unemployment

it has its pros and cons. it makes me feel a little disconnected from life. even though my social activity has remained largely the same, just not having a schedule, a time to start something and a time to finish it, makes me feel unproductive and non-contributory to the world around me. i feel like i should be doing something more important with my time, volunteering maybe? but i just feel so darn lazy and unmotivated!

as far as pros go, staying up til 4am and sleeping until 11 or 12 is pretty awesome. going to the beach on a tuesday afternoon is pretty awesome. and being able to do some exploring on days where crowds are at a minimum, again, pretty awesome.

yesterday, i took advantage of the latter and met my friend jen at the autry national center of the american west in la.

my friend bronwyn had recently told me about an exhibit there, which doesn't exactly fit with the theme of the museum, and that made it even more intriguing.

as i've now learned, there are just over 100 streets in los angeles named after saints. the exhibit explores the history of those saints and the current relevancies or ironies their streets hold in the modern day city. the artist, j. michael walker, spent years researching and painting. some streets fit their saints perfectly, and others are almost amusingly disjointed. apparently the streets were named arbitrarily, so it is particularly interesting to see how the neighborhoods took shape around them.

one street was named after the patron saint of the homeless, and is now lined with homeless shelters. one street, named after the patron saint of farmers, is now filled on a daily basis with day laborers and migrant workers tending the gardens and landscaping of the high end homes. one street, named after the patron saint of poverty, is one of the wealthiest parts of the city.

as you might imagine, it was quite an interesting exhibit.

we wandered through the rest of the museum, and truth be told, it's pretty campy. i have to admit that i have never really connected with that era of national history. short of thinking val kilmer is the best doc holladay ever, neither the old west or the pioneer generation has ever peaked or kept my interest (blasphemy, i know!). jen completely enjoyed it, and i, as usual, enjoyed taking photos!

after the museum, we headed just a couple miles up the street to the the griffith observatory, a high priority on my 'to do list' since my arrival here. not only do i enjoy observatories and planetariums, but this particular one is an incomparable visual landmark in the city, and many films and tv shows have shot and shown this facility.



the building itself is stunning, and affords some amazing views of los angeles, set high above the city.

but there are wonders to be found inside as well. the planetarium show was both relaxing and entertaining. literally. they have actors narrating the celestial movements above. it's been a long time since i've been to a planetarium (the last time being a really awful terrible blind date), and i'd forgotten just how cool they can be.

after the show, we did some exploring. on the bottom level, where you can weigh yourself on each planet (pluto and venus pretty much rock!) some helpful (helpful=bored) doscents asked if we had any questions.

so i came up with one and asked 'what is the one thing i should not leave here without knowing/seeing?'

of course he couldn't name one thing, so he began to tell us about the picture behind him and how that giant mural represented an index fingers measurement of the universe (needless to say, it was packed with starts and constellations).

he also told us how we had to ask at the desk to hold the meteorite from meteor crater (one of the cross country road trip stops on my way to california), and how we needed to find someone with a tie and badge upstairs to demonstrate the tesla coil. both things we would not have known existed otherwise.

when we had finished all the learnin' inside, we were just in time to head to the roof and the zeiss telescope. jupiter was in full glory, and it was amazing to be able to look through such a large telescope.

we finished off our day's adventures by taking in the city at night, and i got some pretty awesome photos (if i do say so myself). not to mention that i've now got two more checks on that list of mine!




the rest of the pics can be found here.