foregone conclusions

what i am up to.

i decided, for reasons unknown, to do this.  i didn't hear about it until monday, and i can't remember how i came across the website.   i have never read that much david foster wallace and that fact never bothered me that much.  but something told me to do it and i ordered it from amazon straightaway.  it arrived at my office on thursday and i'm now on page 63, and although i can't yet articulate why, i'm sure i made the right decision.   (HA to one of my best friends, who has read many of david foster wallace's essays, and who i was certain would enthusiastically support my choice to read infinite jest at this time- and maybe even decide to read it too-  but instead who gave me THE hardest time about it.  he thinks it's a horrible idea and tht i should stick to DFW's shorter works.  i told him maybe i was up for a challenge and he said "it's a challenge like eating a whole pizza is a challenge. don't waste your time."  except he MUST know that's another challenge i would NEVER think of as a waste of time.)  

so it's a lovely afternoon here in LA, and i'm typing at my laptop from the dining room table with the windows wide open and the sunlight filtering in through the trees and this 100o-ish page novel sitting next to me, and i'm feeling all writerly and proud of myself.  but ho, there's some sort of children's pool party going on in the bigass building across the street and they are BLASTING music.  and every other song- no exaggeration- is the indiana jones theme song.   and when they're not playing the indiana jones theme song, they're playing michael jackson songs.  and i can't close the windows and turn on the AC because, of course, it's broken again and i have not yet scheduled a time for the plumbers to break open my closet wall to look at the condensation line for the second time in ten months. 

this is not exactly creating an environment conducive to the reading of this mammoth tome.   

when i started this post, indiana jones.  as i'm finishing it, indiana jones again.  i think they might have it on a loop.  i don't understand.   oh, listen, now it's the joe cocker version of "feelin' alright."  strange choice for a children's pool party, but ok....at least it's not indiana jones.

oh well.  onward.  

brain fart of the century

i think maybe making a fool of myself is my superpower.

yesterday around lunchtime, a coworker was away from her desk when her boss called in from her cell.  we're kind of supposed to cover for each other so i went ahead and grabbed the phone.   her boss asked me to try someone for her, so i did.  i got voicemail.  so i left word.  it went something like this:

"hi, i have exec X calling, it's 1pm in LA.   give us a call back, the number is 310-xxx- uh......uh....4073?  uh...no, that's not right...uh....well, give us a call back!"    and then i hung up, hoping that whoever picked up the message would know exec X's actual phone number.     and then i spent the next half an hour laughing at myself until tears were running down my face. 

re: lost

me:  i can't believe the smoke monster actually ripped off that dude's arm!

husband: well, technically, the smoke monster ripped off everything BUT that dude's arm.

so true, so true.

why advertising on public transit might not be the best idea

so earlier this evening i was on my way home, crossing santa monica blvd, and the green light was about to turn yellow.  i almost made it through the light but i got stuck behind a bus that had come to a complete stop for no apparent reason.  he didn't have his hazards on, no traffic had stopped in front of him, and there's no bustop there.  at least i hope there's no bus stop there, because, well,  it would be the STUPIDEST PLACE IN THE WORLD to put a bus stop.  there's a bench there, next to the gas station, so maybe it was a rookie bus driver who saw the bench and thought bench = stop? 

but i digress.

i don't know if this was a big blue bus or an MTA bus or what, mainly because it was all covered up in one of those creepy shrink-wrappy ads that turned this particular bus into a monstrous behemoth whose sole purpose seems to be advertising...THE YARD HOUSE.   (let's put aside the fact that it actually kindasorta makes sense to have some kind of advertising partnerships between bars and public transportation.  "90% of drunks agree, take the bus, you'll arrive alive!"  um....ok, never mind; there's a reason i'm not in the ad business.)

