Monday, December 11, 2006, 10:18 PM - Travels, Sex, Politics, Dancing, Snow, George, Friends, Food, Books, Technology, Art, Los Angeles
I've been terribly neglectful of this little enterprise post-election - mostly because the last thing I wanted to do was spend a single additional second looking at a screen. (I've read three novels and am reveling in Against the Day now, which will slow down my book-devouring rate considerably). The beginning of November was a frenzied adventure- although we were better prepared than in 2004, things as always slid just under the wire (on election day people were making 40 calls a second with our tools - it was amazing to watch people swarm through our lists)...then election night was blissful, and the morning after even better. It felt wonderfully fulfilling on 11/9 to come back from a run along the Seattle waterfront (the first sunny day since I'd arrived) and see Rumsfeld getting the axe. I'm sure that our program turned out more votes than the margin of victory in key races (MT senate, several house contests, probably VA Senate as well) - of course we were only part of a larger progressive effort, but it's exciting to know we had such an impact. I've been on an extended episodic victory tour - multiple DC parties, and little celebration cocktail evenings in SF and NY, which were all great fun. I've been to one disjointed, we-were-still-too-tired-to-think official debrief, and one enervating multidisciplinary free-for-all that was loads of fun. I'm back in LA, wrapping up my work at GCI - getting ready to dig into all the data from Call for Change as part of a team of people working for MoveOn to make sure we understand what we did and learn as much as possible for next time. It's always a little hard to go from being so thoroughly consumed by a project back to a more balanced life, and I'm a little nostalgic for that laserlike focus, but this is infinitely more sustainable. Dad came out and Angela and Erik and Aurora came down for Thanksgiving and we all had our first Angeleno holiday - lots of sitting in the sun and as many revisionist recipes as George would let us get away with. I've been rediscovering the pleasures of cooking and reading the New Yorker and spending whole afternoons with friends. It's nice to remember that I like to eat in fancy restaurants (have had tasty dinners at Frankie's 457 in Brooklyn and Joe's in Venice and Lucques in LA) and go see art. I have done some dancing, but I need more of that. There are, as always, intriguing new and resurfacing romantic possibilities, which will at minimum be interesting to explore. I hope to get into some of that abundant early-season snow soon, too. What I'm not particularly motivated to do is keep writing this - it's been quite enjoyable, but I'm going to keep my personal ramblings a little more closely held. I think it'll be healthy, although probably less entertaining for many of you. I'll likley start some sort of painfully geeky political data diatribe after the holidays, that only I'll read. And I'm sure there will be the occasional tidbit I won't be able to resist posting...we'll see. Love and mounds of appreciation for everyone who helped with Call for Change and let us all find out what winning an election feels like. I'll try and make sure we get used to it.Friday, September 29, 2006, 04:36 PM - Travels, Food
Or, if one has braces, it's more like "cut me up in small pieces and eat me with granola and yoghurt in the morning." One of the best parts of my incessant east coast trips this fall has been returning home with a carry-on full of macouns and macs and even a couple of early northern spies. Good thing I'm well-provisioned since I've been working so much I've barely left the house since I got back the last time. I had wanted to go get arrested yesterday at LAX but there was no room for that in campaign world, especially since I've unexpectedly been drafted back into the data mines....
Thursday, September 14, 2006, 11:56 PM - Travels, George
Last weekend (after training new staff in Boston) I took my dad up to Maine to see his navy friend Mike (yes, from WWII). The Friedmans are some of Dad's oldest and closest friends - he was in their wedding in '48, and we would trek up to Maine periodically when I was growing up. My first seder was in their rambling old farmhouse in Bridgeton. It was an emotional weekend for everyone - Dad reacting to the undeniable change in his friend and himself and the realities of being in his mid-80s- Mickey dealing with the demands of an older partner, family drama, and a kitchen remodel - Dad and I appreciating being together on the anniversary of Mom's death, but that not meaning we were less affected by it. We had the best parts of Maine weather (summer Saturday, early fall Sunday). Both nights before dinner I circumnavigated the whole rocky perimeter on my sunset run... I can't tell if it's because I savor the isolation or the community of islands that I like them so much, but ferry rides and places you can't drive to always appeal to me.
BTW I turned off comments for a bit since I was tired of erasing spam - will put them back at some point - feel free to send me anything you'd like posted for now.
Monday, August 28, 2006, 11:33 PM - Travels, Friends, Food
I was at a party in Boston Saturday night with 3 (!) other illustrious alums of the Ellsworth Field finishing school (Black Rock Little League). Three of the 4 of us have been social workers, we're all single (Tommy is gay), not a kid among us (although Erin wants one soon) - we're all urban and doing interesting things (Jessica works at New American Paintings and is starting to become a gallerist - Tommy has a brand-new philosophy professor gig, has done lots of radical media organizing, and wrote a dissertation on Foucault and friendship - Erin is a social worker in SF). Left to right we were a Raider, a Buccaneer, and a Yellow Jacket (Tommy?). Jessica still remembers us starting to be friends on third base. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who got out of Bridgeport alive - and apparently not the only one who got out with a serious social justice focus, either (interesting how devout parental catholicism plays out in the iconoclasts of this generation, no?). Additional highlights of the weekend included truly luscious bluefish - portuguese style with mussels and chorizo and greens and so delicious. Can't get this in LA:
Wednesday, July 19, 2006, 07:23 PM - Travels, Politics, Friends, Food
My friend Justin in New Orleans has devised a kind of next-year-in-the-Lower-9th ritual for the lost and wandering tribes of the city. Part voodoo, part seder, mostly party (of course) it has 5 questions, candles, bitter pickles, and red beans and rice. Send it on to the displaced and repatriated you may have sheltered last fall.
