UPS Update

It's been a while but I was recently self-diagnosed with the plague, so now that I'm back in business I'll have some solid "what it's like to get used to Los Angeles" news.

As far as UPS. I feel like I have to voice my mounting rage.

My DEAR friend Melissa, my only contact in Champaign, IL, went to the UPS Store to check out the damages to my shipment. Good news and bad news.

Good news: Not everything was damaged - my canvas paintings are in fine shape. And the large gold frame was completely in tact, no glass shattered.

The Bad News: As Melissa put it, "if you remember in the beginning of Ace Ventura where he was kicking around the box, down the hall, smashing it, glass coming out, etc....yeah that's what your box looked like." AWESOME! Such care! Such graceful handling. Such regard for the "FRAGILE" warning written all over the place. Really sad that I can't count on a shipping company to handle a package with any kind of grace.

My Problem: It's not like I can't replace what's gone. I can, and I will. It's just that as it stands, I have officially paid UPS to break a bunch of stuff without delivering it to me. Imagine. I PAID a company to break my shit. That. Is. Unreal.

How this Problem could be solved: UPS could do one of two things. (1) COMP ME for my original shipment as they technically never delivered it to me. (2) just let me re-ship my damaged package for free. After all, the outrageous thing is that THEY DIDN'T DELIVER THE DAMAGED PACKAGE TO MY DOOR! What is WRONG with them? I could have at LEAST salvaged one of the frames (now I have to leave it behind because I can't afford to ship it) and I wouldn't have had to get my poor friend Melissa to do all my dirty work for me - I mean what if I had no one in Champaign to retrieve the damaged box?! I'd be royally screwed over. The whole "we're shipping it back to the sender/UPS Store because we broke it" is the most ABSURD notion I have ever heard. Put my box on the front lines of Iraq if you want to but DO YOUR JOB AND GET IT TO MY DOORSTEP. Unbelievable.

I am forever turned off to this company, though I'd be willing to reconsider if I was able to speak to someone at UPS with the decency to understand its own absurdity. I doubt there's anyone as heroic in this day and age. It's sad - how far will this kind of consumer abuse go, and is this kind of behavior leading us into an even thicker fog of distrust in our society today? It certainly doesn't help.

The Kiwi Circus Brigade

I've been here for what, 4 days? now and there's already so much to discuss!

The first is that I will never use UPS again. The regular old Post Office treated my boxes with more care than that ugly brown company could manage to do. I had a box of large frames and sentimental paintings on canvas that apparently made it all the way to Los Angeles before someone in a big brown van PUNCTURED the box, breaking the glass, and then blamed me for poor packaging. Wow, I'm really sorry that I didn't package it well enough to withstand the force of a sledge hammer to cardboard. But beyond that, UPS decided it would be smarter to ship the box ALL THE WAY BACK to Champaign, IL (where I shipped it from just before picking up Melissa for our ride) instead of holding it in Los Angeles for pick up. TWO THINGS wrong with this: (a) shipping it all the way back will only risk it for more damage. (b) I don't have any way of getting to Champaign to retrieve the package, and therefore it must be re-shipped to me... and UPS is going to charge me for that (and this was the most expensive package I shipped, hands down). What's even creepier is that the UPS agent in Champaign seemed to be totally numb to my hysterical sobbing. Yikes. (also kind of yikes that I was as hysterical as I was but let's totally ignore that please).

On the brighter side, my apartment is perfect and in the most beautiful little neighborhood. I'll have pictures of it soon but my camera is broken at the moment. Contrary to my expectations, I actually have a lot of things around me that I can walk to. A grocery store, a few little restaurants, and a sports bar. -a sports bar that, might I just say, actually plays the Boston Beanpot games on their TVs! Yay for Boston love! Yay for it being so close to my house! And if I'm feeling really frisky, I can walk three miles to the beach - though I'm considering buying a bike for that. Regardless, it's so nice to be able to go outside -in shorts- in February. I went for a jog around my neighborhood yesterday and the only thing running through my head was "I can't believe how not cold I am right now."

