What Will You Remember?

Going back to Portland always makes me forget where I live. It shouldn't, since I haven't lived there in nearly 20 years, but it does. And in this beautiful place that is not where I live, but simply where I come from, I have to let the memories of the past mingle effortlessly with the present that is unfurling in front of me.

My nostalgia has very little to do with wanting to go back to a specific time because things were "easier." It is not about being coddled, taken care of, or feeling safe. It's not even about fond family memories. What my recent trip up to the Northwest made me realize is that my nostalgia is about color and light, taste and smell--very much the senses themselves.

This is not revelatory to many people, I am sure. But it struck me so hard at 10 pm gazing at the streaks of color in the sky over the coastal range of mountains. It's summer in the Northwest and I was surrounded by family and friends, laughing, drinking, and enjoying the time we had together. No pictures can really capture what makes a few days spent this way. But these things, among many others, remain in mind:

The papery "twinkle" of the wind rustling through plum tree leaves
The moan of fir branches in the wind, as well
The anise aftertaste of 12 Bridges Gin
The hysterical laugh coming from Belle's mouth and the way she says "Yeah" with an incredulous tone
The light at 4:30 a.m. as it turns from blue velvet to pink, orange, and red fingers through the clear sky
The smell of hot, dried out grass next to a wetland along the Willamette River
The hum of my sister's, Tom's, and Ryan's voices coming from inside the house at 1 a.m. as I approach the door, sprinkled liberally with laughter
The feel of the heat at 7 p.m. when the sun seems, still, to be so high in the sky
Freshly brewed coffee and the scent wafting halfway down the block from Stumptown
Jill's hands pounding at the flippers of Sopranos pinball in a darkening bar in North Portland
Amy's loud, generous laugh that sounds the same now as it did 25 years ago, with the same effect of making me laugh, too
The green expanse of my mother's backyard with the gurgle of a fountain punctuating the cool of the evening
The clinking of change into a small bowl as we play cards after a barbecue, still smelling of food and beer, my mom's cigarette smoke blowing in from the background
Susan's heels clicking on the pavement as we leave the club to head for a bar--a determined clicking that I know so very well
The green-blue-gray of the river through the bridge grate as I bike across it
Snowy mountains that look like mirages in the distance
The bookish smell of Powell's
Vegan pumpkin donuts and the gentle disintegration of sugar on my tongue
The view of the city coming back from Vancouver, seen across the Columbia River
The ease of conversation at dinner with only Mom and Jerry
The glare of the sun dipping behind the tallest skyscraper downtown, turning the roof brilliantly silver for just a moment
The forgotten pleasure of lying in the grass, reading, with three other people who don't need to talk.

Self-Discography #11: "Actor" by St. Vincent

"You're a supplement, you're a salve, you're a bandage--pull it off. ... You're a cast on a broken arm, you're an actor out of work, you're a liar and that's the truth. You're an extra lost in the scene."

I've been known to say, "I never said I wasn't a hypocrite." By extension, I like hypocrites intensely. I find them fascinating and somehow slimy and endearing. Annie Clark's world doesn't necessarily seem to be inhabited by hypocrites, but she certainly likes peeling back the layers of carefully applied paint. These songs on her second album arrive in the present, at a moment of flux--one of my trying to figure out how to strip away the superfluous to get to what really matters. They seem to have pointed a big finger at me, pinning my thoughts down and making them squirm. Maybe, I tell myself, I am not enjoying the ugly and the pretty together like I should be. Or am I just waiting for all this good stuff to be fucked up? By me?

There are no cartoon birds helping me get dressed in my sun-dappled boudoir as Clark's sugar-sweet melodies swirl around my head. If they were here, maybe they'd look like her, all wide-eyed and unassuming, before whisper-singing this lyric into my ears:

"Desperate don't look good on you, neither does your virtue. Paint the black hole blacker."

It's delivered like treacle, just before a buzz saw guitar line cuts through it all, fracturing the seemingly perfect picture. Or maybe it's more like the harsh sunlight of a hot Los Angeles morning melting through the celluloid displaying candy-coated colors of a verdant forest, rendering the beautiful ugly (and yet somehow still beautiful).

This is what I feel right now: a sense of displacement; a combination of desire mixed with desperation; panic that there is something burning just under the serene surface. I've always been drawn to these kinds of juxtaposition. I like imagining what kinds of unpleasant things are said by the people who live in a house that is picture-perfect. When I experience this in person--say, a bourgeois couple who can barely control their hatred for each other at a dinner party--I am often offended. But when it's painted, composed, or sung to me, or otherwise framed in some outlet of creative expression, I find myself rapt.

"Let's pour wine in coffee cups, ride around the neighborhood and shine the headlights on houses until all the news is good."

There's the desire of shaking the world out of its somnambulant state to reveal the dolorous. I know it's there, I tell myself. I want to see it. I imagine myself here, in this mostly quaint area dotted with overly expensive houses in which I now live, forcing these people to: not have their money, their religion, their sometimes-holier-than-thou expressions as they walk their children and dogs down my street and don't acknowledge me. Usually, it doesn't bother me, but lately there's this hovering sense of suffocation, like I was put here on accident and someone was waiting to see how long it would take to make me ill-at-ease.

It's one of the problems with Los Angeles, I realize. I can intensely love the train-wreck nature of it, but its beautiful neighborhoods and gorgeous apartments--which can be huge, sport French windows, hardwood floors, and Art Deco flourishes--can drug you and make you forget that where you are choosing to live has no center, no community, no store to walk to, no sense of closeness to anything but the building or car next door. You can stare at this beautiful street lined with grand magnolia trees, watching birds build nests, listening to the rustle of the breeze in palm fronds, and feel like you are missing out. And then you start to hate yourself for feeling that way.

"I'd pay anything to keep my conscience clean. I'm keeping my eye on the exit sign, steady now."

Is it a sign of living somewhere too long? I start to play this game with myself: What would I miss about this city? What can I do without? I do the dance in my head and convince myself, and sometimes others, that I could easily walk away. But it's been 11 years. Who do I know anywhere else I actually want to live? The things that have not been done here will still be undone somewhere else, after all. I listen to older people like my mother spin tales about tax brackets in states I would never want to live in, but I am also old enough now that I actually stop for a moment to debate if the tax codes would really affect me positively.

I still think I am destined to live somewhere more wide open. I miss seeing the land stretch in at least one direction without a house or mini-mall affixed atop it. Whenever that actually happens, I will be able to live with it; it will be to do something that helps affect the land itself. It won't be my dislike of not having a coffee shop to walk to down the street...

Only a few listens in and this album pricks me. It's a nosy friend, an acquaintance who suddenly decides he or she needs to know more, more, more about you. It's a velvet dagger. A friendly gutting. Yet I don't mind. It's been what feels like too long since I've surrendered to new music so quickly. Smart and beautiful. Pretty and ugly. Prodded and probed. I needed a new soundtrack. I also needed to hear someone say this:

"I think I love you. I think I'm mad."

