Dream-Doorbell Cocktails

Bizarre dream last night. I was out with some of my Palo Alto guy friends and saw this attractive blonde on the street. She was going door to door, all dressed for a party. We asked her if she was lost, and she said no, that she made a practice of going to the doors of strangers and asking if she could come in for a drink. They almost always said yes, and it saved her on cocktail money.

At first I was offended at the very idea, but then we hung out with her more and she was so fun and full of joie de vivre that we all were soon in her thrall. She was up for anything, including jumping into a game of soccer in her high heels to score the winning goal. Her name was Christy, and she was seemingly good at everything.

I went to a party with Christy later, and we were playing and having a great time, when I saw a dark haired man staring at us. I assumed that he was staring at her, but after a time he approached me. He was looking at me! Before I left, I kissed him and told him how to find me later.

There was more to it, but it was pretty vivid, and I felt very caught up in that wild energy. Fun!

Back Off! **RANT**

Hey world! Yeah, I am talking to you! Take a big step back and give a sister some room, huh?

Here's the new rules. Consider yourself notified.

1. If you don't know me and can't be constructive, you don't have permission to yell at me like I am some kind of moron.

2. If you are both dumb AND mean, don't bother talking to me at all.

3. I am as sexy as I get at any given moment, and I am not required to be saucy for anyone's benefit but my own. If I like you and feel like being playful, then lucky you. But I am not a one dimensional creature. I have brains and stuff too.

4. I am as thin as I am getting today. I am working on being healthy. I am exercising a lot and eating pretty healthy. Maybe that means I will lose weight. Maybe not. The stress is killing me and I just need a breather from all the pressure about it.

5. I might be an earthy girl with a bawdy sense of humor, but please treat me like a lady if you want me to be nice.

Failure to comply with the above will result in immediate dismissal. That is all.

Planet Los Angeles

Got back a couple of days ago from a vacation to Southern California, where I was attending to a long overdue visit to my good friend Eliz. She's got a cute little apartment just a few blocks from the beach in Santa Monica.

I will admit that due to my aversion to thronging crowds I had avoided going anywhere near LA for a long time. While I seem well suited to the city rhythms of San Francisco and Quebec, something about the frenetic, jerky movements of Los Angeles never did sit well with me. I lived in a terrifying neighborhood in Tujunga (near Glendale) for a formative year when I was twenty, and I knew it just wasn't for me. Lots of great stories came out of it, but mostly the kind that are scary as hell in the moment but hilarious later.

I might not have left if I had lived in Santa Monica. It is much more chill. If I could hang out and walk along the beach in the mornings and go to the farmers' market and pick around at the Main Street shops and never set foot in LA proper, that would be okay. During my stay I did a ton of walking. And talking. It was like moving therapy. Eliz and I had a ton of catching up to do, and we sorted out a few things for ourselves along the way.

I wouldn't want to have to do the dating scene there, however. That hasn't changed. There is something fundamentally flaky about single people in Los Angeles in particular. I was at a cocktail event on Saturday night and, from the outside, watched people mingle. I am so much more used to being on a deep, sincere level with the people I know well. It was a lot more work to have conversations on the surface of things with strangers. Of course, with a drink or two to loosen my tongue I managed just fine, but I wasn't looking for love or anything else, so my social needs were pretty simple.

We went to see Depeche Mode on Monday night, and they were awesome. The visual effects were stunning, mesmerizing. Of course, we were lucky to have seen them at all since a rash of shows had been canceled the previous week due to singer David Gahan's illness. The set was clearly designed to give him several breaks, but that was fine. When we were on out way out of the Hollywood Bowl at the end of the show, we saw a couple in a heated argument, and the woman gave the man what looked like a bone-jarring left hook to the kisser. It was pretty messed up, but I will admit with no pride that I was gawking until Eliz grabbed my sleeve and pulled me along.

The next day it was time to go home, so I had to face down the horrors of LAX. I was doing my best to be relaxed and patient with the super-long lines. But holy hell. I am pretty sure that you see the worst in people when they travel. Everyone seemed hostile and pressed and there were just so MANY of them. Overwhelming.

I feel like I just got back from a strange planet. Planet Los Angeles. The people there look like the rest of us. Wait. No, they don't. They are certainly thinner and tanner and wear very expensive ripped jeans that under ordinary circumstances would look like they were fished out of a dumpster. Those clothes are casually, meticulously distressed by professionals and cost more than my car. I can't really criticize because I have nothing approximating a personal style. The whole affair made me want to cruise over to the Patagonia outlet and stock up on practical, semi-sporty clothes that only need to be accessorized with a ponytail and running shoes.

I can't complain, though. I had a good time and got to see LA from an adult perspective. In some ways it was just as I remembered it. In others it surprised me and gave me a glimpse of why people put up with so much traffic on the 405. There is fun to be had there, and if it isn't fun, there is always Dr. Kush.

Dream-White Dog

Despite a lifelong love of black dogs, I had a dream about a white one last night. I am not sure how I hooked up with it, but somehow I ended up with this sweet little white fluffball, and she had a name that was a little too similar to Little A’s name. I knew I couldn’t keep her with that name, so I named her “Apple”.

Apologies to Gwenneth Paltrow, etc., but Apple is a cute name for a little doggy. Then again, I wanted to name my dachshund “Doctor Heimlich”, but Tony put his foot down on that one. I still don’t know why he had such strong feelings about that, but he refused to permit me to name my dog such a thing.

