MJ Direct

Wuh iwhh my teesh ball oub?

2005-12-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

The title is a loose transcription of my attempt to say aloud "What if my teeth fall out?" with my lips curled over my teeth, kinda like the elderly characters appear to be doing in The Simpsons.

See, Sunday night I dreamt that my teeth fell out. I know I've seen this in dream interpretation dictionaries before. But upon waking up 7am Monday morning--heart pounding and my tongue running over my molars and cuspids to confirm their solid, pearly presence--I couldn't remember what it signified. I did promise myself that I'd choose a local dentist soon so that I could schedule my overdue bi-annual checkup.

At the tail-end of morning rush hour I drove across the Bay Bridge (local traffic is NOTHING compared to even the downtimes of LA traffic) to the East Bay to meet up with my friends Calvin and Brant. We planned to drive up to Harbin Hot Springs for a day of "naturist" relaxation in the mineral baths. I parked in front of their house, we loaded up the car with bathrobes, towels and water bottles, and, Calvin at the wheel, we headed north.

While we listened to a CD of their scintillating grooves (they are in a talented local hip-hop band), I mentioned that I'd "had the craziest dream last night! Would you believe, my teeth fell out!"

Calvin glanced at me and said, "You know that's a really common dream, and it means that you're going through a change in your life. The teeth you lose symbolize part of yourself that you're shedding, to make room for personal growth in a different direction."

I thought of how traumatized I had felt in the dream, from discovering the vivid nasty rot marks on the teeth as they lay dead in my hand, to the feeling of hopelessness as I tried to stick my lower left bicuspid back into place in vain, to looking in the mirror with horror at the unsightly gaps in my trademark, sunshiny grin.

"That would make sense," I said. "After all, I just moved here. Maybe I'm leaving my Southern California self behind to make room for my Northern California self." Personal change doesn't seem so traumatic on the surface, but maybe my subconsious was dealing with it in a much different way than my optimistic, conscious self seemed to be doing?

Calvin and Brant, neither of them big fans of So-Cal (as is common around here), gave me some enthusiastic "Yeeeaah!"'s and that was that.

Yesterday I mentioned the dream to my friend Rick (also a talented musician, a singer-songwriter-guitarist), who had come over to have dinner and watch La Dolce Vita with me (I felt much more at home here after discovering the local artsy video rental store, Le Video). He lit up and said, "that's a classic Jungian dream!" He squinted his eyes, scratched his head, and finally told me that he couldn't remember exactly what it meant; "Something about a feeling of hopelessness."

I told him about Calvin's comments in the car on the way to Harbin, and my reflections on it, and he shrugged. "Look it up," he said.

So I did. Evidently, there has been a lot of attention given to tooth-dreams. Some interpretations are relatively pragmatic: teeth-falling-out dreams are the body's way of informing you that gum disease is creeping in (YIKES). Others are mystical and ominously portentious: your children will die (this according to Tractate Brachot of the Babylonion Talmud (whatever that is).

My favorite interpretations are those that delve into the psyche. For example, the online dream dictionary says that teeth falling out in my dream could indicate a feeling of powerlessness or sexual impotence (!), or perhaps the need to assert myself more, to have a higher regard for my own opinion. Hmmm... do I regard the opinions of others as more valid than my own? Could be. I'm not very opinionated, and maybe it's because I don't think my opinion is worth much in the grand scheme of things. So, to draw a conclusion under the auspices of this interpretation, my teeth fell out in my dream and therefore I need to be more opinionated. Yes! Beware the new, more opinionated MJ, blogging about Bush and Condie!

I couldn't find any Jungian interpretations right off, but the Jung-tinged people seem to agree that tooth-falling-out has to do with anxiety related to life changes. Pretty close to my friend Calvin's idea, I'd say.

Freud's ideas on teeth-loss dreams generally had to do with beginning a new stage of life (the general consensus thus far), fear of castration (sure, I think about this every day of my life! haha), fear of getting older or losing sexual attractiveness (never!) or guilt of masturbation (definitely does not apply here. I'm proud of my prowess in this department, thank you very much).

"Tooth dreams are open to many interpretations and have been handled successfully by very few of the modern dream interpreters," said dream interpreter Artemidorus in the 2nd Century AD. The Vedas and texts from 2000 years BC also mention tooth dreams. AND, years later, Freud, Jung, and all the modern dream people agree that dreams symbols all mean different things to different people. So I digress. But I will go see the dentist soon.

San Francisco!!!!

2005-12-01T13:11:00.000-08:00

Hello Blogland! Thank you guys so much for the sweet comments on my last post, wondering where I've been. Well, I'm here...

Recently I wrote a long-ish letter to a friend about what I've been up to here in my new home city, and he suggested that, since I've been too lazy to post a blog lately, I could use the letter as a blog post. I thought that was a fine idea! So, pretend I'm actually writing to you and here you go!
----------------------
11-27-2005

Hey you!

Yes indeed I'm still alive and definitely kicking. I haven't been posting any new blogs, though, well first because I just now got my computer set up and second of all... um, I guess I'm just lazy? Blogging just escalates in to one big time-sucker, you know? And I have new life to set up here!

After five weeks on the road, I finally got into SF about a couple weeks ago. It has been quite a wild time here so far, which is countrary to what I was hoping would be the case. I'm telling myself that it's a temporary, "hey, look, I'm in SF!" phase and that I'll settle into a more docile, domestic routine soon, because staying at parties until sun-up is something that I'd rather have as a fondly remembered, rarely relived part of my past--not a mainstay of my present reality. I do appreciate that everyone's friendly enough to welcome the new girl in town, though. That's cool.

This morning I collapsed into my own bed finally around 10:45am, knowing full well that my mom was coming over at noon to make Christmas cookies with me. Well, yes indeed the doorbell rang a little after 12, and I answered it in what must have been a pretty darn funny-looking state: day-old-eye-makeup, half-pj's/half-last-night's clothes, cracked voice, etc. Mom--in addition to my dad and sister Suzanne-- came on in, Dad with some take-home work he set up in a backroom and Mom/Suzanne toting grocery bags of ingredients into the kitchen. They were laughing at me, I know it!! Hehe.

I managed to rally a bit, thanks to strong instant coffee, go-team type motivational thoughts, and the always amazing combo of Christmas music and Christmas smells emanating from the kitchen. But I felt myself majorly fading by the time I got to the oatmeal chocolate chip dough. All the other cookies are made nicely, but that dough is still in the fridge waiting to be manifested.

So yeah, it has been really, really nice to be close to my family, and to be able to see my grandmother (who lives in the flat above me) every day, my parents/siblings a couple times a week. I have been pretty good about getting up and jogging every weekday morning, too, so that's a step in the right direction. At night during the week, if I don't go to bed nice and early, I go out and hear live music. So far I've been exploring what the area has in the way of bluegrass/country/singer-songwriter type stuff. Check out hickswithsticks.com -- you can see that there's actually a super cool scene here! And the bonus is that, because it's not hipster rock-n-roll, most of the shows are free (!!) and have been a great way of scoping obscure, quirky dives. The same core set tend to frequent the shows, and people come up to me and say things like, "hey weren't you at the ___ show last Tuesday?" I like that :-)

What else can I report? The weather has been unseasonably BEAUTIFUL, and being able to see the Golden Gate Brige/SF Bay clearly during my daily jog has been awesome!!!! Crab season officially started today, so I look forward to frequest trips down to Fisherman's Wharf for some fresh cracked dungeness. My favorite bookstore in the whole wide world, Green Apple Books, is right down the street, and I've already been there, let's see, five times in the thirteen days I've been in town. I got a book about making curtains, for my new bedrooom and perhaps even the living room. My unemployment checks start coming in next week, and I'm brainstorming ways I can convince the government that, yes I sure am looking for work! --so that the money will keep coming. It's bullshit, though. I'm not looking for work yet. I'm going to keep this amazing pace of life as long as I can!

In a couple weeks (Dec 9-12) I'm going to LA to pick up my easel and some paintings I've started (I left them at a friend's place during my trip, and he was in China when I came back through so I haven't been able to paint). So then I'll be actively building my portfolio, and a Web site, I hope, will follow soon thereafter. Eventually I'll be looking for part-time work too, probably some sort of contract administration, so that I can pay the bills when unemployment gets old. I'm sure portrait painting won't be lucrative, at least for the first few years, though if I'm lucky I'll be able to do it for a living eventually.

So there's the scoop! Have a great night!

MJ

On the road

2005-10-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

Greetings from my friend's extended stay hotel in Taunton, a small town just outside of Boston, MA!

It's been a fabulous trip so far. The leaves are changing here out East, brilliant reds and oranges and yellows nestled amidst the pervasive dark greens, creating very desirable driving conditions in spite of the gloomy, drizzly weather.

Of note so far:

- Before I left I had a chat with Boat Boy about what he expects from me. He felt put on the spot but gave me a dignified response just the same. Basically, he informed me that I am his rebound from a recent, relatively long-term relationship. Ouch, but I'm over it. I'm just glad to have opened that particular line of communication so that no one gets hurt due to not being on the same page. We still talk a few times a week, but I've put the guards up. Keeping it even below "fling" status.

- In Boulder, CO I crashed with the guy to whom I lost my virginity over six years ago during an impromptu backpacking trip in the Smoky Mountains. He cooked me a mean Italian dinner (stuffed chicken parmesan in a petite syrah reduction and mushroomed fetuccini alfredo). I helped out by cutting mushrooms, grating the Reggiano, and stirring the Alfredo sauce until it was time to pour it.

- In Armada, MI, a small town just outside of Romeo, a slightly less small but still small town outside of Detroit, I went on a haunted hayride with my old roommate Bob, five of his younger siblings and one of his brothers' girlfriends. That was so fun! Half the monsters had really scary skeleton masks and chainsaws, and mostly they ran around the wagon shouting "You're all gonna DIIIIIEE!" Evidently they didn't divvy up the "scary phrase" allotments prior to going on duty.

- In Syracuse, NY I stayed at a hostel for $21. The curfew was 10pm and I had to be out of there by 9am. Ha! Have you ever heard of such an uptight HOSTEL?? There went my night out in Syracuse! It was probably a good thing, though, because I've caught a bit of a cold and have been trying to sleep more, especially after driving through the night the first couple of days. Anyway, I ate a pot cookie that I got for my birthday back in June (yeah, I know, I save my drug use for strange occasions) and zoned out to some music, then called my friend who gave it to me and had a stoned conversation that I don't remember at the moment.

- I was absolutely charmed by the Normal Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge (the classic town of "Norman Rockwell Christmas" fame). As an aspiring portrait artist, I'm very inspired by Rockwell's ability to capture personalities and moods, even going so far as to tell a complete story with a single image.

That was yesterday. Today after my morning jog and shower I'm going to don my black turtleneck and tweed, drive into Boston, and sit in coffee shops with Ivy Leaguers and write postcards. I've got a scholarly book with me -- The History of God by Karen Armstrong: maybe I'll take that, too, so I can fit in with the high-fallutin' literati.

The next couple weeks are up in the air, as far as scheduling. I'm staying flexible. It's great to be able to have a trip like this.

I hope you're all doing well.

Lapsus Linguae

2005-09-28T14:06:00.000-07:00

I've been unbelievably focused on moving lately. Blogging has barely been on my radar. Sorry for the apparent absence, people, but it's only going to get worse. Monday I embark on a roadtrip across the country, and instead of returning to Los Angeles, I will be returning to San Francisco, my new home! I'll probably finish the trip sometime in late October or early November. Exciting times await. Meanwhile, life is hectic. The cleaning and organizing has been sucky as hell, but the good part is about to start.... yeah!

For the time being, I'll tell you a quick story from college that came to mind while in the throes of recent exhaustion.

It was my freshman year at the University of Michigan. I was finding my own identity. One huge discovery was that I could use great big words around people without coming across as pretentious. I had gone to high school in Kentucky, where being "down home" is all the rage, and hence the employment of a rather basic lexicon (including regional slang) often is necessary for sociability in most circles.

Not that I was popular in high school--indeed I was an über nerd (I managed to get the Vice Presidency of the Student Council--but only because my first name is a popular drug pseudonym and I capitalized on that convenient little blessing in my campaign)--but I think I tended to frown on using the really great, big, rich words unless writing an English paper. I was already over six feet tall and a pretty serious athlete, so there was no need to be more intimidating than I already was.

At college, especially in the honors program, there was plenty of encouragement to go ahead and act intelligent. The more supercilious among us were even hero figures in a weird way. So I went ahead and experimented with using big words in daily speech. It wasn't really a conscious effort, but hindsight is always 20-20 when it comes to periods of personal change. And not only was it not entirely conscious, but it wasn't always successful.

It was right around winter midterms. I had been severely sleep-deprived--I'd just topped off midterm stress by taking on an internship at the local public television station. Earlier that day I had gone into the station for training on the Avid edit bays, and I actually fell asleep as I was being trained! With one-on-one training! That was embarrassing.

I felt that there must have been something wrong with me, for throughout high school I'd pulled regular all-nighters (being a twice-a-day swimmer with a hefty courseload was great preparation for the juggernaut of study required in college) and somehow always managed to stay awake during interpersonal conversations.

I met a few hall-mates for lunch in the dorm cafeteria, as usual. We went through line, sat down, etc. Intending to tell my lunch friends about the embarrassment of having fallen asleep during my training session at the TV station, I looked up from my lunch and opened with,

"So I think I might be a necrophiliac."

I meant "narcoleptic" but didn't realize my mistake until a good five seconds into the alarmed silence that ensued.

Somehow my friendship with those people survives today.

I feel pretty...

2005-09-19T15:54:00.000-07:00

The fling, or "Boat Boy" as he is affectionately known among my circle of friends due to his residence aboard his yacht, has become something very, very interesting. We have had an amazing time together, and I have been reminded what it is like to feel inspired and beautiful in the eyes of an attentive, caring man. Who knows how long it's going to last, but I sure am enjoying what we've got at the moment.

These days it's utterly uncool to be a woman who needs a principal man in her life in order to feel worthy. A woman must, in order to capture the respect of her peers, be unshakeably self-confident. Woman as Macchiavellian(-ienne) heroine--self-sufficient, sexually confident and even blasé, free from "attachment issues," pretty much masculinized in all respects except appearance, where she must remain as feminine as possible--is the neurotic examplar of modern society's ideal female (at least in the societies I have had the occasion to voyeurize).

However, I'll be damned if the process of falling in love--and the accompanying feeling of beauty--doesn't lift a woman above any self-empowered heights achieved by modern, self-confident sensibilities. I'm not talking about flying high in the Orgasm(s) bestowed by a true lover, either. While fantasmagoric, the feeling of New Love's beauty is more than sexual.

For example: looking in the mirror becomes a pleasurable experience, above vanity. Even if he's not in the room with her, a woman falling in love sees her reflection through her man's eyes as well as her own. There's no checking of the hair, no self-conscious touching of blemishes, no sucking in of the gut. New Love is all-forgiving and frames truth as beauty, just as classical portraiture captures a mundane moment such as a woman looking into a mirror, memorializing it as a timeless, treasured occurrence.

I will even venture to say that the woman who realizes her need (yes, need) for a principal man in her life is a very fortunate woman indeed. She realizes that the beauty of love can transcend simple self-confidence, no matter how vehemently the self-help gurus preach "loving yourself" as paramount. She will not take New Love for granted as a simple ego-stroke such as those that come about with overly earnest one-night-stands or gushing suitors. She will not judge herself for feeling a warm need for the object of her desire.

She will smile rather than grimace as she succumbs to the beathtaking reality shift that can ensue from the wholeness experienced in union with a lover. Self-love may be the greatest (and, for some, most difficult) single love indeed, but a budding romance reminds even the most self-confident woman that love is ever so much more majestic when it's blissfully shared.

I'm sure something similar goes for men.

Now, I realize that every single person who reads this blog is going to snicker, but I don't care. These lyrics sum up my point better (definitely more succinctly) than I tried to do.

People
Barbra Streisand (yeah, that's right, Barbra Streisand)

People
People who need people
are the luckiest people in the world.

We're children, needing other children,
and yet letting a grown-up pride
hide all the need inside--
acting more like children than children.

Lovers are very special people--
they're the luckiest people in the world.
With one person, one very special person,
a feeling deep in your soul
says you were half now you're whole.
No more hunger and thirst--
But first be a person who needs people.

People who need people
are the luckiest people in the world
With one person, one very special person,
No more hunger and thirst--
But first be a person who needs people.

People who need people
Are the luckiest people in the world...

Bent. Slightly.

2005-09-13T01:09:00.000-07:00

For all intents and purposes, I'm a straight woman.

However, as with most straight women, I have an inner lesbian. Like a frisky pocket pet, she pokes her little head out when duly enticed. Enticements include alcohol, sexy songs, and black and white images of Gabrielle Reese flexing in the buff, dappled with sand and seawater. And apparently chick-rock (with a little help from alcohol) brings her out as well.

My friend Owen gave me the hot tip that Sahara Hotnights were playing a free show at Spaceland in Silver Lake yesterday evening. Currently I'm checking off a mental list of "things to do before I leave LA," and seeing a show at Spaceland was on the list. So, especially since I love Sahara Hotnights, I made it a point to go with him.

In spite of the crowd we scored a table in the sweet spot of the club -- outside the eardrum-blast range of the speakers but in full, close-up view of the stage. We shot the shit awhile, watched the crowd (remarkably diverse for having assembled in a hipster mecca) and ordered Belvedere vodka-tinis. The martinis arrived, we carefully clinked the edges of our glasses together with brief eye contact for the sake of decorum (martini glasses are very tippy, you know -- gotta watch it when you cheers), and commenced sipping our clear, crisp, two-olive-garnished elixirs of vorpal alcoholic goodness.

Sahara Hotnights came out and, with a head-bang each and a solid slam! on the drum kit they instantly bossed the vibe. Owen and I stood up to watch and sort of dance around a little to the music.

I've never seen Sahara Hotnights live before. Man oh man -- they ROCKED. These four kickass little musician chicks had an un-fucking-stoppable stage presence. I was surprised at how girl-next-store the lead singer was (see picture). She even had her hair pulled back into one of those makeshift bun-ponytails that we girls wear to the grocery store when we don't have the time/energy to fool with our hair. But what a confident performer she was. Whooooo-ee.

By about the fourth song or so, I had gotten my drink down to just above the top olive, and the alcohol-induced lightness had begun to set in behind my brow. I took sharp notice of how a slick of perspiration had begun to shine on the lead singer's forehead. That gleam transfixed me.

One more sip, and it became mightily apparent that the entire exposed part of her upper body (she was wearing a black tank top) was slithy with a dew of sweat. I imagined licking it off of her, tasting its saltiness and feeling the peach-like firmness of the skin beneath it. I looked around me. The dominantly male audience seemed to be similarly entranced as well. It helped that she was showing no signs of slowing as she bounced rhythmically around the invisible axis that held her mouth close to the microphone, all while jerking her hands and fingers impressively against the strings of her guitar.

The top olive was vaguely breaking the surface of my drink. Another pull and it was exposed completely. The lead singer's eye makeup had started to run a little, and the sexiness of the sight made my slight dancing-in-place movements concentrate, almost inadvertently, into my hips. I stood there, butt bopping at each beat and seduced by the bleary combination of sweat and smeared eyeliner.

Suffice to say that it got worse as the rest of my drink disappeared into my burning belly.

When the show was over, Owen informed me that he had to be somewhere early in the morning and couldn't stick around. I thought back to when I had been in this keyed-up state on previous occasions, complete with visions of myself leering at the objects of my frenzied distorted lust and trying to chat them up, probably freaking them out to some extent, and I decided that it was time for me to go as well. Might as well not creep out Sahara Hotnights.

New way to show the love

2005-09-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to Destination: Hawaii at the Hollywood Bowl. Super show: Hawaiian pop stars and professional hula dancers regaled us with hybrid modern/traditional performances. The crowd was so big it was like watching a bonfire-less luau on TV, but the crowd and vibe were great.

****Side note: My new goal, inspired by the beautiful hula dancers, is to grow my hair down to my butt.****

My favorite single moment of the evening took place during the encore performance of a band-backed trio called Na Leo. They played a rather slow song, and made a comment that they appreciated the smattering of people in the audience who were waving around their open cell phones, screens aglow, like lighters. My date and I looked around, saw what they were talking about, and giggled.

After the band's comment, a good 75% of the audience took out their mobile phones/wireless devices, opened them (or turned them on), and waved them in the air in time with the music. We had pretty good seats, so when we turned around we got a fantastic view of what was happening. The nighttime amphitheatre, vast and full with a capacity crowd packed together up the hillside, was speckled with neon green, orange, and white mini-squares of light, swaying individually along with the music. It was a sight to behold.

I thought, "Only in L.A.!" However, I imagine this must happen elsewhere, too -- it seems that everyone owns mobile phones/wireless devices these days. Has anyone else witnessed this phenomenon?

The latest excitement

2005-09-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

Whenever new people comment on my blog I, like most every other blogger I'm sure, click on their names and check out their profiles/blogs. Today I received a comment on yesterday's post from Alobar's Adventure.

Following his link, I discovered that Alobar (if that's his name) is a fellow Tom Robbins fan! Not only that, but he has a link on his blog to a TR fan site. Sweet. So I checked it out.

Oh my goodness. Evidently I have been unwittingly oblivious to some very big news:

Tom Robbins's new book came out on August 30!!!!!!!!!!

Wild Ducks Flying Backwards:The Short Writings of Tom Robbins is the title.

But not only that, but he's doing a tour. And not only is he doing a tour, but he's going to be in San Francisco. And not only is he going to be in San Francisco, but he's going to be in San Francisco the very weekend that I will be up in that city unloading a U-Haul into my new apartment!

His choice of bookstore sponsor (Booksmith on Haight) wouldn't have been my personal first (everyone knows I'm a Green Apple girl), but I'm sure it's going to be an amazing occasion. In a queer stroke of irony they are holding the actual event at the All Saints Church.

I wonder how he'll react when, as he accepts my book to bestow it with the holy skin oils of his brilliant hands--and an inscription/signature to boot--in my excitement I hurl my entire six-foot-three-inch Amazonian mass of woman across the repurposed church banquet table, tear off his shirt and start tonguing his bellybutton with fiery fury. I think he'll be cool with it, actually.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

I close with a quote from Still Life With Woodpecker:

Who knows how to make love stay?
Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.
Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.
Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.

It was tough to choose that quote. TR is a notably quotable guy.

This sort of thing happens on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis

2005-09-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

The occasional walk across the street to Starbucks (or, when I'm feeling especially decadent, the four-block walk to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf) is a welcome respite from the office environment.

Today, the weather is bright and wonderful. I emerge from the ground floor glass doors of the Tower and squint involuntarily through my literally rose-colored sunglasses (see crappy cell-phone picture) at the harsh sunlight that soaks the external world sky to ground. Strolling out of the shadow of the Tower I welcome the instant, warm permeation of my own skin, and thus permeated I make my contented way on over to Starbucks.

Starbucks always is air-conditioned a little too strongly for my taste. Maybe such climate control is meant to encourage people to drink more of the delicious warm beverages served there.

There's no line. Yay!

Starbucks cashier (petite, long-haired, mildly-accented, cheerful Asian woman in her early thirties): "What can I get for you?"

Me: "Double tall soy latte, please." I was out late last night and need some serious caffeination.

Her (unflappably cheerful): "Ok... [tap tap tap] ... that will be $3.00 even, please."

I find my wallet in my purse and take out some money.

Her (in her cheerful Asian accent): "You're so tall!!" She mimes intimidation, cowering back, squatting a little and looking somewhere above me with her hands held up in a 'yikes! Godzirra!' sort of pose.

Me: "Yeeap!" I smile and hand her a fin.*

Her: "I feel like a baby!"

Me: "Oh... Hmmmm [with a smile]!" I don't even bother with the amenable ha-ha laughter. I'm not in the mood. Post-double tall soy latte, maybe, but right now it's just, smile and acknowledge the friendly attempt at pleasantries. She was cute and nice.

There's a pause as she rummages around in the cash register for my change.

Her: [Hands me back my change] A worried look flashes across her face though her smile broadens as she says, "It's good, though!"

Me: [smile, nod] "Thanks!"

That happens a lot. People comment on my height, then all of a sudden realize that I might be self-conscious about it and assure me that it's an asset. On the one hand such behavior reaffirms my humanistic platform of beliefs about the world, but on the other sometimes I wish people wouldn't walk on eggshells so damn much.

One of the wisest things my ex-roommate Bob said to me was, "Offense is taken, not given."

Yeah! I say once you've put something out there, go with it! Another bit of wisdom that I think I remember from Kaelan's old blog is something along the lines of, "Live out loud, and fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

And there you go.

*"Fin" is an early Twentieth Century word for a $5 bill. I'm trying to bring this term, as well as "sawbuck"--a $10 bill, with a $20 being a "double sawbuck"--back into the mainstream. Help me out!

"Sexy Q&A" III

2005-09-06T15:09:00.000-07:00

Two more of you asked for interviews, and I, being a giving soul and having that much fun making up these damn questions, figured I'd put my shoulder to the drawing (key)board and hook ya up. Have fun, and don't forget to post the rules on your blogs along with your answers!

Doug
1) Describe the best way to get it on in a VW bug (non-convertible).

2) You're a male character in a video game that has secret-code hidden sex (like Grand Theft Auto) that features you! In an ideal, fantasy world, what videogame would this be, what character are you, and which character would you choose as your virtual bangin' partner? Be sure to include a link to her photo!

3) Are you a member of the mile-high club? If not, do you aspire to be?

4) If you headed down to a remote beach at night with your wife for a little spontaneous frisky stuff, and you both forgot to bring a blanket, would you still go for it?

5) Your boss brings a woman (his wife or girlfriend, if he has one; if not, then a woman friend you've never seen before) into his office and shuts the door. Soon you hear a startling array of sounds that indicates that they are screwing animalistically behind that door. It lasts not quite a minute. A minute or two later she walks out, a huffy expression on her face. What's your bosses new nickname behind his back? Is there anyone in your office who would bring it up to him and use the caught-having-sex-at-work card for blackmail?

Ultra Toast Mosha God
1) What's your favorite song to fuck to? I'm not talking about "making love" here. No Bryan Adams or PM Dawn shit will apply. I'm talking about straight up, down and dirty, fucking. That's right. And please explain why that song does it for you.

2) Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton wore sealed vials of one another's blood on chains around their respective necks. Inspired, you present your girlfriend with a sealed vial on a chain, full of a meaningful substance, for her to wear around her neck. What's it filled with?

3) Make up new slang words/terms (or re-purpose existing, non-sexual words/terms) for: sexual intercourse; female sexual organ(s) of your choice; male sexual organ(s) of your choice; a fervent toe-sucking fetish

4) If you could relive a cinematic sex scene (non-porno-film based), what would it be?

5) You live next door to a hot, relatively hip woman in her early 30's. One evening you're pacing around inside your abode and, walking by the window, you happen to notice that she is in her bedroom starting to change clothes and has left the curtains open. She is looking right at you. You jump back and peek around the edge of the window. She has adopted a sultry, I'm-stripping-for-you look and has slowed the pace of her disrobing. She knows you're watching, and she likes it. What do you do? Do you watch? Do you make it known that you're watching? Do you get anyone else to come watch with you? Would you disrobe too, if bidden? Etc. etc.

