Dear Alissa

Dear Darling Devs

2010-09-01T10:20:00.001-07:00

The earth quaked and you responded-
The Hope Mouse came and then absconded.

Then waters rose in Pakistan;
The Hope Mouse came and then he ran.

Don't make me pray for more fiascos-
Please give me Hope before he goes!

Please?

I need to feed my addiction!

2010-08-13T09:30:00.001-07:00

I lay in the park, in the dark, on my back.
Eyes to the skies, watched the heavens fall, stars slide.
Eyes wide, light fades, night comes, dark's on.
Cold burns, tea warms, ground chills, stars spill
down the sky, then they're gone.
Dark's on.
Night's come.
Night's on.

And there was an owl!

Back By Popular Demand: Week In Review

2010-07-10T11:48:00.000-07:00

Really, it's sort of a Highlights Reel for the last month. I've been busy.

Funniest Request:
*cough* update your blog *cough*
You know who you are. Here you go.

Favorite Compliment:
"I like your sunglasses. You look like a cross between Benjamin Franklin and Janis Joplin."

Most Stupid Conversation:
Man who wandered through as I was folding tee shirts: "Are you a good folder?"
Moi: "I think I've caught the knack."
Him: "That's good."
Moi: "It's a good skill to fall back on. If my career aspirations don't pan out, I can always get a job at the GAP."
Him: "That's good.

Late Night Conversations:
Five or six million. And a half.

Coherence:
Declining.

Strangest Thing I Ate:
Sweetbreads. Surprisingly tasty, all things considered, especially pan fried and paired with half a bottle of good wine.

Best Thing Eaten:
It was a toss up between the Pseudo-Blue Cheese Steak and the Jack Daniels chicken. I've gone carnivorous. The Pseudo-Blue Cheese steak was pretty fantastic, but I can still taste the chicken.

Times I've Been Tipsy Lately:
Four? Five? Something like that. Much more than ever before. And in good company.

Time Spent Thinking:
Hours upon hours upon hours.

Good It Has Done Me:
Not sure. Probably none. Thinking is definitely overrated.

Conclusions Drawn:
Few, if any.

Most Ridiculous Charge For Parking Ever:
$37.50 FOR FOUR AND A HALF HOURS! I hate downtown LA.

Circular Conversations I Seem To Be Having:
One.

Feelings It Engenders:
Frustration, fear, longing, irritation, confusion, confliction, excitement, profound sadness, anger, empathy, uncertainty, and a certain degree of inevitability.

Escaping Donkeys:
One.

Promised Elephants:
Zero.

Skydivers Spotted:
Four!

Who Landed On Their Feet:
Zero.

Fireworks:
Lots!

Inappropriate Behavior:
Plenty.

Regrets
None particularly.

Acquaintances Made:
Many.

Reacquaintances Made:
Even more. What an odd few years it's been!

Jobs Presently Working:
Two! This is either a step in the right direction or the beginning of disaster.

Job Skills:
Unquantifiable.

Sleep:
In spurts.

In My Own Bed:
Little.

Desire For A Pet:
Growing.

Tolerance For Large, Talking Birds:
Non-existent.

Garden:
Growing!

Fuschia:
Unhappy.

Edits:
Ongoing.

Handwriting:
Getting worse.

Sunburns:
Fading.

Long Lost Objects Found:
One. My hair scarf, so I can stop getting sunburns. I lost it just before I moved, and it turned up at my mother's house this week along with a large dead spider. I wasn't missing the latter.

Weddings Attended:
One. In Philadelphia!

Historical Sites/Artifacts Seen While In Philly:
Two-ish. The Liberty Bell and the house where Thomas Jefferson drafted the declaration of independence. I'm sure I saw more in passing, but I don't know what or when.

Role In Said Wedding:
Bridesmaid/Sedative/Candy Pusher/Adviser/Voice Of Reason/Messenger/Chauffeur.

Ancient Biblical Evils Served:
One, apparently.

Ghoulies Spotted:
One.

Expectations:
Yo-yoing.

Pounds Lost:
55!

Lottery Winnings:
$2.00

Delusions Of Grandeur:
Inevitable.

Nights Walked:
One!

Games Played:
Same one - Mousehunt requires no partner, no physical pieces, no money, and no life. It's perfect!

Challahs Baked:
Eleven.

Hugs Received:
Many. Nowhere near enough.

Enthusiasm:
Waxing/Waning/Waxing/Stagnant.

Life:
Exciting/Tasty/Tiring/Unexpected/Boring/Perplexing/Tantalizing/Bewildering/Blah.

Most Delightful Unexpected Moment:
"I love you. Didn't you know?"

Random Passing Thought, Not Recently Expressed

2010-05-31T20:06:00.000-07:00

Why do I feel the need to express every random thought that passes through my mind? It's not helpful! And most of the time it's not even true. It's just something to fill the air. Whether it's mutants or motorcycles, must work on this.

Times Wounds All Heels

2010-05-30T02:50:00.000-07:00

I admire simplicity. I aim to be a simple person in many ways. I am thwarted by the fact that I am not one. Instead, I aim to be an Isha Tam, a (deliberately) wholesome woman. It seems more within my reach.

I was thinking about Geneivat Da'at (theft of the mind) recently. I learned about it almost five years ago, and it struck a chord with me. It's something I try to be careful about, not stealing a good opinion, or anything else. Sometimes that means I confess to things I probably shouldn't, in order not to deceive people by withholding pertinent information or by telling lies (that always seemed pointless, anyway). A lot of times, people don't appreciate it. Most people seem to like being lied to if it makes their world a prettier place. At any rate, it's been on my mind along with a hundred other things.

And then someone told me that when you are late, you are stealing time. Oh dear. I am so careful about everything else, but time and I have never been friends. I've been working on it, and am much improved, but it still crops up. Now I have a secondary worry every time I'm late for something. Not only am I running late, but I'm stealing. An ethical quandary is a pretty compelling reason to set two alarms.

2010-05-26T00:59:00.000-07:00

I do not remember what day it is. It began around six fifty this morning and has only just ended. Sunday began at seven and didn't end until two (though it was largely a pleasant, interesting, and surprisingly relaxing day (no work!). Tomorrow is a four job day (how did I get suckered into that one? That just feels wrong, like a four alarm fire), and looks to be about the same. Thursday's hours will be the same, though at least the morning should be pleasantly work free (only two jobs, though one's to midnight out in Brentwood). And then Shabbos!

I so, so, so look forward to Shabbos these days. A day without phones, without work, without worry. A day to catch up on my reading (I've given up on my library card at present. I'll never make it through those books. Focusing on reading through the handful of sources I've got at my disposal, hoping for illumination. There's never enough time for those either, mostly just hoping to make a dent in them before the week turns and I find myself further behind. One page at a time...).

Not sure where I was.
Goodnight.

A Good Morning

2010-05-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

Three hours, fifteen pages. I'm going to call that a roll.

Vacillating between four and five jobs this week (not sure why it's never a steady number), trying to finish a commission, to learn a little, even took to the hills last night for the first time in about two weeks (I've been flatlanding it lately, mostly walking to the other side of town and to and from the hospital). It's a wonder I work on my dreams at all anymore. However! This is real, and not much of the rest of my life is (or feels like it is). It's worth reaching for.

Except when it's past one and I can feel dawn gritting between my teeth and the week stretches ahead with nary a spare hour and all I want to do is sleep or pack my bags and set off for spaces unknown where perhaps sleep is more accessible. A bed and breakfast in Nepal perhaps.

Argh!

2010-05-21T02:24:00.000-07:00

It's almost two-thirty! How did that happen?

Last Count

2010-05-17T23:50:00.000-07:00

Today is 49 days, which are seven weeks of the Omer.

Whee! I did it! It used to be so hard, now it feels easy. So many things are like that. You wouldn't think merely counting the days would be difficult, but last year was the first year I was able to count seven perfect weeks.

Last night I received a bevy of blessings during an extremely belated birthday party. It was very funny and very sweet.

I was trying to finish a commission this week, but my power has been out since yesterday, so I've had to relinquish control of the project and let it slide until after Shavuos (though we'll see. Perhaps I'll wake up extra early tomorrow. Perhaps not). The power is now fixed, but I am too tired to be coherent, let alone sew straight. It's bedtime.

Such an interesting few weeks it's been, and me to busy to write them down.

Soon.

Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet

2010-05-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

I've been after it for the better part of a month - carefully gathering the appropriate ingredients, crafting the bait I was assured would bring it into my power, positioning myself to reel it in, and waiting, always waiting.

My setup works without me, but I can monitor it via satelite and trigger the trap with a mere press of a button from my Blackberry. But days passed, weeks, and I got nothing more than the occasional nibble, while others pillaged my supplies, and my stockpiles dwindled.

Time was running out, moral was low. I went on a walk, absently checking my trap every fifteen minutes. And there it was! The Big Bad Burroughs Mouse, sitting pretty in my trap! I squealed and flung my arms around the surprised person standing next to me.

"What? What happened? Did you win the lottery? What's going on?"

I have got to stop playing Mousehunt.

Sleep, Sweet Sleep

2010-05-09T22:20:00.001-07:00

I went for a dash (it was more of a constant battle against gravity. I lost twice) through the woods in the Palisades after work before heading to a vort (engagement party) for a friend of mine. I had to rush to pin up my hair and change between the two and just hoped nobody would notice I was dusty from the shins down (nobody noticed. It was too crowded to see below about chest height and people who haven't seen me for a while (quite a while, apparently) kept edging through the crowd to say "You look amazing! Did you cut your hair? You've done something." Endorphins appear to agree with me). I've only just got back and now I have to get back to work on a commission that's been kicking my butt for an eternity. I never should have accepted it (I didn't want to, but I felt bad for the person who asked) - I have no time! But I want it off my back, so here I sit, working away.

I hope I get some sleep tonight. Last night I lay awake for hours before falling asleep around dawn, only to be woken by my alarm in time for work. I haven't slept this poorly since my brief bout of insomnia back in October. It was strange because I was so tired I fell asleep over a book (I've become accustomed to bound paper as pillow), but I roused myself because I remembered I hadn't yet bentched or counted the Omer. By the time I did those, brushed my teeth, and said my prayers, sleep had flown. Tonight I invite it willingly into my bed and hope it keeps quiet company with me beneath the covers all night long. But first I must work.

Presently Listening To:
Sleep by The Hot Club Of Cowtown
She Only Sleeps By David Byrne
Sleepy Desert By Uncle Earl
Asleep by The Smiths
Always Sleeping by You Army (otherwise known as Josh Altman, a friend of mine)
When It's Sleepy Time Down South by Louis Armstrong

And Parenting 101 by Raymond Beyda

Primal

2010-05-09T02:03:00.001-07:00

I had a completely visceral reaction to something someone said to me the other day - my body reacted before my brain did. I have had physical reactions to statements before, but usually negatively, like when someone describes something terrible or shows me a wound and I feel an answering tremor in the backs of my legs. This was much more interesting (in a good way).

Off-Kilter

2010-05-07T13:33:00.000-07:00

I parted my hair on the opposite side this morning (in deference to a sunburn acquired on a picnic yesterday (good thing I have aloe vera in my garden)) and it's left me feeling oddly lopsided. I apparently usually hold my head slightly tilted to the left - my hair has even been cut with the assumption of a right side part. Switching it up has thrown me off. But change is good, right? Well, positive change is good.

Some Days You Eat The Bear

2010-05-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

Some days the bear eats you.

Such A Nice Day

2010-05-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

Somebody used to tease me about how often I said the word 'nice,' but so many things really are nice, and today was one of them.

My mother came on my lunch break to take me to a Lag B'Omer street fair, which was not terribly interesting at the time I went, though they did have ponies! And I got lunch which was nice, since I hadn't packed any.

I went for a hike after work in Temescal Canyon, four miles up to the falls and back (they are seasonal, but they've still got water at the moment). I arrived for my hike with a half hour of sunshine left, but the moment I got into the hills, the sun disappeared over the ridge. I walked fast to get there and back before darkness fell (it was awfully close. I made it back after dusk, and some of the hollows I walked through were already dark under cover of trees), clambered over the rocky falls in the gathering twilight (I slimed my shoes, but they're Converse and can take it), and shmoozed with other hikers, all of whom I left licking my dust. It was so pleasant, filled with the sound of croaking frogs (I held still until my eyes could pick out their shapes in the water with their throats thrumming), birds calling after me (one of them appeared to be trailing me (it kept darting off to inform its avian superiors of my trajectory)), squirrels fleeing before my footsteps. And Music, lovely Music playing in my ears as I dashed (literally sometimes) through the trees. By the time I was through, my iPod was slick with sweat from where I had it tucked against my hip (I should probably get a new clip, but it doesn't bother me enough to do anything about it). And then it was night and I turned it off because I wasn't certain whether I could still listen to music.

BUT! I called my rabbi when I got home and left a message with my question: different people have different customs regarding when they stop/resume listening to music during the counting of the Omer. Typically, one follows the custom of one's community or family, but I am a baalas teshuva (meaning Master of Return (I don't think I've mastered it yet)), which means that my family has no custom, and I did not (yet) bind myself to a particular community, so I am without minhag (until I marry, at which point I would take on my husband's minhag), and I couldn't remember what I did last year. Anyway, he called me back and said I could resume listening to music now (though I know he's more stringent with his own family - they won't be listening to music for another two weeks - halachically I am in the clear), which made me do a little happy dance. I get so much more done when I can listen to music. Also, I am nurturing a musical addiction and I feel the lack keenly. Also, I love it.

A friend came over when I got home (nine-ish) to tell me she's moving back to LA after far too long in New York. She's going back to school (nursing, I think), and her parents were going to help her pay her rent while she did so, but instead decided to invest in real estate and buy a house in the neighborhood for her to live in while she's in school. She invited me to move in with her (this would be in July, I think), and I'm thrilled! She's fun and I'd get to have a kitchen again! And a non-slanty floor! And an actual living room, which is so far beyond my current means I dared not even dream of it (what does one do in one's living room? I currently do most of my living in my bedroom, and at red lights in between jobs). Anyway, it's a nice idea. If it works out in a timely way, it could be very exciting. I won't hold my breath, but I will keep it as a nice night time fantasy.

Tomorrow night I get to watch a movie for the first time since Chelsea moved away (Chelsea, where are you?). Tuesday I will be having game night with my elder brother and his wife who are in town this week. Wednesday night I will be having dinner with some friends in the company of Jay Leno, Russell Crowe, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer (we'll all be eating kosher, believe it or not. And there's an open bar, which will please my friends (and me, though I'm driving)). Thursday I work for my Brentwood Artist. And then suddenly it's Shabbos again! A good week (though there's been a curious pocket of silence. What gives?).

A Brief Interlude

2010-05-01T22:35:00.001-07:00

It is Lag B'Omer and I can listen to music at last, at last, at long last! I have quite a stack of cds piling up that I haven't heard, as well as podcasts and old favorites I just plain miss. I'd only put vague thought into which I'd listen to first (it feels like my ears have been thirsty), but it's all gone out the window. I listened first to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, mostly by accident (but I don't regret it), then the Smiths (Barbarism Begins At Home has the most brain-nailing baseline I have yet had the privilege to hear), the Cult, Steeleye Span, the Dandy Warhols, Eric Clapton, the Buzzcocks, T. Rex, and Iggy Pop, and all that is just while I load my iPod with Strangeways, Here I Come, You Are The Quarry, Swords, and two bootlegs a friend recently gave me I've been dying to hear (full of songs my ears have not yet tasted!) - all of the Smiths/Morrissey albums that came into my possession in the last month when I couldn't listen to them. I'm taking off (bonfires to light, marshmallows to toast) with twelve hours of portable music (Devendra Banhart, Forro in the Dark, the Kings of Convenience, and Eels albums also came to me a while back) and no pressing concerns until 11 AM tomorrow. I think I'll go for a hike up Temescal Canyon tomorrow after work, too.

