With flip-flops and socks, and sweatpants

For me the tradition of exchanging phone numbers when in a bar is ridiculous. Based mostly on physical appearence people decide they are compatable and make "a move." How many of these end up anything but casual (bad) sex in a dirty bed with roomates listening through the walls, an awkward morning after, and finally a joke shared between friends. I'd like to thank my unknowing brother for not having a gender specific name because my new bar game involves his name and number. I know I know, why don't I just say no? This is a bad message out of context, but sometimes it's easier just to say yes. So brother buddy, when Jim calls just know that he is a large man clad in leather jacket and Packer hat and he's calling for you.


(I've found an old blog and decided to post entertainment from there...March 3 2003)

My grandmother just called me and before I'd even said hello she launched into a cheer, "Hooray! Hooray! The first of MAY! Outdoor screwing begins TODAY!"

"Haha, I like that!" I applauded.

"I knew you would, love you!"

*click*

I guess that was all she had time for as I'm sure she has a whole list of calls to make today.

You never know, one person might be able to help.....

A hit-and-run motorist ignored a red light early Thursday and killed a 26-year-old bicyclist, police said.

The accident happened at 2 a.m. at Polk and Geary streets, said Inspector Pat Tobin of the hit-and-run detail. The cyclist, Sarah Tucker of San Francisco, died at 9:46 a.m. at San Francisco General Hospital, authorities said.

Police said the motorist, a man driving a black Honda CR-V, was going west on Geary and ran the light. Tucker, riding south on Polk, ran into the Honda in the middle of the intersection.

Tobin said witnesses heard the rider shout loudly "Hey!'' just before the accident. Witnesses said the Honda was left with a large scrape on the passenger door.

He said auto repair shops, insurance companies and auto parts yards should be on the lookout for the Honda. Anyone with information is asked to call police at (415) 553-1641 or an anonymous tip line, (415) 575-4444.

No eating* carbs until my birthday, lets see if I can do it.  Let the countdown begin to Jan 1 2006.  I will break this pledge to myself on Thanksgiving.

Whoa, that means no carbs until next year...

 

*since I don't 'eat' beer it doesn't count if I have 1 or 20.

My Mom just wrote me an email that concluded with this:

Life is so tough. We went to get Mexican food with Bubba and then I passed out in bed from emotional exhaustion and vodka.

Love and hugs and kisses,
Mommy


To be fair to her, the top part of the email detailed actual sad life events, I am just glad she can make me laugh hard in the end. Oh, and we sometimes call my brother Bubba. Shut up.

Today is a special guest journal entry from my unknowing mother, below is a card from her transcribed word for word. I'vd added clarification in brackets.

Dear favorite baby daughter [ONLY baby daughter],
If I send the money, can I choose your hair style? I think you and your hair look like Jennifer Anniston [wtf?] - so that would be very pretty to get it cut and colored like hers. I think your bdonk a donk [ass] looks like JLo - don't get the implants. Did you know that some women are getting ass implants to get an ass like JLo? Send me pictures!! I want a hard copy of the one with you and Alex in the circus pose. [I believe that pic is in the archives somewhere]

Love and Kisses,
Mommy

PS Eric was here today working on the front door with his shirt off - grrrrr [handy man? more like eye candy man]

PSS The pictures are for you to share with aunt and uncles. [she enclosed pictures of me from various preformances, one with total whore make up on] The "Sparkle make up" one is for the magaician if he wants you to audition for his act. [I dated a magician a while ago, the affair ended when he dropped my dog off his second story balcony the first day I got her]

My Mother, a registered nurse who now works doing asthma allergy research, diagnosed me with lactose intolerance at an early age. Growing up in the dairy lands of Wisconsin I loved my milk and cheese, eventually 2% wasn’t enough to sate my desires and I turned to half and half. Creamy. I think that was the last straw. My Mother, always one to look after the health of my siblings and I, could apparently hear my slowly closing arteries as they creaked and moaned. This is when she broke it to me that I was intolerant of the lactose for which I lusted so. For years I was forced to ruin cereal with soymilk and forgo the ice cream at birthday parties. Cheeseburgers became just burgers, well at least until I cut out beef entirely, I sure as hell don’t want mad cow disease, in fact I made my Dad promise to kill me if I ever contracted it. After some negotiation Dr. Dad finally agreed to put me down with a lethal injection, but he said he would not shoot me in the head. Never mind the tangent, the bottom line is that my “lactose intolerance” was purely psychosomatic by proxy.

