do you SOTU?

Matt Wuerker Cartoons

Sartre once said that the state of modern man is incomprehension and rage. Cheerful guy, that Sartre, but when you realize that he said that before he ever had a chance to experience either the Bush Administration, "American Idol" or even Paris Hilton, you see him for the visionary he truly was.

I woke up feeling a bit punkish myself and stayed home sick today, as opposed to my usual habit of staying home well, and after noodling around awhile decided I was in a Sartre state of mind. Contemplating the upcoming presidential address with a general sense of creeping despair, I was happy to discover I would not have to endure the coverage without aid. Apparently, there is a national epidemic of State of the Union drinking games afoot, and thank heavens for them. Two of my favorites:

From Beer and Present Danger by Heather Havrilesky ~

The game is simple enough for even your average registered voter to understand. Basically, every time Bush says "terror," "terrorism," "terrorist," "war on terror" or "Terror Dome," you drink.

Also drink when the president winks, nods and points at someone in the audience in rapid succession; drink each time he refers to 9/11 or uses the word "nuke-u-lar," and drink something bitter when he says that "the state of our union is strong."

Whenever there's a close-up of a sour-faced Democrat, drink. If it's Hilary Clinton, Ted Kennedy or Harry Reid, drink twice. (Full rules here ...)

And from Adam Felber ~

- Whenever the President says “evil,” everyone must raise their glass and take a drink. It’s good form to make a brief toast of sorts, something like “Down with evil!” or “Evil is bad!” “Evil” should be pronounced with a soft “i” [”Evihl”].

- When talking about the progress of the War in Iraq, wait for the President to say “We are winning” or “we will win.” Everyone then says “Yay!” raises a glass and drinks triumphantly. When the President says the words “hard work” or indicates that hard work still remains, everyone should say “Awww” and take a disappointed sip. (Play here...)

There are many, many others. I predict that 54% of the country will be incapacitated by 6:35 pm (Pacific). So, go. Play. Enjoy. Sartre will understand.

let's face the music and file

A chill Santa Ana wind has been blowing steadily all day, spoiling my best intentions to spend the day painting in my cutting edge open air studio. By which I mean the patio, and by which I mean that I would have blown away.

So I spent the afternoon once again transferring files, printing and re-uploading pictures I thought I wouldn't have to deal with again. Tedious stuff, but I don't feel I can safely jettison AOL until it's done. Blimey.

But thank heavens for jazz vocals on internet radio. Right now, the trees are swaying and Ella is swinging "You Took Advantage of Me." Oh, to be young and taken advantage of once again. And again. Two minutes ago Steve Tyrell was crooning "Why Was I Born?" I don't know, Steve honey, but I'm glad you were. "Hey there..you with the stars in your eyes..." ~ sing it to me, Rosemary. And Diana. And Peggy. And Fats. Nice ~ now Nnenna Freelon is crooning "Soulcall," seducing all within the sound of her voice into the realm of bittersweet memory and peace....

Here's "Black Coffee" by Jacintha ~ man, I love this one. All smoke and hope and husky-throated regret.

All in all, not a terrible way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. Julie Christie has just launched into "Make Someone Happy" and you know, I believe I will ~ think I'll toddle off to the kitchen and throw a little something on the fire. I feel a Spaghetti Bolognese coming on. I think that'll put a smile on someone's face.

it's the corruption, stupid

I've been dieting (sort of) and working out (excessively) for the past week, and after a net loss of a hard-fought one (!) pound, had developed a craving for a $5.25 Bucket o' Popcorn with a Butter-like Substance on Top. Only a trip to the local theater would satisfy.

So we finally caught Syriana, George Clooney's slightly confusing but brainy and brilliant collage of a film about American and Saudi oil interests, and the roles that power and corruption play in the Middle East and within the hallowed halls of our own government.

Told through the eyes of a number of players in a non-linear fashion, political issues evolve from the personal as individual stories serve to illuminate global trends. In one plot line, we see how bone-crushing poverty and oppression can leave an essentially ordinary and decent Muslim youth vulnerable to seduction in the well-funded madrasas of radical Islam; in another, a young American financial planner is beguiled by the wealth and democratic ideology of a Saudi prince.

I won't pretend to have understood all the various threads of the individual plot lines ~ the details surrounding the actions of a young Washington lawyer with father issues were particularly elusive. In an interview with NPR's Terry Gross, Clooney indicated that he didn't want to play down to the audience by taking them by the hand and walking them through everything; that he wanted to drop us down right in the middle of the action, and make us figure it out for ourselves. I personally found it to be a very effective approach ~ this is, after all, how we often experience life ~ and at no point was I tempted to check out, remaining focused and engaged throughout the entire film, which brims with bitter insight into the workings of the American power elite.

"Corruption charges. Corruption? Corruption ain't nothing more than government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation. That's Milton Friedman. He got a goddamn Nobel Prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it.

Corruption is our protection. Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around here instead of fighting each other for scraps of meat out in the streets. Corruption is why we win."

Chilling.

Fast-paced and literate, Syriana is a must-see movie for anyone who's not buying into the Bush Administration's happy talk about a war fought to 'free the Iraqi people', thus spreading comfort and joy throughout the land. I know one thing for certain.

Even behind that beard and an additional 30 pounds, George Clooney cannot hide the essential fabulousness of his hunky self. There's a lesson to be learned in there somewhere. If I could only figure out what it is.

blame it on pasadena

I first noticed it a few days ago, as I was passing the bedroom mirror.

