On My First Time Boxing Since 1999ish

There were a total of five of us in the class—three super-athletic looking dudes in muscle shirts, one six-foot-tall gal in a black sports bra with six-pack abs and a 24-inch waist, and me. But nothing is more inspiring than fear.

Side note. I have often said that, if I write my memoir, it might be called, Motivated by Coffee: The AD Story. In response, my best friend from J-school once told me, "Mine would be called Motivated by Fear, Fueled by Coffee: The JB Story." Touché.

Side note part deux. Tonight I was reminded of when I used to take boxing class in Berkeley, and I really wanted to buy those pink Ringside boxing gloves, but I felt like I would be a poser if I got them just because they were rad if I wasn't really serious about the class. So I got serious, I got the gloves, and then they became lamp decoration in the hard-drinking (although it was all relative, of course) New York years.

So tonight I was back at it. And it was a major, major undertaking. In boxing class, you just have to drop and do push-ups. You just drop to the hard-ass floor—in gloves no less—and do your push-ups, with your hands in fists, in the wraps, under the gloves. None of this "OK, everyone get your mats..." to soften the experience business that they chatter about in other classes that I always thought were hard. I was thinking Is you out your damn mind...? (And BTW at the end of boxing class, you are not guided through even 60 seconds of stretching, because apparently that is for sissies—you just run like hell into the night. Or at least I did.)

But I did it. I punched the heck out of that bag, I jump roped until I was all rosaceaed out, and I ran in a loop around the gym with my fists flying in punches. And now I feel amazing (although I may never use my arms again). Best. Therapy. Ever.

My only wish is that I had been able to wear my trusty Polar heart rate monitor (the gloves prohibited wearing the wrist part). Because I swear to you I burned at least, like, five million calories, no joke.

If I May Dork Out For a Moment

I just voted. And it felt great.

I was so looking forward all day to the experience, to the ritual of taking the walk over to the polling place, to the little chik-chung of pushing the poker into the ballot, to the smug walk home. I remember this little march fondly from the days when I used to do it hand in hand with my folks (very fine and interested role models for astute political opinion and, in my mom's case, involvement).

In fifth grade, I remember being traumatized by a Newsweek article (I was always, always news obsessed) in which were portrayed graphic crime-scene photos of a slaughter of voters in a Haitian polling place, and even then I remember feeling assured that America was not the kind of place where that sort of terrible thing could happen. I folded the paper in sixteenths and stapled it to itself a million times so I would never be templed to look at it again. (Why I didn't just throw it out is another story; I must have known I couldn't make it go away regardless.)

Back to Super Tuesday, 2008. I had signed up to vote by mail, but had been undecided while the postmark deadline came and went. So when I got to the polling place, I had asked a little bit meekly if it would be OK to vote in person instead. The poll workers asked if I had my physical ballot with me and I did not (left it at work), but they let me vote anyway—because this is America! And here you always get to vote! I had to do it provisionally under the circumstances, but a vote is a vote, and mine will be counted.

Maybe I get so excited about this because we are not Mayflower-type people; I come from immigrants, who spent their entire lives in pursuit of a path that would allow their grandchildren to have nice things, and to vote. And because it's a thrilling election year. And also because it occurs to me especially when I vote that being a U.S. citizen is a privilege and a blessing, like having your health and having friends.

So, like most people I know, regardless of what Democrat they voted for (what, like I know any Republicans?), I will be wearing my "I Voted" sticker tonight in fully dorky American pride. You just can't beat it. You can't.