We were discussing this at brunch today as I drank a glass of milk. When I said ‘psychosomatic by proxy’ my friend started laughing.

“How the hell can you use ‘psychosomatic by proxy’ in a sentence and not know how to do laundry?”

I’ll explain my laundry follies at a later date; my domesticity issues are expansive, not just limited to dishes.

My Mom and I had an interesting email correspondence a while ago. There were a few back and forth about various things, and then my mom suggested that I profit off of the fortunes of someone else through persuasive measures. Basically, she wanted me to "use" someone for my personal gain.

I responded with:

"Using people is bad unless its for sex because then at least you are usually using each other and it evens out."

I think she's afraid of me, but all she could say was:

"You have very good values, thank you for sharing them with me. I am proud to be your mommy."

I like to surf ebay when I am tired, because free association becomes more lucid when my mind isn't all wound up, this allows for the more random and entertaining searches for velvet paintings and busts of sea captains.

I just bid on a rosary with a secret compartment behind the Jesus.

Jay: That's cool, but what do you hide in a rosary?

Me: Birth control pills.

Jay: Haha...how big are those beads?

I never finished college and I've been contemplating a return to school. Upon mention of this, my parents were thrilled, but had to mask their satisfaction for fear that any support would send me defiantly running in the opposite direction again. They gave me the same line about supporting me no matter what I chose to do with my life, happiness above all else, but comments to the contrary have often slipped into conversation or arrived second hand. Such as the time I was on the phone with my mother on a holiday and she casually mentioned everyone who was present, adding, "Everyone here either has a college degree or is working towards one." I told her I was glad to be across the country, unable to skew any sort of statistics she was compiling. Another time I had a friend of the family casually inquire about the difficulties of UCLA Law, I mentioned that I had met Joe Millionaire on set and seen Marky Mark driving down Sunset.

I’m not applying to UCLA, I’ve been looking more at UC Santa Cruz for many reasons, but the housing option seems to be the most interesting and inviting aspect of an education there.

"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight... razor... and surviving." - Kurtz

UC Santa Cruz has an RV park for enrolled students only. The temptation lies in simplifying and streamlining my life, purging excess possessions and confining myself to close living quarters while at the same time becoming more mobile and less committed to location. Think snail, turtle, hermit crab. Sure animals that carry their homes aren’t the most exotic species, but they are comforting, there is something about the thought that you can always be home which brings ease. To me this makes sense. Maybe people thought Thoreau had lost it when he said; “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately” but he knew what he had to do. I tried to plead my case to my mother’s deaf ears, the only thing she could think to counter with was, “You just like the idea because it’s strange.” Unable to see past any sort of stigma surrounding mobile home living she holds tight to her stereotypes and beliefs and thinks that this could be some personal vendetta against her for putting my dog to sleep or giving away my prom dress.

There are some things I cannot do, many of them happen to be domestic, but one in particular is dishes. I am totally unable to make myself do dishes. It sure doesn't get any easier when my sink becomes an episode of Fear Factor, crawling with larva of some kind. I loathe Fear Factor and, yes, in my old apartment there were actualy things living in my sink.

Upon noticing the squirming, I was able to put a price on the situation immediately. I'd have sex for clean dishes. Speed dial.

"I'll give you $100 to come over tonight and do my dishes."

He couldn't believe it, he'd be right over after he told everyone and ruined my guise as a functioning human being. I told him I needed some time anyway...to buy soap and gloves. I didn't say that to humor him or frighten him, it was true.

I was hoping the entire time that, because he's near-sighted and wasn't wearing his glasses, maybe he didn't actually see the family that had made my week old omlette into a home of their own, fertile for spawn of another planet. He did. I'd even tried to get him drunk, but he wasn't interested in ingesting anything until he'd tented the kitchen, finished, and disrobed the bio-hazard suit he'd donned for the occasion.

I drank Corona the entire time, outside.

