Persistent Unwanted Thoughts

typewriter

2011-04-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

I sprained my arm on Sunday (it's almost well now) so I had to go to the doctor this week. As part of her examination, Dr. Julie asked me what I do for a living. Tech writing. "Do you write on a computer or a typewriter?"

Seriously. She meant that as a real question, I know because I double checked. It was weird because just the weekend before I had shown a friend the writing process I use, which involves an IDE, a specialized kind of XML, some HTML, a content management tool, a source control system, a Java archive file, some bug-tracking software, an editor in India whose time zone I need to coordinate with, and two different review sites. The outputs I produce are for websites you can view on mobile devices. Nowhere in any of this is paper, or even anything resembling paper. And I'm pretty sure they don't make typewriters anymore.

But for one lovely black-and-white film noir moment, I pictured myself stacking a neatly-typed manuscript on my desk, then just reapplying my lipstick before ringing for the messenger boy to deliver my latest pages to editing. (Which is downstairs, not in India.) I have no idea what instructions I would write (I only know how to write about software) but I do know the whole scenario involves me living in New York City, where some sort of thrilling crime is about to occur.

Anyway. I'm supposed to be writing a paper, my last before graduating, right now. I'm also supposed to be reading Pale Fire, the book that makes me truly understand all the ways in which I dislike Vladimir Nabokov. But whatever, I'm not.

Something I've wanted to write about all year is the incredible beauty of the Bay Bridge that's being built. I drive past it ten times a week, half of those at night, and each time it takes my breath away. There was a newscast that my friend Wendy hates in which a warning was issued, "The new bridge is being erected and drivers are cautioned that it will be very beautiful, so do not look." Wendy thinks drivers that are too stupid to keep their eyes on the road deserve exactly what they get, but I adore this warning.

At 10 o'clock at night, when the streets are relatively empty and lately, rain slicked, and I'm tired because I've been up since 6:00 AM, first at work and then at school, the approach to the gorgeously lit, super-saturated white first column is nothing short of inspiring. A work of art dangerous in its beauty.

Okay, now I need to go write a paper in order to graduate.

indecent exposure

2010-09-23T02:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged since the Napa Valley conference listed all our blogs for each other and since the guys at work showed me how easy I am to cyberstalk. So tonight is the first time I ever viewed my traffic stats (Yep, yep, two readers. If you include that Bollywood guy who is hoping I'll reveal some new screenplay plot even though I had to heavily redact the last one.)

The traffic stats make me sad. Apparently, people Google "inventions" and get dumped into my inventions I want invented post. I have seriously let those (18) people down. And the other six are Googling shiny new australia and come up hands empty with me. I feel like I've reached into their hearts, ripped out seven and a half minutes worth of heartbeats, and yelled, "You'll never get this time back, loser!"

The solution is to take my blog off search, but nobody I know has bookmarked it. Come to think of it, no one I know can remember its name either, so search is useless here. Which leads me to the realization that without the geeks I have no one.

How can this not have occurred to me until now?

validated

2010-09-23T01:53:00.000-07:00

Forget that in the past month I've started classes, aced the GRE (um, well, verbal, not math), painted my living room, written an acclaimed (only by my T.A. but whatever) short story, gathered four job recommendations, and finished my application to Hedgebrook. Biggest all-time unemployment achievement: I'm now an approved commenter on Gawker.

Here is the story of my struggle.

At first I didn't know you had to audition to comment on Gawker, so I wrote kind of a stupid comment about oleanders being poisonous. Oh, how I cringe thinking about it. (It was meant to be funny but the story is too long and involved.) After that initial humiliation, I didn't comment for a very long time. And in fact, I've blocked out my second failed attempt so I can't even recount it here.

But my third. My third was a piece of genius. For an article about how a New Republic editor said that he wasn't sure Muslim-Americans deserved the privilege of free speech, I wrote, "How many Muslim-Americans can name all ten amendments in the Bill of Privileges?" That's like the best joke I'll ever make -- which should indicate to you that you need to begin smoking a lot of weed in my presence if you haven't started already.

Anyway, they despised my third attempt. They didn't even respond. (Hey, it occurs to me that now that I'm approved I could sneak back and post it just out of spite. Coolness.)

I wasn't going to make a fourth attempt. I planned to always remind myself that I could never transcend my bill of privileges moment so I should never waste time trying. But then they posted an article about school anxiety and, well, er, I've been pretty emotional what with all this statement of purpose crap I have to do for grad school apps, so before I knew it I was pouring out my heart to the overworked hipster editors at Gawker.

And they liked me! They really liked me! They didn't roll their eyes or anything (or maybe they did because sometimes they post stuff sardonically just to rile people up, but I'm so happy I don't even care). Three separate people replied nice things to me. It's not necessary to point out that probably hundreds were too polite to tell me they hated me and thousands more were too bored to register any emotion about me whatsoever. Three people were nice!

Which means: I now have a lifetime-until/unless-banned approval to comment on Gawker. It's like living in Brooklyn! It's like wearing baby bangs and red lipstick while going to parties in Brooklyn. Really, it's exactly like that, annoying and obnoxious in just the same way. Reality check: I'm nowhere near approved to write for Gawker. I'm only allowed to comment on Gawker, which really should be a right guaranteed to all Americans.

But whatever! Tonight I wanted to post about Mr. Snuffleupagus and I did, without anybody's permission. Tomorrow, if I feel like writing about my Obama sex fantasies, I will. Someday I might even go off topic, dare to dream.

The real lesson in all of this is that acceptance came only after I allowed my true self to be known. That or else they thought my true self might inspire enough snarky comments to be entertaining.

Or maybe the real lesson is that I need to spend more time looking for a job.

in

2010-05-30T23:13:00.000-07:00

I was accepted to the Napa Valley Writer's Conference this summer, and I'm embarrassingly happy about it.

Possibly because it took almost five solid writing classes at SFSU for it to dawn on me that we aren't graded on our writing. This, even though one of my close friends teaches writing at Cal and regularly re-explains CW grading to me.

Basically, for reasons I was about to delineate before it occurred to me mid-sentence that I still don't understand, students are pretty much graded on their ability to come to class, occasionally say something if they aren't too shy, complete assignments on time, and loosely follow instructions. ( Following "instructions" never requires the proper use of punctuation, any basic understanding of grammar, or text formatted in a readable font size or color. Oh, and it's totally okay to use words you don't know without looking them up first.)

All that is pretty discouraging. Apparently, you can get straight A's in writing classes and still graduate, dangling modifiers and mixed metaphors and all. So being accepted to a workshop solely on the basis of a short story I wrote (and, you know, that whole fee payment thing) is way incredible -- it feels like an actual achievement, not just like managing to show up. I've never sent out any fiction before -- and while being allowed to workshop a story is a long, long way from being allowed to publish a story, it's a giant step for me.

When I told my mom, she said, "A book publisher tells a writer, "We love every word of your story." The writer is thrilled. Then the publisher says, "Could you just put them in a different order for us?"

cyberstalking hyperhooping

2010-03-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted since not one but two guys at my job bragged to me about how quickly and effortlessly they had cyberstalked me. One pretended it was a coincidence. He apparently happened to be reading a book that was a compilation of letters to Ask Cecil, when he came across my tirade about dual citizenship laws. Don't get me started on dual citizenship; I become eerily emotional.