I had been deliberately passing by all such mirrors lately for fear of encountering just this very thing, but something odd caught my eye; something foreign, large and following menacingly behind me. Before I could catch myself I had glanced sideways, and there it was.

Baby got back.

Yes, that dismayingly architectonic and cantilevered protuberance I had glimpsed in the mirror was, in fact, attached to my very person. It had been growing, mushroom-like, beneath the black knit sweatpants I had taken to living in, entirely without my knowledge or permission. I do not believe this is my fault.

By my calculations, the holidays started somewhat early this year; right around Halloween, in fact, when the 4 bags of Snickers and 3 bags of Almond Joys, along with assorted combinations of lollipops and Tootsie Rolls went largely unclaimed by the neighborhood children, who are now being subjected to house arrest on the big night to keep them from attempted poisoning and certain death at the hands of members of their own homeowners’ associations. Of course, we do not waste food in this house. Not when there are young women starving right here in Hollywood.

Next came Thanksgiving, followed by a particularly sociable Christmas, which once again surprised me by arriving promptly on the 25th this year, and never allowing me any time to go to the gym, or to clean out all the goodies in the fridge and replace them with cabbage soup. Visions of fruitcake and eggnog, chocolates and sugarplums danced in my head, onto my plate and under my belt. Leftovers, as we all know, make wonderful all-day snacking, and baking for others, such a noble and generous cause, does not count in the calorie count. Ever.

New Year’s Day is, of course, the end of the eat, drink and be merry-go-round that is the Holiday Season, and the annual Pasadena Rose Parade, quite a local spectacle and all around big deal here in California, is held on New Year’s Day. Everyone turns on the parade, which is always followed by the Rose Bowl game, to veg out and recover from the night before. It’s a time honored tradition, just as January 2nd is the traditional beginning of all 86million resolutions to ‘get back in shape’.

Not this year. This year, the Pasadena city fathers threw all that out the window by deciding that the Pasadena Rose parade would be held on Monday, rather than Sunday; (something about a promise 100 years ago to the local clergymen involving frightened horses) a decision which threw everybody, including me, off their mark for days.

Then the Rose Bowl was held on Wednesday for some inexplicable reason, which is why I was still shopping, baking and whipping up appetizers as late as last Tuesday and Wednesday for a friend's football party. Why I volunteered to bring appetizers I’ll never know, since it meant that I’d have to arrive on time and not fashionably late as is my wont, which I do only because I know I look better after everyone else has had at least one round...

But that’s beside the point.

The point is, that the Pasadena city fathers’ reckless disregard for tradition wreaked not only havoc on the parade (it poured) and at the game (USC was trampled by Texas) but, more importantly, it caused me to miss out on that crucial January 1st cut-off date on gluttony. It was therefore directly responsible for about 37,425 additional calories and therefore those 14 ~ yes, 14 ~ extra pounds, most of which appear to have settled in my butt.

The lesson here is obvious ~ it is wrong to fool with parades and Bowl games and indeed, the natural order of things in general. It is not nice to screw with my calendar, Pasadena.

And that, in conclusion, is why my Christmas tree is still up.


*painting by Fernando Botero

farewell, my lovely

At what point do you just give up on a thing and admit defeat?

If you’re me, the answer is not until you’ve beaten it to death with a club, shaken it out and administered morphine. Then you place it your driveway and run over it with your car. Several times. After giving it mouth to mouth, you pour yourself some wine, relax a bit, and go light it on fire. Upon waiting a week or so for it to cool off, you put it back on the easel, grab a brush or any other weapon of choice and start all over again.

It’s not that I have a problem with failure. I am no stranger to failure and indeed, have learned to embrace it as my friend and my mentor; had I succeeded more often, I would probably not be the happy idiot that friends and loved ones have come to know and tolerate. Certainly, I would not have nearly as much time on my hands to indulge in such pastimes as painting and blogging. And blogging about painting. And whining about blogging. And so on.

But this one painting is giving me headaches, and has been doing so for months. I’ve given up on projects in the past, albeit reluctantly, but by god I just can’t seem to let go here. Until today. Today I painted over large swatches of real estate, eliminated some extraneous debris, changed colors and added metaphor. And still no joy. It is much improved, I think, but I know in my heart that while the operation was a success, the patient died.

But don’t cry for me, Argentina. It felt good to be painting again. I will take these lessons learned, and live to fail another canvas. The beauty is in the process. The canvas is just a souvenir. And even then, only occasionally.

wave watching ~ newport beach

We went whale watching
to see some whales

and what did we see?














We saw the sea.

We saw some sea lions
and even a shark.
But nary a whale,
although the seals barked.

The gulls were all friendly
they stayed with us through,














But we were not fishing;
no fish guts for you.















We went whale watching
to chase our tails.
But that was okay 'cause
we had a swell day ~
it was a great day!

the year grows old

When the Year Grows Old
Edna St. Vincent Millay

I CANNOT but remember

When the year grows old—

October—November—

How she disliked the cold!


She used to watch the swallows

Go down across the sky,

And turn from the window

With a little sharp sigh.


And often when the brown leaves

Were brittle on the ground,

And the wind in the chimney

Made a melancholy sound.


She had a look about her

That I wish I could forget—

The look of a scared thing

Sitting in a net!


Oh, beautiful at nightfall

The soft spitting snow!

And beautiful the bare boughs

Rubbing to and fro!


But the roaring of the fire,

And the warmth of fur,

And the boiling of the kettle

Were beautiful to her!


I cannot but remember

When the year grows old—

October—November—

How she disliked the cold!

