Apocalypse cloud

Riding along the bike path last week I vaguely wondered what was up with the orange-colored cloud coming from the west.

Anywhere else I'd assume that clouds shouldn't billow furiously in shades of beige and orange. Anywhere else I'd say that a cloud that blocks the sun so urgently that I must take off my sunglasses to keep from crashing into the guardrail between me and the Los Angeles River is just not right.

But I really don't know what to expect from LA. One day a helicopter circled over my neighborhood, Atwater Village, while I was sitting in the backyard.

"Do they shoot people from helicopters here?" I asked Frank.

"This is Los Angeles, not Beirut." He said.

"So, no?"

The LA River looks placid with ducks and reedy vegetation but I have a feeling those ducks are paddling with a couple of extra feet under the water. I am not into the idea of one day birthing a child who has flippers. Nor would I want my flipper baby shot by the police helicopters but I might be overreacting.

The day of the orange cloud I watched the other cyclists the way I watch flight attendants during turbulence - for a clue as to when to start freaking out. The cyclists, not surprisingly, were being cool about it. I imitated them and cast bored glances toward the cloud, which I secretly thought was looking more and more of how I imagine the kickoff of the day of reckoning.

I asked myself why I was still riding towards apocalypse cloud and remembered September 11, 2001, when I happened to be driving a 15-passenger van full of people from Ithaca to Manhattan while simultaneously listening to the radio and shitting my pants over what was happening at the World Trade Center.

What I didn't yet know last week was that a couple of bozo kids from Chicago were playing with fireworks up in the hills and set a 160-acre brush fire that looked like this from other parts of the city. (Photo credit: LATimes)

This means that the smog here is not THAT BAD (yay!) and that sometimes teenagers are idiots. Matt's truck didn't burn to the ground though it was within 50 feet of burning to the ground, good news indeed. And finally, the cloud was unrelated to both the trumpet of doom and the tribunal of penance. Awesome.

Dear Radio Shack

Dear Radio Shack,

I would totally consider applying but that guy scares me. And while I'm sure your holiday jobs are "sweet", I'm gonna be busy.

p.s. Which holiday are we talking about again? Arbor Day? Earth Day? Thomas Jefferson's birthday? Yeah, I'm busy.

On pollution and Michael J. Fox

Today I face the rare opportunity to think about Michael J. Fox. I might be tempted to feel, after searching the internet for a video of him pretending to surf in a werewolf outfit, that I'd be good for a day AT. LEAST. That I'd be all set.

And yet.

For weeks I've had a scan from my 1986 Camp Joy journal saved on my desktop. I just took a peek, which revealed the results from an interview I conducted of a girl in my cabin, who I happen to remember as Laura P. since she was also the girl on my soccer team, swim team, and bus.

In addition to a kiss-assey paragraph about how Laura P. is generous, helps others in need, always laughs at jokes, and is generally "neat", I answer the next question - How Is This Person Like And/Or Different Than You? - with a full pantsload of shit. I don't remember being an obsequious, fawning child but I'm so far up Laura P.'s ass here that it's painful.

"We are alike because we both like steak, have a dog, want to meet Michael J. Fox, and we both want to stop pollution."

The steak and dog parts? Sure. But Michael J. Fox and pollution? This is clearly a foreshadowing of the social dynamic that would hit us girls the following year, when in 1987 we left our relatively egalitarian Montessori elementary school for the backstabbing clique of junior high, which Laura P. just happened to control.

And APPARENTLY little Ronckytonk was gearing up to play along, which meant liking things like LP liked, like Back to the Future and Family Ties, and wearing too much blue eyeshadow for about two years when all of sudden I didn't care anymore and started looking for nicer friends.

And polluting the earth as much as possible.

Silver bullet valve caps

I biked to this park at the end of my street and sat on the bleachers behind the baseball diamond. I looked around and listened to the accordion oompa of ranchera music from a parked car and to the faint sound of traffic on the 5 behind the trees.

I admired Electra against the backdrop of Griffith Park and felt mighty pleased. With little things like halter tops and sunblock and later, at the bakery, by the lady in the bright purple eyeliner and big floppy hat. She gave her piroshkis back to the cashier with huge bites taken out and then turned to me, opened her eyes wide, and confided in stage whisper that THE BEEF IS SPICY. I've always liked crazy people.



At the park I noticed that I wasn't the only one feeling upbeat.







Someone else left some love for Jesus during their visit to the bleachers.


This may have been the same individual who drew a nun without considering the countless numbers of baseball fans who would, in the future, cover the nun's face with their asses which isn't very nice.

I tore myself away from this image by focusing on pressing matters like whether I need 8 SPF or 15 SPF for my shoulders, a good diversion until my eyes fixed on what is by far the most hallowed detail of my pimped-out bike, the silver bullet valve caps.

Silver bullet valve caps aren't prim like the granny bell, or practical like the rear rack, or pretty like the cream and tan frame.

Silver bullets are for movies from 1985 where Michael J. Fox did handstands atop the wolfmobile and crippled Corey Haim raced his hotrod wheelchair down the highway before killing the preacher-werewolf. Stuff that comes in really handy sometimes.

Crying for personnel reasons

I have this thing for organizing and categorizing that's been fairly well established. I make lists.

I recently discovered the "Stickie" application on my computer and now have an electronic to-do list. I like my dishes washed. I love to drop off bags of clothes at thrift stores. Cleaning out and paring down. Scraping together six pennies to pay the balance on my latte. Deleting read emails and going paperless on bills.

There are, of course, blind spots. I didn't use to wash the inside of the water bottle I drink from every day. EVER. For like a year. It had been suggested to me that this was disgusting but I just laughed. It wasn't until several people together observed the algae colony inside the rim, demanded to know what the hell was wrong with me, and ambushed the Nalgene with a wire brush and bleach that my fetid little container had her first bath.

Ditto on the car I drove that one year. I didn't own the Ford Escort as much as killed her by driving her as far and often with as little care as possible. I was much more attached to my bicycle and so treated the Escort as a science experiment; I encouraged her to rot, just to see exactly how it would go down.

The only time I remember taking the Escort to the shop was after I drove her sideways over train tracks and folded her undercarriage like an accordion, something the mechanic said he'd never quite seen before. The one working headlight, one working windshield wiper and gummy interior weren't a problem for me. When it became one working tire, I donated her to the homeless shelter.

When I leave home for as little as a few days, I check the dates on all the dairy products in the refrigerator and throw out any produce that stands the teeniest tiniest chance of wilting. I pay bills, answer letters, and check in with my prison pen pal to see how his appeal is going.

When I'm in a full-blown categorizing frenzy, I can go a little Beautiful Mind on myself. I can totally imagine being busted by someone walking in on me while I mutter and pace in a bathrobe, fists full of highlighters and pens, scribbling lists and arrows and flowcharts on index cards tacked to the walls. This morning I found the index cards I made last year while trying to convince myself to study for the GRE and apply to grad school.

