Thursday, August 27, 2009

And Then There Was.....Los Angeles

I used to shrink from 95 degree heat, and I find it almost outrageously funny that in the last few months, I've found myself laying out in that same heat, taking it all in, happily into my skin.

I often find a shady tree to lie under and I feel the cool of the heat that washes over me under that tree. I take stock, as I have over the last few months, as to how lucky I am to be here again.

It's not that Portland was all bad---and even if it were, I needed that year of crushing gloom to realize where home really was for me; to be thankful for Los Angeles.

From here on out, I'm going to try to paint my time in Portland not as a "bad year" as I so often hear myself saying----but as the year that was hard, and inevitably led me to the greatness that is now.

Amidst all the fear of disappointment, all of the fear that I won't write---something I desperately want to do---I know I will find my way into a career that makes me happy. Something creative and fulfilling. Right now, I'm trying to be more than content over the opportunities I have in my lap, and the love I have in my life.

I, Carolyn Neuhausen, am loved, in a way I thought was impossible in the past. And as this means so much to me, I am basking in the glow of it.

Equal parts ambition, fortitude, persistence and personal championing will get me to the place I want to be at. Of this, I am (almost) certain!

Monday, August 3, 2009

A Year Ago....

Shit Howdy! Things have changed for me.

I'm reading a post on the Portland Sentinel website about this year's upcoming National Night Out festivities in Portland and I realize that was such a major story for me when I was working at the Sentinel last year.

Last year.....

I feel like I've grown in leaps and bounds from the person I was. I was so naive. I was so young and had so little experience with life and love and independence.

The journey I've experienced in the last year hangs nostalgically in my heart, bittersweet, bringing tears with it. I see a picture of him and he looks so damn good. I hear his voice and it brings everything back to me. No more, I say.

I'm staring 23 in the face and things are so vastly different. I've met great men. I have new friends and reconnected with dear old friends. She boxes me ferociously, and like the traitor she is, she's sweeter to my dad than myself, but I've got a new cat, a new member in our family.

I've come home to my roots. I've learned things about this city that I didn't know. I've gone to the House of Blues. I've heard Pat Green live in concert. I know the West Side street-scape in a way I didn't before I left. And I can also claim that my name dots the Los Angeles Magazine website here and there.

Where will this lead, I ask the stars.

On an assignment, I went to the Paley Center for Media and saw a screening of a film about Walter Cronkite's life. His life was amazing. He saw the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, was a stringer in college for a major city newspaper in Austin, Texas. He was less than 25 years old by the time he was doing news on the radio and going overseas, flying in WWII planes and gunning at enemy aircraft. He was the first reporter to tell of news from the Allied occupation of North Africa. He saw the end of World War, the beginning of the Cold War, corresponded from Moscow, covered political conventions and protests during the 60s, reported on Watergate and the race to get a man on the moon.

And I think to myself, quite depressingly, that I'll never be the legend that Walter Cronkite was. I'm older than he was when he started working for a major media service. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to get my foot in the door enough to get paid (lowly too,) for my work.

While my life has just begun and I cannot predict the great challenges and turmoils and awesome moments I'll live through historically, I know in my bones that I am not wired as Cronkite was. I don't think there's any way my stomach is strong enough to report on war. I wouldn't be happy traveling around, covering international news, although there's a large part of me that wishes I could be happy doing just that.

No, my roots are too settled, cast too far into the ground. I did the traveling thing and I crashed and burned. I hold myself up to past experiences, which tether me to fear and the past, and yet those experiences are ever with me, because my ability to remember will never leave me. That is my curse; my tremendous ability to remember details and moments also links me to them, which means I'm never more than a memory away from the past.

I remember something I heard in a documentary some years ago; Julius Caesar was 25 years old and gazing at a statue of Alexander the Great. He started weeping and it's said that he proclaimed "I'm older than he was and I have yet to conquer the world."

At the time, I thought this was a stupid thing to feel; after all, these men were entirely different. One was Macedonian and lived several hundred years before the Roman Caesar did. One was of "royal" blood and the other was not. One lived in a monarchy and one lived in a "democracy."

But now, upon hearing about Cronkite's life I feel much the same way I imagine the first Caesar did. Will I ever be strong and brave enough to live the adventures I want to? Will I ever rub shoulders with the people I want to meet? Will I ever impact peoples' lives and change things for the better? Will I make a difference? Will I be remembered?

These are the things that drive me forward and hold me back. But I'm older and wiser now and I'm happy that the future remains dark to me; I don't want to know what I'm to become, I want to live every moment in utter surprise.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

They're Bad for a Reason.....

What is it about "bad boys" that women like so much? I don't know that I can or even want to justify other womens' desires for these types of men so I suppose that I'll talk about my own beliefs and feelings regarding this dangerous and specific type of creature.

