Bread and Bread

I’ve always liked the color and precision of Frida Kahlo’s paintings, and I probably dress as much like her as a white girl can get away with (though in dressing like an indigenous peasant, Frida was arguably an appropriator herself—but at least she had the revolutionary chops to back it up). But I never really felt like I had the right to be as Frida-crazy as, say, my grad school friend who had a tattoo of the MEChA logo and spent a few months in the jungles with the Zapatistas . So I resisted the urge to run out and buy me a Frida tote bag (though when I got one as a party favor, I was really excited). And then I read The Lacuna. Barbara Kingsolver makes Frida come alive as a person betrayed by her body and her loved ones, who responded with passion, humor, stubbornness, ruinous pride or shameless dramatic gestures. I have no idea if this is what Frida was actually like, but I fell in love with Frida the character. Suddenly I saw the blood and body parts in her paint...

The other day I fell into the wonderful black hole that is Regretsy —a blog that makes fun of Etsy ’s wackiest shit. There are crazy ideas, executed beautifully (and, in the case of the Star Trek Enterprise coffee table , photographed against unflattering backgrounds). There are regular ideas, executed terribly . And then there are those magical items that are the holy grail of poor/insane concept and execution, such as the Eva Peron butt plug , featuring a portrait of Santa Evita that is only recognizable as such only because EVA PERON is written in big gold letters at the plug’s base. Regretsy’s approach is mostly celebratory, and if you make Eva Peron butt plugs and sell them on the internet, you’re pretty much asking for it. But…(pun intended?), I found myself thinking, Helen Killer [as Ms. Regretsy calls herself] is totally hilarious, but it’s really hard to make an Enterprise coffee table! The product description even mentioned how the maker had gone through a couple of sheets ...

Yesterday I looked up my Year of the Dragon* horoscope, hoping for something along the lines of “You will get a baby and a book deal, fall even more fabulously in love with your loved one, and for once all of the bulbs in your kitchen light fixture will work at the same time.” Instead it was more like, “Meh.” I’m a snake, which is like a junior dragon. According to this horoscope , Dragon is my Happy Star, but “Dragon travels alone, so Dragon is also the Lonely Star to Snake.” Huh? Why is Dragon such a snob, and why does he want me to be lonely?! Two thousand eleven, though full of love, was also plenty lonely. Two thousand twelve is supposed to be about an embarrassment of riches, dammit. This horoscope (thanks, Cathy Che!) puts a brighter spin on the same info. The first one was sort of like, “Just keep your head down and stay out of trouble,” while this one throws a few exclamation points into the mix. It promises that 2012 will be “an exciting and busy time for you and your partne...

Public service announcement for anyone who’s trying to shut up her biological clock for a minute: Go see We Need to Talk About Kevin . It’s a movie (based on a novel I didn’t read) about a mom trying to raise a little psychopath whose only joy in life is tormenting her. The movie is sliced into short scenes, and it takes a while to figure out what’s going on—all we know is that there’s a Before world, in which Eva (Tilda Swinton) has a husband and two kids and a stylish haircut, and an After, in which she’s alone and haggard in that particular Tilda Swinton, Oscar-worthy way. But it quickly becomes apparent that her Before was mostly a period of suffering in silence, as she endures daily standoffs with a kid who refuses to potty train until he’s eight, when she tosses him across the room in a fit of frustration. Meanwhile her husband (John C. Reilly) just thinks the kid is quirky. The opening scene—never fully explained—shows Eva crowd surfing through some sort of Bacchanalia...

This weekend was a lot of things—MLK Day, Alberto’s birthday, AK’s continued birthday, Amy’s going-away, my biannual pap smear—but it was also…Circus Weekend! Chapter 1: My sister and I take Aerial Fitness at Cirque School L.A. Since my last (and only) trapeze class , they’ve moved into their very own gym in Hollywood. It’s filled with bouncy balls and trampolines and taped-up trapezes and flowy silks hanging from the ceiling. The good thing about going with Cathy is that we have all the same magical childhood associations. So one of us says, “Trampoline” and the other says, “Seriously.” And no more words need be exchanged. I have this plan that I will take all necessary cirque classes (about three months’ worth) to fill my grant requirements; then I’ll quit therapy and use the money I save to become a fucking trapeze goddess. That means I have three months to get my head healthy. The anxiety I had about getting a routine pap smear does not bode well for my mental health. ...

