Santa Barbara Adventures

I've made up my mind. Starting today, I'm no longer a Los Angeles resident. Buh-bye Prius-driving hipsters that cut you off and then give you the finger! I'm done with all y'all because I'm moving up the coast to Santa Barbara.

Yes, I know. I need to work out the long term details (note to self: buy lottery ticket) but in the meantime I might just refuse to vacate my hotel.

And why should I leave? This room has got a super comfortable bed. The shower has fantastic water pressure and one of those awesome massaging shower heads. There's free breakfast, and when I walk outside, my hotel is somewhere in the picture you see above, so clearly, it's breathtakingly gorgeous. Thank you for borrowing money from China giving me a tax rebate check, U.S. Government!

Seriously though, I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this weekend. It feels really good to be here. I've blogged several times about how much I adore Santa Barbara, but as I drove up the coast this afternoon, I realized that this trip is the very first time I'm coming here just to relax. For the very first time, I'm not here primarily for a conference or for work. I'm just here to have a little getaway with la famille.

Although the beaches here are incredibly picturesque, I've never done more than stick my feet in the water. Truth be told, even when I go to the beach in LA, I never get in the water. Heck, I'm not even one to lounge around on a blanket in the sand. And it's all because I put on a swimsuit and say, "There is no way in hell that I am going out in public looking like a fat cow, especially when Halle Berry might jog by."

However, I decided at around 5 AM this morning that I'm over it and it's all because of my kids. I overheard them chatting in their room last night about how excited they were to come here and how they really wanted to go to the beach but probably wouldn't get to, "Because Mommy thinks she's too fat to go."

I felt really bad when I heard that because I try to be really positive about my body around them. They see me sweating like a maniac to that Jillan Michaels DVD and they know I go and run at the park almost every day. I don't say, "Mommy's exercising because she's fat." Nope, I tell them it's because exercising is what healthy people do and because I want to have more energy to keep up with them. Clearly though, my sons are no dummies and they know me better than I think they do.

With all this in mind, this morning I said, eff it, I'm going to the beach and instead of wearing shorts and a t-shirt, I'm gonna wear a swimsuit!

At first I tried to track down my old swimsuit but I seriously could not find it. The poor thing probably disintegrated from lack of use. Sooo, I had no choice but to take myself swimsuit shopping. EEK!

I don't have to tell you how traumatizing the lighting in the dressing room is. It makes you want to cut to the front of Hollywood liposuction line! But, I persevered through trying on about two dozen different swimsuits and I finally decided on a very cute RED number. I'm still shocked that I picked something that's not so-called "slimming" black, but I figured if I was going to go for it, I'd be damned if I was gonna do the stereotypical black swimsuit with slimming tummy panels that fits so tight you can barely breath.

In the morning the plan is to go check out the Santa Barbara Mission -- I'm pretty excited because I've never been to a California Mission and this one is old-school, founded in 1786! After that, we're heading to the Rose Cafe for lunch. Any die-hard Depeche Mode fan will certainly recognize this place. (Hint: look at your Exciter CD and then look at the back of this photo on the right side.)

Then, in the afternoon we're going to either Butterfly Beach or El Capitan Beach and my new red swimsuit will make it's debut! I already bought a trashy beach book to read and if the writing gets too tedious, I can work on my list of things I want.

Trust me, "I want to move to Santa Barbara," is going to be somewhere near the top!

Hair Segregation

In my younger (and decidedly more revolutionary) days, I used to have a good time terrorizing stylists at mainstream chain hair salons.

I'd walk inside -- because they all had signs that said that they "welcome" walk-ins -- and the receptionist would immediately get all bug eyed over my presence.

As sweet as could be, I'd say the eight words designed to incite terror in the heart of whoever was behind the reception desk: "I'd like to get my hair done, please."

This person would usually look at me as if I'd announced that I had a nuclear missile strapped to my chest. "You want to get your hair done. Here?"

I'd innocently reply, "Yes, I'd like a wash, condition and roller set under a dryer, please."

I always sort of appreciated it if the receptionist just cut right to the chase and honestly admitted, "Oh, sorry, we don't do black hair."

If they didn't immediately say that, then there'd be a couple of minutes of whoever was behind the counter hemming and hawing and uncomfortably shuffling papers. And then I'd hear, "Well, we had one girl who does black hair but she's out today/all booked up/just quit/got hit by a plane that magically fell from the sky and landed right on top of her."

Even worse would be the, "We don't have anybody who does black hair but I guess Suzy Q here could give it a try if you want. You might have to tell her what to do though."

Uh, no thank you.

I probably did this maybe 20 times between 1997-1999 and then quit because I figured it was a bit depressing to keep putting myself through the agony just to prove a point about what I already knew, that their is hair segregation.

Even at salons I absolutely loved, like Art + Science in Evanston or the TIGI salon here in LA, when I called, I had to specifically ask if they had a stylist that knew how to work with black hair. Usually there was just one person.

Sometimes I wanted to organize a class-action lawsuit because I figure if you're a hair stylist you should be able to do any body's hair, no matter what the hair texture and no matter what the person's racial or ethnic background. But I concluded that racial equity in hair styling must not be getting taught in beauty schools and I haven't really seen this change over the years since I stopped my salon ambushing.

So what brought all this back up for me? Well, this afternoon I was in Rite Aid, getting frustrated looking for my favorite shampoo, the Creme of Nature with the green writing on the bottle. I've been using this shampoo for 15 years and suddenly, it seems to have disappeared. I was checking out the teeny section allocated for "black" hair care and started thinking (and not for the first time) about how there's total segregation of hair care products. Hair care for so-called "ethnic" hair is in a whole separate aisle than the shampoos and conditioners everyone else supposedly uses.

Why can't the tin of old school Dax pomade (and does anybody really even use that stuff anymore?) be on the shelf next to American Crew or Garnier Fructis pomade? I mean, hair grease is hair grease, right? And why can't the L'Oreal stuff be on the shelf next to the Organic Root Stimulator?

Some might say that having everything separate makes it easier for black women to find what you need because then you don't have to waste your time sifting through the endless bottles of shampoo to get what you want. And maybe that's true since right now if you're looking for "black" hair care products at my local Rite Aid, you only have two feet of shelf space to sift through.

However, black women also buy many of the same conditioners and shampoos that everyone else does so we're constantly jumping back and forth between two aisles. In fact, many black women don't use any of the products in the so-called "black/ethnic" section because they're buying the hair products in the "mainstream" section. Pantene sort of realized this when they released their so-called "Relaxed and Natural" line, which sits right on the shelf next to all the other Pantene products.

So why don't the other product lines follow suit? It seems like they should with all the moolah that black women spend on hair care.

What's up with the drugstores that shelve hair products that are geared toward black women in a separate, back of the bus sort of manner?

I'm pretty tired of hair segregation. Aren't you?

Eavesdropping on Men

There are two sets of guys sitting on either side of me in this cafe.

To my right is the gay couple. Or rather, I would say that one of them wants to be a couple but the other one is more interested in playing the field a bit more. The one that wants to play the field is, um... he's ridiculously hot. Tall, stylish, dark hair, dark eyes. He's got a slight accent, looks like he could be from somewhere in North Africa. Oh, and he has on some fly, nice-fitting blue jeans. I felt like a shallow Angeleno because even I was checking him out, thinking, "Ah hah! This is exactly why I live in Hollywood!" -- until he ruined the eye candy by ordering lox and cream cheese on a bagel. Eww. That's as bad as mayonnaise in my book.

Five minutes later his boy toy showed up and I think every woman (and a few guys in here too) sighed with some, "He's taken!" disappointment. I immediately didn't think they're a serious couple yet because Boy Toy is a little too needy acting and Ridiculously Hot seems a bit detached from it all.

Sure enough, Boy Toy started whining about, "When are we gonna make things official?"

