Going to El Paso for the weekend. There will be Shiner Bock. There will be pictures, swimming, 90 degree weather, Juarez possibly. Pregnant Jen. Little Charlotte. Regina, Julie. Talk about old times. Catching up.
It will be good.
California is still here, waiting for you.
Last night I made curry from scratch at Dalal's. It's fun to cook at her place because her kitchen is big and her knives are all really sharp. Cause she's a real grown up, unlike gypsy Rose over here. Anyway, I didn't really realize that I was making curry from scratch until I got home from the store with all the ingredients. Spices used:
Turmeric
Cinnamon
Pepper
Cayenne
Fennel
Mustard seed (make 'em pop in oil. fun.)
Coriander
Fresh Ginger
Cumin
"twas tasty. I have leftovers for lunch, Yay!
I had a dream last night that I saw the movie "Super Size Me!" with Michael Moore. The movie showed how Big Macs come frozen, all in one piece, and everything is just dunked in the fryer. I kept saying to Michael Moore, "They deep fry the bun! That's so gross!"
But...did you watch the Gilmore Girls last night? That Rory! Shocking! She slept with a married man. But I was really squealing in my chair when Luke and Lorelai kissed. (Luke and Lorelai is a little too close to Luke and Laura for my taste.) It was an awkward kiss but not in the way that awkward kisses usually seem so staged in the movies. It really felt awkward. I think I may have blushed.
But. Does this mean the show will Jump the Shark? Or has it already?
Also, the LA times had an article about Reason magazine's latest issue which is individualized for every subscriber featuring an aerial photo of your street, with your dwelling circled in red. The magazine cover reads, "(Subscriber's name) They know where you are!" It's exhilaratingly weird and spooky and fun.
I love Colonial House! I want to be on one of these show so bad my teeth ache! I keep trying to think of what they'd do in California. Gold Miner's House? Set in a dusty gold mining camp. I think the only role for women there would be as wives and hookers. Since I ain't married, I'd have to be the whore with a heart of gold. Turning tricks for lumps of gold! Doesn't seem very PBS.
This morning, walking through Mission Trails, I was thinking about how specificity of place in writing is important to me. I'm writing Ruby to be as much a story of this place, this habitat, as it is a story of death. This is Southern California, this is the border, this is the Chaparral, this is Laurel Sumac, that is Salvia Apiana.
In rereading some of the Narnia books, I realize that Lewis does this in his created world. Narnia is England but better than England. Narnia is England when it was still wild, when you could see beavers and bears and badgers.
And so Ruby is a story set in this little spot on Earth. This dry, beautiful place where the seasons shift subtly, where the coyote rules, where a fire can burn in winter and spring brings an intense renewal. I want to describe this place.
I'm feeling kind of good because I have 70 some-odd pages of a story ( I hesitate to say "novel". Just because) And its kind of shaping up. It's about a girl named Ruby, who's dead. Only she doesn't know she's dead, at first. She meets a bunch of animal-gods who help her deal and she also has to accomplish a mission that I won't reveal here. It's kind of gruesome and sad but I think, affirming in the end.
Anyway. Sometimes I feel like a writer.
Yay!
I live near a freeway exit and frequently am awoken by sirens and cops yelling into their PA systems "Pull over! To the right. No. No. To the RIGHT."
This often happens at 2 or 3 am. Last night i woke up when someone sadly shouted "No!" on the street, sobbed, and then walked on. I lay awake for a little while and then heard the noises of what I took to be partiers, coming home from a fun night. There was a woman's laughter and the voices of two men. A cell phone rang so loudly that it could have been in my kitchen. Finally I propped myself on my elbows to look out the window. A police car was parked just below my apartment, a woman in the back handcuffed, her car--doors splayed open--parked in front of them. The police officer shut the car door on her hair at one point and the woman didn't even notice. She was slumped in her seat, uncomfortable with the handcuffs, but otherwise very quiet and calm. And she was really, really drunk.
I kept thinking, tomorrow, when she wakes up, her life is going to suck. But last night she was in a haze of alcohol and the world must have been a blur. It seemed that she didn't even know what was happening to her, or what she had done.
Thank God for Kurt Vonnegut. I wish he WOULD do commentary on CNN.
Last night CNN was engaging in a debate about whether or not the photos from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq should have been made public. One argument against showing the photos is that they could be dangerous to the US and to our "mission" overseas. One gentleman argued that, just as the tv stations stoopped airing photos of people jumping from the twin towers, so they could have chosen not to show these photos.
I disagree. One reason that I think it is important to see war photos is to keep those of us at home from entering a deeper state of complacency and comfort. I have never been to war. I can try to imagine what it is like, but stories and photos of war are far more effective than my little imagination.
Perhaps if we saw more, rather than fewer, photos of war and war crimes, we would be a lot more hesitant to engage in battle. I don't want to be protected form the images of war. Soldiers aren't. People living in a war zone aren't. My taxes are funding this war. I should be obliged to witness it.
Wouldn't it be great if Rumsfeld got canned?
A friend of a friend diagnosed with MS. How she must be reeling, wondering who will stand by her and who will fall away. Wondering how vicious the disease will be to her. Wondering what she won't be able to do: have children? drive? work?
A friend at work fired. The fear in her voice (What will I do? i have to find a new job. How do I do that?) She is angry and afraid.
A friend's mother is suffering through Chemotherapy. She says she sits on the bed with her and they talk for hours.
I am sitting in the middle of a storm, in the eye. Knowing that it might be me again, any minute, swirling around out there in all those feelings. For now I am calm and sad, grateful for the stillness. What can I do to help? Be still. Be here.
Every time I hang out in a bar I am reminded of how much I hate to hang out in bars. Tonight, looking around I saw the same characters i always see there. it seems so empty to me to spend so much time on a barstool. But I also have to acknowledge that I am clearly a socially anxious person. I do not do well in crowds. i do not like bar culture although for many years I pretended that I did. I used to pretend lots of things. I remember that Leslie, the wacky anthropologist/fervent anti-smoker/deadhead who I worked with one summer in Concord, told me that one of the signs of growing older is that you are willing to put up with a lot less bullshit.
Sometimes I wonder if it has become a convenient excuse for me: I am socailly anxious and shy therefore I don't have to try. Yet at the same time why should I do things I hate and pretend to have fun?
I'd so much rather be walking out at Mission Trails, all by myself.
Loner? You betcha.