sometimes, when I'm sitting there, writing grant abstracts and pushing through performance reviews, I think to myself, that what I really want to be doing is creating 3-minute stop-animation cooking shows using candy and rubik’s cubes. Really, my talent is wasted here in “research”.

Or so, you know, I say.

all summer in a day

I think the sun is a flower
that blooms for just one hour

all summer in a day, ray bradbury, 1954

tommy!

sometimes what I love is the unchangingness of it all. I love going back and stepping back.

and really, going to tommy's can't be described as anything but stepping back. in all sorts of ways.

that bright red sign. the steeply gabled little stand. the attack pigeons.





I especially love the line drawing of mr. tommy. all smiles and hatchmarks. like, "you wanna some more ketchup? go ahead, they's a whole bucket of packets right in fronna you. take as much as you want. ketchup's good for you!"

and while you're waiting there for your tommyburger order, you're peering in, wondering who the tommy offspring are. is it the one cutting onions? the one on the phone? the one asking you if you want a large or supah-large coke?


and, then, voilà, tommy burgers. with a side of tommy fries. and fistfuls of ketchup packets.

a and yet, something is missing. something doesn't feel quite right. what is it? more ketchup?

...maybe...maybe, *s!, these just weren't ever as good as you're pretending to remember them as being.

somehow, I skipped straight from julian lennon's valotte to bon jovi's slippery when wet--though in hindsight, maybe not such a far leap after all. which the doors opened to all sorts of aquanet-sustained musical adventures. and then! 1987's appetite for destruction, which changed my life. but that's another story.

the point being there was a time when I cared that they replaced adam curry with riki rachtman. that's all.

les légumes de montréal

just to share memorable quotes from a weekend of guillaume (in no particular order, that's for sure):

7. oh, I'll eat chicken, for the right occasion. I'm not THAT kind of vegan.

6. I choose incurable halitosis over a walleye every time.

5. what's that smell? is it you? or...is it..me...?

4. oooooh, webbed toes?! I like this game!

3. what? I'm just letting the body do it's thing.

2. whoa. is this..lint? is it...NAVEL lint?

1. ve frainch, you see, ve aire vairy crue-ell to our cheeckens.

no one nose

this is what the new nose looks like.

as far as I can tell, it looks e-ZACKLY like the old one.

but really, who's to say? it's a pretty good nose, as far as I can judge. you know, straight. even tone and coloring. small pores. no stray hairs or extra bits of stuff.


it got me thinking about my own. I could probably use an upgrade. I've had this one for, like, forever. and I think it might be on its last legs. better dump it now before it craps out on me at some point when I really need it.

do they know it's thanksgiving

firstly, I can't believe we just ate thanksgiving dinner with a side of cranbelly jelly, sliced straight from the can. something about those acidic rings of jelly, with those ridges pressed into the sides makes me want to really put up a fight. like there isn't enough wrong with the world?

second, since when did they start showing five episodes of the twilight zone and calling it a marathon? and the worst five, too. you never let the viewers pick! they're idiots! they've probably got slices of cranberry jelly from a can on their tables!

gah. what exactly am I thankful for again?



o, right.

can we say goodbye to 2008 already?

a little more of less

there's nothing more satisfying than the thrill of getting rid of something. I love having less of something than when I started.

it almost doesn't matter what it is. cans in the cupboard, clothes in the closet, piles of papers, stuff.

I love bareness. the luxury of having less.


I'm packing up boxes and suitcases of things to take down and scatter as far away from me as possible.

it's already getting easier to breathe.

awake

I've had this dream every night I've slept since last friday:

it's pitch black and I'm opening my eyes, and I'm feeling really dizzy. I realize I'm outside, but I don't know why I'm there. it's dark, but not dark like night. dark like absence. there isn't a single sound and I feel like my ears don't exist anymore. I feel myself tilting around, but I either don't have arms or can't move them to help me balance. I'm just rooted to something by feet I can't feel and may not exist, swaying. nothing feels right.

I'm on the edge of something, something really, really tall. I can feel it in my body even if I can't see it or hear it. it makes me dizzier and I feel confused, out of control.