Roommates Greg and Justin are fantastic. Justin and I are both looking for work so we enjoy filling our days with trips to thrift stores to look for furniture for our apartment. It's a little bit bare at the moment - though I've dressed up a couple of folding chairs with oversized cushions. I knew those things would come in handy! Justin and I also have to figure out a way to transport said furniture, once we find anything good. Tricky.

Justin also has a Wii! And he programmed his Wii to be able to play any NES or Super Nintendo game that was ever created! And while watching him play some very archaic NES game I had this incredibly vivid flashback to a game I used to play when I was like 4 years old with my older brother. (honestly it was like having a psychic vision - i couldnt quite make out what the game was about but i knew the main character was very short and there were flaming hoops involved and animals... so, a circus. also included in my flashback was the exact scent of our house we lived in at the time) So, naturally, I called Michael and demanded that he remember what game it was. He, too, had forgotten all about this glorious game until I brought it up. Thank god for older brothers - Michael figured out that the game is called "Circus Charlie." What's amazing about this particular game is that we played it when we were living in Tokyo... and this game was never released in the States (for shame, as it is the best game ever). SO! Justin, being the glorious roommate that he is, downloaded the game to his Wii in a matter of minutes. NOSTALGIA! I have never been so happy as I am when I jump that little lion-riding-clown through those flaming hoops of fire. It's kind of sad, but it's actually like re-living a little piece of my Tokyo childhood.

In other news, Greg is part of couchsurfing.com so he occassionally hosts far off travelers who need a free place to crash. For the last two nights we have hosted a pair of New Zealand ladies, Jane and Leslie, and it has been great fun. They're great people and it's going to be fun hosting travelers and learning about all of their great adventures. (assuming we don't suddenly host a bad egg, but it sounds like the site is pretty well regulated and keeps the crazies away)

On the Kiwis' first night here we all went to the Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Club in Hollywood. We picked up our other BU Alum friend Ben on the way. Two guys from the comedy group Human Giant were hosting it, and Ed Helms (of The Office) was one of the stand-up performers. It was pretty cool - and even better because it only cost $5. I was called up on stage for one bit (I had to prove that the cookies Whoopi Goldberg sent Paul Scheer for his birthday tasted gross) and one of the only reasons I was pulled on stage (aside from Ben literally pushing me forward) was that Rob Huebel noticed I was crossing my arms, which made it LOOK like I wasn't having fun (despite the laughing?) when in reality I was just FREEZING because I was sitting right underneath the air conditioning unit. So there you have it. When you need a little attention in LA, just act cold. (PUN!)

Beach time! If you're reading this, please pray for my UPS package.

"Los Angeles, I'm Yours"

It's been a couple of days due to move-in distraction (aka blowing my budget at Bed Bath and Beyond and getting horrifying calls from UPS about a damaged box). But the last leg of the trip went a little bit like this:

We left Arizona asap and jumped back on I-10. As it turns out, I-10 west runs all the way to Santa Monica, which is exactly where we intended to go. My new place is just 3 miles east of the ocean and because I started from Gloucester, which sits quite literally on the Atlantic, just ten days earlier, I made it a point to touch the Pacific Ocean. Make it count.

The road from Arizona into California is as beautiful as the rest has been. No shortage of things to look at from any angle. We passed a huge plot of wind turbines. I've seen them before, but not in this quantity, I don't think. They're actually quite graceful. It's funny to try to juxtapose them from the oil pumping jacks we saw in Texas. As I've said about the jacks- they are isolated from each other in no particular pattern, and they slowly and repetitively bow to the ground like they're shackled. The wind turbines stand tall. They're not depressing to look at, in fact they're kind of inspiring. Could this be foreshadowing the future of energy? I hope so.

Also, I kissed a Cactus and we've labeled the photo "Forbidden Love."
Those things are seriously tall.

