The Stuff On My Mind

1.  I need to live in the same state as my husband but California is too fucking expensive and the rental properties in areas where you don't get shot at are shitty in our price range.

2. Bug is 15 months and still naps in her swing.  But her recent growth spurt is making it obvious that this is not going to work much longer and this makes me want to curl up in a fetal position and sob.

3.  I just can't seem to get these Christmas cards addressed and in the mail and it is really haunting me.

4. I want sleep really badly and want to cry every time I think about it. 

5.  Breastfeeding is getting old.

6.  Bug has ANOTHER COLD. 

7.  I want a beer.

8. I want to lose this last ten pounds but probably won't until after bfing ends.  Like in ten years or so.

9.  I turned 36 last week.  How the hell did that happen? 

10.  I need sleep.  Did I already say that? Yeah, I know, it is getting boring but it's my story and I'm sticking to it.

An Experience Beyond Words

Big D and I have been together a long time. I mean a loooonnnnngggg time and by LA standards even longer. When you have been married as long as we have or, to be more exacting, when you have been a married woman without children for as long as I have been you hear a lot of comments such as,

"I thought people only got married to have kids"

"When are you having kids?"

"Oh you have to have kids, it's the best."

"When are you getting pregnant, it's the most amazing thing ever!"

I could go on but you get the idea. When people who I know and care about inquired, I generally didn't mind the probing. In fact, whether or not you are going to have kids has been and continues to be a topic of conversation that I have with many of my close friends and family members because it is such a big part of the human experience. But when people who could care less about who I am as a human being, like women from the work pit, asked, I often wanted to retort something like, "Well, I'm infertile, if you must know" or "Well the cocaine habit isn't so great for fetuses I've heard and my husband has low sperm count" I mean, what if I really did have a fertility issue or a drug habit or my husband had low sperm count? Wouldn't these questions then be considered incredibly insensitive? Fortunately, none of these were an issue for us. In fact, having gotten pregnant after one cycle off the pill after being on it my entire adult life pretty much squashed my long held fears of infertility and Big D is clearly a stud in the sperm count department and my drug habit was generally limited to red wine and dirty martinis.

But now I realize that there is something more to the questions. Pregnancy is something you can't quite put into words. You can talk about the growing belly, the morning sickness, the aches and pains, the kicks and turns, but it is impossible to fully explain what it feels like to have your body become an incubator for another human being. Before I got pregnant, I knew it would be something to experience but I didn't get the glow in the eyes of mothers asking when I was going to have a baby. I never really got the way they would tear up when recounting their own pregnancy and motherhood or why they would have such an interest in my own reproduction timeline. But I get it now. My cynical rational side tries to keep me in check...It's something any woman can do. It's not like it's finding a cure for cancer or running a business or being a gold medal athlete. But I am in the club now and I get it. It is powerful beyond description and women inquire about other women's pregnancy status because it is their way of sharing this experience beyond words.

I have to admit that I have caught myself recently doing the same thing in conversations with couples who don't yet have kids. I've actually heard lines such as this come out of my mouth:

"Do you guys think you'll have kids?"

"Pregnancy is the most amazing thing ever"

"It's really something you have to experience"

I've limited the conversation to those people that I actually know and care about and who are interested in taking part in a conversation about this. I'm not running up to recently married co-workers and asking them to get on the baby track. Although I did give an extra copy I had of What to Expect When Your Expecting to a co-worker who was just about to get married. But she had informed me that she was on the baby track before I offered so that's OK isn't it?

The Weeks of Our Lives

My life is being measured week by week at the moment. I'm at nine weeks or am I supposed to say in my ninth week? I haven't quite figured out that nuance out yet. Week seven was scary because I had the flu and was sick for ten days. Then during week eight, I had light brownish spotting on Tuesday and totally freaked out. My doctor's office was not concerned and told me this is pretty normal during the first trimester. I haven't had any spotting since and my other pregnancy symptoms (nausea, sore boobs, extreme exhaustion) seem to be progressing right along. One of the weirder aspects so far is that I welcome things like nausea and indigestion because they are my only markers right now that everything is going right.

