Bread and Bread

Until I get around to uploading the platypus picture (see comments section of previous post ), please enjoy this note I found on the windshield of my car in my office parking lot last night. AK and I spent a good half hour dissecting its weird passive-aggressiveness. A couple of things you should know: 1. All the spots in our lot are really fucking small. 2. Four out of every five people who work in my building are therapists.* La nota: I intentionally leave lots of space so when you park between lines I won’t knock your door and vice versa. You have been parking practically on top of me with ample space on your other side—you are over the line in my driver’s side. I can’t get in unless I go through the passenger seat and crawl in that way. Thanks. :-) AK told me someone once left her a note that said, “Lea rn to park, asshole.” She and I and Jamie all agreed that that’s preferable to the anonymous happy face and self-righteous “I” statements. Anyway, I’m working on m...

I'm at my dad's house right now, and, due to the small miracle of him finally getting DSL , able to blog. I came home to help him clean out the attic, and amidst baby blankets that made me want to cry and '80s clothes that made me want to cry in a different way, I discovered lots of school papers and stories. Here are a few excerpts: Untitled a personal essay by Cheryl Klein, age 5 (as dictated to a teacher) I'm thankful for sunsets and the beautiful world we have. I'm also thankful for the healthy life we have and for the sunshine and firecrackers. Untitled a personal essay by Cheryl Klein, age 5 I'm afraid that a car is about to hit me and getting killed. Untitled research paper? historical fiction? by Cheryl Klein, age 5 George Washington had two step children Jackie and Patsy. The Most Beautiful Doll a short story by Cheryl Klein, circa age 6 I always wanted a doll. But I could not have one. My birthday was tomorrow. Oh oh how I wanted a doll. I got a doll....

I am learning things about water colors. I am learning how much I don't know. I learned that children's books almost always have 32 pages. I am learning a lot about my five-year-old character, Vivi . For example: Sometimes she's sad. Sometimes she's skeptical. Sometimes she's resourceful. Sometimes she dresses her cat up like a dragon and fights him. Sometimes she dresses herself. Sometimes she organizes bicycle rides to raise money for charitable causes.

A lot of things happened this weekend. I didn't take pictures of the first thing, which is good, because it involved Sara and Dave coming over for lunch and Sara being miserably sick and me making pizza that wasn't cooked all the way through (for the record, though, this is not what made Sara sick. Also, it enabled me to send her an apologetic email with the subject line "dough/d'oh!"). Then I went to a fun and snazzy reading for the lit mag Palabra at Tropico de Nopal . This is editor Elena Minor (the one without the giant head). Meanwhile, AK made dinner for her sister Lori and brother-in-law Canny . By the time I got home, they'd been struck down by food coma. We played trivia and it quickly became clear who the winner was, even though it was the '80s/'90s version and she wasn't born until 2001. Sunday morning Alberto made brunch for us and others. It was yummy, and made even more so by his fabulous red walls. The red walls also looked nice w...

Somewhere in the Klein family archives, there is a video of me receiving a large-sized plush My Little Pony for what is probably my eighth birthday. Hasbro made these big Little Ponies for a short time, and I was excited, because I wanted them to be parents for my stable of smaller ponies. I already had a mom pony named Bowtie who was blue with pink bowties on her butt. Semi-traditionalist that I was, I needed a dad. Later, there would be a line of boy ponies who had both the aesthetic and the professions of the Village People. They had names like “ Tex ” and “Chief.” But when I was eight, Pony Land was still an all-girls school. So my new large-sized plush “dad” pony—blue Bowtie’s husband—had wings and rainbow hair and long eyelashes. (I may have been a femmey kid, but the signs were there.) My mom sewed them wedding outfits, because my parents were crazy enough to make my sister and I all sorts of amazing gifts by hand. In the video, she says, “Since Bowtie already has ...

Usually the only people who call my land line aren’t people at all, but bill-collecting machines asking for Cesar or Rosa Perez. When I pick up, my expectations are low: I hope not for a friendly voice but for an “If you are not Cesar Perez, press 1 now” option. So I was pretty excited when a real live woman called last night wanting me to participate in a survey sponsored by the forest service. She asked questions like, “In the past year, how many times have you gathered with family or friends in an outdoor location that is not someone’s home?” and “In the past year, have you gone caving?” Although I have a newfound love of picnicking, it quickly became clear that I am a pasty mole of an urbanite. No, I had to admit, I had not gone caving. I had not gone camping. I had not swum in a river or jet-skied or hunted or fished. One of the questions was about an activity I hadn’t even heard of, something like “ orienteering .” I asked the woman to define it, in case maybe I d...