Full Circle: you will NEVER believe it. But as we were just over the city limits into Los Angeles we caught a glimpse of the WEINERMOBILE!! It was headed East, the opposite direction, and at high speeds so we couldn't get a shot of it. But we all kind of sat in silent shock after noting it. It was strange to see it entering Los Angeles, since we first saw it as we were leaving Chicago - our first leg as a collective group. Anyway. Weinermobile TWICE in one road trip? That's got to be some kind of record.

We hit Santa Monica just as the sun was setting. After the inevitable traffic, we found a parking spot and headed to the ocean. Talk about the perfect welcome. Touching the Pacific was like crossing the finish line at a marathon. I had been traveling for 10 days, 7 with Jeff and Melissa. Our coast to coast mission was complete. And none of us really knew what to think about it. So we just kind of enjoyed the sunset. And Jeff, who had silently been dreading Los Angeles, actually seemed to like it.


I'll be writing more posts, but as far as the road trip is concerned, it was probably the most fun any of the three of us has had in a very, very long time. This country is huge, and nothing can depict that as clearly as driving through it. I was so lucky to have the people on board that I had. We really enjoyed the ride, and how many times in our lives do we actually enjoy the ride?

The end is just the beginning. Not just for me, but for Jeff and Melissa, too. They dropped everything to jump into a car and help me move cross-country. And it seems like the trip was exactly what they needed to re-evaluate their own day-to-day pursuits. And how could they not start thinking about the big picture when they're staring at the sunset over the white sands national monument, or Mt. Picacho, or the Santa Monica pier? I think this trip could spark new beginnings for all of us. And that's freaking amazing.

The Road

To be honest, I'm actually finally ready to get to L.A. - and how fitting, because we'll be there today.



Yesterday was a great drive. We took the scenic route to get from Truth or Consequences back to I-10... after exploring Truth or Consequences more extensively, of course. How could we not? The town is named after a TV show. And it's adorable. Flat out. Adorable.

We went to a very small gourmet chocolate shop, Coco Re'al, (Melissa is studying food science and her masters thesis is on chocolate so we took it as part o
f her research) and I asked the young woman who recently opened the shop (really great stuff in there, by the way) if she loved living in New Mexico and she thought about it and said, "Yeah, I do. I mean, you just have to believe in it, you know?" No, I don't know. But that's the most amazing response I've ever heard to such a simple question. You just have to believe in it? Like... as in.. it's magic? Yes! Hello, state motto.

Jeff also found me a SWEET trucker hat in T or C (the town's nickname). I have a nickname for my car: the silver bullet. And he found me a hat with that inscription. Love at first sight.

We were all very sad when we drove over the state line into Arizona. I mean, yay for Arizona and all.. but we really couldn't get over New Mexico. We had to pull over a few times, as we were hugging the cliffs that wound around through the Black Mountain range, to see the views. They were breathtaking, as you might expect. And as you might be able to tell from the photos. I'd go back in a heartbeat. I almost want to go back right now, but I'd probably never leave and that might not go over well with a whole lot of people.



I'm kind of too tired to talk about Arizona - but I was really excited to see those tall cacti. We haven't really explored it so I wouldn't have that much to say anyway. We stopped in Tucson but for the first time we hadn't scheduled a hotel ahead of time, and because it was still early in the day, we decided to push it to Phoenix for the night. It's only a 6 hour drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles, so we'll have some time to take some more scenic routes today.

The one thing I WILL say about Phoenix is that it wasn't easy to find a place to eat, even with the internet on our side. Finally we just opted for a place closest to our hotel and it was called the Purple Turtle Sports Bar. Ok. We almost missed it when we drove by because it's part of a strip mall - and it has no windows - and the doors are painted the same color as their surrounding walls, with a hand painted "Purple Turtle" on them - and there were only pick up trucks parked outside. So. Sketchy only just begins to describe it. And after slight hesitation, we decided to just do it. Jeff went in first to check it out and came back with a wicked smile. "It's like the type of western bar in a movie where a huge bar fight breaks out and someone gets whacked with a pool cue. And there's a Mexican guy in there wearing a crown. We have to do this." He was right. We had to. So we did. Oddly enough, the trucker hat gave me a newfound sense of security. To make everything better - it was Karaoke night. Perfection! But as it turns out all of the people were really just good people and not sketchy at all. They couldn't have cared less that we were the only white kids in the bar. No bar fights to be had. Just a bunch of people with tough day jobs getting together to enjoy pool, drinks, and karaoke. It was delightful. So that was our impression of Phoenix.