Nature's pre-9/11 memos

2005-09-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

Read this. It's from the October 2004 issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/

Answers to BT3's Sexy Q's

2005-09-02T01:27:00.000-07:00

It's an epidemic on my blog! The Sexy Q&A threatens to take over as a format!

I couldn't resist the chance to be interviewed by the bold BT3. Here are his questions and my answers to them.

1. A handsome B-grade actor in the declining phase of his career recites a few lines from one of his movies in an attempt to strike a horizontal pose with you later. You've seen the movie and recognise the lines. What do you say and do initially and upon his second wave of attack?

Intially: Not only do I recognize the lines, but they are from the classic scene that I recall from the movie so I clap my hands in delight! I get into character as his scene counterpart and, though I don't actually remember a single word from the scene myself, I improvise the dialogue best I can. When I fail miserably, I gradually morph into a different charater---a sort of shrill-voiced fairy godmother---and finish the scene that way, reminding him when all is said and done to be home before midnight or his Dodge Spyder will turn into a pumpkin. He takes this as a challenge.

Second wave: Famous people hitting on me with hopes of casual sex make me feel defensive of my virtue. However, my ego is being stroked full on, so I enjoy the attention--but stave off any serious advances. Since he's a declining B-Actor, he's probably getting progressively drunker as time wears on, so eventually I'll grow a little bored of the whole, bed-directed charade. After all, if I'm going to "strike a horizontal pose" without significant meaning attached to the act, I will initiate and set the terms (otherwise it's just free prostitution). And I can't see myself initiating with a desperate has-been looking to cash in sexually on his remaining notoriety.

As his insistance grows, I will introduce the B-Lister to an able-looking woman nearby (afterall, I don't want him to give up hope completely on nookie for the night) and flee the scene.

2. You're in the act of bobbing your head expertly on the man/woman of your choice when, unexpectedly, s/he breaks wind. What comes next?
Realizing that I just stumbled inadvertently into the realm of "classic, memorable moments," I stop, probably giggle a little before being able to stop myself, look my lucky receiver in the eye, say, "Oh, you're in for it now," then resume with even more zeal than before. Any embarrassment on their part will fade in 7 seconds.

Now, if it was done on purpose, depending on how well I knew the person, I'd probably stop, go to the kitchen, make myself a sandwich, help myself to the finest bottle of wine in sight, get dressed (if applicable), and leave. That's just disrespectful.

3. A very saucy young lady makes your acquaintance by offering you a bouquet of short-stemmed roses. She compliments you on several counts and invites you to spend the week with her in Tuscany at no expence. Your thoughts, if you will.
I'd like to say that I'm not suspicious, but, in fact, I'm very suspicious of such things. The above scenario has presented itself to me in the form of similar offers by members of the opposite sex. But somehow, jumping into an airplane with a stranger, man or woman, seems like not such a good idea in this day and age. I'd be paranoid that the jet would change course from the Tuscan destination and haul me off into an African jungle for a surprise initiation into the burgeoning white-sex-slave trade there.

I'm sure women are hired recruiters as well as men. And the drive not to give King Ziziwoowoo hummers at gunpoint for the rest of my days is strong in me--stronger than my thirst for experimental, global lesbian hedonism--so I'm not going to concern myself too much with overcoming my paranoia with regards to this particular realm.

Now, if said young lady were to send me pre-paid travel documents whose legitimacy I could obsess over, and I could give ample warning to a few friends in Italy that I'd be at such and such an address on such and such a day, then I would be 100% game to see what she had in mind.

4. A guy who is six inches shorter than you tells you out of the blue that he thinks you've got a great pair of 'fun bags.' He's very sure of himself, persistent and reasonably equipped to handle himself. He's also reasonably equipped. Whatcha gonna do?
Oh that? Being a 6'3" resident of one of the biggest, cheesiest pickup cities in the world, chock full of shorties who are confident for a living, I encounter such pugnacious little bastards on a regular basis. One who would comment about my "fun bags" is probably good for at least an hour or two of dance-monkey-dance entertainment at his own expense (indeed, he probably has more entertainingly audacious platitudes up that smarmy little sleeve), and rest assured, no matter how tall or short/rich or poor/equipped or unequipped he is, the guy that comments on MJ's "fun bags" will be eaten alive. He may not know what hit him, either, poor sap.

5. Man, woman, inanimate object or beast: Who or what is your ideal sexual partner and why?
In light of having had experiences with women and inanimate objects (unless you count my hulking ex, I've never tried beast and never want to), I declare with utmost certaintly that I prefer a man as a sexual partner. Especially one with whom I'm in love! The tenderness that springs forth and permeates such a physical union---as ancient in nature and intent as life itself--- inevitably is unparallelled by any notions of straight up fun experimentation and/or sexual gratification that drive experiences with women and toys.

Hoodoo circle

2005-09-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

Saturday I hiked up Half Dome in Yosemite (the easy way -- not the face).

What a fantastic, amazing, super duper, grueling, challenging, dangerous, self-affirming, fucking incredible day that was. Wow.

At the top of Half Dome, there's a circle made of small rock piles that look like larger versions of the rock piles seen in The Blair Witch Project. Yes, I know it's not cool to mention The Blair Witch Project, but I can't help it if that movie scared the shit out of me.

Such rock piles, which also serve as unobtrusive way-markers on ambiguous or overgrown portions of hiking trails, are called hoodoos.

There's an entire circle of hoodoos atop Half Dome that I'm positive some sort of neo-Druid/neo-Wiccan cult created by the light of a full moon to monitor the synchronous vibrations of the dark and light spirit worlds as marked by the passing of the Dog Star directly over the Key Hoodoos as viewed from the High Priestess seat. Yes---there was a little granite seat on one side, facing north: without question situated for the neo-Druid/neo-Wiccan High Priestess.*

The whole thing freaked me out. The word "hoodoo" doesn't rhyme with "voodoo" by accident, you know.

I took a zillion pictures of the hoodoo circle, including this one, where I am seated, High-Priestess-gun, making light of the situation:

You also can sort of see how I manage to ride in small cars with my height. I feel a special kinship to the grasshopper.

"Thanks" to a passing hiker couple, for humoring me by taking that picture. I must have inspired them to do something goofy with the hoodoo circle as well, for they had me take a picture of them crouching purposefully next to it, pretending they had worked all day on its construction. Spread the goofy, I always say! Or something like that.

In keeping with the MJ-standing-on-a-rock theme of past picture entries, I also post the following:

"I welcome you to the top of Half Dome! See the view? See it? See it?"

I wanted to get a picture with my legs dangling over the top of the face, but when I presented the idea to my father, whom I asked to take the picture, all of a sudden our relationship rewound twenty years and he was the big authoritarian daddy and I was the obstinate seven year old girl: he absolutely forbade me to go anywhere close to the edge. I whined and whined, but he firmly held that I was not, under any circumstance, to tempt fate against that oh-so-beautiful but big bad wide open vista with the gnarly fall to no uncertain death.

Yeeeeesss, Daaaaad. . . . . ...Sheesh.**

*I'm actually not this ignorant about Druids and Wiccans. I think they are two very interesting spiritual areas of study, and let it be known that this slapdash, symbologically clichéed mélange is strict silliness and not meant to offend adherents to ancient Druid/Wiccan tenets in any way. Duh.
**Meant to be ironic. Which I have to clarify or I'll get the preachy comments.

New little friend

2005-08-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday around 7:15pm I was sitting on a bench at the Grove (adjacent to the permanent Farmer's Market at 3rd and Fairfax) in the designated area where I was to meet my friend Henry, with whom I was planning to get a burger at Johnny Rockets then see the 8:10pm showing of The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Henry was late (he was supposed to meet me at 7) and hadn't called, so I was sitting there slightly miffed but far from having an unpleasant time.

Combine the shopping areas of Disneyland and Vegas, add your favorite neighborhood mall, bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer until thickened: presto, you've got The Grove. It's a great place to fade into the background and feel the happy little vibe going on. There's even a choreographed dancing fountain that swirls around to the background music, like a mini Bellagio pool setup.

So I was sitting there, peering at the world through my (literally) rose-colored sunglasses, and I saw this adorable little mother-daughter duo. The little girl must have been barely a year-and-a-half, and was bobbing along with an enormous grin, dark curls jiggling, walking goose-step toddler style with the support of her mother's hand. I wasn't turned to look directly at them, because I have trouble tearing myself away from the mystique of sunglasses (appearing to be looking one direction but really looking somewhere else). But as they walked by my bench, the little girl insistantly stopped her mother, pointed at me, smiled even wider, and squeaked, "Pookie!"

For some reason that made me really, really happy!

Henry showed up five minutes later. The burger was good. The movie was fun, with a great cameo by David Koechner. Would be a good date movie (though yesterday evening wasn't a date).

"Sexy Q&A" questions: Part II

2005-08-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

Due to overwhelming popular demand, or just a very masochistic readership, I am posting this extension to the "Sexy Q&A."

Again: don't forget to include the rules when you post the answers on your blogs!

XRayEagle
1) Do you own any CD's purely for the purpose of getting a woman "into the mood"?

2) A girl you meet at a party tells you she's into vinyl. Before she has a chance to explain, where does your mind go? Do you picture her riffling through her extensive vintage record collection or wearing a shiny black crotchless catsuit to her late-night liaisons? Which would intrigue you more if true? Be honest!

3) Let's say that you're a man who has a lot of sex. One night, while reflecting smugly on your multitude of conquests, you suddenly realize that you've slept with women from 47 of the 50 states. You have yet to bag anyone from Alaska, California, or Rhode Island. Would you make it a pointed mission to find, then sleep with, women from these states? If yes, and if you accomplished that mission, would you be so full of yourself that you'd move onto conquering representatives from the Canadian provinces and territories, since you'd slept with people from 3 of the 13 (2 of 10 provinces and 1 of 3 territories) already anyway?

4) If a girl you were seeing had a miraculous ability to deep-throat, what would her nickname be among you and your best friend(s)?

5) Let's say that you fell in love with a woman whom you discovered, after completely falling head over heels, was a professional porn star. Would you tell your parents the truth about her occupation? If so, how would you break the news? If not, what would you tell them?

BT3
1) If, while looking for a spare shirt in your best (male) friend's closet, you were to stumble upon a full-on gimp suit, would you ever mention it to him?

2) I don't know your relationship status, but for the purpose of this question you're single. Let's say that you had an honest shot at getting it on with Angelina Jolie. Yes, indeed, a sure thing. If it meant that a video of the two of you together would circulate the Internet, thereby placing you in the ranks of sexual superhero-dom in the minds of many (world-class sleazeball in the minds of others, but hey at least you'd be getting laid consistantly), would you go for it?

3) In eleven words, no more no less, recount a [fictional or nonfictional] sexual scene involving watersports.

4) Have you had the requisite experience to observe whether the pussies of vegetarians taste different than those of omnivores? If so, what's the verdict? Is one better than the other?

5) You're single for this question too. Let's say that a wealthy friend of yours, in a drunken state of insistant generosity, crams a wadded up $1000 into your hands and tells you to take that and go get laid. You decide to follow his instructions, but you challenge yourself to do it without purchasing a prostitute. Assuming that you must spend the entire grand on this effort, how do you go about it?

Razafraggin
1) Would you consider having your wife wear a remote-controlled panty-vibrator:
- ever? (if yes, continue)
- at a social party, where you could buzz her from across the room while she was talking to someone else?
- at the grocery store?
- while you were at work and she was at home (assuming they make one with such a range)?

2) When you go into one of those sex-themed stores, do you feel like you're in Target or are you vaguely uncomfortable?

3) Where's the most unusual place you've ever had sex or a sexual experience?

4) Are you a breasts man, butt man, legs man, or abs man? We're talking purely physical here. "I'm a brains man" or "I'm a heart man" don't cut it, even though they are very admirable preferences. For the one you name, describe what characteristics can make that feature so remarkably attractive to you.

5) Is there someone in the world, be it a celebrity or a friend, whom you and your wife are attracted to equally in a sexual way?

Scott
1) Have you ever played hooky from work or school for the purpose of sex?

2) You meet an intelligent, shy, sorta cute girl at a bar or party. You totally dig her and think about asking her out for dinner. After a couple of hours of fantastic conversation fly by, she leads you to her car and you guys start making out. It becomes clear that, as she moves all over you, she's much more of a vixen than you thought. Soon, she reaches into her glove compartment and produces a condom. What happens to your opinion of this girl? Would you go for it? Would you still want to ask her out?

3) Do you ever get turned on while watching mating scenes on the Nature Channel (or similarly nature-themed media outlet)?

4) If zombies existed, you know as well as I do that they'd get it on with each other. Your task: describe zombie nookie.

5) What would you do for a Klondike Bar? If you don't like Klondike Bars, just pretend you do. Pretend they are your most favoritest treat in the whole entire universe.

Instead of PAYING to wear the Nike swoosh...

2005-08-28T23:04:00.000-07:00

...why not get paid! I totally should do this!!! Betcha I could get some serious dough, with my physical stature.

"Sexy Q&A" questions

2005-08-28T20:40:00.000-07:00

For those that assented to an interview, here are your questions. Since this is a "Sexy Q&A," all are at least somewhat sex related.

I kind of broke a rule by asking the same question of two people, but I changed small details for the purpose of individualization so this little trespass will be forgiven.

Don't forget to include the rules when you post the answers on your blogs!

Joe:
1) If you were to travel back in time with a video camera to your favorite or most memorable sexual experience and record the action, then when you got back to today decided to distribute it on the porn market, what would the title of the "movie" be and what would you re-name the characters, including your old self?

2) I've heard many men say jokingly about various ideas and feats of ingenuity, "Oh man, that gives me a boner." Have you ever, in fact, gotten physically aroused upon being inspired in a non-sexual way?

3) Fill in the blanks (but NOT with house, rock, or knock): When the ________ is ______ing don't come a-______ing!

4) If you discovered that a woman, whom you know to be a friend of a friend, was into DVDA, would you:
a - be disgusted and unable to look her in the eye ever again
b - be strangely fascinated and ask your friend to let you know if there ever was an opportunity to watch (in person or on video)
c - want to tap that
d - other (explain)

5) What's the most metrosexual thing you've ever done (ie, gotten yourself a facial, obsessed over matching the colors of your bathroom accessories, manscaped, etc.)?

Squiggle:
1) Would you rather watch Angelina Jolie have sex with Brad Pitt or with Bo Derek (when she was in her prime)? Time travel considerations should not be considered in this purely hypothetical question.

2) Describe the most embarrassing or inopportune time you ever sported spontaneous wood.

3) If you could have your lady call you by the name of a superhero in bed, which would you prefer (besides your own name, of course)?

4) In your mind, go back to being single for a moment. If your HOT date (we're talking ultimate hotness), upon taking you back to her place with the clear intention of fucking your brains out, revealed that she was a plushie, would you try to get into it or run for the door?

5) Conceptually speaking, what's better: a woman with hairy legs and a Brazilian bikini wax, or a woman with shaved legs and a completely unkempt/unwaxed/unshaven hairy bush?

Braleigh:
1) If you could get busy with a superhero of your choice, which one would you choose?

2) Have you ever gone commando on a date for the purpose of "easy access"? Don't lie!

3) If you met Kiefer Sutherland, then Kiefer Sutherland took you back to his place with the clear intention of making sweet, sweet love to you, if Kiefer Sutherland was to reveal to you that he was a plushie, would you try to get into it or run for the door?

4) What's the most inane excuse you've used to explain to your friends your inexplicable disinterest in an otherwise perfectly fine guy (i.e., chews his food too loudly)?

5) What would you do/how would you react if you discovered that a guy you were seeing owned every album Britney Spears has made, in addition to live concert recordings, videotapes, interviews, unreleased recordings ("the bootlegs"), etc -- maybe a piece of paraphernalia (like her supposed panties from EBay), maybe a poster hastily ripped from his ceiling and shoved under his bed, etc?

"Sexy Q&A"

2005-08-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

-If you want to participate, leave a comment below asking to be interviewed.
-I will respond by asking you five questions (each person's will be different).
-You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
-You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
-When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

These questions were asked by XRayEagle.

You can push a button and kill 100 moo-cows (that’s right) somewhere in Europe or, with your own two hands, you can snap the neck of one bright eyed, adorable, soft, fuzzy, make-you-cry-its-so-cute bunny. Which one do you pick? ... You monster!
While I'm more of an out-of-sight-out-of-mind humanitarian sort, 100 moo-cows is a lot of life to be responsible for killing. So I'd probably go for the bunny, even though I absolutely love rabbits.

I'm going to go cry for a second.

I'm back.

What is lamest famous person you have ever had a crush on or fantasy about?
I was obsessed with Sean Astin's character in Goonies. The scene where he got kissed drove me wild with jealousy! Those braces... so adorable.

If you had the rest of you life in front of you as a book, which chapter would you skip to first?
I'd thumb ahead to MJ-as-grandmother, probably around my 80th birthday. Then, if my 80-year-old-self could sense my 27-year-old self watching, I would remind me that I've always planned to get a tattoo and go skydiving on this particular birthday.

What is the single most disgusting and Mike-nauseating thing that you have ever done in you whole life? In all its horrible detail please!
I drank bong water. It was an accident, resulting from weed so potent that that user had trouble tell which way was vertical. It happened freshman year of college. The results were like having a full-body flu with [censored] threatening to come out at both ends (and then, indeed coming, once I got to the dorm bathroom), wrapped in dark grey matter with a translucent smog clouding my vision, all the while feeling as though the ground was lurching beneath my feet but I couldn't really tell what was going on. It was gross gross gross. Bong water is disgusting.

What is the one thing you would most like to say to someone?
"Two tickets to the moon, please."

Thanks, XRayEagle, that was fun! Now, who wants me to interview them?

A long-ass, slightly whiny post

2005-08-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

"Caustic insecurities surface above the witheld every time I need everything I want" (from the song "Fall," off of the album The War of Art by American Head Charge. Lyrics by Cameron Heacock).

Hiking in Paseo Miramar on Saturday with my beautiful friend Shane, the conversation turned--as it always does eventually if it doesn't already start out there--to the men in our lives.

A careful analysis of her current relationship was filled with bits and pieces of insights and conclusions, and the relative impact of our findings would rival the small town of Pikeville, Kentucky's PowerPoint presentation of the cure for world hunger as broadcasted, with taped-delay, on a Michigan Upper Peninsula public access station ...but scaled down to her life--with her life being the entire combined continents and oceans spanning from about the Western Czech Republic eastward to somewhere in the South Pacific.

Then we turned to me and my situation.

After discussing my fling for a bit (his unofficial name among my friends is "Boat Boy"), I mentioned another guy on my radar screen. After I shyly/smilingly described him and his inevitable "well-is-he-interested-or-not" enigmatic behavior, Shane said, "Sounds like he's just insecure." She slowed down for a moment and looked at me. "Yeah, what's the deal with you and insecure men?"

I considered this question for a second. Shane had a good point. Aside from Boat Boy, most of the men in whom I've shown any interest whatsoever in the past couple years or so have been horribly, almost debilitatingly insecure.

"They are uncharted territory! Buried treasures!" I said, along with other cliché'ed metaphors I thought of then but don't recall now.

"Yeah, but Sweetie, they don't know what to DO with you!" Shane resumed her hiking pace. "I mean, you're..." She turned to me and looked me up and down, completing the thought with dramatic wide-eyes and accompanying sweeps of her hand.

"Hmmmm, I don't know," I said and left it at that.

My friend Delia had informed me during a heart-to-heart on the sailboat in Greece that I was a "big personality" and probably wouldn't meet my soul mate until later in life--after I'd had all of my adventures--and I'd felt a similar sense of the impending lonely years then too. They are just the words of friends, idle chatter, casual predictions based on personal experiences, but, as they are designed to do, they make me think.

So what exactly is the deal with me and insecure men? Let's explore this. The following broad categories loosely describe insecure men who've appeared across from me at the table-for-two during my time in LA. Most actually fall into two or more of the categories. Let me clarify that I've been out with secure men, but they are few and far between and aren't the subject matter at hand.

The Comedians
I have a strong thing for comedians. I think all women do, actually. Make us laugh, and you could look like Chris Farley or John Candy and we'd say about you, "He's cuuuuute! What a big sexy man!" rather than, "He's like my brother, a big teddy bear who will make some woman very happy one day."

Comedians, it might be said (which means that yes, I'm generalizing), often deal with problems by bundling them up into funny bits. The validating effect of an empathetic, approving audience's laughter is vital to the true comedian's self-worth.

On a side note, this insecurity + empathy combo is one reason that LA people seem so fake. Many are insecure themselves, and knowing the salubrious effects of a good ego stroke, they don't hesitate to dole them out liberally in hopes of having the favor returned via karma.

The Nerds
Nerds rock my world. I have an obsessive appreciation for such assets as an astounding memory, an acutely intellectual talent such as math or physics, a unique hobby that is more vigorously researched and executed than I ever thought possible, an array of simple yet stunningly insightful political analyses, a shy but brilliant counterargument against the findings of some study in the news, or an uncanny ability to make an original--even weird or bizarre--point and belabor it with stunning aptitude (several of the bloggers I enjoy are good for this). If you declare that I'm wrong about something it is not necessary enjoyable for me in and of itself, especially if I'm not in the mood for an argument, but if you back up said declaration with a rock-solid information juggernaut that shifts my entire paradigm in the vein of knowledge under question, I will stand there wet as the Pacific and eye-fuck you forcefully yet unintentionally.

But the most intelligent men, it seems, often are the most insecure. Perhaps they were grade school outcasts (as nerds tend to be) who now feel the need to prove something to the old bullies (when these guys suddenly become hot, they get the kid-in-the-candystore syndrome). Perhaps overwhelming intelligence gives a person excess brain space, which generates the chatter/noise from which insecurities can stem. Who knows. Smarties can be cocky these days, but the truly secure nerd is a rare find.

The Director Wannabes
I don't have a thing for these men as a group, but living in LA, 75% of the men I've gone out with have revealed aspirations to be a movie director. My ex-fiancé was one such man, in fact. He found a niche, fortunately, but the requisite amount of bruising and battering that comes about from the years and years and YEARS of dues-paying/hard work doesn't seem to register with most others.

This sort lurks within the most career-stable man possible. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the lawyer the broker the executive banker--they are all susceptible to the director bug. And for some reason most of them want to direct documentaries.

There are those that make valiant, rushed attempts at directordom, and when their efforts fail they present such failures as follows: they drop names of famous people "interested" in what they are doing and, with painted-on determination, stay positive at all costs about the million dollar trainwreck three years into the marketing phase. Dishonesty breeds insecurity, as the truth becomes the dark but self-defining secret to cover up at all costs. I've learned to regard casual mentions of "my project" and/or "my co-writer" as blinking yellow Proceed-With-Caution lights.

The Musicians
Yeah. Nothing more needs to be said here.

So what's wrong with these insecure men that makes me so fucking batty and neurotic? Well, I'm not sure actually. Maybe it's the height (for a 6'3" woman, height is a constant scapegoat). Maybe it's just that intimidating, or maybe they vastly prefer to look taller by keeping a petite woman on their arm. They just don't know what to DO with me.

At any rate, all of my unrequited crushes have been on insecure men. Crushes on generally secure men have pretty much been fulfilled or returned in some way or another. If I have a crush on someone I know, I'll pay him (or her, I suppose) just enough attention that he gets the point. Crushes from afar are different; I'm WAY too frightened to introduce myself to a stranger I've been crushing on, especially if the crush has been going on for awhile and I've built them up in my mind too much. Like the hottie in sales on the 11th floor.

Anyway, after I've made it clear that I'm interested, if he's secure he'll take the bait willingly--he'll call or whatever--and we'll get to see where it goes. Even if he's ultimately not interested, we may have a lot of fun and/or become great friends in the end. No harm no foul, no hard feelings.

If he's insecure, he's a dead fish! Even if he initially expressed interest in me, in which case I will gladly try to initiate something more by doing the legwork myself if need be, invariably I'll never, ever get any effort in return after that. Which leads to me getting neurotic and questioning why in the hell this really interesting guy is not responding to my expressions of interest. I've learned not to push, but it's a very frustrating phenomenon. Once I got the insecure man by completely ignoring him, but I feel like that's game-playing and, consequently, not something I will incorporate into my pick-up stylings.

I imagine the internal dialog of the insecure man involved in the above scenario would go something like this: "Hey look at this great woman! Hello, Great Woman! Whoa, wait a minute. You're interested in ME? If you're interested in someone as unworthy as ME, you can't be as great as I thought you were. Next!"* I'll admit that I've had a similar internal dialogue before (though for a man). I'm fairly secure, but I obviously need my share of validation. Still, it's damn frustrating to be on the receiving end of someone's insecurity-fueled shift of regard.

Excuse me while I go hiking now.

* i.e., "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member" - Groucho Marx

Jokes from another blog

2005-08-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

This is my kind of joke humor:

http://highdesertdiva.blogspot.com/2005/08/silly-culinary-questions.html

A "feelings" type diary post - you've been warned

2005-08-23T10:50:00.000-07:00

Being an absentee employee appears to have its rewards.

Yesterday I informed my boss that I had scheduled a doctor's appointment for this morning: a lie.

Instead, I picked my friend Zoe up at LAX to have a lovely breakfast with her during a three-hour layover on her way back to D.C. from visiting family in Australia.

Zoe is a relatively new friend whom I know through my good old high school friend Kaelan's Friendster page and now-inactive blog. At the beginning of this year I had enlisted Zoe to help me coordinate a successful surprise visit to Kaelan in D.C. over President's Day weekend, and ever since then I've considered her an infinitely potent partner in mischief.

So anyway, in spite of her rampant jet lag, breakfast with "Dr. Zoe" was a morning spent in great company and well worth telling the little white lie.

Something that I shared with Zoe this morning was the progress of my pre-nascent (still idea-stage) portrait painting business. The business idea was born on January 30, at a shi-shi breakfast table at Off Vine in Hollywood celebrating my friend Roxy's birthday with her, her husband, and some friends. It has grown from a conversational "wouldn't it be cool" idea to a full fledged concept I feel comfortable presenting even to would-be clients without stuttering and apologetically framing it as a pipedream. Talking about painting portraits as a life's work always lights a fire in me, a fire that with each successive conversation has roared a little hotter.

Over the past few years the fluorescent-lighted, air-conditioned, 8.5x11 paper-shuffling, business-casual environment of my 9a-6p office job had smothered any flames of creative spirit that occasionally threatened to catch. Hence, the recently pronounced warmth of this burn is a welcome sensation and ameliorates the guilt I've been feeling about the increased frequency that I've been calling in falsely sick, sneaking home early when my boss has an afternoon meeting, declaring my right to a three-week vacation, and claiming fase doctor's appointments.

Today, talking to Zoe turned the heat on, stronger than ever. On my way to work from dropping her back at the airport, I barely noticed the parking-lot-like traffic of the 405, I was so assiduously receptive to an onslaught of ideas regarding my future business.

The great Dogbert once said, with regard to our media-saturated age, "Information is gushing at your brain like a firehose aimed at a teacup." That's how I felt on the highway this morning, going an average of 5 mph, trying to process the creative rampage of ideas that were hitting me with the force of ejaculate from the gratified member of a pent-up sex fiend three years celibate. O sweet release.

