purified thinking water

sing it, ted olson

2010-08-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

And you thought Fox News lacked quality programming:

yours truly

2010-07-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

Perhaps this has been covered elsewhere. Perhaps it's of little interest to anyone but that diminishing fraction of us who study words for a living. But the way a comrade signs her emails tells me a lot about the person, likely a lot that I'm just inventing and nothing about her real intent, but still.

First, "cheers." How did this catch on? We're not in a bar. Nor are we in Britain. I just sent you the sales sheet for the spring 2010 publishing season. Is that something to toast? I daresay nay.

Then there's "best." Not best wishes, not best regards. Just "best." This nearly always comes from someone with an MBA or on their way to acquiring one. I need not share further thoughts of mine on that sign-off then.

"Regards." What I like about this, as has recently been pointed out to me, is that in responding to someone who has repeatedly failed or blown off deadlines, your use of the clean, cold "regards" is tantamount to one big eff you. This is truth. Observe in your own irritated exchanges of the future.

All the rest work for me. I stole one from one of my fave folks on the planet, Askold Melnyczuk, who used to sign his letters to me with "all good wishes." I liked it so much, along with the energy it carried, that I just thieved it.

So if nothing else, this serves as notice. I plagiarize. We all do.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth

inseparable

2010-06-16T06:16:00.000-07:00

Some days the ethics of being a literary critic, while unambiguous, still pinch. Say your allegiances lie squarely within the gay community. You actively advocate for and advance arts of, by, for the LGBTQ community. You're assigned to review the nonfiction work of Emma Donoghue, best known as a fiction writer who not only happens to be a lesbian, but who locates queer identities centrally in much of her work.

You feel confident this will be a sympathetic review because you've enjoyed much of her fiction, even associate one of her short stories ('The Dormition of the Virgin'), "the diary of a nerdish English student on a mini-break pilgrimage to Florence," with an all-time high of personal contentment, the recollection still sweet of lolling around a Roman piazza as the sun set, reading her well-turned little tale as the crowd cleared out. You needed absolutely nothing more from life at that moment.

Given all that, a review would be just fine, a hoot. You sign on. You're pleased. That is, until you read the book. Inseparable is lacking and you are obliged to say so. This review, because it's critical, was hard to write. Still, I'm pleased to suggest that I may be the minority opinion. So don't just take my word for it. Read Kathryn Harrison on the matter as well. Even better, read for yourself and decide.

operation walk the dog

2010-06-04T06:04:00.000-07:00

This may not sound at the outset like it has anything to do with dog walking, but it does. The rampant jeering at BP leads me to the obvious conclusion that we're monstrous for distancing ourselves from the oil companies. It's a breathtaking disconnect. Gentle reader, how many miles did you drive today? And how many of those miles could you have ridden your bike, taken public transit, or walked? For me, I'd estimate my week clocked in at well over 100 miles, with all last weekend's zipping around.

I've got a great bike. And the sole reason, as it has been for years, that I drive to work is so I can travel the six miles back home to walk my dog Stella at lunch without taking forty minutes by bike each way to do it. So. Does my budget stretch for a dog walker comfortably? Not without some changes. But I'm putting out the call anyway. I don't want to sit around lamenting the evil empire of BP while their fuel pump is snug in my tank.

Natural Resources Defense Council

[Photo credit: Kira Stackhouse]

nose work

2010-06-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

Fun stuff.

octopus dress!

2010-05-24T05:24:00.000-07:00

1. Maude would approve.
2. How did this not go to Tilda first?
3. I want one. Or more.

That is all.

the mad maudlin

2010-05-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

We let Maude Madeleine go; she was seventeen years old. This sweet little feline was given three month to live in August of 2007, but she defiantly lived a healthy, bossy, private life until May 18, 2o10.

I didn't write much about her because she was the opposite of Stella in just about every way--she was brave and quiet, subtle, graceful, moody. She meowed me awake every morning, didn't want much to do with folks outside her very small tribe, and patiently acclimated each time I relocated us, all told probably around ten times. I miss her desperately.

She'll likely be one of those active spirits. So send your wishes her way.

stella's spring semester

2010-05-11T05:11:00.000-07:00

We've been out having lotsa fun this year. Maybe we need an intern to blog for us. Well real quick, here's a peek into Stella's new superfavorite endeavor: nosework class. The girl is CRAZY for it.

For those unfamiliar, nosework is a kind of professional hunting for dogs. It takes advantage of a dog's excellent sense of smell and natural desire to hunt. For those who have dogs that like to stalk and hunt, this is a hell of a way to channel their energy. In this video, we've hidden treats in one of the object out on the floor and each dog is instructed to "find it." Have a look.

In the video above, you can actually see Stella catch the scent pretty early at 0:39, right before she passes by the little portable dog kennel for the first time. Then it becomes more obvious she's caught something as she starts to circle around, ruling out areas and closing in on the treats in the fruit basket.

Take note in this video of the orange cone turned on its side. That's where the treats are hidden this time. When Stella goes past it, you can see her lift her head and then drop her nose right to the ground at 0:24. She then follows the scent like it's a thread right to the cone. She's caught the scent and just followed it. Neat stuff, no?

basic civil rights

2010-03-19T15:19:00.000-07:00

After reading From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law by Martha Nussbaum, I simply cannot imagine how anyone could get married while so many Americans are denied that same right.

Here's my full review.

migration nation

2010-03-17T15:17:00.000-07:00

Finally making the move over to Wordpress. (Slow and steady wins the race.)

More soon and happy St. Patrick's Day!

hey, stella!

2010-02-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

Stella is making the rounds. Her mug is up on Pit Bull Patriarchy. Ain't she purty?

this vegan life

2010-01-13T01:13:00.000-08:00

Two weeks into this vegan deal--some discouraging moments, along with breakthroughs to cooler stuff.

1. The web remains, as we well know, a dangerous superhighway, pocked with noxious DIY potholes. A good many of the vegan recipe photos I have encountered thus far bear a striking resemblance to indistinct offal or, perhaps more accurately, cud. I pass.

2. I miss honey. Eat some for me. Honey, as it turns out, happens to be on everything crunchy and delicious. See labels. Truth.

3. Rip kale, drizzle with olive oil, salt, pepper, go at 350 degrees for a flash of minutes till just crispy. Jesus, so good. Just like potato chips, I swear.

4. Vegans are magicians in the art of substitution. Not the silly "meats" so much as baking substitutions. Take eggs, for example. Depending on the recipe, you can use bananas, avocados, or applesauce in their place. Also all the synthetic soy and corn products, of course. I am, in fact, making Avocado Brownies tonight. Oh that's what I said.

Anyway, it's not all roses for the beginner. It can be discouraging. Going out to dinner is a joke when you do not know your way around. My most significant encounter was at my local Thai place. I asked if the masaman curry was vegan and she said, "Yes, masaman chicken (pronounced cheeken) and ... ?" (Pause) No, no. Not exactly right.

So most days I venture into establishments, I do feel like Felix Unger, alienated and underserved. But the upshot has been an intense increase in cook-at-home meals, not bad since I'm pretty good in the cocina. All told, it's a hard adjustment, so much to learn, but I feel good, cleaner, for the most part. It's a hard feeling to convey, much like the impact peppermint has right after you breath it in. That kind of thing. And I feel a lot less guilty for complicity in all sorts of things. That's worth a great deal. I've lost weight already. I'll have to watch that. I've been having especially lunatic dreams. Related? Perhaps. It's all becoming part of my routine and I'll just end up rambling about my dog and books and movies in no time at all.

In the meantime, I have to go soak some nuts for a raw pizza. I kid you not.

thai iced tea for now

2010-01-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

I had Thai food after work and was jonesing for a Thai iced tea. It was a rocky road to that damn drink. I nearly broke the veganism only five days in. Turns out this is a landscape rich with mines. Non-dairy, apparently, doesn't mean non-dairy. Casein, essentially a cow's milk protein, is found in cheese, as might be expected, but also in non-dairy creamer and, incidentally, plastic. Awesome!

So I backed off that, but most of you probably suspect that coconut milk has such a strong flavor it would interfere with the tea taste and the other milks would just be too thin. And you're right. The recipe below comes close enough for a beginner, but it's not the same as Thai iced tea. I see, though, that there are soy non-dairy creamers out there, so there are likely rice versions too. I'll have to look around and revisit this one.

Ohh, and neat molecular gastronomy-ish stuff: I'm going to see about experimenting with Irish moss, carrageenan, and other thickening agents. I'm not so into cornstarch; I can taste it like I've stirred my drink with a tire iron. Not the taste I'm going for. Who knows, comrades. It's all an imperfect process. We'll see what we can unearth (other than mines and tire irons).

Meanwhile, here's one for the passage of time:

Thai Iced Tea, Sorta

2 tsps. Thai tea blend (China Black tea and red tea leaf, plus "natural flavor")
1 c. boiling water
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. rice milk
1 tbsp. coconut milk

Fill a glass with ice; using a ceramic one-cup coffee filter, run the hot water over the tea blend. Once that's brewed, add the sugar, stir, and add the milks.

rosy cocoa

2010-01-05T13:05:00.000-08:00

Food's great, but the warm drinks are the order of the day.

Rosy Cocoa

2 tbsp. Dagoba Fair Trade Baking Cocoa
2 tbsp. light brown sugar
1 c. hazelnut milk
1 tsp. Magliano Organic Rose Syrup

Whisk cocoa, sugar, and milk over medium-low heat in small saucepan. Once cocoa is dissolved and milk is letting off steam, add syrup. Get a book, find a blanket, call the dog over, and delight in it all.

Hmm: This just in. I've been told that you can't actually raise any nut milks over the boiling point because they scald. I certainly didn't have any film on my cocoa and it tasted great. Okay, well whisker beware.

cinnamon raisin tea

2010-01-04T01:04:00.000-08:00

It's cold out! Not sure how I got on this drink kick, but here's a suitably cozy bevvie, original and interesting, from comrade Karen's mother.

Cinnamon Raisin Tea

1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
5 cinnamon sticks
5 cardamom pods
1/2 c. raisins
1 c. prunes
6 qt. water
2 tbsps. brown sugar (add at the end to taste)

Add first five ingredients to the water in a large soup pot. Boil for fifteen minutes and then simmer for at least two hours. Strain and sip. Mmm.

cold-pressed cardamom coffee

2010-01-03T13:03:00.000-08:00

It’s Sunday morning. I have my morning paper and that means the time for lattes is upon us. It’s come-to-Jesus time, my flockmates. Must. Have. Good. Coffee. What’s a die-hard Peetnik to do? Is this it? Will the whole vegan bag be hoisted into the Bay because I pitched a fit over an insufficient coffee option? I seriously worried—veganis interruptus was nigh. Since I have never been crazy about a cup of joe without milk, soy lattes or sugared-up chai seemed the best options. Bleak prospects, both, by way of substitution. (And don’t suggest carob to me, you communists.) I thought all hope may be lost. Then ah, sweet, punk-rock cherub of provision screeching up to the curb gifted me last night at the last possible moment with this cold-filtered concept.

For the uninitiated, cold-filtered coffee—to my knowledge—is indistinguishable from the standard, classic French press treatment of the coffee, only more coarsely ground and left in cold water for twelve-plus hours (rather than steeped for five minutes in hot water). I swear to you: this is a delightful discovery, even for the omnivorous coffee ho.

The brew is totally free of bitterness, not acidic at all, yet full of the robust flavor we fiends cannot do without. My sole warning for the coffee critic is that it lacks that roundness that comes from the oils released with hot-water steeping—it’s thinner. I was okay without that quality, but you may not be. And here’s the stunner: the way I made it, I didn’t actually want milk in it. Whoa.

One other note: I use a thirty-two-ounce French press from Bodum. Peet’s recommends two-thirds of a cup of grounds for that. I am disinclined to add hair to my chest, hence my reversion to one-quarter cup. But hey, do your worst King Kong if two-thirds speaks to you. I won’t judge.

Acid-free Paper

1/4 c. coarsely ground Peet’s Fair Trade Blend coffee
32 oz. water
10 cardamom pods
1/2 vanilla bean

Smash the cardamom so that each pod is cracked open. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scoop out the bits. Put it all in the press pot—grounds, water, cardamom, vanilla bean, scooped bits. I pressed it halfway down before bed, sort of arbitrarily, then pressed the rest in the morning. Poured a cup (I had it up and cold), read paper, saved myself for veganism. God bless. That was a close one.

drinks with the vice squad

2010-01-02T13:02:00.000-08:00

Lifestyle discovery of the hesitating vegan, exhibit A: plan ahead. A number of the better looking recipes found in the few vegan cookbooks I've gathered thus far call for long-term maneuvers—soaking, sprouting, fermenting, and the like. An unexpected ancillary effect is I find myself considering the whole package, the full meal deal, well in advance.

