Bread and Bread

Despite the fact that my head is full of paint chips, I’ve been trying to get back into writing after a prolonged break (weird how breaks are so prone to prolongation). I’m not quite ready to start draft three of my novel, though, so I’ve been trying to do some freewriting. More specifically, I’ve been trying to write the way I used to, which was to start 12 or 13 stories and see what stuck. But so far nothing’s sticking. I don’t even necessarily need it to stick, but I need to be inspired enough to not be lured away from my laptop by exciting tasks like putting all my sweaters with holes in them in a bag for Goodwill. (Except the green V-neck. I just can’t let that one go. Or the pink cashmere I got for 75 percent off.) I’ve been experimenting not only with retro form but with retro content as well. I’ve written some little pieces featuring subject matter that intrigued me as a budding middle school writer: babysitting (I must have been newly inspired by What Claudia Wore ), h...

So, you know that aforementioned two-bedroom duplex on the Highland Park/Eagle Rock border? We’re moving there December 21—just in time for all of our rippling- biceped friends to be out of town for the holidays. It took a weekend of grownup conversations, the kind you have to have when there’s more at stake than what movie to see, but I think both AK and I emerged relatively unscathed. In fact, I felt even more confident about our various conversations than I did about the at-least-it’s-not-carpet tan tile in the duplex. “I’m going to try to be very process oriented about this whole thing,” I informed her, trying to psyche myself up for a month of painting, packing and heavy lifting. If I was going to be goal oriented, I would have to wait 30 days to reach my goal, which seemed daunting. “Um, okay,” she said. AK, who actually is fairly process oriented by nature, was busy enjoying her evening and had moved beyond the move. An uninhabited space is a big projector s...

“So you’re not having turkey and salsa with the Ybarras?” AK said, a little hurt, when we realized last year that we hadn’t made any plans to spend the holidays together. We both grew up in Southern California and our families still live here, so usually not a lot of planning is necessary. You wake up on the morning of a holiday and drive to your parents’ house. But this year, like mature adults, we decided to spend the holidays together and to discuss how we’d do it. It was a five-minute conversation between drinks at the Of Montreal show at the Avalon a couple of weeks ago, so maybe “like mature adults” isn’t the right phrase, but it all worked out nicely: Thanksgiving with her family, Christmas Eve with mine, splitting up for Christmas morning because neither of us could stand the thought of breaking our parents’ hearts. We might be mature adults, but we’re not cruel. So yesterday AK and I drove to Orange County where I skipped the turkey but ate lots of salsa, mashed potato...

Nothing says “Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/solstice, dear girlfriend/boyfriend/bff/little sis/mom” (okay, maybe not mom) like a memoir by a professional submissive. But seriously, Joan Kelly’s The Pleasure’s All Mine is funny, candid and, in more than one or two scenes, pretty damn hot. As a woman who likes to get tied up and spanked—but hates to be bossed around in real life—Kelly addresses all the questions you’d want to ask someone in her line of work: Is it possible to meet a nice guy who can be mean on command? How do you avoid laughing when a client wants to “punish” you for being late to the dungeon? Plus plenty of questions you might not think to ask: In a threesome carpool, does the domme automatically get to ride shotgun? (Answer: Yes, if she’s pregnant.) What enables Kelly to be a good pro is her forthrightness (“I would very much like to play with you,” she tells Mistress K, “I’m just afraid it’ll make me feel attracted to you…and I don’t want that to end up be...

“Many recipes have added fats and shortenings, including Crisco,” said the recipe for Easy Chocolate- Covered Strawberries. “There is no need to add any extra calories to the chocolate-covered strawberries.” The food theme of this month’s book group was aphrodisiacs, since we’d been reading The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. Sea kelp and tiger penis sounded unappetizing and oysters sounded expensive, so I decided to dip one aphrodisiac in another, refrigerate overnight and presto, love-inducing dessert. The recipe assured me that all I needed to do was microwave a bunch of chocolate chips and dunk the strawberries. But I’m actually not very good at microwaving, maybe because my micro is on top my fridge and standing on my tiptoes every time I need to stir or check on done-ness usually ends up being just as much work as heating things on my stovetop. I decided that chocolate chips could certainly be heated on a burner. Except instead of a bubbling fondue, I quickly found ...

Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 From: AK To: Cheryl Klein Subject: Claudia Hi, Cheryl- I thought you would enjoy this blog, dissecting the outfits of one of the “crazy dressers” from the Baby-Sitters Clu b book series. You were a fan, no? http://whatclaudiawore.blogspot.com/ *** Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 From: Cheryl Klein To: AK Subject: Re: Claudia Claudia Kishi—like Punky Brewster and Pippi Longstocking before her and the cast of Rent after her—may have been the subtle inspiration for some of my college outfits , and a little bit for my character Felix in Calla Boulevard , a girl who tries to be fashion forward and ends up just being weird. I might have to blog about this blog. Thanks, baby! ~Cheryl

I’m not sure how I made it to age 30 without ever having been to a real flea market. When I was a kid my family went to the swap meet periodically, where I’d search out LA Gear sneakers and short, wide Body Glove T-shirts. And my mom was a thrift store regular, to the extent that my dad, who was always trying to get her to indulge a little, referred to her “98-cent T-shirt collection,” meaning why not break down and by a $20 shirt or even something that was Dry Clean Only? Today AK and I went to the Rose Bowl Flea Market , mostly because no less than four of her friends were planning to be there, and she and I have a tendency to always be on the lookout for a party. But it was cold and my new shoes were biting into my ankles and I ended up spending a lot of time on my own. Not in a bad way. There were just so many booths that it was hard to concentrate on other people and on things, and there were so many things. Some things that caught my eye, which I didn’t buy: ...