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

I do not dislike the cold. It teaches me to appreciate the hearth. The day is gray and the rain has been steady. I welcome the rain and the cold. It doesn't sadden, but brings renewal. My spirit. My hope. My pleasure in the comforts of home.

We have spent the holidays in a cheerful whirl of friends and dinners, wine and laughter, and I am reminded once again of all that I am grateful for. Tonight we will ring in the New Year alone, the affable Turk and I, in front of a cozy fire and a tiny tree, and toast to years gone by and those to come; old friends lost and new ones made; roads already traveled and paths yet to be chosen. We will be melancholy, yet peaceful. Grateful for our good fortune. The year grows old, and so do we. But I do not dislike the cold. It reminds me that I am warm.

Peace, love and prosperity to you all.

Happy New Year!

gone shopping...

No time to visit
no time to blog
there's hardly time for this eggnog

It's last year's card
this happy tree, rushed as always
but then that's me

I wish you love
and joy and mirth
I wish us all some
Peace on Earth

Goodwill to all
to all sweet dharma
But if ye be Grinchey
I wish thee ~ Instant Karma.

Happy Holidays!
(and of course, to Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson, who apparently require more specific forms of greeting)

A wondrous midwinter agricultural and solar observance to you, boys!

peace, babies

xxx ooo Gigi

blissin' in the wind

I like my gym. I really do. It’s clean, well-appointed, relatively free of meat market muscle heads and hardly ever out of toilet paper in the ladies’ room. Most importantly, it’s right around the corner from my house, which means I have to pass it as I travel to and fro from whatever self-indulgence I am to-ing and fro-ing from, and I am easily guilted into dropping in for an hour or so. Eventually. It keeps me honest and helps me maintain the illusion of moderate good health even as I maintain a steady diet of egg nog and fruit cake; at least until I look too closely in a mirror. I tend to favor equipment located far from the reflecting walls.

Not that I love all forms of exercise. I hate lifting weights, which is tedious and painful. No pain, no pain, is my motto. If the weight is too light, I lose count as my mind wanders off in search of weightier subjects (What ever happened to that trial of Kenny Boy Lay?...Does that woman think anyone believes those things are real?…) If the weights are too heavy, I find I can only count to 3.

But I love yoga and I love to run. I love the way my body feels as I push it to bend deeper, reach further and move faster. It’s probably just a chemical thing; a combination of increasing adrenaline, endorphins and serotonin levels that makes it feel so good ~ which just goes to prove that there’s nothing I won’t do to achieve an unnatural high.

Still, I had an odd free hour yesterday after a busy day of doing whatever it is that I do but didn’t feel like hitting the gym. So I did something I haven’t done in ages. I took a walk.

The air was clear and a brisk 50 degrees. The low autumn sun gleamed hard and diamond-bright, and the sky was soon ablaze in spectacular shades of red, pinks, orange and fuscia. My Mp3 Player was tuned to 93.1 Jack FM (motto: “we don’t take requests ~ we don’t encourage bad behavior”) and the ‘Boys of Summer’ was pulsing through my head. I tried to run, but could feel the cellulite jiggling and stopped at once; it was spoiling the mood. Overhead the maple leaves, ignited by the sun, flamed red, pink and saffron. Striding swiftly uphill, I paused at the top to take in the last splash of magenta as the sun exploded over the reservoir.

I tried to stop mentally describing the scene in glaringly awful purple prose and realized, not for the first time, that I am a very bad writer, even when only talking to myself. I decided I didn’t really care and, grooving to Steely Dan’s “Do it Again,” fully understood that I was just one happy little idiot. Let finer minds struggle to be good ~ I would be content to be colorful.

Trotting downhill to the strains of “Stray Cat Strut,” I tried not to grin too broadly as motorists sped past, lest they recognize me as simple. By the time Queen hit their stride with “Somebody to Love”, Christmas lights were twinkling on against the now dusky mauve sky and I didn’t bother trying not to smile, or even let slip a skip and a stray strut or two. I grinned and nodded at neighbors staring back at me from garages and behind the leashes of dogs. When I finally hit my own front porch, John Fogerty was wailin’ “Born on the Bayou,” and I was blissin’ ~ winded, happy and at one with the universe.

You know, I hardly ever get that from the treadmill. I really need to get out more.

christmas noir

‘Tis the holiday season so, having just skimmed John Gibson’s thriller,” The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought” we were naturally in the mood for a story of greed, power and corruption in the hallowed halls of government and other such worlds of unimaginable privilege and excess.

Unfortunately, “Syriana” didn’t open until today, and since it was yesterday, we went to see “The Ice Harvest” instead, which proved to be a story of greed, power and corruption in the seedy suburb of ‘Wichita Falls, Kansas’; a world of unimaginable tawdriness and excess.

In “Ice Harvest” John Cusack plays Charlie Arglist, a mob lawyer who’s been sleepwalking his way through life, pausing only to drink and hang out in strip bars until he attempts to pull a Christmas Eve getaway after having stolen millions from his bosses. Billy Bob Thornton plays the amoral pornographer accomplice, who may or may not fade away into the night with the loot. Oliver Platt is the drunken buddy and fellow nihilist Pete Van Heuten, a man ravaged by the misery of having gotten what he wished for, and now longing only for a brand new start.