That includes drinks. Being three years sober now, I have no less interest in beautiful drinks and pairing them than any other enthusiast. But my cocktails call for creativity. So this long-term thing may work out. The first drink I made was entirely my creation. It worked out well, I think. Good for tamarind freaks, an order to which I tithe with feeling.

Dum Dum 2.0

These drinks taste almost identical to the lollipops of yore. No joke.

15 whole tamarinds
1 gal., plus 1 c., water
1/2 c. agave syrup
15 sprigs fresh lemon thyme

Soak the tamarind in the gallon of water overnight. Bring the cup of water and the agave to boil in a small saucepan. Reduce heat immediately and add thyme. Simmer on low for ten minutes. Remove thyme sprigs and cool completely.

Next morning, strain tamarind water with fine sieve or china cap, as well as the thyme agave syrup. I like a three to one ratio, water to syrup. Serve on the rocks and with a freak at the table, ifn ya like.

the hesitating vegan

2010-01-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

The majority of private emails I’ve received about my going vegan for 2010 have asked what in the world I—the sensualist omnivore who practically sleeps snuggled up to the Roquefort in the kitchen—am doing. I am improvising, that’s what. I have spent several inquisitive years badgering farmers and trying to monitor the quality of life for the animals I eat. I have, in my own assessment, for the most part failed, no matter how I have tried, so I’m venturing an experiment.

I am a solid amateur cook, a snob—a judgy, fussy, discerning, demanding girl who has long enjoyed access to a wide range of excellent product and deep gastronimical resources. I know what’s up. With a twelve-week course from Kitchen on Fire treading my soles, and more importantly, plenty of time with my boots on the ground at the range, I have just that mix of bravura and ignorance that makes a chef lusty, brave, and reckless. So if there were ever a time when I could give this a go without going full-tilt-boogie into culinary school enrollment, it's now. So I assure you: I have not changed. I still like meat, cheese, honey. I love the mouth-feel of cream in my coffee, the taste of chicken in my stock, the sight of a steak on the grill pan. But I am curious to see what a chef can do without all of that. Call it a conscious year-long Quickfire Challenge. (Longer, who knows, should my nutritional and culinary results prove out.)

These posts will be real when meals taste awful, but focused on pleasing and surprising. I will be going with all my heart for hits, not misses. No one should expect this to become the depot where we sing the song of tempeh soy-cheese scrambles. In fact, we take this truth to be self-evident: soy is the devil. It tastes bad, we can’t digest it, its producers are ravaging our primeval forests. But the soy devil will, alas, show up in these recipes here and there. I’ll just operate on the presumption that there's more to veganism than Tofu Pups and their attendant fleet of fake meat travesties, and that the better I get at this gig, the less I'll need to employ them.

I’ve got the here, I’ve got the now. So on we go, friends, launching our own minor variation on JFK’s theme from the ’60s. We do these things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others too.”

My favorite recipe of the weekend, for your fun, is this macaroni and cheese. It’s delicious. Honest to god, you can take the word of this cynical omnivore. Trust. I’d be the first to roll my eyes.

let's ditch oingo boingo and make a movie

2009-12-16T00:16:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

(EXCEPT: Is it so much to ask, Tim Burton, for you to perhaps offer us a soundtrack other than the same one Danny Elfman has written you since ding dang Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, which was filmed in 1985? Really, you're being had. He burns the same music with a different film's name scrawled on the CD and somehow Jedi-mindtricks you into imagining it is a new arrangement. I don't understand. Lose him. Let's be changemakers, Tim. You and I together. Actually scratch that. You and I. And Helena. And Johnny. In fact, we don't really need you at all, come to think of it. Just send me those other two lovelies and the three of us will figure this all out on your behalf. We will make beautiful music together. Trust.)

consider me the shadkhenbetween you and your dictionary

2009-12-14T12:14:00.000-08:00

From the mailbag: "You write really well, except for the occasional use of big words that I have to look up."

and that's the poetry of it

2009-12-08T00:08:00.000-08:00

I Dreamed I Met William Burroughs

by Franz Wright

I met William Burroughs in a dream.
It was some sort of bohemian farmhouse,
And he was enthroned, small and skeletal,
in a truly gigantic red armchair.

When I asked him how he was, he replied
Well you know what they say—for best results,
always mock and frighten the lobster before boiling.
Franz—I like that name, Franz. Childe Franz

To the dark tower something or other … Hey,
got a smoke? And quit worrying so much:
they can’t help themselves; they’re like abused dogs
and they’re going to react to affection and kindness

with uncontrollable savagery. Just tell them,
You’re out of my mind, pal. You’re out
of my mind. Either that or, I’m out of yours.
That’ll keep them brain-chained to the trees.

--

Yeah, but sometimes it's the abused dogs that
act just like beloved, barely blinking kittens.

This I know.

erick zonca's julia

2009-12-07T12:07:00.000-08:00

Coming up on three years sober, I have often wished I could find more drunks on film that hold up as believable failures, all the more spectacularly disappointing because they have the substance to have made more, to have chosen better, to have interrupted the downward spiral somewhere along the way.

Appreciating that (a) we're culturally prone to overtalking diagnosed illnesses and (b) that's the point of these morality tales, a collective there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I, it's surprising we have so little by way of compelling boozer archetypes. Well at last, we have a drinking disaster to watch who is not just a clowning caricature (think Arthur or Bluto) or a rotten miscreant (Bukowski, anyone?).

Allora. Leave it to Tilda—brilliant, radiant Tilda—the versatile woman who has played Jadis here and Orlando there, to get a smart, defiant, pathetic, regressing alcoholic just right.

I cannot recommend this one enough. (Props to the miniature John C. Reilly who played opposite her and the poor lil pit bull who got typecast as a slum drone.)

do you think we're ready for that kind of commitment?

2009-12-03T00:03:00.000-08:00

If you are concerned about the definition of marriage, and by concerned I mean a thinking person earnestly trying to resolve yourself to an issue (not a simpleton whose mind is hermetically sealed infinitas infinitio), you owe it to yourself to watch this. Hear her out. All the way through.

go forth, a fonder way to say move on

2009-12-02T00:02:00.000-08:00

Beach Walk

by Henri Cole

I found a baby shark on the beach.
Seagulls had eaten his eyes. His throat was bleeding.
Lying on shell and sand, he looked smaller than he was.
The ocean had scraped his insides clean.
When I poked his stomach, darkness rose up in him,
like black water. Later, I saw a boy,
aroused and elated, beckoning from a dune.
Like me, he was alone. Something tumbled between us—
not quite emotion. I could see the pink
interior flesh of his eyes. "I got lost. Where am I?"
he asked, like a debt owed to death.
I was pressing my face to its spear-hafts.
We fall, we fell, we are falling. Nothing mitigates it.
The dark embryo bares its teeth and we move on.

we must march, my darlings

2009-11-29T23:29:00.000-08:00

I have considered renouncing holidays, as their onset in my life has recently been eclipsed by death and dying. Per esempio: the eve of my birthday saw me lose my young father and the dawn of Thanksgiving was the first without my desperately beloved Nana here on terra firma.

This last bright and blustery Saturday we buried her and I faltered before a church full of family and oldest friends, buckling at the lectern under protracted grief, too choked up to read my way through the first letter of John from the New Testament. My voice cracked and I involuntarily held my hand to my throat in that way people do when they're trying to pin wavering emotion in its place. I forced my way through it, the butterflies so loosely netted:

See what love the Father has given us,
that we should be called children of God;
and that is what we are.
The reason the world does not know us
is that it did not know Him.
Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we will be has not yet been revealed.
What we do know is this:
when He is revealed, we will be like Him,
for we will see Him as He is.
The Word of the Lord.

A Buddhist back in my day-to-day Californian life, I'd delivered the "word of the lord" rather hastily and rushed back to the pew to collapse against my brother's arm, a mess of muffled sobs as the rest of the mass blurred by. After kneeling, standing, sitting, signing the cross and breathing the incense, after weeping at the gravesite and clinging to the coffin, eulogizing over candlelit dinners and embracing those befogged elders that still stood among us, I retired with my clan to our Nana's humble brick home for some time-tested Irish Catholic grog slingery.

Late into the evening, my cousin (once removed) and I sat out in the dark on the covered porch, him the chain-smoker, me the weak-blooded Californian cloaked in wool throws, and we got to talking about the meaning of these rites, just what—aside from our heritage, the religion of our childhoods, the honor of our now lost elders—we were affirming there in that church. And we got to this exchange, when the priest and congregation conduct a call and refrain at the end of the mass of the faithful.

May the Lord be with you. (Dominus vobiscum.)
And also with you. (Et cum spiritu tuo.—Actually that's "And with your spirit.")
Go now, the mass is ended. (Ite, Missa est.)
Thanks be to God. (Deo gratias.)

Just having lost his own father two weeks back, cousin K seized on the priest's last words: "Ite, Missa est." There we have two clauses, the first in the imperative mood, second person plural: "You (all) go!" And roughed out, "Missa est" is equivalent to "The dismissal exists." A swish of scotch spilled over the lip of his Waterford lowball, his voice and gesture emphasized: I was not getting it! This is the news; THIS is the word of God. We're being told at the deathbeds of these mentors, our illustrious, cherished members of the Great Generation, he insisted, "Go. You are dismissed! You are set forth. You are called upon to go and live."

Back when my father died, a relatively new friend of mine advised that, however hard his death may have been on me then, that it was only the beginning of a lifetime of living without. I think now of Joan Didion, how she, like I have, suffered a one-two punch of abandonment. She wrote in The Magical Year of Thinking, "That I was only beginning the process of mourning did not occur to me. Until now, I had only been able to grieve, not mourn. Grief was passive. Grief happened. Mourning, the act of dealing with grief, required attention.… Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death."

In the past, my mood toward death was one of piteous sympathy, a distance and distaste not unlike that of Philip Larkin's uncharitable characterization in "The Old Fools." Now I am tempted to feel something much finer, a sorrow that the mythos of our childhood must end. Our parents tell us they will always be there for us, will always protect us, and we as parents go on and say the same, but none of this is assured or in any way within our power. It is much like Cormac McCarthy's The Road, when the boy clings to his dying father and demands in a religiously charged exchange, "You said you wouldn't ever leave me." We do not want to be left. We do not want to leave. We are animals and we continue to crawl on. Iron & Wine sings a song that I think chronicles it well, the lifetime lived in the mix, all need and hope for recollection:

Please, remember me
As in the dream
We had as rug-burned babies
Among the fallen trees
And fast asleep
Aside the lions and the ladies

And I necessarily think of who may remember me, who I might lose next, who is afraid of being left, who is also guilty of wanting to be remembered. I want to recall them all, with a different urgency than I want to be with them.

I think back to an early date with the man I now love ardently, and despite how critical we both are of everything, always the analysis, always the dismantling and the resistance and the pleasing demolition as shifting plate grates plate, in this one recent instance, we both sat in a theater riveted by, of all things, a Levi's commercial. Whitman's voice, an early wax recording, sifts heavy sentiment. "O pioneers!" he proclaims over a montage of beautiful youth aflame with action.

I was lying in bed after we saw the short for a second time, this after the second death, and I was feeling so in love yet blinking through the effort to soothe my eyes, achy from crying. And he said to me so mildly that it nearly failed to register that he expects, given age, to die before I do. And the little siege of sorrow against my heart surged, only until the simplicity of what my cousin was saying came back to me. It is the obligation of the living to the dead: live now. And this, incidentally, requires a resistance to maudlin attachment.

Put more grandly, the poem proclaims more than Manifest Destiny, but that "by those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter, / Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging, / Pioneers! O pioneers!" It calls upon us to "spring to your places." So perhaps it is reason to look forward all the more to the holidays I have, for I have twice been reminded now on the brink of celebratory milestones that the remote future, unlike this instant, is beyond any ken or comfort. At the end of the ad, the youth run through the frame, away from the camera. The banner behind them as they go reads, "Go forth."

Go forth. Inevitably.

sufficiency

2009-11-24T23:24:00.000-08:00

I am here at my grandmother's deathbed. I am watching her shallow breathing, then leaving the room, sitting on the chilled front steps I have visited for three and a half decades of my unremarkable life. Bird and branch fidget and give. And in my mind, Franz Wright finishes up his poem:

And I will know what to say at the end: What end?
And I can add I found this world sufficiently miraculous.

do you got a fast car?

2009-11-16T23:16:00.000-08:00

I fought the law and the law demolished me. Six tickets later, I have officially handed over enough of my income to have covered all expenses to Thailand for a two-week luxe venture. Easily.

Here's my song for all my dollar bills.

point, counterpoint

2009-11-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

Dirge Without Music

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned

With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.

Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,

A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—

They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled

Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

imagine.