I used to think, at the young age and the feeling that I was seemingly much older than that in my mentality, that I would never go for a bad boy because they were, well, bad. I didn't want that. Or so I thought. And then I realized that there was an element of adventure, or rebellion or counterculture or something "bad" about the men I was attracted to. I made mistakes and flirted and got involved with and got attached to and hurt by men who weren't worthy of me. Who weren't good.

Greg Behrendt says that a bad boy is "bad" for a reason. These are the men to stay away from.

And then it dawned on me: why I'm attracted to the guy that's going to hurt me. Because they seem interesting, accepting, and free spirited; all things my perfectionistic and judgmental self wouldn't allow in my own personality. I liked the idea that they did things that were taboo, or things I was too afraid to try. That they had a past my walking the line didn't afford me. And then I realized, very pathetically, that I didn't view these men as partners, but more as substitutes for who I wanted to be.

No more.

I won't go after or say yes to someone to get a thrill from their life. If I want a thrill I'm going to own it. I'm a woman, an adult and I'm finally capable of making decisions for myself without regard to the constructs of society or the idea of how my parents would feel about any decision I were to make.

I'm no longer going to look for someone else to give me what I'm lacking in my life. If I want to learn more about cars, I'll do so on my own. If I want the thrill of a 180 mph ride, I'll do it for myself. The older I get, the more I feel fortunate in the idea that I can finally make decisions wholly for my own life and for no one else's satisfaction. After all, I only have one shot at this life in this body and in this mind frame, and I won't waste my life concerned about my decisions and how they affect others. This is my life. This is MY LIFE. Mine and no one else's.

So from here on out, I'll search for a man that compliments my life, that has that spark that I've got and the passion that resides in me. But he'll be a parnter, not a substitute for what I'm lacking in myself. I've gotten old enough to know that much. See, some things do get better with age.

"See, it's not what you said, but just how you said it...."---Pat Green

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Los Angeles, How I've Missed You

It is said that the official founding of the city of Los Angeles was September 4, 1781. As I write this I would like to spend some time giving tribute to this beautiful city of mine. 

The City of Angels has opened its (his, her?) arms to me. I was an expatriate. Fed up with the eternally sunny, warm weather, with too much lack of any variation of rain, or trees turning color or snow, I was so ready to leave. I wanted to flee the "shoulds" of my father, the darkness that haunted my soul like a ghost, the city I felt was stale under my feet. I wanted adventure and a change of weather, pristine air, and a mountain soaring in the distance, its peak always covered with snow, a promise that would be fulfilled in later years. 

A change is what I got. I met some incredible people and learned many a thing. I fell in love with journalism---something I never knew would happen. I learned how to manage websites, track google analytics, learned where a Lisianthus flower grew, and the difference between Asiatic and Oriental lilies. I learned how to make decent cups of coffee, how to risk life and safety in the haunts of an abandoned factory. I fell head over heels for someone who subsequently broke my heart; I spent far too much time missing this person, convinced I would see him in Portland (I never did thankfully). I spend too much time speaking of this person. He came, he conquered and he's gone. He'll stay in my memories but I pray that he'll leave my heart (almost 100% gone and leaving more steadily every day). 

I met God in the form of the angel I met in my freshman year. I still talk to her and think of my best friend every day. I watched Grace Jones and had countless jokes with Meagan and Lora. I saw Seattle with Jess. 

And yet.....

I find that I tried things, I got out there, I did craigslist and internship meet-ups and tennis and knitting circles, and yet, the world stayed closed. My world was a Monday-Thursday routine of work, television and dinner with Meagan and weekend errands by my lonesome. I spent so many hours and days doing things by myself and occasionally with Emily. Life was so small and lonely and fixed. 

And then I was laid off and I came back home. My home. My home, how I've missed it. I've missed those San Gabriel mountains that are stained purple with the dipping of the sunset sun. I've missed La Crescenta and La Cabanita and El Cholo and Venice Beach. I've missed Zuma and Amelia and April and Jessica S. I've missed Mom and Dad and my darling Phoebe and Aussie Pup and Willie. I've missed Griffith Park, and the Greek Theater and the pine trees and eucalyptus trees. I've missed the Sun and the promise of sunlight on any given day. I've missed that marine layer. 

Los Angeles has opened its arms to me and I got kisses and tea parties and new friends and old friends and excitement and front covers of the Pasadena Weekly and work with Los Angeles Magazine and knowledge of this great city's gastronomic culture and culture of things yet to come. 

I have come home. I am no longer an expatriate. And while I might sit in traffic cursing the millions of cars in traffic with me, and cursing the indian summer temperatures peaking above 100 degrees, I will remain forever in love of the hustle and bustle, of what Los Angeles is and what it has to offer. I will be grateful for the opportunities it has afforded me, the culture that can be found from Muscle Beach to the haunts of old orange grove ranches of San Bernadino, the museums in the Miracle Mile, the haute couture of Beverly Hills and the old history that lies in the Pasadena area. 

I am an Angeleno, and I am SO GLAD to be home!