quirkychick.com

2011-05-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

NOT DOWN WITH THE CELEBRATION...

After 9/11 in the midst of processing the horror of the event, one of the most disturbing images, to me, were the video clips of people in the Middle East celebrating the attack on the towers and the deaths of more than 3,000 innocent Americans. They were in the streets dancing around and handing out candy, waving flags and chanting and wailing. It was terrifying to think that people could hate Americans so much that they would celebrate the crime perpetrated on the innocent.

Last night when I was watching the news to gain more details about the death of Osama Bin Laden I saw images of Americans in the street celebrating his death, and while I am happy to know that he is dead, I believe that he needed to die, I was never in favor of capturing him - much preferring a well aimed killshot - I found that it made me just as uncomfortable to watch people dancing in the street, chanting and waving flags to celebrate his death.

I want to believe that we are better than them.

I'm old enough to remember those John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies where justice is delivered with a gunshot, after which the hero blows the smoke off the end of the pistol and rides off into the sunset. That is the iconic American hero - someone who stoically gets the job done cuz it needs doin' - and then moves on to the next town and the next bad guy while the town people gather around the body and watch him go. They don't dance in the street and have a party.

They do that not us.

My fear is this: that these radical extremists, watching images of us celebrating, just like they did, will start coming over here and blowing themselves up in our malls and on our freeways during rush hour traffic. We will have to start living in a way that is not free. We will be living lives that always contain the fear of a kind of violence that we have never known.

When that happens the terrorists will have won. And since I'm thinking about this in a place of "us" and "them" perhaps they already have.

2011-04-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

THE SRING! IT'S SPRUNG!!

This past weekend I was lucky and blessed to spend time at an avocado ranch up near El Capitan State Beach. We went to celebrate Leisa turning 50 and three others, including myself, had just birthdays as well so it was quite festive. The property itself is amazing with vineyards and avocado groves and a stream and a zip line, but I was mostly into the hammock.

It was nice, cool and damp, misty giving over to rain a few times, which was great because at least 1/3 of the 12 women that were there were having hot flashes at any given time. One of us who is fighting breast cancer had just had her last radiation treatment, so she was experiencing prickly heat that was so extreme, the material from her shirt was driving her nuts, not to mention the extreme pain from the burn. She showed me the scars on her chest where her breasts had been and the charred black and red flesh over her left side, at the site of the radiation treatment.

While red and black are sort of her signature colors, the accompanying pain was bad and it was wearing her out, but she was a super trooper for making the trip. Now that the treatment is over she can move on to the next thing - which will be marrying her best friend in August. She is also a force of nature and a scrapper, so it seemed appropriate that as the earth is on the verge of bursting with verdant life, she is at the stage in this fight where she is kicking cancer's ass and looking forward to moving on to grand future, a full life, and a really fun wedding in this amazing place later this summer and it will be my honor to perform the ceremony.

I think that's why I love spring so much. Beyond the fact that the days are longer, there is also literal budding of life which hints at the abundance of goodness and beauty to come with summer days. When times are challenging there is nothing more important than this reminder of the inexorable forward motion of life and although it can feel bleak and challenging and exhausting, it will once again renew and there will be light on the path ahead. It's more difficult to find these signs in the middle of a city, but they're still there. In Southern California we don't have the obvious movement from snow to sun, but we have so many plants that show us that spring is here. I love that we have hibiscus bushes.

They are floribundufull - not a word, I know, but it sounds like they look, and while this is from the ranch they live on almost every corner of the streets in my neighborhood.

But back to the ranch, the frogs sang to us all night and the roosters woke us in the morning. I tried to get a good picture of the little dudes but they were less than enthused about a photo shoot and did not cooperate. Turns out it's hard to get a good shot when you're running towards bushes at full speed.

We took beautiful walks and ate the most delicious food and did art projects and read and napped and danced in the living room in front of the fireplace, and then ran outside to wait for the hot flashes to mellow out. We sat on the porch swings and talks and talked and climbed up into the tree house and talked some more. We walked the rows of the vines which are just starting to make little grapes...

And we look forward to one day drinking the wine that is promised in each little nugget and toasting Nancy and Byron this summer with the first vintage grown on the ranch which will be ready this summer. Thanks to the Doty's for allowing us the great privilege of staying at their magical ranch.

2011-03-31T08:11:00.000-07:00

SOMETHING SIMPLE

The events in Japan, aside from being incredibly tragic, are also very scary. I have long believed that our technological developments and capacities have far outweighed our spiritual development and ability to manage the technology.

The situation with the nuclear reactor continues to place, not only Japan in great peril, but also the rest of the world. Yesterday I read that radiation had showed up in milk in Washington state. Of course, the article assured the readers that the levels were very low, so low as to be negligible and not to worry, but seriously? That's not okay and imagine what the realities are for the food sources in Japan, a place so small that when I worked for a Japanese company a typical gift was a beautifully gift wrapped orange.

Here in Southern California, where we are close to the abundant food source that is the central growing region of this state, we don't really think about how dear food is for other places that do not have the capacity to grow so much. I have been keeping Japan in my prayers ever since I heard about the earthquake and tsunami and the issues with the nuclear power plant. I am a strong believer in prayer and intention. For me it's my go to game plan when I feel helpless to do anything else to help a friend in need, or when I have no idea what else to do, like now.

The message below has been going out all over the internet and I have received it from several sources. It's a simple request - to say a prayer - and I know that if everyone who has gotten this message over the last few days would stop and say this prayer, not only today at noon, but everyday, it will help.

Today is my birthday and that is my wish - that the whole world will say a prayer to the water for Japan and for the world. One of my favorite writers, Anne LaMotte says that her two favorite prayers are help me, help me, help me and thank you, thank you, thank you.

I'm with her. Simple is best.

URGENT: A letter from Dr Masaru Emoto, author of Messages
in Water plus other related books.

A letter from Dr Masaru Emoto:

To All People Around the World,

Please send your prayers of love and gratitude to water at
the nuclear plants in Fukushima , Japan ! By the massive
earthquakes of Magnitude 9 and surreal massive tsunamis,
more than 10,000 people are still missing...even now... It has
been 16 days already since the disaster happened. What makes
it worse is that water at the reactors of Fukushima Nuclear
Plants started to leak, and it's contaminating the ocean, air
and water molecule of surrounding areas.

Human wisdom has not been able to do much to solve the
problem, but we are only trying to cool down the anger of
radioactive materials in the reactors by discharging water
to them. Is there really nothing else to do? I think there is.

During over twenty year research of dado measuring and
water crystal photographic technology, I have been witnessing
that water can turn positive when it receives pure vibration
of human prayer no matter how far away it is. Energy
formula of Albert Einstein, E=MC2 really means that
Energy = number of people and the square of people's
consciousness.

Now is the time to understand the true meaning. Let us all
join the prayer ceremony as fellow citizens of the planet
earth. I would like to ask all people, not just in Japan , but
all around the world to please help us to find a way out the
crisis of this planet!!

The prayer procedure is as follows.

Day and Time: March 31st, 2011 (Thursday)
12:00 noon in each time zone

Please say the following phrase:

"The water of Fukushima Nuclear Plant, we are sorry to
make you suffer. Please forgive us. We thank you, and
we love you."

Please say it aloud or in your mind. Repeat it three times
as you put your hands together in a prayer position.
Please offer your sincere prayer. Thank you very much
from my Heart.

With love and gratitude,

Masaru Emoto Messenger of Water

2011-03-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

LIKE A HEATWAVE

Lately the hot flashes have been upon me, like for the last 3 weeks. Lots of friends have gone through this experience and the term has always been bandied about in popular media, most recently in that Estroven commercial where a series of women hold up cards saying funny things like "I no longer take my clothes off at work" and "my husband's not afraid of me anymore". Things that are funny unless this shit is happening to you in which case Estroven seems like the Holy Grail.

To put it mildly I feel psychotic and I am wildly uncomfortable - not a good combo for me as I was born volatile. Not in a bi-polar way, but more like a melodramatic way. Not a personality that is enhanced by flop sweat and a wildly beating heart. I went to bed last night at 10:00pm in an attempt to get at least 4 consecutive hours of sleep. I was up at 1:15 because my heart was pounding out of my chest and again at 4:48 because I was hot which was okay because I had to pee, and at 5:50 I was wide awake with the pounding heart AND a body that was doing it's heat miser routine.

For me this experience is akin to what I imagine a red alert feels like at a nuclear power plant on the verge of meltdown. I'll just be sitting there, or lying there and all of a sudden we're at code red. My lip is beading, my scalp is wet, there is a waterfall flowing between my boobs and my whole body feels unbearably hot. This lasts for about 5-10 minutes during which time I remove my clothes, run to stand in front of the nearest open refrigerator or fan myself wildly with whatever I can find, then I get freezing cold, put my clothes back on and go on about my business until it starts up again in about 15 minutes.

Looking into Hormone Replacement Therapy is frightening. Yesterday I read this article which states that basically these symptoms can be alleviated by taking man made hormones except that there was this study that showed that HRT while alleviating the symptoms of menopause, might cause worse health problems, but if you only take estrogen without progesterone you get protected from the same problems, EXCEPT you get uterine cancer.

Say what?

There are natural things that one can do, for instance I eat flax seed everyday but that's not doing squat for my melt downs. I've cut out dairy, wheat, caffeine, sugar, alcohol and red meat and that doesn't seem to be helping either it just makes me sad as well as sweaty.

Thank God for my friends who've hiked this trail before me - I can call them for reassurance that this will not last forever. We can laugh about it and share our stories which helps a lot.

What doesn't help is when Adi says to me, "You know I think that you can control this with your mind. If you just concentrate you can make this stop, instead of celebrating it like you do."

He's so lucky we were sitting in a restaurant and I was sitting across from him so I couldn't reach to punch him in the throat.

2011-03-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

WHAT IF?

This is one of my favorite questions, usually followed by an absurd query. For the last few days, maybe because the Westboro Baptist Church was in the news picketing Elizabeth Taylor's funeral, or maybe because I watched Real Housewives of Orange County last night and Alexis and Jim are living on Jesus Lane (Gretchen said it not me) - the question has been this:

What IF Jesus Christ really does come back, you know the second coming scenario where Jesus returns and takes all the "true believers" with him to heaven and anyone who hasn't accepted him as their personal savior is left behind? I've done a lot of religious exploration in my life and I was even "born again," but it didn't feel real. It felt like I was in a play with a lot of bad actors. This didn't have as much to do with the gospel as it had to do with the "saved". I've never been around so many judgmental and fearful people in my life, and while I liked the music and singing parts, and definitely felt myself lifted into a communal consciousness during that part of the experience, the minute the Pastor started sermonizing it was like God left the room, and now I was stuck with this guy who was recruiting as hard as a Forum newbie.

The whole idea of Revelation - or the second coming - has always been fascinating to me. It's like the plot of a Stephen King novel, except that there are like millions of people all over the world who believe it's really going to happen. They not only buy into the idea completely, they actively pray for it, and are betting their souls on it. Some of them even sell all their worldly goods and go wait on a mountain top at certain points in time like back at that circle around the sun referred to as Y2K.

Next year should bring a new level of hysteria with it since the Mayan Calendar predicts that it will be the end of the world - I know it's a Pagan calendar so if you're a true believe you shouldn't even be discussing it (Satan!), but anything that hints of an apocalyptic end to the planet is a hopeful sign that Jesus is coming.

Back when I was going to Calvary Chapel and learning about the End Times, the Pastor's version had Muammar Gaddafi starring as the anti-christ, and he was pitching the idea that we would for sure , be seeing Jesus in our lifetimes. Another thing that he said would be happening, because it was written, is that we were all going to be assigned an identification number which would be branded or tattooed on our arms, and that would be scanned at the grocery store when we went shopping!

I think about this every time I swipe my Ralph's card. It's not quite the same thing, but still, who knows what that's really about? I do want the discounts however, so just to be safe, when I filled out the form I used an alias and a fake address.

Maybe it's the combination of earthquake, tsunami, edge of nuclear disaster in Japan, combined with a week of new war in Libya and a plethora of reality TV that seriously scares the shit out of me when I consider that this represents man's creative output in the 21st century, but I've been thinking that if it's really going to happen we're probably getting pretty close to a visit from Jesus.

And here's my question - what if he comes back and basically tells everyone to piss off? That we have missed the point? What if he's just hugely disappointed in the interpretation (or adaptation in you're in the entertainment business) of his gospels by beings who were supposed to take those teachings as a jumping off point, and live their divinity here on this beautiful planet. What if he feels like that sacrifice he made hanging on that cross was just a waste because somehow people got the idea that you could be as much of a jerk as you wanted to be and all you had to do was ask for forgiveness? And then the next day everyone went back out and continued to act like jackholes...in Jesus' name!

I have this vision of him coming back and picking up the people who never claimed to believe in anything other than loving their family and friends and treating people well because they were their neighbors, or because they needed a helping hand. Those people who respected the earth and understood that they were a part of it - that all life was precious? Those people get to go. Them that actually behaved in accordance with the Godly part of themselves - they loved, they respected, they behaved with Grace when they found themselves in difficult, challenging and painful situations? They're in! Folks who lived each day grateful and worked at finding the blessing and seeing God in everything and everyone? Welcome!

The people who lived their lives like hall monitors for God? All those God fearing folks who were cruel to others in Jesus name? Sorry. People like Fred Phelps and his Westboro Church members? Well, in the scene in my head, Jesus looks at those guys and says, "you are a pack of douche bags and tools and since you have perpetrated acts of hatred in my name then you shall inherit this place you have created. I mean I forgive you because that's what I do, but I really don't want to hang out with you and I for sure don't want you bringing this mess into my house. So you just stay here and think about your choices - because everything you do and think is a choice. I'll come back by sometime and see if you're getting it - see ya."

And with that he boards his magical escalator and as it carries him up into the clouds the sky is filled with Lady Gaga's video for "Born this Way" from Youtube (complete with mandatory ad) and it begins to play on a loop..... for eternity.

2011-01-17T23:24:00.000-08:00

HOISTED

So I watched the Golden Globes last night. Personally I thought Ricky Gervais was hilarious. Now this could be a reflection of my inner voice which is really snarky although I'm trying to stifle it, or at least attempt to filter, so I don't appear to be a cynical, bitter person to total strangers who don't know my natural twinkling personality.

But when it comes to a group of people congratulating each other for doing, let's face it, not much of anything all that important, while wearing clothes that cost more than the average monthly paycheck in many homes throughout the country.... well, snarky just kind of leaks out.

Yes, I enjoyed the Fighter and I enjoyed True Grit, but c'mon - it's entertainment and most of the time it's not all that entertaining. It's certainly not helping people to achieve a better quality of life.

Ricky was Ricky and I thought he was the best part of the show - well him and and who ever it was that said, "okay now point the camera at Angelina, she's putting on lip gloss."

Really?

My favorite parts of the Golden Globes other than Ricky Gervais shining the light on the entertainment business and the flawed and human personalities that take themselves and the work they do waaaaaay too seriously, was Temple Grandin who was the realest person in the room and Ian Brennan of Glee whose thank you speech was pretty much the truest words spoken last night: “I just want to say thank you to public schoolteachers. You don't get paid like it, but you're doing the most important work in America.”

2010-08-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

DAVID MILLS - Writer, Producer, Friend, and one of the best people I will ever know...

Tonight the Emmys forgot to honor the memory of my friend David Mills so I thought I would share my thoughts about him here. He died on March 30th of a brain aneurysm and I have missed him every day since - for so many reasons.

He was an incredibly talented writer both in print journalism and for television. He won two Emmys and wrote for some of the best television series ever aired on the tube (NYPD Blue, ER, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Corner, Kingpin, The Wire, Treme). He was also a huge fan of television and it was so much fun to talk to him about shows that we grew up watching - he remembered Gigantor! He was an amazing repository of television history.

I met Dave at Spelling where he had a deal after he'd sold the pilot for Kingpin to NBC. The network wanted it to be a primetime Sopranos and it could have been except that they screwed the pooch when it came to airing it. I was working with Mark Frost at the time and David was a huge fan of his writing on Hill Street and asked me if I would set up a lunch. We became friends, connecting through our shared love of music, specifically all things P-Funk. I ended up working with him because one afternoon I was oversharing with his assistant about breast augmentation (mine), and he rounded the corner to find my boob in her hand. He turned bright red, but the next day asked me to help him out with a scene that took place in the plastic surgeon's (portrayed wonderfully by Brian Ben Ben) office in Kingpin.

He asked me to come with him to NBC to work on Kingpin as a researcher, and took me into the writer's room where he mined my life along with everyone else's - and those drug dealers I dated in the 80s, while still bad choices (but never boring), finally proved to be good for something other than trouble.

David loved writing from real life stories. He loved the way people talked and was an astute observer of the subtleties and nuances of how people communicate with each other, the words they choose and the way they put them together. After he died, when I was helping his family pack up his house here in Los Angeles, I found notebooks filled with scenes he'd overheard out in the world which he'd written down; a mother talking to her kids in the airport, a couple having a fight, etc. He was fascinated by people and the things they do and say. He appreciated the duality of light and dark, saint and sinner, the conventional and perverted aspects that co-exist in an individual life.

I went with David to Warner Bros. on his three year overall deal and while we were there I got to know this very private man very well. I learned his quirks and witnessed so many acts of kindness and generosity that no one really knows about. David was one of those rare individuals who would step up to help others, people whom he'd never met who would ask him to speak to a class of aspiring writers, or to read something they'd written, or for words of advice. In my experience this is not a business where those who've achieved the level of success that Dave did are accessible to people, much less willing to actually help them. Not only that, he was generous in his appreciation of the talents of others and made sure to tell them, to acknowledge them and to thank them. That said, he never pulled a punch or blew sunshine up your butt. If he didn't like what you did he wouldn't tell you otherwise, though he wouldn't talk trash about it behind your back. He was the kind of guy who'd say it to your face.

He was my biggest fan and read everything I ever wrote here. He encouraged me to write my first script. Then he read it... and made me do a page one re-write because he said it could be better. He was right. After we left Warner Bros. we continued to be good friends and he would trek out to points far and wide with me on food adventures. We continued to share music finds - he made me mixed CDs that I loved because he had excellent and eclectic taste in music and every one of them is like going on a journey or listening to a story. He tolerated my fussing at him about taking up smoking in his late 40s and not exercising enough and generally nagging him to take better care of himself. He pushed me and encouraged me constantly to write and to write and to write.

He was a great writer, but it was not always easy and effortless for him (is it easy for anyone?). It was so important to him that every scene move the story forward and that it be real. One of the things that I loved about his writing was that he would never settle for anything less than excellence. He was never lazy about his writing. He would go underground when he was writing, holing up, working through the night, walking and thinking, eating crap food and ultimately coming up with gold. When I watched Treme I could hear Dave's voice in certain scenes and in the episodes he wrote and it is so damn sad that I can't tell him how much I love it.

I miss being able to tell him about the bizarre things I see, the conversations I eavesdrop on, the great song I just heard - old or new. I miss being able to ask him what he thinks about everything relating to politics, culture, race. I would love to know what he thinks about Glenn Beck. I miss eating and drinking with him. I miss reading his blog - Undercover Blackman - which was almost as good as having a conversation with him. It made me think, it made me laugh, and sometimes it intimidated me because the back and forth in the comments got so heated. Dave would never back down from a duel of ideas and opinions.

After he died I read all the articles about him recounting his amazing career and talent. Some referred to him as shy or introverted or quiet which are not words that I associate with Dave. He was smart - the smartest guy I know. He was honest and operated with a level of integrity that is rare in this life and even rarer in this town. He was funny and had an awesomely sharp sense of humor. He was a lot of fun and loved to play - he had the whole Kingpin office playing Password and drinking Margaritas every Friday at the end of the day. Some of my best memories of Dave are of sitting on the floor(me, not him) in his office playing CDs and sharing our favorite music and telling the stories about where those songs landed in our lives. I know that this is the gift of our years of close proximity in that bungalow at WB, and the blessing of our connection, because he was a very private person when it came to his personal life.

To me the word that most accurately describes David is passionate. That passion made him great. I saw his passion in everything he did and for everyone and everything he loved. It wasn't overt and out loud, it was from a deep place inside him. He was a rare and unique soul.

In the late 80s/early 90s David published a zine called UNCUT FUNK. In issue No. 3 he wrote the quote below in his Letter from the Publisher. When I read it I can feel his excitement and passion for what he was doing, and it's like he's still here talking to me, to all of us who got to know him, even to those who didn't. At this point in time you could insert the name of any project he worked on in place of UNCUT FUNK because this was the place he was coming from when he wrote:

"Thanks so much for getting your hands on this. And let me tell you, this is what I had in mind for UNCUT FUNK from the start, and I just know it's gonna knock y'all out! Forgive my immodesty, but at this moment I'm pumped to the limits of my soul, full of the glory of being able to transfer an idea from my head to yours. Let UNCUT FUNK seep into you, each word a sperm searching for something to fuse with so you can go forth and give birth to something positive. Then do me a favor back and put something on paper yourself and spread it around. It's definitely about that printed word!..."

I take solace in the fact that when he died he was in a very good place in his life. He was writing with one of his best friends - David Simon, living in New Orleans, a city that he loved like home, surrounded by great music, fabulous food and good people, doing something that he loved and when he went it was quick. He didn't suffer.

But I miss my friend so much. Every day.

2010-08-17T22:18:00.000-07:00

SPREADING THE WORD

My friend Heidi needs a kidney and as it happens I'm fresh out of extras. When she and I talk about her situation my heart goes out to her because she has worked so hard to get herself into a tranplant program and to keep herself healthy but as she continues on dialysis it will get harder and harder to stay healthy and stay on the list.

I'm posting a letter that I wrote her recently because my hope is that someone might see it here and pass it along, or share her story, and somehow that person out there who feels moved to donate will find her.

It's not for everyone I know, but if you read this and it moves you to want to do something (but you're not up for living donation) - sign your donor card. It's such a small thing to do and it could literally save a life.

Dear Heidi,

I have been thinking a lot about you over the last week. My friend Jim Crumby was killed in a motorcycle crash on August 6th, he was 53 years old. It was shocking that someone so young would just be gone, leaving a son. Yesterday I went to his funeral and spent the day remembering him with his family and friends.

I'm thinking of you lately because your situation is similar. It may not be happening as quickly, but it's still happening.

Truly I don't want to be negative or dramatic, because you know I believe/know that you will get a kidney transplant, but I also wanted to acknowledge the struggle that you are experiencing and tell you that I feel a level of dread when I think about your future if you don't get a kidney. No one wants to watch someone die.

You do a great job of not dwelling in this reality and, in fact, you have been amazing in your tenacity with regard to getting yourself on the transplant list - going through open heart surgery could have killed you, but it didn't. Instead you are doing better and better. The setbacks you experienced earlier this year with the falls and broken bones might have discouraged, or even ended it for someone else in the same situation heath-wise, but you just kept going.

You truly are the unsinkable Heidi Nye.

I think that because Janet has offered to donate it might seem to others that you are out of the woods, but you and I both know the reality is that you need a kidney from a donor with O positive blood type. A paired donation is still available and possible, but it is not a foregone conclusion.

The facts are that you are one of 85,000 people waiting for a kidney in this country and because you have O positive blood your wait will be longer as that is the blood type that can give to anyone.

That puts you at the literal end of the line.

You have been on dialysis for 18 months already and although it may seem that one can live forever on dialysis that is not true, the reality is that dialysis doesn't do much more than clean toxins from the blood, it doesn't provide the hormones or electolyte balance that are necessary for true health.

The average survival time on dialysis is about 5 years. This means that you will continue to have health issues, which means that you may be removed from the list if you decline in any way.

Although this reality is grim you continue to live your life to the fullest, traveling to Paris and to your cabin in Nova Scotia. You persevere through the medical system, advocating for yourself in a way that amazes me. You do everything you can to keep yourself healthy and you hold on to hope that the kidney will come. You remain engaged in the world, writing, serving on the board of the Alliance for Organ Donor Incentives, being open to a loving relationship and, as always, you continue to be a great mother and friend to your son, Aaron.

I'm writing this to you because I want you to know that I understand just how dire your situation is. I hear you when you share with me how discouraging all of this is and how alone you feel and you have every reason to feel that way.

I want you to know that when I share with people about donating a kidney to a friend (or as I think of it - participating in a miracle) I also tell them about you. My hope is that you will share this e-mail with your friends and acquaintances so that they can share your story with their friends and acquaintances. My prayer is that there is someone out there who may feel moved to donate, as I was, and that they would donate to you and change your life.

I know this is possible because your neighbor Janet has already stepped up and although she was not a match and it didn't happen, it opened the door to possibility.

While living donation may not be something that most people would consider doing, they CAN sign their donor cards. No one likes to think about dying when they are young and healthy, but if it happens becoming a donor can create a blessing out of a tragedy.

I am always available to answer questions about living donation and my experience being a donor so please feel free to send anyone who might be interested my way.

Hang in there - love you,

2010-07-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

SUM-SUM-SUMMERTIME

Now that school is out and the 4th of July has passed it feels like summertime. I know that's not really all one word, but this particular spelling reminds me of those days between one grade and the next when all I had to do was loll through my days and play with friends until the street lights came on.

Since I've been laid off that feeling has come over me again. Not because I am lolling around, but because the job market sucks and the economy sucks and it seems like a lot of people are kind of in this groove of staying home and spending time not spending money.

It's a good thing.

My childhood summer days were spent during a much simpler decade when there were no computers and very few channels to watch on TV. When I write things like that I cringe because it's so, "back in my day" old lady speak. Still the reality is we did spend our days a lot differently than kids do now for those very reasons.

In the pre-teen years the days were spent at the beach, or playing in the street - literally. We would put on plays and recitals that we forced our parents to attend. We made refreshments and donned chenille bedspreads and played Heat and Soul on the piano. We passed the time hanging out in the kitchen playing Kings in the Corner and drinking sweet iced tea with Kami's mom or hung out in the bowling alley on league day, or we went to the Plaza theater with snacks that were purchased at Plaza liquor next door, to see Disney films.

When we were not yet 16 but older than 12 hours passed while floating in the pool listening to Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne and smoking cigarettes we snuck out of Laura's mom's purse. We'd hitch hike down PCH to the beach and spend the bus fair our mother's gave us on Abba Zabbas and Big Hunks. The same guys in an orange van with shag carpeting on the walls and ceiling picked us up and brought us home every day so it never felt dangerous, and we'd listen to Houses of Holy on the 8-track player as loud as the volume would go. The Ocean was my favorite song. At night we went to play raquet ball at this guy Rick's house - his dad had converted the garage into a regulation court. Or sometimes we'd pool our money so there was enough to buy three tickets into the drive in and squish three more into the trunk with the lawn chairs which we'd take out and set in a row between two speakers. On the nights that there were parties located only the coordinates of the streets - Monlaco and Studebaker - we would pimp beer outside of El Dorado Liquor. A six-pack of Bud Talls would get two people nicely buzzed and if there was a keg that was even better. When there were no parties we would usually hang out at Laura's house because her parents never bothered us and we would play records and read magazines and smoke and talk. The summer was my favorite time to read. I would go to the library and check out stacks of books and actually have time to read them.

The summer seemed to last forever and it's been a long time since I've felt that relaxed. I'm open to getting a great new job, but if it doesn't happen until school starts I'll be okay with that.

I'm going to the library to check out a stack of books and it will be bliss to have the time to read them.

2010-07-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

FIREWORKS on the 4th

I was up in Santa Ynez for the 4th with Peggy and Ron and the rest of the family. It's hard to believe that a year ago Ron and I were recovering from surgery. This year we all went down to the Mission in Solvang to watch the fireworks show.

I love small town 4th of July celebrations, the parades, the kids, the vintage cars and marching bands. Because Solvang is in the middle of a verdant and fertile valley there was also farm equiptment and the 4H club! I think that next year they should have the wine growers represented with free tasting booths at every corner.

There's also a large military population in Lompoc and there were a lot of families from the base at the mission grounds where they'd had a carnival and BBQ directly after the parade and before the show. As I watched the rockets strafing into the sky with the loud whistles and trails of smoke, something that I could see through the camera lens, it made me think about all the people living under skies where the explosions are real.

I've never been a fan of fireworks because they're loud and they kind of scare me. In years past I have huddled with the dogs in the house. This year, maybe because I was trying to take pictures of them, which was way more challenging than I thought it would be (it's all about the timing), they didn't bother me as much, but the whole time I couldn't help thinking how grateful I am that they are a form of entertainment and not the real thing.

And I said a prayer that those people in the military all over the world will stay safe from the real fireworks.

2010-03-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

RIP David Mills - I will miss you my friend

2010-03-04T11:00:00.000-08:00

THIS TOO SHALL PASS...

Lately I've been chanting this to myself. Now I have a tune I can hum!

2010-01-11T12:03:00.000-08:00

Bereave
(word origin)
O.E. bereafian "rob," from be + reafian "rob, plunder," from P.Gmc. *raubojanan. A common Gmc. formation (cf. Du. berooven, Ger. berauben, Goth. biraubon). Since c.1650, mostly in ref. to life, hope, loved ones, and other immaterial possessions. Past tense forms bereaved and bereft have co-existed since 14c., now slightly differentiated in meaning, the former applied to loss of loved ones, the latter to circumstances.
Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian.

For the last week I have been feeling this acutely. Our friend Jacob was killed last Monday night in a tragic, horrific accident. We found out on Tuesday when we had lunch with Gudren who asked if we'd heard what happened.

When she said the words, "Jacob was killed last night." I had one of those moments where I completely disconnected and although they registered I refused to believe that they were true. Because I didn't want them to be true, because they couldn't be true.

Jacob was one of those people who was so completely present and joyful in every moment that it is impossible to grasp that his spirit could be extinguished. Just the day before he had come up in a conversation we were having about emotional intelligence. He might not have been the smartest guy about some stuff, but he was full to the brim with emotional intelligence.

He was born and raised in Israel and he had served in Shayetet 13 of the IDF. He moved to the US and married an American girl and they adopted two kids, who had a bit of a rough start, but who were very blessed to end up with Jacob and his wife. He was a contractor who did excellent work in marble, tile and granite and the buildings and civic centers he worked on span Southern California.

None of that really expresses the essence of Jacob though - he was one of those people who lived life full out all the time. To talk with Jacob was to make a connection, even if it was just 10 minutes. He was completely, 100% real - all the time. He was philosophical and loved to discuss human behavior. He was onto himself which doesn't mean that he did everything right, it just means that he knew himself and he was comfortable with the man that he was so he could accept and appreciate everyone else where ever they might be.

He truly lived out loud and had the very best time. Every year he had a giant 4th of July party with a ton of people, live music and fireworks. Not fireworks as I've always thought about them - sparklers in the street and a couple of cones that blow different colored showers - but fireworks that you are more likely to see at a park. The kind of show with aerial explosions that the fire department supervises. These things were launched straight up from a wooden structure a little ways down the street and they exploded high over our heads as we sat in lawn chairs and on towels on the neighbor's lawns and sidewalks. The whole neighborhood was there so no one was going to call and tell.

He was a force of nature whose aim was to have a good time and find the happiness in every experience, in every moment.

And now he is gone. His death is so much more tragic because it didn't have to happen. Last week he picked up a container full of granite from India at the port and took it up to his yard. He and his employees were unloading the 5 tons of granite and he went into the container (if only he hadn't). The load was secured only by a couple of nails (if only he'd checked). There was a shift of weight which caused the 5 tons of granite to move crushing Jacob against the wall of the container (if only he'd been able to get out of the way).

Rescue was called but he was pronounced dead at the scene. Then they had to wait for a crane to come to lift the load off of his body.

It is a cruel irony that this man whose spirit was indomitable and ebullient despite the harsh economic realities that have us all bowed, who was happy no matter how bad things got, was literally crushed.

And he's gone.