I swore off dishes for a while in effort to become a better person, switching to something more managable. Paper plates and plasticware. I know it's bad for the greater good of the environment, but in this case my personal environment comes first.

I turned on an old computer that I haven't used since college. I used to write a lot and I was looking for some particular documents but instead got lost looking at all the pictures and reading old musings about nothing. I didn't even used to do drugs but I found what I'm guessing is some sort of a poem I wrote back in the day.

Halfway There is over. on the
fucking sunshine. Sheesh, I come out the know what
a little if
watched the love
with you.
the refrigerator and the
beverages but fuck that
my sister, we really work out.
better, easier to that she could effectively dye
my ass posted by our house last day
all uppity and kept
day It comes
in it anyone , or a few
people agree
with you.

Pickles are not the cure for the common hangover.

I cannot recommend ingesting a pickle and then having your boss suggest pizza for dinner. I did a study on this today and the result was vomit.

I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest during work today, maybe that explains why I'm still here and didn't split the second my shift was over, it's still playing.

Mr. Ellsworth, the dancing inpatient, is my brother's favorite character. He's only featured in about two scenes, dancing of course, and those two scenes damn near made me cry. He reminded me of and made me miss my little brother, and not just because of how fond he was of Mr. Ellsworth. When my brother gets tired he does the Bunny Hop in an oddly gentle and uncoordinated way. The manner in which he lightly hops and flounders around oblivious to any audience, almost in slow motion, is strangely similar to the soft shoe dance steps of Mr. Ellsworth.

The orderly invades the dance floor, "Come on, sit down Mr. Ellsworth. You'll tire yourself out."

Isn't that the point?

It seems like a condom company naming themselves "Trojan" would call up comparisons to the famed Trojan Horse and work as a counter productive advertising strategy. Wasn’t it the goal of this horse to sneak behind the castle walls and then open, deploying invaders into the unsuspecting, sensitive community within?

The chicks of my immediate family got to chill together in San Francisco not too long ago. We all have dynamically strong personalities, which is an ego-stroking way of saying the three of us are stubborn and bat shit insane. My (un)lucky sister was working most of the time while my mom and I were left to get lost touring our way around the city. Driving in San Francisco is like driving in Europe, there might be rules, maybe there is a right and a wrong, but all that matters is right and left and if you get from A to B alive. I got the hang of it eventually and pretty soon I was writing down numbers and checking my voice mail while shifting gears, changing lanes and passing the various mutations of environmentally friendly public transportation. I was driving my mother...I was going to say crazy, but I guess since that's done I was just driving my mother. Period. She was already peeved at me for not wanting to have an extended conversation about the necessity of making an appointment with a gynecologist. I pretty much thought the conversation could be dealt with in a single statement, which angered her because I was making the topic "off limits." She tried to form an argument rooted in unfounded accusations that I only wanted to talk about getting drunk, considering we’d just downed a rather large Bloody Mary each this was asinine. However, when I offered to discuss the particulars of my vagina at more length she stopped talking to me all together. So there we were, in a feud, while I was endangering the lives of not only the two of us, but the rest of the vehicles on the road and every pedestrian not wearing a bear proof suit. True to herself she held her ground and silently refused to offer assistance while I licked and scribbled to get the ink in the Bic flowing so I could scrawl out unimportant phone numbers on McDonald’s napkins.

I finished, hung up, and asked her a question. With an Oscar losing performance she looked out her window and feigned interest in the details of a cement wall.

“Fine.” I threw in the towel and quit trying to please, but I took a hold of the situation. “I’m making an executive decision. I’m driving to SF MoMA and parking, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to follow me in and look at art.”

I got nothing and churned my head to look at the wall. Maybe there was something cool there after all…After confirming otherwise I proceeded in my child parent role reversal lecture. “At least while we’re there we’ll have an excuse to not talk with one another.”

I expertly navigated myself to the correct parking lot within 3 turns, solo. Checkmate.

By the time we got to the second floor we were discussing the art, disproving any theory she had about me only wanting to talk about intoxication, I knew each artist before reading the convenient placards and I knew half the information and dates as well. I sure showed her, that is, until I mentioned I thought we could perfectly time the conclusion of our ascent and observation of each floor with the happy hour of the pub across the street.

