malapropism of the week!

me: 'yeah, last week we went to see the hitchhiker's guide to the gallery, and blah de blah de blah...'

[beat]

V: 'hee hee...the gallery?'

hey. people pay me to write, not to speak.

how to do the asian squat

oh my word.

how to do the asian squat.

watch and learn.

in other news, i am thirty-two. wwo-hwo!

people i did not meet

in LA, i did not schmooze with cameron diaz, william baldwin, nor keanu reeves (as filmschoolgirl did on her last trip to sundance, when señor billy baldwin drunkenly asked her for a light after failing to light his cigarette off a bunsen burner under a chafing dish). disregarding the fact that i'd probably not be able to recognize these people on the street due to my practically cinema-free lifestyle, i think i'd like to see something like that. inebriated movie stars almost lighting their eyebrows on fire! yeah.

in SB, i did not meet pico iyer, one of my favorite contemporary writers who i went to see at a discussion at a local bookshop. he was one of about a dozen travel writers interviewed by another travel writer who has just published an anthology of these interviews accompanied by excerpts of their work; the book is called a sense of place. i did not meet PI because i am an idjit. i purposely went late to the reading, thinking i could catch the tail end of the Q&A session and maybe hang around to profess my starry-eyed admiration for his worldly but humble insight, well-informed perspective, and lovely prose. what discussion i caught covered paul theroux (another of my favorites), some of the things great writers do that set them apart, the gift of spontaneity that travel affords, the change that travel affects in the individual. PI also pointed out, when someone asked whether he hoped to become an A-list travel writer and rake in piles of cash (snort), that he travels and writes books for the transformative qualities of both. in the most diplomatic way, he said that one travels away from a place like SB not to seek comfort (this on a particularly blindingly sparkly, beautiful day in this privileged corner of california) but to move away from it and experience a different side of life.

i left before the discussion was over. most of the audience were older, well-off and well-traveled looking folk. i didn't have any good questions to ask and wasn't interested in purchasing the other guy's book. i mean, i could go for an autograph if it were attached to an invite to pico's next potluck, but otherwise it was enough to hang at the back of the room and listen in on the conversation.

swimming in place

have been invited, significant expenses paid, to the land of oz for a few days in june. have also subsequently been half-shredded in an evaluation by the kids who invited me to the party. weeks before receiving this particular (d)evaluation document, i figured i might as well tack on some holiday time since i'll be down there anyway, so luckily i'll have 3 weeks of 100% decompression time in NZ after the workshop.

i don't get out much anymore. these rolling assignments have me ducking under each breaking wave before i resurface to see the next one coming at me. so it seems i tread water for months at a time here behind the blue desk. happily, i don't even have to go anywhere and the art comes to me. my roommate V hosts a sunday night jam session with a group of improvisational jazz musicians, some of whom have played together for over 20 years. they are mind-blowing. one drummer (there used to be two), V on flutes and sax of various sorts, a guy on sparse electric guitar, a tuba. and last week, the roommate who replaced me across the hall had a duo-duo performance – two cellos and two saxes, also improvisational and also pretty amazing. miss J came with me and afterwards we kidnapped flatman and forced him to drink beer at lucky 13.

there have also been the occasional expeditions to the outside world to see miss J and her hip-hop dance group perform at a big club near union square, and to see dos equis play bass at a fun bar where you can escape downstairs and play pool if the seattle opening band plays so loud that plaster starts crumbling off the walls. there has also been tango, some really good milongas where i hardly walk off the floor before someone else asks me to dance and i find myself dripping in sweat mid-evening. i need more of that. my back has been killing because for more than a year i've been spending my sometimes-16-hour work days in a plastic folding chair and i haven't been running. last week, things got ugly when my spine took me hostage after i creaked into a kinked sitting position in the cheap plastic torture seating – so i paid the ransom: a sensible, sturdy, yet kookily-shaped green office chair from my friendly neighborhood scandinavian warehouse. why was i too cheap to shell out the cash for this before? oh yeah, because i'm a cheap cheapskate.

almost done with one more wave of edits and then me and the swede (the vehicle, not the boy) are heading down to southern california for my little brother's MBA-gettin' ceremony (i almost spelled that "ceremoney," which makes sense, since that is the point of going to business school) and for one of my bestest friends' art opening in SB. we need to find her a better gallery up here so she'll be required to visit more often. but on my visit south, i plan to prowl around los feliz with filmschoolgirl, have a nice graduation dinner with the family, and feed chickens and collect dropped avocados and possibly capsize a sea kayak with the artist.

god, i can't wait to swim away from this desk. better get to work on my dog paddle.

y'all have a good week.

xo