Don't box me in

Originally I had different content in mind for that title.

I really wish I could make my brain think of yet another situation for "Irene Casarez" and "Stewart Copeland," and there's stuff in there... but I haven't sat down long enough (well, I have, actually, sat down long enough, but it's the imagination part that's failing me now, not the sitting down part) and tried writing it.

Instead -

Last night was flute choir! We've been on another weird schedule this quarter, with one week on, one week off (due to activities at the school, I guess), and then I missed a week because I wanted to watch the Biden/Palin debate a couple of weeks ago. It was fun to be back. Maybe I was so excited to be there because it took me an hour and 15 minutes to drive 17 miles. I am actually closer to Culver City at my new job, but I have to take the 10 freeway to get there now, and, as I am learning, the 10 freeway sucks. Once I got there (and I was pissed because my lateness allowed me no time to drop in at Mi-T-Mart (OK, so it has a new name but to me it will always be Mi-T-Mart) and buy a bottle of water. I also had to pee, brush my teeth - I had to make a choice.

Since it's our winter concert, we are, of course, gearing up for the holidays, so the music is less challenging than usual, but Patty picked up some interesting remakes of typical Christmas tunes, including one original piece (as in, not a new arrangement of "Angels We Have Heard on High") that calls for three (yes, THREE) piccolos. I get to play picc 1, with Mini on picc 2 and Ronna on picc 3. Mini is a little dynamo - she's quiet and calm, and always prepared and practiced, and I like playing with her. Ronna gets a sweet tone out of her piccolo. Me, with my 50% plastic piccolo (Really. Only the headjoint is wood, and probably crap wood at that! I love bitching about it. It's actually not that bad, and I got a deal for $300), well, I'm pretty loud, and usually in the right place at the right time. We're a fine piccolo team, and I'm excited. Can you tell?

Dora, Puma and Franny will probably not be too happy to hear me practicing (my part has some high Cs and quite a few high B flats); nor will the neighbors, I think, but oh well. Now if I can plan to practice during the open house across the street then I can maximize the amount of people I can annoy.

One the way home, though, after sitting in all that traffic getting there, you'd think the traffic heading south on the 405 at 10 p.m. would've been better, but no. Why do Thursday night drivers love to box me in? I could not get around this one group of pickup trucks going 60 (one in the carpool lane, one in the fast lane, and one in the middle lane) from Culver City to Carson. It was ridiculous. Were they in a parade? A cavalcade of pickups?

In a couple of weeks I'll be driving to City Garage for tech rehearsals after work, and I have no idea what traffic is going to do to me. I'm going to really have to work on not being in a bad mood once I get there.

Today, well. Today. Today I am going to Kaiser for my first mammogram. I'm kind of putting off getting up and getting dressed and going to do this. I'm not scared. I'm just... procrastinating.

Lesson learned

Yesterday, Patrick and I went to the Breast Center at Kaiser and I had another examination.

This time, the doctor didn't feel anything (well. She felt something but I suspect it wasn't much of a thrill for either of us). However, because I think she could tell that I was a bit on the "freaked out" side, she recommended that I go back for a mammogram, when I get a chance, to ease my wacked out mind. Being as I'm a bit young (yay! too young for something) she put it in writing and on my chart, so that the mammogram people won't give me a hard time. I'm going to go do that on Friday. A full report will be forthcoming.

Obviously I am relieved. I mean: Yes. Absolutely: I am relieved. Everyone I spoke to about this made a point of telling me not to worry, and I really appreciate their kind words (on Friday my friend Bo even paid me a rather inappropriate compliment; surprisingly this worked well to temporarily quell my worries), but it was definitely eye-opening to be in this position. I have things to think about, about the way I have been treating my body, about the way I deal with the doctor's office, about the silly thoughts in my head.

Patrick, as usual, was realistic, calming, sweet, and really, really understanding. I am so lucky.

Genie-ass; Yearbook Saturday

Everybody probably noticed, a few updates ago, that iTunes added this silly new Genius feature - you pick a song, and Genius makes you a playlist from your iTunes library (or suggests songs from the iTunes store) of complementary songs. I wasn't sure about using it because it seemed a little invasive for my tastes, but then decided what the hell. And... apparently iTunes has a different definition of "complementary" than I do.

The following playlist was suggested by iTunes for the song "Relatin' Dudes to Jazz" by fIREHOSE. Oh, and by the way? I didn't ask Genius for this playlist. It did it all by itself. I'm still trying to figure out what these songs, exactly, have in common. And waiting for my computer to start calling me "Dave."

1. Relatin' Dudes to Jazz - fIREHOSE
2. The Man Who Sold the World - David Bowie
3. Just Like Heaven - The Cure
4. Myage - Descendents
5. Banned in D.C. - Bad Brains
6. Born in the 50s - The Police
7. Ana Ng - They Might Be Giants
8. Party at Ground Zero - Fishbone
9. The Mayor of Simpleton - XTC
10. The Softest Hammer - fIREHOSE
11. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp - Led Zeppelin
12. Space Oddity - David Bowie
13. Down by the Water - PJ Harvey
14. Hanging on the Telephone - Blondie
15. Can't Get There From Here - R.E.M.
16. Bela Lugosi's Dead - Bauhaus
17. Bring On the Night - The Police
18. On Your Knees - fIREHOSE
19. Gigantic - Pixies
20. Making Plans for Nigel - XTC
21. Gloria - U2
22. Destination Unknown - Missing Persons
23. Against the 70s - Mike Watt
24. Dirty Boots - Sonic Youth
25. Gardening at Night - R.E.M.

I'm listening to it now, and I'm confused. Not that these are bad songs, because of course they came from my own library (though... I'm going to lose all the They Might Be Giants, I think. I never listen to them and if I do get a song when the iPod is on shuffle, I skip them. They just annoy me now), I just don't see the connections.

I mean, a Genius is someone who is smarter than me, right? So maybe I'm just too stupid to get it. Thanks, Apple. That's a great feeling.

...

Still working on the '88 yearbook. Look, I have next to nothing planned for today, so maybe later I'll go dig around in the garage and see if I can find the other ones.

Today's entry is from... well, read it yourself:

Irene,

What do I say? I don't know. I guess I've known you for quite a while. Even though there have been occasional bad times, they have been mostly good. This is hard to write. If you think any differently, I'll set you straight. I've always considered you a friend. We've been through too much not to be. Just because you had that year of weakness, it doesn't really bother me. You were still a friend anyway. You're a good person, don't forget that. Just relax, a little. Anyway, I don't know know what else to say, so stay essentially the same, don't change much, and stay away from the library.

Love,
Barry

It's interesting, because I met my husband at the library (a couple of years later).

And yes, telling me to "relax" was apparently the theme of the yearbook. Jesus. One girl recommended that hook up with some "homo sapien males." I won't quote her completely, but that's just weird. It also appears that my friends thought it was okay to mention the actual name of the actual boy I was ob--

(Wait. A man in a suit just rang the doorbell.

I'm not here, man. Now he's caucusing with a couple of old ladies with questionable hairdos... and they're standing in front of my house, writing shit down. Dudes. I'm not here.)

Whatever. I'm not going to worry about the other stuff.

Thanks, Barry. That was a nice thing to write.

Friday stuff

On Tuesday, I had my physical; part of the physical requires some blood tests. So today I'm off to the lab to do that, after fasting for 12 hours. 12 hours is a long time, sometimes.

Because my doctor felt a "cyst" (reason for quotes in a moment), she gave me a referral for a full-on breast exam. I made that appointment this morning, and I'm going on Monday. Way to use a County holiday, isn't it. (After that I'm getting a massage from Bruce, though, so it kind of makes up for it.)

The woman who made my appointment referred to it as a "lump."

Isn't it funny that "cyst" is less scary to me than "lump"?

Maybe I'll just think of it as lump crab meat. That's yummy. And I'm hungry, so it's sort of distracting. After the lab I'm having lunch with a friend at Souplantation. We will eat until we burst. That's not a prediction, that's a fact.

...

Last night on my way home from work, I rediscovered my "Life's not so scary!" music.

In 1990, when me and Adam spent a couple of weeks visiting his brother in Santa Cruz, we were listening a lot to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and to Talking Heads. The Talking Heads album of that trip was "Naked." CSNY is good stuff, but a little melancholy. "Naked" is pure goofball grooviness. Last night I was driving down the 91 with the windows down (obviously doing less than 40), pretty much blaring "(Nothing But) Flowers" and "Totally Nude."

I can't remember which song it was, but I distinctly remember dancing with Adam's brother to this album, in his living room. That was pretty cool.

I have a feeling I'm going to be listening a lot to those two songs.

