vinyasagirl

Gil Hedley: fuzz buster.

2010-09-17T07:38:00.000-07:00

Where have I been? Well, lots of places, really, considering it's been a year or more since I've been here.

School is one of the places I've been. Over the last year, I've had the good fortune to work and learn with some of the most brilliant minds in yoga, chiropractic, physical therapy, sports medicine, gait analysis and functional movement.

One of my favorites was Leslie Kaminoff, author of the best-selling book Yoga Anatomy and all-around genius when it comes to breathing, the body, and innovative ways to think about movement. Leslie introduced me to this guy, Gil Hedley.

As legend has it, for a good part of his life, Hedley walked around with his nose buried in religious & philosophical texts, barely moving his body. One day he woke up and, I suppose, had an epiphany. He changed course, started getting curious about movement, and now dedicates his time to exploring inner space. That's probably an over-simplification of the story, but you get the idea.

Anyway, this video is genius. An easy to understand break down (pun intended) of what happens in the body when we don't move. On the most basic level, this is why a regular yoga practice is critical to keep your fascia happy. Enjoy!

Love each other. Y'hear?

2009-09-19T22:19:00.000-07:00

Summer Vacation

2009-08-03T08:59:00.001-07:00

Eventually I'll be back.

Kombuchaholic

2009-07-19T14:23:00.000-07:00

Soup cans : Warhol :: Komucha bottles : me

Summer Wish List

2009-07-08T14:46:00.000-07:00

It's actually a year-round wish list, summer just intensifies the yearning.

Dear Santa: Please could you make a special off-season delivery?

This ad ran somewhere between 1962-1964

Check out the copy:

Do you have the right kind of wife for it?

Can your wife bake her own bread?
Can she get a kid's leg stitched and not phone you at the office until it's all over?
Find something to talk about when the TV set goes on the blink?
Does she worry about the Bomb?
Make your neighbor's children wish that she were their mother?
Will she say "Yes" to a camping trip after 50 straight weeks of cooking?
Let your daughter keep a pet snake in the back yard?
Invite 13 people to dinner even though she only has service for 12?
Name a cat "Rover"?
Live another year without furniture and take a trip to Europe instead?
Let you give up your job with a smile?
And mean it?
Congratulations.
Let's rewrite it for 2009:

Do you have the right kind of husband for it?

Can he cook dinner (and enjoy it)?
Does he tell you to take the day off, he'll take the kids surfing?
Think you look sexier in a VW Bus than a Ferrari?
Think it's more interesting to talk to you than watch TV?
Worry about the environment?
Make your kids friends wish he was their dad*
Say "that sounds perfect, honey!" when you tell him you hate camping but you'd love to spend a few weeks rolling in the sand in St. Barts?
Is he at peace with the existence of gay culture?
Will he invite 13 people to dinner and ask, "who do you want to cater?"
Would he rather have a rescue dog than a pet shop dog? Feed an African village than own a Maybach?
Live another year without furniture because.... it's not about the furniture?
Let you give up your job with a smile?
And mean it?
Congratulations.

*I strongly suspect that if it hadn't been taboo in 1962-64, this line would have been: Do your friends wish she was their wife?

And on a completely unrelated note, I saw a commercial today for motorized mascara. Let me say that again: motorized mascara. Have we gotten so lazy that applying mascara has to be done with a motorized wand? Tell me, please. What is this world coming to?

I Really Didn't Like This Post

2009-07-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

So it had to go away.

Scandinavian Cuppa Noodles

But I think it's still worth mentioning that we cooked rice pasta in a coffee pot.

Childhood Icons. RIP

2009-06-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

For two+ years I drifted off to sleep looking at this poster. I had it right next to my bed. A girl named Jackie and I used to argue over who loved him more. I watched his MTV debut at her house and I think we both cried.

We got to stay up late Friday nights to watch Charlie's Angels.

Afterwards we always ran around the house hiding behind doors with our fingers webbed together like make-believe pistols. Look how HOT this woman was, back in the days before everyone was cosmetically altered and photoshopped into fake humans.

Farrah was so rad.

P.S. Those were my first Nikes, and I'm pretty sure she's the reason I wanted them so badly.

Vernacular Spectacular

2009-06-25T11:32:00.000-07:00

When I moved to California twelve years ago (really?! where did they go?), I clearly remember being struck by a colloquialism that fell strangely upon my ears. I don't know if I can do it justice in writing, it's more effectively conveyed in spoken form. But I'll try.

I was new in these parts, having moved from a two year, post-collegiate stint in the nation's Capitol. Suffice it to say that hearing strange diction was a regular feature of my tenure there, seeing as I worked for a Japanese ministry in an office with only myself and several Japanese men (yeah--good times). For a good part of the day I listened to their rapid, incomprehensible banter, only occasionally able to pick out words and phrases from my barely-conversational knowledge of their language.

But the local lexicon, wildly colored by an international citizenry, was just as fraught with creative variations on my mother tongue. I've forgotten a lot of it now, but probably the most common, and now most clichéd, was the omission of the plural 's' after the word "cent." I thought absolutely nothing of transacting with cash currency and having the taker of my money tell me that the grand total of my purchases was "four dollar, twenty-seven cent." Of course this verbal quirk was ushered into the international spotlight by none other than the riddled-but-still-rhyming 50 Cent. I've often wondered why a man sporting so much bling would pauperize himself in name, especially when his friends see fit to swagger on a hundred thousand trillion.

Anyway, I moved to California. In the course of a casual get-to-know-you conversation with a sweet girl at my new employer, I noticed that she punctuated her questions/sentences with an odd form of "huh." It wasn't quite a statement, but it also wasn't quite a question. It was a quatement. It went something like this:

"Yeah, the people back east are really different, huh!....?"

Being the word nerd that I am, I confess to a disproportionate amount of fascination and/or time wasted noticing/thinking about this common-usage hybridization. Much of it hinges on the proper intonation, and as I said, it's tricky to convey in the written dimension. At first I thought it was just this girl, and I admit that in a hugely Seinfeldian way, I would engage her in conversation just to study it. But I quickly learned that it was not an individual idiosyncrasy at all--it was linguistically endemic.

I observed it. But I vowed I would never use it.

Fast forward, oh, six or seven years, and there I was, making quatements of my own: "That was a gnarly yoga class, huh!..?" Oh yes, my friends, not only did I adopt the quatement, I adopted the gnarly and the rad on top of it. The very foundations of my ivied brick institution of higher learning surely quake at the notion, while bespectacled poets and linguists pull pressed pocket squares from their tweeds and weep: She was an ENGLISH major, for Christ's sake. Where-- Oh! wherever did we fail?

Chill, my people--unsniff your crinkled noses and tuck away your tissues. Phonemes, morphemes, and the bending, twisting and creative combining of words are still the domains of my geekery. If wordplay is a sport then I am both an ardent spectator and a willing (if feeble) participant.

I've noticed, lately, that my beloved old quatement seems to be waning in favor of a new one. The new one is slightly more confident and emphatic in it's delivery, it's intonation more staccato. It is more exclamation than statement, but retains that prevailing intention of a question. It is therefore more a quexclamation than a quatement.

The apparent progeny (paternity tests have not been issued) of "Huh!...?" is "Right?...!" I started noticing this a few years back, strangely--and perhaps not accurately--around Los Angeles. An acquaintance of mine routinely peppered his speech with it, and as I did the first time around, I hung the habit on him as if it was exclusively his. Then I noticed a salesgirl in Los Angeles responded to everything I said with the single-word usage:

Me: Wow. This bracelet is so pretty.

Her: Right?...! We got two in yesterday and already sold one this morning.

And guess what I overheard myself saying last night as I led twenty-or-so students through an intense, sweaty (read: gnarly) yoga practice? You got it:

Me: The floor is slippery... right?...! So slide your hand off towards the center of the room.

This time I didn't even pause or resist before I jumped on board. I think this might mean that I consider myself a real Californian now--but with a Midwestern upbringing by parents from New York. I suppose this makes me a wholesome sensitive new age hard ass.

There are others I've noticed, too. One is the impersonalization of "talk to you soon." It seems fitting, I guess, as communication does become less and less personal, as text replaces voice-to-voice contact and voicemail, and Twitter's 140 char. limit teaches us all to hyper-abbreviate. Just as the writebyte is the new sound bite, "talk soon" is the new "talk to you soon." This two-word phrase has been texted to me, emailed to me, and even spoken to me, and I've never gotten used to it. It leaves me feeling mildly anxious, like something is missing and I am hanging precariously over a black hole into which perfectly good words are irretrievably sucked. In short: It makes me sad.

Last but not least is the phrase, "I'm just sayin'." I have no idea where this one originated, undoubtedly it burst into the collective conscious simultaneously across millions of movie or television screens. I like this one. I like it. This is a jauntily concise way of saying, "Hey, this is what I think, and I'm going to put it into words. You may or may not agree with me, and that's cool. It's cool, man, we can all think what we want. I just want to put my thoughts out there in a verbal format." Yes indeed, this one suits me fine.

I'm trying to make a point, right?!

Nah. I'm just sayin'.

(Talk soon.)

Fashionably Fit (to be tied): Toys Gone Wrong

2009-06-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the kids and I went to Target, where they asked to check out the toy department. There, lined up on a kid-level shelf, were the Bratz dolls, which now have "specialties." Like Yasmin here, who plays SPORTZ. For a minute I thought the package said "Bratz Play Sports," and it threw me into a protracted state of alarmed confusion. Sports? Really? This girl? This girl is going to hit some balls, shoot some hoops, do some sprints, swim a few laps, pump some iron, go for a run, practice some yoga, get drenched with sweat? How can she play sports wearing a gold lamé halter, silver lamé pedal pushers, high heels and prostitute-inspired makeup?

There was a definite disconnect between my traditional, if rudimentary, understanding of "sports" and whatever activity Yasmine was suited up for. My brain started to spin as I tried to bridge the gap, tried to connect this representation with my lifetime of athletic associations. Something seemed terribly wrong because my brain just kept defaulting to a certainty that I'd seen this girl Yasmine on a daytime reality show, and she wasn't very sporty at all. Mostly she lounged around a group house in not-very-much-clothing and plotted the demise of her six housemates to get a one-on-one date with a D-list hip hop artist. (I vaguely recalled an episode where she and her teammates/competitors were required to go swimming, which created major hair, makeup and wardrobe problems, and they picked through the shallow end like they were walking through thorny underbrush and paddled like dogs to keep their heads out of the water when it got deeper.) Anyway, while she plotted against them she gave her teammates tips on applying lip liner (a lot! and nine shades darker than the lipstick!), advice on relationships, and to their faces she pretended and professed to LUV! them. But when the camera had her alone for an interview, heavily made up, heavily cleavaged and artfully arranged on a velvet chaise under professional lighting, she disgorged all the drama of the house and revealed, privately to the entire viewing public, that she has it out for the girl named Vixen but first she has to drive a wedge between the bordello bond forming between Vixen and Cashmere, who could potentially combine forces, wits and pole dancing tricks to steal the D-list hip hop artist's attention and affections.

Um, that's competitive... right? The man is the trophy, and trying to get him is the sport. The skillz required to compete include copping attitude, applying make up, squeezing into too small clothing, aspirations to frolic in a famous grotto, and stabbing other girlz in the back. Does that make it a team sport, I wondered, or an individual sport? My confusion continued.

In some combination of stupidity, amusement and disgust, I continued to stand there, trying to make the connection between sports as I understand them, and SPORTZ as represented by Yasmine Bratz. I struggled to fit her into the brain-space reserved for those who meet or exceed the basic parameters of sportsmanship and athleticism, but, much like her clothing, she couldn't quite fit.

And then I realized, with relief, that I'd read the packaging in error, that I'd been misled by a pop culture, semantic technicality. This va-va-voom-womangirl isn't going to play sports! She is going to play SPORTZ, and no wonder I can't grok it, because I don't know what SPORTZ is (are?). From what I can tell by looking at her, SPORTZ-with-a-Z must mean you make yourself up to look slexy (=slutty+sexy) or like you're dressed for an MTV video shoot (same thing). Then you set about collecting attention from men. Maybe you go hang out on a corner waiting for somebody in a bouncing Impala to pull up and take you out. Maybe you catch the eye of the D-list hip-hopper. Maybe, if you are an elite SPORTZwoman, you score a real athlete. Yes. That's it. Yasmine is competing with all of the other GIRLZ ON CORNERZ (who may or may not also look like miniature blow-up dollz) to get the guy, who may or may not drive a low slung ride with fancy bouncing shockz.

With a relieved exhale I broke my extended, confused pause in the Target aisle where I stood gawping at Yasmin, comforted that my daughter wants to play SPORTS, and that she will never own this doll.