2009-11-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

WHY I DONATED MY KIDNEY

I just got back from a long weekend up north to visit my friends Peggy and Ron and their daughter Emily. I donated my kidney to Ron in June and I am so happy to say that we are both feeling great now. We didn't do a whole lot, mostly hung out, watched the World Series, decorated the house for Halloween and listened to Em giggle with her new boyfriend.

It's odd how intimate my conversations with Ron are now. We talk about everything and there is no thought of holding back even when we talk about stuff we don't necessarily agree on. One night after dinner Peg was teasing me about how when she and Ron were dating I predicted that she wouldn't end up with him because he wasn't the guy for her. Ron was sitting right there when she said it and he looked a little taken aback, but I responded that it was because he never hung out with us - he was busy being a man in his manworld (we were 23 and he was 28 and seemed very grown up). It wasn't until years later that I found out that the grown up man was a great big Deadhead.

I had no idea that Ron and I would one day share a bond that is so unique and wonderful.

We were talking about the decision to donate and I shared that it was something that I always thought I would do. Peggy first told me that Ron would probably need a kidney transplant at some remote point in the future probably 10 years ago. At the time his kidney function was impaired although it took a while to determine the cause.

No one in my family has ever had kidney problems, but when I was a kid one of my friends went into kidney failure. It started happening when we were still in single digits and by the time he was 12 he needed a transplant. I have a very clear memory of the neighborhood moms talking about it in the kitchen. The one thing that deeply impacted me as I sat there listening was that his mom was going through testing to see if she could give him one of her kidneys.

That was astonishing to me. It was 1972 and living donation was a concept not even 20 years old, not that I knew that then. At 12, the idea that someone could give one of their organs to another person and save their life was miraculous and terrifying. Oh the drama! I interpreted this "kidney disease" to mean that he could no longer pee and he was going to die a terrible death, drowning in his own urine which couldn't get out of his body. I could completely understand why his mom would undergo, what in my mind was a gruesome and horrific Frankenstein type procedure to save her kid's life. Who wouldn't?

At that time they were starting to dramatize transplant surgery (mostly hearts) on the Movie of the Week. I LOVED the Movie of the Week and Afterschool Specials which is probably why the little movie in my mind, fed by tidbits gleaned from eavesdropping on my mom and her friends - "Brett Needs a Kidney," featured his brave mother being sawed in half to save her son as he hovered at death's door swollen with pee. The fact that he hadn't been at school for like a month because he was so sick, and the one time I did see him when I went over to his house he was yellow, bore out my whole drowning in pee theory.

Turns out Brett received a cadavaric kidney because his mom wasn't a match. He came back to school with a puffy face from the anti-rejection drugs and life went on. Except that I now knew someone who was a walking miracle.

Later on, in college I took an anatomy and physiology class from a really great teacher and I learned about the magical kidney. The kidney is truly one of the foundations of our well-being. They do a lot more than just clean the blood. They regulate the composition of our blood, they keep the concentrations of various ions and other important substances constant as well as the volume of water in the body and the acid/base concentration of the blood. They remove wastes from the body (urea, ammonia, drugs, toxic substances), help regulate the blood pressure, stimulate the making of red blood cells and maintain the body's calcium levels.

I had always thought the kidneys were about urine, but they're mostly about blood. They are just as important as the heart when it comes to our overall health - although I think the heart gets bigger, better billing. The kidneys always seemed to be featured players, barely even a co-star unless, of course, they are failing.

Brett ultimately received three transplanted kidneys before he died at age 44.

When Peg told me that Ron had been placed on the transplant list 5 or 6 years ago I told her then that I would donate. There was never any doubt or second thought after I said it - I knew that I was going to be the one to give my kidney to Ron and that the transplant would be successful.

Peggy called me a week and a half ago and said, "I just wanted to tell you that my husband and I went out today and he got new suits and new eyeglasses, something I haven't been able to get him to do in six years. I think he's starting to realize that he's going to be okay. I wanted to say thank you again."

Although Ron never defined himself as a sick person, and you would never have known that he was on dialysis or needed a transplant, his illness affected him. This weekend I saw for myself that not only is he doing well - he is well.

2009-10-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

PARDON MY INDIGNATION...

I work in the construction business and I really liked it - when there was business. Lately, like many other industries there's not much going on. About the only projects out there are public works and federal projects. This is great until you pick up the planholders list and see that over 30 General Contractors are bidding each project.

All of our private projects are on hold. This continues to be true for most projects that are privately owned. The cost to build is prohibitively expensive so what makes the most sense financially if you own a piece of dirt is to let it sit there... or sell it because you can't afford to develop it.

In the midst of this rather stressful time in our economy the banks - the same banks that received hundreds of millions in TARP funds have started "restructuring" existing loans no matter how you've managed your money. In our case we had a $250,000 line of credit which we use for cash flow. When our loan came up for renewal the bank looked at our balance sheet and our receivables which were respectable and decided that they were going to reduce our LOC by $150,000.

Now we never actually used more than $100,000 of the LOC but I liked knowing that I could if an opportunity arose or if we got a big contract. Big contracts involve carrying material bills and payroll, often for 30 to 60 days before you get paid.

My response to the banks decision to do this was to cast around and see if we could find another LOC with another institution. I was thinking a bank that got a lot of the TARP money would be a good shot because, stupid me! I thought that "bail out" money would include businesses, but apparently not.

The banks I talked to all refused to lend us even $1 despite the fact that our balance sheet looks better than any of theirs, we actually have healthy receivables (although I'm not certain that people can pay us since no one besides the banks seem to have any money) and we carry virtually no debt. All this and we can provide security in the form of real estate that is owned free and clear with no note.

In this extremely tedious process I was passed from person to person, all of whom were very professional, but none of whom seemed to be very intelligent or inspired. One gentleman, Josh who said he was the underwriter had a voice that sounded not all the way changed - I imagined acne, braces and ears that appear still a bit too large for his head as we spoke, asked me what I attributed our drop in revenue to over the last year.

Me: Seriously?

Him: Well yes, there's been a significant drop.

Me: Gee Josh, let me think... near as I can figure I guess it would be the fact that over the last 5 years or so banks, such as your own employer practiced predatory and irresponsible lending to people who couldn't afford the mortgages you put them in, well not you Josh because 5 years ago you were in middle school, but as I was saying, since the banks made all of these incredibly bad decisions, including those derivative things, they started to fail and go out of business, and as they were sliding into that black hole they'd dug for themselves they began pulling in large corporations who had also made some questionable, greed based financial decisions, something that corporations can do in this country because in the current system no one has to actually be culpable, and the CEO's still got paid their million dollar plus salaries and bonuses, but they do employ thousands of people so the government had to get involved and they took hundreds of millions of the tax dollars that we all pay and gave it to the banks to "revitalise the economy", except that the banks are holding onto the money to try to fix their very sick balance sheets, thus there is no money out in the world to pay for the projects that would allow us to continue the growth that we had worked so hard to create a real foundation for.

So basically Josh it seems to me that the drop in our revenue is your employer's fault.

Then I asked him how much TARP money his bank had accepted and what exactly they did with it.

Because I would really like to know.

2009-09-16T05:50:00.000-07:00

ON BEING A JACKASS

"Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but stand there and take it." Lyndon Johnson

So President Obama thinks that Kanye West is a jackass? Big deal. I think so too. Why the uproar? All he said is exactly what so many of us are thinking. When you become president are you no longer allowed to have honest, spontaneous opinions and express them? Ever?

He said it off the record, but it shouldn't be such a big deal that he said it. This country is messed up in more ways than the economy. The most interesting thing about the incident is that it happened via Twitter. Twitter is like the slambook of the new millenium. It gets people in trouble and everybody is doing it.

I wonder if there's some freak twittering about his weird stalking obsessions and when he finally goes and acts out we can go back and read his twitter feed.

But back to the president who said what we were all thinking. I like Obama when he openly speaks his mind. It reminds me of why I voted for him. Even when I disagree with him he's still an intelligent human being and he's real. He doesn't strike me as a guy with entitlement issues, or someone who talks out of both sides of his mouth - when he's just saying what he really thinks.

Being president has got to be no fun at all, as Lyndon Johnson so aptly describes it - standing in a hail storm and taking it will leave you cold and bruised. Good thing Obama seems to have a pretty thick skin - but I wonder where his "when" is, that moment where he'll just get fed up and tell us all off. How long can one deal with the level of sanctimonious bullshit that's flying around before one snaps?

The behavior in this country has devolved to a point where Kanye West feels like it's okay to climb up on stage, in the middle of someone else's moment and spew his opinion. We live in a world where people twitter their every thought and our news anchors are no longer reporting hard, fact based news - much of it just opinion. The opinion of Rupert Murdoch, or Sumner Redstone, or whomever else owns the company.

At this point I think even Kanye West would acknowledge that what he did to Taylor Swift makes him a jackass.

But maybe he's also the poster child for America's collective conscious.

2009-09-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

TO LOVE DEEPLY AND COMPLETELY

Last night when I heard that Patrick Swayze had died I was overcome with so much sadness. Although his pancreatic cancer diagnosis is one of the scariest, and seems to be death sentence, I kind of thought that he could and would beat it. Today my thoughts are with his wife Lisa, his best friend and companion for over 30 years.

One thing about being a celebrity is that your entire life is on display for consumption by the public. So once Patrick's star took off we all new everything about his life - that he grew up dancing in his mom's dance studio, that he loved his family, that his wife Lisa was his best friend and his favorite person.

Many celebrities give us this picture. It's like their personal lives are movies that they are starring in and everyone is going for the hollywood ending. It rarely happens though. I think for Patrick and his wife it was the real deal though.

The one time I met them no one was acting.

In 1992 I started working out at Winsor Fitness, Mari Winsor's first pilates studio. There were six reformers, a tread mill and an apparatus called the Cadillac in a not so large room on the second floor of a Calfornia Ranch style building surrounded by eucalyptus trees that we could see through the large windows on both sides of the room.

It was pretty free flowing in that you could call and reserve a reformer show up and an instructor would move between the six clients that were working out. Mari allowed me to bring in my own music and we all chatted and joked while we worked out on the torturers, I mean reformers. There were lots of celebrities that came in, but I rarely recognized them because it wasn't a see and be seen scene. No one except for Donna Dixon was wearing make up or had their hair done. It was a tough work out that made you sweat and grunt (and sometimes I'd cry), but it really works.

One of the things that I loved best about it is that I could go at 8pm and there wouldn't really be anyone there so I could get personalized attention. It was on an evening like this that I got to sweat and grunt with Patrick Swayze and his wife Lisa. We all arrived about the same time - they were there for a private session with Mari - so for the next hour and a half I was treated to his sense of humor and his awesome body going through all the moves. Lisa's not too bad herself and since they are both dancers they made the pilates routine look elegant and effortless albeit with a little grunting and panting because Mari really works you out.

He was wearing a spandex dance suit which sounds very gay, but on him it was distracting and it was hard not to ogle him in front of his wife. I just wanted to sit and watch. He was much shorter than I thought he would be, but then that just seems to be the story when you meet famous men - most of them seem to be 5'10" or even shorter.

In any case it was just us working out that night and although I tried to be cool and not to talk to them - they were having a private session after all and those aren't cheap, he was so funny and personable it was hard not to laugh. He flirted non-stop with his wife and although at that point they'd been married for a while it was like they were still dating. Even more than that you could tell that they were great friends. They had the kind of connection that is palpable to anyone who saw them. That's a rare thing - two people who are like twinned souls that find each other.

Sharing pain with people can create moments of connection and bonding and the routine we did on the Pilates reformer just kind of creates an instant intimacy as you gaze at the person across from you through legs split wide, and while they could have been weird and stand offish they were not. They were fun people to be around and you could tell that they were deeply and completely in love.

The thing about loving like that - something I think we all want - is that when one of you dies, and it is inevitable that this will happen, it feels like part of you dies too and yet you have to go on. If your someone is young then this mean you have many years to miss and remember them and the intensity of your love equates the intensity of your pain and loss.

Today my thoughts and prayers are with Lisa and Patrick's family who have to go on without him and I hope that that deep and complete love will sustain her in the years to come.

2009-09-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

TGIF (thank God it's football)

Every year I go into a sort of depression when football season ends, which is okay because every year I also get extremely excited and happy when football season starts!!!!

Last night was the first game of the regular 2009/10 season and the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans did not disappoint. It was a big defense game = low score, but they stayed tied through much of the game, 0-0, 7-7 and 10-10 and then Hines Ward couldn't suppress his inner super hero and got stripped of the ball at the 10 yard line as he tried to run for a touchdown with 1:54 in the 4th quarter and then we get OT! Very good for the first game.

I still don't love sudden death in OT, I would like to see them play the whole 15 minutes, but unlike baseball games which seem to go on and on forever, I can never get enough football.

2009-09-10T07:08:00.000-07:00

STAY HEALTHY - THAT'S REALLY YOUR ONLY OPTION

I didn't watch the speech last night. I've kind of checked out on the whole health care issue. It feels like a lot of talking, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. There's been a lot of uproar about a "public option" and how bad that would be. There's a lot of fear about a single payer system because that will cost the tax payers too much money. My friends with money really don't like that idea and I don't blame them - if I had a lot of money I probably wouldn't want to spend it on a government run program that most likely would kill people just as surely as the current system does.

What we need is change, but I don't think we're headed for a good one.

I've not heard any discussion about how the current system is broken. How can you fix something if you don't explore how it's broken?

We definitely need to get better health care options for people in this country, but I haven't really heard any clear ideas about what that would be. Just to say that everyone needs to have it doesn't reassure me. No one has ever raised a conversation about regulating the current system. Private insurers are gouging employers and individuals and their policies have raised the cost of medical care to a point that it's no longer really affordable even if you do have insurance.

I have individual insurance which I got for an initial premium of $120 a month. Within four months that was jacked up to $204 a month - no explanation, no reason. Just because they can. so now I pay $2400 a year and when I go to the doctor I pay out of pocket up to $3500 before I gain any benefit from having insurance. If I don't use my insurance and I negotiate a cash rate with a doctor it ends up costing me less than the negotiated rate the insurance company has with the doctor, but then nothing goes toward my deductible.

There are lots of nightmare stories in the news about people in the same boat who become ill, catastrophically ill, and then the insurance company rescinds their coverage. This is a common policy and it has nothing to do with real issues of fraud. A woman diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer was dropped because she didn't report seeing her dermatologist for acne. http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=27994

Insurance companies are in business to make money. That's it. They don't care about consumers and because there's really no competitive market they don't need to provide excellent service. They have incredibly strong lobbies so they are part of policymaking when it comes to regulation and laws with regard to insurance. They are huge corporations and no one individual is responsibile or culpable for the immorality that they perpetrate on their customers every single day. There is no regulation and today when I read that the response from insurance companies to the president's speech was "he didn't address high medical expenses" I had to laugh, derisively of course, but I still laughed.

Medical expenses are high because doctors and hospitals are playing the game by the rules the insurance companies set up. A doctor will bill at about 200% of his cost because he knows the insurance companies will only pay maybe 50% of the bill. If he was billing his cost he would lose money and go out of business. I worked for several doctors and that's what I saw - it seems crazy to me, but that's how they do it.

Have you ever been hospitalized? Have you ever looked at your bills? Every single item is listed and the pricing is crazy. I remember being amazed that the PAPER pillow cover was billed at $5. What? But that's how the hospital makes it's profit.

We live in a country where sick people = bottom line profit and everyone thinks that's a good thing and the way it should be. I feel that it creates some real moral issues, but that's just me.

Joe Wilson's outburst over Obama's statement that no illegal aliens would receive benefit from the new health care plan - whatever that is - made me sick (not sick enough to even get close to meeting my deductible). Not only because he acted like a punk ass bitch in front of everyone, but because of the hatefulness that motivated the outburst in the first place. Why is it okay for Americans to receive health care in Canada because they can't afford to get it here? Why is it okay for at least 2 people I know to go live in Europe because they can afford to get transplants there and they can't afford it here?

We are illegal aliens heading into other countries for their health care benefits - we don't even want to clean their houses and mow their yards, or bus their tables - we just want to use their single payer system and come back over the border without having to pay the taxes to the get the benefit.

We do need to do something because some of the uninsured are committing suicide when they get sick or as a result of depression http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-11-28-healthcare-suicide_N.htm - but then that's kind of what our private insurance companies are doing by rescinding insurance when their customers become ill - we can call that "assisted suicide".

I can't really participate in the debate because no one is talking about what's broken and it all sounds to me like they're looking for another way to stimulate the economy, not to make sure that there's a good option for all people. I don't know about a public option - isn't Medicare a public option? And speaking of that option, it pretty much sucks because you have to be really poor, too poor to have any real quality of life in order to access it. What I think we really need is an assessment of the private option and why it's failing so grandly and then we need to fix it. One more crappy product in the arena of medical care isn't really going to change things. And why we're at it how about making people who rescind medical policies that people have been paying good money for a criminal matter? Say the person who makes that decision to drop a customer because she didn't report that she saw a doctor for a pimple and then got breast cancer, and the person who approves that decision could be tried in a criminal court for negligent homicide?

I guess I should be glad I've got good genes and do everything I can to stay healthy because it terrifies me to think about what will happen if I ever get really sick....and I've got insurance...for now.... as long as I stay healthy.

2009-07-21T22:58:00.000-07:00

KEEPING THE FAITH

These last couple of weeks my energy level has gotten better and I'm starting to feel more like myself. Still I get worn out quickly and I've found that the best thing to do is stick close to home. So I've been watching a lot of TV (food network and baaaad reality Housewives TV) and I've also been watching movies - on cable and from the video store. Lots of movies. Many I'm watching again for the umpteenth time.

A few days ago I watched the movie Bobby again. I didn't really think much of it the first time, but this is like the 4th time I've seen it and for some reason this time it affected me differently. This could be because it's the first time I've watched it since the election in November so I'm looking at it through that filter. Could be that I watched it shortly after watching Frost/Nixon so that adds to the experience. Could be that I'm having an emotional reaction post surgery - everyone keeps saying that I should be expecting a big emotional reaction, but so far nada.

In any case after watching Bobby this time I have been thinking a lot about how lucky I was to grow up in that era. How blessed I am to be able to remember the hope that was represented in these two men: Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. They wer progressive at time when they could really create change. Martin Luther King was radical in the most intelligent way possible - and because he was grounded in the absolute truth of his convictions he was incredibly powerful. Bobby Kennedy was pragmatic in a way that was necessary for someone who was looking at leading this nation at that time. The Vietnam war was escalating. There were race riots in New York, DC and Chicago, and a real sense of divisiveness throughout the entire country.

Basically it was a lot like it is today.

Had Martin Luther King not been killed he could have galvanized people to create a peaceful and prosperous future for themselves and their children. Had Bobby Kennedy not been killed he probably would've won the presidency and I cannot stop thinking about where this country would be today if that had happened.

I can't stop thinking about where we would be today had those men lived to lead us.

Would we be in a better place? I'd like to think so, but I really have no idea. I can't stop thinking about how Barak Obama finds himself in much the same position that Bobby Kennedy would have been in had he lived and won in 1968 (although the mess seems much MUCH bigger today). Truly I don't see anyone in our current landscape who can fill MLK's shoes. Peace through non-violence seems to be an idealized utopitan fantasy whose time came and went - whose messenger was shot and killed by hate and racism (or, for the paranoid, by a US government that wasn't havin' it).

Still my faith in this country, in the people who live here and in this man who inspires so many to have hope, much like Bobby did, like Martin did, remains strong. I've been alive long enough to know that even though you're sitting in a long line that wraps around the block on the day when your even number license plate gets to buy gas, it will get better. Even when you have no job and you don't know where you're going to sleep next week - you will be okay. We've been thruough a lot of rough times in this country and we have always risen above, survived and thrived and we will continue to do so.

As long as we keep the faith and do not succumb to cynicism - which is tough to do when you watch too much realityTV, or the nightly news.

But that's what the "off" button is for.

2009-07-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

UPS & DOWNS (as in down for nap)

Today it has been 4 weeks since Dr. Friese removed my left kidney in a tidy nephrectomy and Dr. Asher installed it in Ron, the recipient. I can now laugh, cough and sneeze without simultaneously screaming with pain, although I do have to wrap my arms around my abdomen cause things still feel really weird around my incisions.

I will share more about the whole experience when the outcome is more of a known. I am fine, but as I write this Ron is back in the hospital and heading into more surgery.

You know how anytime you have something done they always tell you about that very small percentage that shit happens to? Well Ron is in that percentage.

For me this has been an early preview of what I imagine my octagenarian years will be like. The following is a list of the newest fun behaviors in my repertoire...

When I get up in the morning it takes me a while to stand up straight, because they sliced into my abdomen and sewed me back up and that stuff is still reeling from the abuse. When I'm 80 I imagine it will be because my spine is slipping over into a question mark due to osteoporosis, but as I shuffle to the bathroom 80 feels like now.

The next thing I do is head out to the garden to water my plants because tomatoes out of the garden taste and smell a million times better than anything you buy in a market. I sit down to do this because of the heart palpitations.

After watering I lie down and take a little nap.

Next I call my neighbor and tell her I'm going to take a shower where for some reason I always get dizzy, possibly from raising my arms over my head with my eyes closed. If I don't call her when I get out she's supposed to come and make sure I'm not passed out on my bathroom floor.

After the shower I take another nap and often forget to call my neighbor to let her know I've successfully made it out of the shower. It's not a long nap because she always comes to find me.

I head out to the living room for a little TV or some reading. Sitting or laying down for any period of time causes more napping.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are light meals because since the surgery my stomach is sensitive and everything I eat, or perhaps just the act of digestion, causes my stomach to be upset so that inevitably I have to carry some Tums with me.

Speaking of dinner this is a meal that I am now eating at about 5pm - also known as the early bird special hour. I do this because if I eat later than that I am nauseated when I go to bed. When I think about how I used to give my 95 year old Nana shit about eating so early I feel like a real asshole.

I've quit drinking because it also upsets my stomach.

I won't even go into the subject of gas passing and I promise I will not tease my mom the next time she toots her way down the sidewalk when we're out in public.

Now when I drive - to the market and to the bank (Nana's last two destinations in her final years), my hands are firmly at 10 and 2 and I drive the speed limit and keep a nice safe distance between myself and others. If there is traffic I get light headed and a sweaty upper lip and on one occasion had to pull over. The volume on the talk radio is turned up high so I can hear it better (but that's been going on for a while).

When I'm out walking my daily mile I often have to slow down, bend over and hold onto something while I catch my breath.

Sometimes I say "whooo doggy."

2009-05-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

RIP

Stephen Bruton lost his battle with cancer on Saturday. He was our neighbor down on Bicknell and he will be missed. Prayers and blessing go with him and out to his family and friends.

2009-05-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

JAM ON.

(Couldn't find the Help>Slipknot>Franklin's Tower that opened the show last night, but I love Branford playin' with the band, and the energy is the same - rockin'!)

Last night I went to see the Dead at Shoreline. I was somewhat trepidatious because I still miss Jerry a lot and I wasn't sure that this wouldn't make me miss him more, but when I heard that Warren Haynes and Jeff Chimenti are touring with the band I figured it would be worth it to check it out.

It was sooooo worth it.

My friend Ron - the man who is getting my kidney - is a Deadhead. He started going to shows back in 1973, AND he lives in NoCal, so I called him up and asked him if he wanted to go with me. He was totally up for it. We were going to bring Peg (his wife and one of my besty's) and Em (the 13 year old daughter) since it was Mother's Day, but when we found out it was a night time show on a school night we decided it was better for them to stay home for some mother-daughter bonding time.

Adi wanted to come and have the experience so he flew in from Vegas to meet me. He never got to see the Dead when they were Grateful, and since he grew up in Israel and the Dead never got a lot of top 40 radio play, he is unfamiliar with most of their music, but he loves good music and I figured he'd appreciate the excellent musicianship. Plus, if the parking lot was still happening that's always a good time. He was even up for the pot cookies my neighbor made us. I had to call the transplant center and ask if I could eat pot without screwing everything up. The coordinator laughed when I asked her and said that she knew exaclty the doctor she could ask. I wondered if he was going to be at the show too and if I could have him do my surgery. The word was go so I went.

We flew in on Saturday and started listening to the Grateful Dead channel on Sirius non-stop. It was on first thing yesterday morning, so Adi got to hear some Jerry shows and Ron and I got more and more excited because we were going to a show!!! I haven't felt that feeling in a long time, and in that time I have aged and so had everyone else who showed up. Except of course those stoned young souls in the parking lot who never got to see Jerry play a show because they were 3 when he died.

Or maybe they were those babies in the parking lot whose parents took them on tour throughout their formative years and they just never got out of the parking lot.

In any case, we spent a couple hours roaming around the B lot which was a tiny microcosm of what I remember as a sprawling bazaar of commerce and cuisine d'ganga. It was all still there: the music, the dancing, the dread locks, the tie dye, the women with hairy armpits, the chubby babies (although now most of them had ear plugs), and the ganga peanut butter cups all encompassed in a cloud of smoke - just a smaller group because in the 16 years since Jerry died some of them, probably a lot of them, got real jobs.

My favorite T-shirt listed all the stops on the AARP tour 2009.

Adi asked me what had changed the most between then and now and I told him honestly that there were a lot more old people. The Deadheads have always been a transgenerational crowd that rocks and bobs together, but now there were a lot more gray heads and glasses in the group. The elders are definitely in the majority.

We got to our seats in the 200 section and at 7pm the place was empty. Weird. At 7:20 it was barely half full and Bobby came out and announced that for safety reasons they weren't going to start playing because there were still about 10,000 people lined up to get in. It was like everyone was out of practice, or else so glad to see each other that they forgot what they came for. Timing your drugs for a show is still important and so it could also have been that they got too high and lost track of time. On the pot cookie front we ate them waaaaay too early and the show started late so midway through all I had going on was heartburn.

Adi had been snapping pictures with a big smile on his face from the moment we arrived. As the people filled in around us I was reminded of how very diverse we are as a group, and how much fun it is to "do a show" with the people you sit with. Adi sat on my left and next to him were a threesome who were probably at the acid tests. They were decked out in original tour shirts from the early 70s and all had gray hair. One gentleman had lost a leg, but had a birkenstock strapped on his prosthetic foot, his friend had lost his voicebox and had to speak through one of those handheld devices and smoke his joints through the hole in his neck. They were like two old beaten up old warriors who still loved life. Between them was a lovely lady with long silver hair who danced like she was surfing a wave and although her face was lined you could still see the girl she was back in 1968 in her beatific smile.

Ron was closer to the aisle and so he got the roaming dancers who lit next to him for a song or a jam and then moved back out to the stairs to leap up and down and spin around and around. I still can't get past the fact that these people are for the most part barefoot, I mean it's great that they're having fun, but how high do you have to be to dance around in your bare feet in the area where the drunk guy in the red hat took a big, long leak because he didn't want to miss anything? The mean age of our section was about 45, mostly due to the fact that down in front of us was an adorable man who appeared to be about 89 years old who'd come with his son who was about 65, and pretty much everyone was puff, puff, passing. I prayed that no one would go down with a heart attack.

At 7:45 the place was full and the band came out and ripped into Help on the Way>Slipknot>Franklin's Tower. The place went crazy and the energy was amazing. The sound was good, the band was tight and everyone was singing at the top of their lungs - you can hear the crowd singing in the clip above and I imagine it was like that where ever they went.

I could critique the show, song by song, but ultimately, for me, it was different but the same. I miss Jerry and I always will, but at the end of the day a jam done well for people who appreciate it, is a good time. Warren doesn't try to replace Jerry and he honors his music and his spirit while doing his own thing - something he does really well. Jeff is an amazing player and when he took over and took off it was a great ride. What I liked best is that these two guys could join these four guys and because they all love the music... and we all love the music...it was magical.

As old as the band is and as old as the crowd has gotten we still rocked all night - until midnight in fact. Adi was nodding off after 10 hours of non-stop music from the house, the car, the parking lot to the show but for a first timer he held his own. I could barely walk this morning when I staggered out of bed to catch an early flight.

Ron and I are hoping that they will tour again next year so we can go after the transplant and celebrate - in which case I will have to start training. I forgot what dancing for four hours can do your neck and your hips and your knees.

Oy.

I'm sure that there are deadheads out there who just can't do it without Jerry. But I know for myself and the people who showed up - we were really ready to do this again because no matter what's happening in the world and with the economy - there is nothing like a Dead show.

2009-04-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR COLLEGE EDUCATION?

Things being what they are with the state of the economy people are turning to all sorts of alternative forms of employment to get the mortgage paid and buy food.

I am buying gold.

It's something I really enjoy although I was initially resistant. I'm not one to sell stuff, or to push anything on anyone. This is not that though. This is buying up what most people consider their junk. People sell me their single earrings, their broken chains, the rings they never wear and the stuff they once sported back when it was cool to dress up like Mr. T with shoulder pads and a huge perm.

There's a process to the buying that involves testing each piece to determine the karat - sadly, most gold that's stamped 14K is not. It's more like 12K or even 10K and if you bought it in Mexico odds are it's 6K. Most of the buying is done at parties and because of the deal we have with the refiner our return is higher so our pay out is also higher.

For this reason people have parties, invite their friends to bring their gold and I sit and test for 3-5 hours and leave with a big bag of gold, having written anywhere from $1,000 to $8,000 in checks and a check for 10% of the total to the host.

Every once in a while there's a party where there's no gold. Tonight was one of those nights. The hostess had made a ton of food, and there was a "Slumber Party" presentation. Last night there was a "Hush Party" along with the gold party and it's safe to say that I have pretty much seen enough dildos to tide me over for a long while. Why anyone would think that a giant red rubber battery operated dildo that goes up and down and swings round and round with three separate rows of controls and flashing red disco lights is erotic is beyond me - I found it terrifying.

Anyway, tonight I skipped the dildo presentation and hung out in back snacking on fruit and checking my watch. Then I overheard a bit of conversation from the kitchen...

"So the stripper's here, but they're just getting to the dildos, can he wait at your house? He's like half naked."
"Yeah, my husband is going around the corner to watch the fight, let me get him out of the house first."

STRIPPER? Seriously?

Oh yeah. We had Flash from Brooklyn in the house. The boy looked good in his g-string and had all kinds of moves. He was picking them up and grinding away - dude was STRONG. These were not little women - not even close. He had these women on their backs on the floor covered in saran wrap and whipped cream. He was down there with his face between their legs and everyone was screaming and hooting and hollering.

He was inspirational.

I was there to work however, so as soon as he got dressed I tried to buy the giant diamond encrusted gold Jesus head that was hanging around his neck.

"Are you interested in selling that?" I asked coyly.

"I'm going to upgrade it next month."

"Well, give me a call and I'll give you a price," as I slide him a card and think that the evening is not a total loss even if I didn't buy much gold. It comes up in conversation that he went to college for five years and I asked where.

Boy went to Rutgers!!!! And played basketball and football!!!! And do you know what he does now when he's not stripping in overheated, estrogen charged living rooms?

He represents "females" (his word, not mine) who are interested in acting in adult films. He's pimping for porn! His mama must be so proud.

And maybe he'd like to have a gold party with some of his clients?

2009-04-21T21:44:00.000-07:00

SAMENESS

I started buying gold about a year ago. The price has held above $700 for over a year and is currently up around $900 so it makes sense to go through your jewelry box and get rid of those busted up chains and ram's head earrings that lost their mate.

You can make some nice money doing that.

I go to people's houses and they have parties and people come and bring me their jewelry and tell me their stories and I scratch it, test it and separate it into karats and then weigh it and pay by the gram.

There are 31.1 grams in an oz. of gold.

It has occurred to me on more than one occassion that 25 years ago I was using this exact same scale to weigh out cocaine by the gram. People would come and do a bump and tell me their stories.

All in all there's a lot of sameness in commerce - only now I'm buying instead of selling.

I like this better.

2009-04-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

A LIFE

I just got a phone call to let me know that I am cleared to donate my kidney to my friend Ron. This has been in process for a while, but it's always seemed remote, something that might not happen. So now we are scheduling surgery and it's very real.

