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.

And one of the best.

More sunsets from the studio.

Ah, Philadelphia. The birthplace of our nation, the home of self-evident truths, the city of Brotherly Love.

And Sisterly Love.

Philly is a city in transition, yet it still manages to nod to its history on every block.

Even the subway gets into the spirit of ’76.

Acts of goodwill towards men were apparent on every corner.

And the streets made me feel at home.

Everyone was so friendly in Philly. This guy at the Mütter Museum was a little too friendly.

Speaking of parasites, the food was great. We ate roasted pork sandwiches at DiNic’s.

And sipped autumn-colored cocktails at the delightful Supper.

But forget the cheesesteak. What you want to eat in Philly is Capogiro Gelato. Featured here: creamy mascarpone and an astounding Concord grape. I think our founding fathers would approve.

More Philly photos.

That’s the sound I heard as I was cruising along 4th Street yesterday, headed to speak about freelancing at the Upod Academy hosted by my friend David. As soon as I heard it, I knew what had happened, and I hopped off my bike at the next corner in time to hear the final gasps of air emitting from my tire. My initial response of OMG, a flat! turned quickly to fascination: Oooooh, a flat! After all, it was my first.

After some panicked fiddling, I decided I did not have the time, tools or intelligence to fix my busted tire at that moment, so I chained my bike up to the nearest street sign (which in Hancock Park, is really just part of someone’s extra big lawn) and headed out on foot so I could make it to my speaking engagement. It was a funny feeling: Even though I could have easily taken the bus to begin with, switching up modes like this mid-journey made me a bit disoriented. I needed to get to Venice as fast as I possibly could, and every step needed to be extremely efficient. I started walking south to Wilshire on a multimodal race to my destination—one that could only have been possible with the help of my iPhone.

View Flat day in a larger map

As I waited for the bus on Wilshire, for example, I realized I was only 1.3 miles from Venice Boulevard. I knew this because Nextrip, the awesome GPS-enabled app that I use to see when the next bus is coming, also shows the distance to nearby stations. I use Nextrip to keep tabs on when a bus is arriving, but I’d never used it this way: to help me find an alternate stop when one wait is too long. Instead of waiting the 38 minutes for the bus to come to take me to Venice Boulevard (the LA Triathlon was delaying north-south routes), I realized I could walk to a different stop on Venice in about 30 minutes and catch the 733 from there. Which I did—stumbling across a lovely succulent garden along the way—and arriving at my destination exactly one hour late.

On the way home, I bused back to my bike and walked it up to Melrose, where I loaded it onto the 10 bus. A few minutes later, after a not-at-all-unpleasant day of roundabout routes, I rolled my poor deflated bike into Orange 20. With the help of their friendly staff, I found the reason for my detour. I picked up a better patch kit and an extra tube for next time the street decides to send such a lovely gift my way.

At this point I was truly exhausted, but I needed to make one final stop. Across the street from Orange 20 is Scoops, where giant helpings of Kabocha squash and lemon hefeweizen gelato made the day’s adventures worth it. Next time I’ll be better prepared to fix my own flat myself, but if these episodes always end up like this—enjoying a nice walk on unexpected streets, learning distances between different parts of the city, rewarding myself with ice cream—I hope I blow my tire more often.

Update: Check this out! Reroute.it is an easy way to calculate your transportation choices. When mapping a distance, you can see how the various ways of getting there will impact your body, wallet and planet. Learn how many calories you’ll burn by walking, what a car will cost vs. a bike, and how much time it will take our of your schedule. Then you can make the decision best for you. I’ve already downloaded it and plan to write more about it soon. It’s created by Aaron Ogle and Talin Salway, with design by Pete Fecteau and I found it via Tim O’Reilly.

What might be my favorite warning of all time, captured just inside Kings Canyon National Park during our trip. Only a few weeks of summer are left, you know. It would be wise to stop and enjoy them. I hope your weekend brings you the same kind of signs— and that you’re smart enough to obey what they say.

Ice cream signs and more.

We spent last weekend in Tucson for the wedding of my brother, Luke Sky Walker (yes, I’m serious) to the lovely Jen Rak. Before you even ask the question, I will answer it for you. Yes, it was hot. On the day they got married, it was 107 degrees.

But it was fitting that the Jedi knight would choose to have the most important day of his life in a place that was similar both in climate and topography to his home planet, Tatooine.

The theme carried over to every element of Luke and Jen’s wedding, from the setting (the Tucson Botanical Gardens) to their wedding cake (prickly pear with cactus toppers, all made by Jen). And yes, he cut the cake using his lightsaber, of course.

The ceremony and reception were beautiful. Unfortunately, there were some unexpected guests at the wedding. I think this guy was related to Greedo, but I didn’t get a chance to ask him. Luckily we didn’t see any Sand People.