Universally Agreed: Moving is a Bitch

2009-05-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

So long, sweat lodge. We'll miss you.

Yesterday I bought a tool box, and I seriously considered buying a power drill (and a pink hammer, so all femininity would not be lost). Yesterday I learned how to assemble a Stanley utility knife and how to rewire the wayward alarm system so it would stop randomly barking its discontent in the big hours of the night and the wee hours of the morning. Tonight I reprogrammed my garage door openers, both of which went on strike for no apparent reason.

My hands spent an entire afternoon and evening stained with the stench of latex gloves, which I bought to mitigate damages to my digits and to protect fresh scrapes and lacerations wrought by sharp box edges and jamming fingers into doorways carrying items too girthy to fit through.

I've shopped the hardware store aisles for chemicals to clean everything (Simple Green), like the Craigslist refrigerator I bought sight unseen (caveat emptor) and thought was a screaming deal until I found out it had lived uncovered in a Laguna Beach garage for several years (I had to have it detailed... like a car).

The first set of movers I hired for my "simple" lot of worldly possessions managed to leave their mark on nearly everything, in the form of dirty handprints, dings, scrapes, dents or dirt. The second set came the next day to finish the job the first ones started, but with proper tools and manpower and protective coverings for things like floors and walls and furniture. If only they could have padded my sanity, too. Now I need that padding for the walls.

Over the last five days I moved. "I'm moving" became not just a "doing thing," a verb, it became a bleary-eyed, exhausted, guerilla-like, twilight zone state of mind and existence, and it has informed, infused, and confused everything I say and do. Betwixt, between and barely functioning, I submit to you these pearls of wisdom/advice: (a) don't move (b) if you must move, hire professionals to pack, move, and unpack for you, and avoid the padded cell.

Tangerine-Colored Lamborghini Sold Separately

2009-04-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

Don't wear this. Please.

The Inappropriate Yoga Guy

2009-04-05T20:57:00.000-07:00

Check out Vinnie Marino in Yoga Journal's first webisode of The Inappropriate Yoga Guy. Ogden is every inappropriate yoga guy... and we all know at least one. This is brilliant.

The trailer is pretty good, too.

Oh, and btw, Vinnie is going to be in Costa Mesa April 17-19. Get info here, and I'll see you there.

Lakers vs. Rockets, 4/3/09

2009-04-04T00:11:00.000-07:00

Zac & the vinyasa babies.

Yes, he's a hottie in person.

I wonder how I would feel if strangers took pictures of me eating nachos at the Lakers game (in my Louboutin heels) and posted them on a blog?

My vinyasa babies: Die hard Kobe fans.

China's best export. A skyscraper.

The babes with up-and-coming designer Catherine Cardelucci

Pumpkin Fool

2009-03-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

I found it.

This morning I went to Mother's Market to get a carrot-beet-kale-parsley-ginger-grapefruit juice. For non-local readers, Mother's is like a grass roots Wholefoods. It might be one of my favorite places in all of Southern California. But Mother's is expanding and opening big Wholefoods-type concepts around here now, so it might only be one of my favorite places until it gets too carried away with itself and goes from hippie vibe to corporate-suit-masquerading-as-hippie-vibe. You can feel the difference. It's palpable. Wholefoods is super glossy and every time I go in there I swoon at the beauty of it all, but it's too unblemished, the aisles are not aisles at all but boulevards, and you don't have to constantly say "exuse me, pardon me" because you ran into another granola, VW Bus driving shopper while you were swerving your sub-compact shopping cart to avoid lancing the heels of your friend the cap-toothed produce guy who always cuts the greens off your carrots with a smile and a nod.

Anyway.

While they were making my juices-- "juices" because after I ordered the compost heap combo I noticed that ginger pear juice was on special and I love ginger so I added 8 oz. of that to my order--I'm sufficiently fruit-and-veggied-for the day, I think... and gingered, too--I wandered a few feet to the deli section and browsed the day's offerings.

There, smack in the center of that groaning board of healthful or you-think-it's-healthful fare, was an enormous punch bowl filled with DREAMY TOFU PUMPKIN PUDDING. Being a lover of all things pumpkin (Urth Caffe pumpkin pie being the tippy top of pumpkin perfection), I asked for a sample. It was dreamy, as billed. I exclaimed as to it's deliciousness and ordered some, thinking the kids would join me later in a three-spooned free-for-all at the pumpkin pint.

I retrieved my juices and chatted with Jeff, the juice bar guy I would invite to my wedding (were I ever to have one again). That's how well Jeff and I have gotten to know each other over hundreds of juices. I inquire after his life situations, and he mine. It's nice. I asked Jeff if he had tried the pudding. I told him he must, because it was truly dreamy. He said he would. And with that I bid him good day, and headed for the checkout stand... to visit more of the staff I practically consider family by this time.

I took my pint of pumpkin pudding to Eddie, and he ran it over the scanner.

"That'll be ten forty-two."

Say what? Ten dollars and forty two cents for a pint of pumpkin pudding?

Yep.

I looked up at the high-tech checkout monitor for verification that I had indeed purchased a mere pint of flavored tofu for over ten dollars.

And there it was in high resolution, in plain but profound English:

PUMPKIN FOOL - $10.42

If you'd like to help me karmically reduce the cost per bite (I often justify the purchase of semi-expensive shoes, handbags, jeans and t-shirts by amortizing the price over the number of times worn resulting in a CPW or cost per wearing; I have items with a cpw of fractionated pennies by now...) umm, oh yeah, here is the recipe:

Mori Nu Vanilla Pudding Mate

Silken Tofu

Cinnamon

Allspice

Nutmeg

Pumpkin puree

There are no instructions, but I'm assuming you just put it all into a blender and hit puree. Voila! Dreamy Tofu Pumpkin Pudding -- hold the Fool.

Residential Random

2009-03-22T14:28:00.000-07:00

We're safe until November, right?

Yes, those are turkeys. Full-blown, pilgrim-and-indian-type turkeys. A herd of four, roaming free in the streets and yards of an upscale suburban neighborhood. I almost ran over one of them. I was so fascinated and dumbfounded by this choice of domestic pet that I pulled my car over and watched them like you might do if you were driving through the wilderness and you saw a grizzly bear. I probably wouldn't have been that much more amazed if I had seen a grizzly bear crossing the street. THIS is the quirky kind of thing that makes me love my fellow man. One day someone said, "I want to live near the beach.... And I want turkeys." And they made it so. Either that, or they're planning ahead for a big, do-it-yourself Thanksgiving.

And this reminds me: I want to make a bid to bring back the word "turkey" as an expression of someone's mildly wayward character or transient jack-assery. For example:

"I was doing 65 and some turkey pulled into my lane going 20!"

Down with increasingly caustic sobriquets and execrations where milder forms would do very nicely, thank-you-very-much. Maybe we could even chip away at the surplus of angry energy in this world if everyone replaced a "f****r" with a "turkey." Because you just can't hate on a turkey--not for long, anyway. At least that's what I think. And it's a good time to un-hype things a little, wouldn't you say?

Po Energy

2009-03-05T16:58:00.000-08:00

I just talked to my sister in Australia, who just talked to her new age soothsayer, who proclaimed today to be a day of Po Energy. That means the heavens are hanging low and cloudy over our heads, oppressively, and s#@! is generally going sideways. I have a few things to say about this:

(a) duh

(b) she gets paid money for soothsaying these things

Sometimes it's nice (and depending on your economic situation, worth it) to have someone connected to the cosmos (real or imaginary, doesn't really matter, right?) say, "Yeah, the proverbial you-know-what is hitting the fan everywhere today. Hunker down. Cuddle up. Draw the curtains. Don't get out of bed if you don't have to. Watch funny/shmaltzy movies. You have permission to frumple." Po energy indeed, we agreed. Po, fo' sho.

You feeling it, too? Good news! Kia says you're off the hook. Blame it on the Po.*

(Click here. Laugh. Lift Po.)

*I have absolutely no idea if I spelled or described Po Energy correctly. I Googled "Chinese po energy" and all I got was a bunch of links to the Chinese energy crisis. Fact checker, please? And by the way, Po rhymes with ho, not who. Although a poo-like pronunciation would be sort of perfect, wouldn't it?

Hot & Fresh.

2009-02-26T22:50:00.000-08:00

1. Turn on one of these songs:

> Shuggie Otis: Inspiration Information

>Lou Rawls: You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine

> Earth, Wind & Fire: Shining Star

2. Absorb the oozing cool of the Ford LTD

3. Enjoy the ride

I would drive this car

Attack of the Giant Dashboard

Coming soon to a theater near you

Stop. Rewind. (Technostalgia)

2009-02-26T22:46:00.000-08:00

This is how we rolled.

On our morning commute to school two days ago, my eight-year-old son asked when he was going to get his own cell phone.

I made some vague, smart-ass-parent reply like the ones that would've infuriated me as a kid. Like this one, which I've brought down from my mind-attic and dusted off:

Child: "When are we going to be there?"

Me: "When we get there."

I think my response to Ryan's query was something along the lines of, "when you need one."

He contended, of course, that he needed one now, and proceeded to tick off a list of his peers who are already in possession of this coveted device/prepubescent status symbol. I summarily dismissed each one of them (the list wasn't long), citing well-reasoned justifications for these children having their own phones even before their gorgeously pliant brains are ripe for the penetration of allegedly cancerous electromagnetic radio waves. One takes the bus to school and runs a real risk of being stranded alone, and another is in a custody situation that warrants a phone (of course I repackaged that last one before delivery). But in every case, I explained, the phones have "governors," not unlike a U-Haul truck I once drove across the country at a blazing 65 mph. You see, I said, they can call mom, dad, grandma and 911. They're not texting in their American Idol votes.

"That's ok mom, I wanna call you. Just to say hi and tell you I love you."

Brilliant, this kid. What am I supposed to say to that??

Well, I'll tell you what I said: "I didn't have my first cell phone until I was 24" (and it was roughly the size of War and Peace in paperback). This is the new "when I was your age, I used to walk 10 miles to school in driving snow."

Never mind that when I was eight, cell phones didn't exist unless maybe your dad was the President or worked for the CIA or NASA. Of course, his brain is still gorgeously unfettered by this scope of historical reference, so he doesn't realize that in this day and age, if you don't have a cell phone by 24 you might as well live in a cave. When he does realize this, I am in trouble. This child was born to harangue. And to hound. And to persist. And good for him. I figure I have maybe two more years of peace and then I'll probably cave because he'll grind me down. But anyway.

That was all just a rambling prologue. I like rambling prologues. They're like the sun salutations of writing. They get you warmed up. I tend to take off from point A and follow a seemingly drunken flight path over a scrambled alphabetical landscape. Eventually I land. Sometimes I come full circle. Other times, well, I just land wherever.

Damn it. Now I'm humming this is ground control to Major Tom.

Anyway, this exchange with Ryan got me thinking about the days before cell phones. And when I think of the days before cell phones I think of the days before ATM machines. And when I think of the days before ATM machines, I think of riding in the back seat of my mom's red Ford LTD, going to cash checks at the bank's drive-through teller. I knew I'd get a lollypop from the clear plastic teller-vessel that would, with a great sucking woosh, whisk away the check and then, a few minutes later, spit back some bills. Guessing what flavor I'd get was exciting. I always hoped for red. I dreaded getting green. I mostly got orange. My backseat domain was upholstered in a variegated red jacquard-type nylon that had a subtle sheen and felt slick to the touch... mid-'70s au courant. I rode without the lap belt, standing, straddling the center hump of the backseat floor with my arms crossed over the front (bench) seat. I could stand and my head didn't reach the dome light above me--the lone feature of the car ceiling. I also used to wait there, unconcerned, while mom did her grocery shopping at the Red Owl. Today she'd get arrested for leaving me there. Back then I'd get into obscene gesture contests and imaginary gun shooting, rear window duck & cover games with the other kids-waiting-in-cars. From time to time moms would roll out of the Red Owl and hook me up with a KitKat for being patient. Life was good.

Other days I went in with her. Red Owl was connected by an automatic sliding door to a Ben Franklin five-and-dime where I liked to snoop around while she shopped. I thought old Benji was sort of a liar because the only thing you could get for a dime in his store was a Jolly Rancher stick. I don't remember seeing much at all that cost a nickel, except maybe the individually wrapped pieces of Dubble Bubble. Barbies were $7. This was when Barbie was still Barbie, not a cast member from High School Musical who licensed her identity to Mattel for fat stacks. I calculated that I'd need 70 dimes to buy that Barbie, and I felt what I would later know how to identify as the betrayal of false advertising. Crestfallen, I'd plod back into the Red Owl, hoping to restore my spirits by getting some Fruity Pebbles. I would harass and harangue and beg and use the words please please pretty please with sugar on top. Ryan's talents in this department are not accidental. Occasionally mom caved, usually she didn't. But I always knew I could find a stash of strawberry licorice in the glove compartment of the LTD, so I never worried much that my sugar monkey would go unfed.

