2 really good sunday morning things

_{Untitled, Cibachrome print by Jon Huffman}

OK there are two really good Sunday morning songs:

Sunday Morning by the Velvet Underground
and Sunday Morning Coming Down as sung by Willie Nelson, but as written by Kris Kristofferson.

It's just one of those Sundays for me. I was out late. I woke up late. I am out of town. I just made some eggs. I have nothing to do and nowhere to be.

I just love that turn of phrase, Sunday mornin coming down. You just can't forget the religious connotations for a Sunday. Sunday has always been my favorite day. Day of flea markets, brunches, laundry and grocery shopping. And yes, if you ain't got God on your side, it can feel a little lonely. There must be other good Sunday songs out there. Any ideas?

sunday morning, praise the dawning
it's just a restless feeling by my side
early dawning, sunday morning
it's just the wasted years so close behind
watch out, the world's behind you
there's always someone around you who will call
it's nothing at all

On the Sunday morning sidewalk,
Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cos there's something in a Sunday,
Makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothin' short of dyin',
Half as lonesome as the sound,
On the sleepin' city sidewalks:
Sunday mornin' comin' down.

Geesh, what a freakin songwriter, Kris Kristofferson was! Good Lord, the man must have lived some kind of life. Thank you, hoss.

The best garage sale ever

On Sunday, I had what The Guinness Book of World Records will be referring to for at least the next three decades as, the best garage sale ever. I sold a record amount of crappy goods including, but not limited to: 4 used cans of paint, a 3-legged stool, and 2 frying pans, neither having a lid but both including substantial burn marks on them. By the end of the day I looked like a drug dealer with a fat roll of bills spilling out of my pants. The kids in the neighborhood starting referring to me as il padrino as I tossed them one dollar bills. The trick to having The Best Garage Sale Ever™ is in how you price your wares.

For example, I sold a DVD player for a dollar. Yes, a dollar. Now who could refuse that?! No matter that the DVD player was missing a power cord and its remote. Wouldn't you like to know if it worked for a dollar? A muddy nozzle for a hose? Fifty cents. A bootleg DVD of Mystic River bought on Canal Street complete with a black and white Xerox cover? Twenty five cents! You just can't beat my prices. Sell enough junk, ahem, treasures like that and it adds up.

Then there were the items for which I was so relieved that they were able to get a new lease on life. Like my red and white bottle cap metal stool, perfectly rusted and bent in all the right places. SOLD! To the spunky girl up the street who had to race back home for three dollars. My mid-century wooden arm chair that my ex roommate had left out in the rain one night and thus, permanently warped. SOLD! To the man on the bike who had just moved from Portland and had to come back with his truck.

The only things I was sad I couldn't find a home for were my canning supplies and my shoes. Many women tried them on but alas, there was no Cinderella that day. So I did what any shoe-minded woman would do in such a situation. I took them all back.

I was optimistic that we could have sold all four vacuum cleaners, each one representing a different 20th century decade, but my cohorts demanded we pack it in after the sun went down. Wimps! I am sure there were hoards still in route from the suburbs.

All in all it was everything I could have hoped for and more. I got rid of stuff. I saw some friends. I met new neighbors. And I only had to take home 2 boxes of items that, at the last minute, I couldn't bear to part with.

Kiss me I'm Irish

Last night, while grabbing a drink with Ms. Dog Walker--one of my last remaining single women friends--and after having sobbed through most of Rent, I met an Irishman. It wasn't that kind of a meeting--he wasn't what I consider within my dating range--however, he did have an intoxicating brogue and a lot to say. For me the Irish, have always been the most romanticized, exotic race. I know this has everything to do with my own mysterious roots, my desire to visit the Motherland, and well, there have been a fuck of a lot of brilliant Irish writers. Seamus is one of my favorite names, Guinness one of my favorite beers, and Gabriel Byrne, my ideal man. And I did once date an Oden Connolly.

We were talking about body language. And about horse language--of course, he was a gambler. He admitted he was a man who had learned a lot about body language in order to pick up women. He said the Irish were much more subtle than Americans. Americans would just out and tell you what they thought, if they were interested in talking more or if they wanted you to bugger off. But the Irish woman would look you in the eye and lie to you. Never tell you what she was thinking. So you had to learn to read the body. Because that was where she spoke her true feelings. It was obvious stuff, crossing her leg towards you or away from you, that kind of a thing.