Things I Thought About During Yoga Class Tonight

work
house paint
spinach (whole wheat pasta with)
sweatbands (useful?)
blue-eyed boy
the Ashram (curious)
Super Bowl
Pasadena
TMZ
work
check-engine light
glasses
dry cleaning
rain (unhappy with)
mom
working out (tomorrow)
friend (AE, moving)
positivity (striving for)
work
restaurant recommendations (Grove adjacent)
friend (LP, studying Final Cut Pro)
tomatoes
vacation (Mexican Riviera cruise?)
vacation (Turkey?)
this list (making)
Valentine's Day
PBS
vacation (San Simeon?)
Coachella
wine
working out (last Thursday)
friend (MG, feathered haircut)
New York (Capella, moving to)
New York (work, traveling for)
steam cleaning (carpet)
Project Runway
Devon Aoki
Lululemon
headlines (punchy)
Obama
Dubai (L.A. Times article on)
Santa Barbara
sister (birthday, Wednesday)
Essie polish in Wicked
yogi rhetoric (vs. stereotypic California rhetoric)
Huell Howser
friend (MW, cute glasses)
looseleaf paper (notes from 1992 to EW on)
work
blue-eyed boy (cold, coming down with)
Ikea
Times Square
new dress (bras to wear with)
Zicam
Home Depot
donuts (I wish)
Bed Head mousse (integrate?)
State of the Union

Is anyone in here really getting close to achieving transcendence? Man, honestly, that must be amazing.

Elements of Style

I must have managed sleep, because I dreamed the most awful of dreams. I dreamed that, for some reason I couldn't identify, there had been a public exposé of the em dash—that it had fallen somehow out of favor, and that it was not to be used ever again acceptably in written language. And I was seriously crushed—not to mention embarrassed, since I have used the thing semi-obsessively for years—and honestly wondered how I was ever going to write again with any flair (or at least I fancy I’ve ever written with some flair anyway).

I lean so hard on that beloved em dash; I think it has something to do with the Emily Dickinson class I took at Berkeley, in which we dissected—and I savored—Dickinson’s use of handwritten dashes of all lengths and angles in her manuscripts. And I like to think that my own proclivity to the em dash gestures toward that expressiveness. Not that I think I can fairly compare myself to Emily Dickinson, but you get the gist. (Also in my dream, parentheses were déclassé, and then I knew I was really screwed.)

California's Gold

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reservation Mode

I had to laugh last night when the blue-eyed boy said, "Uh-oh. My baby's going into reservation mode."

I was beginning to look into hotels for a work-related trip to cover the film festival in Santa Barbara at the end of the month, and I had picked up the phone to call a particular hotel, after that hotel's Web site had revealed there was no availability. This is what I do.

If I may say so, I think I am a fine vacation planner. I am an excellent researcher (derived from both my job as a reporter and my inability to accept any first answer I'm given), plus an indefatigable bargain hunter, but one with uncompromising hotel tastes. By no means does everyone believe this is the right way to plan or to spend a vacation. But it works for me, and so I descend (or ascend) into "reservation mode" when I am getting ready to go away. That means I:

1. Call every hotel whose Web site I have checked, and vice versa, to make sure that the information I have been quoted is the most accurate, and includes the lowest price for the best available room.
2. Search every individual airline's Web site, in addition to the travel search engines, because you never know what you will find. (And then I call each.)
3. Ask for a AAA discount anywhere. You may be shocked to find that I got 10 percent off at our likkle house on the relatively remote South coast of Jamaica.
4. Call back several times and continue to check Web sites of hotels at which I am already booked, just in case I can improve the rate or swap it to a better room.
5. Book multiple hotels at one time, if each can be canceled, in the event that any of the above pans out. (I know what you're thinking, but I never forget to cancel anything because I keep meticulous electronic records.)

If I ever decide to change professions, I have always said that eBay entrepreneur is my next calling. But I swear I'd be good too at planning vacations (for myself, under my own terms, so this would require some sort of lottery winnings).

By Any Other Name

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

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

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

Gym Dandy, Part Deux

Update! To the list of celebrity-type people I've spotted working out at my gym, which includes:

1. Mark McGrath and
2. Fabio

...I can add with pleasure:

3. Mr. Big! Whose real name I had to Google but is apparently Chris Noth!

This is the most exciting gym news since they added the 10:15 Beautiful Booty class on Saturday mornings. (The 9:30 Cardio Core Ball slot always felt a touch too early.)

Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of my life.

Thirty Mile Zone

I should first disclaim this post by saying that the idea I might be foreshadowing my own harm pains me. But, god forbid, in case anything happens, keinahora, you will have heard the truth behind it.

