Here is my farewell haiku:

Scribbles on a page
Turning into poetry
Meaningful small stones

First, I used a homeless man as a breadcrumb. I am not proud of this. But it was a new studio and on the way there I wasn’t sure if I was heading the right direction and I noticed him looking dead lying over a grate around 5th and University Place and I remember thinking Ugh, he looks dead.

I am not really callous. I fake like I am (shhh) when I am in New York City, and only as an act of basic survival: I heard that weak people are sentenced to Midtown in perpetuity.

Unfortunately/fortunately, dead looking homeless men turn out to be useful landmarks on account of no one wanting to touch them.  On my way home from class he hadn’t moved, and that is how I knew I was headed back in the same direction I came.  Oh joy!

Second, a couple of blocks later I spotted THIS little gem in the trash. If I were not afraid of rat diseases and looking weird and also if I weren’t trying to be more of a minimalist, I would have taken it home with me.  I know, totally frivolous, but I pictured having a cocktail party and sitting him at the dinner table just to the left of the chips and queso.

The goalposts are Vanderbilt University’s, where, as a friend says, “So much glory never happened.” That is unfortunate. They seem like nice enough goalposts.

I screen-capped this from Facebook, where it’s been making its rounds with significant support.  Notice that the poster said, “Strange how I was blocked from sharing this…”

To which I would like to say: PEOPLE, WHY DO YOU THINK FACEBOOK IS “FREE?” Are we so arrogant as a society that we believe Facebook should be a public service? You opt in to use it.  There is no money exchanged for it. How do you think companies who charge no money from their user base make money? By selling ad space alone?

With Facebook or Google or any other company to whom you pay ZERO currency to use their services a) you can go ahead and assume they’re selling your data and b) you have the right to stop using their services. Just don’t get mad at them for developing a sustainable business model in which you knowingly partake.

/rant.

Anyway, we had a good time. I met a swan hanging out near the Princess Diana Memorial (which is stunning, btw).  Here is the swan. We got each other.

Maybe someday I will eat the candy.

The third heart from the left reads BLUE EYES. These are Love Hearts. I am guessing there is not a HAZEL EYES. I know for certain that people with hazel eyes love too.

Perhaps the third heart from the left is a secret love letter. A tiny, hidden message inscribed with his nickname for her, in an inconspicuous place where tens of thousands — millions maybe — would see.

She knows that when he goes to work every day he writes things. He is a copywriter, and sometimes he writes ad copy describing YOUR PERFECT LIFE perched high above the bustle, offering the perfect balance of all the city you want with all of the quiet you need.

But on that particular May evening, over their nightly glass of Pinot Noir, he told her he had written sayings, words really, for candy hearts. He showed her the mockup with the words “Blue Eyes” typed across a pink background.

And she smiled as she imagined a woman she had never met, sitting on a Virgin Atlantic flight to London — a last minute substitute for Iceland — opening a candy wrapper, and pulling out the hearts one by one, and pausing upon reaching one inscribed BLUE EYES.

I know that if I was making something that I knew a notable portion of the world would see, I would hide a love letter too.

My friends and I booked the trip a couple of months ago and then basically forgot about it. Actually, I forgot about it. They did not, as evidenced by the countless email reminders they sent asking for a copy of our hotel arrangements. I don’t blame them for asking. I get busy; sometimes I forget things. They know this.

When I finally went to search for the reservation today, the day of our departure, I couldn’t find the confirmation. I panicked. I booked us an alternate plan at the Hilton while I frantically tried to remember where I could have booked. I sent off a hurried correspondence and crossed my fingers.

Then, in a time before God hated me, the hotel miraculously emailed me back just as I arrived at the airport. It was what one might call a miracle. And by “one” I mean the same people who call things like having babies miracles.

So now I’m on this plane next to the girl with too much perfume, watching The Beginners on my iPad, and praying that Xanax wields its lovely power soon, and I find myself awake in a foreign country of volcanoes and grey wool sweaters that I never dreamed I’d visit.

When I talked to her tonight, she used the words, “I manifested this…” and I felt conflicted. Having spent years in the yoga world, I understood her.  But my own belief patterns have changed so that “manifest” just doesn’t seem the right word to me anymore.  And yet, it is for her.

The old arguments that flourished when The Secret first came on the scene came back:  Why would people willingly manifest pain and suffering?  Is that saying that say, rape victims manifested rape?  That just seems callous and off.  Contrary to how I felt 5 or so years ago, I can’t play with semantics to make it fit.

In my friend’s world, in the midst of the sadness that she feels, she blew me away with her gratitude.  Gratitude.  She feels blessed at the outpouring of support she’s had, the way that this disease has brought her family members back together, by the generosity of everyone from other yoga teachers to a doctor she has only just met.

She uses manifest neither punitively nor naively.  That much I know.  And yet I wish I understood.

We’ve had the best of times and we’ve had less, and in the end I can say we’ll always be close.

The boxes and disarray prepare me for a life unsettled, at least for a little while,

I have to take a Code of Ethics class. It’s an online course. I am not opposed to taking it, save for two factors: First, it is designed for a totally different type of worker so that some of the “right” answers are completely antithetical to the way my job is structured.  I’m a One in the Enneagram world which means that I actually care about things like right ways and wrong ways and making points on principle.  In this case, it’s not that I’m worried about being wrong, it’s that I have no one to appeal to that the class is not really a test of one’s ethics because ethics, by definition, aren’t relative.

Second, I suppose more important than things like understanding what a word actually means, for example, is the fact that I actually can’t take the test unless I borrow someone else’s laptop.  (Ironically, I think this qualifies as unethical under the grounds of the test.)  I have a Mac, which okay, I begged for, and the test only works on IE in a native Windows environment. VM Ware doesn’t cut it.  The rub is that I don’t want to complain because I really love my Mac.

So it’s for those reasons that I’ve made the following appeal on Facebook:

When maybe for the first time

All I want is stones

Anyway, my dancing debut:

Charlie Chaplin cripwalk

And then in that other world, the place where I spend most of my days, the one that is responsible for my income and requires me to read things like the Harvard Business Review for fun, these nails aren’t seen for their artist chic. These nails, two weeks past their better days, tell the story of a girl from Kent just trying to keep it together.

