TOO POOPED TO POST

So my birthday celebratin' has been just wunnerful. I have eaten too much and not slept enough, and remember a while back when I wrote that A. wasn't that into me so why did he continue to e-mail and call? Well, over the last couple weeks it's become very clear that he IS that into me and I totally reciprocate and because I am too pooped to write a whole post, and I have to get my taxes done and to my accountant I'm just going to copy and past an e-mail update I sent to my darling Allison, although it's edited because I tell her absolutely everything and it's not all for public consumption.


Allison - this has never happened to me before. I have always liked sex, but this is really strange. You know how when you're with someone and you go out and you know you're going to go home and have sex? Or you get together to go out and you kiss and then it turns into making out and you end up having sex before you go out? But as far as sex there's always a beginning, a middle and an end?

This isn't like that.

This is like mating season at the zoo.

But with a LOT of conversation and hanging out. I think maybe it's because A. is doing treatment with a Chinese doctor for his ulcer and as part of the treatment he's not supposed to ejaculate. In fact, he's probably not supposed to have sex or delve into arousal at all. But he totally is and it's like what I imagine having sex with Sting must be like. And I'm like a dude in that once I get off I want to roll over and go to sleep, but because of the fact that he's not goal oriented when he touches me we get sucked in over and over. And it's okay for me not to finish because he doesn't and I have to say that just having sex is more fun when there's no pressure to get off. And because there's no pressure I end up getting off all the time.

Like five times yesterday.

And that was after staying up until four in the morning going to various and random parties.

I was out every night last week celebrating the birthday. A. showed up at the all girl chickfest dinner on Thursday with flowers and stayed until we were done, after which I followed him to his house and we danced to Sade singing Smooth Operator on vinyl and then we had lots of sex.

Friday I went home and got my tax stuff in order - that is the one thing that I must complete today - and then went with R. to the Arts and Crafts exhibit at LACMA. I gave him the Parker book which he loved and also tiled a six bottle wine rack that I've been carrying around in my trunk forever. I used earthtone tiles with one single red one and grouted it with gray. It was pretty cool although it wasn't prefect. None of my projects ever really are, but it's the thought that counts. We walked to the museum and then to dinner and we talked and talked. I told him it was really hard for me to see him with Lori when we went to the museum the week before and that no matter who else I love I will always love him. He said he felt that same way and that there was nothing going on between he and Lori which is good because she drinks A LOT. And Saturday night at his party if I'd had to listen to her say one more time, "I'm a mom," I would've slapped her. Thank God I wasn't standing there when she told A. that she wanted to leave, but the sex was so good.

I am totally falling for A. and there is definitely something going on between us, but I get very jealous when I think about R. with anyone else. Because I'm just like that. I was talking to A. about it because he's concerned about R. feeling weird about he and I and he said, "so you still have feelings for him." I said, yes, but not rational feelings. They just are what they are and it's easier if I just feel them and know they're not reality based, they're ego based. I think he got it.

So back to Saturday - A. called and said he'd been invited by some friends to a bbq and did I want to go before R's party. Sure. So I packed my party dress and put on bbq clothes and he picked me up and we went out to the valley for an hour or so, then we changed and went to R's party, got there about 9pm. Stayed until midnight and then went to this party that A's friend Fernando told him about. Fernando is from South America and he's one of those absolutely beautiful, sexual creatures that women go nuts for, until they know better. Which isn't to say that he's not lovely, and probably a great one night stand, but he's a playah.

So we get to this abandoned building in downtown L.A. and we're on the list as Fernando's guests and we go to the top of the stairs and we have to sign releases in case we're on camera. I just sign because what the heck, but in briefly perusing it I see that I am at Dr. Susan Block's institute. Now this is a woman that I occasionally catch when channel surfing, on cable access. I was actually pretty delighted to be at one of her wingdings, although it was so contrived there was nothing sexy about it. It felt like everyone was trying too hard to be all free and sexual and shit. It was actually kind of pathetic. But there was this one girl who was dancing in this long skirt with no top on and a mohawk and she was wearing black gloves and I swear I thought she had NO HANDS! I was completely mesmerized and a little freaked out, but then I saw that she had gloves on. A. and I had fun people watching and making up stories about what everyone did for their day job.

