Brunette on a Budget

Adios, muchachos

2010-09-20T04:50:00.010+01:00

Hello, goodbye.

The time has come to say goodbye to this blog.

Why? Frankly, I feel too many people read it. It's one thing having strangers around the world reading up on my weekly exploits, but it's another having casual acquaintances check out what I've been up to or read what I think about J, our marriage, my career, or other facets of my life. I never thought I'd be saying this but I don't want the details of my life to be so public. At least not to people I kind of know.

I want to be more honest about my thoughts; I want to be more raw about my life. And so I've decided to abandon ship here on Brunette on a Budget and start over again, completely anonymous on a new blog. I get that if I want to be private about my feelings I should probably just buy a moleskin and call it a day, but ever since I've started blogging I've fallen in love with it. I get a thrill each time I hit "publish" and don't want to give that up. Instead, I'm willing to give up my online identity. On my new blog there will be no name, no picture, no location, and I'm beyond thrilled to have a fresh, anonymous start. (Is this an iota of the way Madonna feels each time she reinvents herself? Because the feeling is so liberating.)

I will miss it here, though, and I'll miss you, dear reader-friends. It's been an amazing 2+ years and leaving now feels like the end of an era. When I started this blog in May of 2008, J and I were just settling into life in DC and this was meant to be a creative outlet outside of work on those long nights when J studied in the law library and Lola and I sat home watching Grey's Anatomy. My initial focus on this site was personal finance (hence the name) and I blogged about financial matters for months until my writing morphed into more personal narrative as I figured out my life and where I was going. That led to the infamous I did it. I quit my job post, which kicked off my journey into fiction writing and now, a year and a half later, my entry back into the workforce. P.S. If you're wondering, I do still write but wish, like before, that I could commit all of my time to it (she said, longingly).

Now I feel there are too many eyes on this blog and I can't say everything I want to say, and so I'm peacing out. I have one book review that I promised to write in October, but after I post it on Oct. 18th, this blog will officially become stagnant. Over on my new blog I'll continue to write about J, The Nana and the rest of my cast of characters; I'll continue to make like Rita Hayworth and Put the Blame on Mame; I'll continue to update about my book progress (J's currently editing manuscript #1 with me); and I'll update about writing my third novel in November for NaNoWriMo (my outline is already coming together -- I can't wait!!). Best of all, I'll continue to blog about my life, but this time more boldly. More honestly.

I'm almost finished setting up my other website, so if you want to follow me into anonymity email me at brunetteonabudget@gmail.com and I'll let you know once it's up and running (include your blog link if I don't know you.) If not you can always still find me on Twitter.

Hopefully we'll meet each other all again on our long journey to the middle -- till then, ciao ciao!

A night with Lady Gaga at the Monster Ball

2010-09-14T16:39:00.014+01:00

In terms of concerts, the Monster Ball tour I went to last month was definitely in the Top 5 Best Concerts of my life (dare I say she beat out David Bowie when I saw him at the Shrine in LA?)

I got decked out in tranny heels and red lipstick; my bff donned a black and white Rhythm Nation ensemble (complete with fingerless-leather glove), and we had fun people-watching in the lobby before the show started:

This Gaga lookalike (above) only wore these sequin disco boots, booty shorts and hat. The rest of her body was covered with rhinestones.

More little monsters (above).

When all 20,000 of us were packed into the pavilion and the lights dimmed, the crowd erupted into screams and cries, waiting for Gaga to emerge. But first, for the intro, a giant projected video played on a 30-foot white sheet hung above us, hiding the stage behind it:

It was ah-mazing. The visuals mixed with her looped voice saying "I'm a free bitch" over a remix of CeCe Peniston's "Finally" made for the perfect concert intro (and ringtone, if I could just find this version online). The rest of the show -- which was more a "pop-electro opera" -- was spectacular:

Holding her Disco Stick...get it?

One of my favorite parts of the show (above and below) was when she sat down and sang Speechless -- just her and her piano. As she sang the ballad the piano went up in flames.

I mean, who plays a guitar with the stiletto heel of her patent leather boot? Gaga, that's who. Loved!

Singing "So Happy I Could Die" in a moving headpiece (above, below).

What I loved most about Gaga live was that unlike any other act I've seen (and I've been to many concerts), Gaga actually succeeded in creating a connection with her audience. Between each song she'd pause to speak with us as though she and the 20,000 people facing her that night were having an intimate chat over coffee (one-way, of course). I have no idea if she actually does care for her "Little Monsters" as much as she lets on, but the point is she made us believe she cares about us. She made us believe that she wouldn't be where she is without us, her fans, her little monsters. Many stars have spun the "Thank you to my fans" spiel, but none pull it off like Lady Gaga -- her love for her fans seems genuine, and this makes us love her more.

At the concert I also loved how empowering she was to the crowd. At one point between songs, she said (verbatim):

"I've got to know so many of you and you've made me so brave. I wasn't brave before but I'm brave now because of you. So now I'm gonna be brave for you. Tonight I want you to free yourself. I want you to let go of all your insecurities. I want you to reject anyone that's made you feel like you didn't belong or you didn't fit in or told you 'No, you can't do it' or you're not good enough or thin enough or you don't have enough money or you're not pretty enough or you can't sing well enough or dance well enough or play well enough -- you remember that you're a superstar and you were BORN THAT WAY."

"Tonight will be your liberation. YOUR LIBERACION!!" (with a snarl).

That was, without a doubt, my favorite part of the whole night. I knew, right then, that I was a diehard fan.

One of those days...

2010-09-09T23:02:00.005+01:00

Not to be too cryptic, but this basically sums up my mood for, oh, the entire week:

I've had enough; O-Ren Ishii is now my alter ego. Not that I'm going to run across tables chopping people's heads off now...but that's what your imagination is for, right?

A weekend of copious consumption

2010-09-07T23:26:00.004+01:00

Last week was mucho stressful at work, so I was obvi ecstatic when the three-day weekend rolled around -- and for once it didn’t fly by like weekends so often do.

On Friday night I got home and stuffed my face with Trader Joe’s frozen pomegranate seeds (aka “kernels of rapture”) while waiting for my sister to arrive (she lives in San Jose and was heading up to visit for the night). We had no real plans other than to consume brownie batter, listen to ‘80s music and hold a finger-nail painting session with my newest pink polish, but after she arrived we all decided to head over to this fabulous little Japanese joint called Shiro for happy hour. Sushi is only $3.50 a roll during happy hour at Shiro (score) but we got so carried away that we ate $100 worth, which, as you can imagine, is a whole lot of sushi. (To be fair our friend Doug also joined us, so the meal was dispersed four ways.)

We decided to make a night of it by having “tastings” at other restaurants within walking distance. First up was Modern China, a lux Asian-inspired restaurant with standard, Asian-inspired décor. The kind of place you’d expect to see on a Sex and the City set. The swank patio out front housed a dozen or so tables near a tall, trickling Zen fountain in one corner and a giant Buddha statue near the back. I had wanted to try it in forever, but apparently I’m a sucker for atmospheric cliché, since Modern China was…well…underwhelming to say the least. We had cocktails and appetizers, which basically equated to pineapple juice in a martini glass and a two pieces of cold, ill-tempura’ed tempura shrimp with what tasted like Trader Joe’s sweet and sour sauce on the side. (Not that I don’t like TJ’s sauces, but c’mon, really? I thought, guzzling the last of my frothy pineapple frappe.) From the outside the restaurant seemed hip, but if you looked past the hollow Buddha statues and Zen fountains, it was just one big, hot mess. Especially since they were playing loud latin salsa music that really didn’t go with the décor, which begged for more of a downtempo, ambient soundtrack. Clearly the Modern China folks didn’t get the memo on that one. It’s like mixing a Western theme with chop suey -- just…no. I could go on and on, but I’ll save my review for the new foodie blog, “Eat the Creek," that J and I have started.

PRESSING FORWARD….

After imbibing on food and spirits all night, I sent J off the next day to play golf with his brother while my sister and I ~~took in some cardio~~ went shopping! Highlights included buying a Spaghetti Western-inspired camel-colored poncho from H&M. When I saw said poncho I suddenly heard: “In this world there's two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns, and those who dig” (uttered, of course, by Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly). I knew right then I had to have it. I own a certain pair of boots that have been practically begging to be worn with a poncho.

After a few hours of shopping sis and I had too many bags to walk the five blocks home with, so ~~my chauffeur~~ J picked us up after golf, we plowed through a bowl of brownie batter at home, then she headed back to San Jose.

That night J and I had dinner reservations at this Vietnamese restaurant called Élevé near our apartment. The calories from the last 24 hours weren’t settling well, but I threw a dress and heels on anyway, determined not to let some poor eating choices hamper my night. And I’m so glad I soldiered on because the food at Élevé was spectacular, in every varying shade of the word. Élevé is best-known for their cocktails (I tried the Moscow Mule on hand-chipped ice – divine!) but their food was top-notch as well. We had the shrimp spring roll appetizer in soft rice paper with peanut sauce, then for an entrée I ordered the sticky rice claypot replete with thick, succulent prawns, shiitake mushrooms and sweet onions. For our side we ordered the carmelized root vegetables – carrots and other “roots” tossed to perfection in a candied ginger glaze with hints of nutmeg and other spices.

The ambiance was cool and sophisticated (the bar against the wall had backlights, giving it that contemporary urban vibe), we got to sit at a table near a window, and the service was impeccable. In the words of Travis Birkenstock, “Two very enthusiastic thumbs up. Fine holiday fun.”

Then came Sunday, wherein J and I spent all afternoon admiring furniture at Scandinavian Design, before buying a living room set on clearance ($1,200 marked down to $479, die!). The sofa and chair set are very mid-century modern -- something you’d expect to see in an office at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce -- which is perfect for me.

On Monday I visited with friends over Chipotle and a big, honking scoop of ice cream from the San Francisco Creamery (i.e., solid, delicious fat in a cone, with chocolate chips). And...Jesus, reading over this post makes me feel ill; clearly this week will be all about detoxing (that Mrs. Field’s chocolate chip cookie I had today at lunch does not count). All the food and furniture buying was delicious and satisfying, but now I feel like my stomach and my wallet need a break from all the mass consumption.

Ever feel that way?

Young at heart

2010-09-02T19:46:00.016+01:00

That is all.

Earlier this summer, back when I hung out with The Nana every afternoon, we one day found ourselves en route to a swank retirement community to pick up her 99-year-old best friend, Gladys.

Nana had wanted to introduce us for a while and officially inaugurate me into the “ladies who lunch” club so I happily obliged, not knowing what to expect as I’d never hung out with a 99-year-old before. What would we have in common besides a love for a coral nail polish, Glenn Miller and a shared disdain for today’s youth? Turns out my knowledge of 99-year-old peeps (which doesn’t really extend beyond George Burns in that movie where he played God), was way off.

Right away I was surprised by how spry Gladys was. Sure, it had been ages since she’d driven a car and probably should have been regularly using her four-legged cane for walking, though she refused (I don’t blame her: all a cane does is date you, plus it’s much more satisfying using some nearby person’s arm if you ever need to break a fall). But “old” was something Gladys was not. Maybe she wasn’t going to be doing handsprings down her front lawn anytime soon, but she was young at heart. Though I’d only just met her Gladys still had the sharp, witty personality she most likely possessed in her formidable years -- plus she still had the energy to drag a full watering can from the kitchen to the back patio to water her hydrangeas, and still wore makeup daily. My kind of woman (age is no excuse to let yourself go).

With Gladys in tow and Nana behind the wheel of her Volvo station wagon, the three of us headed to Gladys’ favorite lunch-spot, Fresh Choice, which I was more than happy with. (Ever tried their chicken noodle soup? It’s exquisite.)

After a slight situation in the Fresh Choice parking lot that involved Nana’s Volvo lurching over a curb to nab the last handicap space from another circling car of famished senior citizens with what I can only guess was a hankering for all-you-can-eat cornbread, we arrived. During the car-ride there, when Nana and Gladys weren’t discussing ceramics projects and misplaced handicapped placards, they kept raving about the muffins at Fresh Choice.

“They’re incredible, darling,” Nana said over her shoulder to me more than once. I told her I couldn’t wait to try them.

“…Oatmeal, pumpkin, blueberry…” she continued, as Gladys nodded next to her in the passenger seat and I grew hungrier with each flavor ticked off. My flavor palate swings wide, from Taco Bell up to 6-course meals, so I knew these Fresh Choice muffins were going to be simply divine.

And they were. Until my lunching companions let me in on a little secret, or was it a ritual? Induction into the club? I wasn’t sure. I’d just brought back a plate of their beloved muffins for us to share when Nana stood up to get more food. She returned with a stack of napkins and another plate of muffins, many the same flavors I had already carted back.

Me (pointing at plate): “Oh, Nana, I already brought muffins for us…”

Nana: “I know, dear.”

Did they really expect we’d eat all these? Gladys had barely touched her salad and Nana had only one bowl of noodle soup, but thus far each had downed copious amounts of muffins. A feat in itself for a couple lithe ladies with weak stomachs.

Just as I was about to ask how we could possibly eat all said muffins, they both pulled napkins onto their lap from the stack. Without speaking, they reached for a muffin each and slyly looked around as they pulled the baked goods onto their laps and into the napkins, where they wrapped them up and slipped them discreetly into their purses.

Okay. Were we seriously doing this?

My days of poaching food from buffets stopped ages ago when I learned to get my adrenaline high from other places like robbing banks and stealing cars. (Only in my dreams.)

“Nana!” I whispered, in mock horror. “What are you doing?”

“Honey, grab a napkin,” she retorted back in a whisper.

Apparently this was how Nana lived on the edged.

“It’s ok,” I said. “I –“

“Just do it!” Gladys whispered, chiming in. “Here.” She pushed the plate nearer to me.

So that’s how these women stayed young at heart. It wasn’t that they couldn’t afford the muffins or that the delicate flavors of pumpkin spice were so breathtaking. Rather, it was akin to the rush you got as a teen from secretly nabbing an antenna ball off a parked car or sneaking alcohol from your parents’ liquor cabinet. Did you really need the antenna ball or the alcohol? (Nevermind, don’t answer that.) No, but it was the act of getting it that was the thrill.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken buffet food home in my purse but I thought, “What the hell.” You only live once. And maybe that’s what I needed to feel a little young again myself (recently turning 28 did a number on me, I confess.)

Placing the napkin in my lap I peered around, straight-faced, as I picked up a muffin and pulled it slowly onto my lap with “take more, take more” being urgently whispered in the background. Once outside, our purses full of just-for-the-hell-of-it muffins, we let out a laugh over our victory and hobbled back to the station wagon, Nana and Gladys on either side of me, our arms interlocked.

It was official: I had been inducted into the club.

Some "totally awesome" news

2010-08-23T17:35:00.013+01:00

Guess who just bought a car!

Me!!

J and I have been looking at cars for the past month and decided our favorite car within our price range was a 2003-04 C-series Mercedes Benz. (Jon Hamm being the official voice of the brand played no part in my decision. I swear.) We were going to take our time looking for the right one when J emailed me at work last Thursday, telling me our little Hyundai wasn’t going to pass smog this month because…it needed a new cat converter (wah wahhhh). Since the Hyundai was always supposed to be a temporary car and we had paid so little in cash for it nearly four years ago, we decided to nix dumping money into it and instead upgrade our lives.

So we did that Thursday night after I got off work:

It went down something like this on Thursday:

5:00 pm: Leave work
5:05 pm: J picks me up at the curb. (Curb-side service. Score.)
5:25 pm: Test driving our Benz.
5:45 pm: Going over price/technicals with dealer. Bargained down $2,000.
6:05 pm: Signing paperwork
6:06 pm: Freaking out.
6:35 pm: Leaving dealership to Black Eyed Peas on the radio.

I named it Andiamo, because it purrs down the freeway at 80. And it’s shiny. So shiny. I love how shiny it is. It makes me want to rub it gingerly with a diaper and sing songs to it in a Barry White voice. In the words of Lester Burnham (he, of American Beauty fame): “It’s the car I've always wanted and now I have it. I rule!”

I never thought back in April that my financial life would be so different mere months later, but it still hasn’t sunken in that it’s mine. Sitting there, surrounded by leather, I can’t help but feel that I’m sitting in a corporate rental car or something, mine only for the weekend till I have to hand in the keys and fly home. But it’s not a rental. It’s mine. And I’m already home.

Some people wonder why, in the last year and a half, I worked hard saving. Obvi it was because with no incoming salary and the little part-time work I had not amounting to much, my savings had to stretch. Which was expected and completely fine, leaving my job to write was THE best decision of my life. In the words of Madonna, “Absolutely. No. Regrets.” *said with a deadpan expression while wearing ostentatious sequined leotard and clutching disco-inspired horse-riding whip*

Sure the compromise was inevitably going to be scrimping, but it was a small price to pay. Andiamo was worth it. I paid almost entirely cash for the car and it felt so fulfilling driving off the lot, truly owning something of value. The feeling is so different than the quick high I used to get from buying a few nice dresses from Banana. This purchase, in contrast, feels like an actual reward for all that time I spent budgeting and saving. It's like that scene in Almost Famous when Stillwater upgrades from their broken down old bus and heads down the tarmac to board their shiny new plane.

Next big purchase: A house. Probs within two years, but we’ll see. In the meantime I’ve become one of those people who looms outside of your friendly neighborhood Safeway in front of the real estate publication racks, flipping through house catalogues and carting home dozens at a time.

Sun, sea and ceviche

2010-08-19T14:41:00.008+01:00

I’m baa-aack. Tanned. Rested. ~~Ready to take another vacation~~rejuvenated. Cabo was spectacular (though let’s face it, anytime we get to travel with passport we’ve never been disappointed). The last 7 days/6 nights of rest, relaxation and “together time” were very much needed. It felt like my psyche (which has been uber-stressed out in the last month) finally got a full-body massage...if that makes sense.

Pictures at bottom, but highlights included:

Swimming in the Sea of Cortez. Me, floating in a tropical blue ocean = two thumbs up; fine holiday fun.

Ceviche. Lots of ceviche. All day, every day. There’s something so calming about sitting at an open-air restaurant and eating fresh seafood in view of turquoise waters a stone's throw away. The accompanying Spanish guitar music was also a plus. Well played, resort hotel.

Floating in the pool for hours, pina colada in hand. More than half our days were something along the lines of this:
People-watching. A guilty pleasure of mine, people-watching was taken to all new levels in our resort pool, which was more or less a tepid melting pot filled with people from all over the world. Our favorites? Two couples from Jersey on holiday together. The portly, tattooed, gold-chain-resting-in-a-thicket-of-chest-hair-wearing men would sit waist deep in the pool discussing what “ballers” they were as their wives took thousands of “kissy face” pictures (of MySpace fame) in bikinis on their pool chairs. On the other hand it was fascinating listening to so many conversations in so many different languages, all in one hotel/town and not just at an airport (where it's expected). One of my favorite mornings was spent eating breakfast at a table near a group of old tanned and leathery Italian couples. It was like I was in Italy all over again. Mi piace.

Food.Once the wristbands were in place on arrival, everything was unlimited and in excess. Let’s just say a certain serve-yourself fro-yo machine near the pool snack bar was a good friend of mine. There was one especially hot afternoon when J and I walked around the pool in our swimsuits for about an hour, each lap stopping to get another scoop of fro-yo. I think we had about five cones that hour. Calories don’t exist when I’m on vacation.

Uninterrupted reading, without social plans/work/commuting/errands/exhaustion from the aforementioned screwing it up. Every single day/night/weekend since we've moved back to CA has been planned and scheduled and I haven't had any downtime to relax. So I bought The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in the airport on our way down to Mexico and seven days later I was reading through the last few pages. I know this doesn’t seem like a highlight, but I had to include it because the only times I was able to devour a 650-page novel in under one week was a.) When I was in college and b.) The last year and a half I spent writing books myself, when 9 hours of every weekday weren't spent in an office. Freedom: It’s a truly underrated thing.

Live music every night. The mariachi band (the “best in Cabo”) was spectacular...and I'm really starting to think that when J and I throw our huge anniversary bash (I vote for our 5th, he votes for our 10th) we need to include a mariachi band in the festivities. Something about the blend of trumpets and violins...chills, reader-friends. Anyway at one point they were covering classic rock songs much to my excitement, and I was tempted to request a mariachi rendition of “Light My Fire," but by then they were out of time.

Sea of Cortez

Our sanctuary near the pool.

So now the question is...where should I go next? I get three weeks of paid vacation a year, plus the option of taking a fourth week unpaid so I'm thinking Barcelona for my birthday in April? But that's 8 months away. In the meantime...

My Monday is my Friday

2010-08-09T17:24:00.005+01:00

I woke up today around 6am (like I do every weekday) and began grumbling (like I do every weekday morning) about it being Monday/how much I hate waking up early/how comfortable the bed is as I awake in a small puddle of my drool/how I just want to hit snooze a COUPLE more times (and by a couple I mean about 12)/general things of that nature -- when it dawned on me:

I’m going to Cabo tomorrow. *suddenly alert, an evil smile unfurls slowly across my face as I giggle quietly, maniacally, under the covers*

Yeah, yeah, I’m excited about Mexico, but I’m also happy about my one-day work week. I’ve decided Mondays are so much better when they also double as Fridays. Perhaps the French are onto something.

Even better: today I get to leave the office for a handful of hours to head down to Palo Alto with one of my reporters to have lunch with a gaggle of litigators at their firm. (Apparently there is such a thing as a free lunch.)

After lunch I’ll have a couple more hours in the office then I’m off to pack a week’s worth of bikinis and one very large-brimmed, Elizabeth-Taylor-in-Puerto-Vallarta-circa- 1963-esque sunhat for lazing poolside. Oh and dresses and heels for salsa dancing at night. And maybe I should take boat shoes just in case I get all Old Man and The Sea on J and decide to go marlin fishing just for kicks. Ample opportunities abound south of the border.

Obvi, I won’t be posting for the next week or so, but I’ll share pictures (and hopefully some great stories) when I’m back. Cheers!

That one time I got the last laugh

2010-08-05T14:32:00.004+01:00

Only in my dreams...

Tuesday night J and I planned to veg out...lay like broccoli, if you will. Perhaps check out the new Rachel Zoe season premiere (my idea, not his), share a pint of Chunky Monkey ice cream on our ~~uncomfortable~~ new Target futon, just “be”. Instead we got a call last-minute from his brother, Burt*, who wanted to swing by our place that evening (and by “swing by”, I mean drive an hour out of his way) to pick up our storage boxes since he and his girlfriend, Clothilde**, are moving in together soon.

* & **: Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

J told them both to head up, and figured since it was Tuesday we could all hit up $1 Taco Tuesdays at an upscale restaurant down the street called Maria Maria (as in “Maria Maria”, that Santana song that won a squillion Grammys the year it came out; Santana -- surprise, surprise -- co-owns the joint). Since a friend recently moved a few miles away, we also invited him to join in on the last-minute taco fiesta.

Now on prior Taco Tuesdays, the bar area had ample elbow room. This week, it was like every last extra from the Van Wilder frat house decided that night was a good night for Mexican food. Scores of would-be Tool Academy participants in their man-tanks and flip flops littered the space as they clutched their Coronas, hitting on every woman seated.

So we waited for the next open table. There was a group already waiting ahead of us, and once a table cleared for them, we were next up in line. More waiting. Entourage was getting restless. Suddenly the clouds parted when we saw people leaving their outdoor table. “Hurry,” I told J, who immediately bee-lined toward the patio door, but before he could reach the doorway a girl came flying in past me from the front door, pushing past J (I’m talking physically shouldering him aside -- and she was at least five inches shorter than him) and promptly sat down in one of the seats seconds before J could reach it. She didn’t look up, just stared at the cell phone through the pounds of makeup on her face, tapping at its screen with her ~~trashy~~ square-tipped acrylic fingernails.

Oh no, she di-int.

What killed me was that the whole staring-at-the-cell-phone-after-being-an-expletive-I-shall-not-name-here thing is SO passive aggressive. If you can’t even man up and make eye contact to avoid the confrontation that will most likely follow then maybe you shouldn’t throw down that figurative gauntlet, my dear. She knew EXACTLY what she had just done, elbowing J aside and plopping down at our table in her tacky polyester clothing. All of a sudden I felt my inner-Lauren Conrad well up and wanted to yell "You know what you did! You KNOW what you DID!!!" in her face. Something along the lines of this:

What Did I Do? sound bite Heidi Montag sound bites

But instead we all stood inside, watching this situation go down through the large windows, and I saw RED. We watched J throw his hands up and mutter something to her. Turns out he'd said "Are you serious?" to her and she had continued to ignore him, tapping at her phone. According to him it “wasn’t worth it.” Upon hearing this I was seething at how inappropriate the whole scene was and how J was ~~unfortunately~~ too much of a gentleman to tell her to make like Smuckers and jam. What I wanted to do next was go outside and yank her from the table by her nasty little ponytail, but A.) I feel like there’s only a 10-second window of opportunity to confront said person about things like this, and B.) I’m a lady; I don’t go around yanking people’s ponytails like some Jersey Shore extra.

