Bread and Bread

The Eagle had landed, and possibly crashed. According to the bar’s website, Wednesday night was still Shotgun, a hipster girl-night island in the middle of a leather-daddy week, but the population was pretty dudes-in-chaps-heavy and the patio had been boarded up. The only constant was the hardcore (gay male) po rn playing silently on five or six video screens. “Have you noticed how we’re starting to be the old ones in the bar?” said Nicole. I thought that was a little unfair, since she was the youngest among us, and I was about to have a birthday. Also, I’m determined not to become one of those old people who’s constantly talking about how old she is. “I don’t think that’s true,” I said. “We just happen to be standing next to that group of really young girls. But the people playing pool over there—well, I can’t really tell how old they are. They’re kind of just a blur from here.” It’s hard to prove your youth and vibrancy when you can’t see across the room. Julie, meanwhil...

…and I sometimes like constraint-based writing assignments, here are 25 words each about the three books I’ve read most recently: 1. I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley: Pros: funny, thoughtful in unexpected places—like a This American Life piece. Cons: too familiar, with occasionally forced conclusions—like a This American Life piece. 2. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta: Liberal health teacher Ruth and ex-druggie Christian Tim are complex grownups with believable pasts. Perotta aces middles but falls flat with endings (a minor crime). 3. Bloodvine by Aris Janigian: This tale of farming and feuding in the Valley is a poetic portrait of Armenian America. But it’s a first novel, so prepare for unevenness.

This Easter, I learned that AK's brother-in-law has a phobia of lizards. So I wouldn't encourage him to see The Goat's Dance: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide at the Getty . But everyone else should definitely go.

I do not believe that Barack Obama is my new bicycle . I believe he's a politician who will sell out as much and as little as Hillary has, given time. But I do think he's bringing something new to the national dialogue. In this case, it's a highly refreshing take on race: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords . (Since I've been traveling lately, I'm out of the media loop, so my apologies if this is sooo a week and a half ago. For some reason, the remote in my hotel seems to bypass CNN and land on The Real Housewives of New York City every night.) Anyway, the speech is worth a read or a listen. Obama's refusal to disown anyone reminds me of my college Chicano lit professor 's mantra that "We are all the oppressor, we are all the oppressed." (And yes, that's more literal when you're talking about mestizo lineage, but I think almost everyone has had a taste of both roles over the course of their lives.*) Most importantly, I ap...

This week I'm working from my organization's New York office, which recently moved from Soho to the Financial District. The good news is that I now feel slightly less shabby--no matter how hard I tried to look cute in Soho, I always felt like I was wearing stonewashed jeans with pleats and a shirt with a big soup stain down the front. The bad news is that the Financial District, while diverse and bustling if corporate during the day, is a tad dystopic at night. The streets are deserted except for cops with machine guns guarding the New York Stock Exchange. Big metal ramps--the kind that would stop a speeding suicide bomber's car, I guess--blossom like mushrooms in the middle of the street, and there are squad cars and ominous black SUVs everywhere. This morning, the giant American flag that covers a third of the Stock Exchange's facade had been replaced by a giant Visa ad that said, "NYSE takes Visa."

When I uploaded the videos below to YouTube, I chose “sports” as the category. I think you’ll agree with me that that’s a little optimistic. 1. Here’s me, trying to make a mountain out of a molehill: 2. I think I’m posing for a still photo: 3. AK gets her cross-country on: 4. AK carefully, carefully prepares herself to go downhill: 5. Check out AK’s Olympically intense concentration. This is what it takes to be an athlete, folks:

saturday: the wiki said it would be like this The thing that made our trip perfect right from the start was Christine’s mind-boggling organization. As a control freak with OCD tendencies, I am never more grateful than when another OCD sufferer releases me from my duties. All AK and I had to do to prepare for four days in Mammoth was hop on the wiki site Christine built and print out the relevant pages: directions, packing list, map of who’s sleeping where, photos of ski clothes available for borrowing, menu. “We’re having shrimp and co rn chowder tonight,” I informed AK on the drive up. It was nice taking a road trip that didn’t involve the 5. As we drove past jagged red rocks, tiny ghost towns, spiky Joshua trees and sprawling strip malls, AK said, “I had a college friend who was from Palmdale, and one time another friend and I drove her home. She thought she lived in the most beautiful place in the world and was so excited about the Joshua trees in her back yard. As soo...

I’m waiting for someone to add this entry to the (mostly stupid, but that’s another post) blog Stuff White People Like : #82: Writing Memoirs In The Voice Of Underprivileged Youth. First there was teen truck-stop prostitute JT Leroy, a.k.a. a middle-aged woman from San Francisco . I had some strong thoughts about that little scandal. Now there’s half-Native American former Bloods gang member Margaret B. Jones , a.k.a. Margaret Seltzer, a white woman from Sherman Oaks who went to private school. Supposedly, Seltzer wrote the memoir to give voice to friends who’d actually had experiences like those she described: “I just felt there was good that I could do and there was no other way that someone would listen to it.” Here are some tips for the would-be Seltzers of the world: If you want to help gang members in the foster care system, volunteer with gang members in the foster care system. Don’t get famous pretending to be one. If you want to pretend to be a gang m...

