No matter what city you live in, it's important to find those places that you want to tell all your friends about.
Mostly it's that bar or restaurant that you went to on Friday night. By Monday midday your still dreaming about the not-too-sweet, perfectly mixed cocktail the bartender made (just for you!), or the tenderness of the perfectly seasoned meat in your appetizer, and you just have to tweet about it. However, there are myriad food and drink review websites and blogs (some nauseatingly self-righteous and annoying - Yelp - and some actually very helpful) so I will try to refrain from mentioning bars and restaurants unless I really can't help myself.
What I'd like to post here are the local or small businesses that quietly surprise me and whose existence I want to support, so I try to tell all my friends. So here goes a new segment to support small business! After all, who really wants to do all their shopping at Target?
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
"There, now we're on the same plane."
Love Triangles. Sometimes other shapes, a trapezoid perhaps, or some kind of strange rhombus. (The ones your geometry teacher threw into the test to make sure you knew your formulas, even though that shape looked absurd and resistant to any preplanned equation.) Not a square, because the sides are all even and the angles equal. And absolutely never a circle, because it’s never-ending, and harmonious and encapsulates everything in a pretty little cliché package.
Triangles. Because one point always reaches out to two others, because the only way to get to the third angle is through the second.
I’d been in love with someone unavailable for months. And lo and behold, one day I’m introduced to his friend, who quite quickly falls for me. Ninety percent of the time, this is how we know love. Unrequited, unreturned, secret, and completely missed. We rarely meet. Hardly ever can we cut the third point of the triangle and reduce our existence to a straight line that runs on a single plane. Because if we are not part of a triangle, we are merely a point. A one-dimensional dot surrounded by other haphazard dots, some on the same plane, some living in an alternate dimension. In fact, if we are lucky, we meet up with two others, we experience the passion of creating a three-pointed shape, even if that passion is misdirected and unanswered.
Every once in a while, however, we meet another dot, other than ourselves, who may or may not be on the same plane we are. The passion is there, the energy. The equation seems to be well-made. Suddenly you look around and realize that there is no one else. The third point, that you have grown so accustomed to, is not there. The only shape you are creating is a single line, between two points, on a plane all by itself.
Monday, September 27, 2010
my loneliness has no real name
my loneliness has no real name
unlike my comrades who shout out jens and rebeccas and saras
my loneliness has no real name
worthy of wrestling Kilimanjaro, let alone flying to the continent where it all began
my loneliness has no real name
that one can attach a face to as the lights go out and the air conditioner is reeling and i begin to touch myself but beg to find out "how quickly can i get this over with?"
my loneliness has no real name
only a dance, a waltz, that glides in as the 19th hour approaches
my bedroom and i measuring the height of our shadow as the sun sets in the LA sky,
weighing the heat of the afternoon and noting it's loss of density as night arrives
the ordained irony of it all
my loneliness has no real name
only an inkling of a feeling, a swoosh, swoosh, swoosh
of the amniotic fluid that once contained me soundly in my mother's belly
my loneliness is human
but has no real name.
unlike my comrades who shout out jens and rebeccas and saras
my loneliness has no real name
worthy of wrestling Kilimanjaro, let alone flying to the continent where it all began
my loneliness has no real name
that one can attach a face to as the lights go out and the air conditioner is reeling and i begin to touch myself but beg to find out "how quickly can i get this over with?"
my loneliness has no real name
only a dance, a waltz, that glides in as the 19th hour approaches
my bedroom and i measuring the height of our shadow as the sun sets in the LA sky,
weighing the heat of the afternoon and noting it's loss of density as night arrives
the ordained irony of it all
my loneliness has no real name
only an inkling of a feeling, a swoosh, swoosh, swoosh
of the amniotic fluid that once contained me soundly in my mother's belly
my loneliness is human
but has no real name.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Change is the only constant? or a writing from my younger years.
"Bullshit!" I scream as the fire alarm blares through my ears. Bullshit. All of it. In out around backwards forwards we never know. I never know. I never know I never know. Because its all these relationships. Relationships. What are they? They that feed me and breathe me and eat me. Constantly sucking my fucking soul. My soul. Which is what? What what what what what. What is it? Questions always questions. Through my mind, through my ears, through my mouth. And then its bullshit, again. And I take that drag and I suck it up because shit, I’m too fuck scared, too fucking guilty to take that risk.
