Based on how they spent their weekend, I think it’s safe to say that my parents are really excited we’re getting married.

Those are red peppers for her lips, by the way.

Update: Due to last night’s blizzard, the snowbride is now wearing a fashionable veil.

My friend Gregory just tagged me in one of those chain letter-type posts where if you don’t answer 11 questions about yourself and forward it along to 11 more people someone close to you will be severely maimed in a freak photography accident. Oh, wait, it’s not one of those? Okay, well, I’m still going to answer the questions. Better to start the year off on the right foot.

RULES:

• You must post these rules.
• Each person must post 11 things about themselves on their blog.
• Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
• You have to choose 11 people to tag and link them on the post.
• Go to their page and tell them you have linked him or her.
• No tag backs.
• No stuff in the tagging section about ‘you are tagged if you are reading this.’ You legitimately have to tag 11 people.

Seems easy enough. Here are the answers to the questions that Gregory asked me. I just took some NyQuil so this should be extra good.

1.  What is your favorite piece of artwork and why? highly prized by Sister Mary Corita, a serigraph we have hanging in our living room. I wrote an essay about why I love it for the book I Heart Design: Remarkable Graphic Design Selected by Designers, Illustrators, and Critics.

2.  Can you remember the name of your first crush? Scott Fudemberg, kindergarten, Mason Ridge Elementary. Funnily enough, his wedding was featured in a “Vows” column in the New York Times a few years ago. Oh great, now he’s going to think I’m stalking him. My mom sent it to me, Scott! Tell your wife not to worry!

3.  Given the opportunity for super powers, would you like the ability to fly or be invisible? Fly. I can already make myself invisible when I want to be.

4. Where is your dream destination for 2012? Standing on the top of a mountain in Crested Butte, Colorado, getting married to my fiancé Keith Scharwath. And after that, embarking upon a tour di gelati in Italy.

5.  If you could make people see the truth about one thing, what would that truth be? Driving sucks. Riding the bus is fun. Walking is like taking a brief, beautiful vacation in the middle of your day. Okay, that’s three things. But it’s essentially the same truth.

6.  When cleaning, are you someone who cleans and organizes the big things first, or focuses on the details? If it was up to me, I’d focus exclusively on the organizing and someone else could handle the cleaning. Wait, maybe it is up to me.

7.  How many icons are on your desktop at this moment? Counting my toolbar? 29 icons and 10 folders.

8.  Let’s pretend you’re in the witness protection program. You’ve been asked to give yourself a new name. What’s your new identity? Walker Texas Ranger. (They would never suspect I’d use part of my name in the new name, right?)

9.  Shoes on or off inside your home? On. Shoes are a big part of my life.

10.  What’s the longest you’ve gone without saying a word, talking to anyone? That’s a tough one. I guess when I lived by myself and was on deadline that I might have gone a full 24 hours without talking to anyone. But I probably had 15 iChat windows open and sent a dozen text messages during the same period.

11.  What’s your favourite object in your home right now? And please share a photo of it. I love my home and there are too many favorite things in it to list. But each morning I wake up to the view of my closet, which makes me happy every single day. I guess if you aren’t having fun getting dressed then what’s the point really of getting out of bed in the morning. This is a photo of it taken by Justin Sullivan for an awesome interview with me over at LA, I’m Yours.

My 11 questions for 11 people are as follows:

1. What’s the strangest or most surprising thing on your desk right now? (You can take a photo if you want, unless it’s too embarrassing.)
2. What is your earliest memory?
3. How did you come to live in the city where you currently live?
4. What was the last meal you cooked for yourself?
5. Where do you fantasize about visiting?
6. When was the last time you drank too much?
7. Do you feel as if the way you currently earn money is your true calling?
8. What song do you sing to yourself when you need to psych yourself up?
9. How do you manage your to-do list(s)?
10. What new skill would you most like to learn in 2012?
11. What is the view out the nearest window? Take a photo, please.

And I’m tagging these 11 people: Steve Portigal, Marissa Gluck, Colleen Wainwright, Sonja Rasula, Jessi Arrington, Beth Walker, Jen Walker, Mike Nugent, Souris Hong-Poretta, Chris Pouy and Nathan Davidson (and if you don’t have a blog, yes you can answer on your Facebook page using “Notes” function that can be found on your page).

