Conscientious Elitism

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2006-09-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

Please redirect yourself to one of the fine blogs to the right. Or to your local library. Or get off your laurels and write a letter to someone you love.

So we're clear now/Rock this podcast!

2006-08-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

I've been locked out of this blog for about 10 days. I'm pretty sure this little endeavor's days are numbered, but writing the last post in the comments section? Dismal. Hooray for last-ditch resourcefulness.

In much more interesting news, I've been meaning bring up MY FRIEND STEVE'S AWESOME PODCAST for some time. If you're reading this, clearly you have sufficient time on your hands to go to the iTunes Music Store, click on Podcasts, search for Pleasing to Your Ears, click subscribe to get a free weekly playlist of good music and humorous commentary straight from the BK. (Alternatively, just click here.) It's an enhanced podcast, which means you can skip between tracks and commentary as you wish without having to start the entire episode over. And the music is good, people. I've been moved to acquire a couple of albums per Steve's weekly picks and very happy to hear a spin of my favorite So. Cal band of the summer. Yay for Pleasing to Your Ears. My ears are pleased and my train rides enhanced.

So go subscribe already.

Adding insult to injury

2006-08-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

Last night, at undoubtedly the best show I've seen all year (I was formerly ambivalent toward the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Their show with Sonic Youth last night sealed the deal - incredible.), I realized I had misplaced my driver's license. None of the stores I've called in Manhattan have seen it. Neither has the fried chicken place where I used the ATM on the way to yoga in my neighborhood.

I've modified some ID cards from some reputable granting institutions. I'm not sure which one will be most compelling at happy hour at my local water hole.

I did feel better afterward.

2006-08-08T07:42:00.000-07:00

I threw up on the subway platform yesterday. I know. Gross.

I've gotten in the bad habit of going for midday runs when it's really hot and just prior to needing to head off to work or some other appointment. Yesterday was more of the same-- 5 miles in Prospect Park followed by a quick shower. I wasn't feeling that great after so I consumed the following:

Cold water: it was really hot
V-8: it has carbs; I love it.
Saltines & peanut butter: carbs & protein - what more could a girl ask for?

I bought a Sprite at my subway stop for further preventative action. Sweltering is an understatement for the weather conditions there. Like we said in Houston, "It's not the heat; it's the humidity." Luckily an airconditioned train wasn't long in coming and I made it to the next station to transfer. It was pretty bad there too, but my D train came quickly and I thought I was in the clear. Until I realized someone was eating perhaps the most offensive hot food possible on my car --- some sort of warmed-up vending machine burrito/Hot Pocket type food. Seriously.

I made it to the West 4th street stop. It was like being underwater in a greenhouse. I found the exit and made it to the middle level of that station. Upon seeing a long trashcan in the middle of that hot empty room, my stomach quickly indicated what was coming next. After revisiting all my post-running snacks, I made my way up one more level and out of the station, considering my options for working that night. As luck would have it, I ran into my nanny family dad and daughter on the way out of the turnstile. And that was that.

Small favors

2006-08-03T20:31:00.000-07:00

The temperature dropped like 17,000 degrees in the last several hours.

We have hot water again.

It's a beautiful, beautiful evening.

So I went to LA last weekend. It was fun. It was busy. I did manage to find a place to live when I return. Although I haven't actually been inside yet, I think it's awesome.

Every one of the 4 flights it took me to get to LA and back had some kind of sports team flying on it. The parents/coach of one were especially obstinate and obnoxious, however the 88 degree weekend I have to look forward to leaves me too full of bliss to remark on how they should be banned from ever travelling beyond the borders of their suburbs again.

Fivel stays put + near death by grooming.

2006-07-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

There's a mouse in my roomate's bedroom. It's small and brown. I dislike things running lose in my place of dwelling. I brought home the class hampster over Christmas Break in third grade. It escaped from its cage. Horrors! Hampster in cage = cute and cuddly; hampster on the lose = menacing predator. I never really liked the idea of Santa creeping in during the night either.

On two occaisons my roommates have spotted Fivel before me. When one of two people freak out about an intrusive and potentially disgusting pest, the second person, by default, must assume the role of calm and confident crisis handler. After a brief spell with no signs of mouse activity, it was hoped and assummed that Fivel had moved along to new environs. Last night I noticed the tiniest movment near a pair of shoes. Sure enough, it was followed by the scampering of our little brown friend across my roommate's floor. Hooray - spotted it first and braveness avoided! It's still on the lose. No one wants to kill it. Catching it isn't the most pleasing prospect either, because then we'd have to see it up close.

My coping strategy for this problem is leaving town. As such, I scheduled some grooming services prior to a brief visit to Los Angeles. I'd read that having one's eyebrow's threaded allows for more precision and is 'healthier.' Someone also told me that it was less painful than waxing.

Not true! Even though I'm happy that the threading person only cleaned up what my favorite L. A. brow lady does so well, I'm not happy about how I paid someone to torture me. It felt like a thousand very sharp fingernails pinching into my skin in rapid succession. Next time Sally Hansen and I will get by just fine on our own, thank you very much.

I'm an idiot + the trifecta in shipping.

2006-07-20T07:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I returned from visiting my family in D.C. for the weekend. I had already looked up directions to 'the park' where I had been invited to a birthday celebration for a recently bicoastal friend I know from LA. I stop on the way to pick up a bottle of wine. In the grocery store I begin to wonder if perhaps 'the park,' isn't "The Park" and maybe this isn't a nighttime barbeque afterall. I play it safe by purchasing a four pack of easily tote-bag stashable Mike's Hard Lemonade brand "Mike-a-ritas." Park, it turns out, is a cute indoor/outdoor bar/cafe/restaurant in Chelsea. I'm glad I didn't bring chicken.

This morning the FedEx woman buzzed up with a package for me. Because Claire so kindly fetched that package, I went down when the U.S. mail truck buzzed up. It was a package for our other roommate Kal. The third buzzer was UPS, with a package for Claire. If only every day could be so symmetrical.

Parents' Week

2006-07-11T08:56:00.000-07:00

Someone more insighful than me recently suggested that the reason people like my parents are overwhelmed by places like New York City is because they assume that they have to interact with everyone they encounter.

I met my parents at Penn Station yesterday. After several remarks about person density compared to their East Coast origin D.C., we got into a hotel-bound cab. After paying for what my mom later referred to as a "wild cab ride" (too bad she missed out on the one through the Costa Rican bananna farm with the beer-drinking driver), my dad gave the driver an encouraging, "Great job!" for safely navigating the "traffic jammed streets" and waved goodbye to his new friend from the curb. Later, my mom insisted that we tip the apathetic 30-something server more than 20% for barely passable service because he might, in fact, be working two jobs to support two babies at home. Clearly, my sister's insistence that they see the play Nickel and Dimed paid off.

The entire afternoon was peppered with such exchanges. It makes sense for earnest, friendly people like my parents to live in a small town. They'd never get anything done around here for all the sincerity they exuberate.

This summer in eyewear

2006-07-06T06:43:00.000-07:00

Given my increasingly more frequent status as a four-eyed individual coupled with trading in Coasts for the summer, I've been experimenting with new looks in eyewear.

The first was inspired by some frames I found, of all places, on the sidewalk. They really fit the bill when you can't quite decide if it's bright enough to warrant sunglasses.

Second, a classy, chic, and fashionable way to casually distract people from noticing red eyes due to allergies, pink eye, or hangovers.

Rocking the Malaria since 2006

2006-07-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

I'm visiting Jessie in Chapel Hill. My first visit of any consequence to the official South and I must say, I'm impressed. People are nice here. I mean really, really nice. Bus drivers smile at me. With teeth. Grocery store clerks ask me how I'm enjoying my stay. Ever the Lone Star apologist, I spend a fair amount of time deflecting California peeps' comments about biogtry and the like to other locales, but so far - people have been both friendly and progessive. Maybe it's a little selection bias w/ Jessie's graduate school colleagues who were all Peace Corps Volunteers and Wilderness Camp leaders before starting here. And in all fairness, last night someone (who attended college at Sewanee - my near miss destiny where I planned to go until the last minute) did say something about a lot of 'conservative' students. "Not like Christian conservative," he qualified, "Just people with solid, Old Southern values. I mean they're not racist or anything either." In the name of diplomacy, I did not ask what these values might be excactly, but returned my attention to the bluegrass group.

One feature of the South that has not failed to disappoint is the mosquito count. At first I thought I'd garnered the Best Souvenir Ever (!) with my little bites. Then I remembered how they itch more later. My right foot/ankle region has no less than 14 bites, the left trailing at a close 11. Awesome.

Golden.

2006-06-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

I did it*!

*:
submitted 2 comprehensive papers to my advisor
packed my worldly belongings into boxes stolen from liquor store dumpsters on humid nights
fashioned 'bookshelf' in utility room from dissassembled bookshelf
fit boxes into utility room
put additional boxes, pillows, cd players, Brita water filters, welcome mats, trashcans into car
survived 5 hr flight in middle, middle seat behind an obnoxious toddler
finally had a caffeine fix.

Hellooooo, summer!!!

Sweat, plastic forks, & caffeine

2006-06-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

I'm moving. I'm also still wrapping up the second of two comprehensive papers that I have to do before they'll let me start on my dissertation. And on Friday I went in for what I thought would be a routine, "Take these eye drops & get outta here!" visit to the doctor for a slightly disgusting eye condition. Instead, my doctor said, "Do you have anywhere you have to be this afternoon? I think you should go to the eye institute - immediately." Several hours in a waiting room and one fancy specialist later - I got the eye drops I'd been jonesing for all along. I also got sentenced to two weeks without contacts. Unthinkable. This morning I picked up my PRESCRIPTION SUNGLASSES!!!! Heaven*.

So long cheap apartment with generous living space and a huge kitchen. This hurts me more than it hurts you.

*It was even more delightful to save $100 at Lenscrafters with this Google ad.

It's that time of year again, this week.

2006-06-09T14:58:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I schlepted down the street to vote in the California primary. I've lived in California for 3 years next week. I've voted in twice as many elections, special elections, and whatever else I get a pamphlet in the mail for. I have voted in real elections more times than I have called in to vote for American Idol. Not to sound ungrateful for the privilege to choose who may piss me off with uncharacteristic support for he-who-must-not-be-named (ehem - Diane Feinstein, I'm talking to you!), but for this could I get more than a sticker? Maybe a lollipop with the rope handle like they used to have at bank. Or an "I voted" henna tattoo. Then I would really feel engaged in the democratic process.

What I need is a snorkel.

2006-06-07T01:21:00.000-07:00

Most of the time I use a 'treading water' metaphor to describe my efforts to stay relatively on top of graduate school demands. Occasionally, times get tough and I have to adjust the drowning metaphor alert level to 'keeping my head above water.' For the last week, it's been more like coming up for a gulp of salty air whenever the polluted tide swarming with jellyfish recedes. I'm approximately 50% through what looked like my certain death a week ago when I realized I had 3 presentations (2 major, 1 minor) 3 papers (2 major, 1 minor), and one final exam to complete in the upcoming 3 weeks. All this and trekking downtown several times a week to collect data for a research project I need to finish this summer. And sell my furniture. And locate a storage facility. . .

The bad part is that because I've been so overwhelmed lately, as soon as I realized I could potentially get everything done, I'm back to my old ways - searching for apartments I don't need right now, finding my parents a place to stay when they visit me in NYC, and reading my USAA magazine telling me how to save for my kids' college.

FOCUS.

Best deal in town.

2006-05-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

Last week. Now it'd be a downright bargain.

Now, it's mostly like this:

I'm not saying cheap gas is necessarily a good thing. I don't want drilling in the Brooks' Range (a.k.a. ANWR) and I think laying off consumption would be healthy for many reasons. All I'm saying is that I already take the bus instead of drive to school everyday, I walk to the grocery store, and I bring along my own canvas grocery bags . So I'm not complaining, per se. I'm just saying.

A fineable offense

2006-05-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

Appreciate for a moment, if you will, this photo of my car parked in the driveway of my apartment building. Now, ask yourself: What about this scenario would cause a Parking Enforcement Officer to exit his or her vehicle, whip out the ticket book, and proceed to issue me a $40 fine.

A. My car is too clean n' shiny.

B. Having recently purchased an SUV, the parking enforcement officer was provoked by the practical, yet fuel efficient, hatchback.

C. I am parked "in the sidewalk."

If you guessed C, give yourself all the points. I've always used the line between the sidewalk and the driveway as an indicator if I'm ticketable, but I that just doesn't cut it anymore. I contested the ticket. I lost. I declined to have a hearing as all the cortisol sure to gang up on my hippocampus because of the resulting stress (and INJUSTICE!) sounded more aversive than writing a check.

I still think I was okay.

Final straw.

2006-05-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

I knew it had gone too far when THIS constituted 97% of the fruit and vegetable consumption at my place of residence.

So I went to the farmers' market and bought cherries, blueberries, white peaches and bananas. I also made vegetable soup. This time tomorrow? Back to a strict diet of queso and chardonnay.

More compelling evidence that my priorities are totally in order:

2006-05-12T16:12:00.000-07:00

1. Things in Los Angeles are good. Great even. I'm getting a respectable amount of research done. I have ideas for my dissertation. I really like, and perhaps even love, many aspects of the city. I have a hot and charming man-friend who treats me unbelivably well to the great chagrin of all my lady-friends' man-friends. I've been offered the perfect summer job working in an applied psychology field that makes the world a better place -- for poor people (!!).

1A. This morning I bought tickets for my 2-month summer escape to NYC.

2. Yesterday morning I was reading a blog about a woman trying to manage her boyfriend, friends, work, and herself when the person in the next office passed by on the way to his office. In the name of decorum and maintaining a professional working environment, I clicked to another tab in my browser.

2A. Which was open to a Wikkipedia article about tabby cats.

Yay for me.

2006-05-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

It's my birthday, dear readers. Everybody loves having a birthday - at least I do. My policy is to engage in a day of full-on hedonism on my birthday. So far I've had two restaurant meals and anticipate a third within the hour. I paid a nice Vietnamese woman to rub my body with soft hands and warm rocks this morning. I only read the summaries at the end of the chapters of 1 of the 2 books on motivation theory that I'm supposed to read for tomorrow. I read the preface of the second. So far, this class has yet to have an impact on my motivation orientation.

Last night Bev and I caught the Instant Films 21 screening. You gotta stream it!!! Or at least some of them. On Friday night 7 screenwriters each drew a noun and an adjective (e.g., legal/toast; annual, tequila) at random. On Saturday morning they drew the name of a director and a 3- 4 actor cast. The shorts were produced over the weekend and screened last night. The result -- magnificent!

Scarf.

2006-05-03T15:10:00.000-07:00

I was so hungry this afternoon I could've eaten my own arm.

Luckily I was able to get a sandwich in time.

I have a new physical therapist. The first time we met he asked why I looked so familiar. I didn't tell him that he looked exactly like the nonexistent older brother of an attorney I dated this winter who sent me an e-Christmas card of himself posing with a snowman, a Christmas Eve voicemail, and a "let's grab a drink this weekend" in early January only to never call me again. Bastard.

But still. I like the physical therapist and didn't think I should mention this.

Figures.

2006-05-01T10:41:00.000-07:00

Beth Lapides refers to Palm Springs as the "Gay 90s": you're either gay, or you're 90. Palm Springs was the last stop on the psychology conference tour which ended this weekend. When I was town in January I hadn't paid special attention to the age or orientation of PS inhabitants. This time I went CD shopping and was perplexed to find so much Streisand and Showtunes in the "S" section of the used CDs for sale. Then I remembered about the Gay 90s.

I made this.

2006-04-23T23:51:00.000-07:00

And I like it. Mostly. Some of the lines are crooked. The next few days will tell if I fix them before hanging it or decide to not look closely.

I fled north for a brief sojourn to a conference this weekend. Wednesday night or Thursday I head east for the second of two conferences in two weeks. Family obligations threaten to take me to Texas the following weekend. Shortly after I'll celebrate my first quarter century and the ability to rent a car without paying a $25 surcharge for being unwordly and fresh faced.