Chinese tamales + Def Leppard's "Pyromaniac"

At my second office job (my only other office job was in the optometry office [where I took a lot of afternoon naps, on the floor], unless you count the two summers I spent selling magazines over the telephone for “Golden Rainbow Publishing Company” [in quotes because I suspect this wasn’t an actual business but rather a front for… something else*]; as you can see from the bracketed information above: I don’t. Count it, I mean), which was alternately heaven and hell (“heaven” because there was little chance that it would go out of business and because my checks were significantly larger, unlike my last several jobs; “hell” because I stupidly put up with a very bad experience for too long. This is not unlike my last job, which was all “hell” and very little “heaven” at all). For awhile there I was the sole secretarial/administrative support for these two ladies who spent their time discussing where they would go for lunch and then taking long lunches once they figured it out, and who found it amusing to scare the hell out of me and make me cry. I’m sure when I wasn’t looking (off in the bathroom crying, probably) they accomplished many fine things, but I’m not interested in thinking about them any more.

Whatever it was they did, at some point it required them to bring on another person, and so they did. Her name was Dana, and she was supposed to be the Administrative Assistant (the same as my current appointment, and I am proud to say I’m a much better AA than she ever was. Hey, it’s true, and honking my own horn isn’t something I do enough of, so there goes). I’m sure she did Administrative Assistant-like things, somtimes, however, most of what I observed her doing was quite similar to the duties I had been performing (little ol’ me, at the lower classification) prior to her arrival. And then had to teach her. And still had to do when she was out. And then there were several occasions (towards the end) where I was doing her work while she was still there. Why would I put up with this?

Well, because unlike my actual bosses, Dana was really nice and fun, she had great style and had, on occasion, shopped for me (picking things out for me that I would not have bought myself but that I ended up loving), and because she fed me. She was married but spent a lot of time with her parents. Her parents were Chinese and Vietnamese, and thanks to Dana and her mother, I sampled many new Chinese-Vietnamese dishes. She took me to the Korean grocery store and introduced me to delicious snacks, and she took me to the fake Hello Kitty store where we bought ridiculous items like fake Hello Kitty washcloths and teabags. We took the Red Line to Hollywood and shopped. She introduced me to the tofu house on Olympic Boulevard where we’d go for lunch sometimes, and she always treated me there like her honored guest: she ordered for me, cracked my raw egg into the steaming hot soup, made sure I stirred it up enough, bossed around the waitresses for me: in short, Dana made up for my doing her job by treating me like a queen when it came to food (I was about 15-20 pounds heavier than I am today then, too. Gee. I wonder why?), and I was mostly happy with this arrangement.

One day Dana brought in some of her mom’s leftovers to share with me. Dana told me what the dish was called, but I don’t remember the real name. I only remember that she called it Chinese tamales. To be honest, I don’t remember much about it other than how it looked, and tasted. I think it was just rice, with some meat, and some kind of beans, wrapped in some kind of leaves (?), steamed, and tied with the cutest bow into a package about the size of a large stapler, oddly rectangular in shape. Heavy for its size, obviously simple, and so good. After a while, Dana found another job, accepted it, gave her two week notice to our bosses (after they found out through the grapevine that she was leaving. They weren’t happy, but she was), and I never got another Chinese tamale again. I’ve been looking, though.

These days, I have hooked up with yet another Chinese-Vietnamese woman, at my new job. Her name is Hung, and I have a feeling Hung is an amazing cook, just like Dana’s mom. This is only a guess, but just listening to her talk about food makes me hungry. I don’t have any idea how common it is to be Chinese-Vietnamese. I don’t know from which culture the tamales come (though Dana did call them “Chinese” tamales and not “Vietnamese” tamales); I don’t know if they’re something Dana’s mom cooked up (pun intended) on her own or if they’re a common dish. Hung is a very nice person, and I am biding my time, waiting until I know her just a little bit better, until one day, when I’m going to ask her to make me (or teach me to make) some Chinese tamales. I cannot wait for that day.**

...

Hung and I walk, twice a day, four days a week (because we only work four days a week. Nice, isn't it) with two other ladies, Ana and Alicia. Ana is sort of the leader – she’s fast and she works out all the time, and we let her set the pace. At the end she gets to be the “winner.” I think she likes that: she’s a Leo. We need her for inspiration, and she’s good at providing it. Ana could be in the Marines, she’s that fit; Hung is tiny, I’m sort of medium, and I guess that leaves Alicia in the “large” category (Alicia has been kicking my butt all week, finishing way ahead of me, so I should be more careful who I go around calling “large,” shouldn’t I). Usually Ana’s way out in front, Alicia is somewhere in the middle, and Hung and I, the chatty ones, are trailing behind (talking about food, usually). Today I was late for our afternoon session, because I had been on the telephone when they left, so I missed the first lap. After they finished up, I did one final lap alone. Usually I walk with a song in my head (if not in my heart), and the songs are whatever come to me at the time. I’m always walking around town with a song in my head. You should know that about me.

Like the processional at a wedding, it’s usually best if the songs I’m humming in my head are in common time (try keeping a steady beat in 3/4 or 5/4 or 7/8; it’s pretty much impossible. It’s why Pink Floyd’s song “Money” would be a poor choice for a walking song, despite that cool bass line*), and it sometimes feels to me, if I get a nice groove going (in my head) as if I’m walking on four legs instead of two. I can’t really explain it. It’s that rolling gait, I guess, that some high school marching band drummers, the ones with exceptionally long feet, adopt. I don’t know exactly how I’m keeping the beat, but I’m doing it on four legs. Two of which don’t exist.

This week’s songs have been: Radiohead’s “The National Anthem,” Foreigner’s “Feels Like the First Time,” and today, Def Leppard’s “Pyromaniac.” I don't know what these songs have in common. I didn’t get the four legged feeling until this afternoon, when I was cruising along by myself, mostly during the guitar solo. It’s a good thing Hung, Ana, and Alicia had left me. My phantom four legged gait would’ve probably freaked them out.

...

So. Somebody asked me today if I had tried to feel the cyst in my breast myself.

Now, I'm no prude. I think self-exams are smart, necessary, and a common-sense way to, er, handle one's body. It probably goes without saying but I've touched my own breast before. Shocking, isn't it! However, today, after learning about my little friend (Patrick and I have named it "Crysysty"), I'm all weirded out about it. I'm curious, and I've come close, but for some reason the only time I was really drawn toward actually doing it was in the car on the way home from work.

I had gotten off the 710 at Whittier (about 3/4 of a mile after getting on the 710... traffic was a full-on nightmare tonight) and I was driving down Whitter Blvd., right where there's that big old giant East LA sign (I tried to take a picture but failed miserably). I was listening to Pink Floyd's song "Money" (because I realized that I was wrong - you could totally walk to it, it's got that loping gait written all over it) with the windows down because it was really, really, super hot (I've got this new stupid rule that I only break some of the time, that in order to have the AC on in the car, I need to be going at least 40 miles an hour. On Whittier Blvd, at 5:45 pm, I don't know what the speed limit is, but there's no way you're hitting 40), and there were all these people walking around and in a 100% not creepy way, that was the moment when I thought I could see if I could, you know, feel it.

I didn't do it. I'm not a pervert. But hiding out in my bathroom or in the shower - now that's creepy. Last night I could barely talk about it with Patrick, but I think maybe later tonight I'll ask him to help me. I don't want to feel this stupid foreign object that my own body produced, alone.

It's too weird still.

And to those of you who have experienced this or worse and you're all, get over it, Irene: well, I will. I'm sure. I will.

*I googled them. Surprisingly they're still there. I wonder if Liz is still running the place? She was totally cool.

**It looks like Hung is off the hook. Look up "Chinese tamales" and the exact thing that I ate all those years ago, courtesy of Dana and her mom, comes up, including a recipe. The real name is zongzi, which may be my new favorite word. I don't know if I'm talented enough to make these, but I might look into it. Score one for me!

Had totally decided not to blog this

So...

About two hours ago I had a physical. During the course of the physical, because I am female (and, let's face it, cute), I had a breast exam.

Because I am a female between the ages of 30 and 40 (as the Mayo Clinic website has just informed me), it appears that I may have developed a cyst.

And, as the Mayo Clinic website has told me, cysts are pretty common, pretty normal, and nothing to worry about. I'm not going to wait and see: I'm going to not worry about it.

Which is why, in spite of my original decision not to blog this, I have changed my mind... and here I am. Blogging about it.

Actually, I should say, there I was, blogging about it. Right now I'm getting a Weight Watchers ice cream out of the freezer.

...

You may wonder why I didn't mention the presidential debate which took place today. I watched it when I got home, listened to it on NPR during the drive to and from the doctor - and I'm sure there will be more intelligent words written about it on other blogs. Right now I am watching Hardball with Chris Mathews, and he's interviewing some guy named Mike Duhaime, and this guy, Mike Duhaime, is reminding me of a hamster in an exercise wheel.

...

Here's the story I had originally intended to tell today:

A couple of weeks ago, I got my hair cut. During the haircut, Nina, my stylist, mentioned that I should stop washing my hair every day. She explained why, and since I've heard this before, and it made sense, and she gave a hell of a scalp massage during the shampoo process, I decided to consider what she said and see if I could do it. And I found that I can... but I'm having a really hard time, at 5 a.m., remembering if I washed my hair yesterday or if today's the day. It's kind of funny. I guess I have very few operating braincells at 5 a.m. It explains a lot, actually.

