In Which I Set Myself on Fire, Bleed Profusely (Unrelated), and Meet Huell Howser

It's been three months since my last confession, and I'm ripping off the Band-Aid with some tales from my wacky March.

Highlights included that time two weeks ago when I set myself on fire. Panicked about my impending wisdom tooth surgery the next morning, I tried to light a few candles in order that their wafting aroma might help me relax. Instead, the decorative tie dangling from the neckline of my shirt ignited, and then the rest of the front of my shirt caught fire, which I didn't notice until I was pretty well aflame. I dropped the phone (I'd been talking to my parents), screaming that blood-curdling scream that comes from the back of your throat that you mostly only hear in the movies and rarely in real life. I batted away at the front of my shirt before I remembered the stop, drop, and roll thing, so I did that, and eventually put the fire out on the Anthropologie rug without any significant injury (apart from a slightly singed bra and left boob). My parents heard the whole thing and assumed I was being attacked. I swear I could have died, y'all! Life is so precious and so ephemeral.

The next day, I was alive after all so I went to get my wisdom tooth removed in kind of an emergency situation, which is what you get when you've been told for years that you're going to have this half-erupted tooth out but you are too terrified so you ignore doctors orders and let it be. Then, when you go in for emergency surgery, and you've been squeezed in between other appointments, you have to wait like two hours while your anxiety builds. Then the dentist tells you that he'll only be using local anesthesia, which makes you regress into a wet-eyed, wobbly lipped child because you'd been comforted by so many friends who told you that you'd be out cold and wouldn't remember a dang thing. Matters are not improved when the zillion shots of Novacaine are not producing numbing results because apparently an existing infection hinders the efficacy of the shots. Finally the tooth comes out—and you watch the whole thing, the plier-ing, the popping, the sewing—through lucid, open eyes.

But the real drama comes when the surgeon doesn't realize how much you're bleeding (gauze in wound notwithstanding) and so sends you on your way out to the cashier, but when you try to open your mouth (to say, maybe, do you take Visa? Or, where is the sink?) you pour blood out of your mouth with a crime-scene looking result all over the counter. And then, with your bloody hands and jeans, you are escorted into a private room where you will be less likely to gross people out, until the dentist brings you back into the room where he can do some coagulating procedure that seems to work, until your mom whisks your bloody, drooly self home using the magic technique for solving difficult situations that moms know about.

OK, I guess those were more lowlights than highlights. Bona fide highlights include: wrapping up award season coverage and thereby returning to something that resembles more normalcy in terms of work load; enjoying sister and nephew's visit to California; clearing out bags and carloads of unnecessary house-cluttering stuff like old clothes and miscellany, and consequently feeling really good about myself; AND:

MEETING HUELL HOWSER. I MET HUELL HOWSER AND HE GAVE ME A HUG. What happened was I went to a KCET event at Paramount Ranch on Thursday celebrating the launch of Ken Burns' new documentary, National Parks: America's Best Idea, and Huell was there to introduce Ken. Before the program, I mustered the courage to tell Huell that I'm sure he has a lot of number-one fans, but I'm dang sure I rank up there with the most devoted of them. And he said, well I have to give you a hug for that! And so [breathlessly], I got a hug from teen idol (not actually) Huell Howser. It was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

Or, you might say, it was very much a part of California's Gold.

Here's What Looks Unspoiled to Me While Rome Burns

Trader Joe's
Pumpkins
Intervention on A&E
This cotton dress I have on that looks dressed up despite the comfort it provides
Beautiful Booty followed by Cardio Kickboxing followed by Ab Lab at the gym
Whole-wheat pasta
Wednesday night girls' night at my house
Huell. Freakin. Howser. (How do I love thee?)
California's Gold on public television (see also: Huell Howser)
In-jokes
Hiking
Judaism
My best-ever nephew who talks now, I am told
The Onion
Laughing
Regina Spektor
Spearhead, particularly Chocolate Supa Highway, which sounds so quaintly outdated now
Rosemary and basil
"My lovey" and "butzie girl," which my mom calls me sometimes
Club soda
White wine
Stilton cheese with bits of apricot in it (see also: Trader Joe's)
Making lists (such sweet therapy)
Em dashes
Abbot-Kinney
AE, LGP, AK, MIG, MAW, ADGL—in short, friends
Staying home on Friday night
Yogurt sundaes (fat-free vanilla, light choco syrup, granola, blueberries, fat-free whip)
The valiant protesters of Prop 8 (thank you)
Cream eyeliner
Wholehearted people
Honest people
Candid people
New people (but mostly not)
My fair reader(s)
Dinner. Bye!

