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

Word Up

These are the three most recent sets of (brilliant) keywords through which miscellaneous Internet-using people came across my blog:

jewish joke my god i hope nothing happened to him
working for cvs pharmacy
travel size mousse pumps

That about sums me up, I'd say. (Not that I work for CVS, but the other two.)

Wallflower

Last night I went to a swing dance club with my guy--the first time I've really ever seen him do this thing, even though he's been going dancing two nights a week when possible for the nearly six months (!) we've been going out. He was light as a feather on the dance floor, and I kind of had a retro kiss-in-Times-Square swoon moment watching him out there. Adorable.

Anyway, y'all know swing dancing is not my area (not yet anyway), so I sat at the bar and chit chatted with his friends and bought people drinks to ingratiate myself. And as I was sitting there, this guy walked by wearing a fragrance that smelled just like junior high to me. I guess it might have been Drakkar Noir or something? I wanted to ask him what it was, but if it was actually Drakkar, I thought the question might embarrass us both, so I let it go. But it's amazing how one quick whiff of a particular aroma can bring you right back to Mrs. Novack's homeroom. Or to not dancing to the MC Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock tape at the summer camp dance, but instead making comments with fellow gawky bunk mates off to the side.

Not much changes, apparently. Thank god for continuity at least.

Seriously, Do It

Maybe eight or 10 years ago, I was walking with my sister in Berkeley. We were walking from her Ford Escort wagon with the architecture nerd bumper stickers on it and the Taco Bell toys in it to the YMCA downtown, where we took a totally empowering kick-ass (ahem) boxing class together.

She is more than two years older than me, which at some point in our lives was a significant difference. It must have been around the time she'd just graduated from college and she said, "You know, when you're small you think you can or will do everything in the course of your life. Maybe you'll live in Africa, or Panama, and you'll go up on a blimp, and maybe you'll go up in space. You won't necssarily do anything in particular, but you can and might do everything. And then at some point, you realize that you won't or can't do everything. You pick some things you want to do, and you may not do the rest. And you realize that and accept it, and that's just the way it is."

At the time, I found this very shocking and upsetting--I don't even know that I really believed it was true yet. I've since realized that you do make some choices, and some choices you make render other things unlikely or impossible. Kind of. But the trick is to continually think of your life as a changeable entity, because you can always do something else. Maybe you can't do everything in the in the realm of possibility for human beings, but you always control your option to do something else that might make you very happy. (If the person who inspired this post is reading, then for god's sake, go find a place for yourself at a public art organization that moves you! I want to you to be happy. I want everyone to be happy!)

My sister also said to me one time, after she called her boss in San Francisco and announced that she wasn't coming in, not ever again (and then moved briefly to Alabama): "We always imagine the consequences of our actions are so dire. But it's really not always that serious."

It's not really that serious. It's not.

Try To Solve the Puzzles in Your own Sweet Time

Do you know this gal Des'ree? This R&B singer doing her thing in the early 90's? I love her.

I love her because, in 1995, when I was on spring break from Beverly Hills high, and I was toting around Northern California looking at colleges I might go to (even though the only place I really cared about was Berkeley), I made a stop in Santa Cruz where I stayed with a friend from summer camp. While she was off in rehearsals for some kind of upcoming feminist dance performance (natch), I listened to Des'ree's album to death. I listened to it in that hippie dorm with the pretty trees and the clean air all around--listened as my day unfolds, challenged what the future holds, tried to keep my head up to the skyyyyy--and I always still associate the positive lyrics and melodies on the "I Ain't Movin'" album with the everything-is-about-to-happen feeling I felt that week, this week, 12 years ago.

Girl Scouts' Motto: Be Prepared

Last night, when I was out with the girls on Pico for some wine, I realized, shoot, I forgot to eat dinner. And all they have at that wine bar to eat are cheese plates and chocolate plates, and you know I can't mess with those because it's not in the Brand New Booty plan. So I go, "It's OK, I have a granola bar in my purse." And the girl with the bangs goes, "Dang, Dubin always has a bar in her purse."

True! I always have a bar in my purse, along with an array of other things I use and don't use. Turns out, last night this included not one, but three pairs of sunglasses (Versace, Marc Jacobs, and Paul Smith, from Filene's Basement, Nordstrom Rack, and Loehmann's, respectively--bien sur. Never mind that it was dark outside.); boat tickets from last weekend's mini-break; one granola bar, one protein bar, and one fiber bar; a Betsey Johnson wallet the size of Manhattan island that contains photos from my 11th grade semi-formal dance and the likes of a half-stamped Tasti-D-Lite buy-10-get-one-free card only good at the Park Avenue location; antibacterial spray in a pen-shaped container; a metal tin of hand lotion; two cell phones (my personal Treo, and my work phone); the Modern Jewish Girls' Guide to Guilt book that I've only had time to read like 50 pages of, but I've nonetheless toted miles around the state of California in case I find myself waiting in some kind of waiting room; a pill box containing mostly pills I would never take because I cannot identify them; etcetera.

Having a purse like this is my gift to you, because I am very likely to have something you need before you even know you need it. It's kind of heavy, but, you know, you're welcome.

Anyway, TGIF, whew.


[Unrelated: Katherine McPhee's "Open Toes" just came on my "Aaliyah Radio" on Pandora. Why is this song so genius?

I could wear them all day
And listen to the click-clack
Shoes like this make me hate flats
Swipe that card--I'm good
Another pair in leather and wood
I'm a sucker for a name-brand
Skip the rack and stick to the game plan
Hey let's go!
If they're not too high, too low
I'll take them home in purple, red, or gold
'Cause I know them boys
They like those open toes...]

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.

Back to the Future

Mercifully, about 16 years ago, I got my braces off. At that time, the orthodontist glued in a permanent retainer behind my four bottom teeth, and there it stayed through high school, college, post-college chaos, graduate school, and since. The retainer traveled with me to many of the continental United States, the territory of Puerto Rico, and a few countries. The retainer was not obvious to most people looking at me (although I am rather animated and I talk a lot, opening my mouth really big, so maybe people did see it sometimes), and it became a part of me--just like, maybe, my navel ring, which I never even see anymore, although it's been there for half my life. I regularly ran my tongue along the ridge of the retainer, and I knew it was there, although I never formally registered that knowledge or cared. The retainer also kind of made it hard to floss, except using this loop-like contraption, which is kind of lame and labor intensive.

Today, I went to an orthodontist at UCLA and there, in his third-floor mural-covered office, that retainer got plucked right out of my mouth without ceremony. I'm so sentimental and resistant to change; I almost cried. I ran my tongue over the spot where it was and there was nothing there and it felt really weird, kind of naked. (When I was the blubbering maid of honor in my sister's wedding, I took out all 19 of my earrings at once for the first time since I'd gotten pierced. It was the same kind of nakedness, a feeling of loss, but it felt clean and uncluttered too.)

So I was there in this orthodonist's office--not five blocks from the orthodonist's office in Westwood where I'd reported for all those torturous braces check-ups and tightenings and general nightmarishness--getting my mouth filled with green goo for making impressions (for a version of my retainer to be worn at night). That very specific faintly minty, generally gross taste--that brought me back. Braces. Woah. I don't relish the idea of getting older (eew! 30's only four months away now! Make time slow down!), but I don't miss the days when those inadequately filed-down wires used to tear up the insides of my cheeks while the Sally Jessie Raphael-red glasses decked my little face, framed by a pre-mousse mane of stringy hair, topped by an uneven row of imitation-chola double-decker bangs. My metabolism may have slowed down, but my hair looks way better now and I have a car.

I Can Help You Help Your Hair If You Let Me

I'm not saying my hair is the best thing in the world, but 1) it's pretty good, and 2) it took a long time (regrettably, long past my awkward adolescence) and a lot of money and wasted products to figure out how to make it do what it does. So I'm writing this as a service for any wayward ethnic girl who might Google "manage Jewish hair" or "products for Jewish hair" or "tame nasty frizz," and for Capella, who asked. Look, I'm not a genius, but I know something about this.

Re: products. You need exactly two products, and one of them must be mousse (I use John Frieda Frizz-Ease, which recently changed its packaging. It's hardly more than $4 at Target). You should use two open hands full for long hair, and you should not be daunted by how big of a pile this seems to be (and is).

N.B.: Don't be daunted when the guy doing your balyage* at Bumble & Bumble in the Meatpacking District says to you, "Mousse? Ew, I thought they stopped making that in the 80's." Also do not be daunted the first time your boyfriend sees you do the mousse thing and says, "Wow. That's enough mousse for...a moose."

Travelers further note that the no-liquids-over-three-ounces-on-planes rule is kind of like racial profiling against Jewish women too, because it is very hard to find mousse in travel sizes, and it cannot be transplanted to a smaller container because it is generally aerosol. If you find travel size mousse at any time, buy lots of them and store them for your exclusive use on planes so you're not forced to check luggage on a short trip. Oh, and regarding aerosol mousse: much better than nonaeorosol.

