mets or cards, it doesn't matter
We're going to the Series! News that made my shift ever so much better. One of the other bartenders found out for me, holding his phone below the level of the bar to check the score.
Part of this is that my dad got to see the game when the Tigers won their last Series, twenty-two years ago. He walked home from Tiger Stadium to 8120 Jefferson, a mile from the UAW headquarters--no small feat--in a delirium as people ripped out the stadium's seats and set cars on fire around him. That night he was so happy. My dad who played softball with a team from work, who taught me how to pitch and catch and hit.
But part of it is this completely atavistic thing, a piece of my theory that we do still hold place-based tribal identities even as we deny it. And our sports teams are the obvious manifestation of our tribal roots, our paid warriors.
Also, Justin Verlander's kind of cute, for 6'5" and 200.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
hello, phoenix!
The wifi's free at Sky Harbor airport, which is pretty cool.
Some of the "Tangy Fruit" Lifesavers Gummies flavors are okay. Besides the one that tastes like licking a urinal cake. Unfortunately, I wasn't looking when I took that one out of the bag, so I'm not sure yet if it's the green or the yellow.
My connection is late, and now they're telling us that because of "weight distribution" issues they've have to rearrange some of the seating arrangements. And could the following passengers please approach the podium? Do you think they want to look over said passengers and try to guess how much they weigh?
The past week has been so intense I can't begin to cover it. But I trust that you are all well, and hopefully I'll be back up and blogging soon. Right now I think they need to weigh me.
The wifi's free at Sky Harbor airport, which is pretty cool.
Some of the "Tangy Fruit" Lifesavers Gummies flavors are okay. Besides the one that tastes like licking a urinal cake. Unfortunately, I wasn't looking when I took that one out of the bag, so I'm not sure yet if it's the green or the yellow.
My connection is late, and now they're telling us that because of "weight distribution" issues they've have to rearrange some of the seating arrangements. And could the following passengers please approach the podium? Do you think they want to look over said passengers and try to guess how much they weigh?
The past week has been so intense I can't begin to cover it. But I trust that you are all well, and hopefully I'll be back up and blogging soon. Right now I think they need to weigh me.
Friday, September 22, 2006
way to make things more complicated
Yesterday, crying a little, I wrote out my thirty days' notice. Then I put on my coat and threaded my way through the piles of art supplies and books I'm sorting to pack, and walked over to the management office, up Polk Street, past the Wags dog-washing place where I stopped as always to count how many dogs were waiting for their sudsing. Twelve on the floor, one orange one in the tub closest to the window, wet and watching longingly as the dry ones got tickled by a visitor.
The receptionist made me wait for another woman, S, to take my notice, and S held me for a little while to ask some questions. Apparently D, the manager of my building, disappeared more or less in the middle of the night; "got in his mobile home and drove to another company up north." I'd known something was going on, because I got a call from them the last time I was in LA. They needed to reprogram the front door intercom and they didn't have all the information they needed because D had taken it with him. Along with, it seems, some leases that were in the middle of being processed, and a bunch of other stuff. The office has been in a froth trying to fix things. S wanted to know if there was a special key to the laundry room (the closet next to my apartment, with its one washer/dryer stack and the hot water heater), and if there was anything else I thought she should know. Weird. But we talked a little, I kept it light, and got out as fast as I could; I had an interview to go conduct.
I just got a call from S a few minutes ago. She called the building's owner--the architect who designed it, who lives on the third floor--in Singapore and told him I'd given notice. And he is, she says, very sad to hear it, and wants to know if I would consider staying if the rent increase were lowered. 5% for month-to-month, 2.5% if I sign a new year lease. This is versus the 9% month-to-month in the notice I got in August, or 5% for a year lease. "This was D's idea," S told me. "The owner told me he didn't want to raise the rent that much, but D said go for it."
I can't imagine what either man was thinking when they agreed to that--a concrete-floored ground-floor one-room studio in the Tenderloin, with no closets and no possibility of pet ownership, for more than a thousand dollars a month? What planet are they living on? The unit above me, with carpet and closets, recently stood empty for eight blissfully quiet months.
Maybe that's what the owner is thinking about. Or maybe our friendly little conversations in the hall, the fact that I really do love my place, and my early-adopter status are part of his vision of the home he built for himself here.
I'm torn. I'm supposed to go look at a month-to-month in Oakland this weekend, in a venerable live-work community I've always admired. It would be a share, but it would mean twice the space at less than half the rent, the chance to take one of my mom's cats, and a financial flexibility I haven't had since I moved into the expensive place. I could think about buying a car, for example (and I'd want to; the location's, um, isolated). I'd be around other artists instead of the over-coiffed Gap employees or whatever they are who are my neighbors now. I could work a lot less.