Besides wall-mounted telephones with chronically tangled 16-foot cords, busy signals and drive-through tellers, there's another thing I always think of in my technostalgia daydreams: the checker at the grocery store. Barely counter high myself, I remember peeping eye-level with the whirring conveyor belt, in rapt fascination at the manual dexterity and superior rote-retention skills of the lady working the cash register (and not to be sexist but in my memory they were exclusively women). These were the days when unionized ringers had a marketable skill that I believe was called something like 10-Key (if that's correct it's a miracle... I have no idea how I would know that). It truly was a marvel of neurological ability that these ladies could glance at a can of Le Sueur Early Peas and key the code, all while loudly snapping her gum, carrying on a conversation with my mother about the astronomical price of cigarettes, and winking at me in a way that clearly said, "keep your fingers away from the conveyor belt, hun." Man, these women had mad skills, I thought.

Then one day the barcode scanner came along. What?! All they have to do now is sit there with carpal-tunnel bands on their forearms and run s**t over a grid of blue laser beams?? My 10-key romance died a sad, gasping death and, with a whimper not a bang, an analog era caved to the whiz-bang seductions of a digital, wireless world. Has my iPhone made me more efficient? More productive? A better person or worker? Has it really enhanced the quality of my life being "open 24 hours," chronically plugged in and always reachable? Hell-to-the-no. Am I more manic? Verging on OCD about Twitters I might've missed in the last fifteen minutes? Addicted? A hazardous driver? A distracted mother? A generally less present human being? Yes, yes and yes.

Will my kids have phones anytime soon? Not if I can help it. Will I give mine up? I'll have to get back to you--I've got five Twitters and seven texts getting cold.

And Happy Every Day.

2009-02-15T18:11:00.003-08:00

Australia pays every family $5,000 to have a baby.

Because "stop the car and get busy" was too long.

Aussies: The best of humanity.

Photo from Boorecky Down Under.

Cart(ma) Police

2009-02-07T14:13:00.001-08:00

Reckless Driving

I need a badge and a uniform. I need state-mandated authority to troll supermarket aisles citing violations and ticketing shoppers in the name of public welfare. I don't require a firearm, but a taser might be amusing and also necessary for defending myself against angry citizens in food-based denial. I also just think it would be cool to wear a holster for something more menacing than a Blackberry.

Now. While it is true that I am no stranger to dietary indulgences like chocolate chip cookies and french fries, for the most part I do my damndest to give my body things it can put to use for cellular happiness, good metabolic function and optimal overall health. I believe that I am what I eat, and I would rather be a vibrant red strawberry than a bloated Twinkie. This is not a choice born of snobbery, it is a choice born of common sense and mindfulness. Straight up: I think it's really gross to put into my body any substance whose most likely origin was a test tube or a million-gallon vat in a smoking industrial complex somewhere outside Newark.

That. Is. Not. Food.

Why do so many people continue to consume non-food and call it food? When we go to the movies (20 years later) to watch Jason hack up a new generation of horny, brainless teenagers in a Friday the 13th so exponentially redone they've given up on numerical suffixes altogether--when we go to see that movie we don't leave believing that Jason is real. We can easily differentiate between the real and not-real, the living and the dead. And if we *did* see a soggy, machete-wielding Jason Vorhees lurking behind our shower curtain, we'd have the good sense to get the hell out of the bathroom. And yet! And yet! The food industry/supply has been so infiltrated with genius storytellers and their FDA puppets that we willingly toss out our awarness of real/not-real. We fill our stomachs daily with a chemical horror story and call it a delicious love story. Where food is concerned, we've not only accepted Jason as one of our own, we've invited him over for dinner. Why?

Here's the thing. Everyone's entitled to their choices and habits. It's not my business to go around telling (ok, fine. lecturing) shoppers that that delicious smoky flavor they're about to savor on their Lean Cuisine came from a bubbling pyrex beaker in a lab someplace. It's not my business to tell them that the chicken breast bearing that smoky taste, the one with the faux "grilled" hash marks, is from a chicken pumped full of hormones to give it big breasts, and antibiotics to prevent illness from the fecal borne diseases in the poop of the chicken that lived in the cage above it. It's not my business to tell the shopper that the "fresh vegetable medly" in that frozen, calorie reduced meal is laden with round-up ready pesticides, preservatives, and is probably genetically modified for growing in depleted soil and for factory durability. It's not my business to tell the shopper that the "delicate butter sauce" giving the medly that velvety mouth-feel is almost certainly a concoction of vapid trans-fats and unpronounceable additives and stabilizers that would make the periodic table of the elements read like a nursery rhyme. And it's not my business to tell the shopper that whatever fortified "nutrition" this lean "meal" may still contain upon purchase will be annihilated, not to mention twisted and gnarled into unrecognizable new atomic compounds, when they are blasted with a few zillion megawatts (or whatever) of microwaving. Seriously. It's not my business to say to a complete stranger standing behind me in the checkout line, hey, if this is your reduced calorie "food" of choice, you'd probably do just as well eating the double-double with fries you really want.

It's just not my business to say all that. But yesterday I almost did. More than once. I could barely contain myself. I was a cart-peeping vigilante, a god-complexed civilian tempted to pull violaters to the side of the road for endangering their own lives. Phew, for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself.

Which is why I need that badge.

Scrambled minds think alike

2009-02-02T18:40:00.000-08:00

Rachel: Mom, did you vote for Abraham Lincoln?

Me: No love, I wasn't alive when Abraham Lincoln was pregnant.

Have you had peanut butter toast lately?

2009-01-08T11:48:00.001-08:00

If you close your eyes, you can almost convince yourself that you're seven again, sitting in your mom's kitchen.

We had wallpaper with columns of fruit running floor to ceiling, and a new dining room set that I think was from Sears (cue the theme song from The Jeffersons) that looked out on a big back yard (remember this is Minnesota, not California) where a saint bernard named Sadie and a basset hound named Matilda wiled away their days in canine camaraderie. The house beyond the back yard belonged to the Swaggerts, where I babysat for $1/hr. I accepted the modest pay because after the kids were asleep I pillaged their pantry for exotic kinds of junk food that were strictly forbidden at home (anything made by Hostess or Frito-Lay).

All that from peanut butter toast.

What's your peanut butter toast, and where does it take you?

I could probably drone on, but in a reversal of the Jeffersonian ascent paradigm I am headed to Ikea to find some shelves to accommodate Ryan's ever expanding and hugely space-sucking Lego collection. Once every two or three years, Ikea is alright. I always walk in there thinking, "Why'd I buy dish towels at Williams-Sonoma?" And then one frustrated, overwhelmed hour later, standing in line with 47 Gaangelploppen (dish towels) for $3, I put them down, walk out, and go back to Williams-Sonoma, where the line isn't 40 people deep, stretching two city blocks because everyone has a flatbed trolley groaning under the weight of unassembled particle board. Today I am optimistic.

******************************************************

I went. Within 20 minutes my eyes were burning and I was sneezing. I know it's supposed to be really environmentally friendly, but something in that place is off-gassing. And whatever it was made me delirious because as I crusied the aisles, blinking back toxic fumes and grooving to Semisonic singing Closing Time, I imagined the furniture surveying the people walking by and crooning, I know who I want to take me home...

A six drawer chest named HOPEN had it's eye on me. Hopen has smooth running drawers and a pull-out stop. But I left Hopenless.

As I returned my flatbed to the designated corral and approached the doors that would let me back out into the world, I reminded myself to bring a friend next time. The flatbed wheels are well-oiled, and it would be fun to joyride down those endless warehouse boulevards. I paused for consideration as the PA announced a lunch special featuring "salsa de lingenberry" and then, semi-fascinated and happily unfrustrated, I made my way out into the sunshine, humming:

Every new beginning

Comes from some other beginning's end.

Six Minute Post

2009-01-06T08:44:00.000-08:00

That's how long I have until I have to leave for yoga.

When I was a kid my parents duped me and my sister into giving up sugar for a year for $100. We had a lot of cavities. My sister has since gotten hers fixed with the "healthy" fillings, my mouth is still mercurial, as far as fillings go. I did the "sugar diet" for two years and I was so dang honest I used to call my mom to ask if I could have a piece of birthday cake at a birthday party. She always said yes. Once my best friend told me that some seven layer bars her mom made were sugar free because they were baked with real vanilla. I believed her. I ate like 7. I was also gullible. I still might be a little. I think my sister was a little savvier. She knew what they didn't know wouldn't kill them. I'm thinking about reinstating a variation of the sugar diet for myself in 2009. I don't know if I can sell the kids on it though. They'd probably ask for a couple grand.

I made it with a minute to spare.

Have a great day xoxo

Welcome to Crazy Acres; here there are no cows

2009-01-05T07:57:00.000-08:00

Robert Frost said that good fences make good neighbors. Well, the bounds of my home are only sporadically fenced in a sort of gerrymandered fashion, and yet I have great neighbors. Do they bring me freshly baked cookies and eggs from their chicken coop? Flowers from their gardens or the surplus of tomatoes from their heirloom vines?

Not even.

And that's fine.

No, to define the greatness of my neighbors requires a shift in perspective-- a letting go of heroic associations with the word, an appreciation, perhaps, for the campy greatness of daytime television, and above all, a cutting loose of attachments to conventional notions of neighborliness.

They're great because they put on a great show. And in the swirling vortex of their drama, I am variously obliged to make guest appearances, be an extra, or be a member of the live studio audience.

[For all of you editorial types, looking in vain for technical consistency from this brain, let me acknowledge that I've just switched metaphorical paradigms from poetry to TV. Look, this isn't the New York Times. If you've been here before you know that my brain has a lot in common with an unbounded, non-symmetrical hedge maze. Enter at your own risk. At least you can opt out. I have to live in it.]

Um. Where was I? Oh. Right. The neighborhood.

Let me begin by saying I live, very luckily, in a really pretty beachside community. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't wake up in grateful wonder that I live in such a temperate, beautiful place. It is a place of wealth (I exempt myself from this statement, which is part of the formula for my waking wonderment every day) and relative comfort. And, if we have learned nothing else from television--drama or the evening news, take your pick--it is that, beneath the purchased appearance of convention and normalcy, wealth often conceals some of the craziest behaviors known to man (see Bernard Madoff). The reasons for this could be the subject not just of another post, but of lifelong academic study. And I'm sure they are. So I'll skip that bit of hypothesizing, which, if you've made it this far into this screed, you are surely intelligent (or bored) enough to construct for yourself.

It was an interesting holiday break around here. Actually, to the parties involved, it wasn't really a break because they didn't appear to be "breaking" from anything. "Breaking" implies an interruption of the usual. They just kept on with the usual, and the holidays happened.

It started on Christmas Eve day. As I flew out my door, running typically late, I found taped to it a note asking to borrow my camera. This has happened before, and I happily took the camera over thinking--as before--it would be used to document dry and uninteresting code violations in some ongoing legal wrangling. I also knew it would fall upon me to download and email the images because the neighbor lacks the requisite software to do it herself.

I'm not sure how far to take this story. When I was lightly pressed for a commitment to get the images downloaded and sent off with an urgency that seemed discordant with the sloth-like pace of municipal offices at the holidays, I felt entitled to inquire, "why the rush?" Suffice it to say that I had (unwittingly) loaned out my camera for code violations of an *entirely* different kind; for the putting-together of a photographic resume, shall we say. Hey, unemployment numbers are high and climbing. I guess we all have different contingency plans for getting the bills paid. And that's all I'm saying.

Switching channels. Different neighbor, different day. Yesterday. Sunday. Officially the last day of the holiday stretch. I got home late afternoon. Came in the back door. Heard loud voices out in the street, so I went to the front windows to investigate. It wasn't a screaming match (yet) or a major spectacle (yet). At this point it was more like a series of staccato interruptions piercing the midday lull of an already placid street.

