I'm baaa-aaack! That posting I did about the new cat (named Kitcat, for the record) was written during my week in sleepy Hillsborough, NJ (that bypass sure is somethin' eh?).
Anyways, now that I've flown back to scenic-when-it's-not-smoggy LA, taken the midterm for my summer class, and weekended in Las Vegas (quickie marriage plan didn't pan out), I'm going to post about Downtown Los Angeles (Hereafter referenced by the acronym DTLA because, well, duh, all the coolest hoods have an acronym).
So the reason I care enough to blog about this general area of LA is that 1. my apartment is there, 2. it's more or less unknown outside the city (not being either A. The Walk of Fame or B. The Hollywood Sign), and 3. very much unappreciated within the city. It's a weird place.
There are four main sections of DTLA according to my current lay of the land. But I've only been here since January, so there are probably more and I'm an ignorant fool. The first is the one I live on the edge of-- the business section, bound by the N/S streets of Figueroa, Flower, and Hope Streets. This is the section that you can see from most other areas of L.A. because of giant skyscrapers like the cylindrical Capital Bank tower or the "glowing coffin"... which I think is either a Hyatt or Marriot. And then there's the Staples Center/L.A. Convention Center/Grammy Museum/bar megaplex, which is sort of like the city's Time Square, in that there are a lot of big gross screens displaying crap and overpriced bars. I don't think it has quite the same hell-on-earth quality Time Square exemplifies so well-- but maybe that's just the absence of humidity.
So the business section is what makes DTLA a relatively visible landmark... that is, unless it's a bit smoggy, in which case you can't see nothin. It's smoggy quite a bit, which, along with the traffic, works well with my impression of L.A. as a sort of postapocalptic-spirited place. Hm. Wordy.
One more note about the business section: it's desolate on weekends. You could easily film a zombie movie there and the PAs would have no issues whatsoever keeping cars or pedestrians or other living things out of the shot. Lots of people do. Film that is, I don't if they're zombie movies. Some of them probably are. They're probably supposed to set in NYC too. DTLA during non-business hours=NYC at 4am. I wonder if it was designed as such purposefully.
Moving east, or sort of southeast to be precise, since DTLA isn't quite flush with the rest of the L.A. grid because it's old and apparently people in the olden days didn't have those levels with the little bubbles in them to make sure their lines ran straight (okay that's a bad metaphor, but I bothered Googling "ruler with bubble in it" to get the word "level" so I'm going to keep it)... agh let's start over.
Moving east-ish, there's the commerce/theater section, bound by N/S streets Hill and Broadway. It's a part where I don't really know what I'm looking at because there are some cultural barriers that make my brain register a bunch of questionmarks, incomplete thoughts, and mixed up memories... my superhero-esque 20/15 vision. I mostly understand the older part-- there are lots of old theaters, banks, business structures, apartment buildings, and hotels, most of which look early 1900s-ish. They evoke Old Hollywood in a powerful way. My favorite building is called The Eastern and it looks extremely edible, like blue and gold marizan.
The newer threads that have been woven into this impressive stone fabric is the commerce part, which is predominantly Hispanic. Think taco stand next to art deco theater. There's a lot going on in this area, particularly on Broadway. Stores filled with inexpensive clothes, sunglasses, keychains, cakes, makeup, furniture, toiletries, suits, shoes and so on and on and on ad infinitum are everywhere you look. By 7pm most nights, it's a ghost town. Metal grates are pulled down and locked over storefronts, homeless men and women sit on the stoops with blankets and carts beside them. I'll elaborate later. It's the hard part, so I'm going to procrastinate a bit.
Next, bound by Spring and Main Streets, is the artsy area, considered the hub of the artist/hipster/gay "cultural revival" currently cooking in this section of DTLA. Picture little marts with organic foodstuffs, boutiques, cupcakes, indie bookstores, gimmicky restaurants (...as if there's any other kind of restaurant in LA) and signs for loft rentals are all mixed in the with the grand old bank district architecture of some other era entirely. It's odd-looking. I guess it's sort of NYC-ish. The roomies and I will probably live there at some point, if the price is right. It's a fairly poppin area, avoids some of that desolation of the business or commerce/theater sections because of the hip bar scene. Most of the bars are speakeasy-ish and you feel like a flapper when you're in them.