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.

Reckless Driving Incident

Today I was browsing the grocery aisles at Target when another woman shopper ran her cart right over the toes on my flip-fopped right foot. I was startled and it hurt like hell, and moreover I thought it was going to mess up my 20-minutes-old pedicure (OPI Cajun Shrimp).

The other woman was so upset that she might have hurt me that she frantically apologized over and over, and then in a flash of panic let slip out, "Can I kiss it?" But not in a creepy foot-fetish way (like that guy outside the Macy's offices in San Francisco who always used to accost us on our way up from the BART station talking about, "nice...pretty...toes..."). But in a total Jewish mom kind of way; I could just hear the words coming out of my own mom's mouth. After the foot pain subsided, I released my toes from my massaging hand, and told her, no, no, no, it's no problem, of course you didn't mean it, things happen.

Then she said, "Are you...are you Jewish?" Yes, I'm Jewish, "Are you the daughter of...?" Nope, wrong Jewish parents' daughter. But I knew the reason she'd been distracted enough to run over my foot was that she was fixed on me trying to discern whether I was this person she suspected I was. I had wondered why she'd been staring.

[Vastly oversimplified kicker:] In this town, people offer to kiss your foot after running it over with a shopping cart in Target. In the Target in Queens, they steal your full cart so they can use it themselves, and throw all of its contents, including your scarf and winter coat with a monthly MetroCard in the pocket, on the floor under the boys' underwear racks. OK, so maybe that only happened once, but it obviously scarred me.

In Which I Shrink to the Combined Weight of the Olson Twins

Gather round, children, and I will share with you the story of the Great Stomach Flu of aught-eight.

[Spoiler alert: This piece contains graphic descriptions that may not be suitable for easily grossed-out readers.]

It started on Sunday, when I was frantically asking all the women at EW's going-away party for menstrual painkillers, because that's what I thought the problem was. Turns out, it was not ovary cramping, but stomach cramping that was ailing me, and it's a miracle I got home before the barfing set in. Keep in mind that I haven't barfed in earnest since 1998—curse that raw spinach salad from the commisary at 20th Century Fox, where I interned the summer of my 21st birthday!—so this is not something I am used to. It was shocking.

The cramping, which hit in rolling intervals, became so severe that my folks insisted on coming over late Sunday night (even despite my protestations on account of fear that their presence might heighten the drama rather than diminish it), and the poor things had to bear witness to the gnarliness and the moaning in agony. It's funny: because I've not been married or had a baby, I haven't had that level of doting devoted exclusively to me since, say, college graduation. I could hardly say anything when my mom was rubbing my face and neck with a cold washcloth, but if I had been able to speak then I would have told her thank you, thank you so much for being one person on the planet who will always do this for me, do anything for me, no matter how awful I look, and no matter what else.

By Monday morning, I had determined that there was a predictable pattern: After each time I threw up, I had a period of about 15 minutes during which I felt better, before I felt worse again. I would use this time to close the shutters that the cat had opened, or plug in my laptop, or stretch my legs by taking a few steps around the house (I was confined to bed the rest of the time, except when I had to run to the toilet to barf, when I found I could move surprisingly quickly). I even used one of my post-barfing respites to give an interview to an Us Weekly reporter working under deadline on a story about Oscar parties; I was impressed with my fortitude on that one, believe me. But it is not a good week to take off a day of work altogether, so alas that was not an option.

Other than those precious moments, though, it hurt to do anything. I had to brace myself each time I wanted to do a quarter turn in bed (from right to front, or from left to back), because I was afraid it would make me queasier or exacerbate the pain. I couldn't even watch TV for much of yesterday because it made me too dizzy, and at the worst points I couldn't even open my eyes because I was too light sensitive.

