View of L.A. from Runyon Canyon circa October 2002
Saturday, January 15 2005
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Daily Photo
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Oh, how I miss thee, dear homeland.
- Oh noes! Here her goes again!
Thursday, 25 September 2008 - Thoughts I had before 7 AM
Wednesday, 24 September 2008 - Text message conversation with Carol last evening
Tuesday, 23 September 2008 - Two brief anecdotes
Monday, 22 September 2008 - For now her name is Puppy
Friday, 19 September 2008
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1. sophie said:
first?
2. alyssa said:
smog! it still looks beautiful.
3. sophie said:
and it was just a fluke! ha!
4. RazDreams said:
Just lovely!!!
5. Goose said:
I can't believe I'm actually gonna say this, but Utah is just so much nicer.
6. Carol said:
*cough*
I love LA. I wish I had lived there.
7. DG said:
Kinda creepy.
Reminds me a bitta that Magritte painting where it's dark on the ground and light in the sky.
8. MrsDoF said:
Whatcha doing up this early on a Saturday morning? I thought it was only this old lady who is having night sweats and heart palpitations.
Oh wait, maybe the baby had a rough night...been there with that, too.
At any rate, missing LA and its nice weather must have its reasons. A very pretty picture--smog and all.
9. maxigumee said:
Yeah, it is kind of creepy. It looks like an abandoned ghost city or something. :P Really cool picture, though. :)
10. Wicked H said:
Smog-a-lishous.
Have a great weekend Dooce and all!
11. Kimberley H. said:
I went to L.A. last year, and was amazed at all the fake boobs that are REALLY THERE! No, people, it's not a myth!
12. mjm said:
long time reader, first time poster... i'm originally from southern california (live in arizona now) and miss that smoggy haze. *sigh* home sweet home.
13. Tina said:
Awesome shot, Heather.
14. bb said:
Really cool. sometimes blue, sometimes green, nice pics!
15. Ana said:
I love the colors.
16. Eric said:
Ya dun gud ba geddin owwt.
17. BarefootGoddess said:
I was in LA once, making a connecting flight to Hawaii. Seeing that I was terrified of flying and was making my first plane trip, alone, from NC to Hawaii, I don't remember much. Not that I actually saw LA. Just the airport. I remember being freaked out when the plane took off over the ocean.
18. psyche said:
i love the green hue. beautiful view :)
19. Michelle said:
I hurts to breathe just looking at that! great picture though.
20. Danielle said:
So, I looked at the thumbnail and thought "well, it _looks_ like a city-scape, but yesterday's pic looked like plumbing, so who the heck knows what it is really going to be."
(yes, I have bad grammar even when I think to myself)
click
bummer. It really is a city view.
No, really, I wasn't that bummed out. It is a good shot. I like the shadowy buildings in the foreground. And the comment about it looking like an abandoned ghost city (maxigumee) fits with yesterday's skeletal/ghost-like picture of Chuck.
21. Michelle Brady said:
That really is a cool picture. I wonder where it was taken, and how far away from the city Dooce actually was when she took it.
22. Michelle Brady said:
Now I just want to kick my own ass for not reading the title before asking my ridiculous question. Although I don't know where Runyon Canyon is, so I suppose it's still valid.
23. Lewis said:
I never liked LA, i don't like places that they write songs about usually.
You'll never hear a song about Sandy Ut.
24. Gia said:
Oh! I love LA... and I hate it too. Lived there for 3 years... There is just something about that "city" that makes me go back yearly - and that is quite a trek from where I live now!
25. Martha said:
Wow. The smog is out of control.
26. kEma said:
Auch, that's awsome
27. Amanda B. said:
I just can't picture Dooce in L.A. Not that you aren't super fabulous. I'ts just my own perception I'm sure. When I think L.A. I think billions of cars, and boobs, and botox and Jean Claude Van Damme.
Oh..I just had a little panic attack.
28. Carol said:
hee hee. good mornin' mandab!
29. Sarah in Alaska said:
I'll take Alaska and the cold ass weather over that smog any day!Currently it is -36.....