2009-11-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

I just tried to search for a gmail message, not always the most satisfactory experience, what with chats and emails hulked up in one entangled list. When I remembered that the message included "I love you," I searched by that phrase and was surprised to see it return hundreds of results.

Moments like this render the idea of nonattachment categorically nutso; look at all the love! Who in her right mind wouldn't splosh around in that with her Wellies? I mean, I want to sort through the mails, note every person's name, and make house calls for hugs. But I suppose it's high time at exactly these instances to let go of my need and desire to receive more messages of "I love you." Who knows. It does seem right in line, though, to offer the words more expeditiously, more readily. To share affections in that first felt moment. Why not?

I read and reread for confirmation of this notion: "Whatever you experience, never forget that it will change. That's the way of the world. This understanding will enable you to appreciate what you have, to enjoy it while it lasts. When you lose something, you won't be taken by surprise, because you won't have assumed it could never be lost. People leave, houses deteriorate, and everyone dies. As long as you understand impermanence, these things won't break you."

in his name

2009-10-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

It's my father's birthday and since he's not here to get to have whatever he wants, I'll take whatever I want on his behalf. So. My request is simple: never use the word "chillaxin" again. That's it.

Thanks!

2009-10-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

Dad, where are you?

beginning to see the light

2009-10-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

Perishable, It Said

by Jane Hirshfield

Perishable, it said on the plastic container,
and below, in different ink,
the date to be used by, the last teaspoon consumed.

I found myself looking:
now at the back of each hand,
now inside the knees,
now turning over each foot to look at the sole.

Then at the leaves of the young tomato plants,
then at the arguing jays.

Under the wooden table and lifted stones, looking.
Coffee cups, olives, cheeses,
hunger, sorrow, fears—
these too would certainly vanish, without knowing when.

How suddenly then
the strange happiness took me,
like a man with strong hands and strong mouth,
inside that hour with its perishing perfumes and clashings.

- - -

I read a poem several years back, right before an old friend confided she was going through some difficult heartbreak. I sent the poem, perfect for her, straightaway. Maybe it was from UTNE, maybe from The Atlantic. I sent the original hard copy. And while I can describe the scissors I used to cut it out, the pen I used to write the accompanying note, even the foggy view of the bird sanctuary from the deck of my home where I wrote, I can't remember the name of the poem, not even what line it was. But the poem talked about the way sorrow brings intimate people so much closer together. It was conveyed by metaphor, the image of two people who have rowed out to terrible seas together. Those on shore may have worried for them, learned the narrative of the high sea adventure after the fact. But the journey changed them in a way that only the two of them could appreciate.

And so it is with loss. We're all perishable. That's a universal trial. But survival is incidental. Coping is so personal, so momentary. And the people who have supported me have done so on the spur of the moment, with subtle gestures, consistent space for the subject, or sometimes with sweeping hugs enveloping my sobbing, wracked shell. And this may be difficult to swallow, but one of the mercies of the death of those we love so much is that it reminds us that we'll be gone so soon too. To where, who knows. That's another topic. But I realize I've been focusing so hard on being tough—just carrying on, on waiting for the leaves to change so that I might just move past the summer of my thirty-fifth year—that I could have missed the beauty of being loved and cared for. I could have failed to recognize how generous my community has proven to be, all those that carried me through all this. It's been a hard time of transition. Losing my father has been the hardest thing I've ever endured. I'm desperately sad many times a day. I'm angry at him. I miss him. I remember the unexpected. Yet then I'll go these long spans without thinking of him until the jazz queues up on the shuffle, like a quick strike to the heart. I am getting better at breathing through the biting reminders that absence is different from not-presence.

I guess there's nothing original, nothing that is widely relevant to whatever readers have held out through my quiet spell, in my words about my father. But I will say this. I have gone many places lately for relief. I've traveled into the dark wet shade of the redwoods, through the noisy city, in and out of familiar and warm homes, and out to the very brink of this continent where the Milky Way is visibly alight. And if I have my father, and my grandfather before him, to thank for my full-blown appreciation of every aspect of my life, not only all the great good fortune I've got, but the sadness I carry around with me, that of my friends, the way we may offer each other tender mercies, then several lifetimes of gratitude simply wouldn't do. My love has never been more immense. I feel sentiment has precedence over cynicism from here on out. And there is nothing more noble, redemptive, important, pure, or relevant than love. I intend to give it away and take it in absolutely without reserve all the rest of my days.

This one's for you, Dad. Tommy Dorsey, "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You."

his birthday creeps toward me and

2009-09-30T15:43:00.001-07:00

I miss my father.

while we're on the wordlist tip

2009-09-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

More random responses to our lovely language.

I encourage roughshod abuse of this pleasing phrase.
to ride herd on: to keep a check on, supervise

Phonetically, this word represents everything I dislike. But that doesn't mean I'll turn a plate of it away.
gnudi: a cheese version of gnocchi

the word on the street

2009-09-23T09:23:00.000-07:00

I would appreciate it if everyone would stop using the unsavory verb "bobble." Its sudden, inexplicable prevalence is making me feel stalked by an ugly word. Make it end.

all i can say is

2009-09-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

pardon the egg salad, friends. It's true.

Marginalia

by Billy Collins

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive—
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!"—
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest,
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of "A Modest Proposal."

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page—
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil—
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet—
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

file officially under obsession

2009-09-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

When life is in disarray, what can you really count on? Your family, close friends, the dog? Yes, yes, sure, et cetera, et cetera. All that is well and good and ordinary and true. But when I kick back into the chaotic black night of my soul and contemplate my deepest consolations—you know, that real balm, the cool press of mercy against the fluid gathering pressure just below the blister skin of this life, hallelujah and God bless America, I think of this sacred reality out there somewhere:

The mighty Tilda Swinton and her leonine Royal Air Force there Defy You to mock the peachy taupe tuxedo jacket and nana-sandals. Exhibit A, ladies and gentlemen, reveals the splendor of it: the good kind of lunatic. We want less of the other kind and more, more, and gluttonous-movie-theater-size-servings-more of Tilda God-Damn-Look-What-Flaming-Weirdness-She-Gets-Away-With Swinton. Come to me, Tilda; let's dye our hair the color of our clothes, fly away from the bad crazies on our winged bronze merry-go-round animals of choice, and dress them like nutters too as we drift into rarefied wind.

let's dance, for fear your grace should fall

2009-09-06T09:06:00.000-07:00

Life and I are hotly engaged, deep in challenging conversation; blog's the neglected pal, bright but momentarily abandoned in the backseat. Screenplay under way. Here's some hold music.

this one's important

2009-08-31T08:31:00.000-07:00

I recommend this book to you.

uncharitablesque

2009-08-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Well this is the sort of thing I would have previously sent to my father. So now you get to play proxy: just enjoy the answers from the fine folks over at the Chicago Manual of Style Online. I'd like to get them and the desk jockeys who write the headlines at The Atlantic together for a cruel proofing tea party.

Hyphens, En Dashes, Em Dashes

Q. In a scholarly book about popular culture, the author has used several -esque word endings, usually hyphenated. According to CMOS instructions for the similar constructions of -wide, -like, and -borne, I would be inclined to remove the hyphen. But the result is unsavory. Also, in the case of open compounds, should the -esque ending acquire an en dash? See the following: Tarantinoesque, Skeeteresque, Gandalfesque, Billy Idolesque, Sid Vicious–like, John Paul–esque, The Parallax View–esque.

A. Unsavory indeed. (Your list should appear on the book jacket—who wouldn’t want to know what the pope is doing in the middle of all the carnage?) The rule is that unless the usage is self-consciously playful, you may have two -esques per book (no hyphens), but only if they are at least a hundred pages apart. If they involve en dashes, however, you get none.

post

2009-08-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

Now that my father has died, I reside however briefly in that clichéd place, shocked that the world has not stopped, that strangers continue to smile and celebrate, that my dog barks at birds, that people mean well and have faith.

I have never once felt old, but I am struck with a realization that I feel older by immeasurable measure than the same people I encountered just a week ago. We share in my mind a more significant humanity, one that exists somewhere deep and dangerous, yet I have so much less to say to anyone. Small things: the Week in Review feels laughably irrelevant this time around. The nod from a neighbor who recently gave me peaches means everything. My dog's bark stops my heart. And then the miracle: it starts beating again.

High Windows

by Philip Larkin

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fucking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

going home, and cannot wait to get to that kitchen table

2009-08-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

Love Like Salt

by Lisel Mueller

It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball

It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies
in secret wineskins

At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.

three cheers

2009-07-11T07:11:00.000-07:00

for changing it up (and for double negatives).

stella gets her groove on

2009-07-05T07:05:00.000-07:00

So okay fine, my dog Stella has a dance teacher. Ridiculous. Yes, yes. I know. But here we are, at the point where I need to pick out a song for her, so let's just accept my bourgeoisie indulgence and move on, people. I really am trying to find something that suits her personality. A three-year-old pit bull who zero-to-sixties pretty well, covering incredible ground in short spurts, but also snores and toots more than most other activities. Sometimes I think that's gritty Koko Taylor blues, then I think Presley at his most innocent, other times I just surrender to her dipstick pop dodo ways and think maybe Taylor Swift's radical reinterpretation of Romeo and Juliet may just have the dancer it deserves in my pea-brained tank.

So I dunno. Jailhouse Rock? Or maybe Jamiroquai? Dan Band? Sinatra. Stevie Nicks. Kings of Leon. AC/DC. GNR! Oh well I am just not sure how to decide. I find myself watching to see what she really responds to, but that's generally unrewarding since she comes scampering into the room when Barry Manilow comes on. Yeah, that was a surprise to me too. My little anvil-headed cinder-block pit bull sways to "Mandy." I try to be supportive. I really do. But I'm just not sure I can go there with her, seeing as I have to be out there on the dancefloor with her. And anyway, well it sent me back, for no apparent reason but the tangential glory of the web, to a few videos that I just love.

Weapon of Choice

Oh So Quiet

Single Ladies

i heart hot tubs

2009-06-12T23:04:00.000-07:00

Dear Albany Sauna staff,

I honor the safety-first motto just as dutifully as any other "early years" Burning Man attendee. And your commitment to my health and well being, as evidenced by the hose on the wall (in case of fire, I'd have guessed I'd be okay in a hot tub, but you're ahead of me), the no-slip strips on the stairs, the help-me-get-up handles everywhere, well it is all sincerely appreciated. But given this:
I question the need for this:
Otherwise, bravo for a no-fuss, Poconos-resort-nobody-puts-baby-in-the-corner, golden-era-of-American-lodge-life spa experience. And the copper pipe that waterfalls into the hot tub? A+ inspiration right there.

a rarity

2009-06-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

Here, I'll say it. I want this dress. As in, would spend a stupid amount of money to get it. I want it. I should have it. The world owes it to me, and what's more, the thing was built for me. In fact, Katie here is probably my size. So give it over, girl. Don't make me come down to Santa Monica to get it.

That's your June post of vanity and materialism. You're welcome. (Oh and Kate, I'll take the shoes too, honey. Thanks.)

lingua blanca

2009-05-20T17:20:00.000-07:00

We watched Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World tonight. D called the filmed sites "little geek villages in the middle of the tundra." Which they were. But the people were striking for more than their nerdy ramblings on neutrinos and seal milk proteins: these were wild people, struggling to preserve some sort of wisdom, articulate, unusual, fierce, so clear in the eyes, so unbelievably alive in the environment.

So again, it seems Herzog has widened his lens to show something bigger--hilarious humans, a bizarre sampling, who seem to thrive in these "outposts of Antarctica, the kind of people you might expect would gravitate to the edge of existence--the curious, the oddball, the wanderers who've run out of other places to explore." Of course the awesome landscapes are humbling, reminders of how infinitesimal we are and how perilous the situation is for our species.

