Last call for February

I am stunned by the passage of time. Dismayed by it. Overwhelmed. The days are just falling away, drifting off and out of reach. This time last year, I would never have believed that it would be possible to be here in this time this year. And maybe I say the same thing to myself now about the next year and the next one after that. But there is no need for such a vast stretch of anticipation. There is no need to make predictions or promises or resolutions of any sort. I'm not shooting for anything. I'm just pushing forward. And trying to keep my focus on what lies ahead. You've got to look in the rearview mirror every once in a while, but you can't keep your eyes locked on it.

What was that I said about metaphors?

An elephant never...what is it again?

If there was a superhero whose superpower was memory, it would be me. And I would wear a very flattering black unitard and high-heeled black boots. And a very subtle "M" would be embroidered on my cape. Which would also be black.

I was updating my poetry page, and I was startled by how immediate and detailed my memories were of where I was and what I was feeling at the time I wrote each line. I could literally feel myself sitting in my bedroom -- upstairs at my parents' house when I was renting it from them -- thinking about the moon and the solitude of the night. I remembered jotting off hasty rhymes from my pale grey office. I remembered every iota. To the point where I could experience it all again. Even the struggle for the rhymes and the meter and the meaning. I remember more than most people. But I don't do so very much with the memories. Do I learn from them? Do they add to me in some way? Sometimes, they are like the old college textbooks you hang onto because they are thick and heavy and they were expensive and you never bothered to try and sell them back. They sit on your bookshelf, gathering dust, causing the particle board to sag in an unsightly manner. And you never look at them. You never open them to find the little scraps of paper you accidentally left between the pages. You never refer back to the sections you highlighted and were very careful to detail with your notes and thoughts and impressions. They are archival copies of things that once mattered. But they don't get much use, and they take up a lot of space.

I remember once promising myself I wouldn't get so carried away with metaphor.

"Wisdom is the province of the aged. But the heart of a child is pure."

I've a great deal to learn. And a great many more flavors of gelato to try.

Dra to the ma

My office is too hot. My burden is too great. My pants are wrinkled from sitting. My arms are covered in goose bumps. It's time to begin again.

I don't want to go to bed. But I want this to day to be over.

Pain. Pain. You know your name.

Who would have thought that hurt could be decanted and revisited again and again only to find its bouquet sharpened, its pungence heightened, its deleterious effects made more acute. Realizations are a funny thing. One finds something out, and it is as if the revelation changes everything. When it changes nothing, in fact. History isn't rewritten. Ever. It is what it is. It is as it was.

I had a wonderful, spiritual, and thoroughly uplifting evening, despite the lobbing of barbs at my tender heart. I am glad to be able to see beyond things that cut to the very core of me. I am relieved.

But sometimes it seems as if joy is a mere distraction from sorrow. That pleasure is only a vacation from pain. I value permanence. I seek solid things. Things that can be counted on. Things that will see me through. I have not had such steadfastness for a long time. And I have recently begun to feel its absence more palpably than ever before. I was once a little ray of sunshine. The apple of my father's eye. The smilingest girl with the pinkest, roundest cheeks and the greatest affinity for joy and laughter and forgetting of all things unpleasant. The sweet little cherub who couldn't hold a grudge. Even when she tried. I was once a soft, sweet, eager thing. I was once less vulnerable. Made impervious to disappointment by my very naïveté. I once believed in many things.

I no longer know what I believe. Nor what I expect. I only know that I have been wronged a good many times. And I have heard apologies in far fewer numbers. I must seek out another means of achieving balance.

  

 

Tijuana Taxi

Border crossing is not for the faint of heart -- or for those in any sort of a hurry.

After collecting assorted Chinese delicacies for dinner tonight, my sister and I took note of the fact that we are very lucky to be Chinese. The joys of a cuisine and a culture that are so foreign to so many -- they are ours. Things that are delicious, things that are unusual, things that are downright weird. I don't know if it is the result of a childhood's worth of travel, but I seldom feel like a foreigner. Not in Mexico. Not in an Asian market. Not anywhere. Outsider, yes. Foreigner, no.