I absolutely enjoyed this movie. Recalling the best of 1940’s film noir this comedy/thriller is bleak, violent and consistently funny. In Connie Nielsen, who plays the femme fatale Renata whom Charlie is pining for, we have a Lauren Bacall for the 21st century; from her long, side-swept locks to her ruby red lips; down to the gams that seem go on forever, as Sam Spade might have said. Even bound to a chair and threatened with a pistol, she speaks in a low, husky Bacall-like whisper, when a lesser dame would have screeched and howled like a banshee. That’s style. Noir style.

This movie isn’t for everyone. My viewing partner, the unflappable Turk, did not care for it and did not at all appreciate my dragging him along.

“That’s not my idea of a Christmas movie,” he said later, glowering at me over margaritas. “Too depressing. I’ve had too many Christmases like that.”

I must have looked a little alarmed.

“Well, without all the violence and the…you know…blood and all.”

I continued to stare.

“Oh! The strippers. There were never strippers.”

Good to know.

“Christmas should be happy,” he continued. “And if it can’t be happy, it should at the very least not be that dark.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It's pretty dismal for a lot more people than anyone cares to admit. Besides, did you see the footage of the 6 AM tramplings in front of the Wal Mart and Best Buys? They were stepping on old people! Rioting for X Boxes. I think that’s pretty dark.”

“Shameful. But you don’t see them making a movie out of it.” He paused. “Yet.”

Alright. He has a point.

Still ~ if you, like me, are beginning to feel just a wee bit of an overload from all the gingerbread, tinsel and enforced merriment of the yule; if you too are, shall we say dispirited by the cloud of raging consumerism that permeates the air while the Gibsons and O’Reillys of the world attempt to make political hay of the spiritual ho-ho-ho…

Well, then just think of “The Ice Harvest” as a quickie antidote; a nice dry martini in a season of sweet, and sometimes sour rum punch.

Ho ho ho!

it's all about the housekeeping

Okay ~ this page went a little wonky for a bit there but it seems to be better now. I am on a very steep learning curve here.

I've been trying to save the AOL Journal to my hard drive (thanks Trish)as well as print it out (yes, I know, I'm getting obsessive about the whole thing, and wish I'd never started.) But I have, and now I'm stuck with the neurotic behavior I've so foolishly triggered. I no longer trust AOL to host my graphics with any reliability, and have been trying in my spare moments to shift everything over here. And there. Pretty much everywhere. Suddenly I'm a compulsive saver. It's becoming a problem.

I've found that if you do try to print out old entries you must, in fact, print out all those terrific AOL ads we've all come to know and love. Andi, over at Unhinged, suggested I copy everything into Word and print from there, which turned out to be a great idea. The only exception is that some photos won't copy and paste (those hosted by an AOL UK site) and if said photos are no longer on your hard drive or saved to CD, then you're out of luck. Most likely, you're not as nuts as I am and won't care. Congratulations on your excellent mental health!

It's at times like that I miss my handy little spiral bound journal. No one had to host it, no one wanted to delete it, censor it, advertise in it or even, for that matter, read it. At least, not to my knowledge. Although my cousin did give me some funny looks that time I left it on the dresser when I was staying at her house... But I digress.

Right. So I've been working on that and I'm slow; in fact, until I organize myself and just quit copying things hither and yon like a rabid squirrel I can't seem to actually write anything. Or concentrate on anything else.

So if I haven't been around to read, write or answer mail, it's a time and mental health issue, not a lack of interest one, and I'm sorry about that. 'Tis the season fa-la, and although I'd rather blog than clean bathrooms, which are getting rather...hairy, I'd also rather doodle in Paint than copy blog files, which is what I feel I have to do whenever I'm online, at least until it's done.

And there are errands to run, shopping to do, lunches to be...lunched, and the gym to be gymed. Or avoided by going shopping, as the case may be. Speaking of which, I'm off to Sportsmart for running shoes (25% off today only!) as I'm pretty sure my old ones are conspiring to cripple me.

And I am so freaking late right now; I'll bet this doesn't even save by the time I need...to...be...gone...

Oh, damn. Later!............

scenes from purgatory ~ part two

Outside in the hallway, Mom is instructed to propel herself as far as she can by rotating the wheels on her chair manually, as part of her upper body work.

Alongside her is a set of parallel bars where a tall, dignified woman is making her painful way down the length of the ramp. Mom turns to peer up at her before beginning her own course, and they both struggle along at a snail’s pace. Watching from behind, it is a slow motion marathon taking place between a heron and a gnome.

Suddenly, without raising her head from her progress, my mother announces to no one in particular, “She doesn’t know it, but we’re having a race, and I’m gonna WIN!” Everyone in the hallway breaks up, including her startled rival. Leaning against a wall, I’m laughing so hard it brings tears to my eyes.

Back in her room, after the nurse has put her in bed, each little shift of the sheets brings pain and moaning and she begs, again, for more medication. “You see, I do try, don’t I?” she says, peering up at me.

She tells me about how she hates to wake up in the morning; that when she opens her eyes she feels only wretched disappointment. “I pray to die,” she says. “Why am I still here?” I tell her that she’s here for me.

“Because it’s all about me, Mom. I’m not ready to let you go. None of us are.” I half believe this; that I am keeping her here against her will. That I somehow have this much power in the universe, and that I am using it unwisely. She gives me a ghost of a smile. “There is such a thing as living too long, you know.”

I stay with her until she becomes quiet, long after visiting hours are over. When I leave, I tell her I’ll see her in the morning. “Just call,” she says. “In the night, when I wake up, I feel like I don’t know who I am. Like I’m adrift. Alone….you know?”

I tell her I know. Alone in the dark, caught halfway between restless dreams and an unwelcome dawn, it’s easy to become untethered ~ adrift in the existential void. To forget who you are. I do know. But I don’t want to.