In the midst of all the interviews with these "professional dreamers," these squirrely nutjobs who can't stop wandering and wondering, who end up locked in close quarters deep in the antarctic, Herzog offers this up. And since I heard it and replayed it four or five times, I can now think of nothing else. “In our efforts to preserve endangered species, we seem to overlook something equally important. To me, it is a sign of a deeply disturbed civilization where treehuggers and whalehuggers in their weirdness are acceptable while no one embraces the last speakers of a language.” Chilling, one might say.

a life transformed

2009-05-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

Shepard, Judy. The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed. August 2009. Hudson Street Press. 288p. ISBN: 978-1-59463-057-6. $25.95.

for Library Journal

Ten years after Matthew Shepard was beaten for being gay and left for dead, his mother Judy has revisited the tragedy in this brave and sobering memoir. As a mother and an unassuming thought leader, Shepard writes with elegant humility. Tracing the ordinary parenting choices she and her husband made for Matthew and his brother Logan, Shepard reevaluates her family's path in an earnest bid to share her life experience with those "who live in places where I'm not invited to speak." Her accounts of their challenging family dynamics are so everyday, in fact, that the narrative inflicts emotional whiplash once the ground begins to blur by and the grisly murder comes up so fast.
Shepard wrestles with her early preconceptions, but is careful to avoid any martyrdom of her reckless wild child. The Meaning of Matthew is all the more remarkable for the understated and deliberate tone taken as Shepard wades in deep to do the unthinkable--to suggest how the world has changed since she survived the violent death of her own child. Highly recommended for all libraries. Elizabeth Kennedy, Oakland, CA

a movie recommendation is in here somewhere

2009-05-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

My first memory from graduate school is a repellent one. You’d think I’d have remembered that this is the way it goes for me. Allergic to beginner’s mind, I never feel quite right at the start of things. I tend to be surveying the walls for cracks. Not only must I practice things ten-thousand times more than the next to get the shot, strike the chord, tap the vein, but I don't always appreciate what's in front of me until it's long since gone.
     The forces of the universe, so extravagantly generous with me in all other ways, are sadistic witches when it comes to my initiation rites. I suspect my karmic terms must specify the ability to thrive despite a high threshold of adversity and a hefty factor of failure. But I am nothing if not relentless.
     Since March, I've been hammering away at two stories and have taken the last couple days off to drift around in those imaginary landscapes and see what might happen. This immersion sent me back to my arrival on the Bennington College campus, how eager I was, much like my comrades, to suck that place dry of everything it had to offer. And I did, after a stumbling start. I arrived mid-day in mid-June. I unpacked, immediately went for a run all around the neighborhood, showered, and still red-faced and a little sweaty, shot out to the campus social, striking up a conversation with the first woman I saw. I asked about a cup of coffee; she offered a heady riposte about our shared Colridegean susceptibilities—this before we’d even managed names, let alone specializations or states of origin. My spirit shrank. I shuddered at the vision: two years ahead of me, each month bloated full with dull, pretentious allusions from bespectacled, near-transparent library trolls. And well, yes, there was some of that.
     But on the whole, I softened from the mercenary I was upon arrival, and my experience of Bennington College improved along a steady trajectory, even as the life I had around it spun into sloppy, sad disarray. And that education, I realize, continues. I have since spent the greater part of the intervening four years revisiting those maudlin wine-soaked years to get back to the root of all I’ve learned from the four mentors with whom I worked—Martha Cooley, Amy Hempel, Askold Melnyczuk, and Sven Birkerts.
     And I’ve begun to write again, in earnest. And though you may rightly consider graduate school something of a failure if I say I have yet to write a short story, you’d be wrong. Remember the students who were always staying late in the art room to finish the kiln project? The ones who just couldn’t hand in the Blue Book when the bell rang? Likely the same students caught staring out windows, or perhaps even at walls, lost in teenage reverie? I did that then and I remain the same today. I am that student, sometimes slow-witted, yes, but also slow to call out and deliberate to absorb it all before drawing conclusions. Even my pulse and temperature are slower and lower (respectively) than the average person's. It is this late-blooming quality that makes this moment a pleasant one for me.
     In drafting a relatively new story, I came today to understand several small functions of my own writing, the ways that my structures align and depart from Baxter, Ford, Moore, Gordon, Russo, Wolff, Woolf. And the way I want to work with those intricacies—something as simple as the echo of a spoken word.
     Now that I've finished these luxurious few days of reading and writing, I am awash in that exultant exhaustion that comes from so few things in life—a far run, honest conversation, you know the rest. With all the windows open to the sultry California night, I sit with my dog at my feet and watch the movie War Dance. And I weep and I weep and I weep. This movie is one that should be required in all schools, along with Born Into Brothels or Darwin's Nightmare. You owe it to yourself to watch it. These children have seen the very worst humanity has to offer, yet they bring unflinching beauty to the screen. They wake up early and give life everything they've got. They are breathtaking. I mean that literally.
     I turn back to my notes after the movie and it all comes flooding back to me again--the same feelings I had when I received the acceptance call from Writing Seminars founder Liam Rector, how I was instantly filled with that headstrong, heartsick feeling that absofuckinglutely anything is possible. And I mean anything in all senses of the word—yes, the euphoria of goals realized, but also Conrad-variety brutality, deadening addictions, sudden saviors, the warmth of close and reliable friends, unexpected kindness, moments that we can take to hear our own breathing, any of it, all of it. So knowing all that's out there, remembering that, well good God, I just have to say how lucky we are to be alive.
     Specifically, how lucky I am to still be alive at thirty-five, past my own dark days. Alive before friends and family, in this incredible home, in a safe city, with salt-of-the-earth neighbors, a yard like a garden with butterflies and hummingbirds everywhere, shallots and garlic growing, fish in the pond, food in the fridge, a room and deck and a gourmet kitchen, all of it my own, all of it familiar. And I look at my colleagues—with their best-selling books out, on reading circuits, sitting on panels, so busy and entangled in the web of literary life. And I don't deny them any of it. I'm so happy for them, for you, for all this we've got. But I have to say that having had the chance to sit and bask like this fat cat back here in the Bay Area sun, to take it all in, just watch at my lazy pace, to feel my mind saturate with sensation and concepts, filling my journals with models and devices and characters and settings, I am suddenly aware for the first time in a long time of my rich and lucky library, all these little treasures, each sorted into its drawer in my Silverstein cabinet. This kind of privacy to grow and wonder is an exceptional luxury; likewise time. And sure, I may be a hardened and shameless tea drinker, as they say, but Jesus, looking at my life against his, well I couldn’t be less like Coleridge if I tried.

oh, ben

2009-04-27T04:27:00.000-07:00

The title The Divinity of Dogs is a bit highfalutin for this video that ends with Ben Stein offering up a cute smile, like you'd get from the kid forced to sit through the cheese course in his starchy, too-tight suit. Ben! I just want to pinch your cheeks for this one. Pinch, pinch, pinch, you jowly little animal lover.

intermediate's mind

2009-04-24T16:24:00.000-07:00

After reviewing the options--agility (no), flyball (no), rally (no)--LB and I began our new freestyle dance class with our dogs Mac and Stella today. To use the word humbling is to sound downright boastful about it. This class was nothing short of torment. I cried. No, really, I did.

I have had my girl since August of this year, not long. But prior to that, I'd run my boxer Shea through obedience and his sister Ruby through an advanced dog-dog manners class. I moved on myself to work with countless dogs of all different temperaments (plenty of them naughty, raucous, insolent) for a few years with BAD RAP, first at the East Bay SPCA and then Oakland Animal Services, where I volunteer today. Point is, a lot of dogs, a lot of challenges.

At the time I enrolled Stella in this freestyle class, she already knew sit, down, stay, leave it, drop it, come--all the essentials. She had earned her Canine Good Citizen certification from the American Kennel Club and made a routine of charming people into asking if they might adopt her away from me with disarming regularity. She and I had established what I thought was a common language, both physical and verbal, and we had trained in some form every single day since she'd come to me like a little wiggly dream. But all of this, every shred of work, every moment of accomplishment, has been based at least in minor measure on compulsion. I'm not sure how I didn't realize it. That is, until the time came when I could not use the prong collar.

She's a very strong girl, a little tank of muscle and spunk. It's just what I have used to manage all that energy with all the bully dogs I work. I never looked at my use of it as a dependence. I still consider a prong a fine tool, with its place in the scheme of things, but what if I don't have one at the ready and still need my little devil to behave? No can do, Kennedy. That's what I learned today. I came face to face with the limits of my technique and at first it was desperately discouraging. I didn't really see the lead-up building this week: Stella got poked by a foxtail that managed to work its way into her neck. A painful sore resulted, right where the prong would have gone. But I was not going to back out of class. We had committed to it, there would have been no refund, and most importantly, I felt she needed the socialization and education. So on we went. No problem, I thought; we work together. I (laughably now) didn't think twice about taking the class without a prong after working her exclusively with it on.

To say that she pulled on the leash is much like saying a shooting star moves through the sky or that a forest fire is warm. Every time I bash into the "step up" segment of the learning plateaus, I find myself stunned and hurt yet again that I am not, in fact, the supreme master expert I'd deluded myself into thinking I was. Stella yanked on the leash, panted like a choo-choo, and I stood there, sweating, inching mentally toward quitting. We were instructed to walk this way, turn, shake, do a bunch of fun little moves. For me, this amounted to widen your stance to keep the dog from steamrolling her way to the head of the pack. It was not aggression. It was 100 percent uncorked ebbulience. Stella was, as the kids say, off the hook. She was overwhelmed by the blissful notion that all these dogs and people had come together to thrill her with their presence.

I say all this not to trash my dog. By the end of the class, she was following me rather beautifully, gazing into my eyes in that hopeful way that just breaks a dog handler's heart with its sheer hope and goodness. There's nothing like that bond. But it required a very real walk of fire, the humiliation of knowing that my dog looked wild at the outset. And good god, I'm sure my capabilities were called into question.

So here we are. It was not the glorious, head-of-the-class start I'd hoped for. Stella was a bit of a nutter. But we'll practice in the morning, at lunch, after work, before bed. Any treat Stella gets will only follow a heel. Want dinner? Walk with me. Oh is breakfast late? You must be very hungry. Do not break your look into my eyes. You want me to pet you? Stay right here until I tell you otherwise. Sit, down. Come. Come, walk with me, prove your skills, use your wee Stella brain.

It's time for us to improve our communication. Stella has shown she's willing to work with me. She aced the Canine Good Citizen test without my ever even teaching her a proper, airtight loose-leash walk. I'm glad we got by, but we can do better. She can do this, no problem. So the unknown here is me.

But I think the impossible fits me well enough. The only real way around it is through it. Practice, practice, practice goes the old line. We'll get there.

thoughts on driving, if you please

2009-04-24T04:24:00.000-07:00

The more I live, the more ritualized my private days become. Driving to work every day, I scout for modded-out Hondas and find myself parallel to them on the freeway just to see what happens when our eyes meet. Around the holidays I contemplate getting a tree. And then I do not. I eat a terrific amount of chocolate come April, and in May I book several races in order to combat my attendant fears of imminent death. August, of course, I extend birthday festivities well beyond what is appropriate.

While Valentine's Day means gifts and heady declarations for most, it signals three small milestones in a life's routine: (1) the anniversary of my now long-standing sobriety, (2) the memorial of losing my dog Shea when he was just four years old, and (3) the approximate threshold marking when I might reasonably expect to spy used copies of the last year's Best American Short Stories on the shelves at Pegasus or Moe's. For novels and nonfiction, I am happy to spend my money and see the royalties land in the authors' pockets. Not sure what it is about volumes with multiple contributors, but I buy these second-hand without guilt.

I'd searched for a while. And I'd even started to extrapolate (as if my shopping experience somehow scaled to represent the global literary marketplace) that perhaps it was a new day for the short story—these damn local readers were holding onto their volume of America's best. Was it that good? Hell, I figured, even this year's Pulitzer-winning book was a story cycle. Well last week, I finally snagged this year's Best American Short Stories, a copy apparently unread--crisp cover corners, static among pages, all the heavenly heft of untouched invention. Perhaps it was given as a gift, but neglected and coldly sold.

And it did indeed feature a gem, "May We Be Forgiven" by A. M. Homes. While more rangy authors (Ben Fountain III comes to mind) retain a certain authority on my list for their willingness to fling characters far afield and see what happens, there's still nothing like the old-fashioned descendents of Carver, authors who need nothing by way of window dressing and foreign artifact to lay bare the luxurious torment of a private universe. The implosion of the story's precarious domestic balance involves just the sort of plain sawdusty craft I adore. Mean, brutal, and brave. And when it shatters that part of you that you didn't even know was vulnerable, then comes the condemnatory moral crack--this is about you. At some level, stories ought to indict with a satisfying resonance, prick our ears to our own barely audible hauntings down in that lowest human register.

Now those close to me know that I do not suffer erotica well. It's a tawdry, tacky, sticky mess of embarrassing fumble-rumblings, all uninspired extroversion, a wincing exercise in what must end up future authorial regret. But I'd suggest anyone interested in writing (or having or thinking about) sex read this story. Not that it's erotica. It's not, per se. But the sexual indulgence is lively because it is unsparingly polluted with spirit-splitting betrayal and shame. If you are to write sex, good to obey the axiom it's best to arrive at pleasure by way of pain.

Read and you'll see what I mean. When I came to the end of the story, the last bit of figurative dialogue lopped the top off the thing. And I found there--exultantly--the faintest penciled-in exclamation point. I've since gone through this book page by page, searching for other evidence of the reader so moved. There is not a single other mark but the requisite $8.50 price scrawled on the half-title page.