At some point, I remember the blue-eyed boy came over and put on People's Court, and there was something about a girl who was suing her landlord for sexual harassment, and I was curious whether or not she was cute, but I certainly couldn't turn my head or even open my eyes to look. The blue-eyed boy took a wet towel to my lips to try to allay the discomfort from the dehydration; I had had to stop taking even water because it made me ball up in pain and then vomit. It's possible our relationship has surpassed another milestone, now that he's seen me heave bile (that's all I had left) while sobbing and praying out loud for death to take me.

I was counting on my stomach bug to run a typical 24-hour course, but I was panicked that it would not; my sister recently had it for two days. I was counting the hours (more like minutes) in abject desperation. Off and on, I slept from 7 p.m. last night until 8 a.m. this morning, and when I was up, I was better. Sweet mercy!

Now, look, I don't want to get all M-K Olson on y'all, but I know people are curious if I lost any weight, and believe me—I was too. I stepped on the scale several times during the ordeal. By this morning, the digital scale was vacillating between 124.8 and 125.0 pounds, people. (Yes, in a bizarre twist, I just put my weight all up on the Internet.) I haven't weighed that since I was like 4-foot-9 with no boobs in grade school. And it's a shame that most of those few pounds I lost are the result of dehydration. When I gain them back, I'm going to be totally buggin because it will take me months to lose them for real—if I ever do—just through working out and eating right (which, admittedly, has lately been paying off quite reassuringly too). All told, it was about 44 hours that I had nothing to eat, half of that time with no water either.

If I had known I was going to get that banana bread for free—that was the last thing I ate on Sunday—I wouldn't have made all those lower-fat substitutions in the recipe and I certainly wouldn't have used Splenda...

Anyway, morals of the story: Purell and obsessive hand washing. Nobody wants what I had. Nausea and vomiting are the cruelest tricks of fate out there.

By Any Other Name

It really used to peeve my dad, when my sister and I were small, when we would refer to my mom in her presence by the female pronoun instead of as "mom."

She said we could do that and now she's saying no!
She won't let me!
She doesn't understand anything!

I never really got why that bugged him so much, but every now and then I will hear myself reduced to a pronoun, and I get it now.

My So-Called Life

A girl tries to go to the gym, because she figures it's probably the right thing to do to cap off a hell of a week following a catastrophic hard drive crash and the subsequent clamor toward recovery. The girl is so stressed about her job when she's leaving the parking lot after her workout, she's telling fer friend all about it on the phone, while backing up through the maze of Land Rovers and H3s and Lexuses (Lexi?) in the fancy gym parking lot. You know what happens next.

But it's the part after I hit the parked Mercedes E320 that was surprising. After I called mom ("You're alive, you're ok, these things happen..." Thank god for moms, I swear), I pulled out my reporter's notebook and scribbled, "Sorry. Call to discuss," on a leaf and tucked it under the Mercedes' windshield wiper. So happens, just then the other driver came back, so I got back out of my car to meet him and explain. Of course, I was instantly in tears, mascara streaming. That's not the surprising part yet (duh).

Here's the part. It was when he started in: "Are you ok? What's upsetting you so much? Work? Listen, I'm a litigator, and I know maybe better than anyone that all you have at the end of the day is your peace of mind. You can't stress out about work that much; it will bury you. This is nothing...it's a piece of metal..." (And he threw in, "You're a beautiful girl," for good measure, which was nice—or more to the point, it might have been why he was so forgiving.) (But really? All schmutzy and sweaty? Dang, thanks!)

So here was a guy, whose immaculate white Mercedes I just hit, counseling me and consoling me for 10 minutes. Being more gracious and generous with me than I could have ever predicted. Far more gracious, in fact, than I typically am with people who haven't just absentmindedly collided with my car. There is a lesson there, truly.

...Unless he calls me tomorrow and says, "Remember me? The litigator? You owe me a million dollars, you freakish stress case."

Fingers crossed.