Smooth I am not. This morning at brunch I spilled a cute miniature pitcher of cream all over the table and my lap, and into the shopping bag of apparel purchased by my dining companion while we waited for our table at our too-cool-for-school cafe. My friend hopped up in search of more napkins from the kitchen. In the interim the woman at the next table gave me hers from under her glass. Her husband followed suit, sacrificing the napkin from his lap. The guy TWO TABLES DOWN passed his napkin over. What bystander effect? Too bad Kitty Genovese wasn't attacked in a posh Hollywood hot spot.

Complaints of luxury

2006-04-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

I came home this afternoon to find a parking ticket on my car. . . my car that is parked in my own driveway. Apparently I was so rude as to "park in the sidewalk," even though the photos I subsequently took clearly show my tire falling on the driveway side of the driveway/sidewalk divide.

Once inside my home, I am greeted by three letters, documenting 10 visits to the Physical Therapist for which my insurance company claims to not have received the proper referral. The thing is, in addition to going through the third degree about the referral with the PT staff from the beginning, I've already submitted this referral to the insurance company. . . twice.

Adding humility to injustice, I went to the Korean Spa on Sunday with the dual purpose of celebrating Easter as well as ushering out the dregs of my near-death cold. They were fresh out of massage appointments, so I treated myself to my first facial. I'll spare you the details, but I'm not becoming a facial devotee - and, guess whose lower face is weirdly dry and chapped and exuberating a burning sensation. Mine.

So in one way, this is a crappy day. In another - imagine how inconvenient and unjust my life would feel if I had no car, no driveway, no insurance, and no means to buy myself facials on major holidays? I think it would be worse.

Hack and Phelm 101

2006-04-15T12:32:00.000-07:00

Things I learned from being sick:

1. Unlike easy-prep chicken noodle soup, you have to stir tomato soup or it will burn the pan.

2. Burned tomato soup is still better than starting over.

3. Knowing someone from the internet for 2 months does not allow for enough time to adequately get to know a person before marrying him or her.

4. If you marry someone from the internet after knowing them for 2 months, it's a good idea to use birth control and avoid procreation with said individual.

5. Never buy cold medicine on a fever. You might find yourself with too much nighttime medicine and no daytime medicine. The prospect of operating a motor vehicle to return to the drugstore will present itself as a daunting, almost inconceivable task.

6. Anton, from the band The Brian Jonestown Massacre, is one weird dude; Joel, the tambourine guy, is kinda hot. Courtney Taylor from The Dandy Warhhols is decidedly hot.

7. There are some really affordable Korean Spa options in Los Angeles.

8. Eric Kandel, Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist at Columbia, began his career hoping to find the loci of the ID, the Ego, and the Superego.

eumpf

2006-04-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

I’m sick today. Like, for real. Like call-my-mom sick. Day-time television sick. Network day-time television.

Caught with my pants up.

2006-04-06T18:24:00.000-07:00

One afternoon this week I decided to take an emergency 15 minute nap* in which I had hoped my synapses would reacquaint themselves with one another. I closed the door to my office, curled up on my little couch, set my trusty watch timer, and draped the leg of a (clean) pair of workout pants over my eyes to block out the light. I'm sleeping away in crazy-nap-dream land when someone knocks at my door. Who cares? It's closed. The door opens. Okay, potentially embarrassing, but it has to be one of the two people who actually visit my office on purpose, so not a big deal. Nope. It's a student in the class I'm TAing this quarter, looking for the number that will rectify the situation that began when her dad was in Peru when it was time to pay. . .Right - if what you're thinking is that a student walked into my office while I was sleeping WITH A PAIR OF WORKOUT PANTS ON MY FACE, you are right.

Later the person in the office next door stops by and I tell him about this awesome encounter, once again baffled by the brazen "kids these days" who think phrases like "lol" and "lmao" are appropriate in emails to professors and TAs asking for an A- instead of a C+ so they can get into medical school. Finally my friend says, "Geez. And it wasn't even your office hours or anything?" Office hours? Office hours. I think I have those - let me che - Yes, a student came into my office during office hours and found me sleeping on my couch with workout pants on my face.

*I don't even want to hear your whining. You too would take naps in your office if you had a little couch, or maybe just a pair of workout pants.

Lessons from my grandma and rock stars.

2006-04-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

My grandma's always getting on my case to gain weight. I've conceded that I should bulk up my arms.

Last night I saw The New York Dolls. David Johansen also makes a compelling case for the value of weight-bearing exercise. Seriously, he should become an anti-drug motivational speaker. And keep his cute little polka dot jacket ON.

Joining the band for the first time at the 2004 UK reunion show and subsequently touring with the NYD, guitarist Steve Conte also makes a compelling, although slightly different, case for the value of weight-bearing exercise. I realize I stand mostly alone in this demographic, but by now you know how I feel about ambiguously (or not) Jewish men who are either approaching (or have passed) 40. Bonus points for androgeny. Last night Steve Conte was wearing this pretty awesome Superman shirt. He took it off. It was hot.

In today's "Irony: A closer look" segment, I had class at 10 this morning. It was raining when the alarm went off at 6:42am. I definitely wanted to stay in bed where it was warm and cozy. The class being a seminar on motivation, it just didn't feel right to skip the first day. So I drive across town to my place, shower, eat breakfast, and wait for 15 minutes in the rain for the bus to drop me off at school at 9:55. Fine. Perfect. Only then. . . the professor is not in class. A student hands out syllabi that have week 1 scheduled as "Sorry, but I am out of town. No Class." @#$%$@!@#$%%!!!

Week in review.

2006-03-31T10:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning greeted me with an 8AM dental appointment. Within 3 hours of having my teeth cleaned, I had consumed somewhere around 4 - 6 Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs, not to be confused with the more benign Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. It must have been my ID showing the dental hygienist who's the boss of my mouth and although she might poke and prod me until I bleed, but there will be sugar coating these gums, eroding away at all the hearty fluoride goodness she can lather on.

Brick, debut film from Rian Johnson, opens today - but only if you live in NYC or LA. If you don't, watch out for it the one week it opens at that one art house in your city, you know, the one that also serves beer and wine but has no parking? Film noir goes to high school. Fast-talking (on the order of Gilmore Girls) ensemble cast includes Lukas Haas as The Pin and Richard Roundtree (Shaft) in a pretty awesome cameo as the vice principal. I'm thinking about paying to see it again.

Finally, all you philandering blog readers of the male persuasion - watch out! This website might just out you if the woma(e)n in your life thinks it'll really teach you if she posts your picture and details your crimes on Don't Dat e Him Girl.com. Yep, first we could check online to see if the new neighbor's ankle bracelet has anything to do with molesting children. Now we can also find out if he banged his secretary.

Long time, no blog.

2006-03-29T19:00:00.000-08:00

I have returned from lands uncharted, both literally and figuratively. Not really literally but there is a lot of new development in Southwest Austin. Although I've been back from the land of cheap and delicious food, drink and band boys for over a week, I didn't even take my suitcase upstairs when I returned, but instead packed up 40% of the contents of my apartment to dogsit for a week. In addition to devouring obscene quantities of queso and doing my laundry for free, I read Merrill Markoe essays while juggling both the procrastination on and the execution of writing a take home exam and a final paper. It was out of control. Also out of control was what happened when I moved back into my apartment Monday to find myself buried under mounds of articles and clean clothes while I polished off the last set of revisions on a paper my advisor and I are trying to get published. The first two days of my official Spring Break were spent running errands and locating my bedroom floor. It went well and I'm feeling good. I still don't have food to eat (aside from the 3 lbs of chocolate I purchased this afternoon), but buttons have been resewn onto various apparel, shoes have been delivered to the shoe hospital, my car is sporting brand spanking new floor mats, people with birthdays will be receiving packages, electricity and gas will continue to reach my apartment for the next month, my left knee has been X-rayed and has a date with an MRI technician, and this time tomorrow, my teeth will be freshly cleaned.

Whew. No wonder I put this stuff off.

In other news, letting Honorable Mention go was definitely the way to go. Frontrunner has proven himself to be like, I don't know, pretty fucking great. I have to type and post this quickly, before my own nausea overtakes me, but here goes:

I return from SXSW and give him a call that afternoon, feeling out whether he remembers our having made plans for that evening. He does. He's made reservations for 8:30. He also gave me a rose when I got there and didn't understand my reference to the Bachelor upon receiving it.

Wednesday night we see a show and get dinner. I fall asleep at his place and end up leaving later than I had anticipated. My phone is missing. He walks me to my car - which, because it's so late/early, has garnered itself a parking ticket. He takes care of the ticket and gives me the main number for the cab company we used to get to and from the show. Waking up at 10:30 the next morning to find my phone, I have an email from him indicating that not only has he tracked down our cab driver, but has located my phone and is having it delivered back to him. "Okay, that's pretty impressive," you might say, "but no need to get carried away here." Well, you might say that until I told you that what happened next was that he had my phone delivered, by courrier service, to where I was dogsitting. My phone and lunch that is. Insane! Easily the nicest thing in recent memory anyone has done for me.

Later I tell my dad about this exchange and he's duly impressed. When we get off the phone he says he's happy for me. It was unexpectedly weird. My grandmother has a different reaction, "Well, Kelly - usually you tell me what's going on with guys and I always think they aren't doing the right thing , but this guy is doing ALL the right things. . . And so I'm confused."

So anyway, it's cool. I think. I must say I thought I was really into having a boyfriend, but I didn't quite realize how much I liked being decidedly single either. I also find myself doing puzzling things. Six weeks ago I didn't know how to use text messaging. Now, if were reading a book or watching a movie about my behavior, the cheesy things I type into my phone would cause me to groan audibly. Maybe even throw the book across the room.

Week in review: High Dudgeon Edition

2006-03-19T16:39:00.000-08:00

SXSW: Come for the music, stay for the food.

Turns out, impersonating the classic chicken with its head cut off for the last month was really effective for spending the week enjoying some scrumptious bands and delicious foods. In high school, my colleagues and I created “The List,” a dichotomous indicator of whether or not non-drinking, non-smoking, and certainly non-sex-having teenagers such as ourselves considered someone fornication partner worthy. In the interest of time this week, Kara and I resorted to indicating front people of bands who are decidedly NOT on the list. I’m currently developing a salacious, objectifying, but-also-awesome, calendar of all the swoon-worthy crooners we’ve lusted over throughout the festival.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: The food here kicks ass – and not just in the shredded beef, dead cow sort of way. There are so many moderately priced, moderately casual, dining venues where delicious, delicious combinations of things vegetable and fish are served. Last night I seriously considered moving here because the food is so damn good.

In old business, I sent a very diplomatic email to Honorable Mention. He responded with a really gracious reply that made me hope I was breaking it off with the right guy. I’m glad I ended it before anyone’s feelings got hurt, but I can’t say that I didn’t write the last post without the hope that a resounding cry of, “ignore the problem until it goes away!” would rise from the comments section.

As promised in the title, fodder for annoyance.

Yesterday Kara and I went to this party where some California bands played and we got free fish tacos, drinks, hair products and rubber bananas (I know, sorta weird). A handful of bands played – one I’m a big fan of, one I’ve heard of, one I hadn’t, and one that, as I had told Kara, I liked their music, but not their personalities. Yesterday morning was a prime example of why they have personality cancer. This band is a three person girl band composed of young hipsters who have very important fathers in the music industry. I don’t want to mention any names but their initials are “The Like.” I saw them in December and kept getting annoyed by Z’s, the lead singer, penchant for saying “fuck” in seeming compensation for being about 6 years shy of the modal audience member age. They were the last band slated to go on at brunch yesterday. They take about 20 minutes to set up, about 700 to tune their (3) instruments, and they sing one song, through which Z’s voice kind of cracks a little – which, judging by the glances and smiles exchanged between she and bassist Charlotte, is hilarious. Z then reports that she’s lost her voice, she can’t “do this,” and Charlotte chimes in that she has laryngitis while they remove their guitars. The intimate crowd consistingly largely of bands that have already performed and have waited around to be nice plus “industry” people look around awkwardly before some good natured people that appear to be less annoyed start chanting “one more song!” Z remarks that she likes their enthusiasm, but she “just can’t do it” and also, “Fuck you, banana people!” aimed toward the balcony, where people had been (appropriately, I felt), tossing the rubber bananas onstage during their performance. Here’s the deal. One would think that these girls would be somewhat eager, or at least amenable to the idea, to prove that they are more than just rich kids with well-connected parents. One would think they could at least play an abbreviated set, or at least the one additional song that people who could’ve been at other venues watching other shows had asked to see. But I guess that if one thought that, she’d be wrong. So that comprises my single complaint about a really fun week filled with some great performances.

Second, I cannot deal with reply-all email abuse. I try to limit gratuitous swearing in the event that God-fearing, decent folk like my parents even want to read this blog, but seriously – for fuck’s sake – two syllable emails that go out to more than two people (not to mention 17) should be censored. Friends don’t let friends needlessly litter our inboxes with the likes of “Keep me posted!” and “Me too!” Please, do your part – only you can stop forest fires and this kind of bullshit.

Catch & Release.

2006-03-13T22:34:00.000-08:00

There's a clear frontrunner in Dating Derby 2006. Exciting! Delightful! Downright dreamy. So much for the sappy stuff, the current business is dealing with the honorable mention.

There's nothing wrong with the other guy, he just doesn't make me mix cds, want to hang out on Sunday nights and listen to KCRW while drinking various alcoholic beverages, or surprise me with unbelievably soft vintage band t-shirts. Also, absolutely no time has been wasted pondering the delectability of said honorable mention.

Thus, it's time to feign maturity and do the right thing.

I'm inclined to email him before I leave for SXSW tomorrow (we just email, no phone communication) and relate that although I've really enjoyed hanging out with him, I've decided to see someone else exclusively. No hard feelings. Best of luck. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Other options submitted to the panel include:

(a) telling him that I've reunited with an ex, bad timing, etc.

(b) not mentioning the other guy and only relate not having chemistry, not wanting to pursue this further, etc.

Obviously, it's not like this guy will be heartbroken either way, but I don't want to be embarrassed if I run into him at Whole Foods and, given the choice, I'd like to hurt his feelings as little as possible.

Suggestions from the floor?

Perspective.

2006-03-08T18:36:00.000-08:00

Today I dug out an old journal in search of some details pertinent to a cover letter for an internship I'm trying to get for the summer.

Circa May 2001 I wrote something like, "This week I'm the girl everyone wants to be - I only have four final exams!"

Seriously?

See, you might have thought cynicism was tiresome, but unwarranted perkiness is worse.

Clarity

2006-03-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

Thursday before last I was having an ambiguously bad day. It'd been about 4 days on < 6 hours of sleep, I had a not-so-hot meeting with my advisor in which I jogged her memory about my heretofore mostly undeveloped statistical prowess, and I sat on various LA roadways for about 2 hours picking up a prospective graduate student from the airport that's 8 miles from my house.

Instead of happy hour, I went for a run to feel better.

Then I fell on the running path.

I wanted to cry. I did, a little. But then I picked myself up, ran on, called my mom and proceeded with the documentation.

So at least I knew that it was, in fact, a shitty day.

Here are my sexy, sexy knees a week later:

So much for the old trick of not shaving your legs before a first date if you want to be sure and keep your pants on. Sporting these scabby, pussy, and bruisy beauts has certainly squelched any temptations to move past 1st base on my recent dating spree - which, I might add continues this Tuesday AND Thursday(!).

Karma: Bites LA woman in the ass.

2006-03-01T17:44:00.000-08:00

I am not a good person. A couple of weeks ago I was out at what I like to think of as the best kept secret on the Westside. It's like a dive bar for rich people: only 'regulars' go during the week for $3 beer on karaoke night (the words come up on one of the plasma screens around the lounge area), but a glass of wine costs $14 and there are always Bentleys parked outside. So anyway, I like this place.

The weekend before last I was there with some friends when this guy started talking to my friends and me. We talked to them for a while but this guy sort of got on my nerves because he said something about not affiliating with either political party when I mentioned Dick Cheney owning stock in Tamiflu and he also thought that Supersize Me came out in 2005, when it was really 2004*. This guy bought drinks for his friends and my friends a couple of times but I never took one because I wasn't in an especially good mood and didn't feel like I had $6 worth of flirtaciousness and feigned interest in me. Instead I wandered around the bar - going to the bathroom when I didn't have to, looked for an ATM that I know didn't exist, pretended to close a tab that isn't open, and retrieved my friends' jackets. Finally we left and moved on to this upscale restaurant that was serving everything on its menu for free from 12a - 6a to promote its new open all night scheme.

