Wicked case of meat spurs

After eating anywhere between two and ten pounds of Buenos Aires steak plus bread, antipasto, flan, and two liters of Quilmes beer, we decided to WALK THE MEAT OFF back to the hotel. We hadn't yet realized that the meat would develop a personality of its own, complete with likes and dislikes, and that the meat did not like to be walked. Moreover, we would exhibit symptoms of those who are, if not possessed, at the very least INHABITED by something out of the ordinary.

"I'm high on meat," I said in the restaurant. "I haven't felt like this since that Seattle brunch with Jane's family made me weep."

Frank announced that his feet felt funny.

"Do you think it's the meat?" I asked.

"I have meat feet," he replied.

"Like it's sunk all the way down into your heels?"

"I think that would be meat spurs."

Outside a disco:

"Do you think the meat wants to dance?" 

"The meat definitely wants to feel the rhythm."

When I tried drinking a glass of water:

"Okay, don't do that. The meat doesn't like the water."

Tango tourist

Twenty hours, three flights, and one long nap after leaving Los Angeles, Frank and I hit the sidewalks of Buenos Aires. We had a day before I had to go to River Plate stadium to see the stage and figure out where to plug in and set up the teleprompter equipment that I barely know how to use but will totally pretend to in front of FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND High School Musical fans.

And it's not like I had insomnia last night and woke up every twenty minutes to the thought of USB ports malfunctioning or anything. That happens all the time. I'm sure it's not at all related to teleprompter anxiety. Forty-four thousand people? Great.

My agenda for Saturday was tango and meat. I would have been pleased to see someone else tango or do anything else peripheral like ogle tango shoes. After asking directions and walking in many circles, we found tango row AKA Suipacha street and I, who has never danced a step of tango unless you count the dramatic impersonations I did backstage on the Benise tour, bought an outrageously smoking pair of black and red heels.



Meat time! We asked our cab driver for a Argentinian grill parrillada recommendation, preferably a neighborhood full of locals and not just tourists, but when we pulled up to the corner there may as well have been crickets chirping and tumbleweed rolling down the street.

"Where are all the people?" I asked.

"It's early," the driver said.

"Ooooh yeah," we said, looking at our watches. 7 pm. None of the restaurants open until 8pm because no one even considers eating until MAYBE 9 pm. Unless you are us with our tango shoe bags slung over our shoulders, peering up and down the deserted intersection.

I'm not afraid to talk about your cervix

I'm not a person to run from a conversation about cervixes, although I used to be better about it. Or worse.

Ten years ago, at Evergreen, I stood in front of fifty classmates and lectured them on the glory and the power of menstruation. I was studying women's health and public health and while I never went so far as to wear purple and call myself a goddess, I might have participated in a girls-only drum circle or two. Afterwards I probably back to my dorm room to weave some macrame jewelry and patch my overalls; I don't really remember.

Once Jocardo asked me what a cervix looked like and I held up my worn-down-to-the-nub tube of Chapstick and flashed him the waxy donut end.

"THAT," I told him. "That's what it looks like."

Jocardo nodded and vowed to start buying Carmex.

Now I'm not as impassioned about enjoying PMS and the messages from the universe that it delivers and I honestly don't care if tampons are patriarchal because pads are a pain in the motherf'ing ass but I AM diligent about going to Planned Parenthood every year to check out my business.

Recently one of my friends had her own yearly pap smear and was told that she had pre-cancerous cells on her cervix. This freaked us out because the c word is inherently scary but she also found out that calling a cell pre-c doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Turned out, however, that her cervix had some severe cell growth, so a few days ago they knocked her out to scrape the cells and cut away a little part of her waxy donut.

I can barely sit still when writing the words "scrape" and "cut" in this context and when I spoke to her on the phone about it, I was walking down the street, shaking the words off with my wrists and legs between steps like they were body tics.

I also learned that all this scraping and cutting is due to a STD called Human Papillomavirus which makes the cells grow in the first place. And that HPV is FAR more common - 20 million people have it right now - than we realize. There are 100 types of HPV and most types are low-risk and without symptoms, so unless we get a genital wart or an abnormal pap, our body fights the infection off and we stay happily ignorant that we are one of half of all people having sex who get HPV at some point. The high-risk strains of HPV can lead to cancer.

