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.

2008 Giveth and 2008 Taketh Away

TAKETH AWAY
Same-sex marriage rights in California
The blue-eyed boy (reinstalled in friendship capacity)
An assistant editor in L.A.
A significant chunk of my freelance budget
Many thousands of magazine jobs, and many more thousands of other jobs too
Five pounds
Some of the moisture in my hair (see below: blonder)
Hope for another consecutive Raiders football season

GIVETH
The same five pounds
One Huell Howser autographed print and one California's Gold tote bag
President-elect Barack Obama
The Palin rap on SNL
A new iPhone
A nicely blonder head of curls (see above: lost moisture)
An unforgettable trip to Mexico
Best Coachella weekend yet
A triumphant Grand Canyon hike
So, so much thrilling possibility

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!

I Won the Lottery

More specifically, PBS selected my Antiques Roadshow ticket application by way of lottery! So I am the proud owner of two tickets to the Roadshow tour stop in sunny Palm Springs in June. Sweet!

My life rules.

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.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

But for me it's no booze fest, like it was in the college years, god bless them. Now, here's what makes me happy on a Monday night:

6:30 to 7:45. Muscle through Beautiful Booty class followed by half hour on elliptical while watching CNN's Spitzer-inspired special on cheaters.

7:45 to 8:15. Drive home, while talking on Treo to blue-eyed boy, a comfortingly routine exchange of information about the day's work and workouts. Bonus conversation topics: 401k, taxes, the Yucatan.

8:15. Arrive to find a delightfully clean home. Best new house cleaners ever.

8:30 to 9:30. Cook and eat dinner, Hamburger Helper made with veggie ground beef and skim milk substitutions. (Yeah, I copped to my white-trash treat; don't sleep on Hamburger Helper.) Savor vodka/pomegranate cocktail while watching PBS. Life does not get better than Huell Howser. LOVE.

9:30 to present. Continue enjoyment of cocktail and PBS (now an Ansel Adams special filled with Yosemite porn images). Further savor delighted feeling that comes from not being out drinking in the midst of some slutty St. Patrick's Day mob scene. (Nonetheless pleased with selection of green polka-dot PJ pants.)

Perhaps this is the face of 30. I can get with that.


**
"There's something in Ansel's work that is almost gothic. It's this tracery, it's this shimmering tracery...It's not really substantial. It's like a movie screen, mm, flickers like that... It's all this surface ornament, very vital and animistic and never still. Shimmering, shaking."

California's Gold

I was bummed when I thought I didn't have a bona fide hobby, but of course I've since realized I have a handful of great ones. At the top of my list lately has been exploring California.

When I talk about California, I get a super dork-out expression on my face, like I'm talking in a thick old-country accent about how the gold-paved U.S. opened its arms to me after I fled the pogroms, and it's not uncommon for me to tear up—no kidding. I even got emotional putting the new tags on my California plates this morning (I know, I know). In general my joy quotient has soared since I moved back almost two years ago. I've spent chunks of time in San Diego, Ventura, Lake Tahoe, Catalina, Palm Springs, Yosemite, and wine country, plus toured endlessly around the bay area and all manner of L.A. neighborhoods—and even enjoyed a quality summer afternoon in the Inland Empire. I really can't get enough, and it's inexhaustible anyway.

My latest thing is reading guidebooks even for places with which I thought I was already familiar; it's fun to drive around your own city and look things up in the index (plus it informs my Southern California-specific job, and my general knowledge base for living). This weekend was very guidebook-able, with a hike Saturday in Temescal Canyon, and then an impromptu Pasadena tour on Sunday, including the Norton Simon museum, Gamble house, and the Doo-Dah parade (OK, that one kind of got old, but the ease of access to the noodle shop and French Connection on the closed-to-traffic Colorado Boulevard broke up the monotony).

We were so touristed-out by the end of the day that we might have made our patented fake-snoring noise (I don't know how to render it in type, but it's something like chuuuh-syooo with a little whistle at the end) discretely in the 15th-century gallery shortly before museum-closing time. (And then we went to Home Depot. These days I find that it's best to be utterly physically exhausted by the end of the day if I want to have a prayer at beating my insomnia once I drop into bed.) And it was so worth it.

Incidentally, I came home to see that Huell Howser was also exploring Pasadena on his show. I'm kind of obsessed with Huell, and always think about what his reactions would be to things I see, mostly along the lines of "wow" and "that's amazing," and I imagine the sound of his silly voice and feel totally comforted. I could watch Huell on loop all day, every day. (I could do the same with First 48 and Forensic Files—R.I.P. Court TV—but those are indefensible.)

At any rate, at the risk of being too pat, I think we can all learn an important thing about enjoying life and about adventuring from the wide-eyed, voracious view-slurping Huell Howser.

And that's California's gold, for real.