west hollywood's best matcha

The best matcha I ever had in Los Angeles was at Alfred’s Tea House in West Hollywood. It was also the day I got my first-ever parking ticket. So it was an almost $70 matcha.

I was on my way to the West Hollywood Library with my then-housemate and 4ever bff Kimberly. Library exploring started to be my new hobby in early 2023. We got LA County library cards and walked around. The place is fucking huge. We both grabbed copies of “Catcher in the Rye” because we were motivated to start a mini book club. I didn’t read the book in high school and I was motivated to get through all the American classics.

I’ve read most classics and I was committed to reading them all, but the more i read them the more bored I got. So I turned more to memoirs and history books. I figure I could live a pretty good life without finishing all the classics, I'd just stick to the spinoffs.

One of my biggest secrets is that I used to be a huge Shakespeare fan. I used to have entire monologues memorized. My favorite play is Macbeth. So many small pieces of my life and my room and the things I write are little pieces of when I loved Shakespeare. So the stories I read are how I remember the stories of my own life. And this year, I became recommitted to reading. The biggest problem though, is that I have the attention span of a fly. So I changed my reading goal and made it an exploration goal. And now the goal is to visit every library that I can.

I went running around to a few libraries in East L.A., K-Town, Central L.A., some across the county. I even went to the library in Porto, Portugal earlier this year that inspired Harry Potter. Though I never read those books.

As a kid, I had one library in my hometown. It was a place my mom would take us to meet authors that would come by for signings or where she'd drop us off to hang out.

I designed my first cover for my first-ever mixtape sophomore year of high school on the computers there, sitting next to a ton of old men browsing Facebook. Trying so hard not to look at their desktops cus I was scared of what I'd see.

I took out those copies of covers and put them into CD sleeves where I proceeded to sell them at my high school for $3. I actually sold some too.

If you don’t have a library card yet, wherever you live, you should get one. It’s good for us to show that we appreciate these places. They are some of the few places you can explore art and culture and music and history for free. An immense catalogue detailing every second of every moment that has passed before this one.

Just don't make the mistake of getting a drink before going to one, or parking your car somewhere you shouldn't.

You're not supposed to take drinks into a library anyway.

Right now... i'm reading Girl in A Band by Kim Gordon. lended to me by Maria.