But anyway, it's hard not to blog. There are so many crazy things happening in the world inviting comment. Like! One of my cyberstalking friends taught me to hula hoop last week! (I realize that I should've already known how, but my memory of hooping is that you can maybe balance 3 or 5 times, but after that it slinks to the ground. Unless you're married to the president, of course, and then you can casually hoop 23 times in a row while doing an interview about the presidential fitness council and wearing a matching spring sweater set.

So when Sam threatened to bring his hoop to work, I knew that I needed to at least try to be like Michelle Obama, even if I never regained my dignity after the attempt. Neither Sam nor I have parking permits this quarter, so our cars were tucked neatly away on a quiet side street away from the prying eyes of our coworkers (although I suspect he may have secretly taped the whole thing).

Sam brought a giant-sized heavy-duty hoop out of his trunk, that he claimed he made himself at a hoop-making party. (I never get invited to stuff like that.) It was made from some special plastic piping, soldering was involved, and I had to listen to a discourse on the friction coefficients of different types of duct type. There were no beads swirling around inside the hoop, which I considered a major design flaw.

Sam disagrees, but his credibility was lost sometime around when he started setting hoops on fire and then hooping with them until the flames died down. Anyway, his tricked-out hoop was a little intimidating. I worked really hard to keep it aloft and was, to my astonishment, actually doing it, despite that Sam seemed to be laughing about something -- maybe a friend had just texted him a joke? After I stopped he told me, "You can stand in one place. You don't have to walk around while you're hooping."

After that, we discussed the exact knee motion (ovals, mostly front to back) and I resumed operation loss of dignity. I was much better this time -- hey, hardly any motion is required! I suddenly saw how people could do this "indefinitely." And I saw how I could be one of those people, which really made up for the whole swirly bead disappointment.

I mean, imagine my new life. I'd move to Washington, D.C. I'd stand outside the White House. I'd have my whole sweater set picked out. And then all I'd need to do is start hooping. Before very long, Obama would come out, tell me (without naming names) how much better I hoop than anyone he knows, and then, because I'm so easy to cyberstalk, he'll mention that he read my letter in Savage Love (but hopefully not the one in Ask Cecil) and summarily divorce his wife and embark on a lifetime of optimal friction coefficients with me.

It's that simple, people! Knees in an oval motion!

japanese schoolgirl

2010-02-19T02:42:00.000-08:00

Last night I popped over to the neighbor's apartment mostly to check out their decorating scheme. (I saw Colin's bachelor pad back in the day; now I had to see which direction Eleanor's design sensibilities had taken his new apartment.) They had a houseguest there from Japan and we ended up having what I now consider one of the greatest conversations of my life.

After spending quite some time listening to Pica's travel plans to visit the Peru, the New Orleans, and the Carmel, I had to put a stop to her definite article abuse. This led to an interesting discussion comparing Japanese and English grammar, in the midst of which I remembered that I don't speak Japanese. This is how much of a nerd I am: even though I don't know the language, I'm familiar with the grammar. In fact, I'm a highly-trained speaker of pseudo-Japanese (which basically means I know that I'm supposed to introduce the subject before the verb as in, "About that cookie. Are you going to eat it?) I even used to know the Japanese word for "about" although I've forgotten it now.

It turned out that Pica is in a band and that she's opened for Shonen Knife. (My favorite Japanese band by virtue of being the only Japanese band I know of.) Pica met Eleanor when Eleanor went to Japan to do a documentary on her band. The director of the film quit so it was never finished, but Eleanor still has a lot of raw footage on VHS that Pica has never seen. Which prompted Eleanor to ask,

"Do you have a VCR?"
I said, "Yeah, sure, you have a key to my place so just come over and watch it tomorrow while I'm at work."
She no sooner thanked me than Pica asked,
"Oh, and do you have a schoolgirl outfit?"

You know how, when something unexpected happens, you have several thousand thoughts simultaneously? Here are some of mine:

1. Of course. It's totally natural that a Japanese rock star would ask that.
2. What is it about videotape that makes people immediately associate it with schoolgirl outfits?
3. I should have a schoolgirl outfit! It's like a little black dress -- every woman should own one.
4. Wait. My roommate does own one.
5. How do I know that about my roommate?
6. Is Pica going to wear it or does she want me to wear it?
7. There's gotta be a reasonable explanation.

The best thing about people who barely speak English is that they say everything in this totally deadpan way. Pica had already made me cry tears of laughter by describing her Peruvian toothache, her nude modeling job ("No moving! I spent three years not moving!"), and the various incarnations of Shonen Knife. The schoolgirl outfit explanation promised to be good.

It was actually pretty simple, albeit strange. Pica didn't go to her high school graduation ceremony, so Eleanor and Colin are going to recreate the ceremony here. Pica thought it would be a good idea to get an authentic schoolgirl outfit for the occasion. I told her I could hook her up with a pleated skirt.

The thing is, when I got home Christina was still out somewhere so I had to leave her a note. And the note had to explain "for a joke, not for sex." When I woke up this morning there was a microscopic plaid skirt, complete with a shoebox of patent leather mary jane platforms, on the dining room table. I loved the gratuitous shoes more than anything.

But when I came home from work, the outfit was still there. I took it down to Pica's house to give to her. She looked puzzled and said, "That is a schoolgirl outfit here?" Then it hit me that Japanese schoolgirls wear navy we-were-conquered-in-WWII blue, not Catholic plaid. That's why she didn't take the outfit earlier -- she didn't recognize it as a school uniform. I reassured her that it was and she seemed okay with it even though it probably screwed up, like, only the biggest day of her life.

Walking home, I pieced together some more parts of the story. In Japanese Pica was probably thinking, "school uniform" but in English that got translated to "schoolgirl outfit" without her being aware of the shift in connotation. Which is why she could ask me for one without any hesitation. And since everyone in Japan wears school uniforms, she probably thought most people would have an old uniform lying around. Which is why she assumed I'd have one.

So in the end it all makes incredibly non-sexual sense. And I'm not even going to attempt to make grammatical sense of all my other simultaneous thoughts and feelings.

secret agent

2009-12-28T00:27:00.000-08:00

There's a whole backstory about how one of Sequoia's littermates was adopted by a family who lived a few blocks from me and that's how I met Rachel and Alice, the teenage girls who keep me au courant on teen idols, media trends, and high school (mis)interpretations of literary classics. I met Rachel when she was 12, but fast foward: now she's applying to colleges.

And today her mom told me that she wrote about me in her application essays. And I know what you're thinking, but no! It was not part of some cautionary tale.

Her essay began, "Since I was a little kid, I wanted to grow up to be a secret agent. Everyone laughed at me, except for [insert my full name here, which I don't want to include even though it appears in the sidebar -- I have my reasons]." Then she went on to say how I sent her links to CIA and Secret Service websites that had information about internships and degree requirements. And that's how she decided to learn three foreign languages during high school (yes, she's amazing) and then apply to major in International Studies.

