I have good news and bad news. Which would you like to read about first?

Good it is.

My blog and twitter name “writepudding” was mentioned in an Online Journalism Review post by journalist and USC professor Robert Hernandez. Made my day. Made more than a day, actually. It’s the little things.

My Spot.us article, “Los Angeles: The Long, Hard Road to Becoming a No-Kill City” is almost fully funded. I truly wish I had  40 hours a week to devote to this story, because it’s never ending. You could write a book. I can tell you that narrowing my research down and not going off on tangents is going to prove to be a challenge during the editing and writing process. Still excited to see it come to fruition.

And now for the bad.

Three years ago I had this idea to launch an Armenian web magazine that would be chock full of original reporting, blogging and more from a completely independent perspective – meaning that no political organization, no religious organization, no one could censor me or other writers for any reason whatsoever. A year passed by, and then I decided I was actually going to do it. So I did. And it grew, and it grew, and I wrote and wrote almost every day, after eight hour work days and three hours in traffic. I drove to cover events, I stayed up at odd hours of the night to interview people halfway across the world. I made connections with amazing people. I got contributors.  I devoted 40 hours I didn’t have to this site every week. I talked about issues Armenian publications ignored. I provided a space where people could have a discussion about important topics.

I was amazed (more like shocked) that so many were reading, commenting and supporting the idea of the site. I couldn’t believe there was a real space being created for Armenians to talk about issues that were affecting our community today.

And then, out of nowhere, because I had published a piece by someone who was not Armenian, about Armenians in Turkey, I was not once, twice, but three times accused of being funded by a “Turkish-American think-tank organization.”

Bam.

Why? Because my site wasn’t repeating the same old, bias, politically funded rhetoric of other Armenian Diaspora media. Because I had published something they hadn’t agreed with. How can you make someone who makes such a statement understand the amount of blood, sweat and tears you put into a project that actually makes you lose money every month? How can you reason with that person? You can’t. You just have to get angry, cool off and then forget about it.

And I did. I even found it comical.  A week or two later, news emerged that an Armenian-American fraud ring had been arrested – huge news not only for Armenians, but the U.S., as it was the single biggest Medicare scam in the history of this country. I wrote about it, as did every other major news organization, and the comments began to roll in. Shock, embarrassment, anger – people were upset. In the midst of it all, I received a comment from someone who called me a “fem-nazy looney editor-in-chief” who is motivating “sophisticated” Armenians to discuss “what ails us in our culture.”

Woa.

What struck me the most about this comment wasn’t the insult directed towards me, but the ignorance that I had been afraid of all along – “there’s nothing wrong with us worth discussing.”

We are perfect. We don’t walk, we float above the ground. We stand proud and shoot down anyone who has anything negative to say about how we conduct ourselves and think – what ails us in our culture? Nothing. Things are just fine.

I wrote columns about domestic violence and gave a voice to other Armenian and non-Armenian women to relay their experiences of womanhood. I discussed gender roles and discrimination. And by that fact alone, I was labeled a fem-nazi.

But it wasn’t enough. I received a private message a few days ago on Facebook. Is this you who wrote all these articles?” a young  man asked me, attaching a link to my site.

“Yes,” I replied, “What can I help you with?”

“Don’t you realize that you’re burning the name of Armenians?”

“How?”

“Well, by saying Armenian girls like sex. You think Armenian girls outside of the U.S. have sex before marriage C’mon!”

I still cannot properly wrap my head around this. I’m still too angry. I still keep thinking about these words coming out of the mouth of a 20-something young adult who is graduating college this year.

I can’t write about it yet, because the thoughts are still swarming in my head, but I will, soon. One thing is for sure, Armenians have a major identity problem, one that I’m not sure I’m prepared to address.

One of East Valley's 432 current residents/by Liana Aghajanian/Keegam Shamlian

I’m working on my second story for Spot.Us, dealing with L.A.’s struggles with animal euthanasia rates. According to past L.A. officials, the city was meant to become no-kill in 2010. With 2011 upon us,  the euthanasia rates have been actually increasing in the last two years. On a rainy Sunday, I took my first trip to East Valley Animal Shelter in Van Nuys. Here is an excerpt from my blog post on Spot.us:

“This is the saddest place on Earth.” Those are the first words I heard when I opened the doors to the East Valley Animal Shelter in Van Nuys. The man who said it, while visibly upset, was hurrying out to his car. Before I could stop him and ask why, an unfolding scene caught my eye.
Two women were dragging a beige and white Staffordshire Terrier mix that was whimpering to the front of the counter. His name was Charlie, with amber eyes and floppy ears. They began to explain the situation to Rebecca Summers, the animal care technician who greeted them. What situation? I moved in closer.
They were turning him in.
They said he was aggressive and had fought with other dogs, but when told that his chances of making out alive were slim, they changed Charlie’s conviction to “hyper.”
He was found as a puppy in a park when he was three months old, they said. But like all big breeds, he had grown in size and they decided they could no longer keep him. It was made clear that he could be put down if he did show aggression.
But their minds were already made up. Charlie would be calling the East Valley Animal Shelter his new home, at least for a short while, with the other 432 animals, including 244 dogs and 166 cats that were there as of Sunday, Oct. 17.
Summers was trying to get her camera to work so she could take a photo of Charlie for his ID card when I caught up with her. He seemed really sweet, she said, but she couldn’t tell what he was like yet.
Around the back, dogs and cats waited in the damp Los Angeles weather in their kennels and crates for someone, anyone, to take them home.

Read more here: “The Saddest Place on Earth.”

I’ve been suffering from a stint of serious self-doubt as a journalist. I find it hard to pin point what began this downward spiral, because from what I can remember, it was most likely a series of unfortunate events that knocked all the domino pieces on top of each other.

In truth, I have made a lot of positive strides in the last year and none that I take for granted, but there’s a toxic cocktail of fear and anxiety that has been brewing inside me. I’ve written dozens and dozens of articles for a handful of publications that I’m proud of. I have my own news magazine that has in essence become an extension of me and I do this with a full-time job.

So why do I still feel uncomfortable calling myself a journalist?

I know, I know. I’m taking crazy pills and I usually don’t feel this emotional, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t validate myself as a member of the press without holding the modern day equivalent to Lois Lane’s position. Or at least I haven’t been able to for a few weeks.

My head is spinning with things I want, but can’t have. Blame it on a number of things – the economy, the dwindling journalism industry, my sometimes crippling fear – it doesn’t matter  – I am always anxious that I’m not doing enough.

And when I am doing enough, I’m always anxious that I should be doing more.

Thus is the curse of someone who is in love with journalism.

When I’m not pinning after seeing my byline in LA Weekly and the L.A. Times, I’m thinking about traveling to Armenia and Georgia and Turkey and some other far off land that would be hard to find on a map for most people living in the U.S.

I don’t need anyone to tell me what to report, I think. I’ll just go do it myself.

And when I’m not doing that, I’m dreaming about going back to school and getting an M.A. in some fabulous field like International Relations or Politics or Investigative Journalism.

And even when I do have stories to write, even when I do jot down ideas, exciting to get started on my next assignment – even then the stress takes over. Am I good enough? Can I produce something worth reading?  Why should I even bother when the journalists I admire have already done a better job than I ever will at this point?

It’s debilitating. It’s the first time I’ve experienced it this intensely. It’s freaking me out. I’m not sure what the solution is.

Some months ago, I met with one of my old journalism professors who I’ve looked up to for years. I was having a crisis, similar to this one, and I needed someone to shake me and tell me to snap out of it.

She recounted a story about sitting on the beach for three weeks after she left a reporting/editing job she loved because she couldn’t deal with the unethical behavior of her superiors.

She needed to clear her mind to find her way back.

I’m staring to think that’s what I need. It’s too crowded in my head and it seems as though my passion and intrepidity and ambitiousness is being pushed out and replaced with a spiraling depression that has frozen in fear of not being able to achieve all that I want in this lifetime – a concept very cleverly pointed out to me by a friend as being a “Western disease” and one that I agree with.

I never feel like I’m doing enough. If I was, I reason with myself, I would already be the journalist I want to become – the one that’s covering important issues that affect the lives of Angelenos, the one that’s writing incredible, lengthy articles that stirs someone enough to write me an email, the one that’s overseas, bringing stories of an entire region I like to call my own to the other side of the world.

Maybe all I need is a vacation – so that I can start believing in myself again.

Mints from Little Dom's, Los Feliz, Calif.

Life is what’s happened to me as I’ve been busy making other plans and when that happens, any energy or will to write immediately goes out the door. Writing is such a delicate process. It can’t be done just anywhere, under any condition, in any circumstance, although I’m sure there are many who would dispute that – I’m actually one of them. But until it happens to you, you don’t realize how amazing the environment, your surroundings, your mental state has to be for you to produce something you’re happy with.