During our time in Tucson, we stayed at the Arizona Inn, a historic pink adobe resort that was built in 1930. The rambling buildings and wooden ladders reminded me more than a little of the Ewok Village.

Since it was so warm, we spent most of our time at the pool. Boy, did we encounter some strange creatures there. I swear, it was like the Mos Eisley Cantina!

But perhaps the best part about being at a wedding that was hotter than Jabba’s sail barge was the fact that there was free ice cream, every day, for everyone. I am totally not kidding. Book your rooms at the Arizona Inn today.

And congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Luke Sky Walker.

More photos from Tucson.

I am not a picky eater. I am very, very proud of that fact. It has become part of my personality—my brand, one could say—to eat and to enjoy eating pretty much everything on the planet (especially everything that’s frozen). This has always been a central part of who I am. As I grew up, the more people around me who protested that they “don’t eat” or “can’t eat” something, the more assertively I brandished my unqualified claim: “Dude, I eat everything.”

But then a few things happened.

In the last few years my seasonal allergies exploded. Each spring it felt like my brain had liquefied and was slowly dripping out through my nose. I started going to an acupuncturist who had me make several changes to my diet, two of which, she promised, would have the most immediate and profound impact on my congestion factor: cutting out any product made from cow’s milk, and avoiding spicy foods. Around the same time I read some books (ones you’ve probably read, too) which changed my behavior around the frequency and quality of the meat I consumed. Not cutting it out completely, just asking more questions about it, and eating much, much less of it.

My choice to embark upon the GOOD 30-day challenge and give up dairy in June was less about depriving myself of my signature sweet. I wanted to try to strictly follow my recommended diet and get serious (finally) about my health. But secretly, in a secondary challenge that was more about curiosity than diet, I wanted to see how hard it really was to live as a vegetarian. So I stopped eating meat for the month as well.

For the most part, the actual eating part was easy. I didn’t crave gelato or ice cream at all. I ate a lot of avocados and beans. I ate some fish. Yes, a few times I absent-mindedly popped cream cheese dip or a piece of bacon in my mouth, but for the most part I stuck to it the entire month. The hardest part, honestly, was taking my beloved Mexican food without cheese or sour cream. That hurt.

But it was worth it. Almost instantly, my allergies evaporated. Early June, which is usually torture on my sinuses, was free and clear. I am so not kidding about this. I felt great. I should have been bragging about it.

Yet I dreaded discussing my new diet.

If I was eating with people who knew me, I’d have to embark upon the whole story, which I found to be tedious and annoying (and disgusting, as I demonstrated to the table how dairy affected the production of phlegm). After spending a half hour dissecting my habits—Are you eating eggs? Does butter count?—the inquisition finally ended and people could talk about American Idol instead.

When dining out, I felt like the person who was bringing the table down. Side dishes and appetizers would have to be negotiated to accommodate my needs. One of the worst moments came at a restaurant where I requested my pasta without cheese. They brought the dish to the table with huge chunks of ricotta salata studded throughout the ziti. Reluctantly, I allowed it to return to the kitchen in exchange for a cheese-free replacement. They wasted the entire bowl just because of my restricted diet. I felt horrible.

I had become the picky eater.

About two weeks in, I was at my friend’s house for dinner where they’d spent all day marinating and smoking ribs. I tried testing the words in my head before I said them. I’m not eating meat right now.  No, thank you, I can really only eat this broccoli. But then I watched them as they proudly brought the food to the table. As much as I wanted to stick to my plan, I just couldn’t be that person that made the entire dinner table listen to my diet, my choices, my struggle. I ate the ribs.

To me, this was absolutely the lowest I could go, and not because I had blown my meat- free spree. It was because the social aspect of my experiment was proving to be the toughest. I was embarrassed that I could no longer wear my “I eat anything” badge. I was now an omnivore with an asterisk.

Then, halfway through the month, I was at the grocery store, and that’s where I saw them. Veggie Slices. I picked up their cheese-like forms, turning over the cool plastic squares in my hand. I was about to put them back down when I realized the irony of the situation. Even as I bragged that I was so unconditionally accepting of all foods, that I’d try anything, I actually still was a very picky eater in one sense: I always turned my nose up in disgust at any kind of fake meat or cheese.

Think about it. The whole act of eating—or, more accurately, not eating—has become the single most important way to define who we are. Think about the way the conversation inevitably turns whenever you sit down to chat with a few friends. What we do or do not put in our mouths is pretty much all we talk about. Even worse, analyzing the seemingly eclectic or haphazard choices of our friends—she’s a gluten-free freak who only eats meat on weekends; he’s a vegan teetotaler, but he smokes!—has become yet another way for us to become petty and judgmental. That’s what I was worried about when I gave up meat—that people would look at me differently.