The participants were two neighbors, one male and one female. The former is a troubling itinerant in his late 40s, beset by hard times and hard addictions, couch crashing at the home of a saint-like or equally troubled friend whom I have the pleasure of not knowing. The latter is a truly sweet but tragically bottle-dependent long term resident. I reacted to the fracas with a kind of oh-that-again disinterest; I've seen it too many times. In this particular instance, the woman was mid-street when the "outside voices" started. She was walking with determined if slightly unsteady stride towards her home. He was following close behind. "Oh," he says, "You gonna walk away?! You gonna go into your house and lock me out?!" Whereupon she did exactly that, with a loud slam of the front door and an audible click of the deadbolt, leaving him standing in the street with his mouth agape, hands thrown in the air in the universal gesture for "WTF?" Then he dropped his hands in the brush-off gesture that says, "Whatever," spun on his heel and walked back to his house, shoulders square and self-righteous. I should note that he is accustomed to wearing a baseball cap backwards, an odd choice for a man his age, but which gave the whole scene a sort of collegiate air, like something you've seen played out a million times on college quads after keg-fueled frat parties. Oh. That again.

Let me take a moment to set the scene. It's been delightfully chilly here in Southern California lately. Just writing those words I can feel the daggered energy of snowbound, frozen readers hurtling towards me. But stay yourselves; the universe seeks and will almost always find balance. Next summer when you are enjoying mild sunny days and the pleasantries or at least the option of air conditioning, I will be here in the sweat lodge with exactly two options: hell, or the deeper depths of hell. Just as you earn your summers with a few limb-numbing months of snow and ice, I earn my "winters" with several months of unrelenting sun and heat.

Just a reminder: I warned you about the wandering narrative.

Anyway, yesterday was just such a pleasantly chilly, slightly overcast day. The perfect kind for drinking warm beverages, lazing around on the couch with a good book (mine, ironically, being In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson), and waiting for the Lakers to come on at 6:30. And that's pretty much what I was doing late yesterday, with some intermittent housekeeping, noshing, friending, and miscellanea-ing thrown in, while a storm was brewing next door.

Cut to half-time. The Lakers have a one point lead on the Trailblazers. It's 51-50, their first lead in the game after a spectacularly sloppy first half. It's not looking good. Just as they leave the court, I hear a loud WHOOP WHOOP outside, and somebody speaking from a megaphone. The words are garbled because I have the volume up on the game. I have the volume up on the game because the shouting from next door has gotten a bit louder. These occasional high volume confrontations (typically directed at victims on the other end of a phone line) have always been harmless, if worrisome and a little annoying, and barely pique my interest except when they compete with a prevailing atmosphere of peace and quiet. So my first reaction, hearing the megaphone voice, was that someone was playing a joke on me--or on someone--because it was coming from directly outside my door.

Reluctantly disentangling myself from my twisted nest of blankets and pillows, I walked to the window. Three squad cars jammed up the street (curiously there were no sirens or flashing lights, which is probably why I didn't immediately identify it as police activity), doors flung open, with six of the city's finest in various stages of interrupting a domestic situation.

Now I'm interested. So is the rest of the neighborhood.

I hate to be anticlimactic, but this post is already way too long. Nothing particularly evening-news-worthy came of it. All I know is that it was not domestic violence, but something more along the lines of a "5150," which, one of the other neighbors told me, has something to do with someone being a threat to themselves, not to others. I'm not up on civil code, so don't quote me on that. Anyway, the gem of the story, at least to me, is this:

Once the crowd had thinned somewhat, and the "of-danger-to-himself" party had been safely taken into custody, the sweet if rather pickled neighbor came out to address her public. She debriefed us, in a gloriously sibilant slur, that everyone was fine, she was in no danger, and she was sorry for the commotion; for she had made the call herself and requested that the police keep it quiet (I guess their interpretation of keeping it on the DL is three cars, six officers, and alerting a six-block grid via megaphone... but kill the flashing lights). In the midst of all this she saw me, paused, fixed her swooning gaze on me and said, "Oh honey, thank you so much for the candy. For the Christmas peppermints. They're luvvely."

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out

I said I'd write more in 2009. I must be making up for lost time. If you made it all the way through this post, send me a book report and I'll send you a medal.

Welcome to my brain.

Happy 2009!

2009-01-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

I resolve to write more this year....

Unconditional Huggles

2008-12-30T08:33:00.001-08:00

Izzy the Beast. Maybe the best houseguest ever.

(Izzy as a wee pup)

When life doesn't imitate art

2008-12-20T08:09:00.000-08:00

Wow. I had no idea a little James Joyce would trigger an outpouring of wistful tales and remembrances. It's James Joyce, right? A literary heavy. Serious stuff. Weighty. Dramatic.

So I had to laugh (out loud) when I woke up this morning to this email from the right coast:

"so i have spent the better part of the last hour clearing walkways and steps listening to the pleasing workmanlike champ and bite of my shovel meeting slate but the wintry mix outside has none of that ethereal faint heft you so eloquently transcribed and my fingers can barely find the keys, shaking as they are from exertion and hypothermia. screw james joyce."

Sorry, righties. At least for now, Joyce is apparently way more romantic to those of us in desert climes.

Have I said enough about rain? No? It puts me in mind of this passage:

2008-12-17T12:47:00.001-08:00

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. James Joyce, Dubliners

I have not written lately

2008-12-17T06:44:00.000-08:00

Actually I have. But I haven't been satisfied with the results. Sometimes I publish posts and take them down a few hours later (sometimes you notice and harass me for it). If I was a newspaper I'd have gone broke from backwards production practices a long time ago: scribble something down, publish it, edit and republish it four or five times, then pull the story altogether. At least backwards blogging is more environmentally friendly than wasting reams of newsprint and ink. More soon. xoxo

(S)extension Cords: Seeing my Christmas tree in a different light

2008-12-07T08:54:00.000-08:00

Thar She Glows

Yesterday I went down to my local Ace hardware to buy new lights for our Christmas tree. Our lights last year were colored, and this year we wanted white twinkling lights. So off I went. It was a simple job, or so I thought, so I picked up a couple of boxes, paid and left. It was spectacularly and deceptively easy. I was in and out in five minutes. That never happens at the hardware store. I don't want to be sexist, so I'll speak strictly in personal terms, but where tools and wiring and DIY-ing are concerned, I am fully female. I submit to the stereotype. Not that I can't do it, mind you, but the learning curve is high, and I'm not afraid to admit I'm perfectly content to hand the job over to someone with a Y chromosome.

Last year I handled the lighting situation on a much larger, grander tree, so my whole attitude towards this, a much humbler tree, was rather cocky. No problem! Piece o' cake!

I brought the lights home, and, following the minimal, written-in-China directions on the package, was mindful not to string more than three strands together. But three strands wasn't enough. So back I went for more lights. And home again.

Voila! Right? The lights are strung, wrapped, draped and ready-to-go! Time to plug these things in and light this thing up! I'll just get the extension cord...

I only have one extension cord. When I went to plug in the string of lights, the ends were the same. No plugging possible. I stood there, baffled and frustrated, and figured I needed a new extension cord. So off I went, AGAIN, to Ace hardware, where I was getting well-acquainted with the holiday staff.

"Back again? More lights?"

"Uh, no. I think I need a new extension cord.... I need one with the, uh, the, you know, the end that plugs into the wall... on both ends."

"Well, now, what you mean is an extension cord with two male ends.... and that's illegal, darlin'," chuckled the kindly old gent who was helping me to untangle my lighting mystery. "You leave that male end exposed and you've got 150 volts of raw electricity just dangling off the end of your tree, waiting to fry something up."

I saw his point. Still, I must've looked every bit the idiot I was.

"Let me show you," he says, and leads me to the aisle with extension cords in every length, size, color and, to my surprise, sex.

Now, I have dim memories from my disinterested hours in biology about male and female parts of flowers, something called a stamen, etc. But extension cords? They can't even reproduce.

"Now how're you wrapping your tree, darlin'?" He asks. "Top to bottom? Ok, you see, you gotta start at the top with the female end. Then when you're done, at the bottom you'll have the male end of the lights to plug into the female end of the extension cord, and the male end of the extension cord plugs into the wall."

There was nothing remotely titillating about this conversation. The guy was old school and grandfatherly and clearly his nonchalant parlance was shop talk of the most harmless, matter-of-fact kind. Still, that doesn't mean it didn't feel moderately awkward and somewhat uncomfortable. (A friend later pointed out that had the Ace hardware guy been a Calvin Klein underwear model working holidays to make rent between gigs, it would have been a dramatically different experience. Yes, undoubtedly.)

So, as I stood in line, examining the newly-defined ends of an extension cord and waiting to pay, I realized this momentary exchange had changed my perception of my Christmas tree. All of that male-to-female coupling going on, lit up and electrically charged?? No wonder it has such a merry twinkle. And here I thought it was all just holiday cheer....

Fairy Tales Reconsidered

2008-12-02T20:33:00.001-08:00

If this was the glass slipper:

Would you go looking for Cinderella?

Be honest.

Even if you can honestly answer no (which I seriously doubt), indulge yourself in a revision of the childhood classic centered around this as the orphaned slipper. It's owner may not be as sweet, but she'd certainly be more interesting. If this technicolor shootie had been Walt's inspiration, a few pivotal developments might have changed history:

(a) The Disney Channel would be the Spice Channel

(b) Scores of innocent, capable young girls would've been spared the indoctrination of Princess/Prince Charming myths propagated by the Disney marketing juggernaut as we know it.

The way I see it, this shoe arrived about 50 or 60 years too late.

****************************************************

I took this photo on my sister's iPhone as I wandered around Melbourne, as evidence that the fashion footwear crisis, like the financial crisis, is an ongoing global pandemic.

(Thanks, RBA :)

Inexplicably...

2008-11-30T21:48:00.000-08:00

and against all powers of common sense, I am sitting here in a hazy, bleary, neuro-corporeal crumple listening to the Pixies. Well, actually I can explain it. It just might not be interesting. Or more likely it will be weird: Whenever I get into a certain, frowsy, low-brainwave mode--usually one induced by a formula of too much anxious adrenaline + a lack of sleep (you might recognize this as a formula for modern air travel, particularly the kind that fools with the linear nature of time, folding it back on itself or skipping forward in leaps like the needle on a scratched record used to do), I default to singing (privately) or humming (still privately) or thinking (if I'm in a crowd and singing or humming would be mean) Where Is My Mind.... which, if memory serves, was recently on someone's list of the top 50 songs of a certain decade. (Take a deep breath. That was a long and winding sentence. You might need to read it twice to piece it all together. Or, you might wisely throw in the towel right here.) I can't remember whose list it was on. If you're curious, Google it.

Yes. I will ramble.

But (a) I warned you, and (b) what'd you expect, for Crissakes. I'm not really sure how long I've been awake, and I'm questioning the relative value of fitful, Ambien-induced sleep. I think with that kind of sleep an hour really only counts for 15 minutes of the real thing; the restful, peaceful sleep you get at home. So *if* I slept on the plane for eight of the 14 hours, it really only counts as... what? Two hours? That seems about right.

About defaulting to singing Where is My Mind? when I get into this mode: I've been wondering-- does everybody soundtrack their lives/moods/circumstances, or is it just me and my obsession with fitting a phrase to a situation neatly and just-so, like some mad, bespoke phraseologist?

If you've got a minute (read: hour), I'll spin you a yarn by way of example.

Not so long ago, a white collar drug addict-slash-dealer lived behind me. The guy was a veritable land baron, but, from what I could tell, he was blowing it all on his habit and fees to his divorce attorney. No worries, though. He's a year gone.

So, one evening, back when white collar Meth man was living behind me, one of his "clients" mistook my back door for the dealer's front door... at three in the morning. So I was startled awake by this urgent rapping on my back door (which, mercifully, was locked and bolted). The knocking continued for a minute or so, and then subsided. And what did I think? Did I think, "Call the police!" or "Run to the kitchen and get the butcher's knife!" or even, "God I wish I had a taser?" No. What went through my mind most immediately, I guess from that startled, drowsy state, was Let 'Em In, by Wings. Yeah, Paul McCartney singing Someone's knocking at the door, somebody's ringin' the bell. Do me a favor, open the door, and let 'em in (oooh yeah).... with the crazy horn section and everything. THEN I got freaked out and wondered if I should call the police. This happens to me all the time (not the drug scenes! the soundtracking). Does it happen to you?

If not, here is something else to think about. In the Melbourne airport they sell Emu Jerky, Crocodile Jerky, and Kangaroo Jerky. Natives might say it's lovely. I think it's weird. I was wondering about the preponderance of jerky products at airports in general before my outbound flight from LAX. How big is the market for this stuff, anyway, and who wants to suffer the lower g.i. trauma it invariably inflicts? Moreover, who wants to sit next to that guy? As a common courtesy to all passengers, there should be a ban on jerky products in airports. Road trips? Have all the Slim-Jims you want. But please, don't make me the unwitting victim of your airport experiments with desiccated animal flesh. That said: if the FAA required that all passengers consume one of the three Aussie jerkies prior to boarding, which one would you choose?

Hungry, mate?