The second product you will need to use in conjunction is something very tacky; I use KMS Paste (about $20 for five ounces; the cheapest place to get it is on BeautyDeals.net, and I try to buy five at a time--about a year's supply--to keep the price including shipping really low). You want to use about four to five pumps of Paste, or about four fingers full if you are scooping from a squat jar of some kind.

Now. To VERY WET hair, apply the mousse first. Then emulsify the the tacky Paste-like product by rubbing it through your palms together (like in prayer position). Comb both through together.

Then, you want to curl each section of your hair around your finger for a ringlety look. I know this sounds like a lot of effort, but once you get used to it, it's really very quick. I do my entire head of hair in five minutes, or 10 if I'm really going somewhere special. Another great thing about this method is that it keeps the top curls the same approximate shape and quality as the ones on the bottom (anyone reading this far knows what I mean).

As for blow drying, I try to avoid it altogether. I let my hair air dry all the time, unless it's the dead of winter (although I live in California now, and it was 90+ today in L.A., so that hardly matters), or unless I must go somewhere quickly and I don't have the time to let it dry naturally (which, since all that product slows drying time, might be close to three hours or more to be bone dry). Then, you must only use a diffuser, and afterward, you should apply some sleekening-type serum (I like Joico or Ecru), which is far better than the sprays they make that allege the same result.

Don'ts: Do not ever brush or comb your hair when it's dry, for god's sake. Do not let the person at the salon tell you she knows what you need for your hair, beyond what you have read in this post--no matter how fancy or compelling the salon or the salon girl. She does not, and it will only cost you money and storage space. Don't think you can sleep on your curls, and have them be OK tomorrow. (I'm sorry.) Some people say the built-up grease is a useful anti-frizz tool, but the pillow just flattens everything out irreparably, in my experience. And, to directly respond to Capella: Don't try to fight your curly hair. If you straighten it, you will just look like a curly-haired Jewish girl trying to straighten her hair. Maybe do it for the occasional, er, occasion, but then only do it professionally at a place that knows about hair like yours. I'm serious about this--you are not fooling anyone when you straighten your hair. And curly hair is not juvenile and cutesy! It can really be quite sophisticated.

If this post brings relief to even one ethnic curly-haired girl out there, I will feel rewarded. (I've figured out I wasn't destined to cure cancer, but I've at least got to do some good.)

Oh, and if anyone has any fun styling tips for post-drying, post-finger-twirled curly hair--anything that's not my tired-ass low-side-bun-with-tendrilly-bits--I would be grateful for your input.

Good luck, and godspeed.


*If you are a curly-haired girl still getting foil highlights, you must stop at once and do balyage (hand-painted highlights) instead. It doesn't give you that regimented, striped, I-live-in-the-valley-in-1994 look, and it looks very natural and sun-kissed indeed. I haven't done it for five months, and there are no roots, just a natural I-haven't-been-in-the-sun-because-it-was-winter look. Perfect for curly hair.

26 Miles Across the Sea

Maybe because I was tired with a low-grade hangover, I believed the blue-eyed guy when we got on the freeway and he said, "Look, we're going North." I totally took it at face value. And it wasn't until like an hour later, that I realized we were going more like due South, and when we got off the freeway where the sign said "Queen Mary," I was like, "I knew it! That's where I thought we were going on our surprise mini-break!" So he pulled the Mini into the Queen Mary parking lot--and then did a crazy oy-worthy turn back out of the lot, through a pair of "Do Not Enter" signs, across the road--to the place where you board the boats to go to Catalina Island.

I cannot tell you how excited this made me--this thought of getting on a boat on the sea. It made me feel like a little girl again (literally--because my sister's sixth grade teacher used to take the class to Catalina every year on a big field trip, and I'm sure as a third grader this made an oh-my-god-that-sounds-like-heaven-why-am-I-not-just-a-little-older-so-I-could-go-too indelible impression on me), which regrettably, is kind of rare for me these days since I think so dang much and spoil things by so doing. So we boarded the boat in Long Beach and went out on the Pacific Ocean 26 miles to this island that was so much prettier than I would have ever imagined it. Even though the terrain is just the same as you might find in Malibu or Topanga, it looks so--exotic. And it feels so apart from the mainland.

Like how Palm Springs kind of feels permanently stuck in its 1960's Rat Pack heyday (one reason I love it), Catalina Island kind of feels stuck in its own glory days of, say, the 1930's, when Big Bands played for the dancing crowd in the spectacular Casino ballroom, and when MGM took its crews and high-waisted-skirt-clad starlets to the pristine shores of Avalon to film its big-budget pictures. The whole place feels in real life like it looks in the Deco travel brochures, when its slogan was: "In all the world, no trip like this."

Anyway, so we checked into the hotel and left for this lovely walk up into the hills (and I could totally dig it, even though I skew tennis shoe averse, except in the gym), and climbed all over the Wrigley memorial, and held hands through the botanical gardens, and joked about all the silly plant names. We looked at the fish from the pier--the Crayola blues and oranges right there in the perfectly transparent water!--and climbed on the rocks and ran our hands over the pretty tiles that used to come from the pottery plant on the island (and probably now sell for a small fortune on eBay; I just remembered I want to look). Then we ate a totally indulgent meal that didn't count, because the island has a magical quality to it, which I'm sure wipes out calories associated with Italian food and brownie sundaes and cocktails.

I woke up yesterday in time to see the sun rising over the sea, because I wanted to make the most of our few hours left (so I prodded the blue-eyed guy and made miscellaneous fidgeting noises until he told me I better stop it, but by then it was too late because he was awake too, ha). Over breakfast I told him I wish we never had to go home and I wish this weekend would never end.

Before we got back on the boat, I bucked Jewish superstition by buying my nephew-in-utero a mini T-shirt emblazoned with a crab and the message: "I'm a little crabby. Catalina Island" (A nod to when my sister used to torment me by saving crab pincers wrapped in napkins from meals at seafood resuatrants and then reanimate them and make them talk; really, it was more traumatic than funny, but you get the gist.) On the ride back, he napped while I watched his alma mater Ohio State knock off Wisconsin on the TV in the lounge.

Then it was straight to Venice, where he plays beach volleyball every Sunday; it was the first time I went with him. I set up my towel and my iPod and my New York magazine, and he asked me, "Are you having fun, baby?" I said, "Are you kidding me? This is the best. weekend. ever."

26 Miles (Santa Catalina), the Four Preps

Twenty-six miles across the sea
Santa Catalina is a-waitin' for me
Santa Catalina, the island of romance, romance, romance, romance

Water all around it everywhere
Tropical trees and the salty air
But for me the thing that's a-waitin' there--romance

It seems so distant, twenty-six miles away
Restin' in the water serene
I'd work for anyone, even the Navy
Who would float me to my island dream

Twenty-six miles, so near yet far
I'd swim with just some water-wings and my guitar
I could leave the wings but I'll need the guitar for romance, romance, romance, romance

Twenty- six miles across the sea
Santa Catalina is a-waitin' for me
Santa Catalina, the island of romance

A tropical heaven out in the ocean
Covered with trees and girls
If I have to swim,
I'll do it forever
Till I'm gazin' on those island pearls

Forty kilometers in a leaky old boat
Any old thing that'll stay afloat
When we arrive we'll all promote romance, romance, romance, romance

Twenty-six miles across the sea
Santa Catalina is a-waitin' for me
Santa Catalina, the island of romance, romance, romance, romance

Twenty- six miles across the sea
Santa Catalina is a-waitin' for me

Skim and Three Sweet-n-Lows

This is the episode of Sex & the City I love: the one where she finds a rodent crawling around in the kitchen she never uses. Of all the episodes, this is the one I connect with the most. You haven't experienced true horror unless you've cohabitated with live rodents. (Actually, my best pal from grad school had it worse, in her West 10th counterpart to my East 10th apartment, when she woke up to find a rat crawling in her hair. And she is so understated, it took her days to even tell me about that. I guess she was trying to block it out. But you can bet I milked my own rat stories for all they were worth, which is a lot.)

Anyway, so in this episode, around the time Baryshnikov kills the critter with the risotto pan, he wants to make espresso, but Carrie says she doesn't have an espresso machine. He says, "You call yourself a writer and you don't have an espresso machine?"

Sold. Now I am on target.com and I want to buy an espresso machine. Typically people get espresso machines when they register for their wedding gifts, right?, and I'm not engaged, but I drink a lot of coffee and I want an espresso machine now. And I think I deserve it.

My friend from work always says, "I work hard. I'm a good person. I would just like someone to give me $500,000 to $750,000. I deserve it." (He also buys lotto tickets and says, "You gotta play to win, gurrrl.") While no one's come through with the cash yet, I do think he already has an espresso machine. He and I agree that coffee, like red wine and Diet Coke, are among God's small ways of showing His love for us.

Road Trip!

The blue-eyed guy is taking me on a surprise mini-break this weekend! My best guesses so far are the Queen Mary or the outlets in Cabazon (what else could it be if the packing instructions are, "Bring both warm and cool clothes, because we'll be going between outside and inside. And bring trainers because we'll be doing a lot of walking. And you only need casual clothes." Plus, if anyone loves bargain shopping more than I do, it's my man.) Or maybe it's bowling? No, wait, probably not, but we are into bowling these days. (And the first time I played Nintendo Wii, I "bowled" a 212.) Anyway, I like saying "mini-break" because it reminds me of reading Bridget Jones on the 21 Hayes bus in San Francisco, and those were the days. At any rate, this surprise mini-break business: fun game! Stay tuned.