Jason brought his one-year-old daughter over yesterday afternoon. We sat outside (well we sat and little A explored our yard--she is fearless) and enjoyed the SoCal weather--70's and clear blue skies. They are moving out of state soon, which makes Big D and I pretty sad, but we are really happy for them. Big D and I have also had some serious conversations about leaving Los Angeles. My work schedule is so crazy that I know things will have to change. And frankly, I've waited long enough to have kids, I really have no intention of turning my baby over to a stranger for ten hours a day while I go off to a job I hate. The main reason that I am still there is because my health insurance is through my job. Our hope is for Big D to find a new job with health insurance so that I can be on his plan. But even still, Los Angeles is so expensive and our modest home i.e. mortgage combined with outrageous student loan debt make it necessary for both of us to work to survive. Out of state, we would have so much more wiggle room financially plus the possibility of living near family, which is something that I crave more and more the older I get. With many of our friends leaving Los Angeles, it's starting to get a little lonely around here.

Eight Weeks

Well, it's been a month since returning to work so that accounts for my absence from blogging. I thought my first posts back would be about Sundance. And I'll get to that eventually. But the big news for me is that I am pregnant. I am very early--eight weeks, and I know that means that I am not yet supposed to be sharing the news. But the fact is it is all I care about right now. As you know, turning 34 was a huge wake up call for me. In light of everything I read about infertility, I got really concerned about having been on the pill for my entire adult life and having no sense of what my cycle was like without hormones artificially regulating it for me every month. I worried about difficulty getting pregnant and figured it would be best to go off the pill and get real with my body. Well, I had one cycle off the pill and then got pregnant. I took a pregnancy test in January and it was positive. Last week, I had the first ultrasound and saw a heartbeat. I am feeling nauseous and extremely tired. My doctor says these are good signs.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving isn't my favorite holiday. Much of this could be because I don't eat meat and well, it's a holiday that's all about the bird. Or my lack of interest could be attributed to having spent most of my adult life partnered to a man who grew up on an Indian Reservation (where, needless to say, it's not a much celebrated holiday). Or maybe it's one of those holidays, like Christmas, that I don't think I will have much interest in until I have kids. I know, I know, it's a time to celebrate with family and friends. And I can't complain about having the time off from work which, if I include the weekend, is five whole days straight! Still, every year that passes, these holidays whisper clearer and clearer to me that something is missing.

no title

I don't have time to post any more. I leave the house at 6:30 AM. I am lucky if I get home by 6:00 PM. Then I have all the neighborhood stuff to work on in the evenings. I am tired and miserable and have had a headache since June. Also, I have nothing funny to write about and don't have the time to waste uploading pics from this shitty ass computer. I basically hate every aspect of my life. Except that I like my house. I just hate that it's in this noisy fucking ghetto when I know there are clean cheap places to live where I would actually have the time to do things I love doing and not just waste away existing in this cockroach life.

No Lights, Big City

Yesterday afternoon was really hot. I decided the only thing to do was to drink beer. Lots of beer. So Big D and I headed over to the The York to do just that. As we were heading into the bar at 5:00 on the dot, I could feel the heat rising up from the concrete and told D that it felt like the opening of Do the Right Thing, where you just know something no good is about to happen cause it is just so damn hot. So we drank several beers and headed home. At about 8:30 PM after just arriving home, the lights went out. Not a clean lights out, mind you but a sound like the world was a giant vacuum and had sucked in something it couldn't digest. And then mini-explosions filled the air and neighbors yelling "turn everything off, it arking its arking!" Then darkness and heat. The heat was so bad that we slept outside. That is when I knew for certain it is time to leave Los Angeles. The electricity came back on at about 2:00 PM today but it is still too hot.

Positively Awesome Blog

Big D wants me to be more positive in my blog entries. He often suggests topics---I find this irritating which is not positive. I don't write this because I have any intention of anyone ever reading it. In fact, I never even told anyone I was writing a blog. I started my blog because I wanted a way to hold myself accountable to journaling and to write about topics that interest me and perhaps participate in a discussion or two. I was not trying to win respect or praise or be popular. But Big D thinks someone we know might read it (never mind he sent out the link to his friends not me) and get the wrong idea. Hmm? Truth be told I like my blog and it's kind of like me---a little distant, true to my friends, non-committal, and pretty mundane. I am so positive about that.

