READING, WRITING & 'RITHMETIC

I was listening to NPR and they were doing a story about the "new" SAT tests. The focus of the story was that when kids go take the SAT this year they will be required to write an essay, and how this would affect immigrant and ESL kids and well, most of the kids taking the test, because writing is not taught in high school. So the contention is that a message will be sent to high schools that they need to have more classes on writing and that more classes require papers to be written. They also said that these new tests will carry the potential of 2400 points.

Oh my God.

When I completed my first year in a public high school all the cute guys graduated so in the interest of procuring a car so that we could continue to party with those boys my best friend Lori and I talked our parents into sending us to private school. Of course we told them we wanted to go because we were bored and not learning anything at public school. This was true, but the upside to little challenge was that we were able to ditch every period but second period, which was the class where they took attendance in order to get money. Or something like that.

At any rate, we ended up at Chadwick, a prep school in Palos Verdes. Two students in our class had been caught with weed and asked to leave so there were two spaces in the class of 44 students. We had to take an entrance exam that consisted of critical reading and an essay. This meant that I, a product of the public school system which does not in fact teach students to write, had to read something from The Old Man and the Sea and then answer questions about it in essay form.

I was accepted to Chadwick, but due to the fact that all of my essay answers began with a capital letter and ended a page or so later with a period indicated to the administrators that I needed to learn how to write. I was placed in mandatory expository writing classes EVERY semester until I graduated. I was a mad wicked comma splicer. I still am. I have no fucking idea what the semi-colon actually does.

But I did learn to write. I learned to think critically and express myself articulately via the written word. I've always been a natural spelling champ, probably because I grew up reading so much that words are familiar. If you know how they're supposed to look you know if they're spelled incorrectly.

I WISH there had been essay questions on the SAT. I suck at multiple choice because I get in a hurry, or I'm over it and want to be done. I hate being proctored and having to sit at a desk with my two number 2 pencils and my ID and nothing else. The whole atmosphere of those kinds of tests are anxiety producing and lead me to screw up. I did okay on my SATs, but I could have kicked ass if I'd gotten the opportunity to write.

Not so long ago I took the CBEST so that I could substitute teach if I so desired. This is a proctored test that they do a couple times a year. I signed up for it and then forgot that I did so I never studied and went out to dinner the night before and had a couple martinis. I only remembered right before I went to bed and decided that if I felt like it when I woke up I'd go. I woke up a little late, but since I paid I decided I should go and do it anyway.

Clutching my driver's license and my two #2 pencils, wearing sweatpants and wreaking of alcohol I slumped in the desk and the basically mailed in the answers. There were two mulitple choice sections one for reading comprehension and one for math and there were three essay questions, all of which were to be completed in three hours. I finished in an hour, forty five minutes, rolled home and went back to bed.

A couple weeks later I got my results and I'd passed the freaking test! I aced the essays and barely squeaked by on the math. So now I can go substitute teach in public schools if I want. If I ever do that I'll tell everyone that story and we'll spend the day learning to write. Even if it's a math class.

Hell, especially if it's a math class.

BRUISED AND TIRED AND IT'S ONLY TUESDAY

I am so tired today I am practically incoherent. And I have a bruise on my boob that hurts. Yesterday I scheduled my annual mammogram, motivated by yet another spate of friends with lumps and scary boob stories. So I go in expecting the usual squeezing in the cold x-ray machine which doesn't hurt half as bad as people say. Even the pushbacks, where they have to move the implant back and clamp the small bit of actual breast tissue for x-ray, don't hurt too much.

After x-rays comes ultrasound, something that all women should request when they go for mammography because ultrasound sees stuff that doesn't show up on x-ray. Like cysts. The in my right breast has been growing exponentially each year and yesterday when the doctor ran the ultrasound doohickey over my boob he said, "Wow! That's gotten huge! And you've got two more." We had discussed aspiration of the cyst before and since it was now HUGE I decided to just go ahead and do that.

I though that I would come back and have it done, but the doc whipped out the release form and a HUGE needle and started prepping me right that minute. I had no time to think about the fact that he was going to plunge a needle into my boob. Probably a good thing because given time to think about it I'm sure I would have decided it was a bad idea. But you know since I was already covered in Betadine there was no backing out. He stuck the needle in and pulled the plunger and sucked out an amazing amount of fluid - no wonder he kept asking me if it hurt when he was pummeling my breasts earlier - which he held up to show me when it was done causing me to take deep breaths in order to not pass out.

I didn't even need a bandaid, but by last night I was sporting a bruise where the 18 gauge needle went into my flesh. I had gone back to the gym yesterday morning for the first time in two weeks and lifted the weights I'd been working up to, so between the exhaustion of my muscles and the let down of anxiety post boob puncturing I was asleep by 10pm.

At 12:30 Bud called to tell me that her house had been broken into and she was waiting for the police, but would it be okay if she came and stayed in my guest room because she was freaked out. I said of course. And then I had to get up and put away all the laundry that I'd thrown on the bed so I could fold it and put away "later" and then I had to put sheets on the bed. By the time I got back in bed it was 1:30 and because I left my front door unlocked I couldn't go back to sleep, which is weird because I very often space out and don't lock my doors and it doesn't bother me at all. But then, I have no idea that the door is unlocked so why would it bother me.

By 2:45 she hadn't arrived so I called her back and she said that the forensics officer had just left and she thought she would stay home because she had to get up and work. She was so freaked out and I wished I had the energy to go and stay with her because I can only imagine how I would feel if that happened to me - actually I would just go sleep at my neighbors house. After we hung up I couldn't go to sleep so that is why, on a Tuesday, I am exhausted with a bruised boob.

And hopefully it's all up from here.

WE WILL LIFT YOU UP

Yesterday was the Los Angeles Marathon. I live in the middle of the course which can be a real drag if you don't know that it's marathon day and you get in your car to go somewhere and you can't because all the roads are closed. That happen to me last year and I was really cranky about it.

This year I knew it was going to happen so I planned on walking one block north which is mile 19 or 20. I'm not sure, but people have run a really long way by the time they go by. I was watching the race on TV so I would know when to go and I have to say that the elite runners who run at the front and win - well they deserve to because they are hauling.

By my calculations I had about a half hour before I would see anyone coming on foot. The wheelchair race had already been won by the time I left the house. At 9:15 I had only been standing there for about 10 minutes along with a sprinkling of other neighbors when this blond woman wearing white gloves went sprinting past.

SPRINTING at mile 19. Or 20.

This was surprising because when I had left my house 20 minutes earlier there were two African women vying for the lead, and they were a few minutes behind her when they passed us. We all stood up and clapped and cheered. It was cool because people were spread out down the street so we would hear the clapping start and then it would spread down to us where we would pick up the rhythm and the woohoos.

There were wheelchair athletes still trickling in and I was in awe not only of the endurance and arm strength, but also at the ability to maintain balance in a state of exhaustion. We were located in between the Gatorade stand and the bananas, which I thought was the wrong order. I would rather eat a banana and then wash it down with some Gatorade then have to run the last six miles with banana breath.

Anyway, the men were gaining on the women who started, I think 15 minutes ahead, and they were in a much tighter pack and running even faster than the blond chick. They were all African and they were doing 4 minute or faster miles near the end of the race. I was in awe.

After the leaders, runners would come along one or two at a time, then in groups of three and four. One stopped to the use the porto potty that was set up just after the Gatorade and he was super fast - we gave him a huge hand. "We" being my new friends and neighbors, Marianne, Tammy and her boyfriend Chris. The four of us were standing there and we started talking, I think it was because we all heard the drum that someone west of us was playing and we were wishing we had drums too!

There's something about cheering people and watching it infuse them with renewed enthusiasm when their energy is waning. Many of these people, especially those coming after the leaders were clearly seasoned athletes, maybe even professional runners. Those women with not an ounce of body fat on them, which is not a good look really. They've run their breasts right off their chests and you can see muscle and sinew.

However it was a good look on many of the men. I really appreciate nice legs, well developed calves, defined quads. There was lots of that and soon Marianne and I were muttering things to each other like, "Check out 7191 - we like him!" And then this guy ran by who had, for some reason, chosen to run in his bathing suit. These were trunks made of a canvas type material in a bright Hawaiian pattern and they hit about 4" below his knee. His shirt was off and the sweat was weighing the trunks down so that they were hanging just above his pubic bone a la D'Angelo. Howdy six pack was displayed above the tapering hips and below the broad shoulders. Marianne and I watched him coming with our mouths agape and as he got closer I said, "Whoa, nice," - REALLY LOUD. It just kind of spontaneously slipped out.

Made him smile though.

We cheered loudly for everyone - those who were cruising effortlessly and most importantly for those who were clearly out of gas. I could relate to that hell of having run so far and not being close to finished. When I used to run I was one of those people who would stagger around at the end - mostly because I was winging it having decided to run a 10K the week before because I thought it would be fun. HA! And then because I was very young and stupid I would party the night before so I would be running with a hangover. Yeah. I'd show up at the STARTING line dehydrated and it was downhill from there.

But I remember one race where they played music, like the theme from Rocky as we were coming down the last mile and it made such a big difference. Gave me a second wind and all, so my new friends and I were talking about how much more supportive we could be. You know with a boom box and drums and noisemakers and signs with encouraging sayings on them. And then we talked about setting up a grill to make pancakes and bacon and, of course we'd have some pitchers of Bloody Marys - because it takes a long time to cheer 25,000 people along.

And because we didn't have all that stuff and our hands were getting red and tingly we went home around the time the stream of runners was getting continuous. I cleaned my whole house since I couldn't really do anything else and then as soon as they opened the roads I met a friend and went and hung at Geoffrey's in Malibu for some Bloody Marys and snacks.