The guy from the bar emailed me the next day after he looked me up on the UCLA directory and asked me to coffee or dinner. Seeing the perfect opportunity to recoup the $10 I spent on a Gimlet, I accepted for dinner for last night. Dinner was actually both surprisingly tasty and surprisingly enjoyable. I was feeling quite smug on more than making up for my overpriced cocktail and having such a delicious, delicious dinner. I was feeling quite smug, that is, until I got in my car and realized that unlike the rest of Santa Monica, the meters on Main Street are 24-hours and failing to note this cost me $35. I mean, dinner was really, really nice, so I'm pretty sure I still came out ahead, but this means I'll have to go on another date to really make up for it, which might be tricky because I usually pay for the second date if I initiate it or I have a really good time. I am a bad person.

Last night's date was with this clean cut business entrepreneurial type guy. Tonight I'm going out with another business entrepreneurial type guy, but this one has a faux hawk, a tattoo on his forearm, and owns a company that sends kids to rock and roll summer camp.

Please read again tomorrow to find out about my own brush with death**.

*one of my advisers tells me these aren't especially valid reasons for disliking someone
**moreover brush with rocks and gravel.

Give me scandals, lies, and deceit, or give me. . .

2006-02-21T23:26:00.000-08:00

utter ridiculousness.

When I was a kid I would often think the following:

Some of these news stories seem pretty dumb. It almost seems like there wasn't any real news today so they made up this for us to watch in between commercials instead.

I also thought that, on days when there was no news to speak of, the newscasters should put a sign on their desk that said, "Nothing to see here folks - go outside and get some fresh air," or spend the time telling us about their favorite books. Neither of these things ever came to pass.

Last night was perhaps the worst offender of the No News violation in recorded history.

Los Angeles has been getting off easy this winter with little rain and lots of 80 degree days. This week the temperature's dropped significantly - even to (gasp!) the mid to upper 40s at night. Last night's lead story on ABC's local news broadcast was how it's KIND-OF cold.

First, the requisite teaser before the story about the chilly temps. The graphic behind the newscaster's head? A thermometer -- reading 55! They cut to a woman outside a (closed) coffee store. She's wearing a light fall jacket over her blazer and turtleneck. The anchor asks her about the weather. She reports, 'live, from the scene,' that it's "pretty chilly. . . a 3-layer night." This woman is neither wearing a scarf, a hat, nor gloves. She does not provide any quantitative indicator of the temperature. She notes that the cold weather is driving people to drink coffee (but apparently from other places, because the coffee store behind her is closed).

Cut to outdoor softball game. A player remarks that, "We can really feel the difference. It's affecting how we play - our noses are cold." Okaaaaaay. . . Cut to women in the bleachers who, according to the voiceover, "are covering up with anything to stay warm." One has a blanket. Another has put up her hoodie. No gloves, no scarves. No hypothermia.

The best, and final, part of this groundbreaking segment is when the news crew goes to Coldstone. SERIOUSLY. They report that even though the weather is cold, it does not seem to be deterring people from wanting to eat ice cream. What?! First people are drinking coffee? Now they're eating ice cream?? Is this a leftover piece on obesity or diabetes? I would also note that the cold weather has not seemed to deter adolescent Coldstone employees from wearing excessive quantities of eye makeup.

I'll leave you with this image - a Coldstone patron is interviewed about his *unbelieveable* food choice on this "pretty chilly" night. Under the shot of his head is his name, Chevon Something, and the caption "Likes ice cream."

It's all too much. Far, far, too much.

The old days, before "pretty chilly" weather took LA, and ice cream eaters, by surprise.

A harrowing brush with death: a tale in one part.

2006-02-14T21:11:00.000-08:00

Senior CE advisor Jessie and hunky Norwegian friend were escaping the urban Alaskan life in Anchorage last friday night when Jessie's Saab slid off an icy patch in the road and into a snowbank. After a brief inspection by the pair determined that the car was indeed stuck, hunky Norwegian firend called ahead to his similarly hunky, similarly Norwegian, brother a few miles away at their intended destination.

While brothers Norway conversed, a utility truck approached in the road - a perfect rescue opportunity thought the stranded travellers - that is, until the truck also slid on the icy patch in the road and slammed into the back of the car before the truck's trailer (which happened to be carrying a generator capable of powering a small town) jacknifed, pinning Jessie's car against a wall. Glass shatters, heads bump things, but the intrepid travellers have sufficient wits about them to flee the car for the nearby woods. Once safely out of harm's way, they see a second utility truck approach. This one also slides on the ice patch, toppling to a rest on top of Jessie's already abused car -- TOTALLY smashing the driver's side. Moments later a third utility truck slides off the road, but apparently the third time *is* the charm, and this truck doesn't hit anything.

Fantastically, none of the five people involved were hurt and Jessie enjoyed a restful evening at the cozy cabin of the brothers Norway.

Does this story remind anyone else of Sweet Valley High? It does leave me wondering what Jessie did with Elizabeth.

Grammtastic.

2006-02-13T23:58:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. I get everyone all excited about the Grammys and then I don't post about it.

Grammys!! Equal parts silly and exciting. Seeing stars behind the scenes was definitely sweet, but having people not respect your time wasn't. If everyone in Hollywood made a truce that they would arrive on time (No, really. On time. Like the actual time you're supposed to be there, on time.), things would happen a lot faster and movie tickets would only cost $4.

Like I said, the best part was the serious, serious star gazing. Note the grainy cell phone image below a guy in my group got of Ludicris. Another girl has a picture she and Ludacris' faces cheek-to-cheek sorority girl style, but she hasn't posted them on her MySpace yet for me to steal. On the way back up to our suite, the stylist's assistant told the guy holding the Dr. Pepper that he could keep the $300 True Religion jacket he was wearing. The guy was really happy. His girlfriend was happy. I was even happy. Had Ludicris known about this, he too probably would have been happy.

We passed Matt Dillon in the hall. Then these stage managers/escorts pushed us out of they way so Ellen and Portia di Rossi could get by to present something. They pushed us into Nelly and Terrance Howard, who happened to be catching up. Madonna and her entourage were on the tail end of the Ellen/Portia chain. Madonna had put track pants on over the purple ice skating outfit and was sporting a pair (of the rumored 11) diamoned encrusted false eyelashes. Who thinks of that? I guess Madonna does.

Terry Hatcher ran by, looking too skinny, trying to memorize her presentation speech. I called her appearance on Go Fug Yourself when we first saw her arrival on the closed circuit television in our dressing room. Tacky. We also saw Tim McGraw and I had seen Jamie Foxx the day before, wearing an enormous diamond earring.

Waiting to leave, celebrities arriving late took the 'side' red carpet. Bruce Springteen and Patti Scialfa were more than fashionably late, as was Dave Chapelle. He was the best sighting because we were standing there, totally tired and ready to be at home, when all of the sudden Beverly looks up and shrieks, "it's Dave Chapelle!" No one was really around and it was really quiet - and he was about 6 feet away. He just looked up at her and said, "Hey, how ya' doing?" Ah, loyal fan for life. . .

Here are some grainy photos from a cell phone smuggled into rehearsal one day. As you can see, it looked really different in person than on television. For one, the characters were a lot smaller in person. They also weren't all on the same level with each other, which I don't think was clear on screen.

Given how dark it was onstage, it sure is lucky they spent all that time and money wardrobing and make-upping us.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. I can *definitely* wear this outfit again. The great thing about this picture - well, besides how Beverly looks like a flight attendant for a swingers' airline - is that when our friend Brent, who took it, first saw us in our Gorillaz togs he commented, "Guys, we should make a pact to go out like this one night." Easy for you to say, man of the jeans and button down black shirt.

Tune in tomorrow for harrowing tales of bravery and adventure from the last frontier.

Lifestyles of the living dead part II

2006-02-07T23:25:00.000-08:00

So it's a lot of work to be both (a) hanging around the Staples Center killing time while you wait for the next take and (b) trying to get a moderately respectable amount of work done.

But whatever. Madonna was at the rehearsal yesterday.

That lady has one hot bod.

At the beginning of the song, Gorillaz are animated. Then De La Soul comes out and does their thing. Then Madonna is animated and Feel Good, Inc. ends. Madonna's image walks over from the left side of the stage to the right side, where the real, hot, in the flesh bodied Madonna comes out and sings and dances. Her choreographer dances with her troupe when she's not there to warm them up. She also dances with them when Madonna watches the performance from the audience. When it's dark onstage before a run through Madonna's "people" use flashlights to see to put make-up on her. Madonna's "people" also wear shirts that say "Madonna" on the back. Madonna's manager wears a cowboy hat and blue jeans. One of Gorillaz' manager-type people is super hot and super, but unexpectedly, British.

You're not allowed to go to the bathroom in the Staples Center without an escort. I could not imagine a more boring job. Oh, and I thought the UCLA graduate division was an inefficient bureaucracy, but then I started hanging around behind the scenes at the Grammys. Geez. . .

P.S. I've been corrected about 700 times about the Lance/Sheryl split - oddly enough mostly by my relatives. It's like my roommate said, it's really hard keeping up with Hollywood gossip when you're busy* living it.

* "busy" is understood to indicate time spent waiting around, doing math problems in your head until the escort arrives to take you to the bathroom/hallway/exterior waiting room/credentials desk/main floor, etc.

So Wednesday doesn't really work for me.

2006-02-06T07:20:00.000-08:00

What sucks is not getting funded to do research abroad next year.

What doesn't suck is being onstage during the Gorillaz/Madonna opening act at the Grammys on Wednesday.

Through a friend of a friend who works at KCRW (like I said, public radio is a good thing) I was on the receiving end of an email forwarded asking for young people interested in voluteering to send in pictures. The short version is that my friend Beverly and I spent most of the day yesterday hanging around the Staples Center while the graphics people worked on the 3-D animation images of Gorillaz and Madonna and De La Soul went through their blocking.

It was awesome.

The production people started putting posters and headshots on the seats to mark what artists and celebrities will sit where. The row right in front of the stage has Mariah Carey, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, James Taylor, and Missy Elliot. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson are on the adjacent row, with Madonna and Guy Ritchie sitting behind them. Gwenyth Paltrow has a seat reserved next to the Coldplay spots, but the seat next to Sheryl Crow is just reserved, but not marked. I guess Lance doesn't have a headshot.

Anyway, a big group of people are just lying around on stage while Gorillaz & Madonna's images do their thing. I'm on the viewer's right side of the stage, near the top.

The Comeback*

2006-02-03T17:07:00.000-08:00

Twice weekly for the last month I've subjected myself to the pokings and proddings of my Ambiguously Lecherous Physical Therapist (ALPT) who I suspect enjoys his one non-geriatric client a little too much. After the initial injury in early December, I had been able to run for 13 minutes before inducing excruciating pain and a day of limping. On Tuesday, ALPT says that I should try to run for 15 minutes and stop if I don't have any pain. Okay, ALPT - I know you probably weren't a math major, but if three weeks, six sessions (at $65 a session, by the way) buys me 2 minutes and a 9 minute pace means is a 4 hour marathon, we're going to be here for a while. I digress.

Having established that the immediate problem has progressed well, ALPT says we're going to asses and work on my "core." Hmm. . . Now, I read Newsweek last month too and I must say that I'm underwhelmed that the best these professionals come up with is the latest trendy health problem. It's like getting diagnosed with Bird Flu - it's been done.

A few minutes later I'm on all fours with a wooden pole resting on my back. "Charlotte!," ALPT calls to the head PT, "Come look at this!" Head PT comes over, is appropriately impressed, and for a moment it appears they're going to send my picture into the Annuls of Hunchbacks, Scholiatics, and Otherwise Gimps. It turns out that the right side of my "core" (or "back," as we Texans with a healthy appreciation for sensibility might say) is normal. The left side of my "core," however, has no muscles; it basically gets left out of all the physical activity I do and thus never gets any stronger - just like kids who are locked in basements and don't learn how to speak. In fact, when I left that day ALPT admitted, "Usually we just suspect that this is what's wrong with people - on you we can actually see it."

What remedy do ALPT and head PT suggest? Pilates. Seriously. Only a trendy/ladies-who-lunch/Californian solution will do the trick. Pilates, like most pop culture exercise trends, of course, is not cheap. Yes, there are group "mat" classes for $15 or $20 a pop, but most studios don't allow you to go to them until you've had a few individual sessions - the cheapest of which is a package of 3 for $150.

So anyway, this was a struggle. I hate being dependent on appointments for grooming and health that cost time and money. Thus, a compromise: I ran for an hour and booked the 3 pack.

* themesong for this endeavor.

All ages. No cover.

2006-01-23T11:22:00.000-08:00

It's the second best reason to love the Westside after the Pacific Ocean. My first encounter with the (then unopened) newly remodeled Santa Monica Public Library was that crappy day in November when I crashed my car right in front of it. My second was Saturday, third - Sunday, fourth - Monday. This library is not like any you've ever been to before. It's excellent for so many reasons. The building itself is pretty cool and chic with lots of windows and easy access to the outside. There's a courtyard with a moat-like thing and a coming-soon cafeteria. It's just like Barnes and Noble but the magazines are in better order and no one is getting coffee on the newspapers. The entrance to the kids' section looks like Chuck-E-Cheese. There's free wireless, outlets built into the tables, and Mac users aplenty. About 100 computers fill the computer section and a liter board tells you when it's your turn. There are private study rooms with white boards. Non-lame DVDs, CDs, and audiobooks are available for you to check out. I found myself doing actual work over the past three days just so I could peruse the magazine section afterward.

If you were ever needing a reason to visit me in LA, you now have it. Best. Library. Ever.

Come on, what do you really think?

2006-01-19T12:29:00.000-08:00

So here's how to NOT win friends and influence people. . .

This guy in my program messaged me on OKCupid, this personality test/dating site thing that purports to cater to sort of hip nerds, but really only to 23 year olds trying to make it and to balding men over thirty who are in neuroscience or program video games.

His first message was just kind of like, "haha! I see you!" Fine, whatever. I wrote some kind of acknowledgement back. But THEN, he writes this back to me:

"so - did you intentionally put less than perfect pictures of yourself up on this profile?

you are way hotter in person, and i doubt it's a non-photogenic thing. trying to screen out the guys who are interested in looks only? :P"

What kind of not-overly-backhanded compli-sult is THAT? You have bad pictures, in fact, they're so bad that anyone who cares about looks is not going to message you.

Are you kidding me? How could you expect to win favor with someone by starting off by telling them that their pictures suck? Maybe the idea is that I would suffer such a severe drop in momentary self-esteem that by the time the compliment appears, sandwiched between insults, I feel so desperate as to decide that actually, yes, what I'm missing in my life is someone just like him. And second, it's not like we're even friends -- tough love is not sanctioned for acquaintances. Social skills, however, are always in order.

It's good to have a plan B.

2006-01-16T14:51:00.000-08:00

Message in my OKCupid inbox today:

hey.

my name is aaron.

i like u and i want to be your boyfriend.

i live in australia.

why dont you call me.

Everybody likes a little affirmation now and then.

Today is a "holiday," which means I don't have to feel especially guilty for not getting anything done. It's a beautiful, this-is-why-people-love-Southern-California kind of day outside, the kind that makes you ask yourself how anyone could get any work at all done on a day like today. Oddly enough, although I think working inside is inappropriate, I strongly endorse napping.

If it's not consensual, it's not foreplay.

2006-01-12T23:52:00.000-08:00

Big news folks - we have some crime going down on the Westside. See what happens when the LAPD spends too much time killing black kids and not enough monitoring the comings and goings of tanned undergrads traveling from Starbucks to Coffee Bean in designer leggings and mullets? It's this guy:

Yes, this computer-generated mansimilie (he's really White, about 22 years old and between 5'7" and 5'11" if that doesn't come through from the picture) has been linked to five bear hugs/gropings on campus in recent weeks. Unlike my friends who actually do their work during the day, I read the notices from the building manager, only to learn on Wednesday that this guy walks up behind girls on the West border of campus, reaches around them from behind, squeezes their breasts, and runs away. Weird, huh? I mean, when push comes to shove I'd rather have this guy with a squeezing fetish on the loose than someone with a sawed off shotgun fetish roaming around. But still.

