Bread and Bread

…means Christmas with Republicans.

Last night AK and I took the Gold Line to Pershing Square (we’re so urban!) to see a free concert by Los Abandoned , a sort of punk-Spanglish- dancehall band that I’ve been somewhat into lately, and would be more so if the CD player in my car were working properly. It wasn’t the easiest venue—an outdoor stage beneath an arbor of bejeweled palm trees and styrofoam snowflakes, across from an ice skating rink—but Los Abandoned rocked it. Lead singer Lady P even wore a red and silver-sequined skating dress (which looked remarkably like my 10 th grade drill team uniform) over her black leggings to complement the scene. And leave it to your local LA punk-Spanglish-dancehall band to perform the best medley of “Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah,” “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel” and “Hava Nagilah” I’ve ever heard.

Whoever invented that low-slung stationary bike I’m so fond of (you know, the one that’s more like sitting on a kitchen chair than an actual bike) is a little bit evil. For years it’s been a staple of my workout, or maybe I should say “workout,” making me forget the vast superiority of exercises that actually get your adrenaline going . Last night I went to Bally’s in hopes of taking the new hip-hop class. I brought a book with me—since about 50 percent of Bally’s classes are canceled (and the staff always acts surprised: “Really? The yoga teacher isn’t down there? That’s weird”), I figured there was a good chance I’d end up on the bike, slightly bored and barely sweating. But lo and behold, the hip-hop class was on! And the teacher was good! And he (unlike most Bally’s hip-hop teachers) did an actual warm-up and cool-down . And taught a good-looking routine that was not too hard and not too easy. And the class was full of kids like me—folks who’d picked up a little dance or c...

Some observations upon beginning Dave Eggers’ You Shall Know Our Velocity! , in which two 20-something guys try to give away 30-something-thousand dollars in a one-week trip around a large chunk of the world: This is a ridiculous idea that only two privileged Americans could come up with. Traveling to countries you know nothing about and giving wads of cash to people who seem needy—but not too needy, or annoying, or ungrateful—is naïve at best, reckless and exploitative at worst. Sure, it makes a better story than, “We donated our money to a respected nonprofit organization, and the experts distributed it accordingly,” but it’s hard to get past the insane premise. Boys travel differently from girls. They are spontaneous, they don’t worry about getting raped (though they occasionally worry about getting killed) and they like to climb trees and jump from moving cars. Some observations upon getting to the middle section, in which the...

Last night, AK and I decided to see a movie on a whim, and I found myself at the 11:20 p.m. showing of Blood Diamond , Diet Coke in hand to keep me awake. Even though I’ve fallen asleep during late showings of some pretty riveting movies, I think that even sans Diet Coke, I couldn’t have nodded off to this one. The movie tells the story of Sierra Leone’s warlord-ruled illegal diamond trade through the eyes of a cynical white smuggler (Leonardo DiCaprio), a muckraking journalist with a thing for bad boys (Jennifer Connelly) and a local fisherman (Djimon Hounsou) who hopes to use his discovery of an immense pink diamond to save his family, which has been split apart by the rebel army. It’s the sort of movie that follows all the rules of storytelling, some to very good effect, some not so much. It’s hard not to roll your eyes when the white couple’s sexual tension is given more screen time than the scenes in which Hounsou’s son is drugged and brainwashed by the rebels. Yet the movie keeps...

My first moments in Houston were very Texan: Rental guy: Let’s see, you reserved an economy car. Would you like a free upgrade to a Jeep Grand Cherokee? Me: I don’t think I’d even know how to drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Rental guy: What do you normally drive? Me: A Honda Civic. Rental guy: Okay, I’ll see what we have. [Twenty minutes later] Rental guy: I’m going to give you the smallest car we have, the Chrysler 300. It’s, uh, more like a Honda Accord. Friends, the Chrysler 300 is more like a boat. Your grandpa’s big-ass gold boat. But despite this introduction, Houston was a lot greener and more beautiful than the dusty land of strip malls I had pictured after talking to my friend Kristi, who lived there for several years. (Granted, I probably talked to her during the hellishly hot summer, not warmly misty December. Now that Kristi is back in NorCal, she speaks quite highly of Houston .) Anyway, all of this is to say I’ve been out of town and j...

I just finished sending acceptance and decline emails to all the good folks who submitted work for the spring issue of Blithe House Quarterly . Afterward I checked to see how many stories were in my “No” folder in my Yahoo account—93. Plus the six I accepted. That’s almost 100 stories. And now I am having one of those “so that’s where my time went” moments. Sometimes such epiphanies follow ten back-to-back episodes of My Super Sweet Sixteen , so it could be worse. Lately I’ve done a fair amount of reading for contests and lit mags. If you’re an “emerging writer” (as we call ourselves until we hit Oprah’s couch), I highly recommend finding such a gig. Besides being fun—the thrill of discovering good work, the amusement of discovering really, really bad work—it tells you a lot about what happens to your little manuscript after you send it off into the big wide world: You know how, when winners of just about anything are announced, the announcer says, “There were so many great entries. I...

As AK’s roommate Alberto recently pointed out, “Even when I was a little kid, I was like, ‘What’s up with “Silver Bells”? That’s a song about shopping .’” One of my goals for the holiday season (well, pretty much my only goal, since “send cards early” is pretty much out of the question) is to not buy people a bunch of shit that they don’t need, that I can dubiously afford and that was probably made by a 15-year-old in Bangladesh. I’m happy to see that holiday fairs selling fair trade goods, local handmade products and donations to good-causes are popping up all over the place. On Sunday I went crazy getting tubes of caulk for Habitat for Humanity on behalf of my manly relatives at All Saints ’ Alte rn ative Christmas Market. I’m totally caught up in the whirlwind—it’s a slightly less glamorous whirlwind than the evil-but-sooo-shiny one that blows through the glittery corridors of the Grove, but it doesn’t leave me with that I-just-ate-a-whole-bag-of-greasy-potato-chips feeling...

This morning I jogged up West Boulevard instead of up Vineyard and—this is the miracle of Los Angeles, and of jogging—a whole world opened up to me. From the small bridge over Venice Boulevard, I could see into the rundown-but-elegant gated community on my right and the gravel pit that was once a closed-down hardware store on my left. It was a clear, sunny morning, warm but with a bite, the light golden and almost dangerous-feeling, the way I’ve heard it is not in other parts of the country. When I turned onto Pico, I passed the Pico/Rimpau Transit Center, also known as the bus station. I admit I hadn’t been there on foot since my keys got locked in B’s car at the carwash two years ago and I unexpectedly found myself taking the bus home. But I’ve noticed public transportation is enjoying a renaissance (or maybe just a naissance) in LA, and Pico/Rimpau testified to this. Last I checked, the bus junction was dingy and haunted-looking, the way you want bus stations to be in movies, but no...

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...