I have hundreds of cards of vocabulary words and remedial math definitions that I copied out - painstakingly, methodically - and then couldn't make myself study. A few weeks ago I threw the GRE practice book in the garbage but those index cards? I don't know what's more painful: Seeing them litter up a corner of my otherwise-organized room or throw away so many hours of categorical labor. I'm considering taking them to the high school down the street and selling them to an overachieving nerd in the parking lot.

Back at my parents' house in Cincinnati, I decided to clean out my old closet and I recognized another of my blind spots: Shoes. Really, do I want the Hush Puppies that I bought in Chile in 1994 solely to fit in with the stoners I was camping with, shoes that I did not then and do not now find attractive? What about running shoes from the high school track team? And the cheap rubber booties I save in case I go rafting in Texas again? Seriously.

I also got into the box that my mom keeps in the attic, full of stuff she saved from my childhood: stories I wrote and pictures I drew, photos and mementos. I looked through the box and came away thinking a couple of things:

1. It's nice that I have childhood memories of anything besides writing reports because that's apparently what I did ALL THE TIME. The box bears evidence of non-stop report writing and the report subjects vary widely: Ferns. Lungs. Peace. Ballet. The Devonian Period. Neanderthals. Mesopotamia. Indians. And, of course, lists. On riveting themes like what color hair my family members have and what I had for lunch.

This spellbinding journal entry from Camp Joy gives readers a captivating look at what went on in my cabin on that Wednesday night:

Aine is crying for "personnel" reasons

Rolanda is hooting like an owl

Juanita is hanging her coat on the rafter

Sunny just popped her head up - The End

The whole thing makes me wonder if I somehow didn't notice that the girls were also whispering about how creepy Jessica was staring and taking notes on them again.

2. I must remember so much because I was writing everything down all the time. I did a lot as a kid but it seems like I did even more writing about what I was doing.

3. I am, now, so who I was then.

Clear plastic pumps?

This thing happens when I'm planning to move where I'm FINE. I'm calm and I'm FINE. I'm not stressed, at least not any more than usual. Everything's cool. No biggie. How many times have I done this? Whatever!

But one day I might need to go into a room, shut the door behind me, and slide my back down along the door frame. I'll sit crouched on heels, elbows crossed over knees, head hanging, overwhelmed. Normally this would be my bedroom, though bathrooms work really well, too, with their tiled psychiatric unit vibe.

I can't focus on anything EXCEPT INTERNET SHOPPING.

It happened when I left Seattle for New York. I channeled all of my moving anxiety into eBay and found myself profoundly and inexplicably pining for big fake turquoise jewelry and a pair of clear plastic pumps. I shit you not.

I was housesitting at the time and spent several days hovering around the computer, monitoring my bids, and tore myself away only to heat up something from Trader Joe's and to take the three Siberian huskies to the dog park.

Yesterday it took me two hours longer than it should have to leave the house because I first had to search online for the perfect combination of messenger bag or backpack to match every article of clothing I've ever owned.

I thought I'd found two bags I liked on the Zappos website and was poised to enter my credit card information when I remembered something: A teal and chartreuse dragonfly print shirt that I haven't worn in five years.

Both bags clashed with that shirt. Never mind that EVERYTHING, except maybe the backs of closed eyelids, clashes with that shirt and that's why I never wear it. Never mind that I had to make an appointment with a tax accountant, change banks, compare shipping rates for sending all my stuff to California, and research medical insurance. Never mind that I had only slept for four hours.

The point was that my future was wound up tightly with a shirt that hasn't seen daylight since 2002 - that and my ability to take advantage of free overnight shipping.

My aunt threatens to sue me

I checked my voicemail and had a message from my aunt Laura.

"Hi Jess-Jess. We have an ice storm going through town and it looks like a snow globe in my backyard…snow is just drifting down…and I just called to say, um, if my four-year-old turns into a teenybopper blue-eye shadow-wearing cheerleader, I’M GONNA SUE YOU FOR EVERY CENT TO YOUR NAME."

Woah! I'm reeling from the abrupt change in Laura’s tone when she begins to laugh. I can’t tell if her ha-ha-ha is rife with glee, menace, or both, but I have my suspicions. She continues.

"I’m gonna have to knock your block off if she turns into some kind of teenage freak. You should see her strutting her stuff around here because of that High School Musical concert you work for."

Please know that Laura hisses the words High School Musical in a stage whisper so emphatic that I imagine each tiny globule of spittle clinging to her fangs, I mean, teeth.

I picture my four-year-old cousin Erin in ten years dressed as a cheerleader who files her nails, pops her gum, and rolls her eyes at Laura, who is busy filing a lawsuit against me, when Laura suddenly breaks character again and wraps up the message.

"So I just called to say ‘hey’ and thinking about you. Bye!"

1. Laura, I want you to understand that I am on your side. In fact, I’m considering suing myself for becoming the kind of person who returns home bearing glow sticks and overpriced concert tickets instead of the Indonesian shadow puppets, African masks, and beautifully illustrated folk tales published in underdeveloped nations by women-run collectives like I’d always imagined.

2. I realize now that you and your children have lived so innocently and free of cable television that you were defenseless against my offer of free tickets to a show that our more shrewd 14-year-old relative, Sarah, dismissed as "stupid" even though she’s the one who actually fits the demographic of the program.

3. I am told by other parents whose children are swept up in the mania of High School Musical that the movie and its soundtrack contain positive messages. I myself have not seen the movie and while I HAVE seen the live performance of the soundtrack onstage no less than 40 times, I still cannot tell you whether the messages are positive because I was mostly busy laughing and wondering if the 10 – 15,000 shrieking fans resembled the crowds during the rise of the Third Reich in Europe.

4. If it turns out that these other parents are actually ex-cheerleaders who wouldn’t know a positive message if it stuck its finger down their throats, I will go to the closest locally-owned independent bookstore and buy Erin a copy of Free to Be You And Me and sing "William Wants a Doll" to her over and over again until she is re-brainwashed.

5. Thank you so much for saying KNOCK MY BLOCK OFF. This is something I haven’t heard in a long time and it will be a nice addition to the stockpile of phrases from home that I’m committed to bringing to the general lexicon (see "Jeezel Petes", "Hecky-Naw", and "Duh Hickey").

6. Love you.

Durty Hur playoffs

I was driving up the 110 in Los Angeles when I got a phone call from Cathy.

"Where are you!?" She yelled.

"Los Angeles."

"So you're on the West Coast?"

"Um, Yes." I said.

"Well," Cathy said. "Seema's in New York and we want to know if you play for the east coast dirty whores or the west coast dirty whores."

