Bread and Bread

1. when breast is not best Last night at Nicole’s, we watched an episode of The L Word , which I hadn’t seen in ages. Nicole caught me up the plot, which has the ups and downs of a soap and the wild, jerky pace of a cab darting through traffic. “Okay,” said Nicole, “so Max, the trans guy, was dating this bio gay guy who got him pregnant, then freaked out and left. Now Max’s friends are throwing him a baby shower, and for some reason there’s a Willy Wonka theme.” When I came in, Max’s female friends were all chatting happily about episiotomies as Max looked on with horror. Because, you know, that’s what gay women who don’t have kids usually talk about. They’re LADIES! They love their vaginas! And childbirth! Then Jenny—oh, Jenny—gave Max a breast pump , which he also gazed upon with horror. “I’m not gonna breastfeed,” grunted Max, played by actress Daniela Sea, who seems to think that lowering her voice is a substitute for saying her lines with any expression whatsoever. “I know you ide...

Because I have a cold that is still fogging up my brain, and because I have to meet Nicole for dinner in about ten minutes, all I’m up for today is bullet points (I announce, as if you’d all keel over dead if I didn’t blog this week). Some thoughts, in very unparticular order: Hospitals should not send you letters that say you need an EKG and then, when you call them, say, “Oh, that was just a form letter. You don’t need an EKG” as if you should have known. It is really nice to read a good book after being mired in a, well, not a bad book, but a long, dense book with way too many tangents about drunken clowns in Russia , which is not as fun as it sounds. Giving up abstract things for Lent is not as much fun as giving up disposable cups, which I did two years ago. (Last year I missed Lent altogether—so I guess I gave up Lent for Lent.) The marquis on the progressive church next to my office says, “Enviro…LENT…alism.” If you need a quick pick-me-up, you should watch either this or this...

In LAUSD, when parents take their kids out of school for a week, it’s probably because their car broke down. In snowier parts of the country—and, inexplicably, parts of San Diego—it’s to go skiing. You know how sometimes you hear about a thing for the first time and then you hear about it everywhere for the next few days? That was me and Ski Week, officially known as President’s Week, and oh was it ski week at Mammoth. The mountain was crawling with adorable bundled-up children who were twice the skiers I’ll ever be. Their moms crowded the beginner class AK took. I was envious and a little suspicious of anyone entitled enough to pull their children out of school just because the snow was too perfect to resist. But mostly I was just excited to get started on my own Ski (Half) Week. Christine and Jody were once again Ski Mom and Dad to a gaggle of their friends, organizing the condo rental, telling us whether our boots fit (“If it’s too comfortable, it doesn’t fit,” said Christine, who ...

The other night I dreamed (dreamt? I’ve always been iffy about that one) that I was at a party with a bunch of writers I admired. I looked down and saw that, while I was wearing a skirt I liked—a kind of jagged-edged teal one from American Apparel —I was wearing it with a baggy old T-shirt. I remember thinking hopefully, Maybe it’s sort of raggedy chic and I have a Mary-Kate Olsen thing going on. But nope, it was an old shirt I work out in, which has not seen the color white for a long time. Weird that I didn’t just dream I was naked. Maybe I’m more scared of being thought to have bad taste than of being exposed. Anyway, here are the two things I actually logged in to tell you: 1) See Coraline . It’s so bizarre and lovely, and I would kill to create an otherworldly world the way those filmmakers did, although I’m not nearly patient enough to do so (I would settle for just having Coraline’s cute blue haircut—and I do pretty much have her heroic, big-eyed black cat). It’s also kind of ...