30. squish said:
About boobs, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million American women have breast implants. That's 4 million fake boobs.
31. squish said:
Barefoot Goddess said:
"I remember being freaked out when the plane took off over the ocean."
You should try landing in Reagan International in D.C. The runway ends about two feet from the Potomac. Very scary.
32. coffeegirl said:
When Eli sets off to conquer Constantinople, please advise him to go to Istanbul, not Constantinople.
(Been a long time gone, Constantinople. Why they changed it I can't say. People just liked it better that way.)
33. Moxie said:
I need my asthma inhaler.
34. Chloe said:
All that black shiny stuff in the bottom of the picture makes it look like there's an evil pond in between you and L.A. Or, maybe an evil tar pit. Or, maybe shadows. Maybe that's why this picture appears slightly sinister (sinister means left, which I take handed offense at).
Or maybe, it's just that NO ONE should be up this early on a Saturday morning!
35. Ranger Rick said:
what are you putting october 2002 photos up for?
36. JuJuBee said:
Interesting picture...have never been to L.A. (well, never outside the doors of LAX airport, so that doesn't really count) I might be a bit afraid.
37. Stephanie said:
You live in Utah, and you miss that?
38. heidi said:
Dude, you're making me homesick. I miss LA.
I can't believe I actually said "dude."
39. closet metro said:
This picture makes me want to play with Legos. Damn you, Fish.
40. Rob said:
Ugh. How can anyone breathe air like that. It ain't quite as cold here as #29's Alaska (-30'C here) but she's got a point - I'll take cold air I can breathe over big city smog.
#30: I've always wondered ... do they call it a boob job because of what parts of the body are involved or because of who it is being done to ?
41. Dr. Johnny Fever said:
I used to work on the 48th floor of the building second from the right. Hated it. My boss was this British bitch with a moustache and Dorito breath.
42. byrneout said:
Smog-haters, quit clutching your pearls. Even in your no-doubt crisp, pristine mountain paradise, you're breathing enough dead skin flakes and dust mites and those little bugs that live in your eyelashes that hey! A little smog doesn't sound so bad right now, does it?
Also, there are boogers in your nose. Every breath you take, every breath you've ever taken in your LIFE, has touched boogers. So there.
Anyway, it's been beautiful the past couple of days. Amazing what a few days of record-breaking rain can do for the air quality.
43. romy said:
beautiful. l.a. is beautiful.
44. Southern Fried Girl said:
Being a transplanted Angelino, one would think that picture would make me homesick. It so does not - moving from there was the best thing I have ever done. Thank God.
45. Amy said:
Very cool. It does evoke a feeling of longing..even with all the eerily beautiful smog, there's a sentimentality attached with the skyline of any big city one might be from. ( I'm that way with Philly. )
Seeing the big picture from further away can make your heart feel a little flutter of excitement and longing.
It's also cool to look at that skyline and then think about all the ppl there and all that could be going on in LA that day!!
46. laura said:
I had lived in the LA area for a full YEAR before I actually even SAW the skyline.
You couldn't pay me enough to go back to that soul-sucking slough.
I'm lovin' Nebraska, despite the fact that it is -15 this bright sunny morning. *sigh*
47. Claude said:
DG: The painting you're thinking of is called "Empire of Light" .
It's odd that one of the side effects of pollution is that it produces such spectacular sunrises and sunsets. Maybe it's not so attractive; the foods we love the most are the ones that are most likely to kill us in a hurry.
48. mrs. holmes said:
byrneout, that's funny. boogers.
it looks like the city is rising from some dark swamp land or something. cool.
49. sak said:
hahahahaha that's so true claude.
mmmmmm froot loops (choke choke CLUNK)
50. Marj said:
Ew...not gonna lie, but LA's kind of ugly. I'm not too fond of the city. I prefer the Utah pictures, Heather!
51. Mrs.Strizzay said:
That is a great post I have to say. All of it, but frankly the last parts where the best. Does Beth know you were totally messing with her? Well, I guess she does now!
My kid would have been SCREAMING bloody murder if he fell in mud.
52. Smoove D said:
Nice shot. I dig the surrealness of it all.