In Which I Learn Discretion About What I Put in my Mouth

Ok, this is me: I had a very important meeting today, to which I was on the way, in the car, looking miraculously (for me) pressed and neat, un-frizzy and un-coffee stained.

I have, at that time, one piece of peppermint gum left in my (fabulous leopard-print pony hair) handbag, in one of those foil packs that you press to release each piece. So I put it in my mouth, and put the empty foil pack in the cup holder next to my seat, and then I watch as a little fleck of white falls down with it. I'd just given my pretty car her first-ever wash, and I'm thinking how I don't want that white thing to sully it. So, assuming it's an errant piece of white peppermint gum coating, I put it in my mouth with the gum. Immediately there's this cyanide taste it's awful, and I spit the gym out the window (right on Wilshire at Rodeo Drive), and my whole face is turning red and I'm spitting, spitting, spitting out the window like a trucker (a trucker in a pencil skirt). Now my entire mouth is going numb (literally, I'm not lying to you, n-u-m-b) and now I'm guessing this was a mothball fleck, not a gum fleck, and I can't feel my face and I'm spitting and spitting out the window, wondering if you can die from ingesting an amount of [mystery toxin] that tiny. Fortunately, I have two sips of water left in my water bottle from the gym and I'm rinsing like a maniac and spitting out the window. I look at the clock and say to myself, "Dubin. It's 1:26. When you see 1:35 on that clock, you will be able to feel your face again, you're not going to die, you're going to live, just hang in there." Well, it takes more like a half an hour to regain all the sensation in my face, but memories like that you can't rinse away by spitting out the window.

I still taste (in my mind's eye) that vile mothball bit, even after having eaten eight mini veggie corn dogs since. Basically, the moral is, don't put mysterious things into your mouth, duh, even if you have a pretty good idea they're gum related.

But you know it was white, so I just thought...well, you get the gist.

If Your Mother Knew You Were Scaling That Building, Oy

My blue-eyed guy was cracking me up last night. He goes, "I'm going to tell you a joke I saw in a movie on the plane. I wouldn't have understood it at all, except that I'm dating you. It goes like this. Two Jews were sent to assassinate Hitler. They get intelligence about where he's going to be at 12:30, so they go there with their rifles and wait for him. 12:30, no Hitler. 12:45, No Hitler. Now it's 1, 1:30, no sign of Hitler. One says to the other, 'Oy, I hope nothing happened to him.'" Yes, dating me would help anyone understand that joke. Look, I worry, OK? So call me, let me know you're fine, and meanwhile drive safely, for god's sake use your turn signals for once, and don't take any unnecessary risks.

Earlier this week I saw a news clip of some British or French daredevil free-climbing the highest building in Dubai or somewhere. And I had to giggle, thinking about how that flies in the face of every salient Jewish value. Values like planning for the future, securing the wellbeing of posterity to the extent posible, being generally careful and unnecessary-risk averse. The view must be somthin from up there, but I'll never know.

March it Out, Ladies.

Oh dear, I can't sleep. I hope I'm not having a resurgence of the Great Insomnia Bout of 2006. Lots on my mind. Work, mainly. It's award season mania. And the usual other stuff. But it was 80-something in L.A. today and it was gorgeous and I wore tiny shorts and ate Pinkberry. That's me in my element.

Part of the problem with my insomnia these days is that I better get to sleep around midnight, because I almost always wake up at 7:something without an alarm and I just won't get enough sleep if I stay up past Colbert. And of course, because I'm freakishly into clean living these days, I like to be rested and chipper and in the gym early. I'm kind of obsessed with my gym. And I have my special place in the room I like to set up my step and my weights and my mat--second to the left in the front row. There are some girls I don't like in my body sculpting classes, mainly for reasons relating to the stories I've made up about their lives and then forgot weren't necessarily true. The tiny 4-foot-10 miss thing bothers me because I've seen her drive a giant SUV she can't possibly need, and she always talks about her kids in a snotty way that makes me think they'll grow up feeling unreasonably entitled, and also drive giant SUVs, and probably be mean to my kids at Brentwood school or something. Then there's the gal who's probably six months pregnant by now, which bothers me because, hello, you're pregnant, eat ice cream or something, don't come in here showing up the rest of us with your lithe-except-for-your-belly body smooth under Lululemon gear. OK, so that's the mean stuff.

There are also the people I really like for the same, possibly fictional reasons. Like the one Brazilian girl with the outrageous gravity-defying butt who doesn't annoy me even though she wears matchy-matchy workout gear with asymmetrical straps. And there's the gal I didn't used to like at all because I could never understand why she couldn't at least smile at me when I saw her every day in there, until she saw my magazine's logo on some cheesy swag tote bag I was carrying and then she came up to me and introduced herself and said she loves what I write, which was extra great since we've only been publishing in L.A. for less than a year now and I was just excited we have name recognition already, so of course I like her now, natch.

I have a new favorite, too. This woman is a grandmother. She is possibly in her mid-sixties, with pretty dark curly hair, and the brightest eyes and smile. She always says hello and tells me about her weekend, and one time told me about how she used to work out at Jane Fonda's studio in the '70s or whenever it was, and she used to wear the thong leotard over tights at that time. (I'll bet she was smokin' in neon green and purple, no joke.) And she told me recently how she'd done her hair for her Hamilton High School prom, and it sounded really cute. She's sincere and she seems utterly self actualized--and she keeps up with me step-touch for step-touch for just-eight-more-ladies-you-can-do-it!

He Said She Said

I didn't have a sip to drink in January, in an effort to reset after the holidays and a New Year's Eve party in Oakland involving wigs. At first, not drinking was hard, then it got real easy, then it got kind of boring. So on February 1, after I had fulfilled my pledge to myself to lay off for the first month of the year, I had two glasses of wine with some great old pals from 10th grade.* Then I spent the weekend with a lousy cold and haven't been motivated to drink since.

But I'll tell you what: spend an hour trolling MySpace indiscriminately, and you'll find a reason to crack a bottle of wine at home. In addition to making resolutions about no booze and a slightly uncanny-for-a-Dubin dedication to Equinox, I should have maybe resolved to un-MySpace my life. I mean, Jesus, I'm 29-and-a-half (gulp) years old, and it's kind of silly that I still care about this juvenile business. Last year, between the delightfully easygoing Midwesterner and the blue-eyed guy, I tried to go out with a boy who was 38 and so deeply into his bulletin postings and Top 8 that it was kind of a deal breaker, a sign of something more dire. A sign of not growing up, like failing to pay a stack of parking tickets, or not having health insurance, or being a dude who buys plastic cups to drink out of at home so he doesn't have to wash a dish.

*I had dinner and post-dinner mini-bar drinks in a Beverly Wilshire hotel room with three boys from North Hollywood high, where I went to school in 1992. I so rarely have a chance to really hear the perspective of straight men, because all my closest confidants are girls, and generally my closest male friends are gay (fashion industry gay, no less), and my boyfriend doesn't count because I'm too involved with that to get any real perspective. (Plus he prefers antique shopping while the game is on, so he's a special case, bless your heart, baby.) And my dad doesn't count because he's my dad. Anyway, I recommend listening to men once in a while, if you get the chance. It's mind blowing, actually.

Traveled Down the Road and Back Again

I dreamed I was at a pool party (which was lousy because it was raining) and I went up to talk to this girl I recognized from Warner elementary. I got a few words out before she said, "Really? You think I want to talk to you? No way." And she told me that because she'd been unpopular, I had been mean to her, but this didn't compute, because I thought I'd been the one who was unpopular with other people being mean to me. Had I been mean to her? I couldn't remember. But I'm sure that this much is true: even though I had braces and oversized Sally Jessie Raphael-red glasses and big Jewish hair I hadn't yet figured out how to manage, and I figured myself for a target of some kids' ridicule, I'm sure other kids had it way, way worse.

I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't have friends. In fact, of friends I've been blessed with a surplus. What fortune!

Broadcast News

Years back, shortly after we'd moved to New York, my girlfriend and I wanted to coauthor a book about customer service. We were both Californians who had been shocked and appalled by the sorry, sorry lack of service or respect given to the customer out there and we wanted to tell those stories. (For example, once at my home branch of Citibank on First Avenue, the "service specialist"--who'd been brought out in an attempt to pacify me after I'd insisted on more help--told me that the reason they hadn't posted a notice about some huge fee I'd been assessed is because, "This is a bank, not a library.") My friend is now, impressively, working on a book about Turkish politics, for which she was paid a spectacular advance, so my potential coauthor is tied up with other projects.