...

Now. Where's my ice cream?

Yearbook Monday... and other stuff

So, by popular demand, I bring to you, what my friend Damon wrote in my yearbook in 1988:

RENE:

Another year another wall (no pun intended). I'll come to your window. (No pun intended). Anyway, Irene, have a bueno summer. Keep the faith (ha ha!). RELAX! Actually, you have lately!

Love, [peace sign],

Damon

So maybe this one needs a little edification.

1. Damon like(s) calling me "Rene." He doesn't pronounce it "Ren-ay" - he pronounces it "Reen." I don't know why. I do know that I liked Damon so much that I let him call me Reen. We called him Tree. I don't know why we did that, either. He was pretty damn cool. I also "let" him make me wear the Hostess Cupcake hat (the silver foil his cupcakes were wrapped in [not a euphemism]).

2. ..."another wall" - I have no idea what this means. Sorry.

3. "no pun intended" - obviously this is where I picked up the lame "not a euphemism" business. It's funny, no?

4. I think I've told the story of how Damon used to show up at my bedroom window almost every Saturday night, scratching and tapping like a huge meowing cat, trying to get me to go to Rocky Horror with him? He'd wake me up, and I'd be all sleepy and half interested and half terrified? So one time I went, and it was delicious fun. I didn't get caught, which was amazing. And later, when I told my mother about it, my little midnight trip to the Nuart, my great Sneak Out Adventure, I put a little dig in at her refusal to let me hang out with Damon: I said, "Mom, of all the boys who came and picked me up at the front door, with him, the one you didn't want me to go anywhere with, I was always the safest." Gotcha, mama! It's okay now, though. I forgive her.

5. "bueno summer" - obviously he was a most excellent student of the Spanish language.

There's a picture of him in this yearbook, wearing a KXLU t-shirt, with his funny long hair and a blissed out expression on his face (his skin looks amazing), blowing bubbles at the camera. He didn't sign on that page. He signed on the page, amongst all the silly senior bios, that had a photo of some chick wearing skinny acid washed jeans, what look like velvet cowboy boots, and full-on, cannot be denied 80s hair.

...

So...

Yesterday was the funeral of this woman Patrick used to work with. It was actually pretty nice, as funerals go. I've never been to a Jewish funeral before, but I've been to lots of funerals; this one was peaceful. It was a beautiful day. The rabbi was pretty young, and his voice was beautiful. There were several people who stood up and told wonderful stories about the woman who passed away - about how caring and loving she was, about how dedicated she was to her work, and to gourmet food, and to her family, and how she had a lovely smile. About her personal style, which was (and I can see this, totally) fierce. I worked with her too, briefly, but I mostly remember her for the engagement party she and her staff threw for us, which was a surprise to me and lots of fun, and for how, on the infrequent occasions when we all got together, she was always nice to me and interested in what I had to say.

Afterwards, we went to visit my parents, and I looked at the paperwork my mother wanted me to look at. I wasn't sure what good my looking at it was supposed to do, but I told her again not to be afraid, to be brave, to ask her doctor questions, and then I told her I'd go with her and my dad the day of the procedure. I said that before I noted that she has to be at the hospital at 5:30 in the morning, but... okay. We can do that. Then I kind of made the same comment about praying for peace and to not have these worries, and as usual, my mom came after me. Here I am, trying to remind her that her religious views have always been held up to me as something that can get you out of trouble, and she's ignoring it, and asking me when I last read my bible. Hello? I am not the problem here, woman! But I smiled, asked her in my teasing way, "How do you know I haven't been?" and gave her a kiss.

In some ways I'm glad my mom still has her claws.

Checking in

So I'm not exactly sure how this has happened, but I am suddenly the owner of a Kindle.

Kindles are this crazy invention that Amazon has come out with that allow you to download books over something they're calling the Whispernet. The Whispernet is basically free Internet - they don't charge you to use it (though you do have to pay for the books, which are, in my two days of experience, offered at a pretty good discount), and it's kind of everywhere: I don't get it yet, but it doesn't matter. It's there: it works, believe me. You can then read these books on your Kindle, forever if you like. They don't expire, you don't have to turn them in like library books, they're yours. It's a silent iPod. I love it.

You shop for content using the Kindle Store, which at first I thought was just a cutesy name for Amazon.com. I was under the impression (for about five minutes) that every book I could possibly want would be available in the Kindle Store; I was sorely disappointed.

Instead, lots and lots of other books are available, but after looking for one single book and not finding it, I got a little confused. It's not unfamiliar, this feeling, but it rarely happens to me when I visit an actual bookstore. Inside an actual store with books, I can find reading material in approximately 30 seconds. This feeling of confusion was akin to what I normally feel in record stores. In record stores, I have to have some idea of what I want because those CD cases and LP covers aren't giving anything away: I lose my mind in record stores. Sure, now you can listen to them at places like Borders or Barnes and Noble (god I miss Tower Records), but still - you have to start somewhere, and if there's a broken link in the chain of things I'm looking for, I lose all interest and suddenly need an ice cream cone. Even iTunes bewilders me sometimes, if I don't know what I want ahead of time.

Patrick, on the other hand, has no problem in record stores or bookstores - in bookstores he heads straight for the magazines, where he finds his geek music/computer/technology periodicals (I almost always gather up the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Wired, and People); in record stores he has this ability to find something unusual and interesting, though it does usually take him about two hours. Two hours for him in a record store is nothing. For me it's pretty much death on a stick.

Anyway, I have totally digressed from my original point, which was, for a moment there, heady excitement about my new toy. And now I have no idea what books I want to read on my Kindle.

So somehow, accidentally it seems, I have ended up with two books on "spirituality."

All of a sudden, after months of reading and re-reading Philip Roth and Peter Hamilton, Anne Rice ("The Vampire Lestat" was perfect for floating in the pool), here I am, reading "Eat, Pray, Love" and "Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith."

Neither of which I had any intention of reading. Anne Lamott, the author of "Grace (Eventually)" has been one of my most favorite authors, but since I've started reading her non-fiction ("Bird By Bird" excepted; I can always re-read "Bird By Bird") I have to take a long time in between books. Because those books have started to be about Jesus. And I'm not sure I want to read about Jesus. Even though she does it in a totally entertaining way, the way, if I were going to write a book about Jesus (I am so not writing any books about Jesus), that I would hope I could; it's still not exactly my favorite topic. Jesus, I mean. There's just something about it (him) that makes me squirmy and nervous, even though it's her writing about it (him) (Him) and her writing has always meant something to me.

The other book, "Eat, Pray, Love" is a bestseller, and I downloaded a sample (before I downloaded the Lamott book... I am not telling this story well or in the right order at all, am I) before knowing what exactly the book was about because downloading a sample is something you can do with a Kindle. And this particular sample seemed really long and interesting, and while reading the sample, I discovered that the author also has a good way of putting her hand into my head and patting me from the inside, which was kind of a surprise.

Does that make sense?

So here I am, today, about to get up and start futzing around the house before we have to get ready to go to a funeral and then to visit my parents, where I am supposed to review these papers the doctor gave my mother about this procedure she has to have that's probably nothing special at all, a routine procedure which will make her feel a hundred times better that people all over the world are probably having right now with no problem at all, which she is sort of freaking out about, and I've just been lying in bed for about 4 hours now, reading about Jesus and Anne Lamott and yes, that strikes me as weird.

Yesterday I was talking to my mother about the procedure, on the telephone, and she asked me to come over and read these papers, and I said I would. She told me that she had talked to her (wildly Christian) friend Mary about it, and Mary told her to pray that she would know what to do. What to do? What to do is not the question. The doctor will tell her what to do. I told my mother to pray that God would tell the doctor what to do. I told her to pray that God would help her be brave and help the doctor be smart, and that her job was to try to stop worrying about it.

This made my mother cry.

I did not feel that great, making my mother cry.

But then I made her laugh, which seemed to even things out, except I don't remember exactly what it was I said that she found so humorous. Well, I'll be honest, it wasn't much of a laugh, but it was something. It's okay, I think. I don't know. I worry a little about me telling my mother what to pray for or who to pray to - when I pray, I always sort of do it in typical Judy Blume fashion: "Are you there, God? It's me, Irene."

See, I ask the question, "Are you there?" but then I go and do it anyway.

I wonder if my mother asks, too. I used to think she knew. I'm not so sure now. I think thinking about this stuff makes me sad, which is usually why I try to avoid thinking about it.

Grrr.

Wouldn't it be nice if all I had to say today was that Patrick is out front mowing the lawn and the grass smells so good, and we saw "Nick and Norah's Ultimate Playlist" last night and loved it, and I wish I had had that high school experience and wonder if anybody really does. I liked it so much more than "Juno."

And now I'm going to go do some laundry and maybe run the dishwasher, and then get ready for a funeral, and to visit my parents, and not be sad or confused anymore.