Required Viewing

2006-01-12T22:59:00.000-08:00

Set your TiVo, silence your cell, and proceed to your nearest theater to see After Innocence, Jessica Sanders' documentary following seven wrongly imprisoned men on their re-entry to society following exoneration through DNA testing. An avid watcher of Reading Rainbow and fan of Lavar Burton - I endorse the "you don't have to take my word for it" school of thought: this movie won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance last year and a slew of other impressive awards.

I attended a screening and Q & A with the director (who, by the way, was wearing a great jacket), her co-producer (who's pretty cute himself), and an exoneree (in fact, an entire panel of good looking, well-dressed folk). Like all the men in the film, this guy's story is heartbreaking and frustrating. What's really incredible about all the men, though, is that none of them are exceedingly bitter about the injustice of spending so many years in terrible places, under terrible conditions, for crimes that they absolutely didn't commit.

Herman Atkins, an exoneree, attended the screening and took part in the Q & A tonight. At the time of his release in 2000 the state of California "offered" (if you knew who, how, and exactly how to hold your breath when asking for it) $10,000 in compensation to people who had been exonerated on the basis of DNA testing. He became active in efforts to improve this compensation - I certainly agree that $10,000 doesn't exactly make up for spending 13 years in prison. Remarkably, these efforts paid off and the compensation for people wrongly imprisoned is higher now. Also remarkably, when he filed for his own compensation under the new laws, the state told him that the statute of limitations had run out and he wasn't eligible to be compensated.

The exonerees are from all walks of life, all colors of skin, all brackets of taxes. One exoneree featured is a white police officer who spent 6 1/2 years in jail before the real killer turned himself in and confessed to the police to reopen the investigation. What's also surprising is the reluctance (at best) and defiance some prosecutors have toward DNA testing that will free innocent people from prison or death row.

Enough. Go see it! If you live within driving distance to an airport this film is coming to a theater near you in the upcoming months. Put it on your calendar!

Wedding Fix 2006

2006-01-11T08:29:00.000-08:00

Last week I received an email from one of my cabinet members about the diminishing number of female peers amenable to partaking in the occasional, short-term romantic encounter (i.e., random hookups). Fittingly, I was checking my email from the hotel room where I spent several days leading up to the wedding of another one of my nearest and dearest.

Because I don't have anything especially pithy to say about the decline in the number of people I know living fast and loose, I'll tell you about the wedding. . . FANTASTIC!! Instead of the standard 3-hour affair of impersonal ceremony and small talk with people vaguely known through your date, this wedding was an intimate production: 100 guests and 5 days of fun -- fancy and meaningful.

Here's what went down at Wedding Camp:

Wednesday: The bridesmaids had the traditional 'bridesmaids' luncheon' over tapas. (At the rehearsal dinner, the generation Y assistant pastor kept asked me to repeat that phrase, giggling over the aural similaritiy with "topless." Geez. I guess it's the little things that count when you're of the cloth.)

Thursday: We moved from the bride and groom's townhouse to the hotel where all the out-of-town guests lodged. The four bridal grandparents took the bride's entire family of about 30 people (and the bridesmaids!) to dinner overlooking the city and featuring a country and western band, sawdust on the floor, a slide inside the restaurant, and a waiter named "Stretch" who hit on the bride.

Friday: All the womenfolk around the hotel had our nails done before meeting up with the rest of the guests that continued to arrive for an open house and lunch at Krista and Scott's townhouse. Then a few of us took a Martha Stewart moment to set up the centerpieces at the reception venue. The head server was intent on debating the appropriate number of tea lights per table to prevent napkin fires. Wedding rehearsal and more free food courtesy the groom's family at a local Mexican restaurant!

Saturday: We were able to get a late start before pre-wedding grooming and dressing. IMPORTANT INNOVATION: The entire bridal party and families of the couple took pictures BEFORE the ceremony. Then the wedding, by which point 70% of the attendees were familiar faces. Krista's grandfather is a retired bishop so he conducted the ceremony with the younger assistant. The reception was a good time with dancing, drinking (too much), and a sparkler send off. After all this time with the family and new friends I had met throughout the week, the reception was actually JUST LIKE the end of session dance at summer camp. I had had a great week. I hoped to keep in touch. I danced to seminal jams like SHOUT! and 2Legit2Quit.

Sunday: Unfortunately, I had to miss out on this part due to exceeding the fun (umm. . .alcohol consumption) threshold at the reception, but Krista and Scott resurfaced at the guests' hotel to join them for a late breakfast before the guests' departure.

My only problem (well, aside from the self-imposed) with the whole endeavor is that it was slated to happen only once a lifetime. Krista does have 3 siblings, so I'm putting in my bid to attend those wedding camp sessions early.

Crustacean Christmas

2005-12-31T09:04:00.000-08:00

Shrimp and fish were fried and devoured at the family Christmas gathering. Thursday night my sister and I split a bucket of boiled crawfish for dinner. Delicious. Food sources that have continued to evolve over the last few million years are overrated.

Last night my parents and sister and I went to Galveston to see Santaland Diaries, a one-man show based on David Sedaris' essay. Only my mom could confuse this event with seeing Santana when relaying the plans to me by phone.

Jingle jingle.

2005-12-22T22:32:00.000-08:00

The two buses and one jet thing was a slightly bigger pain in the ass than I expected, probably because the first bus was crowded with every person over the age of 67 in the greater 3-1-0 area and I took advantage of Southwest's three pieces of checked luggage policy.

I like flying Southwest because it's easy to get free flights. I had two last year. I have one this year that I haven't used. One problem with flying Southwest? Its gates are in the least glamorous wing of LAX. No delicious food options. No good shopping options. No celebrities, just regular people looking ridiculously lounge-y and unkempt in their shapeless pants, Uggs, and oversized sunglasses. Oh, and the "snack packs" they give you on long flights are kind of obnoxious. But other than that I'm pro-Southwest.

I've had a very productive few days back. In an effort to use excessive (okay, moderate) cross training to sustain my marathon plans despite a knee injury that doesn't want to heal, I got a short-term membership to the ONE (1) gym in town. Ten-day guest pass = Eighteen dollars. I don't think this will put Liberty into the top ten for "Best places to live," but this is a seriously good deal.

I know, I know.

2005-12-20T12:01:00.000-08:00

I haven't had anything good to say in two months.

This afternoon I'm taking 2 Santa Monica Blue Buses and one (likely lavender) Southwest jet to embark on a 3 week LA hiatus. Boarding pass printed and drink coupons folded along the perforations.

A problem recently noted by myself and others (well, in addition to the rising cost of caffeine around here. They took away the fountain dispenser downstairs and raised the price of a 20 oz Pepsi to $1.25. Pretty soon it'll be more cost effective to do lines in your office than walk down and buy a soda.) is that once you actually find someone to "like", I mean really like, as in maybe you'd like them to audition to be your significant other, you end up on this stupid, stupid rollercoaster of feeling dependent and worthless when you don't hear from them to giddily giving away your stipend in small bills to people on the street when you do. For example, right now two people are in my lineup. One is welcome, one is a hanger-on. I had drinks with the hanger-on several weeks ago. It wasn't love at first sight. I didn't even particularly care to have a second sight. I don't think he felt the magic either. In fact, I'm pretty sure he almost invited me to the Spoon show with him, but changed his mind. I'm also pretty sure I saw him at the Spoon show with some other girl (who, incidentally, was way too hot for him). I thought this guy was going to disappear into the woodwork after our non-starter date. Instead, he keeps emailing me every week or so. I DON'T EVEN OPEN THE EMAILS for a few days, always scared he's going to berate me for stringing him along with my lame excuses for why I'm too busy/previously engaged to see him again.

Guy number two and I have gone out a few times - drinks, dinner out, dinner in, free tickets to the symphony from my advisor. It's not like this guy is my soul mate, but he has his shit together, is entertaining, and seems to like me - when I see him. The problem is that with this guy, I know exactly when we last went out, talked on the phone, or played phone tag. I also know what it means to really be too busy and what it means to lamely feign busyness (see deplorable behavior toward guy number one). Sure, I think this guy is perfectly capable of not calling me or making plans with me if he's not interested, just like I should be perfectly capable of not emailing guy number one when I'm not interested. I also know that if I were really interested in guy number one, I would've accommodated him into my "busy" schedule.

So here we are. Strong, independent woman feeling conflicted because (a) it appears that a guy she's not even sure she likes may not even be sure that he likes her and (b) she's worried that someone might be giving her a taste of her own medicine. Maybe if I had a cat this would not be an issue.

By the wayside: good intentions

2005-12-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

Moments ago I sent off my last final paper. And gladly. Although absolutely dreading the take-home exams awaiting me at the end of the term, they really weren't that bad. I wrote my paper on an idea I've been toying with for a while now, so that wasn't a big deal either. Nonetheless, ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT IS NOT BEING AT SCHOOL RIGHT NOW. Only I have a meeting here in 3 hours. I have a list of things to do once my finals are over. I'm pretty sure I'm going to skip over the ones related to responsibility and planning ahead and move straight to writing Christmas Cards and presents shopping.

It's about that time

2005-12-12T23:12:00.000-08:00

Finals week. On one hand it's kind of nice to have a lot of stuff to do and for there to be absolutely no doubt what I should be working on at any given time. On the other, and also very familiar, hand, just because I know what I should be doing doesn't make the actual doing of it any more appealing.

Take-home tests - a mixed blessing. It certainly takes the pressure off during the course to know that there will never be any circumstance during which I'm separated from the binders full of assigned readings at a crucial moment of knowledge assessment. But then again, the direction of the learning motivation (information -> questions; questions -> information) order may be reversed, but it doesn't take the sting out of learning. Convinced as I was otherwise, I may actually have learned something this quarter. I'm pretty sure I've learned stuff over the weekend anyway.

Customer disservice.

2005-12-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

When I pay someone to do something, it's because I think they can do it better or more efficiently than me.

Even though I traded-up in terms of mileage, age, and mechanical condition on my replacement car, I'd been puzzled by a couple of stains in the backseat. How exactly does one stain leather? Whatever. I needed a really decent used car, not a perfect backseat. I assumed the imperfections were the result of the two toddlers I met when I first looked at the car. Their dad told me they were really sad to see it go. I mentioned that it was probably the first car they remembered. He said that they never ride it in. I'm calling his bluff. But back to the story.

So this morning I take the car to the Blue Wave car wash (home of the best gift shop ever) with my coupon for an Express Detail for only $29, you know, to start fresh and get all the Republican washed out. On the way home I notice that the stains in the backseat must have been too much for the professionals - and really, what are they?

Okay, Blue Wave and previous owner: quit letting me down! The miscellaneous stains wiped off with Windex and if your kids never rode in the car, just who was stuffing pretzels in the seatbelt reservoir? Further, if you were either (a) in the car wash business or (b) selling your car don't you think you could pass a towel (and maybe a vacuum) over the backseat? The real reason I'm annoyed with the previous owner is that he took off his old license plate when I took the car, which meant I had to go to the DMV the-very-next-morning or deal with the license plate stickler LAPD. But still.

And also, I get annoyed with girls who wear bikinis to the sauna at the gym. It is not a beach - no one thinks you're hot or stylish.

Call commuting.

2005-12-06T09:04:00.000-08:00

In the old days, when "mobile" phones were the size of Tom Clancy hardbacks and calls cost $.73/minute, I took important calls in my bedroom, with the radio turned up and my parents occupied - my full attention given to the very private reflections I shared with the caller.

Last night I took an important call at a vending machine. Then I got on the bus to ride home from school. The bus where 30% of the seats in the back were littered with brown, commercial grade paper towels in a vain attempt to cover what, as far as I could tell, appeared to be vomit. Yes, I'm listening. . . Do tell me more about this significant life event, loved one. A few stops and a few reflections later a clearly transient and likely homeless person sits down next to me. I have no big problem with homeless people. Sure, it would be excellent if they smelled better, but sometimes I smell bad and I have both a home and a shower, so I understand that it's hard. My discomfort does increase, however, when this man begins violently thrashing his arms about. Please tell me more, how did this make you feel, you important caller to whom I'm giving my undivided attention?

I know, I know. I could've waited until I got home to take this call. I could've called the person back. I recently read an essay by Jonathan Franzen about how we're losing the "public," by bringing our formerly private conversations about couscous v. risotto, chemotherapy v. radiation, and sex on the 3rd or 5th date into the streets, waiting rooms, and grocery stores of America. I agree - mostly. Only it seems like this phenomenon is a runaway train. And besides, the person was calling from a shopping mall food court.

________

Should you find yourself needing a new band to crush on, might I recommend The 88. I've seen them a couple of times this fall and finally bought their album - every time I listen to it on repeat I'm filled with whimsy, delight, and general good spirits.

Temping: I'd take it.

2005-11-30T00:04:00.000-08:00

I've been reading quite a bit of Postsecret lately and my internal dialogue has become one of pithy*, scrapbooky confessions.

A few moments ago I thought something very much like this:

I am enrolled in a highly-ranked PhD program in my field. I spent over 7 hours reading and re-reading really boring articles and had to use Google to figure out what they were talking about. I typed 452 words of total bullshit in response to these articles, which I will have to read to my peers in two days. None of them will call me on it.

This isn't a secret but I wish there was a webcam in the produce section of the supermarket so I could tell when the bananas were ripe.

*okay, so mine isn't so pithy, but I'd edit it.

Gobble.

2005-11-27T14:55:00.000-08:00

Last week tens of thousands of young, hippish folk all throughout the land left behind the creature comforts of their lives as almost-full-on-adults for destinations near and far boasting twin beds* and dial up internet connections.

My Thanksgiving holiday was splendid with a night in Phoenix, where I stayed at Krista and Scott's all-grown-up townhouse before heading to Tucson to be with my aunt and uncle from Alaska and some family friends for the rest of the break. Our meal was prepared with careful foodie attention to recipes culled from years of Bon Appetit back issues.

Yesterday I found a car to replace the one in the accident - and I had a very fun first date. I've done lots of productive closet organizing in the resulting hangover time as I'm avoiding working on my part of a class presentation for tomorrow. So few class days left - so much work to do. A nap is in order.

*Mine had dolphin sheets.

You could say it was a mixed bag.

2005-11-15T10:34:00.000-08:00

Sunday I went hiking with some friends in Ruyon Canyon in Hollywood. It was a nice time.

Saturday? Not so nice. . . This is how it started at 7:30 AM:

Sucks. Absolutely, positively sucks. And it was all my fault. No traffic, no talking on my cell phone, no loud music. I just didn't stop at a red light. I wasn't trying to make a yellow light; I wasn't even in a hurry. Damnit.

In regard to this I'm a little grumpy, a little depressed, a little stiff, a lot mad at myself, and a lot sad.

Other things I'd like to share with you:

1. I won free tickets to see Spoon on Thursday. Hurrah.

2. No big sparks with the French rocket scientist, but he's still emailing me, so maybe he just wants to be friends or is confused about the dearth of sparks.

3. I did meet someone cool later in the week who was really enthusiastic about getting my number and whatnot. Only that was Thursday and this is Tuesday and I keep forgetting where I stand on the "He's just not that into you" versus "Empowered woman who calls first" continuum.

It was a little drafty.

2005-11-08T11:11:00.000-08:00

Halloween was a whole week ago.

Donning my ringmaster's assistant togs in my own apartment, I prepared for a party so densely packed with drunken revellers that forgoing the usual custom of pants-wearing would be, for the most part, overlooked . I did not count on the fact that the plurality of parties on the appropriated "Halloween" night (Saturday) would mean that at any one time at any given party, it might not be that crowded - especially if said party becomes one of those amorphous indoor/outdoor affairs. Thus, the sans pantalon status was duly noted.

Tonight I'm having drinks with a French rocket scientist! Details to follow if it's wretched.

It's 9PM on a Sunday night. Do you know where your "other" is?