But, even now back in L.A., I've got stories. CVS recently converted my local Sav-on pharmacy to its nameplate. I have a single prescription there, and it's always a nightmare trying to fill it--there are long lines, nobody knows what they're doing, the staff is suspiciously young, your drugs are never there even after you call in to verify they're ready, they never have your proper insurance information, they never get your name right, and therefore tell you after an hour that they're turning up no records for a Ms. Goobin. I'd had so many shockingly bad experiences there (i.e. a month ago I waited nearly two hours for them to figure out my prescription, so that by the time I got out to the parking lot with my validated parking ticket, the attendant told me I'd been in there way too long and had to pay. If you know me personally, you can imagine about how well that went over.) that I actually laughed out loud the other night by myself when I saw a commercial talking about how CVS is so friendly and knowledgeable and is sure to save you time and money, and always delivers on their promises of being ready with your meds when you're in a hurry.

So I'm in there last night, and it's roughly after-work time, 7 PM or so, and there's almost no line, and I'm actually remarking to myself that things seem to be running more smoothly, and maybe CVS has worked out the kinks by now. So I'm giving the guy all my personal information, including insurance data, prescription info, phone number, birth date. This goes on for a few minutes, until some of his coworkers from way back in the pharmacy start hollering at him: "Turn off your speaker phone!" My girl-issue pills: public record.

Haunted by Dreams

Last night I dreamt that I had intended to write a story about the Central Park Conservancy's Halloween ball (an event I have actually covered in real life, twice, and enjoyed very much), but somehow it got forgotten in the shuffle until months later when I got an email that included somebody's high-resolution photos from the ball and a note telling me to post them online straight away. But I'm thinking, "No one wants to read a story in January about a Halloween ball! It's too late! Why doesn't anybody but me use any common sense anymore?!"

"Keep Writing."

I have chronic sleeping problems in general. In October 2006, I didn't sleep basically at all because I was over the moon about my new guy. In December, I didn't sleep because I traveled so much and ate and drank in excess. On Friday night, I had a nightmare about An Inconvenient Truth, after I had just seen it, and that was wrapped up together with a work nightmare (glacial melting was threatening to drown all the attendees at a conference my magazine was hosting, and forcing us to cancel the remainder of it). Saturday night/Sunday morning I dreamed I was writing a story for the Web site, and it was particularly tricky because I was trying to come up with smart headlines and decks, and, worse, I was linking and formatting the document, and it was really exhausting. I have dreams about work a lot, and this is troubling because I'm not curing cancer, but rather I'm writing about parties, and that shouldn't be particularly nightmarish, except that I work so much and the buck generally stops with me which stresses me out constantly.

Last night, I was having a work dream--about writing or assigning some story. This caused me to wake up before 7 with no alarm, so I lounged in bed reading the book I'd started last night with such optimism. This is a book written by a woman whom I'd seen speak at UCLA, and who had signed her memoir, "Keep writing!" which always tickles me. (I have a lot of those in my bookshelves.) The basic premise is that the author is having an affair with the dance teacher she'd started going to for lessons to impress this other guy she'd started dating, who was big into dancing. (This topic is particularly close to me these days, since I'd had mini panic attacks related to the fact that my guy is so into dancing, and that's not my area. See also "not sleeping well in October.") The girl is a yoga-going, horse-riding, self-proclaimed unfashionable tomboyish divorcee, so I was just enjoying her story although not particularly relating as I was reading last night. But this morning, I kept reading after I'd woken up from my nightmare, and she was talking about being a journalist covering the Golden Globes and the Oscars and other galas that are "supposed to be great but never are" and about never feeling thin or young or insidery enough at those things, and that that in small part contributed to making her feel like she's drifting around, living her life on an iceberg with a camp stove, subsisting, and seeing the mainland on the horizon where people are really living. This has got me in a mood, all day long. Thank heaven for one particular friend in L.A., the bioinformatician-slash-reformed-party-girl, who indulges all these moods and gratifies me with commiseration and empathy.

I'm Cured

...cured of the idea that having a real job in a real office again might be fun. i'm posting from my treo in the jury assembly room in the criminal courts building after having woken up in the dark to report to jury duty downtown by 7:30 am. I resented having to set my alarm, and be on I-10 while the other suckers were on the 10. and I resent that I can't go to my 10 AM rock'n body sculpt class at the gym. plus its one degree in l.a.--after reaching almost 90 on monday and tuesday--and I'm cold in my gold flats. over it. can't wait to go back to working in my jammies at home with my coffee maker and my cat.

Update: I didn't get picked for jury duty. Yay. Of the people left in that room at the end of the day--maybe 25 of the original 250--one was me, and one, I noticed late, was Selma Hayek. And here I was, feeling sorry for myself for the unfortunate fate of jury duty right during the professionally inconvenient time of awards season. I guess it would have been rather inconvenient for Selma too. Turns out stars are just like Us!

Helps to Have a Best Friend Who's a Lawyer When Your Building Management Company Is Like Mine

"I can assist you in researching the law and drafting a letter to the management if you like. It would basically say, 'under the General Obligations Law, Article 7, these are the landlord's obligations...return the security deposit within a 'reasonable time'... generally ruled by NY courts to be 30 days from the end of the lease...it has been 90 days (whatever it is)...return my deposit by January 19 (two weeks from the date of your letter?)...if I do not receive the deposit by that date, I will file (we should attach the form so they know it's not an empty threat)...I look forward to receiving my check in the amount of $3,???.??...Nice doing business with you bitches, Love Alice!

Ok, let me know how you want to proceed. I know this is a hassle for you but I love this stuff."

Put Some Records on While I Pour

The blue-eyed guy keeps asking me what I want for Hanukkah, and I was just simply not raised that you tell someone what you want for Hanukkah! What am I going to say? "I want this thing from this catalogue, which I've highlighted for your ease of buying it for me." That seems so tacky, not to mention totally unromantic. So I always just tell him, "I just want your affection." (He'd said, "What if your girls ask you what I got you for Hanukkah and you say, 'his affection.' How would that go over?" Touche.) But the joke of it all is that when we were in Las Vegas together, browsing the Forum Shops after dinner (God. I love. Vegas.), we were both picking things up and admiring them, and describing out loud what we liked about them and why. After a while, I felt a little cheap, because I thought it was so obvious that we were each earmarking stuff for the other to buy as a gift for the holidays. The next day, I went back through the Forum Shops while he was at his conference, and wrote down all the stuff he'd wanted on a yellow Post It so I wouldn't forget. And then he said, "Baby, I need you to tell me what you want for Hanukkah! I gave you plenty of hints, and you didn't give me any!" Ahem, what was that whole exercise about then? Like, when we stopped in every jewelry store on the Strip, and I fingered every two-tone ring and necklace or earrings would be great too? Dang. Fortunately, I'm gainfully employed and can buy my own stuff like Destiny's Child, because my guy seems to be nuance impaired.

Round and Round and Round in the Circle Game

When I met the blue-eyed guy with whom I’m drinking boba teas these days, I truly ached with appreciation for how I had encountered this man—who surely was too amazing, too unique to stay single for long—at a time when he’d had no one else on his arm. Imagine the timing and the luck!

I look back on the other men in my past who were too amazing, too unique, too romantic to stay single—and, as it turns out, none of them are still single after all. There’s my first boyfriend, the saint—a handsome Jewish boy who had black dreadlocks in high school and a green “Go Vegan” sticker on the back of his blue Honda Civic. Possibly the sweetest, most earthy man on, well, earth. The PETA activist for whom I went vegetarian when he quit smoking in a pact made on July 17, 1993, four days after our first kiss on July 13, and two days after my 16th birthday on July 15. After living in Humbolt without electricity for a while, he recently got in touch to tell me he’d married a blind Japanese woman (he makes his living training guide dogs), and they live together at the home he bought in Berkeley. She’s lucky; too bad she can’t see him because he’s beautiful on the outside too. (Sidebar: My mom made me clean out some junk in my old bedroom yesterday, and I found his photo ID pass card to Magic Mountain from the summer of 1992 and his North Hollywood High School school ID from his senior year, my sophomore year, in ’91-’92. Classic.)

I just re-encountered the guy who didn't know who Bobby Brown is, and it turns out he’s dating a Christian girl who prays every day, everywhere, whom he met in the Newark airport. And I can see clearly in my mind’s eye how it all went down. Because (I read his blog about their meeting, but also because) I know how he courted me with an intensity I’d hardly experienced since, maybe high school, or maybe never. So, so whole hearted, and so open, and so loving. And so eager. The first text message I ever got from him said something about how he was buying bok choy, and was happily making a note to himself to buy two bundles of bok choy next time for us to eat now that we had each other. And the second text message I ever got from him said, “So much to curl up with u. So much to laze the morning away in your arms pressed against your skin, breathing in your scent. So much so much so much.” That’s a mouthful for 160 characters, don’t you think? He had so much love to give, I just knew he'd find someone who would be so happy to receive it. (I thought that someone might be me, but it turned out I was wrong and wasn't prepared to embrace all that.)