"Oh really?" I asked, sensing leverage. "Maybe that depends on whether I'm still DW number five which, BY THE WAY, I'm not."

Note: When Cathy, Jane, Seema, Chris, and I started the Dirty Whore Club I knew it would breed competition since we are numbered 1-5 depending on our behavior but I didn't know how cutthroat it would get.

Noise erupts over the phone and Cathy laughs and hollers over some clamor in the background. I get the sense that she is calling me from either a) a bar or b) a rodeo and that c) she is trying to bribe me.

"Listen," I tell her. "I don't know whose side I'm on. I have to see what kind of offer Jane and Chris give me."

Cathy shrieks but I can't understand what she's saying over all the bedlam and commotion and I wonder if she and Seema are participating in a soccer brawl or police riot.

"I'm getting off the phone now," I say. "Bye."

A minute later I get a text message from Seema, "WE CAN GIVE YOU FREE TICKETS TO THE ROLLER DERBY" and I write back, "NOW YOU'RE TALKING".

Bad coffee

I hunched over the hotel desk in Rochester, Michigan preparing my paperwork for the day and drinking so-called coffee.

My caffeine standards are at a remarkable low, rivaling the nadir of taste I permitted after daily facing what New York delis call coffee and deciding at some point to give in and start buying it.

Hotel coffee has the same vibe, a watery contrast to the sludgy nectar I brew in my home and on the bus. I don't mean to brag but our bus driver Greg recently told me that he will drink the coffee of NO ONE EXCEPT FOR ME.

Because, like Greg, I know what it takes. In Greg's case, the skills to handle 48,000 pounds of vehicle and the lives inside depending on him. And in my case the complete inability to retract my wrist at an appropriate time when dumping coffee grounds into the filter.

Face of the year 2006

"The last thing I remember..." isn't usually a good sign when recounting a story but sometimes that's how it needs to be told. The last thing I remember of 2006 was balancing a plastic glass of champagne in my hand while salsa dancing in the bus front lounge up the highway from Long Island to Toronto.

The first thing I remember of 2007 was someone suggesting I might want to pull myself together before we got to the Canadian border a few minutes away. I could barely remember what a passport was much less WHERE to find mine but through the fog of this addled consciousness cut an image of our tour manager lecturing us about border guards.

I believe he described them as police school rejects who'd like nothing better than to find a reason to impound our bus and make us all late for the most magical experience ten thousand Canadian 8-year-olds could possibly hope for, at least this television season.

He said the only good response to border guard questions started out "Yes ma'am" or "Yes sir" followed by absolute truth. I distinctly remember him saying that THEY...HAVE...US...BY...OUR..BALLS and looking so serious that I didn't even want to raise my hand to object to his gender-exclusive language and make a joke about fallopian tubes.

Our border guard turned out to be a jolly uncle type so there was no need for me to get so nervous that I forgot basic information about my life, like what job I do on tour. He asked me and I said, "Ummmmm. Ticketing. And. Publicity?" Fortunately I had no fits of inappropriate giggles, my other common response to police presence.

We made it across the border free of any impounding, drug-sniffing canines, slit-eyed questioning and it was a brand new year. Welcome to 2007.

you say that to say what?

I'm touched.

I don't mean touched like kookoo touched, I mean touched like, 'Aw, Jenna asked if Ronckytonk is okay, like she's worried,' touched.

Jenna. I'm not totally sure you are who I think, but if it IS the Jenna I met in Tucson, with whom I WORE FLAMINGO HATS ALL OVER THE CITY, the Jenna with the silly last name that sounds like the one Ali and I made up in high school - Schumacherishkenschoolblefroggenhaagendazsendaggen - which is to say overly German, then Jenna I want to say thanks for asking.

I'm okay. I'm f'in fantastic. If I could do a cartwheel right now to prove it I would, but I'm on a tour bus. And while this bus has a front lounge spacious enough in which to throw a righteous new year's eve dance party, I don't think it's necessarily cartwheel-friendly.

The so-called differences between us

The tour bus rolled up I-5 from Bakersfield, CA to Portland, OR and I lounged in the back thinking about when I lived in this part of the country and drove this highway. So many Pacific Northwesterners complained about California drivers while I spent hours fuming at Seattlites for their infuriating timidity behind the wheel.

At the time, I accused my Seattle roommate, Alli Jones, of both driving my car badly and making sweeping generalizations. I didn't realize my own driving skills would plummet after I went back to bike commuting and that I myself would become so fond of gross exaggeration. Sorry, Alli. It's now hard for me not to make fun of the West Coast when I see, for instance, how informal and surfy the Washington Mutual bank machines sound when they can't give their customers money. I've been a Washington Mutual customer in New York and the machines there say, "Out of Service". End of story. But in Seattle?

"Hey there. I'm so sorry I'm not working right now. Catch you later!"

Or this note left on my bed in our Portland hotel:

"Honey, your bed linens are clean but we conserve water by not changing them every day you're here. That's how we do our part to keep Portland beautiful! p.s. for turn down service, just ask nice."

Like I'm going to call housekeeping back, "Hey sweetie pie, can you please turn down my bed? Because my arms are suddenly paralyzed and I can't do it myself. Muah."

I called Jocardo from my Portland hotel. He lives in Washington Heights and teaches in the Bronx and we talked about the divide and mistrust between Dominicans and Puerto Ricans in his school, how people will so often find a difference between themselves and those who are closest to them. This difference matters so greatly to them but maybe not so much to anyone else.

As Jocardo put it, "You know half the world still thinks they're all Mexican."

"Or the west side-east side gap in Cincinnati? There's a big global controversy."

"Or all the jokes Swedes make about Norwegians? You think Kofi Annan's worried about that?"

I told Jocardo about my Norwegian friend in high school, Sofie, who wore a t-shirt illustrated with Norwegian milestones, one of which was the invention of a paperclip. The thought of someone (Johan Vaaler, 1899) having to actually invent the paperclip led us to imagine a world without the clip. Chaos! Papers everywhere!

"Seriously, when was the last time you saw a paperweight? That shit's out of style. It's all about the clip."

Note: During World War II in Norway, buttons with the likeness or initials of the king were banned. In protest people wore paperclips, because the paperclip function was to bind together. This was a protest against the Nazi occupation and wearing a paperclip could have them arrested. This is an example of when regional pride really does make a difference.

Goodbye. Hel-lo.*

Goodbye.


Hel-lo.*

*After spending a significant and some might say uncalled for amount of time on the tropical coast of South America, I became virulently opposed to any chill in the air requiring me to wear more than a sarong and briefest of tank tops. In extreme circumstances I put on a blouse.