That's it. It was just a pleasant bar room conversation. So in honor of him, I am streaming a Gaelic radio show this morning. Harps n'all. It's a lovely way to start the morning. Lots of brogue to go with my coffee and breakfast.

La limpia

Last night a curandera and two of her cohorts came to my house to do a limpia. I know my roommate must of thought that I was nuts, but what are you gonna do? The house needed some help, even though I don't plan on staying there much longer, and, well, so did I.

When it comes to faith, when it comes to believing, I've become, let's just say, not that picky. Whatever works, or even, whatever might work, is sorta my new mantra. I think, once I gave in to yoga, it was pretty much downhill from there. So a limpia. Why not?

They came with bundles under their arms, flowers, incense and more. They convened in my living room and wandered throughout the house in hushed tones. They laid out bright fabrics, burned some copal, and began lighting candles.

First, we prayed to the four directions, sage burning the entire time, feathers dusting the smoky air with it's heavy scent. Then we walked throughout the house as they discussed where the energy was blocked, a bit about what I should do to keep it flowing, and then the real cleaning began.

One by one we brushed burning sage, sprinkled rosewater, and dropped petals into every corner, door frame and window sill of the house. We murmured blessings, or, at the very least, wishes for what we hoped to accomplish with this cleansing. We did the backyard and the porch, the closets and the bathroom, nothing was left untouched by our presence.

After two and a half hours, we were done. They recommended I get back into the garden and work with the plants. They suggested I keep the bowls filled with rosewater, the votives in each room, the petals and stones left at every entrance for 7 days. They told me to bury anything left after that time. And I received back my home, smelling of sweet smoke and rose petals.

To the...

To the five gray hairs I plucked out of the right side of my temple yesterday morning,

As if it wasn't enough that I recently turned 35. And not so recently became single. But there you showed up on top of my head. In short white defiance. Like little Napoleans. I was driving in LA (which is perhaps why I was already more self-conscious) and out you came.

I looked at each one of you. Your thick roots. You reminded me of cat whiskers. You looked a lot like cat whiskers.

There were more of you scattered throughout my scalp. But I only attacked the one temple. Where the part is. And I felt somewhat better.

Little gray hairs, I don't know how often you plan on growing. I can't predict if I will be compelled to pull each one of you out. And I haven't even begun to think about dying my hair.

I'm just not there yet.

But thanks. Thanks a lot.

Being reminded of one's mortality is a common occurrence throughout the holidays. I would of thought about it anyways. I didn't need you to remind me.

What I do imagine is collecting all the gray hairs. In a small box.
A nest of hairs.
And maybe there
I will be more happy owning them.

It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?

Gosh, is there a song as sad out there? Well, probably. But this Dylan song is merciless in its depths. It just keeps going. I find it rather fitting for the season we are in, with the hard slanty yellow light, the flaming trees, and the sudden barren branches.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?

When my friend Chela and I watched Scorcese's Dylan documentary, it was so hard for us to believe he was only twenty when he wrote songs like these. Can you imagine? Unlike my friend, I did not grow up with parents who idolized Dylan. That is to say, he was someone who I had to discover on my own. Or through various boyfriends that left their albums behind.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?

The thing that we really lamented though, was not being part of a scene. Whether it was Haight Ashbury, the beats, folk music, or even Warhol's factory, we both had to admit we had never been included in a movement that seemed to have that kind of frenzy, passion or verve. Hell, we even missed grunge. And honestly, by the time you reach our age, could it even be possible?

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?

So we sat in her house, while her kids were asleep. We made tea and watched how Dylan became great. We ate cookies, wore slippers and stayed up late. Then we felt sad, and old and hopeful and small.

But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

I can't help myself

In preparation for writing a rather boring post about the cool Bob Dylan documentary I just finished watching--because really who cares what I think about it?--I've decided to link instead to this article written by a friend and former high school classmate. It's about our Catholic high school and our time spent in it. Ok and you should also read this article she wrote, too. Because it has to do with the same thing. Oh, and what the hell this one to for good measure. I really should do that documentary about our high school. It's only about number 56 in the list of films I want to make!

[ed. note:I really did wear that uniform although I never have gotten the nerve up to be a nun--pregnant or otherwise--for Halloween. I guess I am waiting for that someone special who will go with me as a drunk priest.]