Yearbook Friday

The other day I got an email from my friend Damon (who I haven't spoken to in ages and hearing from him, even through Facebook, pretty much made my day), and he made a comment about "the weird shit" he wrote in my 10th grade yearbook (this obviously after reading the first installment of "Yearbook Thursday," which, yeah, I do think that's pretty cool*), so I pulled out my trusty 10th grade yearbook and started looking, and right now I can't find it. Oh it's there alright, but I think he did something sneaky and wrote on one of the inside pages and right now, at this moment, I can't locate it.

So you'll just have to wait until next time.

Today's entry:

Irene!

We've known each other for some time. I think I've known you longer than any of my friends. The amazing thing is, we're still friends. Let's stay that way.

- Jeremy

P.S. Keep practicing your flute! You're the best.

Well, he didn't lie: Jeremy and I met in kindergarten and were friends from that day forward. Maybe in later years not as close as when we played Star Wars with his action figures (not a euphemism) or a game of our own invention, "Cat and Dog" or when his mother would drive us to the beach in her Pinto (until my mother asked her to take us in the safer car - the VW) to fly kites, or when I showed him and Patrick S. my underwear in the garage - but we were friends for many years. I'd say right up until we graduated high school and I think I never saw him again.

That's kind of sad, isn't it.

He was in band with me, and went on to be the drum major, and I'm pretty sure he did really well in school and got good grades and all that stuff, but I didn't know him very well after kindergarten. Though he did write a story, when we were in the 12th grade (in Goldman's English class), about his first kiss, which was, surprisingly, with me. I am sorry to say that I don't recall it. I'm fairly certain it didn't occur in the garage.

(I don't remember what I wrote about. I'm pretty sure it was probably a lie. I tend to lie [with good intentions, of course] about that stuff. Have you noticed?)

Anyway, his mother and my mother at some point cooked up some vision of the two of us growing up and getting married, and while I haven't seen Jeremy since 1990, I have (and my mother has) run into his mom at various Culver City institutions (Big Lots, Tommy's, Tito's), where she always makes a point of telling me how great he's doing (good job, nice car, too many trips to exotic locales for surf vacations). I don't even think I saw him at the reunion, eight years ago. Then again, I might've been too distracted at the sheer and total tackiness of that reunion to have noticed anything other than my need to go out and smoke a couple cigarettes in the parking lot with Adam and Patrick.

Ah.

The good ol' days.

...

I've GOT to find my other yearbooks.

*He also left a comment, which I also think is pretty cool. Hint hint, nudge nudge.

Tuesday

Feeling blah tonight.

At work, I spent most of the day taking inventory of the department's Safety videos. I know! What could be funner, you ask? I don't know, but I do know that it took all freakin' day. Then I learned how to prepare this report for my boss that seems overly complicated. I'm looking forward to doing it a few more times and working out a better system for next year.

I was on the phone with an IT guy when my co-workers went for their morning walk, so I went by myself about 30 minutes later. Boy it was hot today. I made it all the way up the hill (it's a big hill!) but it took me a good 20 minutes to cool off once I got back to my desk. I know I am a gigantic sloth so it shouldn't be surprising, but man: I was kind of miserable for awhile there. In the afternoon, I was working on that report thing with the safety officer, so I couldn't go for a walk then, but I don't think I would've wanted to. It was just too gross outside today.

After I finished up the report, I got an email from Patrick. He found out today that this woman we both worked for when we were at the library, and with whom we just had lunch in Culver City on Sunday, had a heart attack and passed away yesterday.

I'm sort of in shock about it. It just seems so weird that I just saw her, and commented to Patrick about how great she looked, and spoke to her, quite a bit.

I'm a tumbler

Meanwhile, dyslexics all across the United States are asking the Republican party,

"Who's 'Courtny Frist'?"

...

Sure, the timeliness of this joke, if it even qualifies as a "joke"!, is suspect. And, before I polished it up, I was going with, "Who's 'Courtny'?" as the punchline. Patrick thought that was too cryptic, so he insisted I find a picture to accompany it. I did a little searching for a good image, and what I really wanted, I couldn't find, so I found something that sort of worked.

And then I rewrote the punchline (again, with full acknowledgment that this joke has probably been all over the world before my little head thought of it), so the picture wasn't necessary.

And now you know why I'm not a professional joke writer.

Though I am concerned: I think I just heard Chris Matthews quoting the Talking Heads' "Born Under Punches." I had no idea "I'm a tumbler" meant anything other than David Byrne's art school gibberish.

Finally... a good haircut

After a lifetime of bad haircuts (I'm talking about "professional" haircut - every haircut ever gotten by me in Missy's backyard was a gem), I may have finally - through lucky googling - found the place for me.

Actually this might be a better picture of my nose (damn I didn't realize just how BIG it is). Still. I'm quite pleased, even though I'm well aware that it will look nowhere near this good tomorrow.

My hair, not my nose.

Rocket Science Hair Salon
4195 North Viking Way
Long Beach, CA 90808

There's madness to our magic

One day I was flipping around on the Internet, and I found somebody's blog where all the posts were entries people had written in the guy's yearbooks. He was my age and pathetic, obviously. And - he gave me an idea.

I think I'm going to start doing the same thing, but instead of doing it all the time to the exclusion of writing about other things, it's just going to be one entry, once in awhile.

Today we inaugurate... "Yearbook Thursday."*

Today's entry is from my 10th grade yearbook. It was 1988. I have no idea why the theme of the yearbook was "There's Magic to Our Madness." If I really cared I would scan the cover but I'm not feeling that inspired by this feature yet. Maybe future posts will include a photo of the cover of the yearbook.

Anyway, here's what my friend Sean wrote. Sean as in "daydreaming in AP World History drawing pictures of the back of Sean's head" Sean. Yes. He was (is) real.

Irene,

Hey beautiful! I'm glad to know you, I'll miss you, school was hell, etc., etc., & other boring yearbook stuff. Now for something real... You're a wonderful person with a lot to say. I've learned from you and I've enjoyed learning. I'll miss you. When I get my license I'll visit you. But until then we can still go see a movie or something. Call me, we'll set it up.

Sean

That's pretty slick for a kid who couldn't drive. Under his name he wrote his phone number. I never called him. It would've been fun to hang out with Sean; what a dork I was. To be honest, I doubt very much that I really read what he wrote, which is surprisingly sweet. I had no idea he was so nice. Yearbook bullshit, maybe (as he notes. He was a smart one, that Sean. Mentioning yearbook bullshit while writing yearbook bullshit - that's talented. And maybe he meant it, which takes it all up a level. God. What little geniuses we were).

*Not to be confused with "Yearbook Tuesday," or "Yearbook Wednesday." I'm on my own schedule, not yours. Oh, and don't lie: you know when you read that you were all, "Wow, what an ingenious and brilliant title!"

AKA "Jane Doe"

I sent an email to a friend of mine over Facebook... First let me come right out and say that I am addicted to Facebook: I've reconnected with people I haven't seen in 20 years, or people who moved away, and some of those people and I are having meaningful relationships... in between Scrabble/Word Scraper moves. So if you're here because of a posted note on my profile, thanks for showing up! Okay, where the hell was I?

Oh yes. I wrote a message to my friend, who we'll call, because it's his name, "Barry." I've known Barry since the 8th grade (in fact, I had a crush on him, a fact which I hope he knew before because wow, awkward). Now, you may find yourself asking the following questions, especially if you've been reading this blog for any significant amount of time: "Who didn't you have a crush on?" and "Why do you feel the need to share that with us?" Those are legitimate questions. But I think the more important question is, What did all those people have in common, and how interesting would the tale of my persual [is that a word?] be? Because you know what? If I have done anything in my life, I have surely made it interesting for those on whom my eye was caught). At the time, he was a slightly older man/boy with whom I probably talked to without fear in my eyes exactly zero times. As we both got older, I lightened up slightly, but I still found myself praying to God that the next time I talked to him, I might be able to speak halfway intelligently. It's kind of interesting, because I have to give him credit for making me want to be smarter and not prettier. I have no idea if I succeeded. But see, knowing him now (via Facebook, where to "know" someone is to read that they, "are standing in a real long line."), where I have time to cultivate what I say to him (if and when I say something to him), and to spell-check, well - I feel like I can keep up a bit better now.

But see, I keep getting distracted.

So I sent this email to Barry (AKA "Barry") because he had made a comment about some Stewart Copeland-related thing I had posted on Facebook (I think my status for a couple of days was, "Irene Casarez Palma is wondering how she should tell Stewart Copeland when he is pushing the tempo" or some such nonsense), or maybe I had posted somebody's You Tube video of Stewart doing something charming and displaying remarkable indepence amongst his limbs (I've seen a lot of You Tube videos, but I try to stay away from the ones people post that are one step up from PowerPoint presentations of photos of Stewart backed with some weird song or another. Those are just creepy, as are the people who make them. I, for example, would never stoop so low) - anyway, Barry had written something funny and pithy and wise on my "Wall."

Yes, folks, this is what us dork Facebook-ers do.

Anyway, he wrote something, and I thought, hey, Barry's paying attention, that's pretty cool.