I have seen a lot of one-person shows. The worst one took place in an airtight upstairs theater on Hollywood Boulevard . The performer read from a thick script (so, not only had he not bothered to memorize anything, but we couldn’t even delude ourselves into thinking the show was almost over because we could see exactly how many, many pages were left) about how tantric yoga had helped him through his divorce. Or something. I just remember him talking about his “root chakra” in a way that made me deeply uncomfortable. Even at some of the better one-person shows, I found myself wishing I hadn’t been required to tu rn my cell phone off, because I really wanted to know what time it was. This was not the case with Karen Kilgariff, whom AK, Cathy and I saw perform in I’m Really Different (Now)! with Don Cummings last night at Largo . At one point I did think, Wow, she’s been up there making us laugh for a long time. She must be tired. But I hope she’s willing to go until she passe...

Tonight I’m going to Largo and I’m flashing back to the first time I went there, on my third date with this guy Mike I dated for about four dates when I was 23. He was 31 and really nice and introduced me to a lot of good small music venues, but the problem was he was a full-fledged grown-up. He talked about things like buying a house, which at the time was a giant tu rn -off to me. I mean, my favorite musical was called Rent . He might as well have said, “What I’d really like to do next is pick my nose while shooting helpless animals with my hunting rifle.” Lately I’ve found myself beginning a lot of sentences with, “The older I get…” or “Now that I’m in my 30s…” Just last night, AK, Alanna and I—all of us between the ages of 31 and 32—had a whole discussion on the things being in one’s 30s might involve, including: marriage children wearing nicer clothes even though we still can’t afford them the fact that we are in our prime —no longer are we aspiring whate...

I’m in the middle of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett . It’s about a party of diplomats, businessmen and one opera singer who are taken hostage by a grassroots terrorist organization in an unnamed South American country. The terrorists quickly set most of the women and servants free to prove that they are reasonable people, so the “important” men are left to fend for themselves and fend off boredom as their days inside the vice president’s overthrown house mount. I’m sure that many people had many wonderful things to say about this book when it came out in 2001 (it’s beautifully written, it’s funny and sad and humanizing, etc.), but what I love the most about is how the men in the story come to appreciate and practice qualities that are traditionally deemed feminine and hence lesser: Communication: A Japanese businessman’s trusty translator—who speaks dozens of languages—quickly becomes the most sought-after person at this inte rn ational involuntary conference. Cookin...

1. i hate the phone When I was 14, the woman who taught the only singing class I ever took (with largely unsuccessful results) offered me a work-study position at the performing arts center she ran. I sucked at singing, but I was all about free dance classes. “Just call me if you decide you’re interested, and we can figure out a schedule for you.” Friendly and generous, right? Lisa was a friendly and generous person. Nevertheless, I must have practiced making that phone call—hand in Y shape to my ear, parents taking tu rn s playing the part of Lisa—50 times. All of which is to say, I’m not a phone person. But I am a bit of a masochist, so of course I signed up to phone bank with Equality for All last night. Our job was to call a list of people who had already expressed interest in volunteering and ask them to commit to a date or donate money. (Yes, volunteering to recruit volunteers sounds a little circular, but there’s a whole strategy to these sorts of things, ...

AK and I sort of wanted to go out of town for the holiday weekend, but since gas is now roughly the price of gold, we settled for visiting The Deep Sea Via Long Beach . As we waited in the very long, very stroller-packed line for tickets--because apparently everyone else in Southern California had the same idea we did--I noticed one of those boards where you can stick your head through and take a photo that makes you look like, in this case, an otter. "Hey, someone should go stick their head through and take a--" I began. "No thanks," said Nicole quickly. AK, however, was already there, ottering. I like how much I can count on her to come through at important moments. Here's Nicole and I pretending that it's not 95 degrees out, and that parking didn't cost $7. It only seemed fair that we get to pet some sea creatures for our troubles. Luckily there was Shark Lagoon . You would think that "touching" and "sharks" would go hand in hand o...

On Tuesday, Jamie , intern Marcus and I were having a big geeky conversation about poetry: “ Eileen Myles doesn’t use question marks,” I said. “Sometimes I don’t want to use question marks either,” Jamie confessed. “You know, like if something isn’t really a question. But I’m not brave enough—I always go back and add a question mark.” (You don’t even want to hear our semicolon discussion.) Marcus said he had a continuing internal debate about just how “accessible” he should try to make his poems. That led to a discussion about the author’s intention versus what the reader takes from and brings to the work. For example, you could write a poem full of words that a reader didn’t know, and even if she (like me) was too lazy to look them up, she could still extract a strong feeling from the poem. It might be the same feeling the writer had, it might not. “At the workshop I went to on Saturday, the poet showed slides of a bunch of paintings and asked us to write a poem...

The good news: Tiffaney taught a routine to Janet Jackson’s “Escapade,” which for some reason transported me back to eating bowls of ice cream in milk at Shallan Daly’s house in eighth grade. The choreography itself—boys doing one part, girls doing another, everyone changing formation around the “stage”—transported me back to drill team and cheerleading, which might not seem like a good thing, but in this case it is. That’s my choreographic comfort zone, for better or worse: I judge all dance routines by how good they’d look performed by eight high school students in green and gold sweaters. This one would have looked awesome. (We didn’t have any boys on our squad, but as a taller, fatter member of the squad and a go-to base for stunts, I’m sure I would have done the butch part.) The bad news: I really sucked—like, there was a whole eight-count that was just a blur. Also, there was a move Tiffaney actually referred to as a “Tiffaney Kick.”