And then there’s my college boyfriend, the guy who rang my doorbell (through the door: “Who is it?” “It’s your neighbor.” “My neighbor who?”) to give me some chocolate chip cookies he’d baked after he’d seen me crying on the stoop the day before. (“You looked sad. I hope these will cheer you up.”) I made that guy run a hell of a gauntlet—gifts of homemade fudge, breakfasts, flowers, enough praise to make me feel like the most extraordinary woman alive—before I finally committed to being his reluctant girlfriend six months later. And then he was the most dutiful boyfriend imaginable for the next three years, even though he’d had a tough childhood and had more on his mind (death of mother, serious credit card debt, biracial identity crises) in college than I did (getting an A in Film 25B, finding cool 16mm projectors at the flea market, what to wear on the trip to Mardi Gras with the girls). After Berkeley, he went to Harvard, where he met a woman he dated for four years, with whom he moved to New York. Today he told me he needs to be free, and he’s moving out as soon as he gets the money. He’s not marrying her, like he’d told me three years ago he was planning to. Now he says he doesn’t believe in romance, and he’s not the marrying type. If he doesn’t believe in romance, it’s hard to know what’s true anymore.

She's so Jane

Am I sick that I totally miss summer even though it's like 75 degrees in L.A.? I feel so serious in the winter, and a girl gets into trouble when she takes herself too seriously.

Last night I dreamt that my delightfully easygoing Midwestern ex-boyfriend had impregnated a pretty dark-haired girl, and married her shortly after we'd broken up. So in my dream he'd been married eight months and his wife was eight and a half months pregnant. Then we went up in an airplane with an open cabin and when we went upside down into a loop, some of our luggage fell out into the sea.

Burnout at the Bean

This is, like, a new low. This morning I was finding it so incredibly hard to motivate to get any work done (it's been like that all week--it's hard sometimes when you work from home). I was just feeling so tired and so sluggish, so I picked up the copy of New York that I've been eager to read, with the cover story on the science of burnout (by Jennifer Senior, who wrote the story on the scientific study of happiness that I became obsessed with this summer) and brought it over to the couch. I sat down to read about burnout so I could understand and perhaps improve on my utterly burned out condition...and then...I fell....zzzzz...aaaahhhsleep. I fell asleep on the sofa. In the middle of the work day. After I'd read one paragraph about burnout. Nice, Dubin.

But I've got so much to do, so I showered and dragged myself to the Coffee Bean with my laptop to get some work done. Do you know what everyone's doing at the Coffee Bean in the middle of a work day in L.A.? Working on scripts. "Taking meetings." Thank god I'm not as desperate as they are.

Anyhow, so this guy is next to me working on some script or treatment or something, and his "friend" (I can only hope they're "friends" and not friends for real, because that guy revealed himself to be a real jerk) comes in and they're chatting about Hollywood and talking about meetings and treatments and scripts and crap, and then the guy who walks in says to the guy at the table: "So, how's your love life?"

Guy with laptop: "Well, to be honest with you, it's pretty much nonexisten..."
"Friend": "Oh mine's so awesome. I met this great girl, she's like 5'11" beautiful, from Bulgaria, been here six years, dual citizenship, she's the one, yada yada, I'm a jerk, she's so tall, beautiful... [more stuff that indicates I'm a totally un-self aware jerk]...eHarmony, man, I'm telling you, this girl's amazing you want to see some pictures of her? Here's some pictures, this is us at a party, this is us at..."
Guy with laptop: "Yeah, awesome, man, she's a real looker..."
"Friend": "Yeah, mean, of course, man, I'm telling you she's beautiful and lalalala, whataver, [more stuff that indicates I'm a totally un-self aware jerk]..."
Guy with laptop: "Well, listen, do you ski, because...?"
"Friend": "Yeah, but it's so hard to find any place to ski around here because I'm such an expert skiier, it's just that I'm such an expert skiier, so..."

Did I ever go into the story about why I don't ski? The one about "no friends on powder days?" Ah, it's a good one.

Eulogy

I don't know if it's because James Kim had been a colleague of a best friend, or if it's because he's from San Francisco, or because his wife is roughly my age, or that his daughters look approximately like my cousin's half-Asian daughter in their ineffable cuteness, or because I become so emotionally compromised when I'm menstrual, or because I have such a pathological aversion to extreme cold, but the story of his death and recovery had me beside myself today. I couldn't get the image out of my head of this man striking out to find help for his family after burning the tires from their car for warmth. But at least there's the fact that his kids had a dad who would strike out into the cold wilderness to find help for them, and do whatever he could do to try to save them, and there's the fact that I grew up always knowing I had a dad who would do that too.

Keep Your Crummy 200 Square Feet While I Spread Out all my Fab Shoes in 1,600, Suckas

Writing consistently smart stuff like Megan does is hard and daunting. But it kind of takes the pressure off now that there's like no possibility that anyone's actually reading this anymore since I haven't posted in a month. Ahem. I got pretty busy and went to New York once and Vegas twice—lost on the first trip, won on the second—spent a lot of time delayed in airports, watched a lot of Cal football (and bet on Cal football, which accounted for some of the losses on the first Vegas trip), worked a lot (and complained a lot about the volume of work expected of me), hired a new assistant editor to help, worked out as much as I could, test drove some cars (current front runner: Toyota Matrix), skirted jury duty, drank a considerable amount of red wine (and white wine and sake, ouch, note to self), and spent a lot of time admiring a certain pair of outrageously blue eyes.

And mercifully, on November 30, the lease in my New York apartment expired. So my subletter cleaned up the joint and moved out. I needed to submit by fax my forwarding information to which I'm convinced my security deposit will never actually be sent since my building management company operates like the worst kind of slumlords, never providing enough heat or hot water or electricity, and regularly hanging up on tenants who call their offices to register such complaints. Or other complaints, like mysterious liquids that pour out of their ceilings for days, leaving their laptop to drown in a foul puddle on their desk when they come home from a holiday weekend. And may I add that this is a company that forces tenants to sign a lease that states a rent $500+ higher than they told the perspective renters the apartment was going for—and then awards an "on-time credit" in the amount of the difference when the tenants pay their rents on time each month—in order that they can raise the rent every year by the highest legal percentage based on the fictitious higher rent? Sickos. Pervs, I tell you.

Anyhow, so I was online searching for the management company's fax number, and I came across a Citysearch link to the business. Now, from what I can tell, readers usually write online reviews of restaurants and bars on the likes of Citysearch, but not of businesses like building management companies. But apparently this company so angered enough people that the following reviews turned up:

WORST PEOPLE TO DEAL WITH!!!!
I have never every written a review before, but then again I normally don't get hung up on. [Managemtnt company] is the WORST people to work with, how they are still in buinsess I am not sure. I signed a lease in July for a August move-in and after they raised the rent $2,000 they pushed back the move-in date from August 1st to the 15th then to Septemeber 1st saying that the constrcution was not done. Now, a day before 9/1 they say that it won't be ready until the 15th. The worst part about it is they are NOT helpful and NOT nice. DO NOT WORK WITH THEM!!!!!

Horrible Customer Service
The girl who answers the phones can never answer your questions, so she always transfers the call to Ambi, who is rarely there. I was told to call between 9 and 9:10 to reach her! When she is there, she's rude and has no ability to deal with people. She has hung up on me more times than I can count, simply because she has no solutions for a problem she was hired to fix. She loves the phrase 'they're out of the country right now' and seems to think it is an excuse for her incompetence. Cons: Ignorance, Poor Service. Not Recommended

Dishonest Management - 100% will lie to your face
[Management company] is possibly the worst in the city. Their main person "Ambi" will lie to your face and change rental terms at her discretion. She is also extremely rude, will ignore tenant calls and will not for the life of her return a phone call. Do not rent from this company! There isn't a single good thing I can say about this company - if you MUST deal with them insist that you will not deal with Ambi. Pros: none. Cons: dishonest, poor customer service

Dishonest management NEVER calls back
Called 60 days before rent was due and never ever get called back. Continued to call for days in a row. Get a lot of push-back. They love the phrase 'it's in the mail'. They had guaranteed on Monday that I would receive a letter that very Monday or Tuesday. I called Wed after checking mail for three days and still had no letter. She then said I'd have to wait two weeks for the letter. This renewal lease would be for the first week of the last month of my previous lease AND then she said I had to give 60 days notice before leaving. How can I give 60 days notice if I only receive THEIR paperwork 21 days before the end of my lease? Stay away from this management.

Terrible Customer Service
The person who picks up the phone is just terrible when it comes to customer service. She treats you like you are not worth her time and gives so much attitude. I have not received my security deposit and moved out 2 months ago. They are very unorganized. Don't use them if you can avoid it. Pros: Nothing. Just a terrible experience. Cons: Terrible Customer Service

To sum up: I never expect to get my security deposit back. (Which is a shame, because I spent a good chunk of its value on Marc by Marc Jacobs dresses at the Desert Premium Outlets in Cabazon on Sunday.) The security deposit that grew every year that I renewed my lease and they required from me an additional check for an additional deposit based on the higher annual rent (which was further inflated by the fictitious higher rent stated on the lease).

Moreover, that particular kind of tyrant slumlord garbage really only flies in Manhattan. Another reason I'm glad to call pretty L.A. home.

Up and Away

Sometimes you have those days when you just bum around and do nothing.