I don't know which makes me happiest: the fact that I encouraged someone to pursue her dream and now she really is pursuing it, or the fact that the dream I encouraged is so zany. I mean, I totally love that it felt completely normal to me to figure out how a 12-year old girl could become a secret agent. I was curious. It never occurred to me (until I heard her mom say the words "secret agent" aloud) that anyone would laugh at that choice of profession. But when I hear it told back to me, it's hilarious. It's exactly the kind of nutty thing that I (insert full name here) would encourage.

But whatever, it absolutely makes sense. It's a real job that people do and she is the perfect candidate (smart, athletic, ambitious) for work like that. If you don't count blowing your cover on your college application essays at age 17 (and providing counterspies with the full name of who to kidnap and torture and kill when the torture thing doesn't make her talk), she's going to be an outstanding "clandestine service core collector," a job title that only the CIA could dream up and one that rivals "secret agent" for its sheer entertainment value.

Of course, all this means that eventually I'll be responsible for whatever horrific spy fate that may befall her, but for now I feel pretty much like George Baily in It's a Wonderful Life.

big kid cookie

2009-10-23T00:51:00.000-07:00

I'm way younger than my four older siblings, so many of them got stuck babysitting me during their teenage years. The other side of that is that I spent a lot of time seeing what my future as a teenager might be like. Which might sound kinda cool, but in real life it just consisted of being frightened by all the complicated things they had to navigate and master and that I'd never be ready for.

My brother showed me algebra when I was seven. I was just learning whatever it is we learn at that age -- subtraction? But with numbers, people! Because math is done with numbers, not letters. I seriously thought he was playing a prank on me until he brought out his algebra book.

And then he asked my dad (who hadn't gone to high school) to help him with factoring. My dad was really good at "how stuff works" when the stuff was building furniture or fixing machines or just logically figuring something out. But of course he'd never been taught algebra. (This wasn't a traumatic thing, he just reminded my brother that his math ended before algebra began.) So the idea that my brother was doing math that didn't make sense to begin with was compounded -- first by the idea that he couldn't understand it on his own, and then further by the idea that there was no one who could help him. That's the kind of thing that I witnessed a lot as a kid.

My sister's high school Home Ec class had a day when they could bring a younger sibling to school. Actually, I'm just guessing that's why I was dragged to school one day -- I have no idea, really, how I got there or why I wasn't in my own school. All I know is that one day I was on an enormous giant-sized campus with 2,000 people walking by. The whole place was terrifying, but my sister promised me a cookie.

Okay, background: although huge cookies are pretty standard today, they didn't yet exist in the marketing world. Or any world. I'd never seen or heard of a cookie larger than two inches in diameter. Imagine, if you will, a hamburger magnified three times. Or a quart-sized glass of milk. Wouldn't that freak you out? Yes, yes it would.

So she gets me this cookie. And it's -- well, it's standard size now. But if you think of a cookie with radius of six inches, you'll have the idea. The cookie was the most apocalyptic thing I'd ever experienced. I think I started crying. I remember her consoling me that I didn't have to eat it all, and that yeah, it was strangely big. I also remember her Home Ec friends gathering around and sympathizing and remarking that they too had wondered about the cookies. Oh, wait, I just realized -- if she was in high school I was probably only about 4 or 5, so I hadn't even started school yet. God, that cookie was scary.

The big cookies were still there when I started high school. No explanation or anything. They still freaked me out. But a couple of years later, a few places started selling big cookies. In that context they were okay -- it was always some specialty cookie store (which actually, was also a new phenomenon), and the cookies were always presented as this really amazing novelty item. They didn't try to act like big cookies were normal. People were expected to point and stare and laugh and be amazed.

But back to childhood for a second. I was 6 when my sister started college. And of course, I got dragged to college as well, probably on some registration or buying books errand. On this trip, we walked past the handball courts. People were hitting tennis balls against those green backboards that are maybe 20 feet high. I misunderstood and thought they had to hit the balls over the wall. To another person. Whom you can't see. There is no way that it is possible to get that good in a sport.

My sister told me she was required to take P.E., or maybe that she wasn't required to take P.E. -- I was too busy breathing into a paper bag to properly grasp what she was saying. She did end up talking me down -- somehow she managed to communicate that the tennis ball going over the backboard was an accident, not a part of the official game. Still, these are the kinds of visions that haunted my childhood.

So when a friend of Lisa's met me for lunch last summer in order to give me tips about applying to grad school, and then told me how many books she'd be required to read her first year there (which is, I've subsequently learned, more than in any other grad school program anyone I know has ever heard of), all I could think was "big kid cookie." I started worrying that even if my dream of grad school came true, there was no way I could factor the x's, hit the tennis balls 20 feet high, or finish the big kid cookies.

Which is why I was relieved to see her here on a visit this past week, looking happy and well and acting like she isn't on ... oh, wait, I forgot to tell that story. In high school, my brother had a druggie friend that my mom didn't approve of. After graduation, my brother ran into his old friend, who had straightened himself up and was then in college and working part-time. Or full-time, or something that my mother found unbelievable. She said to my brother, in front of me, "He must be on speed." So yeah, I'm glad that grad school chick didn't appear to be on speed, despite how necessary my mom thinks it is to surviving any combination of work and college.

Grad school chick even told me that there are grocery stores where she lives and they sell produce. (Hey, if you've ever visited the midwest or NYC, you'll understand my concern in this regard.) And Lisa said that, instead of the 5 classes a semester that I had imagined, there are only 2 -- although I doubt that I heard that right, because I'm pretty sure you need 36 to 54 units to graduate. Whatever. If there's one thing my childhood should've taught me it's that the future is made up of giant baked goods and there's no need to worry.

improv

2009-09-12T23:22:00.000-07:00

I was really excited to see a friend of mine today, and almost resorted to my old list-of-things-to-talk-about technique because we had only an hour to spend together, but all conversational topics flew completely out of my head when she admitted that she'd just come from her first improv class.

Clearly, we were now required to devote the entire agenda to making fun of her. And although I know blogging about it publically will only incite sympathizers, in your heart you people know that improv is wrong. In fact, improv is so entirely laughable that my friend (let's call her "Michael" after the Office) was caught in the logical paradox of being forced to make fun of herself. She even confided that the first part of class consisted of throwing "sound balloons."

I seriously know, from experience, that me laughing at someone always, always means that -- just like the minor character on Star Trek -- I'll be killed before the episode is over. I know this and yet I do it anyway; I can't help myself. So even though I'm aware that she will:

a. Go on an as-yet-to-be-invented Improv with the Stars reality show and win a million dollars and have sex with George Clooney.
b. Catch a criminal by pantomiming vital information to the police chief behind the bad guy's back.
c. Subsequently be awarded a medal of honor by Barack Obama, who will then leave Michelle for her.
d. Be single-handedly responsible for the next Improv revival and star in major motion pictures with stars I have a crush on.
e. Which will revive our economy, just like Shirley Temple movies did in the 30s.
f. And will inspire her to create a foundation with the profits, for the betterment of humankind.

Even though I know this like I know how many unused condoms are slowly expiring in my nightstand drawer, I still can't keep from laughing mercilessly at her. In fact, I need to devote even more time to the project. I gotta find out if the students go for drinks afterward and if so, where. I need to know if there's a discount if you take a series of improv courses. Plus is there a holiday improv recital so her friends can come watch her do improv? If so, you know I'm declining any invitations to the Bahamas in order to attend. My calendar is cleared for her.