So she leans against me, grabs my hand, rubs my hand, places my hand on her breast. And slowly her pelvis rises. The smell of cheap white wine mixed with marijuana ooze from her lips. And I draw closer as her back arches, anticipating what is to come. Slowly, her intentions beyond clear, she grabs my head, pulls my hair and our lips meet. That sexual tension from the day I laid my eyes on her rapidly changes to an overwhelming aura of energy. But all I keep thinking is “she wants it, she wants it so bad”. Two candles lit on the ashtray of a coffee table are blown out and her hand carefully leads mine into her bedroom. The expression she used earlier on in the night “Just remember, you can’t wear a condom over your heart” plays out over and over in my mind. I take off my shirt and our naked bodies create a warmth overpowering the cool night air. I no longer think, I just do. I do what my body, what her body, needs me to do. As she moans with pleasure, I quickly fall back to reality. This is my friend. This is my friend. This is my friend. But the words once again sink into the subliminal, just like last weekend. We find ourselves tangled in a web, where neither one of us knows who is the black widow.
So she leans against me, grabs my hand, rubs my hand, places my hand on her breast. And slowly her pelvis rises. The smell of cheap white wine mixed with marijuana ooze from her lips. And I draw closer as her back arches, anticipating what is to come. Slowly, her intentions beyond clear, she grabs my head, pulls my hair and our lips meet. That sexual tension from the day I laid my eyes on her rapidly changes to an overwhelming aura of energy. But all I keep thinking is “she wants it, she wants it so bad”. Two candles lit on the ashtray of a coffee table are blown out and her hand carefully leads mine into her bedroom. The expression she used earlier on in the night “Just remember, you can’t wear a condom over your heart” plays out over and over in my mind. I take off my shirt and our naked bodies create a warmth overpowering the cool night air. I no longer think, I just do. I do what my body, what her body, needs me to do. As she moans with pleasure, I quickly fall back to reality. This is my friend. This is my friend. This is my friend. But the words once again sink into the subliminal, just like last weekend. We find ourselves tangled in a web, where neither one of us knows who is the black widow.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The History Lesson Continues
You did end up spilling your guts to him (whether you hit "send" or another Bell did is no matter), and he didn't go running in the other direction. When we pay attention to history, we can progress.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Birthday Blog
They say, “age is just a number,” but I disagree. Numbers are not at all like age. Numbers are objective and unbiased. They do not carry the weight of emotion. Sometimes they are invisible, sometimes they are imaginary, sometimes they are represented by letters (another code of semantics, a topic for a different day), but whatever they are, age certainly is not.
Of course we all have feelings about numbers. We have favorite numbers or lucky numbers or numbers that feel right or appear repeatedly in our lives. Some of us have aversions to certain numbers. There are Godly numbers, numbers in which bad things happen or people die. Many of us catch a glimpse of the clock at precisely the same time on a regular basis. Whether these things are controlled by a greater force, or simply the great force of our own belief, is neither here nor there. The point is, I love even numbers. For some reason it seems to me that most people prefer odd numbers or prime numbers for their uniqueness. A number that cannot be split evenly is definitive. But I have always found myself drawn to numbers like 2 and 4. Small, round, perfectly symmetrical numbers that divide easily and multiply into more familiar and comfortable numbers.
Perhaps this comes from a childhood full of “Sorry!” tournaments in which drawing a “2” meant you got to draw again and, when planned correctly, drawing a “4” meant you got to back straight into your safety zone, skipping the course of the entire board. The odd numbers were not nearly as exciting. Number 11 (a prime) was an anticlimactic card you always drew when what you really wanted was a Sorry! It didn’t actually allow you to wipe out your opponent, but simply trade places with him. Drawing a 7 was only worthwhile if you had two pawns perfectly distanced from both your “home” and each other, and otherwise, was a waste of a special card. My favorite square on the board was exactly 8 squares away from “home,” right on the corner in a very aesthetically pleasing position. In my strange little right-centric, 7-year-old brain, even numbers were simply the most pleasing and palatable.