I feel my stomach heave into my chest, and I'm falling. everything has given way under me, and in the pitch blackness I can feel everything I've ever known rushing past my face. I strain to see, but I don't know if my eyes are closed or maybe that I don't have eyes anymore.

the bottom is approaching, and I can anticipate the hardness of it, and how fast I'm falling. it's a feeling of terror I can't even give thought to. and as everything in me turns completely out, I wake up, shivering in a cold sweat and lurching over to throw up.

it's to keep this dream away that I try and keep myself from falling asleep. 4:01 now, not too long before I can get up again.

any way you can, I guess

not that I have readers flocking to this imbecile blog or anything, but just out of curiosity, I ran a quick query on what people were searching for that led them to café bleu.

the overwhelmingly winning google search query? "pussy + cow"

whatever draws you in, I guess.

dumpster man

yesterday night I was walking home from the station, and although the area is perfectly safe, the block the station actually is on can sometimes creep into sketchville. it was like that last night when I got off the train, a little late, but made later, it seemed, by the fact that there isn't a single lamppost on that block.

I've walked that block a million times, twice a day, actually to and from work, and I don't usually think twice. but it was dark out, and unusual, I was the only person getting off.

the block is a short one, and at the end, the streets are well lit and there is usually some traffic. but there are some large trees on the way, and a couple of walls that lead into driveways. and it was out from behind one of these that what I thought was the dumpster man from mulholland drive lurched out at me.

now I know that it was just a very drunk man. and I've seen plenty of those, and dealt with plenty of them. but I could not care less what his story was. all I know is that I was alone and it was dark and this crazy man came out of nowhere and started grabbing me and even though he wasn't big, and he wasn't hurting me, I couldn't get away and I was really afraid.

we struggled for a bit, and I think I was too afraid to scream. or didn't even think of anything but trying to get away. and as we stumbled across the sidewalk, he tripped on a large root and momentary let go.

I ran.


I know this can happen anywhere, any time. but I really want to get out of this city.

11:45

I have to say, this is the most admirable defeat speech. and it makes me remember, for the first time during this entire election process, what made john mccain such an admirable and honorable man.

11:32

impressive.

9:04

texas has gone definitely red

8:46

this time, four years ago, DS and I were sitting in a bar, happily slurping down beers and munching away on burgers and fries, looking over at the numbers in blue on the flat screen monitor. and all that changed in a blur just 45 minutes later. so I'm not letting myself feel hopeful yet.

but what's up with that blue texas?

a touch of jinx

in 2000, eyes twinkling with the fervor of someone who sees, I worked on the fundraising team for ralph nader's campaign. even when he selected winona la duke as his running mate. of course, we all know how that turned out.

2004 rolled around and I threw my weight behind john kerry, working the campaign phones. I especially loved his choice of john edwards, hero to the old- and modern american, a man who had been putting his money where his mouth and politics were for over 20 years, as his running mate. november 4th, 11pm, we sat holding warm beers and cold chili cheese fries at tír na nÓg, bleaking counting the points rolling in the wrong direction.

2006. it's a new year and I've new hope in the attorney from north carolina who was going to reform economic, education and healthcare policies in a way that finally would make sense to the people who needed some sense offered them. for the first time I not only contribute time but money, and put both where my mouth is.

2008 and there is the smell of something new in the air. there's no way I'm going to touch this one. if there's something I've learned, it's to stay away. all I did was push a couple of buttons this morning, and say a prayer.

good to know

gregory peck was on the rowing team at berkeley. a fact that I find comforting. this, in a time when I need some comfort.

I vote obama, after all

back in february, I wrote about my thoughts on john edwards as he stepped away from his run for the presidency.