I kept trying to get her to make the "I have a gun" jokes ala Michael and the Office, but for some reason she just wasn't as into it as I am. No doubt she's purchasing an actual gun at this moment in preparation for our next luncheon together, but let's put that image aside for now.

Probably the most hilarious part of this whole misadventure is that her stated reason for signing up for improv is, "I'm shy."

Okay, let's examine. It would take serious futuristic medication to make me exhibit symptoms of shyness, but I've countless times witnessed shy people and their bizarre behavior sets (like not making out with a cute guy simply because they haven't known him a full 90 minutes) so I can infer what kind of torment goes on in those timid little souls.

Still, I envy them their dignity. And perhaps that's where improv acts as a cure: by robbing them of their last shred. Thereby giving them nothing left to lose. My point is: I'm not shy. I would find improv excruiating. Therefore, how did my friend fail to implode into a gooey pile of whirring, once-human parts? I suspect a whole Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheeps? scenario here. In fact, improv could probably replace the Turing test.

This all means, of course, that my friend doesn't need to bother with a gun purchase. She can kill me with her bare legs, Darryl Hannah style. And I'd have to go along with it because as we all know, "Thou shalt not block."

advanced placement

2009-08-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I hiked with Rachel and Alice, the girls who adopted Sequoia's sister. This is Alice's fall schedule (she turns 15 at the end of October):

1: world lit/tebbe. 2: ap chem/glimme. 3: honors algebra 2/henri. 4: spanish 5-6/castillo. 5: adv photo/daly. 6: world history/chodrow-reich.

I swiped her schedule from Facebook and she's a teenager, which is why nothing is capitalized. Don't ask me to explain further; all I know is that teenagers capitalize only upon threat of terrorist attack. Alice's sister Rachel is a senior and is taking ap calculus and ap physics and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember, as well as writing her college applications. After school they play soccer 3-4 times a week.

All this made me realize that I don't just lack a college education; I lack a high school education as well. They're such smart, capable, organized girls. And I'm super super happy that at least some of our future voters will understand basic concepts from science.

But it's still like pulling teeth to get Alice to execute a feminist analysis of a teen chick flick. (17 Again? You're really gonna tell girls not to use condoms?) In that sense, the schools are still failing their students.

tech stuff

2009-08-25T20:04:00.001-07:00

There's a line in Terminator (and yeah, it's my second favorite movie, what of it?) where Kyle Reese tries to describe the future to Sarah Connor. When she questions him about the details, he says, "I don't know tech stuff."

I know exactly how he feels.

I absolutely cannot stand people who can't remember their own phone number, can't give directions to their house, are unable to do simple math in order to make a quantitative decision, or who don't bother to follow clear instructions. And yet...

I have these blind spots. Like pretty much anything to do with television. I know that if I put any effort at all into learning this stuff, I'd start to pass for normal and my life would get that much easier. But I can't urge myself to care, and that's the problem.

Last week, Wendy came over to Melanie's house, where I was dogsitting in the lap of luxury, in order to watch the Project Runway premiere with me. So of course we turn on the TV at the last minute, although Wendy immediately began berating herself because, as she put it, "I told myself, it's Janet so let's give ourselves a half hour to figure out the TV." So anyway, we turn it on. And I don't know what the channel number is for Bravo. Wendy tells me (I think it was "44") but then there is no "44" on Melanie's TV.

So I tell Wendy, "I'm sorry. They don't get Bravo." Problem solved, right? Wendy took one look at the huge flat screen TV with all kinds of menus and gadgets and said, "Yes, they do. Go do a search for Project Runway. It just has a different channel number." I do this, and it works! It works like crazy!

Then Wendy makes me suffer through a whole conversation where she figures out, aloud, that AT&T has different channel numbers from ComCast, even though both Wendy's house and Melanie's are in Oakland, and then she laughs at me for telling her "DVR", in response to her question, "Do they have satellite?"

At the commercial, she makes me go back and tape the show and memorize the channel number (14? I think?). "But we're already watching the show." We can skip the commercials, oh, I hadn't thought of that. "But when will we ever need to know the channel number again?" At this point, Wendy sighs. "You always say that. And do you see how it always comes up again?"

Actually, no. That had seriously never occurred to me before. And yet...hey. Yeah. It always comes up again. Just like me not knowing the name of a single actor or director. Just like I still can't work a VCR even though the technology is now almost obsolete. In fact, similar to the confusing world of radio stations. This stuff always, always, always comes up again.

In fact, I was reminded of a conversation Wendy and I had a few weeks after we met.

Wendy: "My Dinner With Andre is on channel 9 tonight; you should watch it."
Me: (Pretending to go along like I always do, hoping the conversation will end quicker.) "Okay."
Next morning...
Wendy: "Hey, what did you think of My Dinner with Andre?"
Me: "Oh. Um, I didn't watch it. We don't get cable."

That's when she explained that channel 9 is not, in fact, cable. Just plain old public TV. Then, because she's Wendy, she questioned me exhaustively about why I had said I'd watch something I had no intention of watching. The TV was my roommate's, I didn't really know how to work it, and, well, conversations about TV channels make my brain implode.

Fast forward 20 years, and Wendy is still trying to fathom why I can't learn simple technological tasks. She made mincemeat out of the several plausible excuses I offered (among them that I didn't own a TV until, well, okay, my boyfriend owned a TV when were 27, but my very own TV...whatever, she crushed my argument). So although I can kinda figure out how I developed these particular incompetencies, I really can't justify continuing them.

Except. I just don't care. For example: when I was 37 I bought a car. I can't even remember why I bothered to tell anyone, but I think it came up in conversation at work because I had to go pick it up or something. And everyone started asking me what kind of car it was. The thing is, I didn't know. I didn't care. Someone helped me pick it out, it was used and cheap and practical, and I couldn't possibly begin to understand how anyone could make a conversation out of this.

It's the same with which cable company, which channel, which actor...I just want someone else to deal. Certain things I can analyze until the people I'm having a conversation with stab themselves in the eardrums with whatever nearby object they can fashion into a crude implement. But other topics just make my brain cringe -- it just shuts tight behind my eyes, waiting until these people can be distracted by some other less painful topic. I'm like the illiterate successful business owner, deflecting all situations that require literacy.

Except I'm not a successful business owner. And I badly need to watch Project Runway.

plan vs. scheme

2009-08-25T19:46:00.000-07:00

I noticed something recently, and it's the difference between people who "plan" and people who "scheme." Plans usually take longer, accomplish less, and are worked on quietly and steadily, without fanfare. Schemes are far more intriguing and usually fail far more spectacularly.

I don't remember the (no doubt riveting) story of when I first noticed this -- I think I was wondering why something sounded preposterous and then comparing it to some long boring years of hard work that I had read about some successful person doing -- but realizing that there is a difference, that a difference exists, is key. Probably everyone in the world has secretly already known about this all along, but for me it's shiny and new.