Happy 2012.

Last year on this day I posted my own version of a year-in-review with my 13 favorite stories of the year. (Why 13, everyone wanted to know? Was I superstitious? Unlucky? Honestly, it just worked out that way.) This year, I couldn’t help but do it again, but with a twist: I picked my favorites, but I’m also handing out specific awards in different categories (yes, giving prizes to myself—all in all, it was a pretty boring awards ceremony). So while you’re out this weekend drunk walking or choosing a parking spot or curing a hangover with a prairie oyster, please enjoy some of the best, worst, funniest, weirdest, most popular and least popular stories I wrote in 2011. Happy new year!

Most Fun to Research
Nike’s 23-Year Journey To Make McFly’s Shoes Real, Co.Design
When I got the assignment to cover the release party for Nike’s Air MAG shoes, inspired by the ones from Back to the Future, I think I traveled all the way to the Montalban Theater in a montage set to “Power of Love.” Here’s a franchise that was so beloved to me growing up—I even did a dance to the “Back in Time” song at the neighborhood talent show one year—and I got to attend this detail-perfect themed event to celebrate the films. But talking to Nike’s Tinker Hatfield unfolded another incredible story almost as unbelievable as time travel in a De Lorean, as Nike worked on the concepts for the original film and then spent the next two decades making the shoes a reality. AND—this was the kicker—all to benefit Michael J. Fox’s foundation to battle Parkinson’s disease. Now that’s the power of love. Here are some more photos from the party.

Least Fun to Research
How My iPhone Was Stolen on the Train, Gelatobaby
Um, yeah. But on the bright side, I imagine that I saved dozens of phones from similar “apple picking” incidents this holiday season. You’re welcome.

Best Anniversary Party
My LAX series of 10 stories celebrating 10 years in LA, Gelatobaby
If I had one piece of advice to writers—or any creatives for that fact—it’s to celebrate specific milestones in your own life. When I was on my vacation this summer (ah, my sweet, sweet vacation) I came up with the idea to somehow commemorate my ten years in LA, and by the time I was back home I had started writing the pieces. It was an assignment no one would have given me, and it gave me a fantastic reason to examine the place I lived and how it affected my work. I covered everything from weather to secret staircases but my very favorite piece is on how I gave up my car.

Favorite LA Thing to Write About
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year: Why We’re Pro-Carmageddon, GOOD
Besides the fact that I finally learned to spell “armageddon,” I had the absolute best time writing about the apocalyptic closing of the 405 freeway as a positive event for car-bound Angelenos. After I wrote this story I was asked to appear on the WYNC show The Takeaway, and—when people did, indeed stay off the streets for the weekend—I followed up with six more “-ageddons” I’d like to see.

Best Continuing Education
The Insider’s Guide to Art in Los Angeles, Details
The best kinds of stories are when you have to actually learn a whole bunch of stuff that you’ve always wanted to know, just to write the story. When I was assigned one of my first stories for Details on Pacific Standard Time, I was thrilled to jump in and try to make sense of this sprawling art-stravaganza about to descend upon LA. In the process, I got a seriously intense Los Angeles contemporary art education, thanks to some awesome interviews with the Getty’s Andrew Perchuk. This week I was on the KUSC show “Arts Alive” talking about my story and how PST has affected LA.

Best Per-Word Rate
GOOD Design is Growing: Announcing GOOD Ideas for Cities, GOOD
Not for the article itself, of course, but because I was writing about receiving an incredible $85,000 grant from ArtPlace for the GOOD Ideas for Cities program I co-founded three years ago. I can’t wait to take the event series to five cities, including my hometown of St. Louis, in 2012.

Best Stumbled-Upon Story
A Hidden Oasis Grows on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, GOOD
A perfect example of keeping your eyes open and your camera on, even when you’re out for a walk. I discovered this community garden on Hollywood Boulevard several years ago but it was only during a late-night, post-club visit that I realized it was a story just begging to be told. More on how I found it here, including photos I’ve taken of the garden throughout the years (before I even knew what it was). Street Journalism in action!