And finally, goodnight... I hope.

...said my brain

Photo Post

2008-11-26T21:29:00.000-08:00

Because boot camp and the trainer and the running around and the time change caught up with me a little. A lazy-ish day here at the ranch (except for Jack the sweat coach, who was merciful).

Innuendo everywhere

I need this after boot camp

p.s. Starbucks doesn't exist. It's nice.

Mural in Fitzroy

Start them early

Jacques a la plage

Bells beach, but no sufers :(

My trip has been authenticated. I saw 'roos

Blueberry moustachio

i heart Pingu.

Ozzy Fresh

2008-11-25T10:42:00.000-08:00

If you know my sister, this picture has deeper meaning. Thanks to her extensive legwork, nary a morsel of non-organic food will pass my lips during my stay down under. She has "sourced" every organic market and restaurant in the city. What stinks is that fair trade organic 72% dark chocolate with anti-oxidant rich goji berries will still make you fat...

Miraculously I could walk today, after yesterday's yoga, run, and meeting with the sweat coach. Not only could I walk, I could run (!). Becky and I hit 6 a.m. boot camp in the park (which was no problem since i was up at 4:30) and I suffered through it and loved it at the same time. I haven't done sprints since I was about 10. There were lunges, obstacle courses, circuits. So fun. It's nice to earn your brekkie and your rice milk latte. My sister's family is known in all the local coffee shops because they bring their own (rice) milk. Australia is fun.

Melbourne. Or, What Time Is It? What Time Is It? What Time Did You Say It Is?

2008-11-24T16:38:00.000-08:00

My nephews are adorable. So adorable I wrecked my entire musculoskeletal system to come visit them in the southern hemisphere. They're worth it though. (The flight over could be the subject of an entirely separate post. But I'll sum it up this way: thank god for Ambien). This is them, at a park in St. Kilda this morning, before we went for really really good Australian coffee and brekkie at the Easy 15 cafe. The ruggies had almond/rice milk Baby-chinos. And all of that came after a 6:30 Ashtanga yoga class that confirmed that vinyasa is right yoga discipline for me. I'm a tight white girl, and my ankle doesn't feel at home behind my head.

Walker and August Jack

The Walker "mugshot" with Babychino

There is a lot of cool graffitti all over the city, but especially in a neighborhood called Fitzroy. I took some pics but uploading them has been a little dicey... I am to bandwidth as Americans are to cheap oil, my brother-in-law says; spoiled, used to driving SUV-sized images through massive broadband corridors at light speed. More later, if I can. For now I must scoot because we're going to see this guy:

Update: I thought I was strong. I thought I was fit. I was so wrong. The sweat coach kicked my butt. I will not walk tomorrow. To do list: Find personal trainer upon return.

Wall Street, Main Street and Some Literary Cliches.

2008-11-20T07:01:00.000-08:00

This morning I got up and read this on the front page of the New York Times. Then I walked to the corner for my "occasional" coffee and I saw this:

uh-oh

Now, I know the owner of this little coffee shop, and this guy doesn't give anything away. This ain't no Starbucks, where, if they can't break your bill or you forget your Starbucks gold card they'll just say, "it's on the house today." No, this guy doesn't give anything away. Nor should he. For years his little place has held it's own, anchoring the other end of town with a loyal and staunchly anti-Starbucks clientele. You don't achieve that with an attitude of largesse. His prices are higher, but nobody seems to mind. This guy is Main Street. So, combined with the morning's headlines and the seemingly bottomless stock market, this freshly posted sign, which would normally elicit a pleasant response, instead elicits a queasy sense of foreboding. How much more foreboding can we take? Is there a sliver lining? Can we take comfort in the idea that, if nothing else, this financial squeeze will deflate the hedonistic bubble a whole generation has inhabited like fish inhabit water? Maybe the slap of a new or adjusted reality will bring with it a renewed appreciation for simpler pleasures? I, for one, was not saddened in the least yesterday when I drove by the Lamborghini of Orange County showroom and saw that it had been vacated overnight.

I don't know. I'm no economist. But even if I was, I'd be nervous, flummoxed, nonplussed. A few decades later Alan Greenspan offered this for his years of economic brilliance: "Oops."

Not being a biblical kind of gal, I like to find perspective in the writings of historical and literary sages. And if the punishing profession of writing offers any small satisfaction, it's that you can equivocate with profundity, that you can offer up platitudes that may be more historically significant than the numbers guys ever could be with their ephemerally significant calculations:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way.... (Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)

If that most-quoted-of-all-time paragraph leaves you cold, then Churchill provides a more succinct mantra for the times: If you're going through hell, keep going.

It's anyone's game. It's painful, it's interesting. While things shake out, while I try to figure out how I'm going to continue to finance my (occasional) coffee, I'm going to try to enjoy paying a little less for it.

If you've made it this far, I'm sorry for boring you. But have a nice and a frugal day. xoxo.

Hello. Stay Tuned. Random Starbucks Story.

2008-11-19T12:12:00.000-08:00

Holiday season has begun. I know this because Starbucks started using their red holiday cups the day after Halloween. Thank God for Starbucks. How would we kill time and capture culture without it? Moreover, where would leagues of people the world over go to pretend to be working on their laptops while they're really perving on other customers and looking for dates? Oh, I know, you really do get work done at Starbucks. And you need to be at arm's length from an extra hot venti soy peppermint half-caff six pump mocha, no whip at all times. I understand. I get it. You're the exception.

Christmas? 80 degrees? Why Not.

The Starbucks here in town is located on a corner, which is metaphorically appropriate. I remember talking to a guy at a Christmas party about the local Starbucks several years ago. This guy worked in some capacity for a medical research company that was investigating the reinstatement of silicone breast implants.

He liked his job.

Instead of having to take time out for thoughts of breasts every 23.7 seconds, he was licensed to think of, look at, and obsess over breasts all day long. He rolled through his days distraction free, resulting in unprecedented levels of efficiency and productivity. And he wasn't afraid to admit that he worked a lot in his off-hours, either. And where did he conduct his casual off-hours research...?

Starbucks.

When his out-of-town coworkers came to town, there was only one place they wanted to have meetings. Yeah. There.

I used to think it would be brilliant for Starbucks to hang up a disco ball and offer a singles night a few times a week. Then I realized that would be a total redundancy because Starbucks hosts singles night every morning, noon and night, all week long (voyeurs and adulterers also welcome).

I'm not saying I don't love Starbucks, because I do. In fact what I probably like least about Starbucks is the coffee. I think everyone should go, at least once in awhile, when 'Bucks is busy, bustling and abuzz with caffeine and wanton desire. Armed with sharp eyes and good ears, this might be the best and cheapest form of entertainment around. So grab your laptop. I'll see you there.

----------------------------------

And ANYWAY... November's been a slow month here at le blog. It seems much of my brain has taken it's allotted two weeks of annual vacation all at once, and I'm operating with a skeleton crew in the inspiration and creativity departments. Stay tuned, and I love you for looking.

If You Don't Fall in Love...

2008-11-14T10:41:00.000-08:00

Take your pulse. You might not own a beating heart.

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

Oops, I Did It Again.

2008-11-14T07:38:00.000-08:00

Over there in the sidebar, in the "Things I Like" section, I said (ahem), "I quit coffee, but I still love it like an old friend."

I guess we're more like friends with benefits.

What can I say? Being virtuous got boring.

If you see someone bouncing between earth and the moon today, that's me. Astronomers might mistake me for a comet and give me a name like Arabica Hyperactiva.

Word Art

2008-11-13T22:53:00.000-08:00

Who's gonna argue with Lennon/McCartney?

Not me.

The Sweet Taste of Victory

2008-11-04T22:01:00.001-08:00

Sweet Child O' Mine

2008-11-04T08:01:00.000-08:00

I always suspected that my teenage obsession with Appetite for Destruction might manifest genetically; that by a miracle of audio-neural conditioning Guns n' Roses would claim some unpatterned genes and literally code GNR into my DNA. A number of things would seem to back up my theory, like (a) I had a poster of Axl & Slash on my dorm room door in college (I think Phish was the preferred door adornment at the time), and (b) on Halloween I danced with a guy dressed as Slash. But Rachel confirmed it today when she emerged from her bedroom, dressed for school and channeling Axl Rose. I wonder if this is cosmically linked to the forthcoming release of Chinese Democracy??

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE. Electoral anxiety has taken hold.

Riddle Me This...

2008-10-31T11:11:00.001-07:00

I want to start by saying this will not be a terribly well-constructed or argumentatively air-tight post. It is not meant to be a definitive or comprehensive debate. It is an expression--a mild, impulsive rant. I have a goth princess, a grim reaper, and a punk zombie (me) to pull together, so time is of the essence here, my friends. And in fact, so much has been said about this already that I figured, why go there? Alas, here I am.

It involves Proposition 8. I won't even link to any of the Prop. 8 websites, because I haven't done due diligence to see which camp is lurking behind which dogma disguised as "official information." If you are not from California and/or pay absolutely no attention to hugely publicized political issues, Prop. 8 proposes to ban same sex marriage in California. This creates a slightly confusing, counter-intuitive situation where voting "Yes on 8" means you want gay marriage repealed, and voting "No on 8" means you want it to stand.

I'm sure I don't need to say another thing to indicate the white-hot division that exists on this issue. So I won't. But it's there. In spades. And clubs, hearts, diamonds, kings, queens, jacks and aces, too. It's a full house of vehement, vociferous division.

I live in a bastion of both SUV love, and of conservative thought. It is a little red dot in a big blue state. All over town there are signs and bumper stickers in support of "Yes on 8." There are two slants to their arguments: the first, thoroughly bogus slant, is that if 8 is allowed to stand, our children will be taught about gay marriage in school. The second appeal to homophobic, fear-fueled narrowists, is that marriage needs to be "protected," and for this they use the slogan, "RESTORE MARRIAGE." This is the ubiquitous yard sign:

RIDDLE ME THIS: How will banning gay marriage "restore" an institution that has a near 60% failure rate among heterosexual couples??? This is a non sequitur of epic proportions. One simply has nothing to do with the other. In fact, maybe allowing gay marriage will restore this institution. Maybe gay people will have a greater appreciation for what they've been denied. Maybe they really will consider the vows they take to be sacred and enduring. For all we know, they may be the last shot marriage has to make a comeback. And this doesn't even touch the subject of equality and the right to pursue happiness. At the very least, they deserve an equal opportunity to fail. Is it the bible vs. the constitution? I don't know. I can't speak about scripture with intelligence or conviction; but if I could, I'm sure I could bend a scriptural argument to fit my purposes like many of these folks probably do.

*************************************************

The other day the kids and I, while sitting in the car at a red light, waiting to make a u-turn, were enveloped in a cross-walking "Vote Yes" parade. They passed right in front of us. I could not muster any appreciation for this parade, the people or their their views. I simply couldn't access my yogi mind on this one. As one man passed, he noticed that I had kids in the car and made the immediate assumption (among honks of approval from neighboring cars) that I was on his side. He looked me directly in the eyes, smiled broadly and gave me a hubristic, triumphal two-thumbs-up. My children were in the car so I did not gesture back. You might guess what my impulsive gesture would have been... two-thumbs-down (of course).

So I put on this shirt, took the kids into town, and joined the parade.

Rant ranted, costumes to construct. Happy Halloween, everyone. Have fun, be safe. xoxox

And So We Are Three; The Lola Report

2008-10-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

I went back to the pet store* today to pick up "Lola" (who, in absentia, had been tentatively renamed "Ruthie"). I was ready to hunker down and do the puppy thing. I steeled myself for the fallout of the "no pets" clause in my lease. I was prepared to hide her from my landlord or flat-out lie about taking care of her for a friend... or move. I had potential dog sitters lined up and spreadsheets prepared (well, not really, but there was a budget knocking around in my head).

She was gone.

I just saw her yesterday afternoon. Who buys a puppy on a Monday night? I guess someone who was as in love with her as we were, and also doing their due diligence.

How do you feel such a crazy sense of loss over something you never had?

Happy trails, LolaRuthie

*I am not generally a pet store proponent.

Pending Family Member

2008-10-26T19:41:00.000-07:00

Rachel and "Lola"

A Leopard Can't Change His Spots

2008-10-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

But this guy could certainly change his shorts.

I don't really know what to say.

Proof That the World is Getting Less Considerate; A Malenomenon (updated)

2008-10-23T13:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, maybe I'm exercising hyperbolistic license here, using a single incident to speak for a planetary phenomenon, but I'm going to stand behind it. And it's actually not the only time this has happened to me (though it was arguably* the most blatant), so for each of my experiences I'm guessing that everyone else has had at least one or two similar experiences, and so it goes on, growing exponentially (and if it was an online phenomenon it would be growing virally... god I love words) into a general, universal, existential experience. And isn't that what defines a phenomenon.... sort of?