After I got off the phone with my friend and shook off the last few tics, I pulled this Tell Someone postcard out of the folder where I'd kept it for a few months. I'd kept it because I like the drawing but never really looked at the back. Now I looked at it more closely and saw that, golly, it's about cervical cancer!

Thanks universe! Sorry I haven't paid as much attention to you since graduating from Evergreen.

If on school bus, don't panic

I watched Griffith Park burn yesterday from the parking lot at work, seven miles away, and heard that ash was falling in Atwater Village. I got home at 1 am and the fire was still only thirty percent contained. Part of the neighborhood to the west, Los Feliz, had been evacuated. A volcano appeared to be erupting at the end of the street.

I thought about worrying but decided I was too sleep-deprived to bother and also decided that the river and interstate between us and the oversized orange flames would keep the fire on that side of the highway.

Everything about California brushfires - tearing across mountains, jumping ridges, straddling canyons – is new to me. What I gather, though, is that besides the high temperatures, lack of rain, zero humidity, kids playing with fireworks, and smokers flicking lit cigarettes around the forest, it’s about wind blowing the flames and embers around and igniting the fire in different directions. Maybe even over interstates.

I'm no longer terrified of every single possible threat from the outside world, so last night I simply hoped for the best and fell asleep without even consulting the list of instructions that I made in 1982 for exactly this kind of situation, "Rules for fire + fire + fire + fire". If I had, I would have gotten the following tips:



#5 Always help your little brother or sister + if he is retarded like my brother

#7 Do not ever trampel people

#10 If a fire happens to be in your house the first thing to do is get out and stay out at your meeting place and you better have one!



#14 Always be careful of pink panthers

(I think my mom accidentally slipped me my brother's medication the day I made this list)

#15 If on school bus, don't panic

#16 And never panic

My Liberal Arts degree comes in handy again

My favorite part of doing work that I'm unqualified for is the moment when I suddenly start understanding sentences that five minutes before sounded like the person was speaking in Icelandic. Until recently, my brain seized when the High School Musical crew said anything to me more technical than "extension cord". Now I'm questioning my liberal arts background because I totally could have been an engineering major.

I was setting up my teleprompter station on stage left when the cameraman came over to say hello and get down to business. He told me what I'll be responsible for during load out and I listened and nodded along.

Unplug the power? Got it.

Pack the three monitors in my road case? Check.

Make sure I put the prompter software away carefully and store it far far away from anything giving off a magnetic charge so that I don't irreparably damage it like I did yesterday and we have to get a new version flown in? NO PROBLEM.

Then I started asking questions.

"Is this DVI to video piece connected properly to the DA Box? And what exactly does this DA Box do again? Distribute signal? Right. Now for adapting the video to the Edison box, do I need any more female BNC to male RCA connectors?"

Living on transvestite hooker block

I'm having a who am I and what the hell is going on around here day. My discomfort may be due to the fact that I tried to get fancy and waxed my girl mustache instead of bleaching it. I had a reaction so I'm now walking around with a disfiguring ZITSTACHE and the product I bought at Sephora to supposedly help has dried out everything so whatever patch of skin isn't erupting is instead peeling.

In trying to make the best of the situation happening on my face, I told Jane who was bummed on the phone, "If it makes you feel any better, I have a zit mustache."

And it did help Jane. So Jane feels better about her life but I somehow took 25 minutes to try on fourteen t-shirts in the morning before going with the one I picked out in the first place. And I was just dressing for was the High School Musical show rehearsal. Do I need a perfect t-shirt to sit in a room putting Spanish lines into a script that I'll later feed to the cast on stage as the new TELEPROMPTER OPERATOR for the South American tour? Hell naw! And don't even get me started on how random my job is. The point is that learning to use a teleprompter does not require the right t-shirt.

Earlier this morning I called Miguel, who is in town from Seattle for a coffee conference.

"Miguel," I said, "I'm sorry I didn't make it to the party last night."

"Oh, no, it's okay," he said, "I'm sorry, too, for..." before unsuccessfully wracking his brain to find something to be sorry about just out of habit. He's a very polite overapologizer.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Hollywood Boulevard and Vine," he said.

"What! I'm riding my bike over to say hi before I go to work."