As an editor who wrangles often with authors who lavish these poor marks throughout a work like nuts on a laden sundae, I am loathe to celebrate the exclamation point. But I savored this singular expression. Restraint and passion all in one. A single response that, as you likely expect, reminds me of the easy, sweet poem by Billy Collins called Marginalia.

My lunch break tick-tocking away, I could hardly leave the closing page. I just sat there staring at it. The sun was out. It was warm enough to melt me, but the wind blew just this side of brisk. I drove back to work in the spring weather, charged enough to accept dangerous wagers. A girl pulled up in her showy little Honda at the two-lane on-ramp. I hurtled alongside her, the sun on my arms as I blew euphorically right past the exit to work. It's all enough to make one take the exclamatory leap, now isn't it? Forgive us indeed. We are terribly wrong and reckless. Now let's do it all again!

leaves of grass

2009-04-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

You guys, it's spring. I have been distracted. But I'm back. Blog depot will reopen. Shortly.

new lease on life

2009-04-21T04:21:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in ESPN's coverage of the Vick dogs' new lives, you can watch it tonight at 7pm.

teams tiger, fast kitty, and game face

2009-04-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

In case you've wondered where I've been, it's been nothing but big wheels day in, day out. You know how training can be. Full-on, people. Can't wait.

a life with purpose

2009-03-24T03:24:00.000-07:00

Volunteering time with or donating to HRC, NCLR, or Equality California can save a life. Not to mention make yours more meaningful.

victory gardens count as work

2009-03-20T03:20:00.000-07:00

Even for office workers, Fridays are not only for office work--especially after Thursday presentations go so well and the future of our book projects looks bright. It's with that spirit then that my neighbor and I exchanged emails today, lusting over our spring garden visions and flinging links of seed packets and plot maps over the web-fence to each other with breathless speed. This weekend, she and I will split up the unthinkable bounty of chard and kale we've got going, let the onions and cousins (shallots, garlic) continue their plot for world domination in their back bed, and, though both have worked wonders to retain the moisture from the blessed rain, cut back the grass and clover creeping over everything.

And then. And then with unabashed glee, I placed our modest order of the season, the one that makes me clap and swirl just at the thought--two precious packets of heirloom tomato seeds: a pineapple variety that hails from Kentucky, as well as the new Black Ruffle, a sexy, curvy cross between heirlooms Black Krim and Zapotec Pink Pleated. I love planting tomatoes more than anything else in the gardening world. They grow so furiously, their leaves reward anyone who brushes by with such an intoxicating springy smell, and the taste of them alone!--I love the need to prop them up and support them as they plump up with their photosynthetic ambitions. I confess it's all also steeped with a sepia-tinged, sentimental set of memories, how my old dog Shea used to sneak out into the backyard to pluck them off the vine, fling them over his head all around the yard, and leave the poor eclipsed prospects, all decimated and half-chewed, for the wild critters to clean up after him.

I can still see the view from my old kitchen window, only the tops of the tomato plants visible from behind a fence covered in ivy--how those tops would shake and shiver, telltale signs little man was crouched just on the far side of the fence, craning his neck forward to pluck a little snack, fresh from the vine. Could you blame him? So yeah, I love tomato time. It makes me deep with the happy, friends.

So happy it's one of those "all I can talk about" instances. I bored my poor coworkers at the company social yesterday, chomping the broccoli and carrots fanned out in standard form on the crudité tray and yammering about gardens and the inevitable icon that accompanies the conversational thread, Alice Waters, who had just appeared on 60 Minutes.

She'd long been challenging the White House to make something of the sprawling grounds just outside their every window. And in Michelle Obama, it appeared, Waters finally had found a sympathetic audience. We round-robined our conjecture--would Barack Obama end up pulling weeds for a photo-op? We thought not. Well as we talked about it, an article was being published to the contrary. Michelle Obama has plans for her husband and kids: weeding! And I figure, hey, if Michelle Obama can spare time in her Thursday to map a garden plot and Barack can take on the oxalis, well then my Friday emails must count as a valid day's work too.

plum tree petals all over my car

2009-03-16T03:16:00.000-07:00

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter;
If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

—Zen master Wu-men

swinton for the win

2009-03-12T03:12:00.000-07:00

Yet again.

dapper chapper

2009-03-11T15:11:00.000-07:00

Just got a new assignment from a local magazine and will be busy doing silly research. In the interim, though, because I'm a considerate bloghostess, I give you yet another indication of my sea change when it comes to style. I think I am starting to appreciate it. And I have found my mentor.

Behold Arlo Weiner.

endthelies.org

2009-03-05T03:05:00.000-08:00

So we hope for liberty and justice for all in the Proposition 8 hearings today. Let it be.

Day in court began four hours before the courthouse opened.

Here's what's significant about today's hearing and deliberation, in plain English.

Live blog.

merriam-wha?

2009-03-04T15:04:00.000-08:00

Some days, I love receiving the Merriam-Webster Word of the Day (though even then I resent having to capitalize it as a proper noun). Other days, not so much.

oligopsony n \ah-luh-GAHP-suh-nee\ 1: a market situation in which each of a few buyers exerts a disproportionate influence on the market

Each of a few buyers? What does that even mean? And when, pray tell, will E. Kennedito have occasion to use that in a sentence exactly? Each of a few never, that's when.

Why can't they send me fun words like the scientific term for the jaw-breaker alloy-type coating on those little silver balls that they used to put on top of cupcakes back when I was a kid and broken teeth were just a way of life? Now that would be a word to toss in with the chits and the chats. Or more stuff like treppenwitz. Give me good words, God damn it.

It's not like we're short on them.

battle-star distractica

2009-03-03T03:03:00.000-08:00

Not that this has anything to do with Battlestar Galactica. It doesn't. I watched one episode and fell asleep. No. This is about other distractions.

Writing personal essays: easy. Feature articles: snap. Book reviews: could type them with my eyes closed (though I'd need a solid proofreader). Writing anything imaginative, though, is much like building my own fiddle out of boardwalk planks and hair ties. The elements are more or less all there, yes, but success depends entirely on my ingenuity.

So given Newton's third law of procrastination, all that focus requires hours of useless passivity. And I find myself at all hours of the night waist-deep in diversions these days. And seeing as my book club is currently reading Revolutionary Road and I got a mass market copy, I see celebrities there kissy kissy on my coffee table every day (Leo and Kate of Titanic fame back at it again). And I naturally spiral into other Hollywood thoughts of everyone's favorite alien invader of all time: TILDA.

My mother and I discussed the inimitable Miss Tilda Swinton yesterday. Or should I call her Captain? Or Colonel? Maestro? Master? First, let me explain what my three devoted readers already know: I have worn the same boots for a decade. I own no jewelry. I have the same few pairs of pants, only in different shades of blue and brown. I am not, in other words, a fashionista. I have no idea what the stink is all about. I'd rather spend money on food. And it shows. I am lucky if I get out the door without cat hair, dog blobber, and pasta sauce all over myself.

Given all that, it is a testament to the otherworldly, mindbending might of Chief Whip Swinton that she manages to trick me with her snake eyes into thinking I care about style.

STYLE, people. Just look at this woman, for god's sake. She is ridiculous, which I say a little afraid I might be struck down by Demeter for defamation of the heavenly guard. But she really is so far gone on the wackadoo train that she choo-choos right back into the perfection depot. The woman makes me want to leap through the computer screen and then realize with a not-unpleasant shock that I can only hover in reverent caution there on the hem of the red carpet, chanting in tongues. Awe. My mother agrees. ("Oh yeah, was she the one who played the bad witch in Narnia?")

Why yes, she is a Very Bad Witch, Mom. That's most astute and progressive of you to note. Just look at the way she holds herself. There is no towering being more wrathful than Corporal Tilda, I am sure of it. And did I mention she is taller than I am? Tilda bless, how often does THAT happen?

Now really. How can I be expected to return to my writing when Tilda just keeps showing up to events in outfits that are just unforgivably cuckoo for cocoa? I mean, she's entertainment just standing there, like Grace Jones without the pretension, David Bowie without the datedness, God without all that morality hassle.

By Swinton, that's it. Is there a church of Tilda? Behold, like a prayer, ordain me, Witch of Wonder! Ave Tilda, gratia plena, Elizabeth tecum. Amatus tu in mulieribus, liber eram et vacuo meditabar vivere lecto; at me composita pace fefellit Amor. Cur haec in terris facies humana moratur? Iuppiter, ignosco pristina furta tua. Calvin Klein Eternity spritzed and brand name gossamer swaddled as crazily as possible, Amen.

the dirty dozen

2009-02-28T14:28:00.000-08:00

So remember when I wrote, only half-apologetically, a few posts back that I was becoming one of those intolerable grannies with the fold-out pictures of my family, prattling on about my dog Stella and cat Maude?

Well that was due in part to the enormous energy I was pouring into getting my dog Canine Good Citizen-certified.

The test was today. Seventeen dogs, pit bulls every one, gathered in a parking lot before the fog lifted off the Bay and waited our turn with an AKC official, who ran us all through a gamut of ten tests, what I can best equate to a set of back-to-back merit badge assessments. Here's the lowdown.

green crusaders v. the whippersnappers

2009-02-25T02:25:00.000-08:00

For better or worse, I'm a suggestible reed--Obama's talk of subsidy cuts to big agribusiness buoys the spirits, pretty lil pictures of babies cheer me, even just witness to folks on Facebook rallying around an old comrade who's lost her dog warms the deepest parts of my heart--all sorts of thing restore my faith in human beings, and I'm glad for that.

But sometimes people are stinkers. And when these stinkers threaten to get in the way of the good my tribe is trying to do, I get this crazy aggression, like goodwill infected with zealotry. It's ugly.

Let me tell you about Green Earth Guide: Traveling Naturally in France. The author Dorian Yates, the delightful, kind, industrious sort you'd find calming your anxieties over a chilled bottle of Beaujolais at the corner café, has developed a series of travel guides intended not only to direct readers around town, but do it in a way that kicks up as little pollution as possible.

It's all in the book: finding local and organic foods, supporting ecological businesses, the ins and outs of public transport, green places of interest, the whole conscientious shebang. Yates writes about strides various cities have taken to green themselves, among them Paris and Montpellier for their public bicycle systems.

Shortly before I sent this handy reference to press, I read about all the rat-youth vandalizing the bikes, taking them on joyrides and documenting it on YouTube (here's a mild one). Admittedly, in my dumb youth, such stunts would have been hilarious. No more! Yes, even my use of the word "stunts" reflects a certain stodgy intolerance. I see that. But mindful that these weak vaunts at thuggery may bring the system to its knees, I find myself categorically humorless about it. How I wish I were sipping my trifásico with Dorian in a Barcelona plaça where she's researching the next in the series.

I'm sure she'd have something wise to say about our planet and those damn kids today.

frickin adorable

2009-02-23T02:23:00.000-08:00

Try to ignore all those people in the background (the ones who can't really dance) and just listen to this gal's great voice. Love this grassroots YouTube-and-a-ukelele-type stuff. Happy work week!

milk wins oscars!

2009-02-22T14:22:00.000-08:00

up crossroads:who knew it couldgo that way?

2009-02-09T02:09:00.000-08:00

Crossroads
by Joyce Sutphen

The second half of my life will be black
to the white rind of the old and fading moon.
The second half of my life will be water
over the cracked floor of these desert years.
I will land on my feet this time,
knowing at least two languages and who
my friends are. I will dress for the
occasion, and my hair shall be
whatever color I please.
Everyone will go on celebrating the old
birthday, counting the years as usual,
but I will count myself new from this
inception, this imprint of my own desire.

The second half of my life will be swift,
past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder,
asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road.
The second half of my life will be wide-eyed,
fingers shifting through fine sands,
arms loose at my sides, wandering feet.
There will be new dreams every night,
and the drapes will never be closed.
I will toss my string of keys into a deep
well and old letters into the grate.

The second half of my life will be ice
breaking up on the river, rain
soaking the fields, a hand
held out, a fire,
and smoke going
upward, always up.

it's my blog and i'll cry if i want to

2009-02-05T02:05:00.000-08:00

go gays!

2009-02-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

The California Supreme Court announced today that it will hear oral arguments on Thursday, March 5, 2009, in the Proposition 8 legal challenge.

On November 19, 2008, the California Supreme Court agreed to hear the legal challenges to Proposition 8 and set an expedited schedule. Briefing in the case was completed on January 21, 2009.

The California Supreme Court must issue its decisions within 90 days of oral argument. On January 15, 2009, 43 friend-of-the-court briefs urging the Court to invalidate Prop 8 were filed, arguing that Proposition 8 drastically alters the equal protection guarantee in California’s Constitution and that the rights of a minority cannot be eliminated by a simple majority vote. The supporters represent the full gamut of California’s and the nation’s civil rights organizations and legal scholars, as well as California legislators, local governments, bar associations, business interests, labor unions, and religious groups.