Ridiculously Hot only replied, "Make what official?" Oh, this is not good.

Ten minutes later, Boy Toy is leaning across the table begging, "You should just move in with me. I don't know why you don't." I know why, Boy Toy. There's a book about it. It's called, "He's Just Not That Into You".

Indeed, Ridiculously Hot is looking sooo checked out and is just focusing on his food. He occasionally mumbles things like, "I'm not trying to get so deep over breakfast, Frank."

Frank -- a/k/a Boy Toy looks like he might either throw something or cry. Wow, somebody's whipped!

In the meantime, the two guys to the left of me talking about how outrageous rents are in my neighborhood. One guy, let's call him "iPod Ears" (because he has his earbuds in), just told his friend, "X-Files Nerd" how he's still living with his girlfriend but wants to move out because he can't stand her anymore. However he can't afford it.

"I might as well stay with her crazy ass because rent is just ridiculous around here nowadays." That's just cold, iPod Ears. Cold hearted!

"What do you do? Crash on the couch every night?" says X-Files Nerd. See, this is why I called him X-Files Nerd. This is obviously a good guy and he is not up on Hollywood survival scheming because he's still watching the X-Files every single night, caught up in Scully's hotness!

iPod Ears continues his coldness, "Nah, I still sleep with her because it's her name on the lease. I don't want her to suspect anything and kick me out."

"Sleep with her, as in you're still sleeping with her?" Oh, X-Files Nerd, you're a man after my own heart. I love your slightly shocked intonation.

"Uh, yeah dude." If I could see iPod Ears' face, I'm sure he'd be rolling his eyes. "I mean, she's totally effing pscyho, but I might as well get it while I can. You know?"

So, a tale of two sets of men. Two different situations. Two different hearts getting broken. I wish I had iPod Ear's girlfriend's email so I could send her this post. As for Boy Toy and Ridiculously Hot, they just walked out together.

I guess being seen with someone so hot is good enough for Boy Toy. He brings his heartbreak on himself.

Sizing Me Up

One of the most annoying things about going somewhere and having to meet and interact with new people is the way in which we're socialized to size each other up.

You know how it is, you're chatting with someone new and you slowly realize they're trying to place you on their scale of social importance.

I got sized up yesterday and gosh, it drives me crazy! I found myself wanting to tell the most outrageous lies and make up the most random stuff just to throw off the other person's efforts to determine whether or not I'm worth respecting.

Here are some of the questions and my interpretations:

1) So what do you do? This question is used to figure out pretty much everything under the sun about a person. If I say I'm a corporate lawyer, then you know I have an advanced degree, am making beaucoup dollars and work too many hours. You're going to think I'm smart and maybe a little ruthless, but in our culture, is that necessarily a bad thing?

On the other hand, if I say I'm a "dancer" at Spearmint Rhino, well, no offense to anybody who may be employed by said strip club, but no one is gonna be thinking I'm all that smart. In fact, your eyes might suddenly gravitate to my chest to see if you can discern whether or not I've had any "enhancements" done.

2) What does your husband do? If I say my husband is a film executive you are going to think something different than if I say he's a gardener. If I answer that I'm not married then the person's going to wonder if I'm a lesbian or if I'm trying to be a character from Sex and the City.

3) Where'd you do your undergrad? This is one of the really slick ones. With this question, the interrogater is letting me know she actually went to grad school. Notice how people who only went to undergrad don't phrase things this way. They say, "Where'd you go to college?"

Sometimes the questioner will find out what she wants by saying, "Well, when I was in undergrad, I blah blah blah!"

I'm supposed to respond, "How fascinating! Where did you go to undergrad?"

That then opens the door to the other person revealing in their best, self-deprecating tone, "Oh, Harvard. What about you?"

This game is played till the location of their graduate school is revealed as well.

4) "It's just sooo hard to see all of the Louvre in one day, isn't it?" This is the question that is designed to figure out whether or not I've been to Europe or have any European cultural awareness. I'm supposed to answer, "Oh my God! Yes, it is! I spent a whole day and didn't even get to see Antioch's Venus de Milo!"

After that, if I'm to prove I'm "somebody" I should launch into all the details of my time gallivanting through Paris.

On the other hand, if I say, "What's the Louvre?" well, the person probably will excuse herself to go get another drink. Or if I say, "I've read that it is hard to see all of it but I've never been to Paris," I'll get grilled on whether I've ever been to Europe at all. When I reveal that I haven't, then that supposedly says something about me.

5) "Is that a Marc Jacobs jacket?" This one is also used to determine my status. Like, am I going to reply, "Naw, heffa, it's from Target," or will I answer, "No, this one's from Gucci but it looks like Jacobs from two seasons ago, doesn't it?"

You see what I mean about how annoying these little "let me place you socially" questions are? And we all do it. Over the years I've tried to make a conscious effort to not ask these sorts of questions but I know I still do sometimes. Granted, if the interrogator is nice and not condescending, sometimes I don't mind answering.

I just know I will be happier in the world if we all figure out how to talk about real things with the people we meet instead of engaging in this mindless Q & A that's all designed to figure out how well you think you have to treat someone.

And for the record, in case you are speculating, I do not work as a corporate lawyer.

(I'm not a stripper either.)

A Sonnet For My White Grandmother

Mother of my father I did not know

Sometimes her name escapes my memory

The gray on her head I never saw grow

Picture unrecognized when it I see.

This little brown baby a source of shame

Mirror reflecting, are her eyes my own?

Never to hear her voice calling my name

Her last breath I was fifteen, not yet grown.

Knowing me not did she ever regret?

For regret stakes claim to this broken heart

How to love when there’s nothing to forget?

No time together, nor time spent apart.

One day her hand will surely smooth my hair

For her soul till then I offer my prayer.

A Big Box of Records!

I love nice people, especially when they bring me a big box of Depeche Mode records!

If you recall, a week ago I won a set of all ten US Remastered Vinyl Editions of each of Depeche Mode's albums! Well, my dear friends, here's your obscenely happy girl, Los Angelista, getting my records today from the fabulous Daniel Barassi, webmaster of the official Depeche Mode site: Daniel gets the fun task of doing everything for the site plus he does lots of other Depeche Mode projects as well. Clearly, he works really, really hard and probably doesn't get too much thanks from fans for all he does. Seriously, can you imagine having to deal with all the crazy people who are Depeche Mode fans? The poor man has probably moderated a million, "Dave Gahan is hot!" type threads. Oh and then there's the threads where we fans speculate endlessly about the new album, a tour, whether the band is going to retire after this record, and on and on. You name it, he's read it!

Unfortunately though, as enjoyable as all that sounds, his job has a downside. He has to ban the more stalkerish and crazy fans from the message boards and enforce general policies around what you can and cannot post. At times it amazes me how mad some of these people get at Daniel when they're the one violating the rules of the board. They act like he's a total ogre, but really, when you meet him, he's quite funny and very sweet...and I'm not just saying that because he brought me these records this afternoon!

I do think I scared him a bit when I gave him a big hug while saying hello. What can I say, I like to hug people who do nice things for me! Plus, I know full well he really didn't have to drive to meet me, what with gas prices being like $4.29 and all. He could've popped them all in the mail and sent the bill to the record company.

In case you're wondering, we're posing with "Speak & Spell", Depeche Mode's very first album. He thought I should pose with "Violator", arguably their most well known record. But I have to keep it old-school and take it back to where it all started.

So now that I have them, what happens next? Well, I know I said in my previous post on these records that I was going to listen to "Music for the Masses" first. I probably will still pick that one. However, it'll be a few days till I spark up my turntable. Right now I'm just going to marvel at the pristine beauty of these records and be grateful for my unexpected luck and the niceness that came with it.