When I got myself and my zit mustache to Hollywood Blvd, I called him again, "Hey, I'm here."

"I'm in an oxygen bar with tubes stuck up my nose. I'll be done in five minutes," he said.

"Wow. Okay." Who am I to judge? But that is funny.

We threaded our way through the tourists on the sidewalk who were posing for photos with fake Gene Simmons and fake Michael Jackson and then crossed the street to sit outside a coffeeshop. Miguel asked me about living in Southern California and I automatically distanced myself from our immediate surroundings, "Look, this street is nuts. I've never even been over here before."

Right then, a man dressed as either Moses or Anakin Skywalker walked past our table.

"But my neighborhood, Atwater Village, is a regular place to live. Totally nice."

Later, after cursing my entire collection of t-shirts and typing way too many exclamation points into the teleprompter (MUCHAS, MUCHAS GRACIAS, BUENOS AIRES!!!!!), and after walking past Fergie in the hallway of the rehearsal space and mistaking her for just another gal with long extensions, super big sunglasses, and a miniature dog, I came home, sank into a chair, and decided not to go anywhere for the rest of the night because I can't even take it anymore, not today.

Frank left to see some music with his nephew, Josh, but called me right away to tell me about the transvestite who lifted her skirt to show some leg as he drove past.

"Oh, that's nice," I said.

"Yeah, and he or she is working our block exactly, right between our house and the light."

"Really?" I said.

But I didn't need convincing because that is this kind of day.

Anti-Hipster Hipster

Yesterday I paid someone to rub hot lava stones on my legs and back.

After the massage therapist balanced the stones on my muscles and drove his body weight into the knots in my back through his TINY POINTY elbow, he wrapped my feet in steamy towels and placed what felt like beanbags on the backs of my knees.

At this point, I thought two things. 1) Is he balancing beanbags on my knees? 2) If I feel better afterwards, he can shoot particle beam lasers into my muscles for all I care. Turns out the "beanbags" were a robe and once I wiped the drool off my face and made eye contact, he told me I really need to stretch and be more conscious of how I carry weight on my back.

Hm. I wonder if he's talking about last week's four-hour bike ride that I did wearing a backpack stuffed with my computer, several books, my journal, my ipod, my camera, and some extra clothes. I'm really glad I took all that stuff with me, especially since THE ONLY THING I USED WAS THE CAMERA, which weighs 5 ounces.

It was worth it, though, because I got to make fun of Matt for taking a water break outside the Brady Brunch house and for being an AHH: Anti-Hipster Hipster.

"What's that mean?" Matt asked in a tone that indicated he was considering getting defensive.

"It means that you're nice and genuine and you're kind of turned off by the scene but you wear OBEY t-shirts and grandpa shorts and white grommet belts on bike rides."

Matt did what was the ultimate proof that he's not a true hipster: he laughed at himself.

more hanging out with stuntwomen, less eating chips

I did web research on Zoe Bell and the next day we rented the documentary Double Dare.

Between the video store and home, we stopped at the supermarket for movie snacks. After we both made fun of the vitamin-fortified tortilla chips, Frank heckled me for stopping in front of the bags of Veggie Booty.

"I know you," he said, "You had to stop as soon as you saw with spinach and kale."

"Shut up," I said, "I did not."

Frank does an impression of me staring at the Veggie Booty, mouth hanging open.

We were suckered into a three for $5 deal and got Veggie Booty AND Pirate's Booty and Pirate's Cannon Balls. Hell yes. And tortilla chips and salsa. And two bottles of Lambic.

"Do you want me to take any of those?" I asked Frank, who was carrying all four bags. He shook his head and I said, "YOU DON'T MIND BEING SO FAT?"

"Damn," he said, looking at me strangely.

And I did what sometimes happens when what I say comes out wrong: laugh uncontrollably without explaining. This is sad because the other person, understandably, doesn't know that I'm laughing at myself, not at them. It's a total jerk move and I inadvertently do it on a semi-regular basis.

At checkout, the cashier sees that Frank's bag/arm ratio is high and invites him to put the snacks on the counter. I decide to make another joke because theoretically it would be funny since it would be so obviously on purpose and not a mistake. I go to whisper, "Tell him your fat arms are getting tired," but what came out was, "Tell him your fat ti...ARMS are getting tired."