Instead of feeling ostracized during this month, I realized I actually had an opportunity to expand my culinary horizons. I could move beyond my elitist view of vegan substitutes. I could go where no meat-eater would go. Yes, I, the carnivorous snob who could never understand why someone would want a simulacra “Philly cheesesteak,” dove into the world of soyrizo and pseudo mozzarella.

I had a veggie burrito that was so sublime, I really can’t see the need to order a carnitas burrito ever again. I dumped fake sausage into our bean chili for extra protein and it blended right in. I had faux fried chicken that I swear was so good, so chicken-y, so free of ligaments, that I’d choose that over any other chicken out there. And I discovered something I may have simply ignored before: Sorbets are often richer, denser, and more flavorful than ice creams.

Besides, I think that eating fake steak is much more daring than real steak. Because what the hell is that stuff, anyway?

And that’s just the thing. It wasn’t about not eating something. It was about choosing to eat something different. I really didn’t have to explain my choices to anyone. I just had to order, smile, and eat.

In a funny twist, after a month of depriving myself of certain foods, my diet now includes a whole range of new foods I previously had dismissed as not worthy of my omnivorous palate. After 30 days of exploring various non-dairy and non-meat choices that I never before would have touched—and, yes, substituting some of them in my “real life,” post-challenge—I can honestly say that I really do eat everything.

Oh, everything, that is, except Veggie Slices. They taste like wood-flavored Play-Doh. But I can only say that because I tried them.

There’s probably nothing stupider I could do this month.

As the days get longer, the nights get warmer, I will not be participating in one of the season’s greatest rituals. Not even on the very first official day of summer.

For the next month, I will not be eating any gelato. I will not be eating any ice cream. I will not be eating any froyo. I will not be eating any dairy of any kind, in fact, which is a real shame since a scoop of sour cream is as good as gelato in my book.

You’ll remember last month that employees at GOOD embarked upon a challenge to drive less, which wasn’t very challenging for me. As part of our latest challenge, GOOD staffers are going meatless for the month. Late last year, Keith and I stopped buying meat and/or serving it in our house, which limited us to eating it only when we went out (a great strategy, actually, for anyone trying to carve some calories from their diet). Again, eradicating the occasional meat-eaten-out from my plate wouldn’t be very difficult.

So I chose something even harder to banish from my diet. And here’s a video of me saying it, to prove it:

You may be wondering what I hope to learn from this experiment.  I wrote an essay at the beginning of this year about pledging to fly less to reduce my environmental impact. (I’m actually only allowing myself one round-trip flight per month, compared to the 23 trips I took last year.) When I posted it, my friend Greg Lindsay, author of the new book Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next pointed out that my passenger air miles were nothing compared to the footprint of my “gelato habit,” as he called it. And he’s right. A United Nations report from last year noted that “agriculture, particularly meat and dairy products, accounts for 70% of global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use and 19% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.” I feel like I know a lot about how meat can be raised sustainably, but I’m hoping that I can fill my gelato-less days with facts and information about where my dairy is coming from, how it’s produced, and if—if!—I might even come to love some dairy-free options.

Suffice it to say, this is going to be an extremely enlightening 30 days. Especially since I have just discovered that the LA Weekly has embarked upon its 30 Scoops in 30 Days project. I’ll need to figure out how to block them from my internet browser. And my Twitter feed. And from every bar, restaurant, store, newsstand, bus stop… oh, god.

In the meantime I have bigger issues to tackle. Like what to rename the blog for the next 30 days. GelatNObaby? Dairyfreebaby? DYINGINSIDEBABY?

See you on July 1. At Scoops.

Last Thursday was Bike to Work Day here in LA, which doesn’t mean much for us freelancers who have 20-foot commutes to our desks. So in order to participate in such an important day, I dutifully rode from my home office to the place where the real work gets done: a brewery. Not just any brewery, a brewery in a building with a JR piece on its exterior. And not just any building, either. See the lettering mid-shot, “John A. Roebling’s Sons Co.”? Yep, this is the wire works once owned by the sons of John A. Roebling, the engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge. Using Roebling’s revolutionary wire rope technique—which you may remember reading about in my City Walks Architecture: New York book—cables were spun for many bridges here. What better place to drink beer?

The event was one of several Bike From Work happy hours orchestrated by the awesome folks at the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. From the moment I got there, I knew this was the right event for me: The Ben & Jerry’s Truck, which had visited us at GOOD on its very first day out, was there dispensing free ice cream! It was as if they knew I’d be coming. Follow them this summer to see where else they’ll be.