In the dream people were giving me a hard time for naming my little friend Apple, but she was pretty darn cute. Her fur was soft as cotton fluff, and she had a very smiley sort of face.

I read on a few dream interpretation sites (Gawd, I so love the interwebs! What a geek I am!) that dreaming of a friendly white dog is supposed to be a good omen, foretelling of success in business and in love. For women it is supposed to mean an early marriage.

I am a bit old for an early marriage, and in any case already married. But it was such a sweet little dog. I keep thinking about it and wishing I had it to play with.

I already have a fantastic dog, of course. Ember is just awesome. But there is something going on with me that I want a new family member to dote on. Some frustrated mommy-thing that needs something or someone small to hold. Losing a family member this year has triggered some last minute biological clock jangling that I find positively annoying.

I like the idea that I would dream something good, for a change. An actual GOOD omen? That is unheard of for me. I am so Type A that I am usually much better at fretting than taking good news at face value and relaxing a little.

I want to believe it. Someday soon things need to start going my way. I don’t need to have the whole world at my feet, but I wouldn’t say no to some magi-given gifts for a change.

Shell Shatterday

Despite a strange midsummer torpor, I took a 4 mile walk last night. I took a familiar long route around my neighborhood, and by the time I was almost home dusk was in full effect. In fact, it was probably fully dark, but my eyes were accustomed to the gloom.

I was walking past a house that had a evergreen tree with low hanging branches in the front yard right next to the sidewalk. In the low light, something pale and shiny on the ground caught my eye, and I bent down to investigate.

It was the pale blue curvature of a robin’s egg. I couldn’t tell if it was a piece of egg cast off by a new chick, or a whole egg, so I reached out to gently touch it, to roll it on its side.

I thought I was being gentle, but what turned out to be an empty half of an egg shell shattered into tiny fragments at my touch. I let out a little “Oh!”

I was heartbroken that it was broken, and that it was my fault. In retrospect, I think those feelings are displaced from other things. But in that moment, I wasn’t just a woman on a summer evening walk. I was the destroyer of beautiful things. I felt horrible.

Is this how I am going to feel about my life today? That I can’t be trusted with it or it will break in my hands? No matter how gentle I am, I am sure to shatter?

And like that eggshell, I feel small and hollow. My baby bird has left the nest, and my restless heart turns over shell fragments and calls into the dark.

Shhh! I am reading.

I am off school for the summer, so I am getting a chance to enjoy some novels and non-fiction books that have lingered on my shelf. Often while I was studying over the last few months I would glance longingly at them and wished I could curl up with a good book. Not that “Understanding Pathophysiology” isn’t a good book, but it isn’t exactly a gripping read or a light diversion.

I am also working for the summer, so my books are going with me to work to be read during my breaks. Strangely enough, some of my coworkers look at a person reading a book and think it is no big deal if they want to interrupt to gossip.

Can’t you see I am reading, here?

I have been a lot quieter than usual. I crave the silence of just sitting and reading a book. I am not too interested in the TV, and talking to anyone who is not a close friend is just not appealing to me. I don’t want to have to explain myself right now. I just want the fit of hand in glove that comes with my old, treasured friendships. They know I am going through hell, and they let me choose to not talk about it if I want. But I also know that if I suddenly fall apart and start crying they will be on me in a moment with comforting hands and murmured words that have the magical effect of keeping me from flying right out of my skin.

Least of which do I want to put down my book to talk about who is dating who in Hollywood, or weigh in on who should get poor doomed Michael Jackson’s children. Maybe it is the way my life is rolling out these days, but I just don’t have any patience for trivial prattle like that. Not without a full complement of cocktails, anyway.

I know that the majority of the people I work with don’t need to hear about the very serious business that my life has become, although a few of them do want to hear about it for schadenfreude purposes. And it isn’t their job to give a flying fig about me, but it is so much nicer when somebody does. I just don’t expect my coworkers to invest like that.

I just want to read a book. Shhh…

I don't approve-Corporate Radio Edition

If I slip into a coma at my desk any time in the next seven weeks, blame the soft rock emanating from the radio in the next cubicle. Some of the songs are alright, but I wonder if it is turning my brain to mush to hear “Hotel California” every day. Not that there is anything wrong with that song in and of itself, but the radio station plays the same stuff over and over day after day. It is making my eyelid a little twitchy. If I have to hear Bette Midler’s “Wind beneath my wings” one more time, I can’t quite be responsible for the violence that is sure to ensue.

I have a lot of complaints about radio stations in Reno in general. I don’t know what it is, but we seem to be at a lower rung on the new music ladder. All I know is that when I visit my friends in the San Francisco Bay Area, I hear songs I never heard before on the radio. BETTER songs, too. Songs I am sure to just about never hear in Reno. What the hell? Who decided that I don’t get to hear that? Did some market-survey test group flunkie make the choice for me? I disapprove.

And while I am at it, allow me to complain about the talking. Who the hell made the brilliant choice to create the “morning show”? What was wrong with playing music in the morning? Why is it all yakkity-yak-yak when I haven’t had that much coffee yet? Ugh. And they are so never funny. I have a job that involves listening to people talk all day, so I don’t need to get a jump on the “listening to people bitching” action during my commute.

I wish I could listen to my ipod at work, but no dice. The earbud competes with the phone I have permanently affixed to my ear. Plus, listening to music I actually like might make me smile. You know that would just never do.

As it is, I rely heavily on my coastal-dwelling friends in SF or Seattle or Boston or LA to provide me with tasty treats for my ipod. Thank goodness for my friends. I would have absolutely no cool at all without them.