Hello, L.A.

Slumming it in the hostels and eating my meals of cheap carbs and sugar is going to be hard to readjust to after this last week of luxury in LA. There are two unrelated things that I've learned while in LA this past week: 1) LA is exhausting and 2) Family means everything.

The events of my week have revolved around my commutes. Thats what I do here in LA. I go somewhere and then I get in my car and I go to somewhere else. Its not the destinations that make a lasting impression in my mind, its the commute. My main events here seem to be surviving freeways and negotiating traffic. My memory of this city will be of white knuckles and prayers to St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers.

But so far, so good. With the energy draining drives, my days get limited to one to two small activities. My reprieve from the tension is staying at my Aunt and Uncle's house. I've been sleeping like a queen in a bed that wraps itself around my body and on sheets that are like swimming in butter. Butter, I tell you. Believe me, reverting back to my hobo ways is not going to be easy.

About Thanksgiving: I have this theory. The theory has to do with the fact that holidays can be a trying time for people. Although its supposed to be a time of joy and love and blah, blah, blah, a lot of times there is just a melancholy that hangs around and a feeling of stress. My theory about why this is, is that what we all want is to have the holidays be like they were when we were little. And as adults, we can never achieve that. I must say, though, I came pretty close this year.

My family from Los Angeles would come to Pittsburgh to visit every year. The Thanksgiving holidays that I spent with them were the ones that I remember the most. This Thanksgiving I pretty much reverted back to being 10 years old. Although my aunt, uncle and cousins have all changed in the way that growing up makes us change, they are so much just as I remember them. Its going to be hard to one-up this Thanksgiving, so I told them that I'd just need to come back every year.

I'll end this post with a pic of my cousin Kim, myself and my cousin Chrissy with their dogs, Zoey and Benjamin:

The dogs don't get along and are in perpetual quarantine from each other for fear that one will eat the other. So for us to try and get them in a picture together, we were running the risk of one of the five of us not walking away with a face after the shot. Or we were going to get a damn cute pic, like above.