After that I lived in Seattle and continued to curse northern climates while pining for the south. Then I visited the desert. I was appalled by how scaly and crispy and desiccated I felt after five minutes in Arizona. My ex-best friend - the sun - hurt me no matter how many gallons of water I chugged and layers of 30 spf lotion I applied. It is so hard to just STAY ALIVE in the desert. If you are not a cactus or a javelina or a scorpion, what the heck? I decided that water was very important for location and, even more so, PEOPLE.

So I moved to New York for the people. And then I moved to Chicago for the other people and now believe that no matter how cold it is, if I have water and I have people I like, I'll be good. So while these photos demonstrate some relief at seeing a palm tree outside my window instead of an icicle, I'm really just kidding.

On a journey with a siamese cat and a regular cat

The night before I was to leave Chicago, Shane told me we were going to have a celebration. I didn't know if he meant to celebrate the magical world of High School Musical I was about to enter or the fact that I wouldn't be around for a while to cast him dark looks and make fun of the way he shovels, but I was in.

I was starting to feel bittersweet and conflicted about my sudden departure and it wasn't just the fact that I was uprooting myself almost immediately after I'd told myself to lay down some f'in roots and stay put.

It wasn't just the disruption of the local work I'd found and really like doing. It wasn't just the fact that I wouldn't be able to wear the heavy wool-lined winter boots I'd bought, those which look EXCESSIVELY prepared to stomp down icy sidewalks.

It was the little stuff around the house, the funny stuff mixed in with the everyday moods and schedules and frustrations, that makes living with friends different, and in many ways better, than visiting for a weekend.

For eight weeks, I don't get to see Sunny defile the Reddi-Whip and then try to tell me that it's organic, except for maybe the ingredient "propellant".

I'm not going to hear Shane singing "Po-rk Shoul-der" in honor of the pork shoulder given to him in Memphis, checked in his baggage, flown home, carved up, and sung about in tune to the 1984 hit "Sex Shooter" by the Prince-created 80s trio, Apollonia 6.

Pork Shoulder
Shootin love in your direction.
I'm a pork shoulder
Come on play with my affection.
Come on kiss the gun.

The night before we thought I was leaving, before we knew for sure that a blizzard would cancel flights out of O'Hare, Sunny went to bed early since she's a responsible teacher who knows something about waking up at 6am to face a roomful of 15-year-olds. Shane and I stayed up and made drinks. I got on and off the phone with American Airlines and we talked and made more drinks and put on a movie.

Sunny came out for water at one point - not be confused with the point when she stuck her head out from the bedroom door and asked us to keep our voices down - and asked what we were watching.

"Thank You for Not Smoking," I said.

"Is it good?" she asked.

"We're not really paying attention, but we think it is," I said.

A little later Shane said, "This movie is making me feel like I didn't study."

"Filmmakers are the worst," He added.

"Who's the second worse?" I asked.

"Writers," He said. "Well, writers are the best of the worst."

"Who's the most terrible of everyone?" I wanted to know.

"Girls in LA."

"I think they belong on a different list," I said.

So we began making lists and I transcribed. The next day when Sunny came home from school, I read aloud from my notebook what Shane and I talked about the night before. What we found at the top of the page, free of any explanation and with no context whatsoever, and nowhere near any list was ON A JOURNEY WITH A SIAMESE CAT AND A REGULAR CAT.

And neither of us have any idea what THAT'S all about. I'll miss this place.

What doors?

Shane suspects I sit around all day and blog around him. He thinks that if he hasn't read it, it's because I've written about him secretly on my OTHER blog, the top secret blog I keep from him.

When P-nut comes over to the house and doesn't see me right away, he asks, "Where's Jessica? Blogging?" And if we go out to dinner, Q begs me to tell him what I've said about Shane. WHEN I HAVEN'T SAID SHIT ABOUT SHANE. Except that he hates roommates.

I'm going to end that right now. The saying, not the hating.

When Sunny and Shane asked me in August to move in with them, we struck a few deals. One deal was that we'd start by living together for six months. After six months, we'd decide if I should stay or go because either a) I'd need my own space for temperamental reasons and/or b) they'd realize there's a reason married people don't always let the best friend of one of them move in.

The second deal was that I'd pay rent on October 1 for the little room in the front of the house, off the living room.

The third deal was that Shane would put up doors on the room.

It would be untrue to say that we agreed the doors HAD to be up by when I moved in, but that was maybe implied. Sunny and I cracked prescient jokes about how Shane and I were going to have funny fights about the doors. Or lack thereof.

I got to Chicago on October 9 and knew that Shane had to special order the doors since the space wasn't a standard size. I'm not going to speculate about when Shane actually talked to the door people and told them to start cutting because that doesn't matter. What mattered is I knew doors were on their way.

In the meantime I thought it was cute that Hugo, the brown dog, stuck his head around the curtain every night to check and make sure I was there before he went to bed in the other room.

And I was cool with Lulu, the pit bull, bossing me around and growling menacingly in the middle of the night when I tried to wedge my body out from the space between the mattress and the wall that she had squeezed me into.

A part of me has come to accept that it is, if not Lulu's world, Lulu's bed, and she's just letting me in it.

Eventually the doors arrived but stayed in the garage while Sunny painted them silver and let them dry. I covertly took photos of Shane's to-do lists, written on the biggest post-it notes ever. You can see here the giant post-it notes and lists, posted over his desk, carefully categorized and crossed off.



A couple of weeks later Shane built a header because some instructions said the doors weren't the right size. Then some other instructions said the doors were the right size. Then Shane took down the header and called a contractor.

The contractor was supposed to hang the doors on Friday, THE DAY I WAS TO LEAVE CHICAGO for two months. We all thought that was pretty funny. The contractor's truck couldn't drive through the blizzard, however, the same blizzard my plane couldn't fly through, so I was still home on Saturday and getting ready to go to the airport when the contractor said, "Yeah, I'll do it, but I can't do it right now, I don't have time."

And Sunny and Shane and Lulu and I were all like TELL ME ABOUT IT.

Just say NO

If you are walking at night and a little guy slinks out of a parking lot behind you and asks, "Miss? Can you help me?" and you look back and say, "With what?" and he holds out a keyring and huffs like he's EMBARRASSED to even be ASKING but, "My car just broke down..."

And you notice that he's twitching and blinking like a maniacal weasel who mixed up the last batch of crank reeeeaaaal good, you're just gonna want to cut him off right there with "NO" and keep walking.

You might be aggravated for a few blocks and imagine how you'd like to grab his ropey little neck and slam him up against the side of Walgreen's so that his legs are wiggling in the air like a cartoon and say to him, "Seriously. WHO do you think is gonna fall for that? YOU. TWISTED. LITTLE. IDIOT."

When I don't answer the phone

Anyone reading last winter knows my familiarity with fear and phobia. My phobias came out mostly in childhood and I still wonder how my mom and dad, such upbeat, stable, model-citizen types, churned out a fatalistic little bed wetter like me.