But next year we have a plan, and if you're running the marathon look for us at mile 19. Or 20.

We will so totally lift you up!

NOT YET

So I thought I should be feeling better this morning. Not because I actually feel better, although I do, but because it's about damned time! I woke up last Wednesday morning at 5 a.m. with a sore throat. Like razorblades in my throat sore throat. I didn't work out, but I went to work, because I'm writing this thing and I want to finish it. But once I got to work I became acutely aware of how unwell I was. I was running a fever and unable to regulate my body temperature so I didn't get much done since I spent most of the day hunched in the fetal position shivering.

I stayed home on Thursday. And I slept which means that I was really sick because I don't sleep in the day time. Heck I hardly sleep in the night time.

Like for instance Friday night/Saturday morning? I woke up at 1:30 a.m. and I couldn't go back to sleep. Even with an Ambien assist. Consequently Saturday I was sort of incoherent, but I had stuff to do, like get a warm wrap to wear out the Academy Awards parties the next night. I have to be really really sick to miss out on an "event" party. Saturday night I took enough cold medicine to knock out a Manatee and got about 6 uninterrupted hours, but now my throat malady had migrated into my head and when I mouth breathe because I can't suck air through my nostrils, it makes my throat sore. Gah!

And then running around drinking champagne on Sunday night didn't help. But I knew it wouldn't. I don't regret it. Monday was a rough day because 1) I was tired and 2) I have a self imposed deadline so I was writing furiously - and meeting my deadline.

Yay, me!

But still, it's making me tired. And I haven't been going to gym, which I do everyday, because I've had no energy. So this morning when I woke up and was able to get up without lying back down immediately I figured, why not? Couldn't hurt. The steam sauna would be good for me right?

Wrong!

The steam sauna loosened up stuff that is now gagging me and I feel like my fever is back. The workout exhausted me to the point where it's hard to lift my arms. Note to self - do lower body when writing on deadline.

And I want to go out and play this weekend! I want to have fun again without having to take a decongestant and a lot of kleenex. I want to sleep! Boy do I want to sleep. I want to lay down under my desk and take a nap.

So I've got two more days to get better because I'm not well yet.

GOOD OLD HOUSE

I'm really excited to go see the Arts and Crafts exhibit at LACMA. As long as I can remember I have been a big fan of craftsman style houses, and all things from that particular design epoch. I love the pocket doors with the leaded glass. I love the dark wood and the wide stair cases with the squared lines. I love the roomy arm chairs and couches. They look, and indeed they are, solid, and masculine. Yet there is something of the receptive feminine with the reflections of nature in patterns and colors that were used during the period. It's a satisfying fusion of male and female, the yin and yang.

But the best thing about a craftsman house is the porch.

I lived in a 1907 craftsman in Long Beach years ago for a couple years. My friend Ingrid was living there, renting a room from Patrick the guy that owned the house and when the other downstairs bedroom became vacant she convinced me to move in. I loved the house, but the guy that owned it, Pat, was kind of a weirdo.

He was, at that time in his late 30s and he was really into Jesus and Mickey Mouse and taking Asian kids on church group outings. Ingrid and I were in our early 20s. She was really into getting a man to marry her. I was really into partying. And this house was a GREAT place to throw a party.

The downside to the very old house was that it had only one bath with a shower and that was between my bedroom and Ingrid's bedroom. There was a half bath that Pat had built himself, off the back pantry, right outside my bedroom door, and Pat used that for his morning "rituals," but when he took his occasional shower he used our bathroom.

I didn't have a problem with that, I mean it was his house, and frankly I preferred a fresh smelling roommate than the lingering funk that stayed behind when he left the room. Maybe he was afraid of Ingrid who was very passive aggressive, and made no secret of the fact that she resented him using our bathroom, but he only showered maybe twice a week. Pat claimed to be studying to be a priest and as far as I knew he was celibate because he never had any grown up women visitors. He would occasionally stand to close to me and sort of hump my leg, but he took no offense when I pushed him away with a, "No Pat! Off!"

Ingrid was the other downside. She had control issues. And if you looked up high maintenance in the dictionary there's a picture of her, I swear. She was a nurse and she was really into doctors. Or any kind of man who was a "professional." She was not an unattractive woman, but she thought, and she would tell you, or anyone who would listen, that she looked a lot like Catherine Daneuve. Ingrid was a little deluded. I think it's because she had really big boobs and so she got a lot of attention from men.

Ingrid needed a lot of attention from men. All men. Including the ones I was dating. Like Mark, the drummer, who would come through the door and Ingrid would run across the room and leap into his arms squealing "catch me!" Or John, whom she slept with. And I can only hope that he gave her the same lovely STD that he gave me as a karmic reward. I knew how she was because we'd been friends for a while and you accept the good and the bad in your friends. I didn't know that she'd actually screw my boyfriend behind my back or we wouldn't have been friends anymore. And it's why we're no longer friends. I'll accept a lot of bad with the good but there's a line.

So you might be asking yourself why I would live with Pat and Ingrid.

Quite simply it's because I loved the house. And even more than that I loved the porch. It was huge, running the whole 30 foot width of the front of the house. You climbed four steps up to it and it was like another room. The short wall that skirted each side was wide enough to sit on and at one end Pat had hung a swing that three people could sit on comfortably. There were so many evenings spent with my friends hanging on the porch in the summer twilight. I would imagine that family that lived in the house when it was first built doing the same thing, only they were probably drinking sasparilla, or some old timey drink instead of Coronas.

The house was comfortable. It had great bones and even horny, stinky Pat and controlling, needy Ingrid could not mar how safe I felt when I lived there. This was a time in my life when I was making "questionable" choices (like dating John) and some horrible things happened, so it was important for me to feel safe and protected when I was at home. Living there with my crazy roommates kept me sane.

And I know I'm going to live in a craftsman house again and it will feel the same, no it will feel even better because it will be mine and Pat and Ingrid won't be there.

And because it's how they built'em back then.

EVERYTIME WE SAY GOODBYE

Yesterday afternoon I was getting ready to go to an honest to God, big deal Oscar party with red carpets and media lines. Having never done this before I was quite excited. I love to dress up! Love it. I love to wear a gown and high heels and do the hair and make up. It's a lot of work, but once it's done it's so fun to sashay through a hotel lobby or up a flight of stairs workin' it, feeling the heads turn.

This party came up as a total surprise and I have been sick so I was planning on laying low, like on the couch, to watch the Oscars. Or, to be completely honest, to channel surf through the entire broadcast. But I've always been that person who repents later if we're talking about a "how often do you get to do this opportunity" so I propped myself up with cold and flu pills and got ready in shifts. You know - take a shower, lay down and rest; blow dry hair, lay down and rest, etc.

I had just completed make up and was resting before I did hair when my phone rang. It was about 4:15 and I needed to be out the door by 4:30, but when I heard Meg's voice my schedule went out the window.

"I'm in the car going to my mom's," her voice cracked. "She's not dead, but she didn't wake up this morning and her blood pressure is really low. I'm so sorry to call you right before you're going out to have fun, but I just wanted you to know." And then she broke down.

Meg's mom Sue has been battling cancer for about five years and it was a surprise that she made it through the holidays so I had been waiting for this call. Even when you know it's time and she'll be at peace now and there will be no more pain and all the rest of the things that people say; even when you know those things are true it doesn't mean that your heart doesn't literally ache at having to say goodbye. And I could hear Meg's heart hurting through the phone so I put everything on hold and we cried together.

Meg and I have been friends for 15 years and I was lucky enough to be folded into her family. I know what an important part of Meg's life her mother has been. She raised her six kids as a single mother and she made those children the focus of her life. When Meg and I had dinner not long ago and I commented that I was surprised at how well she was handling everything, she said that emotionally she was holding herself in check because she's got a family to take care of and her mom was still here. What she was mostly feeling was angry that her children would grow up not knowing their grandma, that her mom wouldn't be there for her to call when she needed to talk to that person who loves you for just being you, like a mom does. She said that when the time arrived she would take her space and fall apart.

And it was that time. I stayed on the phone and we talked about when Gary was dying and we would make the drive to his house thinking it was time. And then it wouldn't be. And then it was and after months and months of lingering he left. We talked about how even when you think you're ready for someone to go, you're really never ready. Death is such a final Goodbye. We can't even know with any certainty that it's a "See ya later," although I believe it's more like that. I also like to think that it's the beginning of the next thing, whatever that is, but my friend Patrick would say that it's a story I tell myself to give living and dying some kind of meaning.

But even if it is the end of this thing and the beginning of the next, it's still really painful. At this point in my life I've lost so many people that I love, and it never hurts less. The only thing I do know for sure is that life goes on - so as long as you're alive you've got to do the living.

That is why, after we had a good cry and Meg was feeling a little more centered, I told her I loved her and hung up the phone. Then I went into the bathroom and re-did my make up. And I did the hair. And I put on the gown and I sashayed out the door with swollen eyes and a runny nose, and I had a really good time at the Oscar parties.

And all fabulous like I had a gin and tonic - Sue's signature cocktail - and made a toast to her life with much love.

ADIOS DR. SCOTT

I was introduced to the force of nature that was Dr. Gene Scott by a god fearing, Uzi toting, coke smoking drug dealer named Jon. Jon would sit in his condo in Los Alamitos with hundreds of kilos of cocaine and his guns, lighting his bong load of cocaine with a blowtorch in the bathroom. When he was good and high he would come out and sit in the darkened living room mesmerized by the flickering image of Dr. Scott who was telling a truth that totally resonated with Jon.

