People I Might Try to be in England

1. Full-time lover
2. Full-time employee
3. Florist shop apprentice
4. Doula
5. Post-college athlete
6. Frequenter of Paris
7. Member of a Transatlantic Craft Exchange (Ladies?)
8. Gardener (even of indoor plants)
9. Dancer
10. Tube rider
11. Tea drinker
12. Low budget domestic goddess
13. Train rider
14. Bed snuggler

This is all very in-advance, but, hey, the mind turns.

People I Have Become in LA

1. Hostess at Louise's Trattoria
2. Intern for the Nest Foundation (non-profit)
3. Trans-Atlantic letter writer
4. Morning commuter
5. Mobile-home dweller
6. Radio listener
7. Failed-meter parker
8. Puppet theater usher
9. WaMu banker
10. Dog-sitter
11. Long-distance construction laborer
12. Prom chaperon
13. New Family Member
14. Koreatown resident
15. Culver City resident
16. Fowey long weekend-er
17. Big-idea thinker
18. Dreamer

Witnessing History

LA Times: California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban

I can't even begin to describe what I'm feeling right now, it's a cross between that moment before smiling and just realizing you're crying at your friend's wedding...everything's a-sparkle.

Swinging a Hammer

I came home for a month to help my dad re-roof the female barrack for the Forest Service Hot Shots in Sawyers Bar on the Salmon River. If you think I live in real Northern California, just talk to the folks down the Salmon River.

Helping my dad, being home for a month, and good pay (along with flexible employers in LA) motivated me to come to work. But, there were a few things that worried me: the pitch of the roof is rather steep, I've never roofed before, and, to be honest, I'm not too good at swinging a hammer. I'm actually probably better at pulling nails than I am at driving them.

This is kind of a shameful thing to admit, being a carpenter's daughter and all. I know that my brother received a little hammer on his third birthday, and while I don't know if I did or not (I lean towards the first), I have received hammers since as gifts from my father.

In my defense, I've probably been asked to use electric or battery operated tools more often than hand tools, but I can't really say I'm a pro at those either.

I'm trying not to be too hard on myself though. No sense in beating yourself up if you only lift a hammer on a frequent basis every few years when your father needs some help. Plus, it's not easy to fulfill your parent's legacy right?

At any rate, my dad tried to make me feel a little better as I told him about my doubts as a hammer swinger: "That's why they made nail guns."

La Virgin de Fowey

I still haven't gotten my period for this month. I don't know if it's stress, travel or some freak hormone change, but it hasn't come yet. I'm not worried though--I'm banking on immaculate conception. I figure you and I had to be put on this earth for some reason and with all that love floating around, our DNA just decided to mix itself up and make a little love baby to show the world what's up. Hey, if it happened to Mary and Joseph, why not Erica and Alex?

Sanctity & Coin-Op Laundry

I've always loved laundry mats. I loved the idea of laundry mats, loved them without really knowing, but rather through learned, filter images, college experience and the fresh smell of scented fabric softeners. The white walls of my imagination, the spinning side-loaders, the ritual of cleaning and purifying.

It's harder to feel that way now. When I carry my laundry bag or basket down the street and into the brightly colored, yet still somehow a little dingy laundry mat, it's not the romantic notion of waiting for your laundry to dry. There are certain individuals who come in to drop off or pick up their "fluff and fold" order; there are others who wait with me. Usually, my skin is desperately lighter and out of place. I try my best not to be noticed while my clothes spin round and round; it usually doesn't work.


Waiting on the yellow bench by the door and the change machine, I sat embroidering the Taj Mahal onto a pillow case for my love. Stitching in purples a pattern from Sublime Stitching, I caught the attention of a few of the mothers doing their laundry as well.

As one mother and her little girl of 3 or so gathered their laundry and began to walk past me out the door, the mother pointed to what I was doing.

"See what she's doing," she said to her little girl. "Church."

The little girl looked at the embroidery hoop, at me.

"Iglesia," said the mother, smiling at her little girl, and they walked past me out the door. I didn't correct her, but watched them leave.

I don't know if she thought the pattern was a church or if she knew it was the famous monument to love half way across the world; I don't know if she just glanced at it or had never seen it before. I don't know that knowing that answering would make me like laundry mats any more or any less than I already do.

Still, to make the Taj Mahal a church requires the idea that it is sacred. But what makes something sacred? Could love alone provide the sanctity of a place? Is love what makes some place sacred?

An Airstream Trailer

I live in an Airstream trailer now. The metal is brushed and makes me feel like home. The paneling is not too light, not too dark. The broken handles in need of adjustments have been fixed. I've put place mats down in the cupboard to set my wine glasses, drinking glasses and mugs upon. The delineation of space overlaps: bedroom, closet, porch, doorway, powder room, breakfast nook, library and storage.

There is much to be said. There is much to be discovered.