Welcome home

Melanie Pullen, Blue (Water Series)

I spent my birthday week in the glamorously smog-filled hometown of my birth. And I got the nastiest head cold of my life. Ironically, the NyQuil afforded me some of the best sleep I've had in months. That and sleeping under the same roof as my parents.

We had a brunch for my birthday, brilliantly orchestrated by my mother. I invited some of the girls that I was close with in high-school. It was a nice re-introduction to Los Angeles. And I have to say LA greeted me with warm, open arms. And so did my old girlfriends. Even though some of us have barely seen each other over the last (gulp) 17 years, they confidently arrived bearing thoughtful gifts, exchanged pleasantries with my family as if no time at all had passed, and took up the conversation where we last left off.

You see, to me LA is overwhelmingly associated with my adolescence. And in order to move back here, I would need to engage with it as an adult. Same with my friends, my family. And I find that very hard to do. Every street I drive down, every photo in the album, brings me back to that time when we are most fully alive in the experiential sense, least concerned with the consequences of our actions, and busy tearing down boundaries to remake dangerous and exciting lives.

It didn't help that my friend Kathy gave me the young adult book, What My Mother Doesn't Know and that I devoured it in a day.

I am terrified of leaving the adult life I have successfully built for myself behind. I am scared of the old habits I might return to were I to move back. But mostly, I am feeling more and more ready every day.

Safe

For some reason I have been thing about that Todd Haynes movie, Safe. For many years I thought that movie was pretty much flawless. It's such a subtle movie and Julianne Moore the perfect subtle actress to deliver the performance of a hysterical middle class woman. The plot moves so slow, like the Charles Ray still life, Tabletop, it's almost imperceptible. Yet, at the same time, it is tricky. We are pushed along until the end of the film, when the housewife, Carol, as played by Julianne Moore, has completely removed herself from society, her family, and all the expected responsibilities of being a mom, a wife, and having an upper class pedigree.

One of my favorite scenes is in the beginning. She has this expansive white living room and has just ordered couches. But when the couches are delivered they come in stark black instead of white. It's the first sign that something is about to crack in her comfortable life. At first, when she becomes ill from all the environmental toxins around her: the couch, the cleaners, the hair products, the pollution, one empathizes with her. Yes, our lives are so full of bad shit over which we have little control; this can't be healthy for us! But then she becomes more fragile to the elements, more extreme in protecting herself from modernity, and eventually bows out completely. She cannot partake of modern civilization without becoming ill and to remove herself completely from those poisons, she must basically seal herself in a bubble. Which, in many ways was where she started in the beginning: safely ensconced in her suburban middle class life.

When I watch it, I just think how perfectly executed it is. There is even one of those Shining moments when the camera is dollying out on the character and zooming in at the same time. It's a super long take of Carol and once again, you can barely tell it's happening. But it successfully conveys that warbly feeling. The whole film is like a long unraveling and you have no idea where Haynes is taking you. I studied that film over and over in film school and always saw something new in it. Which reminds me there are a few more recent Todd Haynes' films I haven't even seen yet.

Don't go breaking my heart

I recently had the pleasure of watching The Muppets with a young toddler. We both enjoyed it very much and clapped after every song. The episode featured a young Elton John and a slightly unsettling duet with Miss Piggy who kept kissing his exposed chest hair. Both Elton and the Muppets brought back a flood of memories. In no particular order:

A. I once babysat a kid all summer whose mother instructed me, "And then he will want to watch The Great Muppet Caper two times in a row." And indeed, for 3 months, the child watched that movie twice every day I came over. Oddly enough, I tuned it out completely and don't remember much of it at all.

B. My sisters and I used to choreograph dance moves to our parents records. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was one of our favorites because it had so many hits and much melodrama. Candle in The Wind had us lying on the ground until the chorus when we would rise at the same time Elton's voice did and dance in circles like fairy nymphs around the apartment.

C. I watched The Muppets every Sunday night. It was THE show I looked forward to most. I remember sitting in front of the TV after a shower and letting my hair air dry and loving all the guest stars. I don't think anything like the flamboyant and tongue-in-cheek duet with Elton John and Miss Piggy would fly on a kid's show today.

D. I know that I already mentioned I sang The Rainbow Connection at my 8th grade graduation.

E. My dad used to squeeze us on that ticklish spot right above the knee and say, "Kermie." My niece recently learned that trick on our last family vacation.

