Head Swimming with Wants

We're getting rain here in Los Angeles -- buckets and buckets of rain -- and the most beautiful winter sunsets. That picture above was taken on Saturday in Santa Monica. Carl and I were on the beach, and that's facing east, away from the ocean.

Turn around.

Today marked the first day of the second week of my new job teaching English to a group of eleventh and twelfth grade girls. I have three classes, two groups of eleventh graders and one group of twelfth. Each class is unique and one is particularly challenging. Anger and resistance make the air crackle in that room. Heads swim with wants. Take notes, I think. Keep taking notes. I have a mind and a memory like a steel trap, and these girls will join all the other hostages that wander the labyrinthine paths.

I get this newsletter every day from The New York Times newspaper cooking section. It's called What to Cook Right Now. I love it so much -- the recipes, the commentary, the links. Today I learned that it's the writer John Dos Passos' birthday (1896). I read nearly everything he wrote back in the last century, in my early twenties. I probably read him lying on a bed somewhere, maybe in the apartment where I lived with my first love, out in the country in Chapel Hill, a mattress on the floor at the top of the stairs, sandwiched between two walls and a window at the foot, a bookcase stuffed with used paperbacks. I might have been chewing on some Twizzlers when I read Dos Passos, red plastic mingling with brown must. Dos Passos was a hostage, though, wandering around my mind, lost down some dark corridor, until I read about him today.

Teaching these girls, doing the research for lesson plans, revisiting stories and poetry -- it's all packed in there, in my mind, and it seems that there's no end to what one can stuff into it. So, yeah. Take notes, I think. Keep taking notes.

Here's a passage from The 42nd Parallel that Sam Sifton, the guy from the NY Times newsletter thinks describes the writer's life. I agree.


The young man walks by himself, fast but not fast enough, far but not far enough (faces slide out of sight, talk trails into tattered scraps, footsteps tap fainter in alleys); he must catch the last subway, the streetcar, the bus, run up the gangplanks of all the steamboats, register at all the hotels, work in the cities, answer the want ads, learn the trades, take up the jobs, live in all the boarding houses, sleep in all the beds. One bed is not enough, one job is not enough, one life is not enough. At night, head swimming with wants, he walks by himself alone.

Things People Say: Beautiful Edition*

I stopped by my friend Craig's house today to check out his xeriscaping (that sounds sort of obscene or personal, but for those of you who live in areas of the world where it rains more than once every four years or so, it's what we do to cope with drought) and also had the pleasure of seeing his friend Tom. You might remember some years back when I wrote about Tom and his husband Ed whose 80th birthday party I had the privilege of attending and providing the cake. Tom and Ed have been together for well over forty years and listening to their stories about growing up gay in the thirties and forties of the last century, as well as being a couple in this one, were sobering, hilarious and fascinating. Both are the dearest and warmest of men, and it's such a privilege to run into either of them, even if was about 110 degrees outside. Today I had Sophie in the car, and when Tom walked up to it, I introduced him to Sophie. He said, Hi, Sophie! and I quickly told him that she wasn't able to talk but that she understood him. Tom said, just as quickly, Well, we have enough talkers on this earth, so that's just fine! 

Then the skies opened up with rain, cleansed my soul, and plumped up my heart so that I jumped out of the car and pledged my eternal troth to Tom for being such a beautiful, inclusive man. Just kidding on the rain part. I would have planted a giant kiss on his lips if my own weren't so damn dry. I did admire Craig's xeriscaping, though, and shed a bit of rain on my own when I drove away. I've said it before, dear Reader: sometimes it IS the small things that can make or break you.










* Things People Say is a device I use throughout my book in progress, but they're generally stories of more outlandish things people say when faced with Sophie's disability. It's been my experience that the sort of comment that Tom made is a rare exception to the rule.