When a Black Woman Asks For Help

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday that broke my heart. She's someone I've known since I was nine or ten years old and she's been going through a really tough time for the past year or so. I've often wished I was back in Chicago so I could be there for her more than I have been. I don't want to put her business out on front street but talking to her made me think about something I've asked myself many times over the years: What's the response when a black woman asks for help?

I've been thinking about this for many years because when I was in college, I noticed an interesting phenomenon happening with a few of the young black men who were among my best friends. Almost all of them lived at home with their parents, none of them were going to college even though one or both of their parents was college educated and they were often treated by their mothers and most of the friends we mutually had as an endangered species. Not that that perspective was necessarily wrong because looking at the statistics, they are often in physical, mental, spiritual and emotional danger. I also worry about all those statistics when I look at my own sons and the possibilities of what could happen scare me. It's just that the same care and attention was most often not given to the black girls and women I knew.

Out of the black women I knew, none of them lived at home with their parents. Almost all of them were going to college. Many had more than one job on top of school responsibilities, and if any of us said we were short on the rent and didn't know where the money was coming from, there was no helping hand to assist. If we were hungry, well, we just had to be hungry. We were not regarded as being an endangered species because we're supposed to be the Strong Black Woman -- you know, the woman who has endured birthing babies in the field and going back to picking cotton twenty minutes later.

For so many black women I know, there is a complete double standard in how they were brought up compared to their brothers or male cousins. The brothers and cousins were "loved" and the daughters were "raised". The lives of many of the black women I've known have been an intersection of the real axis of evil, racism and gender inequality. I remember how in high school, guys I know were expected to have girlfriends and their mothers would chuckle over their son's attractiveness to the opposite sex. The more girls calling the house the better.

On the other hand, some girls I knew were called whore and slut and beaten/grounded if a guy called them up. Academics were pushed with girls, and although they might be pushed with the boys, being cool was pushed just as much.

So many of the girls I know, girls who are now women, were raised with the attitude that black women have got to be self reliant, you've got to hold it together and if you're having a tough time, you better hustle and figure it out on your own because you don't have anyone to count on but yourself.

I remember being 19 years old and asking my now husband why it was that he was always getting asked if he was hungry but no one ever asked me if I was hungry. His black male friends were always being asked if they were hungry too. If these guys said yes, somebody would immediately fix them something to eat. Or, if we were out in public and one of my black male friends said, "I don't have any money," someone would buy them a meal or pay for their movie ticket. If they didn't have a ride somewhere, then someone would come pick them up. If they needed a job, hook-ups would happen.

Sometimes this all got particularly weird and seemed to have racial undertones to it because we hung out with a very diverse group of people. The sociologist in me would wonder how much of a role guilt was playing into some of the interactions I'd observe between my friends and those in our circle who were not black. I just knew that young black women weren't being cultivated and nurtured in the same way. Some would use the word "coddled" instead of nurtured. Sometimes my friends made me angry though because at times it felt like they sort of milked some folks' perceptions in order to get a hook up.

The person offering up the food or money for a movie ticket was most often not a black female. Black females would look at these guys and be like, "And? So? I guess you're not going to the movie then."

There was the racially sexualized dynamic between the black males I knew and the young white women of our acquaintance. I remember one college boyfriend brutally explaining to me that he was cheating on me with a white girl we both knew because she would give him, "her car, her cash and that ass."

Funny how some things are said to you and you never forget them.

Anyway, I can't tell you how many times this discussion about the differences in the way black women and men are treated by society has come up when I'm a room full of black men and women. Most often it's turned into a huge, heated argument where the women are sharing what they've been through and how they didn't have, for example, white girls lending a car, buying laptops for them or taking them shopping at the mall and they didn't have a mom at home telling them that it didn't matter what they did, they'd love them no matter what, and if things didn't work out, they could stay at home forever.

The men turn around and say that at least the women don't have to get harassed by the cops and put in special education. At least the women don't have folks grabbing their purse and crossing the street when they see a scary black man coming. The conversation never ends well.

So, like I said, my friend is really going through some struggles and yet many of the same people that would bend over backwards to lend a helping hand to the guys I knew back in the day are blind and deaf to her plight. She's not too proud to ask for help, but listening to her yesterday, her requests for assistance are being ignored.

I can't help but wonder if the response would be different if she was male.

Have You Read This Before?

Today is my lucky day. Not only did May Gray come back, killing the 90 degrees at 8 AM craziness that's been frying my brain over the past week, I also got tagged by Joy over at The Sweeter the Juice. This meme is book related and the rules are:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

The problem is that there are several books around me that are equidistant to my hand. Wait, let me count for accuracy so that you know exactly how many books. Counting, counting... there are nine books that I could pick up off of my coffee table.

Yes, I know, that's a lot of books. But, in my house, there are books everywhere. When my sister was visiting, she got a total kick out of teasing me over how many bookcases I have.

So which book should I reveal?

Hmm... I know some of you are literary snobs so you're going to say, "She reads what???"

I know how it goes. It's like when you ride on the subway and you spy on what folks are reading, and then you make total judgments about them based on their book choices. For example, you arrive at one particular set of conclusions if someone is reading this:

And you arrive at another set of conclusions if you see someone reading this:


It also reminds me of the time I was at a work conference in DC and a colleague from New York was all, "You've never read Zane before?"

No, I hadn't, so this colleague helpfully gave me her Zane book as we said goodbye at Dulles Airport. She promised I'd looove it because it was a real "action-packed" pager turner. It was titled "Addicted" so I figured it was about drug addiction. Or maybe shopping addiction. There wasn't much on the back cover and I didn't have time to leaf through it, so I quickly stuck it in my briefcase and rushed to my gate.

On the plane I was in the window seat next to an older African-American couple that was sitting in the center seat and the aisle. Once we'd taken off, both husband and wife pulled out their Bibles. The wife asked me, "Are you a Christian?"

"Um, no ma'am. I'm not." Crickets were chirping at this point so I helpfully added, "But I do read the Bible sometimes."

She smiled politely and got back to perusing the Good Book. I decided to get my book out too. I was excited to check out what Zane was about so I dug in my briefcase and pulled out this:

I felt Wifey's eyes checking out the cover and, trying to make small talk, I asked, "Have you read this before?"

She was quick to say no. Suddenly it seemed like she was sitting a bit more stiffly than before but I figured she might just be hating the super uncomfortable middle seat. Or at least, I thought that till I started reading. That's when I discovered that the addiction in "Addicted" is, wait for it -- sex addiction.

The main character goes buckwild and develops nymphomania.

I wanted to say to the wife sitting next to me, "Honest! I had no idea! It's not even my book!" But it was too late. She was giving me the serious side eye so there was nothing to do but tuck the book back in my bag and go to sleep. I'm telling you, if that woman had had a bucket of holy water, I'm sure she would've turned it upside down on my head. I was sooo embarrassed that I probably would've helped her!

Oh, and later on after I'd shared this horrifyingly embarrassing incident with a friend, I found out that the author Zane is known for writing, ahem, erotica. I still can't believe I asked a church lady if she read erotica.

Anyway, crazy erotic airplane/book stories aside, let me pick the The Autobiography of Malcolm X off my coffee table for this book meme. I pulled it out yesterday since May 19th is El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz's birthday. He would have been 83 years old this year.

Now, according to the meme rules, I need to turn to page 123 and go to the 5th sentence. Here we go:

"In all of my time in Harlem, I never saw a white prostitute touched by a white man. White girls were in some of the various Harlem specialty places. They would participate in customers' most frequent exhibition requests --a sleek, black Negro male having a white woman."

Let your mind marinate on that for a moment. Harlem has changed a whole lot since Malcolm was a young man. But is this observation (and the sentiment behind it) still true?