The following was a wholly painful exercise, which I only agreed to do once he admitted that it was “totally cheesy.”  I feel like we bonded in that moment.

So I had to write five things about myself that I like.  I came up with four, and then he added the fifth when it was taking too long.

• For my 30th birthday, all of my friends took my yoga class.  I kinda sucked it, but it was a really good time.
• Two years ago I received a KitchenAid mixer. I have made a f*ckload of ice cream because of that mixer.
• Buenos Aires, Marfa, the UK, Saba, Brazil, snowboarding in Durango…
• One of my best friends, Joslyn, is a woman of unbelievable talent.  She has made me the best body products. I LOVE handmade gifts.
• One year, I assisted my first yoga workshop.  These days that would be torture, but at the time I was over the moon.

So that’s just a partial list.  But this year, well this year my friend Kate has really outdone herself with the possibilities.  This tweet killed it.

* Acupuncturist (4, total:  1 each in LA, NYC, Austin, and Seattle)

* Therapist (Cognitive Behavioral)

* Aesthetician (2, total:  1 each in LA, Hoboken)

* Naturopath

* Hypnotherapist

* Dentist

* Allopathic doctor

* Accountant

Also, I read four and a half books on vacation!  This means I am literate.

When we arrived at the tidepools, I stayed ashore and hobbled through a delightful conversation with a sweet grandmother with an unfortunate name. Candida and I got to know each other through fragments of language, hand charades, and synecdoche. And I was happy.

I will miss this island.

About two months ago I was browsing Piperlime,  and specifically the celebrity picks section.  I am not proud of this.  Anyway, after scrolling through Rachel Zoe’s and Rachel Bilson’s selections (too Santa Monica, too your-stylist-picked-that-for-you, respectively), I happened upon Olivia Palermo’s.  You might remember her from MTV’s The City. (Or you might not, if you’re the sort with an ounce of dignity.) I always hate-liked Olivia.  On one hand, her skin was far too pretty for her deep-seated insecurity; on the other, next to Joe Zee she was the smartest dressed on the show.  So naturally, of the three guest stylists, I liked her choices the best.  About halfway down the page I noticed an outfit I immediately pictured myself wearing for my company’s Christmas party: black long sleeve tee (check), black fur vest (pretend I don’t see it), sequined shorts (buy!), black tights (check) and black ankle boots (check). I had to have the shorts. As I often do with clothing I 100% need, I visualized all the other things in my closet that would also go perfectly with them, for example, white short-sleeved tee, Converse low tops. Actually it only takes one outfit for me and I’m in. So I got them. And I’ve been waiting ever since to wear them.  I smiled when I packed them for Brazil. 

I’ve been staring at my sequined shorts all week. Mostly because they are a stark departure from the hobo look I typically sport on vacation. The problem is one of comfort and convenience: I wear the same things over and over again because they’re comfortable and also because I’m lazy.  Also, for going out, I prefer dive places over fancy stuff on vacation. So the cute white Sessun dress I had envisioned wearing while sitting by a pool sipping a caipirinha never made it out of my suitcase.  Long story long, I couldn’t wait to don my new shorts for our last night in FdN at one of the island’s best restaurants.

And then I tried them on. Somehow I hadn’t thought to do that earlier. Not only was I not sure I even liked them, they were itchy in a foreboding sort of way. So I put a poll out on Facebook ( of course), and I asked: Yay or nay? But then I threw caution to the wind and wore them without looking at the comments. I didn’t end up regretting the aesthetics.  Y’all, I looked SO cute standing in line at the buffet.

I wish I could say it ended there. Those shorts are still with me. Well, the blisters caused by the sequins rubbing against my skin on the disastrous mile and a half walk home are still with me.  The scene, in retrospect, was pitiable.  I fashioned those shorts into everything from a diaper to low-riders, changing every 20 or so paces, when the chafing in a particular spot became unbearable.  My friend even offered me his sweater to use as a skirt instead.  I stoically declined. I’m fine, I insisted.

When I finally got home, I checked Facebook.  Turns out the poll came in fairly even.   Some were more diplomatic than others, (my “curls would make anything look cute!”).  I jokingly said that I needed Neosporin, and then woke up this morning to find that it wasn’t a joke after all.  :(

So this will be the story that I tell when I explain at my company Christmas party next week why I’m wearing MC Hammer pants.

1. I bought a Brazilian bikini.  The reasons are P2C2E, but suffice to say I am now going to kill myself.  Which is strange, because…

2. I spent most of the day trying not to die.  Partial list of items not working on the vehicle I have rented:

* Seatbelts

* Speedometer

* Brakes

I could go on to describe the hole in the floorboard through which I could see the earth, or discuss the absence of power steering, rendering what should be simple 3-point turns into expletive-laden, panicked 33-point turns, but what for, really?

3. I picked up hitchhikers, twice.  The first guy begged to get out and walk after I drove ~30 meters.  The second guy had a gold grill.

Just like from that Stephen King book where it comes to life but really it's evil.

The truck shuttling us to the dock arrived at 8:15 a.m.  When we finally arrived, we were greeted by a man who only spoke Portuguese, and Fernanda, my favorite person in the world for four hours.  Fernanda translated everything with such infectious enthusiasm, it made me want to rethink my career.  She also rocked a giant octopus tattoo on her shin in a way that I can’t imagine working for anyone else, ever.

In total we were eleven snorkelers*:  me, Hav, a beautiful girl with a mesmerizing scar the shape of Tennessee running across both legs, her husband, and their English-speaking friend who maybe shouldn’t have worn those spandex bicycling shorts; a 14-year-old girl who is probably a handful and her drunk mother; a nice-seeming couple who appear to be newly married, and a glamourous Chelsea Peretti-lookalike with her dad/boyfriend.  I spent most of the boat ride thinking those two were father and daughter, and how cool it must be to travel with your dad.

Until I saw them kiss.

And that is when I THREW UP ALL OVER EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE BOAT AND HAD TO SCOOP OUT MY OWN EYEBALLS AND CAST THEM INTO THE SEA.