The other rather strange thing about me was that at a young age I decided it was too difficult to choose favorites and therefore I hadn’t any. When you’re five all anyone wants to know is your favorite color or your favorite food. As you get older new friends are interested in what your favorite music is or your favorite movie. Intellectuals want you to choose a favorite book and every time I tell people I’m an actor they want to know who my favorite actor or actress is. I always prescribed to the philosophy that different things are good for different situations. My favorite color to wear is not my favorite color to paint my walls. My favorite music to dance to is not my favorite music to fall asleep to and how on earth can I pick a favorite food when so much of it tastes so good?
As my friends started to turn 24 around the end of last year and into this year, I thought, “well 24 is not so different from 23.” My two closest friends are both 9 months older than I am, yet they at 24 and myself at 23 were going through similar experiences in life, dealing with the same age-appropriate issues. I kept thinking as my own 24th birthday approached that there was so little difference between the two ages, and that, at 24, I would still be very young. When my birthday arrived, as birthdays are wont to do, 24 felt like nothing at all. Yesterday and today and tomorrow are all the same, until they are far away and become the distant past. Then I got a birthday text message from a friend that read, “happy birthday, do you feel nice and even now?” And at that moment I remembered: 24 is my favorite number! Of all the many things of which I could choose a favorite, the only favorite I ever settled on was a number. Twenty four is a wonderfully round, comfortable number. It is greatly divisible, it is the number of hours in a day, double the number of months in a year, and it is the marriage of my two favorite cards in “Sorry!” My whole life, 24 is the only favorite I could ever settle on and now it also represents my age! But I had never until this point associated my age with my feelings about this number. My age was a very different thing, it did not represent roundness or balance, in fact, quite the opposite. Twenty-four is a time of career uncertainty, financial instability and romantic frustration.
It was only after my friend’s wonderfully (if unknowingly) insightful text that I gained a little perspective. If age is just a number, and a favorite number at that, then this year may not be so bad after all. And if I ever start feeling uneasy about my age, I’ll just refer to it as x.
Of course we all have feelings about numbers. We have favorite numbers or lucky numbers or numbers that feel right or appear repeatedly in our lives. Some of us have aversions to certain numbers. There are Godly numbers, numbers in which bad things happen or people die. Many of us catch a glimpse of the clock at precisely the same time on a regular basis. Whether these things are controlled by a greater force, or simply the great force of our own belief, is neither here nor there. The point is, I love even numbers. For some reason it seems to me that most people prefer odd numbers or prime numbers for their uniqueness. A number that cannot be split evenly is definitive. But I have always found myself drawn to numbers like 2 and 4. Small, round, perfectly symmetrical numbers that divide easily and multiply into more familiar and comfortable numbers.
Perhaps this comes from a childhood full of “Sorry!” tournaments in which drawing a “2” meant you got to draw again and, when planned correctly, drawing a “4” meant you got to back straight into your safety zone, skipping the course of the entire board. The odd numbers were not nearly as exciting. Number 11 (a prime) was an anticlimactic card you always drew when what you really wanted was a Sorry! It didn’t actually allow you to wipe out your opponent, but simply trade places with him. Drawing a 7 was only worthwhile if you had two pawns perfectly distanced from both your “home” and each other, and otherwise, was a waste of a special card. My favorite square on the board was exactly 8 squares away from “home,” right on the corner in a very aesthetically pleasing position. In my strange little right-centric, 7-year-old brain, even numbers were simply the most pleasing and palatable.
The other rather strange thing about me was that at a young age I decided it was too difficult to choose favorites and therefore I hadn’t any. When you’re five all anyone wants to know is your favorite color or your favorite food. As you get older new friends are interested in what your favorite music is or your favorite movie. Intellectuals want you to choose a favorite book and every time I tell people I’m an actor they want to know who my favorite actor or actress is. I always prescribed to the philosophy that different things are good for different situations. My favorite color to wear is not my favorite color to paint my walls. My favorite music to dance to is not my favorite music to fall asleep to and how on earth can I pick a favorite food when so much of it tastes so good?