The second incredible surprise was meeting my bike twin, owned by the awesome Jessica! The bike valets parked our bikes together all by themselves so they could talk about special Public bike things, while we were inside having a beer and talking about what it’s like riding around on such sweet wheels (we both agreed we’d made lots of friends). Such a huge thank you to LACBC for organizing the evening (lots more photos here), as well as an entire week of events. And thanks to Angel City in advance for being the place I’m going to go every weekend afternoon this summer.

While biking home from Bike From Work, the weather was absolutely perfect, the last of the sun was hitting the buildings of downtown, and I was feeling so good about spending time with other bike-nerds. (For more on these topics, check out this little interview with me about my first month of biking by Sarah Mirk at the Portland Mercury. Thanks, Sarah!)

I sailed through the 2nd Street tunnel, one of my favorite places to ride because I almost feel like I’m entering a wormhole that transports me to a different city at a different time—I leave behind the slick glass and steel towers of downtown and roll quietly into the charming disrepair of Historic Filipinotown, its paint-peeling siding and crumbly stucco glowing in the sunset.

And that’s where I got yelled at for riding too slow. At least, I think that’s what she was mad about. I believe the actual phrase was “What are you doing, you moron?”

One thing I’ve realized as I’ve been riding around this past month-and-a-half is that bikes actually have multiple speeds. Not like gears, silly (thank goodness I already figured that one out). I realized that I don’t always have to be in some kind of drag race with cars. I can really slow down and take in my surroundings. And I do.

I can go slow enough that I can even stop to experience little moments like this. I mean, would you take a look at this? There is so much greatness in this one photo. Plus: Free dirt!

For my final stop of the night, and because ice cream and beer were not enough, I went by a Pie Salon—yes, there is such a thing—baked up by the lovely Sarah Williams of Fruit + Flour. (Pie shown not actual size.)

It was held in the backyard of my neighbor Maren, who has a legitimate barn for hosting photo shoots, throwing parties, and watching a few dozen of her friends stuff themselves silly with pie. The evening was a fundraiser for 826LA (who I seem to write a lot about these days) and featured a student reading an incredible story from the book From the Couch to the Kitchen about cooking jambalaya with his family.

Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the ice cream, maybe it was the joy of cruising slowly through my city on two wheels, but after that, I was somehow talked into participating in a pie-eating contest. My strategy—to slurp the chocolate cream down like a milkshake before chomping the crust—failed miserably, and I spent most of the competition trying not to inadvertently snort a line of whipped cream. Maren, to the left of me, won. Which is fine, because it’s her house and all.

As you can probably guess, I didn’t get close to finishing my pie. Luckily, I had the perfect way to take the rest of it to-go.

Before I tell this story, you have to understand something about me. I love lovelovelovelove radio. You probably already know that, seeing as I work on one radio show and have appeared from time to time on another one. Radio is my single favorite medium, and it just gets to me in a way that other mediums don’t. Maybe it’s because these faceless voices are streaming into my earbuds while I’m doing some of my most favorite things—running in the hills or waiting for the bus or cranking out 1000 words on architecture. In a way, I feel like I share my most intimate moments with Warren Olney and Kurt Andersen and Ira Glass. So that’s probably why I’m especially enamored with these radio celebrities. Starstruck is probably a better word. Gaga might also work.

When I was writing for UnBeige, during the infant phase of my design writing career, Debbie Millman’s show Design Matters was a weekly dose of enamored starstruck gaga for me. She got all of design’s heavy hitters—just check the archive if you don’t believe me—to really open up about their work, and she did it in a way that was so natural, and so effortless, and so fun. Debbie’s voice soon became the featured commentator I invited along on all my runs and bus rides and writing marathons.

Debbie and I have since become good friends, but I haven’t ever been able to shake off the fact that she is indeed a radio celebrity. So last week, when I ducked into a studio just off West 21st Street I was feeling just a teensy bit enamored starstruck gaga. Even as it was happening, I still couldn’t really believe it. Debbie’s voice, that voice, that I’ve welcomed into my life on a regular basis for the past five years, was asking ME the questions.

Debbie, besides being one of the sweetest and most generous people I know, is the. best. interviewer. At a few points I felt like stopping the interview so I could jot down some notes on her technique. Debbie’s questions make you sound smarter (the key for any interviewer) but she also managed to dig deep, way deep, into corners of my career that I didn’t think anyone knew about, let alone cared about!

You guys, she’s the Terry Gross of the creative world.

Less than a week later, the show is live on Design Observer. You can listen to the entire interview here. Check out all the rest of the interviews she’s conducted this season. And be sure to tune in to the rest of the Design Matters series over at Design Observer Media. Thanks to Debbie and her awesome producer Curtis for such a great afternoon.