53. honestyrain said:
as cold as it is here - and it is buttfuck cold - i don't think i could trade it for smog. not LA smog anyway. i prefer san diego and san francisco.
54. Serephin said:
Dooce --
Eyebrows have lips?
55. Meggan said:
Looks smoggy. As opposed to the Utah pictures, I can't say this entices me to visit.
56. Beth said:
I went to LA once to visit my dad when I as 9. I bought a snow globe, but instead of 'snow' it had 'dirt', and it settled along the top of the tiny skyline. At the bottom it said, "LA's Got it All!"
Not to say I'm not trying to convince my hubby to take me for a visit, though. Thanks for the pic!
57. Julie said:
Leta is better off being raised in Utah than in Smogland.
58. Julie said:
San Diego, on the other hand, is beautiful today!
59. Bucky Four-Eyes said:
Serephin (#54), I don't mind eyebrows having lips. It's when they sprout a tongue that I pull down the shades. . .
60. L'aura said:
COFFEE GIRL: Why did constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks.
61. Alaska Danielle said:
Remember when Punjab did the 7Up commercials? "Nevah had eet, nevah weeel"?
That's how I feel about L.A.
62. EWP said:
I LOOOOVE L.A.! I just recently moved back to L.A. from being in Florida for 8 month. I just love the mixture of different people. I think L.A. is at least 20 years ahead of the rest of the country in almost every way whether that's good or bad.
Dooce, you need to come back!!
63. jules said:
this one really made me smile....
i miss that view each and every day
64. Erin said:
Wow, all of you must be really sensitive to smog... the smog in that picture looks way better than it usually does! At least in the picture it isn't a poop-brown color, like it usually is. And just think, it was about 200x worse in the 70s and 80s...
Can you tell that I'm an Angelino? :)
65. another mama said:
Awww, now you made me go and miss taking my furry fruitcakes hiking up there! Views, dust, celebrities, and dog shit. Good times.
66. Jennifer said:
I sometimes forget how trendy it is to speak ill of Los Angeles, especially by people who have never visited it, or only did the tourist thing.
That looks more like weather-haze than smog. Smog = brown. Haze = greys. Unless, of course, Her Dooceness tweaked the colors.
And for the non-Angelenos, Runyon Canyon (where she took the pic) is IN Los Angeles. It's a big-ass city, for sure.
67. Miss Kimberley said:
I love America, where you can buy beer IN THE GROCERY STORE. And when we were in L.A. I had to buy a six pack every fuckin' time I walked into a 7-11.
68. Katie said:
Ahh, nothing like pollution to wake you up in the morning.
But it was raining hardcore for days here so now it's nice and clear.
69. Jay said:
Today in LA it's crystal clear, blue skies, calm, and 70 degrees. All the hills are green and beautiful. The rain has washed all the dust and grime off the buildings and streets.
God I wish I was skiing in Utah right now.
Jay
70. Kassi said:
I'm not sure what is stranger: that some of the information I have been looking for have been featured links on your sight, or that I am looking for that particular information. Regardless...thanks!
71. Stephanie said:
You take the most beautiful freaking pictures. I am soooo jealous!
72. Kristen said:
first time poster...
As a current resident of southern california, I think that part of the charm of L.A. is the gross smog and the grungy streets. It's an acquired taste, but once you can appreciate it, nothing else comes close.
73. Wen said:
Thia was taken a mere two blocks from my home.
LA misses you dooce.
74. Kristine said:
Dooce-
you a Laker fan?
75. nothanks said:
Ah! I'm suppose to be hiking there right now but I over slept.
Dooce, I love your site, and if you were still here in la la land, I'd try to keep up on the stairs with ya.
76. 01234 said:
3) The way some people can just make it up as they go along, on the fly, is a source of some envy, because it's more fun with two, and I can't remember the last time I hung out with someone that fed off my lines and vice versa.
6) I totally MISSED OUT.
77. Alyssa said:
I hardly ever comment, but I just have to...
It's so true about fat guys! Think there's a logical explanation?