Okay, procrastination over. Proceeding east-ish, between N/S streets Los Angeles and Towne, below 3rd St (E/W), there's the mission section. I guess that's what I'm calling it? It's also known as Skid Row. Research time: official name is "Central City East." Skid Row contains one of the largest stable populations of homeless men and women in the US, Wikipedia says somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000. According to the LA Chamber of Commerce, the missions were started because there are railroads nearby, so there were always men killing time between jobs or "riding the rails." Then there were wars and the returning veterans of WWII and Vietnam came back with emotional scars and additions and disabilities and were served by the missions. There are also a bunch of articles about how crticisim of mental health hospitals begat deinstitutionalization which ultimately, thanks to Reagan and slashed human service budgets, begat L.A. County hospitals, police agencies, mental health facitilies, and jails "dumping" homeless individuals on Skid Row and the missions.
I don't know any of these homeless men and women personally. I used to get creeped out on occasion, now I mostly get upset. I try to convert it into fuel to teach the kindergartners or volunteer or something, but mostly I'm just sad until some other stimulus interrupts my train of thought.
Hmph. I'm not sure how to transition from that to the last section. How about this, middle school style--
Lastly, there is the industrial/manufacturing section. It spans something like Central Ave to the train tracks running to and through Union Station. Something like that. I think Alameda is the main street, or maybe I just think so because I love LOVE the name Alameda. Rolls off the tongue. Means boulevard or park in Spanish. Overall the section is a lively, bustling center of commerce, with a head-spinning variety of manufacturing districts devoted to flowers, industry, garments, toys, fashion, and others I'm probably forgetting because I never visit them. One time I found a street entirely filled with kitchen appliances.
The End.
So the Mahlers were in the market for a new cat. Our beloved orange tabby, Sarah, had passed away in the spring. She was very sociable, moody, and a total lap cat. I think she used to play with laser pointer and stuff like, but that was back when we still had that weird red wallpaper in the living room. I.e. like 400 years ago.
(Sarah)
Sad stuff. She is missed.
But to return to the story, the Mahlers were in the market for a new cat. Mom apparently shopped last night on the web and said there were about 400 cats to choose from in Somerset County. So that's good.
This morning we hiked on over with the Bridgewater shelter. After perusing their general array of cats-- from the tiny, uncoordinated kittens to a big white cat with this bizarre deformed paw-- and learning that most of the cats had been confiscated from hoaders-- i.e. people with 50+ cats in 2 bedroom apartments-- Mom decided as chartiable pet-owners we must adopt a cat that wouldn't be adopted otherwise. We asked the shelter owner about which cats were generally not adoptable and were informed that the least popular color was black (superstition), the least popular eye hydration level was constantly dripping, and the least popular age was anything over 1 year. So of course Mom now wants this cat named "Star" with all three of those traits.
Matt and I revolt-- black is cool, but dripping eyes are kind of depressing, like the cat's sobbing all the time. And we know the adult cat thing-- we'd adopted Sarah at 1 year and she was 80% sedentary by year 3 or so-- we wanted an uncoordinated kitten dammit! We needed to "try out" a few to narrow it down.
Fortunately, the shelter had an "interview room" for adopters and their potential adoptees. While we sat in this weird little closet with random furniture (to simulate a house? except that it was right next to the frothing-at-the-mouth maniac dog cages so that was a bit off-putting), the shelter employee brought us the 4 cats we'd selected, one by one.
First was a black 1 1/2 year old-- Wednesday had beautiful eyes, but no self confidence, so she immediately crawled under that bench thing and started sobbed.
Next was Star, the weepy-eyed one that Mom was melting over. Star seemed pretty attracted to Matt at first... but soon decided the space under the bench was more appealing.
Unfortunately, a hollering dogs' choir performance was on at the time, and no amount of vim and vigor was going to keep her from retreating...
So finally, we caved to Matt's wishes, which were to interview the 5 month old cat we'd met in the first room. She was black and described as "independent and playful."
Extreme cat-related awesomeness ensued:
So...Black: yes.
Weepy-eyed: no
Kitten: basically.
Thinks she's a parrot: yes.
We don't have a name yet. Email/facebook me if you have any suggestions!
I have this notepad funtion on my cell phone that I find myself utilizing at random moments when I can neither A. contain myself or B. think of a person who wouldn't be super-weirded out my random thought. Yesterday I wrote this:
"My life has narrowed down to having a future or making it to turtle racing."
I think I wrote it around 6pm yesterday, after learning from a nice woman with a giant flower on top of her head that, in spite of my week-long, incredibly manic efforts to fill out the 48435786 portions of the teacher credential program's application, I had overlooked the one section with an unforgiving due date: the university's online application. And the due date was in 6 hours. Sweet.
Or so it would have been had I not been already booked up-- in sharp contrast to the past 6 months in LA, I had legitimate Thursday night plans. They went: SPED class until 7:30pm, driving back to the apartment, choke down a tuna wrap, then off with my roommates to Marina del Ray to a bar where they had THURSDAY NIGHT TURTLE RACING.
