you know you’ve been working too hard when you can say one of the following phrases without arching an eyebrow: “so, make all snips snippet.” “we need to find out the difference between link and links.” “we should just spell it out. nobody knows what woc is.” this morning, i woke up from a crappy […]

most parents want their children to graduate college and get a good job and raise a family in a nice home, but when i was growing up, my dad wanted me to be a nun. i used to tell him that if God called me that i would gladly say yes, but God never did. […]

i’m back, and already it feels like i never left. to get home from the airport on tuesday, i took the 90 to the 405 to the 10 to the 110 to the 101. hello, freeways. i didn’t miss you at all. the weekend was near perfect: a lot of sitting and talking and drinking […]

i woke up wishing today was thursday, but it’s not. thursday, i’m getting the hell out of here. i’m hopping a plane and never coming home, or that’s what i tell them and they just laugh nervously. really, i’m just going on a trip, a mini-vacation, up the coast to see some of my favorite […]

almost-missed trains and fires under bridges and getting stranded in an unknown place and a demagnetized atm card strip and a cab ride with five strangers and late night “hi, can you come get me?” calls and almost running out of quarters and sitting on the warm pavement, waiting and waiting and waiting. that was […]

i am going through my usual bout of why am i here? and i am not talking about LA, because i feel like i have finally found a slice of sprawl that i can call home. (good food and drinks and art and people, and i can walk down a street without feeling like a […]

so, it’s sometime after 1am and we’re outside smoking and drinking. well, the boys are; i’m just stealing sips here and there. the door is cracked open two inches, not a lot, but it’s enough and you can hear the bossanova seeping out to the patio. the percussion is live from my living room, tamborines […]

i feel like they’re crawling all over me. down my forehead, up the back of my neck, across my ankle. the ants have come to get me. this is the third time since i’ve moved in that i’ve had to defend myself from them. operation ant massacre: first you spray, then you let it dry, […]

“can you please give my mom a message?” “your mom went to get a massage.” “oh, that’s nice. can you please just give her a message for me, then?” “she’ll be back after 9:30.” “ok, just tell her i transferred the money.” “what? what about your daddy?” “no, the money. the pera.” “what? i can’t […]

to recap: there was dutch apple pie a la mode and planes flying overhead and big wide movie screens and nice walks down the street and hundreds of thousands of dusty old books and hundreds of thousands of new ones and laughter and chatter and silence, the comfortable kind. there was also sleep. a lot […]