In a round about way, I guess what I mean is, this summer has been tough for the writer and person in me.

And while Bridget Jones says that it is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces, I just want all parts of my life to start going okay, at least for a few months.

I sometimes think I need to completely disappear for three weeks just to clear all the junk out of my head and iron out my brain cells. And then just maybe, I can become a lean, mean, writing machine.

My life has been on this roller coaster that keeps going in the same direction, while sometimes stopping to give me moments to enjoy. Does that make any sense? It’s as if, then end of the ride is no near, and no matter what I do to reach it, no matter how many hours I put into, I can’t reach it.

I said earlier that I’d love for all parts of my life to go away, and I take that back. I can handle everything that life throws my way – bad or good, but when it concerns journalism and writing and dreams of becoming a full-fledged reporter whose daily work means something – to me and to other people, to be able to be that person and not be able to be that person because of circumstance (mine and the world’s), it kills me.

It really kills me.

I know I’m going to look back at what I’ve written here and roll my eyes, and call myself melodramatic, but whining is a natural process of being a writer. It’s what we do. We like to whine and we like to write. And we also like wine. So there you go. I’ll pour a glass tonight and toast to better days ahead.

Is this not the most amazing vehicle you’ve ever seen?

I was driving down a street in Santa Monica after an absurdly long time spent at Staples surrounded by school supply buying children and their horribly depressed parents and I looked over to my left to see the rooster car.

It’s a good thing the road was pretty desolate because I slowed down, stopped and just stared for a good minute. I began to drive again, but couldn’t let the awesomeness of seeing a yellow car with a rooster head and tail sticking out just go by so I put my car in reverse, parked and took this photo.

It was glorious.

The rooster car truly made my day.

As soon as I got home I decided to do some research to see if I could find the origins of this creature-car, but wasn’t able to find much except a blog post at Laughing Squid and Nigel Stewart’s blog. Comments in both posts reveal the possible origins of the car, allegedly created by a man named Steven Cantin, and brought to California in 1997 to be used in a movie that apparently was never made. It is now owned by American race car driver and Santa Monica resident Tommy Kendall.

Steven Cantin it seems was trying to get in touch with Tommy, but there’s no internet evidence to suggest that the two ever did speak.

I hope this isn’t the last I’ve seen of this beautiful piece of machinery – I’m going to dream I’m riding in it tonight.

It’s hard to say “it’s summer time in Los Angeles,” because let’s face it, when isn’t it summer here?

While I usually complain about the heat here, this summer  has been unusually kind, until today, when the unforgiving sun reared its ugly head and made doing anything in L.A. unbearable again.
Hence why I’m inside and writing this post. A few choice photos I took this summer, in between writing assignments, editing work and breaking records for most time spent on the freeway.

Street art on Fairfax

Swept up cigarette remains

Robert Goulet?

Sad subject.

The Seven Up Bottling Co. of Los Angeles – swap meet find.

Driving down the 101. The emptiness of the freeway is deceiving, trust me.

I had to call 911 this week.
It was horrible, feeling helpless when someone you love needs you the most.

While everything is ok now, and will be ok from here on out, it was an experience no one will forget.

And in an effort to regain some soul, some peace and calm after our tumbles down the dark, deep rabbit hole, I did the only thing I thought could make everyone whole again.

I made some pie.

A ginger peach and nectarine pie, with hints of cinnamon, nutmeg and homemade crust.

At 8 a.m., with most of L.A. still tucked into their beds, my hands were covered in flour and butter.

The sinking feeling in my stomach was replaced with all the fruit I poured into the crust.

Then I cut out some hearts.

It was beautiful.

And everything seemed ok.

Hello.

Journalists (well, most of them anyway) tend to shy away from any type of self-exposure, including myself. It’s about the STORY, not about YOU – that’s what we’ve been told over and over again by journalism professors and editors and publishers, and rightfully so. It’s not about us, it’s about those we report on.

So you can understand the hesitation and anxiousness I felt when I decided to post the above photo of (gasp!) myself, but I’ve grown tired of feeling that way.

I have been wondering what to make of this blog ever since I started writing in it. I’ve written about baking bowling ball cakes and print newspaper consumption in Europe and my love of  kitsch, not fit for consumption movies like “Love is All There Is,” and why I hate and love Los Angeles all at the same time.