I'm sure everyone in my family was relieved when I grew up enough in junior high to be able to spend the night at friends' houses without freaking out, calling my mom at 3am and begging her to come pick me up. It was at this point that I started to shake off the mantle of mama's girl and catapult myself into independence.

In ninth grade I quit fearing the grim reaper at every turn and my dreams of dying in housefires and plunging elevators started to abate. I was a moody teenager who wore berets and took photography and slammed my bedroom door so I could have some PRIVACY to write my Amnesty International letters and plan my life in the real world where I would FINALLY GET SOME PRIVACY. GOD.

I decided I'd grow up to be a human rights photographer or maybe a librarian as long as the library was in a country where there was a political revolution or a coup. I'd welcome and encourage the opportunity to stare down the barrel of a gun. Fearless had replaced fearful. Except I wasn't actually that gifted in photography and while I truly have valued my travels in violent, revolution-inclined countries, I'm not trying to break up any gunfights.

Now I talk about phobia like it's funny but I'm not laughing when little quirks and cracks reappear. When I can't sleep for days and the idea of not sleeping worries me into an even greater state of insomnia and all I can do is put a pillow over my head and scream or go to the kitchen to eat peanut butter with a spoon and think about how ill I'm going to feel the next day.

I worry that I don't have enough time to myself to read and write and think because this is how I figure things out and if I don't get any time, I'll NEVER FIGURE ANYTHING OUT.

Or I worry that I spend too much time alone. That I'm a loner and will one day be a hunchback and a cat lady and it won't matter if I figure anything out because there won't be anyone to tell it to. Depending on how good my weekend was, I can start AND end the week equally afflicted by opposite emotions.

Probably the best expression of this state is my periodic telephone aversion. There are people I need, people I miss, people I could use a good talking to, if only I could answer the phone or listen to voicemail. The knowledge that nine voices on nine messages want to know how I am and I mean they REALLY want to know, they don't want a sound bite, sometimes overwhelms.

Sometimes I just haven't figured it out and instead of talking through it, I wind myself tightly around my questions. Then, for no reason at all, the flip switches in my brain and I get a rush of energy and I listen to all the messages at once and write them in my notebook. And, hopefully, call back.

Youism

I last saw Charlie in New York. I was leaving the East Village for the Bronx and he was leaving for Australia, by way of Brooklyn. The last time we spoke on the phone last summer he said, "Berlin."

"See you there," I replied.

I remembered the day I was down and didn't want to get out of bed. Charlie and I pretended my room was a cabin on a ship that was sailing away and I wasn't supposed to get out to the deck because the sea was too choppy anyway.

"You're one of few people who can make depression kind of fun," I told him.

He said, "I can't wait until the next time I see you and you've exploded." And I understood that this was good, explosions of imagination and energy.

Charlie has high expectations. He believes in talent and imagination and creativity. He always asks WHY. He is sharp and curious and his questions penetrate the surface. But to really know him, you must be curious because he doesn't brag. I wouldn't have known, had I not recently meandered over to MySpace, that Charlie's band, Long Walk Home, released their debut album, Youism, in Australia just days ago. Or that "Androgenous vocalist Charles Canh captivates not only with his haunting counter tenor vocals but his theatrical approach to live music".

And I wouldn't have been completely sure that "Long Walk Home will be touring their debut album Youism throughout Australia in the next few months before re-locating to Berlin due to industry interest in 2007."

Ruby Red Monday

Eight years ago I worked at a pawnshop and I used to name days with the other employee, Tom. Good days were Martini Monday and Leave Early Friday. Boring days were Six Inch Veggie Sub Wednesday. Mean days were Balding Guys Shouldn't Wear Ponytails and/or Rip Off Your Neighbor Thursday.

Once Tom pulled an antique typewriter off the shelf and wrote a short story about how we were enslaved by the owner of the pawnshop and being forced to wash his windows with newspapers and pretend like it was okay for him to wear moccasins - all for minimum wage.

I thought about Tom today when the sun never really materialized and the grey clouds hung heavy over the city. Every single hour, from daybreak on, looked exactly the same, like dingy dusk. Like you should rush through rush hour just to get to the couch and the entire second season of Lost on DVD.

If you're like me and have already popped in the entire second season of Lost on DVD, you might opt to read a thought-provoking work of literature. Unless you find it's difficult to concentrate on anything more complex than the backstories of a fictional group of strangers surviving on a desert island, their jet having plunged into the ocean some 44 fictional days ago.

That's when I realized what it was: Ruby Red Monday.

As in Absolut Ruby Red. As in why did it take the Swedes so long (June 2006) to get this delicious grapefruit-flavored vodka on the shelf? My goodness.

Sunny and I unloaded groceries while taste-testing little glasses of ice and Absolut Ruby Red and I felt absolutely at least a tiny bit better than I did before and I felt SAFE.

In our house we feel safe when Shane comes home from Costco and restocks the bar with giant bottles of whiskey, gin and vodka. Sunny feels safe when the cabinet above the refrigerator is filled to the ceiling with a half dozen 2-liters of seltzer water and 16 rolls of paper towels.

She doesn't sleep well if there aren't several bricks of extra firm tofu waiting to be fried up somewhere and I get a little pit in my stomach if the soups in the cupboard dip into the single digits. I probably don't need to elaborate on the emotions associated with a case of Bud Light.

Where this sinister dependency and Depression-era mentality sprung from, I'm not sure, but I'm in no shape to deny it.

llamas vs. alpacas

Last weekend Sunny and I drove from Chicago to Cincinnati and spent several hours on the Indiana Interstate.

"Not that Illinois is that much better, Sunny said. "But I'm so glad I don't live in Indiana."

"Yeah," I said. "What's the deal with Illinois? I never think about Illinois. Just Chicago. What's with the rest of Illinois?"

"Who knows? I'm surprised whenever I remember Chicago's in Illinois. I always think Chicago's like DC."

"I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever thought about Illinois."

We sped along I-65, quietly considering the mystery of the 21st State, the Land of Lincoln, and thinking uncomplimentary thoughts about the Hoosier State. Until I remembered something nice about Indiana.

"My parents' friends Yasna and Jim have a farm in Sunman, Indiana, I said. "They spend every weekend in the country and swim in a huge pond and have horses and lots of land. AND LLAMAS."

And for some reason this was so funny to us that we almost swerved off the road. We realized that not only are we not sure what llamas are FOR, but we're not even sure what llamas ARE.

We made a list of what we think:

1. Llamas are not camels and llamas are not elephants and llamas do not have feathers.

2. Llamas belong in South America, in the the Andes Mountains.

"And what about ALPACA? What's that?" Sunny asked.