I thought about it again last night while watching Julie & Julia. Julia Child spent years studying French cooking at the world's most famous cooking school. Then almost a decade more writing and testing recipes. Julie, on the other hand, spent a year following recipes. Both are awesome, but I would say that "I'll make 10 recipes a week for a year and blog about it" comes under the heading of "crazy and wonderful scheme" whereas, "I'll go to cooking school" would be more a "tediously dull plan."

The fact that a movie depicts the plan only incidentally to the scheme says pretty much everything about how much more we love schemes. I would very much like to say I'm into cultivating this "planning" thing. But I don't know; schemes are so deliciously tempting.

birthplace

2009-08-22T23:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my sister sent me a photo of the house in Los Angeles where, in 1914, my father was born. It's so remodeled now that it doesn't even look like a house that could be that old. It's in a less-than-beautiful part of downtown L.A., of course. I think there wasn't much else to L.A. back then, other than downtown, so of course that's where it is.

This crazy boring now-stucco house really got to me. Because, first, I started wondering how many houses I've lived in that have had babies born in them. Then I started thinking about how comparatively sterile new houses are. No one (I'm not counting hippie kids) is born in a house built after, say 1950. But on the east coast there are houses that are 300 years old! Lots of time for babies to be born. It's weird that now almost all the births are concentrated in hospitals, whereas just a hundred years ago birth and life and death happened everywhere.

The houses I grew up in were built in the 50s and 60s, which means (in my newly formed opinion) that they were cold, inhuman places unblessed by the miracle of birth.

Anyway, I'm also thinking about my dad a lot because in six months I'll be how old he was when I was born. So when he was exactly my age now (and it's my birthday in two days) he already knew I potentially existed.

Okay, which brings up a whole host of other weirdnesses for me to think about, concerning the bizarre circumstances of my birth. Which I probably can't blog about, but suffice to say that I need to ask my mom a lot of questions about how stressed (or not, he was a singularly relaxed guy; I'm nothing like him) he was about her pregnancy.

There was a lot going on, and then on top of everything they were poor and he had just lost his job and they already had four children, one of whom was disabled. I was an utter, complete surprise. And then the birth was really difficult and my mom and I were, apparently (but I'm not sure how much to trust this information) very close to death. My dad came home at 6 am, woke up my 12 year old sister, and started crying. He told her all about how we almost died, but then, when she asked what my name was, he couldn't remember it.

Hey, I just thought of something -- that would've been a complete disaster if I'd been born at home. Maybe I should rethink the sterile 60s houses thing.

Okay, and now I should probably end here, but I keep thinking about what a strange and awful night that must've been for my parents. While my dad was home traumatizing his eldest daughter before the rest of his children awoke, my mom was at the hospital forcing herself to stay awake until sunrise, under some weird belief that if she allowed herself to fall asleep before daybreak, she would never wake up. (See, this is why it's hard to trust the "almost died" thing, although I guess she was in the midst of PTSD.)

Jesus Christ, I just looked up the condition online and yes, um, we both almost died. Plus she was still in big danger for a few hours after I was born, so note to self, don't diss my mom's intuition. But what we had (which I won't name here, because some people I know are hoping to become pregnant at some point) only affects .5% of births, and is much more easily monitored and treated now. Plus it all worked out fine for my mom and me.

It feels both neat and strange to be almost my dad's age when I knew him. I know the next eight years are going to be "wow, I'm now my dad's age when (insert childhood memory here) happened." Makes me feel a completely imaginary kinship toward him -- I mean, obviously I feel a real kinship toward him, but what does our age concordance have to do with anything? His era and life were so different from mine, I doubt finally being his age helps me imagine him accurately.

I hate blogging about something so serious, but perhaps it's obvious anyway, and it's so long ago and abstract -- but it strikes me, still, that the night I was born he grieved for me, and that after that I've lived almost my whole life grieving for him.

I guess we both had hard jobs.

you don't make lists anymore

2009-08-14T01:12:00.000-07:00

Last night Lisa stopped by on her way home from San Francisco in order to listen to me complain about how an old boyfriend of mine "doesn't react enough" to my stories. Leading me to suspect (as I do on a regular basis) that I'm a horrible, terrible, really awful conversationalist.

That suspicion led to a whole host of others, most along the lines of the overwhelming evidence that exists to show that I'm bad person, but this train of reasoning was interrupted when Lisa asked, "In the past, have you asked him to hold his responses until the end?"

Long story here. Lisa's from NYC. And I don't think her brain ever moved west. She's maddeningly reactive, jumping in at any intake of breath to conjecture on the six ways you might end that next sentence. I've yelled at her and yelled at her to stop interrupting me, until last week when I finally yelled at her to react more. "Don't just nod! This is huge!" "Oh, sorry, I didn't think you were finished with the story." "I'm not!" It was just, um, lonely without her commentary. I want her interruptions back. Once again, the laugh's on me. Even more so because a few days ago someone criticized me for doing that exact same interrupting thing.

Anyway, no, I didn't ever train my old boyfriend not to interrupt, then forget and wish he'd interrupt more. That's the kind of thing I reserve for Lisa. With that settled, she thoughtfully remarked, "I notice you don't make those lists anymore."

It took me a minute to understand what she was talking about. Then I remembered: quite often I appear at, say, a coffee get-together with a friend, holding a small list of the conversational topics I plan to address. And before Lisa mentioned that I no longer do that, it never, ever hit me how superfreaky weird that is.

Jesus Christ, somebody butterfly net me now. Lists! Of stuff to talk about! And not because I'm worried that we won't think of anything to say. No, it's because I think we'll forget. I create little meeting agendas in order to make the conversation more fucking efficient. Seriously, how is this woman still hanging out with me?

What's even more hilarious is that she's just seen the tip of the iceberg. Those lists are drafted for phone conversations, emails, relatives, neighbors -- wherever there's more than two topics of conversation -- or even one if I have to keep track of it for a week -- a list finds its way into being. How did I become this person? More intriguingly, how did I stop?

I remember rushing to the entry table to retrieve my conversation list whenever Lisa stopped by. I even remember adding to the written agenda during the conversation itself. I just don't remember when it was I abandoned the ridiculously goofy practice.

Lisa told me that she kinda misses the lists. As for me, I miss the spontaneous, unconstrained reactions that lovingly say, "You're fascinating. Now tell me more about your recent discovery of Harry Potter fan porn. "

school's out

2009-08-14T00:25:00.000-07:00

Summer school ended four hours ago, which means I'm officially a third of the way through school. The results of the past few months are:

1. I'm currently in a dysfunctional relationship with yet another twenty-something and will spend the rest of summer vacation plotting ways to extricate myself.

2. I think far more about Calvinism than I would wish on anyone, even a Calvinist.

3. My stomach hurts after I eat.

4. Still no progress on my unpainted dining room, let alone the giant hoarder stacks of unfiled papers. I can, however, recite minor Emily Dickinson poems from memory and provide you with obscure OED definitions for much of her vocabulary. (Did you know "disparage" can mean unequal marriage? And "cochineal" is made from crushed dead insects.)

5. If I hear one more teacher complain about the "smiley face" grading system in the California schools, I will definitely go into rampage mode despite my lack of any better weapon than a squirt gun.

To be fair, I only heard one teacher make the "smiley face" comment, but I've had to listen to her make it four times over the past six weeks.