F. We also used to have Muppets of our own. At bedtime, my dad would stand at the foot of the bed and enact each Muppet voice and then throw each one to the prospective child/owner of the Muppet. I had Kermit, although my sister had Animal and I totally coveted hers.

Fall

_{Ana Mendieta}

I can't get over the Fall light these days. It's just so bright. The Mudville skies are so blue! I actually saw a flock of geese flying south. Or at least that's what my city imagination leads me to believe. But then again I crave seasons. Just so it'll all make sense: the days shortening, the back-to-school lunchboxes, the Halloween masks in the store.

I used to work in a flower shop on Telegraph Avenue in college. I often wore overalls and mittens with the fingers cut out. There were only two walls to the shop so it was really more of a flower stand. I stood by a tiny space heater that could either warm my fingers or my toes. Every morning I changed the water for every bucket of flowers. On some mornings the water was frozen. Three times a week, we got fresh flowers and my fingers grew raw from dethorning the roses.

I was a snob. Carnations and baby's breath were the worst. Anyone who wanted roses with baby's breath or a single carnation, I thought was utterly lame. I hated Valentine's Day.

I befriended a lot of the avenue's riff raff. I gave them flowers too close to dying to sell. But still they were flowers. There were always petals falling out of my clothes. When I came home I smelled of the most pungent flowers: the gardenias, the tuberroses, the stargazer lilies.

I read. I talked on the phone. I flirted with the boys at the bookstore.
I begged my friends to come by and visit. Each morning, I watched the street wake up. And each night, I took home flowers and flowers.

Bright

_{Joan Brown, Girl Sitting, 1962}

When I was a kid my sister and I used to play this game with a globe. We would close our eyes and spin the globe and the other would yell "stop." Wherever our finger landed was where we were going to end up living one day. The best places were the ones hardest to pronounce, surrounded by the most water, and the farthest away from where we were at that time located. We played similar games with my mother's magazines, this is who your husband will be, this is what your kids will turn out to look like; there were endless variations. The point was the possibilities were limitless.

As I think about moving away from Mudville and moving towards a different future, I have a hard time believing in those same kind of possibilities. I am turning 35 in a matter of weeks. I will be half of 70. Both round, plump numbers. Both ripe and solid.

Everyone tells me the world resounds with opportunities, choices, miracles even. And I keep trying. Try to keep my eyes open. Try to not anticipate the answers. Try to stop memorizing my lines.

It helps when the leaves start falling and the cement turns orange, yellow, red with their dye. It helps when there is dew on my car every morning and the sun squinting through my dirty windshield.

I can hold my hand up against the sky
and the sky seems very blue
very bright.

Once in a lifetime

still from Killer of Sheep by Charles Burnett

Remember swinging for hours in the back of your Great Aunt's house inventing playmates out of your stuffed animals? Remember how much your eyes hurt from all the chlorine at the end of every summer day? Remember the smoke from the barbecue and the apartment elevator that someone would always get stuck in at least once a year? Remember how good Play-doh tasted?

Remember taking the bus home and feeling incredibly worldly? Remember learning all the words to Hair? Remember thinking that Rick Springfield and Grease and Shaun Cassidy sucked? Remember three-way phone calls? Remember boys with names like Jerry, Brad, and Marco?

Remember how much you loved The Talking Heads? Remember your gay high-school English teacher who was the brother of Captain Beefheart? Remember getting arrested at the Glendale Galleria for having what you thought was speed but which actually turned out to be No-Doz? Remember trying to pierce your nose and chickening out?

Remember how little you slept in the dorms and how ridiculous everyone seemed? Remember failing German twice simply because you couldn't make it to class every day? Remember driving to Baja in a rented LTC and having to loose your watch to the policia? Remember the political rallies, the feminist collective, the post-modern interpretation of The Investigation in which you acted and to which only five people came?

Remember the first boyfriend you lived with? And then remember the first time you lived alone? Remember buying that lemon of a car from the used-car salesman? Remember deciding being a vegetarian wasn't so important? Remember going back to school instead of getting a real job? Remember your first friends that got married?

Remember how long it took to finish graduate school, how long it took to finish your film, and how much money you were in debt by the end of it all? Remember your first friends that had kids? Remember all the people who moved away? Remember how dinner parties became so much more fun than going out? Remember your first friends that got divorced? Remember those that took the day jobs and those who stayed as the starving artists?