Rapture in a Strip Mall

I was just about to combust when I received one of three daily phone calls from Sophie's school with an ever cheerful robot voice letting me know the latest salient facts regarding SENIORS. New readers might not be aware that Sophie, as a 20 year old, is still eligible to attend the great LAUSD, a mixed benefit that I am grateful for, I am, but that this is her third year as a SENIOR thus we are subject to all the excitement and responsibility that is due a SENIOR, all excitement that she is distinctly not a part of in any way but this robo call daily, until May of 2016 when she will not graduate but go on to her last and final SENIOR year. There will be no SENIOR portrait or cap and gown or prom or even a visit from the United States of America Marine Corps Recruiters (yes, they still call), and with the exception of the last, it makes me a bit bitter, a bit -- well -- combustible.

I didn't combust, though, because I left to have the most amazing lunch I've had in years and ended up in a near rapture. There's my hipster Instagram photo of homemade celeriac pasta with celery root, celery crudite with pickled mustard seeds, celery ash, and crispy Jerusalem artichoke. I ate this in about 3 seconds flat and then licked the plate. It's from a new little restaurant in a strip mall on Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood. The restaurant is called Baroo, but I will henceforth call it Rapture in a Strip Mall. Don't get your panties in the proverbial Biblical wad. The dish cost $9. The chefs are Korean, and I think the fanciest, most prestigious restaurants in the world might be missing a chef or two, and they're right here in the big shitty in a tiny place in a tiny strip mall. Seriously. Don't tell anyone.

Here's the dish that my friend ordered:

It was called the seaweed something or other and had grains and berries and horseradish and each flavor just hid, all subtle, and then jumped out at you as you chewed and then swallowed and then broke into tears. I won't even tell you about the shortbread, two tiny rectangles with some kind of little giblets of something or other on the top. My friend and I ate those standing up, outside the car, and it was sort of obscene given how high the temperature is today anyway.

This is why we live in the shitty, folks, even if God is still using the blowdryer on us, the humidity is rising, it's 104 degrees in the shade and we're praying that when El Nino comes, we don't return to the mud from whence we emerged.

Despite the Heat, It'll be Alright

Dang. Let's get some mileage from the weather here in the shitty. It's after 5:00 in the afternoon and still 95 degrees outside. It feels like God is blowing some giant blowdryer at us with all the lemon leaves curled up, the dogs' tongues, the palm fronds lethargic yet valiant and the crows silent. At last. I do dislike a crow. We're digging our new little smoothie/bullet/what the hell do you call it machine, mixing up coffee and ice and milk for me, protein powder, berries and yogurt for The Brothers. Lovin Spoonful or Joe Cocker? I have a funky right eye that's crusted over in the morning and tender during the day. The eye doctor says it's allergies, not infection, and the dry air. Stripped and parched, even my eyes.

Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty.

Here's Joe:

Rain on Dead Grass

As Denise says, "People take lots of photos of the rain in Los Angeles."

I left the sunny, warm Pacific Northwest and arrived home to the rainy, humid shitty. That's a photo of our back yard. We've let the grass die and plan on replacing it with drought-tolerant stuff. I'll make a couple dozen cupcakes for you if you design something for me because my creativity just doesn't extend to landscape design. I'm thinking a fire pit, some seating, maybe a meditation garden/labyrinth and a lap pool. Just kidding on the lap pool. The rain is nice, though, and today when I went to Trader Joe's, that's all anyone was talking about. As they stacked the avocados, two guys talked about the awesome thunder we all heard this morning, and pretty much everyone commented on how exciting it is to see water fall from the sky.

I'm finished unpacking and re-entrying. It's going well. I've only raised my voice once and badgered The Brothers over and over when they flew the small drone I had purchased for them outside before they'd gotten skilled at it, like I told them to, and it got stuck up in a tree. They connected about four long poles, broomsticks, lacrosse sticks and flagpoles together with duct tape, along with a citrus picker and managed to get the drone down, but the protective cage is still up in the sycamore. After raising my voice and badgering them, over and over, they informed me that it'll come down, Mom, in the fall.
My three weeks in the Hedgebrook wilderness have evidently changed me, though, because that response was adequate, I shrugged my shoulders and went back inside to read some more.

