Bread and Bread

What is the world coming to when even Terry Gross spends most of her interview with Penélope Cruz asking about the actress’ now-famous ass-padding in Volver ? The NPR reviewer, too, was equally body-oriented, rhapsodizing about how Cruz’s sultry make-up spoke volumes about her character, and how she was the new Sophia Loren, etc., etc. The guy basically spent 10 minutes intellectualizing his crush on Ms. Cruz. I’ll get it out of the way more quickly: Penélope Cruz is hot. Now, moving on. Volver is a physical film, maybe even more so than most movies, but it’s also a tough and mature movie, which can get lost in the ass-padding excitement. Cruz plays Raimunda, a hardworking, newly single mom who seems too busy running a restaurant, dealing with her aunt’s death and covering up her daughter’s (quite justified) murder of her (Raimunda’s) husband to put on all that make-up, though we do see her doing so once. Her sister Sole (played by the actually-plenty-attractive-herself Lola ...

That’s what David Wong Louie wrote when he signed a copy of his much-rewritten second book for me. I haven’t started revising my novel for real yet, but I am doing some line editing before sending chapter 10 to my writing group. A window into my so-called process: I took refuge in the aisles of gorgeous fruits and vegetables. I took refuge in the aisles of luxuriant fruits and vegetables. I took refuge in the aisles of garish fruits and vegetables. I took refuge in the aisles of ostentatiously gorgeous fruits and vegetables. I took refuge in the aisles of fruits and vegetables.

1. a good long life At this very moment, my real high school reunion is happening. Or I should say, my official high school reunion is happening, because the real thing, as far as I’m concerned, happened last night. Instead of paying $55 per person, we had a potluck at Bonnie ’s apartment. I arrived second, apologizing for my burnt brownies as I walked through the door. Amy said, “Yeah, I was supposed to make a vegetable dish, but I ran out of time and just ended up buying something.” Then Jenessa called, saying she was running late and did we still really want her to bring a salad? Our gathering reaffirmed what I observed at last year’s mini-reunion —that we’re very much still our high school selves: over-achievers with slacker tendencies (or maybe vice versa), self-deprecating, sarcastic, creative. And that we’re also not—the sarcasm that we honed making fun of people for ridiculous reasons (“Remember how we used to make fun of Shannon Christiansen?” Bonnie said. “Why?” Angie aske...

I just drove back from my dad’s house after a long day of extended family and tasty side dishes. It’s finally starting to get cold, and I kept having to turn the windshield wipers on, even with the defroster going full blast. The roads were wide open, and Chris Pureka ’s “Swann Song” was playing in my CD player. It’s upbeat and sad at the same time—smoky-voiced, nostalgic, sing-along-able. It embodies late autumn perfectly. Chris Pureka is a new discovery, brought to my attention by a mass email from B, who likes heartbreaking girl folk singers, and who broke up with me a year ago this weekend. A year ago this weekend I could not peel myself off the floor, and when I finally did, I ran five miles and hardly even felt it. I thought about that self tonight (maybe because earlier in the day I was listening to Pink ’s sweet but less spectacular “Conversations With My 13 Year Old Self”) and I felt so sad for that self, and loved her so much. She had no idea what was ahead of her—that a yea...

Courtesy of J.P. , Akbar craft captain and holiday philosopher: Thank you for the very weird experience of a holiday that suffers from gross historical distortion, but still has the gleanings of a message that endures (the concept of gratitude and celebration of the harvest). Despite all the starvation, disease, nasty catty fights about real-estate, back-stabbing, maize, muskets, hats with buckles, pretty head-dresses, small pox, the Narragansets and the Puritans...we’re essentially thankful for mostly everything. I guess. Whatever. Turkey . I would say “tofurky,” but other than that, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

As of a lovely ceremony Sunday morning, I’m officially a member of All Saints . It felt a little like graduation, where you’re sort of moved, but also sort of worried about when you’re supposed to sit and stand and walk off stage. Afterward, our Covenant I group practiced the ancient Episcopalian ritual of going out for Thai food.

Speaking of art, we stopped in San Luis Obispo, where AK spent her college days, and saw the famous Bubblegum Alley, where people have been sticking chewed-up wads of gum for years. And they say public art is dead.

On Friday, AK and I visited the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, where one of the highlights was an exhibition of Ruth Asawa ’s modernist take on those wire baskets that hold potatoes and lemons and stuff. They were intricate, eerie and oddly warm and organic for sculptures made of twis ted metal.