They're both true. And you know who you are.

It's Like Rain on Your Wedding Day....

Oh, wait, that's not ironic.

Especially if you can't get married.

Once again, I am so enraged by the state of California and the entire political process here. I had just spent 4 days in Milwaukee celebrating a friend's great wedding only to come home to learn the CA Supreme Court upheld Prop. 8, which banned gay couples from marrying--even though 18,000 same-sex couples got married before it passed. So now, we have some gay couples legally married and the rest of us are not...? And since when do civil rights get put to a vote?

I am tired of fighting this process. I am tired of being angry. I am tired of bigotry. I am tired of supposed "Christian" groups demanding that other groups follow their philosophy of morality (which is often a lie). I am also, more specifically, tired of the state of California. I am tired of how it passes laws. I am tired of its short-sightedness. It has barely been progressive in the last 10 years. It is now an also-ran: a joke in the making.

I need to rethink why I live here beyond the climate and access to great food.

L.A,/CA Playlist(s)

Since I am about to board a plane to spend five days in Wisconsin, I am taking a little of CA with me. I'd actually thought of compiling songs about Los Angeles and California for some time. I actually had many more than this, but I will save them for another installment.

Tell me about others I should have and include! x-m

Songs About LA and CA Playlist:

Freeway -- Aimee Mann
Trouble In Shangri-La -- Stevie Nicks
Clay Feet -- Kristin Hersh
California -- Low
San Bernardino -- The Mountain Goats
The Californian -- Heidi Berry
Take California -- Propellerheads
California Love -- 2Pac featuring Dr. Dre
Hollywood -- Madonna
California -- Joni Mitchell
It Never Rains In Southern California -- Albert Hammond
I Remember California -- R.E.M.
Golden Ocean -- 50 Foot Wave
Still In Hollywood -- Concrete Blonde
California Dreamin' -- The Mamas and the Papas
California --Amy Correia
Hollywood People -- Judy Henske
In California -- Neko Case

You Mean I Have to Write Something?

Months ago, Barbie very graciously asked me to write a speech for her wedding.

Me being me, I humbly agreed and then twirled ideas around in my head almost like how someone would wind hair around their finger. I was gonna write this... no, that! Perfect! No, wait, what if I did this!? Even better! And so on, and so on, and so on.

Of course, now it's mid-May, Mercury is in retrograde, and I am still piecing together fragments of sentences--which are now like broken or split ends that have snapped off due to overaggressive twirling.

Note to self: Do not twirl ideas anymore.

It's not that I am afraid I'll have nothing to say. Everyone who knows me, knows that the only time I have nothing to say is when I am incredibly angry. It's just that there's this jumble of words in my head and it kinda feels like I have to push a wasps' nest through my fingers to get them out.

OK, fine, I kind of lied: The real issue is responsibility. People have to listen to me talk about Barbie and Chad for five minutes. They have to not yawn. Or hear cliches. Or listen to me do a walk down memory lane. Or wonder how I know some mythical Barbie and Chad they don't know. And--what matters most to me--it has to do both Barbie and Chad justice. This is their wedding, after all. The last thing I want them remembering when they are on the dance floor is that I gave some awkward speech about... say.... "trust," complete with an over-the-top performance art moment of me grasping my hands together, as if in desperation to connect with the audience. (For the record: I would never give a speech about trust. Or forgiveness. Or constancy.)

The ironic part of all of this is that I love the puzzle of it. How do these ideas connect or bond? How do they break apart? What doesn't belong here? Is this funny? Does this even make sense? There's a structure and a flow to the creative process that keeps me in awe. Even when I know the basic premise I am writing about (which I do in this case, thank you!), there are still so many directions it can travel.

With that twirling of ideas done, I can concentrate on making sure what I say matters to them--that it resonates beyond a simple declaration of sharing their happiness. I may not successfully avoid all of the cliches, but I am feeling more confident that what I have brewing on the page will not cause any awkward reflections on the dance floor. And if it does? Well, that's why there's alcohol.

Self-Discography #10: "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" by Sinéad O'Connor

I am driving the freeways in, out, and around Portland at 1 a.m. on a blissfully warm night in the spring of 1990. My hand is balanced on the window, cigarette burning like a beacon, me mentally willing it to attract someone, anyone who feels as utterly fucked up as I do at the moment.

I head north on the I-5 almost until I hit the Columbia River, exit and re-enter the freeway to head south, cross over the Fremont bridge, zoom past downtown and loop over the Willamette River, north again to I-84 to head east, out of the city. I will smoke more, and glance at the burning paper and tobacco, and I will let the tape of Sinéad O'Connor's "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" flip over in the Ford Maverick's car stereo--the music slightly distorted by hiss and static caused by a faulty speaker.

I am not even sure how I am staying in the lanes at 65 miles an hour. I feel like I want to take my hands off the wheel and let the car explode off the asphalt, sail past the railings of a high bridge, explode into flames. But I can't will myself to do it. I can only sing along to what I am hearing and mentally plan my escape to California for the summer to live with my sister and her friends--a move, I tell myself, that will at least temporarily end feeling as I do now.

Nothing Compares 2 U

It was a moment made possible by an event some three months prior. I'd gotten home late from work at the movie theater and was in the basement watching "120 minutes" on MTV when the station premiered the video for "Nothing Compares 2 U." So ubiquitous now, nearly 20 years later, it's hard to recall the gut punch of watching Sinéad O'Connor's face in extreme close up as she transformed a mediocre Prince song into a flat-out lovelorn dirge. What's not difficult to remember, however, is the mental connection I made at that moment to the song and the album, which I bought two weeks later.

It was March of 1990 and I was 16 years old. I was in a relationship with a girl who was undoubtedly one of my best friends and should have only been a friend. I knew what I wanted more than anything was to have a boyfriend instead, and hated myself for the lie I was perpetuating. I was stuck living at home, fighting with my mother. And I felt trapped in an endless cycle of being afraid to hurt anyone, while willingly hating myself for all that I seemed unable to say, let alone do. My father had only been dead for four years. I was barely past the stage of being suicidal. I had, in many ways, changed my life more completely than I thought was possible for my age.

And in sweeps a nearly bald young woman who may very well have a nervous breakdown on camera in front of me, simultaneously vulnerable and steely--angry, maybe a tad angsty, and, yeah, sad: the one thing I was terribly afraid to admit that I was.

Feel So Different

Putting the tape on for the first time after I bought it, however, I was a bit taken aback by the overall tone of the album. "Nothing Compares 2 U" had been nothing in comparison to some of these other songs. And for maybe the first time, I had the thrill of recognition ... the distinct feeling that there was a reason I was hearing these songs now.

"I started off with many friends. We spent a long time talking. I thought they meant every word they said. Like everyone else, they were stalling. And now they seem so different."

Delivered in the middle of "Feel So Different," these words formed the jumping off point for me. Shedding my upbringing by going to school across town, having to consciously shed everything I'd learned in order to become different--to escape.

