Caring for Your Introvert

reprise, pa russki

look, it must be the theme for today:

Hell is (still) other people.

all together now

Velma:
No, I'm no one's wife
But, oh, I love my life
And All That Jazz!

Eli and I were poking around the book section of a Mission thrift store when I picked up a book called Scotch and Holy Water, by John D. Tumpane. The back says, "...is a hilarious distillation of the author's ten years experiences in Turkey." I opened it up to a chapter that ended with, "I still had a whole trunkful of holy water and didn't know what to do with it- I couldn't just pour it into the gutter. So, I carted it up to my apartment and served it to all my friends for months afterwards. I felt very urbane saying, 'Would you like a scotch and holy water? It's delicious!'"

The other night I went to the Castro Theatre to see Henri-Georges Clouzot's Quai des Orfèvres, a fabulous and chilly post-war film noir about a jealous husband, his beautiful wife, the gorgeous lesbian photographer who loves them both, and the cop who suspects them each of murder.
from the description in the Castro schedule:
"In a scene way beyond anything allowed in contemporary American movies, the cop remarks to Dora, 'You and I are two of a kind—we’ll never get lucky with women.'”

go visit protestposters.org.

mini vacation

I've been in LA since Thursday night, visiting Greg and Spooge (the best dog in the world), and Eric; and all the kitties who live here in the 'hood.
I just woke up from long afternoon nap; it's dark. Greg is still sleeping, and Spooge, a very handsome pit-lab, is somewhere behind me, licking himself.
slurp, slurp.
He got in a fight the other day (tried to hump a full grown male pit bull, who didn't take to the idea and whom Greg picked up and threw over a fence, twice). Now Spooge has a number of owies; the white bandage on his leg was actually quite fetching.
Speechless, Greg's adopted orange tomcat, still meows a lot, and he's gotten a lot bigger since I was here last. Jack and Percival are still here, too, and a few cats I don't know. Tough street kitties who looove to be scritched and petted and provided with laps. I'm relieved to see them; kitties who roam the back streets of Inglewood don't always live to be old.
It's green in LA this time of year; lots of things are blooming in Greg's garden and flower boxes. The jasmine is divine; the bougainvillea (had to look that up) is gorgeous, and the hills look practically lush.
the sky is big.
We had an incredibly scrumptious dinner last night at Chameau. We did not know that "celebrities" are often spotted there. We didn't see any. But we were treated like regulars, and the food was unbelievably good.
I have a hangover. But I'm comforted by the thought that I'll never again see the people I met at that party last night.
tonight we're going to make a big fire, and have a barbeque. I'm hungry.

"By the end of the nineteenth century, country towns had become charnel-houses and the counties that surrounded them had become places of dry bones. The land and its farms were filled with the guilty voices of women mourning for their children and the aimless mutterings of men asking about jobs. State, county, and local news consisted of stories of resignation, failure, suicide, madness and grotesque eccentricity. Between 1900 and 1920, 30 per cent of the people who lived on farms left the land...
The people who left the land came to the cities not to get jobs, but to be free of them, not to get work but to be entertained, not to be masters but to be charges. They followed yellow brick roads to emerald cities presided over by imaginary wizards who would permit them to live in happy adolescence for the rest of their lives... It is this adolescent city culture, created out of the desperate needs and fantasies of people fleeing from the traps and tragedies of late nineteenth century country life, that still inspires us seventy years later."

-Michael Lesy,
Wisconsin Death Trip
(quoted in Was, by Geoff Ryman)

ha!

"Uprooted plantlife and sugar-saturated caffeinated fat blocks?
You shouldn't have."
send an anti-Valentine to someone you love today.

I like my little search engine over there on the left. I use it myself every now and then.
it also gives me an interesting window into what people are looking for.
this week's searches so far include: haircut, puppets, deadbolt and vodka.
sometimes people use it to send me messages. I love that.

Joe Goode

baked hammer alaska

earlier tonight, I was supposed to be napping in preparation for a late evening of cello and revelry, but I was curled up on the couch reading instead. I went into the kitchen at some point, turned on the oven, and then returned to my book. fifteen minutes later, I smelled something funny, raced back to the kitchen, and pulled my poor hammer out of the oven.
see, the other night when Eli and I had our crab feast, I was using the hammer to crack the big claws in the sink, and then it was all wet, so I put it into the oven for two minutes so it wouldn't rust.
except I forgot to remove it. so now the wooden handle is sort of scorched on one side, and the varnish is a little... crunchy.
there are several morals to that story. fish them out for yourself.

it's late Friday night, 1:49 am, and I've just returned from seeing Rasputina play Slim's.
they rocked.
for those of you who doubt, let me just repeat: they rocked. this is not a phrase I normally use.
they did mostly covers, and I'm not fond of covers, usually, but this was something entirely different. You wouldn't think, if you're not familiar with the band, that two (only two) cellos and a drummer could rock so hard, but yes, my dear, they can. it was quite a smattering of tunes, including some Pretenders, Led Zeppelin, Pat Benatar (Fire and Ice), Heart, and the beginning of Baby Got Back (I- like- big butts and I can not lie); plus a few of their own songs as well as covers they've recorded and a whole bunch of things I couldn't identify.
not convinced? tant pis.
I do so wish we didn't have such a silly-ass early bar time here sometimes.

(NOTE: it occurs to me that one might assume that I actually know any songs by Heart, Benatar, etc. Well, I don't, but Google is a girl's best friend, even for faking knowledge of pop cultural icons.)

did you ever see "The Red Balloon" when you were a kid, and wish you could fly off with a cluster of balloons someday?
so did this guy.

The other night Eli and I tore up a couple of the hugest fresh crabs you've ever seen (caught in the ocean near Eureka, CA, by the brother of someone I work with); they were deeeeliciscrumptious. Eli wasn't sure he was fond of crab, but I told him that just meant he'd never had really fresh crab before. Fortunately, I was right. I made lemon butter for the crab, and a spinach-apple salad with fennel, blue cheese and pecans; plus baguette and cheese and a bottle of wine = heaven.
Life is good. can't things always be that simple?

Bits of Bugs Glow, to Delight a Queen

"At the invitation of most unlikely patrons, the king and queen of Belgium, an artist has produced his latest and perhaps most extravagant venture in the Royal Palace here, decorating the principal hall with the wing cases of almost a million Asian jewel beetles."

ooooh... who wants to go to Belgium with me?

an earthquake woke me up this morning...