But now I'm suddenly in this bind where I need at least an hour to figure out what needs to go into this online application and it's just too tragic that one must be forced to choose between turtles and one's future in education.
I made my choice. I'm not going to say which here, feel free to check in with me personally.
campus vs. turtles, illustrated.
6/7/10
The time I spent as an AmeriCorps volunteer at an after-school program in South Central Los Angeles revolved around one question: what was to be done with Kenan, a student in Mr. Ward's 7th grade classroom. I’d ask this many times throughout the two months I worked at Alameda Middle School, one of the many failing schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Although there were nine other equally disruptive boys in the class, Kenan was my personal project, and consequently either the most or least rewarding part of the day. I adored the poor kid, I tried everything I could to reach his troubled 13 year old mind, there were days I would have liked to toss him out the second story window of the after school program. But I can’t deny that in the end, I felt his failures and triumphs acutely, as though they were my own.
On an especially frustrating day with Kenan, I’d think back to that first overwhelming week in the Boys-Together after school program, a special branch of the organization employing my AmeriCorps team. In the pamphlet, B-T was stated to focus on creating an environment of mentorship, structure, pride and discipline for young men otherwise destined for juvenile hall. It was all too clear, however, how this had failed at Alameda. Rather than providing the space and resources to make the program a haven for troubled boys, B-T was used to quarantine the principal’s most frequent male visitors, and consequently functioned as a pressure cooker for boys with a wide range of emotional issues and learning disorders.
I’d started to watch Kenan, mother hawk-like, during the first week: he was often at the epicenter of any conflict or distraction in the classroom. I’d try to anticipate his every move; as soon as he’d walk in the room I’d attempt to sit him down and instruct him to take out his homework, repeating myself in an endless litany, while hushing the other after-school kids who had by now started their name-calling (in typical 13 year old fashion). So then there was the task of stopping him from talking back to his tormentors, since of course any conflict was never resolved in his favor, chastising him for ignoring me and feebly insulting them back, dragging him by the arm away from the inevitable fight while a fellow volunteer kept the other kid from swinging, pressing him into a seat (“NOW SIT!!!”) while explaining to the site coordinator that I’d try harder to keep him focused, I was so sorry this had happened again. Finally I’d be charged with removing Kenan from the after school classroom, while he began to cry about what the other kids said, what had happened during P.E. that day, what his teacher had said about his future, imaginary insults (he was often paranoid, with good cause), real ones, all streaking down his cheeks. And so it went.
Such incidents were not predicted by the cheery yellow Boys-Together brochures. Neither was the notion of “guy culture,” a phenomenon that I, a 23 year old female, became far too familiar with. For one thing, while I recall that passing gas was a source of hilarity back in my middle school days, never had I encountered a ritual for that bodily function: a student would suddenly jump from this chair, announce to the classroom that he had to let one loose, and then, with Mr. Ward's blessing, stick his entire backside out into the hall to relieve himself, unconcerned by the horrified passers-by. Ah, guy culture. The “your-mom” jokes were plentiful, as were inappropriate text messages, but maybe that’s as much a middle school thing as a boy thing. I would often try to attribute the boys’ words and behaviors to one or the other—splitting the syllables of my name into AIM-me, a reference to a rap song about the instant messenger service? Probably a middle school thing. Wavering uncertainly between shaking my hand, bumping my fist, waving shyly, nodding indifferently, and hugging me? Definitely an awkward boy thing.
With the terrible California State Tests looming and the boys struggling to rise above their “far below basic” designation by the LAUSD, I could often do little more than find humor in the daily drama of the classroom. From the start I was struck by Mr. Ward's impressive range of quips, admonishments, come-backs, and sayings. “Don’t get yo feelins hurt!” he’d advise when a boy teetered ominously on the edge of a temper tantrum. He was also notorious for launching into stark, lucid critiques of the American education system. On my last day there, Alameda had provoked Mr. Ward's deepest ire by electing to collect the students’ textbooks 3 weeks before the end of the year. “Totally backwards,” he lamented. “How am I supposed to teach this %&*! without books???”). But there too were moments I’d hear small traces of a hope somewhere deep within him: one day he delved suddenly into how he gets through the rough times—“…I see the good in it… if I can reach these [long pause]… I mean they’re almost unreachable.”