Introducing Josie

Our family just got bigger. We adopted a puppy from a rescue organization this weekend. Big D found her on petfinder.com on Sunday and we passed our house inspection later that afternoon and then drove down to Carlsbad that evening to pick her up from her foster family.

She is part golden retriever/part German Shepherd. Although, that is just what they tell us and I secretly suspect she might be part horse. Needless to say, she is going to be a big dog. She has a sweet submissive personality and wants to please.

And Now We're Ten Years On...

in Los Angeles. The U-Haul puttered in on the 10 from Vegas ten years ago on the Fourth. Big D always seemed to find that symbolic. I never got it. Still not sure what it all means or if it even should. But I thought it worthwhile enough to mention, so there you have it. Never thought I'd still be here. If you asked me ten years ago as I was unpacking into my bungalow in Los Feliz where I would be today I would have said, or at least thought, some mud hut in Africa or a houseboat on the Huong River.

Big D Got a Grill

Big D has a hard time buying things. If a were to play shrink (and this is my wifely duty, right?) I would say this comes from a mix a childhood variables. First, he grew up on a Reservation and though it may be a derogatory term off the rez, "Indian time" does exist on the Reservation. Things don't happen fast. That's more of a western way of being. You know, I'm talking about the whole "if I want it I need it now" mentality. Whereas, on the rez, 'now' is at least an hour and a half in any direction. So, you have to really consider if you want it that bad to uproot an entire day to get it. Life just has a different pace there. A house might take years to get built or maybe never get completely built and, well, so what? Secondly, Big D's parents were pretty big on not buying things you don't absolutely need--maybe too much on this side. Have you ever noticed that if you swing too far in one direction, you end up completely on the other side? In other words, a couple of free spirited, live off the land hippies can wind up rigid controlling tightwads if they hold too closely to any one way of being.

I could go on with my shrinkville analysis, but it isn't really fair to Big D, so I'll just mention this and then move on...Big D has been looking at grills for about a year and a half, ever since our old grill went caput. He wasn't looking for anything fancy just something simple to grill shit up on and there have been several close buying calls but we always came home defeated without a grill.

So in a recent trip to the ol' home depot Big D said, "let's look at grills when we go" and I said, "Only if you are actually going to buy one. Otherwise, I never want to look at another grill ever again." While at the depot we bought the garden hose we needed, some Damp rid, and priced some wood for a fence we want to build, and then, to my astonishment, Big D actually bought a grill. It's totally basic but an upgrade from our last grill and we have been using it since we bought it. The first night we made the obligatory hamburgers (black bean burger for me), then grilled salmon and grilled asparagus and grilled pineapple for dessert the following evening, and then shrimp fajitas--and I actually took some pics of this grilling episode:

The next night we made burgers again (using the leftovers from grilled shrimp fajita night as toppings). Tonight Big D and I agreed that we should order Indian food.

Stop Taunting Me - I Hate You Norton Antivirus

HOW DO I MAKE IT NOT DO THIS? STOP CONTROLLING ME YOU NORTON PARENTS--I HATE YOU. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ME--I DON'T HAVE KIDS. MY FIFTEEN YEAR OLD SELF STOMPS UP NON-EXISTENT STAIRS TO POUT. INVISIBLE DOOR SLAMS. GO TO HELL NORTON!

Saturday on the Eastside

To help out my dear friend Bee, I spent Friday evening watching the Dewster who lives on the Venice Canals. Venice Beach is without a doubt, my favorite place on this here planet. So after a couple of weekends chocked full of noisy gangsta pounding base in which I had to call the police that never arrive to my corner of Eagle Rock, I was more than happy to spend an evening on the quiet quiet quiet canals. But the Dewster (a dog did I mention that) is a mess. He is happy to see you when you arrive, happy to have a walk, happy to have dinner---but then he gets angry. Like Jekyll and Hyde angry. Oh, he has some sort of skin condition and wants to be itched itched itched. So, he starts barking at you, not a friendly bark, mind you. A I want to kill you bark. Then you must ignore him until he falls asleep. Then you try to get out alive in the morning (before stopping in at the French Market Cafe on Abbott Kinney--a little piece of paradise in a very french/ industrial sort of way).