Is it fairly customary for taxi drivers in Tijuana to offer first a taxi, then -- upon declination -- a massage and then an outright marriage proposal? What a friendly nation!

My eyes hurt today.

"Sam, I'm glad you're here with me."

Another excursion into Middle Earth. Basking in my father's comforting and familiar scent. It's nice to sit next to him. I took more from the movie this time than the first time around. Or at least as much. I shed tears in the same places. Ate popcorn and plain M&Ms. It was good for me.

"I feel thin. Sort of stretched out. Like butter spread over too much bread." Bravo, Bilbo. You make the want of a journey seem real and reasonable. I would like to see mountains, too.

Show Time

Two fun shows at the theater tonight. I won Do Do Ron Ron, and apparently that made me the hero of a group of high school or college age girls who insisted on calling me out of the theater after the show so they could tell me how cool I was. All on account of my rhyming skills. Which are actually not as sharp as they may have seemed tonight. I often suck at the rhyming games. Just not tonight. And then one young lad turned the expected high five into a somewhat extended holding of my hand as he passed by. I felt just slightly popular tonight, and I didn't mind it.

The drive down was hellish. I arrived tired and stiff and achey and not at all looking forward to performing. But having the shows go well is a nice boost. And being surrounded by friends and people I like and who give the appearance of liking me is no kick in the teeth either.

I'm tired now. I hope that means that I will find restful slumber. I hope I will dream something fun and exciting. And I hope I will forget it as soon as I wake up. I just want to pass through it. Harvest the enjoyment and then forget it. This seems to be a significant tenet of my life philosophy at the moment. Although it seldom works.

I bought too many baked goods at the Asian market tonight. I went in starving. That's not smart. I'm sure my mother will enjoy scolding me about it tomorrow.

"Bingoli."

I'm so fortunate to have friends who like interesting things and know stuff. I'm so happy to have someone to watch After the Fox with me and say the lines along with the movie, just like I do. And someone kind enough to bring me a bottle of merlot. How lucky I am. I have stumbled on some wonderful things. Foundling friends I treasure. Perhaps because they are that certain brand of serendipity that you can't create or keep. And there is something happily organic about meeting people out in the world for no good reason. It's rarer than it should be.

I didn't do enough work last night. And that's the truth. But I felt fatigue on me like a coat made of ultra-dense lead. And there was a 1960s Walt Disney World Orlando program on the Disney Channel. I was powerless to resist it.

Satisfaction among the doldrums. It's still satisfaction, isn't it?

Let the games begin. Or let them end. They're only games, after all.

I spent the day in an off-site meeting at the Beverly Plaza Hotel. The last time I was there was October 1. It was my first actual day at work. I had packed a suitcase, because I was staying in a hotel for the week as I looked for an apartment and tried to get used to the idea of living in Los Angeles. I remember leaving San Diego that morning. It was a strange, sad goodbye. I remember what I was wearing. I always remember what I was wearing.

The executive board room (which has no business having such a lofty-sounding name) smelled just as it did at 10:30 A.M. on that morning in October. The ice water still tastes as if it was dipped from a swimming pool. The lunch menu was still maddeningly inaccurate. The climate control was poor. The elevators were stuffy. The bathroom was as well. It was all the same. Just as I had remembered it. And it was interesting to be taken back. I didn't know that I was going to be. It caught me off-guard.

I wonder about the purpose of nostalgia. I don't find myself benefiting from it much. More like falling prey to it. It's bittersweet, and that's a sort of nicety. But I am left wanting. And that is not for the best. Looking back, I see the roll call changing. The landscape of friendships gotten and forgotten. The curvature of love and loss and smiles and stings. Change hurts sometimes. But I often make reference to that bit in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Eustace has been turned into a dragon and must dig so deep into the scales that it hurts, in order to shed the hideous outer part and reveal the boy inside. What is arduous has its rewards. One would hope so, anyway.

I said goodbye to a lot of things that morning. And I wasn't in San Diego to smell my Present Laughter weather coming on. I wasn't anywhere, really. Sort of adrift. By turns, exhilarated and eviscerated. I seem to straddle the extremes. I wonder if I'm due for a bit of the middle of the road this year. A taste of the happy medium. A glimpse of bliss maybe?