I’ve described how I must be the only person on the face of the Earth who can’t have a blood test because of impossible to find veins and how I wanted to crawl into a hole and die when I found my first white hair and documented Henry the Maltese’s entire knee surgery (the one section of my site I get the most emails about).

I’ve agonized over the very thing all young writers agonize about – having a career doing what they love and at the same time felt like all my journalism dreams were coming true.

I have complained, whined, explained how beautifully baking calms me down, highlighted some of the articles I’ve worked on over the last year and also probably talked a lot of crap.

I’ve done all this while wondering – what the hell am I writing about?

I always feel like I’m all over the place when I write here, which I guess is an accurate reflection of my life at the moment.

I want everything at once. And as such, I want to write about everything at once. And that’s why if you browse through the posts on these pages, you’ll find everything from pumpkin muffins to musings on the 2008 presidential election and recaps of Bollywood films.

For a very long time, I’ve wrestled with what to write here – the self-loathing and criticism that comes with being a writer is no exaggeration, believe me. I have stared at so many blank posts, only to write a few lines and delete the entire thing. I wasn’t wasting any paper, but it still felt like a waste.

And so, I was driving (more like standing still) on the traffic infested freeways of Los Angeles when it finally occurred to me what this blog was and should be about: The Human Journalist.

You might be thinking,  huh? what exactly is a journalist if not human? Well, according to this UK poll, being a journalist was recently regarded as the third most untrustworthy profession – so to some, I’m sure “journalist” is synonymous with Beelzebub.

Many people tend to think of journalists as soul-less leeching creatures who are always on the chase for their next story, no matter what the cost. And while I haven’t run across this too often in my career, there are times when I’ve felt the deep-seeded hate.

Today was one of those days.

I called a source to fact-check a few paragraphs of information and within the first few seconds of speaking to him, I knew he was going to lash out at me.

“Is that how you people operate?” he said to me in a condescending tone. “Is that how you work?”

Uncalled for kind sir, uncalled for.

A few months ago I was on a phone with a woman, trying to explain that I was in search of some information for a story and she cut me off and started explaining that the way I had approached her on the phone was all wrong.

“Don’t they teach you how to properly talk in journalism school?”

She went on and on, belittling me, refusing to answer questions, but I carried on and finally got what I needed out of her, while dreaming of ramming the phone all the way through the line and up  her nose and then going across the street to the bar to get a shot of tequila and cry. And I don’t even drink.

I guess what I’m trying to say, in the most roundabout way, is that my entire life I’ve been trying to find the central part of what ties all the other parts of me together. It would be easy and almost lazy,and not even  entirely true to say  that it’s my ethnicity that’s at the core of my being. Being Armenian is a huge part of who I am, but it would be unfair to say that it is the one thing that completely effects all other areas of my life.

But what does effect and infects its tentacles into all parts of my being, is journalism. It has always been my core, the one thing that I remained certain about above all others, throughout adolescence and high school and college and ‘the real world.’

It makes me feel alive.

And so in an effort to finally unify this blog under one concept, put a soul behind the third most untrustworthy profession and use this truly as a comfortable space to not only express my ideas, and half-ideas, but to connect with others, I’m now The Human Journalist. I write, I bake, I dream about seeing my byline in the L.A. Times and NY Times, I love kitsch, awesomely bad movies that would make any film critic lose respect for me. I love Los Angeles, but I’m not afraid to say I hate it too. I want to write about the problems this sprawling landscape has, and meet some amazing people in the process. I want to craft words together for my stories as beautifully as my grandmother strings together the thinnest of yarns for the winter cardigans she makes.  I want journalists to be respected and acknowledged and not underpaid. I want to write feature stories that have the potential to make someone stop and think, “Huh. That was interesting.” I want to see all the hard work I put into an investigative story and say – I really made some kind of dent in the world.  I want to be able to make other people feel the way I feel when I read stories from my favorite writers.

I want to feel (virtually) alive. And I want to bake some amazing desserts to reward myself with.

So here I go. This is an experiment into the human side of a journalist – about her wants and dreams, about her likes and dislikes, some of which have nothing to do with journalism at all and about discovering herself on this torturous yet rewarding path that only a crazy person would purposefully choose.

This is place where I’ll probably do a lot of what I was doing before, but without any fear or anxiety – and for a writer, to write without either the former or the latter is complete and utter peace.