When I was 22, I went to Cancun, Mexico.  I paid $60 to wait about an hour to swim in a pool with a sad looking dolphin.  I remember loving it.  That dolphin experience has since been usurped times a million with what happened yesterday.  As we pulled away from the shore, a school of dolphins — I mean, there were lots! —  followed us.  For a long time!  They were jumping and flipping and just generally being badasses.  I decided that I want to cover my room with dolphins when I return home, like eight-year-old girls everywhere.

When we finally returned from snorkeling, I fell asleep for almost four hours.  Boring places are awesome for napping because you can’t think of anything else to do.  Except for maybe go running when you realize that vacation is your only opportunity to spend your days like a Brentwood soccer mom.

It has taken three days for me to figure out the trick to taking a shower in Brazil.  Maybe it’s the places I’ve been staying, but there is only one speed of water and hot ain’t it.  The first day I avoided showering altogether, but then woke up anxious on the second day when I realized that that’s not a sustainable solution.  So I took one, albeit of the totally-bitter-I-hate-my life variety.  But yesterday, God smiled upon me.  After I returned from my run, I hopped in the shower.  It was then that I figured out that tepid water is actually bearable under the right conditions.   Now if I could just figure out a way to read in the dark…

* If you ever want to feel really good about yourself, I recommend spending three months perfecting your best “fat vampire” look, and then hanging out with a bunch of Brazilian women. It’ll do wonders for your self-esteem.

If you visit FdN, you may be shocked by the prices. I know I was. (R$6.99 for an 8oz Perrier? Oh I guess I should just eat cake now, too?) But what it lacks in cost-to-value differential, it makes up for in serenity. It is literally boring here. Like, really, really boring. So if you’re smart, you will rationalize that you’ve earned this, and you WILL NOT put a price on your mental health, and then you’ll immediately pop the last 1/2 of a Xanax a dear friend gave you months ago for just this kind of occasion. Thank you, Joslyn.

Make no mistake, FdN is stunning. It’s the kind of place where you might expect to see The Others creep out from behind the ocean shrubbery as you drift between sleep and reading The History of Punk on a beach where there are only ant-sized people in the distance. You can see fish without using a mask because the ocean is that shade of blue depicted on a postcard sent to you by your friend visiting Domenica (the fancy part) or something. By the way, don’t read a book about the history of punk rock on vacation. The only thing more boring than having absolutely zero to do and poor Internet access, is reading Lou Reed boast about his own megalomaniacal douchery.

This island (the big one), is six miles long and two miles wide. From what I hear, it only has two cash machines, and the one within reasonable walking distance (don’t judge, it’s very hilly here), doesn’t accept my bank card or Hav’s. You wouldn’t think that would be an issue, but a lot of places are cash only. So we chose our dining establishment last night by the presence of a Visa logo.  Given normal circumstances, I wouldn’t recommend this as a means for picking anything, ever.

It’s been two days and I can count the number of vegetables I’ve eaten in Brazil on two fingers, which makes me feel kinda gross.  I decide that because acai is full of good things like vitamins and anti-oxidants, it counts as a vegetable. I eat it for dinner along with cheese fries.  

As I mentioned yesterday, English-speakers are not prevalent here, and I continue to be crippled by my poor knowledge of Italian and Spanish, neither of which are Portuguese. For instance, I am not entirely certain why the proprietor of this pousada had to leave in a dash for Recife immediately after dropping us off. Best I can tell, a loved one was murdered. I artfully deduced this from his change to dapper clothing, coupled with his rushed explanation of his rushed departure, during which he brought his finger to his neck and motioned horizontally. I immediately responded with, “Desculpa,” (I’m sorry!) in my best sad/horrified face. But then he responded with, “No, no, no!” and a smile, so I took that to mean, “Don’t worry about it, she was an asshole.” Seems kinda callous if you ask me, but I don’t know his life.

Anyway, it’s fine. I asked for this. I remember saying for weeks? months? that I wanted nothing to do but lie on a beach, sleep, write, think and maybe meditate. FdN is good for all of that in spades.

Finally he pulled a Portuguese – English phrasebook from the glove compartment, while he was driving, and handed it to me.  I thumbed through the book and asked the first suitable question I found, “Você quer uma bebida?”  (Would you like a drink?) I think I made a friend. And then I tipped him way more than I should have because I am a fat American.

After checking in at the pousada, we were served complimentary caiperinhas, of which I drank two, obrigado, sending me reeling for a nap. But because I am travelling with a fun-Nazi*, I vaguely remember being forced to go for a hike to the top of a hill overlooking Olinda and Recife, with a little marketplace lining both sides of the cobbled street.

And I wish I could tell you more about Olinda than that, but then I slept for about 14 hours.  Here is a picture atop that hill.

*I first tried that phrase without a hyphen and it took on a totally different meaning.

Sometimes when things are hard or really sad or whatever, conversation just doesn’t bring answers. No amount of wishing changes that. But with art, there exists this delicate quiet whose simplicity is both grand and amorphous. And somehow in that space, where there are no words spoken, I find what I need.

Which is why I bought a guitar tonight.

In the months since it’s been up, miraculously the city of Los Angeles has maintained it:  more than just not taking it down, they have kindly removed graffiti that was placed around and on it.  I feel like that’s unheard of.

Since January, I’ve traveled a lot for work.  I’ve mostly been on the East Coast, in Hoboken, NJ from Monday through Friday.  While I love New York City (a seven-minute subway ride away),  there is nothing like living somewhere else to make you cherish things like your bed, your friends, and of course, your city.  And my heart melted, like slid onto the street, when I ran past this new installation, posted on the overpass right next to ours.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Mizzou moves to SEC

I get what it means financially for my alma matter. Yay, money. But no one, save for those actually in it, likes the SEC. If conferences were celebrities, the SEC would be Kim Kardashian. We would rather drink antifreeze than see your mug in the highlights one. more. time Kim SEC.

This just means I’m going to have to go to graduate school.

(Also, I wrote this poem last weekend while attending a creative writing workshop at Esalen.)