Because I worked in Los Alamitos, and was incredibly naive and stupid, I would stop by Jon's house a couple times a week on my way home from work and pick up a couple of kilos cocaine for my roommate who was selling it to supplement her waitressing income. A lot of it was going up our noses too. It was all good fun.

Because I didn't realize that I was carrying around 4.4 pounds of cocaine with a street value of about $36,000 at the time. Nor did I ever think about what would've happened to me if anyone had decided to rip Jon off while I was in his house. And I really never thought about the fact that I was hanging out with a paranoid drug dealer who had loaded automatic weapons that he liked to sit and fondle as he watched Dr. Scott preaching the word.

The realities of that world became dramatically clear a few years later, but that's another story.

I would sit down with Jon and watch Dr. Scott who I found fascinating not so much because of what he was saying, but because he was great theatre! It was hard for me to believe that there were people taking him seriously although he was incredibly intelligent and could back his shit up with facts and figures that he would write on a blackboard with chalk as he strode back and forth orating and puffing on his cigar.

Yes, he smoked a cigar.

And sometimes he wore costumes.

The language that he used to make his points was, well, colorful. He would toss off the N word, which I cannot even bring myself to write, much less say, and even though he was using it as an example of denigrating language he was still saying, nay he was YELLING it, as he ranted.

One of the most surreal experiences I ever had with Jon and Dr. Scott was one Saturday when we were heading out to Hollywood Park to go to the races. Dr. Scott loved horses and so did Jon. He even bought a thoroughbred racehorse. So we're driving down Century Blvd. in Jon's 1971 convertible Cadillac El Dorado, with the top down. My roommate is in the front seat with Jon and I'm in the back with Santos my bodyguard for the day since I had $50,000 in cash in my purse for Jon's betting pleasure. Dr. Scott is blasting from the radio, and it's loud because, you know the top's down. On this particular day Dr. Scott was really using the N word a lot and with much vehemence so every time we stopped at a light that word was just booming out of the car. Have you ever driven down Century Blvd. to Hollywood Park? It's in Inglewood, not too far from south central, and definitely not a place that you want to be sitting in a car with the N word booming out of the speakers.

Did I mention that Jon had a loaded handgun on the seat next to him? It must've been all that money that he sent to Dr. Scott and God that kept things from going horribly wrong. At least that was always Jon's contention. He was paying to be bulletproof. And all that coke he was smoking helped him to believe it to be so. Of course it also eventually made him believe that the FBI was coming to get him motivating him to attempt to flush about 20 kilos down the toilet. It was only little kids playing outside. Jon had to leave town and has never been heard from again.

But I was left mesmerized by Dr. Gene Scott. I kept vascillating between thinking he was completely insane and way ahead of his time. This was back in the very early 80s before cable access took him world wide. I used to watch him on channel 56 and I would go looking for him because some times he would show up on other random stations. There was no mistaking when you found him. He was always doing something bizarre, yelling like he was furious. Other times he would sit in a chair and speak, as though exhausted, the camera close up on his face, his angry blue eyes glaring at you through the camera, as he exhorted people to send him money. He not only exhorted he shamed them into doing it.

I know Jon sent him THOUSANDS of dollars from his drug profits. Basically what I got from Dr. Scott was this bottom line - you could and should buy your way into heaven. And sending money to him was the best way to do that.

As a gift, not a donation. You got no tax deduction on your fare.

The way he said it made you believe in that moment while you were watching him that everything he was saying was true. He was one hell of a charismatic, crazy talker, and all kinds of people got on board with his message. If you ever tuned into one of his church services that was beamed around the world you would see all kinds of people listening and nodding and putting money in the plate. All colors, all ages, all socioeconomic groups sitting there resonating with his message about God and life.

And paying top dollar for the privilege.

He died yesterday of a stroke at age 75 and I must say the world will be a little more boring without him in it. I can't help but wonder who he paid for his ticket to heaven.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOUISE

Yesterday was Nana's birthday. The rains had come in Sunday night and pummeled the coast to such an extent that I woke up to tornado warnings for Orange County. My brother had opted to come up from San Diego and celebrate with her on Sunday feeling, and rightly so, that he would have a better and safer drive without so much water being pelted at his car.

If it had been any other event I would've cancelled and stayed home.

But Nana turned 97 yesterday and by golly that's huge! It must be celebrated even if the one being celebrated gets all cranky about having a birthday. Though Nana loves living she hates aging. Hates it. She's been lying about her age since she turned 50. She had a face lift and lied about that too. When she and Gonga, that would be my grandfather, signed up for FHP she lied and told them that she was born in 1928, instead of 1908. And they believed her because she has always looked very youthful and she is a damn fine looking woman to boot.

But she gets really hung up on the number. If she knew I was writing this she would hunt me down and kill me.

So yesterday I went to Nordstrom's and found the perfect red sweater, it had to be red. She likes red. And as I started my drive down the 405 it began to rain - hard. So hard that everyone on the freeway slowed to a crawl because we couldn't see and it was also coming down with a force that you could feel. The sky was black which made the whole experience that much more intimidating. I was feeling very storm chaser, except that those nutjobs are usually chasing a storm that's moving away from them and I was driving right into one.

I stopped down in Belmont Shore to catch up with my friend L. and her kids Mia (6) and Ryan (2) and to go get a card to go with the gift. It stopped raining the minute I arrived. They should make some kind of device so that you can you predict the movement of extreme weather cells because if I'd had something like that I would've timed my travel a little better. Ryan was totally up for going with me to get a card. He said, in his very deep voice, "I want to walk my dog and pick out a card for Nana."

So we did.

It was nice to be outside and not getting wet. We took a nice long walk down 2nd Street to Toto's Revenge which is a store that specializes in cards and gifts and they'll let you bring your dog INTO THE STORE, but L. felt that with 2 kids we would be having enough of an impact without including the dog who knows where they keep the dog cookies.

It took a while to find just the perfect card for someone who hates getting older. None of the funny cards with the pictures of old people on them would do - Nana has very tender feelings. We finally settled on one with a picture of a Golden Retriever on it who was sneaking a bit of cake and didn't look old at all.

The walk back was a little longer because we had promised Ryan a gumball from the Hallmark store back closer to home and he was very excited. Mia wanted to go shopping because after all she'd been in the house for several days. And Aspen, the dog, wanted to stop in every store where she knows they keep the dog cookies. Second street is full of very dog friendly stores.

We picked up some lunch and brought it home to eat before dropping Mia off for a play date. On the way home L and I finally got a chance to catch up - and then it started to rain. More than rain actually, it was the literal translation of pouring. When we got back to the house we sat in the car thinking the cell would move past fairly quickly. But it didn't. Instead it began to hail. And then the street began to flood. As we sat there for 20 minutes thinking it would let up, it had to let up, it just kept pouring and pouring. The water in the street rose higher and higher. It was as if some giant being was standing overhead with a hose turned on full blast. We finally decided to take our shoes and socks off and roll up our pants and get out of the car while we could still get the doors open. The water was about 6" deep as I ran through it, and still it kept raining.

I had to sit and wait for it to abate some before I could drive to Nana's - and even when it stopped the flooding was still quite severe. Again off came the shoes and socks and there was the stomach clenching fear that I feel when I'm driving through deep water. On the news I was listening to some guy up in L.A. at Beverly and Van Ness talk about how he was driving and he felt his tires leave the ground because HIS CAR WAS FLOATING!

But, Nana was turning 97, and I was going to be there to celebrate with her. When I arrived I was informed by my mom and my aunt that there had been almost no rain at all in north Long Beach. How weird is that? Nana was in her room reading and I went and laid on the bed and we caught up. She told me that the thunder Friday night had scared her so bad. We're both really scared of thunder and lightning. She said she missed having my granddad in bed with her because he used to hold her when she got scared. I knew what she meant. I was seriously considering sitting in the closet on Friday night it was so wild and loud.

We had a really good time over dinner. Nana loved her gifts - she may not like having a birthday but she likes getting gifts - she's no fool. We discussed having a festive day next year instead of a birthday. She looked dubious, but I bet she'll go for it. Nana was telling stories about my grandfather which made us laugh, like the time he took her to get her eyes examined because if his eyes were going then hers must be too. But they weren't. She got fashion frames anyway and had them fitted with those magnifying lenses that you can buy at the drug store for $10. Her frames cost Gonga $100 but she did it because he made her go.

Later that day they were washing the car when she told him that she didn't really need those glasses and could've bought cheapies at the drugstore and he chased her around the backyard squirting her with the hose.

I wish he could've been there last night - and on Friday to hold her when she was scared. I'm so glad that Nana is still with us, but I think it's hard to be 97 and alone, so although I would miss her horribly, it's okay if she doesn't want to celebrate her 98th here with us. I know she'd be celebrating with him and she would be happy.

PRESIDENTIAL THREE DAYS OF FUN -

The three day weekend to celebrate the President's birthdays has always been one of my favorite holidays. Not because I'm a huge fan of Washington and Lincoln although it was always fun to do the George and Abe related art projects when I was in school, but because when I was a kid this was the weekend that our family would go up to the mountains with the Saari's, the Witter's and the Kelsh's. Donna, Vi and Liz all taught school with my mom when they were newly married, new moms. My parents and the other three couples got together once a month to have dinner and play bridge, although in the later years I think they discarded the cards and just ate and drank.

I was 6 or 7 the first year that the four families rented a cabin up at Lake Arrowhead for the three day President's weekend. I have a picture from one of those early weekends and Greg who was the youngest was still a babe in arms. Jim, Karen and Matt were all about 18 months younger than me and all born a week apart throughout the month of December. After them were the two little girls K.A. and Andrea who were 4 or 5 years younger than me.