People who know say: You are such a good person. You're a hero. You're so brave.

Ron is not the only person I know who needs a kidney transplant. I personally know or have known in my life three people who have had to live on dialysis and face an uncertain future.

I think that they are brave.

How hard must it be to get up everyday and know that you will die unless you are hooked up to a machine? What we now know is that living kidney donors can live long, healthy lives, sometimes longer and healthier than the general public because they, or now I can say we, are healthier than the general public to begin with.

There were several factors that started me on the road to this decision a couple of years ago: 1) I don't have my own children. For me this matters because if I did have kids I would want to save my spare parts for them. 2) We don't have kidney disease in my family, or hypertension or diabetes which are often the precursors to kidney disease and 3) Ron loves the Grateful Dead and so do I and the reality is that there aren't that many people in my life that get what that was all about. So even though he and I are very different we are in the same tribe.

There are other more obvious reasons why I decided to do this - he's married to one of my oldest and best friends, their daughter is 13 and she's a very special kid in my life, we're both O positive.

But, at the end of the day I'm doing this because I can and I want to and I am moved to do so. Doesn't make me a good person, or someone who couldn't imagine doing it, a bad person.

It's about life and what feels right for me.

2009-04-03T15:31:00.000-07:00

Gotta Dance!

I grew up in the age of the movie musical. I went to see them all from a very young age: Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, All that Jazz, even a revival of my all time favorite, Singin' in the Rain - which rocks in a movie theater.

So I was quite disappointed to find that life wasn't really like that. Not only do people never break out in song and dance during pivotal moments of their day or when feeling a surge of emotion, they get really freaked out if YOU do it anywhere near them.

In 1976 I went to see a movie called The Groove Tube and they spoofed the whole "gotta dance, gotta sing" thing. I laughed till I cried. I probably would have chased this man down the street pleading to have his babies and planning to start our own dance troupe. How can people ignore this bouncing ball of joy in a PINK suit?

Okay, so maybe he could be crazy, but it looks like the good kind of crazy. I've dated all kinds of crazy and let me tell you - it could be worse.

JUST YOU, JUST ME

I'm happy to report that it appears that I am not alone in my desire for movie musical moments.

I am so loving this.

And this!

Apparently I am not the only one to enjoy an outbreak of joyful dance.

Sadly it seems my fellow dancers all live in other countries.

C'mon people! Things are bad and getting worse everyday.

Why not dance?

2009-01-20T23:08:00.000-08:00

A NEW DAY-SHAKE A TAILFEATHER!

Insomnia was my companion last night which worked out pretty well for me in that I was able to turn on CNN and watch the mall in front of the capital building fill up with all of those intrepid souls who showed up in DC to witness history. I switched back and forth from CNN to ABC - I think I was hoping that Diane Sawyer's dulcet tones would lull me back to sleep, but no such luck. By the time the sun came up here on the west coast I was totally amped!

I knew it was going to happen, that history was going to turn a page, but it was sort of amorphously going to happen "out there", so I wasn't prepared for all of the feelings that came up when I saw President Obama and his lovely wife as they started their day.

It got very real!

This may have been due to new technologies and the ability of cameras to get very close shots that make it seem as if the images are close enough to touch, but I think it had more to do with the fact that even through the television the humanity and connectedness of these two people to this journey is tangible, and I feel included.

In the past, specifically the last two terms of the presidency, I have felt removed from the process, like it didn't include me, or most of us and, in fact, it wasn't supposed to. Words that were meaningless and disconnected from my reality were mouthed by people who didn't feel like they existed in my reality. They lived in a rarified world of power and otherness that I would never belong to - I didn't want to belong to something that felt like that.

Today was so very different - in short I was a bit nonplussed by Rick Warren's sheer size - his prayer was okay, I cringed at Robert's flub and marveled at the new President's composure and confidence. I loved his speech. I didn't like the poem, or maybe I might have if it had been delivered with some fire. Loved the old Rev and his closing lines exhibited not only humor, but the resiliency of the human heart to forgive and move on - AMEN! I was amazed at the First Lady's ability to appear not only beautiful and gracious but exuberant when she had to be freezing her butt off - do you think she was wearing thermal spanx? I mean most women out there were wearing down coats and UGG boots and they looked cold.

Today was awesome because over a million people came together and there was no police action, there was no fighting, there were no visible protests, there was none of the bullshit that usually happens around politics and their parties. My friend Elizabeth was there and she said that there was spontaneous hugging and singing and just general celebration. Strangers sharing their joy with strangers without any self consciousness, with the expectation of acceptance. To me it sounded like what I loved best about going to see the Grateful Dead - people coming together to celebrate something joyful and how doing that makes it so easy for our best selves, our kindest selves to come out and be part of a collective consciousness that is the highest good of the human experience.

She's never been to a show but now she knows how it feels. The porta-potty thing never comes close to being an issue.

Watching the parade this afternoon - early evening in DC - I was struck by how much fun the Obamas seemed to be having as they witnessed the people of this country parading past for hours. They waved and made eye contact and those smiles! They danced, they made welcome those that came to share the moment with them and it occurred to me that we had people in the White House that felt real and human and it's been sooooooo long since I've felt that way about anyone in politics in this country.

The only thing that dimmed my bulb was when I heard that as Bush was introduced as President for the last time the crowd spontaneously started singing, "na na na na, na na na na, hey, hey, hey, good bye," so that it could be heard on the dais. While I understand the frustration that fuels something like that it is disrespectful and lacks grace.

I cannot imagine that Barack Obama would do something like that, nor that he appreciated it.

This is why when the Bush's got in the helicopter and flew away, and I leapt up and did a happy dance, I did it alone where no one could see me.

2009-01-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

HOPE AND LOVE IN THE NEW YEAR

This is Bettye LaVette singing Reign On Me to honor the Who at the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors show from the other night. I could barely breathe it was so good. Joss Stone, Dave Grohl and Rob Thomas also performed and at the very end the curtain behind the band opened to reveal the New York City Firefighters and Police Officers singing Teenage Wasteland - a thank you to the Who for reuniting to play the concert for New York City after 9/11.

Happy New Year!

I am happy to leave 2008 behind and feeling hopeful for 2009 - but then this is how I usually feel at the beginning of anything. I remember the beginning of each school year I would get my new school supplies and vow to keep my Pee Chees clean and do all my homework on time. Then, inevitably the lack of focus in class would lead to Pee Chee doodling and my natual inclination toward procrastination would lead to a day late on homework and then two and so on.
The only reason I believe this year will be different is because I'm not making those kinds of promises to myself. The only real intention I'm setting this year is to be be in today and to be gentle with myself, and by extension, with others.

Last year started out sad with Nana's death and by the end of the year was much sadder and more stressful for so many reasons. This is not to say that there wasn't love and laughing and joy and good times - can you say President Elect Obama? but mostly I was tired.

Not a whole lot has changed except for that last digit and it will most likely take me a couple weeks before I start writing that correctly on checks and documents, but I still feel hopeful because a new year is kind of like a new Pee Chee - it's fresh and clean and there's no scribbling on it yet.

I'm looking forward to the Obama presidency (Lord please keep him safe), not because I think that all of our woes as a country will be fixed, but because I really believe that the only thing that trickles down in this country is intention and the man has the best intentions for all of us. I have so much respect for him and his willingness to step into this mess. I believe we can make it better because at the end of the day this is a great country populated with amazing people and we have the freedom and opportunity to create a better world.

I'm looking forward to what will get written this year. Maybe love? Some travel? Money? (it could happen) New adventures not yet imagined?

In any case let love reign on us all - I'm ready.

2008-11-04T20:22:00.000-08:00

TEARS OF JOY

At a few minutes after 8pm PST this election was called for Barack Obama.

I burst into tears.

For the last month I have been saying a daily prayer that this country would make the right choice today, despite all the spin that seemed to say it wouldn't happen. Tonight my faith in this nation and the voters of this country was restored.

Not only because the right guy was elected, but because people came out and voted. Watching Times Square go off, and Morehouse college go off and all the other places in this country where people were losing their minds with joy I felt so proud and blessed to be a citizen of a democtratic nation.

This morning I was up at the ass crack of dawn so I brushed my teeth added jeans to my pajamas and headed out to vote. I got to the elementary school that is my polling place about 6:50 and there was a line down to the street. I was about the 50th person and there was a feeling of excitement and anticipation. I live in a neighborhood that's pretty racially mixed and pretty solidly middle class. The guy in front of me whose name is Oliver chatted with me about how we liked to vote and always did. Once the polls opened we stood in line for about 30 minutes before we got to the door of the gym where the voting booths are. As I was about to step in a little girl about 8 poked her head around the corner and chanted Obama! Obama! Obama!

Inside the gym an Asian lady who'd just voted asked the poll workers to take her picture as she placed her ballot in the box. A white guy took a picture of his wife and their little boy who looked to be about 4 years old. A black couple who'd just voted stopped to say hello to Oliver, the man in front of me who was my line pal. He was an older man, and his wife was a walking celebration in red, white and blue, and he said to Oliver as he hugged him, "there's going to be a black president in the White House after tonight brother - we are going to break out the champagne."

In that moment I was so aware of the fact that for the first time in our democracy this process was finally inclusive. I think this is why this election was so special. For every person in this country the first change came when Barack Obama won the nomination of the democratic party. The changes that will come have less to do with the color of his skin and more to do with his vision and my hope is that his election reflects a change in the consciousness of this country.

As I watched people weeping with joy and celebrating, as I cried myself, the hope for a new day was palpable and reminded me of the enthusiasm that surrounded JFK. Okay, I don't really remember what that was like, but it's more how it's recorded in history. As I watched John McCain make his concession speech and heard the crowd boo when he talked about Barack Obama and how much he admired him (a very gracious speech it was too), it made me think of this verse from Bob Dylan's song, Times They are a Changin' ...

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And dont criticize
What you cant understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin.
Please get out of the new one
If you cant lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin.

It feels like times really are changing and that despite those people who continue to live lives marinated in racist hatred, the majority of people are thinking about what's best for this country, and for their families, and they picked a man based on his ideas and for his ability to galvanize, inspire and lead - not the color of his skin.

2008-11-03T18:09:00.000-08:00

REMEMBERING TO BREATHE

I have consciously made a choice to distance myself from all of the election doings (except for reading today's coverage about Obama's grandmother - RIP Madelyn Payne Dunham).

This means I'm opting out of discussions, I don't look at polls, I don't watch any political programming and I zip through the ads on Tivo.

My friend Elizabeth was visiting last week and she is completely obsessed - watching non-stop coverage via the internet or on TV. She read to me from blogs and articles and while I tuned her out. Her increasingly passionate vocalizations sounded like a jet passing overhead because I am in self preservation mode.

I can barely breathe and it's been getting worse and worse as we count down. By this time tomorrow I will either be in the fetal position or drunk.

The last two elections were so difficult. Waking up the day after to a Bush presidency was like getting punched in the face and then punched in the gut. You just don't pop up after that - this country is down for the count in so many ways as a result of those two elections.

I don't know that Barack Obama is the answer, or that he can fix the mess we're in, but I do believe that he is our best option. It's hard to fathom that anyone in this country except for the very rich can actually believe in the trickle down theory that John McCain supports.

Believing that tax breaks for the super rich will create jobs and stimulate the economy is akin to having someone pee on your neck and tell you it's raining. The rich have never stopped spending - it's the middle class that is sitting on their wallets and if they don't spend the economy stalls. We're officially in a recession and it's not because the rich need to be stimulated.

At this point I'm not sleeping terribly well, and since we just turned our clocks back I will most likely be awake by 5a.m I'm thinking I'm going to head over the polls in the my PJs and be first in line.

Then I'll take a valium and spend the day remembering to breathe.

Hopefully on Wednesday morning I will be breathing a sigh of relief.

2008-11-01T18:03:00.000-07:00

DIVINELEY GUIDED

There was more to Darrell's murder that I didn't write about, but after the events of the past 20 hours I really have record it somewhere.

I had a very close relationship with his family. He was one of 10 kids born to an Irish Catholic mother and an Italian Catholic father. Pretty much everyone who grew up in Long Beach during the 70s went to school with one of the kids. I don't remember my exact entree into the tribe, but by the time I was 20 I was included, along with so many others who weren't actual family members, in dinners and birthdays and holidays.

His mother's name was Alice when I first started hanging out, but at some point over the years she decided that she wanted to called Alicia - she thought it was prettier than Alice, and more importantly she had decided that she was going to make some changes in her life and for that she needed a different name - because she was becoming a different woman.

She had gotten married at 19 and then had 12 or 13 pregnancies and ended up raising 10 children over the next 20 years. When she and I became friends she was starting to look at what she wanted for her life, not in the context of wife or mother, but in addition to. She began traveling all over the world on her own or with one of her kids. Her husband was a navigator for the airlines and did not have a lot of interest in the kind of trips she wanted to take. She went to school and became a licensed esthetician in her 50s and started her own business. She was always heavily involved in boy scouts, even after her kids were long out of it. She loved that community and she would take me with her to various events and jamborees. I don't remember having a big desire to go to something like that, but more that I enjoyed spending time with her and having her to myself so anything we did was an adventure.

She was a devout Catholic and when I shared with her that I had a deep fear of all things Catholic and felt mostly panic in a Catholic church she took me to a mass said in latin which was "illegal" back in those days. She also took me to a huge parade for Our Lady of Guadalupe where there was the blessing of the animals. I still don't feel comfortable in a Catholic church, but I gained a better understanding of the comfort in ritual.

Her home was always open and full of not only her children but also their friends who became extended family. I would stop by on my way home from work or on a Saturday and hang in the kitchen with her. She taught me to make mayonnaise from scratch. She taught me how to make a meal for 15 people with not much more than vegetables and pasta and whoever was there when it was ready would sit down at the looooooooong cafeteria style table with the little stools that fit up under it when we were done.

She was one of the first women who ever talked to me candidly about marriage and parenting in a way that honored all that was good, but was also very realistic about the challenges. She was a deeply spiritual woman who went to mass every day, but who also explored other avenues of spiritual expression. She was always so unconditionally loving and accepting and real in the way that she related to the world that she became a role model, not as a grown up, but more as a cool chick.

At Darrell's funeral she stood up in front of everyone gathered there, having just identified his battered and torn body days before, and told us all that we needed to find it in our hearts to forgive the people who did this, that we should pray that they would find peace, because if we couldn't forive we would not have peace ourselves.

When she and I talked later that week, during a time when we gathered together at her house looking for some kind of solace, she told me that because I had never lost anyone it was probably hard for me to believe that life would go on, but that at 58 she knew that not only would it go on, it would be good.

About six months ago my mom saw her at the beauty parlor. She had been diagnosed with dementia, and she had been slowing down, but she remembered my mother and asked about me. When my mom told me this, I thought - I really need to go see her and tell her how much I appreciate her and how postively she's impacted my life.

In July I went to a friend's reunion and ran into a guy who grew up down the street from Alicia and her family. We talked about them and I asked if he'd seen her. He said that although her husband had died she was still living in the house. I thought - I should stop by there and say hi and tell her how much I love her.

In September I went to Rosh Hashanah at my friend Sally's house. There was a woman there who'd grown up in the same city I did. Turns out she'd been best friends with Alicia's youngest daughter although they hadn't spoken in a while. As we talked I thought - note to self, call Alicia and see when you can come visit.

And in the ensuing weeks I thought about her everyday and remembered how much I enjoy her and how it would be so good to see her again and how I really really really wanted to let her know that she has reverberated in my life for all these years although I haven't seen her since the early 90s.

Last night, after writing about Darrell, I googled his name to see if there was anything on the internet about him. There wasn't. What I found was a memorial page for Alicia with entries from October 30, 2008 - the date of the visitation held at her church.

I found her obituary.

She died on October 25th and her funeral mass was today at 11:00 a.m.

I am very grateful that I was able to be with her family today and to reconnect with them and express my deep love and appreciation for their mom who was an amazing woman and wonderful friend, but I wish more than anything that I had acted on my desire to say the words to her when she was still around to hear them.

Even with her death she is still teaching me. It's so important to listen to my heart and to do what it tells me - because I don't like feeling regret. Life's just too short.

2008-10-31T18:16:00.000-07:00

REAL SCARY

I got home from work about 6pm and flipped on the news as I ran to answer the phone. I heard sobbing on the other end of the phone and my friend Risa, between sobs, told me that Darrell was dead.

"What?"

"Darrell's dead. He was murdered."

I heard these words and simultaneously registered the helicopter shot on the 6 o'clock news featuring an overhead view of my friend Darrell's little beach house in Sunset Beach. They were wheeling out a gurney upon which was strapped a black, plastic body bag.

It was October 30, 1984 and the events of that day still seem like something that only happens in a movie. My friend Darrell, who was 25 and his 21 year old girlfriend Stephanie had been tortured and executed, apparently by South American drug dealers.

Darrell was a free spirit, easy going guy who loved surfing and music and travel. After he'd graduated from high school he'd traveled down to Brazil and throughout South America surfing and hanging out and making friends. He had white blonde hair and was always smiling - he surfed every single day. As long as I knew him he never seemed to have a job, and while he didn't have what would be considered a luxurious lifestyle, it was definitely easy living.

There were always people around from his travels who'd come to visit and seemingly stayed - they didn't work either. Cocaine was definitely part of the party, but not in a dark, scary way. It was light and fun and the product was pure and the buzz was excellent. It never occurred to me to question any of it - Why didn't anyone work? Where were the drugs coming from? What were they saying in all the conversations en espanol at the weekend BBQs?

We were all having too much fun.

There were definite warning signs but we were in our 20s and bullet proof so an FBI raid? Ha! Those assholes. Darrell's brother getting busted and then found guilty and sent to prison? An aberration.

Maybe those things were the things that motivated Darrell to make the decisions that he made which lead to his death. We don't really know exactly why he was killed, but the theory has always been that he'd been dealing large quantities of cocaine and made enough money that he felt he could retire and live a simple life at the beach with his girl. Maybe have some kids, get a dog.

We had all gone out to a halloween party on the 29th. Darrells was a clown and Stephanie was a genie - this is how I remember them. Stephanie had left part of her costume at my house and I'd planned to stop by the house at lunch that day to drop it off. I got really busy and couldn't make it so I called and left a message about noon that I would be sure to connect with them before the party that evening.

Their bodies were discovered at 12:45pm by a friend who was staying at the house when he returned from a DMV appointment - he'd been gone for three hours. They were both naked and had numerous stab wounds. Darrell's face was beaten unrecognizable and his hands had been cut off. They had killed Stephanie first - I don't know and don't want to know what they did to her before they killed her.

The police responded and the FBI was involved - no clues were ever found as to who killed them although they believe it was more than one person. They found Darrell's notebook in the phonebooth at the liquor store across the street. It had names in it and numbers - there was talk that Darrell had been skimming, or that his business partners believed that he was stealing, and so he was killed.

Stephanie died because she happened to be there.

I had never experience death so intimately before. No one I knew had died. Not even friends of friends had died. We were a bunch of middle class, suburban white kids and this kind of stuff just didn't happen. Not to us.

Except it did happen.

Most of the foreign "friends" disappeared - quickly. They didn't come to the funeral. We were all overwhelmed by fear and anger and grief and looking for people to blame. Maybe that's why they left, or they could have been more business associates than friends. I will never know.

There's really no way to explain how casual we were with cocaine, in the age of "just say no" and the walking wounded celebrities who are sad illustrations of that old saying, "if you can't be a good example then you'll just have to be a horrible warning," (shout out Amy Winehouse) it's hard to imagine a time when drugs weren't demonized and scary.

But we had fun. A lot of fun. Right up until Darrell was killed.

Halloween has never been a very happy time since. Getting dressed up and partying always carries with it the association of this incredibly tragic and violent event. I am thankful that I got the wake up call and that Darrell's death put an end to my own dabbling in the drug business. Back then it was easy to get in over your head really fast and while Darrell was the first friend I lost he was not the last.

I guess you could say that Halloween scared me straight.

2008-10-26T10:13:00.001-07:00

One more reason....

Why giving strangers your phone number is scary.

The story goes that Olga was out with her friends, waiting for a cab in front of a club. Delightful Dmitri rushed up to her, ignoring her friends and went all disco with his flirting skills, or psycho - you decide. He told her she was elegant and beautiful and finnagled a business card from her and then he rushed off. Possibly because someone was calling the police inside where he'd just violated a TRO.

Clearly Dmitri doesn't understand that just because a woman gives out a number doesn't mean she wants a call. It might just mean she wants him to go away and figured that if she didn't respond he'd figure it out. I personally think a direct no thank you, I'm not interested, is best and when no means yes I will flat out lie and say that I'm married, I have a boyfriend, I'm a nun, whatever seems most likely to shut them down. Do not by any means say you are a lesbian because for many men that only presents a tittilating challenge. Dmitri would definitely be one of those guys...

UPDATE
If you google "Dmitri the lover" you get this video. This guy is the exception, not the rule, but if you're a woman, who meets one of these "exceptional" men - listen to that voice in your head yelling "RUN"! Rejecting him does not mean you have psychological problems - it means you're very, very sane.

2008-10-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

AUTUMN FIRES?

Where the heck is the crisp, cool weather featured in poetry and prose about Autumn?

Why is it 85 degrees outside? Why are my lips chapped and my nose bleeding?

Why does every news hour open with urgent voices harkening "red flag warnings" in the brush filled hills and valleys of California?

It seems like every single year, as we roll into October, California catches on fire and burns until Thanksgiving.

Kind of puts a whole new spin on Robert Louis Stevenson's poem - Autumn Fires.

In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!

2008-10-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

DON'T WORRY BE HAPPY...

I heard this new song from the fabulous Michael Franti and Spearhead on the radio a couple weeks ago and it made me car dance. Last week when I was dealing with the fact that we have had to lay off everyone but the last two guys I clicked on this video and it made me feel better. For almost 4 minutes I forgot about everything else and did a little booty shakin', and that was a good thing - so I'm sharing here.

In case anyone else needs a lift.

And I think I just successfully pasted this link into this post so I have learned something new, and that's not a bad way to start a Monday.

The state of the world might suck right now, but I'm gonna find the happy where I can and share it.

2008-10-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

WHEN YOU BELIEVE IN THINGS....

Last night I went to see Religulous down in Orange County. The theater was pretty much full which surprised me as I kind of expected to see this movie picketed down in the home of the John Birch Society.

I enjoy Bill Maher's humor... to a point. I think he's pretty smart and very sharp, but sometimes he is so snarky as to be completely disrespectful. Sometimes I wonder why why he's so angry and cynical. He is often verges on mean and it makes me feel uncomfortable. I worry that I sometimes act like that during those days when I wonder if maybe there's no such thing as PMS and I'm just a bitch. And then I cry.

But I digress.

Religulous is one of those movies that preaches to a choir that I sing in. I have tried to get religion but I cannot completely buy in. I have been "saved" twice, once in 7th grade when my Presbytarian youth group went on a field trip to a Foursquare Pentacostal church and I succumbed to peer pressure following my friends up to have the preacher lay his hands on me and feel the power of God (I just stood there and he finally shoved me backwards really hard into the waiting arms of the catchers), and once in 10th grade when the cute senior boys went to Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa and accepted Jesus, so I did too. Both churches had music and dancing and singing and hugging and I enjoyed all of that. What I did not enjoy was the sermonizing which was to my youthful mind a bunch of crazy talk. It sucked the good time out of all the rest of that stuff.

The whole concept of sin was a bummer and there was no way that I could believe in a God who was represented as an old white guy sitting in a chair in the clouds surrounded by angels. When they asked me how it made me feel to think that Jesus was in the room with me when I was having pre-marital sex I thought that Jesus would be pretty pervy to do that.

I eventually discovered Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead and found a place where I could have music and singing and dancing and hugging and pretty much the same happy feeling of a collective consciousness along with non-judgmental pre-marital sex.

Bill interviewed a neurotheotist (sp?) who talked about testing people's brains when they were hopped up on God and he said that those scans showed all kinds of colors - I'm pretty sure my brain looked exactly the same way at a Dead show.

So in the movie Bill interviews all kinds of people - mostly from the religious right in the United States. These people scared the shit out of me and had me sitting there with my mouth hanging open. They were at places like the Creation Museum in the state of KY run by a guy who I do believe is batshit crazy although he was definitely given a run for his money by the cast at a theme park in Orlando, FL called the Holy Land Experience, a cement recreation of Jerusalem with a tall, bearded Jesus who re-enacts the crucifixion several times a day for rapt audience members who cry and stand with the arms up in adoration. It's like a super creepy, low budget, kind of psychotic Knott's Berry Farm.

Bill also interviews Mark Pryor the senator from Arkansas (who I bet wishes he never agreed to being interviewed on tape) and Joe Lieberman the senator from Connecticut. Both of these men have extreme religious beliefs that definitely affect their decisions when it comes to making policy for this country. The fact that they are voted into office by people who share those beliefs, as well as those who probably have no idea, frightens me more deeply than I can say.

At one point in his interview with Senator Pryor who believes in revelations -you know the end times where Jesus comes back and all the true believers are taken to live with God - Bill asks him if someone who believes in this possibility wouldn't have a hard time making the world a better place to live in, because, you know, they're going to be in heaven? Pryor just kind of stared at him blankly.

Bill spends time with the Muslims and the Jews, and there are some hilarious moments with the Mormons, but it's the religious right that he focuses on for the most part. The religious right that has been insidiously infiltrating the government of these United States and pushing forth an agenda that is systematically destroying everything that our forefathers, the framers of the constitution, fought a revolution to create.

I have never been able to believe in the stories told by any religion preferring to think of them as parables or illustrations of moral ideals that had a context in the epochs during which they occurred. I tend to think that sane people have an internal moral compass and that the human urge to belong to a group be that family, community or tribe, which can be traced back to a time before we walked upright keeps us adhering to a social contract wherein we don't kill or mess with each other lest we be banished to a cave in the hills so that we don't really need commandments that threaten us with hell should we get out of line. And then there are, of course, actual laws and the consequences of breaking them.

Apparently I am wrong. There are a lot of people in this country and in the world who are considered sane who believe some pretty whacked out stuff and who make choices that affect every single person here based on these beliefs. Many of these people are currently serving in congress. One of them is sitting in the white house.

By the end of movie I totally got why Bill Maher is so pissed off. He's scared that these people are going to create the end times for all of us and seriously what the FUCK?

I am descended from Puritans who came here to escape religious persecution. They settled in Salem, MA in 1630 and they soon got involved in witch burning - some were accused and some were accusers - so I know that believing in things can drive people to do really crazy stuff, but that was the olden days. People don't do that kind of stuff anymore! Not here in the United States! Well, you know what? They do. They shoot doctors who perform abortions. They beat homosexuals to death. They hang people whose skin is a different color, or whose God is different from the one they pray too. It has been happening in small towns in states that are colored red on those election maps and the collective conscious pretends it doesn't happen and the press doesn't mention it so the rest of us don't have any idea until there's a Matthew Shepherd or a James Byrd.

I'm not saying that there aren't a lot of people who go to church and keep it all in perspective, but more and more people are becoming fundamentalist extremists and they aren't Muslims they're "Christians".

Religulous quotes Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin and I had never thought to specifically look and see what these guys really thought about religion and government. I went and took a look at what they said, and they said a lot, although none of it was Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

My favorite quote is from Thomas Jefferson who took the New Testament, removed all the fantasy aspects and published The Jefferson bible (The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth) wherein he gives Jesus his props as a truly admirable man who walked the walk he was talking. Jefferson was a fan of Unitarianism which I like to think of as the church of the social worker so it makes sense that he would be a fan of Jesus who was pretty much the first Jewish bleeding heart liberal the bolt of cloth that so many social workers are cut from.

Here is the quote:
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

I completely agree. I don't believe in the popular mythology of most religions but I do believe in and respect the right of people the world over to believe in their God (or Gods) or to not believe, and to have conversations about it without fear. I believe that anyone who wants to serve in public office has no right to project their beliefs onto the population, e.g. you can believe in revelations but you cannot destroy the planet because you think the endtimes are around the corner. You can believe in a guy who lives in the clouds with angels but you cannot tell me what I can do with my uterus or with whom I can share the sacrament of marriage.

If you want to be president of the United States then you understand that you are going to serve all people not just the ones who've accepted Jesus as their personal savior and if those "saved" people start behaving as a special interest group who exert pressure to insert their agendas into schools, communities, cities, states and foreign policy then you better make damn sure that they cannot translate their hate into laws.

I know why Bill Maher is pissed off and scared and he summed it up perfectly in the last three minutes of the movie and left me sitting there stunned. I believe that the closing credits rolled over the Talking Heads singing "We're on the Road to Nowhere."

In two weeks we all have a choice to make and if we make the wrong one we are most definitely on that road.

2008-10-16T23:51:00.000-07:00

CALL ME!..... OR NOT.

One of my friends had a first date the other night that ended with her hurling the three martinis she drank in the parking lot while her date held her hair out of the way and rubbed her back. If nothing else it was definitely some kind of litmus test because any guy who holds my hair out of the way while I puke is a pretty good egg. He called her and wants to see her again and I think she should be encouraged by that. I mean how much worse could it be than getting drunk, slurring your words and projectile vomiting?

Her friend at work tried to cheer her out of her motification with this story, which is, in fact a great example of how much worse it could be.

This woman, let's call her Julie, had been dating this man, let's call him Mike, for just a short while. They had reached the point in the freshly budding relationship where she spent the night at his house for the first time. In the morning he had to leave for work and left her a key telling her to make herself at home and just lock up and put the key under the mat when she left.

When Julie got up she made herself some coffee. The coffee did what coffee does and she had to poop. This was an incredibly large poop. The kind of poop that is awe inspiring in size. Not at all the kind of poop that you would want your new man to know that you were capable of. Especially not a guy that you really really like - a lot. A guy upon whom you want to make a good impression. Keeping in mind that so many men don't like to even acknowledge that women poop at all she definitely did not want Mike to know that she could produce a poop the size of a baby's arm.

Impressive? Yes! But not exactly what she was going for so soon in their courtship.

So imagine her consternation when she discovered that the toilet would not flush. It's not that she clogged the toilet. No - she never even got the chance. It just would not flush. Dismantling the toilet did not lead to any solution that involved flushing and she was absolutely freaking out.

She called her friend and asked her what to do. Julie's friend gave her advice that, at the time, must have seemed reasonable when faced with the option of leaving a giant log in Mike's toilet.

Her friend told her to fish it out, put it in a ziploc and then take it with her to throw away.

The fact that this seemed like a reasonable suggestion and that she actually did it gives some insight into how very much she did not want Mike to know that she did, in fact, poop.

Completely frazzled from the fishing expedition she got herself ready to go and wrote Mike a note that said, "Had a great time. I really love our connection," and she left it for him on the kitchen counter.

Then she walked out the door....

Leaving the key and the ziploc bag with the giant poop in it on the counter next to the note.

The door had the auto lock in place so she was locked out and that horrifying tableau was locked in and she couldn't get back in the house.

So she changed her phone number.

Mike never pursued any further contact.

I cannot help but wonder if he even tried to call.

2008-09-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

TODAY'S THOUGHTS....

Even though I knew Paul Newman was going to die, and soon, I still wasn't ready for it. The pictures that had been posted of him with Martha Stewart at a party last month showed someone who was on their way out. Vanity Fair had a great article about him last month - a tribute really - so I wasn't surprised when I heard that he'd died on Friday. It makes me really sad to think about Joanne having to wake up every day without him after all those years together.

I'm tired of people preaching at me about Barak Obama and this presidential race. My naivete and hope were beaten out of me over the last two elections. I've spent too much time traveling in the mid-west to think that the deep levels of inherent and unadmitted racism in this country aren't a factor in how close the polls are right now. Republicans are not evil retards as so many of my friends are fond of referring to them - they're American citizens with a point of view that differs from my own, but then so are lot of these name calling democrats. I'm feeling like I want to turn off the TV (except for that debate on Thursday night) until it's all said and done.