The time when Gandhi hit on me

In February, Vanessa Fiola met a man
Whom she would later come to know as Gandhi.
Well she didn’t know it was Gandhi at first, despite the evidence.
Short, bald, dhoti-wearing man; glasses perched across an ample nose,
A thick Gujarati accent (which she couldn’t quite place), ordering
An 8 ounce chai, for here, please.
Because Gandhi is dead.  And also because
He was hitting on her.

At first she just thought,
“Wow, this guy sure looks like Gandhi,”
And she dismissed it, the way you might when you
See your dead grandmother out of the corner of your eye
Pulling freshly-baked biscotti from the oven.
“That can’t be her,” you’d tell yourself.
And then you would look again
And she’d be gone.

It wasn’t until the barista handed the stranger his chai
Here you go, Mahatma!
To which he replied, No please, call me Mohandas, 
And winked,
That she vaguely considered the possibility
That the man, who had now turned to look at her,
Could possibly be the namesake of that Robert Altman film.
(The one that was really long.)

Even still, on that day, in the middle of February
In two-thousand and eleven
In a coffee shop in lower Manhattan
With the snow falling just outside the other side,
Vanessa Fiola blushed maybe a little bit
When the small, brown brahmacharya
Brushed the hair from her eyes
As he complimented her smile.

There are things so profoundly sad, I wish I could crawl into a cave and read my style magazines til I forget. And there are others so obviously senseless that I second-guess the potential of significant portions of humanity. I’m especially depressed when the two intersect.

What happened in Georgia is the obvious target here. And though the fourth estate may prove a catalyst for stays in the future, the real work is shifting the millions of mindsets who still believe that execution is only unjust when you have the wrong man.

In between candles
Lie the crests and troughs of the
Way you grace this world

Just your average California day.

Today I went on a coastal hike in the far, far away land of San Pedro, CA.

I drove from Hollywood, and if you’re an Angeleno, you know I’m serious when I tell you that I packed an emergency survival kit for the trip.  Just in case.

Actually, this is one of the things I really love about California: there are about seven different climates/geographies within spontaneous driving distance, all of which can make you forget you live in the Union’s most populous state.

My friend Matthew and I bonded over the Internet — he was an early (and favorite) author on Recovering Yogi. Then I found out that we both love nachos, so obviously we had to meet.  We’ve been planning a hike for at least the last six months, but haven’t been able to find the time.

Boy am I glad we did.

I saw whales!!

(I also saw some Odyssey-like ships which I like to confuse for Plymouth-era vessels, whatever.)  Unfortunately, on the way down to San Pedro I listened to a Louis CK piece about the rampancy of hyperbole in conversation, so I’m loath to tell you just how FREAKIN’ AWESOME it was to see a WHOLE BUNCH of AMAZING whales!  It was great.

Upon returning home I did what any self-respecting recovering yogi would do in private — I looked up the significance of whales in my book, Animal Speak.   Turns out whales symbolize creation.  If a whale shows up in your life, it’s time to “show the magnificence and power of your own creativity,” we’re told. “Don’t hold back.”  Okay, universe!  You don’t have to tell me twice!

(Kindly ignore the fact that I went hiking in a place widely reputed for its whale sitings.) (Read Matthew’s eloquent account of said whales here.)

Me and my friend, Matthew. (He's trying to ignore some woman's bare ass behind me.)

Me, meditating like a motherf*cker.

Since I have an 8-year history of doing both, I consider myself an expert. I’d like to offer you these really simple steps towards building your own practice.

1. Go to a new acupuncturist who asks you if you meditate.
2. Say yes.
3. Feel guilty that you either a) don’t or b) haven’t for at least three months.
4. Forget that conversation.
5. Remember it about a week later.
6. Check Twitter.
7. Check Facebook.
8. F*ck it, check Google+.
9. Look at your iPhone and decide to set your timer.  7 minutes seems good ’cause it’s longer than you can hold your breath underwater.
10. Close your eyes.  Some say you should keep your eyes slightly open but I find that too distracting.
11. Think of something you can repeat over and over an over so you don’t freak out.  I like to think of the words clear or God, but Justin Bieber will work too.
12. Marvel at your fortitude and decide you should write a blog about this.
13. Think, Ahh, this is nice.  And then wonder if you should get your hair cut.
14. Get excited when your timer goes off. You did it!
15. Repeat.

Basically, the most unhealthy contents of a freezer ever. Except that the french fries are organic. And I’m fairly certain that Ben & Jerry use hormone-free milk. Or something.

This is Ben being awesome. If you know him, then you know he’s pure punk rock. If you know him, then you know how much he’d despise that description.

Best. Song. Ever. I am so bummed I missed the first few seconds of it.

I don’t usually geek out about my own illustrations, but I totally love this one because meta stuff makes me smile. Isn’t it cute?! In retrospect, I could have made the t-shirt speech bubble say, “I’m so meta,” but even I have my limits.

And then I saw this number from j.crew.  Goddamnit.

Also, call me a commenting neophyte, but is it really possible that AlpineLily got NINE thumbs ups?  Can you thumbs up yourself?  Or is it really possible that there is a legion (sorry, Ben) of people out there who both a) really hate Ben and b) can somehow write but not read.

I have another day tomorrow where I have be super on it and have to get up early for work for a meeting before our workshops.  Naturally I’m wide awake.

Open Letter to the I’m-Not-Angry-It’s-Just-That-Joslyn-Hamilton-Is-Basically-Hitler People:

Dear I’m-Not-Angry-It’s-Just-That-Joslyn-Hamilton-Is-Basically-Hitler People,

Hi there. How are you?

Listen… we’re friends, right? I mean, we *are* all connected — one love and stuff? Exactly. Well, look, I wanted to tell you that I hear you. I do. And I truly believe you when you insist that you’re not angry and that you are only doing your moral duty in representing the voice of humanely farmed animals / oppressed yoga teachers / defenseless new age ideologies. You elevate us all in your exhausting — my bad — exhaustive comments, citing the chakras and waxing didactic on Buddhist teachings to support your noble beliefs. You’re the beacons of the spiritual community, for goodness sake! You are the voices of consciousness! No, no, you’re not angry. You are just misunderstood, and it’s not fair.