If you are like me and use up 38 percent of your brain space thinking about How To Be Good (not to be confused with using 38 percent or more of your time actually being good), then perhaps you will understand the dilemma I faced Sunday. AK and I wanted to go to church at 11:15 a.m. We also wanted to volunteer for Equality for All at 4:30 p.m., at an event that would conveniently be taking place at our church in Pasadena . Rather than drive home in between and spew extra carbons into the atmosphere, we decided to see WALL-E and grab a late lunch at the mall a block from All Saints. WALL-E is quite possibly one of the most perfect movies I’ve ever seen. It’s funny, emotional, cute-but-not-cutesy, political—and every detail of the other-worldly world it creates is drawn with care and ingenuity. It also happens to be about a time in the “future” when Earthlings have trashed the planet so badly that they must perpetually orbit it in a cruise spaceship while robots make tiny dents ...

AK was nervous about giving a presentation for a committee of “smart, quick, design-y types” at work today, so I paraphrased the quote in my last post . “Your inner critic thinks it’s the coolest guy in the room, but it’s a cynic and a savage,” I pep talked. She paused. “Yeah...that’s not really what I’m afraid of. This guy named Jose is actually the coolest guy in the room.” So until someone writes a magazine article about dealing with your outer Jose….

Every year I read Poets & Writers Magazine ’s “First Fiction” article (a profile of a half dozen debut writers) and writhe with envy and inspiration the whole way through. This advice from debut novelist Salvatore Scibona , one of this year’s featured writers, helped to put things in perspective: School the inte rn al critic in all the dark arts of editorial sadism, but ignore it when it attacks you personally. It likes to pretend that it’s the coolest, most professional guy in the room. In fact, it is a cynic and a savage. I was also glad to see that fellow writer and blogger Jesi has been thinking similarly .

1. i’d just love a tuna sandwich For Father’s Day I gave my dad a modified birthday card with a photo of a cat lounging in a very human-like position on a couch. On the outside it said, “You think, ‘I’d just love a tuna sandwich’ and someone brings you a tuna sandwich.” Inside it said, “Have that kind of birthday Father’s Day.” The card was a hit because it was sort of dryly funny (thank you, Fresh Ink, for somewhat redeeming the greeting card industry) and because we used to have a cat who really liked tuna sandwiches. Specifically, on toast. The card was also not a hit because it’s an unspoken rule that we give handmade cards in my family. But my point is the cat’s sentiment: Is that what they call magical thinking? I keep hearing about magical thinking, sometimes as a good thing, sometimes as a bad thing, but I don’t really know what it is. Is it like The Secret or is it like Gabriel García M á rquez ? 2. love in the time of apocalypse Friday night brought ex...

Books/movies/TV shows that are written in the present day but take place in Olden Times and feature heroines who magically have 21 st century brains. I call it the Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman Phenomenon: Despite being bo rn in, oh, the 1830s, Dr. Quinn is somehow an anti-slavery, pro-Native-American-rights, free-speech-advocating, anti-drug feminist. I just started listening to a new book on CD, which AK had laying around, called The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell . The cover implied it would be fluffy chick lit, which is a genre that I am technically against but can enjoy quite gleefully. (On a side note, I loved the Sex and the City movie—not as a guilty pleasure but unabashedly, as one of the most realistic, mature and touching movies about relationships I’ve ever seen.) But Belle Cantrell takes place in the Prohibition-era South, where old rules of propriety are dying slow deaths, and it takes a spunky, anti-racist feminist with an ahead-of-her-time haircut to shake thi...

1. that’s tight Yesterday I visited three freshman creative writing classes at Leuzinger High School in Lawndale , where my sister Cathy teaches math (“Don’t tell fifth period you’re my sister,” she wa rn ed me. “Most of those kids have me for fourth period math and they hate me”). I decided I would read a little bit of The Commuters , lead them in a writing exercise, then answer questions about being a writer. The excerpt I chose was from a story about a 16-year-old gay kid who lives in South L.A., works as a dishwasher in West Hollywood and gets called a fag at school. “Is it okay if I read a story where a kid gets called a fag?” I asked Jen, their incredibly nice teacher, in our 30-second pre-class conference. “Definitely—but I’ll wa rn you, you will get a reaction. Nothing overt, but a lot of snickers and stuff. I hate to say it, but they’re pretty homophobic,” said Jen. I wanted to read the piece to challenge them, and to challenge myself—I’m way too used...

My friend Noel wants to give you the finger, and he's asked me to help. His new blog, My Finger Project , welcomes "images and thoughts dedicated to that in/famous digit." I had fun writing about my goody-two-shoes past and working out a little ex-girlfriend angst for today's installment: http://myfingerproject.blogspot.com/2008/06/finger-exercises-by-cheryl-klein.html . Check it out and, if you're so inclined, give Noel your own finger.