The boys, meanwhile, were more silly than profound. One of my first days there, Steve, another volunteer, told them he was from Maine, at which point Manny asked, “Do they speak English there?” Or when Jacob, one of the several genuises in the class, approached me with an easy math assignment, begging for help. When I reminded him how he’d called slope-intercept formula “the easiest thing ever,” he responded, “Yeah, but I want the answers fed to me.” And then there was the time when Dave, watching a large huddle of penguins in “March of the Penguins,” proclaimed, “They look like a big Oreo cookie!” Middle school boys just said the darndest…
Eventually I could even see the humor in Kenan, once I’d gotten a few semi-focused, less-disruptive tutoring sessions under my belt. My first memory of a nearly uninterrupted homework session was, granted, achieved under special circumstances—the non-profit auditor was there, for one, which set both volunteers and employees wildly on edge. I didn’t care who was watching, however, because there was Kenan, sitting still, solving math problem after math problem in legible, reasonably-sized penmanship. It was thrilling.
Another shining example was that dreary, overcast Friday when Kenan and I sat in the back of the after-school room and he read the entirety of the short story “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.” Aloud. All 9 pages. With just one brief little break. In fact I think it was during that break (much-needed for both parties) that I remember laughing outright at one of his bizarre jokes for the first time. He had decided to go to the bathroom without asking the site coordinator—a move obviously forbidden by the B-T regulations. I had warned him without effect. Kenan stands up, picks up a nearby cup, pushes his chair in, and declares, “You watch! I’m going to walk right out of this classroom and nobody’s gonna say, ‘Kenan’. And if they do, I’ll eat this cup.”
I couldn’t keep it together.
School's out! The kids were unbelievably cute at graduation-- nails and hair done on the girls, suits, ties and shiny shoes on the boys. There was one kid in what looked like a zoot suit. Confusing. And I got more sunburned than I already was-- June Gloom is OVER people! Bring on the BLAZIN SUN!!!!
Sometimes when I drink caffeine at 10pm on Saturday night and eat weird things at swanky Mexican restaurants just because my fairly new (and apparently high-rolling) L.A. acquaintances have bought them on whims and placed them in front of me— I wake up at 7am on a Sunday morning with a very ominous feeling in my guts and an inability to go back to sleep. So then I finally convince myself to click and read my cousin Michelle’s blog because my mother gushed about how clever and fascinating it is and how much I would enjoy it.
(And it is—I really love your blog Michelle, you’re an incredibly engaging writer and you live such a kickass, trip-taking, harmonious-with-nature sort of existence. I want to visit you and become one of your “People”. And the only reason I didn’t read your blog immediately is because I have a weird anxiety about clicking on links. It’s not that I think they’re viruses, it’s just that I have terribly internet-induced ADD and I’m inevitably distracted. I rarely even read the things I post on people’s Facebook walls, sadly.)
But if I’m going to blog I need to do it right, right? So I need to talk about what I’ve been doing all this time instead of blogging, I think that’s how this works. I have a big cup of instant coffee to get me through. So here goes:
1. I graduated in 2009 from my small NJ liberal arts college
2. I panicked that whole summer about finding a job and tried to become an essayist and that didn’t pan out at all. I can’t do freelance. I need structure.
3. In Sept 09, I got into AmeriCorps, a 10 month volunteer service program where you get paid $80/week.
a. 1 month “training” (1 day of CPR certification + 29 other days of other stuff I don’t quite recall because I had an all-consuming crush on one of the other corps members so it’s a blur) in Sacramento (Sac-town, as it was lovingly referred to).
b. Then 4 months in New Orleans building houses and doing other things I don’t care to discuss here.
c. 2 months in Los Angeles, living in the hood and working in the post-apocalyptically terrible school system.
d. And then 2 months living in a tent outside of Seattle building trails and trying not to roll into the giant puddle under my tent when I slept. Verdict: I can sleep through anything.
e. I also made the “motivational speech” at the NCCC graduation, which was probably my greatest accomplishment within the program.
4. Got back in July 2010, worked on the set of that flop movie “Arthur” (Dudley Moore original is genius) for a day, then returned to my TA job at the ESL program at Rutgers University. Crushed on a student—he was 23, and Colombian. Also interned in the PR department of a green startup company and discovered that I dislike PR rather intensely.
5. Decided that I wanted to be a teacher in October while on an airplane.
6. BFF Becky got an internship at Current TV for the show “Infomania” in December and decided to move to L.A. I was going to just accompany her for the roadtrip out but...
7. Having no job tying me to Jersey, I decided to try getting a teaching job in L.A.
8. And then in late January I finally got a call back from the principal of a charter school and have been working there ever since.
The school year ends this Friday, so I’ll do a bit more backlogging about what it’s like to work at a school that consists solely of 115 kindergarteners later in the week. Glorified babysitting? Oh ho ho ho ho he he… sometimes.
Oh and...
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, DAD!!!