"I should have hatred for you, but I do not have any. And I have always loved you. Oh, you have taught me plenty. The whole time, I'd never seen all you had spread before me. The whole time, I'd never seen all I need was inside me. Now I feel so different."

Only five minutes into this album and I heard only words about leaving my childhood behind and acknowledging that the death of a parent had irrevocably changed me--made me something that I felt was somehow more purposeful, more acutely aware of the world around me than so many others my age.

I Am Stretched on Your Grave

If that wasn't enough, then the simple words "I am stretched on your grave" would drive it home. But drive it home in an audacious manner--a James Brown beat married to an Irish poem, topped by a Gaelic fiddle swirling into the night. I would join Susan later in the year at The City nightclub, upstairs in the so-called "goth section" to perform a mock Irish jig to the outro of this song. If anything, though, it told me of what would be possible if I stopped listening to what people told me I should do. It also made it OK again to cry about this death that I still felt. I could turn it into some kind of modern noir. Really, it was grieving. But grieving could have its own audacity that I had not known was possible.

The Emperor's New Clothes

I could never know what it must have been like to be 22 years old with a baby to deal with while the world started to know who I was. But I knew the feeling of being unable to grasp exactly what I wanted while, at the same time, being convinced that there had to be a way to get through this on my own terms.

"How could I possibly know what I want when I was only 21? There's millions of people to offer advice and say how I should be. But they are twisted and they will never be any influence on me."

"I will live by my own policies. I will sleep with a clear conscience, I will sleep in peace. Maybe it sounds mean, but I really don't think so."

When can I finally say, "I am gay"? When will I know how to sleep through the night? When will I no longer feel like I am not doing enough? I want the clarity to say, "This is how it is. This is who I am." But it's funny how having almost no money of your own, an alcoholic mother, a dead father, and a year of high school left will make you keep your mouth closed, even when you dream of opening it every day.

You Cause as Much Sorrow

"I'm full of good intentions, like I never was before. It's too late for prevention, but I don't think it's too late for the cure."

This is the song I listened to so much during my late-night drives. The escapades that killed half my gas tank and made me run out of cigarettes, driving me home to have to face the mausoleum quality of my bedroom. Which left me too alone again with my thoughts. I hated what the song tried to impart to me--namely the entwined feeling of hating my father for dying and leaving me alone in this empty house with my mother, while also realizing that if it hadn't happened, maybe I would not be be turning into the person I was becoming:

"I never said I was tough. That was everyone else. So you're a fool to attack me, for the image that you built yourself. It just sounds more vicious than I actually mean. I really am soft--yes, tender and sweet. ... Why must you always be around? Why can't you just leave me be? You've done nothing so far but destroy my life. You cause as much sorrow dead as you did when you were alive."

This chorus would inevitably make me cry in my car. But I was never really sure if I was simply feeling sorry for myself or trying to make sense of too many things at once. And I am still not sure now. If I listen to it on the right night while driving the looping Los Angeles freeway system, it still brings tears to my eyes and I have to blast the song, roll down all the windows and scream it into the wind, letting it rob the words of any strength beyond this metal cocoon.

The Last Day of Our Acquaintance

Is this the end of a love relationship, a friendship, or is it simply the exodus of my sister and brother from the house we grew up in?

And how do I tell a girl who has been so amazing to me, who's been intimately aware of all the fucked up shit in my life and helped me wade through it, that there's something not right? How dare I do that to someone like her? It was all I could think. I was sometimes the protagonist in this song, and sometimes the object about whom it was written. The duality cut deeply. "I know you don't love me anymore. You used to hold my hand when the plane took off. Two years ago there just seemed so much more. And I don't know what happened to our love."

And yet, I did know.

Just like I had to admit that I was angry at a dead man for leaving me behind, I had to admit that I knew that the warmth of friendship and love I felt for this person had absolutely nothing to do with carnal desire and it was neither of our faults for the fact that I had no way of expressing it until now.

I would move to California in a matter of weeks and kiss my first boyfriend and understand the exquisite burn of stubble against my face. I would know that I had to figure out how to come to terms with this and how to talk about myself to others.
Right now, however, all I had was the feeling of loss, and the feeling that I was the bad guy, even though I didn't want to be.


I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

I didn't know it was possible to even utter these words.

And on the album, this song sounds like one big exhale... a breath and prayer released simultaneously. I rarely listened to it all the way through. But when I did, I saw myself on the road, still. It would be dark. I would be on the highway, driving fast enough to catch the coolness of the breeze in the summer darkness. I would be leaving all of this uncertainty, heartbreak, and anger behind. I would be sure of what I was doing.

Of course, it wouldn't exactly be true. But, a year later, I would, indeed, drive the highways across the country, leaving Portland--and one spent cassette of this album--behind me. I would still drive with a cigarette between my fingers like a glowing beacon of sorts. I would not be sure of what I was doing next. There would be deliberateness about it, though. I would feel like I had no choice; it would be purpose unto itself.

That was all that mattered.

Questions You Find You Are Asking Yourself on April 9th

Now that the Los Angeles Times has written about Glass Beach, how can I go there?

Wait, how can I not go there?

And what is it I like so much about sea glass, anyway?

Now that everyone else is growing a beard, should I just shave mine off?

Why can't I find that Lisa Germano album on vinyl anywhere?

I'm not going to have waves of wrinkled skin on my back when I'm old, am I?

Am I!?

What's with this inability to get back to work on the book, let alone this blog?

Do I need another snack?

Should I go get more water?

Does the full moon really have any effect on me?

Should I be thankful so many musicians I like aren't popular, even if it means they can barely feed themselves?

When will the lambs stop screaming?

Have you ever watched animals make love, Frank?

When can I have a yard to grow vegetables in?

Do I rent the house in July or save for the trip in September?

When can I have a drink?

The "Which Punctuation Mark Are You?" Quiz

Did you like the use of punctuation marks in the title of this post?

If so, you are the perfect candidate for this test.

Ignore those lame Facebook "Which Painting Are You?" and "Where Should You Live?" quizzes. This quiz is the one that will tell you more about yourself than you ever imagined.

All you need to do is answer these seven simple questions, send me your responses (or post them in the comments section, and,as time permits, I will tell you what punctuation mark you are and why it matters. (All responses done on a time-available basis; I ain't gettin' paid, you know.)

But enough chit-chat, let's begin:

1. When people say "like" all the time, it:

a) Doesn't bother you that often
b) Drives you crazy
c) Makes you realize that this is now just part of how we speak
d) Is not something you have ever noticed

2. You are assigned the task of writing a paragraph that includes small bits of information about many different things. You:

a) Create a list of all of the things that need to be included as a "cheat."
b) Make it into two or three paragraphs, because you know there is no way you can get the point across in one.
c) Write it in two different ways and give it to the person who assigned it to see which one she/he prefers.
d) Question the person who assigned it as to whether this is the smartest way to convey all of this information.