2005-11-06T22:35:00.000-08:00

The Saturday running group makes for lots and lots of time for small talk. Last weekend I asked this girl about her commute to UCLA (she's a PhD student in the math department) from West Hollywood. She asks where I live. I give her my pretty generic cross streets on the westside and she says, "Oh yeah, I used to live over there, too. I lived on Amherst." "Me too!" I say. "I lived at 1151." "No, way," she says, "What number?" "8" . . . . . . . . . "YOU LIVED WITH AMY!!" we shout at the same time.

Let's review:
Number of major, for real, training groups for the LA Marthon: 2
Number of members in the "LA Leggers": > 1500
Number of different pace groups: 18
Number of people in my pace group: 40

So the relevation that this person you've been running with for the last 4 months has also lived with your same old roommate, in your same old crappy apartment, who also hated that stupid parking spot between the pole and the fence is a pretty big deal. It easily took up 6 or 7 miles worth of conversation that day.

Tonight I met some friends at Davy Rothbart's (founder of FOUND magazine) promotional tour for his new book, The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas. I join the back of the line while I waited for them to arrive and who is way closer to the front of the line but my new doppleganger. IT WAS SO WEIRD!! But also cool. But weird too.

So anyway, I want to plug Found magazine and how awesome it is some more. The tour is on it's way to Phoenix, Dallas, Austin, and Houston, so those of you who live in those cities should definitely go. And if you don't live there, Found #4 is out - as is Dirty Found #2. Buy them. Laugh. Read aloud to your friends. Cackle. Guffaw. Be merry.

That was a close one.

2005-11-01T23:33:00.000-08:00

Last night I came home to find a letter from UCLA in my pile of bills, credit card offers, and fan mail. A memo explained that the enclosed card was to help me be better prepared for emergencies (in the wake of Hurricane Katrina). Also, if I'm confused about my card or want more of them, I can email or call someone who can set me up with a brain transplant.

The card includes complicated, little known disaster-coping strategies such as:

1. dial 911 for emergencies

2. go to www.ucla.edu for information about UCLA

Seriously. UCLA graduate students don't need the number for 911. We'd prefer to talk the person who keeps causing midday power outages throughout the city or whoever decided that it was a good idea to charge $8 a day to park on campus.

There goes that idea.

2005-10-28T00:35:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been thinking a lot (okay, just a bit more than a little - so a moderate amount) about how people on Vespas always seem to have good posture and maybe, just maybe, owning a sleek little scooter of my own might be the trick to cure what 24 years of my mother's scolding couldn't.

I was really jealous last month when my friend Kenny got a silver one. All of my jealousy and 99% of my general Vespa-rider-envy subsided when some friends and I visited him tonight. Turns out, sexy little Vespas and left-turning Honda Civics don't mix at 40mph. Kenny's mostly okay, aside from a bone in his shoulder that's broken in four places after breaking the car's windshield with his body. So instead of a Vespa maybe I'll just write myself a postit to sit up straight.

$300 car wash

2005-10-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

About a year ago I happened upon what appeared to be a bunch of synthetic blonde hair stuffed in the tailpipe of my car. It was weird, but it was proximate to Halloween and followed on the heels of a late night karaoke binge in Koreatown. I chalked it up to a harmless cult initiation ritual and forgot about it.

Until last weekend. The culprit was back, only now she'd gone gray. My muffler was unraveling on the inside. Now, if you're my parents (but you're not, because if you were, you'd still be calling it a 'blob'), you'd say, "Well, Kelly, did you just get a new muffler just last year?" "Yes,", I'd reply, "I did just get a new muffler last year. You may not be aware however, that my car has two mufflers." I never knew this until this morning. Although it's never delightful to hand over my Visa at Santa Monica Volvo/Saab, noticing that my previously dirt and tree debris encrusted car was gleaming at me from the parking lot certainly put a little pep in my step. I have no idea why a $16 car wash makes up for a $300 repair, but I do know that I'll always give the repair shop plenty of extra time for my dirty car to sit on their lot - just in case they get any ideas.

I ate this banana today - it was enormous.

Tonight I saw a screening of New York Doll, a documentary about New York Dolls bassist Arthur Kane. If you live in LA or New York where this movie opens this weekend, go see it! Well done by a Mormon filmmaker who met Kane at church.

On the way to the screening I took a wrong turn and drove down a mostly deserted street in West Hollywood. I noticed a random strobe light type distraction outside a building. It wasn't a strobe light, but a small mob of paparazzi leaping and bounding around in their black t-shirts and big cameras to photograph a pink-hoodied celebrity getting into her silver Landrover. For my I've-already-seen-too-many-paparrazzi-photos-of-her-car-on-Defamer money, it was Jennifer Aniston. But geez - totally uncivilized and off-putting.

Do your part to stop PSC today.

2005-10-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

Men walk for the cure. They speak out against rape and intimate violence on behalf of their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters. Ladies, it's time we return the favor. If not for yourselves or your boyfriend, do it for your brothers, fathers, coworkers, and hapless neighbors. We must unite in our stand against poor sock choice.

It's very simple. If you're a dude and you plan to engage in any type of sporting activity, wear your white socks with pride. If not, don't even wear them. At all. Not even with shame and embarrassment.

Appropriate sock choice

If your footwear was designed specifically for sporting activity, white socks are acceptable. A hint - if the outside of your shoes are made of any variant of dark leather (including suede), they're probably not made for sporting activity.

Poor sock choice

Here's the good news. Socks do come in other colors. They sell them at all kinds of stores - in departments stores, in discount stores, and even at Costco. You too can own socks that aren't white. Rid yourself of the uncomfortable and unsightly bulge around the ankles resulting from poor sock choice. Try it; I think you'll like it.

Good things happen to those who support public radio.

2005-10-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

I've seen a lot of movies lately. Here's what I have to say about them:

Grizzly Man: Well done. Timothy Treadwell is a complete lunatic, which is demonstrated fairly-well in the movie. There's some really good footage of brown bears. Like the Milgram studies, it's not ethical/smart to replicate these videos, but since it's available, you might as well see it. Complete, flaming-but-straight, egotistical, maniacally effusive wackjob.

Junebug: Seventy-five percent of the reason I went to see this movie was because Kara told me Matt Besser is in it at the beginning. Of course I got to the theater late (and had another near miss in the crosswalk with a Volvo) and missed the first 5 minutes, so I didn't see him. Premise: Cosmopolitan art dealer (Embeth Davidtz) meets new in-laws in the rural Southeast. Decent idea, disappointing delivery. The main problem was that the screenwriter seemed to forget to write a part for the husband/son, you know, the impetus for this whole 'cultural clash' in the first place. A secondary problem is that the guy who plays the husband/son is a terrible actor.

Waiting: The quarter-life crisis approach to the teen gross-out movie meets Office Space. Well-done by an ensemble cast (Ryan Reynolds, Luis Guzman, Andy Milonakis) if this is your thing. Or if you have ever worked at a chain restaurant. Or if you hate chain restaurants.

Elizabethtown: Really terrible for a lot of reasons. I recently told this couple, in detail, exactly why this movie is bad. The guy goes, "Oh, yeah; I thought so." The girl, "Oh, so maybe we should wait until video then?" NO!! Never see this movie.

We have arrived at the heart of this story. Last night was a KCRW movie screening/private afterparty with The 88 and "very, very special guest". Given that The Flaming Lips did the soundtrack for I Love Your Work, and that they were due to disembark from this Long Beach - > Mexico concert cruiseship yesterday, my hopes were high that they would be the very, very special guest.

Upon entering the screening, I was struck by a mildly familiar blonde woman - she also looked familiar to my friend. It was Judy Greer, the neurotic sister from Elizabethtown. Also in the lobby hanging out were Giovanni Ribisi and Adam Goldberg. I spent the next two hours trying not to feel awkward about (a) Giovanni Ribisi having so much sex onscreen when he was sitting in the audience and (b) Adam Goldberg's movie not being that coherent when he was also sitting in the audience.

My patience was duly rewarded, however. The 88 put on a great show at The Knitting Factory. Between sets, some guy that had talked to me at the screening bought me earplugs after hearing me say I had set mine out only to forget them. The best part was that he didn't even stick around to make small talk. (I wanted to thank him after the show, but I didn't see him.) I also recognized the people who coordinate the on-campus concerts at UCLA and chatted them up about bringing LA's catchiest indie rock band to campus. By this point it was a secret anymore, but The Flaming Lips went on next and certainly exceeded my expectations with the video screen, animal costumes, enormous balloons, the giaganto-enormous balloon, confetti, and a nun puppet. A super excellent show, complete with video footage of their mid-nineties appearance on 90210.

So, um, hooray for NPR & KCRW.

At the keyboard with nowhere to click

2005-10-11T23:24:00.000-07:00

I'm a big proponent of knowing when to say when. In the headiness of an unexpected open bar or the warm glow threatening to make a two margarita happy hour into an ill-timed pub crawl, it's easy to overlook the law of diminishing returns - after a while, even the good stuff isn't so good anymore. If I eat all the chips, I won't be able to finish my enchiladas. Watching more than 4 consecutive episodes of Queer as Folk depresses me. The thing is, usually I try to leave my addictions before they totally consume me, this time I'm the one who's jilted.

That's right, my addiction to the internet is definitely fading. For example, I can't remember the last time I read Defamer. And when Friendster caught everyone with their pants down last week over the whole retroactive "who's viewed you" feature? I couldn't have cared less. I haven't taken any cleverly-disguised personality tests on OkCupid lately and I couldn't tell you what new jobs have been posted in the Daily Bruin classifieds or what the kids are talking about in Rants and Raves on Craigslist if my life depended on it. Websites like this are going unrefreshed. And ones like this aren't even being savored for their sheer obscurity and pointlessness.

Now that I've got all this "time" on my hands I've been reading the news instead of doing work. And what did Salon give front billing this morning? Only a story that Grant Stoddard covered 2 years ago for Nerve. Clearly all this "time wasting" online was actually keeping me ahead of the curve.

Five years didn't sound like such a long time then.

2005-10-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

At their worst, blogs become venues for excessive whining, bitching, bragging, pretention, and self-disclosure. The good news is that the first step to recovery is acceptance.

Ever since returning to my 'real' life at school (i.e. classes, 'research' - that I'm supposed to 'conduct') all I can think about is leaving it again. Having a slightly kickass end of summer has resulted in a serious case of GSM (Graduate School Malaise). I've tried to ward it off with caffeine, alcohol, dental work, and dropping a few bills for SXSW tickets, but so far nothing's done the trick.

Thus, in addition to spending my free (and also some of my not free) time inappropriately stalking people I met over the summer, I'm also obsessively checking airfares to places that aren't Los Angeles. Long weekend in Cabo, anyone? $173 roundtrip. Perhaps a little Guadalajaran getaway or some Salvadorian sunshine over the winter break? $250. If only the government paid me to make *my* world a better place instead of furthering science. In that case I might spring for the $556 to Hong Kong.

Coming soon - the barefoot & pregnant bake-off.

2005-10-02T22:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning my marathon training group was responsible for the water stations for the LA Leggers. In other words, the 9 minute/mile group had to meet at 6AM instead of 7 to pass out water to all of the other pace groups as they did their 10 mile runs; we had to wait until it was nice and sunny at 9 to do our own 10 miles. In addition to a prime view of the sunrise in Marina del Rey, the extra hours provided a chance to get to know the members of my running club in earnest, which can only augment the pretend stories I make up about them while passing the minutes on long runs.

My weekly sweating companions did not disappoint. In my car to the water station were a PhD student in math, a general surgeon, and a Grammys employee.

After our hydrating duties, we returned to Santa Monica for our run. On the way back, the Grammys employee mentioned her friend's completion of the Nike Marathon last year. It's an event held in San Francisco that's only open to women. Not a bad idea. Most marathons award medals to finishers to commemorate their achievement and hours of agony on a Sunday morning. The Nike Marathon, however, has hunky tuxedo-wearing men folk at the finish line. Hunky tuxedo-wearing men folk holding Tiffany's boxes at the finish line, that is. Instead of medals, finishers are awarded "26.2" pendants designed by Tiffany & Co.

My internal dialogue: "WTF?!@#*?!"

My well-modulated, external dialogue: . . . pause. . . pause. . . "Hmm. . . that's curious. The Nike Marathon seems like it's an event geared toward mobilizing and empowering women, but when these thousands of women achieve this impressive goal, they're rewarded by men? -- who are giving them jewelry?"

And the highly-educated folk in my car chuckled in acknowledgement. But not outrage.

And I good-naturedly remarked on taking seriously my duties as the feminist psychologist of the group.

But really, come on, Nike. You're onto something with this whole celebrating women en masse through physical and mental determination thing -- don't blow it. Please try to be less lame.

The last frontier, revisited.

2005-09-29T21:56:00.001-07:00

Here are some photos from Alaska. Maybe you're not that interested, but I don't have anything good to say besides that it seems to be Abandoned Couch Week here in Los Angeles. There are about 30 couches, loveseats, and whatnot on my running route.

Also, it's freaking hot here. And really smoky.

But back to Alaska. . .Jessie and I won some stuff in a silent auction to benefit Hurricane Katrina victims. This 3 liter bottle of wine I bought for $65 was so hilarious that night. It became increasingly less so as all the beers I drank for the Red Cross starting playing for Team Hangover rather than Team Euphoria. All of this wine did manage to make it back to LA with me. I've been threatening to have a party all summer, maybe this could be the final straw. . . Jessie's purchase was much more practical - an entry to the Tour of Anchorage, an annual ski race. She saved money on her entry fee AND gets Tour of Anchorage paraphernalia to boot.

Over the course of several days in Anchorage, I spent a significant amount of time biking and running and disc golfing in this awesome park. Fall was definitely in the air and on the ground.

This is the park entry that's just behind Jessie's apartment. Idyllic, no? I asked about the frequency of proposals and chewing gum commercials taking place here. Apparently, smoking pot is a more frequent park pastime than either of the above.

A bonafide leaf flurry!

We ate at Peter's Sushi Spot twice. The first time was on our own before the benefit concert. The next time was when I came back to Anchorage when my uncle had to do some psych evals for the Anchorage Police Department and I spent the day with Jessie. Just before this lunch I made the mistake of agreeing to accompany my uncle on a tempo run in Earthquake Park. We were supposed to run a mile slowly, and then a few miles at 8:30, followed by another slow mile - I think. Well, because of the park conditions, the plan changed a bit and we were running 7:40 miles after a shorter warm up. I choked and cut back to a regular pace when we had a fast mile to go. I waited too long though and as I sat down to lunch was quite concerned about the possibility of seeing my Luna Bar or sushi lunch again. Not to fear, I drank some elixir of general well-being and sustenance, otherwise known as Sprite, and was able to polish off my share of sashimi like a (lightweight) champ.

I don't have any pictures from Kenai or Cooper Landing, the other places where I spent my time, mostly because when I was at those places I was under the impression that my camera was missing.

Oh, I got a free running shirt from a real world class runner who works at this running store called the Skinny Raven. He had mentioned that I could get a free shirt if I came by the store. This free shirt was not the average, run of the mill, size XXL lima bean green shirt - it's a $40 Asics shirt with cute capped sleeves. Hooray for free stuff.

Leaving Alaska turned out to be a bit of an ordeal when my Era (small branch of Alaskan Airlines) flight from Kenai to Anchorage was 35 minutes late leaving on Sunday night. Despite breaking into full-on nerd run in the airport, I missed my 12:50AM flight. This was potentially deep shit time for me as I had some study abroad applications I had arranged to turn in the following day. According to the weathered United woman, my options were a 11:40 PM flight to Denver the next night or the next night's 12:50 flight to LAX. I asked about making up the fare difference to take an earlier flight -- yeah, so those were their ONLY flights. The punchline is that I spent about half an hour finding a cheap and centrally located hotel and took a taxi to the Inlet Inn, which smelled like a veterinarian's office. In the spirit of getting what you pay for, the room cost me $48.60. The remaining $50.40 it would have cost to stay at the Hampton Inn instead might just have been worth most every dollar. The person in the room next to me watched television and took showers all night while I fretted about on the scratchy sheets, trying not to touch the outside of the bedspread. A few frantic phone calls to friends in LA and one reassuring call to the study abroad coordinator the next morning, I set off to run some errands and catch up phone calls I didn't make the previous week. By the light of day the Inlet Inn definitely appeared more halfway house and less best-hotel-deal in town. Nonetheless, I had an excellent extra Alaskan day - phone calls, errands and lunch with Jessie, and finally some disc golf, a shower and a nap before getting the red eye right the second time around.