"I think alpaca is what you call the hair after you get it off a llama and make it into a hat."

She didn't believe me, "THAT IS SOME MADE UP SHIT."

"Well, you don't shear wool and go, 'look at my sheep sweater,'" I said.

"Oh. I guess you don't admire silkworm shirts, either," she said.

"No. You don't. DAMMIT. Where is Google when you need it? Maybe we can pick up wireless from one of these barns. Slow down."

Llamas are in the camelid family of the central plains of North America from 40 million years ago. Three million years ago, they left for South America. 25,000 years ago, llamas were common in modern day California, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Missouri, and Florida, but by the end of the last ice age (10,000-12,000 years ago) they were extinct in North America.

Alpacas are cousins of the llama. The Incas used the llamas for transportation and alpacas for their hair, which is finer and silkier than woolly llama hair.

According to the many llama websites I found, people outside the Andean Range now have pet llamas. Because they're nice. Even though they spit and sometimes wrestle with each other, they're fun to have around. They walk around and hum and don't often jump the fence.

At least I pay the rent

In January 2003, the Illinois Tollway began a Violation Enforcement System to crack down on toll scofflaws in order to remind the 97 percent of law-abiding Tollway customers who pay their fair share that they are BETTER THAN THE REST OF US. Illinois wants to reduce the amount of uncollected tolls and thinks this will happen once scofflaws realize that there are penalties for driving through tolls without paying.

I know this because I TOTALLY NOT ON PURPOSE joined the ranks of the three percent of Illinois drivers who drive through without tossing the required coins into the basket - 30 cents in my case - thereby flouting or "scoffing" the law.

And while I really don't think my inability to scrape together 30 cents from every pants and jacket pocket I could rifle through without getting in an accident makes me exactly public enemy number one, I got all shitty and nervous because I borrowed Shane's car to drive to the Bob Dylan concert and I caught the sign clearly stating that I had to call a certain number within four days, or else.

I suspected that surveillance cameras had already taken photos of me and the Nissan, photos which were being beamed to the state patrol who were typing up a warrant for Shane's arrest - or at least a ticket - to be delivered on day five. And that this would make me a bad roommate.

Especially if you bear in mind that 1) Shane hasn't had a roommate since 1992 because 2) THAT'S HOW MUCH HE HATES ROOMMATES and 3) I just moved in with him and his wife/my oldest friend Sunny and 4) this was the same day that I got locked in the bathroom and, in my panic, threw my weight against the door hard enough to break free, taking all the molding from the left side of the door with me.

You will see in the photo a long vertical crack running the length of the wall. Sunny tried to disguise this evidence of my hulkish nature by propping and nailing the wood back up after she got the note I left on the kitchen table:

SO SORRY ABOUT BUSTING THE DOOR DOWN. XX

I wrote Nissan's license plate number in my notebook and went online to look at maps of I-90 to figure out at which toll plaza I had scoffed the law. After deciding it was westbound Route 59, I identified the car and the time of the incident and put the 30 cents on my debit card. Last night I also tried to kiss up a little bit by drawing hearts on the envelope with my share of the rent.

Hi. My name is Depakote.

I just got this email: a paragraph of nonsense accompanied by a photo of a J.Lo impersonator grinning fetchingly from behind a stethoscope held over her eye with a rubber gloved-sheathed arm. The website advertises where one can order Viagra, Valium, and Cialis at great value.

Fake J.Lo reminds me of porn, pirates, and the opera and a quick Google search on Cialis informs me that it's an erectile dysfunction pill so my guess is that porn is what "Eran McCormick" had in mind when she sent me this awesome piece of spam. What Eran didn't know is that I have a thorny relationship with Depakote, so when this email greeted me politely in my inbox - "Hi. My name is Depakote." - I respond with a little chip on my shoulder.

Hi, Depakote. How are ya, buddy? Remember me? You sat on my kitchen counter in little orange bottles with my brother's name on them for many years. You were supposed to help him not have seizures, but he still had them, a lot, so you didn't do your job too well, did ya? You also hung out at my apartment in New York and my friend took you so he wouldn't be so manic. EXCEPT HE WAS TOTALLY MANIC. And while that's a nice break from depressive, it's still pretty messed up. There was also that time I accidentally swallowed 500 mg of you because I thought you were the antibiotic for my bladder infection and YOU FUCKED ME UP.

Depakote, I drank 28 glasses of water that night and I couldn't sleep a bit and I went to work the next morning buzzed, wired, strung out, and pissed off. That was the week of the inadvertent Depakote Diet when I dropped four pant sizes because you made me so sick I got all tuckered out after nibbling on an apple.

The upside was that I gained a lot of compassion for the mood swings and physical imbalances - AKA side effects - that both my friend and my brother struggled with.

You won't catch me ACCIDENTALLY running a marathon unlike SOME PEOPLE I know

I have a cousin named Lauren. This past Sunday she kinda sorta accidentally ran the Chicago Marathon.

As in 26.2 miles. As in she promised a friend that she'd start the race with her and see how far she got before dropping out. Lauren got her booty downtown at 8am, withstood the wintry temperatures with 40,000 other maniacs, and then just happened to keep running for the next four hours.

If I wanted to get specific about it, which, GUESS WHAT I DO, I would point out that this means Lauren's feet hit the pavement something like 52,400 times in succession. Fifty-two thousand four hundred times. WITHOUT REALLY TRAINING.

I cannot refrain from excessive use of caps because I'm not sure how else to express my outrage. I am beside myself with pride and irritation. I want to brag about her and I want to shoot her a million dirty looks. I want to know what is wrong with her and I want to know how I can be more like her.

Of the blood we share and the gene pool of which we are both a part, I want to ask: What do you have against me? Why does it take me a minimum of three hours everyday to prepare for the journey from my down comforter to the world outside? Why, when Lauren sent me a text message Saturday night asking if I was going to watch the marathon the next morning, did I laugh so hard?

Furthermore, DNA, I cannot have helped but notice over the years that Lauren has an incomparable temperament. She is unflaggingly cheerful and positive. She maintains her sparkling effervescence in the face of the most dire circumstances - things like Christmas and marathons. I was at her house two Christmas seasons ago and personally witnessed Lauren singing carols while vacuuming.

GENUINELY BELTING OUT RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER OVER THE NOISE OF THE SWEEPER.

I think it goes without saying that this gave me pause. I admire what I don't understand, what I myself cannot experience.

This is a recent photo of me and Lauren. Notice the exuberance and liveliness in her smile. This is exactly what she looked like when she answered her door on Sunday afternoon. I surprised her at her house because I was in the neighborhood. I didn't know her feet had just been subjected to the ground in excess of 52,000 times. I came over to invite her and her feet to dinner.

