Category Archives: Real Life

What I’m worried about this week, or why I’ll never step in front of a camera again

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Today at the farmers’ market, we were approached by a woman saying she was “from ABC” and wanted to ask us a few questions about the market. Thinking this was an opportunity to give some props to an institution I really like, I consented, only to find myself in front of a camera 50 seconds (and and whirlwind waiver-signing) later. Blinking back my surprise, I awkwardly answered some questions about organic food and “GMOs”. I remember talking vaguely about wanting to buy from smaller producers as opposed to giant farms, and deflecting prodding questions about GMO technology by saying I wasn’t really up on the science. I wouldn’t say it was ALWAYS a bad thing to manipulate DNA for specific traits in plants. There’s a nuanced argument, here, for sure, but am I going to present this in what I thought was a 5-second fluff piece? Nah.

During the whole process, the man asking the questions stood off camera and jabbed this microphone in my face (as if trying to jam it into my mouth). Red flags were flying in my head. I finished the “interview” by telling them I’d come to buy some end-of-season peaches and first-of-the-season apples. Yawn.

I scrambled off, regretting that my time in Los Angeles has made me so open to talking to strangers.

Before I could disappear back into the crowd of welcoming hippies, hipsters, and yuppie parents, the producer stopped me and told me they were from Jimmy Kimmel Live. My heart dropped when I remembered the waiver I’d stupidly put my name on when I thought I was going to sing the praises of the friendly local nectarine sellers to the TV news audience in Pasadena.

She went on to tell me that they couldn’t use any of my interview. They were going around farmers’ markets, trying to get some numbskull armchair food-activists to spout some ignorance about FRANKENFOOD. But since, when asked what GMOs were, I’d replied “genetically modified organisms,” I was useless to them. She said.

My goodness, I hope so. I hope this doesn’t get chopped up and manipulated and I wind up being some asshole on the Internet.

Cause this was what I was wearing.

IMG_0663.JPG

I’m supposed to stay out of the sun, ok?

What I’ve been doing

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Well, whatever. I’m not much of an updater. Mostly I’ve been doing this:

http://greatbooisup.tumblr.com/

Esperanza2DaiquiriInDaWorks

Abelinkon

PassionWhiskySour

IE, making myself fancy drinks at home, taking pictures of them, and writing too-wordy-for-Tumblr posts on how they came together.  Actually, I’ve been enjoying it a bunch. Writing about food and drinks is way more pleasurable than thinking about that novel that’s not going to write itself.

Please check it out. The Mason Jar Shaker** tumblr was basically me looking up and tinkering with the recipes from posh bars so that I can be a fancier hermit. I’m sure many of you can sympathize. The fact that I live down the street from a Goodwill thrift store that always had a plethora of natty drinkware is key.

But I do have to change the name. Because it is misleading. I originally chose “Mason Jar Shaker” because I’d lost my cocktail shaker and was making all these drinks in empty canning jars. But then I went out and got a new shaker. And I don’t even serve the drinks (that is, to myself) in canning jars, cause how twee is that?

Any suggestions? Best name gets a jar full of delicious infused booze from me*

*Over 21 only. May not be valid if you live somewhere I can’t get to.

**UPDATE: So I went ahead and renamed it without any suggestions. As the above link illustrates, the page is now called “Great Boo’s Up.” If you do not get this reference, you are not nerdy enough. Didn’t think THAT was possible, eh?

On Hotels and Motels

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[Attn: This is a post that I drafted while we were driving across the country to our new life here in LA. You know, like FIVE months ago. But like fine wine or Muppet movies, some things get better the longer you forget that you started them then discover them when you open your blog’s full desktop version for the first time since February. So, ahem…]

This looks legit.

In theory, I like to travel. I do love me a camping trip. However, when vacationing in civilization, the question of accommodation has always been sticky.  The whole hotel room thing gives me the heebie-jeebies, whether it’s the Motel 8 off Route 40 in Amarillo or the W in Manhattan.

No doubt the one end of this spectrum of fear stems back to one childhood vacation with my parents, who were partial to hauling the three of us kids (likely around six, eight, and ten years old, at the time) off on “educational” weekend trips to whatever low-budget colonial reenactment sites and sports halls of fame lay within driving distance. They way I remember it, we would drive until our parents got tired, then crash at the nearest hotel/motel with vacancy. No reservations, no booking websites, no screening reviews. This was the 80s and we were a young family on budget adventures.

One particular trip to Cooperstown or Amish country or whereever, all five of us stayed in one motel room that smelled like a cave and required us to share towels. My brother, already approaching six feet tall at ten years of age, stayed on a perilous wire cot contraption at the foot of the bed my sister and I shared. No one got much sleep and the halls of baseball history or whatever the next day were made claustrophobic with our crankiness. After we came home, it was discovered that we’d picked up scabies from the unwashed linens.