Then we went to his friend Darren's loft, also in downtown, in a building that A. had done all the electrical work in - that was cool to see - he does huge jobs, like high rises and office buildings. So we walk into this loft space and it's like walking into a weird sex/nightclub - only without the creepy sex vibe. Darren is a little guy who apparently has a ton of money because he had this huge computer and it's at what looked like a control center and he can project the screen on to the one wall that's not floor to ceiling windows. Which is behind the stage that is in his living room. When we arrived there was a short, chubby naked man with a crew cut wearing these wings made from pleated organza that had sticks at the ends which extended out from the arms so that the wings could be made to flutter. This girl Sara was also naked and dancing around with the wings. A couple other people were laying on Darren's bed which is a round platform that hangs from the ceiling and another girl in a platinum wig was laying in a vibrating massage chair which she was enjoying so much that her wig was askew.

I shot some very cool pictures with A's camera of the people with the wings. It got to be about 2:30 (we sprung ahead) and I had to take a little nap. When I sat up this woman in a fishnet body stocking was jumping on a trampoline and then Darren attached this nylon tube to the ceiling so that people could get in and move around for photographs. Next he put up the stripper pole which fishnet girl played on. While this felt less contrived it reminded me a lot of the olden days doing drugs and playing with all kinds of toys that my insanely wealthy druggy friends had. Only these people don't do drugs. They're just into being "sexual," but it didn't really feel like that to me. Maybe I was just too tired.

Or I'm just old and jaded and rather than seeing them as free and sexual I see them more as lost and looking for distraction. Or maybe they're just in their 20s? In any case, it's fun once in a while, but I was giving him shit because he commented that at R's party if you didn't want to talk about stereos or cars there wasn't much else going on in the way of conversation, and after we left Darren's I said, "well if you didn't want to talk about sex toys or do provocative naked modern dance, these people weren't offering up a lot in the way of real connection either, although it was definitely entertaining. It was a party and for some reason unless the gathering is intimate it's hard to make a connection - whether your subject is cars or sex toys.

We got home about 4am and even though we were both exhausted guess what we ended up doing again? He went and met his friend for coffee at 10am and then came back and although we got up and attempted to get going we never got out of the house and before we knew it it was like 5pm and we hadn't really eaten. He had to take me home so we went and had an early dinner and then he came in and we laid down for a little bit.

And then we did it again!!!! And by now we're both hurting. The only thing I can liken it to is an insanely good meal and you're so full you're in pain, but you can't stop nibbling. And then there's all the conversation about everything. I don't know if it's the English as a second language thing, but he is in the habit of, and come to think of it always has done this since I met him, he is always telling me what he likes about me: I like that you don't stay angry, I like that I can tell you anything, I like that you laugh at yourself. It's like a positive self esteem workshop. I have never met a man who is so into communicating so openly and I am liking that, among so many other things, about him.

He does all these little things that I love like he put on this CD yesterday morning that was all trumpet music from the 60s and he stood there and folded his laundry naked while I nibbled on a bran muffin and laid on the couch reading with the sun coming in through all the windows. And then he put on this song that was a prayer - in Spanish - and was really beautiful - and he came over and kissed me.

And we ended up doing it again.

And I think, wonder, ponder - can this last? I've been in lots of relationships and I love sex, but it's never been like this before. He tells me all the time, "We are awesome together!" and we're both more than a little blown away I think.

It's a good thing I'm too exhausted to think very much about it because I could freak myself right out.

And he's leaving Saturday for Israel and will be gone for 2 1/2 weeks and I'm thinking I'm going to miss him. A lot. But as I sit her I'm also really aware that vajeena needs a rest.

