TV for Smart People- Studio 60

Let me start by saying that I didn't watch The West Wing. I just want that out of the way. I did watch Sportsnight. I do love a lost cause.

Please, please, please don't cancel Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I am sure it is going to come up soon. It's a good show. A really good show. Great, witty writing. Solidly funny performances. So much potential.

There is no good drama on TV right now. I used to have Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, 24. 24 and The Sopranos are on hiatus and nothing has really come to take their place. Brothers and Sisters had potential but it is extremely heavy handed. The writing isn't even in the same universe as Studio 60. Desperate Housewives is getting, well, sort of desperate. (Really, the love child and baby's mama? A coma? Please).

TV, in general, is pretty slim pickings right now.

So NBC, I beseech you. Please don't cancel Studio 60. Don't be that network. If you cut too much I'm just going to quit watching altogether. I can Tivo, you know? I don't have to watch your sponsors ads at all if I don't want to. So please remember that I buy laundry detergent too. Even if I am a California liberal, I still shop. I can still buy just as many tires or sleeping pills or whatever it is you're selling. So keep Studio 60. Because not only can I Tivo, I can force friends into watching reruns on said Tivo. Sometimes I even get friends to switch laundry soap.

The Miracle Man

My grandpa is currently amazing Long Beach cardiologists by watching three baseball games per day, roaming the hallways and complaining about the lack of salt in the food. 

The nurses keep asking him if he's the 83 year old that they've been hearing about. The doctors are talking about letting him come home tomorrow. (His original release date was to be sometime this weekend). He just had heart surgery on Monday! Aren't you just totally impressed? 

He has pink cheeks. He hasn't had pink cheeks in ages. He sounds, I don't know... chipper? It is very very very cool. 

Sickness and Health

It's all just so frustrating. You know?

I just hope I die quickly and never get some debilitating illness. I'd rather get hit by a bus and be done with it.

Sigh.

Waiting

It has been one of those weeks. I've been forced to examine the concept of waiting. My grandfather went to the hospital with chest pains. He has to have open heart surgery to open his five blocked arteries. It has been a little stressful, to say the least.

I'm waiting, we're all waiting. This somehow reminds me of a day some years back when I was working as an extra (or the fancier term "background artist") on some show on location at a high school in Hollywood. It was a day in late May or early June and the sunlight has this sort of t.v. quality to it. Have you ever seen real movie lighting? The complexity of it, the sheer quantity necessary to emulate simple daylight? The rigs, the stands, the gels? It was the kind of light an art director would flog a team of 30 guys to get on tape. It was just sort of clean, with a hint of gold. It was one of those rare hot days in Los Angeles where there’s no smog yet, but there is a siren call from the ocean that you just want to obey without question.

I was sitting in the shade by myself (I burn rather easily), a little bit away from the other extras. Just waiting. And I felt that pull; that desire for time to push forward, to zip quickly by. To get to whatever it is you are waiting for. But I wasn’t waiting for anything in particular. I was just waiting. Sitting in the shade of that day, waiting in that perfect light. Watching the dew evaporating from the grass. Waiting.

I’m pregnant. That’s kind of the ultimate form of waiting, stretched out for nine (actually count ‘em, ten) months. You can’t hurry it up; you can’t open this present before the birthday. You just have to wait. (The kid is about 4 inches long right now, per Babycenter.com).

Last week my grandfather went to the hospital with chest pains. He is scheduled for open heart surgery on Monday. He is a prisoner in his house, chained to his pill bottles by the doctors orders. Waiting to have someone crack his chest cavity. My dad, my sister, me?

We’re waiting to see that he’s going to be ok. That we’ll all be ok.

I’ve been so lazy with this blog and so brain-dead lately. This will end up being my longest post in quite a while, I am guessing.

I just read a rather entertaining article about how conservatives are out-procreating the liberals. It’s called “Attention Liberals: Please Breed. Conservatives are outbirthing libs by a wide margin. How soon can you get knocked up?” You can read it at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2006/09/29/notes092906.DTL. (I tried to make the link happen but it didn't want to work. You'll have to be industrious and copy and paste it).

Very funny stuff. I particularly like this sentence: “I am here to inspire the resistance, to propose solutions to this disastrous fertility gap and to help get liberals into the sack sans protection so they may go forth and multiply the number of people who adore "The Daily Show" and read actual books and think Aaron Sorkin is some sort of god.” (Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle). Has anyone seen “Studio 60”? It makes me miss “Sportsnight”....

My boys in blue won tonight. We may actually make it into the playoffs. Very very very cool.

More soon.

Tony Won!!!

There was apparently a contest for the "The Office" television program wherein fans were to create promos for the show. My friend Tony won! His promo can be seen at: Nbc.com. It's called "Playing at Work." It's very funny. Yay for Tony! It will be on after "The Office" either this coming Thursday or the following Thursday. We're so very proud....

And Then There Were Three....

Well, I haven't posted in a couple weeks. I've been feeling rather brained by the heat we've been having. My handy Apple Dashboard Widget says that it is currently 95 degrees in Long Beach right now, down from a high of 97. 

My other excuse is that I'm pregnant. Surprise! 

The following are the answers to the questions everyone keeps asking me:

Due in the latter half of March. 

We'll be happy with a boy or girl, but I find myself wanting a girl a little more. 

Yes, the husband is quite pleased with himself. 

I am about five weeks along, brain cells malfunctioning more and more- although that may be from quitting smoking and caffeine (my two most favorite vices) and drinking. 

Yes, it is 95 degrees and not even a Red Stripe to console me. Even my very first rejection letter can't make me that upset, though....  

Happy 4th...

I guess. Woo hoo freedom. Drunk drivers and illicit (in Long Beach) fireworks. June bugs smacking into my screens- someone needs to let them know it is actually July. I have a mosquito bite on my ankle after 5 minutes outside. Ahh, summer. 

I played tennis today, for the second time in a week. My sister and I now have a two time per week date to play incredibly bad tennis together. The Williams sisters we are not. I smoke a pack a day and generally prefer to be sitting in front of the air conditioner with said cigarette and laptop. But we try, so that's ok. 