But I love my place. And find the neighborhood soul-crushingly sad. And like being four blocks from the library and the BART station and the farmer's market in one direction, AX and Indian food and Dottie's True Blue Cafe in the other. The Arab guy at one corner store calls me "cousin" and hugs me when I go in for sparkling water, a can of chili, a Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar. The one at the other corner store knows me by name and used to run out to yell hello to me until I asked him to stop because it's weird enough at night for me to be walking through all the other people trying to get my attention to give them some money or booty or whatever before having to ask the people smoking crack in my doorway to please let me through.
And then there are the dogs waiting to be counted and washed.
There are very few places I've lived, as an adult, that have felt like home. Everything's been so temporary. Even my last bout of Oakland--five years in one house--was never meant to last that long. For a while I was moving once a year--I learned to get itchy once the initial lease had run out. When I moved in here that was all supposed to change. I was going to make a place for myself. Everything was going to come out of the boxes. I would paint if I wanted to, hang things, accumulate plants, have mail sent to my home and not a post office box.
It's really a very Jewish dream, now that I think about it. Put down roots. Not live as if you're going to have to leave in the middle of the night, the family silver sewn into the lining of your coat, prepared to sell the gold out of your ears to buy passage if that's what it takes (and how many women learn, when they get their ears pierced as children, that this is the reason it is done, as much as adornment?) And do I have to point out that Jews and ghettos go together like pickled and herring? I mean, they made the word up for places where we live.
As I said, torn. We'll see what happens in Oakland.
Yesterday, crying a little, I wrote out my thirty days' notice. Then I put on my coat and threaded my way through the piles of art supplies and books I'm sorting to pack, and walked over to the management office, up Polk Street, past the Wags dog-washing place where I stopped as always to count how many dogs were waiting for their sudsing. Twelve on the floor, one orange one in the tub closest to the window, wet and watching longingly as the dry ones got tickled by a visitor.
The receptionist made me wait for another woman, S, to take my notice, and S held me for a little while to ask some questions. Apparently D, the manager of my building, disappeared more or less in the middle of the night; "got in his mobile home and drove to another company up north." I'd known something was going on, because I got a call from them the last time I was in LA. They needed to reprogram the front door intercom and they didn't have all the information they needed because D had taken it with him. Along with, it seems, some leases that were in the middle of being processed, and a bunch of other stuff. The office has been in a froth trying to fix things. S wanted to know if there was a special key to the laundry room (the closet next to my apartment, with its one washer/dryer stack and the hot water heater), and if there was anything else I thought she should know. Weird. But we talked a little, I kept it light, and got out as fast as I could; I had an interview to go conduct.
I just got a call from S a few minutes ago. She called the building's owner--the architect who designed it, who lives on the third floor--in Singapore and told him I'd given notice. And he is, she says, very sad to hear it, and wants to know if I would consider staying if the rent increase were lowered. 5% for month-to-month, 2.5% if I sign a new year lease. This is versus the 9% month-to-month in the notice I got in August, or 5% for a year lease. "This was D's idea," S told me. "The owner told me he didn't want to raise the rent that much, but D said go for it."
I can't imagine what either man was thinking when they agreed to that--a concrete-floored ground-floor one-room studio in the Tenderloin, with no closets and no possibility of pet ownership, for more than a thousand dollars a month? What planet are they living on? The unit above me, with carpet and closets, recently stood empty for eight blissfully quiet months.
Maybe that's what the owner is thinking about. Or maybe our friendly little conversations in the hall, the fact that I really do love my place, and my early-adopter status are part of his vision of the home he built for himself here.
I'm torn. I'm supposed to go look at a month-to-month in Oakland this weekend, in a venerable live-work community I've always admired. It would be a share, but it would mean twice the space at less than half the rent, the chance to take one of my mom's cats, and a financial flexibility I haven't had since I moved into the expensive place. I could think about buying a car, for example (and I'd want to; the location's, um, isolated). I'd be around other artists instead of the over-coiffed Gap employees or whatever they are who are my neighbors now. I could work a lot less.
But I love my place. And find the neighborhood soul-crushingly sad. And like being four blocks from the library and the BART station and the farmer's market in one direction, AX and Indian food and Dottie's True Blue Cafe in the other. The Arab guy at one corner store calls me "cousin" and hugs me when I go in for sparkling water, a can of chili, a Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar. The one at the other corner store knows me by name and used to run out to yell hello to me until I asked him to stop because it's weird enough at night for me to be walking through all the other people trying to get my attention to give them some money or booty or whatever before having to ask the people smoking crack in my doorway to please let me through.
And then there are the dogs waiting to be counted and washed.
There are very few places I've lived, as an adult, that have felt like home. Everything's been so temporary. Even my last bout of Oakland--five years in one house--was never meant to last that long. For a while I was moving once a year--I learned to get itchy once the initial lease had run out. When I moved in here that was all supposed to change. I was going to make a place for myself. Everything was going to come out of the boxes. I would paint if I wanted to, hang things, accumulate plants, have mail sent to my home and not a post office box.