I work on a stretch of Sunset Boulevard (at Sunset Plaza on the strip) that is a nightmare for pedestrians. Every time I try to cross the street to get my salad (Chinese chicken salad, substitute soft tofu for chicken, light dressing) from Chin Chin, or go to the gym, or browse H&M at lunch, I take my life into my hands. There is a particular crosswalk that is marked as such, but has no light to indicate right of way, so motorists have to get a clue that they're supposed to stop when you are crossing the street because it's the freakin law. Instead, they whiz by you at light speed as you register terror in your eyes. Before walking ahead, I always try to make eye contact with drivers so that I can make sure they have seen me. Sometimes this works, but often when the mutual eye contact is made, drivers become more confident that I will stop, and hit the gas with that knowledge.

Now, this place where I work happens to be right next door to perennial paparazzi magnet Il Sole, and also next to Cravings and Le Petit Four and One Sunset, which are places where celebrities seem to like to eat when they are not on Robertson. So there seem to be a lot of cameras around here during most hours of the day.

A few months ago, while under agonizing deadline pressure, I had run across the street to feed the meter. On the way back to the office, no drivers would stop for me, and I felt like Frogger—either about to be squished, or if not then at least helpless and pathetic. The eye contact trick was not working. Finally, I lost what was left of my composure and started hollering expletive-laden gems into traffic. "It's a freakin crosswalk, you freakin @#$%*&s, that means you're supposed to freakin stop, you freakin @#$%*&s!" Only I did not say freakin or @#$%*&.

Come to see when I turn around that there are at least three cameras trained on red-faced me in the middle of the street. Maybe it was a slow day for TMZ news and they were looking for some crazy-lady-ranting action to steam things up. Alas, my cameo never made the site, y'all, ding dang!

Shake Ya Tail Feather

Who among you has had a tailbone injury? I have learned, in the week since I earned mine after making rather abrupt contact with a Lake Tahoe mountainside, that this injury is known for its tenacity and painfulness. I have learned this not just from my own experience, but from sharing my story with most people I encounter (you know how I do). The instructor teaching the new class at the gym on Friday told me she's never been able to sit in the same spot for more than half an hour since she landed awkwardly after going down a playground slide when she was five. I have heard at least three similar stories, and this is not encouraging.

Let me also tell you what you look like when you walk if your lower back area aches. You look like a nine-months-pregnant lady, trying in vain to protect her back while she manages a waddle. And when you try to pick something up, you look like a very old woman, the kind who pushes a wheelie cart around and wears a head scarf. This is the most scarring part of the experience—this feeling like an old lady—because deep down I know I am really still wild at 30. Still wild, with a bit of a limp maybe. And plus, I bruised my tailbone sledding, dude. What's better than that at 30?

On Saturday night, we had drinks with a bunch of miscellaneous people I mostly didn't know. One of them was a 29 year old who attributed his baby face to his Asian genes, and the fact that he still acts like he's 12. He works in some way in the extreme sports field, and said that he loves to snowboard rails and has had concussions and even vomited blood after wiping out, but "whatever dude, I have life insurance, so at least my parents will get rich." He also said, "I figure one day my friends will just be like, 'Oh what happened to that dude? He's no longer with us—figures.'" He said all of this with a whatever-bro giggle. It was amazing. It's like the exact opposite of anything I would say, or any way I could possibly behave with this Jewish upbringing. It's fun to be reminded of all the differences in perspectives out there.

Really, I was like, huh. You're an alien. I am terrified for your poor parents, oy, and I don't know what they've done to deserve this. But you sure sound like you have a lot of fun.

Medical Mystery

That's me. The good news is, if you go somewhere with me, I'm the one likely to end up with the weird injury, not you. I am like the magnet that sucks them into my field. A few samples that spring immediately to mind:

Sledding incident, Lake Tahoe, December 2007.
All I know is that we caught air off some impromptu roadside jumps during several solid but fear-inspiring runs. At some point I said, "I think we got our $15 worth out of this plastic sled from Raley's and we should quit while we're ahead," and that this did not happen. Yada yada, I am still limping a week later from the tailbone bruise that won't quit. Blue-eyed boy, also on the sled, uninjured.