Gosh though, it sure seems like you’re angry, given that you’ve called her tongue-in-cheek missives “superficial at best.” You’ve implored her not to reproduce (whoa!), and have deemed her “openly ego-maniacal” and “childish.” I guess I just got confused when you repeatedly called her “selfish” and “hypocritical.”

But then I remembered how you endearingly addressed her as “sister” in your comments. You signed your letters with nice monikers like “Love,” and “YogiOne,” and “Inagaddavegan” (cute!), and “Kyle.” And I realized you couldn’t be angry. Those certainly don’t sound like angry names to me!

So, I want to say that I understand you. You people aren’t angry. It’s just that you have absolutely no sense of humor. (Also, your pious rhetoric is really f*cking boring.)

Sincerely,

Vanessa

And it is with that same feeling of dejection with which I left the eye doctor today.

I wear glasses.  I look cute in my glasses.  But still, I do not want to wear glasses.  (Before you suggest it, I hate contacts.  It’s like I could literally feel the oxygen being sucked out of my eyeballs when I’ve worn them.)  At the beginning of this year I set aside $3500 in FSA money to get LASIK.  I know three people within the last three months who’ve gotten LASIK.  LASIK is in the air for crissakes.   Apparently it’s not in my air.

“Has anyone ever told you you have unusual corneas?”

“Why thank you.”

And then I realized he wasn’t complimenting me.

He cooly broke the news, “You have weak corneas.”

I have what?  Tell me I have narrow ear canals. (I do.)  Tell me I’m allergic to gluten and corn and dairy and sugar and caffeine and basically all things worth eating.  (That too.)  I can handle those.  There are treatments to those.  But weak corneas?   I felt like such a failure.  How did this happen?

“Is there something I can do to strengthen it?”  I was desperate.

“The treatment isn’t FDA-approved yet,” he said.

Man, f*ck the FDA! I said.  (I didn’t really say that.)

I left the office with my head hung low.  I should have stopped when he told me to come back in a year and try again.  Instead, I googled “what causes weak corneas.”  Word of advice:  don’t google stuff when you leave a doctor’s office.  It doesn’t end well.  Ever.  If you do, you’ll likely stumble upon a natural remedy site which tells you that it’s your fault for having too much heat in the body and various other things that basically suggest wanton abuse of one’s temple.   I reeled for a moment thinking about what I could have done differently; what I should be doing now.  And then…

Oh shut up, Internet.

It hit me.  Is there really value in figuring out if I did something “wrong” to cause a set of pansy corneas?  I don’t even care if it’s my “fault.”  Likely I was born like this, or maybe I ate the wrong foods, or my sixth chakra is effed, or maybe it’s because I once told a guy at a concert he was ugly after he blocked my view.  (Sorry!  I didn’t mean it!)  I don’t know.  The point is, it seems counter-productive to view a physical condition as a character flaw. It’s just a lot of extra worry and stress that I could be diverting toward my job.

Instead, I went out to Warby Parker and picked out a lighter pair of eyeglasses.  I’m still going to see my naturopath to see if I can do something between now and next year.  But this time I’m going to do it with a lot less drama about the whole thing.

Running in Oxford

Our first stop was in Oxford, home of the university where smart people go.  Our hotel was situated directly across the street from one of the campuses (turns out, Oxford is a series of different colleges), which was perfect for my morning run.  I saw dinosaur bones.

After more than a week and a half conducting rapid fire interviews, the workdays tended to blend together.  Funnily enough, it’s easy to remember dinners.  On Tuesday night we went to a big work dinner, meeting up with people from a concurrent work project.  I drank a bunch of wine, and then we took a van from Oxford to Chichester.  It was no regular van.  We got Stella tallboys for the hour and a half drive.   That’s legal in the UK, right?   (We had a driver.)

In Chichester we checked into The Ship Hotel.  Chichester is a college town known in part for its super old church in the center of town.  That super old church has a statue of Saint Richard in the walkway.  Saint Richard looks like Mr. Burns, people.  He’s scary.  (In fairness, I found out in mass on Thursday that apparently Mr. Burns did some really nice things — like cure people of disease and stop a storm.)

Saint Richard lives here.

Chichester was nearly as peaceful as Weinheim.  Except that the hotel we were staying at has things like rapes.  It wasn’t a random rape or anything, so I still felt safe, although I considered the runny eggs a dietary hazard.

The town (city?) shuts down after six p.m. so really, the only thing to do is eat and drink.  (See a pattern?  I need a cleanse.)  I did manage to get a run in along a lovely footpath that ended in a cricket field.  But the brief exercising couldn’t change the fact that I brought a pair of pants along that fit me in the beginning of my trip and by the end, well, didn’t.  I mostly wore skirts.

By Friday I had a bad case of senioritis.  You know, that giddy euphoria where everything is silly and funny and you can’t stop looking at the clock?  I couldn’t help it.  The past two weeks have been really remarkable.  I’ve been around the globe with four different currencies and timezones.  I’ve eaten bird spit; I’ve had enough wine and beer to inebriate a small village; I travelled to two countries for the first time.  But I miss my bed, and I miss eating California food, and yes, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t wait to get on the plane.

Until Tuesday night…

And then there was the time I ended up in a remote pensione near the Austrian border.   I was stuck in Salzburg without a place to stay and the nearest available option meant crossing over into some small German town by way of a half-hour train ride and a mile walk on a country road in the pitch dark.  I woke up in the middle of the night to find a guy breaking into in my room.

So I had low expectations for our next stop.

We flew into Frankfurt on Sunday morning.  I spotted this sign in baggage claim, which I basically interpreted as, ”Willkommen in Deutschland! Stand the f*ck back.”

(By the way, I totally get you, Germany. *wink)

We took the autobahn to a bucolic, enchanting town about forty minutes away called Weinheim.  Weinheim is literally one thousand years old.  That’s like, slightly older than me.   It has castles and an annual drunkfest in August.

I could live here.

Maybe now you understand why I NEVER WANT TO LEAVE.  EVER.

