Playing Catch Up

Ok, so I know I'm behind. But I'm going to attempt to catch up, so bear with me.

I arrived in Los Angeles Friday night. Tanja, the woman I am subletting from ended up having car trouble, so I had to take a taxi. I went up to a gentleman next to a taxi and explained that I had never taken one before and I didn't know what I was supposed to do. He was most unhelpful, as he just pointed to the cab behind him. That cab was apparently dealing with a group of three people already, so they ushered me to the next one. That gentleman rushed me in the cab, but when I told him where I needed to go, he asked "Where is that?" Apparently you have to know how to give directions to the place you need to go because the city is so big. Slightly irritated, I managed to get Tanja on the phone and she was able to give me directions. The taxi driver was quite nice, despite the mix up, and we arrived at the house in no time. That night I just unpacked a bit and then crashed.

Here are some pictures of my area. First is the neighborhood:

Oh and look, a plane. They go by every 15 minutes. It's kind of loud, but with the windows closed I hardly notice. Of course, that makes it kind of hot in my room, which is annoying. I seriously need to buy a fan. I don't think I'll ever get used to it being muggy and warm all the time with no rain.

And here is my front door and my room. The house is quite nice, actually what with it's wood floors and such. Kitchen is a bit small for my taste, but that's ok. According to Donny the houses in this area are multi-million dollar homes. Yikes. This is why I don't want to live in a city.

Joseph and Donny had granted me the weekend off, so I could get settled and such. This was nice, although I was kind of bored and wasn't sure what to do with myself. On Saturday I got a little more acquainted with Tanja, who took me grocery shopping at Ralph's. Ralph's was basically like a P&C, with a few product differences (obviously). The weirdest thing that I noticed was that they didn't have any extra sharp cheddar cheese. I think I found one brand that had one, out of like six brands in total. Also, the cheddar was all orange. There wasn't one type that had white cheddar cheese. I am so used to New York's vast arrayment of cheddar that this really confused. Another thing that was disconcerting was the wine and liquor aisles. Again, because in New York there are separate liquor stores, seeing them in a grocery store was weird. I think it's fascinating how subtly different other states are.

As for the city itself, expectations were quite different from the reality. My vision of a city is kind of hard to explain. It's just an amalgamation of images, sounds, smells, and ideas that I've acquired from people and media. There is a definite city-vibe to where I am in LA, but to me it looks more like a crowded suburb. The area is populated by families with little, flat, white-stucco houses, with significant (if small) yards with gardens. The plants themselves mystify me. There are weird shaped bushes (I actually saw a guy trimming then the other day with this saw-like contraption...it was odd). Then there are the pineapple-like trees:

My favorite though are the Dr. Seuss trees. I'm not sure why they remind me of Dr. Seuss but they really do. I think it's the fluffy, appendage-like appearance.

So other than going around the neighborhood, walking to the blockbuster in an attempt to find Angel (which they didn't have and I was quite irritated), on my weekend off I watched Charmed and read Eldest. At some point I walked to the blockbuster again and rented InkHeart to watch with Alicia and Erin over the phone. It was good movie, I was quite impressed by it. The ferret-creature was wicked cute.

On Monday, Donny picked me up and brought me over to their house. I got to meet their kitties (all except Longshanks, who is clearly the biggest scaredy-cat of their pets, although apparently with good reason, since Willow has a habit of beating her up.) They are all quite cute and they made me miss my cats and ferrets a lot. They were a little surprised because Willow seemed to like me (apparently she is not only a bully but just a mean cat in general). Loki was very affectionate although he doesn't like being picked up--at all. The last one is Shadme; she is tiny (maybe a little smaller than Calypso) and has the weirdest meow.

I spent Monday watching Joseph work in Photoshop. I was surprised by how many of the tools he used i already knew. There were definitely a few shortcuts that I learned, along with some intricate details of certain tools, such as curves. I have known about the curves tool since high school, but I always used it in wacky ways. Watching Joseph work, I definitely got a sense of how to use it more effectively. Also, I never knew you could use curves to alter singular colors (like just the red hues, just black, etc.) Other than that, I was intrigued by how he touched up the faces/bodies of the models. I have done a little retouching, but not nearly as extensively as he does. I definitely learned a lot, even if I can't really explain everything that I learned.

On Tuesday, they were on very little sleep, so it was a short day. After going through behind the scenes photos that are going in the Fae Magazine article about ModelFest, I watched Joseph work a little bit more. Then they brought me home, this time with an assignment. I had to research the Green Man for a little paragraph and a half write up for an article that they are doing about an image Joseph did of a "green woman".

As for today, we decided to keep it low key, so I finally have time to update this blog. I also have to "introduce myself" on the Time of the Faeries blog. Not sure what to write exactly, but I'm sure I'll think of something. After I'm done with that, I'm not sure what exactly what I'll do, but I have a list of things somewhere.

At some point in the next week, they are going to take me to a Halloween store in Hollywood so I can buy some masks for my photo shoots. I'm excited to get to work on some art of my own! I sometimes forget how much I enjoy doing art until I get an idea and then I get all enthralled about it.