Black Rock All Stars 
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:



Space, Focus 
Wednesday, August 23, 2006, 11:55 AM - Sex, Friends, Food, Los Angeles
The combination of 14-hour days and some (necessary and wrenching and resolving) emotional turmoil has left little time for writing lately, and I fear that it will only get harder to have the space and focus to be coherent as election madness descends. An old high school friend found his way here - so I got to see his new baby's pictures and find out another friend is on his THIRD baby; a reminder that it's worth it to maintain this. I wish I had more time to chronicle all my new favorite Los Angelesness - thai massage minutes away (it DID leave me in a state of indulgent!), squash blossoms at Grace, cinnamony (greek style?) al pastor at Midnight Tacos, the fact that there's a fig tree (with green but growing fruit) in my backyard (I guess a reminder that I'm not paying attention - at least in an arborial sense - as much as I think), outdoor yoga, sea salt caramels from the local cheese store, and how happy it makes me to swim in the ocean...


Boonville preview 
Monday, August 7, 2006, 12:28 AM - Dancing, Friends
A little postcard arrived in the mail while I was in SF to point me towards L and L's wedding website. If I had any doubts about them being the most adorable couple ever, they were forever banished by the dance previews, the tandem banana seat, and orange flowers. I feel ridiculously honored that they've asked me to say a bit at the ceremony - everyone should have a weditorial from a quirky single girl, right? I've been reading up on court decisions but staying away from Neruda and Rumi. I must think through what to say before election madness descends and I lose all capacity for interesting phraseology...they certainly deserve something special.


Katrina Dinner 2006 
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.



Fairy goddaughter 
Wednesday, July 19, 2006, 02:28 PM - Friends

Last night I had dinner with my friend Sue in suburban Boston - it's immensely gratifying that her daughter (my goddaughter Sarah) is full of cute bizarre fashion sense (note the eclectic ensemble she chose for her before-bed gogo dance). I should spend more evenings making lychee ice cream out of yarn to accommodate the whims of the monkey king and his barbiedoll girlfriends.


Mission Expat  
Saturday, July 8, 2006, 12:18 PM - Sex, Friends
At Dengue Fever at Tangier on Thursday I could almost pretend I was back at the MakeOut - a big red room, a Dieselhed alum onstage, lots of friends and fellow Mission refugees in the audience...at least one I had no idea was down here (Jeff Palmer). I still can't confirm the rumored arrival of Case Hudson but I hope to spot him soon. I was terribly happy to have a small coterie of new LA friends to lounge around with...
This photo (thanks Betty!) is
a) surprisingly nostalgia-producing (I miss the feta)
b) slightly inaccurate - I'm a greek Mission export now I guess
c) wicked clever.



This afternoon 
Tuesday, June 27, 2006, 05:05 PM - Friends
doesn't feel like California outside. The air is wetter and more present than usual and full of vaguely unsettling potential. I am far too sensitive to barometric uncertainty, and I feel like a dreamy addict when I'm in it. Two small raindrops on the way back from lunch (with 'Peaches', for those of you who know your Lusty Lady history) and a series of NYC references are making me homesick for summer drenching thunderstorms and a time when we couldn't all keep tabs on each other electronically.

New Orleans' Newest Tourists 
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.



Haroun! 
Tuesday, June 13, 2006, 01:09 AM - Friends

was my favorite surprise in NYC. And of course the lovely Miss B. is charming as always....

LA Update 
Friday, April 7, 2006, 09:58 PM - Politics, Friends, Technology, Art
This feels like it's been my first real week in LA - I've been working like a dog on the CA_50 special election that will happen Tuesday...setting up all kinds of hyper-geeky autodialiing/ web-based phone system tests to see if we can create a super-streamlined and foolproof phone bank infrastructure for the fall. Hopefully we'll help Busby win outright on Tuesday, but the evaluator in me wants another election in June to perfect the model...
I am getting used to the braces but feel horribly sibilant. You can catch my orthodontic voiceover debut on a MoveOn volunteer training call Monday, if you're lucky.
And yesterday I also had my first taste of what it will be like to have a community here - I went to an opening at Stephen Cohen gallery of photos from Democratic Republic of Congo with Jeannette- a fundraiser for Medecins Sans Frontieres - and ran into Noah Craft. Maybe someday I'll have a new network of friends to run into?? Maybe I already do?
I promise to post some braces photos this weekend, and will dish on what Ben Ball's party is like, too.


Back Next