No more political discussions - unless they're really going to be discussions. I don't want any more lectures from the faithful about how I have to tell the entire country to vote for Obama. You know what? I think people know who they're going to vote for already.

As much as I hate folding the laundry and putting it away it is one of the most meditative activities I know of after cooking.

Today is a good day because it's beautiful outside so I can work in the garden and it's starting to get cool so I can wear a hoodie and football is on so I can watch in between getting stuff done.

I like today.

2008-05-31T22:57:00.000-07:00

NOT JUST ANOTHER NIGHT OUT WITH THE GIRLS

Last night I went to see the Sex and the City movie. It was a Friday opening and I don't normally do this but I went with some of the girls in my family and I thought it would be fun. I haven't been to a movie theater in a long time and the one we went to, the Pacific theater in the Grove, is one of my favorites.

I knew it was going to be a popular movie, but I hadn't counted on Star Wars circa 1975 type line or the cheer that went up when the opening titles came on the screen.

OHMYGOD!

We went to the 5:05 show and the line went all the way down past Crate and Barrel, around the curve at Nordstroms and headed toward Abercrombie and Fitch. It was a battle to find four seats together and while you might think, or at least I thought, the theater would be mostly women, this was not in fact the case. It was probably 30% gay men and their girl gangs.

Again - OHMYGOD!

The movie was good, but I didn't need to see it on the big screen. SJP looks frighteningly gaunt on the big screen as her thoroughbred legs tottered around on her Manolos. I was scared she might end up like Eight Belles. Without spoiling anything I found her performance to be very courageous as far as personal vanity goes - so kudos to her.

The movie aside what I experienced at the theater that I haven't in a really long time is the kind of buzz and audience participation, which indicates HUGE box office, the likes of which hasn't been seen in theaters since, well, Star Wars, or Saturday Night Fever or Indiana Jones (the first one). Those were movies that I paid to see over and over again because I couldn't get enough.

I would be willing to bet that at least 1 in 3 people who were at the theater last night will pay to go again. They'll want to go with other friends, maybe the ones that they used to get together with to watch the show when it was on HBO. They'll want to go because they have missed their friends: Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte.

2008-05-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU CALL IT....

We are in a recession.
A slow down.
A credit crunch.
Interesting times.

It's a cycle and we've been here before, but in my lifetime when this has happened someone else was taking care of me.

I've never had to deal with economic uncertainty like this in my adult life. I think that it's also more challenging for me than ever before because I'm part of a small company that is literally struggling to stay alive every single week. Since the fall of last year we've had 6 million dollars in contracts go "on hold". Buildings that were supposed to be in construction right now are not. So every day we are trying to develop new business in a market that's stone cold.

Scary times.
Feels like a recession to me.

I've had to lay off 4 guys. One of them had a baby the week before I let him go. I desperately want to get a new contract so I can bring him back to work. He calls me to see if we've gotten anything and I tell him that I will let him know, but he should be looking for work, not waiting. He tells me there is no work. Everyone in construction is looking for work.

The other day an investment broker came into the office to meet with Adi who couldn't make the meeting because he was out with bids. I sat down with him to hear what he had to say and he started with, "First of all we're not in a recession." He emphatically supported that statement by telling me that the "numbers" say that the economy is still growing.

I wonder if my former employee with the brand new baby and no job would agree with that statement?

2008-03-26T22:22:00.000-07:00

HAPPY ALLAN MCLAREN DAY!

Today is Allan McLaren day. It's one of my favorite days of the year. I smile every time it rolls around. This was originally posted by my friend Heather (Hi Heather!), one of the founders of Allan McLaren day, over at clizbiz.blogspot.com. She's an awesome woman - then and now.

Here is the story of how today came to be Allan McLaren day...

Gather round, children, time for a story:

Sometime in the early 80s, my best friend, Lisa, and I were walking the halls of Bancroft Jr. High in Long Beach, California. It must have been the end of February because we were discussing the recent Presidents Day holiday, which seemed too elitist for our tastes.

"Seems like there should be a day for people that aren't presidents," Lisa said.
"Yeah, like a day that celebrates the guy that has no desire to be president," I undoubtedly concurred. "A day for the average Joe, y'know? The world needs those guys too."
"Maybe we should start one … ?" she said, eyes wide.
Lisa was, once again, ready to co-hatch outrageous plans with me, which is why I love her so.
"Hey .. yeah!"

And we were off.

Immediately, we began formulating the outline of the campaign messages and the all-important 'Celebrating the Everyman' gist of our new holiday. Still, we needed a face, a name, a figurehead … somebody to stand up for our new cause. We wanted the guy that just happily exists in life, does his thing, and is perfectly harmless – the guy that merely goes to school/work, does his chores and doesn't spark headlines, bad or good. We needed to pin down the uncelebrated fellow that makes up the bulk of society - the guy that everyone likes but no one really notices.

Lisa and I spotted him at the same time. He was a smallish kid, same age as us (15-ish) and we didn't know his name. He had blonde bushy surfer-kid hair, shy eyes and an infectious sweet smile. We'd never noticed him before which made him ideal. Looking back now, I realized we may have come on a bit strong initially but he played along. After briefly introducing ourselves without revealing our true mission, we conducted the interview on-the-spot:

Belong to any clubs? "Nope.
"Play on any sports teams? "No way.
"Girlfriend? "Um, not right now.
"Grades? "C average."Home life? "Just normal stuff – my parents are okay, I guess.
"Get in to trouble? "No, I try to lay low."
And finally, name? "Allan McLaren."

Lisa's eyes lit up at this, since she was the creative ad agency person and I'm more of the big mouth PR type. The phonetics needed to be ideal to result in a winning slogan. She tried it out, "Hmmmmm. AllanMcLaren AllanMcLaren AllanMcLaren. Yes, yes … YES! That will work perfectly!"

We each squealed, kissed him on the cheek and then ran off, yelling back at Allan, "Thank you!" and maybe even "Get ready!"

In the next few weeks, we created banners, posters, buttons and possibly t-shirts that prepared the student body for the big day, which we'd picked randomly as March 26th – the world's first annual Allan McLaren Day.

Because we were those busybody types that ran everything, we managed to get this in the student newspaper, the school calendar, the daily announcements and, most importantly, on the lips of every student. Anticipation was high. Allan was confused but just kept smiling.

When the big day finally came, I recall sitting in typing class (ha!) and watching the very prim and proper teacher, Mrs. Howard, instruct us on the day's lesson. On her print blouse was a button pin that clearly read: "Have you hugged your Allan McLaren today?" This was victory.

In high school, the tradition continued and Allan became a minor celebrity. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Not only was Allan game for all the attention, but he was consistently appreciative and smiled even more.

Years later, at the 10-year high school reunion, I ran into Allan and he was so excited. He introduced his lovely wife, Kristina, and told her the whole story. He then went on to tell us how we had inadvertently changed his entire school experience. Apparently, he'd show up at parties and people would cheer: "Allan McLaren has arrived!" He noted, with some irony, that the football guys who "would otherwise beat me up" had decided that Allan was the coolest dude ever and was to be revered and protected like a king.

Even several years after graduation, Allan was in a grocery store writing a check when the cashier saw his name: "Allan McLaren? I know that name! Aren't you famous or something?"
Decades later, I was living in San Francisco and received a card in the mail. It was an elaborate beautifully self-designed sentiment from Lisa, dated March 26, 2003, with the words: "Celebrating 20 years of the average man … wishing you the very best Allan McLaren Day!"

So, now, I pass along this tradition to ya'll. Buy the Average Joe a drink tonight, would ya? Whether he knows it or not, it's his special day.

2008-03-18T22:33:00.000-07:00

REMEMBERING MINGHELLA

I was so sad to hear that Anthony Minghella has died. Not just because he is, in my opinion a great talent, but because I actually got to meet him and share an evening of great conversation.

In 1993 I was sharing a house with a friend who, at the time was dating a british director. One weekend I went to brunch with her and her beau at the Bel Air hotel. We got very drunk on champagne sitting at one of those tables by the pond with the swans. It was oh so pastoral and lovely. We were talking about our favorite movies and I was going on and on and on and ON about a movie that I'd seen a few years before that is still, to this day, one of my favorite movies.

Truly, Madly, Deeply is a movie about loss and grieving and moving on and in all that sadness it's pretty funny. It features Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevens in really wonderful performances. I fell in love with the writing and it has stayed with me all of these years. When I saw the movie I sat in the theater after it was over and cried. And then I drove home and sat on the couch and cried some more. Not because I was sad, but because I was so completely moved by how it had captured love and loss and how life goes on no matter what and that's a good thing.

It was perfect.

It was Anthony Minghella's debut movie. He wrote it and directed it and it just so happens that my roommate's friend knew Anthony very well and had worked with him on the Storyteller series - you should totally rent them if you have kids. So seeing as how he knew the guy that had written and directed my favorite movie he was kind enough to call him up so that I could leave a drunken and rambling message on his answering machine about HOW MUCH I LOVED Truly Madly Deeply.

Yes - I drunk dialed Anthony Minghella and it was a good thing that Steve spoke first or I'm sure it would have come off as more terrifyingly stalkerish than anything else.

It could have ended there and I would have just remembered the call with mild embarrassment, except that a short time later Anthony Minghella came through town to do post on Mr. Wonderful, the film he directed after Truly, Madly, Deeply and before The English Patient. He remembered my call and I was invited to have dinner with him at Steve's house one night after he'd finished work.

I was not surprised to find that he was a regular guy who very sweetly discussed stories and writers and favorite books with me. I remember coming away from the evening with the deepest appreciation that this person who'd written and directed a story that had touched me so profoundly was so awesomely human and real.

I am just so sad that he is gone - that his family and friends are grieving the loss of him - that we will not have anymore stories from him.

He will be missed truly, madly, deeply.

2008-01-05T10:09:00.000-08:00

In the Middle

I am currently in the middle of the process of saying goodbye to Nana. It actually started in 2006 when they took her drivers license away. She was 98. Because she'd started into mild congestive heart failure with afibrillation she had to take medication that could potentially cause her to pass out.

She was an excellent driver.

Shortly before Christmas she got the renewal in the mail and my stepfather had to break it to her that she wasn't ever going to drive again. Over the last two years there had been a series of these kinds of epiphanies that she'd had to accept. In some ways the death of her independence is sadder than her actual death which, all things considered, was just about perfect.

I love the idea of laying down to rest and just not waking up. This could be due to the fact that I have, and have had most of my life, terrible insomnia.

Yesterday was Nana's entombment. She and my grandfather who died 19 years ago, now lay side by side in a wall at what used to be the Sunnyside Mausoleum and Mortuary. It's now Forest Lawn which is like the Walmart of funeral homes, but I digress. When my grandfather dropped dead of a heart attack at 80 we were all in shock and we did what Nana wanted so there was a service in the chapel and we didn't actually watch his installation.

Because Nana was never religious we decided to forgo the service in the chapel by some man who didn't know her for a celebration which will be held at her house tomorrow at 2pm. I will be bringing a bottle of Scotch for a toast in her honor. Yesterday the family gathered to witness her entombment.

And now I have one more thing on the list of things I never need to to again.

When we arrived we wandered around this rather amazing place looking for someone who could tell us where she was exactly. The building was constructed in 1928 and it's rather gothic looking, filled with marble and stone walls and curlicued iron gates in the arched doorways of the private crypts. Some people were in niches, their resting places decked out with amazing tile work like a medieval knight or an egyptian king.

In the center of the building is a Foucault's pendulum which slides back and forth keeping time for people who no longer really care. The building was so cold I could feel it through the soles of my shoes, because why waste money heating what is basically a giant cold storage? No one in there notices how cold it is except for visitors and I can't imagine hanging out too long in this place except maybe in the summer time when it's scalding outside.

As we wandered around I noticed that the majority of the residents had been born prior to the civil war and it occurred to me that back in the day this form of eternal rest was probably not only socially acceptable, but also something that people of status did because it's really quite fancy. Now, to me, it just seems really creepy.

A nice man in what looked to be a caretakers uniform directed us to the funeral director, Roland who escorted us to the second floor, down a north hallway from the pendulum and there I saw a blue casket made of steel with silver accents - Nana would have fully approved because blue was her favorite color - which was against the wall just below what appeared to be a blue window curtain over her spot. The marble front which contained my grandfather's name and dates was resting on an easel type thing. It was a nice presentation. I was terrified that when they took the blue curtain down I would see my grandfather's casket.

I watched too much Dark Shadows growing up, where caskets are just rolled into crypts so that the vampires can get out. In reality they seal the casket into with a concrete cover using mortar, something that we were about to witness.

There were folding chairs set up in this hallway for us to sit in so we did. As we sat there staring at the blue box that contained Nana's remains I had no feeling that she was in there. It felt empty to me. They needed some extra guys for the lifting so we waited and we got a little weepy, and then as my family is inclined to do we started joking and then we started laughing.

This was appropriate because Nana was a laugher. She would laugh so hard no sound would come out and she would cry. Then she'd send the rest of us off and we wouldn't be able to stop. So I consider what happened next sort of an homage to her ability to appreciate and laugh at life.

In order to get the casket up to the level of the crypt they brought out a cart with a hydraulic lift. It was painted gold like the kind of gold you see in church generally gilding the wings of angels. It looked nice and kind of matched the occasion except for the big plastic bucket and yellow jug and rubber gloves, like those you'd see on a cleaning cart. These were removed and the casket was placed on the lift which rose to the level of the space so it could be slid in like a fancy filing drawer.

I'm not sure, but I don't think many people choose to watch the entombment because the guys seemed a little nervous, chattering sotto voce to each other in Spanish. As we watched her go into the wall my aunt and I started to cry. I was crying because it's kind of traumatic for me to think about my little Nana in a wall. I think Sue was crying because her mother is dead. But then she said, through her tears, if Daddy could talk he'd be saying, "It took you long enough."

We all started laughing because that is totally something he would say. As the guy put on the rubber gloves and started mixing the mortar with a trowel we sat and watched and tried to stay composed but then Bob said, "I feel like I'm at a Do-it-yourself seminar at Home Depot" and we got the giggles so bad we couldn't stop.

None of this made the job any easier for the guys that were trying to respectfully get the entombing done. We started telling Nana stories which included the fart stories (we're a gassy family) and now we were howling. Thank God no one else was in the building mourning their loved one because although we are very sad and missing Nana, the hilarity is part of how we grieve.

And laughing and crying are pretty much the same emotion.

Tomorrow we will gather with friends to celebrate her life and I will drink Scotch and lovingly remember what she always said about halfway through the cocktail hour..."I feel the way a woman should always feel."

2007-12-31T23:05:00.000-08:00

THANKS FOR STOPPING BY...

I got a phone call early yesterday morning from Sheryl, the home health care worker that takes the alternate weekend shifts with my Nana. She said that Nana wasn't able to walk anymore, that her legs had given out on her. When I saw Nana on Christmas day I was shocked at how rapidly she'd gone downhill since I'd seen her the week before. On that visit we'd watched the Lakers and eaten off the TV trays that she keeps in the den and she still knew who all the players were.

She was particularly excited about Andrew Bynum who is being schooled by Kareem on the skyhook.

On Christmas we watched the Lakers but she was basically semi-conscious, her mouth hanging open and her shoulders lifting with the effort it took her to breathe.

She was 99 so all things being equal she'd had a terrific run. She got her driver's license renewed on her 97th birthday something that finally spurred her to get the cataract surgery done in her right eye. My aunt told her that she was going to have to read the eye chart.

I knew that she was in the departure lounge, but she was hanging on with all her might. We never talked about death or dying because she didn't want to have conversations about that "stuff". Yesterday though, after getting the phone call, I decided that the stuff needed to be at least touched upon, if not actually bandied about. Adi and I rented a transport chair, something that she could ride to the bathroom and the kitchen table in, and we headed down to Nana's house.

I didn't call because she would've told me not to come. She never wanted to be a bother. She also was scared that we might call an ambulance and she wouldn't make it back home. So we pretended that we were in the neighborhood and "stopped by". When we got there she was laying down in her bedroom which was dark. I turned on the low light over the bed and crawled up next to her. She was breathing like a bird that's run into the side of a barn and is lying stunned in the dirt, all shallow and quick. She didn't have the strength to hold my hand and she it seemed like she'd lost most of her physical substance - the bones of her body and face stood out under skin, but there was no fat or muscle left.

I asked her if she was in pain and she said no. I asked if she was scared and she said "a little bit." She was so weak she could barely speak in complete sentences. Sheryl came in and helped her to tell me about how her legs had buckled and she couldn't get back to her room the night before. She said that Sheryl had dragged her down the hall. I'd heard this already and knew that Sheryl had put her on a blanket and pulled her back to bed, but I asked if she'd pulled her by her feet and Nana laughed and said yeah.

Nana had told Adi on Christmas day that she was unhappy about being 100 years old (her birthday is February 21) and she'd told my step dad that she was frustrated because she'd done everything the doctors told her, but she wasn't getting better. When her auto insurance came in mail not so long ago and we told her that she didn't need to renew it because her doctor took her license last year after her heart went into afibrillation, she was seriously bummed, like it was just hitting her that she ewasn't going to drive again.

So when we got there and I saw that she was hanging on by her fingernails I crawled up next to her and took her hand and told her that it was okay to go if she wanted to...

Her response.

"Where am I going?"

I was crying but that made me laugh because it was just so her. I couldn't really go down that road any further so I said that she didn't have to do this anymore if she didn't want to, that I would be okay. That we would all be okay. I tried to say that I was so grateful for the years of knowing her and all the love and fun that we'd had, but I couldn't get past the word grateful.

She let us stay for about ten more minutes and then she said, "Thanks for stopping by," which is Nana-speak for "go home now."

I told her I loved her and we left.

My mother called this morning and told me that she'd died in her sometime during the night. I like to think that even though we didn't have one of "those" conversations, some part of her heard me and decided to let go. I am so blessed to have had such a long and wonderful relationship with her and while I kind of wish I could have celebrated 100 years of Nana, I also know she would have hated that and she went when she was ready.

Most of all I'm grateful that yesterday, I stopped by.

2007-11-11T22:16:00.000-08:00

PERFECT ENDING

Saturday I drove up to Bass Lake, about 14 miles south of Yosemite.

Sunday I drove home.

I did this because my friend Trish turned 50 and I absolutely had to be there to celebrate her.

This past Spring Trish almost died when a horseback ride went horribly wrong and she ended up in a Medivac helicopter with a crushed chest.

But that's not why I had to celebrate her.

I had to be there because we've known each other for the past 20 years, we have witnessed all the ups and downs and we're both damn glad to be here together.

My plan was to rent a car, a comfy full sized something or other and drive up very early. With no traffic it's about a four hour drive through what I think is a really beautiful part of California. You go up the 5 to the 99, drive to Fresno and make a right. You see farms and cows and barns and fields filled with grapes and cotton and beans and orchards of pitted fruit and apples. It's the part of California where life seems to be lived more simply.

At least that's how it looks from the highway.

So back to the renting of the car. I walked across the street to Enterprise and they gave me a Buick which had sofa sized front seats and a burl wood console. It was silver and reminded me of something that a recently divorced grandmother named Sylvia might buy herself. It had a "cushioned" ride and I felt safe in it.

I put in a homemade CD from back in the day when I used to take long road trips to San Francisco to see the Dead and turned the volume up to just below bass blowing out the speakers level and began to roll up the 101. I became aware of a sound that I at first thought was the rattling walls of the semi in the next lane, but I passed him and the sound, something like metal being dragged on asphalt got louder.

The sound was coming from Sylvia's Buick.

I pulled off the freeway somewhere in the valley and found myself in the middle of BF Egypt with not a gas station in sight. I didn't pull over to see what was going on because the idea of the car not starting on the side of the road in this wherever I was spot did not appeal. Plus the fuel light had come on because they'd given me the car on empty and I was thinking that gas would be cheaper further away from LA proper.

I was wrong.

I was also screwed because when I got to the gas station the bottom of the car, the undercarriage? was dragging on the ground. This was not my fault. I swear. I called the people at Enterprise and gave them the cross streets and asked them to find me another car. Turns out I was just down the road from another location but they were all out of full size cruise mobiles so I ended up in a Kia Optima. A 4-cylinder Kia Optima.

And then I got lost.

And then I got stuck in traffic.

I really wanted to whine. I was feeling so put upon and pissy. But I had no audience so instead I put in the CD and turned up the volume and headed over the Grapevine... in the slow lane with trucks. It's amazing what singing Ramble On at the top of my lungs can do as far as an attitude adjustment.

The Kia got amazing gas mileage. You gotta find the good where you can.

I finally got up to Bass Lake about 5pm. There were 13 of us and baby Cole, Skye's 5 month old son who got to come along because he's nursing. He's a pass around kid who enjoys snuggling. Trish had made us all gift bags and she was taking us all out to dinner.

Good times! How could I be tired?

Dinner was hilarious, how can it not be when you have all those women together. My favorite line of the night... "I had to marry him. I felt so guilty. I'd never had a one night stand before."

After dinner we decided not to go to the casino but rather to go home and watch a movie. Welcome to our 40s. In previous years we would have at least swung by the Pines Lounge for shots and at least a cursory perusal of the local boys. Instead we were home in our pajamas watching "The Land of Women" and debating what in the world Meg Ryan has done to her face. Lips and eyes? She doesn't look like herself.

One by one people started passing out and my God they were snoring soooo loud! Who knew that those sounds could come out of girls?

The morning brought fog over the lake and very strong coffee and more conversation. There was a storm coming in, so less than 24 hours after arriving I got back in the Kia and headed home.

I was a little freaked because by weather on the way home. I had fog and light rain until I reached the Grapevine and just as I started going up mountain the skies went completely dark and it began to pour!

I've never driven the Grapevine in weather like that. I've only seen news coverage of the multi-fatality car crashes and ensuing traffic snarls that occur in these kinds of conditions.

The visibility was about 20 feet and it was raining so hard that water was pooling in the fast lane and cars were throwing huge sheets up onto the windshield completely obliterating it. Everyone drove about 45, which was really effortfull for Kia and we were surrounded by lots of big ass trucks.

I had the music on and was singing at the top of my lungs for encouragement. Moving my hands from their clenched positions at 2 and 10 on the steering wheel was not an option so I decided to make the best of it.

(I was also thinking how sad it would be if my last meal turned out to be Jack in the Box instead of In'n'Out!)

It was an endless and ominous march up the mountain. I was aware that my whole body was clenched and I'd broken out in a cold sweat. I was getting completely wrapped around my own axle, mindfucking myself into a panic and just then I crested the top of the mountain...

... the rain let up and the sun was shining through a hole in the darkness and it created the biggest and most intense rainbow I've ever seen, the end of which spread across all four lanes of highway 5 ahead of me.

The song that was playing at that moment was Avalon by Roxy Music...
Now the party´s overI´m so tired
Then I see you comingOut of nowhere
Much communication in a motion
Without conversation or a notion
Avalon

I really like this song, but at that moment I LOVED it.

I was so grateful to be in that moment right then. And everything was perfect and exactly as it should be.

I drove out of the rain and through the end of the rainbow.

The end.

2007-11-08T10:04:00.000-08:00

STRIKE HARD

I have more than a few friends walking the picket lines right now. These are not people who make a lot of money. They're probably going to be in trouble quicker than some of my other friends who work in production who are going to be out of work as a result of the strike.

Let's face it many of my writer friends are already in financial trouble because they've been running down the dream and it's been getting away from them what with the onslaught of reality programming.

The only friends in the industry who are not going to be in financial trouble are those who work for "the companies". Doesn't that sound like some ominous, faceless demononic sect in a John Grisham novel?

It's kind of feeling like that right now, and J. Nicholas Counter is starring as the oily little minion who does their bidding.

Here's what I see coming in the near future reality. Television as we know it is going to disappear and be replaced with large, flat screen monitors attached to our computers and we will be downloading all of our programming options and e-mailing and chatting through this one device and it's all going to interactive. It may take me a while to get with it because I can't even text message yet, but most people over the age of 5 will be rocking the downloadable entertainment.

Advertisers will be foisting their sales pitches at us from all directions also via this avenue and they're going to make it fun. It's their only option. I have Tivo and I haven't watched a commercial ever since I got it. I won't watch shows at their regularly programmed time because I don't want to watch commercials. I spend way more time watching TV then I ever have because it's all content all the time.

This technology is available to everyone and when it comes to priorities in America - watching TV is up there in the top three with God and Country. I granted a Make-A-Wish, not that long ago for a family that lives in an area that you normally only see from a news helicopter covering the murder of a child after a drive by occured at a birthday party. They are receiving assistance from the state and the mother was claiming to be single although a man that the little kids called "Papi" was in the back room smoking out of a bong the whole time I was there. This family had a flat screen TV with a full cable package and a DVR that allowed them to scan through the commercials on MTV's Cribs.

Digital video recorders were introduced in 1999 and in less than 10 years the technology has evolved so quickly that you can get one for less that $200. Think about cell phone technology and how quickly that has evolved. You can watch stuff on your phone - right now. I do download television and watch it on the computer while I'm working at some mindless task, and I know I'm not the only one. Currently downloaded technology is my only exposure to advertising.

I mean other than the crap that comes at me all day long out in the world.

So for "the companies" to state that "new media" is an unknown source of revenue is not only obtuse it's insulting. If the writers don't strike hard and hang tough now they are going to get royally screwed and that's an ass fucking that's going to be felt throughout the industry. Even those who don't get paid residuals will feel it because their unions negotiate with "the companies" for pension benefits based on profits from various revenues.

To deny that the bulk of revenues generated in the future is in new media is to basically say to all the people who work so hard to create the content that they don't matter and that they are easily dispensed with....

.... the situation the good guys find themselves in in a John Grisham novel, right before they stand up, fight back and kick the shit out of evil.

UPDATE:
CBS has sent out letters to the showrunners on their shows advising them that they will be sued for breach of contract if they don't perform their producing duties. CBS as in Les Moonves. No one better represents the shift to bottom line business man as opposed to creative genius than Les Moonves. I cannot fault his bottom line. He's an excellent businessman. But entertainment used to be about taking risks and telling stories. This is the guy that gave us Survivor and CSI. I'm sorry I know CSI is the number 1 show in the country but I think the country is dumbing down and that's proof.

Well, that and the election of George W. Bush in 2004.

2007-10-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

IF YOU CAN READ

You can do anything.

I really believe that. I learned to read when I was about 4 because my mother, who was a credentialed elementary school teacher taught me how.

This weekend I was talking with a friend who is also a teacher. Currently her job is to supervise about 230 elementary students who are being homeschooled. This involves making sure that the correct curriculum is being followed by the parents who are homeschooling and monitoring the progress that students are making. These students are being homeschooled for a variety of reasons: health issues, they live too rurally to get to school, fear of violence in schools and of course, those people who want to give their children a faith based education. These are the ones who use loaves and fishes in their story problems. And Jesus is probably riding that train that's heading south at 10 miles an hour - GOD I hated math story problems.

Anyway, I was astonished to learn that there is no minimum literacy requirement for the people who are administering the correct curriculum to the homeschoolers. So therefore it stands to reason that if you can't read or write correctly you will not be able to teach your children to do so.

I asked my friend if this happens. Are people out there homeschooling their kids who cannot read or write very well. She said that yes indeed, this is in fact happening. Just the other day she had a parent come in who wanted to know, "What exactly is a consonant?"

Seems like an excellent way to keep illiterate people illiterate - let them teach their children to also be illiterate.

I know that advocates of homeschooling can point out all kinds of examples of kids who have excelled with homeschooling, but I would hope that they would agree with me that those that teach their children at home should have to meet certain standards of proficiency in order to do so, or provide their kids with someone who can meet those standards.

If a kid can't read and write the rest of life is going to be so much harder when they become an adult.

Being able to read is like having magic powers and no one knows that better than someone who cannot do it.

2007-08-28T10:43:00.000-07:00

THE GIFT OF INSOMNIA

Normally when I wake up and it's dark outside it's the biggest drag ever.

I've been doing this since I was a little kid and it's why I totally understand those references to the Dark Night of Soul, because when I wake up in the dark, in those too early hours to even call your friends who live three hours ahead of you, I tend to engage in catastrophic thinking. It's not like the waking up when you have to pee and your body take you on auto-pilot to the bathroom and then you crawl back in bed and resume sleep. This is an awake that is totally alert as if someone flipped a switch and the brain turned on.

And it's dark.

And I'm awake.

So after I lay there and toss and turn and try to force somnolescence to come back I usually start to think thoughts. Thoughts about how weird it is that I'm in this physical body that I seemingly have no control over sometimes and how life is strange and what's going to happen to me and this isn't at all how I thought things would turn out, you know, that I would be laying in the dark in some random apartment in Los Angeles wondering what the hell it's all about and what is that noise? What really goes on in the alley behind the building when I'm asleep because there's a lot of activity out there in the dark.

I stress out a lot about how I'm going to have to get up and function in a few hours and make it through a whole day on about 4 hours of sleep and then I stress out about how they say that stress and a lack of sleep makes you fat and I wonder if I should get up and go for a walk since I'm awake, but it's freaking dark out there and there are noises and I don't feel like getting dressed. If I lived in a neighborhood where I felt safe getting up and putting and walking around in my bathrobe I would probably stress less about the whole getting fat thing.

Anyway, this morning? When my eyes flew open at 4 o'something, my first thought was shitfuckgoddamn, but then I remembered something! I turned and pulled the curtains back and there it was - a full lunar eclipse in progress. About half the moon was covered by a black disk of shadow and the moon seemed all that much brighter by contrast. I had to put my glasses on to see how crisp the shape actually was and I laid there and watch the moon emerge from the darkness as it set in the western sky.

It was so incredibly cool and this morning I was truly grateful for that fucking bitch Insomnia.

2007-08-03T17:21:00.002-07:00

The Unbearable Likeness of Being

Things are moving along lately. I have been getting my ass back into the swing of exercising and this will make a post a month for three months in a row! You gotta find the positive where you can.

I'm nothing if not all about emphasizing the positive.

Adi and I were talking about endings before new beginnings and I pointed out that every day ends. He said that's why he doesn't like going to sleep.

Me? I prefer to pop an Ambien and look forward to what's next.

We are very different in our respective perspectives.

This got me wondering about whether or not the Jewish/not Jewish thing was underlying that difference. I grew up with so many friends who were Jewish and never noticed the stereotypes that are so often bandied about, like the worry and the, let's call it "thrifty" thing and the overbearing mothers utilizing guilt like a cattle prod to get their families to do their bidding.

Ever since I've met Adi's mother though it's like I've walked into some bad joke told by Shecky Green at a camp in the catskills.

I mean Oy Vey, seriously.

It's insidious the kvetching and complaining and it's permeated my life. I find myself being pulled into that energy instead of the carefree, barefoot running around without a sweater that I was raised to enjoy.

And here's what I know right now, this minute, and that is that this nice Jewish boy that I like so much will never have a successful relationship with any woman until he breaks up with his mother.

Which would most likely kill her and then the guilt would kill him.

So you see where I'm going with this...

And all I can say is that if you're a shiksa and you've met a nice Jewish boy - don't go there - unless he's an orphan.

2007-07-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

LOCKED OUT AND PISSED OFF

So I've been locked out of blogger for the last 6 weeks. That's frustrating. Apparently they don't recognize my gmail address although, thankfully, they sent me a welcome e-mail there so I can get in that way.

Life has been crazy and I still want to write about my trip to Vancouver in June - this is in keeping with the fact that I'm shopping for birthday presents for those who turned another year old last December.

I am behind.

Today in the midst of all the busy I cannot stop thinking about the indictment of Michael Vick. I love football, and I remember when Michael Vick first came to the Falcons. He was exciting as all get out to watch. His cousin Aaron Brooks was the QB for the New Orleans Saints when he started with the Falcons and it was fun to watch the game and imagine their family all sittin' around whooping and hollering and celebrating because no matter what they had a winner.