Today it's the Arizona desert... and Los Angeles.

Just Truth, No Consequences

New Mexico's state motto is "Land of Enchantment." We laughed when we first saw that, but then we got up this morning... and then we followed through with our day.

We started the day at the Carlsbad Caverns... 750 feet underground. It took us two and a half hours to walk through the entire series of caves, and it was kind of like walking on mars. Nothing is familiar. The only way to convince yourself it's of this planet is to try to see things in the structures. You know, "that one looks like jabba the hut," etc. But really, it was very cool. Very, very cool. I got vertigo a couple of times and when looking into the 'bottomless pit' I think my life flashed before my eyes. It was perfect.

After a scenic drive through a barren desert, northwest-ish, we were suddenly winding beside mountains at 6,000 feet elevation. From (-)750 feet to 6,000 feet in a matter of minutes - that's pretty enchanting. Also, there are a lot of dogs that ride freely in the back of pick-up trucks here, but today we saw a dog pacing on the top of the truck bed, barking at nothing, and it was slightly unnerving. So I took a photo! We also saw a pistachio farm with a giant pistachio out front - so I took a photo!

And then there was Roswell. Oh, Roswell. They've really made it a point to capitalize on the alien thing...obviously. We went to the UFO museum - probably the most ridiculous, poorly planned out museum I've ever seen, but it was only $5 so it was well worth the experience. Hilarious. Really. And kind of interesting, too, actually. The parts that weren't hilarious were interesting. Was there a cover up? Probably. Was it an alien space craft? Um... I don't really think so. But that's just me. Most of the shops in the area were named with some kind of Alien pun in mind. Classy!

Westbound, we wound through a few more mountains, a bit more desert, and through an Apache reservation (wasn't quite what I was expecting.. I couldn't tell it was a reservation until I saw the Casino I just kind of got sad). So much to take in for one day and it was only half over.


We stopped at the White Sands National Monument - this is a MUST SEE at sunset. I couldn't believe it was America. It was the most AMAZING, strange, breathtaking place I've seen in a very, very long time. The sand looks like snow, and the dunes go on for miles. Surrounded by red mountains, that turn black against the sunset, the sky just turns pink. Pink against blue against yellow against the most pristine white. We ran up and down the dunes, made sand angels, did cartwheels. And it was so quiet we could hear each other perfectly from the tops of our three very distant dunes. That was kind of weird, but also really awesome. I can't recommend this place more. I really can't.

And then, to finish up the day, we drive to a little town called Truth or Consequences. New Mexico, I love you. This town was named after the TV show way back when. Shout out to Devin for recommending it. We found this little Inn called Blackstone Hotsprings that's supposed to be for couples, I guess (i mean it IS adorable).. but that's okay we slipped a third person in and they were nice about it. This place has a super deep tub and the water streaming into it is DIRECTLY from the hot springs that this town is known for. The water comes flowing into the tub, waterfall fashion, at 106 degrees. It is SO nice. Probably the perfect way to end a seriously productive day.

And with that I'm exhausted.

Oh yeah, and the stars out here are incredible. INCREDIBLE.
"Land of Enchantment," I believe you.

Let Jeff Entertain Us

Driving is kind of like being locked in a glass cage.
The freedom is liberating. And liberation does things to people.

In one such case, Jeff shows off one of his mad skillz.

South by Southwest

Western Texas is stunning. I-10 headed West. Do it.