On Saturday AK and I showed up at the ArcLight at random, as we seem to be developing a habit of, and said, “What’ve you got?” What they had was He’s Just Not That Into You . (Do you like how I just made it sound like I was forced to see it as a last resort? Like I saw it only because Waltz With Bashir was sold out? In fact, I was quite into seeing He’s Just Not That Into You .) It’s very much a movie of its genre, which I guess is technically “romantic comedy,” but which in my head is “movie in which all hair is either perfectly curled or ironed to the smoothness of a skating rink, and all the characters more or less work as graphic designers.” This genre is eye candy not of the Scarlett-Johansson ’s-tits variety (although there was that too) but of the shiny-pages-of- Vogue variety. Except the idea of He’s Just Not… was to rip the romantic-comedy goggles right off the faces of its female viewers, right? I didn’t read the book, but I heard co-author Greg Behrendt interviewed enough t...

This is old news among nonprofit arts geeks now, but the senate voted to cut arts funding from the economic stimulus package . Republican senator Tom Coburn presented an amendment that would prevent funds from being used for any “casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, [or] highway beautification project.” The zoo animals and I are a little offended that our livelihoods are considered as frivolous and useless as casinos and golf courses. We’re not quite sure why auto-manufacturing is considered a real, stimulus-worthy job, but caring for species that those autos are indirectly wiping out and ensuring that American culture is more than just Pimp My Ride are not. If you agree with me and the elephants (whose painting projects are now doubly threatened), go here: http://www.capwiz.com/artsusa/home/ . Incidentally, aren’t we in this mess because Wall Street is one giant gambling establishment?...

[Spoiler alert only if you are Cathy Klein: The following post contains information about your birthday present.] I'd been planning to spend my Saturday morning waiting in line at the Greek Theatre box office for Flight of the Conchords tickets. The good news was that there was only one other person there when I arrived at 9:45. The bad news was that apparently all the people who weren't there knew that the box office was closed for the season. Walking around confused and lightly-rained-on, I kind of felt like I was in an episode of Flight of the Conchords (I love how relentlessly sincere they are, diligently seeing every bad idea through to its ridiculous conclusion; Lee-Roy 's brother Valentine, who's spent a lot of time in New Zealand, swears this is exactly how people are there--once a guy he barely knew showed up at his house in the middle of a thunderstorm to teach him how to play a card game Valentine had casually mentioned wanting to learn over drinks a few w...

Today at work, a small cardboard box from Walmart arrived in the mail. Inside was a SOYJOY bar and a SOYJOY brochure promoting SOYJOY’s “Whole Soy. Real Fruit. Longer-Lasting Energy.” Jamie: There’s something weird about randomly getting food in the mail. Cheryl: I hate it when foods advertise that they’re made with “real” fruit or “real” cheese or whatever. If the best thing you can say about food is that it’s food, it’s probably not that good. Jamie: I wonder if it’s made with non-GMO soy. Cheryl: It doesn’t say it is, so it probably isn’t. What’s GMO? Jamie: Genetically modified. There’s something bad about genetically modified soybeans, but I can’t remember what right now. Cheryl: I wonder if it has any recalled peanuts in it. Jamie: I’m just going to throw it away. Cheryl: No, don’t! I’ll totally eat it.

I’m happy to report that I’m now the proud owner of a new used bike (thanks to Christine, whose legs are too long for it) and an almost completed New Year’s resolution . (I was sneaky to make my resolution “Start riding a bike” instead of just “Get a bike.”) Just in time, since I’m on a cardio-only exercise regimen thanks to my hernia , which I’ve nicknamed Iggy . I took my maiden bicycle voyage Sunday afternoon with AK, who also owns one of Christine’s old bikes. I programmed a four-digit number into my new combination lock. I attached my new lights. I strapped on my new bike helmet whose baby blue-ness almost allows me to forget the fact that it’s a bike helmet and not a jaunty cap. I tried not to think about how expensive a used bike can be once you start adding a bunch of new accessories. (But AK and I did get free T-shirts from the friendly owner of the Bicycle Station , who said I looked like Amanda Peet. So ultimately I think I got a good deal.) Riding residential-ish streets do...