Then I got a little freaked out, because I wasn't sure how deep into this crap he had gone. My blog links to my Facebook page, so every time I write something here, it automatically goes up over there, too. There's some weird shit on this blog, especially if you delve into the archives, which I alternate between wanting you to do... and not wanting you to do. And that's where things start to get tricky.

See, I've thought of myself, and portrayed myself, as an outsider - half geek, half snob, half funnier-than you, half really bad at math. And my time in high school was pretty pathetic. My vision of myself, while self-deprecatingly funny now, wasn't all that funny then. And now a lot of those people are my "friends" and here you are, Jane Doe (not an actual friend of mine), reading this shit. What do these people think of the so-called normal posts, to say nothing of the deep twisted fantasy world that is my obsession with all things Stewart Copeland?

So I wrote this fucking email (I say "fucking" because this could be the biggest build up ever and even I'm getting impatient) to Barry, which it's taken me like 2 million years to get to in this post (sorry!), who I've always sort of looked up to (the guy is an amazing musician and - I did not know this until recently - apparently a visionary businessman as well)... oh: read it and you decide:

From: Irene
To: Barry
September 19 at 11:51 p.m.

Barry, is my Stewart Copeland fixation (what you've seen of it here on Facebook) creepy or in anyway coming off as a sign of mental illness?

It's what, 3 days later, and no response from Barry. Now, to me that means the answer to my question is, "Yes (creepy) and possibly (mental illness)." But I'm not taking his lack of response too seriously, I mean, he could be out of town or not know what to say in response to this. He could quite simply have better things to do. It was kind of an unfair question: we haven't been in the same room since 1987, and how could he judge? And why would I want him to, truly? But I have to say, having sort of experienced a little bit of my fixation (albeit years and years ago before I had truly perfected my technique of Special Ops obsessions; he probably doesn't even remember)... maybe now I've freaked him out too.

Well. Sorry, dude. Sometimes I kind of lose track of what's real and what's, um, not. I know that not everyone gets my sense of humor. Or at least I'm learning. Please don't use that against me in the sanity hearing.

All this kind of makes the whole "I'm not crazy" business seem less believable now, huh.

An old photo

I was going through a bunch of old photos, on the computer and in boxes, and ran across this one of me and my friend Bo, one of my favorite people in the entire world, from when we still worked at the bookstore. It's probably 8 years old. I like how young we both look, and how skinny I look, even though my hair is flat, I needed to groom my eyebrows (and some lipgloss wouldn't have hurt either), and those glasses suck. I did get a lot of good wear out of that sweater. I wonder what happened to it?

I've probably posted this picture before; I suspect that I just like looking at it.

And hey, give him a break, the guy's from West Virginia. He didn't have braces. He's lucky to have teeth at all.*

*This is not a dig at West Virginia, which I'm sure is a fine place with excellent dental care; this is merely a lame example of the way he and I talk to each other. Believe me this is nowhere near our real conversations, where nothing is sacred and neither one of us emerges unscathed. The funny thing is, I love talking like that with this guy, and would put up with it from nobody else. So don't even think about it, mister.

This is an unedited post that may be deleted or updated with more interesting items later.

I hope I'm not spoiling anything by saying this, but Patrick is off today with the members of Magnolia Thunderpussy, having what they called a "jam session." (I emphasized "they" because "jam session" is one of those words and phrases that always kind of makes me giggle. It's a legitimite descriptor of what's going on over there but it carries with it, for me, connotations of dudes sitting around in a smoky room, wearing berets, eyes half-mast, saying things like "groovy man" and "that's hot." I totally need to get a better grip on things, yes, I know.) It's a different kind of thing than what they've done in the past - Patrick and Chris, the guitarist, have self-educated themselves and are now experts in the art of computer-aided composition/recording. I'm sure I've not described just what they can do accurately. I will say that I took a CD of something Patrick had created to this guy I knew at my last job who has a professional recording studio, and he said (so that you won't think that I'm just some know-nothing wife) that he was very impressed with Pat's work, and that he would hire him. It's like everything Patrick does well: he immerses himself in it up to his eyeballs, he does it non-stop for a couple of weeks, and then he knows everything. It's kind of freaky. So Patrick, Chris, and Dave will be jamming away for god only knows how long (until the cops shut them down, presumably).

Anyway, I had totally wanted to go but of course bringing your wife (second-class citizen) to a jam session is frowned upon (I would've sat, as quiet and still [stiller, probably] as Michael's mouse), so I am at home again, today. I've been reading this sci-fi book my friend Bo recommended; it's a series and now I'm on book 2, which isn't disappointing, necessarily, but still suffers from the second book slump a little. I planned on maybe reading a bit of that.

If anything else happens that's exciting I'll let you know. I'm not exactly sure what that could be, but if I crack open a beer or go to the grocery store - well. Those details will not be hidden from you.

The brain

Patrick has been on the phone all morning calling around to music stores trying to find a cymbal clamp for mounting an electronic drum kit brain. Mostly it seems he's been getting what he calls the "pimply drum geeks" who don't know what the hell he's talking about, but a few moments ago he just found what he needed from one store close by our house (he's been trying to avoid going to Hollywood or Santa Monica).

I've been getting a kick out of hearing him say, "it's to mount the brain." The BRAIN. Creepy!

I just asked Patrick for details about the specific type of drum brain he has. Follows is our actual conversation:

Me: What kind of drum brain do you have?
Patrick: It's a very sophisticated model.
Me: Well what is it? I want to post a picture to go with this silly story I'm writing on my blog.
Patrick: It's called a medulla oblangata.
Me: (Pause) (Laughter)
Me: Smart ass!

(For those of you who are still reading and are curious, it's an Alesis Trigger I/O.)
("Medulla Oblangata" sounds like a rejected Police album title. I bet Sting would've been all over that title.)

...

So now Patrick's packed up his gear, is heading out to the store and then cruising up to Culver City to meet up with his friend Chris to set up for a jam session tomorrow (how many times can I use the word "up" in a sentence?). I was going to go but decided moping around in my nightgown drinking diet cokes and listening to Big Boys was a better idea. Right before he left I sort of begged him (jokingly of course, let's not put off any erroneous visions of me being pathetic here) to come home in time to take me to the movies or something tonight and he gently reminded me of all the times his weekend is spent at home alone while I'm off pushing "play" and "go" at the theater.

Well. Fine, then.

I totally need to write another installment for the Great Adventures of Irene and Stewart Copeland. I'm behind.

I don't know who Daisy Lowe is...

(Rob Lowe's daughter?)

but this is seriously cute, I don't care what the Fug Girls say.

Two wishes

Yesterday I made two wishes, and one came true:

I was at a meeting for work, and at the end of it, they gave away an iPod Shuffle. I decided to test my powers of wishing, so I wished to win it, and for one other thing.

I won the iPod (thanks to a guy named Marco. He actually won it but had to be present to win. Leaving early was a big mistake, Marco!).

The other wish didn't come true. I won't tell you what it was. There's still time, I guess.

Since I already have and adore my iPod Classic, I gave the Shuffle to Patrick. It's pretty cute. He's already dreaming of ways to subvert it. I'm sure soon he will be making it, I don't know, open the garage door or something.

Great gig in the sky - now with photos

This morning at around 10 o'clock, I went for a walk. My new office is in Los Angeles. A big town, Los Angeles, and the name doesn't really tell you much, does it. I could be anywhere. I won't get specific, but I will tell you that I was on a road that climbs steadily up and around a small mountain. There are other facilities on this road, but it's mostly open space. I didn't see any other walkers, but usually there are a few out there at any point during the day. I was glad I didn't see anyone, because my pants, which are fine in heels, are way too long when I'm wearing flats or sneakers. I had cuffed them to keep them out of the dirt, and I felt a little ridiculous. The route I took today is along a nice stretch of concrete, rimmed by some wild-ish space, an area where the Sheriff's department trains their K-9 units and new recruits, a helicopter pad, and a pistol range (quite a lot of detail there, for those of you triangulating my position). For some reason I feel safe out there.

I was walking along, looking at the sky, thinking about a line from "Bad Penny" about the sky (more on this in a minute), thinking about Richard Wright from Pink Floyd and how talented all those guys were (we watched, again, the "Classic Albums" on the making of "The Dark Side of the Moon" last night; the piano in "The Great Gig in the Sky" is getting written about all over the web today, and for good reason), thinking about my terrible sleep pattern over the past few days, and how I've been laying awake for most of the night, only to finally fall asleep sometime after 2 a.m., and then wake up before the alarm goes off, usually around 4:45 (my alarm is set for 5 a.m.). It's dark at 4:45, in case you didn't know. And then, this morning when I finally got on the road at 6:15, I was driving right at the setting full moon [the moon was full on Monday].

It was pretty spectacular. The size of it, mostly - it was so huge, and so white, and so round. It poked in and out of some wispy clouds, and was right in the middle of the clearance from the trees on the street I was on. I actually pulled out my camera and took a photo. I did the same thing yesterday. Neither photo is very good - the tiny moon looks like a pinpoint, not the giant white sphere I saw when I pulled over with the window down, my arm hanging out to take the photo.

