Los Angeles

2011 started busily with a five-day trip to Los Angeles, which I had never visited before, for the main conference of our discipline. My friend TK and I stayed at a hotel in the area known as "L.A. Live," which at night looked like something out of "Blade Runner," with full-color ads streaming live on gigantic screens on the side of buildings.

The best thing about the hotel, though, was that it had a 24-hour gym and a Starbucks right next door so I was able to work out early in the morning and then go get my decaf and read the paper on my Nook with free Wi-Fi. The huge glass-paneled hotel (we had a 16th-floor room!) reflected nicely on the screen of the Nook.

I arrived Wednesday afternoon and presented my paper on Hawthorne the following day and received very positive feedback. On Friday, I attended a couple of panels, including one on Poe, which was fascinating, and also the Ohio State University party for alumni and grad students where I got to talk to old and new friends before TK and I left to have dinner at the best Mexican restaurant I've ever been to, Rosa Mexicano.

We couldn't figure out why the name isn't grammatically correct but there is nothing erroneous about the food, which is sublime. And I even tried their Mexican mojito (known as "La Rumba") and it was superb. TK and I went to dinner with one of her old friends and one of my former graduate student mentees at OSU and we had a blast. Although we are all academics, we were not in the mood to "talk shop" (especially since both TK's friend and my former mentee were in the job market this year) so we talked instead about everything and anything and had a really enjoyable conversation.

On Saturday, TK and I decided that we'd spend the day doing the touristy things in L.A. and we found a tour that was supposed to take us to Hollywood, etc., and then bring us back to Chinatown. But we missed the bus and ended up having to take the subway and then to walk into Chinatown once it was already evening, even though a tour attendant had told me that it was peligroso to do so after dark. There was no danger at all and TK was able to get a few souvenirs and I got myself a little red dragon for my office.

We missed the bus that would've taken us to Chinatown because we spent way too much time on Rodeo Drive, aghast at the gaudy displays of wealth, from the yellow and black Rolls Royce belonging to the designer Bijan Pakzad (who we actually saw) to the several blonds with stiletto boots and fur coats walking their fashionable dogs to the clearly Botoxed and lip-enhanced women to the skinny men in tight-fitting jeans. TK and I both agreed that we would just hate living in a place like that, even if we had all the money in the world to waste.

Today, I'm back home after a very long trek and, although I'm exhausted, I'm so happy to be back where I belong. Downstairs, as I type this, Chiquita is barking and Lizzy is chasing the ball that my husband just threw and the cats are running around and I am in my own private heaven, which is as far away from California as you can get.