"Off the charts." Am I? It's nice to hear.

Nothing makes sense to me today. And I think I am developing a Red Bull dependency.

The Fourth Rule of Being

If you eat really good ice cream, you will be at least two and a half ounces happier than you were before you ate it. And don't ask me why happiness is measured in ounces. Just accept and apply.

Unfortunately, I managed to not eat any ice cream at all today. But that's my fault. I still have a card for Moo Time in my wallet. Maybe I'll let them set me up this weekend. A little stracciatella never hurt anyone.

3 A.M.

I win.

The Race to 3 A.M.

This notion of when I should be sleeping. I manage to make myself a guilty failure even in this. If I stay up. If I never manage to settle into cozy slumber. If I can't keep my mind off whatever it's on. I can hate myself for it. And that is the opposite of helpful.

I did feel ready to sleep tonight. But I was not where I should have been. Now that I am back where I belong, the sleep eludes me. A temptress. A tease. A woman of ill-repute who is to be avoided at all costs. What a useless metaphor that was.

I did a lot today. There is no reason to ignore that. I did a lot. I thought a lot. I wrote a lot. I dreamed a lot. I even laughed a lot. Maybe the problem is I've had my fill and then some. Maybe I just need to take it easy on some level. I wish I could fashion a protocol for that. How to take it easy in thirty-nine simple steps...

This is a time for cautious self-awareness.

The bumper-sticker quality of my fan mail

Well, I don't know if I'd call it fan mail, necessarily. But I do get a lot of very encouraging and appreciative notes from people for various reasons. And I've been getting messages lately that contain exclamations such as "Keep on truckin'!" and comments such as "Freaking awesome, as we now say in England." I really like that people take the time to pariticipate in the lives of perfect strangers. The Internet has been very good to me.

Seeing the world through world-colored glasses

It feels like something out of fantasy novel. Learning to see things are they really are. To see people as they really are. It's sort of like the concept of the true name. Once you see people as they are, you have the secret to their power. And the power disappears.

It's not about defeating them or destroying them or even disempowering them. It's like seeing the shadow of what looks like a very large thing and being intimidated by it, only to learn that the shadow is being cast by a very small thing. A ridiculously small thing. Something so small and unfrightening that you have to laugh at your earlier fear. So maybe that's what it's about. Being able to laugh about it. And then getting on with things.

"You are a lovable, optimistic sponge and you always try to do the right thing."

Catharsis in the Trashcan

I grew slightly less sentimental today. I was actually able to throw something away. Good for me. And for the world as a whole.

Little girl comes to you cautiously, gingerly; does she dare to trust again?
She comes on dark wings, with pink ribbons
wanting pretty things, ice cream
and a place in your heart
She whispers and wants you to listen
She is fragile and strong
Like a milkweed seed
floating, looking for somewhere to land
if you nurture her, she will grow
and bring you gifts of butterflies
     - Ellen Jaffee Bitz

The brutal exhaustion of holding one's shape

Maybe the trouble with this past weekend was having to keep the mask on for so much uninterrupted time. My changeling matter wants to revert, to relax. I cannot hold this form for days on end. It tempts me to forget the shape I am when I let myself fall back into it. I am not entirely amorphous. But I am not the girl you see.

"Just like a child, you make me smile when you care for me..."

I fought the inclination to come and write at 2 A.M. And then at 3. And then at 4. And god knows how many times in-between. Mainly, because I couldn't see the value of coming to write, "I am not sleeping." There were other things to write, but I was convinced that to pursue them in vivid thought would just cause me to be further awake.

"You go crazy again!"

It was a fun night out. Never what I expect. But fun. I chose songs and had them sung to me and sang along. And I reverted to my old standard Campari soda for a change. It is bitter and sweet. I remember that.

I spent so many hours in bed, conscious of the fact that I was awake -- rebellious about it. I couldn't get comfortable. I couldn't find comfort. I couldn't keep my mind from racing. I haven't gone through it for a long time. And I don't have fond recollections of the recent time when I did.