So after the much needed respite from the 'hood, Big D and I spent a relatively quiet ER day out in our new Target gazebo followed by a side trip to Los Feliz to eat some PINKBERRY and walk little M De Cuba around the Silverlake reservoir. It was pretty wonderful despite the argument we had because Big D had me playing chicken to get back to the car rather than walking a few extra steps to the crosswalk to be all proper and stuff.

This was followed by what I really want to post about which is Marty's in Highland Park. Marty's is the new bar/restaurant of Rudy Martinez who I think just may be a genius and made a simple menu with most of my favorite comfort foods on it--mac n cheese and caprese salad, shoestring sweet potato fries and big D's Kobe burger. And washed down with dirty martinis. Rudy Martinez deserves an award for not only thinking outside the box by opening a zen like bar in Highland Park (not to mention a sushi restaurant in Eagle Rock) but also for reminding us all that we are only as ghetto as the ghettos in our own heads.

http://www.mia-sushi.com/

No Way Out

I am going through a sick of Los Angeles phase. I am sick of the noise, the pollution, the people. At times like these, I get really immersed in the idea of moving somewhere else and focus on a place or region. I never end up moving but I learn a lot about other places. Right now I am living in (in my head--I don't just mean immersed I mean IMMERSED) the northwest. It is cool and calm. I live in downtown in a cool new converted loft in Vancouver, Seattle, or Portland. I've chucked the car cause I take public transportation everywhere. I drink a lot of coffee and tea and volunteer at the rep cinema where we show marginal films. I take a lot of walks. Life is awesome from here.

Bad Day

Really bad day, bad fight, bad job, bad commute, everything sucks so much that I can't even write about it. I need a change of scenery.

de·pres·sion [di-presh-uhn]

It's starting. It will reach it's full incubation stage at about 4:00 PM on Sunday and just continue throughout the evening and then it will fester until sometime in July.

It's easy for me to find things to like about about my job, all the "right" things, like a decent salary, benefits, and lots of time off, when I am at the beginning of a vacation. But as Sunday approaches and I have to go back, the depression about what I am doing with my life sets in.

And then my parents are stopping through today and tomorrow on their way to a cruise. This doesn't make it any better. They'll spend the time pointing out all the stuff that is wrong with my house and follow that conversation by telling me all the things they need to change with their house (a brand new home that they have decorated and redecorated about 5 zillion times--I'm estimating here--in their two years of living there). Thanks mom and dad and while your at it could you drive a nail in my head and maybe kick big D in the sac a few times?

Privilege

My mother always had a dishwasher. Every one of our five billion different houses that I grew up in (cause my parents thought it was a good idea to have their kids change schools every fourth day) had a dishwasher. So, doing dishes meant quick rinse then shove in dishwasher. You see, dishwashers don't only clean dishes they function as a storage unit for dirty dishes.

Every apt. I rented before moving to Los Angeles had a dishwasher. Yes, the trade off for cookie cutter living in the burbs is new appliances. None of my apts in Los Angeles had dishwashers. Then we bought the condo which, despite its flaws, had a dishwasher. And when we got the hell out of the condo, we convinced our landlady of My Innisfree to put one in. Then we bought the house and I thought yeah I can live without a dishwasher for a few years. But no, I can't I Can't I don't want to do one more load of dishes by hand It fucking sucks and if that makes me a spineless wimp of a homeowner of a house that hasn't been updated since 1926 then so be it.

Look, this is the second load from one night's dinner:

and I still have all this to do:

I don't get it. I remember my grandparents having entire Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas dinners for 20 in their home and washing the dishes afterward by hand. Is there some technique I'm missing? A dinner for two can take me days of dishes to clean. How is this possible? I just want a dishwasher. There, I said it. And I don't mean a person to do my dishes (a job I had at a sports bar in vegas when I was a teenager). I want an automatic dishwasher---oh, the luxury.