Remember your parents becoming grandparents? Remember your first gray hair? Remember how happy reading The New Yorker in bed made you? Remember realizing how little any more you went out to see music, go to bars, or hear poetry as read by your friends in some off-the-beaten track cafe/laundromat? Remember how nice a cup of coffee, mornings and the porch became?

It's been done already

This I found this from a blog that hasn't really been keeping it up with posts, but I sure wish it would.

New Year's Resolutions of a Junior High School Student

I am most curious about #5. Anyone with ideas about this, and how I myself could fulfil this goal please get back to me.

Why we do it

_{from Found Magazine}

In trying to understand a thing or two about my own proclivities, I have stumbled upon this insightful article. You see, I am a list maniac. I carry around a small spiral-bound notebook full of things to do, things that need to be restocked, words that I hear and like, snippets of conversations, and books, movies, music that others may mention in passing. Sometimes I consult the book multiple times a day adding to it, crossing things off, or rewriting the list on the very next page. It is tiring, I'll tell ya. And it has become my addiction. If I don't have the book, I write things down on whatever I can find in my purse and hope that I'll remember to enter it into the book and make it official.

I once found a list in the parking lot of my local supermarket. It was a curious list, ranging from shopping list items, metaphysical to-do's like treat Mary with compassion and then the practical: financial snapshot of assets. How crazy would my lists of balafone, 1 lb halibut, and ask people sleep appear to someone else's eyes?

Should I be writing on post-its and just throwing them away? Should I try not to rely on the book so much? Should I do away with the act of listing altogether? The therapist in me thinks perhaps some things should change. And am I really getting that much more accomplished when I have to write down on my list relax?

Here is an excerpt from the article. Or just read it in its entirety. Caveat emptor: this is from the Canadian Journal, The Walrus.

So here is a list of thirteen possible reasons why, for better or worse, human beings love to list:

1. A list turns information into technology. We're all too busy to contemplate, for god's sake. We need to prioritize. A list is about the bottom line: Tell me what I need to know, fast.

2. A list conveys authority, hierarchy, and a sense of order. This is comforting in a world of falling towers and bad TV. A list implies that someone is in charge. A list is also post-post-modern. Everything is not relative! But we're busy, so we need an intellectual valet--a list.

3. A numbered list seems scientific, and therefore more credible than the stuttering human voice of prose. A list radiates the calm algebra of objective truth--even though most lists (and especially the short lists for book prizes) are wanton acts of subjectivity.

4. Lists prosper in times when open political debate is considered mildly treasonous. A list has the look of a corporate decision, or a memo. A list has no sense of humour. (Harper's Index is an exception: a list of neutral statistics reorganized in the service of irony and political satire.)

5. TV shows such as American Idol, Canadian Idol, or The Greatest Canadian allow us to weed out the weaklings, an unpleasant human pre-disposition we never seem to outgrow. From the pecking order of the schoolyard to the high-school prom queen competition to rating women in a bar, we love to rank, and be ranked. Maybe it's biological; we have to know where we stand with others, who the alpha males and queen bees are. Or maybe the wound of not being chosen for the dodgeball team is partly healed whenever we vote someone else off the list. When we dump the talented, unslick, slightly plump girl off Canadian Idol.

6. Lists run deep, they are primal. This is the only explanation for the success of the Bo Derek movie 10.

7. In music, the individual iPod playlist has become a form of musical expression in itself. The new version is iPod shuffle, which takes your playlist and randomizes the sequence. This has a modern, biodynamic flair, like the endless possible recombinations of the genetic code. What is the slogan for the iPod shuffle? "Life is random." This pretends to subvert the traditional, hierarchical list--but a list it remains!

8. Numbers look more modern than words. Text messaging uses "2" and "4" because they are shorter than the words. Numbers are tidy, minimal, and lower-case: the equivalent of the neutral, non-narrative geometry of modern interior design. Words are fat. Numbers are thin. Numbers are cool.

9. Lists represent the triumph of personal opinion over evidence or informed debate. Bush didn't need hard evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; it was his opinion that they existed, and that was enough. Invading Iraq was simply on his list of imperial to-do chores as president.

10. Lists are the spawn of journalism and the media, used to eliminate fine shadings and contradictions. The belief that truth might reside in small, incidental details belongs to the world of fiction. Journalism works on the principle of prioritizing--what belongs on the front page, what news story should lead. This requires a number of subjective decisions that create that simulacrum of objectivity--The News.