I’m at least 1,000 words behind in my blogging, so hopefully these pictures will tell the story of my past week. Three fun days of it were spent in San Francisco. Unfortunately I didn’t document lunch at Citizen Cake , where Erin (fresh from proving art and sports do mix at our work meeting) and AK bonded over their mutual love of Jenny Lewis, and Jamie and I devoured a dessert that literally looked like shit (think fudge logs sitting on top pumpkin skid marks) but tasted so good we were proud to claim our citizenry. I’ll start with karaoke at the Mint , where Jamie played air flute, Patricia channeled Dolly, AK rocked Axl Rose and I tried to do fan kicks to Fiona Apple. And a 70-something leather daddy sang a version of John Lennon’s “Imagine” that was so sweet I really could imagine all those things. All before 6 p.m., ladies and gentlemen.

On Friday I made two delightful discoveries. 1) The Pinkberry frozen yogurt that people are clogging the streets of West Hollywood for totally lives up to the hype. Isn’t it nice when something does that? Actually, I have to admit that I tried a knockoff version, the Big Chill’s Chillberry flavor, which has thus far only clogged a small strip mall parking lot. But it’s damn good stuff. A frozen yogurt version of plain yogurt, basically—tart with just a little sweetness. When I returned from lunch, I reported my findings to Jamie and Cait, our intern. “It’s so good,” I said. “It totally lives up to the hype. The only bad part was that I got a chocolate peanut butter cup topping—it was like putting a really ornate Victorian chair in the middle of a sleek, modern apartment.” Cait, being a 19-year-old USC student who is already over trends I’ve never even heard of, was familiar with Pinkberry, but Jamie hadn’t heard of it. When I described it to her, she said, “That’s like the original ...

Since I had to work slightly harder than usual to vote yesterday, (meaning I had to print my sample ballot from the inte rn et rather than just pull it out of my mailbox—god, now I know what Iraqis go through to vote!), I got an extra special little buzz in pasting my “I Voted” sticker to my shirt. I voted at 7:30 a.m., so I had nearly 15 hours to walk around in ignorant bliss, hopeful that America would make good choices. The good news is that, unlike in the 2000 and 2004 elections, the results did not make me cry. The good news is that Democrats are no longer letting Republicans have the lock on morality rhetoric, and Nancy Pelosi is third in line for the presidency. The bad news is that I’m having double assassination fantasies (note to blog police: Did I say “double assassination fantasies”? I meant “double simultaneous naturally caused heart attack” fantasies), which doesn’t seem healthy. The bad news is that America still hates fags, except in Arizona , where they’re...

Sometimes, when the kids are having a fun game of meme tag—or whatever they call it—you just have to tag yourself. And when it comes to books, I can resist a little self-tagging. 1) One book that changed your life. When I was five, my mom started reading the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder to me. Soon I was narrating my own life in the third person: “Then Cheryl went into the bathroom. It was dark, and she hoped there were no kidnappers hiding behind the toilet.” In kindergarten, when we wrote little stories to explain what was happening in our finger-paintings, I raised my hand and asked, “How do you spell ‘replied’?” Before a thousand other books brought beauty and darkness and history and social consciousness into my life, a little girl in a bonnet brought words themselves. 2) One book that you’d read more than once. Would read again: anything funny that I can read out loud to people I like to hear laugh. Have read again: In the Heart...

One Halloween night, a shark and a cat named OC (who looked, to the un t rain ed eye, m uch like a generic tiger but was in fact OC—orange tabby, Mid-City resident, connoisseur of plastic bags and popsicles) set out to have some West Hollywood fun. They had plans to meet their friend the vampire at the KBIG stage, where Tiffany was performing. (This was what happened when gay men found corporate sponsorship—Tiffany got gigs again.) They drove to the house where OC was cat-sitting and fed Mao, Miso and Stripe, who were not especially worried about being care d for by a giant member of th eir species and a shark who had recently eaten a scuba diver. From there, OC and the shark walked to the bus stop, where they waited. And waited. And called the shark’s roommat e to confirm the bus schedule. And waited some more. Finally, the shark said, “Can we go back to Jamie and Lee-Roy ’s house for a little while? I’m freezing.” “Of course,” said OC. “I’m weari ng a wool sweater, but I forgot—yo...