Then sometimes you have a day when you look at the clock and shoot! It’s 6:01 and you were supposed to be in the lobby at 6AM for your drive to the hot air ballooning launch site, so you’re late but you make it anyway, and then you go up on the balloon and it’s lovely down there and the morning mist is drifting over the farmland, and then when you land you have mimosas and you get pushed on the swing on a nearby jungle gym so you sail very high and then get your sandals all muddy when you try to stop yourself with your feet to slow down, and then you get in a Jeep and drive through the country to a cattle round up where you see calves being immunized and cows being branded, smoke coming off their seared skin and hair. Then you tour a citrus processing plant, and wander around the orchards, and then it’s only 9 AM and you’re kind of ready for bed, but then it’s back in the car to tour another hotel, the restaurant at which supplies you with a skim latte and that helps a little bit. Then you’ve got 45 minutes to shower and check out of the hotel before lunch, where you eat so much because you’re so hungry that the effect is very soporific, and you didn’t really need that since it’s only 2 PM and you already feel like you’ve been up for a month, and plus you didn’t get any sleep the night before on account of one delayed flight, one overactive brain, one bedmate who snores, and the knowledge you had to wake up at 5:30 for the balloon flight, which you didn’t manage to do quite. So then after lunch you view a lovely craftsman-style hotel room with a Tempurpedic bed and a rocking chair and an ocean view that makes you never want to leave, but you have to keep moving, and you go to a museum with a cowboy exhibit, and then you wander around a nearby street fair, and a tangle of local antique shops and then you’re so tired the whole thing is extra surreal, and on the walk back to the car you stop and stare at the pier and the majesty of the Pacific Ocean as the waves roll in along the coast.

Finally somehow you drag yourself to the car and you’re not seven miles into the drive home when you decide to stop at the Wagon Wheel bowling alley you’d spotted on the way into town and it just looks so folksy that it draws you in and makes you want to bowl a game for the first time in maybe eight years, when you bowled at Albany Bowl in the East Bay, where they served Bud in pin-shaped bottles in the Spare Room. (You bowl a 79, which you think is OK for your first try in ages; your partner gets a turkey in the second through fourth frames, and you’re impressed.) Now you’re really tired, so it’s back in the car, but it’s only a few more miles before you see the outlet mall and its Barneys, Betsey, and Restoration call to you from the highway, so you have to stop and you try on a Marc Jacobs coat, which you can’t justify since you live in Los Angeles now, so you let it go, and get back in a car to listen to Cal versus UCLA on AM 570. You pick up some tofu and get home in time to watch the last 10 minutes on TV, and your team is victorious, and that’s great, and then since it’s only 8 PM you make jokes about changing clothes and going to a rave in Hollywood, but instead you sit down to watch a movie and are fast asleep within seconds, and then you turn off the movie and try to watch CSI: Miami instead, but the only scene you see is the investigator popping a bloated corpse so it doesn’t blow up on its own in the van when it’s being transmitted to the morgue, and that’s really gross, and then you finally force yourself to go upstairs to bed and you sleep like a log and wonder how many days in a girl’s life she’ll ever spend like that.

City Search

DailyOM
November 6, 2006

Living Streets
The Energy Of Cities

The cities we reside in have souls. Our cities consume, create, evolve, and breathe much in the same way Mother Nature does. Each city is unique, defined not only by the individuals who call it home but also by the energy it exudes. Some cities are suffused by an aura of unshakable calm while others seem continually frenetic, even during the early morning hours. Many inspire creativity within us or arouse our curiosity. A city's energy is dependent on many factors, including the geography, the people, the industry, and the culture. Residing in a city full of warehouses and factories feels very different than one living in one populated by artists and museums. Some cities elevate the soul while others seem to squash it, and fate may lead us to either.

If the urban center you presently call home feels oppressive or robs you of your vitality, consider relocating to a locale that is more nurturing. You may find that leaving your city is an impossibility, however, if circumstances in your life compel you to remain or the universe has plans for you that involve your staying put. To cope with the stress of working and playing in an environment you have an aversion to, first ask yourself how the city you live in makes you feel. Then take steps to cleanse your home, your work spaces, and your life of the energy that is dragging you down. Try smudging your personal and professional spaces with sage or sweetgrass to dispel negativity. Keeping a quartz crystal on or near your person can ensure that there is always positive, loving energy nearby that you can draw from when you feel affected by your city. And you can do your part to promote widespread good energy by sending love and white light from your heart out into the city each morning and night.

As you become increasingly aware of the way your city makes you feel, you can refine your cleansing efforts to meet your individual needs. If you seek out others who feel driven to purify your city's energy flow, your combined efforts can become a larger movement that promotes healing and goodwill. You may find that, after a time, you are gradually drawn to those aspects of your locale that energize you, helping you come back into balance.

Where my Girls At

I love covering beauty events and product launches because undoubtedly there is always a very chic woman talking about natural ingredients and advanced science in a sexy and sweet accent, usually French, sometimes Nordic. (One time I went to a launch for a new line of French cosmetics on the penthouse terrace of the apartment belonging to the brand's impossibly chic red-lipped in-house publicist, with views overlooking Fifth Avenue and Broadway, right across from the Flatiron. It was outrageous. Then I walked home to my tiny unchic, unfit-to-bring-over-style-arbiters apartment with bars on the windows and the cat's litter box next to the sofa, because there's no place else you can put it when all you've got is 200 square feet.)

I also love these events (because you walk away drunk, with armloads of free stuff and) because they are always filled with women, since the beauty editor crowd tends to be exclusively female, with, like one flaming queen with a pinky ring at the next table for good measure. And I always find this to be a very inspiring environment. All these beautiful ladies, all career women, with glamorous lives, generally supporting and not being mean to one another, as I think is the common perception of women en masse.

Today I went to a cosmetic launch in a sparkling hotel penthouse, with delicious coffee and fresh-squeezed juices, where I listened to a lovely Nordic woman talk about rare berry extracts. Then I collected my Marimekko swag bag and headed to another luncheon in the same hotel, where 650 women (and five queens) bidded on handbags in an auction benefiting lupus research. I sat next to a soap opera actress originally from Texas (the daughter of a minister), whose life was nothing like my own. And I found our conversation to be engaging and genuine, and I learned something. Because you can learn something from everyone. ("Even a damned fool," as my grandfather used to say, but that wouldn't apply here.) And it's rather pleasant when you exchange thoughts on life with other smart gals in a room full of smart gals just doing their thing, just like you're doing your thing.

Bunny Bash Has Busty Babes

You've really made it when you Google yourself and discover that your profound prose--topped by the worst/best headline ever associated with your byline--has found its way (without permission even) onto the official Web site of Pamela Anderson. Stick a fork in me.

Lucky Charms

In my memory, it's rained exactly one time since I moved back, and it looked like this from my terrace right afterward.

In Which I Get my Slurpee On

One of the things that concretized my decision to move to L.A. was bougainvillea. I would come out here to visit and be reminded about how those pink vines explode all over and make everything look so lush and healthy and warm and decorated (and, not least, so pink—my favorite). So when I moved I made it my priority to go to Home Depot and buy three plants and set them on my terrace, and I gave them lots of love and the vines grew and grew like weeds, but the flowers never blossomed. Until. Last week I went out there to see the very beginnings of those pink flowers and I seriously just thrilled at that sight. (Apparently October is L.A.'s spring.)

In other news, shoot!, I have a cute dentist! No one has a cute dentist. And no one needs a cute dentist. But I have one. And he favors trance music in the office, and says things like, "So I'll pull that tooth out, and then I'll give you a bunch of Vicodin, and then you can have a Vicodin party and invite me."

On the way home from the cute dentist, I got my car washed. And while I was waiting for it to be dried, I went next door to 7-11 where I found they had Diet Pepsi Slurpees in the Slurpee machine. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love that zero-calorie ambrosia, and that love is made even more intense by the shocking, widespread unavailability of the Diet Pepsi Slurpee. (When Manhattan's first 7-11 opened right near our office on 23rd Street and Park Avenue, I obsessively went down there and pleaded with them to make D.P. Slurpees come out of the machine; but that spout was broken from day one—with an upside down cup over it—and they never did fix it.)

To recap, as of today I have:

• bougainvillea buds on a sunny terrace
• a cute dentist (not relevant or useful, just surprising)
• a proximate 7-11 offering Diet Pepsi Slurpees

It's a beautiful day in L.A.

Zigzag Moderne

Do you know how beautiful the ceiling of the Pantages Theatre is? Well, it's really beautiful.

People come to L.A. for the jam too.

Update: Oops, I know that wasn't clear. I wasn't intentionally obfuscating; I just meant that there are a lot of spectacular things that draw people to L.A. from other far-away placees--things that are harder for me to appreciate since I grew up here. (I saw the equivalent spectacular things in New York with totally fresh wide eyes.) In this case, fabulous Deco venues on Hollywood Boulevard are the jam. Uh, I may be mixing too many metaphors, but...you get the gist.

