Hotel Julie...

Allright, well it's been 2 weeks since my last post and I plead a busy schedule. I started to have a multitude of visitors in town beginning Monday, Feb. 18th and it hasn't let up. In the meantime, I managed to finish collecting pilot data for my project (results to come tomorrow) and do my Arizona paper revisions and re-submit it to the journal for re-review last week. Ironically, just a few days ago, it was my 1 year PhD defense anniversary, weird how much changes in that time. Come May, I will have been here in LA for a year. I can honestly say that I could live in California permanently, it seems to suit me.
Allright, so one of my best friends from college, Amanda, and her boyfriend (they happen to be a successful example of having met online) were in town so I met up with them for brunch at Jerry's Deli-a NY style deli in Westwood, close to UCLA. I hadn't seen Amanda for a year-since my thesis defense so it was really nice to chat in person. The following night I saw my cousin Allyson of the Long Island clan and her boyfriend (who lives here in LA) for dinner at Santa Monica Promenade -Barney's Beanery to be exact. It's a great sports bar with the biggest menu that I have ever seen-it's been around since the 1950s, lots of movie star photos on the walls, motorcycles suspended from the ceiling, hubcaps on the walls. I tend to sit at the bar and watch bball games on the weekend. I also happen to use it alot to meet my online dates so every now and then I shudder to think that I might run into them all at once there, ha hah. No time for dating lately, too much else to do.
Hmmm, so then at the end of the week my friend Robin arrived in from Tucson. We went to the Newsroom Cafe in West Hollywood-a place that I have mentioned before-it's located right across from the Ivy-that famous place that the stars go to. Robin swore that she saw Mischa Barton while we were eating but even I, with my new glasses, couldn't tell. We also went down to that fun place the Alehouse on main street, and then went out to dinner at this place called Gladstone's, on the way to Malibu, right on the ocean, along with her boyfriend and his buddy who were doing a motorcycle road trip (stay tuned for photos in the future). So, I had a full house on Fri nite. On Sat, we watched Arizona win the game against ASU, thank god, and also hit the beach, did alot of shopping-I bought new shoes (see photo above) and some clothes. We also did some grilling and it was the first time that I have used my grill in months. It went okay. I still have a huge amount of grill food. She left Mon, her guys came back Tues nite and stayed with me (we went to that restaurant The Counter near me-voted one of the 20 best burger joints in the US by Oprah). Tonight I am doing laundry and cleaning in anticipation for my next visitor-Dan-from Tucson who has come in for Oscar weekend. Dan will be here from Sat-Mon and we're going to try to catch some celebrities at these Independent Spirit awards held on Santa Monica beach. I will also have some people over for grilling and watching the Oscars on Sun nite but it won't be anywhere near the party of last year or previous years. Just a small group. The following weekend it looks like more visitors will come from Tucson, incl Susy, and then the weekend after that, I may go camping near a vineyard in Santa Barbara with some LA friends, we'll see-it may go to April. Then, last weekend in March, my aunt comes to visit-she lived in LA for many years and so she still has friends here.
So yeah-my head is swirling around with all of these visitors-but it's great to see people. No time to read though!

More later! Julie