It's really a very Jewish dream, now that I think about it. Put down roots. Not live as if you're going to have to leave in the middle of the night, the family silver sewn into the lining of your coat, prepared to sell the gold out of your ears to buy passage if that's what it takes (and how many women learn, when they get their ears pierced as children, that this is the reason it is done, as much as adornment?) And do I have to point out that Jews and ghettos go together like pickled and herring? I mean, they made the word up for places where we live.
As I said, torn. We'll see what happens in Oakland.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
the things they carried
I can rip off Tim O'Brien, we went to the same school at different times.
I have a lot of art supplies, for a writer.
I've got a day mostly to myself here, no paid nudity or tux-wearing to do, so I'm pulling stuff together to sort, purge, and pack.
I don't often look at all my art supplies together--they're usually spread out throughout my living space, in plastic shoeboxes and fishing tackle cabinets and cigar boxes and so forth--so I'm really not aware of how much of the total volume of my stuff is comprised of paint, clay, fabric, glitter, resin, beads, yarn, paste wax, plaster bandages, varnish, decorative paper, colored inks, gluesticks, wire, ribbon, sandpaper, resin, latex, fabric dye, shiny things, sketchbooks, some strange medical-looking negatives I found lying in the street in Paris... but hay-zoos. I've been piling it up in the middle of the room so I can figure out what kind of boxes I need for it, and I'm starting to understand why my back has always given me problems. Some of this stuff I bought in high school, and I recognize much of it from my art school days. A decade ago.
What I have is too much stuff, and not enough focus. Several years ago, Slice and I spent a weekend at a retreat center up near Santa Rosa. There was a little art studio, and one night when I couldn't sleep, I went in there and mucked around with crayons and magazine pages and construction paper. I had a wonderful time, and was pleased with the results. And the whole time, I was thinking about how the limitation of the supplies was actually helping me. I made a mental note to remember that when I got home, and then of course promptly forgot.
Hmmm.
Am I trying to reach some critical mass where it all just makes itself into something grand?
I think a moratorium on visits to Blick and Pearl Paint are in order. No matter how tempting the on-line coupons they send me, no matter how hot my discount card burns in my wallet. And no matter how comforting I find those places.
I can rip off Tim O'Brien, we went to the same school at different times.
I have a lot of art supplies, for a writer.
I've got a day mostly to myself here, no paid nudity or tux-wearing to do, so I'm pulling stuff together to sort, purge, and pack.
I don't often look at all my art supplies together--they're usually spread out throughout my living space, in plastic shoeboxes and fishing tackle cabinets and cigar boxes and so forth--so I'm really not aware of how much of the total volume of my stuff is comprised of paint, clay, fabric, glitter, resin, beads, yarn, paste wax, plaster bandages, varnish, decorative paper, colored inks, gluesticks, wire, ribbon, sandpaper, resin, latex, fabric dye, shiny things, sketchbooks, some strange medical-looking negatives I found lying in the street in Paris... but hay-zoos. I've been piling it up in the middle of the room so I can figure out what kind of boxes I need for it, and I'm starting to understand why my back has always given me problems. Some of this stuff I bought in high school, and I recognize much of it from my art school days. A decade ago.
What I have is too much stuff, and not enough focus. Several years ago, Slice and I spent a weekend at a retreat center up near Santa Rosa. There was a little art studio, and one night when I couldn't sleep, I went in there and mucked around with crayons and magazine pages and construction paper. I had a wonderful time, and was pleased with the results. And the whole time, I was thinking about how the limitation of the supplies was actually helping me. I made a mental note to remember that when I got home, and then of course promptly forgot.
Hmmm.
Am I trying to reach some critical mass where it all just makes itself into something grand?
I think a moratorium on visits to Blick and Pearl Paint are in order. No matter how tempting the on-line coupons they send me, no matter how hot my discount card burns in my wallet. And no matter how comforting I find those places.
support pete panse
Just quick. This high school teacher is being punished for suggesting that his students learn to draw from the figure on their own time. This is completely absurd. One warning: if you sign the petition, you'll get a screen hitting you for a donation--I just navigated away from it myself.
Just quick. This high school teacher is being punished for suggesting that his students learn to draw from the figure on their own time. This is completely absurd. One warning: if you sign the petition, you'll get a screen hitting you for a donation--I just navigated away from it myself.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
what WAS i thinking?
Some of you may be familiar with the term "mental core dump." I don't remember which efficiency expert I was reading when I first heard it back sometime in the last century, but it's a useful tool. Essentially, you write down absolutely everything that's pressing on you, from trying to remember to do the laundry to noting that your fear of global warming is harshing your mellow. At least, that's how I understood it to work. The idea is that by writing everything down, you're making mental space so you can actually get something done.