It's the Thought That Counts

The other day my impossibly sexy, totally non-hippy vegan friend was talking about a nightmarish first date she'd had last week in which she received from the man a single long-stemmed red rose wrapped in cellophane, which reeked (if not literally) of beef jerky and lottery tickets from the check-out line at 7-11. Thank heaven he'd picked her up in his car, so she could safely leave the rose there on the seat instead of toting it mortifyingly around Oakland. I was very sympathetic to her horror. Like, hello, don't do that! Don't bring me a rose on the first date! And for the love of god, if you must, don't get it at Duane Reade or Wawa!

Another girlfriend had a similar freakout in college when a boy brought her a bouquet on her second date. She told him he was presumptuous and never saw him again. And then a year later, the man who would eventually become her husband and the father of the baby in her belly these days, sent to our co-op apartment in Berkeley a dozen cheesy red roses the day before he picked her up for their first date after they'd met (wait for it) at a rave. And she loved those roses and she was smitten.

I would have thought it is not very advisable to make a girl a CD on a first date because, I mean, that should be creepy or something. But you know, if you get a CD on a first date from a man who makes your stomach do that thing, it doesn't feel creepy at all. And you want to listen to it first thing in the morning when you get up too early because you couldn't sleep very well because you had a really, really great time.

Tupperware Party

I was just thinking about how Docksiders used to like to go on lots of hikes in his Hollywood Hills neighborhood and beyond. And one time he brought home three tadpoles from a hike he'd done with some visiting house guests, and I thought that was pretty great. He put them in Tupperware and set them on the railing on the back porch. The little vessel eventually became a breeding ground for mosquitoes, duh, and I'm not sure what ever happened to the frogs, or if the tadpoles ever even became frogs. But still I think it's pretty awesome when a grown man does a little boy thing like covet a tadpole.


Update: It's also pretty awesome when a grown man does a little boy thing like spit boba beads from a fat straw onto high-up signs on the street and try to anticipate the exact targets.

For the Sin of Envy

It’s been two weeks since my last confession. I mean my last blog confession. It’s only been one day since my confessions in synagogue on the Day of Atonement for the sin of…

…slander, and for the sin of gossip.
…for the sin of selfishness.
…for the sin of indulging evil thoughts, and for the sin of lust.
…for the sin of not hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and for the sin of being poor in spirit.
...for the sin of speaking foolish words, and for the sin of not controlling my tongue.
…for the sin of being proud and for the sin of lacking zeal.
…for the sin of not being quick to forgive, and for the sin of holding resentments.
…and for the sin of eating a peanut butter Balance Bar on the fast day so that I could file a story on deadline without fainting…

…and miscellaneous others. By the way, for high holidays services, we joined the congregation of the synagogue led by the cantor who married my sister earlier this summer. And it was such a rich, song-dominated, warm experience that evoked my eleven years of Jewish summer camp in Malibu—one of the great blessings of my childhood and adolescence—more vividly then anything else since.

(Something else evoked summer camp recently too: At the Abbot-Kinney Cool Kid festival, we ran into a fab girl who had been a fellow camper back in those days, who I always thought was like the best, funniest, most outgoing version of me on a good hair day. And she’s still as awesome as all that, so it was such a kick to see her.)

Anyway, I was moved to confess here again when I got delivered to my inbox today a Snapfish photo album containing pictures of a minutes-old child belonging to an old flame. By all rights, he shouldn’t even know how to reach me. But he still does, and here’s why.

To start from the beginning: In college, I spent a couple months dating (well, it was more like “hanging out,” since as close as anyone came to going on proper dates in Berkeley was having a face-size hummus sandwich at Intermezzo or sitting on Sproul Plaza and listening to the drum circle and talking smack about how passersby reeked of patchouli.) a fellow film student who I’d really started to like, by the time a mutual friend told me he’d had a girlfriend the whole time. Naturally it should have been over, severed cleanly, right at the moment I’d paged him 4-1-1 (ha!) to confirm that it was true. But it lingered on as things do, until it got really ugly, and we’d hiked up to the Big C one night, and he was distraught and told me up on that hill he’d have to tell her the truth, and when we came down, he went straight to her house, if I recall, and did just that. It was high drama, and she was beside herself, and moved away or something, and the details are sketchy, but he followed her out of town, and I didn’t have contact with him for years. Until.

It was winter in New York two years ago and I was cold and I was trolling Friendster, and there he was, married, with a baby. I wrote him to say it was nice to see him settled and happy. Within two emails it came out that he loved his daughter very much—a beautiful biracial girl with wild, light curly hair, huge eyes, and a Christmas birthday—but his marriage was a disaster.

He’d gotten that girl from our college years to take him back—and then he’d gone and married her.

I’ll have to skim over a couple months spent rapt by the weird sham of an electronic affair I’d had with him after we got back in touch, because I’m not proud of it. But I was lonesome, and I envied him his life: He drove his sensible sedan back to his family in his warm condo every night. And he envied me my life: single, totally unencumbered, responsible only to myself, spent money on shoe sales and not diapers, went to parties in New York for a living (never mind that I rented a frigid apartment where I lived alone and never had enough heat or hot water or enough electricity to run my space heater without blowing the fuse, and then when I invariably did, having to pray to god that my super was in town so he could unlock the gate in the sidewalk and flip the fuse box down there so the lights would come on again). It was a perfect storm of mutual jealousies and intense history.

I asked him one day why he married that girl, with whom he fought all the time, and who didn’t seem to make him happy, and who he didn’t seem to make happy, and who hadn't made him happy enough seven years earlier to keep him from cheating. “I just wanted so badly to win,” he said, about the years he spent monomaniacally trying to get her back. “I lost track of what it was I was fighting for.”

This weekend his wife delivered their second child, a son. They’d decided to try for another child when they had a period of upswing in their relationship in the winter. He doubts now that it was a good decision, but he will be a good father, I’m sure. Insofar as you can be a good father to a child while failing to communicate honestly with his mother.

From my reconnection with him, I've really learned the lesson about the grass not being greener on the other side. But an even more valuable one is the one about making sure you know good and well what you're fighting for before you dedicate your life to that pursuit—because you just might get what you fought for.

Seasonal Affective Dialing

The other evening I used my stuck-in-traffic time to call a kinky-haired actor I used to go out with in New York. My call was completely out of the blue, and there was no time elapsed between inkling and execution (I handle a lot of decisions this way—dubious). The conversation could have gone any which way—we haven’t seen each other since our last date was pervaded by an icky sense of doom sometime around last December. But it was really, unexpectedly, warm and gratifying.

One night last winter, he and I had met up in Union Square, from where we would walk to dinner on Avenue C. The red-and-white-striped booths that comprise Union Square’s annual holiday shopping bazaar were set up and twinkling with white lights. He took my hand (which for me was a paradise since New York winters were tough for me and I always fantasized about having a bigger hand into which to deposit my cold and gloved littler hand, but most winter days this was just a fantasy). Not more than a few paces from there we’d run into the kinky-haired actor’s father. His family was from New Jersey, and still lived there, except for his brother who was a lawyer in Midtown. And here was the dad, planning to go to the movies alone after work (since the mom was in Europe on book publishing business, if I recall), offering instead to take us to dinner (which we—or he—appropriately declined).

The kinky-haired actor lived in a city where he had these roots and this potential to run into a parent—and I had nothing more than a few years’ worth of roots in town. No family and only one friend who knew I existed before I turned 25 and went off to grad school. (And only I knew that I’d had a lot of more confident, more carefree times before I materialized in New York).

I think I was incredibly jealous.

So flash forward to our phone conversation on Thursday night and he’s asking me about L.A. and I’m saying it’s great and I’ve got so much history here, and all of my old friends who knew every detail and nuance (and who knew all about the happier times, and who where there as they were happening)—and my parents too. And I told him how I thought it was really enviable that he ran into his father that time, and how now I live in a place where I can just go get a carton of milk with my mom if I need milk, and that I’d just done that today. He said he’d just done that with his mom too.

I wonder if he knows I wouldn’t have left New York when I’d had the opportunity if we’d stayed together a little longer.

Then my phone beeps low battery, and I’ve got to go anyway, so I tell him that even though I meet lots of people, I don’t easily forget the people with whom I spent the kind of time that I spent with him. He echoed that sentiment emphatically. And he said he hoped it was reasonable to think we might get a drink or a coffee when I’m in New York in November—right around the time of year when we’d met last year, and had our marathon first date, during which we’d sat in Tompkins Square Park and talked about being Jewish and falling in love while leaves fell on our curly heads and we brushed them away.

Oh my God! The Most Amazing! Sensational! Traumatic! Heart Rending! Exciting! Thrilling! Finish in the History of College Football!

That's the way announcer Joe Starkey called the end of the 1982 Cal vs. Stanford Big Game, when Cal used an unreasonable number of questionable laterals and ran back the kick with no time on the clock--when the Stanford band was already on the field in premature celebration of victory--finally knocking out the tuba player in the endzone to win the game.

"The Bears have won! The Bears have won! The Bears have won! Oh my god! The most amazing, sensational, traumatic, heart rending, exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football! California has won...the Big Game...over Stanford. Oh excuse me for my [hoarse] voice, but I have never, never seen anything like it in the history...if I have ever seen any game in my life! The Bears have won it!"