You know how when I got there it felt like I was hallucinating? After three weeks of solitude, intense writing, dreaming, walking, conversing with amazing women and having nearly every need met by the staff, I might be permanently stoned.

Three Pictures

When the sun goes down at the end of the day, it slants just so through the bathroom windows. I always think, it's the bathroom's favorite time of day.

Sunset was weird tonight, windy and orange-hued.The air was thicker than usual, and it might have sprinkled a bit here and there. It's never enough.

One drug, one month's worth. Thirty blue tablets, chock-full of chemicals that do terrible things but don't stop seizures. Someone's making money. You do the math.

January Sunset in Malibu

Oliver, his friend Mac, Sophie and I drove out to Malibu at 3:30 this afternoon. It was about 75 degrees today and gloriously sunny, but we hadn't been to the beach in ages, and we particularly wanted to catch the sunset. I drove my sexy white Mazda on Sunset Boulevard all the way from our neighborhood to the coast and then headed north so it took some time, but the drive was easy and the boys entertained themselves by counting luxury cars. Luxury cars here are not the Mercedes and BMWs, but the Lambos, the Maseratis, the Porsches, the Rolls, the Bentleys, the G-Wagons, etc. ad nauseum and every single one was noted, and either Mac or Oliver "claimed" each one as theirs and I just nodded my head and hmmmmmed. Boys who love cars are entirely nonplussed by middle-aged women who couldn't give a damn. 

The sunset, on the other hand, a couple of hours later, was easily the most spectacular that I'd ever seen. I'm serious. It brought me to tears. I'm prone to hyperbole, but this was something else -- first some gentle blues and then pastel sorbets and then a bit of pink and orange and then -- well -- see for yourself! The sky was literally glowing.

I swear to you that there are no filters on any of these photos!

I don't know where ya'll live, but you should move here. At least in January and February. The universe is particularly abundant, then.

DIY EEG

Alley behind Trader Joe's, La Brea

After delivering the lecture to end all lectures about everything I do for you, realizing all the while that when it's over 100 degrees outside, we're all a little irritable and therefore maybe I should just shut up, I ran out of the house and into my sexy Mazda and made a run to Trader Joe's where I bought what they all godd**n needed, and when I was paying, the cashier picked up the dark chocolate bar with hazelnuts and suggested that next time I make a cup of coffee, I should drop in a square of that chocolate and stir it around. Do it yourself, Mocha! he winked and he smiled and I smiled and then I took the alley way home and snapped that photo of a seemingly abandoned wheelchair facing what looked to be an artfully decorated junkyard. For a split heatstroke second I considered lifting it into the back of my car and bringing it home. Velcro straps, I thought, maybe a good cleaning? and then I came to my senses and pulled over only to take a photo, noticed the elephant roaring behind it all, thought about elephants in the middle of rooms, the unbloggable, long memories. Earlier today I was talking to my friend Jenny who asked how the EEG went last week, and I told her that due to the usual clusterfuck of insurance issues, we had to put it off. I was supposed to call the insurance company yesterday and request that they make it an exception and put the provider in-network. I was supposed to call the nice person who read my blog the other day when I talked about this, who happens to work for an EEG company and perhaps could help me. I was supposed to do both those things, but I let Monday pass, given the heat because I just couldn't do it, didn't have the patience or strength.and I let today pass given the heat because I just couldn't do it, didn't have the patience or strength, so I told my friend Jenny that perhaps I should do the EEG myself!  I screamed, A DIY EEG! and we continued to laugh. So, there's plenty of laughter, albeit the heatstroke kind, delirium from being too hot, but not the right kind of hot, elephants in the middle of rooms, wheelchairs in alleys and do-it-yourself EEGs.

There's still nothing to talk about but the heat

105 degrees and not even noon

Global warming, schmobal warming, saith the right wing pundits.

There's really nothing to talk about but the heat

Holy shit, right?