Good times again.

I meant to write good times ahead, but I stand by what I said.

Music is on everyone's mind. I was across town this Shabbos and everywhere I went, people were itching to turn on their radios the moment Shabbos ended. A week ago Shabbos, I was sitting at a friend's table for lunch with a mutual friend I've known for a while and they outed his musical ability. He confessed to having formed a punk band in high school (what guitar player didn't?), we wandered down a list of musical influences, and he ended up serenading the table with Girlfriend In A Coma, which has to have been one of the more surreal Shabbos experiences I've had lately.

Presently listening to:
Disappointed, along with about five million others. Aural gorge. Ooo! Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me!

2010-04-25T23:05:00.000-07:00

My favorite part of today is that it's over.

NOW!

2010-04-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

My days are full of countdowns at the moment, which is both fun and frustrating. Counting up to Shavuos, counting down to when I can listen to music again (although I am a little confused on that one. Apparently acapella and drums are ok, it's just others that aren't? Or some people listen to CDs (and by extension records, I suppose), just not live music? I dunno now. Gotta ask my Rav. Until I find out, I have a most delectable selection of CDs piling up for after Shavuos, including one of bootlegs (I have not explored bootlegs yet. I haven't even finished with original studio albums. It's an entire unexplored (or at least mildly variegated) world)). Counting down to goals, to pages, to chapters, counting the miles I drive (I'm still trying to figure out how many miles per gallon I get, but the little resettable mile counter in my car is willful and only allows itself to be set every third full moon, which seldom coincides with when I fill my tank), the miles I walk, the nights without moonlight. Counting the days it takes my seeds to sprout (I recommend Morning Glories. It only took about a day and a half for them to push up and sprout leaves). Counting the days from one job to the next (I nearly got down to three this week, but it turns out one is going to go a little longer than I thought). Counting down until the pickles are ready (shake shake shake), counting the calendar days. And counting down till Thursdays.

Home Alone

2010-04-23T00:18:00.001-07:00

I just arrived home after having dessert (among other things) at a friend's house (I made it (dessert, not the house)) and got accosted by a neighbor who looked me over, smirked at the smile still on my face, and said "Something must have gone well."

Does anybody not know?

Then she asked me why I come home so late. "Aren't you scared to walk down the back alone in the dark?" Um... now that you mention it - it's 12:21 in the morning, everyone is alseep, and something just tapped at my window.

!!!

I'd just changed into my nighty (why do they call them that? It's a stupid name), too. Remind me to put curtains on my back windows, please.

To Taste

2010-04-22T02:25:00.000-07:00

Up late with a batch of blackberry sauce ( I wonder if these count as preserves? I preserve them in the freezer at present, though I have plans to can in the not too distant future) I intend to bring to a friend - it's really good over (good) vanilla ice cream (although I have a hankering to try it over chocolate someday) or pound cake. It smells so good I had to forcibly stop myself from making pancakes (I cannot smell blackberries cooking without vivid memories of blackberry picking down by the railroad tracks before breakfast). I'm making two batches, one spiced, one straight sweetened, and the spices have gone to my head - though it seems I slacked off on my intention of buying a new spice with each paycheck, so I've mostly relied on cloves and cinnamon (must remember to buy cardamom this week. And mace! I've never used mace. Not even on an assailant). * * *

* * * I just got back from a late night market run - the spice tease clearly removing all common sense, nothing would suffice but that I go, right now, and correct the disappointing gaps in my spice cabinet (such as it is). I bought mace, and completely forgot the cardamom. On my way out, I ran into one of my neighbors from my old neighborhood. We both looked at our watches (except I wasn't wearing mine. I took it off while I was washing dishes), and said "good morning!" I wonder what he was making?* * *

Late Night Blackberry Flummery (it is, technically)
Take cleaned blackberries, many, adding a couple of tablespoons of water, and simmer over low flame until the berries burst and their juices flow. Then simmer it some more until the entire thing reduces, stirring periodically so it doesn't stick and scorch. In between stirrings, go away and do something else. I washed my dishes and planted cucumber seeds. You might do headstands. When it's pretty darn soupy, reserve some of the juice in the refrigerator (or the freezer if you're in a rush) for later. Add a largish dollop of honey (this brightens the sometimes sharp flavor of winter berries), stir, then add more if you think it needs it (you're not aiming for truly sweet. Whatever you ladle this over will probably be plenty sweet enough, and the tartness of the blackberries will help mitigate that), and let it simmer some more. Add cloves, cinnamon, a smidge of nutmeg and ginger and mace(!) (or whatever your own favorite winter spices are), and simmer some more until it begins to thicken a little (blackberries have natural pectin, which causes their juice to thicken on its own when cooked for a long while. You can also do what I usually do, which is:), then take the now cold (it must be cold) blackberry juice out of the fridge (or freezer) and dose it with a spoon or two or three of cornstarch or agar agar or flour (I don't recommend flour) or whatever your own personal favorite thickener is, stir it until it's well blended in the cold juice, then add the cold juice to the hot and stir gently. Do not walk away at this point, because it can scorch very quickly when thickened. If it's too thick, add a little bit of water. If it's too thin, tough, because unless you have more cold blackberry juice, there's not much you can do (except add cornstarch to water, but that may make it too watered-down). If you put cornstarch in hot water (or juice), it congeals and forms unpleasantly gooey lumps (I did that once with stew. It was pretty much inedible. I don't even think the cats touched it). Let it simmer a bit, still stirring, until the creamy color and flavor of the cornstarch/agar agar/flour/whatever fades and the whole thing is a lovely black mess. Let it cool (or not) and spoon over your favorite dessert. I tend to pack it up in smallish containers and freeze it. If you wanted to can it, you'd need to have added either vinegar or lemon juice (I'm making it for someone with a citrus allergy, so I left it out) for acidic purposes. You can sieve it for syrup or leaves the berry bits and seeds in (I do) for the delightful things-caught-in-your-teeth sensation.

As with much of my cooking, I didn't really measure anything. You might make it with fewer berries or more honey (or sugar, but that would be sacrilegious) or no spices, according to your own taste. If it turns out you don't like blackberries at all, well, fie on you. But I know you do (or did), because we used to go blackberry picking together and then make pies.

If you time it right, instead of doing your dishes between stirs, or while you wait for the sauce to cool, you can wrap yourself in a shawl, wrap your hands around a mug of tea, and sit out on your porch to watch the Lyrids meteor shower like I am. Just had to wait for the moon to set, and that sucker's down! I am now berry-stained and blissed out. And sleepy.

On an unrelated note, eighteen hours to go.

Eeep!

2010-04-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

Creepy noises on the balcony, heart in my throat, feeling exposed, frightened. Who do you call at three in the morning for comfort? I wish I didn't live alone.

Breezy With A Chance Of Tea

2010-04-17T22:29:00.000-07:00

The light was such a strange color today, milky and yellow. I lay out on my wall with a cup of tea in the intermittent sunshine, listening to the birds and reading the Chumash, where Rashi took aim at that age old question: which came first - the chicken or the egg? (he was talking about childbirth, but I reckon it still applies. I didn't get a complete answer. He cited a teaching I don't have access to, so the question remains a conundrum. I find myself wandering the internet in search of an answer and not finding it - where's a rabbi when you need one?). I went inside for a different book and the breeze blew my blanket over the balcony. I can't fault it. Indeed, I threw all of my windows and door wide to invite it in, and kept wandering out to feel the wind in my hair, lift my face to the sun, and talk to my plants. It was a lovely day, peaceful, restful, much less screaming blowing over from the park than on recent Saturdays (what do they do over there? I never go check. Perhaps I shall next time). I didn't get invaded by neighborhood children for the first time in weeks (though I laid in a supply of cookie dough for them on Thursday, just in case).

Yesterday I put up the first batch of pickles (I threw some baby heirloom tomatoes in, just to see what would happen) I've made since I moved (it's been about eleven months), and baked a batch of muffins, while nibbling on pickled cabbage and sipping tea. I haven't cooked much since I moved, due to a pressing lack of kitchen coupled with an extreme dearth of time, and I've missed it. For a long while I mostly tended to eat things that could be acquired through late night jaunts to all-hour markets and thrown in my bag in a rush (a lot of fruits, nuts, and the occasional yogurt). Hot food in the daytime always feels like a luxury now, except on Shabbos, which seems slightly sad. On the occasional rare evening off, I used to invade my mothers house to cook them dinner, just for a chance to do something creative with food (it seems like a waste to cook for one person, so I mostly didn't bother. A book is unfinished until it's been read, a meal is unfinished until it's been eaten). I've been slipping cooking for myself back in lately (I don't know if pickling counts, especially since I'm unlikely to get more than a couple of the pickles for myself. Too many other people seem to want them. But real food too), and it makes me feel like I'm returning to myself. It's a such a simple, human thing to do. And fun. And tasty. And easily shared. It helps to cook for others. I aim to do more of it.

Moving Fast As Stone

2010-04-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

And not the molten kind.

Late night:Good Idea::Skinny dipping in a baptismal font during midnight Mass:Good Idea

Totally worth it, though.

2010-04-12T04:02:00.000-07:00

I've just come back from a little night ramble. The rain has stopped, but the clouds are so close, so low, you can reach out and draw them down to wrap around you.

In The Dark, Damply

2010-04-12T01:47:00.000-07:00

I cannot sleep, do not want to sleep, do not want to miss a moment of the wind and the rain - I never know when or if it will come again. So here I sit, listening to it pattering against the window like it's trying to slip in, slip in beneath my skin, soak through me, layer by layer, until I am rain and rain is me, and there's nothing but the mingled feeling of slick self, soft saturated, senses flooded, mind riffling, spirit upwelling, damp in the dark.

Week In Review

2010-04-11T23:59:00.000-07:00

Today is thirteen days of the Omer.

Favorite (Or Possibly Least) Verbal Exchange:
Mother: Don't you get tired of always being right?
Me: No.

Times I Was Hit By Falling Walls:
Once, at work (where else?).

Times I Walked Into Walls:
Once.

Inexplicable Bruises Acquired (Unrelated To Walls):
One, on my inner thigh.

Days Spent In The Sunshine:
Many. Eight? Parts of them, anyway.

Days Spent Avoiding The Sunshine:
Two. What is this 80s nonsense? Too hot!

Freckles Acquired:
Many. Let 'em come.

Cups Of Tea Lusted After:
About forty.

Cups Of Tea Consumed:
About thirty.

Things I Plan To Do Differently Next Pesach:
Three. Possibly four.

Earthquakes Experienced:
One.

Falling Stars Witnessed:
One.

Automobile Issues Dealt With:
One. Turns out my car goes a lot faster with air in its tires. Turning the wheel is also much easier. I was building up impressive biceps wrestling with my steering wheel. Thank you, Maintenance Man, for being in love with my car and checking it out every time you pass it. I never would have noticed my wheels (wheels are things that go around to move me around. Whaddaya mean they need maintenance?).

Uncommon Urges:
One. I having been longing to kill a cow - spit it, roast it, herbed and salted, hot over flame, then devour it, possibly with my bare hands. I've no idea what's come over me. Anyway, it's impossible. I have a dairy kitchen. But mmm...

Paintings Hung:
Six.

Months It Took Me To Hang These Paintings:
Five. I'd hung all of my other paintings over time, but ran out of picture hanging hooks for one corner, and it took me forever to make the time to go buy new ones. I refused to put the paintings in my closet, because out of sight means they'd be off my radar for even more months, so I'd been moving them this way and that, trying to live around them, but now they are on the wall. At last!

Puns I Committed:
Ten.

Puns I Caused Others To Commit:
Fourteen - mea culpa.

Moths Caught:
Many. Only a couple in my own apartment. Mine are mostly gone (though I briefly contemplated the temporary purchase of a frog to deal with them for me. I can deal with the croaking), but it turns out they are somewhat common in households in the southland. I have had much practice, and now everyone thinks I am some kind of cloaked, moth-conquering hero.

Nights Walked:
One.

Days Walked:
Four.

Winds Walked Through:
Two. Whee!

Random Solitary Utterance:
"It's all just part of my backstory." Not sure what prompted it, what I was thinking. Some kind of long-running internal commentary that found utterance on my lips and promptly derailed my train of thought.

Successful Attempts To Hold My Tongue:
One. An elderly lady was telling me she meets up with her sixth grade teacher every month for lunch. I nearly said "Wow! Your teacher must have been very young when she started teaching."

Unsuccessful Attempts To Hold My Tongue:
One. My brother was in town this week. I may have insulted his quantitative reasoning skills (a true insult, coming from an English major). I don't think he cared, though. Or even noticed.

Strangest Overheard Conversation:
Between a posse of police, musing over the people they'd recently shot, then comparing which museums will let them pack heat when they come in off duty.

Estimated Departure Of Persistent Finger Pain At Present Nail Growth Rate:
One month.

People Who Attempted To Chide Me For Something Or Other:
Some, I think. I may have stopped listening.

Number Of Catfights Witnessed:
Two, one involving actual cats (and a squirrel! The squirrel won).

Plants Purchased:
Six. Lavender and lilacs, among others.

Seeds Planted:
Thirty-six. Germinate! Ger-min-ATE!

Mythical Creatures Spotted In The Skies Over Los Angeles:
One. One dragon's shadow, anyway, coasting over my car. What if they really are hanging out all over the place, but because their scales are really shiny, and reflect light in the ultraviolet range, so we cannot see them, all we see are their shadows as they fly between us and the sun? But dogs can hear them, and lack the imagination to persuade themselves that they didn't hear what they really did, which is why they're always barking at things we cannot see.

Dreams:
Two. The second dream was the more vivid one. A research ship full of male sailors got caught in dark waters in rough weather, the sky near black and shrouded with violently boiling clouds. The ship underwent electrical failure, its lifeboats had been blown away by the storm, and it started to sink. The sailors tore around the ship in the dark, trying desperately to fix whatever they could to keep the boat afloat, but the water crept up and the ship sank down and showers of sparks lit up the dark water as electrical wires were exposed to the wet, electrocuting the men who were near them. Inside, the water rose and the windows stuck and there was no way out, no way free. Lightning flared, and lit the faces of men as they beat at the windows, trying to break them, trying to get out, while the rain streamed down the windows to meet the sea that rapidly rose to cover the glass. Men raced to get to the top of the ship, but many were caught by the rising water. The ship slipped beneath the sea, the water inside rose to fill the ship, and the men who had made it to the bridge clustered around the hatch in the ceiling, trying to break it down, trying to ignore the screams of drowning men below them, until the water rose above their heads and they were all drowned.

Presently Listening To:
The sound of night winds.

Today Is Ten Days Of The Omer

2010-04-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

I spent most of the day punning with friends on Facebook. It was enormously satisfying. What did people do all day at work before the advent of the internet?

Earthquake!

2010-04-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

I felt dizzy, then heard the my door groan and the water in the pool outside start sloshing. Rocking, rocking, like a cradle, for a long time, back and forth. The water in the pool leapt over the sides. I couldn't tell when it stopped because I was still rocking.

