A year in review

Dear readers,

This Ugly Beautiful City 2.0 is now a little over a year old. Its birthday was on June 8th and I missed acknowledging it. I think I needed a minute to reflect. This year has been a lot. A lot of fear, anger, sadness, hope, and inspiration. It has and continues to be a push and pull of working towards the greater good and wanting the best for people, even when they make it so hard. These last few months have been a rollercoaster of emotion. I needed space to feel all the feels. I debated writing a post like this because this blog is about Los Angeles and not how I feel, but as I stopped and started writing this post over the past month, this was all that wanted to come out.

There was a part of me that was in denial about COVID-19. Not that it isn’t happening, but that sheltering at home would last this long. As I talked about the ways you can visit Los Angeles without leaving home for week 1, week 2, and into week 5, it struck me that there wasn’t an end in sight. I got a little depressed, scratch that, a lot depressed.

How do I write about a city that no one can see, not even the residents? The truth is, you just have to. Los Angeles isn’t going anywhere, it is just put on pause. When it comes back, Los Angeles needs to be rebuilt in a more equitable way. 

—-

I have been told that if you want to achieve something you need to put your whole ass into it. Not half-ass, but your whole ass. I only had the energy to half-ass this blog from April until now. I am sure you only had the energy to half-ass a lot of things too. Thank you for being patient with me.

2020 was going to be a big year for me. I was going to bring you some services like helping you plan your or your visitor’s trips to Los Angeles. Build itineraries for you so you didn’t have to think, you could just experience this city and enjoy it. I was going to be your personal guide for food tours of Los Angeles neighborhoods. I wanted this year to be the year that I moved away from my 9 to 5 life. That will just have to be on pause too.

If I leave you with one thought before I get back to blogging about Los Angeles and that is to VOTE IN NOVEMBER. Scratch that, vote in every single election you can vote in. We have seen now, more than ever that even the smallest of election races have a significant impact on how we live our lives, who debates on who gets to be human, who decides who gets to vote or not, and whether we wake up every day with a sense of dread. These people shape your city and country in ways you want to see. They also have the power only to help the same select few. You can choose whether they have your interests, the greater good’s interests, and in this case, the interests of developers who had a hand in making rent in L.A. unattainable. Vote for your council members, vote for the mayor, vote for judges, just please vote. See if you are registered here. 

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope you are all happy, healthy, and safe.

Back to Los Angeles in the next posts.