Best Stumbling
Enduring Spirit, Gelatobaby
Yes, I ran a marathon this year. Yes, I tweeted photos at every mile. Did I mention it rained the ENTIRE TIME? Did I mention that for the most part, I didn’t train AT ALL? Well, I hope you enjoy the story as I RISKED MY LIFE FOR IT.

Most Uplifting Subjects (I Believe the Children Are Our Future Award)
Middle School Students Tell LAUSD: No More Styrofoam!, GOOD
If you are ever feeling sorry for the state of the world, go visit the sixth graders at Thomas Starr King Middle School who not only got their school to stop using styrofoam trays at lunch, they raised money to buy reusable trays for every student who wanted one. After my story, the kids were featured on the local news, made dozens of videos, and worked with 826 LA to write about their experiences. Absolutely amazing.

Most Overwhelming Response
The Top 5 Things That Bother Me About This Headline, GOOD
When I pitched this little essay to GOOD for their Data Issue, it was mostly to vent about my own frustrations when writing “for the internet” compared to writing for print. But in the hands of guest editor Starlee Kine, it became a highly personal examination of my own transformation as a writer in the age of data—someone who, I realized, is almost addicted to page views and retweets. Ironically, the story was a traffic smash, and I’m still getting weekly emails and seeing it pop upon Twitter about it over six months later. Mostly, people thanking me for being honest about how hard it is to do what writers do.

Most Underwhelming Response
How Weeds Became a Marketing High For MIT’s Bike Wheel, Co.Design
After I noticed the Copenhagen Wheel in a recurring cameo role on Weeds, I jumped on this story, interviewing both the Wheel’s design team and the Weeds showrunner. I thought the incredible, slightly racy tale of how Weeds chose to include and work with the creators of this environmentally progressive bike concept would be a sure hit for cyclists and potheads everywhere. The story didn’t do that well, which I guess illustrates that data doesn’t always win. Or that potheads are an unreliable audience.

Most Beautiful Thing I Wrote About
An Almost Life-Sized Version of L.A. Made Entirely from Cardboard, Co.Design
Gosh, maybe one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, period.

Most Delicious Thing I Wrote About
Don’t Call it a Pop-Up: Felix Barron’s KTCHN 105, KCET Food
Best brunch in Los Angeles, with a unique experience that matches the food.

Best Service Journalism
The Best Way to See the Hollywood Sign, Gelatobaby
After a group of Beachwood Canyon residents decided they didn’t want tourists prowling their streets in search of the elusive Hollywood Sign, I wrote this story outlining several alternate routes that actually produce better views than if you’d parked in some snobby asshole’s driveway. A big part of what I hope to do with my writing is to help people navigate and understand LA better, and if I can do that at the expense of wealthy, closed-minded Angelenos, even better.

Proof that You Can Make Money Riding Buses
“Mass Transit”: A Dance Performance Inspired by Riding L.A.’s Buses, GOOD
What Happens When You Put a Coffee Table at a Bus Stop?, GOOD
Is LA’s Public Transit a Joke? This Comedian Sure Hopes So, GOOD
Take that, cars!

Most Hate Mail
Do You Double Space After Periods?, GOOD
I had no idea that taking a stand (along with many other writers) against double spacing after periods would net me the most emails I’ve ever received for a single story. The emails that I received also happened to contain the poorest grammar and spelling I’ve ever seen. And every email was dutifully double spaced, of course.

Happy new year!

While hiking on Christmas Day (IN THE SUNNY, 72° WEATHER) above Burbank we stumbled across this little tree all balled up for the holidays. We were so delighted to come across a festively dressed baby pine tucked into the canyon on the most perfect day possible. It added a Christmasy air to a day that, honestly, up until that point, felt more like mid-June. (BTW: Is there a name for this? Guerrilla Ornamenting?)

It reminded me more than a little of this Slim Aarons photo, which my friend Yosi just happened to post to Facebook the next day. I have never been anywhere for Christmas that wasn’t cold (or supposed to be cold) and I was a little nervous. But after spending this week in LA, I can’t help but feel a swelling of pride for the way we (meaning Angelenos) celebrate the holidays. Sitting in the sun, lounging by the pool, taking long hikes under ornament-blue skies. I didn’t miss the nipping at my nose.

