Tuesday, November 10, 2009

On living in Los Angeles and NaNoWriMo

I've been thwarted by airport pickups, headaches, sleepless nights, and sleep-filled days in my quest to begin on my novel for NaNoWriMo.

Eight days had passed, and not a word had been written. This despite travelling with my notebook and feeling that lovely itch in my brain that demands that I get to writing and thus give it a hearty scratch.

I hadn't written anything original in ages. So turning out something yesterday was especially satisfying. While I am still down on my average word count for the month, I did get a substantial amount of writing done Monday during the course of the day.

The tally currently stands on Day Ten of NaNoWriMo at 10,882. (I'm expecting this to increase by about 4-5k words at some point this evening.)

I feel rather accomplished.

Now, on to a bit of blogging about the joys of living in Los Angeles: shootouts & food trucks.

There are many things that I love about living in Los Angeles:



  • Great Food
  • Great Weather
  • Copious amounts of crazy delivered to you hot & fresh daily


    But what I most love, are the little things. Like walking out of your house to go to work, and seeing a police helicopter over head. Seeing that said police helicopter is circling over head. Knowing that since said police helicopter is circling over head, there is a crime being committed within two blocks of your house. Noticing all of the aforementioned and coming to said conclusion as you walk through the area the police helicopter is circling. And using its bullhorn system. To ask the suspect in the brown pants in the house to come out with his hands up. As several other police officers stand around the various cars in the area, guns drawn, taking shelter behind vehicles, preparing for a shootout.

    At 9 in the morning.

    But then it gets better:

    How could anything top that?

    Three little words: The Grilled Cheese truck. Ok; so it's four. But you get the drift.

    I found about this truck as I was searching on Twitter for various places to try (budding foodie that I am). The latest craze in Los Angeles is the gourmet food truck. No more of the roach coaches of your youth; this food is serious business. Literally and figuratively.

    For all of you on Twitter in Los Angeles, the LA Times Food Blog has created a list for all the Food Trucks out there so you can get your fix in one place, sans the flood of RT's:
    http://twitter.com/LATimesfood/socal-food-trucks. I generally just get my info from http://twitter.com/FoodTruckLA account. But in any event, there are tons of trucks out there, stopping all over the place, providing tasty delights to the masses of Los Angeles stuck in offices, Auto Repair shops, Sub-par restaurants, and buses along main routes. For instance, The Grilled Cheese Truck shall be in Beverly Hills tomorrow, down the way from my sister's job. I'll be darned if she doesn't go and get herself some tasty vittles.

    Anyway, all of this to say, lunch was delightful! I got the Caprese Melt, Tater Tots, and a side of pickles (which are both sweet & spicy and feature slivers of onion and cloves of garlic in a sweet & spicy chili-infused brine). And a Strawberry Fanta. Because they sold out of Pineapple. Such is the story of my life. I may even have ended up on the news, as they recorded me reaching for my sandwich when it was done (though I did my best to duck behind my ridiculously large sunglasses and run away down Centinela back to my office).

    I took a couple of picture to document this little journey to the land of the Grilled Cheese, and I just thought I would share. I apologize for the pictures; I was in a rush and wasn't really focused on trying to get good shots on my phone. As a side point, nearly everyone in line had either a Blackberry or an iPhone. I am proud to say that I think my fellow BB users outnumbered the iPhone users.The margin was slim, but I think we won the grand prize: nothing. :)











Now that that's done, there's the plan for tonight. A couple of my fellow budding foodies could not make it to TGCT with me, so we are going to The Brig in Venice to get some grub. I'm thinking that I'll be trying the version with Nutella, Marshmallows, and Roasted Banana Puree. My mouth is watering already. :-D

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