78. Alaska Danielle said:
Jennifer (#66)
"I sometimes forget how trendy it is to speak ill of Los Angeles, especially by people who have never visited it, or only did the tourist thing."
Speaking only for myself, I lived in California for four years, and frequented L.A. to stay with friends. I'm not sure if it's trendy, I just don't enjoy the place. I can say that about a lot of cities now that I've lived in Alaska. :) To each his own, I suppose.
79. kim said:
it looks great but from what i heard it's just too expensive to live there. and i really can't be bothered with earthquakes and stuff like that... but i hope everyone is okay over there with the flooding and all..
80. Mrs.Strizzay said:
My husband is fat and his penis is perfect. And by perfect I mean he makes me ORGASM IN UNDER 2 MINUTES (jack hammering as he likes to call it)! Hey, I know it isn't 20 seconds but nobody is perfect.
81. Mrs.Strizzay said:
Even if their penis is.
82. Dr. Johnny Fever said:
I feel so close to you right now, Mrs. Strizzay.
83. Girl.A said:
LA has some very cool museums and restaurants.
I did not realize this until I visited there. I had been scared into believing it was a city of people exclusively in wheelchairs and saran wrap after hearing that Missing Person album so many times as a kid.
84. cimalouise said:
No jealousy...I am going there today...(I live in West Hollywood...and used to live near the fairfax district, you know, your old neighborhood) You are NOT MISSING ANYTHING. Life out here is still as it always was...if you know what I mean. I can't wait to trade it for beautiful clean air, miles of open space, a wonderful scrumptious bearded, and a baby with dimpled thighs. Yes, I know...and don't worry. I am enjoying what I have now...not taking it for granted...but trust me...I hope that that vision of my future happens too... You are so lucky...wake up and smell chuck's feet for goodness sakes!
85. GSV Micturition to Windward said:
Came back to read the new comments since I posted my very first one a few hours ago. Read from #41 to #84 while trying to button the sleeves on my shirt, at which point I realized I had a vitally important piece of information to share with you all:
If you can read 44 comments in the time it takes you to FAIL to button up your sleeves, your shirt is inside-out.
86. DG said:
Dear, sweet, Mrs. Strizzay,
Maybe it's not your husband's penis wot's perfect.
Maybe it's your girl parts that are?
Or - maybe * *together* *, yours and his are a perfect combination?
Anyways, the long and short of it is that we won't be able to know for certain without a visual assessment. ;)
♥
DG
87. Amanda B. said:
This has turned into an E.coast/W.coast verbal drive by. Awesome.
Listen, I grew up visiting New Orleans about twice a month. I've never been to a stinker, dirtier, scarier place in my life. I love the hell out of it. If you visit on a Saturday and hang out by the river you will see every type of person you can imagine, in every stage of undress know to man. The food is unbelievable. And, by the way the entire city is haunted.
I love New Orleans and it's beer/urine/vomit smell, but there's no way in hell I'd pay $1500.00 bucks a month to live there.
88. Carol said:
Hey Amanda B! I love New Orleans, too! I was there for Jazz Fest one time and was going home (walking of all things!) late at night when we saw a pack, A PACK, of stray dogs just sauntering down the street. Thank God they didn't see us. That was the scariest, most surreal thing I've ever seen. That city is beautiful, weird, fun as hell, crazy and dangerous all at the same time.
89. Kristine said:
Hi everyone. It's quiet this weekend.
In the past whenever dooce is up for an award and needs lots of votes I send an email to my friends on my mailing list telling them to go vote and 200 plus people rush to do it. we've known each other for 7 years, we are a family and when someone needs something we do what it takes to get it done.
It reminds me a lot of this place. This is why I am writing this here.
Julia (one of listees daughters) turns 13 today. Julia is being teased at school (they live in LA) every single day for not having money, not being skinny, being a 'loser'.
I sent Julia an email with a link to my blog, I wrote her something.
Will you please put a "Happy Birthday Julia" comment for her on my blog so when she goes there tonight she can see how many people are good and not horribly mean and cruel?
And I promise never to write a really long comment again.
I love this comment page and all the people here....well, except that one person who says mean things.