So we waited a couple more minutes and my anger continued to build (news flash: I have slight anger management issues). The bar wasn’t clearing out anytime soon and the entourage was beginning to grumble about leaving. I sighed. Apparently I was going to be the one – like always – to fix this whole debacle.

I strode up to the podium at the front of the restaurant, where a hostess and a guy in a suit were standing. Thinking that at least someone in a suit and a nametag could help me over the general incompetence in the miniskirt next to him I calmly explained to him – with a large smile -- what happened, and asked whether we could just have a table.

Man in Suit: “Uhh…(pause)… you came here for Taco Tuesday though, right?”

I nodded.

MiS: “We can’t do that for Taco Tuesday. I’m sorry.” (And he actually did look sorry, but it didn’t help his case.)

Me: "Look. I was thisclose to going outside and saying something to that girl who SHOVED my husband aside to get to that table, but I didn't want to make a scene in your restaurant…”

MiS: “Oh yes, of course. I’m very sorry that she...”

Me: “…I'm a regular here [ed. Note: I actually am a regular there, which made it even cooler to say since I’ve always wanted the chance to actually use that line] and no staff did anything about what just happened.”

MiS, looking off toward the bar area with an intense hatred of Taco Tuesdays on his face: “Let me see what I can do, hold on. “

Turns out I pick my men in suits well because he came back, shook my hand and introduced himself as the general manager of the restaurant.

“I’m going to put you at one of our dinner tables in the restaurant,” he said.

“Excellent,” was my reply.

My entourage looked on, smiling and satisfied at this news.

“…But first, you will have to sing karaoke,” the GM said.

Suddenly my smile froze. Not because I didn’t want to sing karaoke – actually quite the opposite. I’ve long told J that someday my whole life would culminate to a certain point where I’d be asked, on the spot, to sing karaoke -- and my biggest fear would be I’d have no idea what to sing. Needless to say, over the years I’ve mentally added songs to my karaoke arsenal FOR THIS SPECIFIC REASON, this moment, standing there next to the crowd currently being entertained by a white guy on a tiny corner platform, covering Third Eye Blind songs on his acoustic guitar. They don’t ever do karaoke here…but perhaps they were making an exception for me?

Of course my mind went blank in that life-changing, split-second of being asked. “Noo…” I purred. “You’re joking.” I let out an awkward, uneasy laugh that sounded more like an unintentional fart. “No I’m not,” the GM said with a completely straight face, as though he was diagnosing me with cancer. “You want the table? Sing.”

My smile remained static; my entourage: concerned. After what seemed like five minutes of silence and staring between the two of us, as I mentally ransacked my rolodex of saved karaoke songs and finally hurled it against one side of my mind, deciding in futility to just go with Lionel Ritchie’s “Stuck on you”, he broke out into laughter. “Just kidding, just kidding!” he laughed. “Come, follow me.”

Not only did we get seated at the best table in the house, he profusely apologized for what happened and thanked me for coming to him (and I guess not creating a scene? The wrath of Crystal, after all, can be extraordinary). After we were seated he offered us a round of drinks on the house (Maria Maria's freshly brewed pineapple tequila – let’s just say it was like a tropical island was making love in my mouth) and gave me his business card during our dinner.

I left a large tip after we were through, more than satisfied with the outcome of the night, and after thanking again on my way out, he stressed to call him whenever I come so he can make sure we're taken care of well. "You're a friend now," he said, patting my shoulder. (And somewhere, in the recesses of my mind, I was covertly laying the groundwork for my own Cheers-type place...where everybody knows my name.)

Moral of the story: Ask and you shall receive. But do it all with a smile, no matter how mad you are. It works wonders.

August: We've got big plans for you

2010-08-02T14:26:00.003+01:00

As of last Thursday J is officially dunzo with the Bar! The three-day test went by swimmingly well and while the official results don't get released till November, we're not worried. J is Barack-Obama-cool under pressure and possesses nerves of steel (unlike some fellow test-takers, who, with a bad case of nerves, hacked their brains out in the public restroom the morning of. Yes, everyone in the test hall heard, the acoustics really made the sound carry.) I knew not to worry about J, though, when he called after the first day and said (I think his exact words were): "I don't have two days of the Bar left, the Bar has two days left of me." It was like Chuck Norris was speaking through my husband. So now I've got J far from the clutches of jurisprudence for the next three weeks (muwahaha), which means...

Cabo San Lucas in 10 days! I know I just started my job two weeks ago, but I already need a vacation. Being in the office at 8am every morning is quickly killing me, and I'm already wondering how I'll go first: lack of sleep or an ulcer from the 3+ cups of coffee I drink on a regular basis. Cabo will be a much-needed respite of sleep, beach, swimming and margaritas (preferably all at the same time?...) In a perfect world I would earn my Mexican citizenship and never come back.

Since I've started working it's embarrassing what little headway I've made in my 2010 reading list (posted to the right). Yes, I'm still reading American Psycho. Slowly. And though I'm not completely finished yet, I highly recommend it. The main character, Patrick Bateman, plays a 26-year-old Wall Street playboy in the 1980s, when greed reigns supreme. Patrick makes obscene amounts of money and obsesses about every last designer detail on himself and others, down to what type of paper his nemesis' business card is printed on. In Patrick's Wall Street world every man wears double-breasted Cerutti 1881 suits and non-prescription Oliver's People glasses; every woman wears Yves Saint Laurent and Ralph Lauren. Friends (and enemies) spend hundreds of dollars a night eating exotic sorbets and getting into exotic Manhattan clubs and everyone is high on coke and/or attempting to be seen at the elite hotspot, Dorsia. Now lump in the fact that Patrick is a serial killer (and a pretty heinous one at that; I was especially disturbed the day I read about him gutting a homeless person on a lone sidewalk), and you've got one fantastic book. Why? Because taken at face value this is one twisted novel. But Patrick isn't psychotic because he's a serial killer; rather, his serial killer tendencies are just a symbolic extension of the material values he's absorbed being so engrossed in a world that correlates your worth as a person to how much your gazelleskin wallet costs. It's both outstanding and terrifying. And what's even better is after reading American Psycho you feel yourself becoming one (minus the whole serial killer thing, of course). You start noticing what everyone is wearing, where they're eating, how their business cards look, what they drive, whether they think tasseled loafers are an acceptable shoe choice. It's disgusting and fascinating all at the same time. Next up on my reading list: Anna Karenina.

Me. Lady Gaga. San Jose. August. Yes, I'm going to see Lady Gaga in concert with a good friend of mine this month. Be jealous.

This month J and I have also decided to start a food blog just for fun as a couple. We're going to call it "Eat the Creek" (because we live in Walnut Creek, get it? GET IT??) and it'll be a way for us to review what we like and dislike every time we go out to eat (I'm hoping at least once a week). For a suburb of San Francisco there are a lot of restaurants in this area (and by restaurants I mean cute little bistros and wine bars and fusion eateries) so we can't wait to get started. I've only tried a handful of what our downtown has to offer and was highly impressed. Sure, it'll cost ample amounts of money, but I'm slaving away to enjoy the finer things in life. This includes imported bottles of aged Malbecs.

So, this isn't a highlight of August (or July, for that matter), but I needed to note it somewhere so those of you with weak stomachs, now is your cue to look away. The other day I was in the city walking to my office building from the subway stop when I saw a homeless guy on the sidewalk lurching toward this well-dressed Asian woman who passed by. Now this area of the San Francisco (the Tenderloin) is DIS-gusting. I won't go into too much detail but the streets smell like pee and garbage and on every block there's a crack-den hotel with a misleadingly lofty name like "Hotel Renoir," et al. So a homeless person in this area isn't the most out-of-place spectacle. But THIS homeless guy was different. Yes, he looked like he had JUST had his eyeball ripped out. There was a big pus-and-cartilage-filled hole where his eyeball should have been (and probably was mere hours before), with dried blood crusted all around the empty socket. Naturally, the Asian woman he hassled was terrified because what was even more eerie (aside from the fact that the guy was bleeding out his eye-hole and his overall hygiene was downright fetid), was that he wasn't moaning in pain or crying about his condition. Nope -- he was laughing. Cackling, really. And mumbling out loud about some Walkman as he lurched toward the woman, who walked even faster to get away from him. The whole disconnect between the severity of his wound and his reaction to it was quite disturbing and for the rest of the day I couldn't erase the picture from my mind.

And just so I don't leave you on such a bleak note today, I figured I'd throw in a current, questionably-less-disturbing obsession: I never thought I'd say this about a 14-year-old blogger, but I heart the inimitable Tavi Gevinson! Her posts are fresh and fun and (am I really admitting this out loud?) pretty inspiring. I want to be her when I grow up. Or something.

Overheard on the train last week

2010-07-28T14:24:00.002+01:00

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

I commute to work every day via public transportation (read: the subway) (read: I swore I was done doing the whole subway thing) (read: misery -- but it could be worse; I could be riding the bus). I could go on at length about how much I detest public transportation, and how much I loath commuting in general, but I'll admit it's good for one thing: Eavesdropping on people's conversations. Yes, I'm one of those subway riders who will take out her pen and paper and begin transcribing, verbatim, exactly what you're saying to your friend sitting next to me (except I'm stealthily covert about it; you'd think I was writing out a grocery list if you were actually paying attention). In other words: continue talking, people. You give great fodder for characters in future books.

In fact, these conversations are one of the reasons that compelled me to buy a Droid smartphone two days ago (the other reason? I needed something for private use at work, but that's beside the point). Never, in my wildest dreams, did I think I'd ever own a smartphone. I'm not a texter, and I've always used my old-school cell phone for what it was intended for: talking. But since my handwriting looks like rabid chicken scratches when I attempt to keep up with the nearest chatter/compose any sudden story ideas I get on the way home, I needed something more stealth and streamlined.

...Something I could use to transcribe one such conversation that I overheard last week:

SCENE: 5:15pm. Subway car barrels beneath the SF Bay en route home from the city. Two college freshman (or sophomores, I wasn't sure) are seated next to me, chatting loudly about their lives and places in the world. Middle-aged men and women, peering over their opened books and Blackberrys, study them as they speak. Me: incognito next to them, wearing big black sunglasses (though we are in a tunnel), reporter's pad and pen clutched in hand, waiting for conversation to continue....

Girl 1 (dark-haired a la Bella Swan from Twilight, in hipster clothing, and insists on ending every sentence with a higher inflection, as though she'd tacked a question mark to each one of her sentences):

"...I don't know though? There are, like, a lot of negatives to wanting to be on Broadway? And, like, that's why I'm afraid of double-majoring, but, like, I know that interior design is a good fallback major. I haven't really researched it, like, that much...but, like, I think I'd like it? It, like, looks really fun? Plus we're still, like, in college so I still have, like, a couple more semesters to change my mind."

Girl 2 (blonde, in similar hipster garb, strangely shares her friend's higher-inflection-at-end-of-each-sentence syndrome):

"For our generation it's, like, so competitive? In my mom's generation just, like, going to, like, college would, like, get you a job afterward, you know? I, like, wish that was still true? They had it, like, so easy?"

Girl 1:

"Like, I envy those people who, like, knew what they wanted to do as early as high school and, like, studied it in college? Like, I wish it could just be easy like our parents' generation, you know?"

Girl 2:

"I wish I could, like, fast forward to the part in life where I already have, like, a nice car and, like, a house and everything? But I'm still not, like, sure about my major? I just, like, don't know what I want to do for the rest of my life. Like, I can't make that kind of decision. It's so...like...permanent."

Girl 1 nods and they smile at each other, sharing a moment.

At the next stop the doors opened and they stepped off, clutching their Urban Outfitters shopping bags and iPods and cotton hobo bags with witty environmental sayings printed on them. And suddenly, to all those middle-aged people in that subway car, the future seemed at once dizzying and terrifying.

A tale of two women

2010-07-26T14:33:00.002+01:00

Since I started work last Monday (I know you're wondering how it is but I'd rather speak of such things anonymously on an anon blog I'm starting this week), there are things I miss from my pre-work life. Waking up without setting an alarm the night before...writing in the afternoons...lunching with family...staying up late to watch Gone With the Wind (again) on TCM (even though I own it) just because I can. But most of all, I miss hanging out with The Nana.

That six-week period, between when we moved back to California and when I had to start work, was amazing (for lack of a better term, and I know I overuse that word often but I really can't think of any other way to describe it at the moment). Having the freedom of my daylight hours to reconnect with Nana (who I wasn't that close to growing up) was wonderful. Though she's much older now, it was like I was given a second chance to reintroduce myself to her (and vice versa). And all it took was six weeks to erase a lifetime of formality and acquaintance.

It was grand. We'd go shopping every afternoon and scour the aisles at stores all over the tri-county area, filling our carts with nothing we needed but everything we wanted. (Tubes of coral pink lipstick (all her), coffee mugs, dresses, giraffe-print tote boxes, sterling silver wine-stoppers, authentic Portuguese olive oil. You name it, we bought it. (Her cart, suffice to say, was always much more filled than mine -- this was before I had the job, after all.)

We'd leave stores toting our wares in giant plastic bags, laughing the whole way home in her Volvo station wagon or her Land Yacht (a ginormous black Lincoln that belonged to my late grandfather) about the four ceramic chickens (of varying shapes and sizes) that I'd talked her into buying because of her well-documented obsession with the animal (they're all over her house: chicken sculptures, chicken tablecloths, chicken-shaped candles, chicken-print doormats. Heck, she actually just bought a red wingback chair with little chickens embroidered all over it. Without me, of course. I had to work that day. *pouts*)

If we weren't shopping for ceramic chickens or olive oil, than we were doing our other favorite thing together: antiquing. We'd spend hours at consignment shops and antique stores, strolling through the aisles and running our hands -- first old, than young -- across the wooden finishes of old tables and chairs and benches, marveling at the potential in such things with just a bit of sanding and the right stain. It was during these days in particular that I learned a lot from Nana, who's like the Obi Wan Kenobi of antiquing and furniture refinishing. Seriously. I am but a young Jedi when it comes to her knowledge of such things; she's been doing it all her life, back to her Betty Draper years -- yes she was a platinum blond with piercing blue eyes -- when she used to put my dad and his siblings to work sanding down dressers and tables with her in the backyard of their big stately house on a red-brick, tree-lined road in Moline, Illinois.

Anyway, every day the lunching and shopping would draw to a close (usually around 3pm), and we'd make our way back to her house where she'd reminisce about her life over a couple glasses of her classic iced tea (the secret ingredient? Crystal Light). It was during these conversations that I learned far more than I'd ever known about Nana. Sure I'd seen pictures of her back when she was spry (including one of her in a swimsuit on a beach feeding a sandwich to a man, who I should probably add was not my grandfather, on the cover of a 1940s copy of Holiday Magazine), but I never really pictured her having a life before my dad.

It's funny, isn't it? How certain people -- older family members, teachers, etc. -- all get frozen to a particular time period we tether them too? There is no beginning or ending for these kind of people. They just "are" -- held in place in our lives by markers like fathers and mothers, birthdays or graduations, Thanksgivings or Christmases. And any pictures we see of them outside of our parameters don't seem real. Like the Holiday cover my grandmother was on. I see it, but can't conceivably see that woman sitting on the beach, laughing with the sandwich in her hand, is actually who I've come to know as The Nana.

But over our iced teas every afternoon, between our shopping and our furniture refinishing, I began to see Nana as more than just...well...Nana. She actually had a life before she had kids and she even had a life before her marriage in the late '40s. Memories from her go back as far as the Great Depression, when she remembers neighbors and others in the community who'd lost everything come by her parents' house asking for handouts, food, anything to survive. She recounted her parents giving out food (luckily my great-grandparents were never affected by the Depression), and she remembered those people leaving, marking the stairs up to her front door with the symbol that food was being handed out at that address for any other passerbys desperate to eat. (Much like that "Hobo Code" Mad Men episode.)

She'd talk about her vacations in Florida as a young woman (just before she met my grandfather), when she and her girlfriends would dance with WWII GIs returning from the war. Or she'd tell me how some of the most favorite moments in her life were back when she lived in Illinois, near her best friend who also happened to be her sister-in-law. The two of them would load their old Norman Rockwellian station wagon up with all the kids (I believe they had around 11, combined) and antique all day with their children in tow. Just two young women in the 1950s, enjoying their all-American lives full of antiques and picnics and summer trips to Lake Michigan before things got complicated (her SIL fell out of contact after Nana moved to California in the early '60s with my grandfather) and the kids grew up. It's these times, back before the world changed and the country lost its innocence in the mid-'60s and on, that Nana misses most. I can tell by the way she talks about it.

Shortly before I started work, on one of the last full days I had with her before we'd be rescinded to weekends (if that), she told me in the car that she didn't see me as a granddaughter.

"You're more than that," she explained, laughing in disbelief that she even felt that way. "I don't know how to explain it, but I don't feel like you're my 28-year-old granddaughter. I look at you and I don't think of an age; I feel like we're the same age. We get along so well, that you're more of a friend. A good friend." She smiled, and I smiled back.

"Well, age is just a number," I said. "There's no reason why our age difference should be a matter. 20s, 80s, who cares? 'Cause I feel the same way. You're not my grandmother; you're a good friend."

Finally. Not only had we reconnected, but we'd moved past that onto a different, higher plane.

I still see Nana here and there. I try to make it over for dinner once a week and if I have time I stop by on the weekends, but because I work 40+ hours a week it'll never be the same. Then I start feeling differing shades of blue throughout my workday because of it. True, we have that bond that at this point is impervious to time, but still. It's different. I feel -- since starting work -- that there isn't enough time...and Nana's not getting any younger. I sit at my desk in SF, wishing I could be back in that station wagon across the bay, en route to some antique store or new Italian restaurant, listening to her stories. And then I feel sad, as though in a way I'm losing her all over again.

The whole world's gone Mad: Mad Men Season 4 premiere this Sunday!

2010-07-23T08:04:00.002+01:00

What the new Mad Men S4 photo (above) tells us. (Yes, a body-language expert was actually interviewed for the article.)

It's almost time for an all new season of Mad Men!

Without giving away too much, the first episode will be titled "Public Relations" and -- from what I've read -- sounds like it's going to be amazing. 10pm on Sunday cannot come soon enough. To satiate your fix until the premiere, here's a roundup of my favorite Mad Men links:

SPOILER ALERT (seriously, if you read this article you are going to know exactly where everyone stands in episode 1; read at your own risk): Exploring Don Draper as a single man in Season 4.

New photos are out from the upcoming episodes! Peggy, that haircut is just not doing it for you.

Speaking of Peggy's hair, series costume designer Janie Bryant discusses Peggy's coif choice, Bryant's new mod line and vintage clothing.

A writer at Salon.com admits that she most identifies with Mad Men's "brattiest, least feminist character": Betty Draper.

The NY Post is Mad about the girls. "Forget Carrie Bradshaw," they write, "today's girls are trying Betty, Joan and Peggy on for size."

SPOILER ALERT: The SF Chronicle argues that identity is key to the start of Mad Men season 4 (makes sense; creator Matt Weiner mentioned months ago that this year the characters would all be asking: "Who am I?").

We're in good company: Obama is a huge Mad Men fan. "He wrote to say he enjoyed Season 3," Weiner said. "He was congratulating me on my and the show's success, and I wanted to say, 'But wait, you're the successful person."

Since you've already Mad Menned yourself, maybe you should Mad Men your living room. I know I already have.

Christina Hendricks looks absolutely stunning on the latest cover of LA Times Magazine.

Slate contemplates how season 4 will handle Betty's storyline. Betty Hofstadt Draper Francis? I'm not a fan; drop the "Francis" and we'll talk.

Will Mad Men continue after season 5? If not then my life is over as we know it.

SPOILER ALERT: The Wall Street Journal is obvi still Mad about the Men (as they should be).

For the diehards out there planning to throw a premiere party, here's a how-to guide so you won't miss a thing (note to self: serve Old Fashioneds with Utz potato chips). For more party pointers, the Boston Globe shows how you can toast the return of Mad Men in style and also has tips on wardrobe and hair for your retro-themed party.

Spoiler-free reasons (finally) why you should be excited about the upcoming season.

According to the LA Times, "[Don Draper] may look great, but he has no heart, nor capacity for truth. He's Satan in a starched collar." I (of course) don't agree, especially when the writer attempts to make a Don-Draper-as-devil case by saying he chose that pseudonym because both the first and last name have six letters each and six is the devil's number. Creee-per.

For the fashion-philes out there, Janie Bryant gives viewers a sneak peak at season 4 garb (the costume closet = buh-nanas).

And if you're still unclear as to why 98% of women are in love with Jon Hamm, here's the classic SNL "Don Draper's Guide to Picking Up Women" video:

Book review: "How To Be An American Housewife"

2010-07-22T14:26:00.006+01:00

When I was first asked to review How To Be An American Housewife, I was immediately intrigued by the title. I knew it was fiction and not some how-to guide (because really, that would be kind of awkward if they'd actually made a how-to book for acclimating to American domesticity), but the title piqued my interest, especially when juxtaposed against the photo of the Japanese woman set behind it.

It turns out the title was based on a book by the same name that actually did exist back in the 1940s when Japanese women were marrying American GIs in droves during WWII. The novel's author, Margaret Dilloway, noticed an old copy her Japanese mother owned, given by her GI husband (and later Dilloway's father) in an effort to help her acclimate when he first brought her to America. It was this book, which later turned out to be a manual of sorts for Japanese maids and therefore was never read, that was the inspiration behind Dilloway's debut novel of the same name.

How To Be An American Housewife is not only a book about mother/daughter relationships, it's commentary on cultural assimilation. Of yearning to fit into a new culture and land while missing family and letting go of traditions left behind on native soil.

The first half of the novel is narrated by Shoko, a Japanese woman determined to come to America. She marries an American GI she falls in love with much later in life, but her struggles going from Japan to setting up a home near a military base in San Diego, California, are at the same time both humbling and heartbreaking. Dilloway cleverly crafts Shoko's narrative so that everything Shoko thinks is written in perfect English, while everything she communicates to her husband, children's teachers, or fellow parents comes out clunky, broken and distorted (since English is her second language). Through Shoko readers have a window into what it's like as a foreigner in America, of the language barriers and sometimes physical traits that shouldn't but often cast one as "an outsider."

The story continues through Shoko's narrative, gliding along memories she has of experiences in both Japan and America and the transition between, when about half-way through the narrative baton is passed to her American-born daughter, Sue.

Sue is a single mother and working professional with one divorce under her belt. She hates her job, has no love life and feels misunderstood by everyone, including her parents (and especially Shoko). Even though she's in her 30s, Sue still feels like she has no identity since she was raised in a multi-cultural household and loathes the fact that she could never fully fit in growing up; Shoko with her broken English seemed always an embarrassment for Sue at school functions or when she wanted to invite friends over. Even at 30-something, Sue's still not sure where she belongs and because of this has remained quiet, withdrawn and passive -- a wallflower, through and through.

It's only when Shoko asks Sue to travel back to Japan for her to mend a decades-old family argument that Sue (with her daughter in tow) comes into her own as a woman and begins to see the beauty of growing up multi-culturally. The acceptance of her upbringing and heritage (which were both solid but much different than her peers) starts to quickly transform Sue into a new woman, and brings about a level of understanding for her mother and mother's life before America that is fascinating to read.

I recommend this book to anyone who's ever felt like their mothers (or daughters) misunderstand them, or to anyone who's questioned their roots and what it means to be a part of a certain ethnic group. Dilloway's excels at showing the uncomfortable situations Shoko finds herself in once she arrives in America, the loneliness Shoko experiences as she lets go of her past to build her future, and the wallflower Sue who eventually blooms by reconnecting with her origins as a favor to her ailing mother. For a debut novel, I was thoroughly impressed.