I penalize myself for it. I am living someone else's life in my pre-sleep mind. I am rehearsing the words and reliving the moments and believing I know what it all means and what it has been like each step of the way.

Sometimes, I am favored with a brief moment of clarity. I realize -- or I discover -- that things aren't always as they seem. Or that things aren't always portrayed as they are. Even to close friends and confidantes. The joy I project, the satisfaction I assume, the forgetting I believe in -- they are not necessarily real or true or there. That provides me with some comfort. And I should learn to factor it in to my reckless musings. I should learn to talk myself down from that ledge. To slow my heart rate. To bring the flush down from my cheeks. To halt my limbs in their trembling. I should catalogue the formula for that salvation. I am acceptance now. I am able to be.

So many things I have told myself I could bear. So many times I have reassured myself, "You can do this." It hasn't made things any easier or more sure.

"It's a question of not letting what we've built up crumble to dust..."

When I loved the song A Question of Lust in high school, it was romantic and meaningful to me. But I wonder what I was actually feeling or who I could have possibly been feeling it for. As much as the music of my adolescence still speaks to me now, I am often amused and curious about the way it once moved me. Or how it could have. When I was a nervous young girl who knew nothing of love and wondered if she ever would.

The more I learn, the more I cherish a certain level of ignorance.

A Day Off for Mary or The Beginning of the Middle of the End

Another night of sleepless sleep. Too much dreaming. Too much leaving on of the television. Too much.

I have been viewing the time I set my alarm as a challenge of how long to remain in bed these days. Today, I fell short by several hours. It's that old irony of hating to take naps as a child and then growing into adulthood only to find that you would give your kingdom -- or a whole pie -- for the chance to take a nap on a weekday afternoon. If only this phase shift of desire and delivery could right itself.

The drive last night was quiet. Music-filled, but quiet. We didn't say much. But the negotiations and reprimands went on full force in the privacy of my soundproof skull. I wanted to step out of my thoughts and into the present, but I never managed to.

I am beginning to feel as if everything that I used to be proud of in myself is now part of everything that I see as flawed and detrimental. The qualities that made me well-liked and accessible and easy to love and easy to know -- I feel as if I am beginning to despise those qualities outright.

"Slowly learning that life is okay..."

I only sing along to certain songs. And it isn't necessarily the ones I like best.

My eyes are open. The sun is burning them.

But I see most when i am not looking.

The Weight of Things

My heart is so heavy, it hurts.

  

 

Ceci n'est pas une placeholder.

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Little Heart Attacks

Today was full. And I am full. It was a gluttonous day in many ways. I seem to be programmed to indict myself for that.

I just want to break free of the strange bonds that still hold me. They are paper thin. Brittle. Flimsy. Utterly powerless against me if I would only stretch my wings. I want to break them and cast them aside. I want them to disintegrate into the air and float away into nothing. I have the idea that -- when that happens -- I will float away myself. So light will I be. So unfettered. I will have difficulty keeping my feet on the ground at all.

  

Nova Express

  


Another night. Another nosh. Another passion fruit Italian soda.

"Also, there is something good to be said about the thrill of almosts."

Brilliantly put.

No More Air

Dream. Asphyxiation. Party in a room filled with water. I was paralyzed, so my husband was carrying me. But I was sociable. My husband was supposed to bring me to the surface to get air periodically. I let him know that I needed air. I was laughing and just gesturing to him casually. He tried to raise me to the surface, but the water had gotten deeper and he couldn't get my head above it. And eventually I passed out. And he was frantic. Going crazy and screaming in that underwater silence for the help of everyone else at the party. But they weren't listening. And I didn't believe he was trying hard enough. And then I was the husband. And I felt the desperation of holding someone in my arms and being responsible for them but knowing that I couldn't give them what they needed and that they were going to die with the knowledge that I let them down.

Sinus pressure. Need more sleep.

Driven

Oooh! -- but do I love a project! Even though my eyes are burning and I haven't finished many things I should have, I'm glad I've been motivated to make and do and fix.

