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.

Hard to believe half the year is almost over, when it feels like it was Dec. 31,2009 just a few weeks ago. Six more months and I’ll be reveling in all the gingerbread and tinsel the holidays have to offer, but before I get ahead of myself, here are some photos from the first half of my 2010 taken with my iPhone.

London, Selfridges and Spooning with Rosie apparently.

Ireland, M&S and Tate Modern

Henry, Liberace at Amoeba Records and beautiful Swiss chard at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market

Waterfalls, hiking and big glasses.

What does it mean if you want to be too many things at once?

I think I have terminal ADHD, meaning this indecision business and wanting everything and anything now, now, now is going to truly kill me, because the world just isn’t letting me break out of this pigeon hole that I feel like I’m stuck in.

I needed some comforting tonight, so for the first time in so many months, I started listening to music. It’s not that I don’t listen to music, hell I listen every single day.

Music is what saves me from going insane inside the cubicle I sit in and in many ways, music is what saved me tonight because I really listened.

I listened to Antony and the Johnsons and Amy Winehouse and José Gonzales and Air and Dustin O’Halloran and John Lennon and Yann Tiersen and whatever I felt like was going to stop me from tumbling down the rabbit hole into nothingness.

Is it normal to know what you want and not know what you want with such intensity?

Maybe I’ve lost my muchness like Alice.

The thing is, I’ve never just wanted to be one thing. When I was younger, I would switch career ambitions every 24 hours. I wanted to be a veterinarian, an archeologist, a microbiologist, a painter, I wanted to work for the Centers for Disease Control and be a part-time ballerina at the New York City Ballet.

And then when I was 12, I discovered something that allowed me to experience anything and everything: journalism.

And it was magical.

The truth is, there’s too much I want in this world. The truth is, I need to slow down. The truth is, I don’t want to.

Paul and Julia Child, circa 1952

It’s 12:05 a.m.  on a very dark and rainy Monday in Los Angeles, and for the first time in so many months, I’m actually not forcing myself to fill this little white box with words that form coherent sentences, but rather they seem to be coming on their own.

Don’t ask me why.

I watched “Julie & Julia” for the third time a few hours ago, but I still haven’t managed to get through the book, even though I bought it probably a full year before the movie came out.  Doesn’t seem like I’ll ever finish it, but I’ve made peace with it.

I often wonder about starting a blog exclusively about food or some niche subject or another, but the problem is that I’m just interested in too many damn things, that I couldn’t just concentrate on one and give up the rest.

If I started a food blog, where would I write about media and journalism? If I started a Los Angeles blog, how could I discuss my penchant for embarrassingly cheesy films or write about my travel adventures? It just doesn’t seem like it would work for me, at least not while I want to have my hands in every pie.

And that’s part of my problem in life, isn’t it? That I want to do everything and anything all at once, which leads me to self diagnosis this problem as ADHD.

One minute I want to be an investigative reporter covering the latest environmental problem, another minute I want to write interesting, insightful human interest stories and then I want to be a novelist, a blogger, a photographer, a gardener, a film maker, a baker and God only knows what else. And I would gladly love to be ALL of those things, but this silly, stupid world just won’t let me.

I want to travel, yet have a lovely space of my own to live in. I want work to be my life’s passion, not somewhere I feel relieved to leave every day. I want to be a whole hearted journalist and writer.  I want to live my life according to “joie de vivre.” The more I think about it, the more I realize that my being born in this era was such a mistake. I wish I could rewind my birthday several upon several decades back - back to typewriters, hat boxes, to fresh open air markets and to more opportunities to experience the joy of life.

Bonne nuit, réves doux.

Until we meet again.

I’ve been ignoring this space, mostly because I’m afraid that if I sit down to write, and I mean seriously write, that my fingers will be bleeding out the ink directly from my heart, that is to say, it will be too emotional, too all over the place, too real. In journalism, you’re told to never put yourself in the story - this isn’t about you, they tell you. So you take yourself out. You never editorialize and even when you think you aren’t, your editor will make sure to let you know that you are. You take yourself out of the equation. Whereas fiction writers or even non-fiction writers perhaps feel nothing particularly odd or even wrong with putting their feelings on paper or on a blog post, journalists find it hard to express themselves.

Let me rephrase that.

I find it hard to express myself because writing about news and events and other people is something I’m confident about. Writing thoughts about myself? Not so much.

So I’ve been ignoring this space. I have photos to upload, stories from Europe to share, even recipes, but I keep putting it off. Something isn’t right.

I can’t be free, because I don’t feel free.

I’m trying to find a remedy for it.

Oh boy.