Three years married (check)

2010-07-20T14:32:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to post a quick Happy Anniversary to...me! (And J.) Today's our three-year wedding anniversary and though J will be studying for the Bar and I'll be in my office in the city all day we're going to make some time tonight to go out to a nice restaurant and make a toast to this crazy little thing called love. Back when we were this age:

(Yes, this is me wearing a Native American vest fashioned from a paper grocery bag as I play my oatmeal-can-turned-tom-tom-drum. In flip-flops and tapered sweatpants. Don't be jealous.)

we had no idea that someday, many years down the road, we'd meet through mutual friends and that overly talkative girl who once wore a grocery bag vest would be assigned to sit at J's table group in a certain math teacher's geometry class, and, nearly a decade later after non-existent contact, that girl would be the woman he'd spend the rest of his life with:

It's been a fun three years; here's to many, many more. Thanks for the laughter, my love.

First day of work (with new outfit)

2010-07-19T15:50:00.001+01:00

Well, I'm all caffeinated up, my hair's been styled, my makeup applied...and I'm ready for my first day of work.

I have to admit that after this last year and a half of waking up and simply strolling across the living room to my "office" (a small Ikea desk a kind neighbor left me before they moved out), actually waking up at a set time, putting on an ensemble diligently chosen the night before, and heading out (with second cup of coffee in hand, of course) to commute into the city till rush hour back feels foreign. I barely remember what it felt like before...then I remember, and all those feelings of resentment get dredged up toward CEO of the Year (this is what we're alluding to him as now) and trudging to "Hell" (what my ex-coworkers and I used to call our office) in 95 degree weather with 90% humidity and I start getting a knot of anxiety in the pit of my stomach that feels like I ate a bag of patio rocks from Home Depot because I hated, HATED commuting into the city half-asleep every morning with my face pressed against some man's armpit in a crowded, stinky metro train until I remind myself:

"Crystal. This is different. You will actually enjoy this job, unlike the last. Do not be anxious. You cannot continually compare every career experience going forward to Hell and its Commander. Doing so will only wear you down before you even start. Plus, news flash: Your job before Hell (your first job that kicked off your career) was fabulous and you had a great time at that for nearly two years. Remember this. Not all jobs are alike."

And then I breathe a sigh of relief (as I'm doing now) and realize I am right. It will not be like before. The news focus is different; the people in this newsroom are different. Best of all, no matter what time of day (or how hot it is) there's never really any humidity here so I don't have to worry about completely schvitzing in my new, dry-clean-only dress before I've even stepped foot into the office. More sighs of relief.

So here's what I'm wearing for my first day outfit (please forgive the horribly tacky MySpace-ness of these pictures, but I'm in a hurry and still putting on my makeup, which would explain why I'm also headless):

I think Joan Holloway would approve and yes, that is Moneypenny in the last picture, wondering what her deranged owner is doing up so early in three-inch heels. I think I'll add a skinny red belt to the mix and head out!

A light rain on my parade of overpriced tapas

2010-07-15T18:01:00.002+01:00

So there I was the other day, spinning in the living room with J, our joined hands the still-point of our turning world whizzing behind us in slow motion. After the spinning and the dancing and jovial pouncing was over, we made plans to celebrate my job news at a fancy restaurant, "Va De Vi", nearby (I needed a good reason to drop an unmentionable sum on duck confit, and now I had one). He resumed studying for the Bar (like he does every day) as I left to hang out (like I do every day) at The Nana's, drinking iced tea and refinishing furniture and having lunch with other sweet, old ladies (which I am definitely getting used to. My brother mentioned I'm "becoming a Golden Girl." My response: "You say that like it's a bad thing." Age is really just a number, after all.)

After a good day of lunching and antiquing and discussing how movie stars today just aren't what they used to be (hello, Paul Newman and Cary Grant), I got back to our apartment in time to shower and head to Va De Vi with J. But he had questionably good news.

I guess I should preface this part by letting you in on the fact that J was flown down to Newport Beach last week for an interview at a law firm. The firm does exactly what he wants to do (corporate litigation), all the partners and associates he met clicked with him right away, and the office -- well, from what I heard the office was magnificent (think one of the top floors in the building, all glass windows, with a full view of Newport Harbor and the Pacific Ocean). They wined and dined him (at this point all I thought of was The Firm, minus the corruption and partially cheesy action scenes), and sent him back up to the Bay Area wanting the job.

Flash forward to yesterday. Literally HOURS after I got my job offer that I'd only JUST interviewed for two business days prior, the law firm called J with good news: They wanted to hire him. The salary they offered was (how do I put this) obscene, and the bonuses and profit-sharing were clutch. All in all it was an offer he couldn't refuse. Almost.

I was happy for him but tried to hide my disappointment: a.) We were about to visit a fancy restaurant (something that's been long overdue) to celebrate the good news, but b.) How could I be happy knowing he'd be leaving soon? Which I wouldn't blame him doing -- the pay is more than good, it's exactly the type of law he wants to practice, it sounded like a great work atmosphere and the lifestyle that comes with such opportunities...let's just say they make movies about such things for a reason.

"So why wouldn't he take it?" I thought. This is exactly what we wanted. What we'd waited for. This is why he worked so hard in law school. Or was it?

As we sat at a table in the posh outdoor alleyway, peppered with hundreds of white Christmas lights and low chatter from neighboring tables, I grew even more sad. Ordering a bottle of Malbec did not help (though said Malbec was a deliciously excellent choice) and neither did thinking I saw Robert Redford (my idol) walk by (turned out it was just some older guy with good hair). I was sad not because J was leaving, or because we'd see a lot less of each other. No, I was sad because it finally dawned on me that we were never given a fighting chance as a married couple.

We got married about one month before J started law school and for three years I've waited for him, meaning waited for him to be a "normal" husband, not one who is in law school full-time. Law school has been like the "other woman" in the first three years of our marriage -- years that newlyweds usually spend setting up ~~house~~ apartment and traveling and enjoying being together before things like kids and mortgages start to take effect. They're supposed to be the carefree, let's-spend-time-together-and-enjoy-being-married years. My first three years were not this.

Nearly every day, every week, was taken up by the "other woman" (i.e., law journal meetings and finals and mock trial competitions and internships). There was always something and though J tried his hardest to spread himself thin and be home as much as possible, there were many, many times when he couldn't be. So I tolerated the early years of our marriage, the him-needing-to-stay-late-at-the-library nights, when I'd come home exhausted from my desk job and eat dinners alone watching reruns of Little People, Big World because this was important. He was building the foundation for his life. For our life.

The saving grace during those years, when his seat on the couch sat empty because he was out hoofing it for some DC judge or legal internship, was that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. "The three years would eventually be over," I told myself. And almost as quickly as they started, they were finished.

The final stretch of this leg of the journey is taking the Bar at the end of July and since he has about two months to study for this test that nearly 40%-50% fail their first time in the state of California, he's been studying his little butt off. Every day. Which -- again -- I'm completely fine with. I see it as the last 100 yards in this crazy legal race and (of course) I want him to pass, so all summer he's stayed home studying 10+ hours a day while I chill at The Nana's, glad to be hanging out with someone who likes classic films and Mad Men and shopping as much as I do (these are the perks of knowing someone who doesn't have to work at all).

But now that the Bar is right around the corner, I'm getting excited about being able to see my husband again. ("Again?!" she says, "was there ever a time in this marriage you could?") I know that normal is a subjective term, but I'm ready for a normal marriage (read: one where it's expected that we get to hang out together without a timer beeping when our five minutes is up). And it was looking like things were going to become...normal. I just got that job. We just got this apartment. My friend just dropped off Moneypenny so both our animals are once again under the same roof. We're finally back on the West Coast. To quote Penny Lane from Almost Famous, "It's all happening(!)..."

Then this (otherwise amazing) offer from the Newport firm happens THE SAME DAY as my offer, which by this point I'd already accepted. And nothing felt like it was happening anymore. No more Age of Aquarius or stars aligning, nope, just one, big diamond-encrusted wrench worthy of Lil Jon's toolbox, thrown into the oiled gears of our Master Plan.

But I said none of this. I hid my sadness. This was supposed to be a happy day. One filled with reams of money and pretentious restaurants and funny quips Nana had said that morning remembered over grilled asparagus with panko crusted egg that night. That light at the end of the tunnel -- that pinprick of hope that this would one day be all over and we could actually walk down to the local Farmer's Market together on any given Sunday or finally see movies in theaters again or go out to dinner just because -- it faded to black. That realization alone was enough to ruin my good news. Paper covers rock, and so on. It dawned on me that it would never just be "easy" with us. Things were not, nor did they ever in the last three years, align that way.

As we continued feasting on the tapas that were brought out as prepared, J seemed on edge. Both of us were more quiet than usual. Obviously something was bothering both of us and so he started asking questions of how I felt about it, of what I thought, and everything I just wrote prior to this paragraph began trepidatiously coming out. (I say trepidatious because I'm just happy we're back on the West Coast, close to family and friends and excellent weather. With DC in our rear-view mirror, I really have no more demands.)

Turns out I was wrong thinking he'd automatically accept the position. He shared many of my sentiments and totally saw where I was coming from. His answer back to the firm was not a given "yes", much to my surprise.

Over the next two hours we talked, laughed, drank, ate and discussed the State of Our Marriage -- our wants, expectations, standards, dreams. It all came out on the table (for a couple who communicates all feelings, much of it wasn't new, just reiteration). But many of it needed to be reiterated because, as J put it, we were at a crossroads now. Were we okay with seeing each other on errant weekends (there'd be many weekends where we wouldn't see each other: I'd want to see family and friends, or he'd be expected to network with clients on some golf course)? How would we eventually start a family in a few years if we were apart during those pivotal years leading up to such things?

At one point J and I both got misty-eyed talking about all these real-life, marital issues (confession: I cry easily, especially at those SPCA commercials on TV with Sarah McLaughlin singing in the background) and that's when he said it. On his own accord, even after I insisted this was very much his decision, that I didn't know anything about the legal field and he needed to do what he felt was right for his career.

"I can't do it," he said, pouring himself another glass of Malbec. "I feel like it's a choice between the job and money or you. The firm's offer is attractive and you're right -- it's exactly the law I want to practice. ...But a life without you is pointless."

This is why I married this man.

Later, when we got the check (brought out not in a checkfold like most restaurants, but stuck within the pages of an old book called "La Princessa" -- clever, Va De Vi, clever!), I flipped through the novel as he signed our bill. Dozens of people had signed random pages within this same book, scrawling little notes like "Happy Birthday, Jim!" or "Happy 20th Anniversary, L + M, 2009" or "Life would be perfect if I could eat at Va De Vi everyday." I laughed and pointed out the hundreds of notes left in the margins to J.

He signed his name to our check then took the book from my hands. Turning to a middle page (I believe it was page 51), he wrote "To hell with the Newport job" in the margins, stuck our check in, and closed the book, smiling.

That note said it all.

Victory is mine

2010-07-13T18:11:00.003+01:00

Guess who got a call yesterday for that editorial job? Me! I guess the stars really have aligned. I accepted the offer without a second thought and after getting off the phone I glided into my living room to tell J the good news. It basically looked like the final scene of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, except my good news came minus the headbands and tunics and rolling hills and colorful banners (unfortunately):

Mystic crystal revelations, reader-friends.

So to recap: I'm working in news (like serious making-a-difference kind of news -- no fluff here), I'm No. 3 on the editorial totem pole in the newsroom, and I'm getting paid (well!) for said job (read: I can actually buy stuff now! Who wants an island??)

Let's welcome the sun into its new age.

The perfect day job for a writer

2010-07-12T17:59:00.004+01:00

Lately I've been thinking about what the perfect day job for a writer could be.

Obviously it can't be a black hole for creative energy. Trudging home after a tedious day at a soul-sucking job leaves you no chutzpah (along with no time to rock out "witch yo bad self," but that's another post entirely). The last thing I want after getting home from a crap commute is to shovel lukewarm Mac & Cheese down my gaping maw (because though we love cooking, cooking takes time and time is not something we have a lot of with a day job) and spend the handful of remaining hours at home sitting at a desk, trying to be CREATIVE Goddamnit because this bestseller isn't writing itself as it teases us with its blinking cursor and why am I still on page 57 and oh hell it's already way past bedtime and I've got exactly 5.5 hours to sleep before morning hits and I have to fling myself out of bed from a deep slumber wherein I'm dreaming about having cocktails with Cary Grant and one of my novel's main characters just so I can sit at a desk again that following morning to waste another day, ghostwriting for a CEO who takes all the public credit for my words and research while I get none. Nothing. No credit. No byline. Just free espresso, the occasional $500 Amazon giftcard and the perk of having my office chair be a Herman Miller original.

Ladies and gentleman, that was a short snippet of my life as an editor/writer with a certain, unnamed company. Nope, didn't really enjoy it.

I was lucky that aforementioned job I ended up leaving last year still fell in the "journalism" (financial journalism) category, and in the beginning it was fantastic. I got to edit the hell out of all the bad writing we'd receive and work with our reporters and freelancers to make them better journalists and I'd occasionally get to write a short column and it was great. Then everyone started getting laid off except for me (ironic, isn't it? the one person who wouldn't have really minded getting laid off was one of the Last Men Standing), until finally my job description morphed from me enjoying my job to me doing more marketing/PR than journalism while ghostwriting most of our investment articles and mutual fund reports for our CEO. Like 24/7.

It doesn't matter how soft and luxurious that damned $1,300 Herman Miller chair was or how much I got paid (it was more than I expected in such a position, says the girl who wanted to be laid off), I knew it was over when I began seeing my articles show up on national websites with my 29-year-old CEO's name in the byline as though HE'D written them. That was really the last straw. Especially when he was in talks to appear on Fox Business News (for what? funding a company who made him sound smart?) and was also "writing" an investment book (which, for the record, was written by some for-hire ghostwriter -- thank God I didn't have to work on that behemoth with no credit). But I digress: this isn't meant to be a rant on my last employer (again, my first year there was amazing) or a tirade against my ~~loved to take credit for everyone's work while he's out wine tasting on the west coast and taking month long vacations in Europe~~ CEO. No, this isn't that.

When I realized in that job, after about 5 years of being a journalist/writer/editor, that I had actual standards for my life and career (suddenly -- poof -- I was an adult), that was it. I had reached a point of what I wasn't willing to accept in my life. I quit shortly after seeing his smiling mug next to the titles of my articles made me want to take off one of my heels and smash it through my computer monitor. Life is just too short to not have creative ownership. If you don't have that, you've got nothing. (And yes, I get that ghostwriting might not sound that bad. Many people do it professionally, but it made me feel like a sellout and a whore, plain and simple.)

Now that J and I are back on the west coast and I'm outlining my third novel, I've decided that it's time I venture out into this whole day job thing again. With J studying for the Bar and about to start a short-term clerkship with a judge in SF this August, I want to contribute to our Buick Fund (what we've decided to call our "Hopes and Dreams" fund; don't worry, we're not really buying a Buick...but then again, that would be hilarious).

So what would be the perfect day job for someone like myself? I've decided it would have to include the following:

Journalism and/or somehow publishing-related. It doesn't have to center around writing full-time -- in fact, I would actually prefer it didn't. In an ideal world I would preserve my writing juice for other, more personal projects -- like books. The occasional article/column/blog post (with byline) at work would make me happy.

No full-time marketing or PR. I haven't yet had to convert to the Dark Side and I hope I never will.

Something that's intellectually stimulating. I like a challenge. Part of the problem in my last job was that aside from my convert of a PR/ghostwriting-fueled position, it wasn't fast-paced enough. In those last, tedious months it lacked the je ne sais quoi that made me want to get into news in the first place. I wanted to be Ben Bradlee in All the President's Men; instead I was Kate Hudson from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, daydreaming about other options.

Something that utilizes my degrees. This goes without saying. I worked hard for them and chose those fields (English Lit and Journalism) because I loved them, not because I wanted to play beer pong for four years of my life then figure out what I wanted to do in my 20s and beyond. I know the stereotype: Artists do things like wait tables to make ends meet, which is fine. But I don't want to wait tables with my resume.

Editing. If there's one thing I love more than writing (ok, and dancing, but the latter isn't a viable career path at this point) it's editing. One of my goals was to become a managing editor before 30, which I did and loved being so in control of the content/content flow/publishing decisions/etc. It was never a dictatorship (hello? I don't run my newsrooms like Cuba), but I enjoyed improving the writing that came across my desk. To see what didn't work with news and feature stories made me a better writer, just like how reading hundreds of good books in a lifetime makes you a better scribe than one who reads nothing. As a writer I feel you learn by example and by tinkering with malleable pieces of content. I like it, find it challenging, and fit seamlessly into a newsroom environment.

Which brings me to an interview I had last week.

I got an email from a legit news outfit in SF that had been recommended my name from that one bay area publication I had to turn down last month due to the low salary offered. I was shocked at getting the email (seriously, how often does this happen??) and told them that of course I'd love to come in for an interview. Two days later I was in the office meeting with the Editor in Chief and Managing Editor -- both very polite, professional, experienced journalists (real journalists...yes, they still exist!).

The interview went well and I left wanting the job. Badly. Not only would I play a part in leading a prominent newsroom as a higher-up editor, but I'd be able to work one-on-one with budding reporters and -- get this -- work in the news niche I'd originally wanted to go into after grad school: Political and legal journalism. Is it the age of Aquarius? Have the stars aligned in their own, twisted way? I don't know, but after my horrible experience with El Company de Indecision and their three drawn-out interviews (the first of which I flew cross-country ON MY OWN DIME for) (clearly I am still very bitter about this), I figured maybe I should wait a while. See what opens up. Then this unbelievably amazing opportunity falls out of nowhere without me even having to fight to get my resume noticed out of hundreds of hopeful applicants. How do these things happen?

Anyway I got home from the interview feeling all rainbows and unicorns and found an email waiting in my inbox, thanking me for coming in and asking for references (two of which they called before Saturday). If I actually prayed, I would pray that this is a good sign. Not only is the job perfectly suited to what I'm looking for, but for a journalism position it (surprisingly!) pays bank ($60s, starting) and has lots of room for growth and creative input and chances to actually make a difference in this cray cray world we live in. I mean, they made a point to emphasize they look for quality over quantity in their news stories (what a novel idea!).

Read: This is not the kind of boring, unchallenging desk job that would lead to tired commutes home punctuated with lukewarm Mac and Cheese and sad reruns of The City that serve as (much-needed) escape from the daily grind. No, this job would be a breath of fresh air in a field most are being laid off in or leaving entirely for more lucrative options (*cough* marketing *cough*). It would engage me, it would inspire me, and best of all, it would even pay me. To quote Gollum, "We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious."

Mad Men fashion; or, When did we stop dressing up?

2010-07-09T17:53:00.004+01:00

So by this point many of you are probably thinking I'm beyond obsessive about certain television shows (and you're right -- I am, just like I'm obsessive about red nail polish and poodles and George Michael). You're probably also thinking "All right, we all get it. Mad Men is the greatest show ever created. Get over it already." But I can't, and here's why:

The fashion, oh the fashion. Not like the writing and acting and directing already make the show incredible, but head costume designer Janie Bryant truly knows how to round out the storytelling with the outfits she chooses for each character based on their story arc.

"Everyone thinks that Janie’s job consists of picking cool clothes, but she’s really a storyteller. She cares about who the character is and what we are trying to say about them. If I write a fur in there—say, Don gives Betty a fur—I know that we can develop a history of that coat and how it relays a bit of the sad story of their marriage," said Matt Weiner recently to The Wall Street Journal, in a fantastic article describing how Mad Men has not only "reshaped television, but inspired the fashion world, popularizing the clothes of the era, from sharp suits to fitted dresses."

Thank God. I've personally had my fill of ill-fitting denim, tired tank tops, and sad androgynous flats from Urban Outfitters. When did we start thinking "dressing up" was only for special occasions and that it's somehow appropriate to perpetually "slum it"? In my humble opinion men and women should be expected to look...well...like men and women, not like teenyboppers or like they've been home with the flu all weekend or like disheveled vagrants. No one likes the look of a vagrant except maybe Janis Joplin and that strung-out hippie I met recently on the beach, though even he said he was into demons more.

Men: You look best in tailored wool suits with pocket squares during the week or Penguin-brand garb as casualwear on the weekends. Women: Dresses and pencil skirts during the week; if no dresses are on hand then sleeveless blouses and capris for weekend outings, mmk? There's never a wrong time to wear heels. And while you're at it, a little red lipstick never hurt anyone.

Best. Business Card. Ever.

2010-07-08T02:53:00.006+01:00

(image via Above the Law)

What better way to make light of an otherwise awful situation than one single, perforated line? Well played, James A.W. Mahon.

That one time I went to a minor league baseball game

2010-07-06T17:07:00.007+01:00

Let's see...what did I learn from this 4th of July weekend? Ah yes: If you're ever invited to a minor league baseball game always remember to politely decline unless you don't mind sitting in a crowd of people too lazy to drive the 45 minutes it takes to see an actual major league baseball game.

It started off innocently enough. J's bro and his girlfriend (long-time readers: you might remember them of Burt and Clothilde fame) called with an offer J couldn't refuse. They had just scored four free tickets to the San Jose Giants minor league baseball game the next night (because GOD FORBID anyone I know could ever score free tickets to a Hall & Oates concert or a glitzy movie premiere or a Medieval renaissance festival where drunk Scotsmen in kilts perform caber tosses for us spectators in the stands. NOPE. Whenever I'm offered free tickets it's never to any of the above. Sigh)

J is a huge baseball fan, stemming from his years in Little League up to playing college baseball his freshman year when, as a pitcher, he ruined his arm and his MLB dreams were swallowed along with a few bottles of aspirin for more realistic life goals. Obvi his initial response at the tickets was "Yes!" I, on the other hand, was a bit more suspicious but thought it would be fun to see Burt and Clothilde and so we went.

Three hours later, I was shivering on the cold, steel bleachers, ready to take the bag of sunflower seeds J was holding and dump them all over his head. Was the event completely horrible? No. Do I hate baseball? No (for the record I am a Red Sox fan). Did I care who was playing and what the score was and whether the GMs of either team were remotely attractive like I usually do at (major league) baseball teams I attend? No. It's hard to get into the spirit of things when:

1.) The crowd is thin to begin with and vaguely reminds you of attending that high school game all over again,

2.) "Your" team is playing a team you initially thought was called the "Landblasters" because you are near-sighted and cannot read sports jerseys that well from a distance and you know you should wear your glasses in such instances but always conveniently forget them like Marilyn Monroe did in How to Marry a Millionaire,

3.) You find out that said jerseys actually say "Lancaster" on them and then you really become disinterested because Lancaster is a small hick town on the outermost outskirts of Los Angeles where meth addicts and other pillars of society tend to congregate slash reside in.

The highlight of the night was when I spaced out for a third -- or was it fourth? -- time, rereading the "Blue Cross of California" banner ad (really, that's all it said) in left outfield, when a rather large man wearing a "Big Belly Crew" shirt climbed past me on the bleachers, wheezing the entire way, extra large plastic cup of beer in hand. Oh no, wait. The highlight was actually when three-quarters of the crowd stood up to partake in a rousing rendition of YMCA, including BBC behind us. All I thought, as he reached to the heavens to spell out those sacred letters, was "raise your hands higher...I want to see your glorious belly!"

Judging from J and his brother's conversation (and all the conversations around us), minor league baseball games are where men go to talk about other, more professional sports. World Cup Soccer, Major League Baseball...you name it, they were talking about it. It's as if the actual real-life game we watched was just something on TV in the background to set the stage for all the sports chatter happening in the stands. Chatter that was punctuated with dozens of square tip acrylic nails.

Again, it wasn't all terrible and we were in good, immediate company. But if I was ever invited to another minor league game I would pass. Et tu, reader-friends? Or am I in the minority?

And now, just because he talked me into going, here are a couple pictures I'm taking public of J playing varsity baseball in high school ;)

J, back when he was somewhat reminiscent of Leonardo DiCaprio circa Growing Pains.

Mad Men rules: A countdown to Season 4

2010-07-02T18:51:00.007+01:00

In honor of the Mad Men Season 4 premiere this month (July 25th -- set your DVRs!), every Friday leading up to the fated night I'll be running a post related to the show and/or its actors. Today comes a short, fantastic video (via AMC) counting down the "rules" of Mad Men leading up to Season 4. Creator/writer/director Matt Weiner does a superb job of dissecting the basic elements (or rules) that make Men Men so brilliant and shows how those rules will carry into the new season:

My favorite rule? "Only boring people are bored." So true, Betty. So true.