And I'm especially fond of Thai food from Natalee's on Robertson.

Endangered Species

Word of the Day for Thursday February 14, 2002:

philter \FIL-tur\, noun:
1. A potion or charm supposed to cause the person taking it to fall in love.
2. A potion or charm believed to have magic power.

transitive verb:
To enchant or bewitch with or as if with a magic potion or charm.

Some things you can feel coming. You don't fall in love
because you fall in love; you fall in love because of the
need, desperate, to fall in love. When you feel that need,
you have to watch your step; like having drunk a philter,
the kind that makes you fall in love with the first thing
you meet. It could be a duck-billed platypus.
--Umberto Eco, [1]Foucault's Pendulum

Horsey

Too late to belabor the issue of Chinese New Year. Or Mardi Gras, for that matter. Too late to wisely eat the things that are prone to bring good fortune in the coming year. But I've eaten many things on Chinese New Years past and have seen little change in the fortune quotient. Having a flaming drink at the Twin Dragon, I saw Ed O'Ross enjoying a nice Chinese dinner. Good for him. I didn't see what he ordered, so I can't confidently applaud his choices. But I'll bet he was eating something interesting. I was not inconspicuous in my taking note of him. I always feel a bit like a rube when a celebrity catches me experiencing recognition, but I was half tempted to go over and make a nuisance of myself. It would have made for a memorable evening.

Instead, memories were just as deftly made with my first visit to Jumbo's Clown Room. The rumors are true. It isn't "faux dive." But it is its own brand of cool. I was glad to have gone.

Robert Motherwell

The later it gets, the earlier it seems.
The longer I go, the further I get.
The more I, the less I.

I can hear crickets. And the refrigerator humming. And someone coughing on the street. I can hear my own desire to be hearing all of this in my dreams. I can hear my reluctance to let sleep come. And yet when I listen, I can hear scarcely anything at all. The sounds find me, but the meaning eludes me. And time runs short. And sleep beckons.

I'm glad there is water. I am the bearer of a powerful thirst.

Pink Lady and Jeff

Today was a day that both flew and crawled. I started earlier than usual and ended later than usual. I filled the interim time with meticulous labor and occasional swearing. But I got a great deal done. And I didn't forget to appreciate the incredibly beautiful sunset.

  

Picnic in the Park

Balboa Park was beautiful today. Windy, but sunny and full of people with their dogs and their footballs and their frisbees. I have a lot of memories of that place. Sometimes I think it is the one place in San Diego most apt to remind me that I don't live there anymore.

And sometimes I feel the same way about Costco.

I keep noticing the way the rooms in my family's house smell. How much they smell just the way they did when I lived there by myself. Even after a terrible fire and a complete reconstruction. I catch familiar breaths of warm upstairs or cool ashes in the fireplace or the way the bathroom smells when you've just had a shower and you open the window to let out the steam. This was once my home. But even now, when I have a key and a room that is almost officially mine, I can't help but feel that it is no longer my home. That it is no longer the place that will house my newly-made memories. That it is no longer a safe resting place for the memories I have already made.

This morning, I awoke from a dream in which I was out on a date with Ralph Lauren. I wasn't wearing any make-up and was still in my pajamas, but he was very nice to me, and I was looking forward to going out with him again. And my family, all of whom were there for some reason, were very supportive of that. I'm inclined to find the entire notion ridiculous.

Despite four reasonably satisfying performances, I somehow manage to come away from the weekend feeling less than satisfied, less than accomplished, less than finished. Maybe that's what keeps me on my toes.

From coal, diamonds

Press press press.

Will there be anything left of me when all the pressing is done?

Time management and morning drinks

Today, I decided not to compromise. I decided to go ahead and schedule two obligations in the evening and to make it to both of them, and I'm glad I did. From a smoothie and fries with a cool girl who wears excellent glasses and has the best voice to a trip down to Hermosa Beach for a lame-ish Valentine's event that I am glad I attended -- if only for charity. What a jam-packed evening it has been. I am tired, drained, a little liquored up. And I had to defend my choice of a bloody mary at the bar, having been told that it's really a morning drink. I said, "It's morning somewhere." And that was the end of that. The sticker on my back read "Pamela Anderson." Make sense of that if you can.