Now I get the fun task of tagging five lucky people with this meme. I'm going to pick:
1) Kari at If I Only Had a Blog
2) Miriam at Black Fire White Fire
3) Shelly at Boring Black Chick
4) Anali at Anali's First Amendment
5) Jen at A2EatWrite

I hope you five have a wonderful time choosing which book to share with the rest of us!

The "I Want" List

I was talking to a dear friend last week and she told me how someone recommended to her that she make a list of what she wants. My friend suggested that I also make this list and I'm finding that it's turning into an impossible task for me.

I know how to make lists of things to do. Some days, like today, the list of things I needed to do seemed endless. I crossed off the mundane things like "go to grocery store" and "renew library books". Yet for every item I crossed off, something else seemed to be added. And I kept wondering if everything I was crossing off had anything to do with what I really want.

So, I pulled out my journal and wrote at the top of a page, "What I Want". At first I wrote things like, "A pair of stilettos with metal heels," and "A personal trainer." But after I got past those sorts of surface level wants, the crickets started chirping.

I've come to the conclusion that I don't know how to make lists of things I want.

Naturally, after my massive list failure, I spent some time today psychoanalyzing myself reflecting on the process. One huge problem with making this list is that I know there's a part of me that truly believes what I want most I cannot have. And so I wonder, what's the point of making this list?

Even with small things, I think about how what I want is irrelevant or not going to happen. For example, I may want my husband to put his dirty dishes in the sink. It would be very nice to not see a knife covered with peanut butter and jelly on the kitchen counter after he makes himself a sandwich because it pisses me off like you wouldn't believe. But if he doesn't want that too, well, seriously, what's the point or my wanting that? Should I then change what I want to, "I want to not be so angry about a dirty knife on the counter?"

It also feels so selfish to make a list of what I want. When my friend first suggested that I make this "I want" list, the very first thing I told her was that I knew it would be hard for me since, "Who cares what I want? Life isn't about me."

Technically, that is true. In the grand scheme of things, my individual desires and wants are not the end all be all of planet Earth. We've already got too many people sitting around only thinking about their own individual desires. On the other hand, when I think about it, my saying that explains so much about me and the way I've lived my life that it's a bit horrifying.

I'm going to take another crack at this list tomorrow because I'm not a quitter, even when something is difficult. But what about you? Have you ever made an "I Want" list?

Along Came a Spider

"Mommy, there's a SPIDER!!!"

Last night my seven year-old son, O, was in the bathroom screaming that there was a spider on the wall. I went in and indeed, crawling on the wall next to the toilet was a baby spider about the size of a flea.

"Kill it! Kill it!" he cried pitifully. And so, like any good and decent mother, I smashed it with my finger and rinsed it down the drain.

Today, less than 24 hours later, the exact same boy was happily holding a tarantula at the 22nd Annual Bug Fair.

Yes, folks, our annual visit to the bug fair is the only day of the year my two sons ask me things like, "Can I touch that scorpion?" and, "Don't you think a tarantula would make a great pet?"

I think it's the effect of listening to scientists wax rhapsodic about catching those tarantulas. We got to hear gems like, "When I was hiking off the 5 around Castaic I saw her on the ground. So I just scooped her up and stuck her in my backpack."

For you non SoCal residents, that's Interstate 5 and Castaic is only 40 miles north of Hollywood. Yeah, I'm sooo thrilled to know that there are friendly female tarantulas roaming around near my hood.

If tarantulas aren't your cup of tea, the bug fair also features fun centipedes and scorpions. One guy happily shared how he's been stung by scorpions between 150-200 times in his life. "It's not so bad now. I'm used to it, except I have to be careful now because these days, the part of my skin where I get stung dies."

Oh, okaay. His skin dies. That why he's holding three of those suckers, right?

My hands down favorite had to be the lady holding the gigantic cockroach. She had the nerve to say, "Isn't he a cutie?"

Uh, no ma'am. It's a cockroach. There is nothing cute about a four-inch long cockroach. It needs to meet up with a big can of extra-extra strength Raid and the underside of Shaquille O'Neal's shoe.

And of course, I wouldn't be myself if I didn't take note of the lack of racial and gender diversity among the scientists and other bug aficionados there to display their pets. Seriously, these guys looked exactly like you'd expect them to, like they just broke out of the 2008 version of Revenge of the Nerds. I'm sure they have Star Wars action figures at home, just like my own little scientists in training do.

Yeah, I'd be perfectly happy if my kids turn into Dr. O and Dr. T, bug scientists extraordinaire. I guess that's why I broke down and bought my boys their very own bug pets. Ladies and gentleman, meet Jack and Bob, our newly acquired silk worms!

Over the next two months, my kids are going to get to see Jack and Bob eat a bunch of mulberry tree leaves, spin a cocoon and hatch into moths. That's all fine with me. I'm cool with the kind of pet where if it gets loose I'm not going to have to stay at Motel 6 till it's caught again. Plus, the worms were two for a dollar. That's the perfect price!

And as I type, guess who just crept out of his room, whining, "Mommy, there's a spider..."

It's Hot

It's really hot here so my mind can only think in lists:

1) Why was there a guy sitting on a bench smoking a joint at the park at 7:15 AM this morning? Isn't it a little early for all that puff puff pass mess? Oh, except he was puffing solo so he had no one to pass to.

2) I know Mike Huckabee apologized for making a joke yesterday about an assassination attempt on Barack Obama, but I'm feeling pretty uncharitable about the whole thing. Not cool.

3) On the list of racial inequalities in the judicial system comes this story from South Bend, Indiana: White co-defendant gets no prison time biracial one gets 8 years. Uh huh. Is Al Sharpton gonna roll up any time soon?

4) The pictures from China are breaking my heart... and my dad heads there in two days for work. Sigh. Greedy people + Building codes = Disaster when an earthquake hits.

5) My seven year-old wants to know why Dracula only bites people on the right side of the neck. He claims to have observed this since my husband let him watch Batman vs Dracula last night. Yeah, he didn't sleep in his own bed after watching that. Poor baby was scared.

6) I'm hot.

7) Clearly, as you can see from the picture above, Rick Ross needs a bra and the Jillian Michaels "30 Day Shred" DVD. And, we all know what would happen to Trina's career if she got a gut like that.

8) Still ridiculously excited about winning the Depeche Mode contest. Like commenter Neil suggested, it totally is like winning the lottery.

9) Speaking of music, if you don't have any Bjork records, you should get some. Like this song:


10) And now I'm going to brave the 95 degree weather. I'm afraid.

I Won a Depeche Mode Contest!

I'm still in shock because I never win anything but I found out yesterday afternoon that I won a Depeche Mode contest!!!

I won all ten US Remastered Vinyl Editions of the Depeche Mode remastered collection! That means my old-school record player having self is going to get a vinyl copy of each of ten Depeche Mode albums, from Speak and Spell to Exciter. This is beyond exciting. I'll take a crazy goat/sorceress dream any day if this is what happens to me!

Besides, this is doubly exciting because it breaks my streak of not winning contests. I think the last time I won a contest was back in the summer of 1993! I'd just bought some Depeche Mode cd singles at a Rose Records in Chicago and the guy behind the counter was seriously flirting with me. I remember he said corny things like, "Depeche Mode, huh? Aren't they kinda kinky? You into that kind of kinky stuff?"

Yeah, loser. Kinky. I still can't believe I spent five minutes trying to school him on the finer, deeper points of what Depeche Mode is about. I'll blame it on my being 20 years old and too nice for my own good. But, just when I decided to give up and leave, he said, "Hey, don't forget to enter the Q101 contest."

Q101 is the big alternative/rock station in Chicago and they were giving away a trip to Brazil. At the time I figured this guy only reminded me of it because he was going to try to jack my number off the entry form. But I made sure to fold it in half twice and then stuck it in the entry box myself.