And if it's been a while since you've Mad Men-ized yourself (or you simply have no clue what I'm talking about), AMC has a new "Mad Men Yourself" up on their website in honor of the new season! New backgrounds, new clothes and new accessories (because let's face it, there's something so devastatingly handsome about a man smoking a cigarette in a Brooks Brothers suit. At least in cartoon form.)

Poverty Sucks

2010-06-30T17:38:00.000+01:00

I was at The Nana's house yesterday going through some old framed art she had when I came across this delightful poster:

I think this about sums up poverty versus wealth perfectly.

Whatever happens in Cabo...

2010-06-28T20:25:00.005+01:00

...will most likely show up on this blog, recounted in painstaking humorous detail, because guess who's flying to Cabo San Lucas in August?

ME!!!!!!!

J and I just booked our vacation package yesterday and I'm so excited my head feels like it's going to explode -- poof! -- into a cloud of Pixie Stick dust. (My sugar high is apparently not helping).

I've been all over Mexico countless times (Cancun, Mexico City, La Paz, Guadalajara, et. al.), but in all of my 28 years I have yet to visit Cabo. And so I'll share with you the extent of my knowledge:

What little I know of Cabo can be chalked up to that third episode (aptly titled "Whatever Happens in Cabo") of Laguna Beach Season 1 (yes, I am a huge Laguna Beach fan, The Hills pales in comparison to the splendor of its predecessor, and don't pretend you never obsessively watched Laguna Beach either.) Clearly, watching Stephen yell "Slut!" to a drunk, dancing-on-the-bar-in-a-miniskirt-with-no-underwear Kristen Cavallari in what looked like a Senor Frog's is not all that Cabo has to offer. Neither was the swim-up bar in the resort's pool where the Laguna Beach gringos spent their afternoons.

Originally we were going to book a week in Vegas as a post-Bar/Thank God Law School is Over/belated three-year anniversary trip, but after seeing how cheap beach destinations were, we decided Cabo would be a better way to unwind. A better way to lay like broccoli. The pricetag was unbeatable: $780/person, which includes...well...everything. Seriously. Airfare, six nights in a luxury beach resort, various amenities, and all food and drinks (including alcoholic beverages). Basically we won't have to take out our wallets the entire week we're there. We can just sun, swim and consume, which is exactly what J wants after three years of torts and civil liabilities. (Oh and I had no idea prior to us booking but our resort is the one Mtv sent the Laguna kiddies to in that spring break episode! It's fate, minus the annoying spring break crowds.)

Any fun, specific things I should check out while in Cabo? I know the ocean currents at the tip of Baja can get a little cray cray, and the last thing I want is a picture of me bear-hugging Lola stolen off Facebook by CNN as my name flashes by in the news ticker as "An American Girl Lost at Sea After a Minor Mishap While Banana Boating"....so banana boating is out. Other activities I should know about?

I am quite the salsa dancer when the right music is blasting, so I know I'll be doing that. And floating up to the pool bar multiple times a day. And shopping (how I love the peso-dollar exchange rate). And reading in a hammock on the playa. Lover's Beach also looks fantastic, so I'll probably be taking a boat ride to check it out:

All of J's classmates have flashy, expensive post-Bar trips planned after July. Some are going to Europe for a month, or taking a few weeks on a Mediterranean cruise, or going to Costa Rica till they have to start work in October. While I would have loved a month in Italy, right now a week in Cabo will more than suffice.

A letter to men, by Christina Hendricks

2010-06-25T19:15:00.002+01:00

"One minute you're on top of the world, the next minute some secretary is running you over with a lawn mower."

In honor of the Mad Men Season 4 premiere in exactly one month (July 25th -- set your DVRs!), every Friday leading up to the fated night I'll be running a post related to the show and/or its actors. Today is an open letter to men penned by Christina Hendricks for Esquire in April.

I love that when it comes to men, Christina seems just as confident as the Joan Holloway character she plays. As copywriter Paul Kinsey said: “Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe — every woman is one of them. ...Though Marilyn's more of a Joan, not the other way around.”

And here's why (in her own words):

We love your body. If we're in love with you, we love your body. Your potbelly, everything. Even if you're insecure about something, we love your body. You feel like you're not this or that? We love your body. We embrace everything. Because it's you.

Speaking of your body, you don't understand the power of your own smell. Any woman who is currently with a man is with him partly because she loves the way he smells. And if we haven't smelled you for a day or two and then we suddenly are within inches of you, we swoon. We get light-headed. It's intoxicating. It's heady.

We remember forever what you say about the bodies of other women. When you mention in passing that a certain woman is attractive — could be someone in the office, a woman on the street, a celebrity, any woman in the world, really — your comment goes into a steel box and it stays there forever. We will file the comment under "Women He Finds Attractive." It's not about whether or not we approve of the comment. It's about learning what you think is sexy and how we might be able to convey it. It's about keeping our man by knowing what he likes.

We also remember everything you say about our bodies, be it good or bad. Doesn't matter if it's a compliment. Could be just a comment. Those things you say are stored away in the steel box, and we remember these things verbatim. We remember what you were wearing and the street corner you were standing on when you said it.

Remember what we like. When I first started dating my husband, I had this weird fascination with the circus and clowns and old carnival things and sideshow freaks and all that. About a month after we started dating, he bought me this amazing black-and-white photo book on the circus in the 1930s, and I started sobbing. Which freaked him out. I thought, Oh, my God, I mentioned this three or four weeks ago and talked about it briefly, but he was really listening to me. And he actually went out and researched and found this thing for me. It was amazing.

We want you to order Scotch. It's the most impressive drink order. It's classic. It's sexy. Such a rich color. The glass, the smell. It's not watered down with fruit juice. It's Scotch. And you ordered it.

Stand up, open a door, offer a jacket. We talk about it with our friends after you do it. We say, "Can you believe he stood up when I approached the table?" It makes us feel important. And it makes you important because we talk about it.

No shorts that go below the knee. The ones almost like capri pants, the ones that hover somewhere between the kneecap and the calf? Enough with those shorts. They are the most embarrassing pants in the world. They should never be worn. No woman likes those.

Also, no tank tops. In public at least. A tank top is underwear. You're walking around in your underwear. Too much.

You don't know this, but when we come back from a date, we feel awkward about that transition from our cute outfit into sexy lingerie. We don't know how to do this gracefully. It's embarrassing. We have to find a way to slip into another room, put on the outfit as if it all happened very easily, and then come out and it's: Look at me! Look at the sexy thing I've done! For you, it's the blink of an eye. It's all very embarrassing. Just so you know.

Panties is a wonderful word. When did you stop saying "panties"? It's sexy. It's girlie. It's naughty. Say it more.

About ogling: The men who look, they really look. It doesn't insult us. It doesn't faze us, really. It's just — well, it's a little infantile. Which is ironic, isn't it? The men who constantly stare at our breasts are never the men we're attracted to.

Marriage changes very little. The only things that will get a married man laid that won't get a single man laid are adultery and whores. Intelligence and humor (and your smell) are what get you laid. That's what got you laid when you were single. That's what gets you laid when you're married. Everything still works in marriage: especially intelligence and humor. Because the sexiest thing is to know you.

The Nana and moving day

2010-06-23T20:00:00.005+01:00

Today is moving day -- again!

It's hard to keep up with my nomadic lifestyle but to recap we've been staying with my grandma (aka "The Nana") while figuring out where exactly we should live in the Bay Area (read: waiting to see if I got that one dream job. Wah-wahhh. With that offer off the table not only can I now breathe easier, but I can live practically anywhere in the region.) Since all our earthly possessions are just down the street in a public storage locker we decided to stay local in Walnut Creek and recently found an adorable one bed/one bath apartment in the heart of the downtown area, which means I'll end up ~~spending copious amounts of money~~ window shopping and imbibing often at Nordstroms slash H&M slash all the other cute stores and restaurants that are basically 500 ft. from my new front door. (In the inimitable words of Rachel Zoe: "I die.")

Though I'll only be one freeway exit away from my nana, I'm a little sad about leaving since living here for the past three weeks has been more hilarious than I expected. Why? Because I realize, staying here, that my 84-year-old grandma is essentially the Fruit Cake Lady:

Perhaps everyone's grandmas are like the Fruit Cake Lady and it's just dawning on me now, but there is something highly comedic about a sweet old lady who tells it like it is. No nonsense, no bs, no concern for political correctness. I guess when you get to a certain age you simply don't give a damn anymore -- and I love that. The shock factor is magnificent.

Take last week when hilarity ensued in the form of her two shitza-poo puppies, who she took out in her car to run errands with. As nana was in TJ Maxx cruising the home goods aisle, one of the puppies ended up getting into her container of medicine in the front seat and ingesting all 30 pills. The dog (of course) needed its stomach pumped and all my nana had to do that evening to describe the day's events was plop the empty, chewed-up, orange pill bottle on the dinner table with her shaky hands in front of J and I. This was followed up with a comment from her about the "damn" dog being suicidal.

And this is how it's been. Over the last three weeks my nana has uttered dozens of gems, but unfortunately I can only remember a few that made me laugh out loud:

On methods of eradicating Bluejays from her garden:

"If I had a shotgun he wouldn't be so happy, plopping around in that bird bath. We've got too many Bluejays in my garden."

On Justin Bieber's performance on the Today Show:

"Who is this Bee-bur person? He looks like a little girl. Frank Sinatra would be turning over in his grave if he could see this."

On Christina Aguilera's performance on the Today Show:

"Well I don't know about you but I think she looks like a tramp. Who wears their underwear outside their pants? A tramp..."

On Marilyn Monroe:

"She was pathetic."

On sleeping with a 12-gauge shotgun (my late grandpa's gun) next to her bed every night:

"I hope I never have to use the thing. I've never shot a gun before, but the world is a dangerous place. You never know."

On an obese young women in a tight, short dress walking past our lunch table:

Muttered under breath: "Oh honey. That dress is doing absolutely nothing for you."

On whole-milk ice cream she insisted I eat:

Me: "This scoop probably has, like, 1,000 calories in it..."

Nana, after a brief pause: "So what. It's milk. It's good for your skin."

New Mad Men Season 4 poster out

2010-06-21T20:03:00.004+01:00

I know you've all been clinging precariously to the edges of your seats since last November, hands wrung, breath baited, waiting for Mad Men to premiere again (haven't you? HAVEN'T YOU? ...or is this just me?...). To feed such an unhealthy addiction to a now classic cornerstone of the pop culture canon, the first poster touting Mad Men season 4 was just released today *pulls out tourniquet and prepares for rapturous high*:

(image via EW)

Creator Matt Weiner told Entertainment Weekly today that the new season of Mad Men will find the characters all questioning who they are.

"It’s about stripping away the things these people think define them,” Weiner told the magazine. “Once they’re taken away, they just may have to look at who they really are.”

Knowing Mad Men, this poster is rife with symbolism. It's never as it seems; therefore, this isn't just Don in an empty office. Out of all the office accoutrements to include in this picture, why go with the phone? What is Don looking at? Why does he have a lit cigarette but no ashtray? (Is he looking to figuratively burn the place down?) Why shoot in an office with floor-to-ceiling windows? Is he moving in or moving out? (Perhaps to California to take up permanent residence in that amazing Palm Springs house with the group of jetsetters?)

The imagery may not seem as compelling as the promos for Season 3 (the one where Don's sitting in his office, cigarette in hand, as the tide is rising around him), but Weiner & Co. can't give away too much in this first look. And that's fine with me. All I know is it's nice having Don back in my life (*casually undoes tourniquet and tosses it on coffeetable*).

A big fat "no"

2010-06-18T20:34:00.009+01:00

So I wasn't going to say anything about it publicly but since I've just been passed over for the "other top candidate" I guess now it really doesn't matter: I just came thisclose to an editorial job at a well-known national website based in SF that would have paid more money than I could have ever dreamed of making as an editor, and would have allowed me to blog full-time for their website, which caters to women ages 18-34 years old. Blog posts would have included recaps of Bravo reality shows, travel tips, personal finance posts, career articles, what-to-wear-to-your-interview gems...all geared toward women in my age demographic. In short, if I had to go back to a desk job (which, believe me, I really don't want but need to do while J studies for the Bar and we figure out the next phase of our life; writing books only pays for so many bills), this would have been the dream desk job. The dream desk job that would have paid more than handsomely while still allowing me to remain a journalist (read: The Reason I Went to School And Majored in What I Did).

I'll admit, I got much closer than I expected. After applying on an absolute whim back in March, thinking they would be flooded with resumes and I'd probably hear nothing back, I not only got a call back but also got sent an editing/writing test. For the test I had to create a mock blog and write a handful of blog posts focused on topics they provided. I knew I kicked butt in creating the faux blog, but was still surprised when I got an email asking me to come in for an interview. Remember that weekend in late March when I flew out to California last-minute? Yeah, that was the reason. The interview was one of the best in interview history (I can say this with utmost assurance), and after that I heard...nothing. Nada. That whole month of April was like listening to a million crickets chirping in a symphonic hall with first-class acoustics.

Finally, though, they got back with me in early May and told me I made it to their top three. Cloud 9, people, Cloud 9. I had to speak with their managing editor in a phone interview, which I ended up conducting in the parking garage of a mall. But that, too, went well. I was told I would hear back within a week then...nothing. Again. Which I was fine with since that meant I wouldn't have to move early and would get to partake in the cross-country roadtrip J and I were excited to embark on.

Back in California I emailed them and asked what the hell was going on (okay, I didn't exactly ask that way, but had my life been a comic strip and not an actual life, herein is where they would have been illustrated as a wall-eyed, gangly chicken that I would ring the neck of and shake violently back and forth whilst demanding some sort of answer). I'm the most impatient person you will ever meet and thus have no tolerance for indecisiveness (other than when ordering off a Chinese food menu, but that's beside the point). I just wanted to know: Did I get the Godforsaken job or not? All this waiting was only building the whole thing up into a dramatic production that I was tired of having to explain to friends and family. To be honest, four weeks ago I began growing disinterested in the position since I'd already waited over two months for an answer and all that waiting had put a bad taste in my mouth. Think acrid sushi that's been left out for three days. Not good.

A week later, while I'd pretty much given up hope of ever hearing from them again, I got an another email. I was hoping it was either a "yes" or "no"; this was all getting ridiculous and what I actually wanted most was closure. But no, they were asking me to come in for a third interview. (Insert long eye rolls here.)

***BTDubs, I should probably mention that during this same week I interviewed for another editorial position for a publication in the Bay Area -- one that seemed JUST as amazing. I would have been pretty high up on the masthead leading a newsroom of designers/reporters/etc. and deciding how and when stories would be published. That interview went well and a day after I was offered the job. Squee. Though it would have been magnificent I turned it down since the pay was a little lower than what I was looking for. (I know...if the job is perfect who cares if pay isn't up to par, right? Confession: If I was single, or even in a dual-income relationship right now, I would have taken it. But right now with J not bringing in...well...any income, I can't have two people living on that kind of salary.) So I declined the offer and waited for my third interview with El Company of Indecision.***

On Monday I walked into their SF office for my third interview and it went well. Again. In fact I began to wonder why they even called me in for a third interview since I met the exact same people and they asked me the exact same questions. At this point I knew it was down to me and one other top candidate. Out of hundreds of resumes sent in it had climaxed to this. After the interview I was told I'd hear back this week. And I did. They sent a very polite, very professional email explaining that though they really liked me, they decided to go with the other candidate because she had a deeper finance background (I'm almost 100% sure she had her MBA, based on how they spoke about her.)

When I read the email, I instantly got all Regina George and this was the first thing I thought:

Then my second thought was: "Thank God. Finally. I have closure." A euphoric wave of relief crashed over me and I was okay again. No more anticipation or uncertainty. It was done; the job was off the table. Nothing about it was looming over my head like a little indecisive raincloud, following me everywhere I went for the last three months.

J actually took it harder than me. When I told him they said "no" his face immediately went white and it looked like his heart was going to fall out his butt. But I reassured him that it was all going to be fine. After all, I'd already gotten one job offer in the first two weeks of being back in the state. Plus after J's rejection from an amazing firm in Newport Beach (we found out recently they opted to go with someone who'd already passed the Bar and was out of school), I'm bulletproof when it comes to missed job offers. There was so much more on the table with that Newport job and J had gotten so far in the interview process that when we received the letter in our mailbox I felt like I'd been hit in the chest with a wrecking ball. In matters of job searches, nothing could ever top that feeling. Ever.

But you know what the worst part is about my latest job news? It isn't me not landing the job or how long they took to get back to me or the fact that in all honesty going back to a desk job -- even if it was the dream desk job -- made me a little sad since it would take time away from my writing. None of that. The worst part is having to listen to the pity I'm hearing from those close to me, telling me (repeatedly) that it's "[that employer's] loss," "they missed out on an excellent employee," etc. etc. (insert long list of cliche "well-at-least-you-got-as-far-as-you-did" phrases here.) It sickens me. I don't want to hear ANY OF IT.

I especially don't want certain people (read: my grandmother), handing me self-help books titled "Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and Life" the next morning. (Yes, this actually happened and it further made me feel like Paul Giamatti in Sideways.) All these reaffirmations of support and sympathy make me want to vomit. Seriously. Why? Because I was over it when I got the rejection (I get over things very easily), so listening to people constantly bring it up as though I'd banked my hopes and dreams on a stupid desk job makes me feel completely misunderstood. There is nothing worse than not only feeling misunderstood, but also receiving pity for said misunderstanding.

Basically right now I feel like this:

I'm all stocked up here.

Back when life was simple

2010-06-16T18:24:00.002+01:00

...my to-do lists resembled these:

(images via HuffPo)

Now they include:

Find reasonably priced apartment in an unreasonably priced Bay Area neighborhood.
Go grocery shopping.
Cancel private health insurance. (This alone is a tedious task: For the reams of bureaucracy involved, no one's ever accused BlueCross of being efficient of all things. During my last year of coverage I couldn't even pay my monthly bill online; according to them it had to be done by check -- remember checks? -- through the mail. Welcome to the 21st century.)
Pay bills.
Get new tires for car (because all I really want to do on a sunny Saturday afternoon is spend time inhaling rubber vapors in Costco and Big-O Tires, looking for the best deal)
Save some semblance of a down-payment for ~~the start of my real estate empire~~ my first house.
Figure out how I'm going to conceivably own a Porsche 911 before my 35th birthday.
Give Lola a haircut (which takes longer than one would think since her haircuts are somewhat akin to shearing a sheep.)
Work.

Not as fun as eating ice pops, folding "close", and staring at this alleged Isaac fellow, but it could be much worse. I hope I never have to add "attend three rounds of chemo", "file for divorce", or "ask everyone I know for money because I'm broke" to my to-do list. Though my current list of priorities has changed drastically from the one I wrote at age 5 (the one that included "eat my tube of cherry chapstick") I'm happy with where I'm at. Some things are meant to change with age. This includes ingesting lip balm.

My night with Jim Morrison

2010-06-14T18:43:00.008+01:00

The crew.

The other night we had a small beach bonfire with my sister, brother, and his new girlfriend. In Santa Cruz, after all, the obligatory bonfire is the go-to venue for meeting new significant others.

We all loved his girlfriend and had fun laughing, roasting marshmallows and playing guitar -- yes, we sit Indian-style around bonfires playing guitar -- as we watched the sun set. Soon the landscape turned black save for a few small glowing fires just down the shore. I thought nothing of it since there were five of us around the fire (two men), and the last thing I thought was to be scared of what could be out there in the dark. Not only were we on a relatively sheltered part of the beach but we were also in front of a posh beach resort, where the only scary people are those with copious amounts of Botox between their eyes.

So there we were, taking turns repeating lyrics as comedic spoken word from some of the most crass rap songs we could think of, when a figure emerged from the darkness around our bonfire. He held a piece of driftwood and his arm was outstretched as though it was guiding him toward our fire.

We abruptly stopped our Lil-Jon-as-spoken-word fest as he placed the wood in our fire and joined us, cross-legged on the sand. The man, who had to have been in his mid-20s, had a wild look in his eyes, his clothes were dirty, his hair long and dreaded. By firelight he resembled part-Jim Morrison and part-Charles Manson. None of us said anything until he spoke.

Random vagrant: "There's petroleum in this fire. I can smell it."

(He erupts into laughter. We remain quiet, slightly freaked out, and watch him.)

RV: "I just inhaled it. Do you smell it? Do you?"

(No one answers, so of course I chime in.)

Me, in a conversational tone: "I don't think there's any petroleum in this fire."

RV: "Yes there is. I saw it from a distance. I can see things, you know. I can see the cancer growing in all of us. In all of you. I see radiation in people's eyes."

Me: "Interesting... Are you from around here?"

RV: (Laughs.) "No, I'm from Connecticut."

Me: "Wow, you're a long way from home."

RV: "I have no home. ...I don't belong anywhere... I go where I want."

Me, as though I hear this every day: "That's cool."

(Silence.)

RV: "I once took 56mg of shrooms." (He laughs maniacally again and suddenly everything is quite clear to us.) "I also took acid a couple times. Those two blotters of paper, man, they changed my life."

Me: "It sure seems that way."

RV: "And you know when I took the acid I saw people for who they were, I saw the truth about humanity in the eyes of everybody I passed. I saw the death growing in each of us..."

Me: "You don't say..."

RV: "...people live their lives and they don't remember they're going to die someday. We're all going to die. How can you ignore something like that?" (He giggles for a minute.) "I know we're all going to die. People forget about that. But I see. When I look at people, I can already see they're dead."

Me: "You do have a point."

RV: "After the acid...I just never looked at things the same again.

(By this time no one besides me has spoken up, so of course this has turned into a conversation between he and I. Or just he and he. I wasn't sure.)

RV: "I have a son. His name is River, he's three years old. His mother was pregnant with him when I decided to marry her."

Me: "You have a son? How old are you?"

RV: "23. But I don't see him anymore. His mother won't let me see him. I know why -- it's because she's a demon. I've married a lot of people, in my own way. Not by society's way. One day I took shrooms and told her I wanted to marry her by the ocean so we did, but when we were standing there, marrying each other, she turned into a demon."

Me: "Far out..."

RV: "...So I ran away. I couldn't marry a demon. Then law enforcement wouldn't let me see my son after that."

(I vaguely see the outlines of my brother and his girlfriend, shifting and uncomfortable on the guitar case they're sitting on. My sister to my left is making "let's-get-the-hell-out-of-here" eyes at me. J has his hand on a piece of firewood in case anything cray-cray goes down since this guy is obviously strung out on some pretty intense narcotics.)

My brother, who begins to stand up: "We're going to start heading up to the car."

J: "Good idea."

Brother to random vagrant: "Hey man, you can have the rest of the fire. Stay warm here as long as you want tonight."

RV: "Thanks. Oh, I'm -- I'm sorry. Did I mess up your bonfire? I keep doing that to people." (He laughs and actually looks genuinely embarrassed -- as much as someone who's got pupils dilated to the size of saucers can.)

Us: "No, it's fine, enjoy the fire."

We start to walk away with our guitar and towels and marshmallows and realize RV is following us up the dark path we need to climb to get back to our car. My brother's girlfriend grabs my arm and we put our heads down and run up to the front of our group since RV is lagging toward the back, talking to J about demons and Connecticut and this girl he once knew who had pentagrams burned into her arms by her parents.

Now I'm not scared of homeless people and I'm not scared of drug addicts, but I am scared of the unpredictability of a homeless drug addict and what said person is capable of doing to a handful of unarmed beachgoers on a dark hillside path. We collectively decided by a few raised eyebrows and shared whispers to follow the trail up to the resort instead of taking the fork toward our car. Being in the vicinity of resort-goers en route to their bungalows sounded much better than being murdered in a thicket of Eucalyptus trees.

My brother began fumbling with his blackberry, and before he realized it was on speakerphone, a loud "911, how can I help you?" cut the tension and RV's murmured conversation he was having with himself behind us. We couldn't help but giggle as RV, completely ignorant of why 911 could possibly be called, said "That's a random number to accidentally dial."

Once we reached manicured landscaping we took a hard right up a cement path past a jacuzzi full of overly tanned men, and RV absentmindedly kept walking straight, into the gullet of the resort area. Whew. After taking his phone off speaker, my brother told police that RV wasn't a threat but needed to be picked up from the grounds for some sort of psychiatric evaluation (I forgot the code number for this but since my bro used to be in law enforcement he could speak the language).

