Grateful to Have So Many Candles

Whew, I will definitely be up in the gym tomorrow working off the huge slice of carrot cake I just ate. It was SO good though.

And I'll tell you about my fun afternoon tomorrow as well because guess what? Madame Insomniac is going to bed!

Shake It, Shh-Shake It...But Please Don't Break It!

Clearly, the bad thing about being up at one in the morning is that I'm aware that an earthquake just happened. See the nice red square on the map? That was our earthquake.

Now, if I was sleeping like I should be, I'd think the shaking was one of the kids trying to climb into bed with me, or maybe I'd think it was part of a really good dream.

Instead, I've been awake, sitting on the couch, listening to the new Blaqk Audio, thinking too much and writing it all down.

And then the couch started to feel like it was vibrating, like if a really big truck was going by.

But, it's one in the morning so there are no trucks.

Before I knew it, other stuff started to vibrate and move.

There's that feeling of uncertainty and, heck, I'll say it, FEAR, when an earthquake starts. Is it going to be a micro-quake, a light quake or...

IS IT THE BIG ONE?

You know, the big one where all of us LA sinners fall of the face of the earth and float away into the Pacific, which will be a total bummer since I don't know how to swim. But just imagine, this ginormous quake of the future will put TMZ out of business because all the celebrities will be flattened under the collapsed walls of their mansions.

Well, not all the celebrities. Clearly, Orlando Bloom will survive because he's living in the UK these days and hanging out with the very lovely Naomie Harris.

I swear, I look at that picture and totally think they look like my mom and dad forty years ago.

Anyway, since I'm typing this, you can tell it wasn't "The Big One." Plus, I love technology because I can go to to the U.S. Geological Survey website and immediately find out info about the quake we just had. It's been categorized as a "light earthquake" since it was only a magnitude 4.5.

Seriously, 4.5...that's not so bad. A picture on one of the shelves slid off, but that's so not a big deal.

Wow, I really can't believe I just wrote that. Yeah, after almost nine years, LA is definitely home if I'm cool with a picture sliding off a shelf.

Now, back to the writing, listening, and thinking I was doing.

Or, maybe I should just go to bed so I can sleep through any aftershocks.

Maybe Cloning Isn't Such A Bad Idea After All

I've decided I need to clone myself.

Every year, the end of the school year rolls around and all hell breaks loose with my work schedule.

So, I figure it would be so useful to have another one of me running around doing a few things on my behalf. What would be even better though is if somehow I could still reap the benefits of the good things the clone does and have the clone do things I don't want to do or can't do.

Here are some tasks I could assign to my clone:

Exercise: I like to exercise but sometimes it's hard to find the time to do so when I get really busy. To fit it in, I find myself jumping rope in my living room at 5:30 am to hardcore techno. (Don't worry, no neighbors banged on my door because I was listening to my iPod while I was jumping.) But you see, if I had a clone, the clone could do the jumping and I could stay in bed and try to sleep a little bit longer.

Have Insomnia: Speaking of sleep, the clone can definitely be the one to suffer from chronic insomnia. Maybe then I can be free to try to catch some z's.

Laundry: The clone can be the one to sort the clothes, wash them and hang them on the clothes line, take them off the line, and then fold them or hang them up.

Get an Attitude: To be fair, I'm not sure if the woman in the parking lot down in Compton meant to hit me with her glass bottle when she threw it out of her car window a couple of hours ago. She might have just been doing some drive-by littering, and not actually trying to hit me. But, she did hit me with the bottle as I was walking from my car. The bottle still had some sort of orange drink in it. That orange drink got all over my clothes.

Now, my clone could have picked the bottle up and thrown it back at the car. My clone could have chased the car down, reached through the window, grabbed her by her multi-colored weave and let her know what I really think about her and her bottle. Alas, the real Liz can't do that because that's how people get shot and stabbed.

Enough about me and my clone. What about you? What would you have your clone do?

And a special shout out to all my Baha'i peeps today. Happy Declaration of the Bab! I hope no one threw any bottles at you!

Insomniacs And Their Overactive Imaginations

I can't sleep. And no, counting sheep is not going to help me.

It's not for lack of trying. But at some point, I just ixnay on the lying in bed in the dark thing and get back up. Sooo...now it's almost one in the morning and I'm listening to the Dave Dresden remix of Dave Spoon & Bill Hicks' "I Love Everything At Night". It's a little trancy and a little bit techno...and dang it, how apt is this song title right now?

Actually, I think that's part of the problem. I do love everything at night just a tad bit too much. I never wanted to go to bed as a child. In fact, I find myself thinking about how when I was a little girl, I really wanted to be a vampire. Yes, I know, it sounds crazy to want to be a vampire, but believe me, I did. Some of y'all wanted to be Barbie or Batman...same difference! (well, sorta!)

