For the past five odd years, Patty Griffin has been a solid soundtrack to my life. My dearest Rosie introduced me to her and while I neglected the beautifully burnt CD in some random holder for much too long, I finally got my butt into gear and fell in love.
The truly impressive part is that as this amazing artist has morphed through her career, her songs continue to resonate with me, like a good lover ebbs and flows with you. Take "Heavenly Day" for example. I couldn't help but envision Alex in my arms as we danced, the song lilting through my kitchen at first listen.
I wanted to sit down tonight and write something beautiful. At every appropriate and unexpected moment, Alex reminds me that I love to write; in fact, that maybe writing is something deeply ingrained within me that I should really just quit denying. Or at very least, honor.
Like me returning by ferry tonight from a walk up to the cliffs of Pol Ruan, wild flowers tied in a small bouquet, and she sweetly asks me from behind the bar if I've been writing tonight. There is a pause in my response where I smile from her love, and then hold up my newly acquired copy of Lion Boy and smile at my reading-children's-literature-as-research style of an evening.
I'm not the first artist to ever have a muse. I'm not the last. But I am very lucky.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Long Time Gone Now
I love the Dixie Chicks. This isn't a new revelation. More a sporatic affirmation that there are people out there who kick ass in any number of professions. Also an affirmation that there are people out there who desire to live their lives according to them--and hopefully don't harass nice customer service people who are just doing their jobs. I don't know this last bit for sure, but since it was really only Natalie Maines' comment at Shepard's Bush that got them in the news, I don't think of them as rude people at all, especially to normal, every day people who aren't screwing up royaling on more fronts then just foreign policy.
Where is this coming from? I find myself asking. I'm not typically a cynical, jaded person who loathes meeting new people, friendly faces, on a daily basis. Why the rising stress level even working less than 40 hours a week? It could be any number of crazy (and truly often times amazing) things happening in my life, but like Carrie Bradshaw, I like to inspect the most apparent situation at hand, ask myself silly questions, want to throw little tantrums and blame outside sources for my decline in happiness: I now work full-time in one location of a frozen yogurt franchise in West LA and I think I hate my job. "Hate" may be a strong word, but "dislike" just isn't poetic enough.
What do I hate about it exactly? Well, to say it was cutting fruit, cleaning dishing, mixing frozen yogurt batches, or my manager might be along the right lines, but it would just be lazy: who really wants to like or do any of those things for 35+ hours of their every week. No, it's the customers I hate.
Truly, I probably set myself up for this. As I prepared for leaving my unpaid internship at Nest and my hostess position at Louise's in return for more hours, same money, and less gas in my car, I thought, well, maybe serving frozen yogurt will be a noble (temporary) position. I mean, after all, I'll be sculpting dessert for the masses, and who doesn't love dessert. What dessert doesn't bring a smile to people's faces, joy in their hearts, and contentment in their stomachs.
Wrong. I really should get used to this.
Disillusionment is normal at my age, thematic really if you read/see/hear/disgest anything produced from my age bracket (cough cough) so again, not that original. But, still, I rage.
The number of people who walk in excited for froyo, have joy on their faces when they order, and actually enjoy every bite of their frozen treat are rare--and usually, they don't tip.
And instead of getting to replay fun interactions with customers in my head as I cut strawberries, or even feel like I'm a productive employee, I find myself stewing over the old white dude who was so smug when he asked if the owners were Korean that I wish I had the gall to ask if his department was run by old white men who were jerky enough to hire an asshole like him. The mother and daughter who waltzed in, tried a flavor, really wanted chocolate and practically had already walked out the door by the time I responded to their "Is there an ice cream place nearby?" The men who think they can order me around just because I'm a server or hit on me cause I'm pretty and trapped behind a counter. Or the women with gigantic rocks on their fingers who somehow just piss me off by existing--jealously, maybe, I acknowledge that, but really I wouldn't trade my life for theirs any day.
So now I understand just a little bit better all those movies and TV shows about customer service employees. I still don't want to associate myself with them, but for this blogpost, I join them in solidarity: it just might get to that point where someone asks just one more time "Is this like PinkBerry?" and just get back-handed from across the counter.
I'm over-qualified, nostaglic for my keyboard, and welcoming myself back to blogging world with a proper rant, after a long time gone now. I think it'll be better.
Where is this coming from? I find myself asking. I'm not typically a cynical, jaded person who loathes meeting new people, friendly faces, on a daily basis. Why the rising stress level even working less than 40 hours a week? It could be any number of crazy (and truly often times amazing) things happening in my life, but like Carrie Bradshaw, I like to inspect the most apparent situation at hand, ask myself silly questions, want to throw little tantrums and blame outside sources for my decline in happiness: I now work full-time in one location of a frozen yogurt franchise in West LA and I think I hate my job. "Hate" may be a strong word, but "dislike" just isn't poetic enough.
What do I hate about it exactly? Well, to say it was cutting fruit, cleaning dishing, mixing frozen yogurt batches, or my manager might be along the right lines, but it would just be lazy: who really wants to like or do any of those things for 35+ hours of their every week. No, it's the customers I hate.
