​Halloween in Hollywood turned out to be a mixture of what I expected and the unexpected. I expected to see lots of adults in full costume, celebrating as if they were kids! I expected there to be a diverse offering of parties that were promoted as the biggest, most exclusive, and having a celebrity guest. I didn’t expect to find a reasonably priced party to attend in the middle of Hollywood. I also didn’t expect to see thousands of people in the streets of West Hollywood. It was a learning experience, albeit a fun learning experience!
 
I didn’t see as many adults in costume as I expected but they were plenty. On our way to breakfast, a woman at our hotel was dressed like a character from Harry Potter. I’ve never seen a Harry Potter film so I can’t tell you which one. By night, there were plenty of folks un costume parading past the Capitol Records building to stand in long lines for the area’s hottest parties. It was so L.A! It wasn’t even 10:00 and the streets were packed!
 
I couldn’t tell who a real cop was or who was just wearing a costume. That’s what makes Halloween so much fun—I couldn’t figure out what was real and what was fake. My costume was a bigger hit than I expected. As I made my way through the streets, random strangers seemed intrigued by my oversized butterfly wings and glitter mask. My costume didn’t have a name, but it caught a lot of attention. 

​After getting haggled by a club promoter on the streets, we decided to take him up on his offer. $15 to get into The Study, a club decorated with shelves of books up to the ceiling. Me being a writer, I took it as a sign that this was where I belonged. Not to mention, the promoter ensured us we would have a good time and be able to smoke inside. I had long quit smoking, but a party where anything goes sounded fun!
 
We couldn’t beat $15 for entry, especially in Hollywood, and on Halloween! An expectation had been shattered. You don’t have to shovel out big dollars to have big fun in a big city! Don’t be fooled! After hanging out with strangers and making some new friends, we decided to hit West Hollywood. We expected the bars to be filled but we didn’t expect for the entire strip to be inundated with thousands of people.
 
West Hollywood was packed with people and it was almost impossible to get a drink. Almost! You know we made it happen! We didn’t make it home till nearly 5AM, after leaving West Hollywood, in what felt like a mission to escape! I would definitely recommend Hollywood for Halloween, if you’re anywhere in the area! Check out my vlog for video footage of Halloween in Hollywood. 

​Los Angeles is very close to the top of my list of favorite places. Beyond the physical landscape—mountains, hills, oceans, and palm trees, the energy is amazing. LA is filled with awesome, creative people, unafraid to be who there are and dream. Whenever I visit LA, I find out more about myself and the creative energy that I possess. You can find inspiration just by walking down the street.
 
That’s what happened one night while leaving the bar. We stumbled across an adult party with a Simpson’s theme. The party was letting out, but the wife of the lucky birthday boy let us parade through the rented downtown LA art gallery that she transformed into the city of Springfield for her beau.
 
It was quintessential LA that night. This woman had to have shoved out thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars on this party. Everyone was drunk and satisfied and they offered us some leftover treats, which looked just like the animated donuts and cakes you see on an episode of The Simpsons. The wife herself was dressed just like Marge Simpson! I got to thinking…what are some other cool themes for adult parties.  
 
I realized that whatever your theme is will be cool if you execute properly. That means bring your theme to life and make guests feel like they walked right into the theme. I had felt like I had walked right into Springfield. Check out my short vlog of the best birthday party I almost ever crashed!
​If your short on ideas of your own, check out Pinterest’s BEST ideas for an epic adult birthday party!

​Battle of the Burgers…Vegan Burgers to be exact!
 
I stopped eating beef a long time ago, long before going vegan. I was one of those people who believed that eating chicken and turkey instead of beef made me healthier. That’s what I had seen in so many news reports. It was the hardest sacrifice in life that I ever had to make. I loved burgers, and there was nothing, in my opinion, more satisfying than a good old burger and fries. I tried them all too--McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, Jack In The Box, Sonic, Whataburger, In-N-out, you name it. I tried them all, and loved them all. It was hard to go wrong with a burger.
 
When I went vegan, I decided to incorporate veggie burgers into my new vegan diet, hoping that I could find one that might pass for beef. I set out on a mission to find the best vegan veggie burger there is. Lucky for me, the search didn’t take long. On my third try, I found the best veggie burger on the planet-A burger that tastes just like BEEF.
 
My first stop was Red Robin on just my third day of veganism. I was only going here because I couldn’t think of any food that I wanted to eat that would also fit into my vegan diet. Shockingly, all of the trendy salad and green places that I visited were relying on a lot of chicken and dairy to make their products flavorful. I figured I would just eat a lot of Red Robin’s bottomless fries and settle for an edible fake burger. I will give the Red Robin veggie burger 3 stars, only because the best burger definitely deserves to have 4 stars in isolation.