The irony is that much of what RV said around the campfire -- though it was said in a drug-induced haze -- was poetry. The kind of poetry people like Jim Morrison wrote down and put music to. Jim, like RV and others, was high out of his mind when he rode the stream of his consciousness, but in a strange way his words made profound sense. In fact, some of the greatest poetry and literature and music of our time has been written by those experimenting with substances I am not condoning. I just think it's interesting, and my night with RV affirmed this, that it's bizarre how we herald so many artists and visionaries as geniuses because of the profound, often-psychotropic words they write, and yet a disheveled vagrant uttering these exact words to a group of strangers seems crazy and unpredictable.

Genius and Crazy...much more closely related than I thought.

The "Ain't Nothing Wrong With Freedom, Man" Trip across America, in pictures

2010-06-10T19:32:00.031+01:00

The day of departure. A confused and somewhat disgruntled Lola (above) in our empty and cleaned apartment.

On the road in Pennsylvania.

Crossing the Mississippi. Wish we could have spent more time in this Illinois/Iowa area, it was adorable.

One of many gas station stops in Iowa. J posing with the real star of the show: the truck.

Corn Palace!

You know you love it.

My love affair with corn continues.

And we're back on the road...

Lola really not liking this whole roadtrip thing. (During most of the trip she had her head shoved down between two seat cushions in an attempt to make it all stop.)

Somewhere in South Dakota.

Near the entrance to Badlands

Setting up camp at Badlands. It was very windy, as evidenced by Lola's ears (above) and J's frustration at getting the tent up (below).

Me contemplating the meaning of life.

Sunset at Badlands. This photo didn't do the sky justice at all; the pinks and purples were amazing in person.

On our way out of the park.

Our trusty steed on a summit.

Oh yes, did I mention we saw buffalo? BUFFALO, people! We pulled over when we saw this beaut, who ignored us as he ate grass.

Me casually hanging out at Mount Rushmore.

Attempting to outdo the spectacle of Devil's Tower.

We came upon a soft rock face carved with hundreds of initials as we hiked up around the base of Devil's Tower. Some dated back to the '60s and '70s (my favorite: "Chad + Sarah, 1978"). J decided to deface government property and add our initials to the mix.

Somewhere in Wyoming.

J much too excited about his $1 cashout from the penny slots at Boomtown Resort & Casino in Nevada.

The next morning at Denny's in Boomtown, perusing the surfeit of gastronomic delights on the menu.

Twelve more miles past Boomtown and we finally crossed the state line.

The "Ain't Nothing Wrong With Freedom, Man" Trip across America, in words

2010-06-08T08:38:00.004+01:00

Little did I know when we started out on this hallowed journey toward Valhalla we'd wind up face-to-face with a mama Grizzly, defending her cubs who just happened to find the beef jerky in our now-clawed-open car just as satisfying as we did. Apparently Lola had done little to satiate their hunger earlier in the night when we discovered she'd gone missing on a routine potty break. With J wielding a hatchet behind me, the Grizzly now charging toward us with her snout wrinkled and teeth bared, I gripped the hunting knife in my white-knuckled hands and....

Got your attention yet? Good. Cause none of that happened although it would have been sweet if it did. Ditto if we had found ourselves in the path of some giant tornado, J, Lola and I strapped to a random pole on a Kansas farm by nothing but a leather belt, Twister-style. But that didn't happen either.

We encountered no killer mosquitoes, vengeful bears or creepy toothless truckers (okay, maybe a couple) on our "Ain't Nothing Wrong With Freedom, Man" Trip Across America (a name we borrowed from a Dennis Hopper line in Easy Rider). In fact, for such an unplanned cross-country jaunt it went surprisingly well, save for a slight...situation...near the South Dakota/Wyoming border. But even that was more funny than terrible (to me, at least. J: not so happy.) With that, here are the highlights of our journey:

After two days straight of driving on the road, taking turns sleeping while the other drove, fatigue began to set in somewhere in Iowa around midnight. And of course we happened to be on one long stretch of freeway that had NO exits for what seemed like a hundred miles or so. Just the road in front of us, dark cow pastures on either side. I could barely keep my eyes open. "Must...get...to...South Dakota..." I murmured, as exhaustion continued lulling my eyelids closed. J kept yelling at me to stay awake until we could pull over but after a while his yells were useless against my fatigue, so we switched places in the cab like a deranged Cirque de Soleil trapeze act while our truck roared down the freeway. I know what you're thinking and in hindsight I don't recommend anyone attempt this, but the alternative was either a.) die in a horrible truck accident by falling asleep at the wheel, or b.) die in a horrible truck accident by parking our vehicle on the narrow highway shoulder and risk getting hit by one of the many passing Big Rigs traveling at speeds of 85+ mph. Seriously.

When we finally found an off-ramp we pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of some hybrid truck stop slash dive bar. (There was nothing else around.) Nestled between parked Big Rigs, we pulled out our sleeping bags and climbed into the front seats of our Hyundai on the tow cart. The air reeked of cow manure and the smattering of semis parked in the lot had their engines running all night for what I think was air conditioning in their sleeping cabs, but I'm not sure. All I knew was that after two days of pounding hundreds of miles of pavement, all I wanted was a few hours of sleep beneath my polyester sleeping bag. As terrible as it sounds it was actually fun. I'd finally become a nomad.

During our second night in Iowa we drove through a town called Sac City and though it was all closed up for the evening, it was fascinating. Sac City is a sleepy little village only a few blocks long, built next to a two-lane thoroughfare that winds through the center of Iowa. There's a small high school (or K-12, I wasn't sure), a community center, a post office, a convenience store, a few charming storefronts selling antiques and other oddities, and a handful of locally owned eateries. Most driving through would probably find it un-amazing but something about it intrigued me enough to comment out loud that I'd love to come back and stay at a B&B. Someday we will go back.

Our first "real" stop -- meaning we actually hung out for a few hours in said place -- was Mitchell, South Dakota, home to the infamous Corn Palace. "How hokey," you might think. "A whole palace made of corn?" Yes. And it's phenomenal. It's not entirely made of corn anymore, though I think when it was first built it was (imagine the popcorn potential in such a place!). Anyway, while the Corn Palace was delightful I was even more intrigued by Mitchell itself. Mitchell was and is the kind of community Norman Rockwell painted in all those Saturday Evening Post covers. We wandered in and off the main street and were greeted with warm smiles from locals as they went about their daily business. Even stopping in a local coffee shop was fabulous -- the barista and cashier were genuine, happy and hospitable. It was a nice respite from what we'd grown accustomed to out East. I'm delighted that this kind of town still exists...the kind of place where everybody knows your name.

Next stop was Badlands, South Dakota, where we set up camp for a night. Badlands is a peculiar but stunning national park filled with craggy stalagmite-looking rock formations in the middle of the Dakota plains. Once inside the park it feels like you're on the moon. It's barren, solitary and captivating. The winds had picked up by the time we pulled our tent out that afternoon and it was high comedy helping J set up everything while 30mph winds whipped past our faces and gear. J tends to lose his patience in situations like these so I have some hilarious pictures of him as he struggled with pieces of tent that ended up wrapped around him like a superhero cape. Of course, it didn't help that I was howling with laughter as I continued taking pictures of his plight. He's such a lucky man to be married to me. ;)

The next day after Badlands we stopped at Wall Drug Store on our way to Black Hills National Forest. I know, I know, what's the big deal about some old drug store, right? Well, everything, actually. This particular drug store takes its name from the town of Wall, South Dakota, where it's located. Wall used to be known by locals as "the geographical center of nowhere," until a guy started Wall Drug Store and saved it through the Great Depression by using an advertising gimmick of offering "free ice water" to any customers. To this day Wall Drug still serves free ice water and 5-cent coffee (along with a plethora of cheesy South Dakota tourism merchandise and some of the best homemade fudge I've eaten in my life). Wall Drug is known around the world because of the hand-painted wooden signs that advertise their business globally. Apparently there are Wall Drug signs promoting free ice water in places like London, Kenya, and even in the Paris Metro. The more you know.

Later that day we cruised into the Black Hills National Forest near the South Dakota/Wyoming border. Herein is where our story takes a turn for the ridiculous, kiddies. We were uber excited as we drove past the ranger entrance. After all, the Black Hills are home to some fabulous sites: Mount Rushmore, Jewel Caves, the old outlaw town of Deadwood where Calamity Jane out-drank her male counterparts and Wild Bill Hickok was eventually gunned down. Oh and buffalo. We couldn't wait to see buffalo. Our plan was find a campsite, set up the tent, take the car off the hitch and use it to drive around the forest (the mountains would have been much harder to traverse in our Budget Truck). So we found a campsite and as J unloaded our gear I patiently waited, suddenly writhing like a spastic each time I'd hear a buzzing in my ear from one of the many wasps who had found our campsite just as splendid as we did.

Once J was finished he circled our car on its hitch, undoing the four chains that held it in place (two in the front, two in back). As he climbed into the car and started the engine I suppose I should have been paying more attention from my vantage point on the street because as soon he backed off the hitch there was a loud pop...or was it a crunch? I can't remember now but all I can recollect was that it was a hideous sound. An expensive sound.

"I think you bottomed out!" I yelled over the engine. But the minute he peered out the window and I watched the blood drain from his face, I saw exactly what the problem was. The left tire behind him was completely crooked, and was now turned at an obnoxious, wall-eyed angle. Apparently he'd forgotten to take the rear chains off and the left axle thing (don't you love how technical I am?) was completely bent.

Ugh.

The funny thing? After the initial shock wore off I just couldn't be angry. Of all places and times for something like that to happen -- Mount Rushmore was supposed to be the peak of our journey -- we now had a car that could barely move, much less make it up a steep mountain to see the Four Heads. How could I not laugh? We deliberated for a moment before I decided we should just pack up all our gear and try to see Mount Rushmore on our way out of the park that evening. The sun was already beginning to set and there was no sense staying at the campsite for two nights when we wouldn't have easy access to climb all those hills around us comfortably in a smaller car. So we left.

Mount Rushmore was, of course, magnificent and we got to catch a lighting ceremony around 9:30pm which made it even better. But by the time we pulled out of the parking lot there we were exhausted. It had been a long, hot day, filled with stops at famous drug stores and absent-minded wrecking of rear car axles. So we stopped in a tiny tourist town just a few miles down the winding forest road from the monument, but the first motel in said town cost $120 -- $120! For what looked like an inimical den full of bedbugs and tired slot machines -- so we decided to keep driving...the entire length of the Black Hills. At this time it was around 11pm and though we only had about 30 miles to get out of the national park, they were 30 miles of steep elevations and harrowing descents. Not the ideal setting for a full moving truck with car hitch.

It was silent during most of the ride, but there was palpable tension in the air. We each gritted our teeth, J behind the wheel, me in the passenger seat, as we silently hoped the truck wouldn't break down climbing one of the many mountains at 10mph, or even worse lose its brakes as we descended each 7% grade. We managed to drive through Deadwood on our way out, which was cool since it still remains an "outlaw"-style town with antiquated storefronts, saloons, hotels, restaurants and city streetlamps. I can't wait till we return and I can spend more than just 5 minutes there.

Finally, finally!, as the Budget truck was seemingly on its last knee, coughing and sputtering up the final behemoth of a mountain, we reached the main freeway and exited the Black Hills. The first town we came upon was a place called Spearfish and we ended up crashing at a Howard Johnson there (which, I should mention, had peculiar taxidermy fowl strategically placed on the walls above the check-in desk in the "lobby" if you could call it that. It was very Psycho, and I half-expected to see Norman Bates walk out from back, asking if we'd like a room and to possibly meet his mother. But there was no Norman Bates, only a middle-aged, tired-looking man with a thick Russian accent who knocked five bucks off the price of the room because he could tell I needed a break).

All I cared about was a.) taking a shower (it had been days since we bathed and though I was a trooper about the whole camping thing, even about the bugs, I couldn't wait to have access to soap and running water. Especially since temperatures had been hot the whole week. Yummy.), and b.) sleeping. That night I fully appreciated the merits of a hot shower and warm, clean bed. Too many of us take for granted those everyday things.

After we awoke in Spearfish and checked out of the HoJo we crossed the South Dakota border into Wyoming en route to Devils Tower. Devils Tower basically looks like a giant slab of clay that someone stuck in a forested area of the corner of the state. My description does not do it justice because it's magnificent. I think it's about 900 feet tall and deep grooves are etched up and down the length it, making it look like a giant bear sharpened its claws on all sides (which is actually the Indian legend about the monument). From our campsite we had a sweet view of the Tower and were even conveniently located next to a Prairie Dog town in the park, where hundreds of thousands of burrowing chipmunk-looking animals would "bark" (or more like squeak) at passing walkers and cars as they protected the openings of their burrows. Later that afternoon J decided he wanted to hike up around the base of the Tower, and though it was hot I trudged along, climbing to an elevation of probably around 300 feet, which gave us spectacular views of the land down below.

That night at Devils Tower it rained. Luckily our tent was waterproof but sometime after the rains stopped it began getting cold. Butt cold. The kind of cold where two hoodies and a pair of flannel pajama pants wasn't enough. I hunkered deep into my polyester Target sleeping bag, which wasn't equipped for such temperatures and would probably have been better suited as a slumber party bag on a living room floor. I remember hoping I wouldn't freeze to death sometime in the night, like Jack Nicholson did in the final scene of The Shining. All night long I'd wake up to my teeth chattering, I'd check on Lola beneath her blanket, and then try to fall back asleep as I wondered how many giant ants I'd squashed under our tent base as I lay there freezing to death.

But I survived. The next morning temps returned to normal and we packed up yet again, hoping to make it to Salt Lake City by nightfall. We crossed the state of Wyoming in almost a perfect diagonal, fighting fierce winds the entire way. J mentioned we were only getting 5 miles a gallon through most of that leg of the trip. Once we reached Salt Lake City we found a motel near the airport (we didn't know SLC at all and had no clue what area we were in, but things often look better at night). In the morning we were pleasantly amused with our surroundings. Especially when I witnessed a blatant drug deal go down at the gas station across the street around 8:30 in the morning. Oh and speaking of drug deals, I also watched one transpire at a gas station in Casper, Wyoming. My guess it was probably meth since it seems meth use in these cities is abnormally high (many anti-meth billboards dot main thoroughfares). Sad.

From Salt Lake City we blasted across the rest of Utah and the entire state of Nevada until we reached Reno. Our plan was to stay in Reno for the night but as we drove through the downtown casino area my heart sank with every block. Reno was just as seedy as people say. There were blocks upon blocks of broken down, abandoned motels, many filled with squatters and people who'd taken up residence in whatever rooms they could find. Old barbecues and car parts lay sitting outside dingy motel doors and front offices, many of these places actually advertising they had vacancies. The last thing I wanted was the contents of our truck stolen (we were, after all, carrying my three seasons of Mad Men, people), so we continued on the freeway past a few upscale housing developments until we reached a solitary resort and casino called Boomtown on a hill outside of Reno's lines. It seemed we stumbled upon a retiree's heaven. There were numerous luxury RVs parked outside and we were by the far the youngest couple on the casino floor. This I could handle. For $50 we got an excellent hotel room and had fun that night listening to a live motown band and gambling with a few dollars at the slot machines. It was a very Hunter S. Thompson-esque way of ending our cross-country roadtrip. Fear and Loathing in Boomtown.

The next morning we crossed the final state line and within 4 hours were home. Throughout our trip pounds of beef jerky were consumed, along with copious amounts of fast food and the occasional slurpee for good measure. And we even got to see a couple buffalo in South Dakota. All in all, it was an amazing trip.

I was going to post photos but this has become a novella, so I'll throw up photos in a pictorial essay in a day or two. I know I've been blogging erratically but once we're settled I'll be back to my normal blogging routine.

Oh and in case you were wondering, J just fixed our car (how I love being married to a man that knows cars.) The part was only $60 and his labor was free. Score. It took him 6 hours to get the two bolts off (they'd completely rusted through because of the DC humidity), but once they were off it took a mere 15 minutes to put the new piece on. I helped out, true to form, in a fabulous new floppy sunhat and heels, as I sat in the shade and kept him entertained with rousing conversation. Again, he's a lucky man.

We made it!

2010-06-04T07:15:00.012+01:00

After seven action-packed days on the road, skipping over the country like a stone, we finally made it safe and sound to the California coast! (Oh Pacific Ocean, how I've missed you so.) This roadtrip has been three years in the making and though it only lasted seven days (I voted to spend one month on the road; J voted one week because of this silly little test called the Bar or something he has to study for) it was symbolic for us not only as a couple starting the next chapter of our lives, but as an adventure back to our roots.

Right now we're staying with my grandmother in the Bay Area while we look for an apartment on the Peninsula just south of San Francisco. (Confession: it would be amazing to live just up the street from Steve Jobs in Palo Alto and "accidentally" run into him in line at Starbucks one morning. We'd chat about stolen iPhone prototypes, Steve "The Woz" Wozniak, and what happened on last night's Grey's Anatomy, though methinks he's probably more of a Private Practice watcher. Clearly we'd be BFFs. Clearly.). Suffice to say J and I are now living out of three of our boxes as we look for a pad of our own, and though it may seem like we are in flux with jobs and housing and all those other delights...we're happy. We're home. The air smells different here. Familiar. People are nicer. Happier. I can go out at night and not have to worry about being mugged or shot. It is not muggy or cold. It just "is". Life is good.

I'll be posting a roadtrip recap and pics soon, but in the meantime here's an open letter I wrote to DC the day I left the District region:

Dear Washington DC,

In the inimitable words of John F. Kennedy, you were once described as "a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm". As a resident for 3.5 years, I can say that this is 94% true.

For being the hub of all things political for our great land, your lack of efficiency is embarrassing. Traffic patterns, time spent waiting in lines, terrible customer service across the board, the list goes on and on. When you can't figure out that white, reflective paint should be used to connote freeway lanes, something is seriously wrong. And please don't get me started about the "mixing bowl" or whatever it's called, that tangle of odds and ends of freeways and parkways and streets that all snarl together right around the Pentagon. But okay, so what you lack in proper city planning can be made up in your jobs, right? According to...well...everyone who's much more rosier about things than me, you held your own in unemployment rates while the rest of the country plummeted during that whole recession thing. All right -- maybe California is still licking its wounds when it comes to its battered employment rate, but all your jobs exist mostly because of one thing: The federal government. Which is cool, if one is into that. Working for The Man is a venerable career path, but it's not for everyone...especially one fellow blogger, who recently summed you up "as a company town for the worst company on Earth – the federal government of the United States of America."

Hmm what else am I happy to leave behind. Ah yes, the weather, the hideous income disparity within your district lines, and your general population who tends to be in a permanently foul and overly aggressive mood. At times some of these people can also be terribly pretentious (so much so, in fact, that after living here for 3 years I will never, ever again wave off LA as being so full of BS. Au contraire, LA seems like paradise now.) Sure I've found some great people and good friends here, but in general it's been a disappointment. Maybe I'm a little too mellow yellow for you, but I can't help but think that a lot of people dwelling within and outside of your beltway would lead happier lives if they just chilled out. Not everything has to be 1.) a battle, 2.) about what college you went to (bonus points, it seems, for Ivy League and anything UVA-related), or 3.) what you do for a living. Maybe if there was more common courtesy practiced between your inhabitants you'd make a more pleasant place to live. (When I heard an impatient guy at Macy's call the cashier an "asshole" out loud because he wouldn't stop ringing people up and help him RIGHT AWAY on the floor I knew I'd just about had it with your lovely, charming residents.)

You're a strange city -- a city without the feel of being a city. You just...exist. So unlike other big cities like Manhattan, Chicago, et. al. A big city without big city benefits, some have said. There's no awe, or wonder, or spectacle. Aside from the obvious obligatory phallic jokes that are made daily about your national monument by tourists and residents alike...you're just there. A muggy anomaly built atop swamp land with a terrifying crime rate, some of the worst traffic jams in the U.S., and a freeway randomly named after Martha Custis.

It's been real, but now it's time to blow this taco stand and start the next chapter of my fabulous life.

Peace out, DC.

(Ed. Update: Apparently I'm the most popular outgoing link on DC Blogs today. Just a reminder to new readers: This open letter is merely my opinion of the overall experience I had in the DC Metro area. Of course I had good times in the city as well, but for me the weather, lack of common courtesy and other daily realities tended to outweigh the good. Again, my opinion.)

That one time J graduated from law school

2010-05-25T16:22:00.021+01:00

The morning of (above). As you can see we aren't morning people.

My grad gift to J: A Jonathan Adler bull sculpture! A reminder to always be bullish in life and career.

On campus before commencement.

I'm so proud.

Getting ready to walk.

J's section had to be moved indoors at the last minute because of rainy weather (above).

Me with J's brother's girlfriend, waiting for commencement to start.

Stepping up to plate to accept his law degree.

Droves of newly minted Georgetown lawyers (above), clutching their hard-earned degrees.

Cute.

After commencement a grad reception was held under a tent in a courtyard on campus.

Georgetown Hoyas!

Three generations of J's family.

Me with friends at our grad dinner.

A table for all 10 of us.

The happy couple!

I was going to write something profound about life, law school, change and determination but...I'm out of time! Our apartment is now completely empty (save for our two sleeping bags we're using for camping), we dropped our guests off at the airport this morning, and after we finish cleaning we are OUT OF HERE!!! Short goodbye post to come...I hope.

Book review: "Let the Great World Spin"

2010-05-21T07:29:00.007+01:00

Lately I've become jaded with the whole NYC-as-the-stillpoint-of-the-turning-universe thing. I've heard just about every story that could be told about Manhattan and its outer boroughs, from Annie Hall to Taxi Driver and everything before, between, and after. I'm tired of reading about life in New York. That is, until I read Colum McCann's fantastic new novel, “Let the Great World Spin”.

Before receiving my copy to participate in an online book tour, I researched critical acclaim for the text and tried not to roll my eyes. Another novel about what it means to be a New Yorker? Just what the world needs, I thought. And that was the mentality I went into reading the book with, which was foolish since after finishing my copy I can honestly say that “Let the Great World Spin” is one of the best novels I've read in a long time and deserves all the acclaim and accolades it has received (it won the 2009 National Book Award and was Amazon's “Best of the Month” pick in June of last year).

It's August of 1974, when the Vietnam War is still simmering and tensions in the city are high. Real-life tightrope walker Philippe Petit decides to walk thousands of feet above Manhattan across a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers, and so he does after practicing for months at his country cabin and illegally rigging up a rope with friends. But McCann's novel doesn't focus on the factual Petit or his tightrope walking feat – it's about the native New Yorkers watching the spectacle above while their own lives tread more or less in chaos.

The story begins far below the tight rope, on street corners in the crime-riddled Bronx and swanky apartments on the Upper East Side. McCann deftly weaves together a dozen or so different narratives – each chapter is from a different character's point of view – from New Yorkers of different ethnicities, religions and socioeconomic statuses. Each character is tethered to the next through tenuous, claustrophobic and often purely coincidental relationships based on occupation and social standing.

The first chapter begins with two brothers, Corrigan and Cairan, raised by a single mother in Ireland. As fate would have it both brothers end up in New York as adults, first Corrigan and then Cairan, who travels across the Atlantic in search of his brother only to find him living in Bronx squalor—with heroin needles lining the street gutters and hookers hanging on every corner. Corrigan has come to New York in search of “a fully believable God, one you could find in the grime of everyday” and he finds it in the hookers he befriends and tries to help, buying them coffee and allowing them to use the bathroom in his dingy apartment. Only Cairan, as a newcomer, can see that his brother's attempts are futile, that Corrigan can not save any of these people, least not himself because he provides until he has nothing left to give emotionally, financially, or spiritually.

From there McCann transports us to a tony apartment on Park Avenue, where the wife of a Manhattan judge sits nervously awaiting a group of ladies – a support group of sorts – who all share a common bond: Sons killed in the Vietnam War. Then the next chapter glides like a panning camera lens to two young artist newlyweds, children of privilege with simmering marital problems, smoking a joint as they race down the FDR and cause a horrific crash that changes the trajectory of a handful of characters in the book, including Cairan, the newcomer to New York City. Pages after there is another narrative, of the Park Avenue housewife's husband who became a judge to try and make the world, or at least New York, a better place only to realize during his first day in court faced with pimps and prostitutes that none of his rulings could ever clean up New York's streets.

For me the most heartbreaking chapter was “This is the House that Horse Built,” where one of the hookers introduced earlier in the book gives a tragic first-hand account of how she fell into a life of prostitution and heroin, and how her daughter eventually followed suit. It was a painful reminder of how poverty and addiction can be gaping, cyclical holes that swallow people whole—people who are past the point of being saved.