I was sort of ignoring the press about Michael Vick and the dog fighting allegations because I very much wanted it to not be true. It's an abhorrent activity and anyone involved in it should be prosecuted and sent to prison for a long time - it's sick. It certainly doesn't fit with the picture of who I thought Michael Vick was. Despite the bad press his brother got, I always thought of Vick as nice guy. A good guy.

According to this article he's not any of that. Reading this article he comes off like a sadistic product of the ghetto and a member of that community of sociopaths to whom life means little. The kind of people who can kill without thinking or feeling too much about it.

I know that one is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty and I really hate how people get tried in the press all the time, but the evidence is damning and at the very least he knew what was happening and did nothing to stop it.

I got no more love for Michael Vick.

I ain't gonna be rooting for the Falcons as long as he's wearing one of their uniforms and if they don't suspend him, and allow him to play, the only way I'll watch a game is if they promise to douse him in water and electrocute him when he gets injured.

And then I'll be watching and praying for someone to snap his knee. Or his neck.

2007-05-03T10:38:00.001-07:00

THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT

Okay, so recently I made mention that Mormons and what I perceive to be their weird religious beliefs kind of freak me out and I know that might sound religiously intolerant of me, but when I was perusing Dooce today she had a link to this article from the Daily Herald:

(Damn, I still can't figure out how to link)

Sunday, April 29, 2007
Convention ends with Satan and immigrants

CALEB WARNOCK - Daily Herald
Utah County Republicans ended their convention on Saturday by debating Satan's influence on illegal immigrants.

The group was unable to take official action because not enough members stuck around long enough to vote, despite the pleadings of party officials. The convention was held at Canyon View Junior High School.

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan's minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants "hate American people" and "are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won't do."

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to "destroy Christian America" and replace it with "a godless new world order -- and that is not extremism, that is fact," Larsen said.

At the end of his speech, Larsen began to cry, saying illegal immigrants were trying to bring about the destruction of the U.S. "by self invasion."

Republican officials then allowed speakers to defend and refute the resolution. One speaker, who was identified as "Joe," said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil. Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald, said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because "they are not going to become Republicans and stop flying the flag upside down. ... If they want to be Americans, they should learn to speak English and fly their flag like we do."

Senator Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, spoke against the resolution, saying Larsen, whom he called a "true patriot and a close friend," was embarrassing the Republican Party.

"I agree with 95 percent of this resolution but it has some language that is divisive and not inspiring other people to its vision," he said. "This only gives fodder to the liberal media to give negative attention to the Republican Party."

Joel Wright, a member of the Cedar Hills City Council, was booed as he opposed the resolution.
"This might be the most divisive issue in the Republican Party," he said. "I support President Bush but he needs to support this issue harder."

When Wright said "the economic benefit (of illegal immigration) outweighs the downside" he was jeered. He warned that the Republican Party of California had "killed themselves" by taking a hostile stance against illegal aliens.

He also said the LDS Church has studied the issue and tried to determine whether illegal aliens could be given temple recommends and allowed to serve missions but "gave up" because the issue was too complex. He ended by saying "President Bush needs to fix this now" and was booed again.

Larsen was allowed to finish the debate with a one-minute speech.

"If the Democrats take over the country, we will be dead, and we will have abortion and partial-birth abortion and the Republican Party will go into extinction," he said. "Nancy Pelosi and the ACLU would oppose this (resolution)."

A member of the audience moved that the convention suspend its rules to allow the "objectionable part" of Larsen's resolution to be stricken, retaining only the final paragraphs of the resolution, which condemn illegal immigration. Eventually party officials counted all delegates in attendance, only to discover that, with 299, they were about 30 short of a quorum and could take no action.

"I did ask people to stay so we could have this discussion," said Senator Curt Bramble, R-Provo, who chaired the convention. Bramble had earlier asked those gathered not to thwart a discussion on the resolution, saying it would be "good for the party."

In other business, those gathered voted against removing some of the party's leadership.
Letters supporting the re-election of party chairwoman Marian Monnahan and secretary Susan Bramble were mailed in envelopes bearing the party's return address, causing delegate Russell Sias to demand they be removed from office. A spokesperson for Alexander's Print Advantage, which handled the mailing, spoke at the convention, saying employees had mistaken put the address on the envelopes and the company took full responsibility for the snafu.

In a speech, Enid Greene, state Republican Party chair, announced to applause that she will remarry in a few months. Greene's first marriage came to an infamous end during her tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives when her husband, Joe Waldholtz, who was her campaign manager, was charged with embezzling. He eventually pled guilty to campaign fraud and other charges.

Greene said she was disappointed in BYU professors who protested Dick Cheney's visit to campus, calling them "self-appointed intellectuals."

"I'm not calling for BYU to fire them but if no one signs up for their classes ..." she said. "If they say the Vice President doesn't have anything to say we want to hear, I'm not interested in having my daughter learn from them."

All of the speakers praised those gathered. Lt. Governor Gary Herbert said Utah County Republicans are "guided by correct principles" and are the "best of the best" of the Republican Party.

Bramble assailed those who would called the local Republican Party "broken," saying the party was accountable and accomplishing good work, including the approval of school vouchers and granting UVSC university status.

Congressman Chris Cannon and Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff both received a standing ovation from some members of the audience. Cannon said Democrats have just as many corrupt party members as the Republicans but the media does not report Democratic ethics violations.
Shurtleff said that while Americans are divided on the war in Iraq, Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson should not refer to President Bush as a war criminal.

Caleb Warnock can be reached at 443-3263 or

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cwarnock@heraldextra.com.This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B1.

This brought to mind my viewing of the movie Borat. A couple of weeks ago Adi and I rented it and the whole time we were watching it he kept saying, "This isn't real. This is all staged."

He is so sweet and naive like that.

There were parts of the movie that made me laugh but most of it made me feel kind of sick. I know the people of Kazhakstan were upset, but I think the people of the United States might've been a tad more disturbed. The real freaks in that movie were everyday Americans reavealed in all of their obese, ignorant, rascist, self righteous fundamentalist Christian glory.

It freaked me out just like this article does.

I visited Salt Lake City a few years back and it's truly a beautiful city. I was unsettled the whole time. The people were unfailingly pleasant but it felt somewhat like being in a city full of animatronic people created by some kind of Mormon Disney overlord. There was a disconcerting homogeneity that was couched in bland, lemming like sameness. It kind of had that Stepford vibe.

I know that not all of the people living in Utah are like this. In fact it's definitely crossed my mind that this could be more of a Republican thing than a Mormon thing.

Or this could just be that when you add Mormon + Republican it equals Batshit Crazy.

2007-05-01T16:14:00.000-07:00

SINCE YOU ASKED...

I love good food, I'm a good cook and I adore fine dining therefore it's very difficult for me to go out and eat just anywhere. It's the absolute worst to go out to dinner and pay top dollar for food that I know damn well would've tasted better had I made it at home.

My favorite places to eat are pretty much holes in the wall where the food is absolutely wonderful and the ambience and "scene" are non-existent. Los Angeles is a great place for restaurants like this. All the different cultures afford me multiple opportunities to pursue tatalizing gustatory experiences.

I adore Jonathan Gold's book CounterIntelligence because not only does he point me to places that I would never go (often in neighborhoods where I'm frightened to park my car), but his writing is divine. He just won the Pullitzer! For FOOD writing! That's how good he is.

Because it is my prediliction to eat good food rather than to ponder the see and be scene, I had sort of forgotten that Los Angeles can also be a mecca of mediocrity when it comes to those restaurants that celebrities are lured into during the first weeks they're open so that there is lots of press and the impression is created that the restaurant is "hot". Dolce and Spider Club come to mind when I think of places like this - places where you pay lots of money to eat so-so food in room full of people who are would be excited to breathe the same air as Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, two young women who don't appear to eat so why anyone would follow their lead is beyond me.

There are also a lot of wonderful "foodie" restaurants in LA which are usually populated by old people. I don't know why this is true but it is. It's gotten to the point where if I don't see bald heads and bifocals when I walk through the door I seriously worry about what's coming out of the kitchen.

The other night I went out with a friend who wanted to go someplace where we might meet men. Ahem. The only men I've EVER met in a restaurant were bartenders or waiters, or on one occasion a busboy, but I figured it was better than a bar. I don't get my drink on so well anymore but I do eat dinner so this felt like a compromise. She could look for men and I could dine.

She mentioned The Lodge, a fairly new place in Beverly Hills. I really should've listened to that little intuitive voice in my head that said, "um, no," but I didn't. The place is modeled after a ski lodge and it is dark and cozy and comfy looking when you walk in. I think it used to be a coffee shop or pancake house and the lay out of the tables in the dining room pricked my memory of poassibly having a short stack there many, many years ago, but we ate in the bar. Because of the whole man meeting agenda.

As we walked through the mostly empty dining room I noted the low light glistening from a bald pate here and there and this made me optimistic. There was also a greasy pony tail sitting with a platinum blond that was pushing her food around on her plate, but she looked like a non-eater so I repressed the urge to flee to my favorite taco truck at Hoover and Pico.

I have to say that the wine list is quite good and although they were out of the Kunnin Zinfandel that I wanted, the Strange Syrah that I ended up getting was amazing. The food was not so good. I ordered the skirt steak and substituted sweet potato fries (my favorite). The meat was okay, a bit too seasoned without enough char to burn it off, but otherwise edible. The sweet potato fries on the other hand were a massive disappointment. They were bland! How is that possible? Where the steak had too much seasoning the fries had none. All I could taste was the oil they'd been fried in. I was sad.

My friend has been suffering from severe food allergies so she's pretty much eating steak or chicken with nothing on it and she'd ordered the Chicken Milanese. Now granted we didn't really know what that would be, but what showed up breaded and fried and it was perched like a hockey puck on the mountain of shiny sauteed spinach she'd requested instead of mashed potatoes.

Yuck.

We sent it back.

It's a good thing that our really nice waiter was also really patient.

Now you may be wondering about the man meeting. There were definitely people pouring into the bar. Mostly people who looked like they'd be tickled to hang out with Lindsey Lohan. Throughout our meal there was a tall, slender guy with dark hair who was lingering and looking, okay staring, at us. When my friend got up to go to the bathroom he made his move.

I've known my friend, we'll call her Jane, for years and I am used to the amount of attention she gets out in public. She's quite pretty and has a stunning body which motivates men to make utter asses out of themselves. She has always handled the attention with aplomb and often used to remind me of a cat playing with a mouse out in the garden. So this guy asks me if my friends name is Jane and I smile and tell him that it is.

He's actually very sweet without the usual predatory vibe that most of the men she attracts give off like radiant heat. He says he remembers her from about 10 years ago. I smile and nod. He asks how I enjoyed dinner and I tell him I am pretty much underwhelmed, but that I'm a food snob so don't mind me. He asks for more information like what I had and what didn't I like and I'm thinking that he is just killing time waiting for her to come back to the table.

Except that he kind of starts making excuses like, well you ate in the bar and ordered skirt steak and very slowly, excruciatingly slowly, I'm sad to say, it dawns on me that this guy may own the restaurant.

And of course he does.

I was completely mortified and I felt really bad for telling the truth although if I owned a restaurant I would want people to tell me what they really thought. He was actually very sweet about it and said he was glad I'd said something. He also said that if we came back and ate in the resaurant we would like the food better, but I'm thinking that's probably not so. At least not in my case because whoever is in the kitchen is cooking for both locations and I was not impressed with the foot that was being put in that food.

When Jane came back from the bathroom he was very sweet to her and seemed like an eminently meetable man because she doesn't really care what she eats.

2007-04-26T16:08:00.000-07:00

VIOLENT FLAMES!

I recently stumbled across a blog which has held my attention for more than 5 minutes. I find myself mostly so bored by what people write on their blogs. There are exceptions - UndercoverBlackman, ClizBiz, ShyOneLung, but these are people I know and I am endlessly interested in what they have to say on or off the net. The other people though? The one's that everyone else loves to read? I don't love so much.

There is SalamiTsunami who makes me laugh, but after reading him for the last couple years I don't feel that I know him much better now than when I started and I like for my relationships to go somewhere, even the one sided, voyeuristic ones that I have with complete strangers on the internet. Like Plain Layne - God I loved her. A lesbian living in Minnesota, working for some big corporation doing some kind of programming work. Turns out she was a figment of some guys imagination. He had a heart problem and couldn't get out much so he made up this person and gave her a blog and shared all of her drama and problems with the whole wide web and I was fascinated.

It actually figures that Plain Layne was not real because real people are for the most part kind of boring. I guess this makes sense because the people I find the most interesting are out in the world living their interestingness and do not have time to write about it everyday on the internet.

Except for the "MommyBloggers" a group of women that seem to have come under fire lately. I was reading Dooce back when she was pregnant and I really like the way she writes and her stories about growing up Mormon. The Mormons have always been a mystifying group of people to me. Kind of scary in that hillbilly way with all their strange beliefs and multi-wife households. Donny Osmond was a Mormon and so was Elliot this kid in my elementary school and from that limited exposure I gathered that along with having mysterious swimming pools in their church the Mormons also bred people with thick heads of hair and toothsome grins.

Anyway, back to the MommyBloggers. It was while reading a some article online, I think about Kathy somebody who didn't go to a speaking engagement because of threats that she'd received from other bloggers and they intereviewed Dooce, one of the most famous mommybloggers and she mentioned that someone was doing a parody of her website and how it upset her but she decided not to put energy into it and if I could fucking remember how to link stuff on here I would do so now.... but suffice to say that her mention of such a site piqued my interest and I did a search for Dooce parody and found....

ViolentAcres.com

Written by an anonymous young woman in her early 30s who was pretty pointedly pissing on the monthly newsletter that La dooce writes to her daughter Leta I was intrigued to the point where I spent probably an hour reading the site from the beginning. I get why people would be affronted by what V as she refers to herself (I pondered whether her name might be Veronica or Vanessa and then realized that it probably referenced V in Violent) writes. She doesn't hold back and she doesn't worry about being PC or whether or not people get their feelings hurt.

She is often hysterically funny as she wields her caustic keyboard. And she is often raising points that are true even if it makes me uncomfortable to read them. Her most salient point about the mommy bloggers, the idea that putting photos of your small child, and chronicles of their activities, out into the wild world of whackjobs known as the internet is pretty much abuse, strikes a chord with me because I am naturally paranoid and will not go into chat rooms because my assumption is that the person I am chatting with is not really Lance71, but actually some fat hairy naked guy named Bruce living in his mother's basement along with the bodies of hapless internet friends. It's not a far leap for me to imagine Bruce developing big, insane love for one of these juicy, adorable children and/or their mommies and come out of his cave to get them.... okay, end of tangent. What V objects to most, or at least this is what I get from her rants is that it's not fair to objectify your child for financial gain when they have no control over how this content will affect their lives in the future. I had never actually thought about that before - I mean it's one thing to post pictures on a photosharing site that's private so only people who know you can see - sort of a high tech photo album that Bubby Rina can look at across the country. It's another thing completely to throw your life open to just anyone who's cruising by.

The internet makes me nervous and I have never wanted to get feedback from this site for that reason. I don't write here so that people will read it and like me and give me positive affirmation that my life has meaning. I write here because I'm fucking lazy and I can type faster than I write with a pen on the page and this is basically a place to journal. I don't check stats because I don't know how and I think that's a good thing. I have no idea what Technorati is. My friends come here to find out what I'm doing because I've become so ADD or maybe it's just lazy, that talking on the phone and staying focused on a conversation is just too much effort.

The more I read V the more insight I got into why she has such strong feelings that she was motivated to write scathingly - I am talking major flames - about the mommies. She's had an interesting life with more than her share of the shit end of the stick. I think the reason I like her and continue to read her is that she doesn't define her present by her past experiences where one could say that she was a victim. Because any abused, neglected child is indeed a victim, and so many of these children continue to be victims throughout their lives. I know a lot of these people because my dad worked in social services and I saw the adult lives wrought from that kind of trauma and the cycle of abuse.

It takes a certain kind of strength and a dark sense of humor to survive and go on to thrive and create good things for yourself. Her post today addresses the mind of the abused child and boy did she hit that nail on the head. It is mind boggling how a horribly abused child will still go back to the their abuser and beg him or her to love them. I had no idea until I started working with the kids in the LA foster system as a volunteer. No one has any idea until they're looking at a kid covered in cigarette burns who runs into the arms of the mother that burned her when has come for a visit - a big fat woman in polyester stretch pants covered in food stains with a cigarette dangling from her lips.

So, although V makes me cringe with some of the things she writes, for example this sample from her entry titled Retard Genocide:

A group of friends and I were at a baseball game one afternoon. A Mother and her retarded kid squeezed into the bleacher we were sitting on and parked next to my friend. The retarded kid starting going through my friend’s purse and opening all her little make-up compacts while my friend hysterically tried to snatch them back. The Mother of the tard just blithely watched the game…apparently unaware of the havoc that was taking place.
“Oh my God, my lipstick!” she pleaded.
“She’s going to get boogers in your blush,” I warned.
“Oh God, that foundation cost me $140,” She cried.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I screamed into the crisp, cold afternoon air, “LADY! CONTROL YOUR TARD!”

I will continue to look forward to what she's got to say because agree with it or not she certainly expresses her opinion with flair and flames. I just really hope that she's not someone's fictional conceit, or some fat naked hairy guy named Bruce living in his mother's basement.

2007-04-23T17:46:00.000-07:00

SAY UNCLE

This weekend I finally watched Half Nelson a movie that I have wanted to see since it was in theaters. It probably would never have made it on my radar except that I happened to catch Ebert and Roeper one night when Kevin Smith was sitting in for Roger Ebert. Both Smith and Roeper raved about this film and I believe that it was Kevin Smith who stated that "this was what movie making was all about."

The fact that they both spoke, nay raved so rapturously about it that I wrote it down on my must see list. Of course I don't actually go to the movies that often because the whole sitting with the public in a dark room thing usually annoys me. When it came out on DVD I rented it THREE times and started watching it twice before I finally made it through.

What those guys didn't mention is that this movie is really hard to watch. Not because it's bad but because it's painful. Ryan Gosling richly deserved the Academy Award nomination - his performance was nothing short of amazing. It was like being that proverbial fly on the wall watching someone implode.

I've had friends who picked up the pipe and honestly, I haven't felt much compassion for them. They turned into drug addicts and stopped being the people that I loved. With this performance Ryan Gosling's Dan Dunne continued to be someone I cared about who didn't seem to care much about himself or his good heart or his fine mind and it broke my heart.

He has a connection with his student Drey, a smart 13 year old who's living largely on her own because her mom works all the time and her dad is MIA and after she catches him hitting the pipe in the girls bathroom (he's the basketball coach) the crack crutch starts to slip a bit. Everytime he looks at her he sees what she saw and it bums him out. This is compounded by the fact that her brother is doing time for selling rock and the neighborhood crack dealer, his dealer, is taking a personal interest in Drey.

He really likes this kid and wants her to be okay despite the fact that the odds are against her and he's not really one to talk. I really liked her too - Shareeka Epps is a revelation. I hope to see her working a lot more. She's got this face that is young and old at the same time and it says so much without her saying one word.

After I watched it I had that feeling in my chest that I get when I really want to cry - a tightness around the heart and pain behind my eyes. I had no idea how it was going to turn out for Dan and Drey but I very much wanted them to be okay. And I didn't believe that was really going to happen.

If you haven't seen Half Nelson you should see it. It's a fantastic film. But it's not a feel good experience. It will sit on you long after it's over.

2007-04-18T17:46:00.000-07:00

DUSTING UP

You know those cans of compressed air that kids have been huffing? And then dying? Well, I have 4 of these cans, bought on special on Staples, and they are my new favorite thing.

Not for huffing.

For dusting! And not just for dusting off my keyboard which is what it's designed for I suppose. I have discovered that this stuff will dust EVERYTHING!

I discovered this because they're doing work in the space over my office and every day I come in to find every surface covered with dust and wood chips. Rather than stress about it I just use my Dust-Off with the super spray action.

The floor is a fucking mess now, but tomorrow I may try dusting off the floor and shooting it all out the door. You know like when you use the hose to clean the sidewalk.

Fun!

(Clearly it's been a slow day)

2007-04-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

WHAT I DID THIS PAST WEEKEND

I have nothing to write about that's all that meaningful so I'll just do a rundown of the past weekend.

Friday night: Shabbat dinner at Mimi's. We had really good conversation about Don Imus and racism in the good ole U.S. of A. I found myself explaining to four Israelis what Jigaboo means and there was a lot of stumbling on the exact pronounciation of the word. Coon was easier. Apparently they don't have these kinds of denigrating words in Hebrew. And Mimi, who is a rabbi told me that Judaism teaches that you're not supposed to utter ugly words about another out loud, well maybe to your spouse, late at night when no one can hear you, but really not ever. To do so is to wound that person at the level of their soul. I ended up staying and talking so late that I missed going to see Marcia at the Acme Theater where her new show is up. I've got 4 more weeks of opportunity so I'm sure I'll be writing about it in the near future.

Saturday: Got up and cleaned the house for the housekeeper. She's not a lifter or a move so if I want her to clean under stuff I have to move it. Other than that she's really really good and this also prevents stuff from getting broken so it's all good. I LOVE my house right after she's gone. While she was cleaning I went on down to the Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix. It was all very spur of the moment so we bought the GA tickets - a first for me - and milled about. We went down on the motorcycle so as to get good parking and not have to deal with traffic. Even so we were still late and only got to watch the last 10 minutes of qualifying. Probably a good thing since the cars are really loud and I didn't have any earplugs. We did get to see the Le Mans race which was pretty cool. My favorite car was the Audi - very quiet, very sexy and very fast. The Penske Porsches won though, going 1 and 2. By 5pm it was freezing and windy and overcast so we went over to Matt and Leisa's to hang out before going to a party to benefit a nursery school for homeless kids called the Big Blue Ball. Matt and Leisa bundled their kids out the door to drop them off with a babysitter and accidentally ran over Adi's motorcycle. So much for resting. Other than scratches and a broken piece on the plastic thing on the front of the bike it's okay, but it's not perfect anymore and that's kind of sad. Oddly Matt was more upset than Adi but then I guess if I ran over the $20,000 bike I'd be pretty bummed too. We had to leave the party before it got really good because we were on the bike, and since I can't party when we're on the bike that was okay with me.

Sunday: Watched sports until Adi made me go for a walk in the afternoon. As we headed down to the beach we passed a bunch of girls with hula hoops. I have only limited skills with my hoop so we joined them on the bluff where they were retreating from the wind. I have to say hooping in gale force wind is much harder than hooping in the living room. It was fun though to do it with a whole bunch of people. People walking by would pick up the hoop and start hooping. And then put it down and run off laughing. There's something about a hula hoop. Early evening we headed over to a friend's artist reception for her show at the Pico Gallery. Met a guy who is working with the Hungarian government to bring Hungarian wines back to prominence. I had no idea that Hungary was where all the fine wines came from prior to the 20s. Apparently all the Louis were swilling the Hungarian vino. There's a tasting on the 28th and I'm invited so more to come on that for sure.

And that was pretty much that. Got my taxes back today and am off to file them. I have no idea why I wait until the last minute every year, but it seems to be my way.

Hope you're all filed and either getting some back of zeroing out (my personal goal).

2007-04-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

REMEMBER THE ONE ABOUT...

Writing yesterday about adventures in English as a second language and the ensuing multicultural experiences put me in mind of my first night in Jerusalem. It was about this time last year that I went to Israel with Adi. His mother had been been visiting for six weeks so we had gotten to know each other fairly well. She speaks five languages including English although it's not exactly fluent.

The first night we arrived Adi took off to his brother's house to make a surprise video for her 70th birthday party leaving me with his parents. He went under the guise of going to visit his brother in the hospital after his motorcycle accident which had occurred that afternoon so what could I say without coming off like a clingy needy whinger?

His father who will not fly due due to claustrophobia, I think, was quite upset that his wife had stayed away for so long. She had arranged for people to take care him but the original visit went from 4 weeks to six weeks due to complications with Adi's back surgery. At week 5 his father went into the hospital with pneumonia. I'm making this sound like Pops is an invalid, but he's not. He's a completely self sufficient man who's been infantalized by his wife and who missed her terribly while she was gone.

Have you noticed that there is a theme here? And that the theme is DRAMA!!!!

So Adi abandons me within 30 minutes of landing in the Holy homeland and his parents immediately begin screaming at each other. I laid there on the bed listening to his father ranting away in Hebrew over the sound of the call to prayer from the mosque down in the valley off the backyard and curled into a little ball. I got that he was screaming "I love you and I missed you terribly." Her responses to him sounded like a mommy calming down a truculent two year old. It's amazing how much you can pick up without knowing a word of the language. It's all subtext and so much became clear to me about the family dynamics and why Adi has chosen to live half way around the world from his whole entire family.

I was exhausted and it wasn't just the jet lag.

They're not my parents so I could find humor in the exchange because it was kind of like the Hebrew version of Archie and Edith, but it got really weird when we were in the car heading over to one of the brother's house for dinner. I was forced to sit in the front in the passenger seat, or death seat as it seemed to me with all the late braking, bringing us to a pause centimeters off the bumper of the car in front at every light and stop sign. I closed my eyes and surrendered to the possibility that my life might end in Israel, not by a suicide bombing, but in a burning car crash. Adi's mom sat in the backseat and the loud conversation continued and under all the vitriole I could hear the joyous notes of banter.

Then his mom said, "Tell her about the girls you raped after the war!"

I opened my eyes. Um, wha.....?

And he launches into this story about how after he was injured in the war of Independence (1948) he was sent to Austria for surgery on his hand. Afterwards he was stationed there during his recovery and he and his fellow soldiers met some girls who were daughters of SS officers, now war criminals. Since he and his friends were young and good looking these girls flocked to them and from what I gathered were easily had in a sexual way.

They would teach these girls how to say things in Hebrew, telling them that the words for "I'm a dirty whore" meant "Hi, how are you?" He talked about how one night, at a big party filled with soldiers and politicians, one of the girls showed up and yelled this greeting across the room. Adi's mom laughed merrily about this from the back seat. He looked at me and said, "I'm not proud about what we did but you must understand, many of us had lost our whole families to the Nazi's. We were angry."

I could not think of anything to say. We did not share a language to discuss it and quite frankly I was amazed that to her this casual disregard for these women equated to the word rape. I cannot quite wrap my head around the intentional cruelty of a schoolyard prank as a response to genocide, but then knowing the basic goodness of this man, and the sweetness of his soul under all that ranting and yelling, I guess I can.

When I think about it, anytime that someone hurts another person with the intention of devaluing and disrespecting their humanity it is an expression of the same energy that fuels hatred.

And Adi's dad gets this, which is why to him perhaps, the way he treated those women was like rape.

It all comes down to your intention and then you have to hope you can live with what you said or did to another human being.

2007-04-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

RE: DA BITCHES AND HOS

I just read that they fired Don Imus. Please God don't let him come to the West Coast because we've got enough mean talk from Tom Leykus (I have no idea how to spell his name but it's quite clear that he doesn't really like anyone). I'm wondering if they also fired the Executive Producer on Don's show because after all, he started it, and quite frankly his comments about the Jigaboos vs. the Wannabees were just as, if not more offensive, even if he did try to temper it by foisting it off as a Spike Lee reference.

But this is not really what I want to write about. It just put me in mind of something that's related - an experience that has stayed with me over the last few weeks which is absolutely related to the subject of bitches and hos.

Adi's younger brother (39 but still younger) was here visiting from Israel a few weeks back and we went up to Lake Tahoe. To get there we flew into Reno and then rented a car and drove up the mountain. At the airport we were standing in line for the rental car behind a guy who's buddy worked for Enterprise and was supposed to hook him up with a truck. He was there with his friend and two girls who wandered off while we waited on line.

He was a sweet man, late 20s early 30s wearing huge rings that led me to ask if he played football and indeed he had although some of them were bowl rings and some were from bowling championships. The bowling rings were as big as the football rings - bowl and bowling no size difference - who knew? So he gets up to the counter and his buddy basically threw him under the bus. Not only was there no truck waiting for him but there wasn't even a reservation. The car rental guy was able to wrangle him a full size car...

... which ended up being parked next to our car out in the airport rental car parking lot.

We had a ton of luggage and it took a while to get it all in, but not as long as it was going to take this guy and his friends who had so much luggage it was overflowing the trunk of that car. I climbed into the back seat with Adi's brother and sister-in-law while Adi finished packing our car and then tried to help our new friend with his packing puzzle.

At this point little bro spies the girls that are standing by that car, large curvaceous black women with elaborate hairdos and looooong curved fingernails, zipped into shiny tight lycra track suits and he got so excited you'd of thought it was Ofra Haza returned from the dead, but no, he starts pointing and YELLING, "The Beeetches! The Beetches!"

Frantically checking to make sure the windows were all the way up I tried to get him to stop by asking questions, like "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Stop yelling, PLEASE." He explained to me that these were the bitches and hos like on the videos and I explained in a high pitched emphatic whisper that they were not and that it wasn't at all cool to be screaming that word over and over. I pointed out that their friend who happened to be a defensive back might very well pull him out of our car, without opening the door, and make him apologize.

He was shocked that they might consider this hurtful because to him it was like he was seeing famous people, you know da bitches and hos featured in those videos on MTV. It did not occur to him that their feelings might be hurt because his cultural references about the United States are pretty much just what he sees on the media that's streamed around the world after being created here.

It was my own little Borat moment.

It's not that Israel is backward, it's just that you would never see these women in Jerusalem. Or even in Tel Aviv. Because of the language thing I didn't even want to try to explain it to him. Even if we spoke the same language I don't know if I could.

All week long I've been listening to people talk about this, some saying it's okay to talk about women, in particular black women, this way because it's the popular cultural parlance or because they have a first amendment right to do so, and others saying it's not okay ever and is indicative of an underlying racial hatred in our society.

Bottom line for me is this: It's mean and it's hurtful and it's not okay - even if you have no idea what you're saying. If you say it because you think you're being cool you should be prepared to suffer the consequences, there ain't nothin' cool about being mean.

2007-03-22T18:53:00.000-07:00

THE GRATEFUL LIST

I am currently vexed and so I decided to write a grateful list instead of pissing and moaning about what I am vexed about (ungrateful employees who should be kicked to curb rather than coddled, but anyway...)

I am grateful for my health (because I do not currently have health insurance).

I am grateful for my family and the gene pool from which springeth longevity (unless I got the genes for the cardiac disease, or the depression in which case I will welcome the cardiac disease).

I am grateful for Adi who offers me endless opportunities to practice flexibility (I don't mean that - he wishes, but I don't mean that).

I am grateful for my friends who are present and patient when I am not and who, like Heather, the cowboy Goddess, reappear after years and spend hours on the phone with me as if no time has passed.

I am grateful that my life is interesting - to me. I am very interested in me. In you too most likely but mostly it's all about me.

I am grateful for my ability to find humor in pretty much anything because otherwise I am certain that anger and bitterness would win out considering the current administration and the state of the world, and I truly do not want to get that permanently pinched look around my mouth.

I am grateful to be employed and have a roof over my head and food to eat.

I am grateful for the ability to move around and exercise (although I don't as much as I should).

I am grateful to feel like I'm kind of getting the hang of life - well for the last few days I've felt like that, despite the vexation, but check with me next week.

2007-03-01T12:35:00.000-08:00

SO LONG, FAREWELL

I haven't been keeping up with the Anna Nicole drama since I have always been somewhat disturbed by her whole life. The death of her son finally brought her into the the realm of human because who could imagine losing a child and not feel incredible pain?

I remember when she first appeared in Guess ads with her normal sized butt and massive boobs and amazing face. I thought she was some kind of Sophia Loren lucious Italian lady that the boys at Guess had found eating linguine at some sidwalk cafe in an Italian mountain town. And then when she started to appear briefly in commercials on TV I thought she was kind of like Anita Ekberg in the La Docle Vita, glamorous and bohemian and wild.