11. The indented paragraph begins to have a dated look. Magazine editors now "package" stories, breaking up scary blocks of text with sidebars, boxes, and snappy design elements intended to make print look more like TV. I can always tell the ages of my email correspondents by whether or not they use paragraphs. Punctuation, upper case, salutations--that's for people who don't have a life. Imagine Virginia Woolf ending a letter to Vanessa Bell with an emoticon...Dear Vanessa, I fear one of my headaches is coming on, so I must be brief. Do tell me what you think of my recent scribblings. ;) Virginia.

12. Here is a list of the narrative elements of the novel Mrs. Dalloway: i) Mrs. Dalloway buys flowers for her party; ii) a former boyfriend shows up unexpectedly; iii) a variety of emotions are experienced by the hostess and her guests as the party unfolds.

13. What is the opposite of a list? A personal letter, a poem, a page of a diary, a piece of music, possibly the last bastions of uncommodified, unranked, un-numbered self-expression.

Rize

There are some things at my age you learn to concede. I will never write the Great American Novel, chances are I will never win the Nobel Peace Prize, and I will probably never learn the stripper dance. What's this stripper dance, you ask? Go see David LaChapelle's Rize and get krumped.

I get equal parts excited and agitated when I see documentaries that really wow me. It's a love/hate relationship because I understand what goes into them and how damn hard they are to make. At the same time, I am that much more critical...Especially when someone who's obviously well-connected and well-endowed like celebrity fashion photographer David LaChapelle is at the helm. Add to it that I am trying to finish one myself and any movie-going experience can potentially become a recipe for disaster. But Rize, you just gotta see it to believe it. I'm not saying there aren't problems with it. When a white guy comes in and falls in love with the beauty and power of black bodies, much like Mapplethorpe, it makes sense to be wary.

So clowning, krumping, and stripper dancing are all things that go on in South Central. Kid get together--kids with incredibly cut bodies, I might add--and they paint their faces--some even dress up in clown costumes and rent themselves out to parties--and then they dance. Fiercely. Think break-dancing, vogueing and capoeira only on serious amphetamines. Think like nothing you've ever seen before. Think young people with not a lot of options, but a helluva a lot of rage, venting, representin', coming together and swinging back.

Rize proudly states at the beginning of the film that no part of the film was sped up. And so LaChapelle sets us up; we anticipate something truly out there and LaChapelle delightedly keeps on serving us up. With an obvious nod to Paris Is Burning, we see, over and over, the dancers carefully applying their make-up while reflecting on how hard their lives have been, what few choices there are, and how necessary these surrogate families have become for each of them. Clearly, LaChapelle wants us to see these men and women as urban warriors. In fact, LaChapelle keeps knocking us over the head with that same metaphor.

It's not a very complicated documentary. But beauty, like a Bruce Weber photograph, he does capture. And he does a pretty decent job of letting the dancers just speak, or rather krump, for themselves.

Can you spare a smile?

Guess what? I am feeling all optimistic and cheery today for no apparent reason. Hey, it happens sometimes, even to me. Chaulk it up to Mercury being in retrograde, the charming prosethetic device on my foot, the beans-n-rice-I-took-too-much-vacation-time diet I am on, or perhaps the awkward run-in with the single dad this morning who reintroduced me to his two kids as if I had never met them! Really there is no good reason. But so the gods have deigned it to be. Casey is happy.

(\/)
(O.o)
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Where in honey lies the sweetness?

The good news is I survived another wedding. That, despite the fact that the wedding was for someone I once dated and the fact that I attended sans date. At least I allowed myself the delicious pleasure of removing das boot for the evening. Actually, the ceremony--and more importantly the officiator--convinced me that marriage can be a positive experience. Perhaps the fact that it was a Hindi wedding attributed to the overall pleasantness I had as an attendee. I'm not saying I am totally convinced, but philosophically he had some meritable and poetic points. And the theatre was damn good.

There was lots of rice, flowers, fire, jewelry and well, a whole lot of words. The standouts for me were when the bride and groom's garments were tied together and they were told that they would be connected for one-hundred years. Such an exact number! It wasn't until fifteen minutes later that he explained he was speaking figuratively. When the priest announced that they were, from that point forward, one and hence inseparable, for who can say where in honey lies the sweetness? where in night exists the darkness? I was sold. Finally, he offered that marriage like all relationships is an adjustment not unsimilar to a visit to the chiropractor: adjusting to the other person's quirks, kinks and, particular to this wedding, culture and enormous foreign-born extended family.