“I just feel lost” she says, “until someone calls.”

scenes from purgatory ~ part one

It's Wednesday, about five days after my mother's fall. Mom's had bad days and worse, depending on the exact combination of pain and sleeping medications she's been given, and whether or not she's had a good night's sleep.

Anxiety is an issue, as is tedium and the dread of utter dependence. At times she seems to be giving up; there is an overwhelming sense of too much pain, too much fear, too much sadness ~ that there is simply not enough pleasure left in the world to make the agony of living worth bearing. It is the death of hope. I understand. But I don't want to.

And yet, she makes the effort. She is, as ever, cute and charming in social situations, commanding attention no less today than in the full radiance of her youth. Pushing her down the health centercorridor, she is dwarfed by her oversized wheelchair and resembles nothing more than a diminutive apple-faced doll, and hospital personnel and strangers alike will stop to smile and exclaim, "Oh my, you are so cute!"

Sometimes, she turns to me and says, "Everyone keeps telling me that! It must be true." So it is.

In a therapy session, she is instructed to raise her arms and wave. She raises her arms straight out by her sides and flutters her long, bony fingers delicately in the air, concentrating intently. "I'm making butterfly fingers" she says. Mr. Hainsley, with whom she shares her group therapy laughs. "I'll bet you were something else when you were young," he says. She widens her eyes. "Ooo...well, you don't know the half of it."

In the rehab room, where eight other physical therapists are working with their clients Maxine, her caseworker, asks her to point to a schematic face on a paper indicating her level of pain. The faces range from number 1, a beaming smiley face to number 9, which is scowling ferociously, eyebrows furrowed and teeth bared.

"Well," she says, after consideration, "this is me," indicating the sweet Happy Face. "And this is...YOU!" She points to the angry, frowny one. Her timing is impeccable. The room erupts in laughter.

open house

I am not what you’d call an early adaptor. I fear change. I’m currently listening to an ancient semi-portable radio that I can never turn off because it has a short and takes 10 minutes of jiggling the knob to turn back on again, and I just don’t have that kind of time. My favorite camera is a 35 millimeter Minolta circa 1987, which caused a waiter at a open air bistro to stop and exclaim, “Hey ~ I remember those! I think my father had one!”

I don’t own a microwave, although that’s less of a Luddite affliction than a lack of available counter space. I have a VCR Plus which malfunctioned a few years back and now can only tape the shows that I’m currently watching, which seems, you know, pointless. It's a VCR Minus.

I don’t own a cell phone, although I almost got one recently when my 92 year old mother needed a new one and it was offered to me. I somehow managed to leave without it. I think it frightened me. And up until a couple of months ago, I used a cassette player at the gym that was so large and bulky I practically had to carry it on my back. I only jettisoned it because it ate my the last of my tapes. (I miss you Bob Seger…)

So when I got my first computer 2 years ago and only about 15 years behind the cultural curve I was thrilled to find that it came with 6 months free of AOL. After noodling around for a bit I discovered AOL’s journal pages and was hooked. Press a button and pictures appear. Click another and post, change colors, edit entries, resize graphics and post again. No coding, no hassle, no knowledge required. Just click “It’s All About Me’ and yammer away. I loved it.

AOL’s wrongheaded decision to sell advertising space in the form of those glaringly awful headline banners on their relatively pricey subscriber pages (for those who had to pay) was enough to nudge quite a few to jump ship. As much as I balked it was, for me at least, a move whose time had come. For even as I rail, rant and rebel against leaving my cozy little comfort zone, I’ve come to realize in the past week or so that what I really wanted, and probably needed, was to be challenged; pushed into learning and forced into experiencing something new. I’m fairly adventurous in other aspects of my life (as long it doesn’t involve anything too technically advanced like say… a DVD player) and it bothered me how resistant I was to leaving home and venturing out into the world, as it were.

So here I am, and welcome to my new space. I like it. It’s still a little rough around the edges ~ I haven’t got all the links in and I’m not sure yet how to do internal links or relocate pics. I’d like to design a new title logo and maybe change some colors. The thing is, I just may be able to figure out how to do that now. With a little help from my friends, of course.

And that’s another thing ~ there’s still a community here, full of people who are generous, supportive and willing to throw a rope to those in need. New friends, old friends ~ we’re all just a click away. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

Right, don’t answer that.

Now I’m going to see if I can place a little gif. here, and if it works, I’m off to figure out Bloglines...

oops ~ my animated gif. is decidedly unanimated. Babysteps...

now is the entry of my discontent

My new blog is pissing me off. Oh, I know what you're thinking. It's not the blog. It's her. She's an idiot. Always has been; why have we not noticed this before? Must have been the AOL beer goggles...

After all, how many times does one have to be told that no, silly, you cannot cut and paste from your old blog to the new one with fonts and everything intact. I tried it. Five times. And I can't get that picture out of my sidebar, even though I removed it from Profile. A hundred times.

If the definition of madness is repeating the same action over and over and expecting a different result, then I am really quite insane. Again, how long has this gone undetected? And why am I not being treated? Aren't there drugs? I'm sure there are drugs.

Please give me drugs.

I click here, I edit code there ~ which is hilarious because I have as much chance of deciphering code as I have of singing an opera in Mandarin Chinese ~ and nothing happens. I can't seem to save changes.

