LA is. It has great weather, amazing and accessible beaches (the last time I was there I went to Santa Monica Beach and it was so nice! S. we have to go there next time!), lovely blue skies, mountains in the distance, hills, great shopping and restaurants, palm tree lined streets (perhaps my favourite part of LA, so pretty!) and a relaxed, laid back vibe. There are a few downsides, as there are everywhere, and for me LA's is always having to drive. It's so big and the distances between a lot of the places I like to go are pretty big, so a car is pretty much a necessity. But all in all, LA is a great place to visit. It reminds me of New York, Toronto, and Buenos Aires in that it seems like so many cities within a city. Every time I go to NY I seem to go to parts of Manhattan or Brooklyn I'd never been to before, which makes visiting there really exciting. The same thing happened when I visited J. in Buenos Aires last February, as she lived in a different part of the city than I'd spent much time (read hardly any) in the previous times I'd been there. Every time I visit LA, I discover new parts too.

When I heard A. and L. had bought a house and were moving to this other neighbourhood called Silver Lake, I was happy for them but also, totally selfishly, a bit sad that they were leaving their Laurel Canyon house behind. I didn’t think I could love another part of LA as much as Laurel Canyon, or a LA house as much as I loved the Laurel Canyon house. (I was also sad they were no longer going to be living just on the other side of the hill from Studio City. If you've never been, and are ever in LA, go! Ventura Blvd is the main street and is very pretty and palm tree lined, and there are lots of great shops and restaurants.) However, it turns out that Silver Lake is pretty rad (see picture below). It is a very hilly neighbourhood, which I always love, and the Silver Lake reservoir is quite big and attractive, and the water sparkles in the sunshine. A. and L.'s new house is so nice - lots of big windows again! The house also has an amazing, huge, wrap around deck from which you can see, albeit far away, the Hollywood sign. The deck is perfect for reading or tanning as it gets a lot of direct sunlight, and for longer than the little balcony in the Laurel Canyon house that I used to like to sit on got. I am looking forward to spending lots more time on that deck the next time I visit.

The last time I saw L. (a different one) in person, I told her how I am now firmly a So Cal fan and, having mostly grown up in the Bay Area, she was shocked. I still (and always will) love the Bay, but LA has a lot of the things I love about the Bay (hills, big full moons) and things the Bay doesn't have, like consistently warm weather and better beaches/access to the ocean. I want L. and I to go to LA together so I can convince her why it's so great. So to conclude my little LA love letter, I will say that I think I will always love that Laurel Canyon house because it really did show me how great LA could be.

Back when S. and I visited in May 2008, A. gave me a key to the Laurel Canyon house which I put on my keychain. And even though they don't live there anymore, I still have it on my key chain. I know I should take it off, but I think I'm going to leave it there a little longer.

The Strange Yet Fascinating World of Internet Advice Columnists

Sometime during our last year at Berkeley, S. introduced me to the "Since You Asked" advice column on Salon written by a man named Cary Tennis. I had been complaining to her about how I couldn't sleep well when sharing a bed with someone else, and she sent me the link to a Since You Asked post about that exact topic. [Side note: I still don't particularly like sharing beds. The only people I can get as good a night's sleep sleeping beside as I would if I were alone are my mom, or my friend S.G. But I hardly ever sleep in the same bed as either of them :) My "problem" (although I don't really like calling it that) arises whether I am sleeping in the same bed as my mom, a friend or a guy. As a result, I always read articles I come across about couples who have separate beds or separate bedrooms with interest. For example, after Helena Bonham Carter got into a relationship with Tim Burton, he bought the house next door to her and they put in a connecting door. So they both have their own separate houses but they are attached. I'm not sure I'd need my own house, but my own bedroom and bathroom would be nice.] Ever since that fateful link to Cary's answer about sharing a bed five and a half years ago, I've been reading his column more or less regularly. I probably check it about three times a month. He updates pretty regularly - so I usually have about 3-4 questions to read each time I go there.