“Whoa! Ya'll take a chill! You got to cool that shit off! And that's the double-truth, Ruth.”

-Mister Senor Love Daddy

It’s hot in Los Angeles. That’s what everyone is talking about, the heat, like we’re in Bed-Stuy and if they don’t open up the fire hydrants and give out free ice cream soon something has got to give. Let’s just hope we can plug through the heat wave and Do the Right Thing.

I stayed in bed all day, on top of the covers and under the fan, with all my windows open to try and catch some whisper of a cross breeze, maybe from the cars speeding by on the 101, maybe from a butterfly sneezing in Africa, or a pigeon flapping its wings somewhere in the Eastern Hemisphere. I live on the first floor, I’m vulnerable, but I’d rather be somewhat sedated by a hint of cool air and risk a home invasion than wake up pooled in sweat. I explained this to my 6’4” neighbor who sleeps with a .45 under his pillow and he thinks I’m crazy. No open windows for him, not when he’s sleeping. The dogs are hot too, mostly they prefer the floor, the tile in the bathroom, or a spot next to the windows, but when they are up on the bed with me they pant with their whole bodies and the bed exorcises itself up and down as if two people were ramping up to brave the heat and get mildly frisky. I shove the canines off. There are few things more uncomfortable than thinking about sex when you are in bed with two bat eared mutts while the mercury in the thermometer is shooting to the top, too hot and too pervy.

For a change of scenery I fill the bathtub, neglecting to turn on the hot water. I think about Archimedes and wonder if he developed his principle on a hot day when he was seeking relief, though I doubt he’d be concentrating much on the water displacement with the air so heavy with warmth. I shut my mind up, slip into the cold tub and dunk myself. The water feels great, especially on my eyelids where skin is thin and tired. I stay there freezing my brain until the water feels every so slightly lukewarm, then I turn the cold tap with my toes and let the water rush in to replace old molecules with fresh ones of the right temperature.

I think about when I used to do gymnastics in college and the torture of it all, the worst being the cold baths. Huge metal troughs filled with water either too hot or too cold for anything to survive in them, this made a sterile environment fit for athletes. I never got the hot ones. They’d put me in cold ones to soothe over-worked muscles, strains, sprains and stress fractures. It helped the next day, but during the dip tears would force their way out of my ducts and trickle down into the water, I didn’t wipe them away, I figured any liquid not as cold could help. Neoprene booties were worn to prevent frostbite on toes and sometimes people would pass by to empty their ice packs into the bath, adding insult to various injuries. The ice was pushed in underwater flurries by the propeller designed to keep the water circulating to avoid any of it heating up from whatever body warmth remained. The dancing cubes felt like dozens of antarctic arachnids arrhythmically tickling with their 8 tiny legs. Having, back, ankle and shoulder pain they found it was most efficient to just dunk me every time, rather than wrap me with multiple ice bags and send me on my way, eventually I brought books and learned to escape, and it worked.

I read more that single year then I’ve read all my life, perhaps it wasn’t all that torturous, maybe what doesn’t kill you makes you smarter.

I went to a par-tay in Riverside. Mostly it was geologists but I also met a girl who was majoring in neuroscience and Spanish linguistics. When she tried to explain to me that neuroscience was "brain study" I mentioned I'd read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.

"Oh thank god," she sighed with relief, "I meet people who don't know what neuroscience means."

(Un)Luckily for me I come from a reasonably long lineage of doctors.

We got to swim and since I am a total water baby I had a blast, the full moon and visible stars only added effect. You can't see the stars in LA. Well, at least not the ones in the sky.

On the way there we saw a sign with a donkey on it. 1 MILE. It made us laugh...until we almost hit a donkey.

At the party we queried, "Why don't people fence in their burros?"

"OH, those are WILD donkeys."

Burro X-ing is no joke.

When I was walking my dogs at 4 in the morning I saw a security guard checking out the back dumpster alley with a flashlight. I got all excitedly suspicious that maybe he was looking for clues and I could go help him because I watch CSI a lot.

Then he stopped.
I saw something huge float erratically across the pavement.
Then he stomped.

Cockroach.

I am the silent witness of a homicide.