I'm not happy with the graphic placement thingy ~ you can't change your mind and cut and paste in another location; you have to keep uploading or something. But changing my mind is what I do. Constantly. Back and forth, back and forth ~ again, there's that whole repetition/insanity issue. And what if I want to place a graphic at the end, or within the body of the text? Because I do, you know. I really do.

I have much to learn, I know, and little patience with the process. I don't even understand bloglines, for the love of Gates. I am paralyzed by uncertainty, malcontent and abject whininess. I'm obsessive-compulsive about the way that things look. I want links; I want sidebar subtitles, I want a counter, I want more space for the toon.

Oh, and peace in the Middle East. I really want that, too. But first I want my space up and running and ready for it's close-up. How else can I pontificate about that no-doubt-just-around-the-corner peace? So call me Crazy. Or get me those drugs.

testing...

...1...2...3...

It seems that in the process of moving something dreadful has happened to my face. It has gone all sad and melty looking, and suddenly I have no nose.

Why has my nose not made the transition from there to here?

What, I ask you, has happened to my face?

**sigh**

I really miss my nose.

fall

My mother is insisting on her right to die. “I want to sign that paper!” she says, making a broad signing gesture with her arm. “I want to sign that paper and take a pill and be gone.”

“It isn’t legal, Mom,” says my brother, leaning forward from his perch on the edge of the hospital bed. “And you don’t really want to die.”

“It is legal! I saw it on TV,” she asserts emphatically. “You sign some papers and then you can die. And I do want to die. If I can’t walk, I don’t want to be here anymore!” She is angry and frightened and experiencing pain with every movement.

Mom has had a series of falls in recent times, and has been growing more frail with each. She has spondylosis, severe osteoporosis and numerous compression fractures which are the source of her current pain. Each fall has led to greater fear; fear has kept her anchored to her recliner, and the subsequent loss of muscle has made her even more vulnerable to loss of balance. A vicious cycle of fear and loss which has led us all here, to the dreary rehab center just outside of Houston, Texas to which she was transferred from the hospital. Mom wants to come home. My brother, who has been her caretaker for the last four years, needs her to be mobile enough for him to be able to leave for a few hours at a time, and to get through the night without assistance. We are putting all our hopes on a prescribed two week course of physical therapy.

“Mom, do you want me to take you out in the parking lot and shoot you right now?” asks my brother, a manic gleam in his eye. “’Cause I will. If that’s what you want.”

“I do!” says my mother defiantly.

“And then I’ll go to jail. Because it’s not legal. It’s crazy.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t want you to go to jail,” relents Mom.

“It may be legal in Oregon,” I offer. “Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.”

“Yes! I’ll go there!” Mom is elated.

“How will you get there?” I ask. “You can’t fly by yourself anymore.”

“You’ll take me!” she says, chin lowered, looking up at me with a sly grin. My brother laughs.

“Of course” I reply. “Lovely. A mother/daughter suicide trip to Oregon. It’s beautiful this time of year. We can take in some sights. I know ~ why don’t I just organize a tour? Me and a bunch of little old ladies in wheelchairs who want to die.” I lower my voice ominously. “Sixteen of us will go in…but only one will return. How’s that sound?”

She chuckles softly as she pats my knee with a gentle caress. “Okay, okay.” She sighs and gazes sadly at the floor. “But I really do want to die.”

boo babes

*** Saturday in Malibu

Andi was blue

Trishy was pink

Robbie was driving

I needed a drink

Blue skies and salt air

fresh fish and wine

It was just a few hours

but the weather was fine

We wrote a few screenplays

a novel or two

I wanted a murder

any victim would do

A brief stop at Starbuck’s

the surf crowd eclectic

The life of a beach bum

seems curiously hectic

The sunlight turned golden

on houses peach pink and lime

Kept missing those photos

so ~ maybe next time.

******

auld lang syne

I got a call from an old friend on Wednesday. She’d sent a card in July in which she said she’d tried to call for my birthday so many times she eventually gave up and thought writing would actually be more efficient. It’s true ~ I rarely answer my own phone. These days I find the idea that someone might want to talk to me alarming for some reason. “Surely no good can come of this…” think I. And often enough, I’m right.

But not always, and this time it was good news; my friend was in Palmdale, visiting her sister and wanted to drive down and spend a few hours with us on Saturday. Would that be alright?

~*~*~*~
We met when I was working behind the candy counter in a coffee shop in a small tourist town on Long Island. I got the job because my roommate was the boss's girlfriend, and the fact that I had availed myself of this blatant cronyism to land such a coveted position was clearly offensive to the long term employees. There were three waitresses who worked the old-fashioned ice cream and lunch counter that made up the bulk of the business; an older woman named Sheila, her son’s teenage girlfriend, and a brunet named Angela who looked vaguely familiar. No one spoke to me or made eye-contact for the first week or so of my employment, although we worked facing each other not 30 feet apart. It was made very clear that I was persona non grata. But I was 20 years old, going through a particularly rough spot in my life and really needed the job. A little more hostility, I figured, was not the worst thing that could happen.

So it was that I was standing listlessly behind the counter one afternoon, contemplating all the crummy choices that had brought me there, agonizing over those yet to be made and wondering which would seal my fate as a lonely counter clerk, dishing out bonbons to bell-bottomed tourists, surrounded by too many cats and too little money, when the brunet strode purposefully over. “Hi! My name’s Angie. You doing anything after work?”