6.9 in Baja California, Mexico. Felt it all the way up here. I hope they're all okay down there. That's pretty big.

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

Due to the aforementioned holiday, I have an unexpected day off before my own holidays resume this evening. I pondered for a week the many possibilities for my moment of freedom (most of them were near the beach and involved hiking. The hills are awfully pretty right now), but ultimately decided I could do no better with my time than a whole day of uninterrupted editing. Whee!

Goodnight Moon

2010-03-29T05:32:00.000-07:00

The moon is setting fat and yellow and almost full through the fig tree outside my window.

Week In Review

2010-03-29T01:53:00.000-07:00

Favorite Verbal Exchange:
Fellow with walrus mustache - I like him. He's a real Yankees fan.
Me - What makes him a real Yankees fan?
Fellow - He bleeds pinstripes.
Fellow twitches mustache, winks, and stumps off.

Days Until Pesach:
Um... about thirteen hours.

Things Left To Do Before Pesach:
Argh! Dozens!

Likelihood Of Completion Before Dawn:
Certain.

Likelihood Of Getting Any Sleep Before Work:
So very, very unlikely.

Likelihood Of Surviving The Day:
High. I am able to survive (if not thrive) on very little sleep. Augers well for having children, I suppose.

Likelihood Of Enjoying The Day:
Um... Isn't that a question of attitude?

Celebrities Seen:
One - anyway, I'm calling him a celebrity, though, since he works in radio, I don't think he really qualifies. Ira Glass. If you have a chance to see him live, I recommend you take it. He's terribly funny in person, and interesting, which we knew.

Hookers Seen:
One - on the way back from seeing Ira Glass, at the intersection of Melrose and Doheny.

Offers Received In Which I Have No Interest But For Which I Will Have To Formulate Polite Refusals:
One.

Strange New Auto Noises I Am NOT Exploring:
Two.

Strange Supernatural Supermarket Experiences:
One. I walked into the closed-door refrigerator section, and all ten of the doors blew open like they were trying to eat me.

Strangers Who Inexplicably Burst Into Tears While Talking To Me:
One.

Times I Burst Into Tears:
Two - both more a slow slide into the weepies. One I am pretty sure was just frustration and exhaustion rather than anything in particular.

Old Men Who Got A Little Grabby In An Elevator:
One. Do you think grabby old men were patters when they were young, or does old age take them to some inappropriately touchy place they were afraid to access when they were young and nubile?

Opinion Of Los Angeles:
Low this week.

People Who Went Out Of Their Way To Tease Me In Order To Make Me Blush:
Six.

People Who Were Successful:
Four.

Likelihood Of Me Doctoring Their Dinners One Of These Days:
High.

Nights Walked:
Nowhere near enough. Been too busy.

Cups Of Tea Made/Consumed/Dropped:
Zero. That's a lie, I suddenly realize. I had a cup of Sleepytime on Shabbos. Why didn't I remember that until just now?

Cups Of Tea Fantasized About:
Three.

Days I Lay, Sat, Or Otherwise Enjoyed Being Out In The Sun:
Three.

Sunburns Incurred:
One.

Evidence Of Tanning Ability:
Nonexistent. I sat amongst a pile of pillows on my hall floor on Saturday with my front door open (I don't actually have another door), book in hand, legs stretched out uncovered in the sun (until a neighbor child came galumphing (not loudly enough. I didn't hear her until she was on the top step) up my steps in a search of food and I yanked my hem down) for an hour and a half, and I've got nothing but a couple more freckles to show for it. Five minutes in the sun and my face turns red and pinched - five hours in the sun and my legs are still pale as milk bottles. It's a cruel world.

Shops Visited:
A hundred. Maybe forty.

Items Purchased:
A hundred. Maybe forty.

Items Purchased That Were Frivolous:
Two.

Overdue Library Books:
Two.

Books I Intend To Return Before The Holiday:
One.

Dishes Broken:
Three.

Amount I Care:
Not a whit.

Times I Was Woken In The Night:
Two - once by a sudden, swift wind at 4:30 AM, once by wild life (two raccoons (I think) battling for supremacy in the tree on the other side of the pool) at 1:30 AM.

Destructive Blue Jays Encountered:
One - he ate my Shabbos challah! Granted, I put it outside to warm in the sun for twenty minutes (it got just as hot from the sun as from a blech), but you wouldn't think one bird could make such inroads in such a short time. It was wrapped in plastic, for heaven's sake! I couldn't stop laughing. Good thing I had a back-up roll. Half the challah is still out there. Every so often, I can hear that jerk pecking away at it. I'm fairly certain he's also the bird with the irritating chirp. Most of my birds are delightful creatures with lovely voices and a tendency toward tunefulness, and then there's this one squawker. I'm fairly certain it's the jay.

Moths Caught:
Thirty-five. I've seen another two or three, but I'm nearly there. Throwing away most of my baking supplies helped (I won't be baking for a while, anyway, and when I start up again, I'm going to invest in some heavy duty storage. No more moths for me!). I'm a master of the two-handed-moth-catch.

Nights Bed Wasn't Even Considered Until After Two:
Three. Tonight's not looking good either.

Presently Listening To:
Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

This American Life

2010-03-27T21:06:00.001-07:00

On my way to go see Ira Glass talk about producing his iconic (can something aural be iconic?) radio program at Royce Hall. Radio appeals to me, and always has. Music, news, and twice-told-tales transmitted orally, like evening stories, harking back for thousands of years around hearth fires. I've always wished I could go see Garrison Keillor, but it's always been a little out of reach. Why doesn't the man come to California in January instead of June? Don't know why I've been typing in such a clipped way lately. I don't think I've been reading any writers of a similar style. On the contrary, a lot of the writers I've been reading lately are clearly in love with their own prose and couldn't bear to part with a word of it (good thing the subject matter is interesting). Except R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi, by way of R. Yosef Wineberg. They're pretty spare. I spent the afternoon alternating between Lessons in Tanya and Meetings With Morrissey - a strange juxtaposition.

I'm excited about this evening. First how-to (how-do, really) radio glory days, then walk, then finish a commission, then finish cleaning apartment for Pesach (easy-peasy, now I've tossed out all of my flour (and hopefully all of its attendant moths)). Night air is balmy, stars are out, lovely things ahead.

I cannot believe I have to wait nearly another two weeks, maybe more. Waiting is torture. Of course, I've waited (without knowing I was waiting) for more than a year, so you'd think two weeks would pass like desert rain. But no... I long to see him again.

Confidential to Chelsea

2010-03-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

I touched the squirrel! Happy happy happy! Yes, I washed my hands after.

Still Rusholme Ruffing it. It's such a hip-wagger. Washing dishes-wag wag wag. Ironing laundry-wag wag wag. Watering my wilting garden-wag wag wag. Setting out Shabbos candles-wag wag wag.

Also toe-tapping, head-shaking, knee-bopping, and the occasional (very occasional) twirl. I miss swing dancing. Come back and jitterbug with me.

You asked for this a week or two ago, but my short attention span intervened:
Not all who wander are lost. - J.R.R. Tolkien
Not all who are lost wander. Some sit down and build sand castles. -Me

Defeated By Small Armies

2010-03-25T23:15:00.000-07:00

Rough day.

Went to my mother's house to take down her garbage cans, just so the day wouldn't be a total loss. Also to get a much needed hug. His Latest Flame/Rusholme Ruffians on in background now (thank you Youtube, since I still haven't gotten my hands on any full length Smiths albums (except Louder Than Bombs). Too busy to look for a while) while teeth brush, floss, bed. Tomorrow try again.

Trigger

2010-03-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

My elder brother was in town earlier this week, for a remarkably temperate visit, all things considered, but it still put my head in a spin (small spin). He favors suspenders these days. After he spent a few hours teaching our mother to do something technical with Photoshop (I spent the time folding laundry), we all went for a wander through Hancock Park. After thirty years of trying to catch up, it turns out I can do something he can't:

Whistle.

Drat!

2010-03-24T02:07:00.000-07:00

Suddenly tired and ready for bed, turned around, and realized I'd stripped my bed for laundry day. Granted, my sheets are all clean now, but I don't want to make my bed, I just want to fall into it. Would it be tacky to just wrap myself in a sheet and call it quits? Sigh. To the winch, wench.

Laying Claim To The Family Jewels

2010-03-24T00:46:00.000-07:00

That would be the (now working) vacuum cleaner, and my adorable cousins. Fortune, I know ye not.

Freshly back from my writer's group, where I was a non-contributing member (a rarity for me. It was actually rather refreshing). For the longest time (relatively speaking. We've only been at it for four or five years), it was the only thing I did that made me feel like an adult (I was going to school full time and working full time and accomplishing nothing (it still doesn't feel as though I have accomplished anything), surrounded by recalcitrant, post-high school children who refused to grow up until they graduated from college, or until the rent was due, but every three weeks, I sat down with a half dozen writers who felt like real people, and talked about the only thing I ever cared about (professionally), and hammered out prose (in the beginning I flirted with some fairly wretched poetry. Despite your father's offer back in the nineties (I don't remember what he read, but he got his hands on some of my poetry, and said he would write music for it, that he wanted to record it, that they made great lyrics. I didn't believe him at the time. I didn't believe anyone at the time), I don't think I'm a particularly good poet), and critiqued, and nibbled crudités, and argued the finer points of plot and characterization and puberty (relevant in children's literature) and the effects of psychotropic drugs (pertinent to some of our member's projects), and watched the sun set over the ocean (except in the winter, when it was, in fact, already down), and celebrated the occasional publishing victory, and just generally inched forward with my chosen (lifestyle? Career? Job? Goal?) path. Now I pay rent on a regular basis. That's pretty helpful in making me feel like an adult. Most of the time it just makes me feel old. But I still go to my writer's group, and it reminds me that old is very, very relative. A good night.

I stopped by my mother's house to pick up a few things I'd left behind earlier in the day, and found two of my adorable cousins lounging around, helping my stepfather shift books (they've built a good twenty floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and shipped all of his seforim from New York, where they've been in storage for the last eleven years or so. He's thrilled), and visiting with their grandmother, who just flew in from New York to stay for the holiday. I volunteered to take them home, and ended up making a late night pilgrimage to Pavilions in search of light bulbs with the redhead in tow. We entertained each other down the aisles (that is one weird word. It's got a silent s!), then I dropped her home, and continued on my merry way, warbling along to my ever-present ipod (I have to be careful what I listen to on that thing (which is not to say that I actually am careful, just that I should be). Music hugely influences my mood these days (perhaps the painful weaning of the Omer is a good thing). Some songs (some of my favorites, unfortunately) are fully capable of sending me into a spiral. Or bouncing me straight up to the moon, so it really just depends. Where was I? Lost in parentheticals). And here I am, post-sunset, pre-dawn, ignoring my folded laundry, and my pressing need to organize my week, humming along to happy songs, writing to you.

Presently listening to:
The Honey Tree by The Mostar Diving Club

I Am My Own Worst Enemy

2010-03-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Worked self into tizzy, cranked up, made crazy, then wound down. Mind can go back to whatever hole it crawled out and evolved from. Didn't evolve far enough. Blah blah blah.

Red carrots.

Requiescant In Pace

2010-03-22T23:58:00.000-07:00

I was so sad to hear that Sid Fleischman died this week. He was a charming man, a wonderful writer, and a marvelous magician. I first met him ten or eleven years ago (a small, dapper, spry, elderly man), and managed to touch base with him every year except this past summer - he was already unwell. He was one of those people who made life look easy, who made writing look easy. More than that, he made everything fun. He was kind and funny and generous and quietly exuberant. He felt everlasting and ever-present, even when he wasn't. He will be missed by so many. He will be missed by me.

Today I had an odd moment. I took it to the hills to break it down between the pavement and my pressing footsteps, but I suspect it will play out in short order. I spent so much of the last year thinking (an uncommon adventure), putting the past in perspective and laying it to rest. I don't think many people have the courage to face the past, which is a shame because once you get in the habit of hiding, it can make it very hard to face the future. No one can weed your garden but you, and untended pasts always creep into the future, choking out hope and growth and progress. Perhaps it is just my own fear talking. I hope I am wrong.

Presently listening to I Know It's Over by The Smiths and finding it very comforting and beautiful.

Week In Review

2010-03-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

Funniest Thing Someone Said About Me:
"I thought you were a bug."
On noticing my somewhat incredulous expression, he clarified:
"You know. Peacefully lying on the ground. You don't bug anyone, and no one bugs you."
Inaccurate, but funny.

Earthquakes:
One.

Dreams:
Two, but I forgot one.

Odd Revelations About My Dreams:
One - there's never a sun. There's often directionless light of one kind or another filtering through clouds. Sometimes the sky is just overcast, sometimes it's dark. But there's never a sun.

New Acquaintances Made:
Two.

Reacquaintances Made:
One.

Emotions Experienced On Reintroduction:
Five squillion or so.

Mental Recriminations:
Fluctuating.

Confusion:
Perpetual.

View Of The Future:
Evolving.

Weeks till Pesach:
One!

Projects I'm Avoiding:
Two.

Blisters Formed:
Two.

Hummingbirds Spotted:
Thirty!

Parrots Heard:
Flocks.

Parrots Spotted:
Zero.

Daffodils (Daffodils!) Purchased:
Forty.

Plants Killed:
One (possibly).

Uninvited Guests Who Freaked Out At Moths:
Five.

Moths Caught:
Nine.

Fights Presently Occurring Beneath My Kitchen Window:
One.

Indecision Over Whether To Cut My Hair Or Grow It Long Again:
Increasing. Any thoughts? I've only got a week to decide, before I can't cut my hair (or listen to music. Or get married) for more than a month.

Inappropriate Compliments Received:
One. "I don't know who you're trying to charm or seduce, but it's working." From the same guy (married, the bastard) who a few weeks ago walked up to me and said "I like it when you blush," which, of course, made me blush. He goes out of his way to do stuff like that.

Number of People Who Attempted To Tickle Me:
Two.

Number of People Who Were Successful:
One.

Time I Had Known Said Person:
One hour, give or take a few minutes.

Likelihood Of Me And This Person Forming A Lasting Friendship:
Surprisingly high.

Nights I Walked:
Two. Disappointing.

Days I Walked:
One. Surprising.

Cups Of Tea Made:
None.

Cups Of Tea Bought:
One.

Number Of Sips I Managed Before Dropping Said Tea In The Street:
Zero, and then I laughed.

Number Of Times I Skipped:
Nine. That I remember off-hand.

Number Of Times Security Threatened To Tackle Me If I Skipped Again:
One.

Lines Written:
Hundreds.

Lines Edited:
Thousands.

Lines Deleted:
Hundreds.

Letters Written To Friends Who've Been Begging For Correspondence:
Three.

Letters Received Back:
Zero.

Celebrities Spotted:
Multiple. I think. I'm not sure who most of them were, only that they looked familiar. It's also possible I just happened to see my dry cleaner and grocery bagger out of context.

Driveways Draped In Magenta Tulle Spotted:
One.

Meals Missed:
Fewer. A good thing.

Dishes Washed:
Most of them.

Books Read:
None in their entirety.

Opinion Of Morrissey's Kill Uncle:
Lackluster. Melodically disappointing.

Nights I Fell Asleep Fully Clothed, Still Wearing My Glasses:
One.

Mornings I Woke Up Still Wearing My Glasses:
Zero.