And then she started to really get some exposure and, and showing up on those entertainment "news" shows where I heard her speak and I was certain that she was an inbred cracker from the backwoods of some southern US state. She was from Mejia, TX so I wasn't that wrong.

What was abundantly clear by the time she had her show on E!, the Anna Nicole show, was that she had some serious problems. It seemed to be a combination of drugs, sycophanitc leeches and inbreeding, and it was pretty horrible to watch, especially since her involved her son. She barely seemed able to take care of herself, much less a teenage boy.

I know that those shows are edited for "entertainment," and that what got on the air was probably just the worst bits, but they were pretty bad and there was an abundance of them. It was pretty clear that her life was a train wreck beamed out on the E network and it wasn't going to have a happy ending.

And it hasn't had a happy ending.

But, the Anna obsession that has taken place in the media of late rattled lose a memory of a story - a pretty fucking great story - that involves Anna and a friend of mine.

Tom is a photographer. He used to be a model in the 80s, a very successful model who was and is classicly handsome. In the early 90s he decided to quite modeling and pursue photography. He is also an amazing photographer. This journey brought him to Playboy studios one day to drop off some of his work. As he was walking down the hall after meeting with a photographer he passed an open door and inside, at a dressing table, naked except for her robe, which was flung open, was Anna Nicole Smith.

She was there shooting one of a number of pictorials which appeared in that magazine. This particular pictorial involved a big white bathtub full of bubbles. So Tom glances in as he passes by, because what guy wouldn't, and she spots him.

"Him, I want him," she slurred to the producer of the shoot. "I want him to get in the bathtub with me."

Now this isn't Anna at her hugest, but she was pretty big at the time, and also pretty drunk and possibly on drugs. In other words she was quite a handful.

And she wanted Tom.

In the bath with her.

Naked.

The producer chases him down, conversations are had, and long story short he ended up in the Playboy pictorial in Anna Nicoles arms wearing nothing but a top hat.

I was of course interested to know if her whole slurry, slightly retarded thing was an act or what. He said that she was really too fucked up for him to be able to tell, but what really impressed him was that as out of it as she was, once the lights were on her and the camera was ready she was a total professional and turned "it" on. And whatever "it" was, she was plentifully possesed that that thing.

The camera loved her and she loved the camera.

When the light were turned off and the shoot was over she was practically incoherent and he ended up driving her home. I can't remember if he was asked to do this, or if he offered because he felt sorry for her. I do remember that he described her as one of the saddest people he'd ever met.

I will be glad when she's in the ground and I wish her happiness where ever she is because I don't think she ever really was happy here.

2007-02-14T18:08:00.000-08:00

DAY OF LOVE

I freaking hate Valentine's Day.

I hated it back in elementary school when we bought those boxes of 100 valentines wrapped in shiny red cellophane to fill out and pass around at school the next day. It was an opportunity for the mean girls to leave people out. It was less like the day of love and more like the day of leaving people out.

It's still kind of like that if you're single. Even if you're happy single the media barrage drives it into your head that somehow you're missing out if you don't have someone to buy you roses and AOL has helpfully provided a code so that you know what the colors mean if someone does.

Pity the man that buys his girlfriend yellow roses.

Whether I'm with someone or not I'm usually cranky on Valentine's Day. I don't like feeling manipulated and I find that even though I swear I'm not buying in and I don't care, I do. You know, like I say I don't want anything but then get upset when Adi doesn't do anything. And I really DON'T want anything because I'm super picky and we kind of don't have matching sensibilities in areas like this and I hate pretending that I really like the bottle of Jovan Musk for women that I know he got at Big Lots. And this is where he shops people. When we were at his parents house in Jersualem there were items there still sporting the Big Lots stickers that he had sent them as gifts.

I hate to say it but when it comes to gifts it's not the thought that counts with me.

I prefer that he let me know that he wants to spend time with me and then if it happens great. If not, at least I know he wanted to. And this is where it is the thought that counts.

I think this is probably true for most women. But maybe not. Women constantly surprise me.

Anyway, single or double I wish all my beloveds a Happy Valentines Day. I would love to be with you all eating chocolate bon bons and drinking scotch, but I have to go upstairs where Adi is lying prone, moaning because his back is out.

And even though he can barely walk or get himself on and off the john, and I definitely won't be getting any tonight, he wants to spend time with me.

2007-02-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

ZIP IT!

I will start by admitting that I am completely hormonal and PMS is in da house, but that said, it doesn't mean that I'm wrong about this. In fact, it's something that I've said before when I was completely sane and normal but perhaps because I wasn't shrieking it my sentiments did not have the same impact.

Tonight Adi and I went to have dinner. We went to Sushi King which is not the best, but it's very good. And very reasonably priced. And we had a really amazing sea bass in misoyaki sauce. Amazingly, melt in your mouth, praise Jesus good. The kind of good that makes you moan aloud.

But when the meal was over his comment was, "We paid almost $50 and other than the sea bass the sushi was so-so." Okay that's his opinion. He's wrong, but still he's entitled to his opinion.

What he's not entitled to is the relentless focus on the negative. Could he say, "that was the best piece of sea bass I ever had" ?????

NO!

Because although I love the guy he has the propensity to be the black cloud of death sometimes. Take this past weekend. We come back to my house on Saturday afternoon, my just cleaned by the housekeeper who costs me $75 which I cannot afford but treat myself to all the same about once every 5 weeks. You can really tell that your house has been cleaned when you wait that long (she says, accentuating the positive). His first words when he walks in the door is "Whew, the cat box stinks."

Now this might've been true, Molly's stomach has been upset and it's not a good smell, but he fucking ruined my experience of walking into my spotless, clean and sparkling house because he had to focus on this one negative thing that I remedied by cleaning the box and carrying the "smell" out to the trash.

This continued into Saturday night when we went out and I looked great and his first comment was that I might want to button my blouse one more button.

Part of this is due, I think to his belief that the world is waiting with bated breath for his approval - I don't know if this is an Israeli thing, although it does seem that most Israelis I know speak in a cadence that is either signifying approval or disgust - and part of it is that he honestly thinks the sharing of his opinion is benefitting me in some way.

Me? I have opinions to share all the time. Any of my friends would acknowledge that I am constantly sharing my opinion and indicating approval or lack thereof. And yes, I will often share with Adi, my opinion about stuff in his life, BUT I am sensitive to the fact that HE is EXTREMELY sensitive and I time the sharing of my opinion to those moments when he might best be able to hear me or at least be able to civilly let me know that now is not the time. And some of my opinions he just can't handle and I keep them to myself because in the big picture it's not that important that I share them if it's going to make him feel bad or bring him down.

He doesn't just spread his cloud of observational negativity over me either, no, he told our friend who is remodeling the place below that he thought he was insane to be spending $11,000 for his new kitchen that he was so excited about. And yes, this is probably true, but it's not his kitchen or his money and he freaking blighted this man's joy.

This rant is totally hormone fueled and truly he is a wonderful guy, a great friend and the kindest person you could ever meet. But tonight I completely lost it in the car coming home and told him that for the next 4 days he REALLY needs to only say the positive things out loud.

All the other thoughts, feelings and opinions?

He should fucking Zip It.

And what I know for sure is this: when I am able to more normally comport myself I am still going to think this would be a good thing.

I might even put it into practice myself.

2007-02-06T17:23:00.000-08:00

TELL ME A STORY

My friend Allison sent me a bunch of books on CD so that I could listen to them when I went up north last year. It's a fairly new thing for me the books on tape. I usually listen to music when I'm driving. Music that I've put together. My own play list soundtrack to whereever I'm going.

But I thought, since I would be traveling alone, that I would try the books on tape. (I know they're on CD but I also still refer to a band's new CD as their new album. I figure my friends now what I mean.)

I have to say I am completely addicted. The time goes by much more quickly and I am, for the most part, completely entertained if not engrossed. I mean I really prefer to read a book. I love reading, but being read to is not so bad. It brings back memories of being read to when I was a kid, without the lap to sit in.

I am for the most part pretty wrapped up in the storytelling, although I have to say that one of them (one my mom gave me) I couldn't listen to all the way through because the guy that wrote it was also reading it and I kept getting distracted by his vocal inflections and my mind would wander into wondering what his home life was like and did his nasal tones make his wife crazy, because that's one of those things that might not bother you at first, but after a few years could just make you snap one day...

See! Unless the reader is very good my mind goes off in crazy directions. Sometimes I'm amazed by my ability to think about stuff I need to do and listen with half my brain to the story and retain it. Of course other times I miss my off ramp and suddenly realize that I have no idea where I am. That's pretty weird.

My favorites so far are the Janet Evanovich, Stephanie Plum books, read by Lori Petty who does a really tremendous job. I'd read the books and I have to say that Lori pretty much had down the characters voices that I heard in my head while I was reading. Except for Ranger. I gave him a more basso voice without the Puerto Rican accent.

The one I'm listening to now, The Rule of Four, is pretty good as far as the reader goes. He's an actor too I think, although not one that I've ever heard of - he has theater guy hair in the photo on the box, so maybe he's from the stage. But in this case the story, the writing itself is not real tight and I find myself wondering if I would be skipping over stuff if I were actually reading it.

There are weaknesses that I might not notice so glaringly if I were reading (and skipping over stuff), like a character got killed about 15 chapters ago and there's really never been much mention of it since and this is one of the major plot points because it's supposed to tell us that the thesis that Paul is writing (about the Hypnerotomachia Pollipholi - I have no idea if I spelled that right and I forgot how to write the html to do links so if you want to see what the hell that is you will have to coyp and paste this link http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/HP/) is worth killing someone over. So I keep wondering what's going on with Bill's murder? Why is no one really mentioning it? This morning while I was sitting in traffic I realized that maybe only a day or two have passed since Bill was shot - it feels like freaking eons what with all the historical exposition into renaissance history and people like Savonarola and his bonfires.

That stuff is interesting to me and I would totally get on-line and find out more about it if I had time, but it's bogging down the story, and I feel like a little kid who is being read to and who forcibly turns pages when things get boring.

Why does life seem a lot easier for three year olds?

I don't know if I would finish this book if I were reading it. Lord knows I have more than a few unfinished books lying around right now. I like books on CD though and to date I have listend to all of them - except for nasal man's book - all the way to the end because what the heck, I'm getting where I'm going and it keeps me off the phone. Alos lately when I try to read I'm having to close one eye to get the words to come into focus and I fall almost immediately to sleep. I'm quite looking forward to the bunch more I have to get through.

I just hope that the readers don't have annoying voices. Don't you think that's something they should check before hiring them?

I'd love to find a so-so book about unicorns and rainbows and other happy thoughts that's read by someone with a really soothing voice. I could play it on my clock radio when I'm going to sleep at night. It would be a lot nicer than Leno.

2007-02-02T19:31:00.000-08:00

THE ARRRRRRGGHHHHH HEARD AROUND THE WORLD

Or at least across town...

I got a speeding ticket when I was driving back from my NoCal journey at the first of the year. It was stupid because I was on Kanan and everyone knows that Kanan is a speed trap. I certainly know it because I use that road to go from P.C.H. to the 101 a lot. You cannot miss the CHP sitting there like vultures.

Except I had to pee and I was running out of gas and I had been driving since 5 a.m. and it was now 10 a.m. I was also experiencing a dramatic relapse of the chest cold I'd had since Thanksgiving.

So I was cruising along at 70 in a 55 and I SAW the C.H.P. car facing me, the morning sun glinting off the radar gun pointed at me and it barely registered except for a dull, "Oh Fuck," and a huge sigh of resignation as he pulled out and made a U-turn to pull me over.

At the least the desparate need to pee disappeared.

Today marked 4 weeks since I got the ticket and I needed to call the court and find out about going to traffic school. I'm eligible because it's been about 10 years since my last ticket. The last time I had a ticket I got a notice in the mail with a court date and I showed up and asked for traffic school which I got and attended (and met a guy that I made out with when we went for a drink afterwards, but that's another story.) Now you can call and process your ticket over the phone. Or use the internet.

I wanted to speak with a person because I figured I could get them to give me traffic school over the phone. But to actually speak with a person on the phone requires 8 minutes of listening to recordings and punching stuff in. Today everytime I would get to the place where I might be able to talk to a person the phone would ring and I would have to hang up and take care of business and then start over.

This was because Adi had washn't answering his cell phone so his calls were ringing into the office. Normally this is totally fine, but today when I was on my fourth attempt to get through and the phone rang yet again and in frustration I answered it, shrieking, "(Name of the company), can I HELP you?" I wasn't just on the verge I was completely over the edge and thankfully the customer on the other end of the phone has a good sense of humor and laughed. Somewhat fearfully but it was still a laugh.

At this point I gave up on the phone route and decided to try the internet.

Big mistake.

The only thing I am entitled to do on the internet is request an extension or get a court date. The first court date they would give me was 3 days after the due date on my ticket. Because there was no human of whom I could ask questions I assumed that I would get in trouble for going in after my due date, and applied for an extension thinking that I would then go get a court date way before that date.

But no. The extension is to April 17th and the first court date they would give me was April 18th. What the fuck? So now this is going to drag on and it may be June before this is off my list of things to do.

Unless I can get through on that phone system on next week.

When I typed in all the information

2007-01-18T16:41:00.000-08:00

BACK IN THE SWING OF THINGS

I haven't written anything here in so long it took me 20 minutes to remember how to get back in to post. In the time that's passed since I last wrote here I have gained 10 pounds and started working full time for A. His company is growing in leaps and bounds and I am happy to be a part of it but I need to write in order to have some balance.

The work I do for him is tedious and, okay let's just be honest because I don't think he reads this, boring. Even the stuff that I enjoy at the end, e.g. getting the bank to give us lots of money, is a wrenching process that I abhor. Of course this is all good practice for me to learn about being an adult and dealing with money, something that I've pretty much actively avoided for years.

Which is why I've been walking around in stupid debt like a college student and quite frankly denial is a good way to end up with shopping cart in an alley somewhere in your 60s. So I'm doing my time and making friends with all the tedium (at least it is for me) that is dealing with finances.

I am not having enough fun though. I went from having a lot of fun to having not nearly enough fun. I think that's why I've gained the 10 pounds. Food is my only fun. A. is fun too, but working together and spending pretty much 24/7 together when we're both exhausted and overextended energy wise is more a blessing than a blast.

When I do have time for fun I find that the new fun is taking a nap. The idea of going to see live music is excellent in theory, but the reality is I can't stay awake past 9pm. Thank God for Tivo or I would be missing out on Grey's Anatomy which is also on the short list of "fun" things to do right now.

I do occasionally take the camera and go take pictures to post on Flickr.

Woohoo!

This year is going to be about getting some balance between work and fun and putting the writing back in the picture.

2006-06-16T17:54:00.000-07:00

FLEXIBLE...OR NOT

I have always contended that living with another person is a good thing because it's much harder to get set in your ways, curmudgeonly so to speak. Indeed, when I have lived with roommates my naturally controlling nature was subverted to my sweet considerate self who had to acknowledge that there were other people under the roof and sharing the rent who had a say in how life went in the house. I did pretty well with this as long as they were easily manipulated, er agreeable to my preferences, and for the most part they were because I like to live a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing life. I also owned all the furniture and appliances and dishes and art work.

There was this one time when I went away for a week and came home to find that my manic depressive roommate, the one with 5 years of sobriety in cocaine annonymous, had decided to redecorate the living room. She had a penchant for plastic flowers and also felt that pushing all the furniture against the walls was a way to create more space. Consequently when I came home, late at night on a Sunday, it was to a room that looked a lot like what I imagined rehab to look like - everything was oriented around the television set instead of the fireplace. As soon as she left the next day I "fixed" it and it actually looked better than it had when I left.

Outrage proved to be inspiring.

I've been living by myself for the last 7 years because I got into a great apartment that is perfect for one person. It has two bedrooms, but only one bathroom and so it's better for a single, or possibly a couple. I say possible because A. moved in with me back in February when he started his remodel and things have taken longer than he thought so we've been cohabitating at my place for the past four months. During this time I have become aware of how curmudgeonly I've become, or plainly speaking, what a weirdo I am.

We get along exceedingly well for two people who spend almost 24/7 togther but there have been times while he's been...visiting, that I thought I was going to lose it. Like when I came home and he'd re-organized my bedroom. Or when I get in bed at night after he's "made" the bed in the morning, only to find that the sheets are wadded up under the comforter. Seriously? I can't sleep unless the bed is neatly made and the blankets are put on in the proper order. Can you say OCD? I'm letting stuff go because I don't want to become one of those tight lipped ladies whose face gets more and more puckered with distaste. But some of his foibles could use a little examination as well.

He doesn't throw food away. Ever. There are cheese rinds in my refrigerator. They're sitting next to the container of juice leftover from the tomatoe and cucumber salad. There are no more tomatoes and cucumbers. Just juice. Maybe he's going to drink it. I don't know. When he takes a shower he leaves his underwear draped over the side of the tub. Each day there's a new pair sitting next to the pair from the day before. As I mentioned he insists on making the bed, but this is more of a covering of the covers wadded from a night of sleeping. I mean, why bother? He spends hours shopping on Ebay. I didn't really know how many hours until he moved in.

It's one thing to go stay at someone's house. It's another thing when their space is your space, or as I interpret it, my space is their space. This is why I am choosing to see the occasional annoyance or irritation as a gift. It's my opportunity to stretch and go with the flow.

Cuz, I'm not getting any younger and flexibility is something you've got to use.
Or lose.

2006-06-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY

My friend Nanette was one of the first serious music fans I ever met. She turned me on to Jackson Brown and Nils Lofgren and Rod Stewart. Not spandex pants Rod Stewart but post Jeff Beck, singing with the Faces Rod Stewart. She also had a major thing for Bruce Springsteen that did not translate for me although I thought he was a total babe. (Years later when he walked in on me taking at pee at a party that fact was confirmed, but I had no idea how short he was.)

I developed big, big love for Rod, as Nanette called him, when I would babysit for the people around the block who had the album referenced above and an extra large stash of marijuana that my friends and I would smoke as we listened to it over and over. Maggie May, Mandolin Wind, and his cover of Tim Hardin's Reason to Believe sung in an amazing soulfull voice that we just knew had the cutest british accent ever when he spoke.

We ignored the rumors involving gallons of semen and multitudes of cylindrical pant stuffing stories and pursued him relentlessly through the hills of Beverly. Yes, that's right. Nanette and I stalked Rod Stewart although back in those days it was still innocuously thought of as groupie love. Not that we were groupies because that would require a level of hotness that two freckle faced girls from the suburbs didn't have. This did not deter us because we really just wanted to see him. Like up close and personal.

Over the years we did see him although I don't think he saw us because we were always in the bushes with our cameras. I have lots of shots of blurs in the distance behind crisp, sharp pictures of emerald green leaves. We knew where he played soccer on Saturdays and we would pack a picnic and go hang out on the nearby lawn to watch the game in sidelong stares so that we wouldn't appear to be stalking.

In the early 90s when he was dating, I can't remember which blonde, I finally met the man. He was pushing 50 then, a fact that became very apparent as I moved drunkenly across the very posh bar at the top of our hotel in San Francisco. I'd had enough vodka to think that it would be a good idea to finally go and meet the man whom I'd adored throughout the years. The singer who sold out with Do Ya Think I'm Sexy in the 80s and broke my heart because I used to think he was really sexy, but he put on spandex pants and made a video, and it was more scary than sexy.

He was very kind and stopped to say hello as I went on and on and got really confused because he didn't look at all the way I thought he would. He had make up on for Christ's sake and fake blond hair and more hairspray than I've ever used. And even though I was clutching my camera because I'd thought that at last I'd get my picture and maybe even be in it, I didn't ask for one.

I'd rather keep the pictures in my mind from the Faces concert at Anaheim stadium where he rocked my world.

I'm posting pictures I do like at Flickr and you can check them out at http://flickr.com/photos/imontome/.

2006-06-09T12:54:00.000-07:00

GRADUAL-ATING

My nephew is graduating from high school today. A. and I are not going. I will miss seeing David walk across the stage, but I will not miss watching the 500 other kids in his class doing the same thing. When his sister Michelle graduated her mother started a tradition which I'm sure will be carried on for all the other kids to come. Everyone contributes a page for a book commemorating the journey thus far. Since I'm not the attending kind of person, not one who makes a point to go to homecoming games, etc. I don't really have memories to evoke so I try to dispense with useful advice. The stuff I wish someone had told me when I graduated from high school. Not that I would've paid attention, but you never know. If you keep it simple enough something might stick. When Michelle graduated and was heading to college I warned her in great detail to stay away from the evil credit card dealers that hang out in front of the bookstore and in the quad, offering the opportunity to dig a deep hole of debt to entering freshman. I also advised her to never leave the house without #30 sunscreen on. For David, whom doesn't seem to be as academically directed I offered some thoughts that he may or may not find useful. I'm hoping that some of it may come in handy, but mostly I just want him to know the last part.

The years after high school are often fraught with fucking up and the most important thing to remember is that you are loved.

No matter what.

June 2006

Dear David –

As you climb into the catapult that is graduation and prepare yourself to be launched into the world – wheeee! I wanted to wish you well and offer some words of wisdom from a little farther down the trail. The standard stuff still stands; credit cards continue to be the work of Satan and sunscreen is more important than you can know right now. Melanoma is not your friend, so use anything that’s a 30 or higher and pay cash. And floss everyday.

But there’s more.

Don’t be afraid to try something and fail. It’s how you succeed and also how you learn so it’s all good. Travel as much as you can to places you know nothing about and meet the people who live there. Don’t stay in your comfort zone because you can grow old and bored there before you know it. Move it or lose it. Learn to listen to your intuitive self and discern what’s true for you. Live in that truth everyday even if it makes you and those around you uncomfortable. Stop and ask yourself if you’re happy, if you’re not then figure out how to get there because life is way too short. Find your passions and pursue them passionately. These are the things you would do if no one told you, or paid you to do them. Be compassionate and kind to yourself and it will be easy to do so with others.

When it comes to love practice good personal hygiene and you will be ahead of the game. Your natural scent is always better than cologne, but if you must splash on the smell well, do so sparingly. Take responsibility for birth control unless you want to have children. Communication is key and if you can communicate well you can navigate through almost anything. That said there will be times when dealing with the love of your life where you’re just plain confused and/or scared – ask questions, it’s always a good way to go.

There’s all kinds of other stuff I could tell you, but I am trusting that you will learn for yourself as you go because that’s the best way. My wish for you is that you have as much fun and adventure in life as you possibly can and that you know you are loved and supported whatever you do and wherever you go.

2006-06-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?

It's starting to bother me that I don't have an Ipod. All my friends have them. They download music from Itunes and they make play lists and have all the cool adapter stuff. I was in the Apple store with Inbar when he was was here and he bought himself a nano. I was amazed at all the things you can plug an Ipod into to create home stereos, to play it in the car, to take it to the beach or to a party and share your music with others. There's an armband you can wear that it slides into.

There are lots and lots of accessories for this gadget and that really makes me want one.

The thing is I'm only just now figuring out how to work my cell phone and I can't really manage it while I'm walking and it's super dangerous if I try to use it while I'm driving. It takes all my attention to see what I'm doing and to press the right buttons. The Ipod challenges the same skillset as the cell phone and therefore carries with it the same risk of accident.

With each new generation these products get smaller and cooler and more gadgety. I totally missed out on the Playskool training toys for todays technology so until they make it so simple the toddler set can swing it I'm going to be listening to music on CD.

Or vinyl.

2006-06-05T17:22:00.000-07:00

CRASH LANDING

We got back from Israel a couple of weeks ago.

The day after we returned A. got violently ill. He though it was food poisoning. I did too until I got the same exact food poisoning complete with violent hurling and flaming muscles and the ass-id spackling of the toilet while puking into the trashcan. And then there was the crying and prayers for merciful death - that was A., I moaned and rocked myself like a catatonic mental patient.

This was after the grueling flight home; twelve hours from Tel Aviv to Toronto and then an hour and a half layover in "the room" where El Al places it's passengers, sort of a holding cell between flights, and the final leg which takes about five and half hours but it feels like forever, especially that last hour.

Our flight was scheduled to leave Tel Aviv at 1am on Sunday morning. We arrived with an hour and a half to spare, but A. had to return the rental car. As I sat in the airport with all of our luggage, tickets and passports, the time passed. At first I was kind of fascinated by the hordes of Hassidic Jews. It looked as though the entire cast of Fiddler on the Roof was shuttling luggage through Ben Gurion. Actually more like the cast of about 10 different productions of Fiddler. There were just tons of them everywhere. And they get very miffed when you stare at them which is strange considering that they're wearing knickers and white stockings and shiny bathrobes and fur hats. What else are people going to do but stare.

Adi finally showed up after about an hour and 20 minutes and El Al doesn't look very kindly on passenger who show up when the plane is boarding, out of breath and spewing excuses about the rental car. He had to drive to a completely different terminal to return the damn thing and then shuttle back to our terminal and Ben Gurion has about 30 miles of road circling it so it was lucky he made it back when he did. After some pretty intense grilling we were allowed to put our luggage through the x-ray machine and then get our boarding passes whereupon it was discovered that they'd given our window aisle seats away. We were provided with an agent to walk us through security and someone came up in a special elevator to take our luggage directly to the plane. When we arrived at the gate A. everyone was on the plane but us and A. started throwing a fit about our seats not being held. I just wanted to get on so I plopped down next to this very sweet boy who was on his way to LA for a vacation before he started his military service. He and I got to talking and he offered to give A. his seat so we were able to sit together. This didn't necessarily make the flight more comfortable, it was 12 hours in coach after all, but at least we could lean against one another.

We landed in Toronto at a tad after dawn. As the sun's first rays gleamed on the wings of the plane the many Hasids among us began praying and davening in their seats. How are you not supposed to look at this? It's not something you see everyday or even on the LA to London flights. As soon as we land A. is all over the El Al employees at the Toronto terminal. He wants to sit in our original seats and he isn't going to stop until they give us those damn seats. I on the other hand have noticed that a group of Orthodox Jews are starting prayer service in the corner. These are regular looking guys who've pulled out their prayer shawls and the teeny, tiny top hats that they wear at a jaunty angle on the front of their heads, attached with straps that wrap all the way down the arm. Kind of like bondage gear. I move closer to watch as they bob in prayer, chanting aloud and facing the wall. I ask A. what the teeny tiny top hat is for and he tells me that it allows God a direct line through their foreheads and into their brains.

I believe him for like two minutes.

I very much want to take pictures of these guys, but I got in so much trouble taking pictures of the Hassidics in Jersualem I'm afraid that they'll yell at me too. And I will have a long ride home with them so I don't want them hating on me. I actually aooreciate all the praying by the Fiddler crew and by these guys too. When you're flying on a plane, up at 35,000 feet, you can never have too much prayer.

A. made a huge scene with the El Al people and I left him at the gate to go the the seat that they assigned me. They found two seats together in the center section for us and, note to self, when flying in the 2-3-2 configuration with another person ask for seats in the center section, aisle and aisle, at the rear of the plane. Odds are you'll get the whole three seats to yourselves. A. wore down the El Al agent and got himself upgraded to first class which serves me right for leaving him, but I did get both of our seats for just me and slept for a good three hours. He roamed the plane because he doesn't like to sit without me, and I do believe it turned out that there was no room for him up there.

When we landed we blew through customs and our bags were the first ones off the plane. They were freezing cold as if they didn't actually make it into the luggage compartment, but were strapped to the outside of the plane. I didn't really care because our luggage came down the conveyor and then they shut it off leaving everyone else to stand there for who knows how long while we jumped into a cab and got home by 11:00am.

I managed to stay up until 8pm that night and woke up on Monday at 6am raring to go without a bit of jet lag. Yeah! A. was puking by 2:30 and moaning and crying all night. I took care of him and he was just starting to feel better when I crashed. He wasn't quite well enough to take care of me although he did totter out to the kitchen to get me some ice chips, but it was hell for 24 hours and as we laid there in agony he looked at me and said, "it's against the rules for you to get sick at the same time as me - who's going to take care of me?"

Oh puhlease.

The jet lag came on with the virus and neither one of us felt well or human until after Memorial Day. I spoke with A.'s brother at the end of last week and he told me that his little boy had a horrible stomach virus the week after we left so we probably got it from him.

And gave it to all those people on the plane with us.

I certainly hope their prayers included good health and no airborne diseases.

2006-05-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

LIVING ON THE EDGE
(I wrote this two days ago but was unable to post because I couldn't get on the internet)

We landed at Ben Gurion Friday about 4pm. A. went to get the rental car and his mom worried that his father who'd insisted that he was coming to get her had not shown up. She made a phone call and was told that Yigal would not be coming because Yinon, the third son, could not drive him. It was only when we arrived at her house in Jersalem that we learned that Yinon had had a motorcycle accident and had to go to the hopspital.

Shabbat dinner was to be at Yinon's house and A. left early to go see his brother in the hospital, leaving me alone at his parents house to shower and come later. His parents, who had not seen each other for six weeks alternately screamed in what sounded like an intense spat and then laughed and kissed. Behira had left him for six weeks to come to be with A. when he had surgery. She had thought that she would help him get his house in order after the remodeling was completed but it got held up and was weeks behind so she stayed at my house the entire six weeks of her visit.

This was frustrating for her and I surrendered my kitchen to her so that she could vent her frustration by cooking. The night before we left she stayed up all night cooking tons of food to put in the freezer. I made A. plug the refrigerator in at his house even though it sits in the middle of his living room, because I have no more room in mine. My plan to lose 10 pounds in the six weeks before we left went up in sizzling oil as Behira cooks everything in that sacred sauce. I was raised in home where a teaspoon of butter was used for browning and everything else was steamed or baked. Thus I was enfattened by the oil soaked chickens and various other delicacies.

To turn down her food would have been to turn down her love and she was already disappointed in the way her trip was going. I liked her so much that I couldn't bring myself to compound it. Despite our language barrier we understood each other perfectly and developed a fast friendship, which is a good thing considering that she and I were roommates for a month and a half.

And now I am a guest in her home and she continues to care for me like a baby. Although she promised that after two days I would be allowed to do things for myself. It's amazing to me that A. knows how to do his own laundry and cook his own food. I understand him better through knowing his mother and watching their dynamic. He adores her and loves being loved by her but even he feels smothered sometimes.

She lives for her family and they adore her completely. When we arrived to his brother's house on Friday there were signs of welcome home and singing when she walked through the door. A. had left early to make a movie which they will present to her next weekend when we are at the Sea of Galillee to celebrate her 70th birthday which happened while she was in California. Yinon's wife Dorit, had worked all day to make a feast which brought to mind those celebratory meals described in historical novels from biblical times.

I had sated myself thoroughly on fish and bread with babganoush and various other kinds of middle eastern dips that I usually buy at Erewhon when they informed me that I had only eaten the first course and there was more to come. I thought they were kidding, but they weren't. There were three kinds of chicken, a beef dish with Indian spices and two kinds of salad. The platters kept coming but I was too full to keep eating.

The children chanted my name over and over and the only boy, Eyal who will be nine in August and is just learning English made a deal with me that he will help me with my Hebrew if I help him with his English. He's already doing much better than I am. His little sister knows how to say, "What time is it?" and she danced around me singing the phrase over and over until I told her it was time to party. She repeated after me although she had no idea what she was saying. It will serve her well one day if she ever comes to America.

I was jet lagged and disoriented but very comfortable with A.'s family who knew all about me from Behira's reports and what they'd glimpsed of me on Skype. I knew of them from his stories and pictures and so it was more like a reunion than a first meeting which was good because I was still not all the way arrived and they forgave my disconnection the way strangers might not. We were the last to leave and I slept like a log. Waking yesterday at 11am, only to go back to sleep.

We had breakfast at about 1pm which conisisted of the entire contents of the refrigerator and featured no less than three types of fish in oil. The kind of fish that smells like fish. This was consumed with about two loaves of bread and eggs and salad made from tomatoes, cucumbers and onions, dressed in lemon juice, salt and pepper and of course, oil. I love this salad and would happily consume it at every meal. I could live off the good bread, babaganoush and this salad with a little liverwurst spread, but they expect me to eat much more to indicate that I am happy.