Cabin Pressure

Six days after my nephew was born, I got on a plane at PHL and headed home to LAX. Since having said goodbye to my sister at her house the day before, I'd hardly stopped crying. Part of it was the obvious: Because I'd decided to fulfill my commitment to attend the wedding of a dear friend in L.A., I'd left Philadelphia before my nephew's bris. This had been a rending choice. Part of the reason I was sad was that I didn't know when I’d see my sister again, or the baby, and “time marches on,” as my dad is so fond of saying. And I hate that it does.

The other reasons for the tears were more abstract. Everything had been hyper-poignant in Philadelphia. Like when I ate with my folks at City Tavern and my dad’s salad came with a purple orchid on top, and my mom was so determined that she should take this little second-hand flower to my sister. She dusted off the blossom and asked the waitress for a Styrofoam cup to transport it in. My dad poured a half inch of water into the cup, and my mom placed the bud inside, and we kept it in the cup holder of the rental car until it could safely be delivered to my sister. The way my mom was so precious about how this flower must be taken to her daughter—this killed me. There are lots of other reasons too, but my Internet self is not nearly honest enough to dissect them here.

I hardly slept a wink before I got on the plane, and then got up at 6 AM to head to the airport, where the security line was a hundred miles long and I barely got in Southwest's nightmarish B line in time to get an aisle seat directly in front of a screaming baby, for whose parents I should have had sympathy, particularly under the circumstances of our own family’s developments, but didn't because I was so dang tired. Seeing the tears, the girl sitting in the window seat asked with genuine concern if I was OK, and I really believed she was interested in the answer—which I would have told her with details, because I am the type, but it’s so complicated and I’m not even sure what it is.

Something about my mom handling an orchid from my dad’s salad with extreme care because it was for her daughter who is recovering from surgery, and because my mom would have always done anything for her daughters? Something about how I have a tiny new nephew who weighs five pounds less than my cat, and who could be god-knows-how-old before I see him again because we live far apart and that sucks? Something about how I’m going to turn 30 in a month and people in Philadelphia seem to be doing different things at 30 than people in New York or L.A., and how that complicates the value system in my head?

Meanwhile, the guy in the middle seat, who was wearing a ball cap that was brown mesh in the back and fake woven wicker on the brim, was oblivious to my--er--lack of composure. And he had a lot to say to me about his cat Daisy and the dog who’s name I can’t remember, and the crawfish his wife found in a pond and put in their daughter’s aquarium. (The wife, who goes by “All-Biz Liz” because she makes the family's decisions, and has no faith in her husband's decision-making abilities, had trouble carrying, which is why they had their daughter so late in life. So I was told.) This man had no idea that I was not really in the right emotional space to be on board with his idea that the way to make a million quick is to be a child’s birthday party entertainer, like this Safari Lady who came to one of his daughter’s friends’ parties and got $200 for entertaining the kids with goats and snakes for an hour. Can you imagine? $200! Get a couple of those bookings in a day—maybe four in a weekend—and you’re so set! That's the way to do it, boy, I tell you.

I tried to cover my head with the blue Southwest “blanket,” so I could “sleep,” but its mystery fibers were asphyxiating me, so I moved it aside from my face just as a stewardess walked down the aisle. She asked me did I need a hug, and gave me one, and seemed to really, really mean it. She offered me a drink on the house (which I wouldn’t normally have declined, but I had to somehow get myself to the rehearsal dinner in Pasadena without falling asleep at the wheel) and came back instead with some water and a box of tissues. Women have this ability to give hugs and make people feel better. It’s amazing how many men don’t (all due respect to those who do).

And my inability to understand their reasons for that must come from the same Mars/Venus schism that ultimately results in the husband wearing a shirt that says, “I’d rather be fishing but my wife’s nagging would scare away the bass." Or what have you.

Anyway, I was all prepared to come home alone in a taxi (the blue-eyed guy was in Cleveland, and my parents were in Atlantic City on a day trip from Philadelphia, so who would come get me?), and was prepared to miss the noise terribly. But when the wheels touched down and I turned on the ol' Treo, there was a message from AE and oh my god she totally missed me and she's checked my flight status online and knows I'm early and is on her way to pick me up and we'll have lunch and discuss, it's all good, girl, for real.