Making the most of one's time can be a taxing affair.

Shabu shabu of the rich and famous -- well, the famous, anyway

I went out for shabu shabu with Mom tonight, and I was recognized by someone who only knows me from my pictures. It was cool and surreal and a little jarring. And cool again. As big a town as Los Angeles is, it's really very small. That I have had someone pick me out at a movie theater (having only seen my photos, as well), and that I was spotted on the street by a cousin I hadn't seen in nearly three years -- there's a certain small-townness about that. Or maybe it's just that there's only eight or so places that anyone goes. I'm reluctant to assert that as a theorem, though. I've been to well in excess of eight places, and I barely go anywhere at all.

So, now I'm going to try my hand at writing a sex advice column. Perhaps people will begin recognizing me from my name on the masthead of an actual actual magazine. But I have a feeling I look nothing like my name.

What's all this? I'm not perched by the seashore.

I can't figure out why the seagulls are literally swarming outside my window. Great, lovely eddies of them. Are there fish being sold in the flower shop below? Is the ocean creeping towards me? Has Santa Monica been engulfed? Someone alert the authorities! I hope they can swim...

Kindling

Jo and I had our first meeting tonight. I feel inspired and motivated and...accountable? I have had an assortment of fires burning in and around me in recent months. I'm glad this one is under me. We'll see where it takes me.

Time travel and other documentarian impulses

Right around the new year, I began creating this document. I am lining up the years against one another, a day at a time, and using calendars and journals and my scarily accurate memory to catalog the things I did. It's been an interesting exercise. And it's provided me with substantial reason to gawk and cluck at how much I have done in recent years. My performance life, my professional life, my personal life -- I lived enough of each of them for at least one additional me, perhaps even two. And I kept a harrowingly full schedule. Driven, I was. And obligated.

It has also given me cause to wish I had been more detailed in my note-taking or that I had a working version of the old 1996 QuickMail app for Mac so that I could page through my many, many emails from way back when. I have been fairly diligent over the past year or so in my journal-keeping. And I am seeing the reason for it as I build this history. But even without the aid of documents, I could tell you off the top of my head how I spent every Superbowl Sunday in the past decade. I couldn't tell you who played necessarily, but I could tell you where I was and what I was doing. That's true for every major holiday and birthday and reasonably special occasion. I carry around meaningless anniversaries with me constantly. I think of today, and I have this instantaneous list, à la Entertainment Tonight or Dateline NBC, where they give you a list of celebrity birthdays or an "on this day in history" thing. I can tell you who else this day might be important to and why. I can list the things that happened in at least a handful of preceding years. And, if the events are significant enough, I can tell you what day of the week they took place and what I was wearing (the what I was wearing is the easy part). If I ever meet you, I'll remember what it was like when I did. And I'll record all sorts of useless data for future reference and bring it up when you least expect it. And you will feel as if I am trying to tell you that you don't care enough about me to remember useless details. But you will be misinterpreting me. I will just be reminiscing and glorying in the ability to go back and relive things at the drop of a hat. It can be a great thing.

It can also stall you out. Or me, for that matter. I realize that I spend a great deal of time living in the past, a place where I have no power. A place where the scenes are static and nothing ever changes. It's sort of like trying to build a social life in a wax museum. Aside from the fact that all the faces look sort of gross and dirty and everyone's a good deal shorter than they are in real life, there's the added deficit of nothing ever happening there. The wax museum is no place for a living, breathing girl. A living, breathing girl belongs out on the town, shopping like a mad fool, stopping for coffee and madeleines, strolling through museum galleries, ignoring her carbohydrate intake, buying concert tickets, making friends, and creating new memories for the record. Memories which can be revisited from time to time but that should never become a regular haunt. A living, breathing girl can't live in the past. Everything is dead there. And no one will notice her nice new shoes and pants.

"Certain" is such a vague term.

No linguini for me. Instead, sushi. I'm fine with that. Sushi and amusing, enlightened conversation. And the artful avoidance of sake.