Toxic reaction, South coast of Jamaica, August 2007.
Right thigh and hand start to tingle and develop abraded-looking red bumps after contact with some kelp or something while snorkeling. Come to shore and receive treatment in medical shack. Therapy involves Jamaican version of Chris Rock's "...just put a little 'tussin on it." Three girlfriends, snorkeling in same area, do not suffer skin reactions (but get a good giggle out of the fulfilled predictability that I would and they wouldn't).

Friction overdose, Oakland, circa 2002.
Why did we think we could just swoosh down that concrete facsimile of a playground slide (looking back, it was probably a drain pipe) without drawing blood from thighs and elbows? (Oh right, all that champagne.) Hello, I was wearing a skirt. It's almost like I never qualified for those highly gifted magnet schools...

Grotesquely inflamed bee stings on notable body parts:

1. Tongue (while licking Popsicle, circa 1985, Camp Hollywoodland. Counselors administered second Popsicle in attempt to reduce swelling.)
2. Bottom of foot (stepped on bee in college, circa 1995, Berkeley. Resulted in preferential handicapped parking at Cal/SC football game. Score!)
3. Middle finger, right hand (after finally gathering nerve to relieve self discreetly under cover of draped blanket in Golden Gate park, October 2007, San Francisco.)
   

I'm sure I'll think of a million more, but I find it's better not to search my mental database for these painful (or itchy or otherwise crippling) memories. Meanwhile, I am continuing to stock the drawer labeled "Pain/Wound Care" in my bathroom.*


*Yes, this is true. One day, in a fit of productivity, I got out the label maker and marked the inside of every drawer in the house. There is hope for '08's resolutions yet!

Auld Lang Syne Language

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

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

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

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

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

Gym Dandy

Short list of celebrity nobodies I have so far spotted working out at my gym:

1. Mark McGrath
2. Fabio

Check back for new additions as I discover them!

I took a meditation class tonight, but not on purpose. It turned out to be the second half hour of what I thought was an hourlong abs class, so I stayed. I didn't let my mind be free or whatever, because that's not really my forte, particularly after a stressful day at work. But I did enjoy the two-second temple massage with lavender oil at the end, and I enjoyed what turned out to be a weird sermon given by the instructor as we moved gently with our eyes closed.

The instructor is gorgeous, and built like any ripped male actor you might see snapped on the beach in the pages of Us Weekly (which you would only see when you are getting your nails done, because that's the only time you read it). And he kept talking about how we all are rich and fancy (?) and how we all live such glamorous Hollywood lives as actors or dancers (?) and how it's hard not to get caught up in all that (I'm pretty sure he was mostly talking to himself). Then he said something about having watched a really touching moment on Oprah where a woman was crying and crying after she cheated on her husband, but that Oprah pointed out that tears weren't really significant compared to a pureness of heart or some such? He had long stopped making sense by then, but his voice was really soothing and powerful and reassuring in the most fake-hippie way.

Oh and he said something about how we're all bigger than our Gucci bags and Land Rovers. And I'm like gurrrl, please, there's nothing bigger than a Land Rover.

For Real? Huh.

Look, I don't want to get all uppity, but.

In the mail room of my building, there is always a stack of Beverly Hills 213 magazines, apparently distributed for free in this area. I never take one upstairs to read it, but the coverlines are always maddeningly sycophantic and lame. I give you this:

"Drew Lachey: Great Talent, Great Father"

I mean really. Really.

Newsflash: Heidi Klum's Trainer Probably Does Not Support Your Eating Habits

The year I moved to Los Angeles from New York, so did the Victoria's Secret fashion show—a plus for me, since it's one of my favorite events to cover. Watching the televised version tonight of this year's spectacle jogged my memory to a moment I'd spent at the show's after-party in 2005 at the armory.

It was pouring rain outside. Inside, I was dutifully noshing on hors d'oeuvres with an event-world friend who introduced me in a conversation circle to a man who was apparently in the stable of top trainers charged with maintaining those supermodels' bodies. I must have made some off-the-cuff remark about how I figured a little risotto ball or two never killed anyone, and how I drink my vodka with soda water so as not to take on too many of the unnecessary calories associated with sugary mixers anyway.

