Bread and Bread

Better than Freedom and shorter too. Someone broke into my car late Saturday night and stole my radio and iPod but left the novel I had in the backseat. So whoever he was, I guess he wasn’t a reader. Or she. Or maybe he/she just prefers nonfiction. I had to go to the WeHo Book Festival, and I barely had time to care about the theft. I wondered whether that made me a tough chick who didn’t sweat the small stuff, who was truly grateful for the things that really counted (including the option to borrow AK’s car)—or a spoiled asshole who went through iPods like water, when there were people in the world who actually had no water. After the book fair, I called the police. I don’t know why. A very nice, but possibly not super smart, guy named Honor (really) took down my information. He asked me to describe what my iPod looked like. “Um, like an iPod?” I said. He asked me my race, height and weight. In case it was an inside job? AK and I speculated that our cat Ollie, who...

1. i had to look up the spelling of rosh hashana My boss sent me an email wishing me a happy Jewish New Year. I told her that my dad’s dad converted and became a priest and I wasn’t technically Jewish, but that I liked fresh starts of all kinds, so I’d accept her good wishes. And today was my first day back at work after surgery, and wearing something other than glorified pajamas did feel kind of first-day-of-school-ish. (And, like many actual first days of school in SoCal, it was absurdly hot. How many times did I trek to my public high school sweating in plaids and sweaters that evoked some East Coast prep school fantasy?) Orange is the new school year. My convalescence was a nice balance between serious rest and writing/reading, meaning I felt like I didn’t do quite enough of either. Today I began my new life as post-cancer patient for reals. Meaning I get to spend a lot of time making sure my meds don’t give me osteoporosis (another tally mark in the Prematurely Old colum...