It’s been kind of a rough week. But today the overpriced-but-discounted boots I ordered from Zappos arrived. It’s a little scary how much I can love an inanimate object. Or, I guess, two inanimate objects. Four if you count the perfect brown boots I bought last weekend during my quest for the perfect black boots. Now I look at my shoes from so many different angels while walking around that you’d think I was checking for dog doody. I think Rachel said it best on the first episode of Friends , when she had yet to enter spoiled-rich-girl recovery: “They’re my new ‘I don’t need a job, I don’t need my parents, I've got great boots’ boots!” Although, since I bought them with Christmas money from my dad, I guess I do need my parents.

1. my weightlifting career is in serious jeopardy Until my best friend Shannon and I decided it was nerdy to get perfect attendance and played hooky the last day of eighth grade (though we still got our parents’ permission, which doesn’t help to disprove our nerdiness), I was always one of those kids who fought to go to school no matter how sick I was. I think my pride in physical toughness is my one big butch quality. I was proud of making my high school’s bench-press wall of fame (if you call having your name written on a piece of construction paper in a musty, rarely-used weight room “fame”). I was proud that I didn’t cringe when getting my tattoo. I was proud that I didn’t need to take a single Vicadin after getting my wisdom teeth out, even though I might have had more fun if I did. So when I learned yesterday that the mysterious lump on my abdomen was a hernia—meaning no weights or sit-ups until surgery—I had distinctly mixed emotions. The first was relief that it wasn’t cancer. ...

Two movies you should see. 1) Doubt : If I’d managed to see this one over the holidays, it definitely would have made my top-ten list (falling around number two or three). It’s so meaty and moral, with complex characters you want to dish on later like they’re your own dysfunctional family. Meryl Streep’s uber-moral dragon-lady nun character—who has a soft spot for little old ladies but wages war on ballpoint pens—kind of reminds me of my ex. Would you believe me if I said I meant that as a compliment? 2) Breaking and Entering : AK and I rented this 2006 movie last night, and Jude Law and Robin Wright Penn’s characters reminded us a little of ourselves in the way they dealt with their problems (or didn’t). Penn’s character got all control-freaky and Law ran away—although, AK pointed out quite fairly, “When I need to escape, I don’t have an affair. I just go to Barnes & Noble for a while.” Fictional characters are a good entry point to talking about relationship stuff because you ...

I just got back from seeing a read/sing-through of Embers , a “jazz opera in poems” based on Terry Wolverton’s novel in poems , at the L.A. Central Library . It was fun to see one art form morph into another, to hear words I’d read take wing against a background of black-and-white cityscapes. But it was just as cool to look through the program and read people’s bios, many of which said things like, “So-and-so has been collaborating with Terry for 30 years.” Thirty years! I feel like I’ve only been working with (as opposed to against) myself for about ten. Suddenly I found myself itching with inspiration, wanting to inhabit one of those loose Bohemian worlds where artistic projects flow together and apart, and you all grab drinks after play rehearsal. The problem is, I suck at collaboration. I never liked group work in school, and I pretty much always try to wedge an “I” into “team.” Myers-Briggs puts me somewhere between introvert and extrovert*, but closer to the former. This means I...

L.A. Live, January 20, 2009.

1. perplexed in the city First of all, a shout out to Hawaii friend Mano , because not many houseguests would get genuinely excited when their host said, “Hey, there’s this lecture at the library I want to go to tomorrow night. Want to spend your only night in L.A. doing that?” Luckily, it was kind of a kick-ass event: a Q&A between poet/KPFK guy Jerry Quickley and writer/solo performer Danny Hoch , whom I became a fan of in college when his one-man show Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop came to UCLA. The topic at hand was gentrification, the subject of Hoch’s new show Taking Over . Jerry and Danny are both NYC natives who saw the city through the crack epidemic, the Giuliani crackdown and the era when Michelle Williams began strollering her baby through Brooklyn. Even though Jerry was quick (no pun intended) to point out how everyone likes to believe the gentrifiers are the ones who came right after him or her, I could tell he also wanted to devote some time to humorously ragging on...