Thank heaven for friends. For real, girl.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho...

A while back, I spent a day with the blue-eyed guy that started with a hot air balloon flight, and proceeded with a back-country Jeep ride, a cattle round-up, two games at Wagon Wheel bowl, and a trip to the outlet mall. (It was what my mom would call "over-defining the situation," which is funny because she first defined that phrase, then coined it.) It was totally surreal and fun.

We kind of had a day like that on Saturday. We went for a hike in Franklin Canyon, which was only slightly laughable because we're the two city kids looking at each other semi-retardedly like, huh, check us out here in nature! even while we were in full view of the valley. But we got in some good Half Dome training (albeit about 90-minutes worth, but it's a start), and, importantly, we tested out our backpacks and shoes to see how sturdy our gear is before the crajor* hike, now just 12 days away. So far so good, but I'm totally buying one of those water-to-mouth-hosey things, because regular old water bottles aren't going to cut it apparently. Also I seem to have developed a late-life heavy-face-sweating issue, but that's neither here nor there.

Afterward, still in our grubby outdoorsy gear, we stopped at an estate sale in Holmby Hills on Mapleton, sandwiched between the Aaron Spelling estate and the Playboy Mansion. It definitely had its share of $50K furniture and paintings, but it also offered walk-in closets full of vintage duds and other semi-affordable finds. Sounds gold mine-ish, I know, but for some reason it wasn't quite. There was no evidence that this woman had done any shopping since the late 1960's, and most of her gowns were labled Bullocks Wilshire and I. Magnin. Kind of rad, but also kind of ugly. Plus, her feet were much smaller than mine (pity--some good nude peep-toe Ferragmos on that rack; just what I've been looking for) and she seemed to have had a tiny waist and outsized bust. How lovely that must have been for her! Moving on.

So then we went home and changed into our best pirate gear (no we didn't, but we should have) and headed out to Anaheim for the Pirates of the Caribbean premiere. Hello, it was awesome. I didn't realize how long it had been since I'd been to Disneyland until I realized how gleefully I was tugging onto the blue-eyed guy's sleeve, begging can we please puh-leeeeease go on Splash Mountain even though it's nighttime and cold, please, we can sit in the middle so we don't get wet, come on, it will be fun, please? And then I ate churros like it was my job (actually, I guess it kind of is my job in this context--sweet) and watched the movie and saw fireworks and wore my Mickey ears with the pirate earring all night long, until I fell asleep in the car on the way home. I figure, if this is what turning 30 feels like, I can totally dig it.



*Crajor = crazy + major. I made that up while writing a comment on my sister's blog and now I'm trying to get it to stick. Anyone with me?

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

It seems my parents are getting awfully close to selling the house I grew up in. We moved in there when I was three-ish, and now I'm almost 30, and I'm trying to be pragmatic about it. At least I hope they get a fair price, and that some family with two cute little curly-haired pudgy girls moves in. So I'm sentimental and change resistant, but I can deal with this.

The idea of that address not belonging to the Dubins anymore has always been heartbreaking, when I've thought about it. That's the address that's been on my driver's license consistently, through probably 25 rental addresses of my own in four other cities. But now it's got to be time for the next chapter. As my mom told me on the cell when I was browsing the racks of Forever21 in the mall last night with my fountain Diet Coke, "That part of our lives is over. You girls are all grown up. It's a new era." Sniff.

Hi A,

As an undergraduate my favorite campus building was Sterling Memorial Library. There are simply no words adequate to describe the place, inside or out, or how I felt in it. If I must have a religion then it consists of books and my cathedrals are the great libraries. Most of my education occurred alone in the stacks of Sterling. The building was constructed in the depths of the depression, a time when Yale had money from hugely successful benefactors and New Haven was filled with skilled Italian immigrants—hungry for work. It is hard to imagine how it could ever be recreated absenting those circumstances.

There is a story, probably apocryphal, concerning Sterling’s opening in 1933. Yale in general employs very low-key signs to define its buildings. It is said that the University Librarian wanted to place a typically small sign outside the building which read, “This is NOT the Library. The Library is inside.” Even if untrue it is a great story with an important message.