The bustle of Melbourne, Brisbane, and Singapore combined with the rapid travel and long days left me tired and cranky.  So nestling into the cobbled, quiet streets of Weinheim came at the perfect time. We stayed at a small hotel with Buddha statues in every possible corner and windowsill.  I’m not even Buddhist, and in a way I only barely understood, it felt like home.

I checked into my room and went for a run. Steps past the original town walls, there is a former monastery that opens to an expansive park dotted with the town’s citizens enjoying the perfect blue sky.  At the edge of the park lies a forest.  Its paths wound through dense trees.  I felt like I could run forever in that forest.  Maybe I just wanted to.

Just after noon we all met for lunch in the piazza in the center of town.  The piazza is a huge open area lined with restaurants and bars and a really delicious gelato place.  The waiter looked at me like I was a crazy when I asked him if the fish I had ordered would be served with the head still on it.  We drank a bunch of wine and then went back to the hotel to work.

At 4:30, a colleague from the Weinheim office arrived at our hotel.  He had graciously offered to give us a walking tour of the city and take us to dinner.  We walked through botanical gardens, to that lovely park, and strolled through the piazza, settling in for drinks.  Later, over a meal of salad and bread and Argentinian beef we talked about the state of nuclear plants in Germany and the merits of using the proper beer glass.  We talked about the proliferation of motorcycle gangs across Europe.  We didn’t talk about work.

Stay sweet, Germany.

We returned to the hotel late in the evening satiated, sleepy, and ready for the next day in the office.  These are my new favorite memories of Germany.

At any rate, Singapore is a lovely city. With its ample high-end shopping, futuristic skyscrapers, and knoll-filled parks, it is both elegant and bucolic.  It’s green like Hawaii and small like Rhode Island.   The island is 41 sq miles, or something.  I’m not much for facts.  Singapore is also humid.  I have an afro.

Singapore

We arrived on Wednesday night.  When we checked, the five us (my co-workers and I) decided to get a bite to eat at the hotel’s “casual” restaurant.  (We’re at a Four Seasons hotel, so casual is like, not.)  I opened up the menu and spied what was called “Women’s Health Soup.”  The soup listed vitality and balance as its benefits.  Sounds promising.  Among its ingredients:  Chinese herbs, ginseng, birds nest, mushrooms, seafood broth.

Turns out birds nest is bird saliva.  That’s right.  I ATE BIRD SPIT, PEOPLE.  I AM INVINCIBLE.

One of the offices I visited in Singapore

Thursday night, the VP of global marketing took us dinner and drinks.  He’s the kind guy who works a social situation with ease, deftly brokering new conversation.  (Read:  makes socially awkward people like me feel like we’re not going to die.)  Two other colleagues from the Singapore office – equally as hospitable – met us. The eight of us drank wine in a converted military base, surrounded by thick, green hills, and mosquitos at our ankles.  After, we walked over for some of the best Asian cuisine I’ve ever had – a colloquial family-style restaurant, bustling with people enjoying themselves over modest food.  I got drunk.  It felt good.  It’s been a lot of working, a lot of thinking a lot and a lot of travelling.  I welcomed the brief respite of wine and conversation over a good meal.

To each of the interviews we’ve conducted we’ve brought M&Ms and candies.  In Australia one of the interviewees remarked, “How American of you,” but I’m pretty sure she secretly enjoyed them.  On Friday, we ran out of candies for our afternoon sessions, and in sweet turn, the interviewees brought candy for us.  Simple things make me smile.

For dinner on Friday, two colleagues (who are also married and exquisite hosts), took us out for drinks at a nearby pub, and then to a great restaurant called Graze.  The others questioned the logic behind me ordering salt and pepper chips with herbed aioli (also know as french fries) and a microgreens and beet salad.  In my mind it’s an obvious pairing.  If you love french fries as much as I do, but you’ve been told by your naturopath that they are basically the “worst food you could possibly eat, Vanessa; I can’t believe you eat those,” then it would make perfect sense to you to balance the french fries by eating something with nutrients.  Obviously.

Saturday started with an 8 a.m. conference call, lasting for almost two hours, and extended with more work until 5:30 when I rushed to take a shower and get ready for a quick bite before the airport.  I was able to lie by the pool with my laptop and MS Word, and at least one of our meetings was over beer.  Beer makes me less argumentative.  *Sigh*.  Less.

After dinner we each had an hour to get some shopping in.  I tried to shop.  I really did.  But I couldn’t shop under duress, so I went for a stroll instead.  I happened my way into a makeshift flee market right outside of a 7-11.  The experience of hearing the constant calls of “Two dollar! Only two dollar!  You want shoes?  One dollar!  Shoes one dollar!” more than made up for the silk wares I had hoped to purchase.

Flea market at night

The best thing about Brisbane cannot be its coffee.  Nor its nachos.

Nachos?

Right.  Why would I order nachos 12,000 miles away from Mexico?  Because Australia is like America with a better accent, so I got confused for a minute.   (Pretty sure I just offended whatever the population of Australia is.)

Anyway, one of my favorite ways to see a city is to run it.  Early Tuesday morning, I woke up, slipped on my Vibrams, then headed down the waterfront pathway.  I ran along the harbor, through the botanical gardens, across a bridge and to Memorial Park, a gem-like arboretum a couple of miles from the hotel.  Brisbane, it seems, is an athletic city.  At 6 a.m. the waterside trail was teeming with other runners.  I got passed by a girl.  I’m not super fast or anything – girls just don’t pass me.  I picked up my pace, but then she left the trail so that I eventually just had to swallow defeat to someone who had no idea she was racing.

On the trail, Brisbane at sunrise

If nothing else I will remember Brisbane for the moment when I almost died.  On Tuesday night, my co-worker and I were heading back from a gnarly dinner at a weaksauce restaurant.  (F*ck you I should’ve known better than to order pad thai at an English pub.)  We left the place in silence, our meals quarter-eaten, me with a scowl on my face.  We decide to pick up some candy from a convenience store across the street.  I can’t remember what I was thinking about, but I know I was lost in thought.   As I stepped into the street I heard, “Watch out! Watch out!  Watch out!”  Bret was screaming at me.   I looked up and immediately saw two cars speeding past me to my left.  I felt their draft on my face.