While I did not meet my soulmate, I did have a nice conversation with a landscaper who was admirably well-versed in 70's American cinema, which happens to be my favorite epoch of the artform. There was a young boy of about 6 who regaled us with magic tricks throughout the evening such as turning a brown leaf into a green leaf by magically walking around the corner and returning with the exchanged leaf in hand. I even chatted with the groom's mother who vaguely remembered me and admitted that she too was single and didn't those laid back Californian waiters look pretty hunky?

My heart sank as I realized, no, I was not sitting at the same table with the well-versed-in-70's-American-cinema landscaper and yes, I was seated at the table with the exes. Don't get me wrong they were all nice, many of them artists to boot, and at least we knew enough not to ask each other now how do you know the groom? But it did make me wonder why was I invited? The excellent channa masala, biriyani and the cute papadam inscribed with the bride and groom's names on it, made me forget that question at least while I was eating.

I did make a vow, however, that this will be my last wedding attended without a date. Or how about this: my last wedding without a groom in tow.

Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears

_{Skull by Midori Harami}

I am not positive--for when my mother was recently queried neither could she seem to recall--but I am pretty sure I performed this time-honored speech from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar at the annual elementary school talent show. In any case, my mom says I memorized it--for reasons unbeknown to us all now--in the second grade. Ostensibly, I must have done it for a reason or performed it for someone--although that someone could just as easily have been her and her coterie. I also memorized a monologue from Alice In Wonderland in the fourth grade (Alice falling down the well, of course!) in lieu of doing a book report. I remember my mom coaching me, Drama and AP English teacher that she was, so that I really looked like I was falling.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;

But back to the talent show. I remember standing on the stage.

The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interr'd with their bones,

I remember wearing something akin to a toga. And I remember looking out at my audience, the ubiquitous multi-purpose hall in which we all played Bingo Thursday nights and had Spaghetti Fridays during the day.

So let it be with Caesar...The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

I remember Armand Zaharian who preceded me. I remember his trick: stacking quarters on his bent elbow and then catching them in his fist.

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it...

Armand started with two quarters. With grace he caught two quarters in his fist. Then he simply said "three" and stacked one more quarter.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honourable man;

Armand caught three quarters in his fist and then stacked four. "Four."

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;

I stood in the wings and rehearsed my lines. "Six."

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know

When Armand reached eight, the sound of quarters rolling on the floor stunned a normally rowdy hall into silence. But Armand simply picked them up and continued. "Eight," he repeated.

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason...Bear with me;

At twelve, Armand finished and quietly left the stage. It was a hard act to follow.

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me

The hall was filled with light. I could see my audience. I took the stage and lifted my arms out to them: Friends, Romans, countrymen.

Peg-leg Casey

_{not the author's actual legs}

Today's post will detail all the positive attention I have been getting for the most recent addition to my life: the walking cast or as we in the non-medical field like to call it the boot. I feel much like how a bride must feel on her wedding day, or how a very pregnant woman must feel going for a stroll in the park, or, at the very least, that is how I am choosing to see it. Everyone has a perky comment (although many of these are of the obvious kind), everyone seems overly concerned (who doesn't like to be fussed over?) and I, in turn, get to make up a dramatic lie for each of them. The boot is not a remark on my general lack of grace or failure to control my own balance, but rather an invitation to a dialogue. And I get to wear it for 4-6 weeks!


Last night, on the way to my local public house, a man commiserated with me as he had just got his boot taken off and offered much sagely advice like You know you can get temporary Handicap plates for that? Today as I was walking towards the post office, another man ran ahead of me and pushed the wall switch enabling the automatic door opener. And from the look on his face, I think he must have expected a genuine Thanks. I am looking forward to the two weddings to which I have had the good fortune of being invited and having the most brilliant excuse imaginable of why I cannot dance. All because of a minor hopscotching accident, oh wait, I mean, bareback llama-riding whilst doing Machu Picchu, or was it that overly ambitious Macarena at my third cousin's Bat Mitzvah last weekend?

Sigh. So much for my learning to drive stick shift this July. Or helping my friend move out of her house this weekend. I'm just not going to be much of a help there. And as for picking my parents up at the airport with all the luggage they insist on traveling with, I'd really like to help, but me and my peg-leg would probably be one more security risk not worth taking.