More Christmas in LA.

For the last few years I’ve been making dough ornaments to decorate our tree and give out as gifts. (Last year, you may remember, I used a new Williams-Sonoma cookie cutter set to make a Star Wars themed-tree.) The recipe is easy, 1/2 cup salt for every cup of flour, then you add water slowly until it reaches the correct Play-Doh-like consistency. Roll out, cut out, and bake at 250°F for about an hour and a half to two hours. Don’t forget to put a hole in the top before you bake them.

When I started to paint the ornaments this year I realized that the shape looked eerily similar to a new piece of art we’d just hung up in our living room. So with apologies to Alexander Girard (whose beautiful new monograph is actually under our tree), I began painting and decorating the ornaments like his folk art suns, using sequins to add facial features.

If you need a last-minute gift (or a time-consuming activity to keep at-home kids entertained, or something for the elders to do until the cocktails kick in), these are the perfect pre-Christmas project. They only take a few hours to make, and have an adorably charming yet completely professional look to them. And they require no e-commerce transactions, no credit card numbers, and zero negotiations in a mall parking lot.

Now off to bake dozens of “real” cookies. Merry Christmas!

I love mail. And that’s why the holidays are so rad. People send real letters. A handful arrives every day, right on schedule. Seeing that thick row of cancelled stamps in the mailbox is the best Christmas gift a writer could ever get.

On the other hand, I hate email. Not categorically. I know that email is a useful tool that helps me do my job. But what I hate is all the other email. I hate the kind of email that doesn’t start with the line “Hi Alissa.” And I especially hate the email that starts with “Happy Holidays from Our Family to Yours.”

The feeling of ripping apart a smooth white envelope, and sliding my fingers into its cool depths as a card’s textures slowly reveal themselves is one of my greatest December joys. The experience of clicking on a “Season’s Greetings” subject line during this time of year makes me want to gouge my eyes out with broken Christmas lights. I don’t care if it’s a beautifully designed graphic that you and the elves spent hours slaving over in Photoshop. If it’s RGB, it means nothing to me.

You know how every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings? When that New Mail bell chimes in my inbox with your company’s holiday email, a little part of the writer inside of me dies.

I’m not saying everyone has to send cards. I don’t do it every year. But the problem with mass emails is that they’re more about the sender than the recipient. When you use the internet to quickly fire off your holiday missives, it makes you look bad. You’re transforming what should be a personal message about ME into an impersonal afterthought about YOU. Instead of wishing me happy holidays, you might as well write what I’m thinking as I’m reading it: “Hey, I’m opportunistically using the holidays as an excuse to promote my company. HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

Maybe my writerly tendencies have made me overly Grinchy when it comes to spamtastic holiday greetings. But since people often ask me how to make their personal brands and companies more memorable, I feel like I need to say this: If you truly, honestly want your clients and collaborators and every one on your freaking mailing list to feel appreciated, do not, I repeat, do not hit send. Ask them for their address. Mail them a card. (Better yet, make them a card.) Write a sentence on that card telling them how much you appreciate them. If you don’t have the time or the inclination to do this, then—I’m serious—don’t send anything at all.

(Someone just asked me about sending a personal note in email. I think that’s okay, and I would be happy to get a nice email at any time of year. But a card would be better.)

Besides, when you send an actual card, you get some serious brand equity. Opening an envelope takes at least 10 seconds. Reading a card can take up to two minutes. A good card gets placed on a fridge or mantle where it can garner hundreds of additional impressions if sent early enough in the season. A card makes good business sense. Whereas an email simply evaporates, disappearing as quickly as a melting snowflake, and just as easily forgotten.

More hints of holidays.

Should you stay at the Royalton Hotel in New York City, you will find my architectural walking guide, City Walks Architecture New York, right where it belongs. The Royalton must have read my blog in order to organize such visionary and apt product placement. How did they know that I wrote the book fueled almost entirely by tequila, vodka and whiskey?

Thanks to Stefan Bucher for snapping the photo, and for the signature wit that accompanied it. It gave me a great idea for a new kind of walking tour… more of  a stumbling tour, if you will.

Did I mention City Walks Architecture New York makes a GREAT stocking stuffer? With or without the Johnnie Walker chaser. Buy it here!