90. Eric said:
Nice of you to only send Em the bill for the carpet cleaning. I would have sent her the vomit in an envelope stating "To Emily, with love, Chuck."
91. Kassi said:
I like Eric's idea. Barf in the mail will probably be the next new thing.
It beats finding human poop in the litter box.
92. Em said:
Ah, LA. Nice to see you.
93. Mrs.Strizzay said:
Human poop in the litter box? My dog would *so* eat that.
94. Tim said:
Hey, I can see my house from here!
95. Kristine said:
whoa. to everyone that left a comment for julia...thank you SO much. i never thought she would get so many. thank you.
i would never want to be 13 again.
96. Cristin said:
Hey Kristine, the Dooce Posse can be your posse too, right?
at least when needed :)
97. mrs. george #2 said:
google ad: "kee-ka for the wee ones!"
I am really, REALLY scared to click on that based on all the #1 licky that was going on here yesterday.
98. Crystal said:
"Laurie Mecham has never lost her penis."
And I hope she never does-thanks for sharing the link to the article.
99. Carol said:
Kristine - i just left a comment for Julia - I hope it's not too late?
100. Dan said:
We miss you too
101. Honey Bunny said:
wow. i've never been to LA. it's not as pretty as where you live now...
102. DeAnn said:
Do you really miss that smog when you have that beautiful BLUE sky/mountains/streets?
Seriously, is everything in SLC BLUE?
103. sab said:
do you think you and the family would ever move back?
104. Shelli said:
oh my gosh! I TOTALLY Discovered what CHUCKLES IS! I was watching the dog show and he's a Rhodesian Ridgeback hound! do a google search on um, and you can see pictures. COOL! He's famous!
105. GSV Micturition to Windward said:
I've seen "SLC" twice now on this site. Once in a comment in this thread and once one of Ms. Armstrong's articles where she referred to the "SLC Police".
What the bleep is"SLC" ?
106. Veronica said:
Um, Salt Lake City? I'm just guessing.
107. MY FRIENDS ARE ALL IDIOTS said:
"slc"--sALT lAKE cITY, WHERE DOOCE RESIDES
dOOCE, YOU HAVE SUCH INTELLIGENT AND WITTY ACQUAINTANCES. i THINK I SHOULD MOVE TO UTAH.
108. GSV Micturition to Windward said:
Insert sound of palm slapping forehead here. Had a blonde moment obviously.
I just discovered her site yesterday and I am reading from oldest to newest - with a few exceptions - so it "feels" to me like she is still in L.A. and hence I missed the obvious meaning of SLC.
109. Not a ridgeback said:
Though he has some similar features, Chuckles is not likely part Rhodesian Ridgeback.
Not that Chuck isn't awesome and buff, but Rhodies are more red (less blonde) than Chuck is as well as being significantly larger and more muscular than Chuck. Also they all have a "ridge" of fur that grows in reverse along the spine.
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/rhodesianridgeback.htm
110. juli said:
Great picture. Brings up memories, but I haven't really looked back since I escaped three years ago.
111. jules said:
It's barking cold outside! :) happy weekend! (:3
112. LIZA said:
FIRST1?!1!!??
You're stories make me want to live in LA muchly.
113. GSV Micturition to Windward said:
If you want to try to figure out what breed Chuck is, take a look at all the pretty pictures at the American Kennel Club association.
http://www.akc.org/breeds/breeds_a.cfm
Seems like that site would be to you guys what Playboy.com is to me ;-)
Personally, I could care less what breed Chuckie is. Every dog my family has ever had has been a mutt from the animal shelter and they have all been attractive, loveable, well natured dogs and it seems that is also true of Chuck. What breed label can or cannot be applied to him is the least important thing about him. Why look a gift horse - dog in this case - in the mouth ?
114. Cassie said:
Absolutely gorgeous, Heather. LA rocks. (Smog and all!)
115. Harry said:
Ahhhhhhhh....smog! Never trust any air that you cannot see! You never know what you are breathing!
116. Lisa J. said:
Are residents of Utah really referred to as "Utahns"?
And I thought "Michiganders" was bad...