Frank: "You almost just said that my FAT TIRE IS GETTING TIRED."

Which, fuck, was true. And we decided then that it was ironic to get all psyched over a film about ladies who are cool because they seem so fun and active and alive while we have a hard time just carrying all of our chips to the couch.

Double Dare involves Zoe doing crazy shit like being lit on fire while spiraling through the air as Xena the Warrior Princess's double in New Zealand, then visiting LA and wearing a PVC dress to the World Stunt Awards where she fell into the bushes.

It's about her moving to California and staying with Jeannie Epper, Lynda Carter's stunt double from Wonder Woman, and flipping off a 35-foot tower onto a air mattress and auditioning for Quentin Tarantino to be Uma Thurman's double in Kill Bill.

It's about the Hollywood stunt world and Zoe and Jeannie's friendship and it made me, just like after seeing Death Proof, want to drink beer and crack jokes with Zoe or maybe go on joy rides in other people's cars, hit punching bags, learn how to walk in plastic dresses, get things pierced, and do stunt training, though I'd probably just bounce mildly on the trampoline or read while she hurled herself off a building or something.

I want to AT LEAST hang out with stuntwomen

Last week someone walked off with the catalytic converter from under Frank's Toyota 4Runner and we learned that people do this for the platinum and other precious metals inside.

When we were told that they especially like ripping off 4Runners and that it happens kind of all the time, Frank threw down the few hundred bucks for a new catalytic converter and then rigged the shit out of it.



I believe the message that the chicken wire, chain link, and padlock sends is:

OH REALLY? I DON'T FUCKING THINK SO.

With the new catalytic converter, the engine's noise is now a teensy bit more evocative of monster truck shows and drag races. And we didn't know if we liked this, but we were immediately resigned since we'd already spent too many hours on the topic and the thought of going back to the mechanic made us want to lay down and take a couple of long, relieving dirtnaps.

This week I avoided driving the T4R and stayed out of it until we went to the Vista Theatre on Friday night to see Grindhouse.

When Frank and my super film geek friend, Matt, talked about Grindhouse before, I apparently spaced out because I knew nothing about what to expect. Not that it was a double feature sandwiched between fake trailers. Or that it was aping the 1970s 'grindhouse' theaters that showed double/triple B-movies. Or that these films by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino featured zombies and jars full of nutsacks (Planet Terror) or stuntwomen and my favorite place to get a taco special in Austin, Guero's (Death Proof).

And I didn't know about Zoe Bell. Here you see Zoe hanging on to the roof of a Dodge Challenger while being chased by maniacal killer Kurt Russell. Earlier in the movie she's a funny, laughing girl who reminds me of people I know and like. Then she turns into a bad ass of staggering proportions. I am impressed.

I want to have a beer with ZB and maybe get a back handspring lesson because I'm suddenly really bummed that I quit gymnastics and martial arts. I COULD BE A STUNTWOMAN RIGHT NOW. If I hadn't quit every sport I played and if I hadn't been afraid of heights and if I'd had a slightly different personality.

And I wasn't the only one affected by ZB and wanting to get my thug on. While driving home, Frank might have mentioned that now he's glad the new catalytic converter is a little louder, because we sound TOUGH.

How I know I live in LA - 1

Sometimes I wonder if Katie Holmes is okay.

I mean I really think about it.

Totally freaks me out.

The Pop Tart connection

What I like about this is that I've known MARTIN, who will be capitalized until I'm allowed to call him by the nickname that he doesn't care for, for 14 years and while we haven't seen each other in a long time, I just got this postcard from him telling me to drink clam juice and eat Pop Tarts.

TO FORTIFY MYSELF AND BUILD UP AN IMMUNITY AGAINST LOS ANGELES.

I don't know if MARTIN did this on purpose but, ironically, Pop Tarts were my link to Hollywood. Before the summer of 2005, when I was the towel and laundry girl for the American Idol tour, I don't know that I'd ever eaten a Pop Tart and certainly had no strong feelings about them. Now I have night terrors overlaid with an announcer's voice booming, "Kellogg's Pop Tarts Presents American Idols Liiiiive!" and mere mention of the strawberry milkshake flavor, especially when followed up with the words "Freeze 'Em and Eat 'Em!", gives me mental bulimia.