3. You believe that social gatherings at your house should consist of:

a) Close friends only
b) Friends and family
c) The more the merrier
d) You are not that big on entertaining

4. You are a big believer in:

a) Keeping things short and sweet
b) Passionately expressing yourself
c) Never ending a sentence with a preposition
d) Quietly doing what needs to be done

5. Your opinion on learning a foreign language is:

a) Everyone should learn one
b) You don't really see the need
c) Learn as many as you can and as early as you can
d) That you'll learn one eventually, when you have more time

6. You prefer to read:

a) Newspapers
b) Magazines
c) Gossip Web sites
d) Books

7. The sentence "Joe likes to chew gum, ride his bike, collect stamps, and, especially, peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwiches" is:

a) A tad awkward but could easily be made more clear
b) A jumbled mess
c) Perfect
d) Better off as four different sentences

And Now for a Special Announcement About This Morning

I thought about really explaining this more in detail, but, you know, when this much happens before you even manage to make it to work, then you know the day's tone is set.

Below are excerpts from a quick chat with Chrissy after the adventures:


Mikel
I have had the craziest f'ing morning

Christina
what happened?
do tell

Mikel
dentist appt. The novocaine shot in my upper lip made my left eye cry uncontrollably... then I left my coffee mug on my car and drove off, so coffee went everywhere on my car, prompting me to get a car wash, at which point I was surrounded by INSANE people, including a 70-year-old woman in a pencil skirt and bondage heels with stringy, dyed black hair that was kind of in a bun who was hobbling around the gas station snack shop.

Christina
are you kidding?

Mikel
no

Christina
you couldn't be

Mikel
There's MORE
but I'll spare you

Christina
my favorite part is that it made your left eye cry
DON'T SPARE ME
I live for this shit

Mikel
Um...OK, the other people at the car wash were a publicist woman for some film studio who was yelling at a co-worker on speaker phone and who had way to many collagen injections. She kept coming over near me to look at the free mags on the rack I was near-you know, like "Apartment Living"-all while yelling...until I finally said loudly "AM I IN YOUR WAY?" and she ignored me and walked away.
THEN...

Christina
HA

Mikel
A guy with custom-made shoes kept trying to sit near me. Why were they custom made you ask...? Well, that's because his left foot was HUGE and DEFORMED like the Elephant Man's, so the shoes matched, but one was 3 times larger. AND he was busy arranging all the birthday cards he'd just bought inside the snack shop.


It's not even 11 am yet. What, pray tell, is next?

Self-Discography #9: "Sky Motel" by Kristin Hersh

I moved west with no real plan. Oh, sure, it may have seemed like it to untrained observers, but August 1998 was perhaps the one month of my life where I freely gave myself up to the unknown.

I'd left New York with Nicole in a rented Penske truck, leaving behind me a dirty city crammed with my low-paying jobs that barely afforded me a living, beautiful Brooklyn street scenes, and a dissolved relationship I mourned because it seemed so unfair that it had come into my life at the wrong time.

Before I'd left New York, I'd had a consultation with an astrologer, with whom I'd worked on a book that would be published by my old employer. She was delightful, honest, and funny--and not at all crazy-sounding, which seemed a nice bonus at the time. She read my chart for me, setting the stage, she said, for the transformative things that would come in the next year of my life. At the time I thought it was amusing and I took the predictions and stuffed them in a box, threw that box in the Penske truck, and sped far far away from the East Coast....

...and nine months later opened the box when suddenly everything seemed to be going far too well.

At the time I chalked it up to simple things like living in the California sunshine, to quitting smoking, and having my own apartment--not to mention meeting a man whom I suspiciously liked for all the right reasons. But suddenly I had to reconsider whether planetary alignment had anything to do with it.

At this moment came this album by an artist whose work I'd loved for years already. It was, as Kristin Hersh said at the time, her "desert album." She'd moved to the high desert of Southern California after the dissolution of her band Throwing Muses. And from some of her time there, this idiosyncratic collection was born. And with the luck of timing, it had been recorded the month I moved west. And released in June 1999, the month I had to reconsider whether astrology played any role in my feeling wonderful for the first time in far too long.

It may have been Hersh's desert album, but "Sky Motel" was also my "I Heart California" moment--bright and shiny, poppy yet off-kilter, simultaneously challenging and defiant. Here were a collection of songs that not only created an atmosphere around me, but also seemed to burrow directly into my brain, highlighting the contradictions inherent in the choices I'd made and my fascination with this beautiful train wreck of a place in which I now found myself living:

"I never bitched at anyone. I never asked for my heart back. I'm loving everybody. And hating everyone I see."
The album's opening song, "Echo," includes these lyrics. I wanted the first half to be true. I used to wish that I was stoic. And here I was, about to give my heart away to a man after swearing I wouldn't. The contradiction of the second part mirrored how I felt about the people here at first--a motley crew of some of the most intelligent individuals I'd ever met, mixed with some of the most intensely vain and neurotic. I couldn't help but love and hate equally. But the love for strangers was a new sensation.

"10,000 miles of moonscape don't keep anybody away, after all."
You can move as far away as you like, but the problems are still going to crawl up out of the ground to get you. Right? Or is it that all the people you think you left behind still know how to find you in this alien landscape? Oh. Both.

"I would love a better drug. You lucky jerk."
I found myself staring at an attractive man at a party in June. Too smart for his own good, sharp witted, well-dressed, seemingly 100% together. Why the hell was he interested in me. I couldn't make myself feel better....yet. I kind of hated how great I found him. I didn't know he'd actually stick around because he saw I was a lucky jerk, too.

"This strange old sunshine beats me senseless, but it's supposed to be keeping me healthy...it's a lie. You're a strange old thing that keeps me senseless, but you're supposed to be keeping me company."
Living in New York felt, often, like living in the dark and fighting with Mother Nature. Suddenly freed from that contact, I found myself thinking, "Does it ever rain here? If it doesn't, how can anyone feel anything authentically?" But then... maybe... "If it doesn't rain, you never have to hide yourself away inside. You never have to miss out on anything."

"You have to look close to see what this disease has done to me."
There was something about my move that made me felt like a fugitive. No one here had to know anything about the last year of my life. No one had to know that I'd mangled my foot, that I'd consumed hideous Chinese herbs in an attempt to clear up some "skin condition" clearly brought on by stress. I had no heart-shredding breakup behind me. I didn't have to explain a phone call from my mother on a rainy spring day telling me my 20-year-old stepsister was dead. I could be anything I wanted to be. My history could be what I wanted. It was a necessary play acting for just a little while, just until I could finally stand on my own two feet again.

"Faithful to the finish, I'm grateful to be in this with you. A fucker of lifeline. A mother of a lifetime with you."
I'd wanted to shake off any number of relationships in my lifetime. But now here I was, fiercely protective of what I had in front of me. A developing relationship with a man that felt, maybe for the first time ever, like one that mattered. Re-establishing my strong friendship with my sister, which survived me sleeping on her floor for four months. Enjoying the time spent with my old friends in a place that seemed to encourage it. This song builds to a cathartic release at this moment with these lyrics--screamed/sung assured clarity. I could never have said it better myself.