Originally our idea had been to go camping for AK's 33rd birthday, but as seasoned camper Christine pointed out, you can't camp anywhere north of Mexico in January. So we found ourselves at a "cabin" in Idyllwild that featured cable TV, a jacuzzi tub, a fireplace, a kitchen island, two garbage disposals, a pool table, and a small collection of creepy porcelain dolls, none of which I have at home. Some members of our crew schlepped up Rock Band and Guitar Hero too, and whenever there was a debate over whether a Boggle word was a real word, Amy looked it up on her BlackBerry . So you can't really say we got away from it all, but I think it's safe to say we had fun. Some highlights: The decor. Oh, the decor. It was sort of B&B meets chainsaw. A bottle of Riesling that AK and Pedro found in town. As any discerning wine connoisseur knows, all the best vintages come in bottles shaped like pets. Veggie chili in the super-deluxe kitchen. Pedro's specialty ...

Ever wonder why some of the world (India, Brazil, many parts of Africa, some parts of China) has been so poor for so long? Your high school history class may have subtly implied that it is just is , in an almost eugenics-y way. Or your teacher may have pointed out that those areas have suffered major droughts, which caused widespread famine and disease and stalled development. I don’t know what mine said, because I dropped out of AP history my sophomore year and took California history. I could tell you a lot about the Gold Rush. But, anyway, as Mike Davis explains it in Late Victorian Holocausts , peasants in most countries—England and India alike—lived very similar lives up until the 19th century. They probably had some cows, grew some grain, didn’t have iPods or anything, but were mostly healthy. Certain areas (see above), however, were in the path of El Niño’s predictable-only-if-you-have-a-PhD-in-weather path, meaning they were especially susceptible to drought some years and horr...

[Mac voice]: Hi, I’m a Mac. All your friends have me. I’m shiny and pretty and easy to use, and made for people who like to think of themselves as arty, as you clearly do, Ms. Thrift Store Sweater. I’m also perfect for people who really hate when things break or become completely obsolete after four and a half years, and let’s face it: You’re technologically very lazy. I’ll look so cute sitting next to AK’s little black Mac—-you should get the white version of me so we can be all ebony-and-ivory. Oh, by the way, I cost a bazillion dollars. [PC voice]: Hi, I’m a PC. An Acer Aspire, specifically—-don’t you like how my name implies that you’re already hoping for something better? Kind of like the Ford Aspire , and we know how well things turned out with Ford! Your dad found me on the sale shelf at Best Buy and assures you that I’m “as good as an eMachine.” If you go with me, you will feel worthy of your dad’s love and generosity. You might as well just stab that MacBook through his hear...

Here's what had AK and I geeking out Friday night: Who knew that white ladies in bell-bottoms were krumping waaay back in the day? "Bob Fosse was always at least 20 years ahead of his time," I said to Jamie as we were watching this video today. "Yeah," she said, "but he probably stole those moves from a jazz club somewhere." Dance is always references within references within references. And damn, the result looks good.

1. it would be nice, for once, if just one person i grew up with had gotten fat, but no, that’s not how they do things in manhattan beach My sister’s best friend from elementary school just Facebook -friended me, so I’m now updated on the fact that she is as tall and gorgeous as ever, is married with a cute little boy, threw some sort of New Year’s Eve party that her friends declared really fun…and is a member of “I Support the California ProtectMarriage Constitutional Amendment.” This isn’t a big shocker because H is Mormon—as in blonde, one-of-five siblings, never-drank-soda-at-my-sister’s-birthday-parties Mormon. In case I sound like one of those anti- Prop. 8 Mormon-haters, I should add that H’s entire family was always incredibly nice. My sister spent so much time at our local Mormon temple—which was always putting on awesome kid-friendly events—that there was a time when I thought, Maybe when I grow up, if I’m not married and don’t have any friends, I’ll become Mormon and everyt...