Seattle

Seattle is, like, four episodes of Friends reruns from Los Angeles on Virgin America, and I finally visited there last weekend. Flew up Thursday afternoon and got to see the Space Needle from space! Well, the air. That's cool. Met my friend Lucy and took the Seattle Link from the airport, which is absolutely the best and cheapest way to go from the airport to downtown Seattle. Stayed in Belltown at Hotel Five, which is a nice, not-too-pricey boutique hotel next to Top Pot Doughnuts and a block or two from this.

We took a cab to Volunteer Park in the middle of rush hour, which was perhaps a bit stupid and certainly pricey. We climbed up to the top of the Water Tower, which has a great, if latticed, and free view of Seattle and was fairly empty. Good stairs. The first Thursdays at many museums, including the Seattle Asian Art Museum, are free, so we went inside the park branch of the museum and checked out some Uzbek robes. They were gorgeous. I bought a few cards and a dragon-reindeer ornament at the gift shop and took a picture of the Space Needle through the Black Hole Sun Chris Cornell was singing about in one of my fave songs.

Then we walked down to Pike/Pine and had dinner at Quinn's Pub. I highly recommend the halibut (though I wish it came with more gnocchi) and pretzel with Welsh rarebit. Bought a signed copy of the new Peter Carey at the Elliott Bay Book Company and we got AMAZING custard at Old School Frozen Custard. Fantastic. The next morning we had biscuits at Serious Biscuit on Westlake (Tom Douglas stop 1) and took the bus up to the Gasworks. No one there really, but just a cool view of downtown Seattle and a weird, awesome, crazy park. Love.

Then we walked to Theo and had a chocolate tour. If you want to taste chocolate but not suffer through a sometimes dull hour, just check out their store, which is a bit of a sample heaven. Can I recommend getting the milk chocolate-almond bar? Delish. The s'mores thing is a bit underwhelming, so feel free to skip that, s'mores fans. We took the bus back and walked through Pike Place. The giant poppies for sale were amazing, and I love a good peony, but the market wasn't really my thing. Lucy bought a pen, and then we had a margherita and a potato pizza at Serious Pizza, where a police horse tried to enter through the front door. After the late lunch, we took a break and just hung out in the room.

Dinner was Palace Kitchen. Very dark in the back, but good food. Saturday morning we grabbed a quick breakfast at Dahlia Bakery and then wonderful hocho at Monrorail Espresso and then headed to the EMP Museum via the monorail, which is a good way to arrive there, as you'll see.

The EMP Museum is brilliant. The Icons of Sci-Fi exhibit had just opened up and had models and props from such films as The Matrix, Men in Black, Terminator, and so on, but the best part is the Sound Lab upstairs where you can learn hooks on the keyboard. Cool, playful museum for adults. Best activity in Seattle.

There's also this guitar-nado.

We had lunch at Steelhead Diner (I got poutine without gravy and pan-roasted broccoli, what?), and then we grabbed the ferry for Bainbridge. Little bait thingamajigs line the divider between tables at Steelhead. One with "jungle cock" sides was right next to me.

It's a cheap ferry ride, and the ferry itself is pretty cool. On the trip over, we had to stop while they ran a man overboard drill because apparently some drunk guy had fallen off the week before. Then this guy stood in front of us as we waited to depart.

Nice. Here's the deal: Bainbridge is cool. Ish. But the Winslow little village area is kind of dull. There's a nice bookshop and the ice cream at Mora's is good, but it's nothing to blog home about. BUT randomly at the marina there are these crazy rock sculptures everywhere.

Can you dig it? I can. On the way back, the entire Bainbridge High class of 2012 as well as a bachelorette party were on the boat, but we managed to avoid both annoying groups altogether. We had dinner at Fuji Sushi, which had really nice chicken Katsu, and walked a long way back to our hotel. At some point we went to Olympic Park, which is small, but a good place to chill and take pictures.

Sunday morning we had a leisurely breakfast at Dahlia Lounge, then walked to REI headquarters, which is impressive if you've never been to LL Bean in Freeport. Now THAT'S a flagship store. We had lunch at the TOTALLY GANGSTER Lunchbox Laboratory, which was quite delicious.

Then we headed back to the hotel, took the Link back to Sea-Tac, and flew out. Great trip.