As my friends started to turn 24 around the end of last year and into this year, I thought, “well 24 is not so different from 23.” My two closest friends are both 9 months older than I am, yet they at 24 and myself at 23 were going through similar experiences in life, dealing with the same age-appropriate issues. I kept thinking as my own 24th birthday approached that there was so little difference between the two ages, and that, at 24, I would still be very young. When my birthday arrived, as birthdays are wont to do, 24 felt like nothing at all. Yesterday and today and tomorrow are all the same, until they are far away and become the distant past. Then I got a birthday text message from a friend that read, “happy birthday, do you feel nice and even now?” And at that moment I remembered: 24 is my favorite number! Of all the many things of which I could choose a favorite, the only favorite I ever settled on was a number. Twenty four is a wonderfully round, comfortable number. It is greatly divisible, it is the number of hours in a day, double the number of months in a year, and it is the marriage of my two favorite cards in “Sorry!” My whole life, 24 is the only favorite I could ever settle on and now it also represents my age! But I had never until this point associated my age with my feelings about this number. My age was a very different thing, it did not represent roundness or balance, in fact, quite the opposite. Twenty-four is a time of career uncertainty, financial instability and romantic frustration.
It was only after my friend’s wonderfully (if unknowingly) insightful text that I gained a little perspective. If age is just a number, and a favorite number at that, then this year may not be so bad after all. And if I ever start feeling uneasy about my age, I’ll just refer to it as x.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Fare Thee Well Blues
What happens when technology gets ahead of you? When you think you are using it for your advantage but you realize that, in all senses, it is truly a double-edged sword?
I’m afraid I have an addiction. To Facebook. To being connected all the time. My only problem is that everyone else has this addiction too.
What if we were faced with a challenge that not so long ago, was simply the way we lived? What if Facebook did not exist? I don’t mean specifically this one website. I’m using Facebook as an all encompassing term for Facebook, MySpace (does anyone other than unsigned rock bands even use MySpace anymore?), Twitter, and whatever rumored replacement for all of these is in the works.
What if we were forced to pick up the phone every once in a while? What if we were forced to convey our inflection by flexing our vocal chords instead of our pinky fingers to hit “Ctrl, I” or “Caps Lock?”
Even scarier a thought, what if my phone only made phone calls? Why do we even call it a phone anymore? It’s really so much more. Well, Apple, for one, has added iPhone as a separate category when labeling the kind of line your contact is calling from (e.g. office, home, mobile). Apparently an iPhone should not just be labeled simply as a mobile phone. There is merit in this assumption because it is not just a phone, after all it can be used for so much more than just phone calls.
Most times I love it. But lately, it seems to be getting the better of me. It’s as if I have forgotten how to approach my problems directly.
We can no longer make uneducated guesses about those around us, because we have the ability to educate ourselves about them without them even knowing! Nothing is up front any more. Everything is a complex game of strategy and timing.
We have added too many parts to the equation and I only ever made it to pre-calculus in high school, so I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. It’s time to take one of those away. (At least temporarily). Help me save me from myself. And if you find you’re one of those who actually need me (or should decide to want me), give me call.
Because I’m leaving.
I’m afraid I have an addiction. To Facebook. To being connected all the time. My only problem is that everyone else has this addiction too.
What if we were faced with a challenge that not so long ago, was simply the way we lived? What if Facebook did not exist? I don’t mean specifically this one website. I’m using Facebook as an all encompassing term for Facebook, MySpace (does anyone other than unsigned rock bands even use MySpace anymore?), Twitter, and whatever rumored replacement for all of these is in the works.
What if we were forced to pick up the phone every once in a while? What if we were forced to convey our inflection by flexing our vocal chords instead of our pinky fingers to hit “Ctrl, I” or “Caps Lock?”
Even scarier a thought, what if my phone only made phone calls? Why do we even call it a phone anymore? It’s really so much more. Well, Apple, for one, has added iPhone as a separate category when labeling the kind of line your contact is calling from (e.g. office, home, mobile). Apparently an iPhone should not just be labeled simply as a mobile phone. There is merit in this assumption because it is not just a phone, after all it can be used for so much more than just phone calls.
Most times I love it. But lately, it seems to be getting the better of me. It’s as if I have forgotten how to approach my problems directly.
We can no longer make uneducated guesses about those around us, because we have the ability to educate ourselves about them without them even knowing! Nothing is up front any more. Everything is a complex game of strategy and timing.
We have added too many parts to the equation and I only ever made it to pre-calculus in high school, so I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. It’s time to take one of those away. (At least temporarily). Help me save me from myself. And if you find you’re one of those who actually need me (or should decide to want me), give me call.
Because I’m leaving.
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