This might be the only old-time photo that my cousin Maria and my childhood friend Bonnie have not put on Facebook, because neither of them had the privilege of starring in the Mira Costa High School production of The Outsiders in 1991. Neither did I—star, that is. I was an extra. I spent hours at rehearsals every week only to do things like walk across the stage pushing a stretcher during the hospital scene. Ah, the endless abundance of time that is youth. When I found this photo at my dad’s house (actual size: 11” x 13”), I said to my dad and sister, “How much do you want to bet I wrote something like ‘I heart Denito “Sodapop” Kelly’ on the back?” I flipped it over. I’d been stealthier than that: I’d labeled everyone and who each person played, but I’d written the “O” in Denito as a heart. Sexy. Denito is the one cuddling up to the girl that’s not me in the second to last row. He’s wearing a lot of blush in this picture. My sister pointed out that this may have been part of the attr...

Dear T-Mec, When the rescue organization folks delivered you and OC to B’s and my apartment ten years ago, the first thing you did when they opened the door to the cat carrier was walk over to the brand new litter box and take a polite little pee. You’d been in the car for an hour and a half, and now you were in a strange new place that smelled like paint, but you knew what needed to be done. Last night you left my life just as neatly and tidily: We’d already placed a call to Vet on Wheels, thinking it might be time, but you decided to do it on your terms and save us $300. After a cuddly evening at home, we woke up to the sound of you coughing or…something. The phrase “death rattle” came to mind, and the night felt eerie. But we were there, next to you, until you were no longer there next to us. We petted you and talked to you and AK went for her bible to find a passage she remembered from Titanic (such is AK’s range of references). We let the boys in the room for a goodb...

This morning I looked at the Excel file where I track my literary submissions, and let me tell you, there’s nothing like a highly organized document to let you know in no uncertain terms exactly how unproductive you’ve been. Six submissions in the entire year of 2011! Since my unofficial 2012 motto is “Be less lazy and crazy” (my official motto is “What would Tina Fey do?”), I am particularly proud of myself for meeting the postmark deadline for this summer’s RADAR Lab, in which a bunch of queer people shack up in Mexico for two weeks and write together. That’s practically a novel itself. It will be called Vamos a la Playa , Jotos . Anyway, here’s what I read in December, back when I was still being a little lazy (and working my way through The Lacuna , which I’m still not done with). Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling: Mindy Kaling name-checks Tina Fey and Chelsea Handler's books in a self-deprecating way. For the record, Kaling's is much funnier and sweete...

Zelda Kennedy is one of my favorite people at All Saints because her sermons frequently quote plays and musicals, and because she hugs parishioners like she means it. This morning she quoted a line from The Velveteen Rabbit, which made me cry when I was six and believed my stuffed animals had souls (I still kind of do) and again today. Something along the lines of: “If you become real, you will get worn down and used up, but you will never be ugly to anyone who understands what it means to be real.” Someone could probably put together one of those photo comparisons a la Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War for me in 2011. Which is not to say that my recent howls of thwarted entitlement* are the same as the Civil War, just that, well, it’s been real, and I think I have some fine lines to show for it. I’ve had a very nice week-plus off. Last night AK and I rang in the new year with Pedro, Stephen, Maria and Calvin at Onyx , after a potluck dinner at the boys’ place around the ...

The more parents of young children I know, the more I hear some version of the following sentiment: Oh, I used to try to keep up with what was cool, but now I spend my days listening to [annoying kids’ album of the moment] and wiping up puke. AK and I have all but pinky sworn that we won’t do this. It’s not that we don’t expect—even hope—that the puke-to-museum-going ratio in our lives will change once we convince someone to give us a kid. But for us, the arts aren’t about having something cool to talk about at parties. (Lately I would feel a thousand times cooler if I could talk about wiping up puke.) Books and movies aren’t some kind of shorthand for how edgy we are or aren’t. They’re as life-sustaining as friendship and work. Coolness is about what’s new, something I gave up on long ago, as evidenced by my list of favorite books this year, one of which was published in 1905. But culture is forever. So with that overly sincere intro, I present my annual, completely-irr...