Apparently this is what happens when one stops taking one's mundane office job seriously.

Coming back into the office I was acutely aware of the suckhole effect. However, rather than sighing and going through my usual startup routine, I started writing about it as soon as my computer was hot, hoping that publishing a blog about it would have a cementing effect.

Thanks for "listening."

Invisible Offspring

2005-08-21T18:23:00.000-07:00

This coming weekend I'll be climbing Half Dome in Yosemite. In hopes of retaining any remnants of in-shape-ness from the Mt. Whitney hike, I have made the current weekend all about hiking and I hope to do some good, long runs this week.

Yesterday I did Paseo Miramar with my friend Shane, a hike which in and of itself is a rather dully grueling walk up and down a fireroad. The hike is instead famous for its views, and indeed the expansive ocean vistas with the LA cityscape a mere neck-jerk away from the curve of visible coastline/breakwater stretching down past Long Beach make it a worthy trip to take on a clear day. The sharp purple layer of smog is as usual to be ignored in favor of the beautiful weather, presence of palm trees and pervasive feeling of unstoppable hipness.

Today I went hiking in La Jolla Canyon to the sweepingly breathtaking but tick-filled grassland about 3 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. I still need to do a full-body scan to be sure none of those sly, lymey little suckers latched onto my lusciously tasty epidermis, but I think I'm ok.

On the oceanward way back through the canyon, I was approaching the upper edge of a narrow trickle of water sliding down a slickly mossy boulder (a setup which must be quite a scenic waterfall in the springtime) when I heard a man's voice below. Peering down I saw him standing shirtless on a rock at the border of the green, slimy algae-filled pool below the trickle, holding a silver beer can in one hand and gesturing to the air in front of him with the other.

In a voice that one might use to scold a redneck child, I heard him say, "See? You didn't do what I said, and now you've got that green shit all over your feet. You've made a big mess of yourself and you're gonna have to clean all that off." I figured he was on a hike with his son or daughter, and that he or she had waded recklessly into the pool and gotten mossy, so I stepped closer to the edge so I could have a look at the kid.

There was no one else there. I heard no indignantly defensive retorts, either, though the guy continued to chastise an errant wader.

I hiked down the short path that led to the base of the fall, making a bit of a racket with my shoes and hiking poles so he could hear me approach. By the time I got to the bottom I saw that he had crossed the pool and was sitting on a rock drinking his Bud Light, avoiding eye contact with me.

I looked around for his little buddy, but it was becoming increasingly clear that the guy was by himself. I thought, Perhaps he was admonishing his own carelessness with his little speech; but his feet were shod with relatively clean, white tennis shoes devoid of any "green shit."

Huh.

I paused to admire the mossy trickle of water glittering in the sun, and he finally looked at me.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello," he said.

I wonder if John Nash ever spoke to Parcher when he knew other people could hear.

2005-08-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

It's 11:11! Make a wish!

Post it in my Comments section and it just might come true, thanks to the magical properties of this particular blog. Feel free to be anonymous if you want to get raunchier than normal. This could get interesting.

From Crodino to Rabid Dogs: Travel Journal Exerpts, Part 1

2005-08-18T23:40:00.000-07:00

Crodino: (Ordered arbitratily from the menu, as I felt like a cordial but was unable to recognize any of the drinks in the cordial section) Carbonated lightly. Bitter at first taste, then syrupy-citrusy-sweet, with reminders of the yellow cough syrup from childhood but not unpleasant. 5 Euros. Bar Brasile, looking straight at Piazzo di Verezia, Rome, Italy, 1:35am night of 5 July 2005. The building behind the Piazza di Venezia is lighted and glowing in the night. There were white birds flying above this in the night, which RC noticed earlier, but they are no longer there. Two torches burn beneath the center statues. Carabinieri car parked in front of our table.
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Hotel Marsala - Roma pensione - 6 July 2005

Located across the street from the Termini so that early tomorrow morning we can wake up and catch our train to Brindisi. Cab fare here was 10 Euros, which means that the cabbie last night screwed us at 60 Euros. My conscience is clear, though, because he was such a help to us when the people at our Internet-booked B&B didn't asnwer the door. Got us a nice hotel and everything with no effort on our part. Last night's hotel: Hotel Pace Elvezia.
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"ARE YOU READY TO MEET GOD?" -graffiti on LONGINO X placard in cupola of Vatican dome
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Dinner, first course: 7:28 pm - Piazza Dell' Accademia Di S. Luca @ "Ristorante Pizzeria"
The best water EVER - Aqua Panna, Acqua Oligominerale, Naturale - Bottled by San Pellegrino S.P.A.

RC thinks that having Americans at the table next to us is soothing - "We know what they are talking about," he says.
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8:55pm: My favorite Rome site so far: The Fontana di Trevi. Huge, elaborate fountain. Took picture in front with RC..
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Beer called Nastro Azzurro = Heineken Pussy (ie, tastes like Heineken, with a tang)
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7 July 2005 (Happy Birthday to my older little brother) - Brindisi, Italy
Today as we walked the 900m to go to the ticket office to pick up our MyWay Maritime ferry tickets, a Montero full of Brits pulled up.
Brits: "Excuse me, do you speak English?"
Me: "Yeah, we're American."
Brits: "Can you tell us where the nearest McDonald's is?"
HAHAHA!!!
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Walking back from the ticket office to the main port we took advantage of the public bathrooms, which were extremely nice and looked like big Roman baths built into the outer retaining wall of a seaside fort. There were motion-detector-activated soap dispensors.
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One will find it difficult to eat dinner at a restaurant here before 19:00. We finally found a place called "Pizza University" where we could order pizza and pasta. Got a quattro-fromaggio pizza and tortellini alla parma. We're even eating outside, with a remote view of the harbor down the street.
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8 July 2004 [sic]
Patras - 23 degrees C, from digital display - smoke curling across my face in the bus station, from the lady sitting at the table next to us smoking. 2 giant waters for 2 Euros, a refreshing break from the water prices in Rome. No Serano chocolate bars here. The bus leaves for Athens in about 20 minutes. RC's description of traffic: "Make up lanes as you go." Missing children signs posted outside the door. My turquoise wrap with cigarette soot stains from the ferry's saloon floor (I slept briefly using it as a ground cover). 13.90 Euros each for the bus to Ath.
----
Evidently we almost got attacked by rabid dogs today. Not wanting to pay the premium cab fare from the bus station, we headed out [walking] with our stuff to find a cab on the street bu since there were no good streets in the vicinity we wandered around looking for one, finding only another turn in a maze of alley-type back streets. I had to peeeeeeeeee and it was hooooooot. The few cabs that drove by wouldn't stop... until one did, with a cabby who spoke good English and informed us that we should NOT have been walking around that area due to dogs that had "bubbles, coming from the mouth" (complete with a hand gesture).

MJ de la Montagne

2005-08-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

I just got back from an adventure trip! Sunday night we (my dad, my brother, and my friend DD) camped at the base of Mt. Whitney (the highest point of California's Eastern Sierras as well as the contiguous 48 states), Monday we hiked almost all the way up and then back down, Monday night we camped again at the base, and Tuesday we took a fun little side trip to the Alabama Hills near the High Sierras town of Lone Pine. Since I brought my digital camera, I can share some of the lovely photos from the trip.

Here I am in my my "weather-proof" mountain climbing garb, standing above Trailside Meadows (11,395 feet), located between Outpost Camp (10,365 feet) and Trail Camp (12,000 feet) on the way up. It precipitated pretty much the entire climb. At Trail Camp it started snowing in gusts, with virile climbers coming down toward us having descended the upper switchbacks, shivering and reporting impassable blizzard conditions on the approach to the summit. Only suited up for the reported "scattered T-Storms" and ill prepared for a blizzard, we turned back. Next year we'll give it another go!

Standing in front of a scenic waterfall on the hike back down the mountain. Elevation probably around 9,000 feet or so.

As we reposed in our tent at the base of the mountain Sunday and Monday nights, we were treated to the lovely, living sound of this water rushing through the campground.

(Click on the photo for a clearer view of the plaque) The Alabama Hills, located between Mt. Whitney and Lone Pine, have served as an apt location for myriad film and TV shoots requiring rugged Western scenery. A bandit could hide out forever within the expanse of boulders and rock formations.

A bit of balance work! Yes, another short-dress-standing-on-rock shot. If it weren't so cloudy, you'd be able to see Mt. Whitney behind me.

This is for you, Latigo Flint...

Put 'em up!

Watch out for the sneaky dork girl with finger-gun lurking around the corner...

Better start saying your prayers...

Ready to dance?

Pt-aow! Pt-aow!

The badass cowgirl is stuck in the passenger seat with a digital camera. Rearview mirror photos will be taken.

Formula for a fling

2005-08-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

I have devised 20 characteristics that define a current situation as a straight up fling, in spite of potential appearances to the contrary.

1) It can never, ever go anywhere. There's some sort of extreme limitation preventing its meaningful growth as a true partnership. Like if you're getting on in years and have no direction in life. For true relationship potential, I need a man with direction, especially if he's significantly older than I am. That's very important.

2) Live on your boat.

3) Ride a motorcycle.

4) Regale me with stories about your travels and life lived around the world, including--but only occasionally--what you've learned along the way. It's exciting to listen to you!

5) Be hot, with a rock-solid brick shithouse of a body.

6) Be taller than I am.

7) Pay for everything when you can. Ask to split when you can't.

8) Don't follow the rules. I.e., when a gourmet restaurant tells you its kitchen is closed when we walk in at 10:30pm after seeing a movie, saunter to the bar-only tables then excuse yourself to go talk to the sous-chef about preparing some of the fine fish you know him to be an expert at. Twenty minutes later, fork-feed me the best bites from your plate.

9) Light up like a Christmas tree when you see me. Eagerly open (and close) every single door possible for me before I have a chance to do it myself. Don't let that habit die over time.

10) Address me as "Gorgeous" in every message you leave for me on the phone. Generally make me feel like the wisest and most beautiful woman in the entire world and not with words alone.

11) Cook for me. Let me cook for you sometime as well.

12) Discuss fun activities that you'd like to do with me. Invite me on spontaneous outings and trips that you take with your friends.

13) When I'm sick, check on me at least twice a day. Purchase your own favorite remedies at the pharmacy, to have on hand just in case I call in need of something.

14) Don't rush to jump in the sack. Especially on the third date. When you kiss me, kiss me gently and respectfully, taking it all in with appreciative breaths and full, affectionate embraces. Brush off my innuendo-riddled speech as "getting fresh."

15) Don't ask me for details about what I did last weekend.

16) Call me from work occasionally just to say hi.

17) Be quirky and oddly daring at times. Other people should look at you funny from time to time. I need someone to stand up for.

18) Say grace before every meal. Even at restaurants.

19) Talk about your sweepingly amazing plans for the future, such as sailing around the world, opening up a group foster home for troubled boys, shooting a documentary about the war in Iraq, finishing a screenplay with your semi-famous writer friend, becoming a paramedic ...the chronological order of which plans will likely change on a bi-weekly basis. The more you discover in the world, you inevitably will become more frantic to experience everything by the time you die.

20) Never, ever talk about your future with me in it, because not only do you have grand plans of your own to pursue, you are acutely aware of the first item on this list.

Dieting

2005-08-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

Motivated by disgust at the sudden appearance of a balloony bulge of flab at my waistline, about a week ago I signed up for ediets.com. It came highly recommended from a friend of mine, who appreciates the feature that lets you print out a weekly grocery list and hence go grocery shopping without having to think too much. Cool.

Before I launch into my piece, let me clarify that my normal diet is a little different than your average American diet. About a year ago I discovered raw foodism. It changed my life, making me rethink my entire approach to food.

Incorporating raw food as about 75% of my diet, I saw changes in my body. After a short detox period, I started to smell amazing during/after exercising because my sweat was so clean. My skin cleared up and glowed as if I were getting phenomenally fucked on a daily basis (which, of course, I wasn't). The keratosis pilaris on the backs of my arms (you know, the red spots that 33% of us have) subsided a bit. My asthma went away. I'm sure yoga helped with all this too, but since you are what you eat the majority of credit goes to the diet.

However, there were a few problems because I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to balance the diet, so certain functions were not going quite as "regularly" as they could have. I felt tired sometimes even after good nights of sleep. It would have been ideal to see an open-minded dietician (ideally a raw food specialist), but I don't have the money for that.

Over my European vacation, the raw food thing pretty much went out the window because I wanted to sample the foreign cuisines. I didn't eat badly, but there was no rhythm or thought applied to my meals beyond what sounded exotic and interesting at mealtime. I desperately clung to my hydration and tried to keep a nutritional balance by filling in perceived holes as an afterthought between meals, but by the time I got back to the States I smelled faintly like a European subway and had begun to notice the bulge.

Once settled back at home, I was determined to get my diet on the right track once and for all.

Enter ediets.com, which features meal plans prepared by dieticians according to what you want to eat. I figured I could give them all the restrictions I wanted and they would magically get back to me with exactly what I'd need to do. If the recipes called for cooking the food, I'd simply use the same ingredients and modify the preparation so that everything would be raw.

I became angry and disillusioned when I first signed up. After I virtually swiped my credit card, only then did it become evident that the vegetarian* diet was not quite as flexible as they had promised. The site stated that you could exclude foods at will from the diet, but the so-called preference page wouldn't let me exclude grains, soy, fish and dairy from the meal plan. I called customer support, and they told me that I needed to speak to one of their dieticians and to please call back the next day because it was after 5pm on the East Coast.

Screw that. I'd be willing to bet that any of the dieticians at ediets.com would simply tell me that I needed to choose between meat, soy and dairy, and that I could not exclude grains without going full on Atkins (which I looked into, but they require you to choose some sort of meat or fish).

From reading the sign-up policy, I knew that I could not get a refund on my money.

Wanting to get my money's worth anyway, I calmed down and resolved to go forward with what they gave me under the lacto-ovo vegetarian plan. I would attempt to modify the recipes on my own. I decided that I would allow myself to drink raw milk (unpasteurized), to use Greek-style or organic yogurt and raw cheese, and to use free range/Omega-3 eggs (which you can eat raw without fear of salmonella). Since I never did figure out how to exclude soy (they really push the soy), I simply replaced the soy-inclusive recipes in the assigned plan with other, non-soy recipes. Indeed, the substitution feature kept me satiated. In the case of grains, I would try to exclude them altogether from the recipes and eat seeds at other points in the day. As for cooking the vegetables, I decided that I would give it a try but not cook them as long as the recipes dictated.

I printed out the grocery list associated with a week's worth of meals, took about ten minutes to cross things off and make modifications, then went to Whole Foods (I'm a grocery snob, what can I say) and shopped for almost an hour. I've never bought so much produce, and I was feeling quite pleased. I usually grocery shop at least twice a week because I never plan my meals, but here I had a full week's worth of groceries, no more no less!

When I got home I went to work instituting safety measures against my normal binge habits. I took the bag of raw almonds, bag of walnuts, the raisins, and raw sunflower seeds and partitioned them between seven ziplock bags labeled with days of the week. So, rather than eating an entire bag of almonds (or walnuts, etc) in two-three sittings, I would stretch it out over a week. I had modified the meal plan to include trail mix at snack time every day, so this would do nicely (I substituted the sunflower seeds for the meal-plan-prescribed pretzels).

So far it actually has been a great diet. The recipes are surprisingly flexible and have allowed me to expand my cooking horizons (stuffed onions! rosemary zucchini omelet!). I don't weigh myself, so I'm not sure if I've lost weight, but I think that my balloon is deflating slowly.

Now to get back into my normal exercise regimen...

*I'm not a strict vegetarian, but I follow a mostly vegetarian diet. If there's a hunk of flank that's looking mighty appealing, well, by all means pass the fork and steak knife!

Dream

2005-07-31T12:06:00.000-07:00

Lately I haven't been remembering my dreams at all, but this morning, after falling back asleep after a 9am phone call (I was out late last night being an LA hipster, for the first time in nearly two months), I launched into a strangely erotic doozy of surreal subconscious brain product. Let me share.

I was walking along a beach and suddenly noticed a whole mess of beached sea animals. They were all grouped together by animal: there were the seals, the manatees, and the whales.

There were women walking aroung the beached animals, who looked strangely happy to be beached, wrapping them in blankets and keeping them warm. One woman was putting gloves onto a seal, like a mother dressing up her child to go sledding, and the gloved hand that emerged had five human fingers! This particular seal was, upon closer look, sort of half human.

As I walked around the sea animals, I realized that about half of the animals were either humans laying there with them or things that were half human half sea animal, in some sort of strange stage of metamorphosis between the two states of being. All would eventually become full-fledged sea animals and be washed happily into the ocean.

Coming to the last clump of animals, I saw that the people lying there were extremely attractive men. They were mostly naked and shivering, not yet having been covered up by the women with the blankets. The men were lying among whales, so I figured that these guys would become whales in a few hours or so.

I lay down next to one, who was shivering especially violently but whom I was attracted to the most, and started rubbing his arms and back, pulling him close to my body to keep him warm. There was nothing overtly sexual about the gesture.

We started making out, and it became arousing. As our heads turned to heatedly shift angles, he gasped and his expression turned to one of fear. He started vibrating. Not shivering, vibrating. Understanding that this was a normal part of the change he was going through, I pulled myself gently away from him but left a hand on his arm for comfort. He stopped vibrating after a couple minutes, and as I was starting to look at the other guys to see if they needed my warmth, I became self-aware and left the dream. Then the phone woke me up (around 11:45am).

On the radio right now there's a kicky Frank Sinatra-sounding guy singing a lounge-swing version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I love Tom Shnabel's show, Café LA on KCRW! Every Sunday Noon-2pm. Check him out: www.kcrw.com.

2005-07-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, another funny vacation photo has come my way.

Delia happened to bring some facial masque clay with her on the yacht, so I couldn't resist smearing my face with the stuff (this was Day One of sailing). She's sitting next to me, en masque as well, but I didn't want to subject her to the embarrassment of having a picture of Delia-as-mime on the Internet for the world to see so I did a little croppy-croppy. Me, well, I like to think of such things as "endearing"! I'm a cute mime, dammit!

Bottoms up!

2005-07-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun picture taken right after the one below, but before the evening described in the post.

I'm kneeling to look through a hole in the wall to see if it's an interesting view for a potential photo (it wasn't). Shane is trying to look up my skirt.

I can't wait to get my own photos developed...

Stranded! So, it's time to tell a vacation story.

2005-07-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'd like to post my first vacation picture. This is me on our last full day in Greece, having just taken a ferry to Mykonos after our week of sailing. I believe the date was July 16.

When you've recovered your breath after being winded at the shortness of my sundress, notice the famous Mykonos windmills and the beauty of the water in between its gentle crashes against the rocky shore.

That evening was spent in the company of my friend Delia. We ate dinner at a restaurant situated right under those windmills, lit up against the night sky, where the moon, an oval 3/4 full, was descending large and golden with a wide swath of trails on the water. It was a striking scene.

Lucky for us our table was ON the beach! It felt like we were on our honeymoon. As a joke, we toasted to a long and happy life together.

After the appetizer we got really cold all of a sudden and moved closer to the restaurant (they'd put wind guards around the inner tables of the patio). There was some sort of large party going on that night, perhaps a wedding party, because there was loud Greek dance music playing and elated drunk people of all ages, shapes and sizes bobbing around, climbing to dance on tables and chairs during particularly dramatic moments in songs, hugging/kissing each other rapturously, and generally making us wish we could be Greek just for that night and join their party. We probably could have, but we were full and a little dazed from dinner, so we played the voyeurs.

Getting our very expensive leftover fish wrapped up to go (intending to eat it for breakfast the next morning), we called for our check and paid the bill, taking a complementary shot of digestif liqueur, as is the tradition in Greece at least at all of the restaurants we ate at.

Delia, not wanting to have anything to carry around, put the wrapped fish in her purse. Leaving the restaurant weaving a little in gait from wine and digestif, we walked around the town eating crêpes we'd bought for dessert. We stepped into a bar playing very loud music and took some more shots that were handed to us (another tradition).

It was about 3:30am and, in spite of the incessant liveliness of Mykonos, we were ready to go to bed. Delia, who speaks a bit of Greek, said in Greek to the guy who had approached her for conversation, "We go back to our hotel now." Evidently the direct translation of that was, "Would you like to come back with us to our hotel room now?" because the guy's eyes got as big as saucers and he looked extremely pleased. Delia realized her mistake and emphatically pointed at me, then at herself, and said that we were going to go back to the hotel and go to sleep.

We escaped and walked back to our room. Stumbling along, drunken professions of mutual admiration suddenly were pierced by a very strong smell of fish. The leftovers! The paper wrapping had leaked fish juice into Delia's purse, and EVERYTHING in there reeked.

When we got back to the room, where another friend, Emily, was fast asleep, we went into the kitchen and closed the door so as not to wake her. Delia began emptying the contents of her purse on the counter, and, one by one, washed each article and layed it out to dry on the counter.

While very impressed with the whole operation, I thought it was a little excessive and didn't feel that I needed to stay up with her. Plus I was falling asleep on my feet and needed to get horizontal, fast. I brushed my teeth, flossed (some are drunken philosophers; I'm a drunken flosser -- uhhh, sorry!!!! hee hee), washed my face, and went to bed. I'm pretty sure Delia followed pretty quickly thereafter.

Update: My car will be ready this afternoon. For the moment, I'm stuck at my parents' place with no car. However, it's a beautiful day out and I've spent some time in the sun, trying to retain my tan, doing a crossword puzzle. I completed the darn thing except three squares that I cannot for the life of me figure out. fuck fuck fuck!

I've also baked two batches of cookies. One was supposed to be chocolate chip, but after I noticed my mom's excessive store of peanut butter (THREE big jars!) I decided to make them peanut butter chocolate chip by adding pb and more flour. Unfortunately I burned most of them, and the ones that aren't burned are not that good because I didn't balance the pb and flour correctly.

For the second batch, I followed an original Joy of Cooking recipe (that's my cooking bible, though I use the latest edition at home) and made these amazingly scrumptious peanut butter cookies. They are so good that I want to freeze them (pb cookies usually freeze well) and impress my next date with them ("oh, I just whipped these up this morning").

Always get a second opinion at LEAST!

2005-07-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

Still in Redwood City. My car is supposed to be done today. The total bill? Gonna be around $400 or so, parts, labor and all.

I took the dealer report into one of those non-dealer BMW specialists, the prices blacked out, to see what they thought, and they were mystified as to why the dealer wanted to sell me expensive parts like a new rack and pinion when my current rack and pinion is perfectly fine (we're talking about my car here, just to clarify).

My bushings just needed to be replaced (still talking about my car).

So, there you have it.

Quick change of subject: Greek-style yogurt is far superior to regular yogurt. I picked it up at the grocery store, feeling nostalgic about my trip, and yes indeed it is AWESOME.

Problem in steerage

2005-07-25T00:14:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday night. I'm in the United States. Redwood City, CA, to be exact--chez mes parents. I was supposed to be in Culver City in bed by now so that I could go to work in the morning and impress the world with my superhuman ability to overcome jetlag.

Alas, I'm stuck.

My parents had watched my little car for me while I'd been in Europe, even surprising me with fixes to a couple small "idiosyncrasies." However, they warned me that the dealer mechanic had reported a loose steering mechanism that would cost $2000 to fix by dealer estimate, and while they were concerned about the safety of my car, they wanted me to get a second opinion before fixing it. As for driving it home, they would let me make the call.

Bah! My steering had always been a little on the loose side, and dealer mechanics, in my experience, try to get you to fix things gratuitously whenever they can. Nevertheless, after receiving the warning, I took 'er for a quick spin on a local freeway and felt everything in the usual, clackety-but-solid, high mileage, German car sort of manner. Status quo. Steering shmeering. I'd drive home and see my (non-dealer) mechanic in Culver City sometime this week to see what he thought.

I set out on the six hour journey South, buzzing pleasantly from a recent cup of percolated espresso au lait lovingly prepared by my brother and bobbing my head to some great swing music playing on 91.1 FM, the local [utterly kickass] jazz station. Post-vacation shellshock had glazed-over my thought processes, and, in this paralyzed condition, I felt that I was in for a tranquil drive. Heading eastbound on I-92 I crossed the San Mateo Bridge going about 68 mph.

All of a sudden my car felt like a full shopping cart with bad wheels. Each little bridge bump sent us into a fish-tailing sort of wavy motion. Holy shit. I slowed down to 50 and called home, telling Dad that I would be staying in Redwood City tonight.

I got off at the next exit and turned around. Unfortunately I had to pay $3 bridge toll going the other direction. Somehow I got back safely.

An unexpected extension to my vacation!

Hello from Paris

2005-07-22T21:08:00.000-07:00

OK, it's like after 6am on my last night here in Paris, and tomorrow morning I will leave for London to spend the night to then leave /par avion/ for San Francisco Sunday morning, to then drive home to Los Angeles after landing so I can go to work Monday morning. HA!?

You may be curious as to why in the heck I'm writing this right now and not hooking up with some French guy or lying in bed passed out so that I can wake up at a decent hour, and trust me, I'm asking myself the same question. It's very difficult to type on French keyboards and I've already had to backspace a million times; but strangely I forge ahead.

Truthfully, I hate going to bed with a buzz. I wake up in the morning with a head fog and an extreme danger of being a bit sick later on, and I don't want to do that. So basically I'm killing time until I am sober enough to go to bed without a hint of the spins.

Here I am in the computer room of my French hosts' house. They are all gone on les vacances and the girl who is around my age is in bed across the street; so I'm not bothering anyone by staying up on the computer. Yay.

I have so much to share. You guys are in for it. I promise, no long boring narratives.

New crush of the day: bartender at O'Sullivan's (next to the Moulin Rouge) named Cyril. We'll see if he e-mails me. Hopefully the picture I took with him will come out so that I can share, at the very least, the hotness of this French guy.

So far I have not met a single (not ONE!!!) rude/mean/short-tempered/terse Parisien/enne, and I'm beginning to wonder where the bad reputation comes from. Everyone has been incredibly nice and welcoming, even eager to please.

My new goal in life is to marry a European citizen. And Earnest (from below)? History. Too bad, yeah, but... to be explained later.

Sleepiness without nausea, do I detect thee? I think yes....... à bientôt les amis......

Ciao for now

2005-07-01T18:09:00.000-07:00

It has been a CRAZY day, taking care of packing, getting my apartment ready to be vacant for three weeks, taking care of Express-Mailing an 11th-hour traffic school certificate mailing, solving a mysteriously bounced rent check (seriously, everything hits at once), attending the mandatory office picnic, visiting the chiropractor (a different one this time, but he was tall-n-hot too), and, now, tying up loose ends at work.

Have a great three weeks, everyone! I'll miss y'all, though I won't know it until I get back because I'll be too busy BEING IN EUROPE.

Hugs and kisses!

Pictures!

2005-06-29T10:01:00.000-07:00

I just got the memo that blogspot is letting us put pictures in our posts without going through Hello! Yeeeaaaaah!

Ok, so this is MJ being a hipster and staying up until 5am at someone's place after the bar closed. Picture taken two weekends ago.

