Love

Me: mom was kind of a star yesterday because she asked me a million times
if i would like something to eat
and i cried over the questions a million times
and shook my head no
no i will not eat
then she put the matzah ball soup in front of me
and i ate it
and i was nourished

ED: cute
that's like a poem
sort of like a cross between shel silverstein
and a psalm

Patrons of the Arts

Yesterday my dad told me on the phone that, while at the Getty Center on Monday with my mom and aunt and uncle, he ran into Huell Howser! Filming an episode of California's Gold right there at that moment! And they had a lovely chat! And my dad said he would not wash his hand after shaking Huell's until he got a chance to shake mine, so I could benefit from the glorious transference of my hero's germs or dirt or DNA or whatever, like on that episode of The Brady Bunch with Davy Jones.

I said, "Dad! That's even better than when mom ran into Val Kilmer at the Bel Air Hotel." And he goes, "Oh wait, Val was there too. At the Getty!" Seriously? What are the chances.

So it was my mom, dad, aunt J, uncle A, Val Kilmer, and Huell Howser all enjoying a sunny Monday afternoon at the Getty. The things you miss when you have a job.

Auld Lang Syne Language

Happy New Year, lovelies! I thoroughly enjoyed the last couple weeks of 2007, which involved a lot of friend time, and family time, and a lot of touring around California, which—and I know I repeat myself—you just can't beat. It's so breathtaking, our state.
On New Year's Eve, in a friend's Russian Hill apartment in San Francisco, MT innocently inquired as to my hobbies (no doubt after I'd said something snotty about how busy I am and how robust my blessed life already is, dang, lay off). All I could think of to say on the spot was "working out" (which might be a kind of lame cop-out L.A. answer), and "blogging" (which is also kind of a cop-out, since my Internet self is a more composed, less-interesting, anecdotified version of my real-life self and adventures, and I haven't blogged much lately anyway, like I'm Princess Melissa or something). Then of course there is watching Project Runway while texting, but you don't have to tell me that's not a hobby. And hair is not a hobby; it's damage control executed with scientific precision. I like to think I am a good and dutiful friend to many among a close-knit but large group of folks, and I know good friends are an earned privilege. But a hobby? Not so much, I guess.

And of course there's work, which I have resolved to remember in 2008 is not a hobby, but a job—albeit one that happens to consume most of my time including evenings and weekends on account of events, and one that not coincidentally combines things that I deeply care about: writing, photography, and career. Still, how did I come up job-swamped and hobby-free in the waning weeks of 2007? The Sassy-reading 1989 version of me would not have seen that coming.

So I'm putting this out there to friends and strangers, this question of what my new hobby will be in 2008. Can you help me with a suggestion? I always lean toward hobbies that I can parlay/multi-task into being, say, money making as well as fitness promoting, or perhaps crafty and meditative and entrepreneurial and tummy flattening all at once. I'm into free-time efficiencies. But of course, I'm open to any constructive or fun ideas. Whether you know me or not and you've got one, hit me.

[Current potential hobby front runners are Italian language refreshing, healthy vegetarian cooking at a higher level, volleyball (which seems like cheating, because it's one of the blue-eyed boy's existing hobbies, and he'd be coaching me), tennis (same deal), hiking (fab, but achingly obvious)...]

I thank you in advance for your ideas. And I wish all of us more joy in 2008 than we possibly could have known was coming. Then bam—you got it.