Movies about misunderstood artist-types finally breaking away from small-town hell and following their dreams are outnumbered only by movies about career-obsessed shrews who rediscover the simple charms of their hometowns. Together, the genres seem to encourage the following narrative: In order to live a perfect life, you should grow up in a small town, hate it, escape, build your fortune in the big city (where you are most likely an editor for a glossy magazine), feel something is missing, return to your hometown for reasons beyond your control (funeral, etc.) and run into your old boyfriend. From there, the options are 1) settle down with him and make babies like a good girl (but one who already has an amazing résumé under her belt), or 2) see how good he is with his surprisingly cool new girlfriend, leave him to his new life and settle down with the hot, quirky, intellectual funeral director you just happen to have been flirting with throughout, and make babies like a good girl. ...

Some things that are inspiring me today: My friend Devoya , who just opened what might be the most affordably priced Etsy shop ever, at least in the non- Regretsy genre. If you like small, cute-but-not-precious things—like little boxes with hidden treasures inside—and have a passion for the likes of Marvin Gaye and Erykah Badu, this is the shop for you. I have to admit that I need to do some Googling before I can appreciate all the references in her collages, but the best kind of art is the kind that makes you learn. My student, Chopper , who is a candidate for The Most Interesting Man in the World (other possibilities: Sara, Jamie’s dad, AK’s friend Adrienne [I realize a couple of them aren’t men]). I met him in person for the first time last night because he was in town for the holidays, and I got to hear his amazingly unbraggy stories about building a house with his bare hands on 35 acres of land in rural Virginia, following the Grateful Dead for years, touring with his own band a...

I’m pretty sure our living room is the same size as the closet Mariah Carey has just for her shoes, so we have to have friends over in shifts. Yesterday we had eight people over (well, more like seven and a half, since Kohana is small and only ate Cheerios and grapes), and it felt like a rager. Sweet potato pie with premade crust aside, my holiday baking attempts have been notoriously disastrous, so when Sizzle posted her favorite recipes , I asked her for the most foolproof one. Magic Cookie Bars, she assured me, barely even involve stirring. Since I’d already used our only 9” x 13” pan for the lasagna, I lacked the bakeware the cookie bars called for. I was tempted to throw it all in two 8” x 8” pans, but I was like, This is the kind of thinking that results in hard/overly crumbly/strangely onion-flavored cookies. So I did math! I fenced off a little piece of one of the 8” x 8” pans with foil so the overall square footage would be the same as a 9” x 13” pan. Mr. Ninni...

If you’re on my “L.A. lit list” Gmail contacts list, you know that I was supposed to do a reading last night and it got cancelled. (If you’re not and want to be, let me know.) As a consolation prize, Jessica, the hostess of Writers’ Row threw a little party/open reading at a friend’s loft at the Brewery. It was also a birthday party for her other reading series, SoapBox Poets. In fact, I was a little confused about the role each series played and how the two intersected, and I felt like one of those guest speakers who gets in front of the mic and is basically like, “Where am I? How did I get here?” I usually think those people are snobs who didn’t do their homework. (Once, a guy considered to be very funny by many people emceed my organization’s benefit dinner. His whole schtick was that this was the most coveted gig in town, because ha ha, of course it wasn’t. It was pretty funny the first time, but grew progressively less so throughout the evening. When he hosted again the next year,...

You think you’re over it, and it’s a normal day, and you congratulate yourself for reentering this land. You don’t believe in normal, but you’re back to a place where you can contemplate semantics, and that means something. You watch a baby bat drink formula from the tip of an eye shadow brush. Your to-do list says Christmas cards. Tonight there will be no choreography of preparation and acceptance, of reprimanding yourself for not being a Nice Person while taking care not to pressure yourself to be a Nice Person. You’re just here for some cake. And then it hits you. When they say like a freight train, what they mean is: It’s not the train’s fault. It never saw you. Or, if it did, it couldn’t stop in time. Stopping wasn’t its job. But then the train moves on and you’re peeling yourself off the tracks, a flattened cartoon, thinking I’m so sick of this until the next train comes along.