It turned out to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

She told me later that she figured it wasn’t my fault that no one liked my roommate, and it wasn’t any of their business anyway.. We became fast friends almost immediately, in a way, I suspect, that only the young can. We reveal ourselves to each other in youth in ways and at depths that become more difficult as time goes on; as experience teaches us to shield ourselves more efficiently from judgment, pain and betrayal. Before the walls of defense become impenetrable; calcified. The four years I spent living in that town I spent in large part in her company, part of a small but tight knit circle of friends. We had riotously good times and shatteringly bad ones. We witnessed one another’s dark sides and worst behaviors, and accepted each other in full knowledge of our individual shortcomings. Above all, we were always there for each other, no questions asked. Of the original four, only she and I have stayed in contact. As time went on we both married, and she had two daughters and moved to Florida. We got busy, as people do, but stayed in touch through letters and phone calls. And the occasional cross country pop-in.

She looks just the same, and I knew from the first that some things would never change. That they mustn’t be allowed to. Her husband brought me flowers, we sat down with drinks and appetizers on the patio and had so much to say and complain and laugh about that by dinnertime we knew they’d have to stay the night. Our lives are immeasurably different, but I knew too that no matter who we were or what we became, we would continue to be there for each other, no questions asked. There is a wonderful sense of comfort in knowing that you can pick up the phone at 4:00am and say, “I need a place to stay…” and someone would be there to pick you up at the airport, offer a roof over your head and a shoulder to cry on. And you’d know that this was safe haven because these bonds were forged in a place before the walls went up; before you learned how to be strong enough to keep people out, and lock yourself in.

At breakfast the next morning, as I flipped eggs on the stove, served juice and coffee and got everybody’s order wrong, we flashed back to those days at the coffee shop, when she worked the grill and I was just that girl who looked so strangely sad behind a counter heaped high with chocolate bonbons. Ah, plus ca change…...

rock n' roll never forgets

Happy Birthday,
Bro!!!


(That’s right ~ from now on, it’s the same card every year. Soon you’ll be so old, you won’t even notice.)

Have a blast! Wish I were there ~ pop a cold one for me…

xxxooo

me

bad yoga babe

It’s been a long, hot, busy week. For one thing, we were expecting my husband’s niece, her husband and four children to be coming in from Chicago, and spent much of the week on the usual preparations ~ cleaning house, tending the garden, fixing the more obvious defects and hiding everything else under the rug or in the shed. I was vacuuming the bathroom floor I heard the burbling sound coming from the toilet. Turk came tearing around the corner.

“You hear that?”

“Yeah. The toilet is gargling.”

“Both toilets. It’s overflowing onto the carpet. The bathtub is full.” He disappeared. I opened the shower door. My shampoo went floating by.

Miraculously, we found a plumber, but not before some serious carpet damage had been done. We went ahead with plans for a family BBQ anyway. My husband hadn’t seen his niece since her mother (his sister) died about five years ago and was looking forward to her visit. He had just gotten home with several hundred pounds of meat and was about to light a fire when the phone rang. It was Mary Kate, and she wasn’t calling from the airport. Turns out she hadn’t been feeling that well and decided to stay in Chicago. She only just thought to call. Hope you didn’t go to any trouble, Uncle Turk.

We called friends and rounded up enough people with nothing else to do on a Saturday night (thank heavens our friends are no more popular than we are) and threw a mini shindig that grew lively when a heated argument broke out between Turk and Bill over the cause of the Civil War. You’d have thought they were veterans. A compromise was eventually reached and everyone parted as grateful citizens of a United America. You know it’s a good party when you can unite a divided nation and find glassware in the bushes the next morning.

All this is by way of saying I was really looking forward to yoga this morning. My chakras were off, my center akimbo and my aura needed highlights. I wanted to embrace a mellow universe. I wanted to be one with my fellow man.

Or so I told myself. The truth of the matter is that I am too cranky to be a really good yoga practitioner. I have a very pronounced ~ some might say exaggerated ~ sense of personal space. I understand that definitions of ‘personal space’ can vary greatly from culture to culture, with Americans tending to require more, Europeans and Asians less, but I certainly seem to need a lot.

This means that every time, like today, some woman comes toddling in 10 minutes late and slaps her mat down not 5 inches away from mine I get aggravated. And move delicately 4 feet away. And when a second woman comes in and repeats the action on the other side of me - in a huge room, mind you, with acres of empty space - I get really, really agitated. This is a problem.

Because yoga is really about letting go of that sense of self that becomes defensive at violations of personal space; it is the liberation of ego into an infinite universe. Namaste, the salutation repeated at the end of practice translates roughly as the divine in me recognizes the divine in you, and allows individuals to “come together energetically to a place of connection and timelessness, free from the bonds of ego-connection. If it is done with deep feeling in the heart and with the mind surrendered, a deep union of spirits can blossom.” Aadil Palkhivala

And therein lies the problem. I am deeply bonded with my own ego, and can’t let it go. And I want to, I really do. I am nothing if not a seeker of wisdom and truth, and to that end it could be argued that I surrendered my mind years ago. But I am also a westerner, a Brooklyn–born one at that, and am thus plagued by certain cultural limitations.

So it is with deep regret that I swear by my Uncle Vinnie that the next woman who throws down next to me and blocks my chakras by waving her divine feet in my face is …well, she’s not getting a Namaste from me, is all I can say.

Yeah, yeah…I know. Fuhgeddaboudit. And go in peace.

wistful thinking

I’ve been working on a new painting on and off for the past couple of weeks. It’s an abstract/expressionist sort of thing, the idea being to expand my horizons by pushing beyond the confines of subject matter and focusing strictly on paint, texture, color, and their relationship to each other. So far it’s been going relatively well, all things considered, but now the canvas seems to have turned a corner and entered an awkward stage, poised for the moment between two extremes. At this point, it could be an extraordinary work of unprecedented genius. Or it could be a train wreck. It could go either way.