The tightrope walker high above all these characters is a metaphor for the lives of not only all New Yorkers, but people in general. Each of us, at least once if not constantly, “walk a tightrope just one inch off the ground.” Though the Twin Towers are now gone, with nothing more than open space where the pinnacles of the modern world used to stand, Petit walking his rope high above Manhattan in the late summer of '74 was and is a reminder of humanity and compassion, courage and awe, then and now. I have to agree with Dave Eggers when he called the book “one of the greatest-ever novels about New York.”

The myth about marriage and law school

2010-05-19T19:11:00.010+01:00

We did it!! Er, I mean J did it. He took his last final two days ago, which means law school is officially dunzo!

Through the last three years of dirty dishes, general clutter, the legal internships and the give-me-attention appeals, we made it. And I have to say that for everything I read online and everything that was told me about How Hard Law School Was Going To Be as the spouse not attending, I can let you all in on a little secret: Everything "they" say is nonsense. If you're married to a law student or an MBA student or anyone pursuing a graduate degree you will be fine. "They" will try to scare you at the beginning, and tell you that divorce rates are exponentially higher for law students, that you'll never see your husband/wife once the law books get cracked, that there will be a higher chance of infidelity (yes, I actually heard this) because of all those late study nights spent at the library or in study groups. Don't believe it. If your significant other was going to cheat, they wouldn't need a library or law school to do it in. As for never seeing your better half, that's a bit of an exaggeration. You will see them...maybe not as much as you'd like, but it's only three years.

Looking back on the last three years, they surprisingly weren't as hard as I anticipated them to be. Before we started this whole law school thing I was a little worried. Not because I didn't believe in us, but more because of all the myths I foolishly began listening to prior to his first semester back in 2007. Suddenly everyone was an expert, espousing wisdom about what life was going to be like for us once he started. I'm here to report that none of it is true. The best thing you can do if you're married to a law/medical/mba/etc. student is to block out all that outside noise.

It is true that certain chores like washing dishes or grocery shopping aren't always so 50/50 when married to a grad student. Unfortunately I'm terrible with chores so most of the time our kitchen sink always had dishes piled in it, and even when I had time to wash them all I still refused since the way I saw it I'd only made half of them dirty, so why did he earn a "get out of jail free" card just because he was a student? Yes, this was my rational. Back when I was a grad student ~~my roommate washed all my dishes~~ I washed my dishes, so what made him any different?

My mantra: "I didn't marry you to be your maid. Either help me or get used to the mess." This was repeated frequently and when he'd eventually finish studying we'd take turns washing the dishes (and came to the conclusion after about semester 3 of this that once he got a well-paying job we were definitely getting a part-time housekeeper).

That's not to say I didn't take into consideration Special Circumstances like an especially debilitating few weeks of finals, crunch time when J had dozens of articles to approve and edit for the Law Journal, or when he'd miss dinner multiple times in a row because he had to stay late drafting some motion for a judge. In special circumstances like these I wouldn't bother him about picking his clothes up off the floor or leaving dirty dishes in the sink. Why? Because I have the exact same habits so really, who am I to judge (oops, did I just admit that out loud?), but also it was just easier picking up some of his slack on my end since he was working his tushie off for the good of our future.

It took me 1.3 semesters to see that J was a special breed of law student: the I-came-here-because-I'm-enamored-with-law-so-I'm-going-to-take-advantage-of-every-opportunity sort of law student. These are the best and worst kind. Best because who doesn't get a little randy at the thought of such ambition and passion for a particular subject? But worst because when your ambitious tigerlily is out interning for judges and on mastheads of law journals and flying across the country to compete in mock trial competitions and sitting in on Supreme Court hearings in his free time just because "it's fun"... life as the law school wife can get a little, well, lonely. Especially the first year of law school, which also happened to be the first year of our marriage (we were literally married two months before he started classes). But that's why I had Lola, good friends, kickboxing, and the neverending task of writing that kept me up many nights long after he'd finished studying and gone to bed -- when he saw I couldn't spend time with him. And even with his schedule, I had to hand it to J. He still found time to spend quality time with me, no matter how full his plate was, and for that I thank him. It was a dance he perfected well over the last three years.

"But what about after school is over," some have asked. "He's going to be so busy in his Real-Life Firm Job. Won't that bother you?" Not at all. I figure if J and I could handle the long periods of time each semester when he'd be gone for 12 hours a day, then his "real-life" career is going to be a walk in the park. Why? Because I recognize he is helping to set the foundation of our family's future and, well, nothing can compete with the stress of a full course-load, internships and extracurricular activities every semester. Nope, not even a Big Law litigation career.

I feel like law school has broken me in and our relationship is bullet proof now. If I -- I mean "we" -- can survive this, then we can survive anything.

Congratulations to my Hoya Lawyah!!!

Commencement is on Sunday; we head out west two days later. Lots more pictures to come.

Should I go to my high school reunion?

2010-05-17T17:52:00.022+01:00

So we were minding our own business on our laptop a few weeks ago, working on our second book (we've come into some turbulent writer's block lately, it makes us want to slam our head on the table a few times to jump start our imaginations) when we got an email. Not any email, but the all-too-cheerful "It's been 10 years; it's time for our high school reunion!!!!" mass email.

Ugh.

Not that we didn't have fun in high school. We had many Wonder-Years-meets-Saved-By-The-Bell moments from those four years. But that's just it. They were only four years of our ever-amazing life, where nothing particularly noteworthy happened (if you don't include watching your best friend get hit in the face with a baby carrot that came flying across the quad at lunch one day, courtesy of a varsity baseball player out for blood who apparently had terrible aim in his attempt to hit the surfer near us. Needless to say we don't think the guy ever made it to the pros.) Oh and also high school was where we first met J freshman year through our best friend (the best friend that later got dinged by the flying, killer carrot). We were good friends with J for almost two years until we thought it'd be funny to play a nasty (but funny) prank on him that involved trash in his backpack and well, that was the end of that friendship (until he found me 8 years later. But that's the Story of Us, not this.) Confession: We loved playing mischievous pranks on everyone back then.

Other than that high school was a blip for us. A blip that happened 10 years ago, and that we really have no ties to (we stopped talking to all our friends from high school right around the time we graduated and realized -- while taking college English courses at night our senior year -- that people in college were so much more open-minded, intelligent, and cooler. People who actually cared about the classes they took? Oh, the novelty of such an idea.)

We suppose the best way to make a decision about this alleged reunion looming ever larger on the horizon would be doing the mature thing. We're going to make a list of reasons for and against, like adults do. (Adults do this ... right? *crickets.*) Pressing forward...

Reasons to attend reunion:

Hrm. Nothing comes to mind at the moment. Drawing a blank.

...

Still blank...

Oh yes, J wants to go. Don't ask us why.

Reasons to not attend reunion:

Tickets are $65. Yup, $65, which means for the two of us it would be a 130 bones. Not that we couldn't afford it, but personally when I see $65 I don't automatically think "Oooh, oooh! I can't wait to run out and buy my reunion ticket!" which, now that I think about it, probably doesn't include anything more than a two-drink ticket minimum and regret. Yes, regret. Why? Because when I see $65, I think 10th-row seats at a Rush concert, not "high school reunion".

No offense to anyone attending, but they're basically strangers to us. Why pay $65-$85 (depending on when tickets are purchased) to hang out with a bunch of people we didn't care about 10 years ago, much less now?

With the advent of Facebook there is no point for reunions anymore. We can all see what we're up to and how many babies and husbands and affairs each of us has had, so there's no element of surprise in guessing who might have invented Post-Its, or what that nerdy Sandy Frink-esque guy in computer class ended up doing with his life. All that info's online.

If there's one thing we've learned since high school, it's that we had much too brash and saucy of a personality to have ever gotten through those four years without being misunderstood more than once. And we feel at any reunion we'd be misunderstood once again. Like some fascinating hybrid of Daria and Quinn Morgendorffer (it is possible to be both, we were living proof), we strutted through our four years under many guises:

The "Clueless" phase: We remember the very first time we saw Clueless, kind of like when people remember where they were when Kennedy was shot. It was 8th grade, we went with one of our (then) best friends and her mom to Cinema 9 in downtown Santa Cruz. It took mere minutes until I was completely, utterly hooked. A revolving closet! The ability to manipulate teachers' love lives for higher grades! And the plaid, oh the plaid! We were just coming off our "My So-Called Life" phase so the pleated plaid mini-skirts were an excellent transition from our Kurt Cobain-esque flannels to something more prim and ladylike. We stocked up on these and short babydoll tees with plaid hearts embroidered on the chest. Fashionable things like that. Oh and this phase is what also kicked off our love for chunky disco-style platforms that we'd wear with our skirts and tees to school for some God-awful reason, as though we were attending a rave at 8:40am on a Tuesday, tottering across the parking lot from the school buses in the coastal fog. We were so cool.

The hippie phase: We foolishly thought our freshman year that we were, in fact, a direct reincarnation of John Lennon himself. (Don't ask, we have no idea. All we know is there were many birkenstocks, flower head wreaths and coke-bottle sunglasses to be had.) We felt grossly misunderstood by the general public.

The Aaliyah phase: Herein we dropped our hippie duds for more BET-style garb. It was sophomore year, when Missy Elliot in her inflated trash bag outfit was so cool and it was totally normal for WASPy kids to act like they knew exactly what kind of hardships Tupac rapped about in "All Eyez On Me". In a foolish attempt to be as amazing as Aaliyah, we too donned baggy, ill-fitting cargo pants kept up by drawstring, tiny tank tops, silver wire armbands, and lots of glitter makeup on our eyelids (that clear goop from Claire's with the overstated glitter flecks, don't pretend you don't know exactly what we're talking about.) In this phase we listened to lots and lots of rap, hip hop, soul, and pretty much anything that was considered "hood", was featured on "Yo! Mtv Raps", or had ties to either Keith Sweat or 112. (Note: We still listen to hip hop, but back then we didn't yet have the refined palate for music that we have today. Back then owning "Mtv's Party to Go" cds made us very, very cool in our book.)

The rockabilly/punk phase: Following our love affair with black and white camo, we decided that rockabilly everything was amazing after checking out a punk show downtown with friends. So we tossed our baggy cargo pants for tight, straight-legged, dark denim jeans (cuffed at the bottom, of course), bought faux "nerd" glasses and a pair of black leather shoes with red leather flames on the toes, only listened to punk and ska, and swore by anything affiliated with James Dean, "Rebel Without a Cause", and leopard print. Our favorite thing to do was go downtown with friends every weekend to check out punk and ska shows and now that we think about it these formative years were what shaped much of our musical tastes today.

And somehow, after all those extremes, we ended up finding ourselves our first year of college and never looked back. Now we are (seemingly) normal at first glance. But for us, that was high school in a nutshell.

What were you all like in high school? Was I an anomaly or was it also a time for you to dabble in different identities, trying to find the best one? Bottom line: Would you go to your 10-year reunion?

Weekly highlights

2010-05-14T07:14:00.003+01:00

Flawless, yet oh-so-flawed.

When people name favorite style icons the answers are always the same: Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Carrie Bradshaw, Mayim Bialik from Blossom (depending on whether you, too, were a fan of the giant-sunflower-on-hat craze. You weren't? C'mon, it was the early '90s, everybody wa--. No? Oh... *quietly puts sunflower hat in bottom dresser drawer*). Around these parts we love our Audreys and Graces but the real woman after our own fashion-obsessed heart is none other than Anne Bancroft -- specifically Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson. I still (silently) shriek in delight when I spy Mrs. Robinson's fabulous giraffe print slip she cavorts in at the Taft Hotel, or when she glides in and out of scenes swathed in enough leopard to fill a Tiki bar two times over.* And this, after I've seen the movie, oh 3,492,784 times. But I've never seen it on the big screen...until now. Yes, The Graduate will be playing at the AFI Theater here next week. This is the kind of news that gets unicorns pooping rainbows, people.

(*)The wardrobe, though well done, is not the main draw for this film. The story is simply told brilliantly and no other anti-heroine is as tragically flawed as Mrs. Robinson. That alone makes it one of the best.

Now I don't know what to be more excited about:

-That fact that we're moving in less than two weeks back to a land where the general population is healthy and tan and people actually smile because it's sunny and pleasant pretty much year 'round, which makes needing a sporty convertible as necessary as a Real Housewife needing her Xanax (this is oddly starting to sound like Sweet Valley High, hello Bruce Patman!), the beach is never more than a stone's throw away as are the mountains and "The Hills" and zomg LAS VEGAS, and, best of all, one's cup can continually runneth over because this strange and special land accounts for 90% of America's entire wine production. Seriously.

or,

-The fact that The Graduate will be shown on a real movie screen. In a real movie theater. And I will actually be alive this time to experience it (curse you 1967, I wasn't yet a thought in either of my parents' heads but now I can exact my revenge. Kind of.) I'll wear my ostentatious leopard coat to this screening and make loud, spurious claims like I don't know how to drive a European stick shift, that I majored in art in college, and that old Elaine Robinson got started in a Ford. This should embarrass J sufficiently enough while concurrently satisfying my eccentric itch.

The other day I made another run down to Trader Joe's to stock up on my Stilton and Swiss when I passed a California Tortilla proudly proclaiming on a poster in a window that the readers of Washingtonian Magazine had voted California Tortilla -- California flipping Tortilla! -- the "Best Burrito" of 2009. Readers of the Washingtonian: I am disappointed in you. (Herein is where I'm entitled one long, exasperated sigh.) People who live outside of the Southwest/California/Texas, please take note: REAL burritos do not taste like salty footballs wrapped in processed tortillas. Real burritos are so much better. Seeing this "Best Burrito" bit was like voting Panda Express the "Best Chinese Food" in the District. I mean, I love me some Panda, but just...no.

As I mentioned earlier this month, J has been MIA (at least in mind) for the past week or so. Boo. But I can't complain, because this is the Last Semester of Law School Finals EVER!!!!!! (No amount of exclamation points could ever convey how ecstatic I am this month, all I'll say is if you laid all the exclamation points out end to end, they'd wrap around the earth about 67 times.) Of course, after graduation he won't actually be "done" because no lawyer can be a...lawyer... without passing the elusive Bar, so waiting in California when we arrive will be two 25-lb boxes full of workbooks, study materials, and "fear" which J says they actually try to sell (and he's not buying). Once those boxes are opened he'll be studying day and night for the next two months till he takes the Bar (conveniently!) following our three-year anniversary. Which means no sweeping celebration this year, but at this point I could care less. (Refer to borderline obscene elation re: The Graduate above, and subsequent move West.)

Job satisfaction

2010-05-12T07:40:00.007+01:00

"I sit in a cubicle and update bank software for the Y2K switch. See, they wrote all this bank software, and to save space they used two digits for the date instead of four. So, like, 98 instead of 1998. So I go through these thousands of lines of code and, uh... it doesn't really matter. I don't like my job, and I don't think I'm gonna go anymore.

This "day in the life" piece comes from Dors of Whatever Works. Dors is a new bloggie friend of mine who lives in the UK and recently started a new job. I liked how brutally honest this recent post of hers was. It takes guts to be so candid and publicly admit that your new career isn't all rainbows and unicorns:

The first day of work is like your first day of school...at a new school. You are hoping you are going to like the classes, the teachers and your classmates. But in the back of your mind you know damn well that you are just going to have to study a lot of things you don't want to, that all the time that school consumes could be spent doing something so much more fun (like sleeping!) and that you're probably going to dislike a lot of people there.

Same for work, just substitute classmates for colleagues, teaches for bosses, studying for actually working.

Yes, today was my first day. I woke up at 6 am. 6 am! It should be illegal. Against human rights or something. And it is so cold in the morning I could see my own breath (come on, it's spring!), then the train, changing the train, catching the bus. And I managed to arrive there late.

Right. I spent all day long in front of the computer, with my boss by my side, guiding me through the painful process of getting to know their computer software. I was looking forward to every little break I could get. Drinking water, coffee, a blessed soul even brought donuts for everyone today. And lunch time.

It was so much to take in, and the more I did my tasks the more I got confused. So.many.little.details. My under-eye circles got deeper and darker as each hour went by. I finally finished my first daily dose of torture. I caught the bus home, then the train. I slept in the train. I never sleep on trains, buses or airplanes. But I did today, I was exhausted, I even set my alarm so I wouldn't miss my stop.

I came home at 6:30 pm. More than 12 hours of my day. Wasted.

Yes, wasted, because why the hell would my life be improved or become any more significant if I learn how to use a company's computer software? Am I really helping people the way I intended (once upon a time) by processing wine orders and organizing deliveries?

I think some people are not meant to have a boss and a routine and I am one of those. Some will say I'm lazy or spoiled, or both. However I truly think that we limit our life so much by having a stated time to even have lunch. We think of it as normal, but is it?

When I met those actors at the wine tasting I saw people brave enough to just do what they wanted. I envy them. I am a coward. I fear failure.

And if you tell me you love your job and you are extremely happy with it...Well, good for you. I hate you.

(Note: This was written out of tiredness and utter frustration. I do apologize.)

Ed. note: What about you, reader-friends? Are you satisfied with your current job? What would make it better? How important is job satisfaction to you? Have you ever asked "Is that all there is" after a 40-hour work week?

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T18:27:00.001+01:00

To the best mama in the whole world:

(My mother and I, sans the brunette locks that would eventually make me a household name.)

"The time has come," the Walrus said

2010-05-06T08:15:00.012+01:00

If we're lucky we'll end up speeding down some deserted two-lane highway on a makeshift moped in rural South Dakota, trying to outwit a maniacal Big Rig driver. It would be very "Dumb and Dumber" meets "Duel".

So I realized when we flew back from Sacramento on Sunday night that we only have about three weeks left here in DC. THREE weeks. I've waited for this moment since September 2007, and for the last three years I've glanced at the calendar on my phone and grown irritated at how many blocks of months were still ahead of us. More nights than I can remember I would pop open a cold can of soda and stand by the fridge, longingly tracing my finger over the all those months left on the kitchen calendar under my Mrs. Robinson magnet. But somehow those blocks of month became strips of weeks, and now what's left are mere standalone days.

I know what it might sound like, that I was miserable here and I had no life other than to obsess over my moving date like a teenager obsesses over prom, but it was the contrary. As much as it pains me to admit it I've had lots of fun here, met some awesome people and have more than enough memories with J, with new-found friends, with DC, to tote into the next chapter of my life. But through all those good times the Lola calendar on our fridge was still a lingering reminder that my time here wasn't permanent. As slow as the days seemed to amble along, as slow as the months continued to pass, the calendar eventually tapered and now we're down to mere weeks. I've waited a long time for May of 2010 to arrive and the fact that it's finally here is completely surreal, kemosabes.

Reserving our moving truck last week was what finally made it sink in that we're leaving. Luckily I got an automatic 15% off code on the Budget Truck website and I was thisclose to signing up for their AARP discount but decided against it after a heated discussion with J about how we could totally get away with pretending like we were 60-year-old adults (J, always my ethical voice of reason, talked me out of it only after he called me "crazy" about 300 times. My response: "It's the crazy ones that get ahead in this world."). Never underestimate the power of strategically placed prosthetic makeup and a doctored drivers license.

Without that coveted senior discount, the truck cost about $1,600, including a hitch to pull the car. Now when I first conceived of this plan to drive cross-country, I didn't think it would entail a 16-foot Budget truck with car in tow. Originally we were going to send our mountains of boxes/few furniture items back using a Pod, and zip across the country in our compact four-door, with no more than clothes, a camping stove, a flat of Stagg chili from Costco, and a tent in the trunk. Nothing but Freebird (J), Sundown (me), and Tatonka (Lola -- of course her nickname would be "buffalo" from Dances With Wolves), with the open road ahead of us.

... But then I realized Pods are expensive ($2,000 not including fees), moving companies generally suck (as evidenced by my move to and from Boston a few years ago), and...well...taking pictures in front of Mount Rushmore near our 16-foot truck with attached car would just make the trip thatmuch more memorable. Gas should cost us about $800 total (our steed will be guzzling about 13 miles to the gallon), so our grand total in moving expenses will be about $2,400.

I suppose I should start packing up our casa but the closer our moving date is, the more I'd rather laze on the couch watching Mad Men. This doesn't bode well for the suddenly tight schedule we're on. Part of the problem is J (whose crack-the-whip nature when it comes to work can only be likened to Anthony Quinn as Zampano in Fellini's La Strada) can't currently help pack, and thus as soon as I begin packing I get distracted by some old book or photo album I forgot I had and before I know it three hours have gone by and I haven't filled a single box...though I'm wildly content I found my forgotten bottle of perfume or Afghan Hound notecards. (Confession: I'm a terrible procrastinator when moving is involved.)

J is waist-deep in finals week right now, which surprisingly doesn't bother me at all this semester. Maybe it's because a.) I'm used to it now, b.) we're leaving soon so I could care less what he does, or c.) he's already gotten 5 semesters of practice studying for these types of exams so this 6th semester is a total walk in the park.

Since he started law school I got used to hearing the "finals bell" knell in some far off place a few weeks before the end of each semester -- imagine a muffled foghorn in the distance, stirring me from my sleep -- and I knew that soon J would go into hiding with his books at the library or withdraw into himself here in the living room. This meant the only way I could get his attention to kill a spider, "talk about our hopes and dreams", or listen to my impression of the concierge downstairs was by instant messaging him in the same room since my repeated calls for him to look at me, listen to me, anything, fell on deaf ears. I learned that too much of these instant messages would mean he was headed out to the law library on campus, where smashed spiders and hysterical impersonations were of no concern. (Though I'd still finagle my way into his view by Skyping him. Repeatedly.)

But not this semester. This semester the library is a distant thought as J has barricaded himself in the kitchen and set up "office" at our tiny kitchen table, around a corner where I can't continually bother him in view. According to him I'm supposed to be packing, but I'd rather plan our trip online and figure out which national parks to camp at, which famous, giant balls of twine we should visit, how long we should spend at that infamous Corn Palace in South Dakota, and what time of day is best to photograph Devil's Tower (of Close Encounters of the Third Kind fame). Packing can wait.

I've got a little less than three whole weeks, after all.

Some bad news

2010-04-29T15:37:00.003+01:00

So my 96-year-old grandmother is not doing well.

She was rushed to the hospital two nights ago because she wasn't breathing properly and my fam in Santa Cruz got a call at 5am yesterday from my aunt saying they should come up asap to the hospital because of how severe the situation was. As of right now my grandmother is on an intubator at UC Davis hospital and all of my family is with her, except me.

I am here, 3,000 miles away. (Insert anger slash frustration slash guilt slash indescribable feelings of resentment toward J at the moment that he didn't just go to UC Berkeley or Stanford and we had to move so far away for so long, making it impossible for me to just hop in a car and drive a couple hours up the state to be at her bedside for her final moments.)

J and I are taking the next plane out of here today and flying into Sacramento to be with my family over the weekend and attend the funeral. Unfortunately J's finals start Tuesday, but he can continue studying on the plane today and Sunday because there are more important things than...well...law school.

I'll be MIA from blogging for the next few days, but I'll be back soon.

Current obsessions

2010-04-26T08:31:00.009+01:00

My New Hats. These actually aren't that new (I bought them in February), but I haven't worn them out yet and so they're new to me. This first one makes me feel like I'm a character from a Fellini film wearing a dainty lilypad on my head:

This second one is a blatant Pucci knockoff, but I needed something to wear when I'm ~~shopping at some exotic outdoor market in the Rio de Janiero sun~~ laying out next to my apartment complex's peanut-shaped pool:

Mid-Century Modern. People, I cannot get enough of mid-century modern everything. Living rooms, homes, books, clothing, decor. I want it all, and have lately found myself staying up much later than I should googling the fine art of credenzas and coffee tables, wooden wall art and floating nightstands from the Eisenhower/Kennedy era. You know you're obsessed when finding a genuine set of Danish Modern drinking coasters makes your afternoon. Or when you're thisclose to ordering a boomerang-shaped red glass ashtray from 1961 -- and you don't even smoke. (Yes, this actually almost happened). One of my secret favorite things to do is scour the back area of my grandma's house in Walnut Creek where no one ever goes anymore to look through all her old books and decor from that period. By myself in that empty wing of the house I pull out old books about dining room etiquette printed entirely in Futura font, the binding yawning with loud pops and cracks after years of being unopened as I scan the text inside and bring the pages to my nose, close my eyes and deeply inhale that old, musty smell of "the past" from their surfaces. It's so...well...satisfying.