SoCal hiking

I've been supporting my roommate these last two weeks by going on long hikes while she studies for her MCAT. Last week we drove way the hell down to Crystal Cove between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach and did a 2-hour, 6+ mile hike, which was low on tree cover and high on hilliness. There was one mid-hike incline that I found particularly unpleasant, and the views weren't really worth the long drive. Today we did the Trippet Ranch to Parker Mesa Overlook hike in Topanga State Park as described at hikespeak.com (great site, btw, for LA hikers), which was about 6.7 miles and more like an interval-training hike. There was never a very long sharp ascent, but there were a lot of small hills, so your heart rate was never up to running level, but the level it was at it generally stayed at. It took us closer to 2 1/2 hours to do this one (the whole thing was 3, but we stayed at the overlook, which had a great view of the PCH to Santa Monica and beyond--you could even see what I think was either DTLA or Century City), but there was a bit more tree cover, it's much closer to Studio City, and the overall beauty of the hike was greater. And there were little lizards (and oddly red ants). Topanga Canyon is just great, so highly recommended, but bring a hat and a good amount of water.

The type of people who wear hoodies:

High school students, college students, people who live in places where autumn happens, people who live in places where spring happens, people who experience warm winters, people who experience cold summers, sports fans, athletes, people who never exercise, construction workers, people who work in casual offices with tricky air-conditioning, and my entire family.

How I would have written Awake

Oof. Sorry, guys. Know it's been a long time. Been writing A LOT. About halfway into a (disaster porn) feature, finished a Cougar Town spec, and have been doing a lot of reading of pilots vying for slots for this coming fall.

Right now, I'm halfway through the second episode of Awake, the new show from the beleaguered but fairly brilliant Kyle Killen. At first, I thought the problem with the show was that every week it would be the same thing, nothing new, despite how high-concept it is. And now I realize the true problem--the car accident. How very Deus ex machina an event. It would be MUCH more powerful if the accident that killed one or both or neither of his wife and son weren't an accident but a Sophie's Choice situation. Some criminal with an axe to grind against our detective forces him to choose, and this is what follows. You'd have something at stake for the entire season--find the guy who made you choose. You have a bad guy. You have an arc, possibly with a Fringe-ish sci-fi element to it. You have a purpose for the show, high-concept WITH A REASON, not a mere cop drama with a split personality.

But that's just what I would have done.

****

Just finished the episode. Never mind. Killen probably knows what he's doing. :)

Favorite new things of 2011

TV:

Episodes
Happy Endings (forgot about this when I was writing this list--thought it started in 2010)
Hart of Dixie
Homeland
Revenge
Downton Abbey (forgot about this too)

Not my favorite, but Once Upon a Time has potential.

Books:
I read a lot of great books this year, but the ones that stuck with me the most were the following non-2011 publications:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Just Kids by Patti Smith
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (rec'd to two people)
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

Movies:

I loved Attack the Block, but past that I feel like I didn't see a lot of movies this year, and, more importantly, none of them blew my brain back. I preferred Source Code, Limitless, Another Earth to Descendants, Moneyball, and Midnight in Paris, all of which I thought were good but am hard-pressed to imagine as Oscar winners.

I didn't really love anything I saw this year, but I probably enjoyed Crazy, Stupid, Love the most and Drive was probably the most striking. Bridesmaids was funny, but it didn't knock me out. Tower Heist, despite Brett Ratner's brazen dumbassery, was in my opinion a funnier film. The best female performance I saw this year was easily Keira Knightley in A Dangerous Method.

Again, I still have a lot of 2011 films to catch up on.

Music:
My favorite music of the year came from Florence + the Machine, Adele, the Black Keys, Foster the People, AWOLNation, Mumford and Sons, and The Naked and the Famous.

Other stuff:

ice skating -- I just skated for the first time yesterday, and now it's my New Year's resolution to learn how to really skate. Excited!

Studio City -- my dream has come true. I am now a Studio City resident.

Nicholl Fellowship -- 2011 I was a QF with my first-ever completed feature film script.

Trader Joe's dark chocolate rocky road bars -- I eat an insane amount of that now.

Portland, OR

Lisbon and Sintra, Portugal; Valencia, Spain

chocolate salami

Overall, it was a decent enough year. Let's just hope 2012 is better.

Christmas spirit

So I live in an apartment building, and I have a parking space. This is not a dream parking space. It's a tight fit in an alley between my apartment building and the one next door. It is next to the (currently overflowing) garbage and recycling bins and right in front of our laundry room. There is no entrance to the apartment building next to us, so I'm not blocking any of them, but sometimes people in my apartment get irritated because they have to squeeze to get to the laundry. I have a compact car. There's only so much I can do.

But it's a parking space.

And now I don't have it. Apparently, the apartment building next door decided I was parking on a foot of their property, and, in the grand tradition of Christmas goodwill and sharing, put up cement posts in my parking spot while I was at work. Without any kind of prior notification or convo about it. My landlord just found out about this today. Classy.

Now this apartment next door has a real parking garage under their building and cannot possibly get any use from this space. It might be a little easier for the DirecTV guy to put a satellite on their roof or for their energy consumption to be checked, but that's really it. Also, my landlords have been using this space for parking for something like 30-40 years without an issue.