Two months later I got a call saying I'd won a trip to Rio and Salvador Bahia. I thought it was just the pervy guy calling from the record store, but no, I was live on-air saying, "Look, I don't know who you think you are but I will get you fired!" It was such bad timing though. No one I knew would go with me AND the trip dates were right in the middle of final exams. Just when I'd decided to go to Brazil alone (I know, dumb, right?) one evil professor would not let me take the final early or late. So, I gave the trip to somebody I knew and they went and had a great time on my behalf.

I've been convinced ever since then that I've been contest jinxed. But now, the jinx is over! The "curse" is lifted and I promise I'm not as superstitious as I sound. Now all I have to do is get my records and then decide which one to listen to first. I think I may go for Music for the Masses. Actually, watching this video for the song "Strangelove" off of that album, I can sort of understand the record shop guy's question. Given what's on MTV now, it's hard to believe this 1987 video for Strangelove got rejected as too racy and had to be re-edited:



Gosh, they are so cute at the end when they're laughing at each other. It's a good reminder that we should never take ourselves quite so seriously. Anyway, happy Friday to you! Hope some good luck comes your way as well!

Behold, A Bald-Headed Goat Appears!

What does it mean when twice in one week I've dreamed that I get turned into a goat by a sorceress? And I don't mean G.O.A.T. -- as in LL Cool J's Greatest of all Time, either.

If the goat thing doesn't sound bad enough to you, let me tell you, after my great goat transformation, the sorceress hitches me to her cart and drags me to her lair. She then turns me back into myself and shaves all my hair off my head with her magic razor. Wherever this razor touches your skin, hair will never grow there again. -- Why not be useful and run that thing over my legs? But nooo, it's an evil sorceress so it's the hair on my head.

Then here are several agonizing moments where I'm forced to look in a mirror. Madame le Sorceress cackles and then sets me loose in a forest, telling me that I will never see my true love again because he only desires girls with at least half an inch of hair.

I'm sobbing and running through the forest when suddenly a whole crew of folks emerges from behind trees to throw rocks at me and chant, "You used to be nappy, now ya bald-headed!

Yeah, would you like to dream this craziness twice in one week? You see how it's disturbed me so much that out of all the things I could write about, I'm blogging about being a bald-headed former goat.

See, this is why insomnia really isn't so bad. If I'm not sleeping, I'm not dreaming such completely insane stuff!

Do any of you do dream interpretation? What does my bald-headed goat madness mean?

When Disaster Strikes

It feels like there have been too many disasters lately, doesn't it? Fires in Florida, the Cyclone in Myanmar, tornadoes all over the place, and now, the earthquake in Sichuan Province.

Last night I was chatting online with my dear friend Joanna about the awful disaster in Sichuan Province. I know Joanna because while I was living in Guangzhou, Joanna was studying in Beijing. We met while we were both traveling in Guanxi Province. I can't remember where exactly, because I tend to have an awful memory (which means I can't lie because I simply can't remember long-term what I've said). But, I do recall saying to myself when I first saw her in the little "motel" I was staying at, "Hey, there's somebody who looks like me, in China!"

Anyway, we lost touch a few years ago but, thankfully, Joanna found me through this blog and now we also keep in touch on Facebook. So, last night we were chatting online, and of course, given our experience in China and what's happened there, we got to talking about construction, rampant non-compliance with building codes, and the experience of living in a cinder block building just like the ones that have crumpled under the impact of a 7.9 earthquake.

When I first went to China I had no idea that such huge earthquakes could happen there. Then I learned all about the big quake of 1976 that killed hundreds of thousands. Some Chinese people feel it also predicted the death of Chairman Mao. All psychic or superstitious speculations aside (and there are already some interesting ones about this quake), I seriously don't know what I would have done if one had happened when I was there.

But of course, my mind immediately turns to my current home, Los Angeles, the place I know very well has earthquakes all the time. Folks are even saying what happened in Sichuan Province could be a worst case scenario for us. And if the ground isn't shaking, as you know, we have wildfires too.

I don't have a real disaster plan in place in case something happens, which is totally inexcusable because, unlike China being about to send 50,000 troops to the aid of people in Sichuan Province, are there even 50,000 soldiers around here that are able to be mobilized within 24 hours to help? Think about Hurricane Katrina before you answer that question.

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from a woman named Amanda and she asked me to be a part of the State of California's emergency preparedness pilot program. Of course, I agreed. I was supposed to be sitting down with my family to do our disaster plan and I've been putting it off. Gosh, I feel like I better hustle and get on it! The first step is to assess your family's risk.

You really should click on that link because, gosh, you can think you have no risk but then when you find yourself answering "no" to some of the questions, well... you need to make a plan.

So, I'm going to make a plan with the family tonight. I think all this going down is a "sign" of some sort. I'll let you know how my plan turns out. What about you? Are you going to make a plan too?

Your Big, Cellulite Covered Booty

I know you have cellulite on your booty.

Even if you are a resident of Los Angeles and best friends with a plastic surgeon, I know you have some ripples and dimples somewhere on that big ole booty of yours. What I don't know is whether or not someone is coming to take a picture of your booty.

You see, I was at the grocery store waaay too late last night, and the covers of the magazines in the checkout aisle were totally harassing me. Why do I have to walk past the checkout line at a grocery store, where, mind you, I am buying FOOD, and see pretty much every magazine cover discussing who's too fat, who's too thin, and how to lose 10-20 even 50 pounds while still eating white sugar, flour and a boatload of salt? Why?

And clearly it was a slow news week at the National Enquirer because they did one of their covers similar to this one, spotlighting which stars have cellulite.

Hint to the Enquirer: ALL OF THEM have it. Every single last female celebrity has cellulite. Even if they have starved themselves down to crack-head levels, they probably still have some cellulite. No matter how much you try to get those ripples sucked out and smoothed and whatever the heck else, 99% of women are going to have cellulite. It's called being human.

Instead, the Enquirer brings poor Mischa Barton to tears by running a photo of her 22 year-old booty, complete with ripples and dimples. Now, I'm sure on the one hand Mischa's loving the free press because she hasn't had anything going on since the OC went off TV. In fact, I'll bet you asked yourself, "Who the heck is Mischa Barton?" Yeah, me too. Never watched the show and I don't think she's "hot" by any stretch of the imagination. But now Mischa's got an interview with OK! Magazine about how unfair the Enquirer was. OK! asked Mischa profound questions like, "Are you self-conscious about your body?" -- to which Mischa said, "No," because she comes from a European family. (Whatever that means!)

No, what Mischa should have done is told the Enquirer that she's actually part black and the black community is a lot more accepting of having some booty. Then she could have pointed out that studies are showing having a big booty is nice and healthy and helps prevent diabetes. Granted, the study was only done on lab mice, and any health benefits of the big booty can and will be negated by the spare tire you're carrying around across your belly, but still!

Mischa should've also asked the Enquirer why they don't take more pictures of men and their guts and man-boobs. Seen photos of Tobey Maguire when he's not shooting a Spiderman movie? Uh huh, I don't think so!

Think about all the sitcom husbands with their toothpick-sized wives. It's like we're supposed to believe the wife isn't sitting around eating high fructose corn syrup laced food too. I'm supposed to think the wife only breathes in the aroma of the Doritos and doesn't ever eat one. Whatever.

And next time you see Jack Black in a movie playing the fat goof ball, ask yourself, would Jack Black ever get a job in Hollywood if he was a woman? If you said yes, let me tell you, you're wrong because if ever there was a candidate for the Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred DVD, it's Jack. (Did it for the 3rd time this morning. Yes We Can!)

But women? Who do we have? Jennifer Hudson, Camryn Manheim or that one girl from High School Musical -- gosh, her name escapes me at the moment but it's not the one that's dating Zac Efron and had the naked pictures of herself floating around. No it's definitely not naked picture girl because nobody wants a naked picture of a "big girl" unless they are, ahem, into that sort of thing.