I am intrepid, see me write. And of course, welcome.

I’ve been to three swap meets in the span of three weeks and I couldn’t be happier. You can complain all you want about traffic in Los Angeles (ahem), lament about all the pseudo-humans you meet here, but there’s one thing L.A excels at better than any city: outdoor flea markets.

Here are a few finds from the Rose Bowl Flea Market which has been existence for over 40 years.

While the Rose Bowl Flea Market is amazing, this outing left me disappointed. Not only was it too crowded and lacked any really good finds, the entire process has become so commercialized. You have to pay $8 to just get into the meet, with no pets allowed and performers who are hired to keep crowds coming through the turnstiles entertained – men on stilts, unicycles, that sort of thing. It just seems so…contrived.  On top of that, the food inside will take a nice chunk out of the wad of cash you’ve saved for those sweet antiques or chotchkies you’re after.

Still, it is definitely worth it – especially when you can find such treasures as “The Wandering Jew.”

I’ve saved my favorite find for last. I know you might be thinking – hello? Did you not see the incredible Sonny and Cher barbies above? What can be better than the plastic versions of the dynamic duo responsible for “I’ve Got You Babe,” (which plays like a loop in my head even if I sing it once)? Well I’ve got news for you, no pun intended.

Behold.

Bound editions of bound  bi-weekly New York Times newspapers spanning from the mid 1920s to late 1940s.

I KNOW. I almost went into cardiac arrest right then and there. Most of these beauties came to the swap meet from the libraries of universities, and were being sold for $20 each. After scouring to find one in the best condition and some haggling, we left with the March 16 – 31, 1943 edition of the Times, which came from the Stanford University Library in all it’s glory for $15.

As any writer can attest to, there’s nothing better than the scent of a musty old book. For a journalist, a bound edition of the Bible of Newspapers from 1943 smells like absolute heaven. Heaven I tell you. Full description and pages (complete with Old Gold cigarette ads and calls for Victory Gardens!) to come in subsequent post. Excuse me while I go smell my newspaper.

On a sunny Saturday afternoon,  fellow journalist Darleen and I decided to partake in a past time we both adore: discovering new tea rooms in the vast city of L.A. and beyond.

And since we hadn’t seen each other for so long that I can’t even remember, we decided to go all out and indulge in some tea and treats at the Scarlet Tea Room.

I first met Darleen in a mutual class we both had.  I was really intrigued because I think she was carrying some knitting she was working on and I was completely impressed because it was something I would do.

Not only do we share a mutual love of knitting, writing, music, art and identifying annoying people almost immediately, but we also love tea. and tea rooms.

Located on charming Green Street in Pasadena, the Scarlet Tea Room has a set up I haven’t seen before. While most tea rooms typically fall into the “Old English Rosey” category, this one blends old Hollywood charm with sophistication.

The set up consists of big wooden chairs with glass blown light fixtures and mirrors all around.

But never mind how the place looks, lets get to the good stuff.

The tea, while very delicious, wasn’t hot enough for my taste. The China however, was beautiful. I think I got black peach tea, but we were so wrapped up in conversation about the ups and downs of our lives post-college, where we all sat in a room and poured our heart and souls into journalism, that I’m not completely sure.

The tea sandwiches however, were nothing short of amazing. I ordered “Fig and Goat Cheese Spread” and “Mascarpone with Citrus Marmalade.”

Heaven in two bites.

The Scarlet Tea Room is very vegetarian friendly as well – with hearts printed next to sandwich options without any meat.

The absolute best part of the afternoon, sans the conversation, came in the form of a dessert I couldn’t believe I had never tried: Strawberries Romanoff.

Made with strawberries, sugar, liqueur, ice cream and heavy cream, Strawberries Romanoff is like a party for your taste buds, who go wild with excitement when you take a spoonful to your mouth. It’s hard to pin point what’s better – the strawberries or the cream, but together they make an explosive combination.

For a few hours, the tea flowed, the dainty sandwiches came and we even got to gawk at a bachelorette party taking place across the room, neon thongs and all.

The world stood still.

Our problems melted into the leaves in our cups and just for a bit, we were free of responsibility, of what ifs, of haves and have nots, of wondering what we’re doing with our lives, or where we’ll be 10 years from now, or the cruel world of journalism.

For two hours, we were more than ok, drenched in the sweetness of strawberries and cream.