Top Three Songs I've Ever Played On iTunes:
Heartbeats by José González; Irish Blood, English Heart by Morrissey; Love Love Love by the Mountain Goats, at 269, 245, and 215 plays respectively (I wasn't kidding when I said I loop songs. Sometimes I forget and leave it on when I get in the shower. I can't hear it, but it ratchets up the play rating pretty quickly. That and when I'm in love with a song, it goes into whatever mixes I'm listening to at the time). None of these are presently in rotation.

Accuracy Of iTunes At Predicting What I Want To Hear:
Minimal.

Presently Listening To:
Too Much Time by John Vanderslice.

Hot Flashes

2010-03-20T23:24:00.000-07:00

I'd planned to stay in and rest Shabbos day, not having recovered any of my lost sleep this week, but I woke unexpectedly early and went to Shul instead. I ended up walking one of my favorite families home (they invited me for lunch, but last night after candle lighting, I got invaded by an assortment of neighborhood girls (it happens a lot, particularly on Shabbos. I'm not sure whether it's me or my apartment, but something seems to call them to just pop over) who'd come to pester me, poke around my shelves, ask me impertinent questions, and see if I had frozen cookie dough (I usually keep it on hand for them (my freezer is bigger than my fridge), but it's a week before passover). They caught me in the act of washing dishes in slightly inappropriately attire (it was hot. I had (and still have) all of my windows thrown wide to catch the breeze). I closed the door in their faces and changed my shirt, then let them in (I must remember to lock my door), and one of them had invited me to come for lunch. I agreed to come say hello at the very least). I stayed to shmooze for a while, then offered to walk one of their daughters to her friend's house for lunch. I found her in the backyard playing handball with the rest of the kids and joined in for a while until the noontime sun was too intense, and we all went in. Her friend lives on my block, so we wandered the mile and a half or so, trying to keep to the shade (it was 80 degrees today, about ten degrees above my comfort zone. The floor of my balcony was as hot as beach sand), and stopping by every interesting plant along the way.

After lunch, I lay out on my porch wall, ostensibly reading, but really just dozing in the sun, listening to the birds with my head pillowed on my arms while the sun baked my back and the wind slipped between my legs and flipped my skirt. I lost my pillow over the edge of the balcony, which woke me from my sun-induced stupor in time to make it to the Shabbos shiur, then home again just before sunset for Minchah and to get interrupted by another gaggle of girls - this time all of my eleven-year-old students. They'd been playing on a lawn down the block when they got scared by a man who was watching them and ran to my house. I entertained them (and vice versa. One of them turned to me and said "You're just like a little kid." "Is that a good thing?" I asked. She thought about it for a minute, then waved her hand dismissively. "It's a good thing."), then walked them to the nearest girl's house. Her mother was sitting outside, anxiously awaiting their return. She'd also noticed the creepy guy. Remind me later to rant about the general weirdness of my (relatively) new neighborhood.

I was eating Moroccan harissa carrots on Friday (heavy emphasis on the garlic, just enough chili pepper to cause a good slow burn. 'Twas delicious), savoring the spice, and thinking back. A little over a year ago, I was sitting next to the man I was dating at the time at a sheva bracha (post-wedding feast) I had thrown for a friend (my first. I had no idea what I was doing, but she had no family, and had only just moved to town. There wasn't anyone else to do it). It was a sort of build-your-own-taco-burrito-whatever Mexican buffet and there were a variety of peppers on the table for the spicily inclined - for some reason, there aren't a lot of those amongst Ashkenazi Jews -there are a lot of spice wimps out there. There were serranos and jalapeños and a small dish of pickled habañeros. The first two got used sparingly, but the latter hadn't been touched. People were daring each other to take tiny nibbles of them, but their resulting cries and rushes for water dissuaded the rest. The habañeros came our way, and my fellow casually picked one up and popped it whole into his mouth. If memory serves, jaws dropped, eyes grew wide, and silence fell as he chewed and swallowed.
"That didn't hurt?" someone asked.
He shrugged. "I'm used to it," he said.
Everyone looked terribly impressed. But I was sitting close by his side and saw the trickle of sweat creep down his cheek. When I quietly called attention to it, he said something along the lines of "It's not that I don't feel the effects, I enjoy them."

I'm not sure whether it was the general machismo or just him, but I found the whole thing unbearably sexy.

2010-03-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

Can't take music with words right now. Clutters my thoughts.

Do you ever find there was more you wanted to ask or say and the conversation skipped past where you could say it, or ended before you had a chance to figure out a way to thread back to it? Still working on that one, on recognizing opportunities, particularly before they've passed (though I won't say no to second chances). Maybe you're better at holding onto the verbal ball than I - most people are.

Cryptic Mutterings

2010-03-19T01:36:00.000-07:00

It's late. I don't have to be coherent.

I was too nervous to eat today and I didn't force myself - in hindsight, a mistake, as I worked until a quarter past one in the morning out in Brentwood (that's long even for me. I fondly remember the nights when we ended promptly at 10:30. Not quite sure when I lost control of that). It doesn't seem worth it to eat now. I'll try again tomorrow (I'm getting pretzel challah (something tasty I'll give you when you come visit in April) for Shabbos. That should tempt my vanished appetite (bread always does. Except for yesterday (the day before yesterday? The day before I last slept), when I merely looked at a bagel for about six hours. It was green (my boss thought green bagels and cream cheese were a good idea for St. Patty's Day). It looked cosmically gruesome, but it smelled delicious. Just not delicious enough). Looks like I may have next Thursday night free (won't know for sure until Wednesday). I'm delighted. And I have a commission I picked up this evening for Tuesday (a repeat customer I acquired after doing a commission for the Aish rabbi here in LA (I made something for his wife, but never heard back whether she liked it. Must have, since they've been recommending me). This fellow had me make something for his wife last year. She must have liked it (I never heard back from them either).

I'm trying to stay awake long enough to make my apartment Shabbos ready and for my golden beets to boil, but I'm so tired.

It's been an interesting day. Actually, not really. Most of the day was about as you'd expect, except for forty minutes that stood out. I'd have liked to have gone home and pondered for a while (possibly while drinking tea (or - gasp! - eating dinner)). Instead, I went to work and attempted to tune out the sound of angry pundits (the artist is a knee-jerk liberal and loves to listen to televised political types rant and rave so she can feel righteous indignation (I'm told it's a very warming sensation). I keep my political views (such as they are) to myself, but only really enjoy the half hour of John Stewart (he's particularly amusing when he takes umbrage with Glenn Beck (as he did tonight))) so I could think, but it wasn't particularly effective, and nearly everything I did jarred my finger (I can type fine, but fine work is too involved and my tools kept hitting me exactly wrong, making me gasp and tremble. I can't wait for that to grow out). Now I'm too tired for my brain to function. I'll try thinking again tomorrow, too. I've got plenty with which to tempt myself.

Proof God Loves Us:

2010-03-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

In the beginning, we had no tape decks, no CD players, no 8-tracks. We had no records (poor us!), nor even any iTunes. And yet, for 3500 years, we did not begin counting the Omer until after Passover, because God knew I would whine, like the proverbial not-yet-invented broken record, if I had to do all of this cleaning without music. He anticipated the need, thousands of years in advance, for me to be able to blast all manner of musical mayhem while sorting, scrubbing, and covering. What a God!

Proof God has a strange sense of humor:

He invented pre-teens. They didn't used to exist either. I have not yet determined their purpose, except to tease me about my vocabulary and to try to pair me off with their older brothers (not a one over the age of 17 (which at least makes a nice change from getting paired off with their grandfathers).
"Why don't you like my brother? He's cute."
"Let me know when he's old enough to shave."
"Is it because he isn't interesting?"
"Let's go with yes."
"That guy who sometimes comes to our house for Shabbos when you come is interesting."
"Which is more than can be said for this conversation."
"You're both really interesting."
"We both also have legs."
"Do you have a crush on someone else?"
"We're not going to learn anything new today, are we?"

It's vaguely endearing, but mostly annoying.

Fame At Last!

2010-03-16T23:45:00.001-07:00

I went to a bat mitzvah tonight, and immediately upon entering the room, I was hailed from the microphone, from the bat mitzvah girl, and from a couple of dozen girls around the room, most of whom I'd never seen before in my life. I'm famed for teaching a couple of grade levels of girls how to make jewelry. They've been talking me up for months, apparently. The parents motioned me over and sat me down just in time to hear the birthday girl's speech, where she thanked me (why I am not sure. All I've done lately is harass her about her grammar and teach her to pearl knot (which she hated)) and named me an honorary member of her family (which her parents confirmed when they introduced me (with their own last name) to the grandparents. It was very sweet). Girls kept coming up to me to ask me questions (what have they been telling people?), and then some parents came over, and then the dancing teacher who'd been hired to entertain them stopped by me to verify my name and said "You taught me to make sushi a few years ago." I laughed - it was just that kind of evening.

I stopped by my mother's house to pick up my mail and found a small square package from Greece (I love foreign mail - reminds me of all of those pen pal exchanges I did when I was little that usually petered out after one or two letters). I'd bought a couple of 7" singles a few weeks back (I love vinyl. Such a lovely, warm sound. Nothing like the clinical perfection of CDs) , but couldn't remember which they were. When I pulled them out, I squealed like the fangirl I totally pretend I am not (it's a sound I cannot reproduced unless I am terribly excited over something inconsequential (I squeaked over fireworks at the canals in Venice on New Years Eve and made my friends laugh so hard I worried they'd inhaled their cigarettes. Not a sound they were expecting from me, I guess) or sometimes when I yawn). I've got How Soon Is Now on vinyl! It has quite possibly the most instantly recognizable guitar riff ever (and the reverb can peel your eardrums if you're wearing headphones), and now I've got the short version, so this should be interesting. Also William It Was Really Nothing.

Afterward, I went back up the upper end of Doheny, the tail end of the bird streets. I'd done them already, but it was 9:30 and I prefer to walk familiar streets when I'm alone and it's later than usual. It's nice and steep and well-lit, and every time I walk there, there's a half dozen people out walking their dogs, and one of the houses up there is surrounded by silly statuary, and all of those dead ends take about fifty minutes to trek (it only takes ten to go straight back down to my car). At one point, an owl with four legs and a tail came whirling toward me out of the darkness and sent my heart racing. I thought it was a skunk at first, but it was just a white-faced cat. Had my walking partner been with me, she'd have leapt behind me (she always does that. I'm her first line of defense in case of wild animal attacks. I think I'm supposed to keep them occupied while she runs for help). The city spread out beneath me like tumbled jewels, and that part of Doheny is high enough it all seems far removed from me. A few weeks ago I found a different street with an unparalleled view of the city, high up and unbroken for about 280 degrees, but I'm afraid to walk it alone. There aren't any streetlights or even houses for the most part, and when I started up it alone the first time I kept feeling like if I went ahead, I'd get eaten. It's fairly remote for being all of about seven minutes from the Sunset strip. I went back with a friend, and it made my mind glow. Sigh. Another time, I suppose. Tonight was balmy and breezy, too warm to walk really, but who cares? Hot, sweaty, happy. Another good day.

I put the B side on as I got ready for bed, and Well I Wonder started up slow, ponderous, un-Smiths-like. Then Morrissey started moaning and I realized I was playing a 45 record at 33 1/3 RPM. I laughed, fixed the record player and tried again. Happy. Till the end, when I wondered whether the record player hadn't self-adjusted to play at 78 RPM. Nope, just Moz singing in a falsetto. Squee!

Goodnight.

Lazybones

2010-03-16T06:39:00.000-07:00

Birds are up.

Waiting For Dawn

2010-03-16T06:11:00.001-07:00

Filling the hours, waiting for enough light to take to the streets, so there's at least the possibility of someone hearing me if I scream (my general qualification for safety). Doing pre-pesach cleaning (mostly sorting. I plan to sell my kitchen entirely. I'm going out for both Shabboses (I don't think that's how you pluralize that word), both seders, and the end days. That basically leaves me with three days to cover. I'll just eat oranges. I can use the vitamin C). Presently purging my closet of everything that doesn't fit or that needs to be taken in (that would be pretty much everything at this point). Found a shirt apparently made of black astro turf. Pourquoi?

I'm keeping it.

Dreams Imitate Life

2010-03-16T04:13:00.000-07:00

I dreamt I was walking under an overcast sky in an overgrown field full of dead hemlock and dry winter grasses with the occasional frightened rabbit bounding away from my intrusive footsteps, looking at a row of farmhouses from behind, trying to recognize the house I'd grown up in (when I finally found it, it was smaller than it had been and had begun to fall apart) so I could point it out to the man with whom I was attempting, and failing, to have a cohesive conversation. He was a vague sort of person, head of a family of gypsies, who were annoyed he'd come to America to talk to me (why he bothered, I couldn't say. It wasn't a productive conversation - he wasn't really listening, and I couldn't figure out what to say that would engage his wandering attention), and were planning to come en masse to bring him back (this last I got from a newspaper that blew up against my legs. There was a photograph of them all in the airport, hefting luggage and looking angry. They were mostly women).

I was verging on wakefulness anyway, and then we had an earthquake. I am up. And I got to say the blessing over earthquakes!

Is it too early to go for a walk or does this count as late-night-alone-BANNED! walking? My head could use clearing.

2010-03-15T20:36:00.001-07:00

I should have known, just from the way I awoke this morning (whacked my head hard against the wall (must have been dreaming something weird)), that this wasn't going to be one of my better days. I'm going to bed now and will try again tomorrow.

9:00 PM Addendum:
It wasn't really bad, except the end (the end was overwhelmingly bad), and parts were even lovely. I sat out in the sun in the afternoon, listening to the birds and small children enjoying the life of the small, feeling the breeze on my face, watching the wind blow my shadow's hair around, and baking in the sun. That part was great. Work wasn't bad. My car continues to function. Traffic was decent. There is no war on our home soil (except the war on drugs, but that's more of a playground fight featuring SWAT teams). I sat out with one of my elderly former neighbors for half an hour (I once helped Mrs. Fogel carry her grocery cart up the steps to her apartment, and she's never forgotten - she's asked after me ever since. I have another elderly neighbor on the other side, Sally (why don't they name girls Sally anymore?), who also remembers some small kindness from years ago, and on the strength of that, we have a charming relationship (I don't even remember what it was. I think I brought her flowers after her husband died, or walked her somewhere, or something equally small). The lesson here being I suppose, be kind to old ladies, they have long memories), and talked about the ways of the world and the raising of rents and the terrors of modern airports and other benign subjects. It was a good day, until it wasn't.

Hoot!

2010-03-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

I've been flicking through some old correspondence from a year or two ago and find I was in the midst of a literary love affair (a rekindling, if you will. The three of us have had affairs before) with George MacDonald and Jean Webster; my letters were all peppered through with little scottishisms and dialectic inflections.

My friends are patient people (for the most part). All that blethering must have been really annoying.