In May of 2008, the California Supreme Court held that laws that treat people differently based on their sexual orientation violate the equal protection clause of the California Constitution and that same-sex couples have the same fundamental right to marry as other Californians. Proposition 8 eliminated this fundamental right only for same-sex couples. No other initiative has ever successfully changed the California Constitution to take away a right only from a targeted minority group. Proposition 8 passed by a bare majority of 52 percent on November 4.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU filed this challenge on November 5, representing Equality California, whose members include many same-sex couples who married between June 16 and November 4, 2008, and six same-sex couples who want to marry in California. The California Supreme Court has also agreed to hear two other challenges filed on the same day: one filed by the City and County of San Francisco (joined by Santa Clara County and the City of Los Angeles, and subsequently by Los Angeles County and other local governments); and another filed by a private attorney.

Serving as co-counsel on the case with NCLR, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU are the Law Office of David C. Codell, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

The case is Strauss et al. v. Horton et al. (#S168047). This press release stolen wholesale from Equality California.

international poetry fix

2009-02-02T02:02:00.000-08:00

Amazing to think that it is the thirtieth anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. I encourage anyone interested in history, in poetry, in art, in performance to come to these events put on by the Translation Project in partnership with the SF International Poetry Festival, the Friends of the SF Public Library, and the Asia Society, to celebrate Iranian diaspora poetry of the past three decades.

It doesn't hurt to note that you will walk away with a fierce crush on moderator Niloufar Talebi, an erudite, hypnotizing, and imposing raconteur. Events are FREE and OPEN to the public. Registration is nonetheless recommended.

Thursday February 5th, 2009
“30 Years of BeLonging,” a roundtable discussion about the future of diaspora literature, with poets featured in BELONGING: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World: Ziba Karbassi, Granaz Moussavi, Majid Naficy, Partow Nooriala, Abbas Saffari, as well as with SF Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman and Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, professor of Asian American Studies at SFSU.

Fort Mason Book Bay, San Francisco
Building C, Room 165
Phone 415-771-1076
6:30 PM
REGISTER

Friday February 6th, 2009
Honoring Ziba Karbassi, Granaz Moussavi, Majid Naficy, Partow Nooriala, Abbas Saffari, poets featured in BELONGING: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World, gathered from all over the world! Reception, reading, and film screening.

Friends of the SF Public Library
391 Grove Street, San Francisco
Phone 415-626-7500
6:30 PM
REGISTER

poor, poor groundhog

2009-02-02T02:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I am ashamed to be a human. (See: rituals that should have expired by now.)

plans

2009-01-23T01:23:00.000-08:00

It is looking to be a perfect weekend for snuggling up and reading. Enjoy!

duckweed and other houseguests

2009-01-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

It may be the case that I'm in the midst of looking for a roommate, but that's not to say I'll welcome just any old denizens into my midst. Icksquiggly critters have lowered themselves into the merry, murky waters of our fountain in the backyard and an all-out bacteria war was at the brink of a violent outbreak. It was time to TCB.

First, we had to flood out the gooky bits. That's scientific language, my laypeople friends, for yukky stuff. Also take out the grapefruits and oranges that had the tough luck to fall into the rainwater. I've salvaged most of the other fruits from this yard, but even I have limits as to what I'll eat. Floating fruit is, in general, a no.

More gooky bits work:

Then came the organic compound to lull the mean bacteria to sleep and send them to the cesspool in the sky.

Sleeping potion close-up:

Then came the magic yukky-water-filtering plants! That's duckweed. What a great name. (Better than magic yukky-water-filtering plants anyway.)

Pretty duckweed unfurling in the light:

Canna plant likes water. See all those baby duckweed bits floating around? Fun!

Happy canna:

Artsy canna:

There were other plant pictures, but I don't have them here. But I do have pictures of my dirty gardening nails. This is the solution to carpal tunnel syndrome and mild depression: get your pinders in the dirt. Or in my case, in the duckweedy waters.

Dreamy.

temporary service interruption

2009-01-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

I've been doing massive drill-sargeant variety training with my dog lately. She's working toward her Canine Good Citizen. So in the meantime, I offer you this video/audio mashup I stole from another site.

Open two windows. LINK A is the soundtrack. LINK B is for viewing.

So play LINK A (make it loud!) in one window in the background:

LINK A

And as that plays, watch the video at LINK B on mute instead:

LINK B

Sadly the video at LINK B ends much earlier than the motown magic that is LINK A. But fear not. Just switch over to LINK A and enjoy the complex choreography and electric purple skyscape of the Altantic Starr show. Tremendous all around. I encourage you to hold on all the way through to get to the narcoleptic mumblings that once constituted a Soul Train interview. Incredibly acute sartorial analysis.

a mother's eyes

2009-01-14T01:14:00.000-08:00

I suppose someone, somewhere will likely see my serial life revelations as provincialisms--these disclosures about my exhilarated love floods, the overblown changes of heart, the books I've read and reviewed, the detailing of my dog's days, the mad sporting, all my expectations, experiences, and intentions candied with such rich sentiment. Provincialism because it may have all been said before. But I prefer to see that as my commonality with you. It must be why you're here, to see something of yourself in another's personal pageantry, to hear your pleasures and pains set to someone else's music.

Now rest, gentle reader: this is not a dog blog in which I liken your hopes to my dog and her food bowl. In fact, I won't even talk about Stella here again (in this post, I mean--be reasonable). And guess what, I won't talk about civil rights either. Or my bicycle. Or training in the morning darkness. No. This is fresh territory, people. This is a shameless, off-key aria about the families we do not choose, the ones we're born into, and my witness to the ways we pay back the love parents give as we grow.

I recently attended the book launch of an obstreperous, exacting author of mine, Casson Trenor. We were together, a small tribe of thirty or so, to celebrate Sustainable Sushi, his noble and fine must-have book, an equal triumph in aesthetics and ethics, if I do say so myself. And here was this author outside the editorial office, in his element, a peer with whom I'd wrestled at every single stage of the book process--each of us as aggressive, articulate, and unaccustomed to surrender as the other, and both steadfast in the commitment to improve the book in ways we insisted were vital to the project. And how lovely it was to be taken by surprise by that stealthy sylph, sincerity. One would not be out of line to suggest the friends and family seated around me were visibly flush in the significance of Trenor's moment: the realization of a goal they'd seen him working toward for so many years, well before his proposal ever crossed my desk.

And with each course that came out from Tataki's extraordinary kitchen, Trenor navigated the room, hovering over one of his comrades--this one in the striped tie, that one in the dotted dress--and he thanked them one by one, each member of this gathered Algonquin clan a contributor in some way, a league that raised their sake glasses like sailors, a jostle here and there to roast and recognize in turns, shades of rosy pink warming all faces in the place. And I gotta say, it was pretty beautiful to see--tears, hugs, Golden Globes gratitude and all. It was one of those uncommon nights that shimmers with enough fair goodwill to mend personal rifts and plumb the bonds deep, deep, deep. And as I walked by the watered bamboo and tea lights, a bit high on all the rarefied levity, a hand sliced the air in my path. That outstretched hand belonged, it turned out, to Deborah, Trenor's mother. And she intended that we were to meet that instant.

Now as an editor, for better or worse, I rarely slow down my machine long enough to revel in the achievement of the book once produced. And in an era when slapdash products are flung onto the Amazon floor only to extinguish themselves some months later under the embers of their own outsize ambition, it is a grace for the heart and spirit to be genuine in my enthusiasm for a project, to be given the chance to say aloud, "Yes, this one will rise." And Sustainable Sushi is nothing if not the consummation of that endangered species in our consumerist culture: a singular expertise distilled in clean concentrate.

We spoke fleetingly. Trenor's mother. His father. His sister and his cousin. All in town just for this night. But the communion spoke volumes about the author, how pleased this family was, not unlike the in-group wonder felt when every child is miraculously born into the world. The book was here! A necessary, cogent, beautiful guide to a little mercy for our depleted seas and oceans. Something to slip into your pocket and use to buy sushi that doesn't destroy the planet on which all those little miracle children will be trying to live after you're long gone.

And I realized, really only half-listening to the family, that the years we spend devoted to causes, chained to the brutal wagons of our developing ideas always out there ahead of us, they're not actually spent at the expense of the ones we love. Because if you'll forgive the presumption in such a personal assessment of a woman I'd met only a moment before, I swear the look of pride in Trenor's mom's eyes as she declared to me with that forceful hand--"I just had to meet you. I'm Casson's mom."--well I'll tell you from experience: nothing can really begin to characterize the pride that emanates from a mother whose son has accomplished something great.

And I know: visit any old blog, any parenting magazine, periodical, even the sweeter game shows out there on TV, and you'll hear a mom enumerating the unique wonders, the treasures within her child's bright being. But let me tell you this: to see it first-hand, in the eyes of a woman I never expected to meet, whose son I came to appreciate first through his work, well however many times it's been said, a mother's pride is something singular. And I see how it makes it all matter.

a message from the dean of vista street

2009-01-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

Oh friends. I have a cat. And I have a dog. This you know because I have surrendered my life entirely to their development and therefore am no longer capable of discussing anything else, it seems. So here is, with a half-hearted apology for my topical degeneration, another pet column.

I moved into this lovely home and adopted my dogbeast on August 1st. Since that time, there has been the Stella wing (dog sorority) and the Maude wing (feline dean's office) and no coed mingling between the two. See, if there were, the sorority girl would eat the dean. And we can't have that. But I am pleased to say we are making progress.

My cat is mightily vocal. And though she is a ragamuffin, she meows like a Siamese. If you've had a Siamese, this needs no explanation. If you have not had the pleasure of cohabitating with such a strange little animal, try to imagine their noise as something akin to a cow-moo with a dash of lemon and vinegar stirred in. And as Maude has gotten more comfortable over these last ten years, she has begun expressing herself with more vigor. Nonstop. This is not so good for my sleeping patterns (nor is her habit of walking across my chest, but I digress), but it's great for dog training.

And I can now hold Stella's attention as Maude stands behind the couch and around the corner warbling her bitter banshee's rites. Listening as I work with Stella, I have suspected she may be trying to kill the dog with her song, just like the Fugees did. It is really full of spit and sorcery.

But murderous intent notwithstanding, we depend on Maude's lively chatter to bring the two animals closer together. And as Delta Delta Delta Stella proves she can handle the responsibility of a cat in her life, I bring you this commercial break, a video of some other cat entirely, relevant only because I believe with a sincere fear that it is a near-approximation of what Dean Maude is saying from just around the bend.

my new car

2009-01-07T09:22:00.000-08:00

It would seem I am the unwitting driver of Porsche. Read the pullquote in the LA Times.

gateway to health

2009-01-05T17:25:00.000-08:00

I commit to eat doughnuts and work out at a reasonable, sensible pace in the new year. Read all about boot camp at The Monthly.

Next up: Wildflower Triathlon

yo ho ho

2008-12-23T00:23:00.000-08:00

While everyone is cramming comfort and joy into every room of the house, let me share with you my Grinch list instead:

1. As a Californian, you likely need to learn to appreciate the "zipper" in highway on-ramp merges. No time like the gridlock holidays to reflect on this before you get in your automobile again.

2. George Michael's "Last Christmas" should no longer be getting air play. I should not even have to say that.

3. I will slap your hand if you give money to that nice old lady ringing the Salvation Army bell. That organization is ferociously anti-gay.

4. Okay fine. That's about it. I guess the merriment is infecting my spirit.

But hey, I'm serious. Merging should not be bloodsport. Think about this and make my world a merrier place in the new year. Thank you and remember: every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot, but the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville, did not.

Now I'm going to go drink your cider and read A Christmas Carol. Bah humbug!

you make time

2008-12-18T00:18:00.000-08:00

Everyone is busy during the holiday season, but I can't help thinking it's all the more appropriate during the holidays to make time when a community is left out in the cold. President-elect Obama has invited Rick Warren, a vocal opponent of gay and lesbian rights, to give the invocation at his inauguration.

President-elect Obama is sending the wrong message. He is validating an individual who supports the elimination of a minority's civil rights in this country. Plain and simple. So. You can remind your president-elect of this in at least two ways.

1. Ask President-elect Obama to rescind this invitation.

2. Attend a "Light Up the Night" gathering. After all, both Harvey Milk and Barack Obama ran on a platform of hope and hope is not just about dreams, but their fulfillment for everyone.

whoever louis is

2008-12-17T00:17:00.000-08:00

I like what he has to say:

jack black is the new jesus

2008-12-03T09:25:00.000-08:00

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

see the salumi section

2008-12-03T00:03:00.000-08:00

Friends,

My relationship with the San Francisco Chronicle is solid. I have subscribed to it, written for it, and most recently been mistaken for an Elizabeth A. Kennedy from the AP who has written for it. But familiarity does not equate to forgiveness. My dear Chronicle copydesk clerk, please note the below screenshot and revisit the word "glossary," if you would.