I haven't deliberately done one of these in years. Don't know why, guess I just fell out of the habit. But because I'm packing to move (they're raising the rent on the Spaceship, and my feelings about that are another story), I've been looking through old journals to see what can be saved and what recycled.
Which is how I found this MCD from June '91. I'll just share the section I found most interesting as a commentary on where I was at the time. I was about to move from Minnesota to California, so there's a bunch of dull stuff about shutting off the utilities, asking people to write me letters of reccommendation, getting my interview suit drycleaned, and so on. And then:
The more things change, man.
Some of you may be familiar with the term "mental core dump." I don't remember which efficiency expert I was reading when I first heard it back sometime in the last century, but it's a useful tool. Essentially, you write down absolutely everything that's pressing on you, from trying to remember to do the laundry to noting that your fear of global warming is harshing your mellow. At least, that's how I understood it to work. The idea is that by writing everything down, you're making mental space so you can actually get something done.
I haven't deliberately done one of these in years. Don't know why, guess I just fell out of the habit. But because I'm packing to move (they're raising the rent on the Spaceship, and my feelings about that are another story), I've been looking through old journals to see what can be saved and what recycled.
Which is how I found this MCD from June '91. I'll just share the section I found most interesting as a commentary on where I was at the time. I was about to move from Minnesota to California, so there's a bunch of dull stuff about shutting off the utilities, asking people to write me letters of reccommendation, getting my interview suit drycleaned, and so on. And then:
clean and clear all 5" discs [remember those?]
DON'T PANIC
only so much I can help Julie learn her job
spending $ carelessly
VAXmania [my god, that's right, green print on a black screen]
read Five Days to an Organized Life [yeah, looks like THAT stuck]
eat regularly, take multivitamins [ha!]
do I want a unified style for new place? [double ha!]
throw away unnecessary keys [still have a problem with this]
I want to have an affair [I was, at the time, engaged, sort of]
take apart fan?
teeth cleaning
The more things change, man.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
eleven-hour bar shift
Catering really is a lot better when I'm not handling food.
Tonight's event was a wedding--between two people who had grandkids. Pretty cool. It's nice to be reminded that people can still fall in love after they've passed the age our society considers passion-worthy.
I invented a new drink! Well, I've never heard of anyone else making it. It is sweet (but not very) and limealicious. I made one for a lady who was dithering about what she wanted, and she came back with a friend for more. And while I was looking away to get someone else a beer, I saw from the corner of my eye that she was refilling her glass from what was left in the shaker. Made myself a virgin one, and while I need to tweak the proportions, it's promising. I'll tell you about it later after more time in the lab and you can help me name it.
Kenny Loggins was the after-dinner entertainment. Which was bizarre but amusing--he's looking a lot better than David Lee Roth, I'll tell you that, and he had 'em up and grooving for "Footloose". So I had all these people around my bar trying to dance and drink at the same time, as I tried to dance and make drinks at the same time. One stately white-haired gentleman was half-behind the (curved) bar, keeping time loudly by pounding his hands against it and making it shake. One lady in classic "mother of the bride" regalia lost her balance and nearly took the bar down with her. My hands were sticky with tequila and sweetened lime juice and triple sec, and suddenly I was surrounded by people who needed eight of everything and a couple of people being "mouse pirates" as they took teeny-tiny shots of rum, but that's so much better than standing around listening to the carbonation go out of my Pellegrino, you know?
But I was a fool when I told my passenger back from Napa that the mocha frapp from the cold case at 7-11 wasn't going to keep me up when I got home. Ahem.
Catering really is a lot better when I'm not handling food.
Tonight's event was a wedding--between two people who had grandkids. Pretty cool. It's nice to be reminded that people can still fall in love after they've passed the age our society considers passion-worthy.
I invented a new drink! Well, I've never heard of anyone else making it. It is sweet (but not very) and limealicious. I made one for a lady who was dithering about what she wanted, and she came back with a friend for more. And while I was looking away to get someone else a beer, I saw from the corner of my eye that she was refilling her glass from what was left in the shaker. Made myself a virgin one, and while I need to tweak the proportions, it's promising. I'll tell you about it later after more time in the lab and you can help me name it.
Kenny Loggins was the after-dinner entertainment. Which was bizarre but amusing--he's looking a lot better than David Lee Roth, I'll tell you that, and he had 'em up and grooving for "Footloose". So I had all these people around my bar trying to dance and drink at the same time, as I tried to dance and make drinks at the same time. One stately white-haired gentleman was half-behind the (curved) bar, keeping time loudly by pounding his hands against it and making it shake. One lady in classic "mother of the bride" regalia lost her balance and nearly took the bar down with her. My hands were sticky with tequila and sweetened lime juice and triple sec, and suddenly I was surrounded by people who needed eight of everything and a couple of people being "mouse pirates" as they took teeny-tiny shots of rum, but that's so much better than standing around listening to the carbonation go out of my Pellegrino, you know?