I know, it's not going to change anytime soon because a million people will pay money for that copy of the Enquirer and all the other magazines that try to sell how amazing your life will be if you don't have cellulite and you get a whole lot skinnier.

Look to Mariah Carey if you need proof that the skinny does not equal an amazing life. The magazines showed us photos of Mariah Carey's transformation from a size 8 (me) to a size 2 (what I'm apparently supposed to want to be). Well, Mariah got skinny and went and married Nick Cannon so clearly, being thinner does not equal having a lick of sense!

Anyway, I hope you and your big, cellulite covered booty have a great day. Just no "switching" when you walk, mmkay?

Yo' Mama!

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there! Are you having a great day? I am and it's all because of my sons. Clearly, I wouldn't be a mommy without my little boys, "O" and "T". Yesterday I had one of those moments where I realized that I really am a mom. I mean, who else but a mom hangs out at a park for hours at a time because their kid's have sporting events?

My baby "O" (on the left with the popsicle-blue lips) is on a baseball team and he had team pictures yesterday from 11-12:30 and a game at 2. Of course, after the game, the boys wanted to play on the jungle gyms so I set up shop on the grass. I was supposed to be reading my book, Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road", but I ended up spending a lot of time watching my sons play and thinking about how good and sweet they are.

They were making me laugh so hard because every so often, they'd run over and say, "You know we're going to Disneyland tomorrow for Mother's Day, right?"

I think they were hoping they could break me down to the point that I'd cave in and say, "That's a great idea! Let's go see Mickey!" But nope, instead I got up this morning, ended my TV abstinence by watching Meet the Press and then did a Jillian Michaels workout DVD. The DVD is called "30 Day Shred". Apparently, if I do it every day for the next 30 days, I'm gonna look shredded! I'm inclined to believe it, especially since I'm now having a hard time even typing because I'm so sore.

Hands down, the funniest moment of the morning came right after I'd finished working out and was putting my free weights back under the couch. There was a loud knock on my front door and even though I was a hot sweaty mess, I had to answer it because my husband had stepped out for a minute to go buy some milk. So, I answer and there's this hot guy standing there with something wrapped in some brown paper.

He says, "These flowers are for you," and holds them out to me.

I'm sooo stupid that I thought this guy was giving me flowers from him!

I actually said, "Are these from you?" -- to which he confusedly replied, "No, I'm just giving them to you."

It took a second for me to realize that he worked for a florist and was merely delivering the flowers. In my defense, I had just done a workout that promised to make me shredded so I think my brain partially shut off because of the pain vibrating through my quadriceps.

While this guy is standing there holding this bunch of flowers out to my dumb self, here comes my husband bounding up the steps with yet another bouquet of flowers and a huge balloon that says, "Queen for a Day!" on it. Uh huh, going to go get a carton of milk, yeah, right. He comes and stands next to the delivery guy too and is all, "These are for you," while looking at the man like, "Who the hell are you and why are you here?'

Never in my life have I been presented with two bunches of flowers at once! Wowzer! So, I took the package from the delivery guy, unwrapped the brown paper and saw that it was a huge bunch of ranunculus! Ranunculus are my absolute favorite flower in the whole world and these ones, as you can see from the picture above, are absolutely GORGEOUS!

My husband looked a little deflated as he stood there with his bunch of yellow, purple and white daisies. "Who are those from?"

I should've replied, "From my other baby daddy," but instead I opened the card to reveal that they're from my awesome sister! Love her! And, now I'm feeling like I'm "all that" because I got two bunches of flowers in one day!

I know there are those who hate Mother's Day. They say, "It's just a commercial holiday. People should honor their mother's every day." There's no denying that is true. But still, it's nice to see my little boys shyly presenting me with the pictures and poems they made at school and I got two bunches of flowers!

Sooo, if you haven't already connected with your mother today, the clock is ticking! Even if you all don't get along and you're still in therapy from your traumatic childhood, give your mom a ring. As a friend told me, one day your mom won't be there and you'll wish you could tell her you love her just once more. Separate the behavior from the person and just reach out because hey, she did carry you for 10 months and that is no small commitment.

Anyway, my eldest just asked me, "Aren't you going to go get your nails done or something?" Yes I am, and some waxing too! See ya!

Happy Birthday Dave Gahan!

It's way after midnight in LA and I just looked at the date, May 9th.

May 9th? Oh my goodness, that means it's Dave Gahan's birthday! WHOO HOO! Another excuse to go Depeche Mode crazy on a Friday!!! Love it!

If you've never been here before, let me bring you up to speed:

1) I'm a huge Depeche Mode fan. How huge? Well... I have a Depeche Mode poster on the inside of my front door. How's that?

2) Dave Gahan is the lead singer of Depeche Mode and today's his birthday! He's 46! Happy Birthday, Dave! (like he's reading this blog, right?)

3) If you don't know who Depeche Mode is, I feel bad for you. Really, really bad.

In honor of one of the best front men in rock, let's take a fun little trip down memory lane. How about a little listen to "Photographic" from their very first album, "Speak and Spell"? It's not their first single but it's the first song DM ever recorded together.

This particular performance of "Photographic" is from when Dave was just 18 years old and Depeche Mode was just starting out on their journey to being the Best. Band. Ever. And in case you're confused, Dave's the very innocent and shy-looking young man with brown hair:



It's sooo cute, it makes my heart melt!

Fast forward 25 years to April 30, 2006. I got to hear them perform "Photographic" at their show in Vegas!!! You can read all about that adventure right here if you want! I was like three rows from the stage going NUTS when they played it and it was a total surprise to hear it because it's not a song that gets played a whole lot. It was cute to see them go back to their pure synthesizer roots.

There is some Vegas footage on YouTube but it's not that great, so instead, here's footage from a show in Berlin. I really like this footage because you can see how much fun Dave is having performing, especially between the 1:16 and 2:29 marks:



Yeah, rock it out, birthday boy! Bright lights! Dark room! Love it!

So in honor of Dave's birthday, I hope you go and do something to celebrate it being such a beautiful day today. You're alive and you've been blessed with another day! Use it wisely!

Badly Behaved Children

Sometimes I get a little annoyed when folks go on and on about how shocked they are that my sons are so well-behaved. The typical comment goes something like this:

"I just can't BELIEVE how good your kids are! I mean, look at them! They are just so well-behaved, it's AMAZING!!!"

Those are the moments I want to ask in return, "Why can't you believe it? Because they're black and male? Do you think all black males are heathens who can't behave? Hmm???"

But that would be me reading into the situation a little too much, even if I do sometimes think that racial dynamics are a part of the shocked response to their good behavior. I never ever do the, "Oh, but you should see how they bad they are when they're at home," thing. Instead, I verbally agree with the person, especially when my boys are in earshot. "Yes, they are very well-behaved. They are such good, polite boys."

We talk about the proper way to behave a whole lot in my house. Plus, I was a teacher, a teacher that did not play around and accept anything less than excellent behavior. Kids learn how to behave if you teach them how to and reward them for being good. To me, it's the essence of vanity to think you can go somewhere and be rude or disrespectful.

My seven year-old just started taking Kung Fu lessons at a place a couple of miles from my house. My husband took him to the first two lessons but I wanted to go so I took him last night. There are six other boys in the class and five of them are really badly behaved. My husband had warned me about how bad they are, but I still wasn't fully prepared for how they were talking back to the Sifu. These boys are a little older, maybe 6th graders, so the Sifu was giving them sets of push ups to do as punishment for being disrespectful. It really didn't seem like these boys cared all that much because they were doing dozens of push ups.

I saw my son watching these boys and then he'd look over at me to gauge my reaction to this. I kept shaking my head at him and giving him the "eye".