For the painting has developed a mind of it’s own, and something of a personality disorder in the process. It’s defying me at every turn. The colors, once bright and clear have turned dark and brooding; the composition, originally accessible and well proportioned, now appears tight, intense and too closed in on itself.

The canvas is talking back and challenging me ~ it’s staying up late and wearing too much pigment; taking the car, smokin' the linseed, hittin' the turpentine. It’s threatening to run with a dubious crowd ~ Baziotes, Basquiat and Schnabel ~ oh, fine paintings if you like that sort of thing, but not exactly what I had in mind for it. I had planned on it hanging with more of a Johns, Bartlett, Miro set, a more subtle and refined bunch, to my mind and frankly I’m not willing to give up on that dream. Not yet.

So I feel as I imagine the parent of any such rebellious and angst ridden adolescent must feel ~ do I continue to try and impose my will upon such a reluctant canvas, for it is mine and I maintain the right to direct the course of it’s destiny, or do I relinquish the cherished illusion of omnipotence and serve merely as guide and conduit, keeping it as much out of trouble as possible, but otherwise letting the paint chips fall where they may?

The critic in me recognizes that this is all silly, romantic nonsense, of course. Painting is pigment, brush and canvas, and any skilled technician is fully in control of the process, from conception to final execution. But I am more fanciful than skilled, and can’t help thinking that sometimes things help create themselves, often in spite of our best efforts to control them.

I like to think that. It makes me happy to imbue such objects with free will. I enjoy them more; they become my friends. Some are prettily luminous; some dark and complex. Some are thoughtful and precise; others chaotic and entertaining. All are appreciated for their internal strengths and weaknesses, whatever they may be, and are revelations in their own way whenever they appear.

Also, if objects help to manifest themselves, it’s not entirely my responsibility if a piece turns out poorly ~ like Jessica Rabbit, they’re not really bad; they’re just drawn that way. Oh wait ~ I guess I do have to take the fall for that.

Never mind.

sibling rivalry

My brother has a red barn . I still find this fact a little amazing. Of course, I understand that barns are not unusual in many parts of the country. I've seen the pictures. I've even taken a few. It's just that, growing up as we did in New York, my brother always seemed like the last guy you'd figure to someday be the proud owner of an actual barn in rural/suburban Texas.

He's my only brother, just 13 months younger than I, and I'm afraid that growing up I treated him rather shabbily. There was the time Mom left us down in the basement to play for an hour and I painted him blue. I used to jump off the seesaw just to see him come down with a bang. And there was that day at Nunley's Amusement Park, when he came running up, excitedly calling my name, anxious for me to ride with him on the Ferris Wheel. I can still see his sweet, happy little face crumple as I, with cold-blooded calculation, summoned my cousin to ride with me instead. It pierces my heart like an arrow when I think of it now, that thoughtless cruelty of children, and its ensuing reminder of what a lousy big sister I could be. It could be that my callousness made him harder that day. It could be why he became a Republican. I have only myself to blame.

The years went by, we fought like cats and dogs, and by High School were barely on civil terms. He ran with the motor heads and guys who preferred Shop class to English Lit; I hung with the AP geeks who ran the school paper and fancied themselves intellectuals. He played in a band and had to beat the girls off with a club; I somehow managed not to have a date for the prom. When girls called for him, as they did constantly, I would answer the phone with all the charm of a surly prison guard.

"He's not here!" I would bark sullenly into the phone. "What do I look like, his secretary?" Our frequent arguments at the dinner table often ended with one of us declaring that when we were adults we would not allow our children to play with each other.

"Your kids are gonna be so messed up, I wouldn'twant my kids anywhere near them!" he'd fume.
“Fine by me. Your kids are gonna be so stupid my kids won’t want anything to do with them.”
"Your kids are gonna be dorks!"
"Yours are gonna be idiots!" Ad infinitum. Till my father shut us up, no doubt pondering a future filled with dorky, idiotic grandchildren.



Of course, that was a long time ago, and my two nephews are fine, handsome, intelligent and charming young men, of whom I am inordinately proud. Alas, the potential dorkiness of any offspring I might have had shall remain forever one of life's little mysteries. I suppose it would have depended on whether or not 'dork' is a dominant or recessive trait. I suspect the former.

Today, my brother has a beautiful, talented wife, a successful business, those two lovely boys, 3 dogs and a wide assortment of motor vehicles. He takes good care of our mom, who lives in an apartment built onto the house. He plays in a band that enjoys local popularity and regular gigs. He is kind, thoughtful and generous, with many friends and responsibilities, and when I am there we often laugh so hard we cry. Then we laugh some more. We used to do that a lot too, when we were kids.

We wish now that we lived next door to each other, and could be in each other's lives every day. But he's a Texan by choice, and I'm a Californian by nature. I crave the smell of ocean air; he needs to be surrounded by wide open spaces. The Lone Star state defines the meaning of the term 'conservative republican' and is home to it's highest leaders; I may as well have 'liberal' and 'kick me'tattooed on my forehead. Assimilation is not likely.

But then again, there is always that red barn. The Hubs and I could move in there. After all, what family wouldn't want a crazy old Auntie and a bookish Uncle Turk living in their barn? We could organize conflicting protests, and then all go out for dinner. Maybe some day, when we're older and...oh let's never say grayer. Blonder. For if life has taught me anything, it's that you never know what will happen.