I can't even begin to tell you what the latest news has meant to me. it feels like such a personal betrayal, a breakdown of everything I wanted to believe in.

so instead, I'm going to let youtube say it for me:



thanks, bean, for the tip

rinse, repeat

they were airing this back in the 70s, when we were burning up fossil fuels for fun, just because we could!

ladies & children hair dressing

nothing, just that I love this building.

jackpot

it started off with a craving for mcvitie's tea biscuits and some cadbury milk bars. and a rumor that somewhere in the barren northwest of the city, there was a shop that sold them. and more.

so with just that information, and nothing more, we set off in neil's car. headed west, then north, zigging through the streets, pausing at potentials.

nearly an hour later, we were running out of steam, and so was the car. it was dark outside, and so we pulled into a sunoco gas station to regroup. and! just as we got out of the car, neil let out a yelp and motioned over. a mcvitie's sighting!

and lo, we walked into the sunoco convenience store, and feasted our eyes (and later our mouths) upon rows and rows of aero bars:


turkish delights and galaxy bars:

cadbury and bottles of lucozade:

and bags and bags of walker's salt & vinegar crisps!

and, o, the mcvitie's:
all in all, a worthwhile adventure.

a day in the life

I first picked up a day in the life of ivan denisovich in the 7th grade. there was something about it, that read so foreign and greyish-green compared with the smooth yellows and blues of early-century american literature, that it felt like everyone had been lying to me all those years. why weren't we reading this in english?

the cancer ward was next, and I reread that book until I could quote at length from it, making up reasons to if they didn't come naturally.

his books were the first that reached into some place in me I didn't have a name for, the place that drives me to look around at my world and work to leave an indelible mark in it, no matter how small.

and so, to a man who did leave his mark in it, smaller in some circles than in others. but indelible, definitely.

I love this photograph of him during his exile in vermont, he just looks like a communist:

alexander solzhenitsyn, 1975

ps: deacs, he died, in case you're wondering what this post is about.

the jam--in the city

in the city there's a thousand things I want to say to you:




I came about the jam totally backwards, starting first with paul weller, diving head first into the style council, and then somewhere around college, year 3, came up with This Is The Modern World in the Used bin at Amoeba.

put a thin, pale, shag-haired boy with thin wrists in a peg-legged suit and you'll always get 3 1/2 minutes of my attention.

Expectations

It humiliates me to admit this, but almost everything I know about love and relationships, I’ve gleaned off of 80s hair metal videos. Falling in love during long nights stretched out on fur in front of a marble-fronted fireplace. Passionate moments framed through blurry, mist-blotted windows. A painful breakup silhouetted in the headlights of a car parked in the rain. Making up over long, steamy kisses with the fog (machine) swirling around you.

In the end, does it mean anything at all if he’s not chasing after you, falling to his knees screaming your name while he rips off his shirt in the rain? And how will he know what love is if you’re not dancing for him on the hoods of your two jaguars parked in the driveway outside your English country home, which by the by, is being renovated on during the day by a troop of solidly built, long-haired and desperately woman-hungry musicians?

I never doubted for a moment that by this age, everything I knew would come into play and that I would be in love someone who looked startlingly like David Coverdale. A man who can bend that far back whilst yowling and wearing skintight leather pants BUT still laugh about it is surely the man of my dreams. All that hair and teeth and loudly declared adoration.

So why is it then, that nothing has lived up to the smoke and glitter of those early images? Instead of arguments that can be instantaneously resolved by my provocatively dancing around the room in stilettos and hot makeout sessions atop british luxury automobiles, I’m forced into endless conversations about trust and future and crap.

Someone hand me some scarves and an Aerosmith album, please. Seriously, I want my MTV.

summer list

5 things I swore I would do this summer, and still haven't:

1. go to the beach. or the shore. or wherever it is that I can set my blanket on the ground and lie down, listening to the ocean lapping at the edge of the earth.

2. get rid of the 15% extraneous crap in my life. that means you, pal.

3. learn to play "I Will" on the guitar.

4. go visit friends in california, like I say I'll do every year.

5. stop bleaching my hair blonde.

subway!

maybe I'm wearing the wrong bra

...because something seems to be going wrong here.

my way

huh?

I don't know what this is from, but I found it in a corner of my computer desktop. just thought I'd offer it up as a saturday tribute:

love is for losers

I suppose it's always tragic when a love story falls apart. or in this case, a beanie-baby filled marriage crumbles under the weight of infidelity. but still, it is one of the funniest things I've read in a while, and I thank the internet for laying it at my feet like a drowned worm after a rainstorm:

http://nomarriage.com/ebay.html

what is the deal...