That summer I was friends with Alan (nickname Milky, as in Strawberry) whose job it was to traipse around the arena floor in a full-sized Pop Tart costume posing for photos and high-fiving fans who I would like to say were kids but who were actually mostly middle aged women.

My job, in addition to leaving towels in dressing rooms and making sure someone did the laundry in each city, was also to hang fifteen 8-foot-tall Pop Tart banners in each arena before the concert. Towards the end of the tour, I was so fucking sick of those banners that I made the executive decision to throw a bunch of them in the commercial-sized trash compactor at the Portland, Maine venue.

There was no practical reason to do this unless you consider I was PRACTICALLY going to lose it if I had to deal with one more daily reminder that Kellogg's Pop Tarts was presenting American Idols Live.

It was an emotionally satisfying and therapeutic situation. Right up until I got a radio call from the Pop Tart crew leader, Marisa, asking me to hang up all the extra banners for the benefit of the executives coming to the show. I paused, had a moment of silence, and then asked her over the radio to meet me in the production office so I could tell her something.

Last summer, as assistant tour manager, I had more distance from the tens and tens of thousands of Pop Tarts following us around in the refrigerated truck. I spent more time in the office and less on the concourse, so it was easier to ignore the Pop Tart dance floor and Pop Tart karaoke machine. And there was no Pop Tart flavor request list posted on the bus so I didn't even have to trouble myself to write POO on it.


But anyway, MARTIN, thanks for the suggestion.

Serious face

I love those furrows in Mary Beth's brow.

Because we are related, I do the exact same serious face, a serious face so powerful and forehead crinkle so tremendous that today it was actually HEARD OVER THE PHONE when Jimmy called from Columbus, Ohio for a Mexican restaurant recommendation.

I was huddled over the computer looking for Abuelo's address and apparently my face creased so mightily that Jimmy felt the need to say, "You got your serious face on, huh?" and then laughed at my expense.

Whereas in this photo, Jeremy is all, "Whatever Mary Beth, I came to sit on this lawn and hear some MUSIC and I don't care if we have matching glasses and both look kind of intense and German, I am INTO THE MUSIC and am here to have fun so just let me know when I can look over without fear of your eyebrow lunging off your forehead to bitchslap me."

Dog faces

Iska, Ironton, Minnesota

What you don't see in this photo is the Alaskan Malamute licking and eating deer carcasses or tearing a mouse's head from its shoulders as I once witnessed. Gail pointed out that the mouse beheading wasn't as "bad" as I shrieked so I stood corrected and agreed that, yes, it's just nature.

But how much did I want to laugh when shortly thereafter, Iska clobbered the baby's face with a huge, wet, mouse-flavored kiss in front of Gail's mom, who didn't know about the rodent breath?











Lulu, Chicago, Illinois

Lulu is very bad.

I don't know if John Cusack would agree but I think it's hilarious that she attacked him when he came to Sunny and Shane's door. He had a scarf on his head so he was unrecognizable to Lulu who otherwise surely would have identified him from Better Off Dead and High Fidelity.





Yogi and Ariel, Jerusalem, Israel

I only met Yogi once when I helped walk him around the East Village but that walk alone gave me no doubt that this is a spirited dog who would enjoy a good Jewish holiday like Purim. Yogi is not the kind of dog to deny feasting and gladness and commemoration of the time when the Jewish people in Persia were saved from extermination.

Whether or not Yogi drank, as the Talmud says, until he couldn't tell the difference between "cursed be Haman" and "blessed be Mordecai" is hard to say but I'm sure he stood by Ariel's side during this joyous time.

Dr. Quynh, medicine woman

Today I visited two medical offices: Planned Parenthood Hollywood and JC Penney Optical.

The first was for routine care and the second for an eye exam. I found out that my eyes are still hovering perilously close to legal blindness and that there is indeed a reason that I pay extra for special lenses in order to not look like Woody Allen.

I was also reminded that I'm not ALWAYS the nicest person in the world. Initially I was all laughs. I liked how PP Hollywood had the waiting room televisions turned to E's 101 Juiciest Hollywood Hookups. It was fitting. Not only were people's eyes glued to the screen, but many were chuckling aloud to the "hilarious" celebrity commentary. How juicy. I smiled at the carpet when the girl next to me made noisy phone calls about headshots and shoots and how very booked up she is next week.