On my walk, I thought about how I never really consider the sky unless I'm thinking about the things that are "on" it. Or in it? Clouds, stars, the big ol' beating heart of the sun, the moon, planes, birds, smog. I think about how those things look in contrast to all that blueness, or blackness, as the case may be. In fact, I wrote a poem (the only poem I ever wrote worth mentioning; maybe one day I'll stop trotting it out like it's my pride and joy [maybe it is]) about how to me, the sky looks flat, like a drawing in pencil, or crayola. I think the sky is like a hat we're all wearing, and what we see is the inside, the seams and lint and dust that stick to the insides of it. I guess that's not really true, though, because the image of a hat implies that the sky is protecting us from something, and as Hurricane Ike and other extreme weather proves, the sky doesn't protect us at all. Maybe the sky is just waiting to hit us with everything it's got. I don't know who or what makes the sky do what it does. Weather just is. I'm sure a meteorologist could provide a better explanation, but right now I don't need one. If you do, feel free to look it up on your own time.

The line from "Bad Penny," the part that I'm thinking about, is spoken by Kat (her hobby is myth), and it's something about how the sky is an optical illusion, a big fake. And I'm finding that right now what is happening is that I am thinking about a play I saw and worked probably 21 times, fairly recently, and only now are the words I heard all those times filtering their way past my skull and into my brain. Re-reading my script just now to see if my memory was right about the words Kat uses, I remember that I like the part where she says in such a long and confusing way that during the day we can't see the stars, but we know they're there; and then at night, when we can see them, all we're really seeing is an image of them because they're so far away that no one could actually see the stars themselves. It's not just distance, crazy Kat, it's time.

Kat (or Mac Wellman, the author) takes what I said about thinking about the sky and makes it much more interesting. I thought it was all just a flat surface on which to place things - the sky as designed by the guys who make South Park. Cutouts of construction paper: things may touch each other but they don't intersect, they don't do anything, they just sit there (the things on South Park do stuff, they don't just sit there). To her it's somebody playing a trick on her, that what we think we see is just a cover for an even more amazing place where all the mundane and meaningless things of the world go forever, even when we think they're "lost." She names things like coat hangers and socks but what if the things hiding out in the sky are more important than that? Dreams, and wishes, and meaningful looks. Or maybe what the sky is is just infinite nothing. If I were a better writer I'd know how to say what it is I'm feeling about all this. All I can say now, poorly I guess, is that it makes me feel very small, and a little tinny, like a music box person.

It's funny that this is what I'm thinking about now, during the day. At night, when I'm lying there awake, not sleeping, all I'm thinking about is the fact that I'm lying there, awake, not sleeping. I'm lying there, pissed off and frustrated, and that's all I care about, what I'm not getting at the time I'm supposed to be getting it. I wrote that sentence, and I wonder how true that is at other times. Me not getting what I want at the time I think I deserve it, I mean. I'm not sure that if that makes me a nice person or a bitch; I do know it makes for less sleep than I need. The bitch in me would say, less sleep than I deserve.

I seem to be making it through the day okay on minimal sleep, but then again most of my co-workers are out of the office and I haven't done much interaction with other people today. Maybe tonight, if the same thing happens, instead of lying there angry and confused and tangled up in a big burrito wrapping of blankets, I'll get up and go sit on the porch and look at the sky, the moon, and the stars. Or even just an image of the stars, I don't really care which it is.


















These photos would probably be more effective had I taken them at the same time of morning, from the same point in the street, and if the actual moon were in focus, and maybe more obvious (especially on the left. Can you even see it?). Oh, well. Interesting exercise, this, and maybe I'll do it again with more forethought.

The moon

So for the last four or five days I've had the hardest time getting to sleep. I'm tired, I read a little, I go to bed, and then I lie there. For hours.

Yesterday I got up and there was this big ass moon out my window. I don't know what time it was. And then I guess I finally fell asleep. When I was driving down the street to work at around 6:10, there was that moon again, on the other side.

I don't know why I can't sleep. Maybe too many diet cokes, too much champagne on Sunday at a baby shower, too many unfulfilled fantasies. I don't know. But it sucks.

I have no idea why I'm still awake

Tonight I came home from my flute lesson, and sat down to watch TV and hang out with Patrick. I wanted a banana milkshake but it was too late. So instead Patrick got us both huge bowls of watermelon that my friend Bo and his wife grew for me. Yes. They grew me a watermelon. For ME they grew a watermelon. I suspect that the whole time that watermelon was in the ground, they were going outside to look at it, whispering and pointing, going, Look at Irene's watermelon! It was pretty awesome, and I actually took a few days before I could eat it, because it seemed so personal.

It did, okay? I'm not crazy. I just felt honored and loved, a little. Shut up now, you.

Anyway, so we sat all over the couches with our chins dripping with watermelon juice, watching Real Time with Bill Maher, eating this delicious watermelon, when who comes along but Franny, the incredible eating machine. She will try anything, and I mean anything. Franny has had a bite from every plate of food I have sat down with since we got her. Perhaps this is bad behavior that we shouldn't be encouraging - but if you haven't seen her try to snag, oh, I don't know, garbanzo beans off your plate with her little paw you just haven't seen anything. I mean it's so damn cute.

So here comes Franny, cruising along on the back of the couch, wondering what all this chewing was about, and how she could get in on the action.

I held out a piece of watermelon for her to smell, and of course she licked it. Then she tried to take a tiny bite, but cats, or at least this one does, have a hard time with biting something from the air like that (except ice cream cones; she does a great job with ice cream cones), so I bit off a teeny piece and placed it in the palm of my hand (what? we share in my house). She sniffed it, ate it, and then came back for more.

I, however, did not indulge her. See? I want her to know what these things we're enjoying so much are, but I'm not gross.

Here's the transcript of the conversation during this encounter:

Me: Man! Is there anything Franny won't eat?
Patrick: No, I think she'll eat anything.
Me: Shit, you're going to come home one day and find that I've died... and there will be Franny, licking her chops.
Me (to Franny): I bet I look pretty tasty, huh Franny.
Franny: [Silence.]
Me: Yeah, there'll be tiny little mouth prints all over me. She'll be taking a bite from here, a bite from there, trying to figure out the light meat from the dark meat...

The funny thing is, she looks at me all the time like, "OK, look lady. I love you, even though you insist on picking me up and kissing me and making weird smoochy sounds at me. You're just great, don't ever change. But I do wonder... what the meat from inside your elbow would taste like. Yeah, just once in awhile, don't worry about it. Really. Don't worry about it."

















When I'm laying there on the kitchen floor, semi-conscious, and Franny suspects that the opportunity to take a little test-bite has come, this is probably the last thing I will see. It's not cannibalism if we're not of the same species, right?

Friday I'm in love

(I was never a huge fan of that Cure song)

So it's Friday. My first Friday of many Fridays that I'm going to be off. Is that a grammatically correct sentence? What the fuck do I care: I have all day to fix it.

Yesterday I was making big plans for my day off - I was going to get up early and take my car to the car wash (it's filthy). Then I was going to ride my bike down to the Lakewood mall, where I would eat lunch at Souplantation. Then I was going to go shopping for a baby shower gift for my friend David's wife Susan. Then I was going to ride my bike back home and do some laundry, vacuum, watch my TV shows that were taped during the week and I was too tired to watch (or Patrick hates those shows). Then I was going to take a little nap, and then I was going to drive up to Culver City for a flute lesson.

Instead, I slept in until 10 o'clock. When I did get up, I listened a little to Air Talk (Larry Mantle was taking calls from people who saw the Sarah Palin interview with Charles Gibson last night. I'm not crazy about call-in shows, but I do like Larry), read a little (I am currently reading two books, and re-reading one. See the sidebar for details), and then Puma wanted to be brushed, so I brushed Puma. He's such a good boy. Look at that expression: can any cat be sweeter? He has all this extra fur right now, and I'm a little worried about that. My other two cats have such silky (but short) coats. His fur is short, thick and baby gorilla-like. There's a ton of it, and it's all floating around the living room right now. I bought him a new brush last night, and he seems to like it a lot.

Anyway, it's kind of gray outside, not nice enough for a bike ride. I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast (Franny finished up the extra milk) and now I think I'll just go take a shower and go shopping for the baby shower present. I love buying gifts for babies, but the invitation specified that we have to wear something pink. I think the only pink I have is this ratty pink t-shirt. Everything is sort of small on me right now (hence the need for a bike ride) but I don't think I'm going to lose 10 pounds before Sunday, bike ride or no bike ride, so I'd better just suck it up and get used to it.

...