But I was a fool when I told my passenger back from Napa that the mocha frapp from the cold case at 7-11 wasn't going to keep me up when I got home. Ahem.
Monday, September 04, 2006
worst. burn. ever.
But I'm home.
My lips only feel like they're going to fall off.
If you need to replace a tire because you've driven over a stray piece of rebar, may I suggest the Firestone dealer in Reno? Nice people, they have everything, the guys behind the counter are happy to flirt with women who smell funny and have playa-styled hair, and they are--and this is important--Open On Labor Day.
The one of my two original passengers who actually made the trip back with me bought me some dim sum for dinner, which I am taking to bed momentarily. The other, I did not kill. Although it was a close thing.
Sweet, sweet bed.
Not an air mattress that slowly, diabolically, deflates over the course of the night.
Some Burns are fun. Some are learning experiences. This year I learned that next year, I spend Labor Day weekend in, oh, Italy.
But I'm home.
My lips only feel like they're going to fall off.
If you need to replace a tire because you've driven over a stray piece of rebar, may I suggest the Firestone dealer in Reno? Nice people, they have everything, the guys behind the counter are happy to flirt with women who smell funny and have playa-styled hair, and they are--and this is important--Open On Labor Day.
The one of my two original passengers who actually made the trip back with me bought me some dim sum for dinner, which I am taking to bed momentarily. The other, I did not kill. Although it was a close thing.
Sweet, sweet bed.
Not an air mattress that slowly, diabolically, deflates over the course of the night.
Some Burns are fun. Some are learning experiences. This year I learned that next year, I spend Labor Day weekend in, oh, Italy.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
just to clarify
While it is now okay to take a very small quantity of eye drop solution in your carry-on baggage, cattle prods, sabers, pressurized cheese, and gel-filled shoe inserts are still verboten.
This is actually a very handy list, if unintentionally hilarious. Although heaven knows, it could all be different tomorrow.
While it is now okay to take a very small quantity of eye drop solution in your carry-on baggage, cattle prods, sabers, pressurized cheese, and gel-filled shoe inserts are still verboten.
This is actually a very handy list, if unintentionally hilarious. Although heaven knows, it could all be different tomorrow.
Monday, August 21, 2006
put the cheeseburger down, karen!
They still haven't opened "my" museum, but they're close. Real close. Enough so that this poorly-written article came out last week about it.
I'm pointing you at it because I think you really need to read the comments. Is there something in the water down in Riverside County?
They still haven't opened "my" museum, but they're close. Real close. Enough so that this poorly-written article came out last week about it.
I'm pointing you at it because I think you really need to read the comments. Is there something in the water down in Riverside County?
Monday, August 14, 2006
Friday, August 11, 2006
Thursday, August 10, 2006
time to buy that muu muu i've been dreaming of
The news that we're probably not going to be allowed to take anything with us when we fly, while extremely frustrating, has also introduced an image I know I won't be able to shake.
Picture this: airports full of empty-handed people in colorful muu muus and flip-flops. As they approach the security checkpoint for their retinal scan, cavity search, and MMPI administration, each passenger whips off his or her muu muu to reveal their glorious nudity. Planes take longer to board because it's hard to run down the terminal in flip-flops (although that slowdown might be counterbalanced by the fact that people won't be carrying anything), and business people (and, oh, writers) who might have spent the flight actually getting some work done on their laptops are forced to interact with the people sitting around them, as there will be no magazines whose pages might conceal subscription cards with edges capable of inflicting serious paper cuts.
It's a beautiful thing, isn't it? Or how about they just put us all under general anaesthesia the minute we walk in the terminal, and stack us up on the planes like cordwood?
On a barely-related note for you ecologically-savvy shoppers, here are some pretty things made from vintage Hawaiian fabric. On an even less related note, it's that time of year when D's goats have kids and we all go out to admire them, which should explain the photo.
The news that we're probably not going to be allowed to take anything with us when we fly, while extremely frustrating, has also introduced an image I know I won't be able to shake.
Picture this: airports full of empty-handed people in colorful muu muus and flip-flops. As they approach the security checkpoint for their retinal scan, cavity search, and MMPI administration, each passenger whips off his or her muu muu to reveal their glorious nudity. Planes take longer to board because it's hard to run down the terminal in flip-flops (although that slowdown might be counterbalanced by the fact that people won't be carrying anything), and business people (and, oh, writers) who might have spent the flight actually getting some work done on their laptops are forced to interact with the people sitting around them, as there will be no magazines whose pages might conceal subscription cards with edges capable of inflicting serious paper cuts.