Alright then.

It's the waiting-for-a-parking-space "phenomenon." But this is such an irksome phenomenon that it really should be renamed in a whole new category of negatively tainted phenomena. Like, a Malenomena. I suppose this could also be used for icky men, all manner of odious ex-male mates** and perverts, since it has the appropriate almost-prefix. I concede that there is probably already a common word for Malenomena, but I can't think of it because my brain is reaching capacity. Given the chance, I would probably fail all of the vocabulary tests I aced in the fifth grade.

Carrying on.

I wish I had a visual aid for this story, because it would help a lot. Suffice it to say that to say that the parking lot in question is very small and tight is an understatement. It's REALLY tight. For those of you in the know, I'm talking about Zinc (which serves the only orgasmic oatmeal on the planet... Zinc and maybe Sarabeth's on the upper east side. But I think at Sarabeth's I was more fascinated by the ambiance and the heavy scent of oozing, dripping wealth and all of the people getting ferried to brunch in limousines, and I was trying/hoping to spot Woody Allen).

I also live in one of the last bastions of SUV love, a place where GM probably isn't losing money on cars that get 9 mpg, where rising gas prices are more or less shrugged off. There are way too many McCain/Palin stickers riding above way too many chromed-out, low-pro dubs. So in case I got too tangential (who, me?), the point is that the cars are huge and the parking spaces are miniscule.

Chrome for Christ

Years ago I read in a magazine article that when somebody knows you're waiting for their parking space they will actually take longer to get their ass in gear. I remember this article because I remember not believing it. Once I'm behind the wheel my intent is to drive/leave. If there is somebody waiting for my space that intention is accelerated, so as to be a considerate citizen. Apparently I am in the minority here. At the very least I fall in with the men on this one.* It's kind of like going to the restroom in a crowded restaurant/bar: Men get in there, do their business, and get the hell out. Women? Gah. Hair, makeup, lip gloss, outfit check, boob repositioning, more lip gloss, the stand-sideways-and-check-my-profile check, the stand-backways-and-check-my-backside check, and so on. And if it's a tandem pee, with BFF in attendance, you can surely double the time you'll spend in agony, tempted to manually restrain your bladder.

It appears that the driver's seat, for many people, is a place to take care of business--any kind of business: checking email, texting, returning calls, balancing checkbooks, filing nails, applying makeup, masturbating, chatting with passenger, making out with passenger, checking/plucking eyebrows (I'm guilty of this. There is no more brutally truthful reflection than a rear-view mirror in direct sunlight. It can be really horrifying when your bathroom lighting is pleasantly forgiving like a soft focus lens smeared with vaseline).

*What was the (second) asterisk for? I seem to remember that the article actually said that men are worse offenders than women. In my experience, the opposite is true. But there is a first asterisk in the first paragraph that would refute this, and I'll get to that later.

Here's where the preamble ends and the story begins.

The parking lot was packed full. As I pulled in, a lady was walking to her Hummer (I should just stop there. Doesn't that say enough?). "Ok," I think, "I will suspend judgement. I will think kindly of her because she is making a parking spot available to me."

She gets into her car. She leaves the door open. She sits.

Minutes go by. Nobody else is leaving, so I wait.

A Range Rover pulls in behind me, and because of the way the parking lot is configured, the Range Rover's back end is hanging perilously into the oncoming traffic of PCH. Hummer woman can't help but notice this: it is visually unavoidable.

Still, she sits.

From my humble hybrid I can't see what she's doing on her monster-truck perch. The clock ticks on. I have to give props to Ms. Rover, who sat patiently, and I think a little disbelievingly, behind me. Without a word or a glance we became compatriots, watching and waiting and wondering. For whatever reason, Hummer woman decided she was going to mess with someone today. Apparently, my karmic number was up.

Two more minutes went by. Finally I decided to put it in park and satisfy my curiosity and my growing annoyance. Usually, if someone plans on camping out, they'll somehow signal or say so, and they're friendly or apologetic about it. But she didn't do that.

So I get out of the car. I shoot a glance to Ms. Rover and she signals she's got my back. I walk to that towering beast of vehicular depravity, and I peek inside. Hummer woman is doing... nothing. She is sitting there. She is not distraught, she is not experiencing a medical emergency, she is not on a phone call. She is not doing anything, except picking her fingernails. And she's not picking like she's lost in thought and consumed with heavier things, which might explain her thoughtlessness. She is picking with intent.

I smile. "Excuse me, are you... leaving?"

Her tone is indignant: "Yes I am!" (Subtext: "How dare you ask!")

"Thank you so much. We've been waiting." (As if you didn't notice.)

Finally, she leaves. Once we're inside, Ms. Rover and I exchange words about it, with cluck-clucks and tsk-tsks, and agree she must be an angry person and that we're sorry for her.

And all is well in the world again.

Until the next time it happens.

Maybe to you.

The roads are treacherous enough. Let's mind our vehicular manners.

* First asterisk. The other notable time this happened, long long ago, I was not the driver but the passenger in the waiting car. The driver of the departing car was male, and the driver of my car was my boyfriend (er, also male). The departer pulled much the same shenanigans as Hummer woman did. When boyfriend got out of the car to inquire, quite nicely, he was met with resistance, aggression and unkind language (to say the least), and tempers flared. The guy did ultimately leave, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't fear the gloves would come off. I did my girlfriendly part to suggest we just find alternative parking-- people have been shot under less confrontational circumstances--but egos were in effect and reason held no sway.

** I just re-read this (I'm a crazy, relentless revisor) and realized that "ex-male mate" could mean a former mate who has had a male-to-female "gender reassignment." I like this concept; it's rich with narrative potential (though it's not what I meant). At any rate, along these lines, read Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

Art Appreciation

2008-10-23T07:31:00.001-07:00

So we all know from our required course(s) in art history, or I guess just from being human, that the magic of art lies in subjectivity and interpretation. But sometimes it just seems so damn obvious what the artist is trying to get across that we, especially those of us over the age of 10, see without really seeing and forget to employ our powers of liberal consideration and abstract observation (or would it be liberal observation and abstract consideration? Whatever... you know what I mean).

No, it doesn't swim. It's a house. Those aren't bubbles, it's a chimney.

(So says the artist)

And this is me, on my birthday. This was drawn two days ago. My birthday was in May. But time doesn't march inexorably for a six year old; it's pliable, abundant, and totally open to creative arrangements, mostly marked and dictated by birthdays, summer vacation, major holidays and possible opportunities to go to Legoland. If you didn't read A Wrinkle In Time as a child, read it as an adult.

Apparently I am a melon-headed, peace-loving, gown-wearing, Aunt Jemima-esque matron with a rooster hairdo who is beyond delighted to blow out the candles on the S.S. Birthday Cake.

I don't want my kids to grow up.

I Drank Coffee This Morning

2008-10-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

Jaysus. It was like rocket fuel.

Salad at Breakfast

2008-10-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

Not really. But I'm thinking of salad, because my 8:00 client canceled and I realized that last night's post could've used an editor, so here I am (you didn't miss a step. it's a big non sequitur). But it was late, so pardon the poor grammar and usage.

Salad is important to me. I love it. And not because I'm one of those lettuce shifting, meal-picking, side-salad-and-icewater waif wannabes. To the contrary. Because avocados and toasted walnuts exist, my salads can probably give the average cheeseburger a run for it's money in the fat and calories department. No, I love salads because they're versatile, they're green, and they are crunchy. Crunchy is important to me. Crunch is the anti-pancake, the anti-flan. Oatmeal is the exception to my mealy malaise, but even my oatmeal is loaded down with chewy raisins and toasted slivered almonds and walnuts and lots of maple syrup, so whatever cholesterol cleansing qualities it inherently possesses are pretty much neutralized. Oh, and I put peanut butter in there too, because peanut butter, in my book, is possibly one of the most perfect foods ever created, and I would put it on damn near anything as a condiment.

Anyway, I've been obsessed with this incredibly simple salad dressing lately. It helps if you have a cruet to make it in so you can get your groove on shaking it to emulsify. It's the perfect dressing because it's light, it's refreshing, it goes with darn near any salad, and it won't overpower the actual contents of the salad (this from a bona fide midwesterner; if you've been to the midwest you know that the two primary ingredients in any salad there are shredded colby-jack cheese and ranch dressing... and maybe croutons). And best of all, I think, is that it doesn't rely on garlic as it's primary seasoning, so you can serve it without fear if you want to kiss someone later. You should try it. Here it is:

2 1/2 Tbs. dijon mustard

1/4 C. fresh squeezed lemon juice (fresh is paramount)

5-6 Tbs. high quality olive oil (quality counts)

1/4 tsp. sea salt

A generous grind or three of fresh ground pepper

Combine all ingredients, turn on your favorite guilty pleasure dance music and shake it like you mean it.

Serve over your favorite greens. Crisp organic apples and celery are current faves in my salad bowl. I've also been sprinkling things with cayenne pepper. Enjoy :)

xoxox.

Where We Wander Around In Sarah's Brain, Looking for the Point, Which Turns Out to be Very Small and Insignificant

2008-10-21T21:46:00.000-07:00

I was ten years old when I saw the ocean for the first time. This really has nothing to do with the the ultimate, minute point of this post, except in an extremely (and I do mean extremely) tangential way. The post is actually about a nail polish color I like. My mind is a maze and I was wandering around in there, with no particular plan to find an exit, as I made my bed. Becaaaaause... I washed my sheets today and forgot about it until I was good and ready to strike an angle of repose with some bedtime reading material, whereupon i stood slumpishly in my bedroom doorway being irritated by my forgetfulness. And it happens to me all the time. There must be a subconscious subtext to all of this; something entirely within my control to stop from happening, and yet I allow it to happen again and again. Or maybe I was just a) busy, or b) i hate doing involuntary yoga trying to stretch the fitted sheet over an 18" slab of memory foam, so I avoid doing it until the last minute. But fresh clean sheets feel sooooo good.

Last week I talked to someone who sends their sheets to the dry cleaners. What's impressive about this is that, unless you get same-day cleaning, it means you have not one, but several sets of five-million-thread-count sheets, probably made from organic egyptian cotton grown on sacred swaths of the Nile delta and hand-loomed in Italy with the downy chin whiskers of cashmere goats bottle-fed by the rarest order of Tibetan monks. I want some sheets like that. If I got someone to underwrite the loan, I wonder if they could withstand biodegradable detergent and the extra-gentle spin cycle.

So ANYWAY, I first saw the ocean when I was ten. When you hail from the land of 10,000 lakes, you think you know large bodies of water. You don't. Lake Minnetonka was a respectable lake, I guess, but it did absolutely nothing to prepare me for the technicolor eye-gasm of the Carribean sea.

We went to Cozumel. It was a huge deal. I was rummaging through attic junk about a year ago in an attempt to consolidate the history-of-me (and make space for the stuff I will accumulate for my kids, so that someday they can rummage through their crowded attics and wonder aloud why did she save some of this stuff? Fourteen copies of my college essays, sprial bound? Was she sending it to Simon and Schuster?). Anyway, I found my calendar from that year, which featured keebler-esque elves and gnomes with cute curled up slippers and mushroom houses. This calendar must've made the journey through time because it was a momentous year: on the square for July 6th I wrote BKGOL, which stood for "Becky Kissed Greg On Lips." It was a juicy trifle for my arsenal of big-sister blackmail, and a noteworthy triumph in sibling espionage. Anyway, I crossed off the days for two months leading up to our departure for Mexico. And Cozumel didn't disappoint.

In retrospect, from the wizened perspective of a recovering hotel snob, our accomodations at the El Presidente were modest. But to me and my sister, our hotel experience limited to the chlorine-scented, indoor poolside rooms of plains states Holiday Inns, the El Presidente was f***ing paradise. And the ocean was right. out. there.

I snorkeled till I shriveled, I poked at spiny sea urchins in creature-rich tide pools (and would have gagged at the notion that ten short years later I might eat one in Japan), I ate nine desserts nightly from the all-inclusive buffet (mexican ice cream is excellent) and developed an immediate and lifelong hatred for flan (why can't mexico come up with a better dessert?). I burned up allowance money and took out loans against future chores to buy silver rings and bracelets and shell necklaces from tired, raisin-skinned women hauling their heavy cases and their children from sunbather to sunbather. I thought it was beautiful. All of it.

I was smitten to say the least, seeing all this through the virgin eyes of a sheltered, snow-country child and a neophyte traveler. Man, I never wanted that vacation to end.

But it had to. Which meant one thing: Souvenirs.