Oh, and I've been meaning to mention this for a week now: I finally saw "Juno" the other night, and yes, I realize I may have been the last person in the world (my mother and mother-in-law saw it in the movie theater the week it came out. How's that for a Twilight Zone moment?) to have seen it, so I'll keep my comments short:

1. Ellen Page was perfect.
2. Allison Janney was perfect.
3. It all felt a little too Gilmore Girls-esque for me, with the hip music references and the lightening fast delivery. And while I'd rather hang out with Juno over Rory, Lorelai wins, hands down.
4. Could Michael Cera have any whiter legs?
5. Jason Bateman was perfect as a wannabe Kurt Cobain, but a guy that age with those musical influences, and he didn't know Mott the Hoople? Seriously, that is 100% unbelievable.
6. I've been telling Patrick that Sonic Youth is just noise for YEARS now (but their cover of that Carpenters song is kind of genius).

Actual conversation

(Cell phone conversation between me and Patrick. Location: parking lot. Time: lunch. Mood: ebullient.)

Me: Hi, sweetie.
Patrick: Hi. How's your day going?
Me [Covers mouth for some privacy. Some guy was walking behind me]: Dude! I think I've died and gone to heaven.
Patrick (Chuckling): What? Why?
Me: I am going to LOVE IT HERE.

Today was my first day at my new job. Everything was 100% better than I could've even hoped it would be. I am very happy to be somewhere where politeness and friendliness seem to reign supreme. Even if my work load turns out to be twice as much as what I expect it to be, I will still be doing about 1/4 of what I was doing before. I see the light, and it is this new job.

The only bad part is getting up at 5 a.m. But I can get used to it, and I can look forward to sleeping in EVERY FRIDAY from now on! Woo-hoo!

You're all I've got tonight

(The title of today's post, I'm 99.9% sure, has nothing to do whatsoever with what I'm about to type. It's just, the Cars are playing on KLOS in the other room, and I'm too lazy to get up and turn it off. Plus, it makes a good title. I mean, it worked for the Cars, right? But it's not night, and you are, no offense, in fact, not all I've got tonight. It was either KLOS or A Prairie Home Companion, and I refuse, refuse I say! to listen to A Prairie Home Companion. Never, ever.)

So today Patrick took off early for his friend Phil's house. Patrick has been building a computer for Phil all week, and I'm really glad he's done. It was too hot for him to work in the garage, so he had everything spread out all over the living room... but now it's all gone. I'm trying to train him to remove his tools from the house when he's done with them (once I found a screwdriver in between the couch cushions; let's not even get started on all the hard drives I found in a basket in the bookcase the other night), but he's like a little kid: he just can't do it. Well. He has few faults, so, better this than, I don't know, abuse.

While he's been gone, I took this opportunity to finally start cleaning my "office." We call it that ("Irene's office") but really it's just the second, smaller bedroom. I suppose we could call it "the nursery" but then it would just be an empty room with nothing in it. Now it's a room with a shitload of computer equipment, a bunch of hundred year old bills and files and paper and gift wrap and our winter coats and luggage, and somehow this room has gotten really, really, disgustingly messy.

One thing I feel particularly good about but I know won't make Patrick very happy is, I removed the kitty tree. We've had this kitty tree for 10 years, and in spite of being vacuumed (infrequently, it's true, but we did do it once in a while), it still looked like a petrified relative of Chewbacca - so I took it out. Yes, the cats lose a favorite napping spot, but look, I have one bed, a couch, a couple of chairs. All of these places for humans to rest are of course shared with the cats. The cats have a dozen places to sleep. I mean, they can hang out on anything, and in fact, often just stretch right out on the cold hard floor. Except for the kitchen counters, there's really no place in my home they can't go. Do they need a six foot tall kitty tree? I think not. I've tried to get rid of it before, and Patrick always talks me out of it, but with him being gone, I sucked it up and hauled the heavy thing out myself. And that sucker was heavy.

Well. Maybe we'll get them a new one. Will have to see how much they protest it being gone.

Another thing I'm proud of, I rearranged all the computer parts. Our computer has sort of grown, not unlike some creepy black-cabled sea creature, and the cables and power cords and USB cables were all in a giant, seething, impenetrable snarl under my desk that was also home, as it turned out, to quite a few almost animate dust bunnies (I swear I saw one try to run away). There were pieces of computer everywhere. The most dramatic change was pulling the CPU from off the floor and putting in, vertical, on top of my desk. Now I won't be stubbing my toes all the damn time.

Unplugging everything and setting it all up again was a bit like putting together a giant living puzzle - our cables aren't labeled or anything organized like that, but it really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, and now, everything works (I did panic at first when I couldn't get on the Internet, but then I remembered that I had unplugged the modem. Plugging it back in solved that minor problem. Funny, how simple it was). There was only one cable left over, and yes, that concerned me for awhile, but then Patrick called to check in, and I asked him about it, and he said he wasn't using that particular cable anymore. I was relieved, and rather wished I hadn't asked.

He's going to come home and help me with "cable management." He has a big box of fancy twist ties, and after hearing him go on and on about his superior skills with twist ties (compared to some of his co-workers; he's really quite competitive about the funniest things) at work, I've challenged him to put up or shut up on our very own machine. See, I've figured out how he works: challenge him and he bites. Ask him, and he finds something better to do.

I still have a massive pile of paperwork to go through, and the stuff I brought home from work (three boxes worth of stuff. In 22 months at that job I accumulated quite a mass of crap). Most of it, I guess, can go with me on Monday to my new job, but I'm pretty sure most of it is trash.

This project has been on the back of my mind for awhile now, and I've been ignoring it, as I am wont to do. I guess I kept thinking it would get better by itself. It didn't. No one was more surprised than I was when it actually got worse. Now that I'm about halfway through, though, I realize that I've gotten quite a lot of satisfaction out of straightening up. (I've also decided that I really need a new vaccuum. I think I want this one. There is definitely a trip to Sears in my future.) There's still a lot of work to do, but Patrick is home now, and gave his approval to the new set up, agreed to the cable management bit, and either didn't notice or doesn't care that the kitty tree is out in the backyard, horizontal, next to the barbecue. What, was I supposed to take it out to the curb? Don't be ridiculous.

...

My last week of work was pretty uneventful. I didn't see my boss at all Thursday or Friday, which, as it turned out, was just fine with me. I had everything pretty much wrapped up by Wednesday (though, I did lose one important item during my clean up; I'm pretty sure it was given to the chief deputy to review months ago, but not being able to find it made me a little crazy for awhile. Then I decided I didn't need to care about it anymore. I was suprised that that worked), and Thursday, for the most part, was just one big party. My co-workers (32 of us! I was touched!) took me to Carino's Italian Grill for lunch. For me to be the center of attention like that, it was a little overwhelming. Then my friend Loretta bought me a Bellini, and I got over the embarrassment fairly quickly.

After we got back to the office, they had cake and ice cream (what, no marching band? No petting zoo? No hot air balloons [damn, I forgot to ask for the hot air balloons]), and since my boss was rather glaringly absent, the chief deputy and his special assistant attended. They more than made up for her not being there. The chief deputy told everyone how talented I am and how much they're going to miss me, and while I know it's just words you say when someone is leaving, it really was nice, because I kind of think he meant it. (Then it turned out that he's going to vote for McCain. Damn!)

Friday I really wrapped up everything: I drove down to East LA to our communications office to turn in my calling card, and went back to the office. Since I thought I had to work the whole day, I took a lunch, but I went to Macy's and bought a new purse instead. When I came back, I found out that my boss had stopped by the office to take me out to lunch. Finding me already at lunch, she scrawled me a note (something about taking me to lunch next week instead, but when the hell is that going to happen? I do have a new job to go to now) and left. I was a bit perplexed because it turned out she had told someone at work (not me) that she might come by, but since no one informed me... what did she expect? So anyway, I checked out for real (badge, keys, building access card), and came home.

It is such a relief. I can't tell you, how it feels to know that I never have to go there again. I have written a little about it, but the problems and massive failure of that department - and in my opinion, while they may serve their purpose adequately, the fact that nothing truly tragic has happened there is pure luck: it's not my problem anymore.

My mom told me yesterday that no job is perfect, and that she's a bit concerned because I seem to be moving around a lot, but my mom didn't understand how bad it was, because I never really told her. I think sometimes to my parents, my problems are comical, because I make them seem that way when I tell them about my life. I know I'm not honest with them, and that's my fault, but how much do I want my mom to know? Lecturing me about going to church and tithing some of my income to god is quite enough lecture from my mother, I'm sure. The truth is, that job took a lot out of me. I worked hard (don't count this week. This week I did a lot of surfing the Internet), I did change some things in HR, and I pushed myself. I learned a lot. So that's good, I guess. I also learned that I don't need that kind of stress, thank you very much.

It was hard to answer people, when they asked me if I was excited about starting my new job, because I was mostly just anxious about closing down everything. I wanted to be gone, but stretching it all out over four days made it weird. Now that I'm out, with something new ahead of me, I'm not nervous (yet), I'm not excited; really, I'm just ready to start.

I like that feeling.

Update at 10:24 PM:
I just got home from the theater (good show tonight; weird vibe from some of the actors. I am going to choose to ignore it, though, because I suspect it was not directed at me personally), and what's the first thing I notice?