It's a beautiful thing, isn't it? Or how about they just put us all under general anaesthesia the minute we walk in the terminal, and stack us up on the planes like cordwood?
On a barely-related note for you ecologically-savvy shoppers, here are some pretty things made from vintage Hawaiian fabric. On an even less related note, it's that time of year when D's goats have kids and we all go out to admire them, which should explain the photo.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
snakes on a truck!
That will only make sense if you read to the end.
I feel sorry for the penguins, of course, but also for the motorists who hit them--I mean, there you are, sort of on autopilot as you cruise along, and then there's something in the road. Which is startling enough. And then it's not a jackrabbit, or a sofa cushion that's fallen off someone's truck, but a black and white flightless bird...
That will only make sense if you read to the end.
I feel sorry for the penguins, of course, but also for the motorists who hit them--I mean, there you are, sort of on autopilot as you cruise along, and then there's something in the road. Which is startling enough. And then it's not a jackrabbit, or a sofa cushion that's fallen off someone's truck, but a black and white flightless bird...
Monday, August 07, 2006
"one leprous olive"
Another page from that notebook, this one even more mysterious. This is from 3 November 2003. The title is clearly a phrase I thought I'd so something with eventually.
1. an octopus has three hearts
2. the only mammal with four knees is the elephant, which is also the only mammal that can't jump [ed: I must have meant land mammal, as I am not aware of dolphins having any knees at all, and the great whale is not much of a jumper)
3. the human heart beats more than 100,000 times a day
4. a sneeze can reach speeds of 200 miles per hour
Another page from that notebook, this one even more mysterious. This is from 3 November 2003. The title is clearly a phrase I thought I'd so something with eventually.
1. an octopus has three hearts
2. the only mammal with four knees is the elephant, which is also the only mammal that can't jump [ed: I must have meant land mammal, as I am not aware of dolphins having any knees at all, and the great whale is not much of a jumper)
3. the human heart beats more than 100,000 times a day
4. a sneeze can reach speeds of 200 miles per hour
Sunday, August 06, 2006
i forgot i had this
Sifting through old notebooks--yes, I'm on deadline, and suddenly purging old paperwork is the most fascinating activity possible--I found this list. I have no idea where it came from--a lecture? The Web? All I know is that I made it on 13 October 2003, apparently before my handwriting became completely illegible. I thought it might be helpful to some of my kind readers. Even if dainty Miss Snufkina gave me the finger Wednesday night when I reminded her that she'll get old someday too. And now I know where it is all the time.
things that support memory:
1. adequate REM sleep
2. oxygen
3. vitamin B1
4. distributed learning--15-45 minute blocks with five-minute breaks in between
5. gingko biloba
6. staying calm
7. hypnosis
8. meditation
9. giving the brain steady challenges, ie crosswords
10. spend fifteen minutes a day--at night--remembering order of day, details
11. believing that memory will stay strong
Sifting through old notebooks--yes, I'm on deadline, and suddenly purging old paperwork is the most fascinating activity possible--I found this list. I have no idea where it came from--a lecture? The Web? All I know is that I made it on 13 October 2003, apparently before my handwriting became completely illegible. I thought it might be helpful to some of my kind readers. Even if dainty Miss Snufkina gave me the finger Wednesday night when I reminded her that she'll get old someday too. And now I know where it is all the time.
things that support memory:
1. adequate REM sleep
2. oxygen
3. vitamin B1
4. distributed learning--15-45 minute blocks with five-minute breaks in between
5. gingko biloba
6. staying calm
7. hypnosis
8. meditation
9. giving the brain steady challenges, ie crosswords
10. spend fifteen minutes a day--at night--remembering order of day, details
11. believing that memory will stay strong
Saturday, August 05, 2006
my feet are just too old for catering
I know, I said I was done with it. And other than a really fun party I bartended at the deYoung Museum a few weeks ago, I've managed to stay out of my tux all year. But a friend asked if I'd do a private gig with her, and the money was good, and I figured I needed to get out and be around people a little.
Urk. No.
I did get to see some people I like last night, two of them women I haven't seen in at least a year and regret having lost touch with. So we all exchanged contact info and promises of coffee dates; I'm looking forward to spending time with both of them because they're fun. One seems to have softened since I last spoke with her, the other has grown more self-confident. Every chance I had, I was hanging out with one or the other, catching up.
Now if only that silly work thing hadn't gotten in the way... rich people, a private golf course/club lousy with self-congratulation, and food with too much sugar in it. I never even got a good look at the bride and groom, or cared to; the celebrant, like the food, had too much sugar in him. I've never heard the words "before they take these sacred vows", drip so much.