That's all. Thank you.

the original Elizabeth A. Kennedy

books make great gifts, said five thousand times

2008-12-01T16:19:00.001-08:00

I'm sorry, but I did not need to hear Frank McCourt's reason for a book being a great gift. (Fast-forward to 1:16 in the video.)

a time for cartwheels

2008-12-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

I know next to nothing about any Zodiac sign but my own, something I'm sure astrology buffs attribute to the fact that I am a Leo, the most egotistical of the firmamenty bunch. And while I can't say I put much faith in the system, I do so love when folks like the good and worthy Rob Brezsny serve up stuff like this:

--------------

LEO (Jul 23 - Aug 22)
When he's in his prime, a male panda performs an average of eight handstands a day. There's no apparent evolutionary purpose in this stunt. He does it because it feels good. I suggest you make him your role model in the coming week, Leo. Identify three activities you can do not because they're "good for you" or because they'll advance some goal you're pursuing, but simply for the sheer fun of it. If you can't think of any play-time endeavors that fit this description, do the meditation and research necessary to find some. Whatever deeds you ultimately settle on, do them at least eight times a day. (P.S. Do you know how to do cartwheels?)

--------------

Have you too been granted permission to stand on your hands? Find out.

copy, paste, send

2008-11-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

Friends, if you want to make the world better, you do it your damn self. That said, a little plagiarism never hurt. So for those of you who want to continue to push for Marriage Equality--or for civil rights in your own community, in general--please feel free to adapt any part of this letter I've written to my own awesome company.

Because we're a 501(c)3, we may not be able to openly support political causes (though I can think of a church that managed to get around that), but at the very least, our founders have said they're open to the request for half-time pay for anyone who does volunteer work on December 10th, Day Without a Gay. While I have yet to get what I'd consider a firm commitment, I thought I'd post this letter for you in the event any of you want to take the prime moment to deliver a note to your own executive decision-maker. There could not be a better time to give them a worthy cause to deliberate over than when they're gathered in the warm circle of their recognized families--wives, husbands, kids, and all the loved ones.

Don't know about this important day for Marriage Equality or community action of any stripe? Well read below and the letter will fill you in. Like I said, borrow what you will to send this to your higher-ups. You never know until you ask.

------------

As you know, Proposition 8 passed and as a result, a ban against same-sex marriage was written into our state constitution. I've been very involved in the campaign for Marriage Equality and want to inform you of an important event coming up. It's called Day Without a Gay, December 10th.

This "call-in-sick" day is a call to do local, community-based volunteering of any kind on December 10th, not just for Marriage Equality, but for anything--soup kitchens, hospice, animal shelters, whatever cause one wants to support. This call for community action therefore is not just for those who care about gay rights, but also those interested in making our local community a better, more peaceful place to live. This of course, along with the protection of civil rights for all Bay Area residents, is a matter of great importance to so many of our authors, as well as our staff and comrades out in the world.

I'm proposing that (our company), as a way to visibly take a stand and modestly support our non-profit goals, offer half-time pay for any employee who takes the day or part of it and shows proof of having done volunteer work that day in the community.

Thanks so much and I hope you are well on your way to a relaxing holiday with your family,

Elizabeth

my little winter garden

2008-11-22T16:47:00.000-08:00

We're fast approaching the Thanksgiving holidays and I thought I'd get a jump because I've got lots to list. We could be here a while. Stuff I'm thankful for, take one:

I get to watch my dog run in her dreams
and destuff unsuspecting fluffy toys. Bliss.

I'm amazed that fifteen months ago my cat was diagnosed with a cancer that vets said left her three months to live. I can't say how thankful I am that she remains strong and stubborn, bolder by the day. She walks across my head every morning to scold me into consciousness.

I am glad for my mind-boggling fear of my own mortality because of all it motivates me to do.

I cherish my parents in ways that are humbling.
And I admire how their lives exhibit their virtue and values.

I'm grateful for having known my bodhisattvas--all the folks I've wronged--and how much they stay in my mind and heart. I appreciate those hard lessons and I hold onto them.

It's lovely to see my brother in love all these years.

I am thankful for the people in my life. The ones I see often.

Less often.

Even less often.

And not nearly enough.

I'm thankful for the people who know me to the root.

I'm glad for my health, such as it is, breathtakingly free of guarantees.

I'm thankful for all the writing I've gotten to do these last years. I'm amazed by the way it's taught me discipline, bit by bit, so much so that a story collection now has a project plan. I'm thankful how much things just continue to look up and even in the spells when they don't, I've still got it pretty damn good if I just pay attention.

I appreciate all the dogs I've met through the volunteer work I do, how forgiving they've been after being beaten, fought, neglected, abused, and disregarded. I learn the most important lessons of my life from them.

I'm thankful to have a yard to share with my dog--15/16th of it hers, the rest of it mine for the garden. I'm so glad to be able to bring baby onions and chard to the table for our Thanksgiving dinner. Everything is looking hearty, despite the subterranean tunnels the jays seem intent on digging to get to the happy, fat worms. Carrots and potatoes are snoozing away underground, not a peep yet. Likewise shallots, garlic, radishes. Here's the cast of characters making a radiant appearance this season.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mustard greens struggled at first,
but they're finding their way.

Volunteer onions everywhere!

Kale, looking very primordial.

Bok choy--evidence of critters, but no critters in sight.

God light on my garden bed.

The chard was so limp and so pathetic at the outset
that I nearly pulled it all, but I'm glad I let it go.
It's the happiest plant in the garden.

Recommended gardening playlist:

The Littlest Birds, The Be Good Tanyas
Look At Miss Ohio, Gillian Welch
As Is, Ani DiFranco
Cold Water, Damien Rice
Driving North, Chris Pureka
Day is Done, nick drake
Everything Has Changed, William Fitzsimmons
My First Lover, Gillian Welch
Life within a life, Jesca Hoop
Because We Do, The Ditty Bops
Timbindy, Ali Farka Toure
Cello Song, Nick Drake
At My Window Sad And Lonely, Billy Bragg & Wilco
Amie, Damien Rice
Wrecking Ball, Gillian Welch
Welcome to My Life, Melissa Ferrick
Time Has Told Me, Nick Drake
Little Plastic Castle, Ani DiFranco
Beautiful Man, Lori McKenna
Elvis Presly Blues, Gillian Welch
California Stars, Billy Bragg & Wilco
Which Will, Nick Drake
Silo Song, Chris Pureka

And of course, I thank you for reading.

shared passions

2008-11-19T23:19:00.000-08:00

I just keep finding new things to love about our president-elect. If I had a binder, I'd doodle doughnuts and Obamas all over it.

Speaking of doughnuts, I just finished a story about athletic boot camps yesterday and I managed to work doughnuts into a central thematic role. The story's coming out around New Year's and I may give you a sneak peek if you (a) are nice to me and (b) smile like Barack and (c) give me doughnuts.

"we must be doing something to be happy."--mahatma gandhi

2008-11-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

So let me start with the diffusion of some cynicism regarding the scale of the Marriage Equality backlash. For those proponents who ask where the activists were before Proposition 8 passed, it doesn't matter. We're all here now. Good for us. For those folks who are grumbling about the irony of the black community or the Latino community or the newest immigrants in SF's Chinatown all voting predominantly against Marriage Equality, I'd suggest you shift your focus. The past has passed. There's work to be done and your energy would best be applied to something that will get results. Like showing up. Like speaking up. Like making friends with your neighbors in these communities.

I marched in San Francisco on Friday, October 7th. And then I drove a whole contingent up to Sacramento that Sunday. Both rallies were peaceful, moving events that did much to foment the effort to end discrimination against the gay community. Both had significance. But this weekend, the number of people who came out just blew those events into the dust. Hundreds of American cities saw demonstrations on the steps of their city halls, the likes of which our country has not seen since the '60s. It fills me with hope for our future.

Folks showed up in Honolulu at 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday to be a part of it. People gathered in Laramie, Mobile, and Montgomery, along with those who organized solidarity gatherings in the Netherlands, Canada, and a number of other countries. What's phenomenal is that this was a relatively spontaneous national event (international, actually) and it was not sponsored by organizations--this was grassroots organization on the part of committed and resourceful individuals. People are showing up in numbers that can't be ignored, and it's generally being lauded as the tipping point we've waited and worked for. The local showing was strong in San Francisco, especially considering we also had a noteworthy presence in Oakland, Berkeley, and plenty of other Bay Area cities. Word is that San Diego had upward of 20,000 folks. Nice. The estimates stream in here.

And as I stood at San Francisco City Hall in the blazing sun to hear the Marriage Equality gals speak again, along with Tom Ammiano, the Reverend Dr. Dorsey Blake, the compassionate representatives of Mormons for Marriage, the Reverend Penny Nixon, and several more, I took heart that the tone has already begun to change. Every march increases visibility, each speaker has a little more history on her side when she steps to the podium, and all this just brings us closer to the realization of gay rights.

My conclusions after the rally: I'm less useful attacking those who fear and discriminate against their fellow citizens. I'm not going to petition to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Mormon church. I'm not going to assault communities of color for the aggregate poll results. I forgive their mistakes and move forward to make it better.

It's time just to keep up the sometimes exhausting work of fighting for fundamental civil rights for the gay constituency, day in day out. And it's my role to keep this issue out in front of my comrades for whom the demands and distractions of daily life may make this matter easy to ignore. This is not just about gay rights. The minority is not being protected from the majority and that is a failure of representation on the part of our government.

When we bandy about the word "tradition," let's remember what it is we are talking about. The American tradition is one of citizens taking our inalienable rights into our own hands, of disparate communities like Glide Memorial or The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples ministers, politicians, teachers, technicians, CS reps, dog trainers, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, everyone and anyone who is concerned with justice gathering peacefully and powerfully to protect what it is we believe in.

The turnout at these events, the way it is widening and deepening, the increase in sensitive and accurate coverage that it is receiving, and not the shaming but the exposure of hate for the remediable social malady that it is--these are all encouraging reasons that now more than ever we are responsible to keep up the campaign. I believe this burgeoning tone of optimism bodes well for our country's future; but we cannot rest and sit back, believing that after November 4th we have elected public officials to federal office who will make the right decisions on our behalf. Citizens do best when we act as watchdogs and representatives ourselves, working to uphold liberty and justice--meaning freedom, equal protection, and basic human rights--for all.

So please take note and remember that your role in this matters. You are either one more or one less. Next up is Day without a Gay (December 10th). Of course you don't have to be gay to participate; you just have to care abt civil rights.

You can read about it here: http://daywithoutagay.org/

even handsome clooneys agree

2008-11-12T11:12:00.000-08:00

Apparently it is pretty celebrity week here at the Kennedy Depot. So in that spirit: if you do not listen to me, listen to George. He has a nicer voice anyway.

"At some point in our lifetime, gay marriage won’t be an issue, and everyone who stood against this civil right will look as outdated as George Wallace standing on the school steps keeping James Hood from entering the University of Alabama because he was black."

I'm sure we'll see even more compassionate, sensible celebs like the Divine Cloon joining the rank and file at one of the nationwide rallies in support of Marriage Equality this weekend. Want to know where you can go with your clever signs and changemaking ferocity? Check the general event blog or go directly to the location listing to find a peaceful gathering near you. It's time to show up or shut up, my friends. You want rights? Speak for yourself. Better yet, speak up for your neighbor. Who knows what may come of it ... maybe you'll even meet George out on the rally vanguard. Bonus.

peripheral campaign news brought to you by the kennedy news bureau

2008-11-04T11:04:00.000-08:00

Everyone and their iguana is posting about the general election today, so I thought I would offer you a picture.

The first thing you may notice is the Castro/Lagerfield/Robert Palmer bassist juxtaposition of Posh Beckham's outfit. But me? I noticed the Krispy Kreme crowns on the left-hand side over there.

Speaking of, you get one of their glazed doughnuts-from-heaven free if you scamper over to a KK near you and show off your nifty I Voted sticker. You're welcome.

discovery channel for a day

2008-10-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

Happy Torture Your Dependents with Ridiculous Costumes Day!

Rarely captured close-up of the Galapagos Living Room Komodo.

Otherwise known as Kermit's circuit-boy cousin, Stella.

right and wrong

2008-10-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

Oh and by the way, while I am staking political claims, I am against the use of impact as an adjective (impactful) and foreground as a verb. ("We are foregrounding this important issue.")