CHERYL: So the premise of Horton Hears a Who! is that the Whos are really small, right? They live on like a grain of sand or something, and Horton the elephant is the only one who can hear them cry for help? CATHY: I think so. CHERYL: Then that means that the Grinch who threatened Whoville in How the Grinch Stole Christmas was also really small, which makes him less scary, don’t you think? AK: Do we know that they were the same Whos? Maybe there are different sizes of Whos. CHERYL: If they’re the same species, they can’t come in different sizes. There aren’t different sizes of humans--I mean, within a couple of feet. AK: What about the Lilliputians? CHERYL: They weren’t humans, they were Lilliputians. It’s like, there’s only one size of giraffe. There aren’t big giraffes and miniature giraffes. CATHY: But there should be. [Reverent pause as all consider the wonderful implications of miniature giraffes.] CATHY: Okay, what about Tiny Elvis ? There...

Last night Jamie and I sat in on a reading and Q&A with Anne Carson and Peggy Shumaker at the Geffen Playhouse. Neither poet was miked, so their gorgeous, striking, playful poetry had to compete with the sound of my corduroy skirt moving when I crossed and uncrossed my legs, which I did a lot because I’m the most fidgety person on earth. Peggy had a very quiet, polite reading style, and Anne had an “I don’t really care what you think” reading style. This was also the way they answered questions. People had more questions for Anne, who kind of brushed them off in a funny, stylish sort of way. I wanted them to ask Peggy more, since she seemed so eager to help, just the way you’d imagine someone named Peggy would be. I didn’t ask either one a question, though, because when it comes to poetry, I just shut up and listen. Both described themselves as voracious and sloppy readers. Anne reads Proust in French over breakfast, but she started on volume five. I read Vanity...

Hey kids, remember this story ? It takes place entirely outdoors, so it seemed like a good choice to help launch my friend Bronwyn’s guerillareads series, in which emerging authors (for now that would be me and Bronwyn) read site-specific work with the help of a tiny workhorse of a video camera and Bronwyn’s very impressive DIY editing skills. It occurs to me that some of you out there in Blogland have never seen me live-and-sort-of-in-person. If you thought I had a sexy, gravely voice or eyebrows that did not move at random like a crazy person’s, then what you’re about to see might disturb you. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the transportation-themed mural in the background: Now check out Bronwyn and her normal eyebrows:

I’m all for the paperless office, and for identity theft protection, but these online security questions are way too complicated, especially for those of us who have trouble providing a one-word answer to anything : What is your spouse’s nickname? I’m not married, and I call AK “AK.” Where did you go on your honeymoon? Um, still not married. What was the last name of your first girlfriend/boyfriend? Okay, that’s easy: “Ko.” Error: Answers must be at least four letters long. Fuck you. Some people are Korean. What was the name of your first roommate in college? Amber , but I’m so not going to be reminded of that girl every time I want to check my Visa balance. Next question, please. Who was your arch rival when you were growing up? Hillary, this girl who made it into advanced gymnastics a whole year before me and went on to be bitchy to me on our high school cheerleading squad , but I’m not sure she knew she was my rival. I’m pretty sure ...

For weeks, it went like this: A few minutes before I leave for work, I pick a cat—OC or T-Mec—and hold the front door open a crack so he or she can get out without letting the other out. Chosen cat says, “Outdoors! Awesome! I’ve been hearing about this place.” Sniffs patch of weeds under outside stairs for approximately two minutes. Puts paws up on wrought iron fence separating yard from yard next door and says, “Hey, doesn’t Ferdinand usually leap through this fence and have all sorts of adventures?” I say, “Yes, but Ferdinand is much skinnier than you and has been going outside for years. I realize these things may be related, and that’s part of the reason I’m letting you go outside. But my worrywart heart can’t make the leap all at once.” Cat slinks around the backyard, admiring such sights as: plastic tarps shielding our weirdly banked house from the rain unopened can of Tsingtao decomposing lemons from the next door neighbor’s tree upstairs ...

I finally saw the Barack Obama “Yes We Can” music video today. It’s a pretty amazing specimen—a (sort of) grassroots political creation that has the look of being inspired by a Gap commercial that was inspired by a grassroots political creation. I totally teared up as Jamie and I watched it in the office. When it was over, I told her, “I’m really inspired to vote for Barack Obama and believe in things that seem impossible and maybe buy a pair of jeans.” Of course wherever inspiration goes, parody follows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjbknhX383A . (Thanks to Nicole for the link.)