And I am, but I am also full. Really, really full.

In the afternoon we went to drop off the energy drinks and body cream that we carted from the states to a friend's mother. She has been ill and lives in a senior citizen home that is located in a tower not unlike the one's you'd find in the states, except here all the helpers are Thai as opposed to Latino. Devorah is a very interesting woman, born in London and raised by a Zionist father she came to Israel in 1948, six months after Independence and she met nad married her husband and raised her family here. Her British accent is still so precise I could have been sitting in London visiting with her rather than perched on a hill in Jerusalem.

Driving home from the visit I got to see more of Jerusalem which is so big. The city has grown exponentially in the last 15 years, flowing out from the old city toward the territories where the conflict never dies down. Yigal took me out to the back garden last night and showed me the hill across the valley, maybe one half mile from where I stood, called Mount Gilo where Inbar, A's oldest brother had rented a house at one time. I could see a line of bright lights which shown out from the perimeter marking the border of this place where Jews live under threat of violence daily. It was only six months ago that the Palestinians were firing missiles toward the south side of A's parents neighborhood and the helicoptors hovered over their backyard returning missile fire.

My anxiety level went up as he pointed out that Arabs live in the valley between Mount Gilo and their neighborhood of Gilo, surrounding the Christian monastary which I could identify by the one white light that shown in the darkness. The Arabs here have a history of randomly shooting at Jews much like the drivebys that occur in south central. Only here the randomness is much scarier. People are always aware of the danger and the middle east conflict has become very real for me, as opposed to some abstract concept that happens "over there." In this reality A's parents live on the edge of the West Bank and the conflict happens in their backyard.

The whole city of Jerfusalem is built of a light colored stone and most of the housing is high rise although when you drive through it, you can see where the Arabs live and how haphazard it appears in comparison to the Jewish neighborhoods. They are right next to each other and the people mix despite their differences, but you don't ever forget the differences. A and I went out last night and he took me to Cinemateque, a theater complex where they host film festivals, and where there is a cafe from which you can see the wall of the old city and the Tower of David. The cigarette smoke was stifling so we went to the Begin Center and sat on the open balconey which was even higher with a better view.

The night was warm and as we relaxed I marveled that people had lived here thousands of years ago and he said the he would blow it all up for a chance to live here in peace. "You can't fight over everything new," he said and it was only then that he revealed some of the level of anxiety that he has over the fact that his family lives here and the risk that is inherent in that. This is a beautiful country and so many of the people who are here were affected by the holocaust so the opportunity to live here is something that is cherished and worth the risk, but still....

Before we could get too heavy the waitress arrived with snacks and my wine and promptly dumped it all over me. I was drenched from head to toe in red wine and my pristine white sweater was splotched with purple. Thankfully I had on a couple layers, but unfortunately that was one of the only warm things I brought with me. It's soaking right now, but I'm thinking I'm going to have to go shopping while we're here.

Despite my dampness we went out to a nightclub and met his brother. I marvel at how attractive Israeli's are in general and how, there are no fat people here. The women are not anorexically thin like they are at home, but have normal bodies and except for the fact that it seems like everyone smokes there's abundant health here. It reminds me a lot of California in 1975 before it became fashionable to have inflated breasts and to wear a size zero. Back in the days when kids hung out at night in the parks in groups and couples and there was an innocent anticipation of longer days and warmer nights.

Tomorrow we are going to see his oldest brother Inbar at Hadassah hospital where he works as a doctor (making about $3000 a month) and then we will go to the Ahravat in the Negev where his little brother Amit works as an enginner, and then to the Dead Sea and Masada. A. doesn't care so much about going but will take me as these the things I am most interested in. I know that most people come to Jerusalem to see the Holy sites, but I am more interested in seeing the country as it is today.

On Wednesday I will go to the wailing wall with Rabbi Mimi and hopefully I can get to the flea market to do a little shopping. Thursday we leave for the north and the Sea of Galillee and I will write as much as I can between now and then.

Right now it's time to go eat.

2006-04-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

PASSPORT PLEASE

A. is taking me to Israel at the end of April for two weeks. It's my birthday present. I'm quite excited although a tad nervous because in addition to being the Holyland, it's also a place where people blow themselves up on buses and in malls and on crowded streets. Still if you're going to visit the middle east I think it's best to go with someone who speaks the language.

His mom is currently staying with me because he thought he'd be done remodeling his place before she got here. He wasn't. So she's been cooking up a storm and loading my refrigerator with more food than it's ever seen. Food that's been fried in oil, an activity that's never before taken place in my house because my mom didn't use oil, hell she barely used butter. I was raised with Pam, the no stick spray, which also contains no calories. Oil has a lot of calories, all from fat, and they get sucked up into the fried food making it oh so tasty and of course, fattening.

So much for my plan to lose 10 pounds before we leave.

As I write this she's at home cleaning my house. I would imagine that my house will never have been so clean. I could choose to feel intruded upon I suppose, but I don't. I'm so damn glad she's there. A. had surgery last week on Thursday. It was back surgery that had been billed as minimally invasive, to remove two large herniations that were protruding into his spinal cord and impinging on a nerve. Althoug he was able to get up and walk around and come home after surgery he's one of those people who won't take pain medication. He said, "I need to feel the pain to process this experience." Seriously, he said that. So I took the pain medication because it's no fun to be around someone who's in a lot of pain. It's painful.

He also got a complication wherein the space that was occupied by the herniation was next occupied by air and this little bubble created a brain splitting headache that wouldn't go away until we went back to the doc on Monday and he fixed it using a looooong needle. I'm really glad I wasn't in the room to watch that. I would've needed some more medication.

So with new roommates (Adi, his mom and for one week his brother) and the drama around the surgery, I kind of forgot to renew my passport. I could've renewed it by mail if I'd taken care of it back in January, but I didn't know I'd be needing it so it expired and I had to go to a Passport Acceptance office with a new application and my old passport.

I got new pictures taken. Twice. The first set I looked insane and I carried a drivers license with one of those photos on it for too long, your passport is fifteen years so I wanted a pretty picture. I chose a lovely blue sweater for the next photos so that my eyes would be blue and the pictures came out good enough that I could live with them on this official document. Except that when I went to the Passport Acceptance office today, with no time to spare, I was informed that the background was too pink. It needs to be white. I tried to talk the officer into seeing how it wasn't really pink, more of a blush which is actually a shade of white and I should know because I just spent a serious amount of time with one of those color chip bricks picking out paint for A.'s kitchen, but she shook her head emphatically and told me NO.

I was too tired to fight with her. A. hasn't been sleeping very well and the last two nights I averaged about four hours, so I submitted to having my photo taken in the back room of the post office. The sign on the mirror had the Erma Bombeck quote on it that says something like, If you look good in your passport photo, you're not sane enough to travel.

All I know is that my passport photo? It's pretty much the exact picture of what I'm going to look like after the twenty hour flight to Tel Aviv.

I'm trying to see this as a good thing since I'm traveling to a country where that stuff really matters.

2006-02-24T09:49:00.000-08:00

SHALOM! YOU'VE BEEN SERVED

I've been working full time for A which is a blessing because the unemployment ran out. It's also hard because I find myself doing things that I would never do. Never. Like last night when I served a rabbi a subpoena. At a board meeting at the temple.

Being a nice Jewish boy A. did work at this temple back in August. The lights were out of code in the sanctuary and to prevent fire they needed to replace them. They actually needed a lot more than that and A. gave them a very good price to do the work. He went and met with the Rabbi and the Vice President of the board of trustees in July and they walked through with Javier the handyman and discussed all that needed to be done. Then a proposal was written and signed by a representative of the temple and the work was performed.

The bill was sent and they didn't pay. We, okay I, harangued and harassed and finally they coughed up about $7,000, which is $2,100 short of what they owe. This is not the first time this has happened. There was a persian guy who didn't pay $4,000 of his bill because he didn't feel like it. I could so totally veer into ugly stereotypes right about now about money and doing business, but I won't. Some of you are already thinking it anyway.

After talking to the money guy at the temple who said that they didn't feel like paying because no one authorized the work, which is a total lie, A. decided to go to small claims to get them to pay. So guess who is doing all the filing and the paperwork, etc. etc. Uh-huh. Me. The small claims thing? It's a big hassle, but I don't mind so much because I think they should be made to pay. I didn't realize however, that A. planned on subpoening the rabbi's ass into court. And the VP of the board of trustees. So not only am I having to do all the paperwork, but he tells me that I'm going to serve the papers on these guys at the monthly board meeting.

This was not on my list of things that I want to do. A blow job? Sure. Serving subpoenas? Ahhhh man, do I have to? It's only because I like A. so much that I found myself standing in the doorway of a huge room last night, moistly clutching two envelopes. The meeting was in full swing and there were about 25 people sitting around tables that had been placed in a circle. Lucky for me they all had name plates sitting in front of them, except for the rabbi, and him I recognized from his picture on the website.

A chunky woman with long brown hair atop which perched a crocheted yamulke was earnestly talking about "what the Torah teaches," and while my presence definitely created a distraction she soldiered on as I stood there waiting for her to take a breath. I spotted the rabbi and stared at him with one raised eyebrow, thinking to myself, "does the Torah teach that you don't have to pay your bills if you don't feel like it? Hmmmm?" He got up and moved quickly toward me. "Can I help you?" he asked. "Are you Rabbi K?" He didn't answer, but I knew it was him. "Are you Rabbi K," I persisted. He nodded. I handed him the envelope and said, "this is for you." I moved into the room and made my way around the table toward the board member with the correct name plate in front of him. All eyes were riveted on me, not the woman who was still earnestly talking about the Torah, and I apologized as I passed her, "I'm so sorry this will only take a moment." I stood in front of the man and asked if he was C.D. he nodded and I handed him the envelope, "This is for you." I had to resist the urge to say, "Gentlemen you've been served," but at this point I was feeling so bad for the lady in the yamulke I just wanted to get out of there.

As I moved quickly toward the door one of the board members asked, "What is it?" and another said, "did you get served?" I passed the rabbi walking back into the room having looked at his subpoena and he nodded and smiled. I sped past and I heard someone say, well you picked a good place to do it.

Maybe so, but it still sucked.

And I hope I don't have to see them ever again.

2006-01-25T18:05:00.000-08:00

BY THE BED

I'm reading several books right now. They're stacked by my bed and under the pillows. I like to read more than one book so that I can switch when I get bored, or if the particular story or subject doesn't strike my fancy. I usually am able to finish a book in a week or so, even when I'm reading like five of them. Since this summer though I haven't been able to complete anything. At least that's what it feels like. This is a bad sign because the same thing applies to my writing. I've got lots of things started and I write on them all, but I'm not finishing. I'm wondering if I start finishing the books will I start finishing the stories/scripts, etc?

Here is, in no particular order, the book that I'm reading:

Bird by Bird by Anne LaMott. This is a book about writing. I love Anne LaMotte, but I can't remember if there's an "e" on the end of her name or not. Anyway, I first discovered her on Salon.com and then my friend Peggy gave me her book about faith called "Traveling Mercies." Excellent book. I love her voice. I want to go find her and hang out with her and be her best friend. She's one of those people who has a wonderful way of seeing the world that's all her own and I would imagine that she is considered eccentric by many. This book is about writing and how hard it is to finish stuff and what helps to do that. I don't think I've read enough of it for the advice to sink in yet. I do stare at the blank screen a lot.

Vamped - I can't remember who wrote this, but darling Alli sent this to me and I am totally enjoying it. I can't wait to pass it on to Lady Euthanasia, my friend who writes erotic horror. This book will appeal to her sense of humor and dark sensibilities. An interesting story about a vampire in a world where everybody's been vamped. He finds a kid who's still human and decides he wants to be a daddy. This is more challenging than just taking on a six year old. It's a six year old who is considered fresh meat in the literal sense. Can you imagine having a six year old being an obnoxious six year old and every instinct you have wants to eat them? You know there are days where you'd have to put yourself on time out so you don't kill them. I know parents who aren't vampires who feel like that sometimes.

My Grandfather's Blessing - this book is written by a cancer doctor whose grandpa was a rabbi who studied the kabbalah. It's all about the blessing that are around us everyday. This book makes me cry everytime I read it. But in a good way.

On Writing by Stephen King - the master of horror writes about the horror of writer's block, bad grammer and cliches. He too has a distinctive voice that makes you feel like you're having a conversation with him. He has an awareness of his talent as a writer and the fact that in this world a naturally great writer is a rare thing to find. The rest of us work hard to be good.

A Million Little Pieces - Okay, I started reading this book before the great revelation about James Frey's embellishing. I was annoyed by his constant reference to himself as a "drug addict and criminal" before it was revealed that he wasn't that big a criminal. Of course, having dated my share of drug addicts I understand the level of narcissism and delusional thinking that goes along with that type of personality. I don't think that he embellished that bit about the root canal with no novocaine. I can't stand the way he writes. I hate the Constant, Seemingly Random Capitalizing of certain letters. What is up with that?

I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe - I'm a big TW fan and I liked this book because I could see it as a film. As usual he creates characters that are flawed and memorable and easy to love and hate at the same time.

And that's all I can remember right now. I know there's more, but I'm fried. And that's why I probably won't read tonight.

2006-01-24T17:59:00.000-08:00

MERCY KILLING

I meant to write about this last week, or whenever it was that the state of California killed that old man in the wheelchair. You know, the guy who was like 70 something and blind and immobile? He was, apparently, a very bad man who was sent to prison for murdering some folks and then, once he got there, he ordered a couple more hits and some more people died. That's the gist of it anyway. I didn't really pay that much attention because I was so fascinated by the mummified image of him that was broadcast on the news and published in the paper during the appeal process.

All I could think about was how he looked like he was already dead. I also pondered how bad it would suck to be him. Not because of the whole looming execution issue, but more about the being in prison AND old AND blind AND wheelchair bound. I mean seriously! No matter how badass you are it seems like it would be hard to survive in that environment in that condition. Or even one of those conditions. Old. Blind. Stuck in a chair. Hard to defend yourself against prison rape.

I'm completely and totally against the death penalty. The idea of it makes me physically ill. I have no problem with the idea of hunting someone down and shooting them vigilante style, but strapping them to a table and killing them? It reminds me of the hunting clubs that Dick Cheney and his pals go to. The ones where they release a bunch of birds into a cage and then the VP and his buddies shoot them with automatic rifles. It's so calculated and cold. I don't really get it as a punishment or a version of gun sport.

I do however support euthanasia, or mercy killing, just not in this case. No. To me it seems like in this case the proper punishment would've been to let that bad man sit there getting older in his wheelchair, unable to see anything, helpless to the whims of his fellow prisoners. It seems like universal justice was being meted out as I would imagine incontinence was right around the corner.

I'm not sure what exactly the point of the death penalty is when it's a reprieve from a life worse than death.

2006-01-19T17:42:00.000-08:00

IT'S A TEST

This week when we remembered Martin I couldn't help but think about those people in my life who are oppotunities to practice compassion and tolerance. I usually think of them as idiots and assholes who make me crazy, but when I see the example set by MLK I consciously work to see them all as opportunities to practice shifting my perspective from one that is negative and shrill to one that is peaceful and loving.

This particular week there was an abundance of opportunities amplified by the raging hormones that accompanied the insanity that is PMS. It's like the universe is giving me a great big test to see if I can be like Jesus or will I be pushed to the dark side where my head spins like Linda Blair in the exorcist as I spew obscenities.

There's the guy that A. is doing work for who flat out said to him that he doesn't want him to make a profit and continues to call and make demands. He is someone involved in the huge multimillion dollar project that A. is working on, so he doesn't want to burn a bridge and he's being all diplomatic. I have to breathe deeply when he calls so as not to blow a vein.

There's the guy in the massively huge truck that he crammed into a "compact" parking place in Trader Joe's parking lot last night, who blasted his horn at me when I finally backed out of my parking space after waiting five minutes for him to finish. Like it's my fault that he couldn't dock his space shuttle all the way in the spot. Whatever.

And there's the homeless guy who stands on the island at Fairfax and Venice holding a sign that says that he's HOMELESS, HAS A WIFE AND A SON, NEEDS HELP. He stands right next to the left hand turn lane and stares at people accusingly as he moves his hand over the sign, pointing out each line, like we can't read. For some reason I always feel guilty if I don't give him anything. I'm being guilted by a homeless guy who is probably running a scam and makes more money than I do with his pointing routine. I've finally gotten to the point where I won't even make eye contact with him any more and that makes me feel horrible. I've gotten to where I won't make the left turn there anymore if I see him. I can't stand that a homeless guy has this kind of control over me. And if anyone is an opportunity to practice compassion it should be a homeless guy. Right? When I see him I always think about how many people in this country are on the precipice of homelessness.

And that leads me to the biggest opportunity to practice compassion that there is... This president and the members of his administration.

And that's a level of practice I'll have to leave until next week when the hormone level has leveled out again. Because it's a test. A big test and this week I just can't take it. It's all I can do not run over the homeless guy on the divider.

2006-01-09T17:55:00.000-08:00

BLAHBEHDYBLAHBLAH

Okay so this is me writing when I have nothing to write about which isn't exactly true because I had an inspired thought earlier today when I woke up at 5:39am. I should've gotten up and written it then, but it was cold and dark and I was kind of hoping I'd go back to sleep.

But I didn't.

I did work out and I have eaten very South Beachish today so I'm getting to experience with all kinds of intensity what a big fat emotional eater I am as all I want to do is go get an In'N'Out burger right now. I'm pretty angsty with the whole lack of employment thing.

My friend Leisa sent me some interesting things from Craigslist that I wil follow up on because what the hell, you know? My friend Sheila suggested temp work, and that is always an option, but that's kind of what I'm doing for A. right now with a lot more flexibility. His office manager is to the point of pregnancy where her bulk blocks the sun when she enters the doorway. All I can think when I look at her is that it's going to hurt like hell when it comes time to birth that baby.

I'm getting the hang of doing the work here which just goes to show that my learning curve is about 2 weeks. That's how long I worked for him while she went home to Cuba to visit her family. Of course that doesn't mean that I'm loving it, but it is a lot more fun when you can make out with your boss and go take naps in his bed at lunchtime.

2006-01-05T15:28:00.000-08:00

THE GAME

Went to R's house to watch the game and oh what a game it was. Probably one of the best college games I've ever seen. I don't really watch a lot of college games so it's not hard to be one of the best. The two I actually attended were memorable because one of them, USC v. Stanford was so boring, e.g. USC was getting beat through almost the whole game, my friend Kami and I decided to go take a walk in the park around the stadium. We left 20 minutes early and in that time USC scored three touchdowns, the final touchdown was in the last 3 seconds. It was probably one of the most exciting games that anyone who was there had seen. Kami and I were out on the sidewalk listening to everyone scream.

Oh well.

The other memorable game was USC v. Notre Dame. I attended with a bunch of Notre Dame fans. We went on a bus. It rained. It rained really hard, like the rain on the Rose Parade this year. It was also incredibly cold. Since I was the lone USC fan that arrived on the Notre Dame bus, and USC was losing, I was the only one who wanted to go home. I really saw no point in staying to watch the last quarter when it was a slaughter and I was soaked the bone. I couldn't very well whine though since I didn't know these people that well and I was still representing for USC and even if we were losing I couldn't be a whiner. So I snuck out claiming that I was going to the bathroom. I figured I'd go back to the bus where surely the driver was waiting with the heat on.

When I got out to the parking lot I found a sea of buses. Like hundreds of them. The bus I'd arrived on was just one of many and I wasn't sure how I was going to find it. It was still raining really hard and since no one was around to see I indulged in a little cry because I was so cold and miserable. I splashed around in the parking lot, stepping in ankle deep puddles and somehow I found our bus. The driver wasn't there but the door was open so I climbed on and huddled in a seat until the stupid game was over and everyone made it back. Finally. I don't think I've ever been more physically uncomfortable than those hours in the fetal position wearing soaking wet jeans and a stinky wool sweater on that bus.

I know I'm lucky if this is the most discomfort I ever suffer, but it put me off actually attending USC games for life. Even though last night's game was a great game I'm glad I wasn't in that crowd of 100,000 people trying to drive home.

2006-01-04T16:58:00.000-08:00

BEST LAID PLANS

Today is the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. USC is playing UT. It's a big freakin' deal. All my friends who went to USC are coming to town and because I never leave A's side I've only seen one of them so I thought I'd hit the parking lot for some tailgating. This sounded especially good because they're having an IN'N'OUT truck and a DJ. Woohoo! Party in the parking lot. Only problem is 100,000 other people had the same idea and I didn't even contemplate starting the journey until it was 1pm. After doing a little research and listening to the radio I realized that there would be no place for me to park. I could've taken the train from downtown and then walked a couple blocks and jumped on a shuttle but the logistical reality is that it would've taken about an hour and a half and since I was starting so late I would have gotten there and had to turn around so that I could make it back to R's house (where I'm meeting A) to watch the game on TV.

Needless to say I blew it off.

2006-01-03T12:24:00.000-08:00

FLABBY

I haven't written a word(other than e-mail), or worked out in over two months. I could blame the holiday season, all the busy-ness, etc. Except I'm still unemployed so I wasn't really busy shopping. I think I've become one of those women whom I've always scoffed at. The kind of woman that starts dating someone and falls off the grid. Because I've pretty much gone M.I.A., or more like A.W.A as in Always with A.

This is mostly due to the fact that looking for work is just damn depressing. Hanging out with A. is a lot of fun. It's been almost a year and it's even more fun than it was at first. Yes, he still wants six kids and I don't, but in spite of that we have a great time together and he has become my best friend.

That's all real great, but it's bugging me that I've stopped writing. I'm trying to figure out why. Is it because I'm happy? Too busy having fun to stop and write coherent sentences? Maybe. But I like to write and I have fun stuff to write about like the time I ended up in an Orthodox temple decked out in my outfit from dinner the night before, relegated to the women's side behind the glass with the wig and hat wearing members of my gender who eyed me like the jezebel shiksa I surely was. We were at a Bar Mitzvah and the rabbi was intoning about what happens when a Jewish man lays with a non-jewish captured in war slave woman and the throes of their passion begets a child and I swear everyone in the whole place was staring at me. A. who is not religious got a kick out of it as he stood there with his tallis shawl wrapped around him like somebody's bubbe at a bbq.

I've got lots and lots of stories about my immersion into Israeli culture. Wonderful people, big appetites and strong opinions. Or at least that's what it seems like to me as I listen/watch them converse. There's lots of yelling and arm waving and emphatic sounds and they may just be giving each other directions but it's all done via passionate discourse.

Along with all the fun I've been having I haven't missed a meal. I am overflowing my jeans with a yeasty roll of blubbery belly and my overflowing hips have been dubbed Chuck and Buck because my arms bounce off them as I walk. I'm not alone in the plump zone either. A. is right there with me and appears to be about to birth one of those six babies he wants. Lucky for him his ass is still where it should be and other than the fact that you could hide a couple of vanilla wafers in his back fat he still looks damn good.

I on the other hand am just heading into fatland. I'm not one for resolutions but I am making a commitment to myself to write here every day. Even if it's just one sentence.

And I'm going back to the 20 minute minimum workout 6 days a week.

Flabby is not the look I'm going for in '06.

2005-10-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

CUZ I'M A BITCH

I have been following the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes, excuse me, I mean Kate, affair out of the corner of my eye. I have friends who are involved with the Church of Scientology and in fact, went to the wedding of two Scientologists just last year. It was beautiful and everyone was very nice. The ceremony was no different than many weddings that I attend. So they ask people who come to witness the ceremony to give their support. I liked that. I've seen it at other weddings it's not just a Scientology thing.

In fact, there's not a lot in the teachings of Scientology that veer off that far from my own spiritual practice. They believe that you create your reality and that you have the power to manifest great success in your life. There's not a lot of going on about God although they talk about L. Ron like my born again friends talk about Jesus. I know that much has been made about Xenu and science fiction but I think that's just one more source of income - pushing the boss's books. We don't talk about the Thetan stuff because it gives me the giggles, but it's not so far out there from some of the stuff that the Catholics believe.

Where I find myself uncomfortable with Scientology and where I beg to differ with my friends who are members of the church is their take on Homosexuality, they believe that you can be cured of it, and in this Scientology joins the rank of file homophobia of most organized religions. And then there's their take on psychiatry and drugs. While I do agree that drugs are over prescribed and that diagnoses like ADD are tossed around like confetti, I don't agree with the complete dismissal of the field as quackery. I have too many friends and family members who have benefitted from the short term, or in some cases daily, doses of medication to right their emotional ships.

These are people who thought very seriously about killing themselves because they were clinically depressed. They are people who are manic depressive and fight a daily battle with their brain chemistry. To say that the drugs that they take have no value and that they would be fine with vitamins is arrogant in the extreme.

Arrogant was the word Tom Cruise used to describe Matt Lauer's questions about Tom's statement regarding Brook Shields and her post partum depression. I still can't get over that interview, to me that was way more crazy and concerning than the couch dance on Oprah. There he just looked like an ass. But to make the statements that he did about post partum depression being bullshit just pissed me off.

When I heard that "Kate" was with child instead of wondering if perhaps Scientology has indeed cured him of his rumored homosexuality, a rumor his two previous marriages failed to put to rest; my inner bitch, who is not a nice person, really hoped that Kate will end up with post partum depression. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the vitamin treatment works out for her.

Karma can be a bitch too.

2005-10-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

DIVINE DINING

Last night I met Teefah and three Little Goddesses for dinner at Maggiano’s. The Little Goddesses had just completed the Her Voice program to prevent teen pregnancy and this was the first time I was able to spend some one on one time with the girls. I sit on the board and I have spent time with girls at fundraising events, but Teefah invited me to come along last night so I could get to know some of them better.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Most of these girls live in group homes and have been in the foster care system. Most of them are black or hispanic. Many of them are angry and kind of scary the way that angry women can be. I was absolutely delighted to meet three girls, all very different, but all very charming and funny and excited about life despite the challenges they’ve had to endure.

They wanted to know about me; like did I know what I wanted to be when I was there age. I had no idea and there are days when I feel like I’m still clueless. I know what I love to do – write and work with people – but as far as how that works into career? I’m still trying to figure it out. I was so curious to know about them but didn’t want to hear stories about abuse and horrific childhood trauma because I didn’t want to define them that way.

I was circumspect in asking questions. I wanted to stay in the present moment so I asked if they knew what they wanted to be. They all nodded emphatically. Ms. J wants to be a chef, Ms. C. wants to be a CSI lab tech. Well, she really wants to be a cop, but she’s been told that it’s too dangerous. Ms. P wants to be a lawyer despite the fact that she’s only been in this country for three years and is still learning to speak English. She understand and reads more easily than the speaks and writes and she’s only 16 so I’m sure by the time she’s ready to go to college she’ll do just fine. In fact, I’m sure that she will be able to do anything she wants to do because she left her home in Central America at the age of 13 and, traveling alone, without her family, got herself into this country.

I could barely get myself to beach on the bus when I was thirteen and thought my mother was horrible for not driving me. And I showed her by hitchhiking which is another story, but an experience that makes me fairly certain that I wouldn’t have been able to get myself across a whole country.

The stories of their lives came out, but mostly in context with their dreams for the future. Both Ms. J and Ms. C lost their mothers to illness when they were around 10 years old. Both of them have had people die right at their feet. They go to the same school and have friends who “bang,” though they don’t date boys who do. We had quite a discussion about how fine thugs are and we all agreed that 50 Cent has a rockin’ body but his face isn’t as cute as Nelly’s.

Ms. P goes to a rival high school though they all live in the same group home. We had quite the discussion about boys and babies. They wanted to know why I didn’t want to have children. I told them I’d rather adopt a child that’s already here, preferably one with verbal skills. They kept pressing and it made me think until finally I was able to articulate that while I really wanted children when I was younger I was never with a man that I thought would be a good father and that I think one of the first things you do to be a good mother is pick a man who will be a good dad. For most of my life my picker has been broken when it comes to men. I talked to them about what makes a man a good man, a definition that has evolved and changed for me over the years.

What I told them, I wish someone had told me when I was there age, that it’s important to know what makes you happy and to find a man who wants to know and will do whatever he can to make you happy. If a woman is happy in her life then she will put her energy into making those around her happy, her man, her family, but if she’s busy trying to make them happy without taking care of herself it’s not going to work because she’s going to get pissed off.

And a pissed off woman is scary.

2005-09-28T22:40:00.000-07:00

I'M BAAAAAAACK

I don't think I've ever gone this long without writing. It feels horrible. But at the same time you've got to go out and do stuff to write about you know? I was thinking about that in the shower just now. That's the kind of day I've had. I just now took my morning shower. And I'm just now writing here, something that I set an intention to do this morning. Hey, at least I'm not going to bed without doing it. Anyway, in the shower I was thinking about writing because if I'm not writing I'm thinking about how I should be writing. I was thinking about how writing is this solitary thing that you do alone in a room...well, I do it alone in a room, and how if you spend too much time alone in that room you have nothing to write about except stuff you've already done. Lots of the time I can't remember if I've already written here about stuff I've done. I have a fear of becoming one of those people who tell the same stories over and over again because they don't have any new stories.

So I've been collecting some new stories.

But I'm tired and ready to go to sleep so I'm going to share something I got from a friend the other night.

Okay I've written some sample profiles for myself and I need your opinion.

#1
Shy gal who likes dominoes, philately, and role-play games looking for handsome blue collar worker. I have quite a bit of house cleaning that I'll need done and I hope you are not put off by the outfits I'll require you to wear as you clean. I don't like dirt. If you don't clean well you will have to do it again and you'll be spanked the entire time. In addition to my OCD, I have several phobias that some find disturbing. Lastly, I'm totally shaved.

#2
Hey Mother Fucker! Are you unemployed, in debt, excessively hairy, covered in flop sweat, prone to sudden violent outburst, partially or completely toothless, unwashed, unimpressive, in favor of polygamy, talented in nothing, interested in even less, and in possession of a wide array of poorly concieved sex toys?
Well I like blindfolds, orange juice and have a nasty disposition! I'm missing most of my left leg, have incurable gas and frequent seizures. Come fill my world with your love! Make me all tingly as we commit minor crimes.
(No Mexicans Please)

#3
Hi! I'm Cookie and I have 11 cats! I only sleep with one cat though! He's my poopy shmoopy cuddly pork chop pie! Yes he is! Yes he is! I collect stickers and I like Snoopy! I have 57 Hello Kitty items! I just got the Hello Kitty Toaster! I've never been on a real date cause mom says 12 is too young! Do you mind braces?! (On my teeth and my back!) I have scoliosis!

#4
Oh God. I'd give anything to find someone. Anyone. I don't care what you look like. I'm not much to look at myself. I've been working at Starbucks for some time and have become rather depressed. The pills help. Look even if you just came over to help me move some boxes because I think my ferret is trapped. Plus my back really itches. You know how that is. I wear a lot of black clothing because I'm a huge Nihilist. God is Dead. Isn't that cool? I have piercings and tats. One of my piercings might be infected though. I need a guy who is into body art, Red Bull and Social Distortion. I also like to watch Desperate Housewives. TV rocks.

I think a girl would do really well with #1. The last sentence alone should get her lots of attention.

What the hell is philately?

2005-09-01T17:50:00.000-07:00

GIVE A LITTLE BIT

Today I went here and gave a little bit to help out those people affected by Hurricane Katrina. I am struck, in those brief moments when I look at news coverage, by the fact that most of the people are people of color. When I first heard that the hurricane was making toward New Orleans on Sunday night I thought about visiting there and how I was struck by the disparity between the wealthy and the poor in the south and how it still seems to divide along the color line.

I haven't been looking much at coverage except for the two times A. and I went to Rick's house for dinner on Sunday and Tuesday and the new girl that he is dating insisted that we watch the coverage. While eating. I thought she said she was from New Mexico, but apparently she is from New Orleans. I don't know I'm kind of confused, she mentioned an elementary school that she went to in NOLA, but anyway it's kind of like meeting someone who is from New York for the first time, right after 9/11.