We continued the Bridge group mountain trip for probably about 10 years. I no longer wanted to go when I was 17, preferring to stay home and have illicit parties while my parents were gone. And then not so long after that the grown ups started to want to take nicer trips without their truculent teenagers and would take off for Aspen or Vail. But the ten years that we made our annual trek to the mountains are full of wonderful memories for me.

We would always depart on Friday night when my dad got home from work and arrive in the mountains in the dark. This was normally fine when there was no weather but about every third or fourth year there would be storms, much like the one we're having right now, which would require chains on the tires to get up the mountain. When we were young my brother and I were thrilled to bits to see snow. We would peer out the windows into the dark looking for the first piles on the side of the road. "Snow! There's snow!" This was a good sign because snow meant there would be sledding and tobagganing on the hill just adjacent to the cabin that we always rented.

On Saturday morning we would all get up and the moms would make breakfast and the dads would drink bloody marys and George and Bilo would light their cigars and the first card games would begin. There was a sign up sheet for clean up and after that was accomplished we would all go out and drag the assorted stuff to slide on over to the hill. At this point the dads were pretty lit, now that I think about it. In their early to mid-30s they were still able to have just as much fun careening down hill on a metal snow disk as any of the kids. Plus, they were buzzed.

The moms would go for a walk or go into town or read their books or play their own card games and talk. They were probably just relishing the quiet except for the crack of wood in the fire. The fire was lit the entire time we were there because the A-frame cabin was probably built in the 40s and had floor to ceiling glass windows so it could be cold without fire.

In the late afternoon,after playing outside all day, the dads would take naps and the kids would hang out and play cards or board games or watch the little 19" black and white television in the living room. Every four years the winter olympics would be on and everyone would huddle around and watch. The sign up sheet was up for dinner preparation because it consisted mainly of heating up the pan of lasagna that one of the moms brought and making a salad - a task easily accomplished by an adult with two helper children. The little kids, K.A. who was allergic to milk, Andrea and Greg were usually fed first because they had to go to bed early. When the 12 of us sat down for dinner there was lots of adult conversation, and I remember enjoying the company of these grown ups who although they were the same age as my parents, weren't my parents.

Because I got to know them by interacting with them they all had very distinct personalities that I remember to this day. Donna was very sweet and nurturing and patient, she was sooo patient. Tall with dark hair, that was frosted for a while in the 70s, she had almond shaped eyes and a slender, willowy figure. Bilo, her husband was also tall and very athletic. He always seemed very stoic, maybe even stern, with his crew cut and angular northern European features. He had a sense of humor though because I remember his smile and his laugh which was like a controlled chortle as he sat there smoking his cigar. He really liked cigars.

I always considered Liz to be very glamorous, she was the perfect picture of femininity in the 60s, like a woman you'd see in a Breck shampoo ad, or a pretty mom on a TV show. She was a very pious Catholic and every Sunday morning, even though we were in the mountains, on vacation, she and George got up and took their kids to 7am mass! George had black hair and a husky, sandy voice. He got very red in the face when he laughed really hard, and I remember him laughing a lot.

Vi was tiny and elfin, she was Greek and her real name was Vasiliki, which I have always thought is like, the coolest name. Ever. She was warm and funny and she had a slight accent because I believe she grew up in the midwest. While she was small in stature I always had the impression of her as a powerful woman. This may be because she was married to Bob who was a character. Bitingly sarcastic, tall and rangy with very blue eyes, Bob had a sense of humor that is rare to find and often hard to take. He could really hurt your feelings and sometimes it felt like he meant to. But still I felt the closest to him, probably because I felt free to give him back that which he was dishing out. You know he wasn't my father so there wasn't any serious wounding going on - I didn't have to live with him.

My impressions of these people were formed when I was quite young and those impressions remained with me throughout my adult life although I saw them less and less. They are very much like extended family, aunts and uncles, adults who were the boss of me when I was under their supervision. I remember when my father re-married, they were all there at the ceremony, even though my parents divorce and dad's subsequent remarriage was most likely difficult for them. At the time it was horrible for me - I found out at the "ceremony" that my father and his new wife had actually gotten married two months before their February 14th celebration (way to make Valentine's Day really suck), and when I realized that my brother and I had sat through Christmas Eve dinner with dad and the new wife and that they didn't tell us, it felt creepy and wrong. And the whole event was already feeling pretty creepy and wrong, but that's another story for another time.

In any case, I started sobbing. Because the whole thing was just so sad and I felt like my dad wasn't my dad at all, but rather some stranger who was now sporting a pierced ear and was dressed like an aging hipster. Bob walked over and sat down next to me and just put his arm around me so that I could muffle my sobs in his shoulder. I felt like he knew exactly what I was feeling without me having to say a word. He didn't make a sarcastic remark although God knows the opportunity was definitely ripe for multiple salvos. It meant so much to me to have those people there at that time. As my father was trying to pretend that everything in his 32 year marriage to my mother had never happened - my extended family was there to validate all the good times that I remembered from my life in our family.

This weekend I will probably be hunkered down at home because the rain looks like it's going to hang out and unlike my intrepid forebears I am not willing to risk life and limb on the highways to travel. But I am so glad I have the memory of those President's weekends with bridge group, the eating and drinking and laughing. The playing in the snow and going to Santa's Village to buy candy. The constant fire in the fireplace and the smell of cigars and the card games.

I think those kinds of friendships and extended family fun are rarer these days. My friends seem to be more isolated in their experience of parenting and socializing. When I think about my friends and their husbands though there aren't many that I would want to spend a weekend in a cabin with - which is kind of sad. Even though all those adults were very different they all coexisted really well in what was, when I think about it, a pretty small cabin with seven small children.

That could've been why they drank so much, but I think it was more because they were having fun.

MINEFIELD OF LOVE

Valentine's Day is a day that most people dread whether they're in a relationship or not. It's incredibly loaded with pressure and you get it from everywhere. The commercials for diamonds, florists and champagne. The fliers left under your windshield in parking lots advertising romantic dinner specials. Even just walking by the card section in the grocery store one cannot help but notice the huge section of Valentine's Day cards.

If you're in a relationship and you're a woman there's the whole expectation thing - is he going to get you flowers? Or take you out to dinner? And if it's the latter, did he remember to make reservations, or are you going to end up at The Red Lobster? And sometimes it's will he even remember that it's Valentine's Day? If it's a new relationship, one where you've only been dating for a couple of months and there have been no declarations of love, it's even worse because it's a socially contrived opportunity for him to finally let you know how he feels. And for that reason many men dig their heels in and decide to not even acknowledge the day at all. A completely understandable knee jerk reaction to the obvious manipulation of the greeting card industry, but ultimately a disastrous course of action just for the sake of rebellion.

For men it truly is even trickier. If you're just dating, or in the case of so many of my male friends who are either terrified of commitment or dating someone they're not into for the regular sex while they're waiting for their super model girlfriend to notice them - you know "hanging out," what do you do so as not to send the wrong message? They don't make cards that say "Happy Valentine's day to the woman I really enjoy hanging out and having casual sex with."

And even if you're in a relationship and happy about it the terrain can still be tricky. A man who is incredibly romantic and in love and wants to tell the world about it has got so much trashy, sappy Valentine's Day crap to choose from he runs the risk of buying something, with the best intentions of course, that is truly heinous. And upon receiving the very often truly offensive piece of lingerie often trimmed in maribou, many women just don't see the good intentions with which the gift was purchased, they sometimes get reactive and say things like, "What in the world were you thinking? Do I look like a someone who would actually wear something like this? Do you think I'm a whore?"

And it's pretty much downhill from there.

I really don't know that many people who have the kinds of Valentine's Day celebrations that I see advertised on TV. I think the last time that I looked forward to Valentine's Day I was in elementary school. My mom would take me to Hill Drug to purchase one of those plastic wrapped boxes of 40 cards that said things like, "Be Mine" and "You're Sweet Valentine" so that I could labriously address a card, utilizing my brand new cursive writing skills, to every kid in the class for the card exchange on Valentine's Day. And then, of course there was the candy - a holiday with candy pretty much rocked my 10 year old world. The Whitman sampler that my dad would get my mom. The big box of See's candy that Mrs. Drew brought to be shared by the whole class. And of course those little chalk like candy hearts with the weird flavors like clove and peppermint and the yellow one that has a taste that I can't really describe.

I always made sure that I made a card for everyone in the class whether I liked them or not. I couldn't stand the idea that someone might not get a Valentine. And actually for the kids that didn't get many Valentine's Day cards, the day probably sucked. Just like all those Valentine's Days when my boyfriend didn't express his love for me with even a card, much less diamonds and roses, or the guy I was dating called me for what can only be described as a consolation prize dinner/booty call. It wasn't the Red Lobster but it might as well have been.

I'm all for shifting the emphasis of Valentine's Day from romantic love to just love - any kind of love - because when it comes to love it's all good. Keep the candy, because like I said, any holiday that includes candy as part of the celebration is a good one, but lose all the expectations and emphasis on the couples club. Just let the people that you love know that you love them. Do for them what you would love for someone to do for you. I sent my nana flowers today - lucky for me carnations are her favorites - and she just called me completely thrilled to bits because, c'mon, it's so awesome to have flowers delivered just for you!

And the next time I find myself romantically involved with a fabulous man on Valentine's Day I am going to buy him something wonderful from Agent Provocateur.

In a 36C.

Thus ensuring that we both get something we enjoy on Valentine's Day.