Thank you for doing your part to protect parts of speech as God intended them to be.

that part about personal responsibility

2008-10-30T08:54:00.000-07:00

I made the mistake of reading another earthquake-scare article in the latest East Bay Express. The Loma Prieta faultline is raring to go, ready to take down 2.5k of us at minimum with the next rattle and roll. I know this. I have known this. So why do I still live here? I often answer this question with a reference to the Berkeley Bowl and the farmers' markets. I'm something of a hedonist with at least a faint conscience and while I like good food, I need to know for the most part it's local, sustainably raised, and, if it was once a critter, humanely treated. All of this is easiest to pull off--I don't see this as debatable, but I am up for being informed--here in Northern California, much more than anywhere else in the world.

However, a large part of living near the bohemian love-peace-acceptance dreamzone of Berkeley, California, has also been the appeal of what many of us conversationally refer to as "the bubble." It's edifying to live in a place evolved enough that gay folks, much like persecuted interracial couples in our country's history, can show affection without fear of hostility and hate crimes, and for the most part, can live in a society that esteems equitability and respect in policy and practice.

But as the real estate market and global economic crisis have shown, bubbles obviously pop. And as I drove past a throng of cheering teenagers waving "Yes on 8" banners with the same innocent, young enthusiasm for which they probably advertise their bake sales, I felt disconsolate, just devastated. So I suppose it's time to see about mending some patches in my local bubble wall, if you will.

I am putting my money where my mouth is for once and venturing out onto the streets, the phones, wherever I'm told to go and whatever I'm told to do by the good folks behind the "No on Proposition 8" campaign working hard to defeat a proposition that would eliminate same-sex couples' established right to marry in California.

I hope, particularly for all of you--and I know many of my friends say this--who have historically said they "don't like to get political," that you'll do something, whether it is donate, volunteer, or vote, to defeat Proposition 8. It would mean a lot to me. It's not so much getting political (though I don't see that as a bad thing) as it is being just plain civil to your neighbor.

female fury: a fairer song than peace?

2008-10-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

I do moderate work here and there--not enough--to determine for myself when pacifism amounts to provincialism, to rethink my alignment with the irresponsible, ignorant, commercial feel-good isolationism of some factions of peace activists, and to suss out by extension what it means to live a life committed to peaceful nonviolence with eyes wide open. I feel anyone earnestly interested in peace is responsible to determine just when a globally informed citizen's stance becomes less about nonviolent disengagement and more about blind-eye complicity to violence.

Living in the community I do forces me to decide hypothetically every day when I walk my dog to what extent I'd commit acts of aggression to protect those I love. And I then begin to ask the obvious, more abstract (to me, anyway) questions: what lines might I draw when it comes to police or military intervention in response to local battery, abuse, or endangerment, and on larger scales, civil strife and genocide. These are the most difficult questions for me to answer.

What should, by contrast, be easy to answer, is blood sport. It seems like just so much wanton violence and sadism for the glory of the ego, right? And it's silly to pay money to watch people beat on each other. But as my three-times-a-week jog got more frequent and longer and the sports more varied and taxing, I ceased to see the bright line between pleasure and pain; I'd done a number of endurance events and part of the pleasure was definitely in the power of my mind over my body, the fact that I could continue through mile 24, 25, 26 simply because I had decided that I would.

And let's face it, ring sports bring with them the floodlit spectacle of competition. When I back a competitor, I participate viscerally. And this is where we leave the hypothetical violence behind. I just bought a ticket to watch my first boxing match. Muay thai, to be specific. And it's women doing the fighting, not men. Considering one of my favorite movies--it's true; I can't help it--is Rocky, I suppose I should be less surprised just how excited I am to attend this event.

In fact, it marks a real departure from the frame of my consciousness just a few years ago--forgive what seems the non sequitur here for just a sec--when reality TV made its debut with Survivor, I dismissed it disparagingly as a new incarnation of the Roman Coliseum.

And now I find myself poised to sit in the coliseum bleachers, up for the cheering and jeering. Clearly something has changed. I could say I am attending Female Fury simply because someone I hold very dear fights with Pacific Ring Sports, one of the participating gyms. And I am supporting her passion, just like she has when I've signed on for various races. But if honesty is a virtue and we're on this hike to find our way back to that hollowed ground of virtue and grace, then I confess there is extraordinary appeal to orchestrated violence, the prospect of a thrown punch, the visceral thrill of a good kick to the head, the anticipation of the physical maneuvers that I will commit to memory and replay.

My grandfather was a boxer. He believed in a good fight. But he also believed in a good war. And a good country. All unapologetically. The hitch is, of course, by extension, he also believed in real-life heroes, villains, nations of good people, and well, those nations that the good people fought. Me, I've never enjoyed the clarity he did. I dwell in ambiguity and I think I'm pretty glad about that.

All I know is I am looking forward to this and though the sweetest, gentlest voices in my head are shrieking in dismay, I'm afraid I can't hear them over the drumbeats right now.

won't you be my neighbor?

2008-10-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

Please feel free to steal this image and paste up on every imaginable surface you can cover between now and November 4th. Extra points for visibility on the telephone poles and front lawns on Sarah Palin's route to church.

new word alert

2008-10-18T10:18:00.000-07:00

It's one of life's expected pleasures, the new word nestled into a fine book. The best contemporary authors place them so subtly we don't even look twice when that Rolls Royce glides through the ghetto sentence. I can read right past the mot juste when it's worked in well enough.

In popular culture, by contrast, I'm not without appreciation for the good linguistic skillet across the face. I back shock by ostentation 100 percent. And the best example of late is Little Prince Harry, who got bored with military service and set out with his brother on an African adventure (and 80 other apparently irrelevant riders), and in his obligatory pullquote for whatever his promotional charity might be, he actually said this will not just be any old bimble.

Well heavens, no, old chap. Pukka, pukka, old lad, no bimble by far. Your motorcross will be a right lovely jubbly to be sure--so let's don't pass this off as an advert for any ordinary bimble, boys. Mercy, no, and God save the Queen.

flower-free pizza

2008-10-16T01:16:00.000-07:00

All right, everyone. The good folks minding the till over at 800 Flowers have decided to boost sales with the clever invention of yet another holiday, this one hilariously billed "Ex Day."

No, your Lasik is not doing you a disservice of pixel distortion. That's "Ex Day," as in an opportunity to ill-advisedly revisit the emotional killing fields of your failed intimacies. The way I look at it, the developer of this marketing concept deserves a raise for big-picture strategy. Think about this. Seen in the long view, the folks at 800 Flowers are losing out when 50 percent of the population is NOT getting divorced. I'm sure someone discovered that gays are getting divorced at the same rate as everyone else and just panicked. "God damn it! Something must be done. Because 50 percent marital success, well that's just too much by half!" So they had to find some way to wreck the unions. It's a massive loss of market share if half your customer base is too inured to a comfortable life with the significant other to do the little things, like buying flowers.

So why not get Margerita thinking about Burt, how lovingly he used to wax her Karmann Ghia on the weekends. Maybe just a little bouquet of stargazer lilies. What's the harm? And before you know it, Margerita will be hot on Madonna's heels toward divorce, making way for the ARods of the world to once again rejoin the ranks of puppy-loved-up flower buyers. Because it can safely be said that more divorce means more relationships and more new relationships mean more flowers. Hence the raise advocacy. Not that I condone it, but you gotta hand it to them, this corporate creation is a wiley yenta maneuver of tremendous magnitude.

You, married and partnered friends, can sabotage this. First off, we all know the return to the ex is just a mad notion. So forget that. Now. Your significant other would probably like flowers, sure. But better yet, why not forgo the flowers (take that, MBA) and instead make her dinner, like a homemade pizza? (Mmm, I love pizza.) Keep the TV off, light a room full of candles, and read something to her, for god's sake. Don't be the statistic 800 Flowers wants you to be. Be radical. Stay married. We'll admire you for it.

there are worse things i could do

2008-10-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

I am reading this charming, thin thing recommended by Sister Rye called The Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches. And in a blissful pocket of free time last night, it was just the book, my dog, my cat, some candles, a salad, a tall drink of water, and me.

We were a perfectly perfect set, when as I lie on the couch, I spied with my little eye one junior chocotankgirl named Stelladog staring at me. Not pawing, not whining, not fidgeting, not fussing, not shoving, just silently, patiently, and stolidly stare stare staring. Well I couldn't ignore that.

But I was not about to stop reading. We reached something of an impasse in our relationship right there, didn't we, dear reader? And I immediately thought of you because you are always so instrumental in helping me sort out my fascinating personal dilemmas. (You're such a good listener!)

After all, I am not one to neglect. Stella had had her walk, her training, her playtime with the two neighbor dogs Patch and Preston, who are both enamored with her, of course--who isn't? She'd been lavished with love, in other words. Heck, she'd even had a bath. I'd given her a toy. Fresh water. Peanut butter goodies. I was Mom of the Year, and Mom of the Year was going to read her book, dag blast it.

But the mutt-minded among you know that patient pup behavior needs to be rewarded if it is to continue (lest dogs get it in their heads to move onto obnoxious pawing or insipid whining tactics), so I just decided to read aloud to her. And she stood there. And eventually, she snuggled down at my feet. She was listening. I was reading. Two-for-one, my friends. I was as happy as an Angelina with her global baker's dozen. In fact, happier. With this kind of arrangement, I wondered, who even needs children?

But that "who needs children?" smuggery got me thinking. Maybe this marks the official crossing of the line, that moment that my childless friends and I recognize so well among the now-parental friends. It divides along one line: kid-free on the sane side, the now-parentals on the unthinkably generous side of selflessness. You know this trend. I venture you've seen it yourself.

It starts when the bliss-glossed parents begin to get that sleepless, cracked-out look to them, like they're half here and half-jacked on a lucid dream they've roped you into. They show up at the office or worse your house and carry around the wee alien, subtly prompting you for useless comments--my best is usually something like "Oh, look at his feet! They're so small!" This befuddled commentary is the gamey effort among the kidless to congratulate disinterestedly, to grin and bear the crying bundle until we can revert to previous discourse, perhaps discussing the effing awesomeness of our PS3 victories or the effing awfulness of the trillion dollar liability we now call our federal government, all the while intersplicing the talks with our archival knowledge of this "amazing" Oregon Shiraz being shared in unquantifiable excesses of enablement.

Parents, bless them one and all, then move into the era of narrative exposition, only fomented by technologies like Twitter or Myspace or Facebook, through which they can exclaim things like, "Marcie can't believe she drives a minivan!" or "Blake is psyched that little Merv has learned to wield baby's first nine-iron!" And so it goes that our Plimptons become Spocks, that the once-convivial raconteurs become babygated themselves, able only to expound on Junior's "hilarious" exposure of his privates on the school playground, the "adorable" kitten sounds he makes when the neighborhood stray walks by, or that "promising" profundity he dropped on you when you were talking about lightbulbs and energy conservation.

Alas, I trace back through the blogs of friends who've had kids and note with regret the changed tide--that deep, dark, and moon-dragged current of love that somehow sucks every single parent from the boat of cultural currency into the deep, narcotic abandon of parental rapture. I don't condemn it. It's charming. And understandable. And selfless. And admirable. And sure, parts of me (small, crushable, impetuous, fleeting psychological parts) envy the sense of purpose it must instill.

But I'm not here to riff on the outward appeal of family, however dangerously I skate that rink. No, no. Or am I? For you see, as megalomaniacal as I am, and I'm nothing if not that, I do have glinting moments of self-awareness, sudden recognitions of the screechy err of my own egotastic idiocy. And so here we have it. I think I owe an apology for my own analog to this cocktail-party offspring-adulation habit.

Because let's be honest. It's okay. You can tell me. You don't really care about my dog, do you? You don't really think she's all that cute. Nice coat, sure. Funny eyes. Impressive proof of motherhood on her part. And ooh, look at her little dog feet! They're so small! Yes, yes. A good dog. With much promise and a sweet-as-pineapple soul. Fine downstay. Wow, she can high-five. Awww, she listened to you read a book. Again, with feeling: wow!

But really, your praise is as obligatory as mine. You are, for example, not nearly as beguiled as I am by this "Bark Obama" photo taken by a friend on a message board I visit daily. It is tribal. I am on one side of a line, you the other. I understand.

Likewise, you do not delight in the prospect of my teaching my dog to do handstands just like BAD RAP's about-to-be-adopted Neuman Marcus.

I offer you a deep, heaving, moon-dragged sigh. What use should I make of this startling revelation? How dare you not admire the way the sun shines in my dog's eyes!

Will I post less about my dog? Maybe. Will I write more about what I said I would--books and film, food, exploits? Yes, cross my heart. But it also says dingoes up there. And if I'm going to read stories to dogs, I don't see why I can't write stories about dogs. There will always be more--and less--interesting stories to be told. And I'm realizing at a certain point, the audience will either love it or leave it and dag blast it, before I'm dead, I'ma tell the stories I want to tell.