In another picture featuring my lovely legs, this is MJ reclining atop Lembert Dome in Yosemite in October, taking in the view and eating a delicious PB&J sandwich on raisin bread. You can't see the sandwich, but I remember it vividly and oh it was goooooooood.

This is MJ on a camping trip to see the wildflowers in Death Valley a few months ago, emerging from the tent to greet an extremely bright day. How wonderful that my friend had a camera waiting and ready.

This is the worst picture of myself I could find on my computer. 'Twas taken at the end of a 10k entitled "Run Hit Wonder" where one-hit wonder bands played all along the route in downtown LA. They were mostly 80's bands, which probably explains why the shirts are turquoise. They are Nike Dri-Fit though, so they are actually pretty nice.

MJ sailing the Greek Isles back in 2000. This is going to be MJ again in..... let's see, we set sail on the 9th, so, a week and 5 days!!!!!!!!

Preparation Ache

2005-06-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm incredibly keyed up about my upcoming vacation! Three weeks away from work, in a chain of exotic/beautiful locations, sounds peachy keen right about now. Well, it would sound peachy keen any time, but I haven't had a good, solid vacation since starting this job, so such a trip sounds that much jollier under the circumstances.

Sunday afternoon (this COMING Sunday afternoon) I fly to London from the San Francisco airport (I'm leaving my car with my parents in Redwood City). 4th of July will be spent in London with my aunt, uncle, and three little cousins who live there. Might meet up with some friends who will be in town as well.

On the 5th I'm meeting my friend RC back at the airport, then we will fly to Rome together and spend a couple days there. We've booked two nights at an adorable bed-and-breakfast called "A Roma." I really want to sneak into the crypts of the Vatican! Such a DA VINCI CODE nerd. Or ANOTHER ROADSIDE ATTRACTION. Brown or Robbins, take your pick. Both involve similar themes. Flame me on that one if you will, but I stand by the comparison. ANYHOW.

On the 7th RC and I will take a train to Brindisi, then a ferry from Brindisi to Patras, Greece. This overnight ferry is nothing but a big ol' party. I took it back in 2000.

On the 8th we will catch a bus to Athens. It will be a SCARY ride, because, well, I don't know if you guys have ever driven around Greece, but the roads there are loosely anarchic at best.

We will meet up with six other friends in Athens and all take a high-speed ferry to the island of Paros, where, arms aloft, we will dance the night away in the thumping harbor bars and then drunkenly explore ancient coastal ruins by the light of the million Cycladic stars. Indeed, Paros is good for that.

Then we will slip into our beds in whitewashed, sparsely charming hotel rooms, from which we will emerge the next morning, blinking through personal hangover fogs, to catch our sailing yacht-- our Bavaria 52--which will be waiting for us at the port along with a skipper. Hopefully a hot, tan, shirtless skipper with manly sailor hands and miraculous hair growth patterns.

Seven days of "island hopping" around the Cyclades Isles of Greece shall ensue.

Then, I have seven days with which to do whatever I damn well please. I still don't know for sure what I'm going to do. Somehow I have to make my way back to London.

I think I'll spend a few days in Paris, because, in spite of having spent six months in (Grenoble) France while I was getting my MBA, I never did spend any time in Paris. It was always "oh, I'll go to Paris next weekend." Then "next weekend" became the weekend I was leaving and it was too late to spend any time there. Now I actually know people there and may not have to pay a dime in hotel fees. Fingers crossed!

May spend a few days in the UK as well. Spencer from Coachella has offered to give me a tour around Edinburgh, bless his soul.

Then it's back on the plane to San Francisco to get my car, then back to Los Angeles, and... back to my desk. Sigh.

In preparation for the plane ride (other than attempting to "flush" my system), I saw a chiropractor for the first time yesterday. My back's been acting up again.

I've decided that I love going to the chiropractor. The one I saw was 6'6", quite handsome, and very flexible (he put his nose to his knees for me, quite out of the blue, that showoff). All business, he gathered me up in his big strong arms to hold me in a variety of stretches. I even got to feel his chest against my back. Yeah-yeah-YEAH!

My back's still hurting a bit, though. Am currently brainstorming how to sneak pot cookies on the plane to help dull the pain.

How to stay abloat

2005-06-24T15:53:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting things about being a woman is the phenomenon of water retention.

Tuesday, I drank what amounted to a few glasses of water/iced tea over the course of the work day and probably peed about a dozen times.

Yesterday, I drank an entire 1/2-gallon jug of water--in addition to a couple glasses of vegetable juice--and peed once around lunchtime.

Today, again, I'm on my way to finishing the same jugful of water and have already had four servings of juice. I peed weakly about twenty minutes ago for the first time today. I feel like an enormous, taught water balloon.

I can't pinpoint the causes for these dramatic fluctuations. I don't think it's 100% due to the monthly feminine phenomena. I prefer the Tuesday scenario, though.

Don't worry, this blog won't deteriorate into any journaling about bodily functions. I'm just sitting here mysteriously clogged and thought I'd share.

Lunch

2005-06-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

Lately my lunch hours have consisted of one of the following:

1) Yoga class (Tuesdays and Thursdays at my gym)
2) Topless sunbathing at Shane's (Wednesdays)
3) Going home for lunch and maybe a nap (Mondays and Fridays)
4) Meeting friends/coworkers for lunch (Mondays and Fridays)

Today, Shane cancelled our topless sunbathing in favor of spending the day with her family in Malibu. Which is too bad, because I did some sunbathing at the beach over the weekend and got some pretty gnarly string bikini tan lines, leaving some serious white boob-space to darken somehow in less than two weeks. At this point I think it's a lost cause.

So I'm tossing around what to do for lunch. Before I settled into this routine, I would go outside and read in the sun for lunch. Maybe take a walk. I refuse to work through lunch -- sitting at my desk, when there's a beautiful day to be soaked up and my days in Los Angeles are numbered, seems ridiculous. I kinda forgot that I have other options besides the four above, since it's been so long since I've done anything else.

Faced with the decision, I will now grab one of the many books I'm reading (I think I'll go with Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl -- it's a loaner and I need to finish it before the girl from whom I'm borrowing it leaves the company next month) and head out into the sunshine!

Faced with an hour (give or take) to use, right smack dab in the middle of your day, what do YOU do (besides eat)?

"I've Been Busy"

2005-06-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

I hereby outlaw this excuse as a valid one for not being in timely contact with someone.

We all know that where there's a will, there's a way.

As far as I'm concerned, this phrase has rude connotations with the subtext "I've been doing things that I deem more important than being in touch with you."

Don't worry, I'm not bitter about anything in particular. I've just noticed that it's rampant as a lame, generic excuse. I'm guilty of overusing it as well. So I shall challenge myself, and everyone reading this, never, ever, EVER to use it again.

The grey hair

2005-06-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

I kept it. It's by my office phone. I keep picking it up to look at it.

I'm such a dork!

Milestone

2005-06-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

Today I found my first real grey hair. Mark the date! June 15, 2005: four days after I turned 27.

I plucked the little sucker out to make sure that it was grey (yes indeed), but rest assured that I will be leaving the others in there as they gradually replace the brown ones. For some reason, I'm very excited about this! I haven't felt this way since I got my first period. Little girl's growin' up.

Indeed, I love aging. My hips are finally getting a bit wider, fine lines are showing around my eyes, and now this grey hair. But I'm proud to report that my cheeks are full of color, I wear very little daily makeup (only lip gloss and concealer for the occasional scattered zits I can't seem to clear away for good), my breasts still point skyward unassisted (I'm convinced that yoga inversions are great for that), and I'm in great shape except for my slight lingering back pain.

Seriously, I think that looking one's age is great! I want to remain looking/feeling good for my age, not "younger." When I'm 60, I want to look 60. But a damn good, mountain-climbing, hiking boots-and-sundress-wearing 60--with rosy cheeks, prominent laugh lines, an unstoppable libido, a big vegetable garden, and, God willing, grown kids who visit often.

Just think, this is only the beginning! Exciting, grey-haired times await!

P.S. My car, which I've had for over 10 years, just reached 200,000 miles Friday. Another milestone.

Let's get this out of the way

2005-06-09T16:53:00.000-07:00

Under the rules of blogger etiquette (for a breakdown, check out Doug's blog here), I'm not supposed to talk about things that I would want to keep from another person, because I have to assume that everyone in the world knows about and reads this blog.

But there's someone on my mind, and I have to share my feelings because they are the elephant in the parlor. I'm going to be as vague as possible. I'm not sure if he reads this blog or not, but I'm going to assume he does.

I don't want to keep this information from him, per se, but sharing it with him in this matter would probably not be the best way to do it. So, vagueness it is. I'll call him Earnest (Wilde, anyone, anyone?).

I've known Earnest for a long time. Suffice to say that Earnest and my relationship has been on several different trajectories throughout its life, and right now it appears that, in a short while, it is going to be kicked between the posts for a field goal. That is, it probably is going to be consummated, and wonderful things may happen. Or may not happen, but that's not important right now. No expectations.

However, in anticipation of said upcoming event, I have become complacent.

I've settled down into the calm life of a person content in a relationship. There's no underlying search or characteristic single twenty-something restlessness to my actions. I haven't been to a bar with friends in weeks. When my friends ask me "what's new" (a question that, when addressed to me, typically opens floodgates because I like to surround myself with a whirlwind of interesting people and engage in interesting activities and have lots of casual acquaintances and hookups and adventures and trips and jokes and craziness and shows and interesting articles of clothing and you get the point so I'm going to close this convoluted parenthetical phrase), beyond my upcoming travel adventures, I got buppkis! No new men or ANYTHING.

For example, I went to San Diego last weekend. Yeeeaaaaah, San Diego! Gas Lamp district, baby!!!! Bars, music, the BEACH!

Ha! What did I do? Went to dinner on Saturday evening, went back to the place my roommate and I were staying, watched Family Guy reruns on DVD until midnight (since I don't have a TV I'd never seen that decidedly AWESOME show), got a good night's sleep, went to church Sunday morning, went on a hike, and drove back. Had a damn nice time, too!

(Ok, so I went to see my friend's band open for an Alice Cooper cover band at Molly Malone's Sunday night after we got back, but I was only there, alone, to support my friend, I didn't have a drop to drink in spite of the $4 import draft deal, and got home before midnight)

Tonight another friend's band is playing at the Joint (check 'em out: http://www.waxapples.com, and I'm fretting because they are supposed to go on at 9:30 and I hope they don't go on late because I want to run tomorrow morning before work. Thursday night, people. Hipster's night out. I'm going to lose my badge here.

This weekend in San Francisco should be somewhat redeeming. After all, what are birthdays for if not to remind us that we are aliiiiiiiive, another year? Many of my hedonist partners in crime will be there, and I guarantee there will be fun-type deeds done. May even launch a wild and crazy summer, who knows.

But my mind's anchored on Earnest. I've been engaged before, so I know the signs of a committed heart. I think I'm showing them.

What's that sound? Why it's just the neighbors doing it, Frank.

2005-06-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

Every Wednesday at lunch I’ve been going over to my friend Shane’s mom’s house to sunbathe topless.

Mind you, I hate the concept of straight-up sunbathing, but we have to do it so we don’t fry while yachting around Greece in July. Last time I did that, back in 2000, I came back with the worst burn of my life. And it was MARCH! We’ll be there in JULY! This is necessary, people. I absolutely have to rub oil all over my body and bask in the warm-but-not-too-hot California sun. It’s rough.

Topless because that’s how they do it over there in Greece. And when in Rome…yeah.

Did you know that Caucasian nipples get dramatically darker when you tan them? It’s interesting. They go from rosy pink to a fairly dark brown.

Anyway. Shane’s mom lives in Beverly Hills. The pool/backyard area is completely secluded by tall shrubbery, so it’s private enough that one can be unobtrusively nekkid even though the houses are easy spitting distance from one another. But see, simply to be out-of-doors topless without neighbors, a landlord, or simply passersby noticing, I have to have access to a multi-million-dollar house in Beverly Hills. With a small-yet-secluded yard.

I’ve decided that what I miss most about non-big-city dwelling his having solid personal space. In the life of a rather averagely-situated single person in any well-populated part of Los Angeles, whether gardening, singing, sunbathing, playing music, engaging in heated discourse, fucking, watching movies, playing video games, working out to 8-Minute Abs – whatever – there’s probably someone else taking heed of all such activities.

Privacy is such a tall order around here!

Fat-Asses Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It

2005-06-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

In the last month or so, I've gotten at LEAST five e-mails/instant messages, all from different people, containing (or linking to) videos of obese people dancing to music at home in their underwear.

Is this the latest craze?

Sure, it's funny, but what a sudden onslaught!

Kiss my back, anyone?

2005-06-07T11:49:00.000-07:00

My lower back hurts.

I'm excited about my birthday party in San Francisco this weekend!

My lower back hurts.

In less than a month I'll be on a plane to London! Then I'll fly with my friend to Rome, spend a couple nights there, take a train to Brindisi, then an overnight ferry to Patras (Greece), then a bus to Athens, then a ferry to Paros. There, we'll meet up with our chartered yacht and sail around the Greek Cyclades for a week. Life's tough, eh?

My lower back hurts, though, so it's hard to think.

I wonder what yoga class will be like today. Gotta "take it easy" due to my lower back pain. I only did 2/3 of my run this morning in the name of "taking it easy." I think I need to start driving down to the beach again to run on the sand, because hitting the hard pavement, even though my shoes are new and extremely well-cushioned and springy, aggravates the hurt. After yoga class I'll see if using the back-friendly ab-machine helps at all.

This morning I had the department assistant order a lumbar support pad for my chair.

Call me Granny.

Here's what my main man Kahlil Gibran says about pain:

"On Pain"
(from THE PROPHET)

And a woman spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

Apparently I need to shut up and call my pain wondrous in silence and traquility.

2005-06-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh PMS. The ugly warthog that pisses monthly on my happy little ant parade.

I woke up this morning on my back, in my normal supine sleeping position, legs straight out, and my thighs were touching. My thighs aren't supposed to touch when my legs are straight out at that particular angle! I thought I was getting slimmer, for my vacation in Greece in July! What's the deal here! Is running AND yoga in the same day not enough? Hopefully this thigh phenomenon is mere premenstrual bloating.

However, I did spend the weekend in San Diego, and yesterday I pigged out a little at the all-you-can-eat brunch buffet in Fallbrook after going to church with Bob (he's undergoing a religious search and there was some pastor he's been in touch with who holds mass in a dance studio in Fallbrook). The biscuits and gravy were the best ever, and I guarantee you would have partaken too if you were me.

Got out of bed, tried giving Bob a cheerful "good morning" though it was accompanied by sleepy-eyes and a smile that Mona Lisa would have accused of being half-hearted. I flipped on NPR and went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. As I was heating some leftover cereal, I heard Bob hock deeply into his throat and produce a giant loogie. He went to the bathroom to spit it out and to roll off some TP so as to settle into a marathon loogie-producing session on the couch.

It seems that every day is a loogie-producing marathon day for Bob. I've been soooooooo patient with it for the last month, silently bearing the frequent, deep-throated rumbling exhales as they went from being an unfortunate symptom of seasonal allergies to a full-fledged nasty habit. Yesterday on the drive back, his normal, hock-then-roll-down-the-window-and-spit-EVERY-62-SECONDS routine was grating on my nerves more than usual, so I spoke up.

"Do you still have allergies?"

Him: "No. Maybe this clean air is just cleaning out my sinuses."

Me: "Oh."

Him: "But it could be just a habit."

Me: [thinking "no shit."] "I challenge you to not spit for the rest of the drive."

Him: "Ok." [seconds pass] "Gcckgkgccglglglgl!" [window rolls down] "Lwh-ptoo!"

Fucker.

Him: "I can't not spit when I'm thinking about it!"

He did put in a good effort, only spitting about ten more times in the 45 minutes more we had in the car.

Twice as we were unloading the car, he went through the spitting routine. I told him flat out that I found it annoying.

He responded, "Sounds like a personal problem."

"Sure, my annoyance is a personal problem, but that's the way it is. It's annoying." Am I really that out of line here?

It's funny how a regular practice of zen-like patience with such things can really bite you in the ass during PMS. Because, after letting the annoyance of his habit roll off my back for so long, I literally wanted to rip his fucking face off this morning. But, mindful that I was PMS-ing, I just focused on breathing and went on preparing my breakfast, saying little to Bob.

Driving to work, PMS was raging. I thought, I love being so in touch with body, so I can laugh at myself this morning. I just figured that if I could avoid speaking to anyone, all would be fine. But being "in touch" didn't change the fact that I was pissed at everything I saw, didn't care that I was twenty minutes late for work, and desperately wanted to hit the accelerator and run every sign and light, knocking over the cute couples on their morning walks in Cheviot Hills. I saw some other chick road-raging behind an inept driver and felt a kinship.

But somehow I made it to work fine, without committing any traffic misdemeanors, and there was a newly vacant, kickass parking spot waiting for me. And I realized I hadn't put on my new fragrance, so I got it out of my purse and catching a whiff of it made me smile. I still didn't want to talk to anyone, but I felt a little better.

I didn't make eye contact with the person in the elevator (eye contact with fellow elevator riders is a sure sign of a good mood, and while the dark cloud over my head had ceased its torrential rains, it was still drizzling a little).

I went the long way around the floor to my cubicle to avoid walking past my boss's office because I was so late.

Ten minutes after settling in, my boss sent me an e-mail accusing me of not providing requested information that I had, indeed, provided her last week. Proving that I had done the work was a bit uplifting.

I had some nice e-mails from friends sitting in my e-mail inbox and some fun comments on my blog to read. Uplifting -- thanks, guys. I got an IM from another friend who "lol"'ed at my bitching about PMS and then mentioned that we should go hiking sometime soon. That was uplifting too. My friend on another team came by to tell me she's excited about my birthday party this weekend in San Francisco. More uplift.

So, the great thing about PMS is the mood swings are temporary. But I still feel bloated.

Raisins

2005-06-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

Today was my day to bring breakfast for the Friday team meeting (yes, my department calls the subsets "teams"). We switch off. It's a grand tradition, and, depending on who's up, a big topic of conversation on Thursday. Some people bring quiches or frittatas, or cereal, or Pop Tarts, or leftover pizza (yes, it's been done more than once), or fine cheeses with bread. In truth, most people just bring bagels, which is dandy.

Me, I love to make breakfast.

Hey baby, how do you like your eggs in the morning?

So I always prepare a good meal for the team. And I'm pretty health-conscious, so I use organic ingredients whenever possible and only fresh produce.

Today I made three dishes:

1) Eggs with spinach, pesto, and cheese. I used a dozen eggs (free-range, grain fed, blah blah blah), which turned out to be not quite enough. Oh well. I wasn't going back to the store. I made pesto from scratch (simply food-processed basil, pine nuts, a fresh chunk of reggiano or other hard stinky cheese, a smidge of crushed garlic, and sea salt), and sautéed the spinach (meticulously cleaned of the vile, shiver-inducing crunchy sand characteristic of sloppily cleaned fresh spinach) in butter before adding it to the scramble. This dish was the biggest hit of the three.

2) Sliced strawberries and peaches, tossed with honey.

3) Multi-grain cereal. This I made from steel-cut oats, bulgur wheat, quinoa, dates food-processed with meat from a couple young coconuts, food-processed Golden Delicious apples (basically raw applesauce), maple syrup, and a small bit of honey and salt to give depth to the sweetness. For this dish I prepared a small bowl of raisins that people could add themselves if they wanted to.

I was worried that I wouldn't have enough raisins for everyone, but I needn't have been concerned. Almost all the raisins were left over. People just don't like raisins! What's up with that? Raisins are good, dammit! They are sweet, convenient as a snack, and go with pretty much every type of food out there! My mom adds raisins to everything, everything -- my ex used to make so much fun of her for that, though of course I hadn't even thought twice about it before than.

I remember a middle school classmate who stated that raisins reminded her of old peoples' skin. And a girl on my team here at work said that she used to like them, but when she saw her aunt make homemade raisins (i.e., shrivel the grapes up on a slab in the sun), she could never eat another one. Yes, they are wrinkly. So?

Is it the texture, or a combination of the texture and flavor, that makes them so repulsive? What inspires someone to turn down what may be the best, moistest, sweetest, chewiest, crumbliest, richest chocolate chip cookie in the world simply because it is rumored to contain raisins?

All I know is that people who don't like raisins REALLY don't like raisins. And I don't get it.

New fragrance

2005-06-01T17:54:00.000-07:00

So José has hooked me up with a new fragrance oil, customized especially for me! The experience was really fun. We didn't even get out the perfumes that I had brought.

He stood next to a counter containing an expansive array of test tubes, all containing scent oils. I informed him that my favorite scent was lilac, but that I liked wearing something a little warmer. A combination of lilac and "hibiscus passion" or something like that, mixed together, smelled divine to me, so we used that as a base. After a bunch of different trial combinations, we figured out that I liked a few drops of "Island Girl" added lightly to that base. "Island Girl" is a combination of coconut, gardenia, and some other tropical flower whose name escapes me. Anyway, as soon as I smelled that combination, a big, cheesy grin took over my mouth and I got all giddy. Perfect! We tried to add more stuff, but nothing was as good as the combo of those three oils (which also blended really well with my chemistry).

So I'm wearing it right now, sitting happily in a little fragrance zone here at work. It's really lightly applied, though, so no one else will be able to smell it until I put more on.

Yay! Thanks, Shane! That experience was such a great birthday gift.

Scentology

2005-06-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

Today, as an early birthday present (June 11 is my birthday) my friend Shane is taking me to Fred Segal to have a fragrance formulated especially for me. I have no idea what to expect, though I feel very "LA" about the whole thing. She has a consultant whom she sees for her own fragrance needs, and his name is José. So I'm going to go see José, Shane at my side for moral support.

She told me to bring along some perfumes that I like. I have, in my bag right now, "Gardenia Passion" by Annick Goutal (in a lotion form, because my perfume bottle was stolen at the gym) as well as two scents by Victoria's Secret: "Strawberries and Champagne" and "Vanilla Lace." I'm not sure I really want a mixture of all of these smells, though. There was an oil I had awhile back that I've since misplaced called "Vanilla Clove" and I really liked that, too.

I like simple, identifiable fragrances (as you can see by the scents above). Some of the more abstact ones scare me. I mean, come on -- "Angel"? What does an angel smell like? How do I know my body chemistry won't make me smell like an angel wearing cheap perfume?

The funniest is "Red Door" (which I believe is Elizabeth Arden). I'm sure the name is meant to conjure up images of a little dream cottage with a red door, cinnamon buns baking inside and the domestic goddess bustling around dusting and drawing the drapes to let the sun in. But that's such a risk on the part of the scent designer! How do you capture such an image with a smell, let alone capture it in such a way that a person's chemistry won't warp the scent into something reminiscent of ten-minute-old Imperial Redhot breath emanating from trailer-park Pam? Red Door indeed.

So I'm trying to set aside all expectations and go have fun with this. I'll let y'all know how I smell when I come back!

Weekend

2005-05-25T17:53:00.000-07:00

This weekend I'm going up north to visit the folks. Dad and I are going hiking on Sunday, probably Mt. Tam (since we're climbing Mt. Whitney in August, we need to do some serious preparation). Much of the rest of the weekend will be spent moving my parents' extra furniture into an empty one-bedroom apartment located in the San Francisco apartment building owned by my grandfather.

My parents recently moved from Lexington, KY to the Peninsula right below San Francisco, where they got about a third of the Lexington house for roughly three times the price. So the house is overflowing with furniture that is too nice and too heirloomish to get rid of. Having an extra apartment in the city is always a good idea, I suppose, so furnishing it makes a lot of sense since my grandfather isn't interested in renting it out at the moment. Since I'm having my birthday party up in San Fran on June 11, I'm hoping that we'll have it ready for some out-of-town guests to stay in for the weekend.

So that's my Memorial Day weekend! Driving, hiking, and hauling furniture. Probably a bit of various S-F debauchery thrown in nights, especially if my roommate (Bob) decides to drive up with me. Watch out, Zeitgeist.

What are you guys up to for Memorial Day weekend?

Kaelan's Preakness experience

2005-05-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.docsports.com/preakness-infield.html

She gets paid for this, people. Get on the waiting list now for her upcoming book.

EPISODE III

2005-05-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to dress up, I swear. All day I had joked about wearing Princess Leia buns to the show, but it was just that: joking.

The show was at 11:30pm Friday at the Arclight in Hollywood, so I had time to go to my evening yoga class. I wore my usual two side-ponytails, which both keeps my hair out of my face and leaves the back of my head free from a single-ponytail lump, so that I can rest my head on the mat comfortably. On the way home, while sitting at a stoplight, I started coiling my hair around my ears like Princess Leia. Checking myself out in the rearview mirror, I thought, "Hey, I look pretty cool like this!"

When I got home I said to my roommate, Bob, "I think I should dress up for Star Wars tonight."

Bob agreed.

I mean, it's the last time I'll ever get to dress up for a Star Wars movie, opening weekend, in freaking HOLLYWOOD! Everyone (including hard-core Star Wars geeks) had been joking, and only joking, about dressing up, so I was afraid that no one actually would. I had to do it.

Ear-buns pinned in place, I rummaged through my closet, throwing clothes around, and emerged wearing a long grey nero-necked dress cinched at the waste with a beige suede belt and at each sleeve with copper band-bracelets. I put on my Roman-style calf-wrap sandals and pinned a small diamond necklace across the hair above my forehead so that the little charm hung right at my third eye.

I didn't look exactly like Leia, but the effect was right on and anyone could tell who my character was. Feeling a little silly, I turned to Bob for validation, which he delivered with a thumbs-up.

Alone (Bob wasn't into it) I hopped into my car and drove to the theater to meet up with my friends. On the way from my car to the meeting spot, I heard a shout:

"I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!"

Evidently geeks like chicks who dress up as Leia. Some big-ass white truck, containing the amorous yellers, pulled up next to me and asked my name.

"What do you think it is?" I said.

"LEIA!!!!!!!!"

I met up with my friends, none of whom dressed up. But they weren't embarrassed to be seen with me.

I was a little disappointed to see that few people in the audience actually had dressed up. There were a few that were super hardcore, wearing obviously storebought costumes, likely from Halloween, but they were all guys. I was the only girl sporting the garb. People kept pointing me out to their friends, but I'm used to that anyway because of my height. So it was just another day at the picture show.

The movie? Covered a lot of bases and had some AWESOME special effects. I laughed a lot and "wowed" a lot. I think I might have cheered at Yoda kicking ass a few times. And when Leia was born, I felt a special kinship to the babe.

A Shamelessly Gushing Ode to Old Friends

2005-05-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

This year I have had the pleasure of reuniting with several old friends. I’ve spent hedonistic weekends with two of my dearest girlfriends from high school. I’m living (again) with an old guy friend from college. A few months ago, a friend from high school (who might have been my first date, I’m not sure – I was his first date anyway) visited town on business and crashed at my place for a night. This summer one of my oldest and bestest guy friends will be going along with me and some of my LA girlfriends to Europe (We’re going sailing in GREECE, baby, YEEAAHHH!!! And he’ll be the only guy on the yacht, lucky stiff, no pun intended).