CATHOLIC ENVY

Today is Ash Wednesday and it always reminds me of the Catholic envy I had in elementary school, pre-4th grade. It began when I realized that all the Catholic kids in school got to come late on Ash Wednesday AND they had these smudges on their foreheads that were put there on purpose by the priest at church. They got to give something up for the six weeks until Easter. Not something they didn't care about, but something that mattered a lot. Something that would be a sacrifice and require discipline, like ice cream or watching the Partridge Family or roller skating.

We were Unitarians which meant that I could wear whatever I wanted to church and we would hang out in the field next to the church and look at the flowers and play Red Rover. There was no talk of God or Jesus, and definitely no talk of the Devil or Hell. It was all about the community of man and our responsibility to that community. All in all it was pretty boring, but I did look forward to the donuts when the grown ups got finished listening to the boring minister. Being Unitarian meant that I wasn't all indoctrinated in some fundamentalist form of religion and my parents didn't care if I went to church, or temple with my friends of different faiths.

When I went to church with my Catholic friends, I was really envious of the rituals around the Catholic church like the little bird bath in the front for cleaning your hands and the kneeling in the aisle before you got to go in and sit down. I totally dug the incense cage that got swung around emitting smoke that smelled like the incense my dad burned in his office. There were hand gestures and call and response and lots of changing of positions from sitting to on your knees to standing and sitting again. And everyone did it all at the same time - they all knew what to say and when to do stuff. I watched them intently and earnestly mimicked every thing they did. My favorite part was going to the front of the church to have a little cracker snack. I wasn't so crazy about drinking out of the same cup as everyone else even if they did wipe it off. It was only after church when my friend explained that you were supposed to go to confession before you were allowed to get the cracker snack that I realized I had committed a faux pas. She explained the confessional was like a closet that you went into and kneeled which turned the lights off and made it dark and then the priest who was sitting on the other side of the wall in the closet slid open the partition and you told him all your sins.

Being a Unitarian the whole concept of sin eluded me so she had to explain that pretty much everything we do in the course of being human is a sin, like thinking mean thoughts, or wishing that you had Star's cool hairdo, or talking back to your mom - all sin. But if you told the priest about it he would give you some prayers to recite and then you'd be good with God again. I wondered if I was going to go to hell for eating the cracker without getting in the closet and telling the priest about my sins. My friend said that since I wasn't Catholic I couldn't confess, but I shouldn't go up for a cracker the next time.

I was left feeling guilty about having the cracker without confessing and worried that I was going to go to hell which I knew nothing about, but it sounded like a pretty bad place.

I wasn't so keen on going back to church with her after that. I didn't know the moves, I couldn't go to confession, I couldn't get the snack. I didn't want to sit alone in the pew as everyone else went to the front of the church. Everyone would think I was a big sinner.

When I decided to discuss all these heady matters with my father he didn't want me going back to the Catholic church. He said it would mess with my head too much. He told me that sin was a concept made up by the men who ran the church to scare people into doing what they wanted.

And shortly after that I was watching "Chiller" on KTLA - a show that predated Elvira's show, but basically a Sunday afternoon scary movie featuring slasher movies and monster movies. The movie that I saw so soon after my foray into the Catholic church was about a girls Catholic school run by nuns and one very evil looking priest. Students at the school started disappearing under mysterious circumstances and it turned out that those nuns and that priest were actually witches and a powerful warlock doing the Devil's bidding. Looking for a young virgin to be his bride. I had no idea what a virgin was, but I didn't want to be one.

Um, did I mention that I wasn't allowed to watch Chiller because 1) I was prone to serious nightmares and 2) I had a hard time separating truth from fiction when it came to movies. I was like nine and these were simpler times.

So anyway that movie, along with my limited understanding of the Catholic church, my father's comment about "the men in charge making up sin" and the whole idea of going to hell for just being me all left me pretty much traumatized.

All of which gave me the greatest compassion for my friends who were raised in the Catholic church. No wonder they got rid of their virginity as soon as they possibly could.

HAPPY ROOSTER YEAR!

It's the Chinese New Year and this year is the year of the Wood Rooster. So basically we aren't going to be having much fun in the old hen house. The Wood Rooster supports foundations and basics - so it's a good year to get out of debt and start saving, clean up cluttered corners and get organized, put away your party shoes and get rid of all those old clothes you don't wear anymore. Because you are never going to fit into those jeans again.

On a positive note it's a great year for love that lasts - foundation is good for that kind of love.

All in all I have to say that I started this roman calendar new year in a Wood Rooster kind of mood - so here's to being out of debt and into long lasting love by this time next year.

PUT DOWN THE GLASS

I don't consider myself much of a drinker, e.g. I don't drink that often. But last week I drank almost every single night. It's not like I'm slugging down half a bottle of bourbon, but I have been drinking my half of a bottle of wine. With the exception of Friday night when I took a break, stayed home and went to bed at 9pm I drank straight through the weekend.

And by yesterday morning I had one of those hangovers that you don't really feel until you spend prolonged time in the vertical position. Despite eating a meal before I went to the Extreme Winetasting, now called the Irregular Winetasting, I was quite drunk when I got home and quite ill when I woke up yesterday morning. And dumbass that I am I went out having washed the sheets but not made up the bed so I had to do that with a buzz on when I returned home Saturday night.

I crawled in bed and turned on Saturday night live comprehended that Paris Hilton was hosting - what the hell? - and promptly passed out. Woke up at 4:30 and ate some Excedrin and went back to sleep until 9:17 am when the phone rang. Ow! I got up and fed the cats and then rested. I got up and ate a little something and then rested. I got up and got out a bag to carry stuff to the superbowl party at Rs. and then rested again.

I rested until about 1pm when I got in the shower and then I had to rest from the exertion of standing upright in my slippery shower with my eyes closed and head tilted back while rinsing the soap from my hair. Dizzy! I ate some more aspirin and downed a litre of water and got in the car to go. I was so nauseated I had to mouth breathe all the way there.

The first thing I did on arrival was drink a beer and ding! I was back in the saddle again. After the second beer I was downright jolly and after the third I was in what has become my mildly buzzed reality. There was lots of good food, but I didn't eat that much because I was so aware of all the calories in beer, plus I had been put to work chopping and once I touch food I no longer want to eat it. Lucky for me I didn't make the guacamole so that was still appealing.

There were people I had met before when I was dating R. and once again I mused over the fact that they seem a LOT older than me. I always feel like I'm partying with my parents and their friends. I mean R. is older than me too, but I don't think of him that way. But maybe he was adapting to me. All of the women were wearing frosted lipstick and had that over processed blond hair. Like if you looked at a high school year book from 1973, how the "hot" chicks used to wear their hair and make up.

But you know I'd had three beers so I was golden retriever friendly. Then the tequila bar opened. Lots of good tequilas - Don Julio, Casa Noble, the expensive Cuervo and something that had a leather and leopard skin carrying case, Tres Hermanas maybe? I tried them all passing around a shot glass with Marvin and Adi. When tequila is really good I don't get so much drunk as drugged. I moved quickly onto water as my head started to pound coinciding with the end of the game.

Speaking of the game it was kind of boring. Big defense games are snorers, but usually the festivities around the superbowl are pretty fun. This year when they opened with the deaf and blind kids singing and signing I knew it was going to be pretty grim. I fully expected Up With People to perform at halftime and Paul McCartney in a bad t-shirt singing Hey Jude wasn't that far off. Though I bet if you were there it was pretty cool. Still it wasn't ZZ Top or Kid Rock or Lynard Skynard. The commercials were pretty blech too.

So it was good that I had a buzz on for most of the game otherwise I think I might've taken a nap. It wasn't until I was talking to Adi about a story that I'm working on and he looked at me and said, "Are you sober enough to hear me?" that I wondered if I had been staggering around all day and people were just pretending not to notice, or if he's one of those people who watches how much other people drink. I was watching what Marvin was drinking because he was mixing and I'm always kind of in awe of people who can do that without throwing up.

I was sober enough to stare into Adi's gorgeous brown eyes and I still remember the very salient point that he made which totally changed the way I'm thinking about this particular character and story and now it's back to the drawing board. And I helped clean up and didn't break anything. So I don't think I was "drunk girl" at the party, though I was definitely happily buzzed girl.

This morning I was foggy in the head girl who blew off working out and taking a shower in order to sleep until the very last minute before leaving for work in pretty much the same clothes she wore yesterday.

This week I'm not making any plans - other than to put down the glass.

WE HAVE DEFLATION

A. this one's for you.

About 3 years after I got my spectacular breast implants I woke up one morning and had to pee, like really bad. And when I went to the bathroom I was amazed at how much I peed and peed and peed. But it was pretty early in the morning, and it was a Saturday and I was a tad hungover so I went back to sleep.

I got up several hours later and got in the shower, and it was here, as it so often is with us women, that I realized that there was something not quite right about my left breast. It wasn't quite as specatacular as the right one. In fact it seemed a little droopy. But I was going shopping with a friend and I was running late so I put on a bra to better support my droopy left breast, thinking, I don't know what really, like maybe it just needed a little uplifting to get back into it's normal perky position.

I met my friend and we had lunch and I continued to pee with great alacrity and by the time we were in the dressing rooms trying stuff on there was no more denying it. My left breast was deflated. Freaking out I had K. come into the dressing room with me and said, "feel my boob? Does it feel different to you than the other one." She stood there in front of me with a breast cupped in each hand sort of weighing them and indeed, I was not going crazy, my left breast not only wasn't so perky it was much lighter in weight.