Once we have the means I can't wait to go antiquing and pick up pieces I can see in person, versus what I find on eBay. There's something fascinating to me about the potential stories behind authentic pieces of a certain time period (especially during my favorite period: 1950 to 1970). But even the brand new pieces that mimic the design aesthetic of yore intrigue me; the lines and simplicity of the furniture and decor speak to me, as weird as that sounds. Maybe in a past life I was this woman:

It looks like both she and he are totally appreciating that credenza. Check out my favorite tribute site to the period: The Mid-Century Modernist.

Simon's Cat. Since we gave our cat Moneypenny to my BFF in California to take care of until we move back next month, I've been missing her like crazy. (Who'd have thought that me, the hater of all cats, would eventually find myself missing one?) Fortunately I've found a cartoon version of her, otherwise known as "Simon's Cat". Apparently this guy in Britain began animating his cat in hilarious short sketches and they gained such popularity that now he's got a book deal and millions of YouTube subscribers (including yours truly). This video is older, but is still one of my favorites:

Jonathan Adler stuff. I never would have guessed I'd be pining over a ceramic dachshund, but I am:

Jonathan Adler is a genius when it comes to the art of mid-century modern. His sculptures and other design accoutrements encapsulate retro aesthetics with a contemporary twist. Adler's goods are definitely not cheap (the dachshund in question is $88), but a girl can dream -- and eBay.

Breaking Bad. While I wait for Mad Men Season 4 to premiere in July, I've found a new show to obsess over:

Breaking Bad is about a high school chemistry teacher named Walt White who finds out he has lung cancer and a couple years left to live. After coming to grips with his imminent death, he resolves to set up his family (a pregnant wife and teenage son) financially once he passes on, and so he begins using his talent at chemistry to cook crystal meth with an ex-student-turned-drug-dealer. The premise is what initially drew me in -- how desperate does a guy need to be to make and sell drugs to secure his family's financial future? -- but it was the theme of moral ambiguity that's kept me hooked. Walt is not a bad guy -- he's dying and looking out for his family -- and yet he becomes the "villain" when viewed through a social and legal lens. Fascinating stuff, reader-friends, especially when he gets mired in the dark underbelly of the drug world -- a world he as a straight-laced science teacher was never prepared to deal with. Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) does an AMAZING job as Walt White, and the story arc is incredible (major props to the writers on staff). Behind Mad Men, Breaking Bad is one of the best shows on television.

Tom Ford Sunglasses. So maybe they look a little costume-y, but I don't care. I'd love to own a pair, they're so Mrs.-Robsinson-meets-vintage-Catwoman:

With Carolyn Murphy's tousled locks, '60s tan lines and black liquid eyeliner, this is an Anne Bancroft-esque look I'd love to rock every single day.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches. Does this even need an explanation? Oh all right, fine. There was a span of a few years where I absolutely abhorred peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I know, I'm crazy. But it hadn't always been that way. In fact they were all I ate in elementary school, but by the time I reached 6th grade I was burnt out. I told my parents I would only eat turkey sandwiches from there on out. Fast forward to last week. I was in the throes of a Breaking Bad catch-up marathon when I witnessed Walt eat a PB&J sandwich at the beginning of an episode and suddenly found myself craving one. Badly. To the point of where I walked across the street to the supermarket that evening to buy the essential ingredients, and spent the next four days making PB&J sandwiches for dinner. (If you can't tell already marketing works horrifically easily on me.)

Now I wonder how I could have ever gotten sick of the things. If my kids ever complain that they're tired of PB&J sandwiches I'll tell them they don't know what they're talking about, that their "liege" -- which is what they'll call me -- once said that too, and that the subsequent 16 years were barren and could never be taken back. "I won't let you do that to yourselves," I'll tell them.

This T-Shirt:

Confession: I'm a total nerd when it comes to puns. (Favorite joke: What did the mother tomato say to the baby tomato as they were crossing the street? "Ketchup!" Terrible, I know.) I can't help but crack up at the cheesiest, worst puns, and feel the one above definitely deserves to be worn in some capacity. I'm not a t-shirt kind of girl, but this would be perfect as one of my workout shirts.

Overheard last night

2010-04-23T06:10:00.004+01:00

Paul and Julia Child, one of my favorite couples.

9:45 pm. Our studio. I sit on the couch, feet up on coffee table, laptop balanced in front of me as I edit Chapter 7 of the book. J sits across from me on a pillow he's using as extra padding on the worthless Target chair we bought the year we married. Two or three thick textbooks are cracked open on the table in front of him as he outlines for his last semester of finals on his laptop. I've attempted to catch his attention multiple times tonight. . . dancing seductively near him with finger cymbals, pretending like there's a fire in the kitchen, even lying across his books like a petulant housecat. But to no avail. There's always some other legal pad or some other book that his overzealous eyes can devour in their quest for straight A's. Sigh. TV flickers silently in background as I wait for the season finale of Project Runway to start in 15 minutes. . . but I can always watch it later online. Tonight I want to run amok and howl at the moon.

Me: "Why don't we go paint the town red tonight?"

J (without looking up from books): "Because we can't afford paint."

Silence for a few moments, then we lock eyes and laugh out loud.

"I'm working on it, my Love. I'm working on it," he says, tapping the edge of the book with his pen.

"As am I," I say.

Studying slash editing resumes on both sides of the coffee table.

Teamwork, humor, patience. Julia and Paul had it. Apparently so do we.

(Ed. Update: Just got mentioned again on MediaBistro! Thank you J, for your witty responses to everything I ask you.)

A bold fresh piece of humanity

2010-04-19T07:39:00.007+01:00

Well, we made it this far. Today yours truly is 28 years young.

I never thought I'd actually be 28, as it sounded so old and mature back when I was spry, but I have to say I don't feel that much different. Not older. Not wiser (even a genius like me has limits). Definitely not more mature. When people ask "How old are you" I still blurt out, "24..." followed with a quick "Oops, er, I mean, 28." Guess this automatic response means I'll always be 24 at heart?

Anyway, I've resolved to make 28 the best year of my life. How so, you ask? I have no clue. But I will.

I'll try more things I've never done; say "yes" more than "no"; dance more; sing more; send out more of my short stories, keep chugging away at novel after novel; listen to music louder; learn to cook as well as Tony Bourdain; possibly even meet? Bourdain (I would die, that would be ah-mazing); pay homage to my youth by getting into the best physical shape of my life and finally take those professional pin-up pics I've been wanting forever; invest in an apartment complex (or five) as part of my retirement plan; ~~force~~ persuade J to learn the dance at the end of Dirty Dancing with me; be completely fluent in Farsi; listen to more Journey (if that's even humanely possible); be Gilda:

I want to live. Really live. I've done an excellent job of living to this point, but now I want to ramp it up a notch. I'm 28, after all. I want to go to the big annual New Orleans Jazz Festival; I want to bicycle down the length of California (and then possibly tackle bicycling cross country); I want to eat what's been called "the best sushi on the planet" at the hole-in-the-wall sushi joint Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo; I want to get seriously involved in making puppy mills illegal (I hope it helps that after this summer I'll be married to a ~~law student~~ lawyer); I want to go salsa dancing on a regular basis; I want to join a book club; I want to dance in a fountain and publicly blame it on the wine (only J and I would know that all I had to drink was water); I want to see a tornado in the flesh; I want to be an expat for at least a year of my life; I want to live near my brother and sister so I can stop by at a moment's notice and vice versa; I want to break bad in some way or another.

I want to go wine tasting in Santa Barbara and pretend to know what I'm talking about as I swish Zin across my palette; I want to get my books published and see my name on the spine of a copy (or three) at a bookstore; I want to go camping cross-country; I want to laugh so hard I puke (J beat me to this one); I want to read everything F. Scott Fitzgerald's ever written; I want to try going blonde for a spell just to see what I'd look like; I want to rent a sparse flat in Florence and write near an open window with a view of the Ponte Vecchio; I want to sit down with my two grandmothers (who are 98 and 85, respectively) and let them each recount their life stories into my voice-recorder, then I want to do the same with my parents; I want to drive a black Porsche 911 Carrera and feel the leather steering wheel gripped in my hands (even if it's just for a test-drive down a few miles of 101 on a slow Saturday afternoon. Hey, the sales guy doesn't need to know I'm not actually serious about buying).

Foolish? We'll see. I can't possibly accomplish all of these things and more in a year, but I can start by accomplishing some. The point is I've laid down the gauntlet. This will be the year that's going to kick me into a higher gear. Life is short; I want to experience as much as I can.

Theme song to kick-start 28: "Foolish Heart" by ~~Journey~~ Steve Perry, on loud.

Money and I aren't speaking at the moment

2010-04-14T17:39:00.015+01:00

A dryer full of money would do me wonders right about now. (P.S.: You absolutely must watch Breaking Bad if you haven't yet. It's amazing.)

So I'm stressing about money right now. I know, I probably don't have the right to complain since I was the one who made the decision to walk away from a steady salary last year (a decision I still don't regret), but I knew back when I made it that times would eventually get hard and now those times have come.

I feel like I'm living in some alternate dimension of the life I'm supposed to be living. Kind of like there are different variations of my life playing out all at the same time, parallel to one another, and I just ended up getting caught in this computer-glitch of a variation, the one that snarls savage orders at me that I must comply with, like "You will eat that top ramen and you will LIKE IT!!!" In this ~~current reality~~ glitch I live across the street from a handful of dollar stores, "checks cashed" storefronts, a suspicious bowling alley, and my building reeks of general ghetto-ness ... the kind of ghetto-ness punctuated by neighbors who allow their dogs to use our elevators as toilets. In this life I get a puerile kick out of free samples in my mailbox, I share one washer and dryer with an entire high-rise floor (which takes strategic planning if you ever want clean clothes, people), and my "check engine" light is always on, warning me of some expensive repair looming on the horizon. Who am I?

Thankfully I'm not stuck alone in it all; J is also mucho stressed out, evidenced by my increasing reminders to "stop pulling out tufts of eyebrow" -- a bad nervous habit he has when things aren't so copacetic. (He's also got the added pressure of keeping up his grades to graduate top-third in his class next month, coupled with the general stress he's under on a daily basis to find a job post-graduation. Once he takes the Bar this summer I know he'll find the job he's been looking for -- and not have to settle -- but this still doesn't seem to raise his spirits. It also doesn't help that he's reminded of it all every afternoon as he chows down on his 99-cent turkey and cheese Lunchable at school like a fifth-grader.)

Not that we don't have padding -- we're selling some stocks this week to pad out our cash situation even more -- but it's disturbing how far money doesn't go in this country. (I guess it could be worse. I could be living in parts of Europe that, though beautiful, would result in me paying out the nose for everyday things like groceries while steeped in a land of 34% unemployment.) My part-time tutoring job pays well, but the hours are somewhat erratic and the semester ends in early May so those paychecks will taper soon enough. J is currently interning for free and taking no school credits for his legal gig at the SEC three days a week, so it's not as if he could pick up part-time work between the internship and his full load of classes.

Anyway it makes me really, really uneasy when our bank account starts to ebb, even though the cushion is still there. I'm a "buffer" kind of a girl and tend to get irritable when my finances tread close to my buffer. The bills are piling up and costs in the near-future are what are really getting us down. My private health insurance, his Bar class and test fees (about $5,000 total), our moving costs to get back to California ($1,500 for a Uhaul truck, not counting gas), and little costs are quietly adding up (i.e., his graduation invitations, cap and gown, Law Journal banquet tickets - $40 each, etc.).

It would be at this point in any sane marriage that a couple would crack under financial pressure and the relationship would fall apart. Luckily we aren't sane. Whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger, I suppose. Like I said earlier this week: "If, as newlyweds, we not only get through law school, but also our financial situation this last year, then we're bullet-proof, kid." He agreed. Right now all we can do is laugh at the current circumstances. It helps that we find the humor in these even dire situations and can make light of our misery. It really does. Because the alternative would probably end up looking like a Shakespearean tragedy.

Needless to say I've cut out most everything I enjoy doing for the sake of saving whatever funds we have. This means absolutely no more shopping (I can't remember the last article of clothing I bought), no going to the movies, no traveling, no eating out (unless it's Taco Bell), no more concerts, no more happy hours, and no more buying whatever I want at the grocery store if it isn't on sale. And yes, I've become one of those people who reads through all my weekly grocery inserts and travels to each store to get the best price for different things on my grocery list.

I guess these complaints all lead in to my 28th birthday, which is on Monday. My last couple birthdays haven't been all that amazing and for some inexplicable reason I want to try and make this one special. Obviously taking a trip is out of the question, and now I'm wondering if we should even go out to a decent dinner. (Clarification: Technically we can afford a dinner, but in the effort of saving cash would we want to drop $60-$100 for one meal? Would I even enjoy the meal as I mentally balance our checking account with each margarita?) It doesn't help that J and I are attending a Law Journal banquet of his tomorrow evening that we had to spend $80 worth of tickets on, but I totally get that networking and socializing is part of the "education" at his school, and that establishing lifelong professional relationships with classmates there is part of the whole package. Still, $80 is $80.

So, this is where I'm at. I hate worrying about finances to this degree but I'm starting to think that the only way I'll stop worrying about money is if (when?) I'm disgustingly wealthy. Until then no amount of money ever feels like enough. Anyway I feel better venting about it and I know most of my worries stem from the cost of moving slash J taking the Bar. Putting down between $5k to $10k in a one month span is never fun, especially when I'd much rather take that money and save it as a down payment on some property. Or travel. But such is the way of life. Right now nonessentials take a backseat to priorities, but my chin is up -- I know it won't be like this forever.

Now, what to plan for my birthday?...

The root of real happiness, a case for the virtual office and how to make work cool again

2010-04-12T06:08:00.004+01:00

Want to see what a horrifying 2.5-foot sea bug looks like? Ever wondered how Othello might have ended if Desdemona had had a Sassy Gay Friend? Better yet, did you know the new weapons of terrorism conveniently come in the form of explosive-laced breast implants? Neither did I. Here's what I've been reading (and watching) recently:

What if no one went to the office anymore? Can you imagine a completely remote world, where everyone telecommuted and that corner table near the window at Starbucks became the new corner office? Inc. Magazine put the theory to the test in a fascinating article making a case for the virtual company -- where colleagues interact not in person, but entirely remotely over Skype, email, instant messenger, and phone. (If you ~~have ADD~~ are an article skimmer, here's an abridged version.)

Admit it: You are chomping at the bit to see what a 2.5-foot prehistoric bug looks like. Disclaimer: It's terrifying. These "bugs" (if you can actually call them that as a bug to me connotes something I can smash with my shoe) live at the bottom of the ocean feasting on giant whale carcasses when they're not plotting to take over the world from their cockroach-brethren and scuttle across your kitchen floor in the middle of the night. Pray that you never wake up and find one of these on your face.

Apparently if Desdemona had a Sassy Gay Friend (as all of us really should have), she might have avoided her untimely death. Same thing goes for Juliet. Best line: "Yeah, well he's also ordered a pillow from Bed, Bath, and Beyond that's good for smothering, so Tina Turner? We've got to private dance-it out of here."

Finally, someone (aside from me) has formally recognized what YouTube is really good for: Discovering classic rock. Whether you're a relative new-comer into this world and need an education in The Kinks, The Who and Led Zeppelin, or are somewhat of an expert (like me) and looking for a classic rock graduate degree in The Band, Ten Years After, Stephen Stills and Jethro Tull, YouTube is the go-to destination for your classic rock education. Take it from Auntie Crystal. We know these things.

The new face of terrorism comes in Femme Bot form: Explosive boobs. According to Gizmodo, British intelligence has discovered that Al Qaeda female suicide bombers are getting explosive charges inside their breasts, using a similar procedure to breast augmentation. This makes these bombs almost impossible to detect at airports. Hooray.

What dictates happiness? Is it social trust, winning the lottery, or earning a higher salary? (P.S.: Did you know the daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting? That makes SO much sense.) Anyway, according to this NY Times column economic and professional success is important to happiness, but these successes emerge only out of happiness in your interpersonal relationships. (Translation: Even though your work life may be flying high, if your married/home life is excruciating, you are probably not a happy camper.)

The case for telecommuting continues, with the White House wanting to make work "cool" again. Their answer for higher employee retention? Flexibility. "It's about attracting and retaining top talent in the federal workforce and empowering them to do their jobs, and judging their success by the results that they get -- not by how many meetings they attend, or how much face-time they log, or how many hours are spent on airplanes. It's about creating a culture where ... work is what you do, not where you are," said President Obama. He wants this thinking applied to the private workforce as well. Thoughts?

The Most Amazing Alan Greenspan Painting You're Ever Going to See. I think the headline alone about sums it up. It really is amazing. Very comparable in style to one of Eli Cash's giant murals in The Royal Tenenbaums:

James Franco, literary prodigy

2010-04-08T18:31:00.002+01:00

Laughing all the way to the bank.

So I'm not sure how I feel about James Franco's short story, "Just Before the Black", in Esquire. Annoyed is probably the right word. Why? Because I'm sure J-Dog queried it hundreds of times like every other writer has to do, before Esquire decided aloud one day:

"James Franco? Never heard of him, but let's give this kid a shot. He's got no real literary credits to his name besides an MFA from Columbia, just like countless others that we reject on a daily basis, but his story has spit-shined promise. I especially like this line: 'I poke the knife at him, at his fat stomach, lightly poking it with the tip, but he's wearing a puffy North Face jacket, so it doesn't stab him.' It's artsy and hip. Readers will love the prose of this relative unknown."

Now I don't want to be one of those angry faceless people behind this pitchfork-wielding Internet mob that's out for Franco's blood, but the whole thing kills me. Kills me. And here's why: Just because you're a well-known actor doesn't make you a writer worthy of being published in Esquire. Or being published, period. Based on that magazine's track record of rejections not even many good writers are worthy of being in Esquire (present company included -- we admit, we still have a lot to learn).

Perhaps my standards for Esquire are too high, but they reject tens of thousands of incredible short stories every year from gifted people that deserve an honest shot, and then Jamsie-poo, with his famous last name and movie about Pineapples, can waltz up to the front of the line and cut in front of Those More Talented just because he's got name cred and once played some dude in a Spider-Man movie. It reeks of self-importance and entitlement and I can't stand it when that sort of thing happens with line-cutters at the DMV, much less with a well-known publication. I know, I know: This is the way the world works, I should just suck it up and get used to it, which would be easier for me to do if his story was actually...well...good. I love being pleasantly surprised when someone can wear more than one hat well. But I would call this story a Fail, and I'm disappointed in Esquire for perpetuating Jamsie-poo's narcissism.

Sure, J-Loco is worth his weight as an actor (it can be argued that his portrayal of James Dean was incredible), but a writer he is not. Granted I'm no literary critic, but I've read a lot in my life and feel I'm entitled to an opinion. Reading over "Just Before the Black" and wanting to give it an honest shot wasn't enough to make me ever want to pick up anything Franco-penned again.

I think Sady Doyle over at Salon.com summed it up perfectly:

"... Although James Franco is Salon's Sexiest Man Living of 2009 for good reason, and one of our most valuable Bizarro Celebrities, no one should excuse Just Before the Black. ... The word "gap" is used so many times in this story – in relation to teeth, road barriers, windows. I don't know if it's an intentional motif, or if I just figured out where James Franco shops.

"It's true that, as these things go, James Franco is both interesting and crush-worthy. Unfortunately for him, he is also famous – which is the adult equivalent of being very handsome at a small liberal arts college, in that people will continually tell you that you are great whether or not it's true, and let you get away with far too much. They will, for example, publish your terrifying short story in Esquire. (Or in a book! James Franco will soon publish a book.)"

Yes, Jamestastic has a book deal.

It'd be one thing to accept it as kitschy gimmick -- Lauren Conrad's ~~ghostwritten~~ novel "LA Candy" is the first thing to come to mind. She wrote it "all by herself" within a "two-month span" and a month or so later it was already going to press. Most of us familiar with the publishing process can see through this and take "LA Candy" for what it is: Yet another piece of memorabilia to complement LC's burgeoning celebrity empire. As hard it is for me to admit there is a place for the "LA Candys" in our celebrity-obsessed world.

But the opposite is true with Jamsie-poo. Unlike other celebrity works, "Just Before the Black" is meant to be looked at with a critical eye, in a magazine that has historically produced quality prose and writers. J-Loco does deserve some credit -- he wrote it all on his own without employing the ubiquitous ghostwriter that lurks behind so many celebrity works -- but it still sucked and we as readers aren't supposed to think that. It's not meant to be laughed at as a joke, or cast-off with an eye-roll as a publicity stunt to add to his growing brand. It's supposed be taken seriously. The beginnings of a literary career. And how far it got, laid as ink on Esquire's precious real estate no less, is what is laughable. I think there's a line for just how much crap we can be spoon-fed. What's next? Lauren Conrad writing a piece for The New Yorker?

I hope I haven't spoken too soon...

Buying into the hype

2010-04-06T19:21:00.013+01:00

A few weeks ago a panoply of Jostens pamplets pushing graduation packages arrived in our mail box. Basic package (25 cards, envelopes and gold school seal stickers)? $125, not including shipping and handling. Curse you, Jostens. You've figured out how to completely monopolize the graduation playing field with your commencement cards and diploma frames and caps slash gowns, from high school all the way up to post-grad.

Anyway since we're in emergency saving mode $125 seemed a bit pricey for something most are going to admire for a few days under a fridge magnet till the date is committed to memory and the card is tossed. But...when it comes to these things I'm a sentimental sap. No, I'm not one of those scrapbookers who saves every piece of pocket lint and gum wrapper to chronicle our life's journey with in the pages of a Michael's scrapbook. I don't even own a scrapbook. But I do tuck away the important things in my life. Pictures, train tickets from Europe, the occasional movie stub. Somewhere in one of my unpacked boxes I have a couple old wedding invitations of mine; in some other box I have one of my parents' wedding invitations (pre-me as a wee zygote) that I found somewhere back at their house and just had to keep it.

Much in the same way I'd like to happen upon one of these grad invitations in the future, maybe in my 40s when we're moving to a nicer house and it falls from the pages of a book being packed away and I'll pick it up and remember what it was like "back then", when everything was easier and it was just the two of us and our biggest problem was worrying about 125 stupid little dollars.

Now I know we could save money and just make the grad announcements ourselves. We did that for our wedding invitations -- not to save money but more to get the exact look we envisioned, and those came out perfectly. Then I remembered how life felt like it was being slowly drained from me as I sat pressing the glue on our 120th wedding invitation three years ago:

I think the look on my face said it all.

Sure, they were better than any card shop samples I saw, but there was only so much pink and brown tagboard, rubber cement and ribbon tying that one girl (and guy) could handle. Plus, J's law school invitations come with this gold-embossed school seal on the front of each (ugh, would you listen to me? I've already fallen for their marketing):

I love how presidential and "lawyer-ey" they look, and well, that's just not something we can replicate. So even though I feel like we're being majorly ripped off I think it's worth it. Someday we'll look back on this time and be glad we didn't skimp on everything -- I hate living with regrets and, really, money comes and goes. Plus he's only going to graduate law school once, and the fact that he's come this far in his life -- when the odds were stacked against him -- makes me very, very proud. His ambition alone deserves that pricey gold-embossed stamp.

On a side note, did/do any of you feel ripped off by the entire graduation industry? Granted, it's not as exploitative as the wedding industry, but still...

Boy devastated by father's anti-"single lady" sentiment

2010-04-02T17:15:00.005+01:00

Behold the scene when a father flat-out crushes his son's dreams of being a "single lady" alongside his two sisters, effectively ostracizing him as a young male from any future Beyonce sing-a-longs. I think a pair of Dereon jeans is in order:

Even more hilarious is the girl in the middle in the awkward glasses, arms crossed, glaring at the camera with the wisdom of someone far older than her seven years of age. It's like watching a "freedom to choose" advocate in the making. Priceless.

[Gawker]

What makes home

2010-03-31T09:59:00.015+01:00

Two days ago I drifted awake in my childhood bedroom. For a minute I had no idea where I was. By an act of God was I (finally) waking up in some seaside hotel room in Barcelona? Heaven? (The thought flickered when the glow-in-the-dark stars above me came more into focus.) Was I back in DC, surrounded by unpacked boxes, just waiting for the smell of my neighbor's chicken curry to waft down the hallway and under the gap beneath our front door? Then I heard what sounded like muffled warfare in Kuwait in the next room and instantly knew.

I was home.

And not only that, both my brother and sister were home too. (The simulated warfare was thanks to my video-game loving brother.) Just like in The Royal Tenenbaums my parents had, once again, found all three of their children living together under the same roof. At least for this week.