I laid on her couch and listened to Lauren tell me happily that she didn't know how she did it, how she felt great, and how her sister-in-law, Miriam, told her on the phone that she never wanted to speak to her again, which I think totally befits the situation.

"Well, I was going to invite you go out to eat with a group of us tonight but I understand if you aren't up to it," I ventured.

"No, I'll go," she replied, and then proceeded to drive us around in her big truck, drink beer, and carry on like the champ that she is.

Oscar, 3rd and B

"Where you been?" He asks when he sees me.

"I don't live in New York anymore. Oscar, right?"

He smiles and nods.

"I'm just visiting and taking photos of the neighborhood for my friend Charlie. Remember him? He used to come in here with me. He lives in Australia."

"So everyone somewhere else. Where you live now?"

"Um. Chicago?"

It's easier than trying to explain what I've been doing for the last year and a half.

I grab a bag of soy chips and say goodbye, "See you next time, Oscar."

the pretty bright pink color of death

Gail and I spent the day in Duluth, Minnesota walking on the beach, sitting on driftwood, and sharing giant pieces of chocolate.












We drove Diana, the dark green huntress Toyota, from Ironton to Duluth in the late morning, timed carefully to coincide with baby naptime in the backseat.

After dinner we headed home along MN-210, a dark narrow tree-lined state highway. Gail told me a story about hitting a deer on her way to school, how the accident tore up her car and made her cry on the side of the road.

We were quiet for a few minutes until we passed three cars pulled off the highway.

'Why do you think those cars are pulled over?' Gail asked me.

'I dunno,' I mumbled right before we saw it and there was no time to slow down and avoid it: a bloody pink and red heap of fleshy carcass in the road. Diana's right side slammed into the animal and jolted us hard two times, one for the front wheel and one for the back, while I yelled, 'FUCK!' and Gail gripped the steering wheel.

'Fuckfuckfuck,' I repeated while pulling my feet off the dashboard and twisting around in the seat to see if the baby was awake.

'Well, I guess the lesson here is slow down when you see a bunch of cars pulled over?' Gail said.

The next morning Dave left us a phone message after he left the house for work: 'Hey guys, uh, you might want to think about getting the car washed, considering one side of it is COVERED IN BLOOD. Yeah, that doesn't look too good. Just a thought.'



I ran outside to inspect the deer remains splashed across the hood and wheels and, on the way, noticed a bush in the front yard whose leaves were turning a striking pink on their way to dying and falling to the ground.

plugging in your electronics costs $1.50/hr

I just assumed the owner of Lalita Java cafe across the street from my old apartment in the East Village was having a slow day. She felt like using up the last piece of scrap paper with a questionable sense of humor and old dried up felt-tip marker she found in her pen jar under the counter.

"Well," I thought, "Every barista is entitled to her sense of what's funny..."

Some make signs for the bathroom (Though we are not suggesting that your hands can be in any way as dirty as the Bush Administration's, please wash them before returning to work) or for the tip jar (karma jar). Seattle-based baristas have a bent towards espresso-dripped signs atop the latte foam (fern leaves, shamrocks, anarchy symbols).

So I ignored the sign, merrily plugged in, and got online.

Half an hour later I looked up to see the owner lady standing in the doorway, staring at me and my computer, whose white cord was rebelliously snaking its way down to the outlet.

"That costs a dollar fifty an hour," owner lady said.

"I thought that was a joke," I offered.

Owner lady's gaze hardened behind her librarian-meets-indie-rocker eyeglasses, "NO. IT'S NOT A JOKE."

Sheesh, who peed in your Grape Nuts?

I paused and countered with the all-time classic comeback of one who is honestly stumped.

"Oh."

Though ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, LADY? would have been appropriate, too.

I turned back to my laptop and ignored her.

I heard her say something to the boy behind the counter, probably something about making sure the chick in the back didn't leave without paying her fraction of the electricity coursing from the wall.

I gathered my things to leave, irritated beyond all bounds of reason. I wondered why I was so outraged SINCE IT WASN'T THE MONEY.

I will throw down for goods and services. I possess the sterling etiquette of a former waitress and bartender. But that devious little piece of paper pushed me right over the edge and I wished only that I had 150 pennies in my bag.

May I Kiss Your Boots?

I flew from New York to Minneapolis/St. Paul and immediately after deplaning got a call from Gail. "I'll be there in about ten minutes. I'll pick you up outside baggage claim."

"What does your car look like?" I asked.

"Dark green Toyota," She said.

"And what is your car's name?"

Gail told me, "Diana. Because she's a hunter. She's killed a couple of deer."

"Cool," I said, "I'll be looking for Diana."

I sat on a bench outside baggage claim and got another call from Gail.

"Jess, I'm sorry, I'm stuck in traffic on 694 and going three miles an hour. I don't know how long this is going to take."

"No problem," I said, "I don't mind sitting here. I've got plenty to do."

I sat and stared into space until a man walked up and wordlessly held up a index card that said:

MAY I KISS YOUR BOOTS?

Instinctively, I shook my head no and he turned to walk away.

Hang on, I'm curious, what the hell. I called out to his retreating back, "Wait, why are you carrying that around?"

He turned around and said, "BECAUSE I'M A SLAVE and this is how I meet mistresses and those are nice boots."

"Thank you," I say.

He sat on the bench next to me and I asked, "Does it work?"

"Sometimes," the slave said. "So can I?"

I hesitated. "Do we have to exchange money?"

"Oh, no!" said the slave and managed to appear shocked by ME.

"Okay, then," I said.

I noticed that he had a handful of index cards and I asked him what they said. "Nothing," he told me and shuffled through them to show that they were blank.

I wonder if he makes cards particular to each potential mistress or if he happened to carry a May I Kiss Your Boots? card on a day when I happened to be wearing F'IN SWEET BOOTS.

Slave handed me a piece of paper and politely said goodbye while lightly touching my shoulder.

I skimmed the letter he gave me and caught the opening -

Superior Mistress, Thank You very much for allowing me to kiss Your boots. i consider it an honor. Certainly, my rightful place is at Your feet. i adore Dominant Females. If this is how i behave in public, imagine what i would do behind closed doors!

- and put it away, laughing about how my visit to Minnesota was more about seeing the leaves change and meeting my friend's 3-month-old daughter than urinating on a stranger in some basement.

The next day, while Gail made soup, I handed the letter to her husband, Dave, to read aloud to us (exerpted here):

i have years of experience serving Dominant Women, and i am thankful for the Mistresses who have trained and abused me. Contact me if You are ANY of the following:

The middle part of the letter outlined how the slave seeks messy, show-off, sadistic, and broke women so that he can clean their houses, work in their yards, give them money, and suffer for them. Once or twice he might have mentioned being tied up or having weights attached to his balls.

And I can't tell you how much I got a kick out of hearing earnest, upstanding, outdoorsy Dave say, "ESPECIALLY WITH SORE BALLS."