I bought the Oprah magazine July edition to read Harper Lee's letter about the love and necessity of reading. I can't say that it is all that satisfying. I want fiction from the woman, as does the rest of the world. But good for Oprah, anyhow. 

I like Oprah in a sort of way that involves never watching her television show or buying her products. (I avoid novels with "Oprah's Book Club" stickers). I think I just like the idea of a woman media mogul. President Oprah and VP Barack Obama, anyone? She could easily be the one, I am just saying.... I want a female African American president and a Chicano female VP, but I'd settle for Obama. Or Edwards- I love a Southern Democrat with a drawl. I miss hearing Bill Clinton speak, that's all. An intelligent politician. With that adorable Alabama accent.... Sigh. 

Why do I have absolutely no direction in my posts? I can't even control it when I know what I want to say....

Sending it Out... and other things...

I've sent out another story. I hope and hope. I wait and wait. 

I miss writing. I haven't been at the keyboard that often recently. Although I've an idea percolating....

On a completely unrelated subject: my right hand has been hurting a lot. I've been having trouble sleeping. It aches and aches and aches. I think I might resort to that primitive thing- the doctor. I believe in never going, it that gives some sort of idea. I believe that blood belongs inside of me, not in a vial. I hate hospitals. The phrase "ICU" gives me chills since the three days I spent watching my grandmother's still frame under the watchful eye of beeping electronics. She died after useless intervention and the prolonging of my families' pain and useless raising of hope. I am no longer trusting. I hate the smell of those places. 

One of my friends is pregnant with her first child. Hospitals. They make me worried, those places. They are inherently frightening, full of chemicals and things I know nothing of. 

The sight of blood, indeed the thought of blood, makes me lightheaded and prone to fainting. I worry about friends entering those halls. 

I take Aleve every day, almost, to help with the pain in my hands, avoiding the doctors still. I hope that I will be able to avoid hospitals in my lifetime, whenever possible. The thought of the end of ones' life in a place like that... It doesn't bear thinking about, really. 

I wonder, occasionally, how exactly I will die. I don't mean this to sound as if I am hastening the day, merely that I wonder how it will happen. Inevitably one turns to the seminal "Six Feet Under" series, with their haunting opening scenes and the macabre and hilarious deaths. Shall I be the one to trip and impale my head on a sharp metal object? The one who runs into traffic, mistaking lost blow-up dolls for angels? The one who dies by skillet to the head? So many possibilities... I hope I have a moment to savor the situation and understand what it happening. That's all I really want from death. 

I am not quite sure how this post devolved as it has. 

A Game of Chance

Friday night. The weekend stretching in front of me like the cat when he wakes up from his nap. It's truly a beautiful thing.

The California lottery is up to 82 million this weekend. I may buy a ticket, just to be able to dream for a few hours. I actually know someone who won an obscene amount of money in the lottery. A couple years ago, a former co-worker won over 60 million. At age 25.

He got to quit work and travel as much as he wanted. I think he even eventually bought a new car (he drove a decade old car with oxidation eating away the paint on the hood). I was jealous, except for the happiness that kept intruding on me. He was a really really really nice person. (Who even quietly voted on the side of the angels -amazing in the OC). If I could have nominated someone, I could not have made a better choice. A good person, with a solid head on their shoulders, who would really have a great life and do some actual, measurable good. For a long time.

I did field a bunch of questions about him, afterwards, and the question came up over and over again. What would you do, if you won?

I can't ever seem to quite make up my mind. It is hard to imagine what you would actually do if something like that happened to you. What if your life changed, in some permanent, but generally good way- tomorrow?

What would you do?

It's interesting to reflect on what each person says they would do. I think that the generally more honest people tend to say things about trips they would take, where they would live. People who want to seem somehow morally above everyone else (this is a common response) tend to say things about how much money they would give to the homeless, or more often (again- the OC) how they would give money to their church. How they would keep working. (I can't see anyone I work with actually sticking to that one- I sure wouldn't).

It's the church one that gets me, ever the atheist. The church I went to didn't even have a soup kitchen. Nothing ever went out of that church into the community except condescension and occasionally, scorn. What exactly do they do with all that money? Convince people in Africa that sex is evil and abstinence is the only way to prevent AIDS? Send zealous children to convert the heathens?

I'd rather hear that they would buy a swimming pool and a BMW, to be honest.

I think I would go to Gombe, to go out into the forest and see the descendants of Jane Goodall's original chimpanzees. I would have to suck it up about the freakish bugs in the rain-forest, but my gosh. Chimpanzees in the wild. Sigh.

Vietnam. Pho eaten from bowls. The greenest trees. I've never been. But I would if I could.

The little town in Norway that lies half-way between Oslo and Bergen that I visited years ago with my grandparents. It's literally unspellable for me, but you say the name something like Soj-nya-fjord. There's a little train that you can take up the mountain there, that stops so you can stand on a rickety platform and feel the spray of the unexpected waterfall on your face, and watch the rainbows flicker in and out of sight. You can't hear anything above the noise of the water, and I remember thinking that it was so beautiful. I'd take my husband and see if I remember right.

Help Koko the gorilla (fine animal gorilla) go live in Hawaii. Probably a lot of research into where to send money. Mainly to help chimps. Maybe some to help people. Probably.

There are a lot of things I would do, I suppose. I'm no different than anyone else, really. Except that there would be a big contribution to the Socialist Party in my particular list. Maybe a house in Sweden. Or Canada.

It's fun to play pretend, for a little while. Sometimes I even think it's worth a dollar.

It's been a long time (almost a month) since I last posted here. Well, I found out I didn't get into Squaw. (I'm on the waiting list, which is good and bad- I didn't think there was really a waiting list until it was confirmed by others- so I just considered it a flat out rejection). The nail on the coffin was finding out that literally everyone else I knew who had applied was accepted. So I felt a bit pathetic. I still feel a bit pathetic.