1. S.A.D. Fall makes me sad. Well, I think not-writing also makes me sad, but I’d prefer to blame the weather, because that can be addressed via such things as: coats (I love coats) baking (I love carbs) those light bulb hats that they give people with Seasonal Affective Disorder (I’ve never wo rn one, but I bet I’d love it if I could find the right coat to go with it). Last night AK and I baked a frozen pizza (that counts as baking, right?) and watched Ratatouille , which very much lived up to the hype. Whereas lots of talking animals in movies are really just people with fur, Remy and friends maintain many rat-like qualities which create much of the plot and humor of the film: A rat wants to be a chef, but the problem is, he’s a rat. Brad Bird chooses just the right moments to ask us to suspend our disbelief (of course a rat can cook, and with a little help from his human friends, he can open a restaurant) and to keep it intact (of course the health inspector is...

Thursday night I was at a party where a screenwriter was talking about the then-impending strike: “I was on the phone taking notes from this 23-year-old executive and she was like, ‘I really want you to get script 11 to me today, because we’re trying to stockpile before the strike.’ I don’t know if she even knew what she was saying, which was, ‘Help me to fuck you. ’” I’ve heard people mutter a few comments along the lines of comments that are muttered when professional athletes go on strike—i.e. why should rich people get even more money? If the writers were striking to take bread from the mouths of janitors, I would agree. And yeah, as a writer who has never earned more than $200 for a fiction piece (with the average being approximately two complementary copies of a literary magazine; in my neck of the literary woods, a cash economy hasn’t even replaced the barter system), I understand the temptation to roll one’s eyes. But the writers are striking to take money from the b...

Me [in car, on cell phone]: Okay, Dad, I should go because I’m almost to the Metro station. I’m going to take the train to a Dia de los Muertos thing on Olvera Street . Dad: Dia de los Muertos? Me: Day of the Dead. Dad: Wasn’t that Wednesday? Me: That was Halloween. This is a Mexican holiday. It’s like a sort of commemoration-slash-celebration of the dead. Dad: So there will be piñatas and things like that? Me [rolling eyes like a 12-year-old]: No, no piñatas. I don’t know too much about it, to be honest. But I think there will be a parade kind of thing, and I know that people traditionally have picnics at cemeteries…. I’ve been missing Mom a lot this week, so I just thought it would be a nice thing to go to. Dad: Okay, well, have fun. I don’t like the idea of you taking the train, though. It seems unsafe. Me: Why?! You’ve never ridden or even seen the Metro , so I want to know where you’re getting these ideas. Dad: I guess it’s just the areas it goe...

My airport shuttle arrives in 10 minutes, so this will be a very quick review of Jim Miller’s novel, Drift : (Full disclosure: Jim is my editor at City Works . But if I didn’t genuinely like his book, I would just pull a Thumper and not say nuthin at all.) I was immediately engaged by the intellectual exercise of the novel—riffing on the concept of the derive (in which Situationist Guy Debord and friends lost themselves in Paris and documented their observations in order to find themselves on a deeper level; insert Frenchy accent over that word), protagonist Joe Blake wanders around a dystopian San Diego logging its visual details, from booster remnants to down-and-out dives to gentrified hot spots that make him long for down-and-out dives. Juxtaposed with Joe’s semi-narrative are vignettes of other San Diegans’ lives and italicized accounts of SD’s more sordid history. Revealing the dark underbelly of a sun-drenched utopia is nothing new, but man that belly is dark. Quotes...

Halloween '07 started Wednesday at Akbar's weekly Craft Night . Nothing says "scary" like the combination of knives and alcohol. Meehan and I are always lamenting our lack of craftiness ("I feel like I should be able to knit, or some type of hipster dyke handicraft"), but I think her metal mouth pumpkin turned out pretty well (though he did require some dental implants in the form of bar toothpicks). Some folks were just there for the dancing. But, much like when my UniCamp co-counselor and I ignored a child with the flu because we were so caught up in making paper plate masks during arts and crafts, I skipped the drinking and chatting and focused on my Dia-de-los-Muertos-meets-a-bunch-of-cotton-balls pumpkin. Too bad it rotted in less than three days. Goddamn global warming. By Saturday, it was time to celebrate. I dressed (vaguely) as Weetzie Bat . You know, the titular character from the late '80s young adult novel about magical punk rockers living i...