The fact that my left breast had been reduced to a bag of skin was even more dramatically illustrated when I bent over at the waist and it hung down like a flesh colored triangle similar to those you see on nursing dogs, or indiginous tribal women in National Geographic who've had multiple children. It hung there next to my plump and perfect right breast and it looked just plalin old wrong.

Now, there was no risk to my health because all that had leaked into my body was the saline that had been in my now deflated implant, thus all the peeing. I knew this. I knew it could and would be fixed and it wouldn't be that big of deal. My rational self knew this. My irrational self had a complete hissy fit in the dressing room - there were tears, there was kneading of the breast that verged on self flagellation. I called the doctor's office and left a hysterical message knowing full well that no one would be there until Monday. Note that I left a message and did not call the service and insist that this was an emergency. I may be a drama queen but I do know the difference between a true emergency and a vanity melt down.

I spent the rest of the weekend in a bulky sweatshirt with my breasts bound to my chest with the smallest bra I could find because it just felt so weird. When I got the implants I chose a reconstructive plastic surgeon because I was so flat chested that's pretty much what the procedure amounted to. Consequently my skin had stretched A LOT and it was now just a slack sack hanging off my chest. Oh and I also spent the rest of the weekend holding my left breast and looking at it and freaking out.

When Monday came the doctor's office told me that they wouldn't be able to get a replacement implant from the manufacturer for a WEEK! That was so not acceptable. I told the nurse who called me that I was going to drive up to Santa Barbara to the Mentor corporate headquarters and pick it up myself. I was not going to walk around like this for a week!

Okay, let me pause to totally acknowledge that I am vain and shallow and in a world where women die everyday from breast cancer my situation was silly because it resulted from an elective surgery.

So anyway, the nurse made a couple phone calls and called me back to tell me that the Mentor rep was going to drop off a new implant that afternoon and I could come in the next day to have my deflated one replaced. Probably not so great to give me positive affirmation for my whole hysterical baby behavior, but I appreciated it and sent both the office and the rep a Harry and David Tower of Treats and how Neiman Marcus neurotic am I?

I was at the office at the crack of dawn the next day waiting for the doctor and his staff to show up. The surgery took about half an hour and was no where near as painful as the first one because basically it was just like filling a bodhi bag. They had to go in through my old incision, but I heal really well so it's almost completely faded. There was some pain from where they had to cut through the muscle to re-insert the implant under the chest muscles. Still, I was back at work that afternoon with a little Vicodin.

And life went on.

Except for the fact that I am now so paranoid that it will happen again that I am constantly, absentmindedly, feeling myself up.

HOME REPAIRS

I haven't been on the computer much due to the verge of migraine. Trying to avoid actually having one and that means staying away from triggers, e.g. light from the computer glare, sugar, etc. But I have to wax rhapsodic about the fact that I have curtain rods, curtains and blinds in my windows. It's amazing how grown up it makes me feel. I've always been one of those people who will take a project, like redecorating a room to a certain point and then stop because I do not have the ability to use the necessary power tools. Actually I have the ability to learn how, I'm just too lazy to do so.

Anyway, my dad came to stay this past weekend and he brought his drills and drill bits and his extensive perfectionism and he not only hung curtain rods and blinds, he also changed out the sockets in my apartment so that they're now grounded. This allowed me to plug in a power strip for the NINE plugs that make my various entertainment center components go. Previously I was using extension cords and had what looked like scary electrical insects stretched across the wall of the living room.

While dad was staying we also ate and talked and ate and talked. My dad likes beer so he drank the Heffeweisen that's been sitting in the frig since the last time I had a craving about two months ago. I didn't drink the beer, but I was still able to share with him my feelings about how spending time with me feels less like a priority for him and more like something to do only when it's convenient. Like when his wife is doing something else and his only option is to be alone. He said that's not true. And I know it's not. But what was important is that I think he understood what I meant. I also told him that although I know his wife doesn't dislike me, if often feels like that because she's a very cold person. It's because she's scared that people won't like her - but seriously talk about a self fulfilling prophecy. When setting boundaries sometimes it's good to be aware that you might be erecting barbed wire fences that most people won't care to get cut attempting to climb over them.

It's nice to know that he sees her "boundaries" as walls, and also that he loves her just the way she is. My parents really have ended up with partners who are more appropriate to who they are at this point in their lives. Teachers to take them through the last chapters. I asked dad why it was the he and mom didn't seem to be friends the last half of their marriage. What changed? He said that she couldn't acccept him for who he was and that was probably due to the fact that he wasn't accepting of himself. Hindsight and all that. Considering the bonding that I was feeling and not wishing to appear judgmental I didn't ask why it is that he seems so mad at her that they can't be friends now.

Baby steps and all that.

Saturday night we went to see Indigo, a movie produced the Spiritual Cinema Center. This is the same group that produced What the Bleep do We Know. I didn't see that movie and I wish I hadn't seen Indigo. It's based on the theory that Indigo children are those kids born in the last 10 or 15 years who are born with a deeper knowing and a different way of being in the world. They are more empathic, more creative, more able to reason in new ways. And in this movie the Indigo kids were psychic and able to heal people with Alzheimer's disease. There were lots and lots of scenes of cars driving with bad movie of the week music playing over and scenes of beautiful Oregon sunsets and forests. The writing was abominable - think afterschool special circa 1971. The acting, except for the little girl was pretty much what you'd see in a student film, made by a student who ultimately decides to go into producing because he realizes he's not a director.

We had to go to my church to see it because it was sold out at all the AMC theaters that were showing it. And in overall weekend box office the movie came in NINTH! The only reason I can imagine that this happened is because of the marketing that the Spiritual Cinema Center did with massive e-mail dissemination. When the movie finally ended we leapt out of our seats and bolted for the doors with the majority of the audience. The girls behind me put it very succinctly when one said to the other giggling, "I've never been so happy for a movie to be over."

Amen sister.

On Sunday I got dad up to watch the Austrailian Open men's final and I ran to Ikea to buy bamboo blinds. I've always wanted them and at $4.99, with someone to install them, totally worth the half hour drive to Ikea and the run walk through the entire store to get to the curtain section. Part of Ikea's master plan is to make you walk through the entire store. You can't cut in from the bottom and go up. There's a secret stairway that one of my friends told me about but I couldn't find it and so I went up to the 3rd floor and ran down.

Dad gave me a big hug and said he'd had fun and would come back soon. And as I waved goodbye as he drove off I remembered the shelves that have been sitting in the hall closet for the last three years. I hope he comes back soon. Not just to install the shelves, but because for the first time in a long time I really had fun being with my dad.

GUIDED BY VOICES

I got home yesterday to a piece of mail from the DMV. Puzzled I opened it. My registration isn't due until July. It was a congratulatory notice telling me that I am lucky because I can renew my driver's license through the mail. My first thought was whoa! five years just flew by. I distinctly remember going to renew it the last time, at the last minute before I left town to celebrate my birthday because I was going to need to drive a rental car and they won't let you do that with an expired license.

And the fact that I did it at the last minute is evidenced by the photo on the license that I've been carrying around for the last five years. I was in a hurry and didn't really grasp the concept of digital photography. I take crap pictures to begin with. I'm not photogenic. But there's something about digital photography that just makes me look crazy. And in my driver's license photo my eyes are staring off into space, a bit to the right, like I'm listening to voices that only I can hear.

I look insane.

So even though I am "lucky" and could, if I wanted to, renew my license through the mail and carry that crazy lady photo around with me for another five years, I think I'm going to make an appointment and put on a little makeup, brush my hair and go down to the DMV to renew my license in person and get a new picture.

And hopefully this time I'll take a good picture. Or at least one where I don't look like I need Thorazine.

ROCKIN' MY WORLD

Last night I got home and found a huge box on my front porch. "Why what can this be? And it's so big! And heavy!" I carried it in the house and noticed that the shipping label said Royal Elastics. And all of a sudden I knew what it was. When I was at D & S's last weekend, watching football, I had mentioned that I really loved S's shoes. D. said give me your address and I'll send you some. RE is a brand that he's been building in the family biz. So I wrote down my name and address and the name of the shoe, which is Ladech, and then forgot I had done so. I ran into the kitchen, got a knife and tore the box open, and almost fell over in shock when I saw not one shoebox, but FOUR!

Dude hooked me up with every color that the shoe comes in!!!

This is pretty much one of the most decadent, hence exciting things, I've ever experienced. I was thrilled to get just one pair of shoes - but four? And in colors that I love but would never be able to justify buying? Right now I'm wearing Red Ladech Royal Elastics shoes which match one of the two red sweaters that I own. I have them in white with blue trim! I have them in light grey with pink trim! I have the one's that S. was wearing which are beige and black and red! I fully plan on wearing them everyday from now on because they are so comfortable.

Rock!

THIS INSTEAD OF THAT

I so much want to rant about the absolute insanity of these so called "family centered" groups that are getting news coverage for their statements about how Spongebob Squarepants is gay and is a secret agent for radical gay groups promoting their gay agenda. Today they've got their panties in a wad about "no name calling week," a program directed mostly toward middle schools where the most popular word in use for humiliation of one's fellow classmates is "faggot." Apparently they believe that participation in "no name calling week" will make sensitive and susceptible children decide to be gay because it calls for tolerance of kids who may be gay, and focuses on the use of the term faggot as derogatory and hurtful, when apparently they think that it's just calling a spade a spade.

Not that they support name calling mind you. It's just that they believe that schools shouldn't be supporting children who are gay in being who they are, and not allowing other kids to pick on them. I swear to God, it's in this article right here. Don't you just love how these haters get national news coverage for their poisonous message in Jesus name, amen? I would really like it better if they would stop hiding behind family values and righteous morality and just call themselves what they are - People who are Afraid in Christ's Name.