Our house was wonderful chiefly for what was inside. The most important product of that experience is the emergence of two smart, talented and generally wonderful young women who are well poised to make their own homes in the coming years. Your Mom and I look forward (keina hora) to events in these. Furthermore our new home, even among the Topangan hippies, artists and nouveau riche lawyers, will always welcome you.

XO,

Dad and Mom

What, Me Worry?

I am a worrier. Not to be confused with a warrior, which I'm realizing lately is the complete opposite. I've always sort of embraced my worry as part of the culture in which I was raised. In my family, you showed how much you cared with the frequency and volume of your oys, and with the number of check-in phone calls you made, and with the number of times you felt somebody's keppellah who said he felt a little chilly. Worrying always made me feel very Jewish (which I like) and very close to my mom (which is also nice).

Recently (around the time he told the Hitler joke that I so thoroughly enjoyed), my boyfriend told me his mom is a worrier, and she will figure he's dead if he doesn't call back for a couple days. I'm like, homie, you don't know from worry! You get a couple of days before she calls the morgue; I get a couple 15 minutes. He also said his mom was very relieved to find out I was a worrier too, because she felt happy to share the burden of her worry over her son who lives in another state. She asked, would I come over if he was sick to take care of him? And I'm thinking, do you know how much Emergen-C I can fit in my Mazda3 hatchback?!

Anyway, I can learn from the blue-eyed guy, who can be rather zen when he wants to be, and who does a lot of yoga, and who doesn't really worry or brood like I do. (Did I mention he got hit by a truck a few years ago?! A TRUCK! Hit! On Pico Boulevard! And he was unconscious in the ambulance! And then kind of got over it and moved on after he got released from the hospital, and now doesn't worry about getting hit by another truck, which I now worry about because he told me that story, like, exactly one time.) (Hit by a truck, oy oy oy!!)

I watch myself set these worry traps for myself and get caught in them. (This is particularly tricky for me since I work at home; it's a lot of time alone with my snowballingly funky head space when I get in a rut.) I watch myself pick at a molehill (albeit, maybe, a kind of substantial molehill) until it becomes an unclimbable mountain. Until I'm like, I've read Into Thin Air, I know how this ends.

But the fact of the matter is (and I know this from dutifully reading my DailyOm): it ends however you want it to end. The only thing to fear is fear itself, and what not. So you know, it's a matter of self discipline (which I know I have, since I get through all those "Brand New Booty" classes at the gym--ouch!), and pulling back a bit from the worry, and maybe changing my mindset about worry being kind of a cool, productive, Jewish community-building thing.

Nu? Discuss.

Down Dog, Interrupted

I’m in yoga this morning, just enjoying a gentle readjustment in the child’s pose, when the fire alarm goes off, transforming the room from the quiet sanctuary of self love and relaxation that I’d really, really needed today into a manic disco of flashing white lights and sirens and some dude saying muffled things over the P.A. system. It really is a classic summation of the experience of being me: The girl tries to relax, but the circumstances of her life make other plans.

And that’s OK though. I know I suck at yoga, because (I am strong but not terribly flexible and because) my mind does not like to shut off. The business of focusing the breath and letting the mind be clear is not my strong suit. Still, I enjoy yoga whenever I manage to get there because I love the idea that I’m doing something pure and purely for me, and my motives for that period of time are totally solid and uncorrupted and there’s no hip-hop with mean lyrics playing in the room (I love that stuff in spite of myself, so it’s usually on the speakers wherever I am) and I’m not investigating people I shouldn’t on Friendster or watching crime scene video on Court TV’s Forensic Files. It really promotes in me a sense of love—mostly love for self, but more than that too.

When I lived on East 10th, there was a yoga studio on the block. (until it closed, because who could afford a space on that block anyway? Certainly I couldn’t afford my own apartment.) And in that studio there was a teacher who always encouraged us to silently dedicate our practice for that day to someone in our lives whom we loved and was struggling and was therefore in need of good thoughts and positive energy. A dear old friend and a neighbor on that block—a very small and brilliant Korean girl with a nervous streak to rival any Jew I’ve met including myself—also used to go to that class. One day, she’d gone in the morning and I’d gone at lunchtime, and over dinner she’d said, “Girl, I dedicated my practice to you today.” And I’d said, “Oh girl, I dedicated my practice to you!” And it made me feel so warm and so loved and so grateful for my friends that the body movement part of the class was almost irrelevant.