That's more than enough for now. I will close by saying that a dad I had noticed on my flight being extra caring to retrieve his kids' crayons from the overhead compartment lost all hypothetical credibility with me when he pulled out a copy of Maxim and asked his sub 3-foot-tall son if he thought some woman was pretty. Yelch.

Items, Installment 2

2005-09-28T13:11:00.000-07:00

1. I have to go to the dentist, like right now. Before heading north I went for a checkup for the first time in about 4 or 5 years. Holy fuck was that painful. One filling is being replaced and another is being installed this afternoon. I'm glad I got the first bagillion cavities of my life on my parents' insurance. By my calculations, soon all my teeth will be filled and there'll be no more room for new ones.

2. My parents had to evacuate last Wednesday. They have lots of tales. They took their dog Hank. They returned to their house on Saturday. They let Hank play with some other dogs for a while. All the dogs ran away. Hank was the last to return home, on Monday morning. They haven't had electricity this whole time and cook their food on propane fish fryers on the back porch. It's hot and sounds pretty sucky.

3. I snuck onto a minor league baseball field in Alaska last Sunday to retrieve my disc golf disc. I was not caught or arrested. I hate getting in trouble. Disc golf is really fun but I'm not very good at it.

That's all. I'm going to the dentist now.

Alaska

2005-09-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

is awesome. I never want to go home. I don't even want to talk about how cool it is because that would be like trying to tell your school friends about your camp friends and we all know that goes nowhere fast.

I think I've misplaced my camera, but Jessie and I did well for ourselves at the Katrina benefit last week. We brought home a couple treats to enjoy after the show. . . Also we each placed winning bids on some things in the silent auction.

I would like to take this opportunity to rescind any negative statements I've ever made about boys who spend "too" much time working out, are "too" into personal hygiene, and are professional athletes. Turns out, they're not so bad after all. Silly me.

Fishing dishing.

2005-09-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

Hullo from Anchorage, where I've stopped for a couple of days to hang out with my friend Jessie before heading to Kenai tomorrow morning.

Yesterday I went biking for most of the morning while Jessie was substitute teaching Algebra II. After hitting some trails in the extensive park system, I rode downtown and parked my bike next to the Anchorage Convention Center, where the 135th meeting of the American Fisheries Society was taking place. No kidding. Just when you think you've pigeon-holed yourself in the most esoteric field, you happen along a Fishery Society convention. There were a ton of fishery folk - the young were pretty hip with their plastic framed glasses and Vans. More hip than the kids at the last psych conference.

Yesterday afternoon Jessie and I went back to the park for a round of disc golf. You can drink beer in the park here. Tonight we're going for a little hike, getting some sushi, and going to a benefit show at a local brewery. I'll report later if any of the band members are half-Jewish or curly-haired enough for me to add the to evangelized crush list.

Yep, these here are your tax dollars at work, folks.

2005-09-12T23:41:00.000-07:00

Lately my aimless internet addiction has manifest itself in the form of Ok Cupid! - the nerdliest of internet meet-n-greets. Created by some math dudes from Harvard or MIT or the like (hey, it's summer - no homework), you can take tons of gimmicky and fun personality tests and let their algorithms match you up with other people wasting their time just like you. So far the political attitudes test tells me I'm a socialist and the death test says I'll live until I'm 87, which I think is conservative b/c my browser was freezing up during the reflex part. The interface leaves much to be desired and everyone seems to be a 23-year-old-wanna-be-musician, but it's still pretty fun.

Should you tire of wasting your time like that, check out the other thing I do to keep myself from finishing the one last thing I need to get done before I leave for Alaska tomorrow (that's right, suckas!). Why ponder children's gender and ethnic development when I can search for seasonal jobs all over the world, like oh, say, teaching English to kids in Italy via musical theater?

Dog tales.

2005-09-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

I'm dogsitting today. In addition to washing the things in the very bottom of my laundry basket and blowing my nose on real Kleenex instead of toilet paper, I've been thinking a little about MY-MOST-TERRIFYING-DOGSITTING-EXPERIENCE-EVER.

I was studying abroad in Spain and this girl at the gym noticed the English on my t-shirt and hired me to read British Vogue with her to improve her English. Elisa was about 26, really hot, and a fashion design student and sometime model. Reading magazines for money was pretty fun, but she had an intimidating and sharp-fanged black Husky named Luna. Elisa complained that her gay best friend/fashion design colleague was too wimpy to dogsit for her because he was uncomfortable with the dog tampon. Yes, there are dog tampons. This came as big a shock to me at 20 after growing up with more than average animal/farm experience as it was when I was 8 and realized Heaven wasn't a physical place in a distant blackhole with a supersecret zip code that had been stumping astronauts.

It's no wonder that Elisa's friend was scared of Luna. As a fashion designer, he knew that without his hands he couldn't even stock at Zara, much less draw cutting edge designs. Because I was even more impressed by cool people then as I am now, I agreed to walk Luna when Elisa went to the south of Spain to a wedding for the weekend. It was during the "instructions" talk that she mentioned that the dog that barked ferociously every time I came over had already bitten 2 people and if it bit a 3rd, she would be required to undergo pysychological testing to see if she was purposely harboring a malicious animal.

Let's just say Luna had minimal walks over those few days. I would wear a leather jacket and gloves when I put on her leash to defray the impact of any teeth in my direction. I kept her far away from other dogs and people at the park and strollers on the sidewalk were the stuff of nightmares. In the end she didn't bite anyone and I didn't have to deal with the dog tampon.

My current dog-charge Ellie is much more low-key: she spends her days taking naps and likes to rest in the shade when we go on walks in the neighborhood.

Snivel.

2005-09-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hooray! Friday morning brought a very special delivery to the arrivals deck of LAX. The woman my 14 - 18 year-old self passed notes to during class, conferred with between classes, and still managed to find reason to talk to on the phone after school came to visit me!

It was a weekend of hard core LA evangelism at its finest. We had happy hour at the esteemed Gyu-Kaku before catching the even-more-esteemed Matt Besser's one man show on the separation between Church and State. Providing more support for the idea that adolescence is characterized by feelings of invincibility, feeling extra-bold in Kara's company I approached Matt Besser after the show and told him I liked it. Of course I said something much more lame than the thousands of versions of other things I worked out on the drive home.

Saturday was filled with eating and lots o' thrift store shopping. Sunday we drove out to Malibu for what I assumed would be a really easy walk on some trail I'd found online. It wasn't bad, but it was really really dry and we had to do some minor rock scrambling (note the gulch pictured) in a few places that provoked some pause given our attire of skirts and flip flops.

I sent Kara back to Austin this morning and spent more time than is not embarrasing seriously bummed out about her departure. I'm usually not that sad about friends' coming and going, but it's been years since we'd spent so much time together and maybe part of it was saddness over all the time in the interim that we hadn't kept up as much.

Attention please.

2005-09-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

If you can walk down the street with this song on your iPod and not look like a total tool for all your dancing and twitching about, then your heart is stone. It's even harder if you caught The Blood Arm show the night before and added the lead singer to your ever growing list of crushes on talented, curly brown-haired men. Maybe you've seen high energy bands before. Maybe you've seen people jump around on stage. Maybe you've seen someone who can dance like a gay man who just landed a stint on Broadway. This guy will put them to shame (and according to my online stalking and Elena, last night was a relatively calm show).

You heard the lady, folks. Are you too a minor celebrity in a niche market looking for someone to stalk you online? Act now - call Kelly to have her evangelize to all of her friends and acquaintances on your behalf.

Post-show diner dining:

Maybe it stems from my own insecurity issues but I am really attracted to people who know their element and succeed it in - especially if that element entails performing before an audience. I mean, I'm good at eating sunflower seeds and writing kiss ass letters to companies that make my day and all, but neither of those are especially marketable these days.

My last day of nannyhood, a friend of my nannykid made a self-deprecating remark about not being good at Slapjack (really, get with the program, buddy. . .). I said something about pursuing lots of things despite not being good at them. My nannykid interjected with the one of two nice things he said to me all summer, "But you're great at baton twirling!" Yes, that's it, I AM great at baton twirling! Now there's a marketable skill.

Back in my office blues.

2005-08-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

Despite applying SPF 30 in our room before heading out for only a few hours, last week in Panama I procured a sunburn that would make you cry.

On the other hand, this is the beach where I got the sunburn.

What's that, you don't see anything besides our backpacks on the shore? Exactly.

Here's the boat we hired on the street to take us to this beach (Red Frog, in Bocas del Toro).

Now, my back resembles a yellowed and parched topographical map of a very, very dry region, covered by sand dunes and craters.

Does anyone think it's weird that I had a moderately sexual dream about someone I went to grade school with? Second such dream in a few months.

Gatos y perros - it's raining them.

2005-08-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

Hi from San Jose, where it's raining like somebody's been building an arc out back. Seriously, the impending rain this afternoon was refreshing toward the end of a 5 hour bus trip in from Puerta Viejo. Looking for a place to stay wasn't especially bad once we arrived either. Cool breeze, black clouds in the distance-- but no pasa nada, we kept walking for the better part of an hour. In fact, it didn't really even become a problem until we'd been WALKING IN THE DOWNPOUR WITH OUR BACKPACKS for TWENTY MINUTES. At this point my sister gives me her breaking point warning and indicates that although she has seen one hotel on the same street as the one we're looking for, it is not the hotel we are looking for, nor is it one she plans to set foot in.

Fortunately the "A.B.C." hotel had room for us. The owner told us we could dry off before we paid and he'd left by the time we headed out. The cleaning lady assured us we could pay upon our return. Hopefully he had planned to steal the copies of our passports and try on our sexy clothes after dinner.

Last night was one of the most miserable I've spent on earth. More about that later.

Overall the trip is fun. I have some funky bug bites. One is starting to look like the logo for the Houston Texans.

Also this is the first time in a few days I've had caffeine. Delight of delights! Those of you with a similar addiction should detox for a couple of days, it's such a cheap high once you start up again.

Phone it in Friday.

2005-08-20T22:14:00.000-07:00

Well, Saturday really, but Friday starts with the F sound and Saturday doesn't.

I'm supposed to be doing all the things I've put off all day to get ready for my trip tomorrow.

Unloading the dishwasher.

Calling the shuttle.

Packing snacks.

Sleeping.

At 5AM I'm off for San Jose en route to Bocas del Toro, a collection of islands in northeast Panama. It's going to be sweet, but you don't have to take my word for it:

If this promotional picture doesn't convince you, then I don't know what will. But I have a hunch I'll have an idea when I get back in a week.

Items

2005-08-17T22:11:00.000-07:00

"I have just a few lil' items for you Kelly, when you have a chance," my dad would say when he wanted to remind me to change my oil, to really, really read some book about saving and investing money, and what time we were leaving for some miscellaneous road trip.

Here are a few lil' items for all of you:

Everything I'm wearing today is either blue or grey. Aside from my underthings (including socks) and shoes, everything came from a thrift store. When I take the stairs from my office to the bathroom I often use the time to account for the percentage of my outfit procured from a thrift store. Today's standout item is a pair of pants I bought for $.70 when the Salvation Army had a "closing for remodeling" 75% off everything sale. This beats the red tank top I bought in 1998 for $.80 on halfprice Sunday at Goodwill.

I got a haircut about 2 weeks ago.

Here's what was left behind:

Here's the result:

Lately I've been thinking a lot about French Toast. Whenever I mention it, people groan appreciatively. But they don't understand. I'm not talking about the run-of-the-mill Ihop affair with maple syrup and a modest sprinkling of powered sugar. Nothing shy of a pool o' butter engulfed by piles and piles of fluffy powdered sugar would satisfy my needs. In addition to calling referring to things to tell me as "items," my dad also knows how to make really good French Toast. Because I'm a remedial cook, I just learned [to remember] how last summer. I finally relieved my craving Sunday night:

Today is my dad's birthday.

Finders keepers, publishers.

2005-08-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Who knew that indie magazines go on tour? Why would the cheapest girl in all of the land pay $12 to attend a show on said tour? Probably because FOUND magazine is totally awesome, the perfect antidote to my voyeuristic and elitist tendencies.

Friday night found some cronies and me at the Steve Allen Theatre in Los Feliz. It's a pretty cool venue if you've never been there. If even cooler if you know beforehand that it's byob.

FOUND magazine is letting its dirty little secrets out of the closet with Dirty FOUND , a new magazine, for - you guessed it - gems too smutty for the only-moderately-tacky-on-occasion FOUND.

Briefly, the premise of FOUND is sharing with the world the quirky little things people discover in their daily lives: a nonsensical note left on a windshield, a child's drawing, or the breakup email someone forgot in the printer of the computer lab. An example from the website:

The idea is the common human condition behind these finds rather than what other people plan to buy at Safeway. I've been buried in an issue of FOUND I bought after the show (we got a copy of Dirty FOUND with our admission, but I started reading over breakfast and wanted to play if safe). It's exactly what would happen if the "Have you seen me?" people commissioned Sark as artistic director.

FOUND is found wherever specialty magazines are sold - at tens (more than 100) of independent bookstores in lots of states. The website is good for interesting perusal as well.

Rats and brats

2005-08-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

From B.F. Skinner, nannying, and third party rumination over cryptic conversations, emails, and text messages, I have deduced that random reinforcement will drive rats, children, and women in threadbare relationships crazy.

TAing is finally over and none too soon. I like learning new things at the undergraduate pace and depth and teaching these new things to students. I even like teaching them remedial 3rd grade Texas public school grammar, such as the appropriate use of apostrophes and semicolons. I don't particularly like trying to grade papers that I can't read or getting emails that say things like, "it would be gr8 2 meet with u b4 class 2 go thru the last exam - thnx." Maybe next time I'll implement a policy not to respond to emails composed in text/AIM dialect.

No seriously, you can't beat the real thing.

2005-08-08T16:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon I did something I'm not proud of.

I've done it before and I thought I wouldn't do it again.

Like last time, it left me feeling cheap, empty, and just a little bit used on the inside.

I tried to resist, but it didn't seem like I had any other options. I told myself I would regret it later, but any approximation of willpower I had was laughable in the face of unmitigated temptation and longing.

So for what I hope is the very last time, I gave in. But take my word for it, I will never, ever again drink Coke Zero instead of regular Coke.

Daily installment of additional useless information: In 1906 Coke introduced the slogan, Coca-cola: The Great National Temperance. In 1904 it was Coca-Cola is a delightful, palatable, healthful beverage. And Fast Food Nation makes McDonald's out to be the beginning of the misleaders. . .

Who discovered you lately?

2005-08-05T01:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is long. I tried to hit the highlights, but there was a lot of material to cover.

“Hey ladies,” a stereotypical ‘California boy’ calls to a friend and I last Friday as we walk to happy hour at Palomino in Westwood. Immediately I run through a mental checklist of the things he might be selling that I don’t need (discounted spa days, discounted trips to Mexico, mufflers knitted by orphan amputees.. .). As it turns out he’s not hustling for our cash, but is “discovering” us! He wants to recruit us for the reality speed dating show Next on MTV. I’ve never seen this show, but he assures us that there are no “thought bubbles.” Already heady with the merriment sure to ensue at happy hour (as well as the flattery of being mistaken for someone who watches MTV), I tentatively agree to audition for the show.

All weekend I’m unsure about whether I’ll do it. Do I really want to look at a jackass on television? On the other hand, I haven’t spend much time inside a television studio. . . Alas, as my life is a practice in obscurity and humiliation, Wednesday afternoon finds me outside the MTV studios in Santa Monica, waiting on overpriced outdoor furniture I noticed in last month’s Design Within Reach catalogue when I “practice shopped” a la 3rd grade at my grandma’s house with the Sears-Roebuck catalogue.