I was even tolerant when she decided we were buddies and turned to me with asides about commercials and new reality programs.

"Why'd they cast HIM? That's BS!"

"Who the hell are Katie and Peter? Why do they get a show?!"

When the nurse called me back to ask intake questions, she seemed tired and not particularly friendly. I answered her politely and went into smile overtime so she'd know I didn't care that I'd waited an hour and a half and would wait another hour and a half to leave. I wasn't a complainer who would make her day more trying than it already was. I tried to imagine what it'd be like to work at Planned Parent Hollywood and sympathized. By the time I was following her to the bathroom to pee in a cup, she'd cracked a grin or two and I felt we'd reached the sort of truce that, in another setting, would have lead to an afterwork margarita.

Later, after shuffling between more rooms and thumbing through several copies of In Touch magazine, I biked to Glendale to find the JC Penney optometrist that 1 (800) CONTACTS said I had to see before they'd fill my prescription. I made my way through the ladies clothing and wove around the makeup counter before finding the empty corner that holds the optical department.

I filled in their intake forms and was told, "Dr. Quinn will see you in a moment." Fantastic.

Dr. Quinn, a young Asian woman, appeared. I got the feeling that it had been a slow day for her. Like she'd just thrown on her white jacket after ripping off fuzzy slippers and slamming them into her desk drawer with the Sudoku book that keeps her company. She seemed really, overly, happy to see me.

But that's cool. I was geared up and ready; I was all LET'S DO THIS, DR. QUINN because I need some fucking contacts and the internet won't give me them until you say so, so just go ahead and put in those drops that make my eyeballs numb or dilate or WHATEVER. I don't even care if I can't ride my bike home, I will crawl. That is how badly I want to get this over with.

Dr. Quinn, however, started jawing on and on about how she can't do the exam accurately unless she knows which kind of Acuvue contact I wear, because there are three kinds of Acuvue disposable contacts and for some reason - that I don't understand because it's spoken in opticalese - it makes a difference. I don't know offhand which Acuvue I wear.

I ask, "Can't you just examine me and I'll get whatever contact I need in that prescription and measurement or whatever?"

Dr. Quinn looks at me like she's not in mood to repeat herself but she puts on a huge plastic smile and measures out a heaping dose of professional condescension in tones dripping with exaggerated friendliness. Now I'm pissed. Because I don't like fake and I don't like patronizing. I'm also having trouble concentrating with my associative flashbacks involving Dr. Michaela Quinn/Jane Seymour and the television series in which she got to "befriend" the ruggedly handsome mountain man and adopt the kids whose real mom died from a rattlesnake bite.

So I think I was distracted when I agreed to pretend I wear another type of contact lens, just so she'd GET ON WITH IT.

I told myself at this point that I need to get over my irritation, that this eye exam is a dumb thing to get moody over. Maybe if I had considered how it would feel to work at the JC Penney optical department everyday I'd have relaxed, but instead I concentrated on how every word coming out of her mouth sounded disingenuous and how I wanted to smack a bitch. I was not having a Thich Nhat Hanh moment.

"Jessica, do you have any particular occupational needs?"

"No."

"Jessica. Please HELP ME so that I can HELP YOU."

I pause to take a deep breath. Then I led her to believe that I work with computers which she took as Information Technology. Haha! I almost cried last night just trying to change the masthead on this blog. I am very far from being an IT person.

Then, out of nowhere, Dr. Quinn belted out with much engineered enthusiasm and wild laugher, "IT'S ALWAYS GOOD TO HAVE A COMPUTER PERSON AROUND!" Yikes. I sink deeper into the ditch of anti-compassion that I've been digging.

After I've proved I'm almost legally handicapped and am thinking about how it feels cool to touch my totally numb eyes, she tells me how nice it is to work with me, someone her age, how most of her clients are teenagers who were born the year she graduated from high school and how her brother is only a year older and married, with a family, and how she's making her way, out there in "the jungle", but "Hey, we all have our issues!"

And finally for a moment, I understood and my heart went out to her just a tiny bit. Yes, we do all have our issues don't we? I also got her business card and found I'd been spelling her name wrong the whole time.

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.