Okay, so the scary clown has not yet begun to shoot blood from his eyeballs as I had hoped, but he is now tied—by the neck—to the lamppost with what looks like a periwinkle unitard. In the interest of better clown posture, I guess. I’ll probably stop by that store today to see if I can find a cheap, minimal, last-minute costume. The other day AK described the following conversation with her coworker, and I could relate: AK: I’m trying to come up with a cheap, minimal, last-minute Halloween costume. Coworker: Alright, let’s think about what we have to work with. What do you have in the costume section of your closet? AK: [Blank stare.] Coworker: You know, your old clothes and stuff. What do you do with your old clothes? AK: I give them away. Coworker: [Shaking head.] Before you give anything away, you should always ask yourself, “Could I use this as part of a costume?” This mo rn ing I checked the shelves above my closet to see if maybe I had a costume s...

Most of my week in New York was kind of…worky. Breaks included: 1) getting food poisoning and 2) seeing some good movies. I’ll spare you the details of the former. The Prestige : Nicole S. (of NYC, not to be confused with Nicole K. of LA—although, interestingly, they both have sisters named Vanessa) and Bram and I went to Nicole’s favorite theater on 33 rd St. , the one with the good chicken tenders. I was still a little nauseous—and still a vegetarian—so I ordered the so-much-more-stomach-settling nachos, and settled in to see Christian Bale play an obsessive magician competing against his fellow obsessive magician (Hugh Jackman) in tu rn -of-the-century London. Given that I love Christian Bale (especially in tu rn -of-the-century period pieces ) and anything that vaguely resembles the gritty, creepy, fun-house glamour of an old-fashioned traveling circus, this movie didn’t have to do much to win me over. In the nearly perfect opening sequence, we see Hugh Jackman’s c...

After 11 and a half years, people from my high school are finally planning our 10-year reunion . I had made up my mind to go: I was already in town, I was curious, I’d made a decent life for myself and I thought it would be nice to run into one of the four people I’d like to catch up with who aren’t on MySpace . Then I read the part of the Evite that said “Send $55 per person to….” Then again, I thought, they’ll have to join MySpace eventually , right? Around this time, I also stumbled across the MySpace page of a fellow Mira Costa Mustang who’d recently had a baby. She smiled up from her profile pic, looking blonde and radiant, sans an ounce of baby weight. Her gorgeous daughter was in one arm, and her designer leather diaper bag was in the other. I thought, Do I want to pay $55 to be reminded more viscerally than ever of what Manhattan Beach is like? I looked at the “No” section of the Evite. The people who had declined so far had included comments like, “Sorry to miss it, but I’ll...

I was traveling for work (seemed like some sort of Central Valley town, somewhere with a lot of strip malls and open space) and, coming out of a meeting, I wandered across the street and into a warehousey-looking store. It tu rn ed out to be a giant thrift store that catered to drag queens, especially drag queens of the slightly tragic, less-than-fabulous variety. They type more likely to wear polyester than sequins. They had to live on the DL in this town, and it showed in their shoulders. I looked around for something to buy, and was repeatedly drawn to quiet, casual clothes. Cotton shirts. Jeans. I thought, Wow, I’m such a dyke. I befriended the owners, this cool drag-queen couple, and as I was drawn further into the store, it lost its Salvation Army vibe and became more and more magical. There were twinkly Christmas lights. Steamer trunks full of silk slips. Wine and music. One of the owners gave me an apple, and when I bit into it, it was full of chocolate.

I’ve been in a bad mood for the past 36 hours or so because I’m at the stage of novel-writing where I hate my draft so much that I want to erase my name from the title page and replace it with my worst enemy’s. Family Genus Species , a novel by George W. Bush. But then I look at pictures of bunnies and bread and I feel better (thanks Jay Jao and Patricia).

The balloons that were previously tied to the scary clown ’s mannequin wrist have all popped, leaving eight or ten dangling strings attached to shreds of rubber. Basically it looks like a bunch of giant spiders have repelled down from his Madonna-glove hand on fat webs.

Perhaps almost as important and informative as fictional has-been movie stars are the current projects of my real live artist friends: 1) My friend Nicole just co-authored (with Mike Szymanski) The Bisexual’s Guide to the Universe . I haven’t gotten my copy yet, but I did take one of its quizzes on http://www.guidebi.com/ . I learned that based on the foods I like (eggplant, pancakes, curly fries), I am apparently bisexual. 2) My friends-of-AK’s-friends J.P. and Jennifer Jordan Day collaborated on the online Halloween advent calendar-slash-art exhibit Gothtoberfest . I learned how to make pumpkin pizza and say “Do you want eyeballs with your beer?” in German.