I wrote this last year, inspired by someone who really used to make me mad... jh, 072409

We go into the Greek deli and eat spanakopita and drink grainy black coffee
And wax rhapsodic about the ancient culture, the friendly people, the irresistible food
Then we walk outside and you say, “F**king Mexican kids” when you see our tires slashed

We watch a taiko drum concert downtown at a spring festival
Exhilarated by the pounding energy, delighted by the musicians’ exotic, Americanized good looks
Then on the way home, you realize that the “godammed Koreans” didn’t give you back your credit card at the tee shirt shop

“The fat black lady” who sits at a receptionist desk
“The old Chinese guy” who cut you off
“The stupid white girl” who forgot to put the eggs in the bag at the checkout counter
Have all angered you, as representatives of their respective races
With their faults and deficiencies, that surely are evidence of their inferiority to you
A fifth-generation son of Latin descent
Who grew up on Cheerios and chorizo
Mariachis and the Mets
Inheriting the racism
That makes this a small world, after all.

- 032708

(sometimes there is a lot of hang time when i'm covering a story... time to stop and smell the roses... or eat at jack in the box...)

Watts, May 16, 2009

as little as we think we have, there are many more living in the same city with less...

i drove for six blocks looking for a place that looks like it might have a reasonably clean bathroom, Jack in the Box on Central and 103rd seemed to be the only option...

the restaurant has bars across the counter window as if it was a bank... I.D. is required for credit card purchases over $5.00 and a cup of healthful fruit costs disproportionately more than a burrito full of dubious and fatty meat...

i can't eat inside the restaurant... i feel out of place with my linen slacks and notebooks... i settled for a breakfast burrito and orange juice, which i eat in my car with the door open... somehow to shut it makes me feel even more vulnerable in bad neighborhood...

a woman waiting for the bus at the stop in front of me is carrying an imitation Coach bag to accessorize her cheap polyester tunic and plastic hair clip...

Watts seems like it was a nice place to live, a long time ago... the jacaranda trees look exactly like the ones at the end of my family's street on the Westside...

looking through a glass onion...

the Dale Chihuly show at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix last May was astounding... the forms were very much like the real cactus they were nestled in... except a whole lot smoother and not so full of water... http://www.chihuly.com/

i've just seen a face(book)...

the facebook (or fb, as we say) honeymoon is officially over... like with most addictions, i hesitated at first... normally, i shun internet overload... it's all i can do to write emails and keep a blog... but word on the street was that it was about connecting, in a safe, non-threatening kind of way...

it has to be... instead of meeting new unknown people, like most social networking sites, you hook up with people you already know... or have known... and have not communicated with in 20 years... therein lies the rub...

at first, it was kind of exciting to be in touch with people from high school, be able to "meet" friends of my sister who lives in brooklyn, and put up photos that i would only share with close friends and acquaintances... it was even safe to put up pictures of my impossibly photogenic nephews...

then reality set in... a bout of "friending" friends (how do you make a friend out of someone who is already a friend?!) from work led to connections not unlike that old shampoo commercial from the 70s... "and so on, and so on"...

suddenly, my ex-husband and my boss were among my people... then came the high school buddies... i might have looked up one guy i was on the newspaper with in senior year... but of course, he had friends that connected to me... our class president searched for all of the class of '83 and now i'm "friends" with people i never knew, never spoke to, and certainly have not thought of in years...

the funny thing is that fb is like a time machine... everyone seems to assume their old roles once again... i was not popular, but i would not say i was unpopular... sadly, i dated the most unpopular guy in not just my school, but possibly the entire south bay school district... M., a peripheral "friend" who actually knew my two sisters quite well (they were popular!) reminded me of the fact that i publicly humiliated my unpopular, trombone-playing boyfriend in front of the whole marching band when i broke up with him... lamely, i responded with something like, 'i'm glad that amused you'...

what i really should have said to M. (who is still a "friend," although i have not written on his wall, sent him a grapefruit or poked him since) is that i was sorry that he had not grown up more than that despite what seems to be a very harmonious marriage and family life and a successful career...

i finally broke down and told my sister Joselyn about what happened months later... she asked me, 'did he write it on your wall or did he send you a message?'... i really could not remember at that point... but the next time i was on fb, i looked in my inbox to see if he had sent me what she was implying was a more discreet message... then i remembered i had deleted a lot of old messages...

but i don't think that absolves him... what bothered me is that he brought it up at all... it was not my proudest moment... and although my old boyfriend did turn out to be a creep, he did not deserve to be embarrassed in front of his peers... although i really wish i could remember what i did...

i do remember that after one huge and final blowup - he did skulk around my house for a while and pester me at school; this before we knew what stalking meant - i threw a paper bag full of his old love letters (wow, i used to get love letters!) onto the roof of Savon on 190th... for some reason, i thought that would eject him from my life forever... and it did...

unfortunately, even though i can't remember half my passwords, or accidentally delete lots of things i regret, the internet appears to be forever... although the old letters on the drugstore roof have by now completely vaporized, every hasty word or social faux pas can go out to a few million of my fellow fb-ers in the blink of an eye...

my kind of town...

the other night in our writing group, Brenda said that cities had genders... she said that New York was very masculine, all loud and brash and in your face... interestingly, she thought that Washington D.C. was like a powerful woman, which i liked very much...

i realized the other day that my last lover wasn't a man, it was a city...

driving down Venice Boulevard to get my sister a birthday gift, it dawned on me that Los Angeles was my on-again, off-again mainstay, the one i returned to whenever i was bereft of love...

i met "him" through my sister, who has lived on the Westside for ten years... she would regale our younger sister and i with tales of his many attractions... under the respectable guise of visiting her, i would furtively experience his charms: bright lights, beautiful shops, great restaurants... and somehow, i didn't mind sharing him with the thousands of other star-struck, Prada-pursuing girls that lined up in their cars, all on their way to work, auditions, or Yogurtland...

his pedigree is fascinating... i could delve into one of many ethnic enclaves within minutes and ingratiate myself to his Japanese, Chinese, Ethiopian, Greek or Persian relatives... i could listen to them speak their language, eat their food, and marvel at how they have made a niche for themselves in this teeming Manhattan of the West...

although our relationship is largely physical - and mostly centered around finding the best bakery in town - there is an intellectual side to it...

although the independent bookstores are tragically closing one by one, a few hang on... i stumbled into one on Sawtelle where a half-dozen of his malcontented and erudite friends were having what turned out to be a regular weekly salon, a hybrid of literary criticism and group therapy... and although some of the museums seem to tout their exhibitions as tawdrily as the latest blockbuster film, great art can be seen in his halls...

he has his faults... he's narcissistic and a night owl... i always have to drive, he never picks up the check and often charges me a fee for parking in the wrong spot... but when i'm standing in line at Sprinkles while jonesing for a red velvet cupcake, gazing at the view from the Getty Center, or walking at dusk on the Third Street Promenade, enjoying being alone in crowd, he's mine, all mine...