Lazy Sunday Morning Interrupted...

to bring you this...

http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/west/la-tm-adayin13apr01,1,731502.story?coll=la-headlines-west&ctrack=2&cset=true

Another article about Eagle Rock...I can barely keep up.

Props to the Hood (Eagle Rock in the New York Times)

Hey check this out...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/realestate/25nati.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Looks like Big D and I have done it again. I attribute our ability to snuff out up and coming neighborhoods to poverty and a good eye. When we first moved to Los Angeles, we decided on Los Feliz because of it's proximity to our grad schools, because the bungalow was $600 (the cheapest we could find) and because it had a walkability factor that I was craving after living in Vegas suburbia. This was shortly after the LA riots and people liked to mention this fact to us when we moved there, "You are moving to Los Feliz? You know, the riots came up nearly to there." Or westsiders would say, "Oh, that's east of Hollywood, right?" But I didn't care, I could see the potential for the neighborhood and now look at the Los Feliz/Silverlake area. I'd say I was right.

After getting our MFA's we moved on to the westside. First, to the only dumpy area in Santa Monica, right near the Community College. At the time, this area had been ravaged by the bad rent control policies that ghettoized the apartment complexes. Again, we liked the cheap rent ($800 I think) and there was a little neighborhood yoga studio in walking distance. With changes made to the rental laws and the wild real estate boom in recent years, the area has totally turned around and now it's filled with cute shops and yummy places to eat (like The Counter, which has the best veggie burger ever--and this is a fact that is not open to debate).

Then there was Venice, oh Venice, my favorite place on earth. Our landlords were a married couple that had lived in the area since the beginning of time and had bought their home in the 60's for $6,000, a fact that still beguiles me. They were serious Christians and viewed their work as the lord's work. They would buy bankrupt/foreclosed properties and fix them up, kick out the crack dealers, and then rent them out to upstanding individuals, like myself, thank you very much. I loved that apartment with it's little yard and brand new hardwood floors. They even installed new recessed lighting on dimmer switches for us. I'd buy that place today if it were for sale. Anyway, we all know what happened to Venice. Abbot Kinney is now a second Montana, even, dare I say, 3rd street promenade. And you can't touch a decent house under a mil.

Then it was on to Mar Vista. This was our first foray into real estate. Take yourself back a few years when the market was so hot you could actually see a glow over the West LA sky. Big D just knew we had to get a piece of it. So I somewhat grudgingly went along (I really loved that Venice apartment). We bought a fixer condo in the no man's land area of Mar Vista, the part squished between Venice and Washington blvds. After much blood, sweat, and tears (and I mean this literally) we flipped it two years later for a nice profit. And left behind not only a really cool renovated condo but a funky little neighborhood with stores like, A Mano, Soaptopia, and even a hip coffee house, Venice Grind.

We spent a few months chillin' in Culver City, in a hideout of a cottage I like to refer to as my Innisfree, because it provided the peace I needed to regroup after the condo drama. In the time we moved in and out of Culver City, so much change has happened there that it would take too long to describe. Just check it out next time you are there. Let's just say it's not your parent's dull, dingy, watch the weeds grow boring Culver City of yesteryear, its filled with galleries, boutiques, and bistros--and that wine bar, Bottlerock, which I will try next time I'm in the CC.

So, that takes me to now. Last night, as we sat outside in our very own yard in Eagle Rock, a fire crackling in the fire pit, drinking pinot, and listening to M. Ward, Big D said, "It's been a year since we signed escrow." And it has been quite a year--from the major plumbing work to the birds that prefer to nest in the shingles of our roof than in the multitude of lovely elderly trees. Transitional neighborhoods can have there ups and downs but I love the vitality and the community I have found here and can't wait to see all the changes in the neighborhood come to fruition. This time, I think we'll be here a while.

Post and Ye Shall Receive

A couple days ago I posted the hideous photos of hip high weeds growing in my front yard. Well, like magic, they are gone! I am calling the dirt that remains Desert Landscaping:

So, I am hoping this posting technique will work in reverse and bring good things in as much as it takes bad things out of my life. Internets, please bring me this:

Oh, and did I mention----I AM ON VACATION FOR TWO WHOLE WEEKS, take that SUCKAS!