...with dudes sneezing into the inside of their elbows? who okayed this? all of the sudden, I see men catching their sneeze flecks inside the crooks of their arms. I guess it's a little better than sneezing into your hand and then rubbing it all over someone, but is it all that much? I mean, can't you just lean over and grab a kleenex? jeez.

...people thinking that just because they can't see something going on behind them, it means no one else can. note to you, dude in the elevator this morning, just because you can't see yourself reach behind and pick your underwear from deep within the crevice of your ass doesn't mean I can't see you do it. and one of the last things I want to see at 9 in the morning is someone's forefinger disappear up to the second knuckle into their own ass. or anyone else's for that matter.

...with people pronouncing plural words ending in "--es" as "ees". it started with a meeting three years ago where I heard "processes" pronounced "processees" and thought that was a semi-lame idiosyncracy. but now I'm hearing it all the time. it's as if we as a people aren't able to absorb more than one spelling rule at a time. as far as I know, you only say "ees" if the word already ends in "-is" and you have to change it to "-es" for the plural. you don't pronounce any word ending in "-es" as "-ees". just the other day I heard "practicees". ermf.

there are many things to be said about batman returns, and I plan to get around to saying them all. just not quite yet.

until then, I leave you with this:

and, no. none of the things I want to say can ever be filed under "heath ledger's oscar-worthy performance".

why getting your phd is like getting your hair done

"hey blondie!" is how bill greets me every time he sees me. and I have to admit it gives me a secret thrill.

it was only supposed to last a couple of months, for fun. but somehow it stuck, and sometimes I find myself forgetting that I'm not actually a blonde. I look in the mirror and I forget that if I don't go to my hair people every 6 weeks, I don't look anything like this.

sort of like grad school, actually. statistics, ha. the little thrill of seeing the look on my friends' faces--why in the world would you get a phd in statistics?--was enough to make the joke worthwhile. are you seriously moving to the east coast? made it fun to pack up and do it. but here I am, now forgetting the joke and starting to believe that actually, yes, this is my life.

besides, I like the way it looks:

Rupert!

and introducing my new obsession:

Rupert

why I hate flowers

it's because invariably, when someone gives you flowers, they're really trying to say one of the following:

12345 * I know you said you didn't want a corsage of white baby
12345 * roses but I'm a college sophomore taking a high schooler
12345 * to prom and I say you wear these white baby roses
12345 *
12345 * I brought you a $20 bouquet of flowers. so...ah....what
12345 * are my chances of...ah...you know...tonight?

12345 * I'm sorry I fucked up

12345 * I'm sorry I fucked up again


sigh. at least it's not prom season.

hippie advice

the reason I don't listen to hippies is that they're so hyperbolic. everything is so amazing, so delightful, so awesome. this is especially true when it comes to their hippie treatments and cures. remedying everything from migraines to dry skin to cancer, these secret recipes are usually handed down from a friend of a friend of a friend who met some tribal healer during a climbing/walking/being tour of nepal/india/tibet and brought back the ancient secret to share with close friends of the modern world. a lot of the time, this ancient secret was brought back through customs, wrapped in several layers of socks and smelling suspiciously like bad pot. but, whatever.

so of course, when I first heard about the neti pot from a hippie friend, I acted all interested but immediately filed it away in my "riiiight" file. the thing is, I've suffered from allergies and sinus infections for most of my life. doctors have put me on all sorts of medications, and I've tried everything in the Allergy & Sinus aisle at the drugstore. none of it works, and so the thought of mixing up a tub of salt water solution and then hosing the inside of my nose with it every morning didn't seem all that promising. besides, all I could think of was that feeling you get when you're at the beach and you accidentally breathe in a wave of seawater. the way the inside of your head burns and is raw for hours afterwards.

but after I moved back here, my allergies and sinus infections flared up like never before. they were so bad they started triggering migraines, and entire months went by where I felt like I was looking out at the world through a grease-smeared lens with an arrow buried deep behind my eyes. and meanwhile, it seemed as if everyone was talking about how the neti pot had changed their lives. so the next time I walked by the hippie store, I picked one up.