Okay enough of that. I'm going to have to find a brown bag to breathe into if I keep going down that highway because the inmates are running the asylum at this point and there's not much I can do except point out that they're pretty fucking crazy.

Switching gears to my weekend - woohoo!

I wish.

Actually it was quite nice. I got off work early and went to see In Good Company. Probably better to wait till it was released on DVD, but it was a nice way to pass a couple hours. Dennis Quaid is aging very sexily. And his performance was really good, leading me to wonder if he was acting or just being himself. I left the theater wishing he was my dad. I really liked the relationship between Scarlett Johanssen's character whose name I can't remember and Dennis' Dan Foreman. The rest of the movie - eh.

Dinner was at Lare's my very most favorite Mexican restaurant in Santa Monica. It's family owned and operated and I know everyone there so well from my frequent frequenting that I get hugs and kisses from the valet parker to the bartender and several waiters. I met my friend Kathy who had just signed her closing papers and is now a condo owner, and her mom who was visiting from Chicago. It was really fun to talk about dating. Apparently it just sucks always and forever. Her mom is widowed and over the last couple years has been getting back out there. And isn't having any better success than Kathy or I.

Got home and the fabulously talented and creative H.C. called from San Francisco. I had been thinking about her a lot and last I heard she was going to move to Austin, TX. She's been in a horse phase and the two concepts together made me think she was going to go start a new career as a barrel rider. Turns out I was on the totally wrong trail. She rides in Marin wearing jodhpurs, riding boots and one of those velvet helmets. It's so very Jackie O. H's been very busy working on a radio play that I will be sure to write about here when it's going to be broadcast. It's a very exciting project and I encouraged her to consider coming to the helltown that is Hollywood to pitch it as an animated series. And that's all I'm going to say about it because people steal. H.C. is about to stand as a bridesmaid in, I think her 17th wedding coming up soon. Lately she's been doing double duty as bridesmaid AND officiant because she's a Universal Life Church minister so she can do the ceremony. I would almost get married just to have her do that. But no bridesmaids. And I have to find a groom. And get over my fear of marriage, or rather divorce.

Speaking of divorce, Saturday I went down to La Jolla to spend the weekend with two of my oldest and favorite friends. The kind of friends that are like your family. They're both married. And they're both in marriages that are kind of teetering on the brink of divorce. J. rented an oceanfront room at the La Jolla Cove suites right across the street from the ocean and we walked from there to George's at the cove for appetizer happy hour. Then we hit the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory where we picked up some yummy stuff and headed back to the room to watch the screening copy of Finding Neverland that I'd brought with me. K. had brought along her daughter's little portable DVD player that you can hook up to a TV. And as the clock struck 8:30 we put on our jammies and hunkered down with our chocolate - it really was reminiscent of a fifth grade slumber party. Except that the TV was from the year we really were in fifth grade and didn't have the capacity to read the input from the DVD player. So we all huddled on the pullout couch with our heads close together and watched the movie on the 5" screen.

Um, it definitely loses something when it's miniaturized, but since I'd seen it before I still bawled at the end. Felt kind of like as ass about that - like crying over something I was watching on a Blackberry.

Yesterday morning J.'s husband came to meet us for breakfast and I learned what steamed eggs are. J.'s husband is very Catholic and very conservatively republican so he and I love to engage in lively conversations wherein he says things like, "what I love about you liberals,"in a condescending tone. And I say things like, "You don't honestly believe that do you?" in an equally condescending tone. But we enjoy each other despite our massive differences of opinion on pretty much everything having to do with religion and politics. I respect him tremendously as a person, I just think he's wrong and he feels the same way about me. And I really hope that he and J. get through this rough patch and find a way to stay together and be happy.

We walked back from breakfast while J & K went for a little speedwalking and we stopped at a bakery to get a Nemo cookie for K's little girl. I mean she let us use her DVD player. Good sharing deserves a positively sugary affirmation. The bakery also served breakfast and featured lots of steamed egg dishes. I found out that you make steamed eggs with a milk steamer on a cappacuino machine. Don't that beat all? It has to be a professional quality machine or it won't work, but basically what you do is mix up your egg, put it in a cup and then stick the steamer in it and let the hot air fly until your egg is scrambled. No butter, oil or fat required and they're very tasty. With a lot of tobasco and guacamole.

K and I headed back about 11am because I wanted to watch the playoffs, of course. I was supposed to go out to Malibu again, but after that long ass drive I just couldn't face more driving. Actually I didn't see myself making it home at the end of the day. So when I checked my messages and R. had called saying he was back from Mex and watching football I went to his house instead. He's got the incredible home theater set up - In-cred-ib-le. Surround sound in every room, and high def so it's like you're sitting in the stadium. Except that I was in California where it was 75 degrees instead of Philly or Pittsburgh where there was snow piled up in huge 8 foot drifts.

I kissed him hello and had to exercise massive self control to stop the kissing. He's been sick or on vacation for the last couple weeks so I have missed him. But we're just friends. We're just friends. We're just friends. Fuck. It's so hard to be just friends - but honest to God, it's the best thing if I want him in my life. And I do because he makes me laugh and we have so much fun together. And he doesn't want to be more than friends. And I'm working on being a grown up and not settling for less than what I deserve, or trying to manipulate him into something, which is adoration and commitment. One out of two is all that's a for sure right now.

We ate pizza and drank a bottle of Zinfandel and then my stomach went bananas because pizza has cheese on it and I'm lactose intolerant but I keep forgetting that I am. I drank a little Fernet Branca which works so well to settle an upset stomach although it's basically Jaigermeister so I get frat boy drunk if I drink too much. His friends R. and A. called as they were finishing the 16th hole and they came by to watch the second game and we decided to BBQ. Opened more wine, R. made a trip to the market, I dug through the refrigerator and we whipped up a salad, chicken, steak, grilled asparagus and onions, and I made mashed potatoes with roasted garlic and horseradish dijon mustard. YUM!

The conversation was delightful because these guys, R&A, are supercool dudes who don't hang like dudes. They don't hang like chicks but they remind me of my stepdad - the actualized male who is living a conscious life and can not only identify feelings, but they're not afraid to talk about them either. They're actually perfect friends for R. who is that kind of guy. I would imagine it's got to be hard being a guy who is straight and enjoys hanging out with men, but wants to have real conversations about things that matter.

And they're all single. I have a feeling that the other thing they all have in common is that desire to date a supermodel who they can feel connected to - I'm just supposing, but that's a hard thing to find. In any case I really enjoyed hanging with them and was honored to be in the company of such men.

R and I cleaned up the kitchen and managed a less lingering kiss goodbye, accerlarated by the nuclear explosions going on in my belly because we had ice cream for dessert. One of those things where you know better and do it anyway. At least I did the ice cream and not R., they both fall in that same category. Yummy stuff you know you shouldn't mess with.

Got home and managed to stay up for a little while, but passed out at 10pm (again - I'm such a lightweight), but I was up all night with a sick belly. Totally worth it though.

Totally worth it.

OH! THAT'S WHAT YOU MEANT!

I got home one night about a week ago to a message from my dad, "Hi there darling daughter. I was wondering about whether or not it would be okay to stay with you the weekend of the 28th because we are having the house tented and fumigated."

Not an unreasonable request, and on the face of it one would assume that he and his wife need a place to stay while their house is uninhabitable and so, would like to come to L.A. and hang out for that weekend. Because that makes sense right?

But we're talking about my dad who, although he possesses a masters degree and worked as an educator for years and had, with my mother and now with his wife, a counseling practice wherein he works with others to clear up past and present traumas and make life feel a little better, is unable to communicate clearly with me about what he really wants.

So I called and left a message saying that it would be cool. I would be in town and I could leave them a key. I got no response to the phone message. And then I remembered that the last time he made this request referring vaguely to "we" what he really meant was "he" wanted to stay with me, and "he" wanted to spend time with me. Unfortunately because I very rarely hear him say "I" anymore when talking about the doings in his life I make the wrong assumptions.

So I sent him and e-mail and asked specifically "who" would be coming and staying over the weekend and what was on the schedule - you know so I could make my own plans if indeed they just wanted a place to crash. Turns out that my father's wife is going to a womyn's seminar in Idyllwild that weekend and so my dad wants to come hang out with me. Maybe see a movie on Saturday and then on Sunday he'd do fix-it stuff around the house.

And this pleases me no end and I am looking forward to spending the time with him.

I just wish that he would've called and said that's what he wanted to do. Because it's really all I ever want from my dad is to feel like he wants to spend time with me. And most the time I feel like the consolation prize, the runner up that's available when his wife is doing something else.

Yes, I am aware that she's going off to her womyn's workshop and so, if I wanted to have hurt feelings I could take that perspective, but I choose not to, becuase I'm just glad to be able to spend time with my dad. Who has no idea how to communicate with me.

THAT'S SHOWBIZ

The weekend started out on a completely deflating note... the network didn't pick up the pilot.

This is a bummer for so many reasons, not least because it is a kick ass piece of writing and would've made an excellent show. But as is the way of the industry where the term creative executive becomes more and more an oxymoron everyday, the leaning now is toward women centered dramas, like Desperate Housewives, and the supernatural, like Lost. Because there's nothing to ensure success than to copy what's already out there and repackage it again and again. I'm being ironic, but it does seem to hold true for the procedural franchises created by Dick Wolf and Jerry Bruckheimer.

At any rate it's a total drag because I was ready to go back into production which is kind of like camp. Really stressful, but pretty darn fun camp.