anyhoo, i'm stuck behind the yard house beast thanks to the stream of cars in the left lane and my ass is sticking back out into santa monica blvd.   and i'm not thinking "damn you bus" or "damn you MTA" or even "damn you, possible rookie driver".   i'm thinking, DAMN YOU YARD HOUSE!!!  ok, ok, i wasn't thinking it, i was indeed yelling out loud, "YARD HOUSE, YOU ASSHOLE! GET OUT OF THE DAMN ROAD!  I WILL NEVER GO TO THE YARD HOUSE AGAIN!*" until finally the driver sorted his shit out or somebody filled him in on the fact that there was no reason to stop there.  but this being rush hour, of course i was stuck behind it for another two blocks (where, incidentally, the REAL bus stop is.)    

so yeah, i know it might not be the most logical or rational response to such a situation, but i mean, seriously, the WHOLE BUS was an ad for yard house.  for one split second i was like "what the hell is this yard house shuttle doing?  and why can't father's office have a shuttle?  i'd take THAT shuttle every day!" before i realized it was actually a public bus.

 so yard house, you lost THIS customer, baby.  (hey, i can put away a lot of beer, they'll totally feel it in their bottom line.)  maybe next time, at least make your ads smaller so you can at least share the blame with MTA.

*yes, despite my general lack of desire to hang out with douchey overgrown fratards and drink mediocre beer out of ridiculous glasses, i have in fact "dined" in two separate yard house locations. 

and that's my quarterly post.  foregone conclusions- interrupting months of blissful nothingness to bring you only the most pressing and fascinating issues of our time.

the los angeles opera is stalking me

and so it begins...the incessant calling of my cellphone from a 213 area code.  yep...it's the LA opera. 

now that's mavericky

cost of rape kits you'd make victims pay for themselves because it's "too expensive for the taxpayers:"  $5,000-$14,000

amount you charged the taxpayers for the "per diem" you received even though you were staying in your own house: $16,951 

being a lying fuckwad traitor to your gender:  priceless 

add this to the list of things i never thought i'd see

my favorite os mutantes song on a mcdonald's commercial.  

i'm worried, my friends

i'm becoming disheartened by what i'm seeing from the democrats the past couple days and i'm honestly frightened they're gonna throw this one away too.   obama gave an amazing speech on thursday night.  but we can't sit on that.  anyone see zogby today?   even after that amazing speech, the race seems to be a dead heat.    we underestimate this sarah palin thing at our own peril.  

many otherwise very intelligent people have been saying things like "oh, no hillary voter is gonna fall for this" AS IF the mccain team thought they would!   sarah palin is NOT about pumas.  that's a red herring, and everyone's falling for it.  this is about the republicans realizing they can't win without the fundie base.  obama gave the democrats the safe choice that bores the hell out of the liberal base, and mccain gave the base the wingnut they've been begging for.  and they love it.   you are not dealing with people who care about intelligence and experience- these people HATE intelligence and experience.   they want someone who is "like them."  they want a fundie wackadoo.  

last saturday, when i saw that biden was obama's choice, my heart dropped and i thought "well there goes the election."  admittedly,  i have strong personal negative feelings about joe biden because i can never forgive him for his hypocritical and morally bankrupt support of (nay, enthusiasm for) the 2005 bankruptcy bill, but i also think even people who like him should admit he was a really safe, establishment, boring choice.   and i knew at that moment that mccain was going to choose palin (or carly fiorina) but i basically said all last week to anyone that would listen that it would probably be palin.  and really nobody listened.  (except for the husband and my boss- and on friday morning she did give me props the moment she walked in the door for calling it the moment.)  i saw all this laid out in a long, painful vision.   our discourse has become stupid enough for this woman to become extremely popular, reinvigorating the base, and pushing mccain to victory. 