it took me a couple of days to actually take it out of the box, but I finally mixed up my 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt with warm water and tilted my head over the sink, with the spout of the pot firmly plugging my nostril.

and, voila! it is surprisingly easy to use. almost failproof. the water actually just flowed into my nose and out the other nostril. just like they said it would. no coughing or choking. yes, it did feel a little odd to feel water so close to my eyeballs. but not painful. like a bath. a salty one. for the inside of your head.

and now I've been doing it almost every day since, and it's been almost two months.

so, do I have some great turnaround story for you? living an allergy- and sinus infection- and migraine-free life? turning to the hippies for all the secrets of life?

hardly.


the moral of this story is, sometimes, you're just screwed with bad sinuses.

the fourth...dimension

all my growing up, I waited in anticipation for the fourth of july to roll around, so I could wake up and park myself in front of the television for a 16-hour stint of the twilight zone marathon.

twice a year, on the fourth and on thanksgiving, channel 5 (ktla! home of the family film festival!) would run an 8am-to-midnight marathon of rod serling-hosted morality tales. be nice to your neighbors, even when under threat of alien control. think happy thoughts lest the neighbor boy turn you into a human jack-in-the-box. be vigilant in checking your walls for rips in the fabric of time and space. you know, the usual.

there were some that you'd see every year: the murderous chatty cathy, darren from bewitched and his day being able to hear people's thoughts, the nerdy book-loving banker at the end of the world, willoughby, "to serve man", all of the ones where you accidentally sell your soul to the devil only to have him cash it in at the worst time possible (pb, beware!)...

but there were always a few that I was never able to catch. my sister told me of one where the humans kill the alien bearing the gift of a cancer cure in a fit of humanness (that on the twilight zone always expresses itself in murder), and I waited around for years trying to catch it. I even doubted its existence, considering that by the time I left my parents' home (and its cable hookup), I'd taken it approximately 350 hours of marathon time. surely, I'd've caught it once?

you would think that, wouldn't you? but it wasn't until I bought myself Twilight Zone: The Complete Definitive Collection last year that it was confirmed--Season 3, Episode 97: The Gift. after all these years, I feel like burgess meredith's henry bemis. all the time in the world to luxuriate in all the piles and piles of episodes I've ever wanted. of course, now that I have it, I haven't even opened most of the DVDs. who has time for 156 segments? how do you choose which ones to watch?

thank god for the sci fi channel. it's 1.25 and I've already gotten in billy talking to his dead grandma, a colony face-off between martians and venutians in a diner, and several planes flying into the future/past. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there's an alien walking into a mexican village with a notebook under his arm coming up.

Happy Fourth of July

dried up

it really just feels like there's nothing left to say. or rather, that there's nothing left in me worth saying. or maybe I'm just full up on things that aren't sayable?

what is this?



as my mind aimlessly ambles through time and space, I can sometimes feel a few brittle marbles clacking against each other:

are kate perry and zooey deschanel the same person?
does amy winehouse wear that beehive switch even when she's alone?
how can a gang of chumpsters like coldplay keep producing such great music?
is john mccain's cheek looking more swollen than before?
when did eating at the olive garden become the new "I shop at target" for celebrities?

reasons why ABDC2 isn't as good as the first

1. the judges are watching a little too much american idol
1. and adopting stock personalities. it's not natural to
1. pause so dramatically between words. simon,
1. randy and paula are the reason AI sucks. I don't
1. want to see them here. just talk to us about the
1. dancing.

2. the I-want-to-dance-to-gain-my-parents-love-and-respect
2. thing was already taken by kaba modern's yuri last
2. season, cute asian girl from so real crew. make up a new
2. dramalogue.

3. what made fysh n chicks so great was that they were
3. girls but danced like the boys. take a note, girl crews
3. who are really trying to be the pussycat dolls. this is
3. a breaking competition, not an ass-shake festival.

4. jc chasez has stopped listening to his stylist, as evidenced
3. by his outfit at the the first showcase--grey leather
3. wraparound 80s zipup vest over a heavy black shirt
3. complete with wrist tassels???!!!

5. they still haven't gotten rid of mario lopez

scavenger hunt