But I'm doing better now. I mailed out a story to a literary magazine today. I'm getting back on the horse. I have decided that once I hit one hundred rejections I may then re-examine this whole writing thing, but it would be silly to act as if this particular rejection was the end of the world. I am actually getting a little tired of thinking about it at all. It is a bit hard since one of my friends was accepted, so I have to keep hearing about the d**n thing.

I was having a hard time wanting to write anything since I heard. I've since begun writing other things again, so I felt that now was a good time to rejoin the blog.

Sorry if this is a bit self indulgent, but I was thinking that I needed to write a bit about this, just to get it out of my own head. So I am officially finished with worrying about it.

I didn't even win the lottery this week. Can you believe it?

A Pox on Houghton Mifflin

My brand new copy of The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is missing about 30 pages. (There is a duplicate section, instead). Thanks, Houghton Mifflin.

Now I've got to get back to the bookstore and hope they've got a copy with all the pages. Bah.

It's good so far. Up to page 164, that is, where my copy jumps to page 197. Although I think I prefer The Interpreter of Maladies. Of course, it had all of its' pages, so I may be slightly biased.

Lame.

Laurie R. King's The Art of Detection

Laurie R. King's book, The Art of Detection came out today and I've just finished it. She's a California author whom I've enjoyed for some time. You can read an excerpt of the first chapter on her website. 

How many mysteries have you read that feature a lesbian detective in San Francisco with Sherlock Holmes? 

I'm guessing not many. Buy a copy and read it- it's a good read. You can locate a signed copy by e-mailing Crossroads Books, the address is available on her website.

Or, if you prefer to follow clues and feel a little lucky, you can check out her most recent blog entry.

The Case of the Bloody Pawprints...

A couple weeks ago, my husband called me on my lunch hour to tell me that he hadn't gone to work. It seemed odd, as he had been awake when I left for work that morning, and for all that I knew he had absolutely intended to go. The strange thing had detained him was not that he had fallen ill, that our house had burned down, or our car had broken down.

No, what had prevented him from going to work was a trail of bloody paw prints tracking across the white cement of the sidewalk in front of our house. They are still there, in fact, although the blood has since dried.

My husband is a man who has an extreme affinity for animals. He loves animals and takes unfriendly creatures as a personal challenge.

He could not walk away from a hurt animal, evidenced as it was by the wet blood leading down our street.

He followed the paw prints.

He ended up on a strange sort of journey, on that warm May day. He followed the prints and eventually ended up on the front yard of our former neighbor's house, a few miles from our house, that she shares with her girlfriend, who happened to be home. (We've not been there before- nor did we know where they live). He hunted for over an hour and a half, until he lost the trail through an alley. By this time, he was tired and it was hot, so he took a bus back home.

Sitting on our front porch, he spoke to others who added to the story. People walking their dogs, or pushing their strollers shared pieces of the story. One woman said that a dog walker, the dog walker that the swanky people, the rich ones, use had lost a dog. The dog leapt from a window of the dog walker's van, she said. He injured his paws and ran in fear.

Later this theory was called into dispute, as others among our neighbors believe that dog was dragged from the van, and then wrenched free- the blood from his paws seeped for a couple miles. This theory has gained prominence among our neighbors.

We didn't hear anything more until last week. One of our neighbors came with a photo of the dog, recovered by his owner.

An oddly satisfying ending to the story- Richard never found the dog, though we did finally find out the ending to the story when the photo came to us. The dog was hit by a car, whose driver took him to a vet. They called the dog's owner who came to claim him. He is doing well, although all four paws were bandaged in the photo that is being passed around those animal lovers in our neighborhood.

Strange, to see genuine concern in a stranger's face as they tell this story again and again. There is no blame, in most of these faces. Simply concern, for the dog and his owner. Strange to feel part of a community in this rather odd way.

Woody Guthrie

There's a good article on Woody Guthrie over at The Nation magazine's website. The good ole U.S. of A. is making me depressed this week, as well as increasingly paranoid. 
Why, exactly, is it ok for the government to track everyone I call? 

Here's a quote for today:

"If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activites, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all."

-Erica Jong 

The President

"A fanatic is a man who consciously over compensates a secret doubt."

-Aldous Huxley

Punk Rock in the LBC

When I was younger, I loved punk rock. I loved the screaming, the swearing, the freedom. I was raised in a Baptist family with a Catholic dad. My mother listened to classical music and christian music. We didn't watch very much television. I read a lot. I was the oldest kid. 

When I discovered punk rock- a friend made me a mix tape of Dead Kennedys, Crass, the Subhumans- I wore out the tape in my 1981 Rabbit's tape deck. I would drive down PCH to go surfing at the cliffs with my sunroof open, the windows down and I would scream along with the music. 

Last night, a friend and her husband invited us to see a punk rock show in our own hood, at the Que Sera, famous former lesbian bar (they are very nice- with a charming sign on the desk where you pay your cover that says, "The Que Sera is not a lesbian bar- everyone is welcome" and the girl who says cheerfully, "Give me your little paws" as she stamps my hand). 

I haven't seen or heard punk rock recently- my punk rock phase was relatively short and long ago. (Although I did buy a couple Crass CDs a year ago- nostalgia). It was strange; I felt as if I was watching my younger self bounce around screaming along, as I sipped my Guinness and played pool in the back. It was fun, although I felt about a million years old. Everyone was wearing black, so I stood out. Actually, all of my friends stood out- none of us were dressed terribly punk rock. There's something kind of poignant about punk rock to me, something kind of amazing and lost- that ability to stand and scream what you feel to a rocking drum beat and thumping guitar. It's hard to give words to the feeling... But I felt something akin to nostalgia. 

So I sit here in my house and my ears are still ringing. It makes me remember myself back when, and I feel a little sad to lose that girl. The girl who wanted to scream along with the punk rock. 

Interesting Idea....

One of my favorite writers, Laurie R. King, was selected as the Santa Cruz County Artist of the Year. As part of the festivites, she's has elected to write a story live, in front of the world. She was given a prompt this morning, and the results are being published live online at the same time. Her blog has a bigger description of the event. 

You can read the results at: www.scparks.com. 