But this man was palpably, unapologetically disgusted by my unforgivable lack of restraint. He was shocked—shocked!—to learn that someone currently sharing his air might indulge in one microgram of risotto. There was no discernible irony on his face when he turned around—as if toward a pit of photogs snapping flashbulbs—then it was pivot, poof, gone.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I have to rely on things other than my perfect body to earn my living—like reporting on events, where risotto balls come with the territory.

If My Poor Friends Must Suffer Crises, I'm Glad They Weave Them Into Funny Emails

"I think I may need to call it all off. I already wrote essentially a Dear John letter and have it sitting in my desk drawer at home. It's like having a loaded pistol in my desk with no gun lock, safety off, while Dick Cheney is rooting around my stuff."

Thanks Giving

To everyone who blesses my lucky life: thank you a million times, plus infinity squared.

Gutter Mouth

Saturday night, after our teams both lost, we went bowling. (I was in a Cal T-shirt; the blue-eyed boy was in the letterman jacket his father had earned for hockey when he had gone to Ohio State decades before his son, and which is emblazoned with his old nickname "Dutch," which has no significant explanation that I can discern).

When we go to the bowling alley in Mar Vista, it always feels like observing a social experiment, only we're participating alongside the subjects as we study. I always wonder who all these people are, because I will swear I don't see them every day around Los Angeles, and I'm not talking about one speicific sort of person either. It's all sorts of people, who mainly have in common that they seem to keep their kids up too late and curse around them.

Shortly before we'd showed up for bowling, I'd called the alley and they'd said it would be about a 45-minute wait for a lane. (That surprises me every time, that bowling lanes are so coveted in our there's-everything-to-do-here town of Los Angeles. What are all these folks' stories?) When we got there, a very robust woman said it would be two hours—it was so busy, couldn't we see that?—and that she didn't care what they told me on the phone, and that furthermore there was no list to which we could add our names, but that we could sit at one of those tables and wait to be called. She reminded me of a woman to whom MM and I used to refer—only among ourselves, of course, and with some fear and reverence—as the Javits Coffee Lady; one time, years ago in New York, we were at a convention at the Javits Center and we'd gone to get coffee in the cafe there, and the woman working the counter had made some very heavy-handed remarks about having to work at Javits and not taking any smack from nobody mmmmhmmmm.

Told about the two-hour wait time, I got a little bit indignant, and then stopped myself from broadcasting that scorn on my face because I thought this woman might be the type to shank me from her post behind the counter and not think twice. The blue-eyed boy and I got a drink in the bowling alley's bar (where an older lady was performing a shockingly effusive version of "Proud Mary" in an apparent karaoke contest), and then went to play a round of Lord of the Rings pinball. From where we were loitering in front of the pinball machine, the big lady could see us, and hollered at the blue-eyed boy, "Hey, red jacket," and gestured for him to come over, and told him a lane was available (all while I was not looking). Five minutes had elapsed since she'd told us two hours.

I waited until we were putting on our bowling shoes out of ear shot, and then I told the blue-eyed boy that I knew she'd had it out for me from the moment we'd walked in, but then had apparently decided not to punish him just because she didn't like me. He does have a gentle face, and looks (and is) wholly nonconfrontational, and I do have a tendency to do the neck roll and suck my tongue in the face of irritating customer-service people and drivers who cut me off. "What's the expression?" asked the blue-eyed boy, innocently, so as not to rile me. "You can catch more flies with..." I told him it was vinegar; and he's right.

I'd really wanted to break 100, but I bowled a 98 on account of a distracted gutter ball in the last frame. Next time.

Bourgeois Ennui

CJ: my neck hurts and im not in the mood for japan
me: wait when are you going to japan?
you are hella fancy and you're always like jetting off to milan paris tokyo london
CJ: ha
its so not fun tho
im soooo tired
me: i feel you
CJ: i had lunch with [redacted] today
me: how is she
CJ: shes good
still exactly the same
shes booed up with another lawyer
wait
i think
i wasnt listening

Denim Warrior

The best thing about my new jeans is that they give me the silhouette of that leggy Daily Candy illustration girl, whose figure I have always admired. Rules.

And that's one to grow on. [Not really, but that's my version of those sassy Daily Candy kickers I also admire.]