Everyone warned us. "It's going to be so boring. There's nothing out there." But it's the nothingness that gets you. It's timeless. It honestly felt like time travel. It's cowboy country. And that's all there is to it. We saw every form of livestock from llamas to cattle to sheep to goats to rams. We saw abandoned buildings and old pick up trucks that lost all signs of life. But the thing that really got me were the oil rigging pumping jacks. They're like mechanical soliders out there, bobbing their heads to the ground in a slow, rhythmic motion. And they're everywhere. It's so weird but I could have watched them for hours because it's so erie. It's a metaphor for so many things - our country's quest for oil, obviously, but also of the industrial revolution - machine taking over for man, just slaving away unattended and after a while unnoticed as it just begins to blend into the scenery.

Leaving Austin, by the way, was beautiful in full daylight, no fog clouding the view. Before we hit rural western Texas we stopped in Fredericksburg - an old German-influenced town that has some relationship to the Pacific War. I should know my history, but I don't. In either case, it's an adorable little town. We couldn't stop talking about how cute it was - and I kid you not, a school bus full of little blonde children drove right by us. It's like magic-adorable-town USA. We also stumbled across an amazing coffee shop/bakery that is apparently famous nationwide, and been featured in all of the best cooking magazines, and also Oprah's. "Rather Sweet: Bakery and Cafe." It was so quaint, so hidden, with a little well outfront and everything. Seriously magical. Again. I felt like I had gone back in time. Or maybe that time had stopped, I can't tell which.

We moved through Western Texas at rapid speed. Not even trying to sound poetic - the speed limit was 80. So we averaged about 95. Even got into a sweet racing game with a sporty little red car beside me. We got out the video camera and documented most of it. She was an awesome sport though, once she caught on. It was fun. And it's always fun and games until you get pulled over, which I did, of course, in Pecos Texas. Never want to go back there. The speed limit is 60 when you enter the town, and I was abiding by it- but it suddenly drops to 30. When I noticed the shift it was too late. But I got off with a warning. It's funny - we almost hit a black crow when we started off this morning. Talk about bad omen. And I also had a very distinct feeling I'd get pulled over today. Psychic! But it turned out not to be a big deal. And life continues.

New Mexico left us all speechless, really. It's the same desert terrain - the grass a burnt golden hue littered with green brush and cacti. But as we headed into Whites City (yeah, that's a place) to check out the Carlsbad Caverns the sun just hit everything with that extra glow and I think we collectively dropped our jaws. Jeff summed it up pretty well, "what IS this place?" And then we hit the road that took us to the Caverns. A winding road up the crest of a partially eroded/partially blasted? hill. It was so good. SO good.

This video doesn't do it justice, but you should probably watch it.. and turn your volume low.


When we got to the top of the hill, we discovered that we arrived 5 minutes before the Caves closed for the night. No big deal, we'll be glad to go back in the morning. The view was worth it, even at the top:


We drove into Carlsbad at 6ish Mountain Time. (Did you know the whole state of Texas is technically Central Time?) We were pretty hungry, since we skipped lunch for the most part. So we drove around and found the classiest joint in town. We knew it was classy because the sign out front just said "RESTAURANT" and it had the most business. Also, it was between that, a ton of Chinese places, fast food chains, and a place called Funn's Family Diner. The choice wasn't that hard. We knew it was classy when a 50 year old greaser rolled up next to us on his motorcycle and buttless chaps. Oh - and don't worry - he made sure to run that comb through his slick hair before entering the restaurant. CLASSY!

But honestly, we're loving every minute of it. The weirder, the better.

This is America. And I'm not even saying that with distaste. Frankly, I think it's amazing that there is SO much variation. There is so much we don't know about our nation -about who we are as a collective whole, but also about who our neighbors are as real people. Variation is freedom though, right? I've never been more proud to be an American. To stand beside people with an entirely different culture from my own and say, "hey, we're in this together, right? We've got nothing in common but we're living under the same roof." I don't know, I just think that's pretty cool. And if you think you'd hate it here because you believe in stereotypes, I challenge you to explore it for yourself. Closed-mindedness works both ways.