I’ve come to find that there’s nothing like old friends. My past is a large part of who I am, and try as I might to leave some aspects behind, there are some of which I need reminding. Spending time with old friends, I can be the MJ of today, but they always see to some extent who I once was, and I who they once were. Our dynamic positively teems with mutual appreciation as well as, at least on my part, sheer fascination with how recent changes in their lives (that is, since we parted physical ways) have impacted/not impacted their respective personalities and our interactions.

My old friends have “come into their own” with breathtaking gusto. They remain themselves, even are “more so” themselves in the personal attributes that they have chosen to enhance. And what choices! Seeing them create these amazing lives for themselves – and from scratch – makes me trust and admire them wholly. I admit to feeling a little proud of having recognized and chosen such remarkable individuals as friends when I was younger (as much as one has a choice in these matters).

Whether communication is spaced with years or arrives in daily spurts, hearing from them always plants a nostalgic smile on my face. When they ramble about what they’ve been up to, I am reminded strongly of why I’ve always found them to be so remarkable. And seeing them recently has revealed to me a love for them that I admit I hadn’t really considered previously beyond casually recognizing the existence of these long term friendships in my life.

Growing up, I moved around a lot and didn’t really get to keep people in my life for extended periods of time. I think that this may explain why I’m so enthralled with my enduring relationships with good friends from high school and college. Anyway, it’s awesome to have people around for so long. Do people who grow up in the same place throughout childhood take the gift of old friends for granted?

False Advertising

2005-05-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

When you think of “hot springs” what comes to mind? If you think in images like I do, you probably see a smallish, natural pool of warm water, fed by a bubbling source beneath, steam lifting in wisps from the surface. Some hot springs occur in the middle of a creek or river; one can see a steaming, differently swirling area out in the middle, inviting the would-be swimmer to shiver her way over through the otherwise frigid stream, to experience this mysterious and gentle warm current gushing intermittently from beneath the floor sediments. The effect is almost like swimming near a guilty pisser in the municipal pool, only the smell tends to be sulfurous or earthy rather than, well, you know. Only it’s quite pleasant.

It was with such idyllic images in our respective minds that my friend Bob and I, driving around the southern parts of California’s Central Valley, hotter than blazes in my car with one working roll-down window and an open sunroof, decided spontaneously to follow the signs for

California Hot Springs
28 MILES.

The map said that it was right on a creek, so we reckoned swimming in the creek and experiencing a hot springs would be a refreshing way to cool down before heading back to L.A.

Ha.

After winding our way up and down, twisty turny, past innumerable cow pastures (mmrrrrooooo), expansive fields of still, golden grasses, hillsides of sparsely scattered dark green trees, purple wildflowers, all absolutely lovely except for the extreme HEAT that was making Bob irritable and drowsy (though if you know me at all you know that I personally dig the heat), we found ourselves descending into Quail Valley and followed a sign that directed us off to the right to

California Hot Springs
2 MILES.

Our fists pumping, Bob reaching in the back for his towel, me feeling the sweat on my forehead no longer cooling but rather intensifying the insistent sunlight beating down through the open sunroof, we accelerated a bit, especially when we noticed that a rushing creek had joined up with our path and ran alongside the road.

About three minutes later, slowing down to a crawl, we saw…

…A white, old-looking building with “California Hot Springs” painted in bold, black letters above the door.

…Several cars, including minivans, slant-parked outside of said white building.

…two heavyset, ok FAT, shouting boys of about 11, swimming trunks sitting low on their bulging sausage-shaped lardy white torsos to reveal some serious crack, beach towels around their necks, their parents (and obviously the inspiration behind their Average American Diet) slamming shut the minivan doors and yelling at them to git along now.

… a rec-center-type swimming pool behind the white building, filled with kids and adults who could easily have been related to the corpulent clan, who were walking up to pay their entrance fees to the “California Hot Springs” facility to splash with their brethren in this hot-springs-fed municipal pool.

This was California Hot Springs.

Down the street a ways from the CHS building was a bridge-like structure where one could walk out over the creek. We walked to the overlook point and peered down into the creek, where we saw a pipe collecting the rushing water and directing it into the pool. This must have been where the spring was located. Unfortunately there was no way to get down into the creek to experience the hot spring firsthand.

All that driving, and us still standing here sweating like bitches, but not about to pay $10 to splash about with the Plumpkins.

If you do any driving around the country, you know that there are several places that bill themselves as “hot springs” when in reality they are nothing more than public pools and bathhouses that happen to be filled by some underground or underwater artesian well. Attempts to go to the source will lead to a building, which often is situated above or next to the spring itself, which is consequently inaccessible to anyone who wants the raw spring experience. Even Hot Springs National Park, in Arkansas, is like this. There’s a Bathhouse Row, where you can bathe to your hearts content in water piped from the springs to the commercial facilities, but there’s no going into the earth to get your hot springs fix.

There are communities of people in the know, who can point you in the direction of the real, idyllic springs that I described above. These people hop around from spring to spring, knowing the mineral content of each and which parts of the country have the best, most natural and pleasant, even therapeutic, hot springs. They post on Web sites (like http://www.soak.net/) and commune with one another at the springs themselves. I’m sure some of them are nudist-types, but others are just people that are wise to the false advertising of places such as California Hot Springs but who continue to seek out the really cool experience of hanging out in water coming straight from the depths of the earth.

Anyway, after a little more driving along the creek, we found a spot where we could go down into it and swim a bit. It was freezing cold, but refreshing, and we drove home happy as clams.

Dirty secret

2005-05-09T16:15:00.000-07:00

I'm a sucker for natural remedies. If I have an affliction of any sort, I'll take the natural route before turning to modern medicine.

And that, dear reader, is why I'm sitting here at work with a garlic glove stuck up my snatch.

I've been eating a mostly raw food diet lately, which is extremely healthy. Over the weekend I ate comparitively like crap, subsiding on dim sum, homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, a swiss cheese bagel, and fried Thai. All that partially hydrogenated, processed, MSG'd clumpy matter glugging its way through my clean, sensitized system, coupled with a collective 16 hours spent sitting in my car over the weekend, has caused me to get a little itchy down there.

Did you know that sticking a garlic clove up your snatch is a home cure for a yeast infection? I don't think I actually have a YI yet, but, because that particular affliction royally sucks, I'm taking preventive measures. It's a very interesting, tingly sensation. No one around me has sniffed the air and asked who had the pungent lunch, so I think I'm ok on the odor front.

And don't worry, it's not actually stuck. I ran a thread through the clove so that I can yank it out this evening.

Click this

2005-05-09T15:01:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what people will do to set themselves apart.

http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20050401.html

Tongue darting in and out of cheek

2005-05-09T10:08:00.000-07:00

Oftentimes 2-4am telephone conversations themselves are not as remarkable as the sleepily reflective aftermath. Especially if said conversations are with new friends/potential lovers/surprise soulmates who, in the discourse, cast a new light on life's circumstances with a fresh line of questioning. I've always found both periods of time to be rife with creative mental output in the form of newborn philosophies, epiphanies, goodwill, and a general feeling of camaraderie, though the latter phase, I find, typically is when it assimilates and colors the flowing waters of the individual psyche.

Last night at the tail end of my drive home from an awesome weekend in SF with my stupendously cool friend Dora, I had a long phone conversation with my new friend Frank, who is pretty unabashed about hitting on me; so much so that I suspect he practices such behavior on a bevy of women. One topic of conversations was, of course, relationships and our past relationship patterns.

Me, I honestly can say that I have had one serious, committed, romantic relationship in my life. Outside of that, the longest I've ever dated anyone, as in, gone on dates with on a regular or semi-regular basis, is about two weeks. Some of these have materialized into strong friendships, others have fallen nonchalantly by the wayside, the attached names escaping both my mind and my mobile phone's contacts list.

Of course Frank was eager to delve into the why's of this situation and offer explanations, which I suspect were tailored to keep me at arm's length while leaving certain doors open at the same time. I'm not going to go into those explanations right now, because I'd like to present what, based on his flattering-yet-guttural musings and that which I observed myself feeling in response to them, I figured out after hanging up with him around 4:15am while drifting past my coffee buzz and into sleep.

Basically, if you're a non-blood-related man who is in my life for any length of time, based on my patterns you will fall into one of the following four categories, to be governed by the accompanying rules:

1) YOU ARE MY FRIEND
- We meet, connect, talk for extended periods of time, have laughs, and profess mutual adoration, but we don't have mutual romantic feelings.
- If we were romantically drawn to one another initially but it fades for you, it will not adversely affect the potential for great friendship. I'll get over it, and you'll get to enjoy my constant, light-hearted advances.
- If we were romantically drawn to one another initially but it fades for me (but not you, at least right away), I will have trouble staying friends with you.
- We will not be intimate, unless we both sense the seeds of mutual romantic feelings.

2) WE ARE DATING
- We meet, connect, talk for any period of time, and share an attraction on some level. I give you my phone number.
- YOU call ME and invite me out.
- You take me out and pay, and hold the door, and impress me with your good behavior.
- If all goes well, we kiss.
- Depending on how we met, "other stuff" might be allowed to happen. If I met you on the Internet, I go home. Sorry, no Internet booty, no matter how expensive dinner was.
- We arrange to go on another date, and if it goes well, we kiss and stuff again.
- Dating multiple people is fine, as long as there's no sex.
- If there's sex on top of the dating, you will be my Significant Other (see #4). I don't like having multiple sex partners in my life, so it wouldn't be fair to other people I'm dating if I could only go so far with them.
- This is the most bullshit of all the categories. I don't care much for it, and would much rather be your friend. If something else develops, great. If not, who cares?

3) YOU ARE MY FUCK-BUDDY
- I see you or meet you, am immediately awestruck by you on some level, see that the feeling is not mutual, and pursue you anyway as a fuck-buddy for my own kicks.
- If I don't initiate the fuck-buddy status, it will never be. So keep walking, Jack.
- I will guard my emotions so as not to get attached; though, with few exceptions, I won't have more than one fuck-buddy at a time.
- I will refuse the fuck-buddy status to anyone I meet off the Internet.
- If I'm dating someone (Category #3) and start getting it on with that person, that dating relationship moves into Category #4. The fuck-buddy then will be given the old heave-ho or moved into Category #1.
- I suppose a fuck-buddy could come around to Category #4, but I doubt it will ever happen.

4) YOU ARE MY SIGNIFICANT OTHER
- I see you or meet you, am immediately awestruck by you (this is what happened with my one boyfriend)...
- ...OR you had been in a different category, but a deeper, more romantic feeling developed.
- The feeling is mutual.
- I commit my heart from that point on, you commit yours, and everyone else (other than close friends) falls away.

I feel a little lame about writing this whole thing (rules schmools). It's one of those MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS phenomena, but hell, it's good to think about this stuff sometimes.

Coachella: Sunday (Part 3 of 3)

2005-05-03T16:46:00.000-07:00

(continued from Part 2)

I’m so bad at playing it cool. Saying “good morning” to everyone my voice was a little higher pitched than usual, as I tried not to let my eyes linger too long on Spencer. Fortunately he’s simply one cool dude, and he gave me a big smile and that was that.

I felt really gross, though, and needed a shower more than anything. You could polish furniture with the patina on my skin, an oily coalescence of sunblock/sweat/desert dirt. Throwing a towel over my shoulder, stepping into my flip-flops and grabbing my toiletries, I headed over to the shower trucks. They had brought in trucks with shower stalls in them! How cool is that?

Unfortunately there was a long-ass line to the women’s showers. I stood there for about two minutes, and the line didn’t budge. So I went back to camp, grabbed the box of drinking water, and washed my face/brushed my teeth so I could feel tingly fresh in at least one area of my body. Also, I changed my clothes into a white bikini top and purple/pink/white/black flowy skirt and had DD pour water all over my hair. Somehow wet hair makes all the difference in the world when it’s hot out.

Hung out with everyone for a couple of hours and generally had a fantastic desert morning with conversation, smiles, a quick nap next to Spencer in the grass and intermittent snatches of food, punctuated by the occasional cool breeze and passed bowl.

When noon rolled around, Spencer, Steve and I decided to try our luck at the showers once again. There was no line this time, so we went and took showers in the shower truck. That thing is amazing. The showers were perfect! Tall stalls and showerheads, just the right amount of pressure, plenty of hot water, privacy, good drainage so the floors stay fairly sanitary... brilliant concept, showers on a truck. And being clean feels amazing after being grimy. Yes it does.

Walking back to the tents, Steve and Spencer were raving about some guys freestyling in the showers. I was impressed – I had heard rap music and thought someone had brought a boom-box or the shower trucks had piped in music, but no, it was two guys freestyle rapping. They switched off who did beatbox and who rapped. Wow. I wanna learn to freestyle rap! Someone get me an oversized Kobe Bryant jersey and baggy jeans, quick!

Back at the camp, a few of the guys duct-taped more drugs to their inner thighs and did lines. Spencer offered me one, but I don’t do coke (well, I never have before) so I politely declined.

Five of us went into the concert together this time. DD opted to stick around camp for a bit, deciding that he wasn’t quite ready to go in yet. We made plans to meet next to the sound console around 3pm, and if one of us wasn’t there, we’d try again at 4, then 5, etc. Unfortunately my phone was effectively out of juice, so calling one another would have been impossible. We did agree to try to text message one another if anything happened.

So off the five of us went to stand in line once more. The line was quite short on this day, though, and went quickly. While in line I realized that I had forgotten my long-sleeved shirt, so I had to use the last of my phone's batteries to text message DD to bring it with him when he came. Hopefully we'd meet at 3 or 4 without a hitch!

I had gotten pretty stoned right before we left camp to go into the concert, so I was a little spacey and must have looked a bit more suspicious: this time, the security checker guy actually had me take my towel out of my bag so that he could peer down into it. And thank goodness he did, too! I had a blowup beach ball in there! Sony Entertainment (ironically enough) had walked around handing them to campers to take into the concert (great advertising op). But security wouldn’t let us take freaking (deflated) blowup beach balls into the concert! Oh well. Guess it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye, and I definitely can see how one’s eye might fall victim to a stray beach ball. Motherfucker.

Once in (the offending beach balls in the trash), the first stop was the beer garden. Spencer worked his magic and we scored some cheap beer. Sitting in the shade, 3pm rolled around and I hopped out to see if DD was at the designated meeting spot. He wasn’t (probably got stuck in the entrance line), so the five of us went to catch the end of Diplo’s set (don’t remember much), followed by Sixtoo and M.I.A. Somewhere in there, 4pm rolled around and DD was at the designated location. Whew!

M.I.A. – what a talent! Adorable, too. I’ve never seen an encore that was actually unplanned. The stage crew had started taking down the stage setup and everything, but the crowd was going wild and chanting “M-I-A! M-I-A!” so I guess someone decided that it would be good business to give them what they wanted. The stage crew set stuff back up, and then M.I.A. did a quick sound check and played a couple more tunes.

DD didn’t care much for M.I.A.'s music, though – he took off to hang out in the beer garden halfway through the set, and I felt bad that he was hanging out alone. But I was enjoying the show, and I figured he was socializing with fellow concert-goers, so I didn't worry too much.

We met DD back in the beer garden. Got some beers and went to sit in the shade. The guys who had brought drugs into the venue—ecstasy, specifically—dosed up. By the time we had finished our beers and left the beer garden to walk over and catch the Futureheads on the main stage, Spencer informed me that the ecstasy had kicked in and that he was “pretty fucked up.”

I’m not sure how people can maintain normal personalities when they are psychosomatically altered. It’s a fascinating mystery to me, because I sure can’t maintain myself worth beans when I’m high in any way (except through alcohol, and I’m an ace at that). Spencer was pretty mellow, but he did tremble a little with pleasure when I scratched his back as we sat on my beach towel in the grass watching Futurehead. I love touching people who are rolling on ecstasy – they are always hyperbolically responsive.

The stoner guys were pretty hot to get over to the tent where Roots Manuva would be going on soon. DD wanted to stick around and watch Gang of Four, who was about to play the main stage. Gang of Four sounded more interesting to me, and I didn't want to leave DD again, so I opted to stay put.

Spencer had been wearing my sunglasses (and I his), so we traded back in case we didn’t see one another again. He also bent over and kissed my bare stomach (I was sort of halfway lying down) and made plans with us to meet up near the Roots Manuva stage after Gang of Four’s set was done. Somehow I didn’t think that was going to happen, but whatever.

DD pushed his way up closer to the Gang of Four stage, and I fell asleep for a few minutes alone on the towel. It was niiiiiiiice.

Gang of Four came on, but I was apathetic. I didn’t even stand up. I stayed seated on my towel while everyone around me stood. The band weren't that great, and I think that the previous night’s lack of sleep was finally setting in. DD even came back to the towel after a few songs and said that he was underwhelmed as well.

So we decided to see if we could go meet up with the stoner guys at Roots Manuva (I also wanted to see Roots Manuva, since the stoner guys had been talking excitedly about them for the entire weekend). RM was pretty straightforward hip hop, which DD doesn’t like one bit, and we didn’t see our buddies, so we left to grab a $6 slice of pizza (!!!!) and watch New Order take the main stage.

New Order’s first couple songs set the stage for a rather boring set (which is too bad, because, well, New Order, man!), so we decided to go catch some of the Dresden Dolls. While DD watched the DD's (tee hee) I went to the port-a-potty bank to piss and then mosied next door to the rave tent, where either Junkie XL or Armin Van Buuren was spinning the trippy beats. I watched the ravers bounce around and stared at the laser lights a bit, then went back to get DD, who, after one more Dresden Dolls song, was ready to go.

I was ready to go too. On the way out, we passed the main stage, where New Order was still playing, and stuck around for a little longer when we heard the opening beats of “Blue Monday.” But that was it.

Walked back to camp, packed up as Nine Inch Nails thumped in the distance (too bad we missed them... AND The Faint), accommodated a little bit of drama when one of the Irish guys thought his brother had left to drive back to San Francisco without him (he borrowed DD’s mobile phone), and left to drive back!

Got back to DD's place around 12:30am, divided our stuff, and then I drove HOME.

What a great weekend.

Coachella: Saturday (Part 2 of 3)

2005-05-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

(continued from Part 1)

We emerged from the tent (me in a zebra print halter bikini top and flowy knit turquoise skirt and turquoise necklace), greeted our neighbors, and proceeded to have a relaxed, music-driven morning of communally shared food, alcohol, and the occasionally passed bowl. Spencer made us margaritas, and when the tequila ran out, we used my vodka; which inspired a new drink, officially dubbed “The Coachella.” The Coachella is a refreshing blend of vodka, margarita mix, tonic water, and raspberries.

Spencer told me about his drive down with Steve along the PCH (they live in Tahoe, and opted to drive West and down rather than the straighter shot). They camped and smoked in Big Sur then drove the rest of the way on Friday. Sounds like they take quite a few such trips together, in between their regular snowboard outings (they work at a board shop in Tahoe).

“You guys are such hedonists!” I said.

“Head-onism is wonderful, yeah,” said Spencer. That’s how the Scottish pronounce hedonism: “head-onism.”

“All right then, the operative word for this Coachella weekend will be “head-onism,” I said. He and the others concurred, and we all toasted “head-onism.”

Those guys were just unbelievably cool. All of them!

Daxson and Quinn took off to go into the concert, and Steve, Spencer, and I decided that we’d all go in together a little later. Steve and Spencer got to work duct-taping drugs to their inner calves. I sprayed Bullfrog SPF 36 all over myself and them. DD went to his car to get one of his Frappucinos (which come pre-packaged in glass containers, and we didn’t want to have to sneak them into the campground as such) and walk around, saying he wasn’t quite ready to go in and that he’d call and meet up with us later. But when I called him to let him know that we were going in and that I’d leave his ticket in the tent, he asked if we wouldn’t wait for him to take a dump so he could join us. He was heading into the port-a-potty at that time.

Cool, so we waited. And waited. And waited…. That man took the longest dump! Eventually he came sauntering over to the communal area, a few pounds lighter I imagine. Hee hee! I handed him his ticket with a grin, put on my wide brimmed straw hat, and the four of us headed out across the lawn to the concert.

Because Spencer and Steve came together, I figured that they wanted to scope chicks. So I tried not to hover around them too much so that any said scoped chicks wouldn’t think that those two guys were spoken for.

Also, while I really enjoyed the guys' company, DD was the friend that I came with and I didn’t want him to feel as though I were abandoning him to join this other group. DD is at over 20 years older than I and everyone else in the group, and he definitely got to see me acting my age this weekend. Usually we don’t feel much of the chasm of years that separates us in age, but this weekend it was quite pronounced. I’m sure he felt like he was babysitting.

But I digress. The four of us, all slightly stoned except DD, joined the droves that, probably stoned as well, sort of surged lazily in the direction of the entrance gates. Spencer expertly picked a line that ended up moving much faster than the others (yeah, Spencer!), though we still had to stand in the sun for half an hour or so.

When we got to the check tables I opened my backpack willingly, and again, the checker guy just sort of patted the sides, didn’t even bother checking my person, and let me through. Thank you, Shirley Temple cheeks! Not that I had tried to sneak anything in, but it was nice to have my privacy intact. I don’t know how Steve and Spencer could deal mentally with having drugs taped to themselves while being patted down by the checkers. I would have been a nervous wreck if I’d even tried to sneak in, say, an apple (no outside food was allowed). Kudos to your nerves of steel, gentlemen.

We filed in, walked around a corner, and the festival spread out before us like a giant, grassy, well-populated playground with the baselines of an eclectic array of music (the stages were about equidistant away from us at this point) thumping concurrently across the expanse. There were tents everywhere, a big dragonfly-shaped water mister which some creative crazy had soldered from a broken-down helicopter (and to which we promptly headed over for some cooling down), more such functioning outdoor art sculptures, the outdoor stages and giant, stage-containing tent-pavilions way off in the distance, and hordes of colorfully clothed people swarming the enormous fields.

After getting misted we picked up schedule booklets. Most of the bands playing at that time (around 3pm) were the small-time types, and none of us had actually heard of any, so we opted to go see the one that someone thought that they’d heard from someone else, somewhere, was worth checking out. Hey, it’s all we had to go on!

And that’s how we were introduced to the Raveonettes.

What a kick-ass band! The Raveonettes had great style, were very talented musicians, and exuded a really groovy vibe that was reminiscent of Blondie, but not so much so that one could say, “Yeah, I like these guys, but I liked them better when they were called Blondie.” They were just a greatly enjoyable band, and I’m glad that someone, somewhere, told someone in our group that they were worth checking out, because they certainly were that.

After the Raveonettes finished their set, we went to get our ID’s checked so we could wear paper Heineken bracelets for the entire weekend that ensured admittance into the beer garden. Fortunately I was wearing enough sunblock that I didn’t get a tan line.

Once in the beer garden, I walked up and ordered a beer, which was $7. At another table, I saw Spencer talking to the beer seller, and he walked away from the table, two beers and a water in hand, grinning from ear to ear. He said, “Yeah, $10 for all this!”

“How in the world…?” I asked.

“You’re a girl, you should know this kind of thing,” Spencer said.

“Yeah, right! My one beer was $7!”

“Well…”

Basically he went up to the guy and told him how much it sucked to pay that price for beer. That’s it! On his personality alone, he scored himself a pretty hefty discount that applied for the rest of the day. I witnessed him pull this off with two other people throughout the weekend. The guy is a Jedi, I’m sure of it.

We sat down in the grass under a shade tent in the beer garden to drink our beers (DD didn’t have one -- I think he's more of a nighttime drinker) and feel wonderful. I was really digging on Spencer’s beautiful blue eyes, and I seized the opportunity to stare at them while we were in the shade without our sunglasses on. On top of his serene personality, he had me captivated with his Scottish accent and those eyes. He noticed me staring, and his eyes twinkled back in a stoned way.

We finished our beers and walked around checking out the other stages, and walked back to the main stage (where the Raveonettes had played) to catch the end of Snow Patrol’s set. I don’t remember much of their music, but I think it was fine. Unremarkable, but not bad. DD and Steve, comfortable lying on my big beach towel, hung out while Spencer and I went back to the beer garden for another round.

We sat under the shade tent together, sort of touching legs and arms while sitting. He was so much fun to be around! I could have sat there with him for the rest of the day. I took off my turquoise necklace and held it up next to his eyes, admiring how the light made them appear to be the same color.

Looking over his shoulder I noticed some guy with a camera pointed in my direction. I figured he was taking a picture of something behind me so I didn’t pay too much attention. But he took the camera down, looked directly at me, and said (commanded, really), “Smile!” which I did, and Spencer turned around and smiled too, and the guy took a Polaroid of us. He spread his fingers out at me and mouthed “Five.”

I looked at Spencer and said, “I think he wants us to buy that picture for five bucks.” I tried not to look at the guy too much, because neither of us was interested in buying the picture. After a minute or so (giving the picture time to develop), the guy came over with the photo, looked at Spencer, and said with both his voice and outstretched fingers, “Two.” And then, “This is a GREAT picture, man, check it out.” I then noticed that the guy, who had masculine, darkly handsome, Latin features, was wearing Barbie-pink lip gloss.

Spencer looked at me and said, “Well, shall we go?”

The guy tapped Spencer on the shoulder and said, “Ok, man, you can have the picture.” Spencer took the picture and looked at it, and gave it to me to look at too. While I was examining the picture to make sure my gut wasn’t bulging too much beneath my bikini top, the guy said, “Hey can I ask you guys a question? Do you know where I can get any drugs?”

Spencer said, “Dude, I’ve got some shrooms if you want some.”

“How much?”

“It’s cool man, I’ll give you some.”

Spencer reached into his pocket, brought out his little baggy containing about an eighth of shrooms (which earlier had been taped to his inner thigh), and gave the guy more than enough to catch a little trip. This presumably was in payment for the photograph, and the guy accepted the shrooms gratefully. Spencer pocketed the photograph.

I think that Spencer is the most generous person I have ever met.

As Spencer was carefully wrapping his shroom supply back up, I commented to the photographer that his lip gloss was a nice touch.

“It’s lipstick, actually.”

“Oh, excuse me!” I said.

“It’s ok. Do you like it? How does it look?” He looked at me intensely, his eyes requesting approval.

Honestly, the guy didn’t seem gay, but he was sitting there asking me how his bright pink lipstick looked.

“It’s nice! It brings out your olive complexion.” I tried to respond to his seeming earnestness, but in case he was being silly I left room in my demeanor for the interpretation of irony.

After thanking Spencer for the hookup and smiling at us in farewell, the lipstick’ed photographer went back to sit with his woman friend, who had stayed put, staring off into space during the entire transaction.

On the way back to join our friends, Spencer explained to me that he believed in karma. I still think he’s the most generous person I’ve ever met. He moved in to put his arm around my waist, and I rested my arm around his shoulders as we walked. His hand kept slipping down to right above my butt, even squarely palming my ass at times, but hey! Head-onism was the theme of our Coachella weekend, so I didn’t object in the slightest.

When we got back to the beach towel we hung out while Keane started their set. I don’t remember that band at all. I just remember Steve and Spencer dividing and eating the shrooms. I helped myself to a small stem and the residual dust on my towel, though I didn’t feel anything from it.