But the moment that told me I couldn't do this any more really came during the cocktail hour, as I was wending my way through the crowd on some errand or another, and was looking at the silly dresses and the silly shoes and the well-fed men and realized there wasn't a single person in the mass that I would approach to talk to, were I a guest and not a waitron. These people are aliens, I said to L.
And that is really not a good way to think about guests. Looks like I stick with bar shifts, the only kind of catering work I like any more.
I know, I said I was done with it. And other than a really fun party I bartended at the deYoung Museum a few weeks ago, I've managed to stay out of my tux all year. But a friend asked if I'd do a private gig with her, and the money was good, and I figured I needed to get out and be around people a little.
Urk. No.
I did get to see some people I like last night, two of them women I haven't seen in at least a year and regret having lost touch with. So we all exchanged contact info and promises of coffee dates; I'm looking forward to spending time with both of them because they're fun. One seems to have softened since I last spoke with her, the other has grown more self-confident. Every chance I had, I was hanging out with one or the other, catching up.
Now if only that silly work thing hadn't gotten in the way... rich people, a private golf course/club lousy with self-congratulation, and food with too much sugar in it. I never even got a good look at the bride and groom, or cared to; the celebrant, like the food, had too much sugar in him. I've never heard the words "before they take these sacred vows", drip so much.
But the moment that told me I couldn't do this any more really came during the cocktail hour, as I was wending my way through the crowd on some errand or another, and was looking at the silly dresses and the silly shoes and the well-fed men and realized there wasn't a single person in the mass that I would approach to talk to, were I a guest and not a waitron. These people are aliens, I said to L.
And that is really not a good way to think about guests. Looks like I stick with bar shifts, the only kind of catering work I like any more.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
trooper is a good bird
This guy lives with Dolce and Guido, those Italian Greyhounds I'm always photographing. Thought I'd give you a break from the dogs (although I did take a few more snaps of them last week; they're hard to resist).
Weird day modeling. I did not actually work for the artist who lives with Trooper and the pups, but at an extension class out at UC Berkeley and then at an art center in Alameda. The day did not start well; I was running late, and frustrated that I would be modeling with furry limbs (the hair needs to be a certain length before it can be waxed, and it's not what I find an attractive length), and feeling sort of bloated and pasty anyway. God forbid I should thus fall into any of these categories.
The room at UCB was one I've never worked in before. It's not often used for figure drawing. So I was struck first by how small the stand was--which limits what I can do on the gesture poses--and then by some really horrid graffitti someone had painstakingly inked onto the canvas surface of the stand with a purple ballpoint, going over every line several times to make sure it would be legible.
I hesitate to reproduce it here, but I suppose I must so you can understand why it really threw me off my feed for pretty much the whole day. Beside a very poorly drawn figure of a voluptuous naked woman, someone had written
Who said, Oh yes, I saw that, and made a mental note to deal with it, but then I forgot. We don't often have models in there. Her supervisor, a lovely woman I used to cater with, came out of her office and offered me some coffee cake. They told me that there's been a rash of sexual graffitti in the building--in the stairwells, in the rack room, in the faculty bathroom. Someone's sexed up, said M. They think there's one person behind all the graffitti; the teacher thinks it's a particular guy.
When I get sexed up, I noted, I don't take it out on the walls.
Good point. I'll take care of it. Do you think I can cover it with marker? Or should I repaint the stand?
Take it out and burn it, I wanted to respond, but didn't. The three of us talked briefly about other things, M showed me pictures of her new baby and gave me a striped bedsheet to cover the stand, and I went back to work.
But it's been bothering me all day, for several reasons. For one, that had to be written by someone who can identify a model's stand as something other than a badly-padded table. So, a student in one of the drawing classes. Not a teacher, not a random person who walked in off the street, not a student from another discipline. A drawing student.
When I was first thinking about this, I kept going back to Anais Nin's "Artists and Models", a story I read years before I even dreamed of doing this work. The protagonist is one of Nin's exotic, heavy-lidded creatures; she has assignations with students on the second floor of a cafe near the school. Here to tell you: the real thing's not like that at all. In fifteen years of modeling, I haven't slept with a single artist (made out with one, okay, but that was years ago, and certainly not in the studio where we met or anywhere close to it).
But it doesn't even matter. What matters is that someone who has very possibly drawn from me--who has seen me naked--took the time to scratch out something truly hateful where I or my colleagues can't help but see it. It wasn't on one of the tables, or the wall over the sink where the students rinse out their brushes, or in a notebook. It was left as a message to us, letting us know in exactly what esteem the writer holds us. The more I think about it, the more it bothers me. Not so much in the "is that what people think we are? Glorified whores?" sense--although I did have a moment of that, and was able to shake it off. No, my reaction is more visceral. I go into every gig thinking, I am here to share something precious, I am here to help and inspire, I will stand on my head if that's what it takes, and some pissant kid whose fancy-dancy schooling is paid for in part by the (hefty) freelance-rate taxes I pay thinks he's being funny? I feel disrespected, and a little unsafe. Biking back to the BART station after class, every kid I passed was suspect. I was sort of hoping I'd see someone, some poxy boy, with purple ballpoint ink on his fingers, so I could run him over with Salome. But no such.
