Bread and Bread

1. when breast is not best Last night at Nicole’s, we watched an episode of The L Word , which I hadn’t seen in ages. Nicole caught me up the plot, which has the ups and downs of a soap and the wild, jerky pace of a cab darting through traffic. “Okay,” said Nicole, “so Max, the trans guy, was dating this bio gay guy who got him pregnant, then freaked out and left. Now Max’s friends are throwing him a baby shower, and for some reason there’s a Willy Wonka theme.” When I came in, Max’s female friends were all chatting happily about episiotomies as Max looked on with horror. Because, you know, that’s what gay women who don’t have kids usually talk about. They’re LADIES! They love their vaginas! And childbirth! Then Jenny—oh, Jenny—gave Max a breast pump , which he also gazed upon with horror. “I’m not gonna breastfeed,” grunted Max, played by actress Daniela Sea, who seems to think that lowering her voice is a substitute for saying her lines with any expression whatsoever. “I know you ide...

Because I have a cold that is still fogging up my brain, and because I have to meet Nicole for dinner in about ten minutes, all I’m up for today is bullet points (I announce, as if you’d all keel over dead if I didn’t blog this week). Some thoughts, in very unparticular order: Hospitals should not send you letters that say you need an EKG and then, when you call them, say, “Oh, that was just a form letter. You don’t need an EKG” as if you should have known. It is really nice to read a good book after being mired in a, well, not a bad book, but a long, dense book with way too many tangents about drunken clowns in Russia , which is not as fun as it sounds. Giving up abstract things for Lent is not as much fun as giving up disposable cups, which I did two years ago. (Last year I missed Lent altogether—so I guess I gave up Lent for Lent.) The marquis on the progressive church next to my office says, “Enviro…LENT…alism.” If you need a quick pick-me-up, you should watch either this or this...

In LAUSD, when parents take their kids out of school for a week, it’s probably because their car broke down. In snowier parts of the country—and, inexplicably, parts of San Diego—it’s to go skiing. You know how sometimes you hear about a thing for the first time and then you hear about it everywhere for the next few days? That was me and Ski Week, officially known as President’s Week, and oh was it ski week at Mammoth. The mountain was crawling with adorable bundled-up children who were twice the skiers I’ll ever be. Their moms crowded the beginner class AK took. I was envious and a little suspicious of anyone entitled enough to pull their children out of school just because the snow was too perfect to resist. But mostly I was just excited to get started on my own Ski (Half) Week. Christine and Jody were once again Ski Mom and Dad to a gaggle of their friends, organizing the condo rental, telling us whether our boots fit (“If it’s too comfortable, it doesn’t fit,” said Christine, who ...

The other night I dreamed (dreamt? I’ve always been iffy about that one) that I was at a party with a bunch of writers I admired. I looked down and saw that, while I was wearing a skirt I liked—a kind of jagged-edged teal one from American Apparel —I was wearing it with a baggy old T-shirt. I remember thinking hopefully, Maybe it’s sort of raggedy chic and I have a Mary-Kate Olsen thing going on. But nope, it was an old shirt I work out in, which has not seen the color white for a long time. Weird that I didn’t just dream I was naked. Maybe I’m more scared of being thought to have bad taste than of being exposed. Anyway, here are the two things I actually logged in to tell you: 1) See Coraline . It’s so bizarre and lovely, and I would kill to create an otherworldly world the way those filmmakers did, although I’m not nearly patient enough to do so (I would settle for just having Coraline’s cute blue haircut—and I do pretty much have her heroic, big-eyed black cat). It’s also kind of ...

On Saturday AK and I showed up at the ArcLight at random, as we seem to be developing a habit of, and said, “What’ve you got?” What they had was He’s Just Not That Into You . (Do you like how I just made it sound like I was forced to see it as a last resort? Like I saw it only because Waltz With Bashir was sold out? In fact, I was quite into seeing He’s Just Not That Into You .) It’s very much a movie of its genre, which I guess is technically “romantic comedy,” but which in my head is “movie in which all hair is either perfectly curled or ironed to the smoothness of a skating rink, and all the characters more or less work as graphic designers.” This genre is eye candy not of the Scarlett-Johansson ’s-tits variety (although there was that too) but of the shiny-pages-of- Vogue variety. Except the idea of He’s Just Not… was to rip the romantic-comedy goggles right off the faces of its female viewers, right? I didn’t read the book, but I heard co-author Greg Behrendt interviewed enough t...

This is old news among nonprofit arts geeks now, but the senate voted to cut arts funding from the economic stimulus package . Republican senator Tom Coburn presented an amendment that would prevent funds from being used for any “casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, [or] highway beautification project.” The zoo animals and I are a little offended that our livelihoods are considered as frivolous and useless as casinos and golf courses. We’re not quite sure why auto-manufacturing is considered a real, stimulus-worthy job, but caring for species that those autos are indirectly wiping out and ensuring that American culture is more than just Pimp My Ride are not. If you agree with me and the elephants (whose painting projects are now doubly threatened), go here: http://www.capwiz.com/artsusa/home/ . Incidentally, aren’t we in this mess because Wall Street is one giant gambling establishment?...

[Spoiler alert only if you are Cathy Klein: The following post contains information about your birthday present.] I'd been planning to spend my Saturday morning waiting in line at the Greek Theatre box office for Flight of the Conchords tickets. The good news was that there was only one other person there when I arrived at 9:45. The bad news was that apparently all the people who weren't there knew that the box office was closed for the season. Walking around confused and lightly-rained-on, I kind of felt like I was in an episode of Flight of the Conchords (I love how relentlessly sincere they are, diligently seeing every bad idea through to its ridiculous conclusion; Lee-Roy 's brother Valentine, who's spent a lot of time in New Zealand, swears this is exactly how people are there--once a guy he barely knew showed up at his house in the middle of a thunderstorm to teach him how to play a card game Valentine had casually mentioned wanting to learn over drinks a few w...

Today at work, a small cardboard box from Walmart arrived in the mail. Inside was a SOYJOY bar and a SOYJOY brochure promoting SOYJOY’s “Whole Soy. Real Fruit. Longer-Lasting Energy.” Jamie: There’s something weird about randomly getting food in the mail. Cheryl: I hate it when foods advertise that they’re made with “real” fruit or “real” cheese or whatever. If the best thing you can say about food is that it’s food, it’s probably not that good. Jamie: I wonder if it’s made with non-GMO soy. Cheryl: It doesn’t say it is, so it probably isn’t. What’s GMO? Jamie: Genetically modified. There’s something bad about genetically modified soybeans, but I can’t remember what right now. Cheryl: I wonder if it has any recalled peanuts in it. Jamie: I’m just going to throw it away. Cheryl: No, don’t! I’ll totally eat it.

I’m happy to report that I’m now the proud owner of a new used bike (thanks to Christine, whose legs are too long for it) and an almost completed New Year’s resolution . (I was sneaky to make my resolution “Start riding a bike” instead of just “Get a bike.”) Just in time, since I’m on a cardio-only exercise regimen thanks to my hernia , which I’ve nicknamed Iggy . I took my maiden bicycle voyage Sunday afternoon with AK, who also owns one of Christine’s old bikes. I programmed a four-digit number into my new combination lock. I attached my new lights. I strapped on my new bike helmet whose baby blue-ness almost allows me to forget the fact that it’s a bike helmet and not a jaunty cap. I tried not to think about how expensive a used bike can be once you start adding a bunch of new accessories. (But AK and I did get free T-shirts from the friendly owner of the Bicycle Station , who said I looked like Amanda Peet. So ultimately I think I got a good deal.) Riding residential-ish streets do...