Steve and Spencer wanted to see James Lavelle from UNKLE, who was about to play a stage in a remote tent across the field. Since the bathrooms over there were less crowded, DD and I walked across with them, but then we parted ways with them so we could go see Rilo Kiley at a different stage. We made plans to meet at the water tent back at the main stage for Weezer.

Rilo Kiley was cool. The lead singer had a great style, and I really enjoyed both listening to and watching her. I think that DD is the one that first pointed her out to me as an artist to listen for on KCRW, awhile back.

After her set we went to the food court and had yummy chow mein. Weezer started while we were in the food court, so I wolfed down my chow mein and, letting DD take his time, I arranged to meet him at the water tent beside the Weezer stage when he was finished.

I figured our little shroomers would be at the meeting spot as well, but they weren’t. Oh well. I think that they ended up staying on the other side of the field, where the trance music was beginning to kick in, enjoying their respective trips with some appropriately trippy grooves for the rest of the evening.

Weezer was unremarkable (sorry, my multitude of friends who are Weezer fans, but they were just kind of boring, though I think some of their songs definitely are very cool. I even own an album).

Bauhaus, who followed them, appearing suitably macabre, put on a great show. The lead singer came out hanging upside-down, staying that way through the entire first song. DD thought that he was too flamboyant, as he strutted in an exaggerated manner around the stage for the rest of the set, but I thought that he was an effective performer.

We left after a few songs to go check out Mercury Rev. They’re a pretty neat little up-and-coming band. DD really liked them (REALLY liked them – they were his favorite of the festival). Me, I thought the lead singer had a cool, dorky personality with suitably overwrought gestures that made me smile as they drew me in, but I wasn’t a fan of the trance track that was going on in the background with no apparent source. Nor was I a fan of the inspirational quotes that kept flashing behind the band on the screen. Maybe I was just antsy to go catch some of the Chemical Brothers before seeing Fantômas (so much damn overlap), but I couldn’t take too much Mercury Rev.

DD clearly didn’t take to the techno coming out of the Chemical Brothers tent, so we went to wait for Fantômas to set up. They took their sweet time, but it was worth it!

This was my first ever time – and it’s about damn time – that I saw Mike Patton live.

Wow.

What a crazy, energetic, electric presence he has. From behind a sampler console, complete with two microphones, he gallantly led his pet project in some sort of musical equivalent to a Picasso collage: Picasso, a technically gifted, classically trained painter, chose instead to make statements using abstractions that more completely represented his perspective regarding objects and people, resulting in artwork unlike anything anyone had seen at the time. Patton, a technically gifted, extraordinarily versatile musician, uses Fantômas to break industrial music down into its components and sounds, then builds these abstractions back up into something that resembles no other music I’ve ever heard.

It’s interesting to observe myself as I listen to Fantômas: I involuntarily try to find threads of identifiable music that I can latch onto, to find comfort in, among the fray. Patton does throw some identifiably coherent musical measures out there as such lifelines (one of Picasso’s most popular paintings, Dora Maar, is shaped like a woman, but in truth bears very little resemblance to an actual woman; one reason it’s more popular than some of his more abstract works likely is because the form identifiable as a woman), but there are not many.

It was brilliant to listen to and watch just the same, and I watched the entire set mesmerized by Patton. I barely noticed when DD, halfway through the set, laid a hand on my shoulder and shouted in my ear that he’d meet me back at camp. Sure, ok.

Fantômas finished suddenly, and before I knew it Patton thanked us and the stage was empty. I mentally brushed myself off and walked over to where Spoon were wrapping up their set. I’ve always wanted to see Spoon live, but if their last two or three songs were any indication of what a Spoon show would be like, I probably won’t spend much money on tickets next time they come through. Brit Daniels, the lead singer, may be hot and blond, but they didn’t put on much of a show.

When they finished, it was 11:55pm and Coachella’s Saturday portion officially was done. I walked with the masses back to the camp, stopping to look at some active pieces of modern, outdoor art. One involved loud pyrotechnics, and the other involved sporadic flashes of lightning that snaked out from a circle of metal discs atop a tower. Pretty cool stuff.

Back at camp, I got quite tired and threatened to take a nap. DD thought that sounded good, too, but as we started to lie down, all four of our stoner neighbors came back to camp and instead of napping we hung out, drank, and traded stories. Midnight had marked the beginning of Steve’s birthday, and while we tried to make him drink in celebration, he didn’t feel like it. I think he was actually the first to hit the hay. DD was the second. Quinn wasn’t far behind.

Daxson, Spencer and I went to another neighbor’s common area to hang out. These people were Irish, every last one of the dozen-plus in the group, and they were damn fun. However, I think everyone was tired from the day’s festivities, so the craziness that had been expectant in the air never transpired. Not a single person streaked or anything!

Spencer and I got progressively cozier, and eventually, after most everyone had trickled off to bed, took a walk around the grounds. Our height difference made it too difficult for us to make out while standing up, so we went back to his tent, where I fell asleep after a rather short session. When alcohol is involved, it’s hard to do much of anything for too long, you know? Plus tent fabric doesn’t offer much noise insulation, so, well, I don’t know about Spencer, but I was concerned about the aural transgressions us two horny kids were perpetrating on the immediately surrounding campers. Which included their unfortunate, sleeping friends.

I woke up feeling slightly guilty about leaving DD alone, so in the early morning light I crept out of Spencer’s tent and zipped myself back in with DD. And a scant two or three hours after that, DD woke me up to drag me (thankfully) out of the dangerously sweltering heat of the tent and into the final day of Coachella.

(to be continued)

Coachella: Friday night (Part 1 of 3)

2005-05-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

Drove to my good friend DD’s, where we packed his car with our camping/concert gear. We left his place around 6:45pm, plunging bravely into rush-hour traffic, and got down to the campsite around 10:30 or so.

There wasn’t too much traffic when we arrived, so we just followed the lead of the guys with their little flags to our parking spot and sailed on in. Got out, stretched, and started making motions to unpack, when I hear,

“Aaawwwwwwwwwww…. FFFUCK!!!”

Now, DD is a mild-mannered guy, though perhaps somewhat prone to pessimism and, as we all are from time to time, small, jokingly melodramatic outbursts. I cautiously peered over the top of the car, thinking that whatever inspired that proclamation either was no big deal (like he dropped his bag on his foot) or was totally, monumentally sucky (like he forgot the tent). He forgot the fucking tent.

It was almost 11:00 at night, and we were in the desert. I doubted there was an open tent-store at that time of night. I had visions of sleeping under the stars amidst a sea of drunken revelers, lying prone on our air mattress in pj’s while everyone else curled up in the safe nylon confines of their dome tents, shielded from the whipping desert wind. I tried to come to terms with the idea of not having a tent. Ok, maybe. Then again, no way. Wellll, maybe. Arrrrgh! We toyed with the idea of getting a hotel, but hotels would be booked solid for the weekend within a 100 mile radius, for sure.

All I have to say is, God bless suburban dwellers and their penchant for 24-hour Wal-Mart Superstores. One of the traffic directors was a local, and when DD pulled up asking where one might get a tent at that hour of the day, he directed us to a Wal-Mart that was a scant five-minute drive down the road.

For $35 we picked up a 4-person dome tent that turned out to be bigger than the one DD had planned to bring, so in the end it worked out for the best. Whoo-hoo!

To knock out the only other complaint of the night, we had to stand in line for like an hour to get into the campsite—with all of our gear with us, kicking it ahead inch by inch as the line crawled forward. See, there was a LOT of rules as to what was and wasn’t allowed in the campsite. No alcoholic beverages, glass, or open flames to name some of the more prominent. Fire we could live without, but everyone seemed determine to sneak in glass and bevs. The baggage searchers were being quite thorough, invoking the Darwinist notion that only the most creative packers would have the means to party. And we had to wait in line for this.

I had my vodka in a water bottle, so I wasn’t too worried. Indeed, I needn’t have worried at all. When I got to the bag checker guy, he just half-heartedly peered into one of my bags, patted my backpack a little, and waved me on through. Yes: looking like Shirley Temple definitely has its benefits!

I was so excited!!! With the help of one of our neighbors, we pitched our tent on our designated square of grass, adding our 9ft x 7ft ripple to the vast sea of tents. Everyone was amazingly friendly and as eager to say “hello” as I was. I met a ton of people that night and made friends with our neighbors in the tent community, including four stoner-guys in the plot kitty-corner from ours: Quinn (from New Zealand), Daxson, Spencer (from Scotland), and Steve.

I thought that the four of them had traveled together, but it turns out that Quinn and Daxson, who live in Santa Barbara, had just met Spencer and Steve, who live in Tahoe, while standing in the camping line, and they were assigned to the same square of grass. Wow, they got along so well for guys who had just met one another!

After DD and I changed into warm sleeping clothes, Steve invited us into his tent, along with Daxson, Spencer, and another neighbor (Dusty), to join him in doing what stoners do best. We sat around and talked for an hour or so, hip-hop and reggae music from an iPod/speaker setup wafting from the little common area between tents.

I must say, Spencer was adorable (if a bit short – probably around 5’6”). And, likely due to my anesthesiologist being Scottish when I was put under prior to my appendectomy in 1997 (after being in excruciating pain for three days), I’m a complete sucker for Scottish accents. I flirted with him a bit, wondering if these guys thought that DD and I were a couple. I figured that if it wasn’t apparent already, it would become obvious eventually that we weren’t (we toyed with dating for a couple weeks back when we first met, but after a short while he decided to cut short any romance between us and I eventually came around to welcoming him as a valued friend).

When DD and I were good and tired we excused ourselves to go get ready for bed. By the time we hit the sack it was around 3am. Sleeping was remarkably easy (DD doesn't snore, ladies), and I awoke to the resolute 9am desert heat, which drove us, cursing and sweating, into scantier clothing and out of the tent in no time.

(to be continued)

Coachella

2005-04-29T17:45:00.000-07:00

I'm going down to the Coachella this weekend for the annual meta-concert. Will try to report back on Monday!

Check it out:
www.coachella.com

So many rules to be broken...

Hennahead

2005-04-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

I henna'ed my hair last night for the second time ever, using henna hair dye from Whole Foods. The brand is Light Mountain. The first time I henna-ed, I used "burgundy," which is a mixture of regular henna and indigo. This time I used "red," which is just the regular henna. It's a bit lighter, but since my hair is dark brown it doesn't look much different. I tried taking a picture with my camera phone, but the color sucks so you can't see any of the red. If I remember, I'll try taking a picture when I'm outside; sunlight really picks up the red.

I love henna! Other than making my hair reddish, it makes it super shiny and soft.

To learn more about henna-ing, go to www.hennaforhair.com. Some people are really into this stuff!

Friend's published article - whoo-hoooooo!

2005-04-28T17:22:00.000-07:00

Yeah Kaelan!

Go here: http://www.docsports.com/kentucky-derby-party.html to see her mad approach to throwing a Derby Party.

Love ya, girlfrien'. And just think, this is only the beginning.

xo

Weekend in the life of a reluctant hipster

2005-04-26T18:12:00.000-07:00

I stayed out until dawn both Friday and Saturday nights this weekend. I feel like such a freaking party animal, at a time in my life where I’m trying to be more serious-minded about settling down. Oh well. Since I’m not a mom yet, or even in a relationship, I will go all out in my current lifestyle. Which approach I surely will take in the next stage of my life as well. As Janis said, “The way you do anything is the way to you everything.” Thus justified, onto the weekend:

Friday night
I planned to join my friend Jessica later in the evening (11:30) for a trip to the Rainbow. Her family is in town and they were having dinner together, so she needed time afterward to change from family clothes into Rainbow clothes (the requisite clothing choices for those two situations are like night and day). I figured I’d have time to go on a run, shower, get dressed, and even take a quick nap before picking her up.

However, on the way home from work, I got a hankering for a new skirt and went to Ross Dress-for-Less to get my fix. Two hours and $150 later I emerged with not one but TWO new skirts…. as well as a couple of funky two-piece suits (which, originally priced, had been over $150 each); a rockin’, flesh-pink, wraparound dress; a black string bikini; and a bright turquoise top. Easily coulda blown $150 on a lone skirt at some hoity-toity boutique in Beverly Hills, right? Ross is the best store EVER!

By the time I left Ross it was too dark out for a run; I promised myself I’d run on Saturday after going to the racetrack. Instead I drove home, bobbing my head to the radio and conceptualizing ideas for the integration of my new acquisitions into my wardrobe. (While concurrently contemplating solutions for world peace, of course.)

Since I had two or so hours before having to pick Jessica up for our night out, I took my time on the outfit. It was to center around my new pink dress, which looked even better on me than it had in the dressing room (I have to say, I love being in shape). I liked how the outline of my nipples was (very slightly) visible through the top. However, I wanted cleavage so I put on a black push-up bra.

I stepped into some appropriate drawers (black and lacy, shaped like little shorts with a slight thong effect, somewhat visible through the light-colored dress fabric). I untangled then pulled on my wide-weave fishnets, and, since the cut of the dress didn’t really do much for the length of my legs, I decided that my simple black patent heels would look better than my standard black, 20-eye, shit-kicker boots. I topped off the outfit with a silver-and-black sequin belt, a long, doubled-over string of pearls, and a big black bow tied around my hair, which I left curly. I liquid-lined my eyes Egyptian style and stained my lips a dark berry, opting to match my makeup to the black in my outfit rather than to the pink dress. To kill some more time, I painted my toenails for the first time this year.

Throwing my black velvet coat over the outfit, I stepped out feeling fashionably neo-Lauper and ready for a night of action. In the dark while driving, I batted my eyes at no one in particular, seductively eying the rearview mirror.

Jessica, strutting out to my car when I picked her up, looked extraordinary and sleekly rockin’. Her sense of style has evolved over the last year or so from “sophisticated and understated” to “sophisticated and vixenated.” The girl was even wearing gartered fishnets, gentlemen, that were visible when she sat. Hot, huh.

We parked on the street and walked up to the Rainbow, chancing to meet up with our friend Richie on our way in. Richie is a cool cat: a musician with his shit together, amazingly enough. He knows everyone at the Rainbow. Check him out: http://www.madisonpaige.net/MP-Richie.html. He (along with half the male population) has a crush on Jessica. We hung for awhile inside with our vodka crans, and then walked out to the patio for a change of scenery.

This goth rock musician guy that I met last weekend at Miss Kitty’s, whom I shall call Frank, eventually showed up to meet us. Interesting dude, that one.

We all shot the shit all together for awhile, watching scores of men hit on Jessica. As we eventually learned, the usual Friday after-hours place wasn’t happening that night, so Jessica and I made plans to go to Canter’s for some potato pancakes. Frank and his friend decided not to join us, as they didn’t have a car and mine had a mess in the backseat. Plus they claimed they were trying to lose weight. Darn rockstars! Neurotic and narcissistic, all of ‘em. After some delightful potato pancakes and cheese blintzes at Canters, and then taking Jessica home, I met Frank and his friend at Frank’s friend’s apartment, which is located walking distance from the Sunset Strip. We watched Sting and the Police studio videos until dawn. (And listened to their band’s music, of course.)

Saturday, Day
I came home and slept until I had to get ready for my friend Dawn to pick me up for our day at the Hollywood Park racetrack. Due to some plumbing issues at her apartment, she took her sweet time, so I could have slept more but instead spent the extra time embellishing my outfit.

It was opening weekend at the track, and supposedly a big deal, but I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary going on. I think that they’d had bands the night before, but they always have bands there Friday nights. Chakka Khan had been there, so maybe she’s bigger than what they normally present.

Dawn showed me how to pick horses to bet on (she’s got a great track record, pun noted and welcome but not intended), and throughout the course of the afternoon I bet and lost $8. She won the first race, but proceeded to lose something like $80 by the time we left. Guess it was an off-day.

Of course I didn’t run when Dawn dropped me off at home. I was so exhausted after the night before, and I tried to take a nap but was too tired. I wasn’t planning on going out, but I started talking to girlfriends… and then this guy called… and I started looking forward to a night out and figured I could fuel myself with a little caffeine. I’m such a sucker.

Side note:

Funny story! This guy that called (referred to in the previous paragraph): I met him at Barney’s Beanery about three weeks ago. He was completely wrecked when we met him, but seemed nice enough and, by virtue of being sorta hot, crossed that bridge from “ugh, get away from me you drunk slob” into “ok, I’ll tolerate you; just lay off the leg-rubs.” He was quite taken with me, and kept saying “One love, Bob Marley-style” at the most random times. Of course his nickname, between my girlfriends and me, is “One Love.”

So, One Love gave me his business card and asked me to call him. I took the card, wrote my e-mail address on it, and gave it back to him with “No, you take my e-mail address. I want to see what you choose to write to me, and when you decide to do it.” He wrote back in the next day or two, something generic, with his phone number. Gritting my teeth against the ho-humness, I called him, and he expressed interest in getting together but professed to be busy.

Finally, this weekend, over two weeks later (after I’d forgotten all about him), he called and mentioned meeting up. Proceeded to tell me about some private party that he knew about at Tokio in Hollywood, next to the Velvet Margarita, where Jessica and I had talked about going Saturday night, but that he had had hassles getting himself on the list. I said to him jokingly, “Well, you know, 6’3” hot women typically don’t have too much trouble getting in places.”

Silence.

“You’re 6’3”?”

“Um, yeah.”

More silence. Then, “Ok. I’m going to ask you a question, and this is going to sound really weird, but I need to ask you this question. Did we play air hockey and basketball together?”

Holy shit! A classic moment was happening! “Nnnnnoooooo. Oh my GOD you think I’m someone else!”

“Uhh, yeah maybe. I was really drunk. What did we talk about and stuff?”

“Oh you know, life, love, all kinds of things. You were pretty taken with my height.” Didn’t tell him about the professions of love, the marriage proposal, or the various acts of drunken behavior perpetrated in bids to maintain bodily contact with me while sitting at the bar, but I did say, “You kept talking about One love, Bob Marley style.”

“Yeah, that sounds like me. Oh boy.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Since his party was close to where we were headed and he had been planning on cabbing it, and he lived precisely on my way to pick up Jessica, I offered to give him a lift to Hollywood. I couldn’t not, you know? Too funny.

End side note.

Saturday night
So yeah, once again, I got ready to go out. Getting out of Rainbow mode is pretty challenging. While I wore a more refined, Hollywood-esque simple black dress (a Target purchase, I might add), I wore my own gartered fishnets (not visible when seated, unfortunately) and the same heels from Friday night. Then I opted for turquoise accents so as to pull it back out of rocker mode.

In spite of my shower and efforts at makeup removal, there was enough eyeliner left around my eyes to leave well enough alone (with a bit of cleanup), so I threw on some lipstick and my velvet coat and left to go get coffee, One Love, and Jessica.

One Love recognized me and even looked a little bit relieved. I made some lame joke about marriages being difficult to annul in the state of California (as if he’d been so drunk we’d gotten married without his recollection) but it fell flat. He was a lot more fun drunk than sober, though he was a cool enough guy.

He paid for my valet and for the round of drinks we got at the Improv Olympic (which has the cheapest drinks for miles around, making it the perfect place to kick off a night out in Hollywood. Great crowd, too). Then we walked over to Tokio, dropped him off with hugs all around, and continued to the Velvet Margarita.

Thus began a very interesting night. We got vodka crans from a hot, Antonio Banderas looking bartender out on the patio (whose name, we’d learn later, was Alejandro). Walking back inside, whom should we see but Vince Vaughn, chest out, strutting a little, leading a large posse to the corner table.

We hung out in full view of Vince’s table and the rest of the bar, keeping tabs on the haps. I went to the restroom and came back and some guy was talking up Jessica (as always happens when I go off to the restroom), but that didn’t last long. We’re so spoiled by the Rainbow and Barney’s, where people actually come up and talk to us on a regular basis, without attitude. We definitely were getting all kinds of attitude at the Velvet Margarita. The crowd was interesting enough to keep us there, though, since it kept changing in vibe: the snobbishly sober, to the “came-from-another-bar,” to the “in-it-for-the-long-haul” crowd.

Jessica did have her eye on someone, and evidently it was mutual because they started talking… and it proceeded pretty quickly to lots of physical contact. Go Jess. I chatted with some other guy (whose name I’ve forgotten) and his friend who seem nice enough (though I wasn’t really interested, partially because of the reasons outlined in the below post). They mentioned that there would be a secret, afterhours scene at the Velvet Margarita, which sounded interesting. They’d been there the night before and stayed until dawn with Vince and his crowd of admirers. How Hollywood! I resolved to do that this particular night.

The bar began closing and the big guys in suits ushered people out. The guys I was talking to, Forgot-his-name and friend, asked the doorman what the deal was. The doorman sort of motioned for us to stay put outside the club. Shivering, I stepped past him with a smile and went back inside; that damn Forgot-his-name followed me. The bartender (Sergio, I learned) gave me a wink, a smile, and a nice compliment, so I figured we were ok just chilling at the bar near a small hipster crowd until things settled. Not so. A big guy in a suit ushered us (not the small hipster crowd, though) out once again. I swear, a girl can’t have a guy with her in Hollywood or she gets nothin’!

Jessica was, by this time, making out with her guy against the club’s outside wall. I looked at my watch, and holy crap I needed to get my car from the Improv Olympic valet or risk being stuck for the night. We departed our male company, promising to return in a few minutes, got my car from the valet, then pulled, whooping, into a parking spot right across the street from the Velvet Margarita. Golden.

Unfortunately, the wrong guys were still there. Forgot-his-name and friend were stationed expectantly outside the club, but Jessica’s hottie make-out partner was nowhere in sight. Oh well.

We took a couple more ins and outs (evidently it was a very confused doorman) before Forgot-his-name and friend finally gave up and decided to leave. Jessica was ready to leave as well, but I said, “No. We’re not leaving until we’ve pushed this as far as it can go.” I mean, come on! We’d put in all this time, and were past the point of obnoxiousness. Don’t know what, but I desperately wanted to see what would happen. It would have been pretty pathetic to throw in the towel at that moment, especially because…

…The doorman looked and Jessica and me and said, “So you guys wanna sit down and have something to eat?”

Yes indeed!

The Velvet Margarita settled into this cool, yellow-lighted, bleary-eyed scene with bartenders counting their money, the owner hobnobbing with his pals, the owner’s wife walking around with her adorable little Chihuahua puppy (named Margarita), and people gradually trickling out.

The afterhours staff proceeded to treat us like royalty. Jessica and I shared a heavenly cheese enchilada and munched on the signature red tortilla chips with three different types of dips, which come as a courtesy with dinner. The bar manager came over to sit next to us and chat, declaring that I, unlike some of the other extremely tall female-ish figures that came into the bar, was “definitely all woman.” The doorman disappeared and came back with free alcohol, which he set down before us with a flourish. Two big men in suits, including the one who ushered us out several times, came over to see how we were doing (and apologized, I might add). Alejandro, the Antonio Banderas looking bartender whom I referred to earlier, came over as well and kissed us on the cheeks. It was quite surreal. We were a little suspicious, because they were being too nice, but nothing ever actually happened to justify that suspicion.

Toward the end of our meal, a non-staff guy came over to sit with us. He’s a close friend of the owner and of several of the employees. I’ll call him Adam. Adam was pretty taken with Jessica, so after we finished our meal, paid, and went over to hang out in the bar with our free drinks, he accompanied us.

Pretty soon he had whisked Jessica off to “show her the VIP lounge,” and I was left to talk to the rest of the staff, the owner, and whoever the hell else was hanging around. Including the doorman, who seemed to feel some sort of sense of entitlement to me and wouldn’t keep his hands to himself. I had to freeze him off of me, which I hope he doesn’t hold against me. Some things I’m just not all that graceful at doing. But the rest of the staff and the owner were quite cool characters! I bonded with the cute little Mexican guy working behind the bar (Sergio – so if you ever go to the Velvet Margarita, give him a big hug for me).

By the time Jessica and Adam emerged from the VIP room, I had faded into time-to-go mode. After at least half an hour of proclaiming time-to-go, we finally made motions to exit the Velvet Margarita. We stepped outside into the morning equivalent of twilight, with a thick cloud cover.

Sunday
My memory is hazy regarding this hour, but evidently I managed to drop Jessica back off at home and drive myself home and into blessed bed. Didn’t get my ass up until 5pm the next day, and I checked my voice-mail and found a message from my friend DD asking me to have dinner with him that evening. An entire day had gone by, I hadn’t washed my sheets as I had planned, and I hadn’t run one step, but I called DD back and accepted the offer. Somehow I managed to take a shower, see him, go to Trader Joe’s, AND wash my sheets, AND make some phone calls catching up with friends before finally crashing into bed for an 8-hour sleep.

But I never did manage to go on that run over the weekend.

Bums: Take heed! There’s hope for you yet!

2005-04-20T16:43:00.000-07:00

So I’m “seeing” this guy who is absolutely, incredibly, phenomenally amazing in bed. Doing the deed with him is like taking a slow dreamy trip over the moon while uncontrollably convulsing in pleasure in time to the focused strains of a favorite heavy metal band. All… night… long. You’d think “ouch” but somehow he knows how to temper it so that it’s perfectly great, up to the final, sweaty, flushed, flutter-eyed, *pant*….. *pant*………………….. *pant*…….*siiiigggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.*

Up front, he was very clear that he was not looking for a relationship, which honesty I appreciate. Straightforward communication will always be welcome and attempted to be reciprocated.

However, I must say that it’s damn hard to look at other men in a sexual way right now due to the imprint of his performance on my sexual psyche. I only see Stamina-Boy about once every other week, but it’s enough. I’m dating other people, and I continue to have sporadic, intense puppy-dog crushes as only I can, but going “there” is going to be difficult until I stop getting it on altogether with this guy.

It’s cool, though. There’s only one man in my life with whom I’d consider having a committed relationship right now, and he lives far away. Thus, since I can’t be with the one I love, I’m loving the one I’m with!

I want to make a point here. That I would be hard-pressed to sleep with anyone else while banging this guy, even though we’re not in an exclusive relationship in any way, proves that a woman, when fucked good and proper, will not stray. Sure, this is generalizing, but I don’t think that I’m in the minority here.

Stamina-Boy is basically a blue collar worker in The Industry, and while he's extremely intelligent ('course, I'm biased), he's not going to be wealthy any time soon. Or ever. Riches, height, fame, looks, and even intelligence (!!!) and artistic talent (!!!!!!!!!!!), while intriguing attractors, will not inspire this sort of basic, biological fidelity by themselves. To invoke the painful triteness, yet undeniable relevance, of a fluffy pop-country crossover song, “That don’t impress me much.” Full lyrics below. Thanks, Shania.

That Don’t Impress Me Much (written/performed by Shania Twain)

I've known a few guys who thought they were pretty smart
But you've got being right down to an art
You think you're a genius--you drive me up the wall
You're a regular original, a know-it-all

Oh-oo-oh, you think you're special
Oh-oo-oh, you think you're something else

Okay, so you're a rocket scientist
That don't impress me much
So you got the brain but have you got the touch
Now don't get me wrong, yeah I think you're all right
But that won't keep me warm in the middle of the night
That don't impress me much

I never knew a guy who carried a mirror in his pocket
And a comb up his sleeve--just in case
And all that extra hold gel in your hair oughtta lock it
'Cause Heaven forbid it should fall outta place

Oh-oo-oh, you think you're special
Oh-oo-oh, you think you're something else

Okay, so you're Brad Pitt
That don't impress me much
So you got the looks but have you got the touch
Now don't get me wrong, yeah I think you're all right
But that won't keep me warm in the middle of the night
That don't impress me much

You're one of those guys who likes to shine his machine
You make me take off my shoes before you let me get in
I can't believe you kiss your car good night
C'mon baby tell me--you must be jokin', right!