In the new issue of Vanity Fair you’ll find what I think is a pretty chilling essay by one of my journalism heroes, Kurt Andersen. I’ve been lucky enough to see him present previews of this essay twice, both at the AIGA conference in Phoenix, and as part of my USC Annenberg/Getty fellowship. Each time I heard his argument, I got more and more frightened for the future of our country. And now, reading the final essay, I’m more worried than ever.

Here’s what Kurt argues:

Since 1992, as the technological miracles and wonders have propagated and the political economy has transformed, the world has become radically and profoundly new. (And then there’s the miraculous drop in violent crime in the United States, by half.) Here is what’s odd: during these same 20 years, the appearance of the world (computers, TVs, telephones, and music players aside) has changed hardly at all, less than it did during any 20-year period for at least a century. The past is a foreign country, but the recent past—the 00s, the 90s, even a lot of the 80s—looks almost identical to the present. This is the First Great Paradox of Contemporary Cultural History.

He makes a great case for our “devolution” as it’s called, winding through examples in fashion, movies, music, design. The reason this scares me is because I see it as physical evidence that our country is no longer actively inventing and manufacturing new ideas. We’re creatively stagnant. But the first thing I thought about when I heard Kurt speak on this topic was the urban environment. I’d say the state of our cities is not only stuck in the 90s, it’s actually going backwards.

As Kurt says, think about it. Streetcars. Bicycles. Community gardens. Neo-Victorian new urbanist developments. All the “innovations” in urbanism feel like we’re really just reverting back to the way our ancestors lived a century ago.

Look what we’re doing in Los Angeles. Yes, we have an ambitious new transportation plan. But we’re simply replacing the trains and trolleys that we first installed a century ago. I know, these are likely safer and smarter modes of transit than their hundred-year-old counterparts. But what does it say about our culture—and I mean American culture—that we can’t invent some incredible new way of efficiently navigating the city, one that looks, acts and performs significantly better than what we came up with in 1901?

Across the country it’s the same story. We’re installing roundabouts instead of stoplights, painting bike lanes on our streets, creating car-free urban plazas. These are all great things. But they’re ideas from another era. Meanwhile, the infrastructure we do have is in major need of an upgrade. Bridges are still collapsing, roads are still riddled in potholes, and our buildings—even with every LEED-certified intention—are still largely the same stucco-clad, resource-sucking abominations we were erecting 20, 40, 60 years ago. Frank Gehry is still designing the same building he designed in 1997.

I’m not saying we should level our cities and start over. But we have to do something, fast. A recent windstorm in LA left half the city dark because we’re using the same type of above-ground power lines that were erected when electricity was first invented.

Please, tell me. Where are the brilliant new solutions for our cities?

Like Kurt’s argument, I will say there’s a caveat for technology used by cities, those improvements that we experience, say, on our iPhones. There’s definitely awesome stuff being produced by places like Code for America, See Click Fix, and Stamen that will certainly enable our cities to run better. One of the greatest recent innovations in transportation, I’d argue, is Getaround, a peer-to-peer car sharing service that lets you rent your vehicle to a neighbor. This could really change the way we use cars. But it’s not a solution. Isn’t the real challenge to replace the car completely with something better? Say what you will about a Segway. But I see that as one of the few steps (gyroscopic rolls?) forward in the last 20 years. Where’s my jet pack, dammit?

With the TED Prize (puzzlingly) going to “The City 2.0” instead of a person this year, I’d argue that Kurt’s essay makes a great blueprint for how to think about what that “2.0″ (a rather tired term in itself) actually means. What improvements can we make to the urban environment that don’t look/feel/act like they were made 20 years ago?

It’s a scary proposition that Kurt makes, but the issue is most pressing for our cities. Because if we need another 20 years to catch up there, we’ll be out of time.

Top image: Pavers at the new Expo Line stations (opening in 2012) give a history of the trains that used to run on the exact same right-of-way

If I had a manifesto, I think it would look something like this. Tips for life and living by the great Jonathan Adler, the designer of one of my favorite possessions. This manifesto was called out in this delightful article by Bennett Stein over at the DnA blog.

Now off to find something red and brown to wear tomorrow…