"Tonight your secret's safe with me. Tomorrow we wake up in L.A. Such a lovely dream. What a lovely place."
Driving back into L.A. from a day spent in the Valley with my friend Owen, gliding and zigzagging through Laurel Canyon, a hot breeze blowing from no specific direction, the golden lights of the city unfurling below us as we speed down Crescent Heights. It's a place where you simply dream, isn't it? You can make yourself into anything, but it's still some version of you. I think I'm gonna like it here.

Mexico Hangover

Back in January, newly arrived back to the so-called real world after vacation, I thought about completing an epic blog post with over 50 different photos from Mexico, but you know what? No.

I posted a slew of photos instead on my Flickr page. And now I find myself looking at that page every other day. I've had a pretty rough re-entry to day-to-day life, work, and the like.

As I have gotten older, I have fewer problems completely disconnecting when I go on vacation. It's a function of having a sane job. It's also a function of the fact that I finally feel OK in saying, "I deserve this." I saved my money to make this trip happen and I wanted nothing to interfere with my time away. Maybe it's a tad dogmatic, but it also makes me enjoy myself that much more. Ryan and I made reservations months ago, so to finally land in Mexico felt like the reward for 6 months of hard work.

Needless to say, I loved nearly every day we were in Mexico. Tulum, in particular, was wonderful because it's a real town where locals actually mix with tourists--where hotels are cabanas on the beach and where the food was pretty amazing. Playa del Carmen was more touristy, Isla Mujeres more urban feeling than I anticipated. Plus, Ryan was deathly ill the last 36 hours we were there. By the time we managed to get across the water to Cancun, made it to the airport, and flew home, we were both wasted in vastly different ways.

There's something about pretending your day-to-day life doesn't exist. Especially when you escape it near some of the most beautiful beaches and historic ruins in the world. You romanticize your existence in this foreign place. You want anything that was unfinished or unclear when you left to be finished and clear. Which makes returning to "reality" a harsh slap. For the better part of two weeks, I resented being home in L.A.
Getting sick after coming back didn't help.

And for the first week or so, I gave myself the room to mourn something as seemingly innocuous as the end of a vacation. Now, however, I see from looking at a picture of my feet framed with palm trees and an insanely azure ocean, the point is not necessarily to forget your day-to-day life, but become aware of how to transform it.

It doesn't necessarily mean that I don't sigh heavily looking at a shot like this:



But I do understand myself a little better now. And I hadn't really thought that was possible.

First Impression

First full day in Tulum, Mexico: January 18, 2009.
Pretty much says it all. But more to come soon.

When the Chaos Stops, Then What?

There's no real "chaos" in a negative sense happening, mind you... It's just been an incredibly full and busy few weeks and now, two days before Ryan and I board a flight to the Yucatan Peninsula. I am still in total denial about that.

As with most people, I've been feeling the financial crunch here in the first month of 2009 in acute ways: cutbacks at work, a new workload that is challenging me in several ways (many of them interesting, if a bit daunting), and the overlying hope that business will pick up to make sure that, moving forward, the job will still be here. It's a weird time, to be sure, but I also try to remain optimistic. My job of editing, assigning, thinking, reading, researching, and synthesizing information of all stripes is something that can sometimes feel futile and like it exists in a vacuum, but I've been learning that it is actually having an impact. Which is lovely.

Now to make sure I do that outside of work, as well. I was reading Rick's New Year blog a while back and wanted to just paste his words here because they resonated deeply with me... It's a year in which I, too, want to keep putting my creative work out there and seeing what happens. I've been avoiding jumping into anything that might possibly attach commerce and bureaucracy to my writing. But I am also ready to share that writing with more people. And I'm 35. (Wow, I accidentally just typed "25"; what does that say?)If I don't do this now, will I just continue to wait for "the world" to change. It's not like I ever thought I'd get rich off my writing. If I know that, why don't I look for ways to share it? I can't still be harboring a giant fear of rejection, can I?

Don't answer that. I know the answer already.

These are just some of the thoughts that swirl around me as I enjoy my week with Lissa and Tom, who are visiting from Portland; look for a house to rent for Ryan's birthday next month; get back into trapeze after three weeks off; scramble to finish work assignments; and pack my bags to leave for Mexico on Saturday at 8 a.m.--a trip that's been planned for 7 months now. (It's been a while since I traveled anywhere where you actually have to be careful of the water and/or people speak another language. Then again, I know how to say "Donde estan los banos?" so I think I am OK. And I am missing the inauguration, for which I already love Mexico.)

I am actually taking a notebook with me for a change. So instead of visualizing stories and structures in my head, I will try to "re-learn" how to brainstorm some ideas. It shouldn't be arduous. And I shouldn't be scared of succeeding. After all, imagine what would be possible if I did?

Pics from Mexico to come at the end of the month. Happy 2009.

Self-Discography #8: Moments of 2008

Jennifer O'Connor
"Here With Me" (album)
A summer sunset, with fall fast on its heels. Driving in the morning listening to the spooky strums of "Valley Road '86" and having the CD get stuck (and remain stuck) in my car CD player. Hearing "Always in Your Mind" on a road trip in Indiana and thinking how lucky I really am--to be this age and this self-aware. It's a deceptive album, one full of so many small epiphanies. Underrated and understated. I like an underdog.


Department of Eagles
"No One Does It Like You" (track from "In Ear Park")
Like gothic Beach Boys infiltrating a too-hot Los Angeles September and October... during which I lay in bed sweating, hearing this loop through my head over and over. It conjured for me New York City summers with no air conditioning, when I'd walk through Brooklyn with headphones on, searching for a cool breeze, mystified to find myself living in this place. That same sense of wonder followed me 10 years later to this song, here, on the other side of the continent.


Bon Iver
"For Emma, Forever Ago" (album)
A critical darling whom, for once, I totally adored. "Skinny Love" made me sob in my car when I first heard it last spring. It'd been years since a song had moved me so much on first listen. The rest of the album unspooled around me, hovering somewhere between grace and nostalgia. It's music made by someone shattered and made to pick up the pieces of himself. I know that feeling.


Robyn
"Robyn" (album)
How many pop "divas" released albums in 2008? Almost all of them. This is the only one that mattered. Perfectly made morsels of songs lined up on a tray for the taking. If only I'd actually been able to dance to this all summer long...


TV on the Radio
"DLZ" (track from "Dear Science")
A moody, masterful track from a moody, masterful album. The first line here: "Congratulations on the mess you made of things." The sentiment seemed to me to be about the country, the upcoming election, the sheer exhaustion and frustration permeating everything this year, as well as a resilience.