Spring Forward

2010-03-13T23:40:00.000-08:00

I spent Shabbos with my family, which I do less often than you might imagine - not for any particularly nefarious reason, I just have other routines established long before my family dynamic changed, and now I live sufficiently far from them that it's something I have to plan instead of an occasional lazy default. However, whenever my stepsister comes for Shabbos, I try to join in for at least one meal. We enjoy each other's company, and lower the median age of the table by at least twenty years (sometimes we manage to bring the entire table down to about five (she told me last night that she reads this on a semi-regular basis (and never comments, the brat! I wonder sometimes who else does that, but not too often - it's a crazy-making mental query))). We attempted to work on my communication skills (which are lacking (but improving (slightly))). The future social-worker said "You're really good with the written word, but your talking sucks." Thanks kid. We practiced on my stepfather (it wasn't really practice, but necessity). Ultimately we had to result to using a Hebrew/English Dictionary (English is not his first language, which was not actually the problem), but we managed to hit on a poorly fashioned sentence that conveyed the request in an effective and understandable fashion - just proving that knowing lots of words doesn't mean I can get anything of use across (which makes a lot of sense really. Look at skinheads with a ten word vocabulary who have no problem getting their point across, while an entire auditorium of academics struggle to maintain a human connection. Sigh. But I don't wish I were a skinhead. I've known a few - I'd rather struggle to communicate). I have no idea what the point of this was supposed to be.

Today there was a family bar mitzvah (one of my student's brothers was also having a bar mitzvah today, but I went with family (I'm going to his shindig tomorrow)) accompanied by family politics. Not having much family, it's not something I have much experience with, but my stepsister and two of the cousins we're both close with were very aware of it and spent much of the afternoon complaining about it (most of it went over my head. When I'm in a crowd of people, everyone just seems like part of the mob, unless they're obviously happy/sad/carrying pitchforks). My mother, the three girls, and I ended up having a late ad hoc luncheon at my mother's house while my step father stayed to farbreng with his brothers and innumerable cousins at shul (in harmony! Melodically, anyway). One of my cousins ate nothing but the entire top of my birthday cake (ha!), and the rest of us mostly ate pretzel challah with honey and what little salmon remained from the night before, then we migrated the mile and a half to my house so they could raid my refrigerator, leaving the 'rents to nap. After I davened, the four of us curled up on my bed drinking tea (me), eating all of my strawberry chocolates (them), and nattering. We ended up falling asleep in a tangled heap across my bed like a pile of puppies, and waking late. I had to dash to get them home, which nearly made me late for a belated birthday dinner with a friend, which was lovely and not a little nervous making. Over all, a nice Shabbos and the continuation of a good beginning to the year (my year always starts over at my birthday. New Years and Rosh Hashanah or certainly signposts, but the year always begins when I do), though I bruised my palm trying to walk through a door which was, in fact, locked (it hadn't been the last time I'd walked through it), and ended up icing it with my water glass all evening. It makes a nice change of pain from my crushed finger (it was fine for a while (after I went to a doctor who practiced blood-letting), but it grew out sufficiently that the top layer of the nail came off this week. There's still nail there, but not enough to protect the nerves underneath, and it's terribly tender. Also oddly ugly. And annoying). And it turns out my new shoes are not broken in yet. Sigh. And then I came home and my resident spider had built his web along my staircase. I nodded a cautious hello as I passed. As long as he does not build across the stairs, he is welcome to stay and eat my bugs (I've been sending him plenty of moths). I try not to disturb the outside spiders, provided they stay outside (the inside spiders get chased out, except for the ones who are freakishly large and defiant. I'm afraid those still have a tendency to get smashed (only if they won't let me trap and release them). The only exception to that are the spiders I've seen recently that are large as Sacagawea coins. Those are not allowed to linger! Regardless, a good day.

I still kind of wish it were April already (or possibly next year). It would be nice to skip ahead over uncertainty (does that ever work?). And I kind of (but not really) wish I fit in a box, or at least that there were a me-shaped box I could pretend I fit neatly in (maybe I'm building my own box, and that's what life really is?). And I wish I had a duck, which I was actually planning to go buy on my birthday from the Red Barn Feedlot in Tarzana (they're in season now! Unlike chickens, which are pretty much always in season, but are much more annoying), before circumstances changed. My friend told me to hold off on pet ducks for a while, and I'm following her advice. On pretty much everything it seems. I wish she'd adopt me.

Listening to:
Anthems For A Seventeen-Year-Old Girl by Broken Social Scene

Bands That Saved Your Life

2010-03-12T01:05:00.000-08:00

Today I walked through a swarm of thousands of angry bees outside my apartment and was neither pestered nor stung.

I had a long talk with an insightful friend.

I broke in a new pair of shoes almost entirely by the evening.

I went (briefly) to a bar mitzvah (there's another on Sunday, for one of my student's brothers, which I will be attending in full, followed by a bat mitzvah on Tuesday (it's a busy week).

I went with a friend to see Dawes perform at the Troubadour, which was a lot of fun, and officially my first rock gig (more fun to come - I'm thinking Devil Makes Three on March 20th. I've got Ira Glass on the 27th. And then we're in the Omer, so it'll have to hold off for a while. I probably picked the wrong time of year to get heavily into music). Dawes was preceeded by Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons who were marvelous, and Jason Boesel, who wasn't particularly. I could feel the music (particularly the bass (there were two amazing bass players)) pulsing in my ribs, and it felt like I was breathing music. It was so interesting to watch the audience. There was one kid in particular (all ages, these fans) who caught my eye; he was clearly still in high school and had gained his adult inches without losing his chubby baby face. He stood at the very front, singing along to every song, reaching his arms out to the band (which was standing all of about two feet from him), truly feeling both the lyrics and the music, immune to the crowd, lost in the moment with this band that must have saved him somehow.

I can't get the wristband off, though. I'll deal with it tomorrow.

30

2010-03-11T01:48:00.001-08:00

It's actually been quite nice so far. I'm hedging. It's been lovely.

I took the day off.

I woke late (9:27) to bird song.
I took my time getting ready (I left my apartment at 12:15).
I went to the library and got three books I'd requested on interlibrary loan which all came in at once (I love it when that happens).
I got to the farmer's market in time to buy buckwheat honey (full of anti-oxidants), sun-dried sweet apricots (I still have some left from a year and a half ago (the stallkeeper remembered me. We always used to commiserate when they were out of season), but they're only good for baking at this point because they are hard as petrified wood (they should be reconstituted with hot water, but that did not stop me from trying to eat some a while back when I was hungry (back when that was still a common sensation))), some petite rose potatoes (pink on the outside, yellow on the inside), small brown onions (perfect for munching (um...after sauteing)), and purple carrots (the last three items all from my favorite root and tuber guys). I also bought two live herbs: purple scallions and sweet Marjoram, both of which I think will be marvelous in omelets. I've decided to buy myself herbs instead of flowers for Shabbos each week (once the daffodils are no longer in season. They will always be my one, true, floral love).
I stopped by the beadshop where I used to work to buy small pink pearls for a project and got to see two friends who still worked there, who told me that people still keep coming in asking for me (which is a marvelous ego boost, and also sweet), and that people have bought nearly everything I made while I was there.
I stopped by a jeweler to find out if they could make me replacement rings (they can). I lost weight recently and my ring slipped off and disappeared, which made me sad, and slightly nervous, as it turned out I unconsciously worried it when I was uncertain. However, it's apparently pretty easy to have new ones made.
I found salad plates in Anthropologie that are marvelous, and as I happened to be on the phone with me mam when I saw them, she offered to buy them as a birthday present.
I went for a two and a half hour solitary hike in Temescal Canyon with the creek always by my side and no one in sight, just me and the woods and the critters and the birds. I heard a confused owl, and bonded with hummingbirds that were close enough to touch. I saw a prickly cucumber (I think), and was surrounded by lush green (I love winter here) and endless wildflowers and the scent of wild mint. I found a quiet mountain meadow and davened there in the shade (and only had to move once, after shemona esrei, when there was some not inconsiderable crackling coming from the underbrush). I didn't see anyone at all for most of my hike, and turned around only when something told me going further wasn't a good idea. On the way back I kept running into people who had been following me, all of whom merely smiled and walked on.
I watched the sun set over the ocean and a film production that was preparing to set the beach on fire, as the tide came in and the waves smashed against the jetty.
On my way home I stopped in Santa Monica at the only store in LA that carries my face wash, but parked in front of the wrong pharmacy, which, it turned out, had the wallet I needed, then found the right store one block up for the face wash.
I had dinner with my mother, stepfather, and my stepfather's brother who had come in from New York, and ended up having a long conversation about spirituality which I found tremendously helpful (everyone defines it differently. I've gotten in the habit of probing everyone who claims to be spiritual to find out exactly what they mean by that. For a long time I assumed I just wasn't, because mine looks so different from most of the people I know who claim to be, but it turns out I am and have merely been confused by semantics). There was no bread, but there was sesame chicken and an egg roll!

It was a lovely, lazy (though only in terms of structure) day.
I didn't do any work at all.
I didn't pander to anyone.
I felt relaxed and light for the first time in ages (people kept commenting on it at dinner), and the feeling has lingered.

I feel happy.

DOOM! Or Possibly Bliss!

2010-03-10T01:18:00.000-08:00

Depending on how technical you want to get, I've either been 30 since yesterday (my Hebrew or Lunar birthday was Monday night/Tuesday) or won't truly be 30 until 8:33 this evening (a long, long time from now, but I just got home from work (!) and the writing urge is upon me). I was so dreading this birthday (though only really for the last year), but the first hour and half has been rather nice. And I have the day off (swinging that took a ridiculous number of machinations)! I don't yet know entirely what I am going to do with such an unprecedented amount of free time, but the Santa Monica Farmer's Market figures prominently in my late morning. I may hike Temescal Canyon (it's been raining this winter, so the waterfalls may actually contain water), I may lay on the beach somewhere north of Malibu with a book (I've got several, as well as a newly acquired winter sunbathing habit I've been indulging on Shabbos afternoons in between rain showers), I may wander down to China Town in search of plates (why do I not own plates? It's very strange). I've decided a lazy day is all I could wish for - unstructured, easy, quiet, somewhat dependent on the weather, but not really. Peaceful.

And there will be bread.

One Day 'Til Doom

2010-03-09T02:11:00.000-08:00

I miss my grandmother. She gave a focus and a structure to my year - holidays and milestones were important when I had her to call. And even though her shoulder was 3500 miles away, it was always there for me. I miss having grandparents. They gave me a sense of longevity, and the certainty that now is not always. I wish it were tomorrow.

Two Days 'Till Doom

2010-03-08T23:59:00.000-08:00

I am ninja!

I have Kamikaze moths in my apartment. I think they came with the flour, or possibly the quinoa, but they arrived in full force this week and have taken over. Every night I wander around with a cup and a napkin, waiting for them to land so I could capture them, then toss them out unharmed into the night. I keep score (one night I caught nineteen, which is just ridiculous!), but I'm pretty good at it, and their numbers have dwindled to a few persistantly irritating ones. Tonight my mother came over to visit and to give me balloons and flowers (it's my Hebrew birthday tonight and tomorrow. My English birthday is on Wednesday (I love it when it falls on Wednesday. I was born on a Wednesday). I can't remember the last time they were so close together), and while she was sitting in my Queen Anne chair, the remaining moths took a liking to her and started dive-bombing. They refused to land, so I tried to catch one with my hands, and actually managed it. I got the door open with my fingertips and lobbed it outside. Five minutes later, another one was at it, and I reached out with one hand and gently enfolded it. It was so unexpected I wasn't sure I'd even done it, but I could feel it tickling against my palm, and when I threw it outside, it was still alive.

I've got mad skills.

Presently Giggling Over:
The hairdryer solo in Hairdresser On Fire

Three Days 'Till Doom - Week in Review:

2010-03-07T22:44:00.000-08:00

Number Of (supposedly) Vital Features My Car Opted Not to Perform:
One.

Favorite Verbal Exchange:
Me - Are you insulting my car?
Friend - No, I'm describing it.

Conversations That Mattered:
Who knows? Most of them, probably.

Conversations That Clearly Didn't Matter:
One, but I didn't mind.

New Acquaintances Made:
Around thirty (not counting the people who pass through the museum every day. Most of them don't count).

People I Wished Would Stop Talking:
Three.

Nights I Didn't Have To Work After All:
Three!

Weeks It Will Take Me To Regret Not Having Worked Those Nights:
Three and counting down.

Number of (apparently) Private Properties I have Been Chased Off Of:
One.

Coyotes That Forced Me To Find Alternate Routes:
One.

New Strange Birds That Followed Me In The Dark:
One.

Nights I Walked Alone:
Two.

Number Of Times I Lied To Avoid An Argument About Me Walking Alone At Night:
One, and I felt bad about it.

Nights I Skipped Walking So I Wouldn't Break The No-Late-Night-Walking-Alone Rule:
Two. One of those nights it was also raining, and I decided I didn't want to die of pneumonia five days before my birthday.

Nights I Skipped Walking Due To Inability To Keep My Eyes Open:
One.

Daffodils Purchased:
120!

Men Who (sincerely) Claimed They Were Being Watched By Government Satellites And Had To Be Escorted Out By Security:
One.

Number Of Days Spent Drugged:
One (improving).

Number Of Days The Side Effect Lasted:
Four (so far).

Ability To Control Stress:
Declining (apparently).

Cups Of Tea Made:
Four.

Cups Of Tea Drunk:
Five.

Number Of Days I Was Actively Hungry:
One! Improving.

Number Of Times My Phone Has Rung:
Thirty or so.

Number Of Times I Answered My Phone:
Seven.

Number Of People Who Chided Me Via Voice Mail For Not Answering My Phone:
Five.

Number Of People Who Chided Me Over The Phone For Not Answering My Phone:
One (guess whose phone calls I'm not going to answer any more).

Average Number of Days It Takes Me To Get Around To Checking My Messages:
One and a half (I listen for a note of desperation in my messages and answer those calls first).

Bands Discovered:
One - Surfer Blood (the result of sharks or rocks?).

Bands Rediscovered:
One - The Books.

Number Of Dreams:
One (after the last spate of dreaming, I'd call that an improvement). I dreamed of a low swamp full of strange, twisted plants - mostly spiky and leafless - and the cries of unseen birds and animals. The light filtering through the overcast haze was the yellow of fire season, and ash fell from the sky like snow, dusting the swamp before settling intodrifts or disappearing into the muck. A switchback trail of broken stepping stones led through the swamp to a yellow victorian farmhouse, all over nooks and out-of-proportion additions covered in sharp, black gingerbread trim with spikes that stuck out like piranha teeth, and a steeply pitched roof with a tower full of broken windows. The girl on the path (maybe me, maybe not) - a thin, somber faced girl with her long hair scraped back in a tight plait, wearing a plain, high necked dress over petticoats and high button shoes, and an apron over all - reached the back door of this house and paused to try to peer in one of the twisted, irregular windows (the glass was full of imperfections like war time windows), but they were dark. She climbed up the cracked wooden steps (three) and lifted her hand to knock on the door, but the door blew outward before her knuckles touched the peeling paint, knocking her to the ground. The doorway framed a witch with wild, dark hair and wilder eyes, big as tea saucers, her hands tipped with claws, her tongue tipped with rage. And then I woke up.

It was apparently the week of Mostly One.