This is a little strange to read, as it is really nothing like her normal work. (The prompt was something about a middle schooler...) You can read more about Laurie at her website. I began reading her when a friend's father, who was in the habit of giving her a box of used paperbacks per month that he had read, included "The Beekeeper's Apprentice". Click here to read a portion of the first chapter. I was immediately engrossed; an intelligent female, Jewish, who befriends Sherlock Holmes. It doesn't sound as if it would be a good book, but I've found that books that defy description are the ones I love the most. I'm not a huge mystery novel fan, however, I really have enjoyed LRK's Mary Russell books. 

A Beautiful Obituary

Don't we all have a wish to be be remembered well after we are gone? The people I admire and love the most are the people who ask difficult questions, who struggle with life. A friend of mine asked me recently to write her obituary. (She's not dying, nor is she elderly). She said, "I just want to see what you'll write." 

I am honored and yet I feel a sense of trepidation about the entire thing. How can one write an obituary for someone who gets to read it? What should be included in a good obituary? I have a lot of questions about the entire endeavor, honestly. 

I was reading CNN.com today, as I often do, and I came across the write up of the death of former U.S. poet laureate, Stanley Kunitz, at the age of 100. You can read it yourself by clicking here.

It is a beautiful summing up of a life well lived. Born in tragedy, (his father's suicide when Kunitz himself was still in his mother's belly), he became a writer who valued community in the arts, won a Pulitzer for his work, shared his love for the arts with others, and was a man who stuck by his principles. 

How can you ask for more in an obituary? Or a life?

Finis

Je suis finis. I am finished with this semester, for all intents and purposes. Hurrah! Huzzah!

This shan't the longest post in history, simply a jubilant little message to tell the world I've taken my last (real) final for the spring semester. 

All I need to do now is crank out a few critiques and find a good first line from a book for workshop. Simple enough, considering the past weekend (le weekend dernier) was spent writing two papers, editing said papers, finishing French homework, and cramming for the French examen finale. 

I am just so happy to be done. C'est finis, and I am so excited I might even be able to drum up some enthusiam for the summer semester. Which, thanks to the brilliant minds in charge of scheduling at IVC, begins next Monday. (Lundi prochain).  Some break, huh? I have a grand total of three days rest before beginning anew...

My brain is melting a bit, due to an overdose of conjugating. I am glad that the fall semester schedule hasn't been posted yet; the idea of thinking about what to take makes me feel a bit dizzy at the moment. 

So, I will take my meager pittance of joy and spread it all the way until Monday night- my first class for the summer semester. (I was fighting the urge to spell that "semestre"- that's when you know you just need to stop for a while). 

As Edward R. Murrow used to say, "Bon nuit, et bonne chance."

Salut!

Wasting Time...

I'm pretty accomplished at wasting time. I can manage to spend at least a few minutes doing pretty much anything. 

Today I wasted three hours and eight minutes. Doing what, you may well ask? 

Watching Peter Jackson's "King Kong". A terrifically dull waste of time. I should have mopped or cleaned the bathtub instead. At least those activities could possibly have some sort of payoff at the end. 

May I suggest, that the next time Peter Jackson decides he simply must make a movie someone somewhere explain the concept of editing and revision to him?

All I can say: dinosaurs? Really? Since when was the giant ape and creepy island not enough? Jurassic Park meets King Kong wasn't really what I signed up for. At least at my house I can smoke and turn it off. All those poor people who paid to see it in the movie theatre... I feel truly sorry for all of them. 

I simply wanted a break from writing papers. I should have just stared at a wall for a few minutes. More entertainment in that than this nonsense. By the way, why did Naomi Watts sign up for this one? She's really not bad enough to be doing this kind of tripe...

The Friends of the Library Bookshop....

I had a lovely drive today, along Pacific Coast Hwy on my way to the Huntington Beach Central Library. The salt in the air, the herons in the Bolsa Chica wetlands to my left, the waves pulsing against the sand to my right.

It ceased being a lovely drive when I turned onto Goldenwest, a street that used to be flanked by grassy hills, yellow with flowers each spring, populated by equestrians with their mounts, navigating the small valleys.

When I was in elementary school I was mad for horses, and in fifth grade I managed to convince my grandparents that I needed riding lessons. My patient grandfather would sit in his car, watching me ride a tired plodding pony around in a circle. This lasted a couple years, until I was thrown from a slightly more feisty retired race horse in my jump class. My grandfather leapt over the railing and I was safe in the front seat of the car before I could even get the breath in my chest to protest. (My grandfather may have been looking for a reason to give up the long drives to the stables; however, I think he was mostly terrified that I could potentially break my neck, as one of my distant cousins had the year before.). The riding lessons stopped, and eventually my mania for horses dissipated.

The residents of Huntington Beach lost their affinity for the scrubby brush and sandy dunes of this area; the hills are covered by the type of housing development popular in South Orange County; the houses all identical, the walls high. The only reminder of what it used to look like is west Central Park; the hills unmanicured, the brush high and bright with spring flowers. It made me a little sad. I'd loved those hills as a child.

In any case, reverie aside, I found some joy in the library bookshop. A 1958 edition of H.W. Fowler's "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage". This is when you know you are truly a geek; I clasped it to my chest as if there were others trying to get to it before me. It's true- I got actually excited about a dictionary.

I also found a little happy surprise in the "literature" section. A copy of the Santa Monica Review, Spring 2003. And whose name should be on the cover? Eugene Ipavec. The SMR joined Fowler in my bag, along with a couple criticism books about Flannery O'Connor, a copy of both of Alice Sebold's books, Amy Tan's "The Bonesetter's Daughter", a couple of Richard Ford books, another by Ann Patchett "The Magician's Assistant", "Veronica" by Mary Gaitskill, and a collection of stories from the Iowa Writers Workshop.

A stack of books to read. What more can one ask?

Delivered

The postal service website says:


Delivered, May 04, 2006, 10:42 am, NEVADA CITY, CA 95959


So they didn't get lost in the mail, which I found myself half hoping today. 

Well, not bad delivery time for priority mail, I guess. I posted the envelope on May 2 about 2 PM, so really not bad. 