I started having flashbacks to something that happened when I was at a middle school basketball game. This girl in my class named Eleanor called her mom a bitch in front of everybody. What did Eleanor's mom do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She just stood there and said, "Oh, Eleanor, don't talk like that, honey!"

And what did Eleanor do with that? "Well you are a bitch! And I hate you! I wish you weren't even here."

My mouth was totally hanging open and I remember my mom just looked at me with this look that said, "If you ever do something like that, I will kill you."

The parents of these boys at Kung Fu last night were sitting right there watching their sons misbehaving. I think they saw my mom's look on my face. But them? One mom actually had the nerve to laugh and say, "They just come in here with so much energy, don't they?" They were totally being Eleanor's mom.

I made sure to talk with my son after the class about it all. I told him how I liked how respectful he was, how carefully he followed directions and how he thanked the Sifu after class. Then I took him to Robek's to get a smoothie treat. He asked me why I thought the other boys were bad and I told him it's because their parents let them act like that.

Later on, I got to thinking about how every single one of those misbehaving boys are white. After I got home I was talking on the phone with a girlfriend of mine and I told her about these boys. I started joking with her, "What they need is a black mom to set them straight because black moms don't play that."

Total stereotype, I know, but I think there is a grain of truth that certain cultures, particularly black folks, don't look kindly on their children misbehaving in public. And if your mom or dad is there, that's a definite no-no. It's not regarded as cute or funny and there's the cultural legacy that misbehaving in public can get you killed. Google Emmett Till's story if you're not sure what I mean by that.

Clearly, I know from teaching that black and Latino kids can and do misbehave in public. But again, I never saw it go down while the parents were sitting right there. I had students who would talk much smack, they'd be all, "Call my momma, I don't care!" Then when I'd call mom and get her to come up to the school, the tears and apologies would start big time and they'd never be a problem again.

The flip side of this is that while some of this cultural stuff is true, it also gives rise to, like I said, stereotypes. White parents are nice, but passive wimps, and black parents are mean and will beat your ass if you even look at them wrong, (especially if they're from the Caribbean).

Now, I don't beat my children at all. I do the modern version of discipline, which clearly, parents of all colors do: explain the rules, enforce the rules and reward and punish accordingly. I'm curious though, what do you all think about all this? What do you think about culturally different ways that people raise their kids or discipline them? In your experience, what do you see happen?

Sharing Secrets?

From time to time I find myself thinking about what I would write about in this space if this blog was totally anonymous.

I mean, yesterday I wrote a post that contained 40 tidbits of information about me. More than 40 if you're good at reading between the lines. But none of those things are actually what I was thinking about most of all. Truth is, I spent 99% of yesterday thinking about one particular thing and it sure as heck had, shocker of all shockers, nothing to do with Depeche Mode!

The question that lingers is would I have told you what I was really thinking about if this blog was anonymous?

Secrets are a sticky area for me because I know what the burden of keeping rather unhealthy ones feels like. We all have our secrets, the thoughts that are closest to our hearts, and how much to share is a really fine line. What to reveal, what to conceal?

I guess it depends on how we grew up, what we're culturally comfortable with, and what the repercussions of saying certain things are. And if this blog was anonymous, I could say, "Today I'm thinking about _____," or, "Today _____ happened and I felt _____ about it," and no one I know who reads this would have hurt feelings or would be shocked or calling me up saying anything.

Because I don't do that I often feel like I'm keeping secrets from you all, being less than honest. But do you even have, as a reader of this space, the right to know? That was clearly a rhetorical question since clearly, you don't, but you know what I mean.

On the other hand, no, there is no need to put everything out on front street. Everything doesn't have to be reality TV where sometimes I'm thinking, you could've kept that to yourself and I'd seriously be just fine.

This must be part of the reason folks go to therapy. I can see the appeal of paying money to have an objective listener, someone to tell all the things I'm really thinking about. Or, if this blog was anonymous, I could just put it all out there. Then instead of the therapist surreptitiously writing it down on their nice, yellow legal pad, you, the reader could be the one to comment, "Um, you're crazy!"

What about you? Where do you draw the line on what to share on your blog? (or in life if you're one of the five people in the world who don't have a blog yet) Have you ever regretted sharing a secret or secret thought on your blog?

10 x 4 = Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo everybody!

I know the popular misconception is that everyone who's Latino in Los Angeles comes from Mexico, and so folks should be out in the streets partying hardy. But in my neighborhood, half the people are from El Salvador -- totally different country -- and they could care less about a holiday celebrating a 19th century Mexican battle.

BUT since it's a day for celebration, let's start out the morning with a little "Yes We Can", courtesy of House Music United.



I have no idea what's up with the place-setting video. I didn't make it. But can I just say that records like this are exactly why I like Europeans. No Americans these days are gonna throw an Obama speech over a tech-house beat, and we INVENTED house music! Instead we get will.i.am's folksy version, which is all very touching and inspiring, but when I need to get myself going in the morning, this is SO much better.

Disclaimer: If you hate house music and hate Barack Obama because he's an uppity negro and you think his wife will be blasting "Computer Love" from the White House, sorry! Wrong blog for you!

Yeah, let me push "replay" on that clip. I really need to hear that again. Yes we can! Wake up, that is! I will have you know that I did not go to sleep last night at all. I spent my evening getting caught up tweaking a little something I wrote a couple of months ago and then working on another short story I've been absolutely obsessed with. However, I'm feeling a little wired even though I haven't slept. It must be the sheer emotional adrenaline of what I was writing.

That means it's perfect timing for me to swagger jack this meme from Madame hot-blogger herself, 1969! Get ready, because you're gonna learn a whole bunch about me that you had no idea you ever wanted to know. And if you don't want to know, stop reading now and call it a day, m'kay?

Ten things I really liked when I was a teenager that I don’t much care for now:
1) Baked chicken: Vegetarianism sort of lured me away and soured my relationship with chicken. Gosh, I feel so guilty. I've been cheating with tofu all these years.
2) Horse racing: I think Eight Belles death on Saturday at the Kentucky Derby really put the nail in the coffin. But I used to be crazy for the ponies. I even wanted to be a female jockey at one point.
3) Leftovers: I never ate them when I lived in China and that soured me on them forever. I feel like throwing up if I have to eat them.
4) Blue eyeshadow: I really thought I was fly in that light blue. Gosh, it was an '80s thing.
5) Pancakes and fries eaten at the same time: Too much starch and I like for my clothes to fit.
6) Shorts: I just think they're for kids, not for grown women with two kids of their own.
7) Vanity Fair: The book, not the magazine. I recently tried to reread it and it just irritated me. I kept yelling, "Get to the point!" Waay too long!
8) W Magazine: My mom subscribed and I used to love it. I recently bought the issue with Keira Knightley on the cover. Bored to tears by the wack fashions and the lack of diversity in the models.
9) MTV: Too many Tila Tequila shows and not enough actual music. I'm not feeling it and haven't for a long time.
10) Popular radio stations: Same 10 songs playing over and over again and their morning shows? What in the world are they talking about? Radio has definitely changed for the worse -- or am I just getting old?

Ten things I didn’t like when I was a teenager but I really like them now:
1) Talk radio: I love KNX 1070 out here in LA but I used to fight with my Dad over Chicago's very own, WGN.
2) Walking: Walking is the kiss of death for a teenager but now I'm all for it.
3) Television cop dramas: You would never have caught me watching a Hill Street Blues type show as some teen Now I love Law & Order. (Except I haven't watched TV for two weeks now.)
4) Exercise: We've come a long way from the days of Jane Fonda-type pure aerobics. Thank goodness.
5) Martial arts movies: I've been a Jet Li fan for 15 years now. And Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is still a masterpiece by any definition.
6) Ice cream: Three cheers for Breyer's Triple Chocolate.
7) Diet Coke: I'm with you on this one, 1969. But I'm being lured away by Coke Zero.
8) Art Museums: Now that I know the history and the stories behind the paintings, I like going.
9) Shopping: 80's clothes were kind of ugly and didn't look too good on me. Plus, if we were going shopping, chances are my mom was getting something, not me. Not fun.
10) Myself: Yeah, I wasn't too crazy about myself as a teenager. Thank goodness I outgrew that.