Presently Looping:
Lewis Takes Off His Shirt by Owen Pallett
Hold On To Your Friends by Morrissey

Four Days 'Till Doom

2010-03-06T20:10:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine just moved into a new apartment with another guy on the other side of town, and his first thought was "We should host a Shabbos dinner for twenty people!" He had to borrow chairs and utensils and food and tables, but somehow managed to set up quite the ad hoc swinging Shabbos table (though we kept finding new things they needed as the night wore on: hand towels, a bread knife, salt). I went with a mutual friend I was staying with, whose husband was out of town, and it was really quite marvelous. We're both shy, so we kept each other company in the beginning, though once the wine (and other things) started flowing and people began switching chairs, it all got much looser. When we came in initially, we were told no shoes, but I think only three of us heard, so I felt rather under-dressed for a while (no shoes meant I was barefoot. The others were at least wearing socks or stockings), but then someone poured me a large glass of sangria (which I had never before tried - yummy! My new fave), and I forgot that I had taken a 24-hour extended release Flexeril. Combined, they took me right to the edge of accidentally drunk. It made me very cheerful, and my friends seemed to get a kick out of it, and it made the evening much more pleasant. The men to my left, however, got more annoying the more they drank, and proceeded to have some kind of racial argument I mostly tuned out as I chatted with the more amusing people to my left. The man to my right spoke to me for about 15 minutes at the beginning of the meal, until the woman he was there with leaned over his shoulder and murmured semi-audibly into his ear that he was there with her and should be talking to her, not me, which shut him up and suited me fine, since he was fairly dull (and became somewhat awful as the night progressed). I keep getting trapped in conversation with people who find my shyness alluring for some reason, but I'm getting slightly better at extricating myself. Anyway, it was a lot of fun in parts (the most entertaining part was watching the two guys interact and conjecturing whether the laid back character of my friend or the rigidity of his new roommate would win out. They're going to have fun together), and Shabbos in general was nice, with pleasant new aquaintances, and it rained! It rained! It even hailed!

Presently Listening To:
Postcard from London by Ray Davies and Chrissie Hynde, and wishing I were there.

Five Days 'Till Doom

2010-03-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

I was digging through my doodle box (I've been going through my college notebooks, writing down all of the funny things the professors said in a single notebook, cutting out the doodles (you never know when those'll come in handy - probably never, but you can't know for sure), and throwing away everything else (I do not think I will ever again need my Psych 101 notes, but I know I can use the space they are taking up on my shelves)), and I came across these people.

I have no idea what I was thinking at the time (sometimes my doodles have something to do with the subject matter at hand, but more often they are just what my hands do when my brain is waiting for viable information to process. It's physical daydreaming).
My most common doodles are:
1) people sticking their tongues out,
2) Acrobats in painful contortions (like the one above),
3) Victorian children,
4) the occasional person I know or see, and
5) faces in the dark as viewed through keyholes or very small windows). Those guys are a little weirder than I usually tend.

Six Days 'Till Doom

2010-03-04T22:15:00.000-08:00

My mother bought me daffodils (daffodils!), but I'm too tired to go get them. I'm getting up early to bake at her house (I need a fleishig oven) for a Shabbos potluck I'm going to on Friday night, so I've written a note to myself on my hand "Do Not Forget Daffodils!" Worked 'till nine thirty while taking Flexeril (and some Vicodin, though that might have worn off already). So tired I can't actually see straight, though that might be a side effect (there are warning labels on both bottles). I stopped by Security on my way out and had to spend ten minutes sitting on the floor against the wall before I could gather my strength to drive home. Probably shouldn't have driven, but I made it home okay and I am going straight to bed. Early start tomorrow.

Seven Days 'Till Doom

2010-03-03T21:54:00.000-08:00

I feel marvelous. I remembered to eat all three meals today (dinner was touch and go, but I ended up meeting someone at a restaurant, so it worked out). I'm baking muffins (must do that more often. Don't know who's going to eat them all, but it's nice just to have my hands in flour again). My fridge is full to bursting with food I did not buy (friends came out of the woodwork this week, most of them bearing edible things. I think they noticed I haven't been answering my phone and have decided to be more direct. Or else everyone's just got peculiar timing), but will nevertheless enjoy. I went for a long walk up in the bird streets with a friend and picked up a stray man and a stray dog, both of whom seemed exceedingly lonely. They squired us with much chatter through a few curves of the road before we saw him home. I stopped off to visit my mother on my way home (it's not really on my way, but I like the woman. I'll go out of my way for her) and found eight albums I'd won on e-bay had come in the mail (I still get all of my mail at my mother's house. I usually pick it up on Thursday when I stop by to take her trash cans down to the curb), so I'm gorging on Morrissey's back catalogue (I like the man. He sings in my register and helped me through a hard December (and January). And he's a bit bizarre, which isn't necessarily bad. For some reason, The Smiths albums have been eluding my grasp, but those will come eventually. In the meantime, most of their songs are on youtube, and I avail myself of them there. I've now got plenty to listen to for a while). I finished washing the last of my dishes to be toveled (which will then have to be washed again, but I'm okay with that), paid my rent, wrote some tzedakah checks, did the laundry dance, made plans to spend Shabbos on the other side of town with a friend I adore, and have every intention of being in bed before midnight. And those muffins are tasty. Mind, I'm only eating the tops, because I live alone and can do that sort of thing. I'll bring most of the batch (not the topless ones) into work tomorrow. I'm baking, I'm eating, I'm not an insomniac any longer. A productive day and a lovely mood.

Presently listening to:
Morrisey's Your Arsenal in its entirety.

Eight Days 'Till DOOM

2010-03-02T23:58:00.000-08:00

I remembered to eat lunch today and felt so proud! It's like being proud you can still tie your shoelaces. Sigh. Somehow I thought I'd made more progress in life. And while I have no idea what (to belatedly answer your question) the 16 year old me would have thought of the 29-and-cusping me, I know she'd be impressed I made it this far. I'm fairly certain she thought she'd be dead by now (not by her own hand, just by circumstance) - it's always fun to prove her wrong. Except for that, I don't think she had any expectations at all. Sixteen was not a good year for her.

I am, however, surprised, perplexed, and amused that you still use the word 'stoked.' The sixteen-year-old me salutes you.

I Just Dropped $500 On Shoes!

2010-03-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Granted, most of them will be returned as soon as I choose which I most prefer, but it was still delightful. I love the idea of the universe shipping me shoes.

Confidential to Chelsea:
Following is the me-quote from a few days gone.

Most people can only deal with a part of you - the part that most closely aligns with their parts. Perhaps, in your life, you might meet a handful of people who can accept all of your parts, perhaps one or two who even treasure them.

It looked longer in my handwriting.

Nine Days 'Till DOOM

2010-03-01T22:39:00.000-08:00

Couldn't eat much today, a holdover from yesterday when I couldn't eat anything at all (good thing my Rav was drunk - he's got very sharp eyes (glasses aside) and would certainly have taken me aside if he hadn't already been past his fifth cup by the time I arrived at the seudah). I came home after a walk today and took out a great deal of frustration on an offensive jar of pickles that would not open. I know a lot of jar-opening tricks and none of them worked. I ultimately had to call for outside assistance, and the pickles were only decent (a strange lingering sweetness). My palm is bruised.

I haven't been eating much in general recently (which might explain why I've been so dizzy of late, though probably not - I was dizzy a few weeks ago). On a rare (but not unheard of) food aversion kick, which I realized on a fast day that felt far too easy, and on looking back, found I'd forgotten to eat anything three days that week. Not having regular mealtimes any more except on Shabbos makes it hard to remember unless I'm actually hungry, which hasn't really been the case. I keep having to remind myself I should eat or drink something (makes a nice change from reminding myself to stop) - yesterday I didn't bother trying.

Listening To:
The Smiths - Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

2010-02-28T22:33:00.000-08:00

I have never so wished I were a smoker.

Only In LA

2010-02-25T00:16:00.000-08:00

I was standing at a stoplight, waiting to cross, when an ad under bus shelter glass happened to catch my eye. Clash Of The Titans, 2010.

A travesty.

I turned to my security detail (I have those these days) and said:
"I hate it when they remake classic movies."
He just stared at me blankly (he's a six foot tall ex-marine with no discernible sense of humor and a tendency to loom), but the elderly lady standing in front of me at the curb turned around, and the garish red smear of her lips twisted.
"It makes me want to spit," said she.
I laughed, mostly from surprise, a little from the instant validation.
"My husband was in the original," she continued as the light changed and we set off across Pico. "He was Poseidon. That movie was perfect. We don't need this one."
"It won't measure up," I said. It may even be better, but it will be utterly charmless.
"It couldn't possibly." We nodded at each other as we reached the opposite curb and went in different directions, of the same mind.

"That was weird," said Security.

Dark Dream

2010-02-22T23:47:00.000-08:00

I dreamed of a long low hall with broken windows and blackened ceiling beams. There was smoke in the air and debris on the floor that kicked up great black clouds when disturbed, swirling through what little light filtered in through the heavy clouds outside. A handful of filthy men, women, and children with soot on their faces and bandaged hands wandered slowly about the hall looking at the bodies stretched out on the floor, victims of a deliberately set fire. They were trying to match the families up for burial. They managed to identify all of the people and got them safely buried except for two - a grizzled old man and a little girl of just under two years with wispy blond hair too short for a first haircut. In the end, they buried the two together so they wouldn't be alone.

Guess My Mood (Radio Edition)

2010-02-21T21:26:00.000-08:00

Radiohead - Creep
Pixies - Where Is My Mind
Morrissey - Used To Be A Sweet Boy
Killers - Mr. Brightside
Interpol - Evil

A friend turned to me today and said "You've turned to the dark side lately."

I immediately referenced Darth Vader (wouldn't you?), and she called me a nerd.

Week in Review

2010-02-21T03:57:00.000-08:00

Least Favorite Verbal Exchange:
Friend - "Your integrity devalues my humanity."
Me - "There are more important things than humanity."

Favorite Voicemail Message:
"I just ran a red light and I immediately thought of you!"

Utterly Pointless Conversations Where I Could Feel My Brain Actively Withering:
At least four. Four and a half.

Conversations That Actually Mattered:
It's too soon to tell, but probably zero.

Days Without Any Conversation At All:
One.

Sleepless Nights:
One.

Restless Nights:
Three (getting worse).

Wild Squirrels Touched:
One.

Dogs That Barked, Howled, Growled, Or Otherwise Objected To My Presence:
472 (one of the ongoing perils of walking the Hollywood Hills at night).

Mild Existential Crises:
Ongoing.

New (to me) Bands Discovered:
Two Door Cinema Club
The Courteeners

Books Read:
Two and a half - a slow week.

Attention Span:
Clearly shrinking.

Lottery Tickets Purchased:
One.

Lottery Tickets That Were Worthwhile Expenditures:
Zero.

Carpets Set Afire:
One (by accident).

Inexplicable Dizzy Spells:
Multiple - one while perched cross-legged on a narrow second story wall overlooking a concrete patio (that one was fun).

Cups of Tea Made:
Nine.

Cups of Tea Consumed:
Three.

Unwarranted Interest In Pop Culture:
Increasing, much to my mother's dismay and my own bewilderment.

Mild, Slightly Sublimated Obsession:
Continuing unabated.

Strange (And Only) Dream:
Friday morning I awoke five minutes before my alarms sounded (I hate doing that. I always think I've slept through both alarms and panic because the light feels wrong) with November Spawned A Monster running through my mind, which is a fairly weird song in general. I haven't woken to a mental song since I was thirteen and woke up to Queensrÿche's Silent Lucidity, which is the only other time I can recall having been woken by an internal song. For some reason, I do not often dream of music. I have no feeling of having lost a dream leading up to it, just this strange song echoing through my skull, complete with Mary Margaret O'Hara's bizarre backing vocals (she's an odd one. Her voice is quite amazing, and nearly undermined by her stage presence, which is a little like watching an epileptic seizure or an autistic child trying to dance).

Addendum At 9:57 AM:
I did just dream that a crowd of people surrounded a house in the hills and climbed all over it, making the walls shake and the windows crack, shouting for the man inside to come out and show himself, to be admired, and to be consumed.

Late Night, Minestrone Soup

2010-02-18T01:07:00.001-08:00

Up late (as ever), making minestrone soup for the first time, though it seems to have strayed just a little into ratatouille territory at this point. Smells good, though, and tastes better. Gotta love them cajun spices. Inspired by the soup sent home with me by one of my students' mothers, which I watered down and filled out to eke out over the week and enjoyed immensely.

Dice tomatoes (or use canned petite diced tomatoes) and shallots and simmer with bay leaves, a little tomato sauce and a little water until the shallots soften. Cut in a couple of small red potatoes, some celery, carrots, green beans, sweet peas, corn, and a zucchini, roughly in that order. The last four ingredients should be added later so they don't overcook. I usually have some beans already cooked and tucked away in my fridge or freezer (small red beans and butter beans this week, though I just got my hands on a 15 bean blend that I think is going to be fantastic). If you don't, and don't feel like cooking them the old-fashioned way (though that's depressingly lazy), you can use canned. Season however you like. I used black pepper, cayenne pepper, chili pepper, onion powder, fresh minced garlic, rosemary, thyme, sage, sweet basil, salt, paprika, and just a hint of cloves. Toward the tail end of the simmering (it takes about an hour, hour and half, all told, and should thicken up through the simmering), I threw in a handful of broken egg noodles, et voila!

Dinner for days.

Currently playing:
Late Night, Maudlin Street by Morrissey

Addendum As Of 9-21-2010:
I think the egg noodles were a mistake.

Sunset Plaza Pwned, Doheny Here I Come

2010-02-17T23:57:00.000-08:00

I've successfully managed to irritate every dog in the Sunset Plaza vicinity, including all major and minor tributaries and abortive streets, and it only took me four days (including a second take on Blue Jay Way (what was I thinking?)). Tonight the dogs heralded my arrival in a long chain of howling, barking madness that preceded my every footstep. It was rather kingly, if you ignore the frisson of fear that slipped its fingers down my spine whenever a particularly large-sounding dog would hurl itself at the fences between us. I kept praying everyone had remembered to latch their gates.

Doom

2010-02-16T00:47:00.000-08:00

I spent the day fielding depressing e-mail reminders of the fact that my father is selling everything he owns on Craigslist due to the fallout of the disturbing circumstances of January 15th, which I alluded to, but never explained. Suffice it to say that you are in fact guilty until proven innocent. No matter how careful you are, one nervous tick from the TSA can completely derail your life and you too can be on the receiving end of wire taps, trumped up charges, and have fun for a couple of weeks in prison (facsimile weapons of mass destruction? Why would you bother?). In the long run, it's cheaper to throw away your luggage and buy everything new when you get to your destination. Better yet, just stay home.

The government hates us.

Entropy wins.

Ta Da!

2010-02-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

My body can now wake on its own, without an alarm, at nine in the morning. A thrilling new development. My mind on the other hand...

I was seized by a sudden fit of restlessness on Friday night which saw me wandering up to Sweetzer at 10:00 and walking it to its end above Sunset before wandering back home agian (about six miles). It's a reasonably safe thing to do, even late. Friday and Saturday nights are both party nights in West Hollywood, and the streets are crawling with couples and groups in search of ever more interesting parties. Sweetzer dead ends a little way past Sunset and is apparently home to a few somebodies of some import to someone, though I don't know who. I wouldn't pay seven million for a house overlooking the Cabo Cantina with a giant red McDonald's billboard blocking what little view there is to be had from so low in the hills, but perhaps it's a wealthy slum. The moderately wealthy have to live somewhere, too. Anyway, there are only about five or six houses up that street (I'll have to count the next time I go up (and I will be going back up, for reasons which will shortly become clear)), but they've either pooled their resources or one of them is sufficiently paranoid to have shelled out for a security guard to spend the entire night sitting in a golf cart at the bottom of the hill, discouraging people from walking up (who does live there? I know Johnny Depp used to, but he and the other famous guy who used to live there both upped stakes and left. Must be the nouveau riche). When I started up, the security guard stopped me and said "That's a really steep hill." "I know," said I (it is). "I'm walking all the hills." "It dead ends, though," he continued. "I'll turn around then," I countered, and kept going. When I got to the top, I touched the end sign, turned around, and started back down, then heard the sound of the golf cart revving its motor up the hill. He followed me up to be sure I wasn't trying to pick the flowers or jimmy the locks.