GETTING SOME ZZZZZZZZS

First of all I just have to express my extreme frustration with Blogger. I have been trying to get on here to write for the last two days and it wouldn't load. I tried lots of times and it just wouldn't let me on. Of course I have the patience and attention span of a gnat, but I also feel that if the window doesn't open within 30 seconds it's probably not going to. Aaaarrrrgggh! I hate being denied.

On a positive note I got ten hours of sleep last night and nine hours the night before. Why? Well, because I went and saw the doctor and got my prescriptions renewed for my good friends Ambien and Valium. I take a half of each pill right before I lay me down to sleep and, even though I still wake up two to three times a night, I am able to go back to sleep and my eyes don't pop open until 7am. This is an awesome experience because I hate being awake and alone when it's dark out and too early to call my friends on the east coast. They're not even up at 6am, and if they are they're busy getting ready to go to work. They don't have time to chat with a loony insomniac.

All this sleep has made a huge difference in my level of productivity, although not so much in my ability to focus. So far I have gotten my Driver's license renewed, something that I, of course waited until the last minute to do as it expires tomorrow. I could've renewed by mail, but I cannot walk around with that picture of me looking like I'm hearing voices one day longer. I put on make up and got my hair cut and colored, not for the license picture but because I'm marking one more trip around the sun, it just worked out that my hair was cute for the picture taking. Of course, I may still look crazy because I'm not that photogenic and the woman at the DMV was no Annie Leibowitz, but if I was going to pay for it anyway I figured why not give it a shot. I'll know if a week if all the time and effort was worth it.

I also completed most of the work on Rs. gift for his birthday. As with everything else I do it's been fits and spurts, but ta-da! it's almost done and that's good because his birthday is day after tomorrow. Mine is tomorrow and so I've been feted nightly at all my favorite restaurants with all my favorite people. On Monday my neighbor and dear friend Cheryl went up to that local neighborhood restaurant we can walk to with the intention of taking each other out for dinner since her birthday was last Friday. When we got there we ran into Robert, my new friend that I met there and he bought us dinner! How cool is that?

Last night I went to Rocca with Sheila who is a peach and had amazing Italian food. Not the kind you usually think of when you think Italian, but the rustic kind. We started with the fonduta which was a crostini topped with black truffles upon which you dollop melted cheese. She had Lactaid Ultra with her which is a good thing because I would've been fetal before dinner was done. Next we shared the Ricotta gnocchi with ox tail ragu. This is one of my favorite things becuase the gnocchi melts in your mouth as opposed to landing in your stomach like a pasta bomb. For our mail course we ordered some of the pig that they roasted which was served with a basil mint pesto and a green apple comfit. Yum! Dessert was a chocolate souffle with a Nutella center. The whole entire evening was delicious right down to the company.

Tonight I'm going to Melisse, a four star French restaurant with my best friend Christina. This is my favorite place in LA - the food is phenomenal, a real experience, so hopefully Blogger will let me on tomorrow so I can write about it.

And hopefully I will find some time in all my celebratin' to get my taxes done. If I get that done, I think I will reward my productivity with a weekend that it completely off the hook.

THE TASTE OF CHAGRIN

I am feeling like a horrible person right this minute. Sick to the pit of my I've been a bad girl stomach. I am an asshole. Or at least I behaved like one. Mea fucking culpa.

It all started back at the beginning of February when I ordered a Directv DVR with tivo for the living room. A very nice guy named Juan came to install it. He brought a ladder but never used it to go up to the dish. I am A/V stupid. I was completely traumatized by the remote when I first switched from cable to Directv last year. And that is why when I attempted to record a movie the first night with my new gadget I figured it had to be something I did wrong that prevented me from being able to tape on one channel and watch another. I thought perhaps I needed a Tivo lesson or something.