Among the reasons I’d so needed the relaxation today: Last week my mom discovered my blog. And my guess is that her response was not unlike many mothers who discover their children’s blogs: She was “scandalized” and found my “values” questionable and actually said that I was not likely to ever meet “Mr. Right” with my objectionable values all up on the Internet. I hope she is not right about the last bit, but I know she is not right about the first bit. I do have good and honest values, and in fact I think they are as traditional as my mom’s. This is mostly about my struggle to make heads or tails of the men I’ve met along the pursuit of real love and respect and mutual admiration and attraction. And I only wish in my discussions I could be as honest as Megan or Capella.

My mom—who was nearly 30 before she was married (an old maid in her generation) and a PhD in biology, and who is a very outspoken woman in spite of her diminutive size (seriously, look out)—always taught her daughters that the squeaky wheel gets the oil, and to be strong, and to believe we could do whatever we wanted to do. So I will try to understand her visceral reaction to seeing her daughter reduce her own life to simple quips about boys and shoes (this is not the case, but this is only what she saw in her shock). But I think I will give this blogging business a little more of a go before I decide that what I’ve actually done is reduce my life to a series of punch lines about boys and shoes.

Another reason I was in need of some relaxation this morning: Turns out the delightfully easygoing Midwestern man who recently became my ex-boyfriend did have a fab time at his high school reunion. (Did I mention he was captain of his soccer team and was his high school's 6-foot-4 prom king with all-American good looks, green eyes, and freckles? He thinks he mostly won because he split the black vote. But if I’d have had a vote, I bet I would have picked him too.) A fab time that culminated with him making out with a fellow alum in a McDonald’s parking lot, followed by breakfast at a diner across the street. This bit of news actually struck me as almost retro-hot, and didn’t upset me too much. (This is probably because the girl lives in Detroit and is not likely to fly to L.A. to make out with him in local McDonald’s parking lots in the future.)

But I do still have a fondness for that man. And I respect the things about him that probably won him his prom king reign: his easily accessible wit, unambiguous smile, integrity, interest and aptitude in sports on TV and in the park, unwillingness to even pretend he was listening to my home decorating tales, sensitivity almost exclusively on the inside (except for an inexplicable favoritism for romantic comedies like Must Love Dogs), and all-around totally-from-Mars dudeness. Apparently this particular set of qualities does not a good long-term match for me make. I spent a lot of time preparing turkey sandwiches (“sandos,” as we called them, with extra avocado, which he loved and called “green gold”) for dinner (for him—I'm a vegetarian) in front of World Cup soccer or a movie on TV—which I enjoyed very much. But maybe my destiny is to do less of that and more of something else. (Although I’m not sure about this, because I watch King of the Hill with an envy for Hank Hill that is deeply unreasonable.)

After returning from an awesome summer-long Indiana Jones-like dig in Turkey, my tiny, brilliant, neurotic Korean girlfriend broke up with her long-term, dude-like boyfriend (whose primary ambition included a big-screen plasma TV for Eagles football) on the grounds of a similar sort of incompatibility. (Last Valentine’s Day, she felt like going to Medieval Times in the Bronx or wherever it was, just because she thought it would be a fun adventure. He wanted to put on a button-down shirt and go for dinner and a show in the city; this was more like his kind of adventure.) And we both think the changes in our love lives are sound and smart. But there is something very missable about a comfortable, settled life with a man like that.

Anyway, after standing around outside the Equinox gym in Westwood for a while (I was just glad I wasn’t the guy in the robe whose massage had been interrupted by the fire alarm), we resumed our yoga practice and eventually finished with a series of three cross-legged ohms and the instructor gave us each a little forehead massage using a dab of rose water. And it seems to me that this is what it’s all about: We encounter lots of noise, but if we rededicate ourselves, we always return to something sweet and soft and fulfilling. Or something like that.