I have decided to take five minutes out of my life each week to annoy the rich by deliberately walking up their non-private hill. I am a petty person, but one who is easily satisfied.

Saturday, after lunch at a friend's house, a whim whammed me and I decided to walk to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, because I remembered they had a duck pond around one of their mausoleums, and the cemetery is only a couple of miles away, so away I went, through an increasingly sketchy neighborhood (the Media District on a Saturday afternoon is deserted, though reasonably interesting, but around Gower, there appeared to have been recent riots and the remnants were determining to go to hell their own way). I wandered around the cemetery for a while looking at the passing fashions in grave stones (whoever thought putting weird lasered images of the deceased on the gravestones was a good idea was seriously mistaken. And why exactly do they seem to choose the worst family album photo ever?) and getting thrills from the passing armies of squirrels. There are two inexplicable cages full of peacocks (so nighttime intruders will die of heart attacks when they hear them scream?), and one cemetery cat (there is always one green-eyed cemetery cat in every cemetery. I call them all Moz (for mausoleum)). I ended up perched lazily on a bench near Johnny Ramone's cenotaph beside the duck pond, my eyes closed against the setting sun, arms clasped about my knees, listening to the ducks and geese battle it out for pond supremacy. It was unbelievably pleasant.

Later that night I went for a walk up in the hills with a frequent walking partner of mine who stated her belief that our entire relationship is based on a certain shared mordant humor and an endless stream of meaningless arguments. I've been forgetting to call her for walks lately precisely because we always seem to get into some entirely pointless argument and I'm tired of the negativity, but away we went, and despite my determination to refrain from engaging in any subject we'd be likely to disagree on, she took offense at my usage of the word integrity (implying that it lacks integrity to keep my integrity at the expense of other people's expectations or desires or even knowing that doing so could negatively impact a relationship (is that wrong? Because it doesn't feel wrong to me, but she really thought it was. It isn't integrity if you turn it on and off at will, because it's inconvenient, or just because you feel like it, or because someone says you don't really love them if you don't, is it? Isn't the whole point of integrity that you do as you claim to believe, even when it isn't in your best interests, merely because you believe it to be right?)), played devil's advocate on a thoroughly irrelevant subject, and we ended up going off into an argument that couldn't come to any satisfying conclusion because of the apparent rift between her value system and mine. Mind, this is the same person who, less than a week ago, gave me a hard time because I recently wrote a series of checks to various charities (and to KCRW, though it isn't a charity, because I frequently enjoy it, and think I should support that, even if I don't always agree with their unspoken agenda. They get charged for my listening, after all) instead of spending the money on a new computer for myself. Granted, I need a new computer, but it's a need that'll keep, and I try to disperse 10% of what I make to others. "Is anyone giving 10% to you?" she asked. Um...no. But the parents of one of the sixth graders I tutor gave me some wonderful minestrone soup on Thursday, which I am enjoying even now, so I reckon things work out in the end. And anyway, I don't think that's the point. We do not give, either gifts or tzedakah, with the expectation that they be paid either back or forward. We give because we feel it's the right thing to do, because there is need.

We finally gave up the argument as unresolvable and kept quiet over frozen yogurt, then discussed only flippancies on the way home.

It wasn't a satisfying evening.

Shabbos Lineup

2010-02-12T16:38:00.000-08:00

In addition to Shabbos itself, which this week includes the Taubers, the Citrons, the Lubins, and possibly, to some degree, my mother and step-father, I have Chuck Klosterman keeping me company (Killing Yourself To Live - 85% of a true story), the world's largest single pot of Sleepytime tea, and continuing conversations with Oscar Wilde as we continue to explore the possibilities of my literary crush. It's not full-fledged yet, but I'd certainly invite the man for tea. Lord knows I've got plenty.

If You Were Wondering

2010-02-12T00:03:00.000-08:00

A month or so back, I decided to walk every dead end in the Hollywood Hills, both for exercise, and because it feels an effective metaphor for my life. In order to walk the Dead Ends and Not A Through Streets and No Exits, I must also walk the through streets, and the mission became merely to walk every street in the Hollywood Hills twice - once there, once back. I've already walked pretty much all of the flat land between Wilshire and the Hills West of Larchmont, and I felt I needed something to conquer. I've been making good headway, map-wise (I chart it on my wall), and after the first week, when my legs suggested that amateur surgery was an easier way to be rid of them if I hated them so much (some of those hills are damn near vertical!), it got reasonably easy (I go fast) - except for tonight. I think I was a little too gung-ho going up Blue Jay Way. Yes, some of the streets are unlit, some of the neighborhoods apparently abandoned, and the wildlife rather more confident than I'd like without a windshield between us, but the views are amazing, the gardens smell divine that far from the exhaust of regular traffic, and it's nice to get away from all the people in the city, while also getting out of my apartment. And shy of jogging (which I loath with every fiber of my body and avoid with every wile at my disposal) nothing winds me any more.

I mostly walk at night, and there are some streets I peer down and think "Um, no." I try to listen to my intuition in such matters (I've never regretted turning around if something felt off and coming back another day with a protesting friend in tow), and I also keep half an ear cocked for unexpected movement in the undergrowth (the other ear is usually listening to my eye-pod). I have had some critter encounters, and in any fight between me and wildlife, the wildlife wins, no questions asked. I brake for squirrels, bow before skunks, and run away from coyotes. I haven't met a mountain lion here, nor do I ever hope to. I ran into one by a river in Arcata when I was eleven, and that was enough for me for life.

Hilltops ho!

Presently listening to:
Little House by Annie Stella
Also a half dozen back podcasts of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! that had me giggling my way over the hills.

Ego Boost

2010-02-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

My mother cautioned me against getting too weird for the world today. Thanks, Mom.

Asking For It

2010-02-11T22:59:00.000-08:00

I conquered Thrasher (both Ave. and Way and all of its offshoots - including private roads) between 8:30 and 10:00 this evening.

Alone In The Dark

2010-02-11T00:05:00.000-08:00

Let me just say - Rising Glen Road is pretty damn creepy in the dark, and longer than Maria Callas' tapeworm. I kept thinking "Will this never end? And will they ever find my bones?"

I wisely refrained from exploring its offshoots at this time of night, since they've got names like Thrasher. Anyone killed walking that street in the dark would have just been asking for it. I'll come back some morning to do the four dead ends I found (though Thrasher is, in fact, a through street, since it connects (eventually and via Oriel Dr.) to Doheny, which is a street for a different day). In the meantime, I should probably make up for the five hours of sleep I missed last night.

Goodnight.

5:01 AM

2010-02-10T04:23:00.001-08:00

Why am I even here? I do not mean existentially (at least not right now). I mean why am I still (!) up, tapping away at my computer? Why did I think being a writer was a good idea? Why didn't I look around the world (once I realized it was there) and decide to become a chartered accountant or a dentist with nice, fixed office hours? Besides for the fact that I loath all dentists or frankly anything that has to do with teeth and all numbers which do not directly relate to influxes of cash to my checking account after the rent has been paid or increases in the percentage of highly literate children, I mean. I think I've asked this question before, of someone, possibly you (or the you I write to, anyway. I don't think I've asked the real you anything in years. Are you still you?), and I'm fairly certain I mentioned accountancy in the same context. I may have an unhealthy fixation, especially for someone who's never met one (please do not endeavor to introduce me. I don't want to sully my mental picture with facts, and I don't want to bother getting to know anyone (I've been trying to get those I already know to forget my phone number for ages (no such luck. Don't they notice I never answer my phone? I've been reverting to my old (aesthetic rather than ascetic) hermetic ways lately))).

Something must go wrong - or right - in someone's head at birth or puberty or the first time they see someone die which gives them a clear directional career goal. I never got one of those 'I'm going to be a Doctor/Fireman/Pole Dancer/Herpetologist' flashes. All I know is that stories saved me and I can return the favor. And since those who wrote to save me are mostly too old or too dead to need my intervention, I'll have to pay it forward.

Still, it's a little rough at five in the morning on a work night (do I have any other kind?). Seems I may still need saving.

Presently listening to:
The Postmarks' No One Said This Would Be Easy

This was whiny and existential and self-indulgent after all, wasn't it? Stomping all over that fine line again.

Washed Away

2010-02-09T17:42:00.000-08:00

It has been raining, oh how it has been raining! Could I ask for anything more? Besides a flannel covered hot water bottle and the wherewithal to flee LA for my thirtieth birthday, I mean.

I went to tovel some dishes today, and stood at the edge of a reservoir while the clouds blacked out all light, then split, and the sky fell. The world was a near solid wall of water for about ten minutes, and the reservoir I stood beside quickly overflowed its walls and formed a river at my feet. I lost my balance and sliced my pinky open against the wall, but it was thrilling. Even when the thunder died away and the rain dispersed as though it had never been, still the reservoir crested and foamed and the water sucked at my shoes. I thought I'd be washed away. I rather wish I had been.

Listening to:
Ludovico Einaudi's terribly atmospheric Lady Labyrinth

Identity Theft

2010-02-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

I dreamed last night about a boy (named Kevin) and a girl (nameless), aged twelve or so, classmates, who were where they shouldn't have been and fell to their deaths - the girl's body and the boy's soul. They'd been horsing around and it wasn't clear who pushed whom, but down they tumbled, and only one stood up.

Their parents all agreed that it was only fair that she should live with Kevin's family. The girl looked down at his body that now moved to her will and was very bitter about it. Kevin's ghost walked her to his parent's house, down a grey street wrapped round with with yellow Caution tape where all of the sidewalks and driveways had been torn up and were being repoured. The girl knocked on the door of Kevin's apartment and as soon as one of his siblings opened the door, Kevin's ghost disappeared, and all that was left was his haunted body. As soon as the girl in his body walked inside, she knew it wouldn't work. She'd grown up in a house, but this was just a small, crowded apartment. She'd been an only child, but Kevin had been part of a crowd. His mother ignored her and hid in the kitchen, his father sat in a brown leather arm chair behind his newspaper and smoked and smoked his pipe, but never so much as twitched a corner of newsprint. Kevin's five siblings crowded around her and hemmed her in, clamoring his name, but the girl refused to answer to it, thinking "I gave up my life, I'm not giving up my name." They sat to eat lunch, and immediately started screaming at her because she liked ketchup and mustard and Kevin didn't.
"You can't have it!" they shout. "You have to be HIM!"
Around her, the walls turned dark and the floor too.

And then I woke up.

In Bed With Oscar Wilde

2010-02-07T01:12:00.000-08:00

Oh such a lovely day.

I booked a home day because I knew we were having rain and nothing thrills me more than being home, cozy under the covers while the rain pours down - also because I am exhausted and tired of people, and when that happens, I need a break, at least for an afternoon. I made stew, had hot water for tea, and the annotated Oscar Wilde for starters. I sat on my porch in the dark after Friday night supper, listening to the wind. It was low and murmury, like the quiet nearness of a friend in the dark, more felt than heard. I went to bed before midnight (for once), and left my windows open to let the gentle sound of the rain lull me to sleep. All well and good until 4:30 this morning when the clouds burst and the rain came down like bullets. I woke, free from dreams for the first time in a while, and wandered out to look at it streaming down, then tried to go back to sleep - no such luck. A few minutes later a flash of light lit the room, followed by a grudging rumble of thunder. First time I've been near my siddur for that, and I know there's a prayer for thunder and lightning (one for each, it turns out), so up I got again. Then back to bed, but between light and motion and the sound of the rain which was vacillating between middling and pounding, sleep had gone. I lay in bed for a while, listening, then got up. I washed the prior night's dishes (in cold water, which is less fun than it sounds, especially on Shabbos when I can't turn my heater on), put away a variety of things that had been languishing in my apartment for ages, then settled down under my quilts with a cup of Sleepytime tea, two novels by Neal Shusterman (The Schwa Was Here (well worth reading. Very funny) and Antsy Does Time (the sequel, which, like most sequels, wasn't quite as good, though still entertaining). I found The Shadow Club on Mrs. Cox's bookshelves in sixth grade and have had a light literary crush on Shusterman ever since), and my Oscar Wilde (I've enjoyed his quotes for years, but never read anything except The Importance of Being Earnest, and felt it was high time). I read till late morning, cozy under my covers, listening to the rain, then got up and davened, made kiddush and had lunch before eleven. I felt like a Litvak.

And then the sun shone.

The clouds split above my house, but continued to build all around the Los Angeles basin, ringing the hills and mountains all around me in towering black thunderheads, making the hills look like they were on fire again, but instead of raining ash down on the city, raining actual rain, just not on me. The sun dried my porch and was so inviting I took my tea and two books outside. The wall around my porch is 11 and a half inches wide, which, it turns out, is roughly the same size as my rump. I sat cross legged on my second story wall with my books in front of me, one on top of the other (I alternated between them), and my tea warming my hands while a fair breeze blew my skirt around my legs and light clouds chased around the sun. Every so often a tiny drizzle, far too light to be rain, would float down in the sunlight, looking like snow, drying even as it landed on my skin. The birds had risen late due to the morning rain and were making up for their silence, and squirrels were playing tag on the telephone wires that span my back yard. I kept raising my chin into the sun, into the wind, feeling the pleasure of solitude and sunshine on my skin. I read until it was time for minchah, davened outside, then took an hour long nap on top of Oscar Wilde. It was a lovely, lovely, lazy day. I felt rested and rejuvenated and ready to see people again.

Later that evening I went on a rather pointless date and decided to spend the rest of my life sitting on my porch, avoiding humans.

Presently listening to (and sometimes watching) the thematically appropriate:
Tomorrow by Morrissey

His facial expressions (when he allows himself the extravagance (I'm not the only person who is difficult to read)) amuse me.

My Immortal First Novel 1, Me 0

2010-02-02T00:27:00.000-08:00

I've been pacing my apartment (all 140 square feet (give or take)) rather manically for days, ever since I could both pace without limping and sit without whimpering again. Chapter 6, Edit 4 has taken the bit in its teeth and run away with the reins. I prod, it punches. I plead, it howls. I give up, it sneers.

I leave it alone and head to the hills to wander in the dark, but it calls me back. "I'll compromise," it promises. "That was a great idea you had when you got lost on the Franklin/Hillside loop above King's Road. What you gasped when you saw the coyote? That's pure gold. We can use that."

I scurry home, but Chapter 6, Edit 4 has gone out clubbing in my best skirt. When it comes staggering in, bleary eyed and giggling at dawn, it parks the car on the wrong side of the street and leaves my clothes in a heap. When I look in the morning, I find my skirt stained with Cosmopolitans and a parking ticket on my car.

"Who even drinks Cosmopolitans anymore?" I mutter, but Chapter 6, Edit 4 merely turns over and snores. As I head to a day job or three, it shouts "Bring home take out! I'm too knackered to cook."

I bring home a trained therapist.

"There are some issues that need to be worked out." She's even-tempered and non-combative, my favorite hyphenated terms. She is not cheap. "Tell me how you feel."