One of my friends came over who is very good with gadgets and determined that I was getting no signal from the second satellite line. So me being an asshole, I immediately decided that Juan had to have done something wrong. I called Directv and their Tech department tried to walk me through all the possible ways to fix it while sitting on your ass in front of the TV. None of them worked. They said they'd have to send someone out to fix it. I said okay, but you know the vendor that you use for installs? They keep sending people who don't know what they're doing so could you ask them to send a senior guy? Please don't send the same guy it really bugs me that I have to make the time to deal with service again.

Of course Juan was waiting for me when I got home. Only his head was shaved and he didn't indicate that he was the guy who did the original install and it took me a while to figure out that it was him, but once I did I was just completely mortified. The mortification intensified when he determined that there was nothing wrong with the lines - they both work fine. The problem it seems is that the box is broken. My new gadget broke within hours of him installing it.

It was a brand new box - who would think that it would break immediately? Not me!

I went right to Juan screwed up and then I called Directv and told on him.

I am such an asshole.

And now I have to write a letter to Directv and send a copy to Juan's employer apologizing for casting aspersions on his abilities.

And apologize for being an asshole about everything.

I AM NOT CRAZY

So A. called and in talking to him over a couple of nights I realized that he is "that into me." We saw each other last night and that confirmed that everything I thought I felt was real. Sometimes I wonder if I make stuff up. Or if I'm crazy.

Now the fact that I'm not crazy doesn't guarantee a happy ending. Not at all, but it certainly makes the present a lot more fun. I think that what is unsettling is the feeling of knowing someone, there's a familiarity in place that is disconcerting, because I don't really know him at all. Yet.

I don't know his quirks. I don't know how he does his life on a day to day basis.

But I do know him.

BE PREPARED

It's the Girl Scout motto.

And it's the positive message I'm taking from the horrible nightmare that is the Terri Schiavo case. I was talking to my mother a few days ago about this because she is in the midst of "getting her affairs in order," bless her, not because there's anything wrong, but because with the Parkinson's diagnosis for Bob and a second marriage late in life, it's a good thing to do so your family doesn't suffer. I told her to be sure to specify that in the case of a persistent vegetative state there would be no gastric feeding tube. She told me that her friend Shall had just had her dad unhooked when he went south during an illness. I pointed out that unplugging only ends your life if you're on a ventilator. If you are in a persistent vegetative state, like Terri Schiavo is your autonomic nervous system will still function enabling your reflexes to work so that you will grimace and moan and do all the stuff that Terri is featured doing on that horrifying video tape that the media loves to play over and over and over again.

However, the lights aren't on and no one is home. I take solace in the fact that this poor woman has no idea what's happening to her, or that the video of her lolling head and rolling eyes has been seen by people all over the world. I told my mom that if she did that to me I would come back and haunt her for the rest of her days as soon as I was finally able to die.

President Bush said this today, "It is wise to always err on the side of life," but forgot to add "unless you're a black man sitting on death row in the state of Texas," which killed more people under his watch than any other governor. People who may have been innocent but were refused new trials.

What Terri is doing is not living. She is existing. I cannot imagine having a family member in this situation, but I know that I do not want anyone to be forced to exist when they have no brainwaves. The brain is dead. The spirit is gone. Their Terri is gone. Her body will exist as long as they feed it. That the United States government got involved is both terrifying and outrageous. That the president cut short one of his many vacations to sign legislation that may allow the feeding tube to be reinserted is arrogant and not what the President of this country should be concerning himself with.

Her husband is vilified for refusing to divorce her and allow her care to revert to her family. He has refused truly disgusting offers of millions of dollars to do so. He wants to make sure that she is allowed to die - the with dignity part is way past moot what with that video and the "Christian" hullabaloo. He has not gotten on with his life, though divorcing Terri and doing so would definitely have been the easiest thing to do. He is concerned that her parents are not making rational decisions evidenced by her father's statement that he would have amputations performed to do so. He is concerned that their "medical expert opinion" that Terri was misdiagnosed comes from doctors who are not neurologists and who give this opinion after seeing that damn video.

What about brain scans and EEGs? Why don't they do one of those and bring in some Independant Medical Examiners? If she's got no brain waves now, 20 years after her brain damage, I think it's safe to say that it's never going to happen. It's sad that there are doctors in this world who will tell people what they want to hear instead of the truth.