;)
Tuesday, July 4, 2006, 04:34 PM - Travels
This is where I hiked yesterday. I can't believe I can get my snowmelt swimming fix so close to (new) home. By August this lake should be the perfect temperature - now it's brisk and lovely.
This means my weekend included both ocean and lake dips, and it really doesn't get better than that, does it?
Wednesday, June 21, 2006, 06:09 PM - Travels, Sex, Friends, Art
I talked with my former colleague Sybil yesterday - she runs the New Orleans sister site of the HIV prevention project I used to manage in SF (community-level HIV prevention for high-risk adolescents). They've been doing street intercept interviews with teenagers at nightclubs in Central City (where those 5 kids were killed over the weekend) - Sybil's had to suspend her project (again) until everything calms down. She told me that while some things haven't changed (there are still a lot of 15 year old girls in the supposedly 21-and-over clubs), most of the 'neighborhood' adolescents are driving in from Houston for the weekend to party. As far as I can tell, this implies that New Orleans is becoming a city of richer, whiter residents, and is now a short-hop tourist destination for its former underclass...which is a truly freaky demographic shift. Perhaps the national guard will start stopping carloads of black kids at the city limits?
And for something almost completely unrelated, my old friend Justin is very talented, if you didn't know. Check out Greetings From New Orleans - pre-Katrina, even more important now that found objects from New Orleans are likely mostly lost.
Monday, June 5, 2006, 02:59 PM - Travels
There was lots of Hollywood in my weekend - Adam was down to visit from SF, and in true oblivious Catherine style I walked right by Jake Gyllenhaal at the Farmer's Market Sunday morning. Adam is appalled at the thought of all the glamorous people I'm overlooking on a weekly basis...if Nick would just set up defamer/stalker perhaps I'd be more motivated to make a celebrity cheat sheet, or flashcards, or something, but I kind of doubt it. I was much more interested in the 14-year old Matt Dillon in Over the Edge - which we saw at Hollywood Forever in my first trip to what all my LA friends claim is the best open-air cemetery movie picnic in town.
But my favorite "I live in Los Angeles now. How did that happen?" moment was starting my Friday evening with a quick scenic jaunt on the 2 freeway...
Did I mention how much I love people on flickr who've taken pictures for me when I forget to? It facilitates my tenuous hold on this whole blogging form.
And did I mention how I think eggplant is the best possible color for a Chevy Malibu on the 2 at sunset?
;)
Wednesday, April 26, 2006, 11:01 AM - Travels, Art
;)
I saw Matthew Barney and Bjork's latest project last night. The most horrifying thing about it was not the underwater romantic dismemberment, but rather the number 9 at the end of the title, suggesting that I'll be spending two hours a year for the next 8 on Mr. Barney's stylized, well-lubricated fantasies. This one fugues on Japanese culture, which apparently even the uber-weird Mr. Barney finds perplexing. At times it seemed like Leslie's and my trip, had we been shooting ourselves up with Ketamine and dropping acid daily. That said, there are stunning panoramic pageant moments at the beginning that I adored (that man is our generation's .Busby Berkeley), exquisite thoughtfulness in the oceanic tea set, and fabulous shots of congealinig icebergs of vaseline. It does crack me up that this was the first film I've seen in a theater since I arrived in LA; apparently I'm not totally assimilated into mainstream film culture quite yet.
Thursday, March 23, 2006, 02:30 PM - Travels, George, Friends, Food, Art
I've had not a minute to keep up with this little enterprise. Perhaps you'll be sympathetic if you hear that in the last 16 days I've been in Boston, New Haven, Bridgeport, Brooklyn, DC, San Francisco, LA, and Denver. Yikes! No wonder I slept in today. All have been good travels; really the optimal mix of work/family/art/fun/food that one can find on the East Coast. I made an excellent blanket fort with my goddaughter in Boston, went to the (kinda stinky) biennial with Andrew, ate homemade canneloni and cannoli with Leslie for the Sopranos premiere, and drank our signature cosmopolitans with my dear New Orleans friend in DC. I had a good visit with Dad - full of nice weather and walks by the water. I'm so lucky that he's still so independent. Denver had some swing dancing and a fun planning meeting for MoveOn's fall program, and back up in NorCal I took the Republican to Joan Blades' birthday party. He gets lots of points for a) venturing into the liberal lions' den and b) dancing with me even though he'd been on a million-mile bike ride that day. Now I have to finish unpacking my life and start seeing what things will be here....pretty much all I've done is see Claudia and Angel so far, but there's a whole city out there waiting. And an update on Griffith Park running: last night at dusk I saw a coyote and heard tons of frogs and crickets. I couldn't believe that I was in the middle of the great metropolis...Next