Most of the other family vacations I can remember involve renting cabins or sleeping in tents.

On the other end of the scale, there are the Radisons and Fancygams of the world that employ people just to stand around in case you need to flick a booger or something. Which, though I can see the theoretical appeal, make me very uncomfortable. Luxury hotels and fine dining restaurants feel like traditions founded to cater to folks who had servants at home, so they could enjoy the comforts to which they were accustomed, e.g., having people pick up after you, easy access to swimming pools and masseurs. To me, the modern luxury hotel feels like a trip to Downton Abbey, where you may rent a whole household staff by the night and push them around in a frenzy of fantasy power. You had valet parking as your chauffeurs, bellboys as your footmen, concierges as your  Carsons. Which, in theory, sounds kind of cool, I suppose, but honestly, I’ve always been more comfortable as staff than boss. Having other people in my personal space makes me squeamish, and having people offer to do things I could very easily do myself gives me a vague post-Catholic shame that ruins everything.  I can never, ever stop thinking about all the strangers who came to this VERY ROOM to have “exotic” sex with their spouses or mister/esses, and it grosses me out so much I want to sleep on top of the covers.

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Love vs. Influence

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At our first meeting this term, my workshop instructor, Heidi, told us to come back next week with a list of our “artistic DNA,” ten works of literature that we felt most informed, influenced, or inspired our own work. She had been talking about Jonathan Lethem’s “The Ecstasy of Influence” and the dreaded question of originality. I’m not particularly bothered by whether or not originality is possible; I know what I’m doing has been done, continues to be done, millions of times by people more and less eloquent than I am. I’m not here to compete with them…that’s too hard! Are you kidding? I’m just here to contribute. Nothing wrong with throwing another one on the pile.

The main issue of the assignment was the list: I was going to have to assess my own style and see how it stacks to others’. Which is also hard.
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TransAtlantic 2012

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Not to get too sentimental, but 2011 was a bang-up year for me. Having bade my final farewell to the high-end panhandling industry, I started a school program I’d been speculating on for years. Of course, this also involved going without health insurance for a stretch, massive new debt, and the relentless anxiety of doing what you really want to do (if you fail, you can’t blame apathy!). Altogether, though, a full out improvement.

And now, after a 10-year hiatus, I’m finally leaving the country again. Paradoxically, the fact that I lived in New York for a decade (therefore lacked funds and motivation for travel) helped me make a whole slew of friends who live or work in other countries. So just a hop past the new year, I’m headed to France.  I’ve been boning up on my language skills:

Je ne peut pas avoir des produits laitiers.

…and stocking up on tiny bottles of shampoo. Cheeeyeck.

The biggest irony of the past two years is that, for the entirety of my 20s, I worked respectable 40-hour jobs, had no money, did no traveling, was angsty about it; while as soon as I re-entered the temp/food service/student life, I had better cash flow, produced more & better writing, am taking trips.  Still hogtied with anxiety from time to time, but hey, we all need a familiar ground state to fall back on.

So… if a person was spending two days in Paris, where would y’all suggest she eat and drink?

Life is Ambiguous, Sometimes

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Since I moved in with my very dear and close friend last year, our friendship has become even dearer and closer than ever before. We share the mundane details of our work life, our family and romantic foibles, and our foodstuffs. We came through the anxiety and joy of the 2008 election and a nasty bout of mono that affected both of us and our respective boyfriends at the time,* and have both developed an unhealthy obsession with the kids at Degrassi High.Soo it happens… all the things that come with spending a lot of time with another person. You end up together in a lot of shared photos on social networking sites, you have a constant stream of inside jokes,** and you can often tell what the other person is thinking before she says it.So naturally, the people from my high school who I’ve befriended on Facebook think we are a couple. At least 3 random people have assumed as much on separate occasions. Including one hair styling apprentice who met us both on the street and recruited me to come in as a hair model for a style he needed to practice, whom I didn’t have the heart (or guts) on the day of the appointment to tell he was mistaken. I spent the entire 2 hour appointment spinning yarns about our fab Lesbian life, which was not that different from our fab non-Lesbian life, as it turns out: We both work at non-profit orgs, we met in college and have been living together for two years. I just conveniently left out the part that we both also on occasion have sex with men and not with each other. (I did feel terrible about lying. But got a damn good haircut and gave him a terrific review on Yelp.)

R. is endlessly amused by this, and having given it a lot of thought, I am quite pleased by it. Because it is very heartening to see we can create a functioning adult household as roommates; that our civilization’s fixation on strictly nuclear-family units can be happily subverted and got around. The fact that we are NOT a couple (in the romantic sense, at least) ensures our household chores are shared more equally than any married couple I’ve ever met. So go ahead, world, assume what you will, I will continue to take it as a compliment.