It's sad what Michael Schiavo is going through to allow his wife to die. It's sad what Terri's family is going through holding on to hope where there isn't any and being misled by people who would use their tragedy to further their moral/political agendas. It's sad that this president and this congress would intervene in a citizen's life in such an intrusive and "big brother" way.

It's all just so sad.

But if a few more people decide to get be prepared by making a living will and so prevent their families from being in this position then at least some good will come out of all this sad.

I have a living will, but it's in a safety deposit box that is who knows where. Certainly not Wells Fargo who bought First Intersate and then moved it without advising me. So I'm going to write my instructions down and have a friend witness it and keep it on the refrigerator.

Just in case.

I'M FREE FALLIN'

I'm re-writing myself and it's getting really hard. I am so critical that I feel paralyzed. It's like those stunt planes that you see when they go into a stall and start doing a spiral toward earth. It's completely silent and the plane seems to be gliding - this is a controlled stall - toward certain catastrophe and at the last minute the pilot starts the engine and pulls up on the stick thingy and the plane swoops back up toward heaven.

So in this scenario? I'm the pilot and the plane is in freefall and I'm staring at the approaching ground and I'm not sure I can find the on switch for the engine. In fact it feels like maybe the engine fell off the plane.

All I can do is hope that tomorrow I find the switch and pull back on the stick thingy and get a little altitude.

I just hope that there's gas in the tank.

THE THOUGHTS I THINK

Waking up before dawn with stomach pain allows just that much more time for my busy brain to think thoughts, some of which are actually really productive and probably need to be thought so that I get shit done. Like I need to pay my car insurance which means I need to find where I put the bill. It's a drag that my brain gets so busy when my eyes open because right now I'm really wishing I'd had about 3 more than the 4 hours of sleep that I got last night. I'm functioning on "low" right now, as evidenced by this totally lame post, but I'm hoping that if I drain my brain here, and have chicken broth and yogurt for dinner tonight, instead of zatzicki and carnitas like last night, maybe I'll sleep better and feel better.

And not think the thoughts I think....

Like I'm really ready to finish a plethora of unfinished projects around the house. First, and foremost would be the mosaic table which has been sitting there for two years this coming May. This means that I need to take all of the junk off of it and grout the sides. The top also needs more grouting, but once I get the sides done I can always do that second layer outside.

And once the table goes outside it's time to do something about the antique daybed that has been leaning up against the wall in the living room. It's been there for two years as well because I don't want to get rid of it, but I have no where to put it. I suppose I can sell or donate it, which is probably what I'll end up doing because at this point it's presence is annoying me and I really want to bring the Pilates machine down from Cheryl's where it's languishing under piles of stuff, so I can work out at home.

I'd like to accomplish that before the end of the first week of April because that's when my gym membership expires and if I can do Pilates and the Stairmaster at home in my pajamas as opposed to dragging my stuff to work and forgetting either my shoes or underwear or both, well, that's just going to make life that much easier. Plus I can play my own music. And work out in my pajamas. I already said that, but it's a big motivater right now.

The re-writing is sucking and it's really hard to work on making it better when I'm so tired I can hardly make coherent sentences, so it's feeling like a waste of time to even try. But that's so defeatist and negative so how do I get my head around being all positive and creative? Especially when I can't breathe through my nose that good?

Why does A. continue to sporadically call or e-mail, when he's bored in the car or has nothing better to do, when it could not be more clear that "he's just not that into me?" I am starting to feel like some poor beat up butterfly that a cat has been fucking with, so my bee like qualities are starting to come out. Like I could get really mean because I'm tired and I don't feel well, and his complete lack of communication and total disrespect for me makes me feel crazy. How could I ever have thought that this guy liked me? This feels horrible and just makes me sad.