The amount of space between the posts and the cabinet on the right is what they get. Seriously. Basically it accomplishes nothing but putting me out.

So...

Merry Christmas! I'd keep writing but I parked so far away I have to leave now to get to my car in time to go to work tomorrow.

Damnation.

Portland (OR)

So I have now officially been bodily in AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IA, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, NE, NJ, NH, NY, NC, NV, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TX, UT, VA, VT, and WI. I think that's the lot. I may have traveled through (but not to) a few others and just don't remember that I, say, stopped in the St. Paul airport or something.

Anyway, LOVED Portland. Minus an inexplicable seizure-like event in our lovely, inexpensive Courtyard hotel room around midnight the first night, I had a great time.

PDX is a very easy, friendly, pleasant, not-crowded airport. You can take the red line to downtown. It's awesome.

The first day, we flew in early and had a late breakfast at Fresh Pot because I'd heard they had Montreal-style bagels. I either remember Montreal bagels wrong, or these weren't them. In any event, it was okay, but not great. However, the elephant stamp is super cool.


Then we went to Finnegan's Toys and Gifts, then to Powell's, where we spent A LONG TIME because it's AWESOME, and I got a beautifully illustrated Travels of Marco Polo remainder.


By then, starved, we went to Clyde Common, where I had the egg sandwich, whites only, which was very lovely. I highly recommend it.

We did a little window shopping, then went back to the room to rest, keen on going to the Art Institute of Portland later that night for a craft fair (which ended up being two tiny tables of stuff) and a letter press exhibit-thing (one room, lame). Pretty unexciting. We walked around the Pearl because all the shops were open late. Lucy bought some yarn for her mom, and I bought a shiny little green wreath craft thing that I subsequently managed to punch my thumb through and slightly ruin. As long as you don't look at it too closely, it's okay, though.

We had supper at Gruner, which had AMAZING pretzel croutons. Like, so good, I asked for some more, and they brought me a free cup that I ate later. Everything else about the place was kind of meh.

Back to the Marriott, which again was awesome. Seizurey thing.

Next morning, we went to NE Portland via bus in order to brunch at Pine State Biscuits. BELIEVE THE HYPE. I had a biscuit with fried chicken and cheddar on it. It was INSANE. I want one in LA, along with these guys.


We shopped around that section of Alberta Street, bought coffee, and peppermint chocolate ice cream at Salt and Straw.


Then we walked down 15th Avenue all the way past Klickitat Street!


For those of you with sad childhoods, you may not know that Klickitat Street was the home of one Ramona Quimby, age 8. So, awesome.

After an afternoon rest, we walked across the 405 to have dinner (accidentally) at Sweet Basil, which is a Thai restaurant entirely run by transvestites (except for the chefs). Between lip-sync'd disco hits, Lucy ate, and I tried not to feel creeped out about someone gyrating on a stage behind me to bad '70s music.
Then we went to McMenamin's Mission Theater, which is a moviepub, and saw The Rum Diary for 3 bucks! I had popcorn and was happy.

The next morning, Luce went and had breakfast with a friend, so I checked out Voodoo Doughnuts and bought a dirt doughnut and a no name doughnut.


The no name (pb, rice krispies) was insanely filling, and I ended up giving the dirt doughnut to Luce. I also bought a vegan pumpkin muffin and a croissant from Pearl Bakery, which were uninspiring.

Watched the last half of Dinner for Schmucks after just realizing we had HBO.
When Lucy returned, we went to the Portland Saturday Market, stopping by Stumptown on the way...


which is near Voodoo and opposite this wall.


The market was SO COOL. If I had money and suitcase space, there's a paper tulip lamp and a wire sculpture I absolutely would have bought. Instead, I got my stepdad a t-shirt that said "Eat Locals" with a zombie chasing a farmer on a tractor. He best like it. We also learned a lot about the Portland bubblers from a guy who we sadly did not buy any wares from. Oh, well.


We had lunch at Little Big Burger, where the burgers were, indeed, little. But I was full from breakfast, so I was fine.

We didn't really know what to do after visiting the science side of Powell's, so we just headed toward PSU, taking a rather long break from the cold in the lobby of the lovely, historic Beacon Hotel, where Lucy had tea. And I may have possibly stolen someone's Do Not Disturb sign. Maybe.



BTW, Portland isn't just coffee. There are A LOT of chocolate shops. I did buy one green Michel Cluizel chocolate that ended up being oddly good.

We wandered around PSU for 30 seconds while I talked to my dad, who told me he was about to be a great-granddad, but, oh, wait, actually already was. The things I don't know about my step-family are many.

Finally, it was time to head airport-ward. We passed the itsy-bitsy Occupy Portland protest (which apparently grew after we left) and had a quick dinner at some food trucks near the hotel. I had some really good Korean spicy chicken.

Then home!