For years I read descriptions of Aries traits and didn’t really relate despite my April 3 birthday. I’m stubborn, independent and (sometimes) energetic, yes, but I’m not a leader who has trouble taking orders, I don’t really have a temper and I don’t have problems with follow-through. If anything, I’m compulsive in my follow-through. To which people always said, Yeah, but what’s your rising sign? Because the explanation could not possibly be that astrology was a bunch of bullshit. So when Thomas McBee, in his IBC post about dressing for your sign , included a link to a site that would do your chart, I had it do mine . This explains so much! (Because astrology cannot possibly be a bunch of bullshit.) My rising sign is Cancer, which sounds a little ominous, but I do like crabs as food, pets and pretty much anything but an STD. My crabbiness explains why I’m fiercely loyal to my family, a sentimental fool and overly sensitive to criticism. Basically, I dish it like an Aries but take it li...

So I got booted from jury duty. Is it weird that I feel bummed about it? Especially since it was a child molestation trial, and did I really want to spend my day listening to thirteen-year-olds testify about creepy, thoroughly traumatizing incidents? The judge asked, as they always do, if there’s anything that might bias you one way or another in this particular case. First, let me say that the number of people who said they didn’t know anyone affected by child abuse was ridiculously high. Do these people not talk to their friends? Aren’t the statistics like one in three? So I mentioned a young woman I know, whose abuse was more recent and seemingly life-shitifying than that of my friends who’ve figured out how to be strong, functional adults in spite of someone’s best efforts to prevent it. I figured that, if I got dismissed, it would be by the defense. Because clearly I had a beef with child molesters, right? And I did—part of me thought, I want to put this guy in jail! The other par...

Right now I’m sitting in the Clara J. Something Criminal Justice Center downtown. I feel about jury duty the way I felt about wearing our drill team uniforms to school in tenth grade. I know you’re supposed to hate it and complain, but secretly I think it’s kind of cool. It’s a change of scene, a day off work and a great chance to people-watch. Examples: woman wearing houndstooth pants and matching houndstooth shoes…and…well, actually, most of the people around me look pretty normal. That means nothing, of course, but they could conceivably be a jury of my peers. Now a guy is guiding us through the juror questionnaire: “Where it says ‘number of people in your household,’ Ima ask you to go ahead and write how many people are in your household.” I almost never have the urge to Tweet, but now that I’m trapped in a room without internet access, I do. So I think I’ll periodically log into this notebook (not a notebook computer, an actual paper notebook) and type it up later. 8...

Recently I’ve developed a strange obsession with eBay (no one ever accused me of being an early adopter). It has a little bit to do with my love of clothes, a little bit to do with my tendency toward compulsion (and hey, searching online for Seychelles wedges is much less self-destructive than playing symptom roulette on WebMD)…and plenty to do with the excitement of winning. So what if the baby gods and the literary agent gods have rejected me? With eight dollars and a bit of good timing, the Madewell utility zip pants gods will smile upon me. Because I’m a cheapo , my new hobby hasn’t cost me much in the way of money, but I’m pretty sure I would have read an extra novel last month if I hadn’t been busy stalking these amazing Fenton/Fallon for J. Crew jaws earrings . As any recovering alcoholic/current competitive bodybuilder knows, the best way to squelch an obsession is with another obsession. And Unique L.A. —which Amy accurately described as “live Etsy ”—is a goo...

Back in the day (sorry, Stephen—I know how you feel about that phrase) my organization shared a lovely brick building in SoHo with a fellow literary nonprofit called Poets House and the corporate headquarters of Marc Jacobs . Although my coworkers are generally snazzy dressers, it was always clear in the lobby who worked for which company. My org was a holdover from the days when SoHo was home to actual artists, not just high-end galleries. Sometime in the mid-2000s, rent crept up so high that Poets House had to leave.* Shortly thereafter, my coworkers overheard a couple of Marc Jacobs employees talking in the elevator: “One poet company down, one to go.” Within a year, my org was out of there as predicted (to very nice but unnerving digs near Ground Zero), and Marc Jacobs took over the whole building. So it was more than a little ironic when they opened up a bookstore on Bleeker Street, called Bookmarc . Now there’s one in L.A. too; AK’s friend from school works there. She’s a form...