Sam's Blog

I’ve been listening to The Ramones a lot lately on Indie 103, my new favorite radio station (besides KCRW) and found out yesterday that Johnny Ramone had passed away. It’s so sad. There’s only one Ramone left. Dee Dee and Joey died recently as well, along with The Clash’s Joe Strummer. Sigh. Punk is not dead, but its legends are dying. I have vivid memories of listening to The Ramones…driving around Modesto with my friends Erica and Brenna and rocking out as much as high schoolers could those days and watching Jordan Catalano sing “I Want to be Sedated,” on My So-Called Life and hearing “Judy is a Punk” in The Royal Tenenbaums. It’s so weird how songs are intertwined in my memories and are sometimes in the forefront of the actual event. My mind works in mysterious ways. But R.I.P. Johnny boy, you are greatly missed, but your music lives on.

It feels like every time I try to type an entry, I get sidetracked and never end up posting anything. It’s frustrating. Well, here’s my goings on in my life, but a very short and condensed version:

On Thursday night, I had dinner with Angela and Amy, my very good friends and old roommates. It’s so nice that we see each other regularly…we are so lucky. It’s too bad the sushi and service were mediocre at Yangtze, but overall, it was great to catch up. It feels like we are always on the same page, the same wavelength and there’s something about that that is so reassuringly stable. I do miss living with them, as I do with Nate, Lisa and Sia. I am enjoying my living situation though. Josh is great and it’s nice to spend so much time with him before he starts school. Our relationship is so much better (not that there was anything wrong with it in the first place, but you know what I mean). I met up with him and Shahab and Emily after dinner and hung out and played poker. Shahab just got some really nice poker chips and we had to test them out and so we played with Emily’s cousins. Micah, his roommate, came home and shared his daily escapades (that always seems to be surprisingly more interesting as the years go by). He has a very exciting life and it’s weird that I see him at work sometimes (he’s an EMT) when we call 911 in the clinic. On a sidenote, when I was on 3rd street, I went to Sur la Table and bought gel burners for my fondue pot. I can finally have a fondue party! Yay!

On Friday, I was very tired because I had only a few hours of sleep the night before. I did some light unpacking and caught up with Alexis and Kate over the phone. I’m glad Kate is having a fabulous time, despite the light rain in New York and I am glad everything went through with her apartment, despite McKenzie’s Canadian residency status. It sounds like a wonderful apartment and even Kate is impressed with it, especially being her first apartment in Manhattan and all. She was excited as well because her friend from high school, Ari, was visiting NY on his way to London (he is going to the London School of Economics for his masters). He was really cool when I met him and I am happy that she is already having visitors from LA. She likes her program and the people in it, so I’m not too worried about her. I didn’t do much that night and actually fell asleep at a normal time.

Saturday was September 11th. I feel so detached from it in many ways. I didn’t know anyone that was affected by it and yet, I do feel bad for those that were. I didn’t really do much that day. It felt so somber and it was cloudy a lot of the day. I went to Emil’s Hardware store and we bought a whole bunch of things for the apartment. We got home and fixed/cleaned things and it was really relaxing. We met up with Angela and Randy at Barnes and Noble and we hung out. Josh and I were fascinated with the book, The Valley, by Larry Sultan. If you guys have any free time, check it out. As I was sitting there, I remembered that I was doing pretty much the same thing that very day 3 years ago. After watching hours of footage about the World Trade Center that fateful day, I went to Borders to find a book, any book, to get my mind off of the events. It was too sad. When we got home, we caught a PBS documentary about September 11th. They followed two companies: The May-Davis Group (North Tower) and Euro Bank (South Tower) and the employees spoke about their experiences on that day. It was fascinating and overwhelmingly devastating. On a lighter note, I remembered that the Orientation Reunion was that day and I decided not to go because I still kept in touch with most of my friends from Orientation and also, it was really expensive. It was also way too soon. I would probably go to one in like, 5 years or so, but I have been gone for only 2 and it seems too soon. But the good part about it is that Catherine Calleja went to it and she stayed with Lisa and we were finally able to hang out on Sunday!

Sunday was spent mostly with Lisa and Catherine. I haven’t seen Catherine in ages, (about 5-6 months) which I don’t understand because she works in Santa Monica. We went to The Omelet Parlor for brunch and it was excellent. It was their first time there. I love introducing new places to friends, but I can’t take credit for that place because Angela introduced me to it a few years ago. We then decided to go shopping at the fun and exciting Glendale Galleria. I haven’t been there since me and Christina went when we were OA’s and spent way too much money there. It’s one of my favorite malls. I always have fun with Catherine and Lisa…they are swell. They had a lot of fun at the reunion and apparently the food was pretty good. I still don’t think that it was worth that much money.

Monday was busy at work, I don’t remember much of it, but I did go to Fatburger for lunch and hung out with Angela at Barnes and Noble that night. We talked and talked about anything and everything. Nate’s show that he works on, The Insider with Pat O’Brien premiered that day and I watched it. Not bad for that type of show. I just don’t like Pat O’Brien that much.

Tuesday was even busier than Monday and all I really remember is the time after work because I was able to catch up with a few friends like Ryan Gallo. It’s nice talking to someone you haven’t talked to in forever. I found out that his ex-girlfriend, Lauren, is working in San Francisco, which seems about right because she hated LA. I’ve been trying to cook more and it is slowly working out. I’m not making gourmet meals or anything like that, but frozen stuff helps and I’m not opposed to premixed packages or anything. It’s kinda nice to have “our” kitchen and know that all of the food there I can eat. Word. We ended our night watching a documentary on Archimedes on PBS. It was fascinating and if you catch it on sometime, it’s well worth it to watch.

Wednesday was a nice day all around. Work was good and people were pleasant. I went to IKEA with Alexis and she bought stuff for her new apartment (which is awesome and spacious). It reminds me of my first apartment in Westwood at Midvale Plaza I, but with more room and it also reminded me of Kate’s old apartment on Kelton because the bathrooms are each inside the bedrooms. I got a large rug for the living room to cover up Kurt’s old vomit stains on the carpet. I think it looks pretty good now. Alexis came over so Josh could help her put a nightstand together and we played Jenga. Twas fun!

This morning was great, no traffic and I realized that it was because of Rosh Hashanah and a lot of people took today off. It was nice because we weren’t busy at all at work today and hardly any doctors were in the clinic seeing patients. I didn’t realize that there were so many Jews in the Westside. It’s nice, but then I figure, why do we get days off only on certain holidays and not others? I am not a very religious person, but it’s weird how that is. Also, from what I know about Yom Kippur, it is a Day of Atonement, and for what I know, it is a day where people atone for their sins of the past year. It is a novel idea, but it strikes me as odd to dedicate one day for that where I think that it should be done throughout the whole year. Maybe people shouldn’t do bad things in the first place so that way they won’t need atonement. I’m not criticizing or anything because there are a lot of things that don’t make sense in every religion, but since it is Rosh Hashanah, it just got me thinking. Don’t get me started on Christmas and Easter and such either. But anyway, work is nice and it has allowed me to type out the longest blog entry ever. Tonight is an outing with Angela and friends for Wynne and I think it’s going to be at a bar in Hermosa Beach. Tomorrow is happy hour with Lisa and Calleja and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence with Josh and Co. and Jamie's party. It’s almost the weekend!