At my job today, I came back from my lunch to find a bunch of co-workers using a piece of pipe to destroy the effigy of a white man, with fake money taped to his hands. Normally, I'd say this was an odd development, but I presume it was meant to be a pinata. 

In Orange County, one never knows. 

Happy Cinco de Mayo.

***

(As a little side note, I love that Mexico declared their independence on September 15 and this website states that May 5 should be their independence day. That seems like such a very GB thing to say.... Please also savor the line "Americans never forget who their friends are..." towards the bottom of the page. Forgetting, of course, the current situation with our Mexican "friends". -{Do Republicans have friends?}- Obviously written by an astute student of American foreign policy and immigration issues).

Quote for the Day

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

~Cicero

Submitted...

I submitted two stories for consideration for the Squaw Valley Community of Writers workshop. I mailed them. Today. 

I'm a bit at a loss- I've been slugging away at editing them for the past week, shifting commas, removing pronouns, adding an "s" to "Thursday". The same old stuff. 

Now I can't make any more changes- they've already been sent out. This is kind of a crazy day. I've never done that before, in any way. No submissions to magazines, nothing. Not even to the literary journal of which I know both editors. So this is strange. I'm nervous. 

I suppose it doesn't matter, I'll get in or I won't, but still... The US postal service has my stories speeding off to be read by someone. 

It's still a bit disconcerting. 

A Belated Happy May Day....

Workers of the world, unite. 
Especially now, in this particular time, this particular place. 

I just realized that I went home sick from work on the day one was supposed to stay home; join protests to support our immigrants, our people. Maybe my brain did on purpose. The mind is truly a mysterious organ.

Just a thought. 

Hildegarde of Bingen

Hildegarde of Bingen and I have something in common. You may be curious what a modern day atheist and a Catholic nun famous for her visions (and her infamous description of the female orgasm) might have in common. 
We both suffer from migraines. Hildegarde is widely regarded as a migraine sufferer, that her so-called visions were actually the effects of migraine. 
I was wondering yesterday, as I sat drugged and stoic, what it would be like to have migraines without modern medication. My migraine medication is expensive (about $30 a pill), but it is so completely necessary to me. 
I had two migraines in my life before I discovered what was happening. The first time it happened during a period when I didn't have health insurance, (which I do now), so I didn't go visit a doctor. 
I thought I really wanted to die. I felt like someone was beating me, mashing my soft tissue, pummeling the inside of my skull. I took a shower, something that has always lessened the effects of a headache for me. I took ridiculous amounts of painkillers, hoping for the pain to abate. It did, after about twelve hours of agony. 
It began at work, with numbness in my fingers, an inability to speak, and spots of light in my vision. Now I can recognize these symptoms and take my medication before the really bad part begins, but back then I had no idea what had happened to me. No one in my family suffers from migraines, so I really didn't even think of it until I had the second one. Now, when I see the little circles of light, I run for the medicine cabinet. I carry one pill with me all the time. I spend about six hours not able to complete a simple sentence- the medication is that powerful. I can only sit, staring at nothing in particular, sensitive still to light and sound. 
After experiencing a fair number of these, (I seem to have more than one "trigger"), I wonder about poor Hildegarde, attributing that intense pain to her god. After the medication wore off yesterday, I sat, thinking about what kind of faith she had, what kind of person she was. Who would choose to love a god that could do that to you, then claim that the pain were visions from that same god, a gift? 
This is the kind of thing that comes to my mind after the euphoria (from dodging a migraine) begins to ebb...

OpenOffice Hates Me. Technology Hates Me.

I don't know enough about X11 to know why OpenOffice on Mac OS X doesn't allow me to cut and paste from other apps.  I'm sure there's something incredibly simple I have to do to be able to do that- I just don't have the time this weekend to sort it out. 
It is indicative of the way this week has been going, so I can't feel altogether surprised that its not working too smoothly. C'est la vie, mais quelle horreur. Off to the Apple Store tomorrow, (wait, today, it's after midnight), to get myself a copy of AppleWorks. 
I've kept OpenOffice installed, though, so I can mess about with it when I have more leisure time available. (By the way, thanks for the recommendation/link, Jonathan). I have to write two papers (with research and whatnot), attend a party, and somehow entertain friends (that my husband invited over) tomorrow evening, despite the drifts of paper covering every available surface in the house. I thought we had a rug in the living room, but I can't really be sure right now...
Oh, and I have to decide what to send for Squaw Valley, and read a friend's comments on
one of the potential submissions. Once I actually get the stories to a place where I feel happy, I'm sure I'll send them out and find a slew of things I detest about them. Sa toujours quelque chose. 
I could be writing right now, actually, therefore I think it is officially time to finish this entry. It seems to have devolved into a to-do list, for which I apologize. How very type A of me. 

The iBook is dead. Long live the MacBook Pro.

My iBook died an agonizing death this weekend. In the midst of its death throes, I managed to back up almost everything. So not too bad, considering. I'm not even sure what I've lost yet- haven't had time to parse through the backup.

Replacement options. iBook part two? Or a MacBook Pro?

I had to go with the MacBook Pro, so I am now typing on a lovely 15 inch widescreen MacBook Pro. It's very pretty, but incredibly doesn't come with AppleWorks any more. There is no actual word processing app on the silly thing. So now I need to decide whether I should break down and actually pay for AppleWorks (this seems somehow wrong) or I can seek out an acceptable alternative. I'm just a little baffled that Apple wants more money out of me after I just shelled out about $2k for this little beauty. Wouldn't it be nice if they could just give me what I want?

I guess that's life.

School is going famously. I have far too much work to do in far too short of a time. (This resulting from this past weekend's desperate attempts at rescusitation of the now infamous iBook, creating a vacuum in which my scheduled homework time was sucked into, therefore creating a pile to get through this weekend, unfortunately coinciding with the L.A. Times Festival of Books).

Random list time. Three books I read this week:
Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett
Assasination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell
High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby

Thoughts- Nick Hornby seems overrated. Sarah Vowell is very funny- she seems like she'd be fun as a road trip partner. Ann Patchett's Bel Canto was good. I was, however, put off by the description of one of her other novels. Am I the only person who recoils in horror when reading the following words in a book description?