Patrick brought Chewbacca in from the backyard and put it in the living room. After my groan of horror, we discussed replacing it with a new one. Fine. Guess what I'm doing tomorrow?

America's Favorite Bisexual Comedian

So after all my trash-talking, I would like to submit, for your viewing pleasure, my friend Michael Dane doing stand up.

I hereby rescind the "more or less" and concede that Mr. Dane is pretty damn funny. Picture him selling books in a sort of stuffy bookstore, and then you can understand why the rest of us were giggling in the stacks. Well, he's one reason.

Abby Travis

Abby is awesome, and I love this photo. She has the perfect amount of stars in her eyes. But is it wrong that what I'm really wondering is what she was wearing behind that sign?

She's the sister of a friend of Patrick's (she performed with MTP once), gorgeous, talented, and yes, she supports Obama.

Nice Dream

I have decided to discard the draft entry I started this morning that was turning into a complaint about my very own bona fide computer genius (but... the anti-virus program on my laptop has been running since Thursday. Surely that can't be right? Patrick's suggestion to stop it seems logical, but don't I want my anti-virus to do whatever it is it's supposed to be doing? Would stopping it accomplish anything? I just want to know when it will be done. I'm starting to feel like his friends and my family are getting the Gold Plated Fake Geek Squad Treatment, and I am, maybe just a little, getting the shaft) but it was coming off as too whiny and complain-y, two things that I am, actually, right now. But hiding that from you all seems like a good idea (ignore the first parenthetical item above, please).

Anyway, follows are some emails I sent to my friend Michael recently. He has yet to reply with anything really funny, and I'm starting to doubt his claims of being "funny." Well, maybe he is, but he sure ain't punctual.* And I am really only writing this to avoid cleaning the house and doing the laundry. And hey, what do you know: it's way past time for lunch. And I have a freezer full of chicken pot pies, too.

from: Irene
to: Michael
date: Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 11:00 AM
subject: Dream!

I don't know what it is about being in touch with you again, but this is the second dream with you in it in like a month. This one's not going on the blog. If I had gotten right up and started writing this maybe I would remember more details but since I forgot all about it until after I'd played a couple of moves in Wordscraper and fed the cats, it's all totally sketchy now.

Here's the part I remember: you and I were somewhere. A house? A restaurant? A spacecraft? I have no idea, but it had four walls, a floor and a ceiling. And a phone. The phone rang, I picked it up. It was Bo. Bo says to me, in that silly/sexy voice he hits me with once in a while, "You... could be my... sister-in-law."

I looked at you, and told you what he just said, and asked you, "What the fuck does that mean?" You told me something, but now I don't remember. It could be the winning lottery numbers, couldn't it.

from: Irene
to: Michael
date: Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 6:45 PM
subject: Dream!

I changed my mind. This is totally blog material. Waiting for your witty reply though. Make it good; you're this close be being listed on the sidebar "I like stuff..." section of my blog.

Okay, okay, he did reply, but it was mostly to just say that he knows he would've said something better than what I remember. Well, sure, buddy, and in my dream I'm sure I was a size 4 and didn't have these fucking bangs. Next time I have a dream with a comedian in it, remember that they're the comedian. Not me. I'm just the dreamer.

And, Michael is totally in the "I like stuff" section. I was just bluffing.

I don't know who I stole this line from, but it made a guy named Victor laugh

Today at work, I was talking to my friend about joining a gym. She and I have had this conversation before, and she pretty much talked me out of it ("When will you go? Seriously? When will you go?"). She made a good point (repeatedly), but my friend is practically a supermodel - she goes to the gym regularly, and you know what? It shows. I sit on my ass for 10, 12 hours a day, and hey, guess what? That shows, too.

So today after work, even though I was wearing a cotton/wool blend cardigan and heels (and pants, don't forget the pants), and my sneakers and sweats were at home, I stopped by the local 24 Hour Fitness to see what I could see (I knew if I went home first I would get sidetracked by the leftover Domino's pizza from yesterday. Instead I decided to hold off until after the tour of the gym. And you wonder why I'm so chubby?). I checked them out online before I got there, and so was kind of hoping to score a 7-day free pass. Instead I got a tour, a sales pitch from two lovely people (Jaime, female, and Victor, her boss. He was a guy. Most people named Victor are male, or at least that has been my experience), and a 2-day pass. One of those 2 days is today, which, isn't going to happen. Going to the gym after eating three slices of Domino's deep dish pizza (mushrooms and pineapple, my favorite!) seems like a really, really bad idea.

Jaime took me on the tour, and the facility is actually a lot bigger than I thought it would be. There's a pool, a big area for all the treadmills (cleverly called "Treadmill Alley;" watch out for the well-cut hobos and alley cats there!), a bunch of weight lifting equipment, those scary machines, an upstairs with stair climbers (the stair climbers look like actual stairs. I have never seen this type of machine before. You're stepping on these never ending stairs. It seemed too literal to me, and sort of freaked me out. Jaime waited while I closed my mouth). There's also two types of saunas, a hot tub (full of men. I was standing there on the pool deck, in my work clothes, water dripping down the front of my shoe, and there's a big ol' huge hot tub full of men. None of them were particularly attractive, but still, can you see me in a hot tub with like 12 dudes? Where were all the girls?). So, while we're walking around, Jaime asked me all these questions about my fitness goals, and she was really nice. She asked me if I wanted to lose weight, and if so, how much. I said, "Well, realistically, I'd be happy with 10 pounds, but I should probably go for 20." Now, I don't know if they're trained to do this, but she cut 5 pounds off that right away and said, "Oh, no, you probably should stop at 15." Hello! Thank you.

After the tour, I sat down with her at her cubicle, and she started talking price. I was all, I want to come back tomorrow, and then I'll decide. Can I have my free pass now? But she isn't authorized to give out the free passes without involving her manager, the before-mentioned Victor.

Victor was a short guy, big muscles but not outrageous, about my age (Jaime was definitely younger, though, a bit thick around the middle. Also, this might be yet another trick they use, though I don't know how they figure it out. If some amazon woman had come out to talk to me I would've been too intimidated). He asked some of the same questions, and was really easy to talk to. I involved Jaime in my answers, and said things like, "Well, as I was telling Jaime here..." People like it when you include them, espeically when you're talking to their boss. Then he asked why I wanted to join a gym, and I started giving him bullshit answers (I had told Jaime the real reasons, like I want to tone up, and that I don't want to get old and fat). I mean, they weren't bullshit, actually, but I was being a bit silly. My favorite line? I said, "Well, you know, I'm getting a little older, and I'm finding that things just aren't where I thought I left them."

He laughed.

That's probably a part of their training too: laugh at the idiot's jokes, as long as they fork over the money.

Anyway, I think I'll go tomorrow and see if I can hang with it.

Christmas in August

I'm heading out to Trader Joe's with a $50 gift card I just found (payment for cat/dog/bird sitting earlier in the summer, from Bo and Martha. Totally forgot about it. It's like Christmas in August!), and I have only three things on my shopping list:

1. Kitty litter
2. Bottled water
3. Chicken pot pies

Wonder how many chicken pot pies I can get with $50... I need an intern.

...

Items I actually purchased:

1. Kitty litter
2. Bottled water
3. Chicken pot pies (delicious!)
4. Navel oranges
5. Apples
6. Kitty treats that look suspiciously new age-y
7. All kinds and colors of pre-made salads
8. Something else I'm sure I've forgotten

...

So by now I'm sure everyone has heard my complaints about the poorly designed parking lots of the world. What? No? Well, let me tell you: parking lots suck. I've been, and I'm sure you have too, almost hit, rammed by errant and homicidal shopping carts, cut off by folks in wheel chairs, riding shopping carts, and those crazy Rascal things, and in general, harassed and irritated.

Patrick is sick of hearing about it, so I mostly keep my mouth shut, but what I wonder is, how can parking lots be so damn badly planned? I mean, yes, you need a place to park... but does no one think beyond the actual parking of the car? Who decided that having cars pull in and then back out of a space where people have to walk was a good idea? All I'm saying is, parking lot designers of the world, have a little consideration for the people on foot. The people with children, strollers, carts. And plant some more goddamn trees.

Okay, so anyway, I was alone when I went to Trader Joe's, and honestly, I was thinking about how tight my fucking pants are right now, not the parking lot. And truth be told, I think the Trader Joe's parking lot by my house is one of the best parking lots for a Trader Joe's I've ever been in. Anybody remember the old TJ's in Culver City (before Culver City was cool? Like, when I lived there?)? Or the Santa Monica TJ's? Or the one on National? Anyway, there's also a Target, a post office, a Rite Aid, a Big Lots, and various other no-name stores in this little shopping center, and lots of spaces - it's no big deal. But as I was walking up to the store, walking around various parkers/de-parkers, wannabe parkers, this man walking to my left turned around and said,

"Walking through this parking lot is kind of like playing a game of Frogger!"

And for some reason that cracked me. Made me feel a million years old, yes, but dude was way older than me, so shut up, okay?

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