Cyndi Lauper
"Into the Nightlife," "Echo," and "Rocking Chair" (tracks from "Bring Ya to the Brink")
These may be the gayest songs of the year (sorry, B-52s comeback.) To that end, they were also moments of solace during a volatile time. It wasn't always so easy to be gay in 2008 (um, hello...equal rights?), but that's exactly why music like this exists.


Portishead
"Third" (album)
In 1994 I drove through a frigid Midwestern winter with Barbie listening to Portishead's debut, "Dummy." I never thought that 14 years later this same band would still raise the hairs on my arms. I wanted, for a brief moment, to drive through North Dakota in February again when I heard this. Instead, I put "Machine Gun" and "The Rip" on loud during every single trip to the elliptical. Oh, how the times change.


Fleet Foxes
“White Winter Hymnal” (track from "Fleet Foxes")
The week before Christmas. I am watching Ryan wrap lights on the tree, suspended for just a moment, musically framed by this gorgeous song exploding from a simple a capella round. It's nice to feel my heart capable of swelling again.


School of Seven Bells
"Alpinisms" (album)
This year, I discovered there must be a bit of Pacific Northwest hippie in me. That, and I clearly still miss the Cocteau Twins and shoegazers. It's nice to be surprised, and nicer still to hear music that seems as if it's not rooted to anything else.


Santogold
"Santogold" (album)
December: Driving the 101 in the gloomy drizzle, tracking the green-blue Pacific Ocean on my left as we head north, daydreaming of the spring, the hot sand and warm water at the beach, of being just a little bit drunk on a hot night, hanging out with friends, not giving a shit about what tomorrow brings. It's all rolled into one thing--a mish-mash of moments, just like the mixture of musical styles spread out here.


Beyonce
"Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" (track from "I Am...Sasha Fierce")
What other song could end the year with a perfectly choreographed dance number? If I had a hairbrush to sing into, you best believe I'd use it. Note to self about things to buy in 2009.

There Is No "I" in "Bunny": M & K's Adventure at The Bunny Museum

I take some responsibility. I'll admit that from the get-go. Kathleen, however, is also to blame. Oh, sure, I came up with the idea, and, instead of surprising her with it, I made the gracious move of warning her ahead of time. But--and here's the crucial thing--she confirmed that she wanted to go. In fact, she emphatically declared her desire in all capital letters in an e-mail. And thus our fate was sealed.

Those who know about the Bunny Museum in Pasadena will look at you and laugh the minute you tell them you are going. If they have no idea what you are talking about, they just say the words "the" ... "bunny" ..."museum?" slowly, perplexed, and with a sense of wonder.

Kathleen, you see, had never been to Los Angeles. And she collects cool vintage bunny things. She's not crazy lady about it. We're talking a few figurines and salt and pepper shakers. And I refuse to simply take people who have never been to L.A. to Venice, Hollywood, Disneyland, etc., so I thought the Bunny Museum would be...well, memorable.

Pulling up to the house in a quiet residential neighborhood, there's really not much to tell you where you are, until, of course, you see the topiary (which I made K pose with):



"Cute," I thought at first, as we walked up the walkway toward the private home that is apparently, if you believe its operators, a "living museum." What that meant, we soon discovered, was that the couple who owns the museum actually lives in it, surrounded by 23,000 bunny, um...things. But first we were greeted by a woman with bleach blond hair that was possibly crimped and then pinned back and up. Her name was Candace and she could have been any number of ages. She asked me to drop my bag into a chest on the front porch decorated with pastoral bunnies in a field; this was to keep it from hitting and knocking over things inside. So far, so good. I grabbed the camera and followed Kathleen and Candace inside...

...and immediately felt claustrophobic as we had to shuffle down a narrow hallway created by shelves crammed full of every bunny knickknack, stuffed bunny, dead-eyed statuary bunnies, etc. imaginable. But before we could even really begin to take in the nature of our strange, new surroundings and assess how the living room was actually divided into three different viewing spaces, Candace insisted we have pictures taken in the TV room, which was the only room that had a defined, clear space in it. (I later discovered that my camera had the wrong flash on, so the pictures are blurry, but they do more accurately show what it felt like to be there.) After the first image, Candace backed up further and asked K and I to make bunny ears behind each others' heads. We felt we had no choice as we whispered to each other, "Is this where they watch TV every night?":





Awkward posing over, Candace ushered us into the dining room, which sat between the living room and the TV room. This was the nerve center of the Bunny Museum, as it held the gigantic table that bore the name of the museum, the requisite bunny image, and was surrounded by some of the most precious bunny figurines Candace and her husband owned--not to mention a collection of old pet bunnies that had been taxidermied and freeze dried after they died and put in a curio cabinet. I think K was close to laughing hysterically already:



Candace told us the story of how she and her husband started the museum by giving each other respective bunny love tokens--a stuffed, plush rabbit and a porcelain (?) figurine respectively. And soon that bunny love grew big, with the couple now giving each other a bunny a day. Now I began to shut down, but instead of going mute, my PR training kicked in and I began to ask questions, such as:

Me: "So, what's the oldest piece you have?"

Candace: "Oh, we have rabbits from every century, all the way back to 100 A.D. Of course, we don't keep something that valuable here in the house. We keep that in a safety deposit box."

Me: "Oh, well, that totally makes sense."

What had happened to me?! I'll tell you what happened to me. It was seeing the kitchen, which, like every other room, was overflowing with...things--including boxes of cereal and other food items with bunnies on their labels, haphazardly strewn about and stacked on top of every open surface. The kitchen also exhibited the signs of stress this living museum must be under, as the ceiling seemed to be caving in, with pinatas hiding some of it:





Granted, there were cute bunnies to be found amid the chaos of so many other arbitrarily chosen items, such as the yellow cookie jar here:



But I didn't muster the right mix of chutzpah and gumption to photograph the small pantry, in which three live rabbits scattered when you came near them and, when you looked up, you saw insulation dripping out of a hole in the ceiling.

Seeing a door that led to the backyard, I practically lunged for it and Kathleen and I stepped cautiously out into the driveway, where a curious mixture of rabbit paraphernalia awaited us. First, it was impossible to miss the odd, maybe rotting (?) bunnies that transfixed us (see image at top of this post and below):




Were they from a carnival? Were they papier mache? Candace appeared at the back door with a basket of chalk:

Her: "Do you feel like big kids? Do you want to draw some bunny pictures?" (Shakes basket of chalk at us)

Me: "Um, no thanks. Um....what are these?"

Her: "Oh! Those are from past Rose Parades! Aren't they something?"

Us: (nodding)

Her: "Out here is where we also put our broken bunnies." (Sad face.) "You know, of course, things break from time to time, so this is where they go."

So...we were in the bunny graveyard. And sure enough, as we walked a bit of the way down the driveway, we were greeted by an array of odd(er) sights, including in one place, a pile of plastic eggs that were just kind of heaped up against the house for no real reason:



Then there was the broken-eared bunny, which looked like it may be beseeching us to smash it to smithereens so as to put it out of its odd misery--not to mention the series of 3-foot tall stuffed rabbits that looked like maybe someone had tried to decapitate them:





Backing slowly down the driveway toward the back yard, we found little else to entertain us, save this nifty little sign that (at this point) did NOT seem creepy AT ALL:



But as we climbed into the yard, which was littered with stacked debris (was that a door?) in the back, we could go no further, due to the power lines that drooped down through a tree, and effectively stopped you from making a loop through the yard.