O, to be a non-student who could rejoinder, "So. What have you published recently?" Instead I give her an actual, real-life smiley face in order to escape becoming any more of a target for the bitter emptiness that constitutes her soul.

Oh, yeah, and there are increasing amounts of caffeine and sleep aids in my life. Ah, bliss, summer vacation. School doesn't start again for...

...13 days. Or six, if I decide to take that programming class.

dating William Blake

2009-07-31T21:28:00.000-07:00

I found the best ever comment board on a William Blake poetry site. I'm afraid they'll take it down, so I must, must, must, if it's the only contribution I ever make to this world, reproduce it here.

Rebecca Smith (7/29/2009 7:47:00 PM)
Hello William Blake. My name is Rebecca Smith i started writing poetry last summer and my first poem was called Summer, i've written over abt 22 poems in the last past months and i have a friend who's working on the book and i plan on getting them published. When did you start writing? ? My favorite poem by you is A Dream. it's lovely! ! ! ! how was writing poetry for you? ? was it hard, or easy? ? for me it's both! ! ! ! your an Awesome writer! ! ! keep up the good work. I hope you reply to my comment i would love to talk to you. Love Rebecca! ! !

Rebecca Smith inspires my utmost awe and admiration. She thinks she's hot enough to pick up on William Blake! If he has in-grave wireless access, he could totally be getting laid right now. And note how casual she is -- no punctuation or spelling check needed. She's a poet! And she's hot! He'll definitely want her bad.

Miss favor (below) is slightly more realistic in that she only thinks she can attract a currently-living person of the opposite sex, but she's still not put off by age, distance, or ethnicity. I thought "health" was suspiciously important to her, until I realized that, unlike Rebecca, she's not turned on by the post-memorial-service crowd. Whatever, favorfrank35 is her man -- hmm, I wonder which came first, Miss favor or favorfrank? Complete coincidence, I'm sure. I love how she chooses her prospective mate entirely on the basis of his appreciation for Romantic poetry (well, that and the results of his last physical), despite the fact that it appears she can barely read or write English.

Babyjoram Benson (5/18/2009 6:13:00 AM)
Hello (favorfrank35@yahoo.co.uk)
My name is Miss favor am 24yr old. I saw your profile today at www.poemhunter.com
and it really acttract me alot i believe that you are the man i have been looking for to share my love; How is your health? i hope all is well with you. I believe that we can move from here; but remember that distance; age and colour dose not matter what matters is the true love and understanding; in my next e-mail i shall include my pictuer; i been waithing for your reply mail me with this mail address for further introduction.
Bye hopeing to hear from you soonest (favorfrank35@yahoo.co.uk)

Here's a more subdued post:

p.a. noushad (6/14/2008 1:37:00 AM)
romantic touch in the poems gives me bliss, good poems.

Although, is it just me or is posting a compliment addressed directly to Blake himself a bit unnecessary?

The next two comments work in concert:

Poppi Westbury (2/24/2008 6:58:00 AM)
His poems speak to the romantic soul in me. I think his work is beautiful, mystical and enthralling.

The Riddler (2/13/2008 9:24:00 AM)
boring made me fall asleep

Next, Barbara Bizarro, back in school! Check out her last line for a sort of heart-wrenching awkward adorable sentiment that sounds like it came straight out of an early Star Trek episode.

Barbara Bizarro (1/30/2008 1:09:00 AM)
I am currently studying this man's poetry back in school, and personally I believe that his work is breathtaking altogether. The simplicity of his writing underlines the little society at the time knew about the consequences of their actions. Not only has this man helped us create our own picture, but he has also pushed his messages across to his readers. His use of simple and understandable vocabulary enables people of different ages to understand what he is implying. Although I don't exactly enjoy my English classes, I have truly been able to love the art of poetry through my own life's events and through his work.
Thank you, Blake, you have inspired me put my own sentiments into words. For that I'll never be able to thank you enough.
May your work rest upon the world's surface for as long as Earth is still inhabited with the memories of its people.

I also defy you not to love "Underlines the little society knew at the time about the consequences of their own actions." Like that guy who invented the tiger! Socially irresponsible creep.

Last, I present Hannah Oak, literary critic for the new millennium:

Hannah Oak (3/11/2006 5:27:00 AM)
Wiliam Blake has an interesting outlook when it comes to writing poems.Its the way he uses theoratical terms in his poetry that fasinates me the most and he also gives a sometimes happy sometimes sad outlook on certain areas on life in which you would quickley over see and not give much thought about.

Yes, Blake makes me often reflect on how much we quickley over see. Like poetry comment boards.

retrofitted

2009-07-29T23:38:00.001-07:00

Today Sequoia and I walked to a cafe and hung out with a neighborhood kid who deflected a whole "reading" interrogation I was conducting (I can't help myself, I'm constantly making the literature equivalent of illegal search and seizure stops with kids) by suddenly mentioning that he can draw "anything." Challenge on.

I happened to have four, count 'em four, different colored pens in my purse. Totally felt like a college student-slash-overprepared mom-type at that moment. (Does anyone else remember that Sesame Street episode where Maria's mom visits and, in a conversation with Oscar the Grouch, pulls out a bar of soap from her purse? Maria reacted with, "Ma, do you always keep a bar of soap in your purse?" which doesn't sound funny when you read it in a blog, but at the time I nearly died laughing because Mrs. Figueroa reminded me so much of my own mom. ) So anyway this kid set to work drawing dogs and flowers and extremely cool cars with "spinners," and I suppose you know what "spinners" means although I didn't know the name of them before.

Then he ceremoniously announced that he was going to draw my house. He was (heroically, in my mind) unperturbed by the fact that he's never seen my house. The drawing he presented had rainclouds, a star, and a dollar sign drawn onto the roof. I asked if those were for good luck. I could totally tell by his hesitation that I had read way more into them than he intended, but he was game to humor me. "Yeah," he nodded, and then said, "and now I'll draw a circle around your house. This will keep the monsters away."

How fucking lucky am I? A lifetime monster repellent, absolutely free of charge, and which, as I interpret it, can be applied to any house even loosely defined as "mine." I immediately experienced a peace of mind previously unknown to me.

And I can confidently report that no monster has yet crossed the fearsome barrier.

photo finish

2009-07-26T01:25:00.000-07:00

I have to repeat a joke my brother made up. He was telling me about how his grandkids catch snails and then hold snail races. I was trying to picture this (How do you keep them going in the same direction? For that matter, how do you keep them going?) and began asking him questions related to "How do they know who wins?"

He shook his head and said, "There's no photo finish for these guys. You've gotta use an oil painting."

My brother is always making up arcane little logic jokes like these, and they always make me laugh for years afterwards. Although I repeated this joke to one person and she totally didn't even smile.

On a related note, my great niece can catch butterflies in her hand, hold them by one wing while they flutter, show them to me, and then let them fly away. She's spooky calm around animals and had my dog (twice her size) adoring her in no time. "How do you know him so well?" she asked me, and I kinda wanted to ask her the same question. But the fact that she, at age four, asked such a thing is indicative of her deep curiosity about animals. How many people care what a dog is thinking? But she already wants to learn how to decode that body language.