and now many are chortling about gustav raining on the RNC's parade.   another fatally stupid, stupid move.  don fowler got himself caught on camera laughing about it and the wingnuts are all over it.   good work, dude.   can you people not understand how ridiculous it makes the party look?   how easy it is for the republicans to use this to point to, saying "look at the heartless elitists who don't care about you and only care about politics while WE are going to turn our convention into a telethon to help all the people!" once again they get to be "serious" and we look nuts.  not to mention, gustav gives them a plausible reason to keep bush and cheney as far away from the convention as possible.   which they've been trying to figure out a way to do for a while!    good lord people, just open your eyes.   

i really really hope i'm just being pessimistic and that it's going to be obama in a landslide.  but i live in the echo chamber of a big blue city in a big blue state, and i implore my fellow liberals to not be lulled into complacency that this can lead to.  we are so not out of the woods.  this crap is just beginning.   we had better pray and pray hard that bob barr's campaign picks up steam and peels away enough conservative/independents and libertarians from mccain.  

it just keeps getting better

food costs rising fastest in 17 years: 

For the U.S. poor, any increase in food costs sets up an either-or equation: Give something up to pay for food.

"I was talking to people who make $9 an hour, talking about how they might save $5 a week," said Kathleen DiChiara, president and CEO of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey. "They really felt they couldn't. That was before. Now, they have to."

For some, that means adding an extra cup of water to their soup, watering down their milk, or giving their children soda because it's cheaper than milk, DiChiara said.

this reminded me that on sunday i stopped into the brentwood ralph's to grab some treats for myself bc i wasn't having a great day.   as i was leaving, i noticed something weird.  there was a big cage by the checkout that was locked with a big padlock and had a bunch of merchandise in it.   i assumed it was where the "expensive" stuff was kept, like booze or electronics, but when i got closer i noticed it primarily contained isomil and other brands of baby formulas.   have you ever seen this in your local grocery store?    it's new to me.  are times so tough that baby formula theft is sucha  problem that they have to keep it under lock and key at ralph's?  a cursory google news search reveals that in fact, it is a nationwide problem.   it's easier to steal than electronics supposedly, and fetches good prices on the black market.   well, i guess that's a little different than what i was imagining, which was a desperate woman stuffing formula under her shirt so she could feed her baby.  but still...

there's just something so fucked up about this.   

the thing about "prayer"

last weekend i was talking to my therapist about my recent attempts to reconnect with my spirituality.   she said something to the effect of "i love talking about spirituality with my clients.  but here's the thing i always tell them: it's really great to pray or however you want to approach the idea of prayer, but the challenging part is listening for the answer."     i kind of agree with this.  well i totally agree with it, but i guess i don't think listening is that challenging.  if you start paying attention and being present in each moment, you really do notice synchronicities that at least FEEL like the universe is trying to reveal something to you.   i don't know,  i could be wrong.  i will say i wish the universe would drop some fantastic career options on my head, but i realize that's not exactly how it works.

anyway, i was reading in the hollywood reporter that shekhar kapur is taking over anthony mingella's last project he was working on when he passed away.  shekhar might be somewhat inconsistent as a filmmaker, but i always have liked him because he was super cool to me when i met him at the press junket for "elizabeth."  so i was thinking, gee, what else is he up to and a little googling led me to a little blog he keeps on his website.  and my eye falls on this entry.   and i realized that i've been a complete asshole about my showers.  to tell the truth, i've known and felt guilty for a while now about my shower assholishness. i once started to write an essay titled "my higher power lives in the bathtub."  (stop making fun of me.)  regardless, recently i've been taking longer and longer showers.   my husband calls it my time warp.   i have always said i do my best thinking in the shower, and i've been doing a LOT of thinking lately.  my whole epiphany while i was sick happened in the shower.  but you know, it's really selfish and narcissistic to spend that much time in the shower when humanity is facing the apocalyptic shit we're facing.  and i think maybe this is one of those little smacks upside the head from the universe- stop being such a spoiled brat and if you really need some quiet, relaxing "me" time, take a little bath.  or learn to commune with your higher power in a place less...wet.  this is my new promise.