And now I have no idea what the future holds as far as employment. I will continue to write my original spec one hour pilot, which is about a woman. But I'm not gay, and most of the really successful shows written about women, like Desperate Housewives and Sex in the City are written by gay men. And the women in those shows, although portrayed by wonderful actresses, all kind of put me in mind of what a gay man in woman's body would do and say. At any rate, I write what I know and what I see and what I hear so the women I write about, while still interesting are largely lifted from the lively canvas that is my own world and the situations and voices are those of my friends, some of whom really are desperate housewives and their drug of choice is Prozac or Zoloft, not Ritalin.

So yeah, the weekend started off with disappointment and then on the drive home the anxiety set in. Bud came over with a screening copy of Finding Neverland and we cracked the bottle of Lancaster that DG gave us when we visited his lovely family in St. Helena. He works there and I love their cabs, although on Sunday I drank a ton of the Roth meritage launced by DG himself and that was pretty tasty too. Finding Neverland is a wonderful movie, but I don't recommend watching it right before you go to sleep while drinking alcohol. All the crying combined with the sulfites in the wine left me unable to breathe through my nose. This happens sometimes when I drink red wine, but I'm usually not sobbing. And boy did I sob - I am so glad that I didn't see this movie in a theatre because I would've blown a vein trying to keep it together.

Saturday morning I woke up with my eyes swollen shut and drank a litre of water on my way down to the LBC to check out Ms. D's renovations to her house. She gutted the kitchen and the bathroom almost immediately after moving in, a year ago but didn't get them finished until just this past month. For a while she was going to Target up the street when she had to poop! And she hadn't had a bath in a really long time, using the shower at the gym for basic hygiene. Now she has the biggest bathtub I've seen outside of a honeymoon hotel suite. You could lay down in the thing and it's a jacuzzi! Her house looks amazing so it was worth the year of camping and it came together just as she's been describing it, but you know when you can see the dirt under the house where the floor was demo'd, well it's kind of hard to have the vision. She should be very proud of herself because not only did she have the vision she did most of the work herself.

We grabbed breakfast and then I went and cut all my hair off, the whole, What to do when you're feeling out of control thing. It looks really good and is super easy to deal with so I'm happy with that snap decision made on the spur of the moment.

Went to Nana's and watched Pittsburgh barely beat the Jets. What was up with that? The Jets definitely brought their game, but Ben was having a really hard time throwing the ball to the guys on his team. He was throwing the ball to the guys in the Jets uniforms. They were lucky they won in overtime by a fieldgoal. The Atlanta/St. Louis game was a slaughter, but Michael Vick was really fun to watch. So was Warrick Dunne. I was drinking scotch by the time the late game was on, so perhaps that's why I was having a better time.

Sunday I went to a baby shower for Roan, who will be arriving sometime in February. Having not met her yet I wasn't really sure what to get her, plus her mommy isn't the type who likes frilly or plastic or fluffy - but now that I've seen her room I have a better idea of what direction to go. At any rate I brought some baby wash cloths so as to have something to carry in with me. It was a co-ed shower without the games - YAY! But, the playoffs were still on, so I snuck into the bedroom and turned on the TV for a looksee - Philly was kicking Minnesota's butt. I wasn't missing much. Roan's daddy is an excellent chef - their restaurant is #9 on the Top 25 restaurants in Los Angeles in this month's Los Angeles Magazine - so the food was in a word - AMAZING! He made his most excellent crab salad and I marveled at my self restraint. I used a plate as opposed to just shoveling it into my mouth straight out of the bowl.

After the shower I drove out to Malibu for the last half of the Patriots/Indy match - horribly disappointing, but they were playing in a blizzard. We on the left coast are being rewarded for perseverance through the apocalyptic rains with an 80 degree weekend. It was not only warm, it was very very clear and beautiful. S & D's house in Malibu is up on a hill with a 230 degree view of the coast. It was worth sitting in the nasty traffic on PCH which is still a mess to get there. I forget how fragile the coastline is and there were mudslides galore still being cleaned off the road which is why PCH went down to one lane. Which is why it took over an hour to get out there. The people down the street from S & D lost almost all the dirt that was under their house, it slid down across the road, and now it's red tagged and they can't go back in it because it's not safe. S & D lost part of their backyard and now it sags about a foot lower on one side. I'm glad that I can go visit them there, but I don't think I'd want to live someplace where my yard, and possibly my house might go sliding down the hill. It is blissful however, to go up for Sunday dinner and lots of Roth vino at S&D's beautiful house with the beautiful view. She got a great new cookbook called Barefoot in Paris with wonderful recipes for french food that you really can make at home! I know because we made some!

Yesterday I spent the afternoon and evening with M, a dear friend whose mom is in the process of moving on. She's been fighting cancer for about the last five years and it seems that she's made her last stand. Her body is tired and she is just now coming around to the idea of being done with all the poisonous treatment which may buy her time, but not quality of life. M. is holding it together really well, but then as she said, when the time comes she'll have a melt down. It's just not time. But she's mad that she's going to lose her mom and that her little boy who is two won't have any real memories of his grandma whom he adores. We had a great dinner to celebrate her birthday which was last month in the middle of holiday preparation and crisis with mom so it was a pretty sucky day.

I brought a bottle of wine that I'd bought a long time ago up in Napa. I had forgotten about it because it was covered in dust. I tend to store the "good" bottles in a place that's hard to get to behind the Trader Joe's wine, which is very drinkable and good and less than $15 a bottle. This bottle was ready to be enjoyed and there is something about a really good bottle of wine that's ripe and ready to go that makes the buzz that much more fun. It makes the food that you eat taste that much better. And it makes you laugh that much harder at the stories retold and remembered. I have a really good memory - like elephant woman - I remember exactly what was said and what people wore and what we ate and who I slept with.

She told me that she'd only just confessed to her sisters on Saturday that she and George Clooney were more than just friends. That they'd known each other in the biblical sense for more than a year and as they were drooling for details she told her sister C., "that's the chair that I was sitting in when he called me from the back of a limo to tell me that the pilot for ER got picked up and he felt that it was really going to help his career." And then she told them that what she realized after she started sleeping with him, is it's better not sleep with your friends. Um yeah, especially if they're going to become a huge movie star whose face you're going to see everytime you check out at the grocery store.

But you never know when that's going to happen in this industry. Because it really does take one big success to get the career ball rolling.

I guess that's showbiz. Though when you think about it it's a lot like gambling too.

LITTLE OR NO PREFERENCE

The other night I was on my way home from a screening of the movie Closer. I was listening to NPR and they were interviewing this guy who wrote a book about how people make snap judgements. I consider myself to be someone who does that and I was interested to hear that there's a test you can take that will tell you what your snap judgements are on various and sundry topics.

It's called the IAT - Implicit Association Test and you can participate in research that a group at Harvard is doing. Well, of course I wanted to participate so I signed up and I've done the test a few times. It's a great way to kill 10 mindless minutes - they don't want you to think while you're taking the test, better to assess your snap judgements. But for all the judgment that I believe I'm throwing down as I walk through the world so far I'm someone who has little or no preference to one thing over another.

Now it doesn't bother me that this is true of silly things like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, Artists or Musicians, Plastic Surgery or Wrinkles, Intelligent or Athletic, but I also have little or no automatic preference for friends or family. I guess that could be considered a good thing. I'm as happy with my friends as I am with my family. I don't care if I give or receive - both make me happy. However, I apparently have no automatic preference for Non-Profits over Corporations - and if you asked me I would have a very strong snap judgment about say, Wal-mart or the Red Cross. According to this test however, when I'm not thinking, I have no preference at all. Which is just so weird because you think you know yourself.

I do have a moderate preference for West Coast over East Coast, but you know I've only ever lived on the west coast so that makes sense. But it seems that I'm not someone who has strong automatic preferences, even when I think I do! How weird is that?

So maybe I liked Closer better than I think I did.

LET THE SUN SHINE! AND SPRINKLE IT WITH CHEESE!!

I woke up this morning to a blue sky and sunshine and I cannot tell you what a relief it was. I almost broke into song, but then I remembered that I still had to get up and work out. It was such a beautiful morning that I didn't even mind that it took me an hour and a half to get to work because none of the lights were working. It will probably take me just as long to get home because the "going home" side of the road was completely shut down this morning due to numerous mud slides.

There have been all kinds of horrible things happening all over the SoCal area due to the rains and flooding, but I feel so much better I'm not paying attention right now. The PMS is abating and my persoanl threat alert is at BLUE - conditions are guarded. I'm thinking about getting some t-shirts made to indicate the threat level for all the people who have to be around me during the hormonal roller coaster ride I take every month. While I think that the Homeland Security terrorist threat color code system is pretty much bullshit, I do think it would come in handy on a day to day basis for the general public that has to deal with me.

I mean imagine if you ran into me and I was wearing a bright red t-shirt with a caption that said, Threat level: risk is severe. You would think twice about fucking with me right? And if you did and I grabbed you by the throat and slammed your head into a wall, well it wouldn't be a surprise. Today, however, I would be wearing a blue t-shirt, mostly because I haven't been out in public for the last three weeks so I'm more like a bear emerging from hibernation, not aggressive just not quite sure what to do with people. But I'm not depressed and I'm certainly not pissed off. That was Saturday night and Sunday. The hormones have pretty much leveled off and some semblance of rationality has returned.

I still don't have much to write about because, you know I've been in my house for three weeks, or sitting in traffic, so not much has been going on. I did find this which has been making me laugh. David Hasselhoff is the king of cheese. Seriously. What was he thinking!? I'm thinking he needs a little "manscaping." That's some hairy cheese!