Kathleen: "Oh. Um. I guess we shouldn't go that way."

Me: "Well, it's either kill ourselves by walking this way or be killed back inside."

And you know what? We chose to go back inside. Because the piece de resistance was, indeed, the living room, which featured all kinds of bunnies from all over the world:





If you happen to notice a roll of paper towels in the first photo, well... that's because K and I were not the only ones there. Oh, no. Two house cleaners were also trapped, I mean, stationed, inside... carefully dusting and cleaning hundreds upon hundreds of figurines, trinkets, oddities, and so on. While later it would cause Kathleen and I to create whole short stories in our heads told from their points of view--including details such as they could no longer have sex with a boyfriend unless he dressed as a rabbit first--at the time we simply stepped around them, politely saying, "Oh, excuse me."

In the living room, though, we did find a few of our fave things in the entire house. Sadly, the skiing bunny is fuzzy:





But after 30 minutes, I'd really, seriously started to feel like I was in that basement in "Silence of the Lambs," except..you know... filled with bunnies. I was almost ushering Kathleen toward the door, but not before making her pose with something else that looked somewhat psychotic:



And that's when Kathleen made her fatal mistake. She let slip as we were saying goodbye to Candace that she, too, collects bunny salt and pepper shakers. There was a small glint in Candace's eyes (As K said later, "I think I detected a hint of competition"):

Her: "Well, have you seen all the salt and pepper shakers?"

Me: "Um..."

K: "Yeah...I think so."

Candace: "Oh, you HAVE to come see them and get pictures!"

And off we went...back into the dining room, where our tale began, near the freeze-dried pets, and I took photos of the admittedly impressive cabinet of shakers:





Sated, Candace asked if we cared to purchase anything from the small gift rack in the corner, which included her new book, the subtitle of which alluded to living in a "post-apocalyptic world." Fidgeting now, I subtly moved toward the door again, and Kathleen grabbed a few postcards. But instead of simply handing over the $2, Candace instructed her to insert the folded dollar bills one at a time into the slit (what looked like a gash or stab wound) in the back of a purple, fat, plush bunny wearing a shirt that said "Bunny Money" (SORRY: NO PICTURES. MY BRAIN SHATTERED AS I WATCHED THIS.) But you couldn't simply insert a dollar. No, you had to then use a letter opener to forcibly thrust the dollar into the rabbit's back gash, so you could trigger the mechanism inside that made it laugh like a crazed hyaena and vibrate.

Really.

And Kathleen didn't have the best hand at making this happen.

And then she had to do it again.

It was the longest payment process I'd ever witnessed.

And yet, I wouldn't trade it, for as we thanked Candace and left, we felt like we had truly shared something significant that had bonded us yet again. This was, after all, a cultural landmark...honored by the Guinness Book of Records, the city of Pasadena, and countless others. And now, we, too, had been inside.

We didn't say much as we descended the steps to the sidewalk and back to the car. Even now I think I've not done the museum justice. But Kathleen still has her own story to tell--somewhere, sometime--I am sure.

Self-Discography #7 "Book of Love" by Book of Love

Sometimes the most innocuous music becomes the most enduring. I didn't know this to be true when I first heard Book of Love. But their now-22-year-old debut album still imparts to me small moments and vignettes of only happiness.

Seemingly manufactured purely for the sake of dance-club hits, Book of Love is hardly the kind of band I thought I'd still listen to in my approaching middle age. I first heard them when I was living in Southern California during the summer of 1990. My first boyfriend was a fan who introduced me to their mix of clever pop songs frosted with drum machines, hand claps, bells, and probably three different kinds of keyboards. The brilliant "Boy, in particular, was a revelation simply because of the disaffected voice (Susan Ottaviano) recounting how she is denied entry to a gay bar and can't play with all the other boys. Her tone--balanced somewhere between dismissive and wistful--was unlike anything I'd heard on Top 40 radio. Learning that two of the band members were gay was not exactly a revelation, but it made them feel that much more important.

And that encapsulates their paradox: On the surface they were shiny, twee, forgettable pap. But the music was also more melodic, yearning, and--dare I say it?--soulful. The jubilant yet distanced tone permeates the eponymous debut, beginning with the nearly effervescent "Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes)." Ostensibly a love song about looking into someone's eyes and being lost in them--you know, the usual that was already done by, say, Debbie Gibson--the title name checks a prominent 20th-century Italian painter who was known for his mystical, somewhat creepy way of depicting his subjects' eyes. So, I wondered while sill in high school art history, is this really a love song to the painter? Um, well...duh.

It wouldn't be the last time I picked up the album after a number of years, only to be hit by some sense of nostalgia or new found respect for a band that had precious little of it in their own time. It was only upon listening to "Die Matrosen" in 2002 or so, for example, that I realized Book of Love had covered a song by the infamous all-female Swiss punk band, Liliput--a band almost no one had heard of in the U.S. in 1986.

In college, I would sneak songs from "Book of Love" onto mix tapes made for dance parties in the houses on campus and although many people would snort when they'd come on, few could resist the pull of an anthemic dance hit like "I Touch Roses"--cotton candy in sonic form, with no meat or nutritional value, and yet irresistible. The dance floor in the house living room would fill up with any number of Book of Love songs. When you've had a few drinks, they simply amplify the euphoria.

Just last week, my high school friend Kathleen came to visit me in Los Angeles and, seemingly out of nowhere, asked me about a song she remembered from years ago with a girl singing about boys, or not being a boy. "You mean 'Boy' by Book of Love," I said, and not only did I then need to hear it, but I had to make her a mix of Book of Love songs to take home.

I've been re-listening to "Book of Love" all weekend, remembering these small moments I've experienced with it: dancing at college house parties; riding in my first boyfriend's car from suburban Claremont to Los Angeles to go shopping on Melrose Avenue, unable to believe that I A) had been sleeping with a boy and B) was in Los Angeles; driving in the middle of the night through the empty streets of Portland with Susan, cranking the music out of my shitty car speakers on our way to go dancing downtown; traipsing through the Australian Outback with my iPod looking for emus and kangaroos.

Now, the album feels like an old friend--the one you see after any number of years and with whom you still have an instant rapport. You may at first forget what you had in common, but then, the memories begin to flow. And before long you're laughing about some memory and re-telling the story--turning it into another part of your personal history. And happily so.