After 9/11 I watched news coverage and sat and cried and felt helpless and horrified. That's pretty much how I felt during those hours at those two dinner "parties" when I was sitting in a room with the urgent voices of the newscasters reiterating over and over again how horrible things are. So I have opted out of the obssessive news watching after tragic events for the last 4 years. It takes me to a place mentally and physically that renders me ineffective and quite frankly, I am a bummer to be around because, well, I am so bummed out by those pictures and the stories.

Instead I do a little research and find the best place to donate some money to, in the hopes that it will be put to work to alleviate some of the suffering. I make an effort to quiet my mind and hold a place for a positive vision of the future and peace and protection for all those who are suffering in the present. There are more than enough people out there speaking urgently and in dour tones about the reality of how horrible the situation is, so I'm not needed in those ranks.

If you can turn off your TV and give a little bit, to help the living keep on going, and get to a better day.

2005-08-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

OH BABY!
Yesterday I helped Giacomo come into the world. He was due a couple weeks from now, but they induced his mama at midnight on Sunday because he was pretty big already. I got home yesterday morning about 8:15 and called the hospital.
“I just called you,” she said. “My water broke about 20 minutes ago and the doctor came in right after that. I’m dilated to a two. And Joe isn’t feeling well, his head hurts and he’s laying down.”

I told her I was on my way and got down to St. John’s in about 25 minutes. She had just asked for her epidural and Joe was not just sleeping he was pretty much unconscious and burning up. I sat with her while she labored through the contractions which were regular, but not too big. I reminded her to breathe, but not too fast, in through the nose and out through the mouth. I thought to myself how annoying it must be to be in that kind of pain and have someone tell you what to do.

The anasthesiologist arrived. In my head Heart was singing "Magic Man." His name was Roger and he was a very tall asian doctor who looked like he was about, oh, maybe twenty years old. He put the epidural in and hung the bag. They do them on drip now and why anyone wouldn’t want something to take the edge off, I have no idea. In the middle of that procedure Joe’s parents and his sister and Ocelli arrived. They set up a waiting area in the hall which was not okay with the chirpy nurse who came in to tell us to do something about them.

St. John’s is an awesome place to have a baby. They have big, clean rooms with huge flat screen TVs. But I don’t like the nurses. They are not very nurturing. Not at all. Too many details to go into around that so I’ll just leave it there. Except to say that if you’re a nurse and you find yourself behaving passive aggressively with your patients, e.g. saying things like “That baby’s not very happy in there,” and then enigmatically leaving the room, well, maybe it’s time to find another line of work.

Anyway, once Joe’s parents got there and I got the nurse to take his temperature (which I bet they bill for) it was determined that they should take him home because it’s not cool to be in the room with your 102+ temperature and whatever virus is making you so hot when your baby is being born. I think this is why the nurse got passive aggressive because it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, but still, don’t freak mama out! She’s going to have to push a giant baby out of her vagina and her husband isn’t going to be there with her.

No. It was me and Aunt Mia and Ocelli who is four and promised to be very good and sit in a chair against the wall where she couldn’t see all the action. So after the room cleared we all sat around talking and put on some cartoons for Ocelli and settled in to wait. Thought it would be a long time. But mama was feeling some discomfort because of epidural light and thank God she got that because her contractions were coming almost on top of each other and they were HUGE! I was watching the tape and watching her and although she could feel them she was able to breathe through them. When she started shaking about 10:30 we thought it might be a reaction to the drug, but then it got more and more violent and the only other time I’d seen her shake like that was when she was ready to deliver Ocelli.

I went out to the nurse station where all eight of those ladies were sitting around having coffee talk and said, “Excuse me, she’s shaking like a junkie that needs a fix. Do you think this could be due to the epidural? Or is it possible she’s ready to go?” They all looked at each other like I was the biggest pain in the ass and allowed that it might be poassible that she was “complete,” and I stood there looking at them like, so is anyone going to come check? But no one moved so I went back to the room. A while later the nurse came in and checked her and said she was ready to start pushing.

Oh golly, that was fast and there were just two of us to do the helping and the filming. Luckily, one of Ocelli’s babysitters volunteers at the hospital so she was able to come and sit with her because we couldn’t leave her unattended, even with the mindsucking cartoons on TV because she could still hear her mama making the distressing sounds that women are wont to make when they’re pushing out a baby.
While Mia filmed, me and nurse Ratchett pushed mama’s legs up to her chest and as I counted to ten she pushed as hard as she could. Because her epidural was so light she could really feel to push so that baby came moving down pretty fast. Although if I had a 9lb. 1oz. baby coming out of me I would push pretty damn hard too. She had to stop so the doctor who arrived to catch could put on his gear. He's a funny guy who says things like, "Now we're cooking with gas." And "Wow, this kid's a linebacker!"

He is huge! And adorable! He has lots of curly dark hair that the nursery nurse parted down the side and combed over very debonairly. With his little sideburns and his big cheeks he looked a little like a very young Marlon Brando in the Godfather. I went with him to the nursery because after all that work his mama wanted to make sure that he didn’t get switched or stolen so I promised I would never take my eyes off of him

As I watched them do all the things that they do to babies I wondered what it must feel like. You’re in your own world and the next thing you know you’re laying naked on a table with a bright, warm, light shining down on you and people are looming over you poking you with needles and sticking a thermometer up your butt and you can’t really move… And I thought this is actually a lot like the stories people tell about alien abduction – being naked and unable to move on a metal table and getting the anal probe. What if those stories are only people’s latent birth memories?

As I stood there pondering this, a new father whose wife had just had a baby girl came in with her, and looking a tad shell shocked he said, “There’s a lot they don’t tell you about the whole thing.” I looked at him. “You know in Lamaze class, they don’t tell you everything, you know?” He looked a little green. Happy, but a little green. “You mean about all the blood and goosh?” I asked. “Yeah. Man, they don’t tell you about that.”

And he’s right. There’s no way you can know what it’s like unless you’re there to see it. Not even the movie they showed in 7th grade health class which featured an episiotomy, an image I will have seared on my retina forever, showed exactly how much um, stuff, is involved. It is nothing like birth in the movies or on TV. It is incredible. What it takes to get here into this world down that birth canal is messy, and primal and bloody. And powerful. That’s probably the best word to describe it because once the head and shoulders come out the rest is just a whoosh and then there’s crying and laughing and awe. And a lot of goop.

As soon as Giacomo came out I picked up Ocelli who was standing to the side but edging to the nether regions to get a better look and lifted her up to see her brother and to see that her mama was okay. The doctor was great because he explained everything he was doing, cutting the cord, delivering the afterbirth – or baby’s apartment – and then sewing mama up because that baby's huge head made her tear a little. And thankfully explanation was enough and she didn’t want visuals to go along with it.

Aunt Mia got the whole thing on tape to show daddy and it all took less than 10 minutes. But just like when Ocelli was born and I saw her huge head and the miracle of her birth I think that adoption is an excellent choice for me. It’s a miracle that women can grow babies and give birth, but if my vagina has a vote, it votes no on the whole pushing out of the watermelon sized object.

Birth is a miracle, but there is a lot they don't tell you.

2005-08-11T15:59:00.000-07:00

AROUND THE HOMESTEAD

Since I've been laid off I've been focusing on the writing, as much as I can focus on any one thing. Today the words are coming easy, but I can't sit still for more than a half hour at a time. Luckily for me my house is a mess from 2 and a half weeks of being sick and spending an inordinate amount of time at A's house. So when I get that antsy feeling I just get up and go dust, or clean the microwave, or do a load of laundry. By the end of today I should have the broad strokes of my treatment finished AND a sparkling clean house.

On another note - the crazy lady who lives upstairs hacked all my scented geranium, hydrangea and lavender into bits. She wore gardening gloves while she did it. I sat and watched her out the window. I was afraid to go out and stop her because she was wielding large, sharp shears and I'm scared of her. So consequently all that's left out there is the dead undergrowth. Ran into her ex-boyfriend at Trader Joe's not long after, you know, the guy that moved out and left us here with a psychotic drug addict? He asked how things were going and I told him about the hedge hacking incident. He acted surprised and said he'd discuss it with her. I told him not to bother. He's been "discussing" things with her for a long time and nothing changes. I took pictures of the carnage and will show them to the landlord as he is basically waiting for just one more occasion of aberrant behavior as grounds to evict them both. He said, "Oh, okay then."

On a more positive note I have succeeded in growing corn! The green beans, tomatoes and strawberries are easy, but getting corn to pollenate? No so much. But a few days ago I saw actual ears with silk sprouting from my corn stalks. I am so excited. I wonder if I lived on a farm would I run out to the fields everyday and check to see how things are progressing like I do with my 6'x6' plot of dirt behind the building? Yeah, most likely I would. But I would probaby wear overalls instead of my pajamas.

2005-08-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

FLASHBACK LUNCH

Yesterday A. and I walked down the street to get some lunch. We walked into a little bakery and he made a bee line to this guy that was sitting there eating and reading the paper. A stunningly good looking guy with dark hair and piercing blue eyes, who apparently works there because A. was giving him shit about who was going to wait on us. He tells me that this guy is great. He’s had a baby and just got married and he’s an actor.

Well, of course he is because he is one of those surreally good looking men that seems to drop from the trees in this town.

So I jump in and tell him that his agent should be getting him out there since all the new shows are in production. He should be guest starring in something! As I’m talking he’s really focusing on me, and when I’m done he gives me this long look and says my name.

Like he knows me.

I am completely discomfitted because, as I stand there frantically grasping, I have no recollection of doing anything to deserve that look from this guy.

At least not lately.

Then he smiles and as he’s saying his name I know exactly who he is and he jumps up and we hug and kiss and…

OH MY GOD! It’s Ryan!!!

And this is a totally great story.

A long, long time ago my friend Jeri and I went to Las Vegas and this is one of those times when what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. It was Saturday night, our last night before we made the long drive home on Sunday and we were bouncing through the casino at the Tropicana about 3 am. Quite buzzed but on the way down, not the way up. We always stayed at the Trop because we liked going “old school” and we could get poolside rooms for cheap. I have always felt incredibly weird riding on elevators in my bathing suit – it’s just wrong.

So we’ve had our poolside room all weekend and we’ve been partying non-stop and we were ready to go to sleep. The night before had been a very late night and involved broken bathroom fixtures and the query, “so do you hunt?” Being that we were still a little buzzed and basically didn’t give a shit about what people thought, we were tangoing together through the casino. She’s blond and six feet tall and I was, at the time, a red head and 5’9” – and we were wearing high heels and very short dresses.

Which is probably why two young men peeled off from the the pack they were with to chase us down the hall. Make that halls because we were moving pretty fast. When they finally caught up with us as we were making our way toward our room turning over the signs that people leave on their doors from “do not disturb” to “maid service please.” I know it sounds like we were in high school, but we weren’t. We were closer to Sex in the City, which is why when these boys caught up to us to exhort us to go gambling with them and be their “lucky ladies,” we actually chatted them up. Because they were both very cute. The tall, dark haired one with the piercing blue eyes and the earnest look on his face as he held my hand and implored me to go with him was Ryan. His friend with the golden skin, blonde hair and green eyes was Shane. Just by the names alone it was clear that they had not been born until sometime in the mid to late 70s. But still, they were very cute and very sweet and they claimed to be 21 when I suggested that they were still in high school.

So, we didn’t end up going gambling with them and it got all Penthouse Forum like after that and those details will remain between the four of us and you can pretty much make up anything you like to fill in the blank, because it won’t be anywhere near as fun or funny as it actually was. In any case the next morning I opened my eyes when I heard Ryan say, “Dude, I could really go for some Lucky Charms.” I didn’t know if he was talking to me, and it turns out he was talking to Shane who replied, “I know dude, totally.” And then Jeri and I started to laugh hysterically and we all went out to breakfast where I learned that Ryan is allergic to milk and so traveled with his own stash of whatever people used before rice milk in a box.

Our friendship continued even after we returned from Vegas. I still have the sun/moon mirror he gave me for my birthday hanging in an alcove in my house. I was the second woman he ever had sex with and his sweetness was the real deal. We continued our affair for a little while longer, but it evolved into more of a lovely friendship, because it turned out that they did lie to us about their age. And no matter how sweet and handsome a man is, I ultimately need someone with wisdom and experience to keep me interested.

Ryan moved to the L.A. area to be a model-slash-actor and took up with a woman older than I was for a while and then moved on to the woman whom he just married. She’s only ten years older than him, but still it’s clear that this is one sweet and sexy man who appreciates experience and wisdom himself. He is completely in love with his daughter and likes working at the bakery so he can go home and spend most of his time with his family.

We lost touch and I was so happy to see him again and to know that he is the same lovely person that I met all those years ago. After we ordered lunch A. left me to my walk down memory lane and was sitting outside reading the paper at our table when I joined him. He loved the story and it brought back all of his fond memories of the older women in his life. At the end of the day I think that every young man and every older woman should make some lovely memories together. Because all these years later it still made us smile big shit eating grins.

2005-08-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

LONG DISTANCE LOVE
When A. was gone in Serbia we stayed in touch by e-mail, but one I got an e-mail from him telling me to call anytime I felt like it. He had an international cell phone that he'd purchased so he could stay in touch with the office. I was feeling blue about pending unemployment and so I called just to say a quick hello. I must have caught him in a moment of chattiness, or maybe he was just missing me, but after about 5 minutes I said I needed to hang up because, you know I was about to be unemployed and now needed to think about things like long distance charges.

He said, "Don't worry baby, I'll pay for the call. I miss you I. I want to be there for you, let's talk." I'm thinking it can't cost more than a dollar a minute which is the rate that I pay to call London. This is how I rationalized picking up the phone in the first place. Five minutes = five dollars. I can swing that right? However, times have changed in the world of telephone communication. Apparently now you have to pay the long distance carrier in EACH COUNTRY, unless you have an international plan that covers the world.

So yesterday when I got my bill and opened it all the blood drained from my head when I saw that this one forty minute phone call cost $188. 94! Because not only did I get charged the $4.40 a minute tariff rate that currently applies in Serbia Montenegro, there was also an additional charge per minute because I was calling his cell phone! And then there are taxes and surcharges and regulatory fees up the ying yang based on the total call charge of $143.60.

So much for spontaneity. I will never place another international call without first finding out what that country charges. I guess it makes sense that it would be expensive over there considering that their infrastructure had to have been somewhat affected by war.

I feel vaguely guilty, like I should take responsibility for this because I'm like that, but I know that he won't let me pay for it. He will however kvetch and oy and I just hope that he remembers that the last thing he said to me before we hung up on that call was, "I love you."

2005-07-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

IN AWE OF MAMA

Last week I went down to Long Beach to babysit for Ryan (2.11) and Mia (6.8) while their parents went down to San Diego for Matt’s gig at the new House of Blues. I’ve known these kids since they came into the world and it’s always a pleasure to spend time with them. After 24 hours of babysitting I am always in awe of my friends who stay home and raise their children. It’s exhausting. Leisa says that you get to ease into it because you start out with a newborn, but still, I say it’s harder than any job I’ve ever done.

We went to a playdate at Meg’s house because her kids are about the same age. And they have a slip and slide. And a new kitten named Sunny. And Meg had a nice chilled bottle of white wine. Sitting in the backyard of Meg’s house watching the kids play in the sun reminded me of lazy summer days when I was a little girl. Our slip and slide didn’t have a “splash zone” at the end of it so we would often slide right off the end of it and hurtle into the cement wall my dad built to create planter boxes. Between the 70s version of the slip and slide and Mr. Wiggle, the toy that also attached to the hose and then proceeded to chase you around the backyard squirting you and trying to strangle you our summers in the backyard were a bit edgier.

After slipping and sliding the afternoon away we left to go back home about 5pm. In the rear view mirror I could see Ryan’s eyes drooping and my stomach clenched with fear that he would fall into a five o’clock nap. So I resorted to one of my dad’s tricks for keeping kids awake. He used to sit at the light and tap the brakes and make the car do the cha-cha. Now this was probably more fun back in the good old days when no one wore seatbelts because every time he’d hit the brakes our little bodies would smack into the car seat in front of us and, gasping with laughter we would be climbing back up onto the seats when he’d do it again. We thought this was hilarious and would chorus from the back seat, “Do it again!” Since both kids were strapped into the backseat of mom’s station wagon only their heads would snap back and forth, but they still giggled and wanted more and from the backseat they chorused, “Auntie Susie, you drive crazy!”

Whatever it takes – just don’t go to sleep.

When we got back to the house, all eyes open, it was decided that we should walk down to Rubio’s for dinner. That sounds so simple doesn’t it? It’s not. “Walking” up to the corner is made much more difficult when Ryan wants to go on his peddle bike with the long handle behind it for pushing and decides that the handles are sticky from the last time he was on it with a sucker and he doesn’t want to touch them. This means he’s not steering so I have to tilt the thing back and push him up the street while hollering at Mia, who is zipping way too far ahead of us on her razer scooter, “Wait! I said wait!” And once we get to Rubios I have to drag the heavy metal scooter in with us because I’ve never gotten over the time that I left my bike outside Hill Drugs and it was stolen. I’m sporting some massive bruises on my ankles from managing the scooter and Ryan at the soft drink bar where you get to make your own concoction of sugar filled beverages. I was adamant about just saying no to Coke as caffeine and sugar and an over tired two year old is just asking for it. After minor drama regarding having lemon in his drink because his sister had lemon in hers and he has to do everything Mia does right now, we got our food and headed home.

By now it’s coming up on 6:30, but to me if feels like 9:30 so I turn on the TV. I think kids watch way too much television these days, but you know what? Sometimes you just need a fucking break and zoning out to mindless adventures of Zack and Cody feels like a freaking vacation. After dinner I started dropping hints to Ryan about how much fun it was going to be to read stories. Unfortunately he was totally on to me and he knows that “stories” means bedtime. By 7:45 he was too wiped out to care and the call of the baba was way too enticing. After reading him about seven books, during which time I kept dimming the lights more and more, to the point where it was so dark I was making stuff up because I couldn’t see, he finally passed out.

At 8:20 I joined Mia downstairs for a scintillating movie called “The Cheetah Girls.” Something in me said, “this is not age appropriate entertainment for an almost 7 year old,” but I was too beat down to argue. The movie did not end until almost 10 pm and then we had to watch the new Hilary Duff video wherein Disney’s darling is all tarted up like a porn star and still this does not distract from the fact that she really can’t sing. Mia LOVES Hilary Duff. This frightens me, but as long as she honored our agreement that she would go to bed right after the video I would happily suffer through it. And she did.

I went up to bed shortly after Mia and it felt like I’d only been asleep for about 10 minutes when I heard Ryan running down the hall for his 4 a.m. baba. I handed it to him and threw the covers back so that he could slide in next to me and he informed me, “No. I sleep on the udder side.” Okay dude, whatever makes you happy. He climed over me, sucked down the baba, puts his little arms around my neck and spent the rest of the night kicking me in the stomach with his feet so that I was sleeping on the 5” closest to the edge of the bed. The dog lay in the corner licking her front paws over and over and over. Unlike the kids she’s got separation anxiety.

I lay there and watched the room grow lighter as dawn turned to day. Mia came in for morning cuddles and then we all got up to prep for the day’s activities. I had to get Mia ready for her ride to camp, which was going to arrive at 8:40 a.m. I made breakfast, got her dressed and put food in her backpack. I got her curly hair combed out all cute and I got her upstairs to brush her teeth. I did all of this while she was glued to the TV set because she hit the “on” button the minute we got downstairs and I hadn’t yet realized that the TV has some kind of mind control over children that’s just plain scary.

Once Mia was off to camp we had one little hiccup wherein Ryan drew all over the TV screen with a green felt pen and tried to wipe it off with the sleeves of his sisters jacket that he was wearing. When he realized that it was only making the mess worse he came and got me where I stood in the kitchen not 5 feet away. The kid is quick. Luckily the felt pen came off with some spray cleaner, but he still had to have a time out to think about how he would never do that again. And so I would have some idea where he was and what he was doing while I finished in the kitchen. Then it was all about getting him dressed and we were off to the grocery store. I was a little scared about taking a toddler into the market because the shelves hold all kinds of temptations, but we did pretty good since we stayed mostly on the produce aisle and I introduced him to smell-o-shopping. All I had to do was point out to him how cilantro smells when you shake it and put your face in it and he was completely engaged. We got out of the market pretty easily all things considered. I did buy him juice boxes with a snowboarder on the front, but that was it. I didn’t have any issues at the check out where they keep all the candy.

After unloading groceries we packed a snack and headed to the park where I wedged my adult sized ass onto jungle gyms and slides that are built for much smaller posteriors. We sat in front of the steering wheel and as Ryan drove I san Fly Me to the Moon, much to the amusement of all the hispanic nannies at the park with their charges. I was exhausted and wearing smashed grapes so I didn’t really care what people thought. Plus, Ryan is a big cuddler and I am putty in his hands.

We weren’t home 10 minutes before Mia returned and the TV was on. I no longer cared that it was sucking out her soul. They were both alive and happy and that was my mission. I made hot dogs for lunch and let her watch “Totally Raven,” which she’s totally not supposed to watch, because you got to pick your battles and I’d only had about 4 hours of sleep so I wasn’t up for the negotiations.

Leisa and Matt got home and they’d had a great time and so had we, and as always I left with a deep appreciation for the job that is mommy. And a new understanding of why my mom took Valium when I was a kid.

2005-07-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

I left home last Thursday to go babysit Ryan (2.11) and Mia (6.8), and I didn't get home until this morning at 11am.

Needless to say I wasn't babysitting the whole time.

I went on an adventure and now I've got a sore throat, I'm tired and out of it.

But I had the best time getting there.

More tomorrow.

Or later.

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

LAUGHING OUT LOUD

So like I was saying, things have a been a little stressful for me lately what with getting laid off and interviewing for lots of jobs that pay very little, and then not getting them. Yesterday I turned a corner though. I had a paradigm shift. I got a shot of courage, or possibly just baptized myself in the river of delusion and denial. See, there's doubt talking.

But really, I decided that perhaps I have been aiming low and playing safe and that is why nothing is happening on the low paying, not challenging because I've been doing this for years job front. Maybe what is next is for me to step into that "someday" scenario and live it like it's today.

Because it is. Today, I mean.

So I'm beating out the next script. Beating is actually a really accurate word because it's often effortful to sit here in front of the computer and write coherently. And, you know, like tell a story. Yesterday I was talking to one of my best friends, who is married to one of the first writers I ever worked for and she told me that he really has to force himself to go sit down and do it. This was news to me because he always made it seem so effortless. I swear the guy writes so prolifically he's like those ballroom dancers who make it look so easy. It wasn't until Dancing with the Stars that you got to see how hard it really is to keep that smile on your face and remember all the steps. So, I was happy to hear that this writing thing is sometimes hard for him too. Not because he's suffering, but because it's apparently normal for this to feel challenging.

Luckily for me I have places I can go when I need a little break. Today Dooce made me laugh out loud. And then there's Gary whose video makes me strangely happy every time I watch it and finally this guy who is pretty much joyful expression personified. I'm pretty much crushing on him.

The point is that no matter how bad, or scared, or depressed I might feel it's nice to know that I can still laugh. If you can laugh out loud, how bad can it be?

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

OKAY

The past week has been a rough one in that I had a job interview last Friday and it turned out that I really wanted the job. Like rilly, rilly. Didn’t care how much it paid, I just wanted the opportunity. Sadly, they did’t want me. I figured this out sometime on Wednesday and wrote a thank you note because I’m classy like that and then spent yesterday trying to let it go. You can know that it has nothing to do with you personally, but it’s still disappointing and hard to shake off.

Letting it go was made easier yesterday by waking up to the news that there had been a terrorist attack in London. Talk about a shift in perspective. I was unable to reach Gemma and Tim so I was distracted all day with the vision of them being trapped in a tunnel, or wounded in a hospital. The Brits have been dealing with bombings and terrorism in their city much longer than the Yanks what with the IRA and all, but it’s been a while. I don’t think it’s something that you ever get used to. I think about that everytime I see that another Israeli bus or pizza parlor has been blown up. Even though it seems that it’s become part of your life, is it ever something you get used to? How could you?

I hate fireworks hence, I don’t have big love for the 4th of July. I know it’s all about patriotism and all that, but my body experiences it as huge explosions and it unsettles me. The last time I was actually at a “fireworks show,” e.g. close to the action as opposed to watching from the distance of Dodger stadium, was a couple years ago at my best friend’s lake house. Everytime the things exploded me and the dog cowered and shuddered. Now I just pass. My preferred viewing of fireworks is from the 5 freeway when I drive by Disneyland. It’s just pretty lights – no sound other than whatever is playing on the stereo. We live with the threat of bombs, or terrorist attacks, and a fear that is fanned by the government via the media to keep us maleable. But there are places in the world where they live with the reality of explosions and sniper fire everyday. They can’t opt out like I did on the fireworks show. Yet people get up every day and go to work and spend time with their families despite that reality.

Today I heard from Gemma and was incredibly relieved to know that they are fine. Life goes on. And it puts things into perspective with regard to my personal life. I will find a job and life will go on because it’s what we do. We keep going.

2005-06-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

ARE YOU A NOTSEE?

Today is the last day of employment for me and I have lots to share about my roller coaster ride of emotions. It's amazing how quickly I slide from big-picture to little-picture perspective. Suffice it to say that I have amazing friends in my life who hold the vision of what's true about my life when I am freaking out and fetal in moments of extreme drama.

But I don't have time to share all that today because I have one more scene to write and then it's time to proofread! Even though the deadline for the contest is tomorrow I want to put it in the mail today. I like synchronicity even when it's a little contrived. So ending the job and loosing the script on the world at the same time feels right.

In the meantime, I wanted to share this gem of an essay about the state of things in this country right now.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I know that I'm going to be okay, but seriously, this country? Led by this administration? Going to hell in a bucket of water that's getting dangerously hot.

2005-06-27T17:42:00.000-07:00

COME FLY WITH ME

I have been working feverishly on the final draft of my script. The deadline for the contest that I'm going to enter it in is this Friday. My last day of work is Thursday. I am looking at the synchonicity of these two events as a good thing. I was talking to A. this morning and he said that I sounded like I wasn't happy. He's in Serbia on vacation, but even on the phone, thousands of miles away, he can still nail me. I told him that I'm freaked out about not having a job at the end of this week. He responded that I need to know that this is a good ending and that no matter what I have him.

Yeah, except he's in Serbia!

I do know that this is timely. I have been sitting and spinning without challenging myself for a long time. One can get real comfortable where I've been. One can get real stagnant too. One can also get a really wide ass from too much sitting. So I am willing to see this ending as a good and timely one.

I'm also willing to see the completion of the script and tossing it out there as the great new beginning. To write for a living is, I think, a conscious choice to follow your passion. The you may have to find other ways to pay your bills while you look for someone who will pay you to write. If I had little bills I would be a lot less freaked out. Every day I feel a little closer to the end of the skinny branches. My ass is bobbing around out there and I need to let go and fly into the great new beginning.

I haven't had any practice in a long time and all I can think about is what if I have forgotten how to fly? What if I hit the ground and end up on the corner with a sign that says, "Will work for food? Anything helps," like the man at Venice and Fairfax that I drive past too many times a week.

On a positive note Pete might finally lose some weight if he's tied to a shopping cart, hauling it down the street. He's a big cat, but 25 pounds is a little too, verging on getting your picture distributed on the internet big. I've been thinking all kinds of catastrophic thoughts and I'm so aware that it's all a distraction from getting on and doing what I need to do.

Why is it that I must be exhausted into surrender? Into doing what I need to do and going with the flow, trusting that if I do the work and keep shuffling my feet, that great new beginning will just show up? It always has before. This isn't the first time I've found myself here.

I'm just scared that I've forgotten how to fly.

2005-06-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

A REALLY DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE
There are women in the suburbs who are far more desperate than the women on the show. Although after hearing the story I heard yesterday I found myself wondering if it was desperation or mental illness or alcoholism, or possibly a combination of all three. My friend A. lives out in the valley where so many Los Angelenos go to settle when they’ve had children. It’s a world of track homes and soccer fields and club league baseball where nine year olds are “recruited” by balding 38 year old men with beer bellies who look like they’re closer to fifty.

Their wives for the most part sport leathery tans and spend most of their time carting the kids from one activity to another in the Escalade, Denali or Navigator. And when they’re not doing that they’re at the gym so that they can stay a size 2 or 4 or 6, though they definitely don’t seem to be maintaining their figures for the fat, bald husband. From the stories I hear they’re having affairs.

So my friend A. has a daughter who is in middle school. She’s that age where you start to develop BFF friendships. Her current BFF is moving to the O.C. at the end of this week. The mother and father of the BFF are a couple that A. has met a few times due to the fact that their daughters socialize, but you wouldn’t say that a real friendship has developed. So A. was surprised to come home from work the other night and get a call from E., the mother, saying that her daughter was distraught about the move and that she was going to miss A.s daughter so much and could they all go to dinner.

E. was sobbing as she made this request.

Being a very empathic and loving person A. said, of course, and she got her girls in the car and headed out to meet E. and her kids. Except on the way E. called to say that her daughter, the “distraught” one didn’t want to go out. She wanted to stay home. A. said, okay, then we can order pizza and I’ll pick up a bottle of wine

When they got to E.s house the distraught daughter didn’t look upset at all, though she was happy to see the kids and they all went and played in the backyard. E. took A. into the bedroom because all of their furniture has been moved except for the beds....

And if you’re sitting there thinking “Oh my gosh this is going to veer into something very Penthouse Forum, then we have the same dirty mind.”

E. proceeds to tell A. that her husband, who was down in the OC at the new house, beats her in front of the children. All the time! And then she told her how unhappily married she is. Um, that’s kind of a given if you’re being beaten, don’t you think? But then she told her about how when she worked at a local restaurant she was screwing all of the busboys and waiters and she thinks that maybe she might have sex addiction issues.

Something that was borne out when the 25 year old pizza delivery guy showed up and she walked him out to his car, telling him that it was really nice and she wanted to see it. And then she tipped him $20 – so I think she wanted to see more than his car. When she came back in she started crying again and asked if she’d told A. about all the affairs that she’s had and how A. is having such a great divorce and she’d like to have that too.

And then she wanted to change clothes because A. looked so "good" and she wanted to look good too. A. had no idea what to say or do. She just wanted to get the hell out of dodge. This is a woman that she literally has only met a few times. They’re not even friends. She couldn’t say, “What’s up? What have you been smoking? Did someone slip some acid in your Vitamin water?”

After dinner A.s daughter said that E.s daughter wanted to come spend the night and A. couldn’t wait to get out of there. She said she wished she could’ve taken the little brother too, but there was no way to get the kid out of the house without it being somewhat strange. As she encouraged the little girl to get her things together, E. wanted to tell A. just one more thing.

Seems that her husband, the one who beats her in front of their children? He thinks that A. is really hot and E.’s exact words were, “I know it would make him really happy to watch you fuck me.” A. pretty much got the kids and ran from the house. I’m like what did you say? She said she pretended she hadn’t heard and that when she called E. the next day to see how she was doing she acted like everything was normal. Said she’d had a really great day and that maybe she had a little too much drink the night before.

You think?

I think she’s a crazy lady. A. spent all the next day reeling from the conversation and the experience. She’s very relieved that E. is moving away. I think that someone who would tell you that their husband beats them and then two hours later sexually proposition you for a three way with the beater has definitely got issues. If you seriously wanted a three-way, telling someone that the guy you want to do that with beats you is not exactly giving him a great reference. If it’s just that she drank too much she must have started really early in the day. I tend to think that she’s a desperate, manipulative woman and I cannot help but feel very sorry for her kids.

And her husband, unless he really beats her, but I kind of think she made that up, along with everything else, except the affairs and the request for the three way.