I didn’t have one of those moments where your life flashes before your face, as they say.  Rather, my knees started to shake, I wanted to go home, and I wanted to cry.   Feeling like you’re about to die is scary.  I went back to my hotel room and ordered french fries.

In other news, I lost Saturday and I will never get it back.  We crossed the international date line, and like that — my day was gone before I ever met it.  I had HUGE plans for April 30th.  April 30th was the day that I was going to discover a cure for cancer and teach Katy Perry how to dance.   Guess all that will have to wait until another otherwise perfect day comes along.

Dude serenading his girl w/ a ukelele in Melbourne

We arrived in Melbourne at about 10 a.m. Melbourne is a lovely city.  It is wrought with parks and Gehry-looking architecture, and, according to our car driver, is known for its “stabbings at night.”    True to that, on Sunday night, there was indeed a stabbing.  There was also a guy shot by police on Monday, as reported by a woman whose plans to go to yoga were thwarted by the whole mess.  (I found it oddly funny that she was on the radio reporting that she was “overjoyed that the bad guy was caught” while she probably had her yoga mat in hand.)

I got to my hotel and went for a 30-minute run.  After exercising, I trekked off to acupuncture, referred by my awesome acupuncturist in LA.  What fortune too, since Stephanie reset my circadian clock and I felt like a hundred bucks.  So good, in fact, that I went for one of the best coffees EVER at this adorable out of the way shop, followed by some fruitless shopping, only to get lost about 1/3 of mile from my hotel with a dead battery on my phone.  Sucks it.  Eventually, after asking four strangers for directions, I found my way back to the hotel where I spent the rest of the night working, which was awesome.

I love you, Brother Baba Budan. (And I'm not loose with my coffee compliments.)

The thing about the Aussies is that they’re wicked nice.  (Save for the whole stabbing bit.)  My work day was delightful because the people that we were in town to meet with were not only really fun, but also very hospitable.  They took us to a restaurant — A Taste of Salt — known as the hipster epicenter of Melbourne.  It’s also really tasty.

I felt sorry to leave the city, but, well, Brisbane calls.

It was deceivingly beautiful in SF today: no breeze, clear skies… the kind of day where I forget that this city gives me panic attacks. They have compost bins in the office, people. I feel like an asshole going to Starbucks, forgetting to bring my sustainable bag to Walgreens, or like, smiling unnecessarily. I’m getting anxious just remembering that I accidentally put my napkins in the trash instead of the recycling. (Shit – compost?) (See?!?!) I prayed I wouldn’t be caught. Fortunately, our host was exceedingly gracious. She also plied us with delicious cookies from Specialty’s, which is enough to warm the most hardened heart.

After work, we went to Ame for dinner, where I had an amazing beet salad.

I just thought you should know.

So as I mentioned, we’re here in the JAL club – like their version of an Admirals Club. This place is like a library, except that people apparently think it’s okay to place their complimentary sandwiches on the tabletop. Aussies.

Which is why I found this email, umm, funny this morning.  Fedoras, Polyvore?  You have about two million sartorial choices to profile and you pick the fashion staple of the bridge and tunnel guys.  Nicely done.

Note:  I retired my ahem, three fedoras at least a year ago.

Me:  Guess what?  I’ve got a shiner!

Boyfriend:  What?  Oh no!  What happened?

Me:  Barfight.

Boyfriend:  [Laughs.]  That’s insane.  Who’d you get in a fight with?

Me:  Seriously, Ryan?  You think I got in a barfight??!

The truth is, I got this bruise from acupuncture.  Which is a far more boring tale than the idea of a barroom brawl, or even a fall down some stairs.  I bruise easily and while this is the first time I’ve had one on my face, I’ve bruised on my neck (which is awesome when you have a professional job), arms and shins enough times that I’ve seriously considered starting a facebook page called, “I swear this bruise is from acupuncture.”  (Note:  This particular bruise was from a different acupuncturist than my normal one, whom I love.  Though that’s kind of irrelevant since I think bruises are dependent on a ton of factors and aren’t anything to worry about.)

But what I find funny about this story is not just the fact a remnant from some Eastern medicinal practice can cause strangers to take pity on you and be kinder, it’s that my boyfriend actually believed that I got into a fight.  And I’m not sure who that speaks more about.

I made this list December 18th, the day after I had finished up a four-year project at a studio. I had a three week break in between projects (being a consultant and all), and in the space of that weekend, I could only see the possibility in the year ahead.

In the the three and a half months since that list was made, I’ve been splitting my time weekly between Hoboken, NJ and Los Angeles. For the better part of this time I’ve been on simultaneous projects in both places. I have racked over 60,000 air miles. A short workweek for me has been 55 hours. In other words, it’s not a glamorous life.

So today, when I sat at breakfast with Leslie and Joslyn to review and revise our personal goals, I hung my head in my oatmeal. I’m an action-oriented person. I make lists every day in an OCD way because I love the feeling of accomplishment from checking things off. And also because I’m Virgo (rising) (and moon).

When I penned these goals, I considered them long term, like, say, 6-12+ months. While it’s not like I was expecting to have the big ones fulfilled, I figured I’d at least make some headway. Turns out, I haven’t. Unless you count the lone five-mile run I did two weeks ago. Oops.

So I had to re-strategize. I don’t like feeling like I haven’t accomplished anything. More importantly, I think sometimes it’s important to give yourself a break. Here is my new – and improved – list:

In fairness, Lululemon doesn’t really need defending. Maybe they don’t even deserve it. I have several friends who used to work for them, and they’ve all said the same thing: the company preaches one thing and does another. Reports of their douchebagginess circulate throughout the internet. And yeah, I lolled all the way through Seacow Coalition’s clever take on the Lulu poster/totebag. In other words, they may suck.

But while you may be able to fault them on all of the above, their stupid ads, and maybe their choice to manufacture in China*, you can’t bemoan the $90 pricetag of their pants or complain when girls wear them to make their asses look better.

To begin, the pants are well-made. They could likely withstand a natural disaster. I know, because I had several pairs circa 2004 that I finally donated to Goodwill. Those. suckers. will. not. die. And if I thought that it was still cool to wear flared pants, you know I’d be rocking mine. So, when you consider the long lifecycle, the cost per wear factor (CPWF) is somewhere in the negative numbers. But I’m no economist.