There was a market somewhere in town that was probably pretty small. But to me it seemed vast. Imagine experiencing a crowded street market in the world's most exotic place while you're on opiates or hallucinogens, and that's probably about how I saw this place.

I went home with loads of junk. Jewelry, shells, a sombrero, maracas, a t-shirt.

But not the t-shirt I wanted. I'll never forget wanting a white shirt with beaded fringe all along the bottom. My parents said no. It was too "racy" for a 10 year old, too "Bo Derek" (I guess the beaded fringe reminded them of her cornrows in that classic shot where she's running on the beach in 10). So, as my sister picked out something appropriately Mexi-preppy, I begged and pleaded for the shirt with fringe because it was different. Nobody else at home would have a t-shirt with a ripped-up, beaded fringe along the bottom. Esprit didn't make anything that even came close. But... nope. The arbiters of fourth grade taste unanimously proclaimed it tacky and distasteful. And maybe it was. But I needed whatever it was that fringe represented to me, or said to me, as a 10 year old. And maybe that's why, more than two decades later, I am enamored with this enamel (the fringe element had to manifest eventually). It's called Light My Sapphire. It looks black inside, and outside it looks like graphite, but it's really the deepest, deepest, deepest shade of stealth sapphire blue. And I love it.

I told you it was tangential.

Hooray

2008-10-20T06:18:00.000-07:00

I don't have to boycott the World Series.

Go Rays, and Happy Birthday, Dad!!

A bunch of us were treated to a ridiculously yummy fish taco BBQ and a 7:45 showing of "W" last night (thank you :), but the game wasn't over when we left, so as I watched the commander in chief being portrayed as a sniveling/tragic/pathetic/shiftless/artless/alcoholic/ADD boob-slash-dunce (and that's all i'll say about that), i kept annoying the people around me by checking the score on my iPhone.

I'm fired up for you, Daddy-O. I hope you get to go to a game or two, and watch your underdog hometown heroes trounce the insipid Phillies.

xoxoxo,

50 Mile Soundtrack

2008-10-19T15:25:00.000-07:00

Hot Sweaty Yoga Post-Endorphin Homebound Playlist*

House of Heroes - Dangerous

Stellastarr - My Coco

Living Things - Bom Bom Bom

Black Lips - Veni Vidi Vici

Goldfinger - Counting The Days

Anthony Green - Dear Child (I've Been Dying to Reach You)

Yeah Yeah Yeas - Gold Lion

Pixies - Where Is My Mind?

Cinemechanica - The Professor Burns Vegas

Alkaline Trio - Calling All Skeletons

Brand New - Sowing Season

Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Goin' Down

Edison Glass - Cold Condition

Jonezetta - Imagination

The Stills - Snakecharming the Masses / Panic

U.S. Royalty - John Henry / Every Summer

The Killers - Mr. Brightside (Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Mix)

*Plays best in a rolling sound bubble. Watch your speed.

One Sexy Letter

2008-10-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

A world of possibility

It Wasn't A Kings of Leon Show, But...

2008-10-16T07:35:00.003-07:00

Yeah yeah, i know you've already seen it

Last night I was witness to/present among the discomfort this picture sums up so well (if erroneously and hilariously). I was a black sheep (albeit a polite one), an impostor of sorts, but not really because I never claimed to be something I wasn't. I didn't define myself in any political terms, and everyone was either polite enough not to ask, or operating under the assumption that you wouldn't be at such an intimate gathering (there were 80 people, not 500) if you weren't a Republican.

I had my picture taken standing between the Terminator and the Titan, the Guv'na and the Mayor. Ain't that a hoot. This is not a warm, fuzzy, "count-to-three-and-say-cheese" experience. It is exactly like having your picture taken with two animatronic robots at Madame Tussaud's. The photographer doesn't wait for you to look pretty or put on your best smile. Once you've shaken hands and you're vaguely in position, he just shoots. Eyes half-closed? Retakes? Move on, lady.

At dinner my table was next to the muckety-muck table. I sat back to back with the Guv'na. My friend kept nudging me to tap him on the shoulder for a photo or to invite him to the "young" table for dessert. I didn't. The venue boldly served beef and only beef, which somehow seemed fitting. (When I declined the dinner selection for a salad I think I might have given myself away.) I noticed Bloomie was also eating a salad as all the carnivores around him tucked into their filets... I wonder if he's veg.

It didn't change the way I'll vote. I should also note that this wasn't a McCain/Palin event, it was an event to support a California proposition. So, though the debate was playing during the twenty minute cocktail reception (I would've opted for the Dodger's game, also depressing), it was not a rabid political affair (and the mood for McCain, as mentioned, was subdued and a little uncomfortable to say the least). But I'll say this: Arnie and Bloomie make a fantastic team at the podium. They're dynamic, funny speakers, and last night they were probably less guarded because of the size and nature of the party. I enjoyed listening to them. The best line of the night was Schwarzenegger's, and I'm sure he uses it often: "Of course I understand both sides; I sleep with a Democrat every night."

This liberal is off to yoga.

Where Are Quantum Physics When You Need Them?

2008-10-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight at 7:00 (or whatever time 7:00 turns out to be) The Stills are opening for Kings of Leon in LA. I am in the throes of obsession with Oceans Will Rise, and my daughter asks for "the surfing music song" (Snakecharming the Masses) every day on the way to school (along with "the summer song remix" by U.S. Royalty). They are only here tonight.

Tonight at 7:00 I (and 500 of his closest friends he doesn't know) will be having dinner with Michael Bloomberg. (Note: this is not an indication of my political leanings. But admittedly since my corporate days when I had a Bloomberg terminal, I've been intrigued by the man). I am approaching the experience with a journalistic mind, in the company of friends... don't hate me because I'm curious.

I am envisioning the possibilities and implications of a world where we could be in two, but only two, places at once. (Wasn't that the premise of the movie Sliding Doors?). Tonight would be an excellent time to experiment.

Miracles Happen.

2008-10-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

I didn't have coffee. Who'da thunk?

Ryan Is The Most Helpful Kid I Know

2008-10-08T06:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday he folded two loads of laundry to help with the home-irradiation preparation.

He folded every piece like origami. He folded pants and hoodies and tees like origami.

Only an 8 year old could put that kind of care and creativity into such a mundane task.

I'll wear my deeply, intricately creased clothes with pride.

Days Feel Like Weeks...

2008-10-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

when you can't drink coffee. Or, more accurately, when you elect not to drink coffee. It's self-torture in the name of cellular purification. Six days in, four to go, and I never could have guessed what a stranglehold this stimulant has on me. Every part of me: physically, psychologically, socially. Sure, I can still saunter down to the coffee shop and visit with the lads and lasses, but somehow the morning has less heft when they're savoring steaming cups o' joe and I'm sipping mint tea (which is one of three allowable beverages on the master cleanse).

I'm going through withdrawal. Just like any junkie. Ok, maybe not like any junkie: I don't need a nicotine patch or a methadone clinic or a twelve step program, but still. There are headaches, grumpy moodies, and.... yeah, pretty much headaches and fits of the grumpies, mostly in the morning at my ritual drinking hour, and later when my body realizes it's not getting its fix and rebels with a dull ache that wraps around the whole casing of my brain. Granted, day six is way better than days 1-4. But I still want it. And despite this cleanse supposedly curing you of such base habits and desires (and others, like picking your nose and liking pancakes), I know I'll relapse again and again. Is there a swank rehab facility in Malibu for this? Unless there is, and I take up permanent residency, I'm doomed to a life of caffeine dependency. On Sunday when I went to Urth to get a Moroccan Mint tea (perhaps the only mint tea in existence that is a worthy stand-in, because somehow theirs tastes rich) I almost started drooling at the smell of it. The experience was fraught with anxiety. I didn't know if I'd keep my resolve. Classic case of a recovering boozer thinking she can walk into a bar and not want a drink.... maybe just one.....

My approach to the counter unfurled in slow-mo terror. The friendly, familiar smile of the register guy, waving me forward to place my order, my eyes locked on his fingers hovering expertly and expectantly over the keypad of his machine, waiting for a nod, a slight signal, a word, a green light to let fly the code for my usual brew. With weird tunnel vision and heightened sensory perception I reach the counter, and a voice that seems totally detached from my body speaks the word TEA instead of HONEY VANILLA LATTE, STRONG. In that particular moment, I was a bifurcated soul. My heart was 100% with the latte, but the disciplined mind overruled. You have noooooo idea the willpower it took. But, as Bono said (in an interview i recently read), "feelings are much stronger than thoughts." Damn straight. However it sullies my cells, I feel for this vice, this drink, this ritual, and I wholeheartedly look forward to my reunion with it (on Saturday). Ah, I am a weak girl... who likes strong coffee. Opposites attract.

In other news, the sweat lodge is doing a stint as circus tent before turning into an igloo for the winter (shouldn't all homes have seasonal and/or occasional identities?). Yep, tomorrow at noon they throw up the tent and smoke out the termites... and any other unfortunate, hapless living organism that gets trapped inside. This means i must: a) pack stuff up and temporarily remove it from the premises (which i intend to do) or, b) double-bag stuff in special NYLOFUME bags to protect it from contamination. You might guess this is not a fun process. And, as a wholehearted believer in organic everything and the untold damages wrought on mankind by pesticides and GMOs and the corporate incarnation of Satan, Monsanto (and it's like-minded, greed-driven, food-wrecking ilk), I am NOT STOKED that the majority of my belongings will sit for 48 hours absorbing death fog. I'm afraid my friends won't come over anymore because, uh, gee, they don't want to catch pesticide-itis (aka cell mutation). Don't get me started on the kiddos, who will be cloistered in a safe house until the air has been cleared, tested, and cleared some more. I've been assured and reassured by "the man" that there is nothing to fear, but I half expect to see a gaseous haze rising off my furniture upon my return, and to be haunted by the ghosts of millions of pissed off termites and spiders for the rest of my life. Good times over here at the hot spot.

And so, when I return on Saturday, all hopped-up from my reunion with COFFEE!! WHEE!! I will have the unenviable task of washing everything in the house. Did I seriously pay my rent this month?? Wow. Goes to show you how dumb a caffeine addict can be, deprived of her fix.

xoxo

(No Title)

2008-10-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

FOR

I Have to Post

2008-10-02T14:09:00.000-07:00

Just because having "satan" at the top of my posts was starting to make me uncomfortable. It really was that hot, though. And that kind of stifling heat can make you crazy.

So... what's on my mind today (that I'm willing/able to share without violating blog protocol)?

Not much.

Pancakes.

Yeah, pancakes.

Why do they exist and why are they almost universally adored? I am puzzled by this.

Among the five hundred pieces of paper that come home daily with kids in school and extracurricular activities, I found a friendly reminder that on the day of my daughter's soccer photos there will be a pancake breakfast for everyone to enjoy!

Reading this reminder gave me that wrinkly-nose reaction you have when something is stinky.

Crepes are cool. They're flatter and firm but chewy, and you can roll them up burrito-style if you want, with all kinds of funtastic fillings. Slap a golden beret on those slender, purposeful discs of flattened flour! Score one for the French. But pancakes. Pancakes are the crepe's fat American cousin. Pancakes are the most flaccid, torpid of mealtime confections, unworthy of the sweeping potential their second syllable confers.

It's just a mealy, problematic foodstuff for me all around. And this is no raw-food-yogi-vegan speaking. I likes me a good belgian waffle now and then... with whipped cream and syrup. Eggs benedict? Why not? (But beware the hollandaise sauce. To find out why, you have to read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain). Bagels and lox? Yes, please! I'll willingly, if temporarily, unknow what I know about nitrates and nitrites and mercury in fish to savor that firmbutchewysweetbutsaltycreamycoolyummy combination. And with all the fixin's, too. Pile on the capers, please pass the red onion.

I was not born with the pancake gene. But if they're going to offer them, cafeteria-style, to a horde of hungry soccer kids and their willing parents, I am clearly expressing a minority opinion.

If you haven't already logged off, having confirmed your burgeoning belief that I've got a screw loose, and you've got some time to kill on YouTube garbage, have a look at this... and marvel at what supreme wasters of time YouTube has made us all:

If I put this pancake-energy towards ending world hunger or saving the environment, or even folding my laundry, it would be a really good thing.

Have a nice day. xoxox

Satan Called Today...

2008-09-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

He wanted to know if I had any rooms available so he could come warm up, because it's hotter than hell here. He said he's due for a vacation anyway. By day he sees the sights in rovers with no range, and by night he likes to toast marshmallows at the bonfires of vanity. He says it's heavenly. What a joker.

Anyway, he has an iPhone (shouldn't you?) and he said you can follow him on Twitter. If you caught his update that said, "warming up at the sweat lodge, doing yoga" that was here.