It wasn’t meant to be this way. I know, I know. I said I would upload photos and insights in to my little trip abroad and I most certainly plan on still doing that, but something has been stirring inside ever since I got back. It was there before I left - a free falling feeling, like I’m aimlessly tumbling down the rabbit hole with Alice, afraid, paralyzed and anxious. Now with a 10-day hiatus in London, Dublin and Paris - the former which always has my heart and the latter which left me enchanted beyond repair, behind me, things are more intense, more magnified and as a result more bone crushingly painful.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened up a blank page on this blog with thoughts bubbling at my fingertips, only to close and delete it minutes later. Even though these thoughts are spilling over in my head, something stops me from writing them. I can’t shake this fear. I can’t shake this fear that has gripped me beyond writing a silly blog post on my own corner of the interwebs. It’s taken over my life really.

The reasons? Well there are many, but in the most simplest of terms, this isn’t where I wanted to be at this point in my life, and because of this simple statement, I feel the girl I knew, the one that slept, ate and breathed writing and journalism is frozen. Not slipping away, but frozen. It wasn’t meant to be this way for me, I tell myself, but when I graduated in 2007 with a B.A. in journalism, little did I know about the impending storm the publishing world had in store for me and everyone else who graduated with and after me.

Some days I’m ok, there are even days that I’m optimistic, but then there are the days when I feel so helpless and hopeless. I have these pent up ideas - articles and images and interviews flow through my head with nowhere to go.  Not a week goes by that I don’t hear about a newspaper scaling back or a magazine shutting its doors, aimlessly throwing more writers in this gigantic cesspool of unemployment. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about going back to school for a Master’s degree to learn something while I wait for things in the world of journalism to brighten up or at the very least, level out.

I feel myself drowning in doubt, wrestling with my thoughts, trying to figure out the right course of action, fighting the blues to carry on. I read an insightful article today about this very struggle - about the will to go on, despite the circumstances - how long do you care about being a writer? the article asked. How long (and from where) do you find the strength to keep pushing?

In many ways, I have no right to complain. I am not unemployed. I work in the publishing industry, albeit online and work so hard as a freelance journalist by night, all the while trying to run an online magazine, which I do voluntarily because a) I needed an outlet for writing and producing or else you would have found me sitting at Conrad’s diner at 3 p.m. in the afternoon with the old folk eating broccoli soup and counting sugar cubes before getting hauled off to an asylum and b) because I believe it’s something that that particular community needs and deserves. It’s a civil service if anything else. But I dream up ways every day of making money from my venture and living the journalism life I’ve always wanted. You know, the usual - writing for the Los Angeles Times, researching my novel, contributing to a plethora of smart magazines, perhaps even starting another blog, and before I realize, my daydream has reached the offices of the New York Times building, which might as well be literally in the clouds for me at this point.

Something has got to give.

In the time that I first began writing this entry and now, I’ve looked through all the photos from my trip, and each one carries such enormous weight with it, such amazing memories all tangled in each other in an almost two week adventure. Europe really changed me this time. It’s been two weeks since I got back, but my thoughts are still in London. I miss my boyfriend. I never talk about my relationship here, but I miss him terribly. The world seems calmer, easier to handle, when he’s by my side. I miss him. Who else would put some snow in a bowl with my name on it?

The old saying goes that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. I like to say that when life throws pomegranates at you, you make sure you know how to cut, peel, seed and eat that blood red fruit, because life isn’t as simple as lemonade. Life throws you heavy pomegranates more than it does puny lemons any day and 2009 was definitely a year of hard hitting fruit.

After a year of dilly dallying with the idea of finally launching myself as a bona fide journalist, I decided in the wee hours of 2009 that I was going to make it happen this year. Writing was my drug and I felt soulless and empty, not to mention deathly afraid that the journalism infused dreams I carried with me so long were going to wither away and disappear. I made up my mind - the economy wasn’t going to stop me, the tanking journalism industry wasn’t going to stop me and neither was a full-time job. After sitting through almost four hours of traffic before and after an eight hour day of editing, I would come home, research, pitch and email into the dead of the night. Something else took over me. I didn’t know what being tired was anymore because I had surpassed it. You know when you start to feel sleepy at 11 p.m. and if you somehow fight it and get to 12 a.m., you suddenly recharge and you feel like you have the entire world in your hands? That’s how I got through it.

The long hours paid off and I soon found myself writing and fact-checking for Edible Los Angeles, contributing frequent feature stories and reviews to the Glendale News Press and Burbank Leader, as well as having my pitches accepted by two publications that I love and adore oh so much - Bitch and Paste. I finally felt worthy of the “journalist” title. I finally felt like my soul was slowly creeping back into my body. And then, in the midst of it all, I got this crazy idea to start an online magazine that has been my pride and joy for more than half of the year. It has allowed me to explore my past, write about what I love and participate in the type of journalism I believe in, the type that I felt was stolen away from me when too many people made bad choices that ultimately ended up collapsing the entire industry, the type that moved people and made a difference .