Oh-oo-oh, you think you're something special
Oh-oo-oh, you think you're something else

Okay, so you've got a car
That don't impress me much
So you got the moves but have you got the touch
Now don't get me wrong, yeah I think you're all right
But that won't keep me warm in the middle of the night
That don't impress me much

You think you're cool but have you got the touch
Now don't get me wrong, yeah I think you're all right
But that won't keep me warm on the long, cold, lonely night
That don't impress me much
Okay, so what do you think you're Elvis or something...Whatever

That don't impress me

San Francisco

2005-03-28T15:16:00.000-08:00

Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to my new favorite bar! Well, favorite bar in San Francisco. The Rainbow Bar & Grill is still my favorite ever, but it's got the familiarity advantage with this girl.

I'll be having my birthday party there on Saturday, June 11, so if you're looking for an excuse to have a hedonistic weekend in San Francisco (for those of you that actually need excuses), there you have it!

Waxing neurotic about My Crush

2005-03-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

For us single girls who have never been married (though I have been engaged before), have dated enough to know that inevitable psychological games and dramas are played out in the various stages of romantic relationships at any level (from the initial meeting ‘til, I imagine, death do us part), yet who still attempt to remain open to love’s endless possibilities while optimistically ignoring the cynicism that creeps in like mold on the sweet, sweet fruit sitting Tupperwared in the fridge, it never fails to amaze us that our stillness of mind and body can rest so firmly in the hands of our latest crush.

I’m not going to recite the twisty little dances that occurred within my cranium over the weekend. Various scenarios played themselves out while I waited impatiently for my ploy for His attention to be answered. I have a wonderful, busy, reasonably satisfying life full of friends and haps; but when it comes to crushes, I have the worst time playing it cool. Casual hookups with non-crushes (like Saturday's awesome little ride) are astounding in their ability to soften the sharp edges of the crush. However, they don’t prevent the malaise of the waiting period, nor the overwhelming joy (and O such Joy!) that accompanies at-last returned attention.

Maybe that’s why, at least in my world, crushes are crushes. They are rarely destined to go anywhere. If it’s not a mutual crush, then I, the crusher, inevitably will overwhelm the crushee to some extent with these ploys for attention. That is, unless I, the crusher, someday will have garnered enough experience with crushes. Then it is just sad to know that I, when that time comes, will have been there/done that enough to have the cool-playing down to a science. Therefore, on one hand, I’m grateful that I’m not able to play it cool because it means I’m still somewhat fresh.

On the other hand, I do have enough experience to know that not playing it cool has its consequences. If I’m going to be hurt by this, I want it to be as far in the future as possible. So I sit here, His short (and brilliantly witty, by virtue of crush goggles) response settling into its residency in my inbox, gauging when exactly to spring the tension loose into a perfectly crafted reply with some semblance of spontaneity and lacking anything remotely indicative of crush-induced neurosis.

Holy pathetic-ness, Batman!

Crush!

2005-03-05T15:07:00.000-08:00

People, I have a crush! I haven't had a crush in such a bloody long time, and while it's not quite as breathtakingly pleasant as actually falling in love (and yes, I should know, having skipped down that sunlight-dappled forest path before)---since who knows how mutual a crush is----I dreamed nice things about Him last night and have spent today's waking hours giggling on the phone about general topics including but not limited to Him ...gushing over His friendster profile with a girlfriend ...and doing my semi-productive Saturday activities absent mindedly with intermittent cheesy little sighs and involuntary, floorward smiles (mostly at my own silliness). I also read a little this morning, but it was hard to concentrate on my book without images of Him playfully intercepting the words on their way from the page to my comprehension. Uh-huh, I've got it bad.

Yay! Now I need to go clean the kitchen and attempt to concentrate on having what was supposed to be a Martha Stewart day.

Lust's can of worms

2005-02-27T09:59:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what made me think about this, but last night I remembered the first time I ever caught a a guy looking at me in a boy-girl sort of way. His name was Mike A., and I was around ten or so, he thirteeen I think.

I was on the swim team at The Surf Club, one of Springfield, Illinois's summer country clubs with a kickass state-winning swim team for kids. We were trying on the new team suits that had just come in, shiny and excitingly hi-tech in the latest new fit. Locked in the changing room I pulled one on in my size, but as it seemed way too small, I came out tugging at the suit's edges, wiggling around and complaining about my circulation (as it turned out, the new fit involved the suit being tighter than previous styles).

Mike, one of two sons of the owners of the club, was helping out in the try-on process, making sure that the sizes that were ordered matched the sizes everyone needed. With something more than just an eye appraising the fit of the suit, he looked me up and down with a lusty, grownup twinkle in his 13-year-old eye. Boy, I'd never experienced THAT before, not in my direction. I knew that I was an attractive little creature, overly tall for my age with long skinny legs, wildly bushy blonde hair, and a perpetual, pool-rat summer tan, but I didn't think anyone else noticed or cared (other than the fairytale princes in my dreams of course).

All I knew is that I wanted more of that look ...but no one could ever know. Immediately I developed a crush on Mike (who was totally, totally hot and such a fast swimmer) but kept it a deep dark secret, stashed wishfully and wistfully along with my other crushes. Since then, whenever I get that Look, the gushy little ten-year-old girl in me is tickled pink and the memory of Mike lives on in brief flashes of something akin to scent memory. That is, I don't think of him, per se, but the feeling he gave me so long ago rears pleasantly and secretly and lends a charming innocence to the primacy of such moments.

The moral? Next time you see me dressed like I'm heading out to drum up business along the 3am lonelyhearts boulevard, before you judge, just remember the girlish pleasure I'm getting out of the attention!

Hot Stuff

2005-02-21T17:37:00.000-08:00

From an inspired hangover during a visit to D.C., Fumetta Swift was born.

After a night of rather heavy drinking from which we awoke the following morning with a guy between us complaining suggestively of his morning wood (at which we giggled and turned the other cheek), we groggily rose from rumpled bed, sent the guy packing, showered, and took the metro over to the vicinity of the Smithsonian. Swathed in the characteristic daytime fog of morning-after-the-hedonism, we fed and watered our temples and walked to the Freer Gallery, hunched against the cold wind and slurring our words through numb lips.

We wandered through the galleries in our respective dazes and stopped to examine a small collection of Whistler etchings/sketchings. When about to leave for the next room, I caught sight of a small sketch of a coyly gazing "woman of loose morals" (as the placard stated, signified by her unpinned curls loosely framing her angelic face) labeled "Fumette (Hot Stuff)."

Pointing it out to K, I said, "I think I've named my hedonist alter-ego."

"Yes!" said K, and I tested the French word, forming my lips around "Fumette" in my Ameri-Grenobloise accent. Said this way, it's a bit difficult difficult to fit smoothly into American English, so after giving it a few goes herself, K finally said, "I'll just call you Hot Stuff."

Giggle.

So the "a" was added to make it easier to say. Fumetta.

When I got back to L.A. I told this story to my friend Shane over an indulgent dinner of greasy fill-your-stomach Mexican food. Shane is actually her own alter-ego name, but she goes so far as to use it when she goes out as if it were her real name. She's hot enough to where it's necessary in order to ward off the L.A. stalkers (of which she's had several). Me, I'm not planning on bringing Fumetta out in that way unless my audience is maximally clueless. Anyway, Shane even has a last name: Quixote. Shane Quixote.

Of course now I also need my alter-ego to have a last name. Since I feel like Gulliver all the time, but the author, Jonathon Swift, has a better sounding last name than "Gulliver," Swift it is.

I now have a named, hedonist alter-ego. It's about freakin' time, too -- I've been needing a trouble scapegoat so I can let my hair down a little. Ha!

Rock and ROLLLLLLL!

2005-02-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

There's a bar in West Hollywood called The Rainbow Bar & Grill (not to be confused with NYC's Rainbow Room, though people often mistakenly call the RB&G the Rainbow Room). Hands down, it's my favorite bar in Los Angeles.

The appeal of this place lies in its timelessness. Quite literally. The same big-haired 80's rock stars who hung out there way back when still go there regularly to booze it up, talk shop, eat pizza, do lines, scope out the groupies new and old, and do everything else rock stars like to do in one another's company.

Oh, there's new blood there, too, fresh from performing showcases at the nearby Whisky-A-Go-Go, Roxy, Key Club, and/or Viper Room, but they just seem like pierced little eager-beaver wannabe's when tabled next to a booth full of original-lineup Ratt and Poison members, lined and male-pattern-balding but solemnly sporting long, coarse, optimistic hair and beefy looking old leather.

Mill around the patio a bit, notice Ron Jeremey standing between a corseted, blonde dominatrix and stripey-haired, junked-out but still stunning ex-model in ripped fishnets and impeccable Shocker Magenta lipstick. Go upstairs and give the ponytailed bouncer a coy smile in place of the $5 cover charge of the upstairs dance room (works every time), stand there and allow yourself to be approached by someone drunk or otherwise altered, look past the slurs and leers, and enjoy him for who he, coming here and dressing himself in biker boots and chains, clearly imagines himself to be.

Smile, join the party, give in to the fun. The place rocks.

I'm getting addicted to this scene. I think it's because I missed the whole 80's hair band fad and never really got the whole concept of donning a dark and/or glitzy persona for the sheer fun of it. But baby... is it a blast! Sure, it's a revival comprised of has-beens and young musicians hoping to bring 80's-type rock back into the mainstream by following in the networking footsteps of old timer idols, but it's one of the few Los Angeles scenes that will welcome you - yes YOU - with open arms. Well, as long as you're nice. No snobbery allowed unless you've got fame under your belt (any fame, at any 15-minute point in time between 1975 and present). Then feel free to sit in your regular seat at a patio table, arms folded, basically wordless in front of your glass of red wine and gazing stonily at nothing in particular, pretending not to notice any attentions thrown your direction.

I can't do the 80's rocker scene more than once or twice a week, though, because being enveloped too often in a world of escapist image-creation either gets depressing or threatens to sever any remaining ties to reality. Sunday night I traded my fishnets for jeans and went to the nice, normal (but FUN) Barney's Beanery with a girlfriend. It was nice to be around people who keep their dark sides at home.

Zhanna's wisdom

2005-02-04T17:48:00.000-08:00

Zhanna is my Russian yoga teacher. Almost every class she comes out with some radical new concept for me to digest. A few weeks ago she informed me that menstruation is not natural for women. She believes that periods are the great equalizer of the sexes: that women are inherently superior to men, and nature balances us through our periods because they cause us to lose an enormous amount of energy every month.

Sure enough, I looked it up on the Internet, and, according to various Web sites on the matter, women who follow a strictly raw food diet or live in the wild don't have periods. They are fertile and healthy, but they just don't have any excess blood to shed once a month because it's more efficiently distributed throughout the body. If you think about it, apes, our closest ancestors, can't cook; the missing link probably had no idea how to cook food either. So it's not natural for humans to cook food.

This past class, she quipped, "They say we eat breakfast for ourselves, lunch for our friends, and dinner for our enemies." I couldn't find this quote on the Internet (maybe it's Russian), but basically her point was that we shouldn't eat late in the day because the energy that it takes to digest food while we sleep should actually be saved instead to help us wake up and face the day. By eating dinner, we make ourselves sluggish and put ourselves at a disadvantage in the morning. I'm still trying to grasp the "lunch for our friends" part. I think it has to do with social eating. The first one is obvious: the energy from breakfast food is put to use throughout the day.

Just interesting stuff.

Goofy people

2005-02-02T14:38:00.000-08:00

I love discovering goofy sides!

Today I had lunch with some co-workers. In a group of four of us who drove together to the restaurant, the driver was a guy who is not on our team within the department and whom I don't know very well. We were listening to 80's metal on the ride home, making the requisite 80's-metal jokes, and all of a sudden he busts out with:

"So... would you rather sweat cheese or sneeze marbles?"

We all contemplated this for a bit, giggling at first then laughing loudly, and when the determinations died down he cocked his head and said,

"Ok, would you rather... have to wear a tall, head-to-floor Indian head-dress, like, ALL the time - for your whole life, you can never ever take it off, not even to sleep or shower or anything, or, whenever you eat anything, there's always a hair in the food?"

My new friend at work!

Old issues

2005-02-01T11:20:00.000-08:00

Is it normal for me still to feel bad about something that happened when I was 13? Somehow feelings that I've hurt in the deep past still haunt me, and I feel like a bit of a freak for it. It doesn't fade much, either. I can put adult spins on the situations until the cows begin lowing patiently at the gate, but the basic guilt remains. Case in point:

My middle school in Lafayette, CA (Contra Costa County, just east of Oakland), was just like any other middle school in terms of cliques and outcasts (is it just me, or ever since "Hey-ya" hit it big, it seems like "outcast" should be spelled "outkast"?). There was a complex social web of real and fake friends, inter-clique crushes, bitter divisive grudges, alpha males, gamma girls, artists-in-training, granola-munchers-in-training, line-redrawing spurts of growth in heights and breasts, obsessive trendsters, gossiping writers on the stall walls, blue-eyelidded bouffante-banged experimenters in makeup and hairspray (always with a collection of fluorescent miniskirts), biology class tickle fighters, overzealous history class hand-raisers, furiously scribbling geometry class whiz-kids, smiling but slightly homely dreamers blowing fluff off dandelions while memorizing song lyrics together in the soccer field at lunch, trenchcoat-wearers-to-be huddled darkly sharing headphones and smoking secretly around a boombox behind the farthest building, white-t-shirted/baseball-cap-turned-backward/potty-mouthed/ athletic little heartbreaker future jocks, colorfully sophisticated demure early bloomers, weekend cow-tippers, perpetually newspaper-bearing lunchtime stock-market gamers, and the occasional loner in between.

I'm not sure where my coordinates lay on this swirling map of clique-masses, which overlapped and underlapped like vandalized color circles in elementary art textbooks. Most of the time I ate lunch with the dandelion blowers, who didn't care that I didn't want to shave my legs. I think I pretty much hung out with whoever didn't care that I didn't shave my legs (a transgression that, along with my towering stature, scraggly thicket of swimmer hair and perma-scowl, made me some sorta freak). Kids.

There was another occasional dandelion blower whose name was K.C. Very sweet girl. Carried a watermelon pink-and-green Eddie Bauer style backback. She was the daughter of the pretty school librarian (there were two librarians - Ms. C. and another mean old woman). K wasn't exactly Miss Popular, because she had developed at an early age an epileptic tic in her mouth, and, at my shallow nor-cal middle school, that was inexcusable. She arrived the first day of eighth grade with her head shaved with stitches on part of her skull. She'd had brain surgery over the summer to clear up her epilepsy, so while she was buzz-cut, the tic was gone. Of course we all grilled her on her surgery -- what did she remember? Did it hurt? Etc.

Cut to near the end of eighth grade. K's hair had grown out niceley, and she had a brief little mane of golden hair. Unfortunately her social skills had not improved with the loss of her tic, and she was becoming more and more of an outcast (even among the dandelion blower set). My social skills were also sorely lacking (I still hadn't figured out how to deal with being different), but I felt superior to poor K. I never flaunted my feeling of superiority except for one day in the girl's bathroom. My friend Alyssa and I were gabbing about people, and somehow K's name came up. Jumping on it, I said something like, "Oh yes, she's SOOOO annoying. That pink backback! And her little walk!" Alyssa, probably eager to get on the wagon but a little higher of taste than I was, just kind of rolled her eyes and agreed.

Suddenly I thought, "Man, I hope there's no one else in here" and, hesitating a little, looked over to the stalls to see the stall next to the window closed... and a little pink-and-green backback resting in the space between the window and the stall. K was there, and she obviously had heard everything. The toilet flushed, and she emerged, eyes cast toward the floor but fluttering up to meet ours briefly. "Hiiiii, K!" I said with sickening falseness. "H-how's it going?" I probably made some comment on class or the weather, before Alyssa and I left the bathroom feeling horrible about what had just transpired. Alyssa looked at me with really gloomy eyes and stated how bad she felt. Trying to make her feel better, I said "Oh she probably didn't hear us" - knowing very well that there was no way she couldn't have heard us.

Later on that day, I had to return a book to the library. I walked in, put the book on the return counter, and noticed Ms. C sitting in the corner consoling someone. A closer look revealed that K was crying on her mother's shoulder, with big, heaving sobs. Feeling like the worst person in the world, I meekly walked out the door, never to look K in the eye again. I never did apologize to her, clinging to the false hope that she hadn't heard us.

This was fully 13 years ago, people! I still feel awful about this, and I can't get over it! Every time I see a pink and green bag (which, thankfully, isn't often) or someone with a facial tic, that indiscretion of yore pops out of the drawer to hit me over the head with a rolled-up page of memory. Does anyone else have a demon like this that haunts them? I feel a little pathetic about it, especially when I hear about kids who were tormented constantly in high school by big ol' meanies far worse than I. Such ex-tormenters probably blow off such memories with, "oh, we were just kids." Which is what I should do.

One thing you can bet is that I don't talk shit about girlfriends behind their backs. My sanity can't handle the possible guilt-related repercussions.

Dear Job

2005-01-27T13:10:00.000-08:00

It's not that I hate you. I don't hate you. I just don't feel like doing you anymore. I have not yet found another job, but I have decided that you're not the one for me. Doing you doesn't give me the satisfaction that it once did. It's not your fault. It's not my fault either. There's a higher power at work, and it's called "an upcoming merger." The upcoming merger and resulting possible layoffs have made me really think about "us" and whether I even want things to work out between us.

I do fantasize about other jobs while doing you. At the moment I am thinking of ways that I could establish myself as a portrait painter, which may necessitate not ending our relationship quite yet, but changing it--to an "open" relationship. Like swingers, if you will. Any artistic job is not going to support me like you do, at least at first, but I will get satisfaction from it that you don't give me. Sorry.

I'm going to need to end it soon once and for all, though, because I'll be moving. Ideally, you'll cut me off yourself and give me a big present when I leave, so that I'll be able to live a free woman's life for a bit prior to getting myself another job. But if you don't cut me off before I absolutely have to move in July, I'll be forced to find another supportive job soon thereafter. To be honest, though, I'm already looking. Again, sorry.

See, Job, all of this has rigamarole and thinking about the future -- a future that doesn't include you -- has made me really unmotivated to work on our relationship. Who cares anymore? I'm just hoping that when we part ways sometime between now and July, I won't leave any of myself behind with you. We must think of the good things we did for one another.

Who knows how much longer we'll be together. All I'm asking is that you go easy on me for now. Please don't put any pressure on me, at least no more than I'm already feeling. If you can be nice to me for just a little while longer, I promise to be good to you until we split. Deal?

Yours truly (but only for a short while longer),

MJ

Skiing!

2005-01-21T16:18:00.000-08:00

The weekend before Thanksgiving I drove up to Redwood City to visit my parents, staying through the weekend after Thanksgiving and having a grand ol' vacation with the fam. That first weekend, as soon as I arrived up there on Friday, Dad announced that we were going to be going skiing for the weekend in Tahoe. We drove up Saturday, slept at my aunt's cabin, and hit the slopes Sunday.

Now, I was not the best skier, though I learned to ski in Veil when I was seven (my first crush was on my private ski instructor, I think his name was Steve - what a BABE!!!) and I've skied relatively often and on some of the best mountains in the world - including the French Alps, Park City, and various places in California/Nevada. But my lame-o fear of speed kept me severely, suckily slow. I was the queen of the snowplow turn, and could execute it on any double-black diamond slope out there. Of course, I'd make my ski partners wait awhile for me at the bottom of the hill, but dammit, I could do it. It wasn't fun, nor was it pretty, but it was the only way I could get down the hill. Unless it was an easy hill. Then I could tear it up like no one's business, parallel skis together.

So when Dad, my brother John, and I went up on the only open chairlift (it was early in the season) for our first run of the day, I was quiet. I knew that in my father, I had a guy who'd wait for me at the bottom of the hill, no question. We got off the lift, went to the medium-level side to warm up, and scattered on the hill - Dad swooshing down, John snowboarding down, me plowing across, turning, plowing back across, turning again, etc. I hadn't skied in a couple of years, so I was a little bit more timid than usual, but I managed to plow my way down, even getting some speed toward the bottom. Dad and John were waiting patiently for me in the lift line, Dad looking at me a little strangely.

"Whew! Yeah! Great snow!" I said, cheeks flushed with the laborious effort I'd just executed.

"Yeah.... yeah, great," came their reply. We hopped on the lift for another run.

We took the same hill again, them zipping off downward, me doing my V-shaped plows side to side, enjoying the views, catching some speed toward the bottom of the run.

When I got down to the lift, where Dad and John were waiting, Dad greeted me with the very unfatherly, "MJ.... you're going to have to pick it up a little or you may be skiing by yourself."

WHAT!!!! I couldn't believe my dad would say something like this to me. He, who had stood by my side in my moments of strength as well as weakness, was going to ditch me because I was too slow. Last time we went skiing, about four years ago, he didn't seem to have a problem with it. Ok. No. Wrong.

"Well, I'm just warming up!" I knew I was bluffing, because I had felt a little fast on that last run for my usual comfort level, but I did not want to ski alone. We got on the ski lift, and I tried to clear my head. If my 56-year-old dad could swoosh down a hill, why couldn't I? How many years had I been skiing? I mentally calculated. 26 minus seven.. 19 years I'd been skiing, and I still was a little bunny snowplower! I felt enough at home on skis, so why couldn't I go down a hill?

We got off the lift and went to the same hill. I said, "Ok Dad, I'm going to try something. Don't ditch me, please." Dad pointed his skis down hill and started smoothly skiing down the hill. I put my arms out, letting the strong wind catch me, and pointed my skis down the hill, rather than across it, and leaned forward. I went slowly at first, the strength of the hilltop wind blowing upward and providing resistance against a total freefall, but as the wind subsided with the loss of altitude, I started going faster. Rather than freaking out, I started to breathe deeply, the voice of Zhanna (my favorite yoga instructor) in my head: "Just moving and breathing."

As the wind subsided, I found myself whooshing downhill, at a speed where I typically felt that I lost control ...but I was strangely in control. I moved my hips to turn a bit, to reassure myself of that control, and my skis, perfectly parallel, responded dutifully, gliding across a small mogul without catching. Looking up, I saw Dad about 50 yards ahead of me. Breathing, squatting a little, thighs pressing together, feeling the yoga-strength of my bending legs supporting me sturdily, peering downhill, I thrust my skis downward, letting the terrain guide the angle of my bent knees. So this was skiing! After 19 years of "skiing," I was actually skiing. Down a relatively steep hill, not across it.

Holy fucking shit, this was a rush. I let out a little yelp, out of pure adrenaline-induced alegrìa. I went into a full squat, poles under my armpits, to free-fall down the last part of the hill, passing other skiers right and left. I saw Dad pull into the lift line. Five seconds later, I gave a little hop, twisted my body around, and thrust my skis out sideways to wedge a stop right next to him. The look on his face... well, it certainly was a little better for my ego than that of the run before. What a great day of skiing we had, from that point on. And the story he told Mom at the end of the day ("So MJ sucked at first, but boy we had her going finally...")...

Last weekend I went skiing again with some friends up in Mammoth, and I had a chance to solidify my newfound form on a more difficult, expansive variety of hills covered with killer powder. It was amazing. I'm going up again this weekend with another group of friends. I've caught the bug!

Skiing, anyone?

Growing up Republican

2005-01-18T21:06:00.000-08:00

Recently my very liberal friend Waveline sent me an e-mail containing a draft of an ad to be published by an organization she's involved with, supporting the rights of gay people to marry. The ad was basically a well-reasoned plea for understanding with regards to the situation of marriage-minded homosexuals, and Waveline sent it to me because I am part of a group of not-exactly-liberal people in her life. She wanted to see if the ad rubbed us in the way that it was intended, and she requested feedback to help strengthen the points of argument.

Rather that responding right away, I forwarded it to my parents to see what they thought. My parents are utterly Republican (though adamantly pro-choice), and I knew that I could count on my dad to respond with a conservative and impassioned, though non-evangelist and secular, argument against gay marriage. Indeed he did. 'Twas a proper conservative diatribe bashing in no uncertain terms the desire of gay people to get hitched.

Cringing a bit, I forwarded his response to Waveline, expecting never to hear from her again because of her passionately pro-gay-marriage stance. Fortunately she actually seemed to appreciate Dad's response. Whew! I don't know why I was worried, because, as she confirmed in the e-mail she sent back to me, she actually is interested in hearing other points of view. I so appreciate it when people actually take the opposition's arguments into account in order to strengthen their own rebuttals. The resulting rhetoric makes it so much easier for everyone to argue (though not necessarily see) eye-to-eye.

So! Why didn't I sack up and respond myself? Why did I apparently pansy out and let my dad take the floor, without bothering to offer up my own thoughts? Well, here's the thing: I'm inherently conflicted when it comes to political opinions. I was raised in a Republican house. I can't think of a single member of my family (aside from my siblings) who is a Democrat. But, as I was also raised without religion (odd, I suppose, for Republicans), I tend to run with a very secular crowd. Very secular crowds tend strongly to be Democrat.

Throughout the election season, 95% of the discussion around me was staunchly anti-Bush. It was quite strange for me to visit the parents and hear pro-Bush arguments, and it was doubly strange for me to conceptualize that he won the election. I'm not anti-Bush, mind you, but I definitely am not pro-Bush ...or pro-Kerry, really. If you must know, I voted for Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate. If I lived in a swing state, where my vote actually counted toward the election result, I would have voted for Kerry for the "lesser of two evils" reason, but California definitely is not a swing state. So I used my vote to "make a statement" since there were no possible repercussions with regards to the outcome.

Back to the point of this blog entry. What I'm doing is explaining why I seem like such a waffler, drifting along amidst a divided policital climate without really taking a stand. The truth is, I don't know what stand to take sometimes. My Repupublican upbringing, which still runs strongly in my blood, is utterly opposite to my social environment, which is formed by 99% Democrat friends, coworkers, and acquaintances (to my knowledge, everyone in my life is a Democrat except one, maybe two). I adore living in a blue state, but I'm usually more drawn to well-reasoned conservative arguments than impassioned liberal dialogues. The political opinions that I have managed to form for myself have taken years to gel, and are mostly pieced together with concepts from both ends of the spectrum. After 12 years of liquidly swishing back and forth, I just recently solidified my opinion on the death penalty.

Like I said, I'm just politically conflicted, which has, in my still-adolescent body of political opinions, resulted in being vague and punily middle-of-the-road, at least for now. But don't think I'm not working on it! I bench press "Left, Right & Center"-type NPR dialogues, curl daily CNN.com readings, do several reps of late-night phone conversations with intelligent friends, lift increasingly weighty political commentaries in various print and online publiciations, and am developing a six-pack of strong core values, all while trying to resist taking steroids of personal bias. Yes: one day, I will kick some ass in the dark alley of political debate.