He said he was going to have a talk with the Stones about changing the name of the song to "Sympathy for Sarah," because no mortal should pay rent to endure this kind of heat. You should get it for free by living a life of sin.

Yesterday was so chilly I almost had to turn on the heat. But I didn't. I put on a sweater and walked barefoot on cold floors and reveled in the numbness in my toes and my nose and worshipped the fog god. I did a little dance. And now this.

Sweaters, scarves, boots, fireplaces. Shear the cashmere goat. Bring on the cold. I'm so ready.

Off to Pho for a steaming bowl of spicy-hot noodles. I hope they have A/C.

Backseat Explanation of "The Market"

2008-09-30T07:02:00.001-07:00

Last night the kids overheard me on the phone talking to a friend about the bottom falling out of the market. I'm resisting the urge to use more colorful, profane language here, in an effort to keep this a family-friendly blog.

The following discussion ensued:

Ryan: "Mom, what do you mean the market dropped?"

Me: (How do you summarize the stock market to an eight year old?). "It means the, uh, the price of lots of stocks fell all at the same time."

Ryan: "Oh. At which market? Gelson's, or Trader Joe's?"

Me: (This could be good). "Trader Joe's."

(Pause)

Rachel: "You mean it fell on it's side? It just fell over?"

Ryan: "No, Ray-CHEL. It means that the stock at the market is less money now. Like if you wanted wanted to buy, like, a wine glass that WAS $40, now it's like $20."

Me: (Of all the billions of things an 8 year old could choose as an example, from Trader Joe's, no less.... a wine glass?)

Ryan: "I mean, things that were $400 are like a hundered dollars now."

Rachel: "but what dropped.....?"

Ryan: (sigh) "Mom, Rachel just doesn't understand the stocks at Trader Joe's. She's too little. But that's great! Now our groceries won't cost very much money, and we can get stuff for, like a dollar."

Juice Evangelist

2008-09-28T20:35:00.001-07:00

I drank this for dinner.

Using the juicer is fun. Sometimes drinking it's output is not.

The kids stare in fascinated disgust.

They look a little nervous.

Like I might ask them to try it.

(But they love putting the carrots in and watching them get annihilated)

This will be my last juice-centric post. Swear.

I'm a little obsessed, maybe.

Wakes Up Late Her Makes Disgruntled

2008-09-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

What does it mean when you wake up at 6:45 and consider your morning shot? At that point, how long before you show up at Dennny's at 4:00 a.m. looking for coffee and a skillet scramble just because you've got so many hours to kill before daylight?

Where is my yogi mind, the equanimity, because ever since I rolled over and peeped those digitized numerals eulogizing the breaking dawn, all I've been able to mutter is: aaahhuurrggh. Is that a suitable string of gobbledygook to express the frustration of time lost... sleeping? (Don't get me wrong. I'm all for sleep. At nighttime. Morning: Wake. Nightime: Sleep. I'm primal that way.)

It was a thwarted morning. Planned a 50 mile trek to my yoga mecca to practice with my favorite guru and voluntarily turn myself into an independent climate zone of raining sweat. Then I realized, late, that guruji is out of town and his substitute, with all due respect, doesn't justify the expenditure of time or fuel. Now what?

Beach? Tried. By 7:30 already clogged with sensibly-shod strollers and their cacophonous chatter; parking lot stuffed full. Even more irksome because the morning was gifted with an epic marine layer that turns the place into a padded, cloistered, muted marine wonder world. Wah.

So I wound up at the farmers market looking for new things to turn into compost heap juice (photos above). A lady told me that dandelion greens are the ticket, so I picked some up. Otherwise, standard fare.

Speaking of juice. The juice of smashed grapes. I am not a wine snob. Here is my highbrow criteria for identifying a good wine: It tastes good to me. The wine pictured above does just that, and it's cheap (you know friends are family when they feel comfortable bringing an $8 bottle of wine to the party). This stuff doesn't even say what kind of grapes are in there. It just says it's from a vineyard numbered 10 somewhere in Washington. So, if you're going to a party with people who won't stare down their noses at you, and you don't want to bust the bank but you love your friends too much to induce the involuntary mouth-pucker of Two Buck Chuck, get this.** Wine snobs need not apply. And as a footnote, a glass or three of this humble vintage was the perfect companion to the (i thought) snore-fest of last night's debates. Hmm. Maybe that's why I woke up with rumpled karma. Watching John McCain hoist his permanently akimbo right arm and flick his tongue, lizard-like, over his pasty, unmoving lips would have a disquieting effect on anyone, regardless of political affiliation.

**I recently tried this wine again. It wasn't nearly as good as I remembered. Not awful, for eight bucks; drinkable, but hardly an Opus One-like mishmash of grapes.

Back To School Night

2008-09-26T10:43:00.001-07:00

This one's for you, Dad.

Girlchild, Buttoned Down

Last night was back-to-school night. Having two kiddos in the same school, parental duties were divided between classrooms and along gender lines. Dad went to boy's classroom, mom to girl's. I arrived slightly late (or should i say typically late), and was ushered to my daughter's dwarf-sized desk. Now, I'm a shorty, and my knees were level with the top of the desk, if that gives you any idea how itty-bitty these things are. I was pleased, however, that my butt stayed within the confines of the bitty-chair, and that was consolation enough for never scaling the heights of five-foot-five. but wait, this isn't about me (oops, i'm a blogger now. sometimes i forget).

Anyway, as i entered, the teacher, a radiating angel of a woman, was discussing her approach to problem solving. In short, she asks the students not just to come to her with a problem, but also with a proposed solution. She looked at me, smiled beautifully, and launched into this story:

"Today one of the little girls in class came to me with a problem. She couldn't get her water bottle open."

It was right here that I knew. And I don't know how I knew, but I did, that it was going to be my daughter. Maybe it was the way she smiled at me when I sat down, kind of like they forshadow events in the movies. Or maybe it's because I've opened so many water bottles for her it was just too familiar to be anyone else's little girl. I took a deep breath and waited for the rest, hoping I wouldn't blush or be obliged to make apologies after class. I was grateful that she was keeping "the little girl" anonymous.

"I asked her what her proposed solution to the problem would be."

"The girl said, 'to ask you for help.'"

"And I said, 'What's the magic word?'"

"And the little girl said, 'SHOPPING!!'"

The teacher was clearly tickled and delighted by this twist on the magic word every child has had engrained since birth (except mine, apparently). Still, I had to speak up, since my lil bit o' honey claimed to have learned this "magic word" from me ( for all the world not a shopper). I blamed it on the rightful owners of the onus, her grandparents.... my parents, who are, handily, the catch-all culprits for everything (oh, I need therapy? It's my parent's fault! My mom said a cuss word when she was pregnant with me!).

Love ya dad, you'll be pleased to know that she was listening. :)

Girlchild, Unleashed

Not To Belabor The Point, But...

2008-09-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

It's a new place, and the same place, every day. I always take my iPod. But when you have this all to yourself, it seems like a crime against nature to fill your ears with anything else. Sometimes Ma Nature talks, and her voice is crazy beautiful.

This is my favorite rock formation. I call it (in my head) Alien Rock, because it's an almost freakishly perfect circle. Sometimes when the tide is out and there isn't anyone else around (which is pretty much always) I do handstands on it. Or more frequently I just stand on it in absolute amazement that I am, well, standing on this rock, in this place, in this moment. I climb on the other rocks, too, and remember the year I took rocks for jocks in college, and it rocked my world (haha anyway, capital-G Geek). That winter I drove my family out of their minds as we drove from Denver to Snowmass and I insisted on telling them about the mountains surrounding us, how they were formed, what they were made of, and how they differed from other tectonic phenomena around the world. Boy, was I fun.

Alien rock from my perch on the climing rocks, 'bout 6:20-ish.

Well, I do. So I wrote it. It's a sand blog. An ephemeral blog. A get-eaten-by-the-tide blog.

And this. Always.

Morning. Beach.

2008-09-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

Perfect morning. Perfect season. Perfect Ocean. Four miles of miraculous solitude. Musical surf. Evolution took my fins, the ocean still feeds me.

Yogi In A Cardigan.

2008-09-25T05:49:00.000-07:00

Waiting for first light, so I can hit the beach. Summer officially ended a few days ago, didn't it? Where'd the time go?

Yesterday I Drank 24 oz. Of Kale/Beet Juice

2008-09-24T13:43:00.000-07:00

Do I need to say anything else?

Bootz, Mate! An Honorable Mention From Down Under.

2008-09-17T15:05:00.001-07:00

Weird, but at least the Aussies don't try to hide their sense of humor. On someone who wears their eccentricity with aplomb these might even work. It's the Anti-UGG. Thanks CRA.

Disasters: Natural and Man-Made

2008-09-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

1. Ike (Natural)
2. The Banking Crisis (Man-Made)
3. Sarah Palin (Uhhh.... Both)
4: These:

Dominatrix meets pinup girl meets wall street cross dresser meets The Matrix, meets sex and the city. Heels + Booties = Hooties.

Whoever designed these shoes had to have been in on the boondals crisis (boondals boondoggle?). Or maybe it's just the luxury footwear industry trying to amuse itself through some lean times.

For $995.00--yes, Nine-Hundred-Ninety-Five American dollars--you could own shoes this strange-looking and uncomfortable.

Blogaholics Anonymous: The first step is admitting you have a problem

2008-09-13T21:46:00.000-07:00

Hi. My name is Sarah. I am a blogger.

I never thought it would happen to me. I never thought I'd be standing here, saying this....

In truth, I haven't reached addictive levels of bloggery yet. I think first I have to surmount the feelings of criminal self-absorption that attend this activity.

But c'mon, everyone's doing it.

Certainly. And that's why my virginal blog status is something like five million (and sliding). It's also why there was an article in the New York Times last week about parents who are blogging for their newborns, sometimes in the voice of the newborn: "my favorite food is mommy's milk. yum!" (thanks j.b.)

There is undoubtedly a large population of drooling, inarticulate, illiterate, inchoate and even in-utero human beings who have a much higher blog status than I do.

Lovely.

And I even have a fancy piece of paper from a leafy, lofty liberal arts institution that says I can string words together all by myself, dammit. (The paper doesn't actually say dammit... I don't think. Then again I'm not sure I ever fully read it because it's in Latin. Sarah, for your great show of discipline, intelligence, and occasional debauchery, we confer upon you this degree with high honors, dammit.)

But lets not squander precious time on halting fits and starts of self-conscious equivocation. Let's do this thing.

Since I've really just been getting my feet wet with picture posts and the like, let me share with you, on this first, texty post, some of the perils of coming late to the blog party:

1. Good blog names ain't easy to come by. And in comparison to one's own, everyone else's seems incredibly clever or witty or cool or sexy. You spend a good few hours searching for a blogosphere identity that suits you, maybe even makes you look clever or creative, and muttering to yourself, "why didn't i think of that?" And maybe you did, but it was already taken. It's crowded on these here webbernets.

2. I like yoga. Some would say that's a gross understatement. But I am a real person with all kinds of spastic realities to wrangle on a daily basis. I'd love to say I'm a zen master, that I've conquered the ruckus-causing fluctuations of the mind. I'm working on it. I'm right on schedule to get it done in my 470th lifetime. In that life I may be a camel, cloned and genetically engineered for hydro-resilience on a hot, dry planet. But at least maybe i'll be in India.

Anyway, it has been suggested that I put this blog to use for professional purposes. Another quandry for the neophyte blogger: personal or professional? Hmmmmm.

How about this as a post:

Mindfulness in habitual asanas: redefine your down dog.

Economy of Movement: awareness in transitions to deepen your practice

Or maybe some anatomy?

The psoas muscle and it's vital link to.... everything.

Have I lost you yet? Thought so.

And so my posts here, when i get comfy enough about making them, will be eclectic and personal (not too personal), and i'll leave the yoga business for submissions to Yoga Journal.

That's it. That's my hello. Hello. My name is Sarah. I am a blogger.

Besos y abrazos.

Magic, Personified.

2008-09-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

Tiggs: "I'm cheering for LaMock"

Me: "Huh?"

Tiggs (exasperated): "LaMock! LaMock Obama! I'm cheering for him!"

Her big bro thinks his Lego fund will be better protected with... that... man in office... and that.... woman... whose name casts a pall on my own.

And so we are a house divided.

Meditation Point, 6:45 a.m.

2008-09-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

I get to start my day with this? Gratitude.

Now Here's a Surprise

2008-09-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

Boondals on clearance.

Damn.

I paid full price at the Xena: Glam Rock Warrior Princess store

(I'll stick to Warrior I, II and III.... barefoot)