Since You Asked is always interesting to read for a number of reasons. First, Cary's answers are almost always very convoluted, full of metaphors and dense writing. (A blogger on Gawker once referred to one of Cary's columns as "an incomprehensible treatise" and while that may have been taking it a bit far, there was a grain of truth there.) Second, Cary's pretty new-age. He's really into telling people to breathe, to spend some time sitting still and concentrating on feeling every inch of their body, starting with their toes. He also recommends therapy a lot. Very occasionally Cary gives some concrete advice like "do x, followed by y" but usually his advice is much more abstract and is aimed at getting the person to dig deep into themselves and find the answer. And that was possibly the cheesiest sentence I've ever written! Third, Cary's a kind person and that really comes out. He is always kind and respectful to the letter writer, and he really empathizes with their position. He has been through a lot in life too (he had a pretty serious cancer and took about 6 months (or maybe longer, can't remember) off from writing the column a few years ago; and he was an alcoholic and is still in AA) and he often puts himself in the exact same boat as the letter writer, which is really cool, and refreshing. Fourth, the commentators are a real mixed bag on the Salon site as a whole. The positives about the commentators for Since You Asked is that they give a lot of advice to the letter writer and are honest with their opinions on Cary's advice (ie. aren’t shy to say they think his advice is ridiculous). The negatives are that some of them are complete assholes and write really horrible things. Even some of the ones who don't say horrible things but just offer advice are often condescending and self-righteous. I think Salon should do a better job moderating the comments across its site and not allowing people to post rude, sexist, racist, stupid and misogynist things. Fifth, and finally, Since You Asked gets the best range of letters; people write to Cary for advice on so many varied things that it's always thought provoking to read.

I started reading this website called the Hairpin pretty regularly in June and I quickly decided that their advice columns are my favourite part of the site. The Hairpin has so many advice columns! Weekly they usually have "Ask a Lady" and "Ask a Dude" (but recently this has been "Ask a Married Dude.") They also have "Ask a Clean Person" and "Ask a Queer Chick" maybe two times a month? The latter two are always answered by the same person each time, whereas the Ladies and (Married) Dudes rotate and it's never entirely clear (at least to me) which one is answering. They never reveal their names. Overall, I really like the A Lady column. Most of the ladies give good, practical advice and aren’t afraid to call out advice seekers when they say something really pretentious or obnoxious in their question (which happens maybe about 1 in 4 letters?) The ladies also usually seem like kind people, which is important. Most of the dudes are good too. (One dude in particular wrote the best answers once! So the best that I wish he gave his name and lived in either Toronto or Montreal and that I could date him ☺) It’s fun to read guys giving relationship advice. I’ve only read a few Married Dudes but they are not as good. The most recent one was kind of annoying in his answers, and gave plain bad, totally off the mark advice to one of the advice seekers. Fortunately, this bad advice was saved by the fact that the Hairpin commentators are fabulous and give the best advice, often better than (or at least expanded versions of) the Lady’s or Dude’s. Reading the comments is 70% of why I like reading these posts, and I always make sure I don’t read the posts until they’ve been up for a while and enough people have had time to comment. Overall, I’d say the pros of the Hairpin’s advice columns are reading the comments, and that the questions almost always have to do with romantic relationships. The cons are when the Married Dudes are obnoxious, and that the questions almost always have to do with romantic relationships.

The last Internet advice column I’m going to write about is one I actually found out through a posting on the Hairpin, talking about how the woman behind the “Dear Sugar” advice column is apparently going to reveal her identity soon. This made me curious so I ended up going to the Dear Sugar page and reading a bunch of her past columns. I’m torn as to what to I think about her column. (I am curious to find out who she is though because she’s a published author and I wonder if I have heard of her.) On the one hand, Sugar seems/sounds like a kind person and seems to genuinely empathize with the person to whom she’s writing. On the other hand, I feel like her column is way too much about herself. Each answer is more like a creative non-fiction column than an advice column. Her answers are so long because they are 90% about her life and then the last 10% applies her life lessons to the advice seeker’s problem. Now, obviously I love reading about other people’s lives, but somehow it just doesn’t do it for me in an advice column. Cary Tennis is also a writer, and infrequently (borderline rarely) works in things from his own life to his column; but Cary is clear on what his job is: to give advice, not long rambly pieces about his own life, with the letter writer’s issue thrown in as an afterthought. Evidently some people really enjoy Sugar’s style as the comments section on her site is full of people gushing over how amazing her answer was that week, and how, as usual, Sugar got it exactly right. Their fawning over her is a bit much for me. Most annoyingly, the commentators rarely give their own advice to the letter writer because they’re too busy saying how perfect Sugar’s (non) advice was. Even with some of Since You Asked’s obnoxious commentators, it is always good to get other perspectives on the letter writer’s question; and the fact that that seems to be mostly missing from Dear Sugar is not good.

Since I have just written an entire post about advice columns I feel it is not fair if I end without admitting that I have once or twice toyed with the idea of sending in my own question to either Cary or A Lady. But before I even actually think about how I’d phrase my question, I decide against it. It appears I am more of an advice column reader than advice seeker. However, it is nice to know that Since You Asked and A Lady/A Dude are there if I ever change my mind.