P.S. As for the gay marriage issue: My biggest problem with the anti-gay-marriage people is that it appears that they are all straight. It's as if California's government is trying to enact a law that governs both itself and Rhode Island, based on Californian principles, while Rhode Island sits there stewing and has no say in the matter. In the spirit of "government by the people for the people," I don't think that straights should be governing the gays, except as members of the same society. Since I also don't believe one can rightfully hold a political opinion that's based on one's personal values alone, until we can get some good dialogues going about this issue that include members of both communities on both sides, I'm probably not going to take a stand on the issue.

Drunken trance

2005-01-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

Make what you will of the following conversation. It took place around 3am at my place last night after a night out with my new Brazilian "boy toy" friend, who fulfilled a resolve to get good and drunk after a shitty day.

Hot Brazilian guy passes out on my couch (which is short and not really suitable for sleeping unless the bed is pulled out). Somehow I revive him enough to steer him to my bedroom, where I then manage to get him to drink a full glass of water and sit propped on pillows against the headboard of my bed, fading in and out of consciousness. I try to keep him talking so that he doesn't fall asleep like this, because I don't want to deal with a puker later on or in the morning. We talk about various things (well, I ask him loud questions and he answers as best as he can, and I do NOT abuse the situation, thank you very much), then he sort of drifts off...

Him (in his thick accent): [some inaudible words] upside-down with blue hair against your toes [mumble mumble]

Me: Blue hair against my toes? What do you mean?

Him (eyes opening heavily halfway and staring into space): I don't know, talk to heem.

Me: Who?

Him: Heem, da guy seetting next to me.

Me: I don't see anyone sitting next to you.

Him: What? What do you mean, he's right there!

Me: Really! Ok, what's his name?

Him (turning his head to the right): Dude, what's your name? [pause] Hees name is Mark.

Me: Mark? What does Mark want?

Him: I don't know, why don't you ask heem.

Me: How can I ask him something if I can't see him?

Him: Ok fine. Mark, what do you want? [longer pause] He thays he has thomething to thay to Joanne.

Me (a little freaked out, because Joanne is my mom's name): Joanne? Who's Joanne?

Him: Dude, who's Joanne? [pause] He thays you should know.

Me: Really. Ok, what does he want to say to Joanne?

Him: [mumble] I'm getting too tired for this [mumble]

Me (excited): What does he want to say to Joanne??

Him: [mumbling to Mark] I can't do this, she doesn't believe in this kind of thing you know [more mumbling] Yeah, that was when I was four, how deed you know about that? Well whatever. Yeah she'th cool [mumbling, then gives a long sigh, closes his eyes all the way, and slumps his head]

Me: Hey!

Him (opening his eyes wider and lifting his head up): What? What! Oh, maaannnnn.... I'm tiiirrred, why are you waking me up.

Me: What was all that about a guy sitting next to you?

Him (looking around): What do you mean, there's no one else here?

Me: You were just talking to someone sitting next to you, someone named Mark who wanted you to give me a message to pass along to someone named Joanne.

Him: What? I only know one guy named Mark and he lives in Greece, and I've never heard of anyone named Joanne?

Me: Joanne's my mom's name.

Him: No shit! Wow. Well, people have told me in the patht that when I'm drunk I talk to people who aren't there. One time, my friend woke me up after I path'ed out, and told me I was talking to hees dead friend.

More banter between us about the weirdness of what just happened. He trails off again, this time horizontal and laying on his left side, facing me.

Me (hoping he'd gone back to the trance or whatever it was): So hey, what else did Mark say?

Him (turning over): Blue skies are dark.

I'm moving to San Francisco

2005-01-06T16:25:00.000-08:00

Decision made! Don't know when yet, but sometime between now and July. Until then, I'm staying at MGM.

Whoohooooooooooo!!!!! Yearly "Summer of Love" anniversaries, here I come!

A high-class problem

2005-01-05T20:12:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to think of people I know who are aware of this blog, and whether their reading this would adversely affect my career, but I can't think of any. Even so, screw it. I'm an honest person, and I don't have many secrets. (Dammit, I need some secrets!)

Basically, I have a decision to make between now and some time tomorrow. I thought that I had already made the decision, but today circumstances shifted in a direction that changed everything. Here's the deal:

Recently, I was recruited to interview for a position at a different movie studio. I will call it Studio B. Studio A is where I currently am employed. Studio A recently was bought by Studio C, so jobs at Studio A (including mine) could be terminated at any time as the restructurring goes underway. Studio A is softening the blow by oftering a FAT/PHAT severence package - six months salary, all in one huge check that they hand you as you walk out the door without caring whether said door hits you on the ass in the meantime because WHAT A CHECK. That's a lot of money, even after taxes! Needless to say, staying employed at Studio A and riding the wave until being layed off is actually quite an attractive option. Even if I'm not layed off, and I get hired at Studio C post-merger, Studio C is a block from where I live and working there could be amazing.

With all of that uncertainty, around Thanksgiving time I began evaluating my present and future. I may be young, but I'm ready to settle down and have a family. Unfortunately, Los Angeles does not seem to be the place where that kind of thing happens. There are so many gorgeous, intelligent, funny, personable, awesome women here, and they are mysteriously single. They are frustrated as hell because the wonderful, eligible men here are a bit rarer - to the point that they have their pick of these wonderful women, and why settle on just one? Long term relationships are almost unheard of, unless one or both of the members are in their late thirties, forties, or fifties. My mother felt extremely fortunate that she met Dad here, as she said that the circumstances were the same back then. She knew so many amazing women who could not, for the life of them, find mates. Anyway, I'm straying from my point here. I'm ready to settle down, and LA does not seem to be the place to do it. San Francisco is where my family is, I absolutely adore the area, and there's a beautiful 4-bedroom apartment full of views, where I could live for free should I choose to go. People seem to be a bit more down to earth, but the atmosphere is still cosmopolitan enough to be stimulating, and there are enough crazy pockets to satisfy my appetite for an occasional adventuresome evening.So, San Francisco, yay! As soon as I'm laid off (if I'm laid off), I can take my severence package and get the hell out of Dodge (L.A.).

Well, enter the recruitment. Out of curiosity and in the interest of "giving myself options," I interviewed at Studio B. They made it known pre-Christmas that they would be offering me the job, pending background checks. Oh boy. So I went back to SF for Christmas and had a chance to really talk it out with my family. Studio B didn't sound like they were going to be able to offer me the salary I require, so my resolution upon leaving to come home to LA was that if they offered me the amount that they had stated initially (which was well below my own stated requirement), I wouldn't take the job, hands down. Decision made.

But noooooo. I got The Call today from Studio B, and they stepped up to the plate. They want me so badly (!!!!) that they have met my salary requirement (!!!!), which is about a 14% increase over what I'm making now and about a 10% increase over their original quote. So I have to decide - should I take a stable job here, where I'm reasonably happy but not really meeting anyone who remotely promises to fulfill my lifelong goal of having a family, but be comfortable and have a nice, stable outlook on my future careerwise (though I'd have to move to the Valley or suffer a shitty commute), or should I pass on Studio B, resolving to move to San Francisco in July no matter what, with or without severence package, and start all over? No job, no contacts, no nothing?

I didn't even mention the fact that I'm applying to law schools up in San Francisco for the fall. But that's another story altogether, and involves family politics and a matriarchal flip-flopper (though darling) of a grandmother.

Boy, oh boy. My friend Joan calls this a "high-class problem." No matter what the outcome, life will be fabulous. But it's one of the hardest decisions I've had to make to date. I have a cold and need to get sleep tonight, so you can be sure I'll be taking drugs here in a moment.

Strategically dealing with lack of privacy in the ladies' room at work

2005-01-03T15:17:00.000-08:00

I really like it when workplaces offer single-user bathrooms, stationed away from the workplace so that nature's call can be answered out of earshot of the fellow bees. Unfortunately, this situation does not apply in my office. Not only is the bathroom situated right in the middle of the action, but the ladies room (and probably the men's room, but I can't say for sure because I've never attempted to cross that most sacred of lines) has five open-partitioned stalls. There is no privacy whatsoever, unless you happen to catch it at an empty time, which is rare and generally happens at the very beginning of the day or after hours. Everyone gets to hear everyone else pee. Occasionally, there's someone bold enough to poop when others are in the vicinity, but there are only a couple of those on my floor.

Guys, you may be laughing here, but girls generally take issue with anyone hearing them make gross sounds like those that accompany dumps. Best-friendships and long-term relationships typically transgress this taking of issue, but in the workplace, pooping for the sonic audience of coworkers definitely is taboo. Personally, I don't think it's that bad to hear poops, and I even admire those who are carefree enough to do it, but I have strategically trained my body to take its daily dump sometime in the evening, after work, because I get embarrassed. Understand, farting out in the open is completely natural too, but few people have the gumption to actually grin and do it, especially at work.

But there's something much worse than a pooper in the work bathroom, and that's the people that go into the bathroom, enter a stall, and then... silence. What are they doing? Are they waiting for me (and whomever else might be in the bathroom) to leave? Sometimes I'll go in, see a stall occupied, see feet, but hear nothing from the time I go in from the time I dry my hands and leave. Well, sometimes the occupant will clear her throat. Sometimes she'll shift on her seat, and the crackle of the toilet seat cover paper will be audible. But does she have that psychological disorder that makes it physically impossible for someone to pee in the presence of others? Or is she pooping, but waiting for privacy because of the noise taboo? If so I wish her luck, because there's a constant stream of people in and out of our bathroom. She needs to learn to strategically program her body to poop during off-hours.

These silent bathroom-sitters are unnerving: every move that I make upon entry into the ladies' room seems about twice as loud as usual, and with an echo, because it has an audience. That person in there doesn't seem like a coworker, but some mysterious unknown. It could be the department head, it could be the receptionist. Does she know that it's me in the stall next to her? Does my breath alone contain the identifying features of my voice? Did she have a ginormous dinner last night and need to take a monster, surface-breaking, two-flush crappola and is sitting there in a tense, sphincter-tightened state, praying for me to hurry the fuck up so that she can drop her load in privacy? Is she listening to the tinkling of my pee with envy, wishing she hadn't had so many mashed potatoes? Perhaps she's the quintessential LA woman, an actress-wannabe, overly-image-conscious bulemic, squatting poised to hurl up her lunch as soon as no one's listening? Or did she stay out too late last night and accidentally fall asleep? I know I've come close to doing that a few times.

At any rate, there's a silent bathroom sitter in there during at least a couple of my daily trips to the pot. If you are one of these and can shed light on the situation, please do so, because I'm really curious.

New Year's Eve

2005-01-01T20:20:00.000-08:00

Well, all that excitement was pretty unwarranted. At least I looked hot, sporting the shortest dress I've ever worn out of the house, completed with an elaborate hosiery-and-boot combination, cheap plastic red and white strings of pearls, and a big, fluffy white hat. It was a somewhat good party, but for some reason, this promoter can't seem to get the logistics right! Last year we went to the same promoter's New Year's Eve party, and we bought VIP tickets because of the promise of all sorts of cool stuff. The only actual advantage that materialized was that we didn't have to stand in line to get in. Twice the price of regular admission, and that was the only benefit!

Fortunately, Giant (the promoter) sent the VIP's an e-mail saying that if we went this year and bought general admission tickets, we'd get a free VIP upgrade (along with improved VIP amenities). Well... the amenities were better, but the VIP line was actually LONGER than the gen-admiss line; the open bar, surrounded by a clump of at least 100 sleekly dressed VIP's foregoing suaveness, dignity, and eye-contact for the sake of forging barward, was manned by THREE bartenders. So, one had to choose between having fun with friends or getting free alchol, because the latter consisted of tottering within that stressful clump all bloomin' night. Christ almighty! Needless to say, the supposed monster of a hangover I was bracing for this morning didn't happen because I couldn't consume the requisite amount of booze. But I stayed up good and late, got a lot of hat-rubs (why wear a furry hat if no one is allowed to touch it?), and made out with a damn good kisser I met while jumping around to the Crystal Method's 2am-4am performance (I didn't have anyone to kiss at midnight, unfortunately). The party just never really lifted off the hook as far as everyone coming together and communally having an awesome time with one another.

Oh well - out with the old, in with the new! Happy New Year everyone!

Bzzzzzzz!

2004-12-29T16:53:00.000-08:00

I have no earthly idea why my place of employment insists that its employees work the week between Christmas and New Year's. None of my clients are at work this week, and the only things to do are year-end accounting procedures, all of which could quite practically have been done last week. So, here we all are, lounging around killing time, some trying to appear busy, others not even bothering.

Monday and Tuesday the bosses weren't even in. So, Monday, the guys on the team shut themselves in the conference room to testosterize over a four-hour session of Texas Holdem poker. Tuesday, they went to a restaurant across town that's notorious for its big-racked waitresses, came back, and shut themselves into the conference room again to either defend the previous day's winnings or get revenge. I love working in the entertainment industry!

I've had a few personal projects of my own to work on: this year EVERYONE got thank-you-carded properly for Christmas presents, and yesterday my friend David got an elaborate, witty-commentaried scrapbook of our hiking trips as a belated Christmas present.

I have a feeling that certain people in my position would have spent the day blogging, but I'm still feeling out my comfort level in this medium. Plus, I installed one of those site-meters, and my first report just came back, showing zero visits. So this is basically a private diary, and theoretically I could just gab on and on about the hairy purple monster that likes so visit me at night and engage me in sessions of ring-around-the rosy, and when we "all fall down" we actually fall into the land of winky blinky twinky people who catch us on our descent from the sky and fix us a meal featuring a different pancake shape every night... and no one would think I was off my rocker because they're not reading! Blippedy blahbedy blooo blu blop dfaklsjfasldfkj!

I do have something to say today, though, and that's that I am making serious progress in the getting-over-the-ex department. The factors going into the progress are, in no particular order: family, yoga, a certain guy that I met recently (I'm just "talking" to him right now, but what a connection!), confessions from various high-standing people in my life that they always thought I deserved better anyway, and the behavior of the ex himself.

In the past month or so, my ex and I established a sort of "understanding" whereby we'd hang out as friends, regardless of whom we were around, and occasionally do It. Strangely, I have felt more closure since the onset of this "understanding" than in the 1.5+ years since we broke up. See, it has given him the opportunity to demonstrate, in real-time flesh and blood, how much of a shit he can be. When I didn't see him for so long, my mind really downplayed my reasons for wanting a breakup. I still enjoy hanging out with him, but he sure makes it clear that, no matter what sort of specially MJ-tailored words of charm and honor exit his mouth, he does it all for the nookie. Recent example: last night he took me out to see a 10:55pm showing of THE LIFE AQUATIC (Ebert put it best: "the action goes through the motions of slapstick at the velocity of dirge"). We had a pretty nice time, but when I was didn't feel like joining him at his apartment for a late-night quickie (he even gave me the "hey baby" face and moved in for a kiss), he turned the cold shoulder and hulked away in the rain with a very faint, distant "ok, bye." I don't think I'm going to hear from him again to hang out, unless I contact him with something like a text message reading "I need cock." So yeah, that's about it. I'm even sick of talking about him, so I'll leave it at that. I was in such a good mood when I started writing. Grrr!

Now I'll think about New Year's Eve! Oh my gosh, I'm so excited I haven't been able to sit still all day. The prospect of a rockin' party puts ants in my pants and little invisible tickly vibrating pleasure balls in my twat! Ha ha, bzzzz.... Whoever's actually reading, check out what I'm doing for New Year's Eve and be very jealous: www.giantvillage.com. Yay, I'm feeling peachy once more. Doesn't take much. Bzzzzzz!

Wishlist

2004-12-15T17:17:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to point out that I have created a "Wishlist" on my profile. If you're in a giving mood, feel free to buy me items from that list. Feel free to buy me anything, really - I'm not picky. Well, feel free to buy me anothing as long as it's somewhat useful. I personally am not fond of collecting simple space-beautifyers, unless 1) you made it for me (I love showing off my friends' artwork) or 2) I made it myself (in one of my increasingly rare moments of artistic inspiration - it has become clear that I'm slowly committing creativity suicide by subjecting myself to a mundane office existence 75% of my waking life). Flowers are always nice, though.

Tears in my hips

2004-11-14T03:14:00.000-08:00

For the past month or so, I've been taking a yoga class every Saturday at a place in Venice called YAS (Yoga and Spinning) as a part of a free series of fitness classes offered by Nike to help sell shoes. These yoga classes have really improved my flexibility, and I'm getting noticeably stronger. However, this past week I bumped up my yoga practice to include a Thursday session at my home gym, Meridian Sports Club in Century City near my work, and a very unexpected, almost cathartic result has come about. It began under the watchful eye of a beautiful and serious yoga instructor named Zhanna.

During some of Thursday's more intense preparatory hip-opening/bending poses for the first warrior pose, I felt sudden shortness of breath and an enormous lump in my throat. That is, I was sooooo close to crying. Thinking it was just frustration with my lack of physical prowess with the poses, I held everything in and didn't let the tears flow. But that feeling -- the frustration, disappointment in myself, etc etc -- continued through the next few minutes around those poses, even though I actually was doing just fine and feeling even lovely on a physical level. Then, as we went into warrior pose and continued the class with more, not-so-hip-related poses, I felt only the normal stuff associated with physical exertion and didn't feel the crying urge return. After class I told Zhanna about my experience, and she said that it was very normal, that we, women especially, tend to store sadness and such feelings in our hips, and moving through yoga poses will release such feelings. She said that I should have gone ahead and cried, that it would have been very beneficial.

Well, since that class, a profound change has happened in me. It's quite abstract, and I don't completely understand it yet, but it has to do with the way that I process emotions. I feel like, looking back at my emotional past, I have emoted by looking at a situation, summing up how I should feel about that situation, then replicating that emotion in myself as closely as possible to how I deemed I should feel. Tears were rarely involved, because my acting skills aren't great. Sometimes actual emotions would surface, and I would have a good selfish cry (whether the tears be happy or sad). They never did stick around very long, and I don't believe I was aware that there was a difference between those real emotions and my poser emotions.

But since that class, I have cried several times. The class must have shaken something free, or opened a sort of channel that has been closed for years. Tears that I never shed over would-be tearful events are issuing forth from my hips, and I think that they are going to continue for a little while as I deal retrospectively with emotional events of my past. At the moment my tears seem to be over my breakup with my ex, which I never once cried about following the actual event. I must be mindful and not mistake these tears for a desire to get back together! Indeed, I need to be mindful about all of these new emotions. They are presenting themselves in an abstract and mysterious form that I am not used to one bit, like delicate, beautiful phenomena. I must be careful not to scare them back into my hips.

Nods

2004-11-10T17:28:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed that the tempo of people's nods can indicate how old they are, or how jaded?

Think about this for a moment. Picture a girlfriend in her early twenties. Fresh, still discoverig life, not yet married. Have them in your head? Ok, now, tell her something that she would agree with. Not a general agreement, but an agreement that's suited to them in particular, their life experiences, etc. Like, "gee, some men are so dense." Now, what's her reaction? Does she look at you, move her eyes somehow (squint or open widely) and nod rather enthusiastically like, "Yeah, I knooooowwww!"? That's what she does in my head.

Now picture a girlfriend in her late thirties. A bit jaded, perhaps, been there, done that, maybe has been married, maybe has children. Now, tell her something that she would agree with. It can even be the same thing as above. "Gee, some men are so dense." Doesn't she have a slow nod with a steady gaze, maybe a slight smile? Like, "yes, my child, you are correct, I know this well."?

Finally, let's jump to a grandmotherly woman. Could even be your own grandmother. Put her in your head. Tell her something that she would agree with. I'm sure she'd still agree with "Gee, some men are so dense" because that doesn't change whatever the age. What does she do? Mine kind of smoothly drops her eyes and head, then raises them back up and goes, "Yyyyyup."

Mistress of the Obvious

2004-11-07T23:40:00.000-08:00

Isn't my title clever? Like "master of the obvious" but mistress. Hee hee, how redundant that was! And yes, redundant is the proper word there, for those of you who are thinking that I don't know my three star vocab words. I was using irony. Ok, so the title of the post is already fitting. Indeed, I tend to point out the obvious. Obviously! Today I was in Borders, and I ran into someone from work. I was reading a Buddhist magazine, and there was a funny picture of a little girl in lotus position, obviously doing some beginning meditation exercises, and she had this huge yawn on her face. I showed it to my coworker, who said, "wow, they start them young, don't they" and I said, yeah, but she's yawning! that's funny! Because I wasn't sure whether or not he noticed the yawn, which was the whole point of me showing him the photo, not the fact that she was a little girl. He was like, "I can see that." So, anyway, I point out the obvious. If I don't, then someone will. If there's a group of people together, someone probably is going to point out the obvious. In groups, I try not to, especially if I know that there's someone there who points out obvious things more than I do. That way I can feel superior to them. But in truth, I shouldn't feel superior to them. They are clearly more relaxed than I am, and probably not nearly as neurotic about the issue. Also, maybe they are aware that they are doing other obvious-pointers-out a favor by taking on the obvious-pointing-out themselves, like Jesus taking on the sins of the world. For that I am grateful, O saintly and relaxed obvious-pointer-outer who is secure enough to take pleasure in pointing out the obvious to a group of people. Then giggle, though no one else does. Except me, because I can't help it. I'm not very good at containing giggles either. Especially late at night. So, when there's a group of people late at night and someone likes to point out obvious thingsand does it often and with pleasure and gusto, I'll be the one laughing my ass off. Then I won't feel superior anymore, because it's cooler not to laugh. So laughter becomes the great equalizer between me and the obvious-pointer-outer, and I'm right back where I started from. Feeling like a dork. Which can be fun. Especially when embracing oneself as a dork becomes engrained in the soul. Then I can point out the obvious all I want, AND laugh at myself, and live in my own little happy world where I am queen and screw everyone else. Not really screw as in like do it with... that would be called a fantasy world, and I'm not talking fantasy here. I mean, like everyone else be damned, I'll be a dork and I won't be self-conscious about my obvious-pointing-out and laughing at my own obvious-pointing-out, which is just not very cool. Even less cool than laughing at someone else's obvious-pointing-out. Outside of my own little happy world, that is. Because in my own little happy world, laughing at your own obvious-pointing-out is totally acceptable - even embraced - and dorks are beautiful gleaming gods/goddesses anointed with oil and drunk with ambrosia and doing it 24/7. Ahhhhh.... life is good! Yes.

Recovery

2004-11-05T17:59:00.000-08:00

My first blog shall be about how I’m recovering from my breakup with my ex. Ex-fiancé, that is, and the only real boyfriend I’ve ever had. Given, the breakup was almost a year and a half ago, and there’s always the chance that he’ll go on some nostalgic information binge and look me up here and there and stumble upon this obscure blog, but if he does, so be it. I’m not living in a vacuum here.

Yes, I’m still recovering. However, it has not really been about recovering from being with him in particular: indeed he once was a staggeringly inspiring, wonderful, genuine person, but he has Hollywoodized himself -- he even lies about his freakin' age -- and we grew apart dramatically in other ways as well. So the recovery is more about longing to have a presence of constant, romantic love in my life. I’m reasonably happy as I am, and I enjoy the single life to some extent. However, I made the mistake of keeping paraphernalia such as love letters and old IM conversations from the Big Bang of emotions and adventures in mutual discovery that kicked off the universe of our relationship. It was a good mistake, though, because I get to remind myself from time to time what romantic love is: it is awesome; it is beautiful; it is overwhelming; it is life-begetting; and I want it again more than anything. I mourn the passing of who my ex was, but romantic love itself can't be dead to me, it just can't!

I’ve dated around, but it’s so hard actually to take someone seriously now when that explosion of amour just doesn’t happen. Yes, amazing sex is, well, an amazing phenomenon, but it just leads to empty attachment -- a pseudo-relationship that engages me in a game of charades in which I keep coming up with the wrong answer. The right answer, 15 words, 20 syllables: “something that will not go anywhere so do not even get your hopes up, Missy.”

Doting but otherwise uninteresting suitors are simply pesky situations that need to be dealt with, and I always procrastinate on delivering the bad news. I’m getting a little better, but it doesn’t make it any more fun to step politely on someone’s glowing, hopeful heart while saying “Thanks, but no thanks.” Damn chemistry.

Recently I went out with a guy who, a few weeks after our first date, backed me into a corner when I didn’t return contact. Let me prelude this by stating that I am a sucker for the Socratic method. Logic is the best way to convince me to do something against my natural will. So, this guy went for it. He was the gadfly himself. He engaged me in a remarkable conversation that went something like this:

Him: “We had a great time together, shared a great kiss, and I’m mystified as to why you’ve completely disappeared. Did you enjoy our date?”
Me: “Well, yes, I did.” (I did)
Him: “I think you’re an amazing, hot, fun person. Do you find me attractive in those ways as well?”
Me: “Mmmm… yes!” (Sure, why not. He’s all of those, and a charming, funny guy, but I felt no chemistry. Which is a very, very difficult point to confess.)
Him: “Then I can think of no reason that you haven’t called me.”
Me: “I’ve been busy.” (A real excuse, but, like everyone else in the world, I can always, always, always make time for those over whom I’m gaga)
Him: “What about your weekends? What do you do on the weekends?”
Me: “You know, work out, go out with close friends, volunteer, etc. I pretty much keep to my inner circle these days, and haven’t had much time for anyone else” (sophomoric and bitchy, but… not untrue).
Him: “Interesting. I thought it was very clear when we met that you were looking to add someone else, someone special, to your life. Can I fit in anywhere on those weekends?”
Me: “Ummm… I’ve been put on the spot here. What to say… well, ok, what do you suggest?” (so many things I should have said, including, “fuck off, you guilt-tripping sombitch”)
Him: “Would you like to go to a Halloween party with me this weekend?”
Me: “Sure!” (with fake enthusiasm and so much self-kicking that the bruises on the inside of my belly are still healing)

I went to the party with him. It was an awesome party, and I met some incredible people... and my behavior conveyed that I was interested in being only friends with him. While it was not the most graceful maneuver on my part (though I did call the next day to thank him for inviting me to the party), given that he hasn't called since, I think it was effective. And unfortunately it was to be all or nothing -- friendship wasn't an option.

Here’s the thing with this guy. Clearly I didn't like him romantically, but I don’t think that he actually liked me romantically either. When I first went out with him, we went to a movie on the Santa Monica pier, and he brought two folding chairs: one with arms and one without arms. A man romantically inspired by a woman would have insisted that she take the chair with arms, no question. He took it himself. Petty, yes, but indicating a lack of romantically inspired courtesy. Then, at the above-mentioned party, when a joint was being passed, he took a hit and passed it back without asking me if I wanted some. The person next to him had to lean across him and ask me if I wanted some (yes, please!). Hello! When he got up to refill his drink, he didn’t even glance at my empty cup - not the actions of a man romantically inspired by a woman. I honestly think he was smitten with the concept of having a romantic connection with a woman such as me, but not with me personally. Two people engaged in a romantic connection are all about each other, no question. Been there. I wonder if he’s ever actually had a true romantic connection, because I have a feeling that if he had, he wouldn’t even bother chasing whatever we had between us.

Anyway, this dance-y sort of date has, on a serial basis, been taking the place of romance in my life lately. Which is why I’m still recovering from the breakup with my ex.