Randomly Rediscoverd iTunes Playlist #1

Just because I was surprised to find it and remember May 2007 so clearly. What an incredible month it was--full of exciting trips, lots of laughter, warm sun, a (then) new boy, beer, and much more. Funny how even the "downer" songs here sound optimistic to my ears:

1. Open Your Heart--Lavender Diamond
2. Winter--Kristin Hersh
3. A Good Start--Maria Taylor
4. Million Dollar Smile--Jennifer O'Connor
5. Georgia--OMD
6. Full Moon, Empty Heart--Belly
7. Fiery Crash--Andrew Bird
8. Everyday Boy--Joan Armatrading
9. A-Z--Tracey Thorn
10. In Between Days--The Cure
11. Black Mirror--Arcade Fire
12. You Know I'm No Good--Amy Winehouse
13. Heavenly Day--Patty Griffin
14. That Teenage Feeling--Neko Case
15. Clumsy Sky--Girl in a Coma
16. Mambo Sun--T. Rex
17. Sunday Morning--Velvet Underground
18. 1234--Feist
19. Earth Intruders--Bjork
20. Silently--Blonde Redhead
21. Rainbowarriors--Cocorosie
22. Back to Life--Soul II Soul
23. Song to the Siren--Chemical Brothers
24. Destroy Everything You Touch--Ladytron
25. Look at Miss Ohio--Gillian Welch

At Least One Gay Bright Spot + How I've Come to Still Be Angry

Connecticut officially legalizes marriage for gays, and the weddings begin today. A lovely little piece of news as the infighting, confusion, and anger over the passage of Prop 8 continues in California.

I'd still like to start a drive to put a measure on the ballot in 2010 that eliminates the word "marriage" for all unions performed in state. From then on, you only get a "civil partnership," and if your church, synagogue, what have you, wants to perform a religious ceremony for you, then great. Otherwise, shut up and see that your special union is merely a tax break in the eyes of city hall.

The other option? Make divorce A LOT harder to get. That might do the trick, right? If divorce was not as easy as going to a salad bar, then maybe a lot fewer people would get married. And a lot fewer people would ask you to spend outrageous amounts of money on buying them shit they don't need just because they managed to buy fancy clothes, two rings, and have sex a lot.

Can you tell I am still pissed?

More and more, I can't go outside without looking at people and wondering if they voted away my rights. Which is horrible, because what good does that do anyone in the end? I am also sick of people telling me they're "sorry" about Prop 8. Yeah, you're sorry!? Thanks! Now, please don't DO anything to help the cause or help build awareness in communities that still need to be educated. Just keep saying you're sorry. Or better yet, just don't say anything, OK? Or do me another favor, get divorced (since it's so easy) and then try and figure out how to own your house, get health benefits, and raise your kids when the state doesn't consider you and your partner a couple. Imagine if you had to do THAT? It seems so HARD, doesn't it? Phew, I'm exhausted... and I'm still sorry, but I need to go home and enjoy my rights that you don't have now.

And don't even get me started on taxes. That hits home right now, too. I pay just as much in taxes as the rest of y'all, and yet I don't get equal rights. Yeah, that seems fair. It's a wonder I am not just casually saying "Fuck you" to more people I pass on the street.

Either way, I am done with ever feeling like a victim here again. I am angry, and will remain so. I will continue to march, and to yell, and to lobby, and to find out which businesses supported Prop 8 so I don't have to support them. And I will not let anyone tell me that it's time to simmer down. To do that is to have someone say they're sorry and then just say "Gee, thanks."

In other words, it's really not my style.

As for protests, there is one this Saturday--part of a coordinated effort nationwide:Join the Impact.

And for just one example of how the boycott is beginning to spread, look at this example of El Coyote here.

It's Now November 6th...

...and though I am still angry I don't feel as isolated as I did a few mere hours ago. Tim stopped by to pick me up and Ryan came along at the last moment, and we picked up Tim's friend Dave and headed to West Hollywood, where a big rally was taking place to protest the passage of Proposition 8. When we first got there, there were speakers emphasizing what we need to do now, what we have NOT lost. Ryan and I got separated from the others and ended up next to a gay couple whose young daughter was all smiles at all the people around her. Best sign: I WANT THE SAME RIGHTS THE CHICKENS GOT (in reference to Prop 2, which makes it law that egg-laying hens need to be treated humanely).

Just before 8 p.m., a guy moved through the crowd and said we were going to "take the intersection" at Santa Monica Boulevard and San Vicente, so Ryan and I headed with a big chunk of the crowd into the middle of the intersection, chanting, yelling, clapping. Already, it was cathartic to be surrounded by so many people who were just as angry as I was. We were drifting eastward on Santa Monica until suddenly people in front of us said "Go to Sunset! Go to Sunset!" And so we did--a wave of hundreds of people crossing traffic and heading uphill through residential areas to the busy Sunset Strip--which is much more straight, to boot. And at the Viper Room we turned right on to Sunset and saw emptying eastbound lanes in front of us.

The police presence at first was minimal, as I think we surprised them. After all, we left the rally in the middle of the speeches. We need to yell and scream and remind ourselves that we were not alone--that others felt this way, that we were angry, outraged, and hopeful for the future. Especially on the march down Sunset through what is ostensibly a straight (and often gross) ground zero for scenester nightlife, it was gratifying to get affirmative honks from westbound traffic, see businesses empty as workers came out to stare or hoot with us, give us a thumbs up, or just smile--strippers, waiters, valets, limo drivers, truck drivers, Starbucks employees, even straight guys who looked befuddled and then would honk.

And the march kept going... We didn't know til later that several groups had splintered from the rally and that WeHo police stopped a second wave of protestors further back. Our march continued through Hollywood, as mystified restaurant patrons and others came to Sunset to see what the news was broadcasting. And through it all, only ONE guy heckled us, calling us disgusting and he was drowned out by boos and people yelling "SHAME ON YOU!" We ended up at Sunset and Highland... a good 2 to 2 1/2 miles from where we started, Ryan by my side, yelling and screaming, holding my hand, smiling at me every step of the way.

We'd lost Tim et al back at the rally and now there was no easy way to reunite, so Ryan and I hopped the subway and then got on a quick bus ride to get home... walking in the door, feeling relieved, lighter, buzzed from adrenaline, legs throbbing, throats sore. It's been a while since I have been part of any spontaneous protest like this--especially in L.A., a city not known for its protests. I can;t say if they really do help in the long run, but I'd be happy for more just to share some more time with such an amazing cross section of people.

It's November 5th...

...and as exciting as it is that we've elected our first African-American president and Democrats have taken commanding leads in the House and Senate, I am filled with a distinct sense of how hypocritical America is. California has passed Prop. 8, which, for the first time actually *takes away* the rights of a group of people. Arizona and Florida also voted to enshrine anti-gay discrimination by banning same-sex marriage. For all the talk of change and healing and unity that's taken place in the last several years, there are many, many Americans out there who voted for Obama (for "Hope," for "Change") who were just as quick to single out gays and lesbians as people who somehow don't deserve the same rights. I've also never been so disgusted about the idea of marriage. It's not anyone's fault that this is what our country calls this union. But I can't smile fully today. I am still a second-class citizen.