"A journey of self discovery..."

I feel a little sick right now, just thinking about it. I am aware of the strangeness of this. I just can't imagine how this is supposed to make me want to read anything such a hackneyed phrase would describe. But Bel Canto was pretty good...

Why My Name is Lame

My name is so dumb. I hate that this title rhymes. Whatever. 
I just searched myself on Blogger.com, thinking it would be interesting if my actual blog came up. The first, I don't know, say, 10 entries were sort of dirty. Why is my name used in porn so much?
Is "Jaimee" such a popular name for ladies involved in such business? If so, thanks, Mom. 

Buddhism and the Cat Named Evil

It's been a strange week. It just keeps getting stranger.
Tuesday morning I was driving down 3rd St., as I almost always do, avoiding the traffic on 7th by the high school. My windows were misty from the morning fog. My windshield was mostly clear, though.
I'm driving along, and suddenly a Buddhist monk, scarlet robe, saffron sash, sport sandals steps out from behind a parked car.
I swerve, missing him, but not by much. The rest of my far too long commute I couldn't think of anything else. What if I had killed a Buddhist? A holy man, no less.
As a side note, I have to say I'm not sure why all the monks I see in my neighborhood wear sport sandals, but there you are.
Now, if you're reading this, you can see from the Einstein quote that I am a gal that believes in no gods at all. However, I really think that even an athiest has to at least respect Buddhism, for the sheer fact that they're just nice. There's never been a bloody Buddhist crusade. The Buddhists have never woken me up to share the good news of a Saturday morning. There are no Buddhist televangelists. All of this adds up to my favorite kind of religion- the be nice to people and don't bother them kind.
As a result, I feel rather kindly towards the residents of our own Belmont Shores monastery, the beautiful building on Ocean and Redondo. I was horrified that I'd almost murdered a representative of the religion I find least obnoxious.
This thought rattled around in my head: if I believed in hell, I would probably be thinking that would be my new final destination. So that night, in a fit of cocoa fueled insomnia, I sat down to write, instead of laying in bed trying to make out the ceiling fan without my glasses in the dark. I was thinking of this week's brief for my writing class. Intertwine two seemingly unrelated stories with similar elements, based on a T.C. Boyle story that ran recently in Harper's.
So I began to write, and what do you know, one of my characters actually hit a monk with her car.

A cat named Evil.

The story of Evil (our name for him- not his real name) begins early last summer, when our neighbor began letting her new young cat out of the house to terrorize the neighborhood's outside cats. We've got probably at least 10 cats that live on our block, including the most filthy but sweet little gal named Ping. Ping greets people walking along our street with a crusty sounding meow and follows jauntily behind, trotting to keep up. Ping likes to visit our house, because we leave out food and water for her and other semi-homeless kitties on our block. She greets me, most days, perched on one of our fence posts by our gate. She's an extremely outgoing little kitty, and she gets along perfectly well with all the other cats.
Evil began systematically chasing Ping. In fact, Evil began fighting all the cats in our neighborhood. The open windowed summer nights began to ring with pained yowls and we began to be unhappy about our neighborhood's new bully.
Our kitties, accustomed to hanging out on hot summer nights in our tiny fenced front yard, began to suffer ninja like attacks from Evil. He would sneak up to the outside of the fence, wait for a kitty to venture near, then he would leap over the fence to scratch at any part of our kitties he could get his claws into. Our kitties became wary, watchful. They got nervous, even in our house, when they would hear Evil yowl out in the dark somewhere.
Then, in August, our girl kitty (we have two Siamese cats) Honey began to avoid having her booty scratched. She's always loved this- she's an addict for rubbing her face on anything, and she'll lay down the front half of her body and push her rear end way up into the air when you scratch the base of her tail, even tipping over sometimes. So when she shied away from this favorite, we decided to capture her and take a closer look.
We found a lump on the left hand side of her hip, up by her tail. We were horrified that we hadn't seen it before. The vet (the awesome guys over at Cats and Dogs on Redondo- weird little shout out, I guess) proclaimed it to be an infection, caused by a scratch that had healed quickly (as cat's skin often does, apparently) and trapped bacteria that had caused an infection. Please note that this is probably an incredibly inadequate description from a total ignoramus on vet stuff.
The vet had to keep her overnight, to make a drainage hole to allow the pus out of the wound. This gets gorier. He had to stitch in a piece of medical tubing in the wound, to keep it open. For a week she walked around our house in her little blue collar, looking for all the world like a cat dressing up as a flower for her school play, merely happening to have a three inch long Frankenstein wound along her shaved bum with a tube hanging out. I should also mention that she was drugged, for the pain of her surgery, to help in preventing her from pulling out her tube after the first time she pulled it out. (Sigh). She would walk around our house running into furniture with her little daisy cone and stopping, because the medicine made her too dumb to back up. I cried so much that first week. She looked so incredibly pathetic. I would sit and pet her and she would sit in my lap, purring this sad drunken little purr.
It was a traumatizing week. But it got worse. On our one week return to the vet, to get the tubing taken out (we were very happy about this development, in vain as it turned out) only to find that now we had to take a plastic syringe and shove it into the wound and pump this disinfectant in the top of the hole. Because it needed to run out the bottom of the wound, washing the pus out.
I don't know if I can write about this part. I'll make it short. Honey crying from pain and what I assumed to be bewilderment. Pus dripping. A multitude of filthy, pus dotted towels. Twice a day. For about three weeks. It was as close to I will ever come to running away from my life. It was hideous, awful, guilt inducing. Crying twice a day over my hurting pet. I don't think I could do it again. It was really, really, really bad.
And it was all because of the neighbor's cat. Evil got his name that August.
We began to chase Evil away from our house and keep the kitties inside all the time. They were sad. What do kitties know? They just knew we were somehow punishing them, not letting them roll on the hot cement and lay in the cool wet grass.
We petitioned the neighbor to keep her cat inside, pointing towards Honey's shaved rear end and her white scar. She said she would try, but she really said no. Evil still roamed our neighborhood. So the kitties stayed inside.
Evil still wanted to murder Honey, though. He took to leaping up to the windows where she slept, soaking in the sun, and scratching through the screen to get at her. R. started squirting Evil with the kitchen sink hose through our kitchen window, trying to keep him away.
I wanted bad things to happen to Evil. I really did. I was angry about the way he constantly made trouble. The way he'd made Honey suffer for the entire month of August. If I saw him outside I would stomp towards him and yell. I would make hissing noises and growl at him. I really began to hate that cat.
Then, a couple months later, after R. got a water gun to squirt Evil with, I just didn't care as much anymore. Our kitties were safe inside and Evil mostly stayed away, although we could occasionally hear him hissing at our cats through our screen door.
Then, last night, R. called after I got out of class to tell me that Evil was run over by a car. His voice was flat and somehow lonely. I asked him if he was ok, and he said, yeah, in a toneless kind of way.
He said that he'd been the one to spot Evil lying in the street, motionless, in a way that R. knew meant he was dead. He said that our other neighbor, M., told Evil's mom. R. and M. ended up cleaning up the spot in the street where Evil had been run over. He said, Do you remember all those times I said I'd never shed a tear for that cat?
Yes, I answered. I do.
I lied, he said.
Today, as I was driving to work, I was thinking about Evil, and how much I had wanted harm to come to him. And how that feeling had faded with time, and how I hardly even thought about him anymore. How sad I felt for Evil's mom, because it is a hard thing to lose your pet this way, and it is even harder to tell your four and five year old boys that their kitty has gone away. It's hard to drive past the stain on the white concrete of our street and not feel sad for the cat we didn't like. I told people at work who remembered Honey's ordeal and they said, good, that bad cat deserved what it got. I wondered about what I really felt about Evil now. How I felt like I was glad he was gone. How I was glad the other kitties could return to peacefully wandering about the neighborhood. How Honey could go outside to eat grass again. How the neighbor boys didn't have a kitty anymore.
I came home from work in the newly restored sunlight of seven o'clock. I parked my car, sitting for a moment to listen to the radio, catching the little glimpse of ocean at the end of our street. I opened the car door to see a Buddhist monk walking down the street, smiling. I said Hi.