You see, one of my favorite movies when I was a kid was Love At First Bite, the vampire movie spoof where George Hamilton is Dracula and he moves to New York City and falls in love with Susan Saint James. She falls for him too and they turn into bats and fly into the moonlight together. I was six when it came out so it probably came on TV a couple of years later and I know that's when I saw it. Dracula wasn't scary at all. I mean, he was being played by George Hamilton so how fiendish could he possibly be? Well, fiendishly handsome but there was no hint of Dracula being a monster. In fact, he's the "hero" of the story.

Now, here's where you're going to think that I was one crazy kid: I used to go in my room in the afternoon, pull down the room-darkening shades my mom had put over the windows and lie prone on my bed, my arms crossed across my chest... just like a vampire in it's coffin. My sister would occasionally walk into our shared bedroom and, full of malicious intent, she'd pull the shades so they'd flick open with this horrific snapping sound. Light would instantaneously flood our bedroom. I can remember moments where I believed the sun was going to actually burn me to death. What can I say? I was a kid with a very hyperactive imagination.

I think initially I was into the fact that Dracula had no bedtime. And in the movies vampires are rich, clever and beautiful. Even after I saw Nosferatu and Fright Night, and it became crystal clear that Dracula was not always a hot guy who just happened to have fangs, the whole Vampire thing still fascinated me. I may have stopped wanting to be a vampire (thank goodness) but I was still into the lore and the legend. I suppose that's why I've read Dracula 218 times in the past twenty years.

Given all my interest, you might be wondering if I believe in vampires. Hmm. Well, I don't think vampires are those crazy folks you see on Dateline NBC that drink each other's blood and go to the dentist to elongate their canine teeth. Those folks are just confused.

Nowadays, I find myself thinking about how we've all met someone who tries so hard to latch on to us, and then just ends up trying to suck the life out of us. You know what kind of person I'm talking about, right? It's the person you've determined is toxic to your emotional, social and spiritual health. Well, to me, that person's a vampire. Really, isn't that the worst? Don't you wish you had some holy water to just toss on that person who's trying to sink their teeth into you? Don't you wish the sun would turn them to ash or make them run for cover? I know I do.

Ok, I'm going to give the sleep thing another try. Maybe if I do a little more pretending and lie down in my bed like I used to back in the day, arms crossed in an X across my chest, I'll be distracted from all the things I'm thinking about and actually go to sleep.

Catalyst

It's one in the morning, the time of night the street outside actually quiets down to only a solitary car wicking it's way along the pavement. I should be sleeping, but obviously, I'm not. I can't help feeling like I'm waiting for something to happen, and if I go to sleep, I'm going to miss it. I just don't know what it is that I'm waiting for, or what I'm expecting to happen.

With our "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" mentality in this country, we're taught to believe we can control things, that something will only happen if and when we decide to make it happen. Except that's not always the way it works. Sean Bell, the black man in New York City who was fatally shot by police a couple of days ago for no apparent reason certainly could not have anticipated that he would never see his wedding day. Something happened to him that he did not expect.

I know, that's an extreme example. It's just that lately, I've had this feeling that something rather unexpected is about to change my life. Maybe I'm about to get another cold. Maybe we're going to have an earthquake soon. I don't know. Maybe it's just that I'm feeling a need for change. Do I secretly want something momentous to happen so that it will serve as a catalyst for that change?

Right now, I just need to change my state of wakefulness. I'm going to go count some sheep.

Late to Bed, Early to Rise

I'm catching a flight to Chicago this morning-- and it leaves at six am.

In the past, I would just pull an all-nighter and sleep on the plane, but since I actually have to pick up a car and drive once I land, I figured I should have more than four hours of sleep. So, I decided to go to bed around 11:30...but I didn't fall asleep until sometime after one. I just kept thinking about that stupid Laguna Beach show. I watched alot of it for the first time ever this weekend since I was sick and had nothing to do but zone out.

There are quite a few things about the show that are bugging me. Here are my top five questions about Laguna Beach:

1) How come Cami, the one black person we've seen on Laguna Beach, never has any guys interested in her? She seems to spend most of her time shopping and sniping at other folks because she's getting no play herself. Maybe Laguna Beach should get a little real and ask "the guys" why none of them are dating her or interested in her. She has the biggest boobs out of all the girls so one of these shallow boys should be after her. But, they aren't. Hmm...I would say it's because she's rude, spoiled and gossipy, but all the girls are like that so I am left to throw out that "race card" and say it's because she's black.

2) Why do they only play bubblegum pop and emo rock on Laguna Beach? The theme song is by Hillary Duff. Are we supposed to believe these teens aren't banging 50 Cent in their Range Rovers? C'mon, these kids are the target audience of most rap records these days.

3) What's in the little red cups? Are we supposed to believe they are drinking Pepsi outta those?

4) And why is it always a party or a night out at a restaurant? These kids are weird. They don't seem to be involved in any kind of extra-curricular activities like sports or Amnesty International. Gosh, even the most uninvolved kid at my high school did something.

5) Where are the fathers? We see some mothers hovering around and passing out the red cups. But there are never any fathers around. What's up with that?

Now that I have all that off my chest, I'm going to get myself to LAX so I can sleep peacefully on the plane!