This isn't the first time I've considered dropping or thinning out the university gigs; I prefer working for professional artists for several reasons, most of them tangential to this story. Right now I can't afford not to work in the schools, though, and sometimes I have a really good time working with students. I dunno. Today was sobering.
This guy lives with Dolce and Guido, those Italian Greyhounds I'm always photographing. Thought I'd give you a break from the dogs (although I did take a few more snaps of them last week; they're hard to resist).
Weird day modeling. I did not actually work for the artist who lives with Trooper and the pups, but at an extension class out at UC Berkeley and then at an art center in Alameda. The day did not start well; I was running late, and frustrated that I would be modeling with furry limbs (the hair needs to be a certain length before it can be waxed, and it's not what I find an attractive length), and feeling sort of bloated and pasty anyway. God forbid I should thus fall into any of these categories.
The room at UCB was one I've never worked in before. It's not often used for figure drawing. So I was struck first by how small the stand was--which limits what I can do on the gesture poses--and then by some really horrid graffitti someone had painstakingly inked onto the canvas surface of the stand with a purple ballpoint, going over every line several times to make sure it would be legible.
I hesitate to reproduce it here, but I suppose I must so you can understand why it really threw me off my feed for pretty much the whole day. Beside a very poorly drawn figure of a voluptuous naked woman, someone had written
I pose Nude--My legs apart... My pussy open & half the artists stare & after class wants maybe to "get together" for a drink--they want to fuck me! and I always fuck a few...Ew. And again, with feeling: ew. I stood there for a moment, silently absorbing this vile aphorism as the teacher said something to me I didn't catch. Just to its right, padding showed through a six-inch slash in the canvas. Ironically, considering my stress in getting there, the class hadn't started yet, so I went to the department office to talk to M, the office manager.
Who said, Oh yes, I saw that, and made a mental note to deal with it, but then I forgot. We don't often have models in there. Her supervisor, a lovely woman I used to cater with, came out of her office and offered me some coffee cake. They told me that there's been a rash of sexual graffitti in the building--in the stairwells, in the rack room, in the faculty bathroom. Someone's sexed up, said M. They think there's one person behind all the graffitti; the teacher thinks it's a particular guy.
When I get sexed up, I noted, I don't take it out on the walls.
Good point. I'll take care of it. Do you think I can cover it with marker? Or should I repaint the stand?
Take it out and burn it, I wanted to respond, but didn't. The three of us talked briefly about other things, M showed me pictures of her new baby and gave me a striped bedsheet to cover the stand, and I went back to work.
But it's been bothering me all day, for several reasons. For one, that had to be written by someone who can identify a model's stand as something other than a badly-padded table. So, a student in one of the drawing classes. Not a teacher, not a random person who walked in off the street, not a student from another discipline. A drawing student.
When I was first thinking about this, I kept going back to Anais Nin's "Artists and Models", a story I read years before I even dreamed of doing this work. The protagonist is one of Nin's exotic, heavy-lidded creatures; she has assignations with students on the second floor of a cafe near the school. Here to tell you: the real thing's not like that at all. In fifteen years of modeling, I haven't slept with a single artist (made out with one, okay, but that was years ago, and certainly not in the studio where we met or anywhere close to it).
But it doesn't even matter. What matters is that someone who has very possibly drawn from me--who has seen me naked--took the time to scratch out something truly hateful where I or my colleagues can't help but see it. It wasn't on one of the tables, or the wall over the sink where the students rinse out their brushes, or in a notebook. It was left as a message to us, letting us know in exactly what esteem the writer holds us. The more I think about it, the more it bothers me. Not so much in the "is that what people think we are? Glorified whores?" sense--although I did have a moment of that, and was able to shake it off. No, my reaction is more visceral. I go into every gig thinking, I am here to share something precious, I am here to help and inspire, I will stand on my head if that's what it takes, and some pissant kid whose fancy-dancy schooling is paid for in part by the (hefty) freelance-rate taxes I pay thinks he's being funny? I feel disrespected, and a little unsafe. Biking back to the BART station after class, every kid I passed was suspect. I was sort of hoping I'd see someone, some poxy boy, with purple ballpoint ink on his fingers, so I could run him over with Salome. But no such.
This isn't the first time I've considered dropping or thinning out the university gigs; I prefer working for professional artists for several reasons, most of them tangential to this story. Right now I can't afford not to work in the schools, though, and sometimes I have a really good time working with students. I dunno. Today was sobering.
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