I like the computerized ticket kiosks at movie theaters, you don’t have to talk to an actual person, you don’t have to sign a receipt, and if you are going to a movie alone you don’t have to outright state “ONE please” while couples behind you hold hands and the cashier looks around for your friends, who are surely paying separately. Nope. The kiosk doesn’t assume and it certainly doesn’t judge, and that is because it’s a computer.

I once heard someone say only the brave and confident go to movies alone, but when I was leaving my apartment and stopped to talk to a friend she asked sympathetically, “Are you going all by your lonesome?” Apparently she didn’t get the memo about how obviously courageous I was being. I may have been going alone, but I wasn’t lonely. I had called my neighbor to accompany me; he’s my drinking buddy and my movie buddy. “I can’t,” he said. Well shit, I assumed he had a hot date, turns out he was just short of cash, which I would have fronted considering he paid for me at both Batman and March of the Penguins.

The truth? I would have just settled in and watched a DVD here at my apartment, but I don’t have fountain soda and I certainly don’t have fresh popped corn with artificial butter drizzle. As if it needs to be stated, I also don’t have air conditioning.

I handed my ticket off to the first confused usher, “Is this a ticket?” He was apparently not familiar with the ticket format that the face-saving kiosks printed out.

“Yes, it’s a ticket. Theater 9, right behind you.” I gestured subtly.

“What movie?” He queried.

“That one.” I pointed to the sign again patiently, and wondered if they could please work out the technicalities and make a kiosk to take over this man’s job.

“What’s it called?” He persisted. I half expected him to jump down my throat with “Pop-quiz hotshot…” or pull out one of those lamps used in movies during intense interrogation. With the authority he was commanding neither situation would have been surprising.

“Me and You and Everyone We Know.” I probably rolled my eyes.

He gave a surprisingly out of character and enthused, “You’re right!” which solicited a meager “thank you” from me.

“How odd,” I stated out loud on the way to the concessions. Now I was short on time, great. The stars, however, aligned and my snack purchases were perfectly timed to the head usher’s opening speech about Miranda July and the movie etcetera, this was lucky because I can’t sit through a movie if I’ve missed the previews.

The only problem I have with the assigned seating in the Arclight is when someone is in my seat but the theater is nearly empty. I don’t want to ask them to move because that’s just stupid and anal, but I don’t want to happen to sit in someone else’s seat who is maybe a little bit more particular and likes to play by the rules. Tonight that happened, well, someone was in my seat, or awfully close, I didn’t get near enough to investigate fully because I didn’t want to have to walk right up to them and turn around or worse, confront them about the fact that it was me who was fated to sit in O24 and not them. Too big of a risk, they might end up shifting only one number to accommodate me and then they would be sitting right next to me, too awkward. So, I sat in someone else’s seat. I can tell because they walked up and looked at me, splayed across 3 seats with my purse, person and popcorn. Then they sat near me, almost next to me, a clear violation of empty theater etiquette. I was going to move, but they beat me to it. Phew. The stress was dwindling as I watched the last movie patrons enter and sit, the previews rolled and the lights dimmed. The feature was here.

Trying to ration the small popcorn distracted me; I had to finish it after half the movie was over, but before my Diet Coke was drained. Finishing it was a relief, I relaxed and watched the movie and forgot where I was, forgot I was alone. Every now and then that would break, but it was mostly steady, as it is with good movies. Some movies have the ability to make me lose track of my own surroundings, my own life and I’m at the mercy of empathy for the characters and plot playing out before me. The movie was that good, it was funny too but I’m really loud when I laugh, a condition unfortunate enough in a hushed auditorium and even worse in a sparsely attended movie theater. This fact is only made worse by the things that I find funny. I’d give examples but they make me seem even more psychotic than this diatribe has made me seem so utterly neurotic.

Next time I gallantly attend a movie solo I am going to wear some glasses and bring along some official pens and stuff that will make it look as if it is my job to be there. I am going to review the movie itself, rather than my personal experience and I am not going to have to worry about being that weirdo slumped down in their seat alone. I’ll command authority with my professional movie reviewing laughter and I’ll get lost whether the movie is really good or not. Despite the unavoidable diversions from the natural cinema experience I enjoyed myself immensely while being there with just me.