If you've been reading a lot of Bread and Bread recently, you know that, when I'm not busy voting for Barack Obama, I've been spending my time being all stressed out. This weekend, I discovered an amazing cure. Get ready: It's called vacation. It can be as short as two days and as close as the nearest major city (San Diego, in AK's and my case). We drove down Saturday afternoon and met up with Lenise, who's good at knowing all the fun things to do, even in a city she hasn't lived in very long. Look how much fun she is: First stop: Ray at Night . I know L.A. has dozens of little gallery walks, but I've never been to one. Maybe they'll become like cable TV, something I only indulge in out of town. Here's a painting by one of Lenise's coworkers. He's a tech guy, which sort of makes sense--this painting reminded me of those PBS specials you see about mathematical patterns found in nature. AK and I both loved the work of Veronica Gonzalez, an...

There’s a patte rn to my reading list lately, which is Books That Give Me A Big Hug , like the one I wanted to give Hillary (the hug I wanted to give her, not the book—although giving her a book would be less likely to get me slammed to the ground by the secret service). The latest hug book is The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty. It has a picture of a girl’s face and a flower on the cover, and promises “an endearing [narrator] with a wholly refreshing way of looking at the world.” My friend Daisye gave me the book years ago, saying something along the lines of, “It’s a good book, but not the kind you need to keep after you read it.” Also, there’s a blurb on the back from O, The Oprah Magazine. I thought, So it’s that kind of book. And yes, it reads like a book O, The Oprah Magazine would like—charming and plucky—but it’s also much more tightly structured than it seems initially, and it advocates deeply for kindness toward people who are dealing with more than they ca...

In the end, I went with Obama. Whereas Hillary is a bit of a moderate who’s rabidly despised by Republicans, Obama seems like a progressive who’s managed to convince people he’s Mr. Nonpartisan. Also, he’s worldly in the most literal sense, which I think we need right now. But even as I inked my ballot, I wanted to give Hillary a hug. My polling place —an Eagles lodge in Eagle Rock (how American is that?)—was pleasantly busy, making me realize how not busy the polling places in my two previous neighborhoods ( West Adams and Mid-City) usually were. I could observe that both those areas were poorer and more heavily African American, whereas Eagle Rock is pretty mixed and middle class, and I could speculate that the lines were probably really long in Santa Monica . But this election is all about optimism, right? So let’s assume that voter tu rn out is high all around the city today, that my previous polling places—a Baptist church and a Presbyterian church—are packed right now wi...

I am so valuable. So court-able. I am that beloved (yet usually idiotic-sounding) beast that reporters love to interview around election time. I am an undecided voter. Recently I took one of those perhaps-less-than-scientific online quizzes to find out which candidate best represented my views. Because historically, I have been an Issues Voter! It tu rn ed out I should be stumping for Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich . But the quiz tracks content, not form, where both candidates and voters are conce rn ed. So it doesn’t take into account, for example, that John McCain is a jerk (not that I’m saying he is—in fact, he probably isn’t) or that I’m a pragmatist and am not going to vote for anyone too Naderific. So that left me with the big three, which are now the big two, and I agreed with all of them 80-something percent (I’m guessing I liked gay marriage and legalized marijuana a little more than Clinton , Obama , or Edwards ). I was going to be forced to do what I usual...

I had my lower wisdom teeth out yesterday, which marked my first experience with general anesthetic, followed by my first prescription for Vicodin. I was nervous about the former—that I would either die or, like, deliriously confess my wildest sexual fantasies to the hygienist assisting with the surgery. There was an episode of Ellen —pre-coming-out—where she got high on nitrous and started hitting on her dentist. Although the dentist was a man, I always suspected that the plotline grew out of a fear that all closeted queers have of losing control and outing oneself. But as far as I can remember, the most embarrassing thing that happened was that my dad, who drove me to the appointment, insisted on asking my oral surgeon a bunch of questions afterward, including whether he could see my extracted teeth (he could not). He was already disappointed that he hadn’t gotten a chance to refer me to his oral surgeon. My dad’s a control freak too, which is probably where I get it, not so ...

I understand the horizontal. It doesn’t make me wistful and humble the way cathedrals do in cities that have cathedrals and snow. Of course I eye Kokopelli skeptically, the way he dance on the sides of coffee mugs and key chains. But if you’re a tourist long enough you are, if not absorbed, stained. We washed our faces and let the desert wind dry them. We posed in front of mine shafts, crunched fry bread, slipped white fingers into silver rings. I envied a young dancer’s leggings like a soccer player’s shin guards. To be special enough for a uniform, mythic enough for a costume. To escape running shorts and T-shirts, which is what the hawkers of dream catchers want, and the makers of dream catchers. Them too. Is there something after who brought what: an Easter ritual a Disney movie devastation a souvenir a language silence heroin, then crack a winter home a house without drawers a book about you written ...