I smiled to myself in bed, wiping the sleep from my bleary eyes, half-surprised by the hot water pad lying next to me. My mother insisted the night before that I sleep with it to keep me warm, and I think in some odd way it's supposed to make me feel okay without J here. The strange thing is it almost does. Granted J is not made from rubber and poured full of boiling water every night, but the warmth was calming, like most things here are.

There's something so comforting about being home. Always has been. No matter how many places I've lived in and apartment keys I've carried, home to me has always been this house, where some centerpiece made of citrus fruits always adorns our dining room table, where there is no dearth of ice cream in the freezer, and where the same green lamp I've had since I was a kid sits on the new nightstand in my old bedroom.

To most the lamp would look like nothing more than a dated relic from the '70s, but I see so much when I look at it. It makes me think of slumber parties I had in elementary school of now faceless girls I can't remember the names of -- girls I thought would be my best friends my whole life, the lamp behind them shining as the only constant. Then I remember the familiar click, click of the light switch as I'd scramble to switch the lamp off when I'd hear one of my parents' approaching my bedroom door to scold me for staying up so late (in my defense I was reading -- even at 12 I was a book nerd). I remember, later, the lectures I'd have to listen to from my parents in high school, the lamp on behind me, as I'd roll my eyes and cross my arms in defiance against whatever it was they were reprimanding me about. (Usually it had to do with boys. Sigh.) They couldn't possibly understand, I'd think. When they were done talking they would leave and I'd remember how angry I was as I'd click that green lamp off for the night and fume. Then college came and I packed up most of my things, excited to embark on a new chapter of my life. The lamp was left on my nightstand, the clutter gone but it and other staples remaining. And it's still here, to this day. Some of the furniture has changed and the walls have been painted over and I'm older now and married, but the lamp remains. This is what makes home for me.

Of course, it wouldn't be home without a few stock occurrences, either. Like having my picture taken by my over-zealous, camera-wielding sister. Having pics taken is fine; I'm definitely not camera shy. But photogenic I am not. And the routine is always the same: She shows me her pictures seconds after they're taken, I balk at how disgusting I look (Josie Grosie, anyone?), and she disagrees. Seriously, I look good in 1 out of every 5 pictures, and that's on a good day. So I remind her to please not put them on Facebook because the last thing I want is them going public, then an hour later I get a new Facebook email: "You have 8 new photos tagged of you!" I sigh loudly, click over, and yup. There they all are. All of me in my talking-with-my-mouth-frozen-halfway-open-and-eyes-mid-blink glory, which usually looks something like this:

Anyway, once I was wide awake in bed and certain I wasn't in Barcelona or Heaven (I'd hope neither would include the staccato of distant machine guns I heard coming from my brother's room), I hopped out of bed and thrust open my blinds a la Carrie Bradshaw in Paris when she flings open her curtains on her hotel balcony and sees the Eiffel Tower. Except there was no Eiffel Tower here. Only California sunshine. Buckets full, streaming in through the window and slopped across the carpet I stood on. It was a beautiful day and I had had an excellent Friday the day before. I smelled the ocean in the air and smiled. Today was going to be excellent, I could just feel it. So I headed upstairs to the living room, the smell of the ocean reminding me that I really needed to pick up more Steinbeck, maybe I hadn't given him a proper chance when I ...

My foot suddenly landed in a giant, cold puddle on the top step. The blood ran from my face and I froze, slowly lifting my foot up. I looked down in horror at the glistening pool on the hardwood floor, a yellow puddle that had obviously been sitting there overnight, eating away at the wood like a termite in heat. Steinbeck, sunshine, everything fell from my mind as my lips were unable to form any cohesive words. My eyes rose from the puddle to Moxie, my sister's Maltese who some of you might remember pooped on her lap a couple months ago and who I'm convinced has some severe learning disorder. (At times Moxie reminds me of a schizophrenic mallard.) She sat in her bed nearby, beady black eyes fixed on me, looking quite content that her arch nemesis had stepped in her elaborate scheme.

And I was about to yell...but I couldn't. Maybe it was the sunshine coming in from the skylights above us. Maybe it was the fact that I couldn't be mad at a mentally disabled dog. Whatever it was I grimaced at her and hobbled back downstairs to my bathroom on one foot. As I sat on the lip of the tub, sudsing up my sole, I realized that whether I liked it or not, Moxie had become a part of our home. Just like Lola had done before her (although lets face it, if pitted in a game of intelligence Lola would be solving global warming while Moxie would be finding some lap to defecate in).

But that's what a home is. It's all the bad with the good. The hard times with the easy times. The beauty with the ugliness, the tragedy with the success, the sanguine with the gloom. Without each side it wouldn't be a complete home. So no matter how uncalled for some things are, like fights or yellow puddles, they're a part of the entire cocktail. And the inanimate constants, like my green lamp, are the reminders of it all.

Fashion democratization, Buenos Aires for expats and "Sunset Boulevard"

2010-03-29T02:24:00.015+01:00

Here are a few links that caught my eye last week:

The New Yorker is a little late to the Polyvore game (um, about 3 years, to be exact), but they recently ran a fun, lengthy expose on the Silicon Valley-based fashion start-up. Apparently women obsessed with Polyvore -- the ones who spend hours at work putting together mock outfits or perusing the latest fashion collages rather than, well, work -- are known as "Polywhores" and there is an actual "Anna Wintour" of the Polyvore world. She's some chick from Calgary who creates collages under the screenname MyChanel. The more you know.

Ok, so this New York Magazine article is from 2006, but having just traveled to Buenos Aires I see it's still completely accurate: Buenos Aires is an expat haven like Paris was in the 1920s. Imagine a city with the conveniences of Manhattan, the old-world charm of Paris, the street-style of Milan, and you've got Buenos Aires. Everyone is chic, there's no dearth of great shopping, the restaurants are spectacular, the wine is amazing, and the cherry on top? You can totally afford it all. Americans are moving there to feel rich. Money just goes so much further there than in the U.S. or anywhere in Europe (I hear the word "Euro" and I cringe. Ten dollar gelatos, anyone?)

A recent NY Times Critics' Pick was "Sunset Boulevard" and they published an excellent 2-minute clip about the film. "Sunset Boulevard" is about a famous silent film star named Norma Desmond who's unable to come to grips with her descent into obscurity once films with sound become popular. Like a spider she creeps into each scene and is terrifying in her portrayal of a woman hell-bent on denial and preservation, trapping a young scriptwriter in her web of grandiose narcissism. (Famous Norma Desmond line: "I am big, it's the pictures that got small.") In the film noir genre, "Sunset Boulevard" is hands-down one of the best. Go netflix it. Now.

It looks like the "hot" baby names right now aren't as Twilight-centric as they were last year (thank GOD, there is nothing creepier than naming your baby Esme, people). The SF Chronicle blogs that according to a certain baby name expert (by the way, is that real job?) the new "it" names have a distinctly elite ring to them. After skimming this list (disclaimer: three names mentioned are what I plan to use for my kids), I don't find them "elite" as much as I do vintage. Names like Atticus and Phineas have a early 20th century feel; they're literary and dated in a good way. Not sure why this makes them seem high brow, but so be it.

In an Ayn Rand-esque effort to stave off the "totalitarianism" that he witnessed as a child in the Soviet Union, it turns out Google co-founder Sergey Brin was the major proponent in abandoning Google's operations in China due to the strict censorship guidelines the country demanded and the cyber-attack that followed. Brin told the WSJ that memories of that time—having his home visited by Russian police, witnessing anti-Semitic discrimination against his father—bolstered his view that it was time to abandon Google's policy.

Just in case you're curious as to how many calories that burger with fries has but don't want to have to dig to find out, you no longer have an excuse. (Damn it.) In signing the health-care legislation last week, Obama will be requiring all restaurant chains to include calorie counts on their menus. It's time to gear up for bikini season, boys and girls.

Apparently there are eight types of people to unfollow on Twitter or defriend on Facebook. Such people range from "The Overusers" to "The Oversharers". I think we can all agree that no, none of us really want to hear about your yellow toenails.

Last but not least: I loved this Quentin Tarantino reference page. You know, just in case you need a tear-out sheet to remember the basics by. I think I'm putting this one on my fridge. (And if you're wondering, Kill Bill 1 and 2 are my Tarantino favorites. Revenge really is a dish best served cold.)

Stand at attention

2010-03-25T23:32:00.006Z

Yesterday I found myself sitting near Gate 31 at Reagan National Airport, people-watching and listening to Madonna on the iPod and generally enjoying the scene. (Airports? Totally my thing.)

I'd booked a last-minute flight out to the Bay Area for a job interview in San Francisco later this week and was anxious and excited as I waited near my gate, sandwiched between two men in suits on their cell phones, carry-on bag at my feet. About 20 minutes later, after I'd witnessed a guy across from me eat three bananas in a row and start to pull a large bag of apples from his backpack, an airport employee came on the intercom.

"Just to let everyone in Terminal C know, a plane will be landing soon at Gate 30 full of WWII veterans who are traveling to DC to receive their medals of honor. Please come to Gate 30 and help us greet our veterans!" she beamed through the mike.

I looked around, interested and surprised. I'd never heard of anyone getting this kind of treatment stepping off a plane unless it was a private jet and that person was the President. Or Madonna. I shut off my iPod and watched as a handful of people around me stood up and made their way over to Gate 30, ready to greet these aging protectors of our country.

I'd just started to get engrossed in the next chapter of the book I was reading and so I paused. I actually paused, wondered if I should get up, stand and wait for them. For a split second the thought crossed my mind that there was no point in me being over there because those from other gates would be a crowd enough. The idea that I couldn't be bothered to dog-ear the page I was on, pick up my carry-on and stroll over to Gate 30 to greet these men who went to Hell and back to protect the world I live in now was disgustingly selfish. My grandfather fought in WWII. So did Roger Sterling. And I refuse to be that person -- the one who's just too important to stand for others when credit is due. Or stand for anything, for that matter. There were plenty of those around me anyway who remained seated.

So I tossed my book in my bag, picked up my things and waited with the throngs of others amid the flag regalia and balloons at Gate 30 to applaud and cheer for the elderly men that stepped through the open doors, wearing WWII pins and broad smiles as they slowly walked past us and shook our hands. It was so cute I'll admit: I almost cried.

When I returned to my seat I began to wonder: How many times in our life do we fail to stand at attention? How many times do we let opportunities pass us by because we're lazy, scared, or complacent? How many of us remain seated because it's the easy thing to do. The others can stand, we think. And so we let them. They can do the work for many, I suppose, but they can't do the work for all.

How many missed opportunities have there been at some point in all our lives -- missed career rungs, missed relationships, missed memories -- because the paths seemed too daunting. Required "too much" from us mentally, emotionally, physically, or spiritually. After all, it's easier to sit than stand. Easier to stay quiet than speak. Easier to consume than create. Easier to say "no" and remain indifferent, refuse to face the challenge when a marriage takes effort, a job goes stale, a circle of friends dwindles. Instead of working on the marriage, finding a different employer, or being open to new friends, it's easier to give up. Let the relationship fester or divorce. Stay at the job and complain about it. Allow the loneliness of your social life to consume you without any attempt to fix it. Stay helpless. Embrace resignation.

Maybe it's time more of us stand at attention. Learn to say "yes" instead of "no". Face the challenges in our lives instead of shirk from them. You cannot accomplish all the things you want if you remain seated like a side character to a life you have one shot at.

So stop making excuses. Stop being afraid, or complacent, or lazy. Easy is an illusion. Stand up.

One of the most amazing things this year...

2010-03-23T04:23:00.010Z

...is happening today:

Mad Men Season 3 is coming out on DVD. Contain your excitement (!!!) because I can barely type this blog post without flinging my laptop across the room like a Nerf frisbee and dancing the Mad Hatter's Futterwacken jig right here next to this couch.

More existentialism. More Joan. More Roger Sterling ("You ever get three sheets to the wind and try this thing on?" he asks, pointing to suit of armor in the office). More Peggy and Pete. And the most important thing: More Don Draper. Throw in 13-episodes' worth of Kennedy-era misogyny, a John Deere tractor, a presidential assassination and the start of the Vietnam War, and you've got another brilliantly written season (that yours truly will re-watch and analyze at least three times initially, if we're counting commentary here). If there was one quote to sum up this season, it would be Joan telling Don:

"That's life. One minute you're on top of the world, next minute some secretary's running you over with a lawn mower."

Personally one of my favorite episodes was "The Souvenir," when Don took Betty to a Fellini-style Rome and we watched the spoiled girl that we'd come to know Betty as surprise us as a smart and savvy woman on foreign soil -- the kind of woman she probably was during her modeling career pre-Don:

My other favorite episode? "My Old Kentucky Home," which included this fantastic scene between secretary Joan and ex-secretary Jane, when roles shifted, and the superior and the inferior were reversed. The tension between the two was unnervingly palpable and so well acted (check out Jane's slight eye twitch at 0:18 in response to Joan's cigarette smoke being blown her way):

Anyway, I cannot stop gushing about this show. J likes to tease me about my Mad Men obsession, but I say there's only one way to be a fan of anything: You're either in it all the way or you're not into it at all. ("In it all the way" for me includes tacking the calendar on our kitchen wall, using the theme song as my ringtone, buying mid-century modern furniture, quoting episodes daily, and only drinking Gimlets and Old Fashioneds.)

I feel like I'm walking in tall cotton about this DVD release and I have to ask any viewers out there (without giving too much away): What were your favorite episodes or scenes from Season 3? Did any characters surprise or disappoint you? How did you react to Sal's...problem...at work? Did you cringe at Roger on stage at the country club? Better yet: What did you think of Betty's decision in the finale and what did you think of Don's confession? I'm dying to know...

Speaking of rejections

2010-03-21T18:46:00.003Z

While we're on the topic of gatekeepers lacking vision, here's a rather famous rejection letter written in the 1950s to a then little-known artist named Andy Warhol ...

(click to enlarge)

Bad predictions to keep in mind

2010-03-18T18:54:00.012Z

So I stumbled across a few lists of "bad predictions" recently and not only did they make me laugh at how short-sighted they were, but it was also an amazing reminder that no one person is an authority on what's possible.

Take my writing. I've been much more amused than depressed over getting a handful of my short stories rejected by magazines; for some reason the rejections have only motivated me to write more, like I want to inundate editors with my prose until they realize what they keep passing up. More story ideas keep popping up out of nowhere, and more notes are constantly scribbled down when a story begins taking shape. Part of me wonders if my manuscript getting rejected by lit agents slash publishers will spark the same determined fortitude and amusement since writing a novel takes a lot more blood, sweat, and tears than short stories, but I have a feeling I'll take even those rejections in stride.

After reading these bad predictions I'm reminded that droves of "gate keepers" in our world lack vision. (This is where I recommend you read "Atlas Shrugged" if you haven't already.) And just because these gatekeepers hold the keys to the fashion world/tech world/publishing world/legal world/art world/science world/any world really, does not make them the be-all, end-all judge of your work's value or potential. According to this list, if people stopped creating post-rejection we would have no computers, radio, telephone, FedEx, commercial airplanes. The list goes on and on:

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" -- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." -- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With the Wind."

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

"With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market." -- Business Week, August 2, 1968.

"There will never be a bigger plane built." -- A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

After Fred Astaire's first screen test in 1933, the MGM testing director wrote a memo saying, "Can't act. Slightly bald. Can dance a little." Astaire got the memo and kept it over his fireplace.

At the start of her career, Barbra Streisand was rejected repeatedly by directors because they said she simply wasn't pretty enough.

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

"... Overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream … I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years." -- Publisher on Vladamir Nabokov's "Lolita".

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language." -- Editor of the San Francisco Examiner to Rudyard Kipling.

When a cheap haircut goes wrong

2010-03-15T20:19:00.010Z

A few days ago J got a haircut that went horribly wrong. In an effort to save money -- and ignoring my requests to cut his hair myself (this is where I point out that I'm pretty good with scissors and a comb) -- he went to the nearest Hair Cuttery. Big mistake.

Now I'm not one of those girls who shuns all low-end haircut shops. Supercuts, Great Clips ... call me brave but I've tried all these firsthand out of sheer curiosity and found results to be surprisingly good, not bad. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't think an amazing hair cut -- for men or women -- needs to cost $50 to $100. I've had expensive cuts in this price range that have been worse than $20 ones and made me nauseous at having dropped bank on such a hot mess. (On the flip side when my $50 hair cut turned out fabulously there was no better feeling.) So my disclaimer is that I'm not a hair snob and not all Hair Cutterys suck. But the Hair Cuttery J walked into for a clip recently was downright ghetto, to put it mildly.

I sat near the entrance on a bench and watched him take his seat inside. From the outside everything looked fine. The shop seemed busier than usual, but nothing was out of the ordinary, other than the fact that they made him swipe his card before his haircut, something about them "closing the register soon". Totally suspect. Of course J is a consummate tipper, so naturally he left a 20% tip on his card before even getting the haircut (which kind of negates the whole idea of a tip since it's to reward service, right?) *Smacks face with hand when thinking about it*

Well, J went in looking like Shaggy and 20 minutes later came out looking like "Guile from Street Fighter":
(His words, not mine.) J looked like he wanted to kill someone with the 15-pound hardcover lawbook he'd been lugging around.

"I'm never, ever going back in there," he said through gritted teeth.

"Uh, you look like Krusty the Clown," I responded. What else was I supposed to say?

"The whole time the lady cutting my hair was mumbling things under her breath, like she had better things to do than cut my hair. And look -- SHE GAVE ME A '90s FADE!" he said, turning around and pointing at the bottom of his neck. "I look like Vanilla Ice!"

Try as I might to commiserate there was only one thing I could say: "You do!" I said, doubling over with laughter.

He turned back to face me and seeing how angry he was just made me laugh harder. I mean, if it was a tattoo or something, I'd probably be a bit more sympathetic. But it's hair, people -- it's not like it wasn't going to grow back. Plus, I was getting too much satisfaction from the fact that it appeared J had finally reached his breaking point here on the East Coast. I'd reached mine long ago (I believe it involved an incident with public transportation and me losing it on a subway platform). It was nice to finally be in good company.

The whole way home J was silent, white-knuckled and gripping the steering wheel, mumbling something about how it looked like "someone put a hexagonal hat on [his] head." Needless to say once we got home he spent 10 minutes in front of the bathroom mirror fuming at the atrocity he'd actually tipped for before he placed a hair of scissors in my hand and told me to fix it. Asap. So I fixed as much as I could and though the fade needs a little time to grow out he no longer looks like Krusty the Clown slash Guile slash like he's wearing a hexagon hat. In fact, it hardly looks like ever he got a bad haircut in the first place, thanks to his amazing and talented wife (ahem).

Next time he promises I can cut his hair, but I told him I'd only do it now if I get a 20% tip in advance. (What I didn't tell him was said tip would come in the form of watching a Real Housewives of OC marathon with me, but he'll find that out soon enough, my pretties!) All that matters is standing in the bathroom, the color back in his face, we shook on the deal.

I refuse to be flabby, and in other news: Lauren Bacall is on Twitter

2010-03-11T05:20:00.011Z

So the other night I was ~~wasting precious hours of my life~~ sifting through reams of "interesting links" recommended by those I follow on the Twitter-sphere when I came across one called The Waistline Test, which assesses whether your writing is ‘flabby’ or ‘fit’:

The test works by counting percentages of words in five categories commonly associated with stodgy sentences: weak verbs, abstract nouns, prepositions, adjectives/adverbs and 'waste words' (it, this, that, there). For every writing sample you submit, you will receive an overall fitness rating ranging from lean to heart attack territory:

Lean Fat-free

Fit and trim In excellent condition

Needs toning Would benefit from a light workout

Flabby Judicious editing required

Heart attack territory May call for editorial liposuction!

Lean	Fat-free
Fit and trim	In excellent condition
Needs toning	Would benefit from a light workout
Flabby	Judicious editing required
Heart attack territory	May call for editorial liposuction!

My initial thought? Brills!

But then fear set in.

What if I took the test and it spat back horrific results to me? Like that my writing was morbidly obese and destined for a life lived on treadmills and jogging trails in the backwoods of scary places, where scary people hang out cooking meth and living out of trash bag tents? If that was the truth, did I really want to know? Or was I better off blissfully oblivious and semi-delusional about my writing abilities?

Then again, now that I'd seen this Waistline Test how could I not take it? It would be like not pushing the button on that Mr. Bubbles contraption filled with bleach in my friend's shower back when it was a new product and I figured it was filled with body wash, thus giving the whole shower experience as we know it a contemporary, car wash-esque feel. "How modern!" I thought in glee, after pushing the button and allowing "body wash" to whir past me, till I screamed out in realization that it wasn't actually a Jetsons shower machine but rather a cleaning device that was shooting bleach into my face and mouth. Yeah, seeing the Waistline Test was kind of like that, except now I tread with minor trepidation when I'm about to push any buttons.

Was my ego writing checks my body couldn't cash? I needed to know, so I took the test, shielded my face with my hands and peered through my fingers at the results and ... I passed!!! Quite nicely, I should add. I pasted in the first couple paragraphs from my book and got back:

fit and trim.

For whatever this particular writing test is worth, all I have to say is PHEW. At this point in the month I don't think I have the emotional stamina to endure a reading of "flabby", much less anything that would call for editorial liposuction.

Now for all I know this test could be a crock of monkey poop, and I know there are other things that matter in good writing (i.e., expression, fluidity, clarity, etc.) but I do think it's an interesting way to assess overuse of adverbs and other evils that tend to weigh writing down like an anchor. See how your writing measures up, if you're curious.

In other news: Lauren Bacall is on Twitter(!), which is basically just as amazing as hearing someone like Grace Kelly or Joan Crawford pontificate on how tacky Hollywood (and the world in general) has become and how much better it was "back then", when everyone ~~beat their kids with wire hangers~~ chain-smoked and men wore suits and women wore heels and tattoos and cleavage weren't the norm but the exception, reserved only for seedy characters in seedy "B" flicks.

Here are my fave LB tweets:

"Yes I saw Twilight my granddaughter made me watch it, she said it was the greatest vampire film ever. After the "film" was over I wanted to smack her across her head with my shoe, but I do not want a book called Grannie Dearest written on me when I die, so instead I gave her a DVD of Murnau's 1922 masterpiece Nosferatu and told her, now that's a vampire film! and that goes for all of you! watch Nosferatu instead!"

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"Enough of me being a negative Nancy, its just that I am glad I got to see the Oscars of the 40s & 50s. Grace Kelly would have died if she saw what I did at the red carpet (a tattooed gum chewing woman with too much cleavage and a man in sneakers)."

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"I'm so sorry you guys didn't like my Studio 54 image simply because I was smoking, believe me there was far more worse things going on there then smoking! I was not expecting such negative feedback, ugh all this stress has made me want to light up and relax with a cigarette. The good thing about being 84 is that I can smoke as much as I want."

Lauren Bacall is the woman I want to grow up to be. "Literate and tart" were the words Roger Ebert recently used to describe her. She's a beautiful, no-nonsense woman who's been around long enough to know what timeless chic really is and could care less about what you and I think of her musings because she's right, after all. I can just imagine her lazing in some huge claw-footed bathtub in one of the many master bathrooms of her gigantic estate, tapping away with manicured red fingernails on a laptop picked out for her by some tech-savvy personal assistant. Like a modern-day Norma Desmond with a platform to reach the masses she lazes beneath her blanket of white bubbles, plumes of cigarette smoke curling around her head, as she tweets about the good old days when film meant something. When fashion mean something.

When a good vampire movie meant something...

Overheard last night

2010-03-08T17:19:00.005Z

2:30 am. Our studio. Pitch black, trying to fall asleep. J sounds like he's beat me to that. Silence. I start drifting off, but then get hit by an amazing idea for a short story. Learned my lesson last time this happened when I didn't write it down and forgot what it was the following morning. Won't ever let that happen again ...

Too lazy to turn on my bedside lamp and grab a pencil and paper, I fumble for my phone on my nightstand. Candles and lip balm and bottles of lotion clatter around in the darkness. J stirs. Finally, my blind hand feels my cell phone, an old-school slider that I refuse to upgrade. I bring it inches from my face, pull up the "notepad" feature and begin tapping furiously at the buttons. The loud beeps of each letter cut the silence in the studio. Ten minutes of beeping later:

J (slurring sarcastically in his sleep): "What are you doing, writing a novel?"

Me: *beep, beep* "Actually yes, I am." *beep, beep, beep*

Instead of drifting off again he laughs out loud, turns the light on and hands me a notebook and pen from his side.

Oh, the merits of being married to a budding author.