It's an oh-the-humanity broadcast moment. And I swear it saturates me with emotion and makes me cry every time I hear it (which will be more often now that some commercial that runs during NFL games has appropriated that clip).

I want to make a point about college football here. There's nothing like it. Particularly when you go to a school like Berkeley, which, even when it sucks at football (say, during all of the years when I was a student and had season tickets), it's still number one at man-to-man combat. When you can't count on a victory, you can at least count on a good old-fashioned, rush-the-field riot, with felt from the opposing team's ridiculous mascot flying through the air, alongside aloft ballcaps and cascades of smuggled-in beer. A mad we-love-this-place frenzy.

And Cal's Memorial Stadium is such an amazing place to be, all snuggled in the hills, with its 75,000 fans, its view of the campanile, and the canon on the hill. And there's that Berkeley-in-the-fall weather that will always, always remind me of taking a walk with a certain fiery Mexican architect (then an architecture student) and an optimistic, pregnant lawyer (then a psychology and political science student, not in the least pregnant at the time, but definitely as optimistic)--the same girls who accused me of having a you-get-the-gist attitude, and who were right about that--down College Avuene, crunching leaves underfoot, to pick out our Halloween costumes from the crowded racks of second-hand stores. And of the thrill of college football season. And of being young and of being hopeful and of being happy.

Now that college football season is back, it brings with it reminders of that optimism. Reminders of youth and happiness and hope. Hope that even an outcome as absurd as the 1982 Big Game--as unimaginably improbable as it is--could actually happen. And that the most amazing! sensational! exciting! thrilling! victory could be yours if you believe, and if you never, ever give up.

You're Blessed With a Purpose, Supa Star

I’m a little obsessed with the e-newsletter Daily Candy. Even if I don’t love all the products those gals write about, I love their fun turns of phrase—and that great formula they’ve got: open with a naughty or kitschy pop culture reference from mid-80’s to mid-90’s, discuss greatness of some product/resto/Web site in two paragraphs, close with fun one-line kicker alluding to first pop culture reference. Oh, and to the left is that darling illustration of a hip girl with big sunglasses balancing her purse on her knee while she digs for something in there, or sitting on a bar stool, or drinking milk from the carton in pink slippers. And all this comes irresistibly packaged with a punny subject line like, “Supa Star” (about a label called Supayana), or “Clip Art” (about a new nail salon) or “Chic Happens” (about a personal shopping service). Gets me every time.

But basically, Daily Candy is all just about stuff you can buy, stuff to fill your closet, stuff to make you look sexy, stuff to drink, that kind of thing. And I guess I just felt like I needed more inbox stimulation than that.

That’s when, maybe three years ago, I started subscribing to DailyOm, which as far as I can tell, is a Daily Candy ripoff that uses the same basic formula to discuss spiritual things. Hippie stuff like meditation and connecting with the earth through rocks and things. Positivity. Self and community empowerment. Self love. And instead of the cute girl balancing her handbag, there’s always the same drawing of leafy bamboo. And the typical subject lines are more like, “Alive in Joy,” “Sacred Sentinels,” and “Finding Your Pinnacle.” Since I started getting these emails, I’ve forced myself to read them every day. (I figure it’s only fair to make myself moderate my Daily Candy- and New York Best Bets-reading time with time spent reading about something I can’t buy. Why can't I buy it?! Dang!)

DailyOm emails are always written in that fortune cookie or horoscope style that is easy to interpret and that you find totally resonant if you’re going through something in your life. If I was thinking about my ‘Tross, I’d get a DailyOm about breaking away and I would gulp down a tear or two and feel really touched. Or if I was trying to decide whether or not to move across country, I’d get a DailyOm about making positive change or dealing with tough decisions. I like to forward these emails around to my friends who are also dealing with stuff. Truth is, DailyOm isn’t very well written. And it’s really much, much too long (usually around 400 words compared to Daily Candy’s 200). So I get kind of bored (like I’m reading about staying focused, and I have to stop halfway through to read other emails). And often there are errant exclamation marks in the middle of words. But still, I think a few minutes of reflection every morning never hurt anyone.

I recently got an Om about purpose:

Blessed With A Purpose
Your Life's Work

Many people are committed to professions and personal endeavors they never consciously planned to pursue. They attribute the shape of their lives to circumstance, taking on roles they feel are tolerable. Each of us, however, has been blessed with a purpose. Your life's work is the assemblage of activities that allows you to express your intelligence and creativity, live in accordance with your values, and experience the profound joy of simply being yourself. Unlike traditional work, which may demand more of you than you are willing to give, life's work demands nothing but your intent and passion for that work. Yet no one is born with an understanding of the scope of their purpose. If you have drifted through life, you may feel directionless. Striving to discover your life's work can help you realize your true potential and live a more authentic, driven life.

To make this discovery, you must consider your interests in the present and the passions that moved you in the past. You may have felt attracted to a certain discipline or profession throughout your young life only to have steered away from your aspirations upon reaching adulthood. Or you may be harboring an interest as of yet unexplored. Consider what calls to you and then narrow it down. If you want to work with your hands, ask yourself what work will allow you to do so. You may be able to refine your life's work within the context of your current occupations. If you want to change the world, consider whether your skills and talents lend themselves to philanthropic work. Taking stock of your strengths, passions, beliefs, and values can help you refine your search for purpose if you don't know where to begin. Additionally, in your daily meditation, ask the universe to clarify your life's work by providing signs and be sure to pay attention.

Since life's journey is one of evolution, you may need to redefine your direction on multiple occasions throughout your lifetime. For instance, being an amazing parent can be your life's work strongly for 18 years, then perhaps you have different work to do. Your life's work may not be something you are recognized or financially compensated for, such as parenting, a beloved hobby, or a variety of other activities typically deemed inconsequential. Your love for a pursuit, however, gives it meaning. You'll know you have discovered your life's work when you wake eager to face each day and you feel good about not only what you do but also who you are.

It’s no Supa Star, but it’s fun to think about. Now if only I could buy it.

Everyone Comes to New York for the Jam, but Nobody Buys It

On a beach towel in Santa Monica yesterday, I was reminded how glad I am that I’ve left New York. But it wasn’t just the Pacific sand that reminded me; it was the article I finally got around to reading in New York magazine there—“Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness,” by Jennifer Senior, about the scientific study of happiness and what sort of people attain it. In short, it’s not New Yorkers.

"From the point of view of the happiness literature, New Yorkers seem to have been mysteriously seduced into a way of life that conspires, in almost every way, against the basic level of contentment. The large points first: Most happiness researchers aggree that being surrounded by friends and family is one of the most crucial determinants of our well-being. Yet in New York, as surprisingly neighborly a city as it is, is still predicated on a certain principle of atomization. Being married would help in this instance, obviously. But New York City’s percentage of unmarried adults is nine points higher than the national average, at 52 points.

Then there’s the questions of the hedonic treadmill [the undending hunger for the next acquisition], such a demonic little term, so apt. Isn’t that what New York, the city of the 24-hour gym is? More charitably put, one could say that New York is a city of aspirants, the destination people come to to realize dreams. And of course we should feel indebted to the world's dreamers (and I thank each and every one for creating jet travel, indoor plumbing, and The Simpsons) but there’s a line between heartfelt aspiration and a mindless state of yearning.

Economists have a term for those who seek out the best options in life. They call them maximizers. And maximizers, in practically every study one can find, are far more miserable than people who are willing to make do (economists call these people satisficers)… New York doesn’t just attract ambitious neurotics; it creates them. It also creates a desire for things we don’t need—which not coincidentally is the business of Madison Avenue—and, as a corollary, pointless regrets, turning us all into a city of counterfactual historians, men and women who obsessively imagine different and better outocomes for ourselves.”

And the most resonant point the author made discussed a study in which a Columbia researcher went to a high-end gourmet store and set out samples of six different kinds of jam. She promised a substantial discount to shoppers who wanted to buy a jar of their preferred jam after sampling. The following week, she set up the same sampling station, only with 24 kinds of jam instead of six. The weekend there were six jams, 30 percent of samplers decided to buy one; the weekend there had been 24 jams, only 3 percent of shoppers bought. Essentially, too many options mess with people. This is what New York does to people’s minds. And to their dating habits.

"Everyone comes here for the jam, but no one buys it."

That all the men I was dating in New York knew exactly how many choices they had for women (and that they always seemed to be looking over my shoulder at the next one coming down the block who might have something on me) and that those choices were basically infinite, was a particularly cruel punishment for me because I had already punished myself earlier in life by sticking with a very long relationship with my ‘Tross who knew—because of his easy charm and the fact of his rock stardom—he had a million options, and could consequently never commit to a single one. One of his dearest friends once told me, “I wish [your ‘Tross] would spend more time with you. It’s bad for a man to have too many choices. He’s standing at a buffet table and sampling so much he’s making himself sick.” Always a sampler, never a buyer.

My ‘Tross in Oakland of course proves that it’s not just New York men who are crippled by their glut of opportunities. But back in L.A., I’ve already met men who aren’t. And this is encouraging.

If everyone comes to New York for the jam, but no one buys it, maybe here I’ll find the right buyer for my jam. That is, if anyone’s ready for this jelly.