Crunch

I've barely had a moment today to feel much of anything, although there are certainly things that want for feeling. I feel them beginning to flood in now. Now that I am alone and quiet and able to think clearly. I feel the passage of time. I feel the vastness of space. I feel my separateness with more distinct clarity than I ever have before. I feel a weightiness in my heart that could easily be confused with a hunger in my tummy. I feel reluctance. I feel insignificant and mighty all at once. And I feel curious about what is to come.

I had hoped to spend time tonight with an old friend. Instead, I will do some more catching up with my cousin and perhaps have some stories to tell on my return. Linguini is in my future. It is the only thing of which I can be certain.

February is so very

The day is divisible by the month, and the month caps the ends of the year. Too bad that will have no effect whatever on the cosmic forces at play.

It's been a long time since I've eaten at McDonald's. I wonder why that is.

Another day, another stamp on the hand

So, now I've been to the Roxy. And to see the amazing Jonatha Brooke, no less. Smashing. Really. I loved it. There's something unique about her. She's one of those artists who seems to say what I would want to be saying. I can recognize the sentiments she expresses as my own. It makes for a very personal experience. And she's such a dynamo. I loved her performance. The way she seemed to be enjoying it so much. And how her facial expressions and smiles and eye movements seemed to be flirting with the audience. And for her first encore, she did -- unequivocally -- the sexiest rendition of You Really Got Me I have ever seen or heard. I can thank NPR for introducing me to her. But I suppose I'd have to thank her for being so earth-shatteringly excellent. Buy Steady Pull. Now.

Then I got back to my car to find that a Volvo had used my rear bumper as a guide for when to stop moving forward while parking. I left a note and took pictures. The whole shebang. Mary Forrest. Ace gumshoe. On the case.

For toppers, as I was leaving Mel's, after eating a roast beef sandwich whose roast beef was only slightly less sturdy than shoe leather, I stood aside at the door as a group of three people walked in past me, one of whom was Ron Jeremy. Now I can say I have made eye contact with Ron Jeremy. And that I have eaten more than once at Mel's. There.

Earlier in the day, I had a nice day of lunch and shopping with Karen. I took this photo outside of Hugo's. The signs read "Shakespeare Society of America."

I got all of three hours of sleep last night. I am so very hopeful that I will be able to up the average with tonight's endeavors.

Trust me!

Here's a picture I took at lunch the other day at Sushi Sasabune.

The restaurant is in what looks as if it used to be a quaint little house. The photo is sitting on the ledge of a little inset in the wall behind our table. The note tucked in the frame reads: "Slide into my mouth. Trust me!" It's actually a piece of the wrapper for the chopsticks that are set on the table. The entire package reads exactly as follows:

SUSHI
DELICATE SNOWFLAKES REST ON WARM, SWEET RICE BEDS FLAVORS INTERWINED.
TRANSLUSCENT JEWEL - (SLICED) NATURAL PERFECTION - SLIDE INTO MY MOUTH.
                                                                                       TRUST ME!

I'm a big fan of all things Japanese. This might be part of the reason why.

Phooey. Too bad there wasn't time for a snowbubble after lunch.

Ooh, it's all sticky, isn't it?

Josh took me to the launch of this club called Red. Cool rave scene. We danced for hours. I needed that. And I'm glad I called him. I'm still putting on the mask of the brave little soldier, but I'm not thinking about it as much when there's music to dance to and lasers to look at and overpriced drinks to swill. And I've still got my orange V.I.P. wristband and everything. It's nice, every now and then, to feel like the girl who's got the hook-up.

I might have just stayed home tonight. I was really beginning to enjoy what portion of the Nickelodeon programming I caught before I got Josh's call. And I was working on things in my head. But I was drained from the week and was primed for distraction. I'm glad I didn't find a reason to weasel out of it. I have a feeling the next few weeks are going to be extremely challenging, and I really want to come out on the other side of them feeling triumphant.

Car alarms are like the birds of the city...

I could really use a hug today. So much so that I feel as if I can barely stand up.

Tuk Tuk

  

This is where I ate.