Truly, I probably set myself up for this. As I prepared for leaving my unpaid internship at Nest and my hostess position at Louise's in return for more hours, same money, and less gas in my car, I thought, well, maybe serving frozen yogurt will be a noble (temporary) position. I mean, after all, I'll be sculpting dessert for the masses, and who doesn't love dessert. What dessert doesn't bring a smile to people's faces, joy in their hearts, and contentment in their stomachs.
Wrong. I really should get used to this.
Disillusionment is normal at my age, thematic really if you read/see/hear/disgest anything produced from my age bracket (cough cough) so again, not that original. But, still, I rage.
The number of people who walk in excited for froyo, have joy on their faces when they order, and actually enjoy every bite of their frozen treat are rare--and usually, they don't tip.
And instead of getting to replay fun interactions with customers in my head as I cut strawberries, or even feel like I'm a productive employee, I find myself stewing over the old white dude who was so smug when he asked if the owners were Korean that I wish I had the gall to ask if his department was run by old white men who were jerky enough to hire an asshole like him. The mother and daughter who waltzed in, tried a flavor, really wanted chocolate and practically had already walked out the door by the time I responded to their "Is there an ice cream place nearby?" The men who think they can order me around just because I'm a server or hit on me cause I'm pretty and trapped behind a counter. Or the women with gigantic rocks on their fingers who somehow just piss me off by existing--jealously, maybe, I acknowledge that, but really I wouldn't trade my life for theirs any day.
So now I understand just a little bit better all those movies and TV shows about customer service employees. I still don't want to associate myself with them, but for this blogpost, I join them in solidarity: it just might get to that point where someone asks just one more time "Is this like PinkBerry?" and just get back-handed from across the counter.
I'm over-qualified, nostaglic for my keyboard, and welcoming myself back to blogging world with a proper rant, after a long time gone now. I think it'll be better.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Update on Immaculate Conception
A la Kate:
Ok, so:
I was thinking about your immaculate conception and how you and Alex have been chosen by God to start the world anew, and my thinking led me to some supporting evidence.
1. There is a folk song centered around the line "California is a Garden of Eden."
2. California has just made gay marriage legal.
3. Therefore, new Garden of Eden = non-heteronormative relationships
ALSO
Yours and Alex's names are the initials of Adam and Eve (Alex and Erica). And you're the one immaculately carrying the future of the world in your womb.
So...
I think that's it.
End quote.
I love her. And she would so be a godparent.
Ok, so:
I was thinking about your immaculate conception and how you and Alex have been chosen by God to start the world anew, and my thinking led me to some supporting evidence.
1. There is a folk song centered around the line "California is a Garden of Eden."
2. California has just made gay marriage legal.
3. Therefore, new Garden of Eden = non-heteronormative relationships
ALSO
Yours and Alex's names are the initials of Adam and Eve (Alex and Erica). And you're the one immaculately carrying the future of the world in your womb.
So...
I think that's it.
End quote.
I love her. And she would so be a godparent.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Glittery about LA
There are just little moments sometimes that make me feel glittery about LA. You know that feeling when you can't help but bubble over in a smile because only in LA would you see or hear or witness whatever it is that you just saw or heard or witnessed.
Sure there are things that make me feel not so glittery, like the inability to find parking, or free parking, sometimes, people looking into your trailer window late at night, or having only gay men featured and pictured in the LA Weekly's write up on the same-sex marriage court decision celebration, but those are quickly forgotten in the midst of other moments.
Like pulling into a random metered spot on the street, searching my coin cup, pockets or purse for change and realizing once I'm out of the car that it's a failed meter and I can swing that space for free.
Or like two well-dressed older women coming into Louise's one night with sweet wedding rings on, a calm, gentle demeanor about them, and the cuteness to tell Chad that their left-overs can go in the same bag.
Or like tonight, also at the restaurant, when a middle-aged gay man came in for dinner with his parents and as he left I realized he was telling them about the beautiful gold ring he'd gotten for his partner's birthday and that his mom had shiny gold runners on as they walked out the door.
Sure there are things that make me feel not so glittery, like the inability to find parking, or free parking, sometimes, people looking into your trailer window late at night, or having only gay men featured and pictured in the LA Weekly's write up on the same-sex marriage court decision celebration, but those are quickly forgotten in the midst of other moments.
Like pulling into a random metered spot on the street, searching my coin cup, pockets or purse for change and realizing once I'm out of the car that it's a failed meter and I can swing that space for free.
Or like two well-dressed older women coming into Louise's one night with sweet wedding rings on, a calm, gentle demeanor about them, and the cuteness to tell Chad that their left-overs can go in the same bag.
Or like tonight, also at the restaurant, when a middle-aged gay man came in for dinner with his parents and as he left I realized he was telling them about the beautiful gold ring he'd gotten for his partner's birthday and that his mom had shiny gold runners on as they walked out the door.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
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.
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
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
Friday, May 16, 2008
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.
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.
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