I need to find R. the perfect thing for his 50th birthday which is harder than I thought it would be. He loves to weld, and he had a thingy that he did that with that got stolen, but I can't remember what that thingy was called, or even what it did. He loves wine so I'm leaning toward a wine themed gift and I can get a number of things which is good because if the homemade part (which is still in the planning stages in my brain) becomes yet another UFP I will still have something to wrap and give him.

Got to finish Colleen's scarf and mail it to her!!! It's all done except for the fringe on one side and I am such a loser for not just getting it out and doing it.

Must get Amy and Neal's address to send Roan's gift, now that she's actually here. I like to make sure that babies are safely arrived before I get the real gift. The problem is that once someone has a baby they are sleep deprived and they pretty much fall off the face of the earth so a lot of the "baby" gifts I get are too small by the time I actually get around to meeting the baby. That's why I will drive by the house and shove this through their mail slot.

Want to write a letter to Bob to honor his 75th birthday. It's hard to believe that he's 75 and that he's been in my life for almost 30 years. I can't think too much about the Parkinson's diagnosis because I get scared for him, and for my mom, and for me - he's the dad I got to choose. I love the dad whose DNA I share and who raised me with such great tenderness when I was a little girl, but Bob is like bonus dad. He's the one who is more traditional and who sets the bar for how I would like to be treated in a relationship. He is so good to my mom and they have so much fun. Thinking about what lies ahead with this fucking horrible disease freaks me out in a huge way.

Must get with Directv to find out why my Tivo can't make phone calls, or something like that. I hate machines that give you messages that don't make sense. Who said it was okay for Tivo to be using the phone? Also, they need to tell me what to do so that I can watch one channel and record off another channel. Right now, it's not that big a deal because I'm not even watching TV that much, but it's the principal. I'm paying to be able to do that so I should be able to do that. Right? Uh-huh.

So excited to go to Allison's wedding - must find lots of summery fun things to wear that will fit into the carryon bag because I so don't want to check luggage - get to wear flip flops - yay for comfy shoes!!

Must lose 10 pounds so that I can breathe while wearing the groovy new red bustier which for some reason fits much tighter than the ivory one does even though they're the exact same size and that's what you get when you shop in the garment disctrict and get amazing deals. Will the ivory one not fit anymore though? This is a quandry.

Make appointment to go see George and get Rx refill for Ambien.

I DON'T CARE ANYMORE

The sick that started in my throat and then moved into my head has migrated down to my belly. At the end of last week I was finally feeling like I was moving toward 100%, or at least 87% since I was no longer running a fever. The fact that I was feeling violent reactions in my stomach every time I ate something? Well, I was thinking that maybe it was just a little irritation. Plus, I was so over not feeling good, I wanted to be able to go out and play and have fun, and I had plans to do so. I wanted to celebrate registering my script with a fabulous sushi lunch at my favorite, very expensive place.

So I did.

Friday night it was clear that something was really wrong with me. I was tired and I felt sick, it was all I could do to get home and get in bed. I woke up on Saturday and left town as planned, but I was dragging. And by Sunday night when I got home I felt like hell. I had to go to bed and lay in the fetal position moaning until I fell asleep.

I got up Monday and worked out because part of being in denial is to continue with your routine as if nothing is wrong. So what if it takes much longer and requires a lot more effort. I had plans last night with the divine Ms. M whom I hadn't seen in a month of Sundays and we were meeting at my favorite neighborhood place I can walk to with the excellent goat cheese fondue and cute bartender.

Once I got there it was great fun. Fun to catch up and eat yummy snacks and martinis. Fun to mock the pervy car salesmen who were sitting on our left and to flirt with the adorable Englishmen sitting on our right. Fun to talk about men and the importance of attraction and how hard it is to date someone who's "really nice," but whom you don't want to swap spit with because you're not attracted. Even when you think you should be attracted, it's not something you can force. I tried this, it didn't work, and it really wasn't fair or nice, and it was really frustrating because the guy was great on paper. I wanted to want him.