"She called me fat!" Chapter 6, Edit 4 shrieks.
"I said it could stand to lose a few lines," I protest.
"You didn't say lines!"
"Okay, paragraphs. I'm sorry. But you're bloated with prose! I'm only suggesting it for the health of the novel."
"Oh, the novel! The novel! Without me there wouldn't be a novel!"

It's true. The seeds of everything that make my novel grow are planted here in Chapter 6, Edit 4. Plot, Characterization, Setting, Circumstance, Suspense, Foreshadowing, they're all developing little atavistic tails that will turn into fully formed book spines, if I can just get Chapter 6, Edit 4 to take enough folic acid, do a little exercise, and cut the flab.

"I don't want a novel without Chapter 6, Edit 4," I say to the therapist. "But if nothing changes, I'm afraid they'll both die before they ever reach the saving hands of my editor."

The therapist strokes her chin. "This is going to take more than one session," she warns. "Editorial miracles take time. And practice. And hard work. And tears."
"I know." I do.
"You can't run away from your problems, even if the view overlooking Sunset in the dark is inspiring."
The problem is I can't get high enough, run far enough, fast enough. But for the sake of peace and the possibility of getting Chapter 6, Edit 4 on a treadmill, I agree.

"I recommend spending a little more quality time together. Maybe quit one of your jobs." I start to protest, but she cuts me off. "For the good of the novel! And your relationship with Chapter 6, Edit 4. Do you want to have to write a new Chapter from scratch? And you!" She turns to my recalcitrant chapter. "Get off your fat font and lose a few paragraphs! You're not the first chapter! You're not even the first chapter to be holding up a damn fine novel! But you are the chapter that matters right now and if you don't want to wind up on the Editorial floor while the author cradles her screaming novel and searches for a new Chapter 6, then you'd better put your editorial problems first! No more clubbing! No more secret, late night adjectival binges. A healthy chapter is a lean chapter. I want to see progress by tomorrow."

Me too.

To be continued.

Tidal Wave

2010-02-01T21:50:00.000-08:00

It was a sunny day, though it later turned grey, and the girls in long, somber black dresses were picnicking in the woods - except for two, who had wandered off as was their wont. When found, they were thoroughly admonished by two stern, bewigged and dark-robed stylish matrons who chivvied them back to the others to await rides home. The other girls, all dressed darkly, demurely, were disposed of in various cars by the matrons, who leaned out of their car windows to further lecture the two wanderers, before driving off, leaving them to await their own rides. This proved fortunate, or perhaps ill-, for not long after, there was a tremendous tidal wave of grey-green water which swept over the land, not just flattening, but erasing every structure, every road in its path, sweeping everything in its path out to sea.

Except two girls, clinging to the tree tops.

When they made their way down to the cliffs overlooking the valley and the low farmland, they could see that everything had gone - houses, towns, roads, people, and most importantly, the dike - and where once waves of grain had bowed in the wind, now waves of turquoise water were reclaiming the land. Except to the north, where they could see sea stacks, long separated from the sea, that had withstood the waves that must once have made them, and clustered round its base - people!

They scurried down the hills to a series of low bridges that had once hopscotched the valley, spanning the fields. These bridges had been built of sun-baked clay, their builders never having anticipated so much as a flood, and that clay was being washed away in great grey smears by the strong series of waves that followed the tidal wave. The two girls hurried across them as quickly as they could, often on their hands and knees, hampered by their now wet, long, full skirts, trying to cross before the waves thoroughly destroyed the bridges, but the clay dissolved beneath their feet, and the next big wave swept them off the slick clay and into the sea. They struggled through wave after wave, sodden and sputtering, and finally managed to make it to the shallow water surrounding the sea stacks. The largest one (big as the outcropping by the pier on the south side of Trinidad Head) held a large sea cave in its base, protected from the surging water, though still knee deep. They took shelter inside, squeezing water from their long braids, peering through holes in the rock to see what was happening outside, trying to lift their heavy skirts out of the water, but they dropped them again when a large, muscular, golden skinned man wearing swim trunks and a broad smile splashed in. He seemed surprised to see them.

"What are you doing here? I thought everyone was dead"
The girls looked at each other and then back to him. He shrugged.
"Well, you can't stay here. Come on." He grabbed one girl's arm, who grabbed the other, and towed them outside. He threw them up on one of the shorter sea stacks, beside a group of college age kids in swim suits who were drinking beer and dabbling their feet in the oncoming waves.
"I'll get you some food," he said. "There's lots floating in the sea now." He grabbed a surf board and skimmed away across the water.
"He survived the wave on his surf board," one of the college girls said. "We were in a boat."

There were all kinds of things bobbing in the water: apples, canned foods, deck chairs, towels. No dead people, no wreckage, no cars.
The man came back and tossed a bag of food up to them.

"Come on," he said. "There's more people on the other side."
He grabbed one girl under each arm and splashed off, followed by the college kids. He led them behind the standing stones where there was an entire pier that had survived the tidal wave, as well as the wooden fishing fleet that docked there. A handful of fisherman in caps and knit sweaters clustered on the pier below a white painted vessel with a white bearded man in blue standing in the prow.

"We'll get all the bobbing things first, then we'll get the fish!" he shouted, and all the men cheered, then leered at the college girls in their swimsuits, who moved behind the college boys, who were mostly too skinny to hide them.

"See?" The surfer said, turning to the two little girls. "We'll be fine." They turned their peaked and pointed little faces up to him and he put his arms around them. "We'll build a new world."

And then I woke up.

I'm putting this dream in the same category as the one where everyone died of radiation poisoning, so technically a murder mystery dream, though there appears to be hope for mankind. It follows on the heels of the dream I had last night where I was about to be murdered (my first me murder dream!), which itself follows two murder dreams I had Friday night (I can't remember them at all, except in the second one a handsome boy reading a book had his back to three corpses). I've never had them with such frequency. Maybe it was the drugs, though I've been off them for two days, and it was only Vicodin and Flexeril, anyway.

Random Solitary Utterance Of The Day*

2010-02-01T21:47:00.001-08:00

I've desired
of people I'm tired
the end is but the end.

*Which was mostly due to a syntactical error brought on by exhaustion and existential loneliness and suppressed rage.

Was It A Nightmare?

2010-01-31T09:48:00.001-08:00

I've never had one before.

I fell asleep over my keyboard, fingers still typing, then woke up an hour and a half later to the sound of my heart pounding as a man threatening to kill me kicked my window in and the phone in my trembling hands just rang and rang and no 911 operator ever answered. And I couldn't scream, because I never can scream, awake or sleeping.

It was only a dream (though I did wake with my cellphone in my hands), but it took a long while for my heart to realize this and stop trying to beat its way out of my chest. It's never done that before, not even during the worst of the murder dreams.

Maybe because it was me this time.

Pre-Dawn

2010-01-31T04:56:00.000-08:00

I have spent an enormous chunk of the last week sleeping, mostly drugged. I fell asleep yesterday at about five-thirty in the afternoon (having only been awake for six and a half hours) and awoke this morning at 3:45, unable to sleep any longer. So, after a belated Havdalah, here I sit, editing my novel and distracting myself with occasional internet searches (atavistic traits in modern animals (archaic horses? Hen's teeth? Human tails? There's a great kid's book about that (Firerose, I think it was. Out of print, probably because it's really bizarre)), ways to find and murder crickets (there's one behind my fridge and he has steadfastly ignored my polite entreaties to leave. If I ever catch the bastard, I'll boil him in lead. That usually works)).

Back to work.

Except that I just caught sight of myself in the hall mirror and I have mad, glam rock, Marc Bolan (but electrified) hair. It's pretty wild. I do some strange things in my sleep (more on that later).

Presently at play:
Donovan's Roots of Oak
The Jim Kweskin Jug Band's Sweet Sue

Cause And Effect

2010-01-27T02:11:00.001-08:00

I cannot tell if I am exhausted because it is late, or because I've been working so much, or because I haven't eaten anything since breakfast, or because I have spent the day (the last five, really) heavily drugged. Could be any reason. Could be all.

Coifs, Quiffs, and Quaffs - A Brief Dictionary Of Terms

2010-01-20T00:21:00.000-08:00

Coif - a close fitting cap that covers the top, back, and sides of the head, usually made from white linen. Archaic. Mostly worn these days by nuns and the Amish. The term is occasionally misused to refer to a hairstyle, but this is wrong, wrong, wrong!

Coiffure - to arrange hair.

Ducktail - or Duck's Arse. Similar to the pompadour, but has a distinctive turn in back and a tendency to flop over the forehead. Of course, after a long day, quiffs and pompadours also tend to flop. Gave rise to the term Greaser, due to the excess amount of hair goo required.

Pompadour - the hairstyle that spawned the Quiff, the Ducktail, and even the Psychobilly Wedge. They're all basically variations on a theme of high Rockabilly hair. Tends to be puffy. Think Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, or James Dean.

Poof - Mostly worn by teen girls, wherein they (usually) have sleek hair with their bangs puffed up in front, often with the aid of a headband (if my neighbor is anything by which to judge) or bobby pins. Times change, but my curly hair would still be unpopular if I were a teen. Also seen on women from that odd polygamous Mormon sect in Utah.

Psychobilly Wedge - or Vamp Ramp. A cross between a pompadour and a mohawk. Tends to be rather over-dramatic and sharp.

Quaff - to consume ale (presumably) with vigour, to drink with gusto, to lose more drink over the edge of the cup than actually arrives in your belly.

Quiff - Anachronistic, to some degree, as worn today. Usually borne by those with a penchant for the past. Sides shorter than the back, mid-length on top, combed (and usually shellacked) upward. Sported most recently by Morrissey and assorted fans who will do anything to be closer to their chosen star, including shaving their hairlines (à la the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth) to get just a little closer to his image, the logic (if there is any) being 'if I can't have him, at least I can have his hair!'

Did that answer your question?

All photographic evidence was stolen from the web.

Random Solitary Utterance Of The Day*

2010-01-19T15:28:00.000-08:00

Shoes, socks, weather, caprice.

Presently looping:
The Mountain Goats - Pigs That Ran Straightaway into the Water, Triumph Of**

*Typically a sign I'm spending too much time alone.
**I've been to Chino. Not worth the train fare. I don't much care for Chico, either, though I remember Bidwell Park being nice. It's not mentioned in the song, but it's a Chi_o town and I felt called upon to comment.

Weather!

2010-01-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

It's dark as dusk outside and the palm trees are swaying, bent over by the wind. The rain is coming down sideways, and my treasured thunder, so long absent, has been rumbling throughout the morning.

I cannot bring myself to leave my house. I was supposed to bring my car into the shop this morning to have its headlamps fixed (again). I need to go to the post office and the library. I should head to work.

Instead, I'm sitting in the half-dark with my space heater warming my calves, eating a leisurely breakfast (I can't remember the last time I did that), typing my way out of oblivion.

You Can Tell A Fan By His* Hair

2010-01-18T23:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was playing Morrissey in the museum (probably shouldn't have been, don't really care. 'Twas a Sunday. I do as I please on Sundays (within reason)) - mostly off of Ringleader of the Tormentors and Years of Refusal, with a few Smiths singles thrown in - when a fellow walked in sporting horn-rimmed glasses and a gelled pompadour. He wandered for a bit while I played DJ, then paused by my desk on his way out.

Over one shoulder: "Excellent choice in music," says he.
Over a coy shoulder of my own: "Cool quiff**," quoth I.

A brief interaction, but one that made my day.
Granted, it doesn't take much these days.

*It's harder with most women, though I think you could make a reasonably educated guess based on my hair that I'm a fan of early American musical styles, especially Dixieland jazz, bluegrass, and rockabilly, with a late-blooming penchant for crooners. Also that I'm a lazy hair stylist. But probably not that I listen to the Chieftains, ABBA, or a little hip-hop (mostly the stuff with strings). And how would you visually identify someone who listens to George Formby? Garrison Keillor? How about the Avett Brothers? The Mountain Goats? The Ditty Bops? George Winston? This present crush on a certain post-punk, Mancunian band is definitely going to mess with the 'do. Eclectic musical tastes make for messy hair.

**I once dated a guy who wore horn-rimmed specs and a quiff (he was an odd one). I found it quite attractive, but didn't know until this year who he was modeling himself on. I always assumed all the guys who looked like that were big Elvis fans, which was still alright by me.

2010-01-18T01:38:00.000-08:00

Yes, wouldn't it be nice if I could finish that thought? But I can't, not yet. Hopefully soon. Hopefully very, very soon. Please?

Life Has Taken A Turn For The Bizarre

2010-01-16T21:32:00.000-08:00

But The Heart Feels Free *

2010-01-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

My finger may be crushed**
my apartment may be small***
my social life may be contracting

My bunny may have died
on a fluctuating tide
of fortune both ill and distracting****

The weather may have damned me
to years of heat temper
and an outdoor life I take no pleasure in

And my jobs may have stolen
my dignity and vanity
but there still is one thing that I'm treasuring

that the heart feels free
at last my heart feels free

* and I didn't even have to go to Rome. They eat organs there, you know.
**Sunday afternoon, in a hydraulic door, while holding it open for someone.
*** and slightly tilted, among other issues I'm mostly ignoring.
**** not all bad, but not all good, either.
***** yes, I know my meter is about as off as possibility allows. Deal with it. And I know that this aside has no corresponding asterisks above. Deal with that too.

Presently playing into the ground:

Eels' Mansions Of Los Feliz
Klaus Nomi's Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead
Morrissey's It's Not Your Birthday Anymore

Any Fool Can Wear Glasses

2010-01-12T23:59:00.000-08:00

But I'm a sucker for a smart man in specs.

Today I actually caught myself saying "However, I'm not certain about your excessive use of semi-colons."

Such a nerd.

Presently looping:
Interpol's Evil
Kirsty MacColl's Good For Me
The Smiths' Girlfriend In A Coma

No

2010-01-10T20:48:00.000-08:00

Still loopy. It's been a strange day. Who knew that ninth pint was so necessary?

One Pint Later

2010-01-10T10:21:00.001-08:00

Schlepping up a bunch of stairs immediately after donating blood, without giving time for the apple juice to revive me, probably not the brightest idea.

Current Tally - 1:53 AM

2010-01-10T01:50:00.000-08:00

Songs Heard: 60
Cups of Tea: 1
Chapters Edited: 3 and 1/2
Finished Pages: 19
Present Working Compilation: 48
Presumed Pages To Go: 180
Presumed Completion: January 18th
Likelihood: Slim, but certain
Frame Of Mind: Ragged
Computer: Still annoying

Ready, Set, Go

2010-01-09T22:24:00.000-08:00

Desk: cleaned off and organized.
Dishes: washed, dried, and put away.
Laundry: washed, dried, ironed, folded away, and hung up.
Cup of Tea: steeped, sweetened with honey, and waiting.
Laptop: open and on.
Book Draft, Version 3: open on the desk.
Book Draft, Version 4: open on the computer.
Itunes: currently playing my favorite mix of country rock, swing, and bluegrass.

I am in my accustomed writing uniform (jammies (cotton - it's a warm night)), with the legs rolled up ('cause that's how I roll), preparing to stay up as long as necessary to get some long put off editing done. My first cup of Sleepytime tea awaits, though I anticipate at least another two, and am prepared to drink as many as nine if I have to. I've stuffed Morrissey back in the closet where he belongs, and have five hours of mostly fast-paced, largely (though not entirely) upbeat, banjo/fiddle-heavy music lined up. I have ten hours to go before I have to leave my house to give blood in the morning, then head to le travail de jour. The night is mine. Let the count off begin.