After checking in with security, I chill on the lime green plastic couch, salivating with thoughts of selling out on all the ideals I preach in the Psych of Gender class I’m TAing to join up as part of the problem. The kids who work at MTV are way too cool for school. Not only are they sporting awesome clothes, they have electronic entry name badges around their necks. My envy only worsens when I hear two of the cool kids talking shop. “There’s gotta be some blog where people write in about their exes,” says the cool guy to the cool girl. She’s writing on her cool kids’ notepad ™ and I chime in, “Yeah, there’s Breakupnews.com.” The cool girl and cool guy look over at me; I give them the web address. All this time I’ve been under the impression that most of my time spent online is wasted time, but really I’m conducting important field research in other circles. I should’ve asked to touch one of their name badges as a finder’s fee.

I contemplate the airbrushed designs on the finger and toe nails of the woman waiting beside me, some more MTV folk arrive and we’re cleared to fill out the recruitment inventory and background check releases. This isn’t eHarmony, folks. Just a taste of the challenging and provocative questions MTV throws at its applicants:

What is your biggest physical turn on (nice teeth, good body, etc.)?
What is your biggest physical turn off (ugly feet, big nose, etc)?
I feel like MTV is getting down to the things I really care about.

Why are you single?
Because I’m not currently dating anyone.

Do you usually do the usually (circle one):
Do the dumping Get dumped
Um, hello, MTV how could you be missing out on the ‘passive breakup?’ It’s not about “dumping” people anymore, it’s about being sufficiently disinterested that the other person is forced to end things with you first. Duh.

Have you ever been involved in a love triangle or been the third party to come between another couple? Please describe how you broke them up.

An essay asks you to describe what you offer that other contestants don’t. I use short sentences, beginning with: I recycle, vote, and email my congresspeople. I look over at my neighbor’s application (the one with the airbrushed nails - the fingernails are black with flowered designs and the toenails are construction zone orange with flowered designs) and see a loopy scrawl that begins, I’m a real down-to-earth girl. . .

Returning my forms to the table, I see the recruiter that approached my friend and me last week. Here’s the deal, I don’t care how terrific your togs are, or that you’re taking the red-eye to New York to scout locations for your friend’s indie film, I absolutely loathe your smarmy, fake familiarity. Highly concentrated smarm.

At one point my recruiter attempts to chat me up while giving me advice about the audition. I express my skepticism of the producers’ benevolence toward singletons as contrasted with their desire for an exciting show by making someone the scapejerk. “Don’t go in there and be all shy,” he says, “Just be yourself.” I didn’t mention that I’m not so much shy as I am judgmental.

Someone takes my picture. I was a little concerned because my regular smile was feeling off and I have a two day old haircut that hasn’t quite gotten its sea legs yet. Soon after, I find myself annoyed at the recruiter’s display of yet even more repulsive fake charm when he comments on my polaroids. When I sneak a glance, however, I find them quite cute and wish I could keep them for myself.

Four of us are briefed about what we’ll say on camera for the casting director. Wrapping up her schpiel about how we’re to describe the type of men we’re interested in, the woman says, verbatim, “We want to know about personality, but we mostly care about looks – and be very specific. I think that’s it, we’ll bring you all back in soon. .. Oh, and one more thing, if you want to be considered for a beach date, you’ll also need to show us your abs on camera.”

The casting director arrives and the four of us line up on red Xes marked on the floor. A little about my fellow auditionees, so you know what I’m up against. In regard to clothing, let me just say synthetic, small, and see-through. Also having just (albeit begrudgingly) paid upwards of $100 for a cut and color, standing among these women, I’m evermore resolute on my stance regarding quality dye jobs. All three are wearing quite a bit of make-up, two seem to be schooled in the orange foundation tradition. As soon as the cameralight blinks green the woman farthest away from me tosses her dismally dyed hair, lifts her chin, and cocks one of her tightly-jeaned hips to the side– she stays this way throughout the entire audition. The woman next to her also engages in some serious hair flipping and head shaking throughout.

The where-you’re-from, what-you-do portions of the audition aren’t especially memorable. All three women hail from distant suburbs of Los Angeles and work in the food service industry. One is currently “headhostess” for a restaurant chain, but notes her impending move to a different, nondescript suburb where she’ll be a server. The next is a server for The Macaroni Grill, but is soon relocating to Las Vegas– she demonstrates her best cocktail waitress pose. The third works for her dad, but is training to become a masseuse. She uses her best sultry voice to make it clear that she enjoys giving massages. On my turn I say that I’m a PhD student in Psychology at UCLA. When asked what I like to do for fun I mention being outdoors, running, hiking, and that I volunteer during the KCRW pledge drives. “Woah,” says the casting director, looking up from my questionnaire, “You’re like a good person. You help people.” Go figure.

Next we’re supposed to describe what kind of guys we like. The first woman refreshes her pose with a flip of her hair and says she digs Italian men. The next likes men with darker skin. “So does that include Black men? Or dark White men and light Black men?” asks the African American casting director. Apparently, not unlike Burger King, you can have it your way at MTV. The woman specifies that she means olive skin– her skin tone or just darker. I’m guessing this calibrates into 3 – 5 tanning bed sessions a week. She continues, “I like guys with spiky hair and lots of piercings and tattoos.” The casting director has some clarification questions as to the specific genre of spiky hair guys, but is obviously clear on the tattoos and piercings. The third woman, next to me, takes the ‘badboy’ fetish one step further when she says that she likes guys that “are a little rough, that look they just got out of County.” We all laugh and the casting director jokes about him still wearing the jumpsuit. This exchange goes from clever to priceless, however, when this woman and I walk toward our cars after the audition and I say, “Yeah, I felt bad when we had to say what kind of guy we liked.” She concurs, “I know, when that girl said she liked guys with piercings and tattoos, I was thinking, ‘Hey, that’s my guy.’ I don’t know. . . Three of my ex-boyfriends have been in County, but they have their side that they show me. . . ”

Back at the “build your own man” portion of the audition, I mention that I wouldn’t want to date someone super fastidious about their own grooming. I’m a low maintenance person and don’t want to feel pressured by a guy to spend more time getting dressed. As soon as these words leave my mouth, a chorus of sad “aahs” erupts from the three women to my right. Yes, three people who either attend, or aspire-to-maybe-one-day-if-they-get-around-to-it attend, junior college with bad dye jobs and too small tops from TJ Maxx are moaning in pity for me.

Wrapping up, the casting director asks us to describe the date we’d go on if we had MTV’s Visa for the day. The first woman begins, hip still jut out, “Well, he’d pick me up in a really nice, new car and greet me with that big, warm smile. . . ”

“—Wait,” interrupts the casting director, “you’re taking him on a date.”

Hip girl looks like the casting director has sprouted a second head and stumbles through the rest of her ideal date. Essentially, I hear 3 variations on the theme of “hitting the clubs, checking out his moves, maybe get some drinks (with their 20 year old CA driver’s licenses?), and seeing how things go<wink, wink>.” Newsflash: no one wants to see unclassy birds make out with unclassy blokes on television.

I also want to be clear on exactly how foreign the idea of being responsible for a date was to these women. They didn’t know what to do with it. In fact, the third one began her ideal date with, “Well, he’d pick me up – I mean even though I’m taking him on the date and all, he’d still come to my house.” On my turn I say that I like to do something I’ve never done before on blind dates, so in case the date goes south, at least I’ve had a new experience. I suggest watching the horse races at Hollywood Park, taking in some tasty sushi at Nobu in Malibu, and going to a dive bar where people (other people) sing karaoke. For just a moment I notice a tiny glimmer behind the eyes of the staff people, as if I had reminded them of that other world they once knew, long ago, before they got into the business of convincing people that the world that these other three girls live in is real.

So there you have it – my day at MTV.

Am I going to get a call from MTV? I have no idea.

Do I think all dating shows make people look like jackasses? Yes.

Am I willing to be a jackass on TV to eat at Nobu on MTV’s tab? Most certainly.

Ambivalence: The new infatuation

2005-08-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

Last Friday a poor, unsuspecting young man accompanied a friend and his friend's girlfriend to a Psycholicious Happy Hour. For single men in Los Angeles, happy hour with the psychology department is akin to shooting fish in a barrel. Not so long ago, I counted myself among 3 women who had shamelessly flirted with a friend of a friend before asking if he was straight. On the other hand, my track record with set-ups isn't so hot. In any case, against all odds (and moreover, my expectations), there was nothing wrong with the guy in question. For real. He was an attractive looking guy who didn't seem to take himself too seriously. Sincere. Humble. He did not go on at length (or even at all) about the French philosopher he studies. He was not mustached. He was not dressed in all black. He was not chain smoking. He didn't talk a lot about himself. I didn't speak two words to him exclusively. It's not like we hit it off or anything. In fact, the most memorable things about him are the aversive things that he's not.

Nonetheless, I've been thinking about him all weekend. Maybe it's a sign of the times, or the city, or more likely, my neuroticism, but these days a little neutrality goes a long way. I know next to nothing about this guy, but I do know that I probably don't hate him and that he probably wouldn't hate me. Ah, the foundation for a happy relationship. . .

Before I go, does anyone want to play "who made the most ridiculous purchase this weekend"?

I bought a pair of tap shoes.

Three times a bridesmaid. . .

2005-07-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

never a bride. . . forget that shite. It should be more like, "First one to the alter gets the bridesmaids" or "Once a bridesmaid, forever committment phobic."

I kid, I kid. A little.

One of my all-time favorite peeps is getting married this year. And I'm in the wedding. Yipee! Okay, now that the honeymoon phase of being included and loved is over, I'm starting to see that this wedding business is not a joke. Not even a bad joke. Or a pun. For example, so far all that is required of me is to call the bridal shop that is making the dresses with my measurements. Sounds easy enough. Well sure, it sounds easy. I'm sure it would be easy too, if I had a tape measure - or if I had a "tape measure buddy" I want to see at me in my underthings to make sure I don't transpose any of the numbers when I write them down. Molehill ---> mountain. You get the idea. And this is just one tiny task. The other day the bride-to-be left me a voicemail including all the wedding stuff she and her finance had been doing - they registered at Crate & Barrel and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. They had bought their wedding rings the day before. . . the list went on. I had to rest for two days before I could return her call.

If I wasn't seriously single enough, wedding planning by proxy is sealing the deal. When I get married, you can expect to read about it on here - I won't worry about whether or not I'll pay for an open bar on the big day and you'll send nice comments and lots of page loads instead of gifts and we'll call it even.

The Posing Class

2005-07-27T22:50:00.000-07:00

As every good housesitter/nanny/tutor/personal assistant knows, social graces aren't what they used to be. These days it's not enough to know which fork to use or to chant "runny on the right, lumpy on the left" to oneself during a formal dinner. For 'preliminarily mobile' 20somethings, good manners is all about knowing one's place in the social hierarchy, or being comfortable with not exactly knowing one's place, but remaining nimble in the meanwhile.

Like many of my peers nearing the halfway mark to our 5 year college reunions, I've been more successful at collecting degrees than fat paychecks. This does not dissuade me, however, from planning ahead and preemptively trying on the lifestyle I aspire to. I drive a snotty European car and shop at the overpriced grocery store nearest my overpriced apartment.

This is all fine and good, but things start to get weird when I'm employed by those who've gone a generation or two ahead into yuppiedom (which, by the by, stands for Young Upwardly-mobile People) - the people who drive their late model snotty European cars to the overpriced grocery store nearest their overpriced homes, located just across the gated subdivision entry from my apartment. Most of the time, these people are gracious employers who give advice and have earnest appreciation for my efforts. Nonetheless, it's still a little weird to discuss world affairs or party-planning strategies like peers while keeping in mind who's working for $15 an hour and who's not. Oddly enough, I've sometimes felt that the more humbling end of this deal is that of the employer. There've been times when a tutoring gig has gone south and instead of throwing in the towel, I've remained on the payroll to do little more than watch parents lose arguments with their kids and get advice about neighborhood delis to check out. Sure, I'm admitting that $15 is enough to buy an hour of my time, but you're the one paying to chat it up with me rather than spending time with your family.

I've read The Great Gatsby. I know wealth and socialite fame don't guarantee happiness, and both can be disappointingly empty and hollow. All I'm saying is that it can be a very awkward task to negotiate building networks and contacts with doing odd jobs when you have more letters behind your name than zeroes in your net worth.

Thinking about my doorbell.

2005-07-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

No one really ever "stops by" anymore. The art of dropping in is lost. People don't even (well, with the exception of my family) 'visit' other people anymore. We go for coffee or tea or lunch. Perhaps we've been brainwashed by Starbucks, or perhaps the strongwilled independence we all hone in our efforts to be upstanding, terrorist-hating Americans dissuades us from admitting any desire to just "be" with other people. In my entire life for which I have long-term memories (so that's age 15 on), I can count on one hand the times people I'm not related to have gotten into their cars, driven to my house, and knocked on my door - without calling beforehand. And I must say, it was a welcome surprise each time. I think I was even a little bit flattered - especially when the caller in question was a person of the male persuasion I was either dating or interested in dating. So go forth and drop in on each other, unless you live in Los Angeles, in which case you can't afford the extra gas. There's a good deal at the Shell station on Santa Monica and Federal by the way-- $2.58/gallon.

This afternoon I said to the nine-year-old I nanny, "Ah, I've had this one song stuck in my head all day."
"What song is it?" he asks.
"I don't think you'd know it."
"Well, try me. Sing it."
I look into the earnest little face and start in on the catchy White Stripes tune, "I'm thinking about my doorbell, when ya gonna ring it, when ya gonna ring it. . . " An emotionless stare looks back at me, eyes open wide on a head still waiting for its body to grow into it.
"Well that sounds dumb," he says after a pause.
Yeah, he's right. It does. But I still like it.

From the archives*

2005-07-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

10 August 2001

Opening night, American Pie 2 (yeah, I know. Deal.), AMC 30, Houston

Overheard waiting to enter theater:

Well, she says it doesn’t get to her but I know it does cuz’ I know how I felt when my boyfriend got someone else pregnant and we became exes. . . What Chris doesn’t realize is that I’m almost over him, this [baby] is the only tie between us and in a couple of weeks it will all be over. I don’t like being the other woman. I want to be number one. He says he can do things with me that he can’t with her and that he’ll miss all the things we do together. Sounds like a personal problem to me. What Chris doesn’t realize is that I’m almost over him.

Seriously.

*the old-fashioned kind – perhpas you're familiar –they're small bound volumes and an ink-projecting, stylus-like deceive is used to record information.

Shit happens. In droves.

2005-07-18T22:51:00.000-07:00

Today I return home from nannying and instead of finding my inbox/usual blogroute filled with administrative minutiae, humorous anecdotes, and general miscellany, it is inundated with things that make me ill. Today was not a stellar day for Southwestern Alumni. (Spoiler alert - if you want to have a really good day, don't keep reading - Google kittens and puppies instead.)

First, I get an email forward that an acquaintance's dad has died unexpectedly in some kind of freak medication error at the hospital. I don't know this woman well or her father at all, but I like to think that hospitals are where one goes to get well, not to get dead.

Second, I'm absolutely stunned when I read another email relating that an acquaintance and sometime classmate at Southwestern died on Saturday night when a truck ran a red light and broadsided her car in New Mexico as she was driving home from a performance. I'm sure that frequenters of Mask & Wig and Theater Department productions would agree that Heather McGaughey brought a freshness and sense of energy to the projects she worked on at Southwestern. Having been impressed with her and being a huge nerd who's better at typing than talking, I Googled her several months ago and discovered she was doing some type of musical theater in the Midwest post Southwestern. She was acting in New Mexico at the time of her death.

Finally, my familiar blogroute (via NerdElite) tells me that another fine* Southwestern alumnus was recently arrested for pedophilia. This guy was awarded a King Creativity Fund Award the same year as Heather McGaughey and another friend and me, but the link to his project is gone now. Nevertheless, you can read about his arrest here. Who knew the Texas Attorney General made it so easy to read about your local newsmakers - and watch videos of their arrests?

Someone get Kansas on the phone. I am not an especially punitive person but would be more amenable toward Intelligent Design if they could show me an algorithm that selected for bright, happy young people with their shit together as opposed to pedophiliac seminarians. Did I mention that part? That's right, this guy was taking some time off from the learning how to spread the good news to go have sex with a (fortunately fictional) thirteen-year-old child.

*facetious. I don't know him, but did recognize the sunglasses.