Love and Marriage

My sister in law is engaged. And, as of two days ago, she was getting married at some unfixed point next year. Today, she's got wedding rings and the date is set. The big wedding is on hold. The little wedding is in Las Vegas. On April 15. 

So fast, but I guess I'm not surprised. She wants to get married. So she's getting married. In 12 days. Instead of 12 months. 

So now we are making plans to get to Vegas. Hotel. Carpool buddies. The whole shebang. 

R made me cocoa. Mmmm. 

Crushes

I develop crushes with a particular rhythm. It has happened again.
I'm married. I should say that. This is not a blog about affairs. This is about ridiculous, hopeless, silly crushes. I had one on Liev Schrieber after he played Orson Welles in "RKO 481". I got one on Vince Vaughn after he was the serial killer in "Clay Pigeons". (I don't know exactly what that says about me). I got one on Neil Gaiman after I read the Sandman graphic novels. I had a crush on Rivers Cuomo after "Pinkerton".
My newest crush is Ira Glass, host of "This American Life" on NPR. I am aware that many women (and probably men) have crushes on Ira Glass. I am just that kind of dork. I like stories. He likes stories. I don't think this is a particularly emotional crush- just a passing one. His voice should be used to read bedtime stories. It's just so calming.
I didn't realize until a few weeks ago that I wait each week for the hour when "This American Life" is on each week. I've been listening for a while, I just didn't get that this was something that I was kind of obsessed with. I usually listen to music when I drive home, but I don't even turn on the iPod on Fridays.
So, I guess this is a thank you to National Public Radio, for bringing me entertainment, news, and Ira Glass.

The Flu?

I am thinking I may be getting the flu. My glands are sore, I have a weeklong headache, and I feel icky. It's just a crummy day. PA's dog is at the vet after vomitting blood last night. Little miss has the flu. I feel like hell. Overall, pretty lame, even for a Monday. 

I have a French test later this week. I need to write something for Thursday. I need to finish a test for music. I need to get really cracking on my Flannery O'Connor research paper. Too much to do and absolutely no energy with which to do it. This is the part of the school year I hate. I am exhausted, sick, and my motivation flees somewhere warmer than here (54 degrees and raining). 

It's just so hard to maintain enthusiasm sometimes. 

Bone Tired

I feel my age and some today. My very soul seems tired. I am having trouble even talking with any semblance of actual coherence. 

I tried to read the stories for this week's workshop, but I couldn't pay enough attention to get through. I'll have to read them later this week. I need to sit down and try to write again. I am just not feeling it right now. I am just soul tired, I guess. 

I have to decide soon if I am going to try and get into the Squaw Valley workshop. I don't know if I am really good enough to get in. And if I do get in, I don't know how I'll be able to deal with the pressure of bringing something actually good to the table. I am not feeling it right now. I am feeling so very like I just have no talent and nothing to say. Bleh. 

So tired. I need a new day. This one is just done. 

An online literary journal...

I am thinking about the idea of creating an online literary journal through a blog, where friends can post things and we can all comment... Maybe for over the summer, or something. Like an online workshop. Somewhere to get some feedback. 

I'll have to think about it though, it all gets murky about whether that would be considered published or not... I really don't know if it would qualify or not. I mean, nobody reads my blog, but still, I wouldn't want to jeopardize anyone else's chance of being published. 

I am considering sending something out soon. I just don't know if I am ready for a canned rejection of my work. I don't have a fabulous writing self esteem, and I can't imagine how very much I would cry when I get my first rejection slip. Some people in my workshop seem to have such confidence in their work, and I don't seem to have any at all. (I don't really, deep down, think that I am terrible. I just don't think I am particularly good.)