Ten things I've never liked and probably never will:
1) Snobby people: If you have to keep repeating where you got your little JD/MBA from, how "good" your hair is, or who your daddy is, guess what, you've pretty much guaranteed that I'm going to HATE you. I could stop this list right here with this one because I will HATE you, do you hear me, H-A-T-E you.
2) Being Broke: Been there, done that. I'll never be money hungry but being hungry because I have no ducats is not something I care to repeat.
3) Big cars: Bad for the environment and I don't know how to parallel park them.
4) Alcohol: I can't stand the smell of beer. Drunk folks tend to get on my nerves, and drunk drivers deserve the slammer.
5) Drama: Especially the sort where people ask me for advice, don't take it and then come crying when their life gets all jacked up.
6) Mediocrity: Come hard with it or don't come at all. If you did your best, fine. But don't tell me you didn't really try or didn't really care what the end result was.
7) Brian McKnight, Wesley Snipes, Tom Cruise, Justin Timberlake and Rush Limbaugh: They all make me sick. Just go away.
8) Greasy Southern Food: Hello! Vegetables can be made without butter and I don't want to eat fried eggs you made with a jar of drippings.
9) Self help books: I have a total mental block against them.
10) Scary movies: I'm still traumatized by watching "Secret Window" and "The Grudge" with my sister two years ago. I seriously can't deal with scary movies.


Ten things I’ve always really liked and very likely always will:
1) My kids: I love them more than anything on this planet.
2) Depeche Mode: In case you didn't know, they're the best band in the world. They just need to hurry up with the new record. Pretty please with a cherry on top?
3) Writing: Ah yes, the reason I did not go to bed last night and the reason I blog.
4) Dracula: The novel, as in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Mina Harker is one of my alter-egos.
5) Orlando Bloom: Is this the wrong time to talk about my unopened Legolas doll?
6) Shoes: I have a particular "thing" for red high heels and I really want some black stilettos with metal heels.
7) Driving a stick shift: I can be a little bit of a control freak and a stick shift helps with that. I'm good at it too. Alas, my current car is not a stick because my husband can't drive one.
8) Traveling: I will go anywhere you want to go. I really like to travel!
9) Jane Austen: Austen's novels are still so fresh and relevant. They're social commentary and soap opera all wrapped into one.
9) Tea: I will drink pretty much any tea that you offer me, not just my beloved chai. I like it plain or with a little milk in it and two sugar cubes.
10: Thai Food: I'm so spoiled because I live right on the edge of Thai Town and in delivery distance of one of the best Thai restaurants in LA.

Whew, I'm tagging some of you...later. I think I need to recover from this post.

Behind the Wall

Yesterday afternoon I came home and, despite the aches in my knee, I couldn't stop myself from heading back out to take a very slow stroll around the neighborhood with my sons. However, almost immediately my walk was cut short, not because of knee pain but because I was absolutely shocked by what was going on across the street.

For as long as I've lived in my neighborhood, one of the houses diagonally across from me has been completely obscured. The house being set far back from the sidewalk and being built into a down slope, strategically placed trees and an extremely high cinder block wall have all ensured that for the nine years I've lived here I've never actually seen the entire property. I've only seen part of one corner.

The cinder block wall was painted a gentle shade of light green and was, almost year-round, covered with a flowering vine. It blended in beautifully with the rest of the neighborhood's scenery, so much so that it was easy to forget that a wall was even there and that something might exist beyond it.

Sometimes though I've wondered what was behind the wall. The secluded nature has caused me to imagine the property as the neighborhood version of "The Secret Garden". I've pictured two worn and weary lovers escaping the cares of the day, quaintly holding hands while sitting on a shaded bench. There's a peaceful silence in their secret garden, the noise of the city magically unable to cross the green-painted concrete barrier and the aroma of honeysuckle wafting through the breeze.

But when I stepped outside yesterday and looked across the street, I saw that this magical wall was completely gone. The entire thing had been knocked down, a yawning space left in its wake. Four workers with sledgehammers were quickly breaking up the few remaining pieces of green rubble and loading it onto a junkyard truck.

My eyes immediately moved past the workers to the house behind them. Revealed at last was the mythical place that has been obscured all these years, a rather quaint one-story craftsman cottage. And the romantic yard of my imagination? It has a neglected air to it with some ill-kept grass. The honeysuckle bush and shaded bench from my imagination were both absent.

But my jaw dropped when I saw a small sliver of blue rippling in the sunlight. Unbelievably, a small, oval shaped sunken swimming pool is in the front yard.

It was too much for me to process all at once, so I stood and gaped at the spectacle in front of me. My sons began to excitedly chatter with each other about how they were going to go and swim in the pool.

I immediately thought that somebody better have plans to put up a new wall or fence so that the neighborhood kids don't drown themselves. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of my neighbors who lives down the street walking my way. She's lived in this neighborhood for at least 25 years and has seen more changes then I have.

"Someone must've bought it," she said as she approached, her face wrinkled with disdain. "It must be house flippers. Who else would tear down that wall?"

I nodded my head in agreement, disappointed that indeed, some thoughtless newbies would tear down such a neighborhood fixture. Then I figured that perhaps the new owners don't want as much privacy. So many of the newer residents of my neighborhood seem to voyeuristically forgo curtains over their front windows, as if they enjoy being seen and admired from the street.

And then a wave of guilt washed over me. I hadn't even noticed the property was for sale, and moreso I'd never even seen the previous owners. "Who used to live there?" I asked. "I never saw anybody coming in or out."

"No, you wouldn't have," she replied. "It was a much older gay couple and both of them were very ill for the past few years. AIDS, you know. One of them died a few years ago. The other must've either finally died or had to move."

I wasn't expecting her to share such an unhappy and tragic story. Sometimes it seems like we never hear anymore about people in the States dying from AIDS related complications. It's like we're all lulled into believing folks can live a normal life with the right medication. We no longer really talk as a society about the pain and suffering of AIDS. And so I could only murmur inadequately about how horrible it was.

My seven year-old son chimed in with an innocent, "What's AIDS, mommy?"

Our neighbor leaned down to pinch his cheek. "It's a disease that you'll never get if you take care of yourself."

"But do you get it from swimming pools?" he asked. I told him no and gave him the "eye" to shush his curiosity.

My neighbor continued. "They used to throw wonderful parties when I first moved here..." Her voice trailed off and I could see she was being taken back in time, perhaps remembering sitting around that pool, chatting with them. "But then one of them cheated, got HIV, gave it to the other. You know how it goes."

"They stayed together?" I asked. Such an incredulous thought seems against human nature. I couldn't imagine doing such a thing. I'd be too angry, too bitter to wake up and be civilized around someone who is the cause of my mortality, all the while knowing that sooner or later the medication wouldn't be enough for either of us.

She nodded sadly. "Yeah, but they pretty much cut themselves off from everybody after that."

We watched the workers for a few more minutes, chatted a bit more and then parted. I didn't feel like going for a walk anymore after that. I had too many visions in my head of two 40 or 50 something year-old men dying in that house. I pictured them sitting inside, holding onto the last precious moments of life, looking out on that swimming pool and remembering the days of their youth, the days of their innocence.

By dusk, a hideous wooden fence was in place, hurriedly erected by the four workers. It's not as tall as the wall it replaced so more of the house is visible. These new owners, however long they stay, will certainly make the house their own, erasing the memories, erasing the pain those walls have surely seen.

I can only hope they don't meet the same tragic fate.