Ogling Optometrist

2005-07-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

Why is it that every male optometrist I've ever visited are always creepy in this overly familiar, lecherous way? I haven't experienced this with female optometrists or male opthamologists. Yelch.

Public Service Announcement for male optometrists:

Please limit your commentary to the health of my eyes. Please avoid commentary on the color of my eyes or the cuteness of my glasses. If I make reference to my dad, it is because I think you are creepy and want to subtly remind you that in some spheres (i.e., mine) it is inappropriate to hit on women whose fathers are ~~older~~ younger than you are.

The outside of my DMV registration renewal envelope

2005-07-13T22:32:00.000-07:00

informs me:

For the price of a postage stamp, you:

*Help fight air pollution, traffic congestion and tax increases.
*Save valuable time, money for gas and wear on your vehicle.
By using the mail, you have chosen the easiest way to submit a DMV application and have assisted us with providing better service.

Thank you,
Department of Motor Vehicles

For those of you who have not had the pleasure (and by that I mean "suicide induction experience") of becoming acquainted with the LA DMV, let me assure you, I save a lot more than the price of a stamp and gas money by avoiding it. Assumming your local DMV is anything like any of the other 110% of DMVs I've encountered in the lower 48 and Alaska (I could just tell about some of them from driving by), you know what I mean. The DMV is a place where efficiency is avoided at all costs - as are pleasantries. I'm pretty sure they don't even allow cheeky Garfield mugs or tired xeroxes about how Mondays suck. Once the DMV Czar finds out someone's been putting nice messages on the outside of the return envelopes, you can bet some anomolous, chipper bureaucrat's going to have some remedial training modules to complete.

Well it's something.

2005-07-12T22:17:00.000-07:00

Fortunately I don't have any new tales of drunkenness with which to regale you. In fact, keeping busy has left me a very dull girl. No one wants to read about grading papers and getting the biannual smog check.

You may, however, be interested in learning that on Friday, on my way to The Hammer's Sundance Summer Shorts, I saw Paul Reiser standing in line to buy a movie ticket for Batman Returns in Westwood. He was staring at the floral print collapsible chair I was carrying. Then, just a few moments ago, some friends and I were having yogurt at The Big Chill in West LA when in walks Rhea Pearlman with her son. I think my friend sees her too and raise my eyebrows to exchange what I assume is a knowing, 'hey, there's Rhea Pearlman' look. She hadn't noticed. Not wanting to cheat my yogurt partners out of a celebrity siting, I discreetly start the 'don't look now, but. . . ' whisper, which is of course even silly to mention. They're going to look. Now.

In other news, I'm thinking about getting my shit together soon. I'm really motivated to do it, only I've yet to determine the antecedent of 'it'. Usually summertime is a time for getting inspired to do 500 things, making a list, doing about 27 of them, and finally being satisfied with catching up my photo albums, cleaning my office, and updating my renter's insurance policy. This year is different somehow. I'm still getting some niggling errands done (note smog check) and enjoying the long, guilt and homework free evenings, but I'm not inspired to do anything special. I didn't even make a Summer 2005 To-Do list. I had it on my list a few weeks ago, but I never got around to it. If anyone sees my edge lying around, please Fed Ex it immediately. I'll reimburse you. One of my favorite qualities about myself is my continual belief that good things are on the brink of happening. I will get around to those essays. I will have a sex life. I will decide what I want to be when I grow up. I don't know how long I can last without this illusion.

That special touch

2005-07-10T14:09:00.000-07:00

Not anyone can be a part-time nanny. One has to check a few notches of self-respect at the door upon joining the ranks of the hired help, those earning an hourly wage, who are paid in cash, and who don't have a last name anymore (and thus have nothing meaningful to contribute).

During my ill-advised inebriation last weekend, one of the (less, surprisingly enough) obnoxious things I said to an interested party of the male persuasion was, “We’re PhD students, we’re smart, that bullshit doesn’t work on us!” in response to his lame attempts hit on my friend and me. This might also be a fitting thing to say when parents of my charges’ playmates give me a quizzical look that says I don’t look nearly Mexican enough or failing actress enough to be a “real nanny.”

Truth be told, my gig is pretty sweet as nannying goes. The kids are old enough that the things they like to do are fun for me too. I never have to do “voices” aside from those intended to persuade them to eat fruit or put their dishes away. The best part so far might have been the day I arrived to find a family rushing off to a doctor’s appointment. The mom took both kids to the doctor while I cozied up with a gossip magazine to wait for the repairperson. I guess this gets translated as “management and supervision skills” on my resume?

Nth trial learning

2005-07-06T07:55:00.000-07:00

I'm proud to report that I can count the times I've drank way too much on one hand - less so to report that I used up another finger last weekend.

Friday night got off to an excellent start. Some friends and I caught a free Ozomatli concert at the California Plaza downtown. Tens of free outdoor summer concerts happen any given week in Los Angeles, ostensibly to "promote community and celebrate summer." I think the greater metropolitan area is trying to apease its guilt about the outrageous cost of living and scarily viligant parking enforcement.

After Ozzomatli, we went to a bar in Culver City for a friend's birthday. Leaving around midnight and still a little tipsy, I said, "Is anyone interested in a little contest?. . . " Never say that if you're me. Especially if you're me and thought your late lunch would tide you over for the entire night. And under no circumstances should you (if you're me) end your night by chasing whatever drink you had with a Long Island Iced Tea (especially if they're served in pint glasses).

The contest: I challenged a friend to see who could get/give the most numbers of potential suitors. I made the challenge when I thought we were going to the dive bar around the corner from my house. Instead we ended up at the cheesy, Brentwood Todd (consultant, leased BMW, powder blue button down shirt - untucked, trendy jeans, loafers, lots of hair products) hangout down the street - my least favorite bar in the city (and thus the "potential suitors" is amended to "breathing persons"). Being a (slightly handicapped, given the considerable alcohol intake) neophyte at this game, it didn't occur to me that it one should get numbers, rather than to give out one's number. So I didn't learn everything I needed to know in kindergarten.

Later, in my apartment, I thought the slight slip down the stairs, the revisiting of the Long Island Iced Tea, and the fact that I was essentially bedridden (save for two bathoom trips and one soup/dvd run downstairs) until 8am SUNDAY morning was penance enough for my poor choices. Nope. Not only did one of the guys I had given my number to call me twice Friday night (you know, to remind me of the jacuzzi party at their place - the one where "we have French doors." -- what?), but he called me NINE times throughout the course of the weekend. Nine times in less than 48 hours. Clearly, this is not a "Rules" man.

Okay, so the hangover and the persistant calling are my penance. Fair enough. Not so fast. At a barbeque on Monday one of my friends reminded me of a choice remark I made to the persistant caller. It wasn't so much tasteless or sleazy as it was totally obnoxious. I was no longer puzzled why someone wouldn't get the idea after the eighth time I didn't pick up, but moreover wondered why he'd even call at all. And just for good measure, it became an even ten calls last night.

Seriously, I have learned my lesson.

It's not that I had thought I had seen it all. . .

2005-07-01T01:20:00.000-07:00

But I was pretty sure I was well on my way. Gather round boys and girls, I have something very curious to share with you today.

The capitalization of affection and social exchange are old news. A good chunk of adults hand over portions of their incomes to online dating services. Many of us joined sororities and fraternities. Writers pay three times the price of a coffee so they can change out of pajamas and lounge around a café all day instead of their studio apartments. You know all this. What you may not know, however, is that now, as we speak (figuratively), people are paying actual domestic currency to attend Cuddle Parties. Seriously. With strangers. Please – take a moment. . . Okay, ready? Yes, for only $30, you too may attend a Cuddle Party at which you will be allowed to practice setting and adhering to your own personal boundaries while enjoying the healing benefits of touch – for three and a half hours. Skeptical, are you? Think cuddle parties are only for still closeted-to-themselves lesbians and dirty old men looking to cop a feel? Think again, say Cuddle LA directors Rebecca Reagan and Andrew Schwartz. Fifteen simple rules make Cuddle Party a “safe and fun space for exploring affectionate touch.” If you’re curious, sex and dry humping are verboten, although kissing “and nuzzling” are fair game, provided verbal consent has been granted.

Maybe I’m just a little slow to warm up, but I think Cuddle Parties sound absolutely and unconditionally repulsive.

For future reference

2005-06-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

Not so long ago I caught the opening night screenings at the annual film festival for UCLA’s school of Theater, Film, and Television. Catherine Hardwicke, purported alumna of UCLA’s film school and director of the recently released Lords of Dogtown, was slated as the awards presenter.

Hardwicke’s performance inspired me to share some handy tips for anyone finding themselves in a similar situation of emceeing an awards ceremony:

1. If you arrive hours late, such that the awards presentation is moved to the intermission (and then you still arrive late), don’t out yourself as a dropout of the program. Maybe it was just me, but her opener of “Gosh, well, yeah, I really enjoyed my time here at UCLA, even though I left before I got the degree,” didn’t really seem to motivate the young directors and producers in the audience to reach for the stars.

2. If you arrive late (see #1 above), use the time you’re stuck in traffic on the 405 to think about what you might say once you reach the podium. After outing oneself as a dropout, following up with “Uh, so, like am I supposed to say something that will inspire you or sumthin?” isn’t the strongest approach one might take.

3. Okay, let’s say you weren’t late because you were stuck in traffic, but because your wheatgrass shots at Jamba Juice took forever and your Kabbalah meeting went over. In this case you might not get the chance to exercise tip 2 of using the freeway time to prepare something coherent. Getting off to a rough start, you make the previous faux pas. Stay calm, all is not lost quite yet. As long as you do not, under any circumstances, embark on a long diatribe about how “maybe if you work hard and go out there and take some advice and work with the best person you can possibly work with – even if it’s getting their coffee – maybe after you work hard and do that stuff for a while, one day some of you will get lucky and have the chance to work on some good stuff. I mean, like I know you’re gonna be sayin, ‘Gee I have 2 degrees and I’m not doing anything big.’ But you know, like maybe at first if you work hard and do some grunt work, and after that maybe some of your will succeed. So good luck and congratulations.”

I leave you with these guidelines so that your own addresses to graduates of prestigious film schools may leave your audience, more, rather than less, likely to see your work than before you began speaking.

Not an L.A. story

2005-06-27T18:08:00.000-07:00

The Appreciate Southern California Weather tour officially wrapped up today.

First, it turned out that the 93 degrees that welcomed me to Texas was due to an overcast sky. No matter - it was fun. Despite being mostly lazy, I met up with some friends from high school and from college. I ate sno-cones. I played with my parents' dog Hank.

I rode in cars at speeds I've only dreamed of since moving to L.A. I arrived at destinations in travel times consistently correlated with their distance from my places of origin. I puzzled over this sign:

I think it may be about masturbation, but I'm not sure.

My friend Krista picked me up from the Phoenix airport with news that it had cooled off to a mere 108 degrees in the Grand Canyon State.

Some of the weekend was spent on various arrangements for Krista's upcoming wedding. Krista mostly arranged and negotiated, Bethany and I concentrated our efforts on constructive role play.

I played with the supercute Henry, the adopted cat at Krista's house.

Henry's favorite activities include sleeping and watching television. Henry is really cute. We're really good friends now. Isn't she (yes, I meant that - Henry's a girl) cute?

I appreciated this mountain in the alpenglow.

And then someone else took the very last picture of my trip.

I had lunch with some friends on the way home from the airport today. Afterward I mentioned to someone who had also arrived in town this morning that I always like leaving Los Angeles and I always like returning to Los Angeles. "Yeah," he consented, "but I like returning just a little less than I like leaving." Indeed.

Dialing up is hard to do.

2005-06-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

Back in Southeast Texas, I’ve been doing my best to embrace some of the local customs. A very important part of life here is offering up a significant portion of one’s flesh for consumption by local insects.

A log of my recent contributions:

1. Playing Frisbee w/ my parents’ dog: 10 mosquito bites
2. Going for a walk with my mom: 4 mosquito bites.
3. Getting out of the car at a restaurant: 3 fire ant bites
4. Waiting in the sno-cone line, general miscellany: 7 mosquito bites

I did some serious binging on the television front. After a day of grunt work at a house my parents are remodeling, my sister and I logged 8 hours of The Learning Channel and HGTV. My mom posted an impressive 7. 5 hours, but my dad came home from the other house to mow our own yard, only catching about 15 minutes of an especially entertaining episode of What Not to Wear.

True to form, I’ve oscillated between slothful recluse and budding socialite. Well, okay, the slothful recluse has been winning out. Dinner plans last night and tonight account for the sum total of my socialite tendencies. No need to overdo it.

Stick a fork in me. . .

2005-06-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. The onus is on me to look away, to avoid the aberrant click to Defamer for all the gossip from the frontlines of the industry serfs. It’s like rubbernecking – yes, it’s more tasteful and refined to look away, but this isn’t the front parlor of the Junior League.

The relentless parade of nonmomentary lapses of sanity and public overtures step beyond acceptable realms of beard-dom or shameless promotion. I am officially sated. Celebrity gossip is interesting because it’s gossip – stuff I'm not supposed to know. When I know too much, I stop caring. Sort of like how moments of sleep are sweeter when I’ve hit snooze three times than after I give in and call in sick. Does “Tomkat” not remember “Bennifer” (part I)?

I’ve heard more than enough about religious conversions, cupcakes, the Eiffel tower, and the ‘best friend’ on staff to keep Katie Holmes on the straight and narrow.

I want to read about Hugh Grant buying vegetables, Lisa Kudrow walking her dog, or Peter Krause being hot. I think it’s high time to take stock of the celebrities who’ve chosen not to saturate the blogwaves and grocery store checkout lanes with ridiculous self-promotion and general insanity. How about regular, good-natured actors who tolerate some mild paparazzi now and again? Let’s give a hand for the Reese Witherspoons & Ryan Phillippes, the Tom Hanks & Rita Wilsons of Hollywood.

If there’s a silver lining to the nauseating obsession with Tom Cruise’s abduction of Katie Holmes' soul (and chances of working on anything other than Scientology recruitment videos), it’s that I may hate Paris Hilton a little less.

Liberation!

2005-06-15T17:49:00.000-07:00

Hooray for me!

2 things:

1. Yesterday my arduous efforts to get my funding back paid off. Originally the Grad Division wanted to give me 43% of the money the government is giving them to give me. Now they're giving me 87% of the money the government is giving them to give me.

How did I celebrate the near miss with bit parts in poorly-produced adult films? By cashing in my frequent customer card for a free yogurt, of course.

2. Summer officially begins. . . NOW! By "summer," I mean the time when I TA, make sense of some new data, start a new IRB (if you don't know, it's about as fun as filing taxes), and be a nanny. Nevertheless, this show is hitting the road for 10 days tomorrow, so stay tuned for adventures from abroad (or not abroad, as the case may be).

Way Off Broadway

2005-06-13T13:54:00.000-07:00

This weekend I saw the political satire "I'm going to kill the president: A federal offense." It looks like it's been running around the country for a couple of years now, but you have to call a hotline to get the meeting place and showtime.

Per the instructions, we arrived at the designated intersection 30 minutes before showtime. About 20 people are gathered on a street corner in a mostly warehouse area when a guy in his late twenties shows up and leads us away with a chin flip and an curt, "follow me, please." We follow him a few blocks and are directed to line up against a wall in an alley, where we provide our names and assurances that we're not affiliated with a law enforcement agency to a video camera. We walk a few more blocks and enter a little theater through the back gate.

We pay in cash.

The show I caught started at 11PM, and we were asked not to tell anyone the names of the performers were we to recognize them. The playbill had the names of the actors and crew blacked out. I believe the cast is associated with those who brought Abu Ghraib torture reenactments to the RNC last year.

Some elements of the show reek of a low budget endeavor produced by a bunch of stoners. Other parts, on the other hand, are extremely authentic and compelling. Overall, it's a pretty good show to catch if you have the chance, if only for the arousal/fright aspect of considering what life could be like if the far right drove progressive liberal thinking underground. As is common for all productions in America, I advocate not volunteering when the actors ask for one from the audience. My Swedish date, however, was not hip on this tradition of wizened, American reluctance in such situations and shot his hand up immediately. This wasn't his first misstep of the evening, but that is another story altogether.