Time flew and by the time I got home it was nearing 11:00pm. The twinges I was ignoring in the restaurant became full blown gongs of pain and I was back in the fetal position like the night before. I woke up all night long to experience the pain. If I hadn't talked to my mom yesterday who is about a week further into this viral ride, I would be thinking that this is just how things are so I better get used to it. But I talked to a few other people and apparently I have the "something" that's going around.

I am so over it. I'm sick of staying home. I'm sick of being tired. I'm sick of being sick. I am just going to soldier through and make plans to go out and have a good time. I don't care if I have to spend time in the fetal position afterwards because it hurts.

I don't care anymore.

GOOD TIMES

My friend Jeri was my partner in crime for a very long time. We used to do wild and crazy, as opposed to wild and stupid, things together. Things that I wouldn't do now for various reasons, mostly because it would take too much effort. Or you know I'd think about it and wonder if it was a good idea, and if you're wondering if something is a good idea, it's probably not.

One time we decided to go see Pearl Jam. In Tijuana. On a Sunday night. This was back right after they released Ten, before they became huge. They were playing this dive that looked, as so many buildings do in Tijuana, like it wasn't completed. Lots of cinder block and exposed rebar. There were no toilet seats, not that I actually considered using the bathroom, preferring instead to practice my Kegel exercises.

Anyway, we drove down to the border and parked on the US side. It was dark so we didn't want to drive over the border, no, we thought it would be better to WALK. Once safely in Mexico we got a cab and headed out to the club, I can't remember what it was called, but it was full of kids from San Diego state. Needless to say, Jeri and I no longer qualified as "kids." At this point we were definitely not, but the upside to that is being able to hold your liquor better in public. No more sprawling in a puddle of questionable fluid at the bottom of the stairs like the girl we climbed over to get upstairs for a better view.

Sitting astride the balconey railing up above the seething pit of flannel that made up the dance floor in front of the stage Jeri and I clinked Coronas and enjoyed the show. Pearl Jam was an awesome band made up of incredible musicians. This was before they were really well known because it took more than a year after that first album was released for people to figure it out. I remember playing that CD so loud and my roommate at the time used to snipe at me like a little old man, "you're going to go deaf."

And you're an old fart at 30 dude.

They were even louder and better live. Eddie Vedder was about 28 at the time and this was back when he would climb up on balconeys during live shows. This show was no different. He went running to the side of the stage and climbed up to the balconey and proceeded to swing hand over hand around the entire club. As he came by Jeri and I he grabbed onto her leg to swing by. Very exciting. And dangerous. Shortly after this I heard he stopped doing it because, duh, as 30 approaches you start to realize that your shit can break.

Gotta have those good times while the gettin' is good.

ONE YEAR LATER

I started writing here one year ago today. Although I've come to discover that this "blogging" thing is usually interactive, my intention was always to develop a level of discipline with regard to writing. Focus and discipline are the two biggest challenges in my life, along with understanding why I make such stupid choices when it comes to men. My thought was that everyday I would write here with the intention of expanding that everyday writing practice into actually writing a script.

Just writing everyday was a lot harder than I ever thought it would be. Granted it's easier to write on the computer than it is to take pen to paper. I'm one of those people who can type as fast as I think and I think a lot fast than I can scribble with a pen. But coming up with something to write was more difficult than I thought it would be. I told a couple people I knew that I was doing this and they started reading it. So I started censoring myself somewhat, but then I'd forget that anyone but me was reading this, and heck I hardly even read it, so I would write down the stories that were only known to me.

I also started writing several beat sheets for stories that I wanted to tell with characters and other voices. Dramatic story telling is so much harder than I'd imagined. Characters must tell communicate through their actions and their words, but without being on the nose, the story and do it in such a way that people want to watch. It must be done in such a way that people want to find out what will happen next.

This is hard to do.

But it's definitely something worth aiming for. I'm still tweaking and rewriting, but today I registered my script with the Writer's Guild, and then I came here to write about it and noticed that the first day I ever wrote here was one year ago today.

I love synchronicity.

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.