entertaining the Olmsted-Bartholomew Vision

i have a love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. i celebrate its unique character and glorious ethnic diversity while bemoaning the income disparity between the ultra-rich and the direly underprivileged. i enjoy savory and sweet culinary delights from around the world (at reasonable prices), yet i cringe at the thought of navigating the clogged 60 fwy to get to my favorite taco place in the world (30 minutes to cover 7 miles?--i could do that on bike!). i hike the scenic mountains of the transverse ranges to enjoy the abundant southern california biodiversity, but am greeted by a view of a sprawling urban distopia united by smog.

i think you have be seriously blinded by complacency to love LA wholeheartedly and entirely. granted, every city has its share of troubles; no place is perfect and LA is far from it. but it is worse to think that LA could have become a metropolis much different (need i say, better?) from how it is today. i am reminded of the 1930 Olmsted-Bartholomew Plan for a "green" LA metropolis based on and around the natural elements of the basin. i feel gutted at the thought of such a monumental missed opportunity.

instead of "dead" space created by parking lots, empty parcels of land, liberal use of horizontal space for residential, commercial, and industrial buildings, Olmsted and Bartholomew envisioned "green" spaces--"parks, playgrounds, and beaches." instead of 71,000 acres (plus 91,000 in surrounding areas) of parkland, LA currently has a paltry 23,700 acres. the plan placed a park along the LA river, functioning both as recreational/scenic landscape and natural flood control (non-residential zoning). today, the LA river has been restricted to a concrete channel to accommodate senseless suburban sprawl.

i am deeply interested in the relationship between man and nature--in aspects of human reliance and impact on natural environments across time and space. like Michael Pollan, who, in Second Nature, uses the personal garden to explore the man and nature interface (and yes, one does exist), i believe that we would all benefit from being cognizant that cities and urban areas represent one of the most important interfaces between human and natural habitats. the LA of today has retained very little of its natural setting--unique in this world and may i say, graciously endowed with diversity and beauty. it could have been an eden by design and it is my hope that it still could be.

oh and it's earth day. i'm celebrating by imagining (and attempting to will into existence) a greener LA.

next time...

- cover arms and legs completely when mt biking in scrub habitat/tall grasses (lest i get get more poison oak rashes!)
- bake carrot cake for a full hour, use baking soda and baking powder, drain carrots (lest my cake collapses again)
- don't leave anyone behind on a hike or assume they are following someone else (lest i get left behind/ahead one day)
- make sure evan wears real shoes on a hike through snow (lest he freezes his toes off)
- know what i'm getting myself into (education, job, relationships)
- listen to my gut

list will be updated periodically, frequency will depend on how often i botch things up...

obligatory job hunt post

i really need to report this somewhere for the world (theoretically) to see: the job search scares me. never have i been humbled to such an extent--maybe crushed is the more appropriate verb. yes, there were those first year moments in college, but those PALE in comparison to THIS. THIS job search makes me feel useless, unaccomplished, direction-less, and desperate. while my fingers instinctively type out the phrase 'i loathe it' when i ponder my job search, my right brain (ha! i have to be creative to come up with an optimistic perspective) is telling me something else altogether: that i need and appreciate this and should be thanking, not kicking, myself for making the decision to not enroll in a PhD program last fall and instead embark on a few years of paid work. so creatively thinking about this: this is excellent--an opportunity to reevaluate my career direction, make some money, consider some non-academic career options, thoroughly research graduate school programs and advisers, and work on myself. this all sounds perfect except two things get in the way: the economy and my neuroticism. okay, so the job market still sucks, regardless of signs of recovery. companies and organizations, even those hiring a month-long temp field assistant to collect invertebrates in wetlands, have been inundated with hundreds of applications. my response is to just wallow in self pity for being so unfortunate as to chose the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression to find an entry level job. but again, my good old right brain is telling me otherwise--that i should treat this as a challenge and opportunity for character development. i'm going through shit but when i manage to crawl out, i'll have grown a thick forest of new chest hairs (please, figuratively speaking). also, it is my neuroticism that is the source of my violent swings between optimism and pessimism.

well, all i can definitively say that all this violent swinging is exhausting and more injuriously, absolutely tormenting. sometimes i just want to cave in and trade satisfaction for some ease. i must be extremely weary to be entertaining such awful, defeatist thoughts.

"Glorious Desert Blooms or Why I Love California"

Anza Borrego is singing the sweet springtime tunes after a stormy winter and wet early spring. Desert flowers are probably at their peak now, with the beavertail cactus (a late season flower) now in bloom. i don't think i was all that strange in my fondness for Lawrence of Arabia (this is not a non-sequitur). it represented, amongst many other ideas it inspires, abundant and beautiful life in the desert, where life is modestly present and entirely precious for all the harshness it tolerates--and after bearing witness to desert wildflower displays, one could say that it tolerates with a grace the world rarely recognizes.

Spanish Needles (Palafoxia arida):

It's a monumental year for the Desert Lily:

red-tipped ocotillos:

If you're currently in SoCal, i have a little suggestion: the desert is not to be missed.