I think that maybe I need to just pretend it isn't my work, but that I am acting as an agent for my second personality, or something. I know it sounds crazy, but perhaps if it isn't me that I wait on pins and needles for, then I'll stay moderately sane about the entire thing. I can't even quite call myself a writer without being vaguely embarrassed, as if I were a child with a nose picking problem, caught with a finger in my nose. I can't quite explain why it makes me embarrassed. It has a lot to do with proof, I believe. I can't really prove it. That I'm a writer. I have no clippings to show, no money made. I think that in my logical, analytical world at work, I always require proof from others. So I feel ashamed that I've none to give, I guess. 

So I require proof. What really defines a writer, though? Is it simply being published? Well, that can't really be it, can it? There are loads of writers that have been published posthumously. I suppose I'll just have to think about it. Maybe I just need to reevaluate what I think a writer really constitutes. Maybe I don't really need to send work out. I can just write and wait to die, hoping that someone will send it out after I'm dead. Perhaps that would be ideal, in any case. 

Ok, it actually works.

I just checked and my previous post went out. How cool is that. This is a really easy way to post. Maybe I'll be doing it a little more often. I think the Dashboard widgets are really fun. I just learned how to play to Soduko and how to make a dirty martini. And I can translate things into Russian. I think I am just about ready to become a spy. 

I can even keep track of what time it is in Casablanca. This is so cool. 

OS X Tiger is nifty.

I just got OS X and I am posting this from Dashboard. How cool is this. Google is awesome. So is Apple. Yay.

Today is Friday night/Saturday morning. I'm tired from too much Chinese food and cosmopolitans. And from laughing too hard at my neighbor's Chihuahua's obsession with licking (and I do mean licking, in a kind of dirty way) their cat's ass. Jalapeno, the Chihuahua, is consumed on a daily basis with licking their cat, Peel, in a naughty way. There just seems to be so very, very much animal boy-on-boy action at our house, it's just a bit silly.

Richard and I were checking out Myspace.com, being online stalkers for a little while. It's strange to see what has become of people, and how very accepting they are of placing personal details out where anyone can see them. (Says the girl in her blog, I know). However, I don't place a lot of terribly personal things out there, either, so I'm not sure what that says about me... Or them...

My workshop went well, I think. Generally complimentary, although the time structure of the story really seemed to baffle a few people. I'm not sure if I'll just leave it alone, or if I'll monkey with it. I have to wait a while and come back to them, I'm not really good at going right back to something after it has been discussed to death.

It is so very cold tonight, after the warmth we've had this week. I know I shouldn't complain, it's just that it seems so hard to switch from 90 degree weather to 50 degree weather in less than 48 hours. It makes 50 degrees so much colder.

I'm watching a documentary on dolphins, and they are cute, in an anthropormorphic kind of way, until you get closer and see their eyes. Which are actually a bit disturbing. Its just a dark spot until you can see the pupil distinctly. Then it is a huge animal staring at you. Understanding you. Which is scarier somehow than the knowledge in a chimpanzee's eyes, or in a gorilla's. Yeah, I'm not hot on them. They're just a little too smart for their own good, if you catch my drift....

It is now early Tuesday, and I am up for workshop on Thursday. It just occurred to me that I was going to go through it again. So soon, somehow. I am glad that this time snuck up on me- no time to get super worried and neurotic about it. I really have no idea what people are going to say about this one. It's really kind of strange, when you think about it.

This story just made me so annoyed when I wrote it. But now I kind of like it.

I'm sure after it's been workshopped to death I will detest it with a renewed vigor. At least this time I won't just want to cry afterwards. So that's a bit of a plus, a bright side, if you will.

I've been reading Flannery O'Connor this week. As a result, I am feeling just a tiny bit shaky, faced with the master. She is just simply amazing, this woman. If you haven't read her, you NEED to go buy a copy of "A Good Man is Hard to Find." That collection leaves you with your jaw hanging- she is just so good at this. I just love her.

I can't write this week, but I just love her anyway. I'll probably never write anything. (I should rephrase that. I'll never write anything good. I'll write masses of self indulgent tripe).

Anyhow, I am going to finish the hot cocoa my husband made me and go bed. (For almost seven whole hours of sleep. Woo-Hoo! That is a good chunk by my insomniac standards).

Catch y'all later.

I work with a girl from Vietnam, who came to America when she was a child. We were discussing tattoos the other day, and I mentioned a friend's LaCoste alligator tattoo. She said that the alligator was kind of puffy. "Puffy? You mean it sticks out, on the shirt?" I asked.

"No, I mean it's a fat alligator. In Vietnam, the alligators are skinny."

"I didn't know there were any alligators in Vietnam. Huh."

"Yeah, we have one. At the zoo. They don't feed him enough and he's really skinny."

So she made me laugh for about half an hour, and it's still good for a giggle now. So now I know that there is one alligator in Vietnam. And he could apparently use a couple extra meals.

-----

Last night we went to the Bridges auditorium to see Willie Nelson. It was fun, but I have to say (I'm not a true committed Willie Nelson fan) that after a couple of drinks, the songs all started to sound like "Crazy", the Patsy Cline song that Willie wrote. It struck me that this is the only concert that I have ever been to that has used a Texas state flag as a backdrop. There really aren't that many events I would actually attend that involve a Texas state flag.

The other little note I wrote to myself about the show was how I remembered going to see Johnny Cash at the Midstate Fair in Paso Robles when I was about 10, which made me remember that my grandmother was so excited to see Johnny Cash. She would have loved to have seen Willie Nelson, too. I wrote in my little notebook, "Willie's voice is sweet, and Johnny's is like a hangover with soul."

So I just got back from workshop, and it seems that I am work-shopping a story next week, the one below. One of the people who was going to workshop was ill tonight, so I gave my story to Lisa and she copied it and there we go.

I'm actually not nervous this time. I felt sick to my stomach every single time I thought about it last semester. I almost feel.... relaxed? about it this time around. This story is just different, somehow. I don't feel as personal about this one, and I kind of feel as if it were more finished, I guess.

I am so tired that my hands have started shaking and I'm having trouble typing, so I'm off to bed.

PA, if you're reading this, smile and enjoy the shade of your own tree. You have shaken free.

Good night, world.