"Sore balls!" I shrieked, "Did you make that up?"

"Why would I make that up?" Dave asked.

The slave feels that he is following his destiny:

i have accepted my fate. i am entitled to NO gratification, either sexual or financial. i am serious about the concept of Female Supremacy, and Mistresses are fun to serve and be around. my best friends are Women that i have served. Have fun! Take pictures! Even if you have no experience as a Mistress, i am a good slave to start with. You will find me generous and kind. References available. Submissively, shorty. (Followed by phone and email)



I am not publishing shorty's digits out of respect for the fact that I appreciate his POLITE and THOUGHTFUL approach to slavery: e.g. leaving immediately when I shook my head no, returning only when I spoke to him, NOT ACTUALLY SAYING anything from the letter, and not coming back.

Any of those things would have been creepy but in light of their absence, I deem his style of sadism honest, if not downright mature.

Bitches & hos welcome

According to rapper Big Daddy Kane, PIMPIN' AIN'T EASY, but Andrew and John make it look effortless.

Hosts of a recent party at Bubba's Sulky Lounge in Portland, Maine, these boys who normally come off as innocuous as a couple of fruit flies - if fruit flies wore Hawaiian shirts, Mexican guayaberas, and comfortable sneakers - were pimped out in unrivaled fashion.

I had no problem sitting at a table with a sign welcoming bitches and hos and not once did I feel my integrity compromised.

And I didn't even come close to busting out lyrics from 'Pimpin' Ain't Easy':

If the girlies want my tip they gotta pay a fee - 
I love bonin', and all my friends they will agree - 
that when it comes to pimpin' hoes - it ain't easy -

I wanted to tax that ass like the government!
 Well, it's Friday night, ain't a damn thing funny -
 Bitch better have my money -


YEAH. Maybe because John and Andrew really aren't pimps and while I may be a bitch from time to time, I'm really not a ho. Therefore, ha ha. Good party. Thanks guys.



A week later I got a voice mail from Cathy wherein she asked me, "Why aren't you calling me back, you dirty whore?" Only days before, I'd called someone a cheap whore just for finishing the last bottle of Riesling.

BECAUSE IT'S FUNNY TO CALL SOMEONE A WHORE WHEN YOU KNOW THEY'RE NOT A WHORE.

I met Cathy, Jane, Seema, and Chris in New York and the first thing they did was put a tiara on my head. "You get to wear the pretty princess tiara," Jane told me. "until you call someone a dirty whore and then you have to relinquish it to someone else."

Well, that tiara stayed firmly on my head all night, not because I didn't call anyone a dirty whore but because none of our arms had the inhuman strength to pass it around as often as the rule necessitated. In the next three days, we called each other dirty whores no less than, I don't know, SEVERAL THOUSAND times.

They developed a ranking system and told me that I was dirty whore #5 and here I actually did take offense.

"Number FIVE? Out of five?" I protested with indignation. "Hey, I get action!"

I remembered how Jocardo and I used to casually refer to people as crackwhores until we realized a few people we knew actually were into crack and/or whoring and the term suddenly sounded less funny and more sad.

Just like how if Seema stopped being a doctor, Cathy stopped being an economic developer, Chris stopped being a sailor, and Jane stopped being an energy conservationist and turned to prostitution, I would be sad and desperate. Just as sad and desperate as they would have to be to sell their bodies.

Photo credits: Matthew Sperling, Marisa Diaz

Our deadly classic

"Our Deadly Classic" might not be the best choice of words to describe the SPINACH artichoke dip, given that in the last two weeks 92 people have been hospitalized, several deaths are suspected, and 173 people have been sickened due to the E. Coli spinach outbreak.

I know that this Portland, Maine pub, Ri-Ra, wrote their menu long before three counties in California's Salinas Valley started sending contaminated spinach around the country and before 25 states reported infections.

But I'm just saying.

Giddy up

I just spent the last two days working with a Texan runner who had two responses to pretty much just about everything.

GIDDY UP and COOL-COOL.

Giddy up and/or cool-cool came up when a) I asked him to do something b) I thanked him for doing something c) We passed in the hall d) We made eye contact and e) through z) At the close of every exchange we shared. The only variation from this verbal two-step was the occasional, "You got it, girl".

By day two I honestly felt, when talking to him, that not only did I have it but that things really were cool.

I just wondered two things. 

1) Why hadn't he shot me any pistol-fingered chk-chks and
2) WHO SAYS THIS?

While I never got a chance to discuss number one with him, I did get some insight when a delivery guy brought us food for the buses at the end of the night. My runner said, "Hey man, thanks for separating the orders. We'll take the bags for the green bus first," and the delivery guy answered back, "Cool-cool."

Ah-ha! People in Grand Prairie, Texas say this.

A few days later I was downloading photos and I laughed when I saw the ones of Geoff with the oxygen tank that the mile-high city of Denver supplies backstage. The tanks are supposed to be for performers, in case they get light-headed before they have to go onstage. In the offices, though, they are in case we get slaphappy before the night is over. The look on Geoff's face, as he's pulling the gas mask off his mouth, is ridiculous. And I knew, even if Geoff didn't, what he was thinking: GIDDY UP.

Heaven on Earth cinnamon rolls

In Portland, Oregon, Dee Dee walked into the office, held out two cinnamon rolls and said, "Here, the truck drivers bought these for you."

One of the cinnamon rolls was a normal, regulation-sized cinnamon roll, the kind found in bakeries and Cinnabons across America. Dense, buttery, and sugary enough to make those inclined towards hypoglycemia, diabetes, or A.D.D. reach for the nearest needle or pill, but a regular old cinnamon roll nonetheless.

The sight of the OTHER cinnamon roll in Dee Dee's hands made me freeze, yelp "Oh my GOD!" and "Jesus!"

It was large, like as large as my computer or small dog. Fittingly, the cinnamon roll on steroids that made me gush religious came from a place called Heaven On Earth. According to their website, "Heaven On Earth began in 1974 as a small cafe along I-5 in Oregon. With only 10lbs of hamburger, sheer faith and determination, Christine Jackson began her incredible journey to success…her devote faith and love of Jesus is why she will tell you her business is so successful today."

Amen.

Later in the loading dock, I saw two truck drivers, Tommy and Ron.

"Were you guys responsible for that thing sitting on my desk?" I asked.

They smiled in a heavy-lidded doped-up sort of way that indicated they may have been coming out of a couple of considerable sugar comas.

I may have been imagining it but I think there was a slight slur to Tommy's voice, "What d'ya think of it?"

"I think it’s kind of fucked up. But I like it. Thank you."

Heaven On Earth Restaurant & Bakery is located in Southern Oregon along I-5, just north of Grants Pass at exit 86.