I love it when kids have something that is so uniquely theirs. When you see kids do stuff like that, stuff they aren't taught, stuff they're just passionate about, how can you not believe in self-determination?

There's something inside us we can't help. For her it's invertebrate sporting events.

lost weekend

2009-07-26T00:49:00.000-07:00

I visited my family two weeks ago as a sort of end of semester, balmy desert evening, margaritas, and feet in the kiddie pool break. And although I drink so rarely and so little that you may as well say I don't at all, I was really hankering for those margaritas.

Everyone in my family drinks a lot, and I think I just wanted to be left in rather than out. Also, my mom used to have this romantic tradition of sundowners in her garden -- started when she lived in Ojai (buddhist mountain paradise) with her last husband, a man addicted to martinis complete with crunchy alcohol-soaked olives. They had a wonderful vegetable garden they worked on for six months a year, so the backyard was lush and smelled of cucumbers. I loved everything about the sundowners except the bitter taste of alcohol. I brought my own iced tea.

But damn it, this time I was going to partake of my sister-in-law's perfect crumbly salt-rimmed frosty margaritas. Which she made every evening I was there. One night she added homemade guacamole and tortilla chips warm from the pan. And that's how I discovered the joys of alcoholism.

Alcohol! Before an hour had gone by, my brother was singing the Margaritaville song to me and before two hours had gone by we had taught it to my mother. I slept like a baby even in 85 degree heat and despite whatever anxiety always accompanies any visit home. It's almost like it's some kind of magic drug that suffuses happiness and beauty into all that you experience. Where's the down side, people?

I am now seriously considering becoming an alcoholic. Thursday night I drank what is probably my fifth beer of my entire life. Or at least drank 6 ounces of an 8 ounce glass. (I also found out that you can brush and floss until 3 am, but that beer scent is still going to take its sweet time to go away.) I'm not giving up! I've been advised to switch to cider if I want to go the long haul, and that is definitely my plan.

Because going for a beer sounds wonderful. People in bars are fantastic. They sing and talk about how my dog is a Diego Velázquez dog and then the boy you're with tries to kiss you...okay, maybe it was just that one bar visit, but still. That's the kind of magical thing that can happen when you're out for a beer.

I realize that becoming an alcoholic is a huge financial drain -- and to be honest, I've never understood how people afford drugs -- but I totally think it's worth the commitment. It's like when I first got my glasses -- the world is different, the colors are brighter, there is nothing more to want than this.

Last night I half stumbled half floated through the Mission on my way home from my friend's birthday party. I usually dread parties (weirdly because I always have fun) and this one was no exception. But there were mojitos and a view of the city and today I found myself counting the days until the next friend of mine has a birthday. Which is in 3 weeks and I already know what I want to order.

I've spent pretty much my whole life fearing alcoholism; now it's time to embrace it. Just the few drinks I've had so far have given me a glimpse of the world in which work problems are left at the office, indiscriminate sex might be had, and family conversations don't leave your head hurting for days. So this is what life is like for other people! They never have to actually get over anything; the alcohol takes care of that for them.

No wonder so many people are way less anal retentive than me.

vowel sounds

2009-07-25T15:54:00.001-07:00

I was doing research for a paper I wrote about an Emily Dickinson poem, and I found out that each vowel sound has a relative pitch associated with it. Is this like the craziest thing you've ever heard or what? I'm racking my brain, but even news of the platypus was not as startling. Okay, wait -- piranhas. Piranhas, which I first learned about in my school library in the second grade, were just as startling. Vowel pitch is the emotional equivalent of flesh-eating fish with teeth.

Having gotten that out of the way, I can already say that I've researched the web and contacted two, count 'em, two, music experts -- one of whom apparently took an entire course on vowel pitch while doing his masters. And neither of them can tell me which vowel sounds are lower/higher than which.

In fact, my friend Andy not-so-helpfully pointed out that "Higher pitches are put on the upper lines of the staff, lower pitches on the lower." Which says more about what he thinks of my musical education than it does anything else. I wanted to email back, "Btw, nouns are a person, place or thing." Instead I called him to formally lodge a complaint. He's taking the matter to his brother (who teaches music at NYU) and his dad (who is just an all around geek who sings and speaks French, although how the latter is connected was not made clear to me.) So I have a team of crack experts now working on this question; stay tuned.

This is exactly the kind of thing that I find both thrilling and unsettling: there's so much to learn about the world, and you can never know enough.

sex drive

2009-07-25T15:35:00.001-07:00

After spending a week complaining to my friends about this guy I just met...and then another week complaining about how strangely attracted I am to him in the midst of a giant sea of unattraction...I am now completely in the throes of a biological urge that is bigger than the both of us.

And this is what I hate about sex drives. They're biologically designed to be stronger than any kind of logic humankind can devise, and right now one is kicking my ass. I just know I'm about to become the victim of another doomed romance; I could sew together a Christo/Jeanne-Claude art piece with all the red flags.

But I still can't think properly about anything else.

women of low caliber

2009-07-22T00:54:00.001-07:00

I just read a letter some guy wrote in to a sex advice columnist saying that he'd been dating women "of low caliber." What a fantastic phrase! I'm not sure how to get classified as such (and I'm probably dangerously close to meeting the qualifications) but I am absolutely dying to have an ex-boyfriend say that about me. In theory, that is.

Which reminds me -- Wendy had a friend, Tim, who lived in New York. At one point he was pressured into attending some neighborhood meeting, which he dealt with by getting stoned beforehand. Backstory, on the block where he lived there was a Catholic charity halfway house for women that he jokingly referred to as The Home for Wayward Women. At the meeting, he got caught up in the community spirit, so he went up to the podium and spoke in support of the nuns who wanted to start more neighborhood projects. "The Home for Wayward Women does great work..." A nun interrupted him, "Thank you, dear. It's The Brandon Residence." He nearly died of embarrassment before stumbling home to call Wendy in California because it was too late to call anyone in New York.

Postscript: A few years ago I made a Home for Wayward Women joke to Wendy, who, it turned out, had no memory of the event. I love it when stuff like this happens; friends of mine are always reminding me of some crazy story I've told them and then completely forgotten about. It's like finding a $20 in your coat pocket.

Oh, wait, another story! I had a boyfriend whose mom was visiting California from the Midwest. They had lunch at an outdoor cafe and a homeless guy spare changed them. When I saw them at dinner he made me try to guess her response. Before I could even think through the question, she said (with dreamy eyes), "He was a wayfaring stranger." Apparently she'd been swept away by her own imagined romance of the homeless guy's life. A couple of years later he'd forgotten all about the incident and swore that "wayfaring stranger" was a phrase I'd come up with by myself. As if I were anywhere near that clever, but hey, that's why I liked him.

summer roommate

2009-07-18T22:28:00.000-07:00

I swore to myself that I wouldn't write about how much I seriously hate my summer roommate, but it's either that or her body washes up near Point Richmond. (Which is an oddly popular body dumping site, btw. I feel like it should have its own twitter channel.)