Without a house in Malibu , a TV or NPR (since it’s been replaced by Kinsey Millhone for the past few days; incidentally, it wasn’t the babysitter’s boyfriend), my only proof that my co rn er of the world is on fire is the hot thick air and the layer of ash on my car. But that’s plenty, don’t you think? Thanks to Jessi for reminding me that animals like to not be on fire too .

1. don’t read this if you’re a rat Recently AK told me about a study in which rats were put in cages with an electrified floor. (Yes, it seems like a lot of studies involve rats and electric shock. This is depressing for rat lovers like me. Also, KPFK devoted some of its pledge drive tonight to a DVD about factory farming, which you can receive if you pledge. I thought long and hard about inching my way towards veganism. I also thought about how only KPFK would give a DVD of animals being tortured as a premium. I’ll stick with my Sounds Eclectico CD from KCRW , thank you.) Anyway, the rats: A lone rat on an electrified floor will initially try to escape, then give up and just sit there. When it’s dissected (and I think we all know these things always end with dissection), you’ll find tons of ulcers. It tears itself up inside. Two rats on an electrified floor will tear each other up instead, fighting constantly. But when you dissect them, they’ll be ulcer-free. To me th...

R emember how I said that talking about The Commuters was starting to feel like resting on my laurels ? Well, I’m not above resting on my laurels. In fact, I will do so this Saturday at noon and Sunday at 8 p.m. on KPCC’s Off-Ramp , an awesome little show that is sort of like an L.A.-centric This American Life . Tune in (89.3 on your FM dial, ladies and gentlemen) and listen to me gripe about traffic in the most eloquent way I know how. P.S. Speaking of self-promotion, Tracy tagged me to link to three of my favorite Bread and Bread posts (at least I think that’s what the meme was—the instructions were kind of tech-speak-y). It has something to do with search engines, I think. So if you’d like to take a walk down memory lane—going back no earlier than 2005—read these posts on Target , cheerleaders and how I spent my summer vacation .

AK: What is it about Jenny Lewis that makes her so hot? Me: Besides being a cute girl with an amazing voice? AK: Yeah. Me: She has that messy thing. Her hair’s kind of messy, like she just rolled out of bed. AK: And she might just roll back in. P ics from Sunday’s Rilo Kiley show at the Grove:

I was thinking this weekend about the various ways in which I would like to be a different kind of person. Not big ways, because hey, I’m 30 and along with the fine lines comes a healthy sense of self. But some significant little ways. 1. adios, perez hilton First, I would like to waste time in more intelligent ways. B’s idea of a lazy Sunday was reading The Economist on the stationary bike or trolling the inte rn et for coupons. That’s so productive it borders on crazy, but I wish I could at least watch movie trailers and look for upcoming concerts like AK rather than boning up on celebrity gossip and seeing which friends have posted new pictures to their MySpace pages. For example, I can tell you that a girl I was only actually friends with for about six weeks recently went to Buenos Aires and took pictures of Evita’s dress. Why must that take up space in my brain? I believe all this is a negative side effect of having semi-successfully transformed my hobbies into a job—...

There are two types of people in the world, the stressers and the chillers. Me: My cat is sneezing a lot. Nicole: You should take him to the vet. It might not just be a cold. There are these types of bacteria that animals get that can be really harmful. *** Me: O.C. is sneezing a lot. AK: Cats are so cute when they sneeze.

I’ve been meaning to blog for a while now about how sending out my novel Calla Boulevard is slowly chipping away at my self-esteem. Except I don’t really have anything profound to say on the subject: I want someone to publish my novel. So far no one does. Not getting what I want makes me sad. What a fascinating insight into the mind of a writer. “It’s hard for me to get excited about stuff related to The Commuters lately because I’m starting to feel like a one-hit wonder,” I told AK recently. “Except the ‘hit’ was a song that was played on college radio a couple of times at 2 a.m.” Back when I was sending out The Commuters, I got a few “encouraging rejections,” which only sounds like an oxymoron. It’s the publishing world equivalent of someone you went on a first date with calling you up and politely saying they think you’re awesome, but they just want to be friends—as opposed to just never calling you again. Well, back in the day, a handful of agents and publishers ...

Currently on my bedside table: Susan Choi ’s finely etched page-tu rn er American Woman , loosely based on the true story of one of Patty Hearst’s accomplices. The beginning was unnecessarily confusing, but now I can’t put it down. Although I feel highly uncreative quoting a critic who is quoted on the book’s cover, the Chicago Tribune did put it nicely: “Weaving past and present, hunters and hunted, Choi’s taut, surprising structure keeps us off-balance…. This is a rare thing, a book both big and fine-grained.” What I’m doing Saturday, Oct. 13 at 5 p.m.: Catching my City Works Press editor Jim Miller’s reading of his new novel, Drift , at Skylight Books . I just bought my copy this weekend, so I haven’t read it yet (also, see above), but the cover by Perry Vasquez is pretty kick-ass, and I like to think of myself as someone who judges books by, well, you know. What I’m doing Sunday, Oct. 21 at 2 p.m.: Reading from some new-ish work at the Ba rn sdall Gallery Theatre as p...