*Though R. did bear the brunt of it while we only had mild cases.
**For instance, R, her boyfriend and myself marauding around as the tricycle of fury.

The Difference Between Drama School and Any Other School, Anywhere

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We are in the thick of graduation season here, hence the long absence. I assure you, blogicide is not about to occur.

Conversation overheard today between two students getting out of the elevator, after the casting for end-of-year plays was posted:

Drama Girl 1: *sniff. sniffle.* (wipes raccoon eyes)
Drama Girl 2: Listen. You should absolutely be upset. Go talk to [the Academic Director]. It is totally acceptable for you to be crying right now!

I think I’ll ask my friends in pursuit of their MBAs if crying is as encouraged at their schools.

Wilder-ness!

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Oh where have you been?? You may, possibly, or probably not been asking. Well I’ll tell you.

There's me head

 

I went to the Grand Canyon. For the second time. With my family. Because we go backpacking every year and my Dad is a bit obsessed with the ol’ Hole in the Ground.

In the spirit of helpfulness, here are my reflections for anyone looking to embark on similar endeavor for the first time.*

In telling a new person about your upcoming backpacking trip, be prepared for their raised eyebrows. I was well into my college years by the time I figured out this was not something normal people did, at least outside of the Boy/Girl Scouts. Regular people go on vacation to lie on a beach, ride roller coasters, take awkward photos in semi-foreign cities or boring historical sites. But my father put the bug into us all very young with the wilderness vacations; 4 days every year in the Adirondacks at 8-10 years old, a week in the White Mountains in Junior High and the grand poobah trips to Yosemite, the Olympics and the Grand Canyon after high school graduation, when we were old enough to know that whining is embarrassing.

Whether you are raised to it, trying it for a lark or to prove our hippie credentials, be prepared for the following questions:

1. You’re not going to shower for 5 days? Like, not at all? (No, but there’s a river…)
2. Aren’t there wild animals out there? (Only ravens. Oh, and rattlesnakes. And maybe grizzly bears…)
3. So are there, like, bathrooms along the trail? (Umm…)

This last question should be handled with utmost delicacy if you are talking to your coworkers or someone you are trying to date. Some camp sites have outhouses. So you might want to tell your acquaintances about the privies and keep the real truth to yourself, so that they don’t carry with them the image of you digging a hole to squat over for the rest of the week.

Herein lies the least glamorous part of the wilderness adventure. The part they leave out of the epic novels you read as a child. Gandalf never, ever turns to the rest of the Fellowship to say “Boromir, can I have the trowel and toilet paper? I knew you were using it last. You guys keep on, I’ll catch up.” Another reason why you might not want to take the trip with people you are trying to impress.

On the flip side, one of the best things about being in nature is it does not matter if you fart, since so many things in nature already smell like fart. Additionally it is nice that you do not need to pay for anything since there are no stores in the wilderness. This is especially true if, like me, you are chronically unable to plan your own vacations and always wind up tagging along with your Dad. Then you may not have to pay for anything from the moment you get off the plane. (Yay for Dads!)

Dehydrated dinners are practical for keeping the weight of your pack downe. When shopping for your food provisions, please remember that while some dishes, like, say “Kathmandu Curry” or “Santa Fe Chicken and Rice” might sound appetizing on the labels, they are likely to rehydrate into “brown mush” or “orange mush (with lentils).” I suggest keeping it simple and staying away from geographically-specific dishes.

On the flip side, oatmeal never tasted so good as when you are ravenous and drinking iodinized river water.

Finally, be aware that without your phone, texting, emails, makeup, mirrors, headphones, tv, annoying strangers or anyone outside of your party to distract you, the truth of your smelly humanity and the real contents of your brain can get right up in your freaking face. And that can be difficult. But ultimately, between the silence and the vastness and the stink, I’m delighted to be there. Very weird.

But then again, nobody said we were normal people.

*Seasoned travelers, feel free to poke holes in my above statements all you want**. This schpiel specifically applies to short-term hiking jaunts in national parks; not sustained backpacking around, say, continents. I’ve actually never ventured to do that, because while I have no problem digging a hole to poo in in the middle of nowhere, I have a chronic fear of public showers, and other people in general.

**…On your own blogs.

Off Limits

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As I have been moved to comment before, my work gives me insight into the private worlds of many self-important and semi-delusional people.The following words are henceforth declared off limits for use as last names/surnames, unless you were un/fortunate enough to be born with one of them:

Love
Faith
Claire
Truth
Lee
Leigh
Leeigh
Lea
Jeremy
Christmas
Hanukkah
Easter
Valentine
Edward
Henry
Stuart
Windsor
Any variation of your middle name
The name of any mythical creature
Any existing surname significantly more boring than your original one. Don’t be a Smith when you can be a Von Dumbcourt. You’ll be much more memorable this way.

And no one–no one–will take you seriously if your name is Trisha Love Christmas.