So. I'm about to start listing all the ways S.R. annoys me when I realized that I've sort of forgotten how to blog. Right now I'm avoiding a paper on Emily Dickinson, which is really just a paper on a single poem by Emily Dickinson, which actually boils down to one word and two punctuation mark revisions in a poem by Emily Dickinson. And that I can write about, which makes me infinitely sad. Because whether or not God is the "further" of ourselves or the "maker" of ourselves, and what that says about Emily's subversive atheism, is so, so, less important than how much olive oil my roommate steals from me.

But wait! I have to talk about this guy's paper! He lives in Berkeley and so we carpool. He's very groovy in class and so I had this idea that he was this "my life is organized" brainiac. Only with a sensitive side. But no, he's a total fuckup and he spent last weekend basically begging me to write his damn paper for him. He didn't phrase it that way. He phrased it, "Let me buy you a glass of wine and we can meet and discuss my paper," and several variations on that theme. Until I started deleting his voicemails without listening. He wrote seven drafts of a five-page paper, then made me listen to him read it on our commute to class. All this and yet...he refused to follow three different important instructions. This is what makes me crazy about people. How hard is it to use a standard margin size and not quote outside sources? Ugh, whatever, back to my roommate.

She steals olive oil. And she leaves stuff lying around, in exactly the same place, untouched, for weeks. She has this ugly hipster friend who is smelly and spends the night a lot. At one point I loaned her some Neosporin, then told her I'd leave it out on the bathroom cabinet for her in case she needed it again the next day. A week later I saw it in the cabinet on her shelf. And the next day I heard her offer it to her friend. In other words, she appropriates. (Why so much Neosporin? They formed a girl band named Pissy, they rehearse in our backyard, and they get blisters from their guitar strings. Heavy sigh.) Try to forget about the awesome band name for a second and focus on my pain.

And if she does something that normal people would apologize for, like burn the bottom of my nonstick pan, she simply disappears for several days hoping the whole incident will be forgotten. In fact, she never communicates about anything. Paying the rent five days late? No problem! There's really no need to mention something as silly as that.

Okay, but here's the real issue: her passive-agressive non-communication style forces me to look into the abyss of my own communication shortcomings. In my lifetime, even in recent memory, even this summer, I've been her so many times.

Which brings me to Christina. Christina is my real roommate. The roommate of serenity and joy and long conversations about zombies over morning coffee in the kitchen. Christina is someone I can pee in front of, someone who explains how she talked her boyfriend into a tricky new sex move, someone who eats spaghetti-o's and knows what it's like to grow up in a small town, and who discusses Edward Said and who gets me, really really gets me. Christina is the most amazing woman I've ever met. Because she knows how to do what none of us mere mortals have really mastered: communicate.

When she first moved in, she asked me every stupid question a roommate could concoct, including, "Do you think it would be okay if I used some of your pet stain removal to clean up my dog's vomit from your rug?" She asked permission for everything. "Can I put my coffee maker on the counter?" "Can I give your dog some peanut butter?" She wore me down with her insane politeness, until Christina could do absolutely anything, including use five gallons of my olive oil, and I wouldn't object.

Lisa thinks I love Christina because of Christina's intrinsic awesomeness. And there's a lot to be said for that theory -- Wendy developed an instant girl crush on her, she's that charming. But I think there's more to it than that. Because Christina could do all of the same things S.R. has done (including let her best friend accidentally lock me out of my house) and I wouldn't care. I mean, I love Christina, foibles and all. And part of that is just how much fun she is and how kind and how nice she is to me. But most of it is how fucking up front she is. She sort of wears you down with communication until you can't resist. You know how it's supposed to be easier to get forgiveness than permission? Christina taught me how obviously wrong that is. Much, much easier to get permission.

And when she comes back, I'm going to -- well, not do anything weird with olive oil, because that would pretty much ruin our friendship -- but I'm going to do something nice like buy her and her friends a package of Neosporin.

it's possible to have sex in my bedroom

2009-07-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

Conditions in my bedroom have improved to the degree that limited sex is now theoretically possible. And not just the masturbate then cry yourself to sleep kind (that kind was always available). I'm talking about actual sex involving at least two human partners.

And probably at most two, since we're still light years away from advanced highly-technological sex. There will be no homemade chocolate chip pancakes in the morning, although I did purchase an extra toothbrush as proof of concept.

One day, it may even be possible to have sex in my bedroom with me. Science is working steadily toward that goal (which has been called "Not impossible. Just improbable.") and is hoping to make great strides within the coming year.

I'm not ready to invite alpha testers yet, but today I put all the furniture back where it was supposed to be, organized the contents of my closet, and cleaned the floor, including under the bed.

Now all I need are some vanilla scented candles.

the new phone book is here!

2009-06-10T23:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight Lisa stopped by to say hi and show me her just-published cook book, Cook Food.

We made tea and she sat in the kitchen with me while I did, um, food-related things. Like make pasta from a prepared sauce. And throw out some stuff I neglected to eat last week. (Not without guilt, understand.) And, triumph, roasted some sweet potatoes just the way Lisa had laboriously taught me to do. She hung out for an hour or so, then Sequoia and I walked her home. Totally casual evening. Nothing to remark upon.

When I got home I sat down at the kitchen table to snack on sweet potatoes and procrastinate on homework by idly flipping through her incredibly beautiful cook book. Which is how I found out that I'm in the acknowledgments! I'm famous!

I now know exactly how Steve Martin felt when the new phone book came out. (Which logically implies that there's a sniper out there reading those selfsame acknowledgments, but let's set that aside for the moment.)

I'm so excited! My name is in a book on Amazon! My whole, entire name! True, I'm praised for my cooking "curiosity," a hilariously polite term for "Lisa, what's cumin?" But I also got a shout out for my sharp editorial eye ("Lisa, remember to explain to people what cumin is") and there's no way I'm looking that gift horse in the mouth.

Mostly, I can't believe I had the privilege of being any small part of the coolness that is this cook book. Hard to explain, but it's strangely sentimental for me (the book, not the acknowledgment -- although, yeah, that too).

Because -- for example -- when I was a kid I was the only kid in school who brought sandwiches on whole wheat bread. In fact, I realize I will not be believed here but: I had to explain to the other kids what it was. They'd never seen non-white bread before. My mom graduated from whole grains to granola to avocados (which were oddly rare back then) to yogurt (new to west coast Protestants).

"Health food" was important in our family, and we were always on the 70s cutting edge of food fashion. We shopped at a tiny "health food store" located in a strip mall. In fact, I think Laurel's Cook Book (my bible when I was 17) mentions something about how great it would be if junk food stores became marginalized, and health food became the real food sold in grocery stores. That dream has pretty much come true, at least in Berkeley. People are about as likely to open a new health food store as they are a video rental place.

My grown up life has definitely been an increasingly refined approach to eating in a way that I believe in, excuse the religious phraseology. But the "belief" has more to do with the idealism that my mom's 70s cooking represented than it did with any specific religious food tenets.

The audacity of food, if you will. That there would be a future that included whole foods that are whole in every sense of the word, including sensory experience. Foods that possess a certain serenity. Food that comes with no ad campaigns, no pesticides, no factory farms, no intercontinental shipping, no substandard labor conditions. And also no asceticism. Lisa's cook book pretty much encompasses that ideal.

And did I mention I'm listed in the acknowledgments?