A strange kind of happiness glazed over me and boy it was wonderful.

When I wasn’t enthralled in my writing, I got a chance to spend some time in London, take a trip to San Francisco and exploring Los Angeles more thoroughly than ever before.

I survived the Station Fire that engulfed Los Angeles earlier this year, watched as the country my parents and I were born in erupted in protests and bloodshed and made so many new friends on Twitter.

Of course, the year had to go out with a bang - earlier this month I got into my first accident which has still left me car-less - not something I particularly mind but this is L.A. after all and not having a car is the equivalent of saying you don’t have any oxygen.

I’m looking forward to 2010, my theme for the new year is “change.” This year was one of transition for me, one of getting my feet wet and finally having the courage to take a few steps in the direction that I wanted my professional and personal life to go in. For the next 365 days however, the plan is to double or even triple the rate that I was going at. This means more writing, more pitching, more creativity, more devotion and confidence and strength and guts, more love, respect, trust and peace. Watch out world, I’m coming for you.

On the first day of the last month of the year, organizations, families, ordinary citizens and even social networks take a few moments out to commemorate World AIDS Day. The United Nations and World Health Organization estimate that 33.4 million people are living with HIV. In Los Angeles 56,000 to 62,000 people are estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS.

I’d like to think of this day only as World AIDS Day, but I can’t because it’s also my birthday. I feel honored to have been born on a day where one of the world’s most serious diseases gets a day in the spotlight, but this year’s birthday feels so different for me.

In short, it’s the first time that I’m not even a little bit jovial about it.

Internet, I am down right depressed.

In the bigger scope of things I am not even that old (25) but I feel like I should have had more to show for being alive for a quarter of a century.  I don’t want to bore anyone with the dreams and goals I’ve had since middle school, but I have known what I have wanted out of life for a very long time, that is, to be a successful journalist whose articles allow someone to learn something new, uncover abuse, bring about justice or elicit change. And though I feel like I have made significant strides, I am still after that journalism dream that has been on a ship to no where for a lot of people.

Of course, there are other things I crave in life, but I feel like I have been so lucky to have a supportive family, amazing friends, a boyfriend who I want to spend the rest of my life with - all those elements in my life feel more or less complete and I feel like I should have had more of a grasp on that pesky thing I love the most: writing.

I know that there are so many young journalists my age who do not have jobs or are struggling in many of the same ways I am - I see it all the time with those who I speak to or those I follow on Twitter. I see the passion that people have for this industry that has failed them and it upsets me. Of the 10 emails to editors that are unanswered, at least 50 are ignored. You can forget about a staff writing position at the moment, because frankly they don’t exist.

When I started following “Ed2010″ probably more than 5 years ago, the idea of achieving my dream journalism career in 2010 seemed so far away, so out there in the cosmos, but now, in 30 days, 2010 will arrive and I am afraid of what it will bring. Last night, I drew out a simple diagram of what I’d like to achieve in 2010, which I am crowning right now as “the year of journalism.” That piece of paper holds my dreams and goals for the next year and beyond in the form of the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Real Simple and GOOD. Here’s to hoping that on Dec. 1, 2010 I feel a little less somber and a little more hopeful than I do now.

I have the worst case of the Mondays, and I fear it’s not going away until Friday. Oh dear.

Halloween is always something I look forward to. Despite my inkling this year to dress as Lydia from Beetlejuice, I went with my art idol and all time head bitch in charge, Frida Kahlo.

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility and Frida Kahlo came with a unibrow, which wasn’t any stretch of the imagination for me as someone who is Armenian.

Lately, I haven’t written much here and I’m not sure why. Probably a combination of being extremely self conscious of my writing, along with trying to concentrate my writing efforts else where. Sometimes when I look at this space, the only sentiment I seem to come up with is “What’s the point?” I don’t have any direction here - this is not a blog strictly about journalism, or food or any other niche topic. It’s more or less about me and my likes, dislikes and observations. I still haven’t come to term yet with the fact that that’s ok, because not only do I see other blogs/websites who are so successful because they are niche, but because the directionless feeling I experience on this blog reflects how I feel in my daily life.

I want to be a writer, a reporter, a change maker, and although I have made some strides in that department, the mountain I have to climb just keeps growing.  Maybe that’s why I have been so drawn to Frida Kahlo, although the trials and tribulations of her life cannot even be compared to mine. She’s fierce. She’s strong. She left her mark on the world in some way. Being her for a day reminded me how much I want to be that person. That intrepid reporter who finds stories within the crevices of the world, that writer who manages to seamlessly blend words together, that person who is not just living, but progressing and aiding progress in the process.

That’s enough of my ranting, here are some more Frida Kahlo photos. Don’t mind the ugly.