Isn't It Ironic, Don't You Think? A Little Too Ironic

I had some free time and was reading Los Angeles author, Sandra Tsing Loh's book, Mother on Fire when I came across this passage,

"I am a person who believes that in Los Angeles, people's innermost personalities, their philosophies even, are revealed in the driving routes they choose, the trail of bread crumbs they make as they weave their way through the city" (Tsing Loh, 58).

One of the funniest points in the animated movie Madagascar was when the menagerie of animals asks an NYPD horse how to get to point X. The horse starts telling them, with great authority in his voice when another NYPD horse butts in and gives an alternate sense of directions. The two horses begin to argue over whose directions are superior while the other animals grow agitated. Unfortunately, I was one of the few people who actually thought that Madagascar was funny. It was aimed at a NYC-centric audience, or at least an audience who would pick up on jokes such as New Yorkers priding themselves on possessing the best set of directions to anywhere in their city, or surrounding burroughs.

Meanwhile, I am often clueless where I am until 6 months after I have left a city and adhere religiously to set ways to get places until after I have moved away. (NYC is the exception- I'm an excellent navigator there, but you'd have to be a cross-eyed monkey not to know where you are)

I was thinking about getting from point A via various routes as I have been navigating the street network of my parents' latest residential town. This year it is Windsor Heights, Iowa, a suburb, if such a word can be utilized to describe, of Des Moines. Last year it was a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, ie Shoreview, Minnesota. Next year it'll probably be the moon.

As I drive down Hickman, one of the main streets, I keep looking for White Bear Lake Road, which will take me to Target. Yes, if the Target I was looking for was in Shoreview. Or I keep craning my neck for Culver's, which is by my mom's work and the proffer of treats both hot and cold- frozen custard and Butter Burgers. (the hamburger bun is buttered, it's not some French fusion take on the American classic). But my mom does not work at an accounting firm anymore. She works as a payroll specialist at a bowling alley. Which is not near a Culver's. Or at least not to my knowledge.

I have come to realize that I am an excellent navigator. In places that I have been. Not in places that I current am. (the same is also true for my foreign language skills- while in Italian all of my sub-par French came rushing back.)

Meanwhile, in LA, I blissfully take in the city while my friends drive, or while I take public transportation ignoring most major streets and intersections. I have a gift for describing the feel of a place. But the cross-streets, um, why don't you ask him over there?

This is a constant bone of contention between my friend Derek (my go-to driver/ride) and myself. Derek grew up in Orange County, which is a stone's throw away from LA. And if I had been an OC kid I would have been hightailing it up to LA every chance I could get the keys. Incidentally, people from Orange County do NOT call it the "OC," just as true San Franciscans do not call it Frisco. Therefore, I assume that Derek has a sixth sense of the streets of LA. Especially when we are going some place unfamiliar to me. More often than not he doesn't know how to get there either but assumes that I have squirreled away a set of directions or possess a sense of navigation I have yet to procure.

I have come to realize this when our drive starts to take five, ten, fifteen minutes longer than Mapquest (despite its fallible glory) predicted. Usually it boils down to me asking if he knows where the place is, he replying that he thought that I did, I saying no, him asking if I had printed out directions, and my response as being I thought that he would know the general area so, no. People say that we act like brother and sister. A lot. I have yet to dispute their claims successfully.

My friend Eddie, however, who was more reliant on public transportation than I until his car arrived from Rhode Island, is an excellent navigator, despite being an LA transplant himself. Eddie is also more technically-oriented than I am and can write an amazing paper in about two hours, no prior prep while I academically crucify myself for about three weeks straight before the turn-in date.

If I stay in LA I'll pay more attention to the streets' names. Until then, despite the great irony that I am getting my masters in urban planning, I don't know where a lot of the major streets intersect- does Santa Monica run parallel or perpendicular to Vermont? Will Olympic and Normandie ever intersect? Uh, I don't think so, but don't quote me, etc.,

Ask me in ten years, when, maybe, I won't be in LA, the best way to get to the Glendale Galleria from Little Tokyo (ie downtown LA) during rush hour. I'll probably have excellent directions. Have me describe the feel of Weller Court in Little Tokyo- well, you got a pen?

It's All in How You Look at It

I'm not even going to comment on the incredible lapse of time between this and my last post. Suffice to say I have been learning a lot and have been very busy in grad school. Future posts will expound on some of the concepts I have been learning.

But one of the most interesting things I have learned in college is how other people see L.A. This is especially interesting being in an urban planning concentration, so I am surrounded by people who take note of the world around us.

I live near downtown LA, right next to USC, but I am highly partial to the West Side- mainly Santa Monica, Culver City, and Mar Vista. I attribute this mainly to the fact that my ride and bff lives on the West Side and that's where she hangs out, so that's where I hang out.

It was interesting talking about the West Side with a friend who lives in West Adams, which is north of campus and about a 30 minute walk from me (I am west of campus). She doesn't have a car and as West Siders get prickly when the subject of mass trans infringing on their private paradise it's hard to get over there from where we are without the assistance of a car, or multiple bus transfers. Therefore, when I mentioned my favorite hair salon, which straddles the line between Culver City and Mar Vista she looked at me without comprehension.

I also enjoy Glendale, which, when I mention it, I often receive blank stares from my classmates as their errands don't take them up there often. And I admit, it is rather suburban. But in spite of, and at at the same time, because of that fact, I love it! There is a Whole Foods, a Trader Joe's, a Target, and a mall (the Target is actually inside the mall) all within easy driving distance. This is, unfortunately, why people love suburbia so.

My friend who is a born and raised Oakland guy lives in downtown/ the Arts District in a very chic converted loft, etc., He loves it there even though he has to bike to campus, which takes about 5 miles as he has no car. Being from the San Francisco Bay Area he is no stranger to weird happenings. However, when he went to West Hollywood for the first time, or WeHo, he described his first impression as Disneyland on heroin and Xanax. Apparently, there are all different kinds of "strange."

Personally, WeHo isn't my favorite place, but it'll do. LA INK is filmed there and that is also where all the "cool clubs" are. It's the new "cool" place to be in LA. But I'm not one for paying to get into a club and dressing up like disco Barbie, as I prefer a dark bar or a great restaurant.

For more on great eats in LA based on personal recommendations, check out http://gastrojan.blogspot.com My latest blog, written with other USC grad students on our favorite food finds LA!

Another friend lives in a condo that I am horribly jealous of, as it is clean and sophisticated, unlike my bedlam asylum of a house. She lives in Little Tokyo, or LT, which is really close to where my Oakland transplant friend lives and also Skid Row. She has an internship and a husband both of which require a lot of time. (My Oakland friend and I are both currently single, my West Adams friend has a boyfriend, but he is currently in Chicago). So, she has no frame of reference when I mention my favorite West Side spots, even though she does have a car. But she loves LT and knows her way around very well, including a great spot where one can get peach basil white sangria served by Zachary Quinto, the new Spock,'s doppelganger.

In the end, having or not having a car, tends to make a huge difference how one sees the world, especially, our microcosm that is LA. But it is always interesting learning about other people's perceptions and frames of reference.