I realize that $90 doesn’t grow on trees.

(Though I’d be happy if it did. I did find a ten dollar bill on the street the other day. That was fun.) There are lots of things in this world that are considered luxury items: BMWs, iPads, box seats to the Lakers… I could go crazy if I chose to worry about what others had that I didn’t. Instead, I’d much rather worry about how to instantly become enlightened without having to read any Byron Katie. (I’m sure she’s awesome.)

And then secondly, there’s the question of aesthetics.

I love when yoga people act like they’re above wanting to looking good.

If we’re pretending that looks don’t matter, then I would invite those who protest to throw away every mirror that they own, their nose rings, their toe rings, and any other item that isn’t purely utilitarian. While you’re at it, wear your pajamas to work.

Exactly.

There’s nothing wrong with caring if your ass looks good in pants, people.

I guess my wish would be that people felt comfortable going to yoga in whatever was clean. And that people knew that style isn’t about a brand. And lastly, I wish that we could focus on more important things. Like why-the-eff do yoga teachers feel the need to play loud ass music in savasana?! (More on that later.)

*Personally, I don’t feel like I can indict them on the whole China thing unless I’m prepared to fight that battle for everything in my life, which I’m not.

Gene,

I’m at a loss.

I wanted to tell you a specific memory that would embody just how I feel about you. I replayed the last fifteen years: driving up to first meet you and Ruth in my Ford Taurus and your interest in my car and really, all things Ford; the beach at Port A, your 50th wedding anniversary and the great love in your marriage, your enthusiasm, support and moving expertise when Scott and I bought our first house, watching us as we played kickball at Christmas, the rhythmic way you emptied the pepper shaker, eating your popcorned eggs, your perfectly-timed witticisms, your quiet encouragement when it felt like the earth beneath my feet had given way, your peaceful resistance to speak poorly of others, the kind gratitude you showed when I plied you with homeopathic ointments. (You didn’t let on that they were futile.)

I held the notion that the mere snippets of you in my mind would belie the force you have been in my life. I thought if I could think of ONE BIG THING, to sum up my years with you, that that would be a better testament of my love for you than the many daily occurrences which came to mind. My memories felt inadequate.

But because I had to write something – your Memory Book deserves content – I had to let go. And when I stopped resisting what I remember about you, (“Easy does it,” as you would say), it was then I realized that maybe it is enough to recount those understated moments that pass without notice. Maybe they do epitomize how you lived your life, and what I loved about you so much.

I aspire to your modesty. I aspire to your humanity and gentle ways. I aspire to your steadiness. I miss you deeply.

Always,

Vanessa

But, not everyone has had that same experience.  In fact, my BFFs hated it.  And because artists will always find a way to express, this video was borne.  Leslie wrote it, Ryan produced it, and I acted in it.  I also did the main title and credits.  We used about 100 gallons of water flushing the toilet on retakes, so Ryan’s grandma gets executive producer rights.  (Sorry about that water bill.)

Enjoy.

I’ve learned.

This is what I looked like today at about 12:30.  It’s also what I still look like right now.  It’s 6:30 p.m.

At WholeFoods.  In my pajamas.

The thing about being on the bench is that no one knows what you look like when you take your conference calls.  So I didn’t bother to get out of my pajamas when I phone-interviewed a candidate, sat on a training call, and met with one of the VPs about an upcoming project.

This is gonna be great.

The only downside I’ve seen so far is that I’ve literally eaten 14 Christmas cookies today.  I’m not sure what that has to do with being benched, but given that I’ve let my wardrobe go, I’m guessing the complete disregard for sensible eating is my attempt at consistency.

Don’t worry. I’m being forced to pull it together in less than three weeks.  Until then, you can find me milling around at my favorite coffee shop on Cahuenga.   I’ll be the homeless looking one.

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

My new-ish mantle

First, I turned our barren mantle into something with a little more personality.  I’m actually kind of pleased with the way this turned out.  Looking at the finished product belies what a pain in the ass it was to make it.  It took probably six hours of masking, arranging, making stuff, Kinkos, cussing, and good ole fashioned sweating.  Because of that, I am never moving again.  (Note:  If you plan on trying this in your own home, it’s best you recruit slave labor like I did.  Good thing Ryan’s cheap.)

With that success behind me, I figured I’d try my hand at a project I started 18 months ago.  It’s been slow-going, but I kicked things into high gear when I bought my very first power tool this weekend!  When I last touched this project, I had painted it with three coats of Gesso, and then became completely demoralized from the countless hours spent sanding it by hand.  With that memory haunting me,  I broke down today and purchased a sander.  Buying your first real tool is a little bit like being allowed to drink coffee for the first time — you just feel so grown up.  I really should have stopped there.  Emboldened by finding my new inner handyman,  I soldiered on, ignoring the instinct to work on it when I’m less tired/more patient/caffeinated.

The state of my project

Without going into all of the details, I failed miserably.  Fortunately, by the time I failed, it was getting dark, so I reasoned that the neighbors wouldn’t like to hear power tools at 5 p.m. on a Sunday night.   The picture above illustrates where my project will likely remain for the next 18 months.

And since you can’t leave the court on a missed shot, I ended the night with some fun in Photoshop.  It was easier than cleaning up my project mess.

If I were a corporation and I needed a new logo, here’s what I’d make for myself.  Which I did.  (Though I’m not a corporation.)

©2010 vanessafiola

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

I have spent the last 3 days in West/Southwest Texas. You know what you do in West and Southwest Texas? You do?

Marfa, TX

Good.  Please share with me.  As far as I know, you don’t do anything that involves technology.  Which is 95% of my life.  So I mostly just looked at plants and stars.  And my friends.  Thank god for my friends.  And plants and stars.

We started out on Friday.  I flew into Austin, also known as My Favorite City in the United States.  It’s a bummer to fly into Austin and not take yoga or go to The Whole.  But, everyone was waiting so Hav picked me up and we were immediately on our way.  (I tried the ol’ “Hey I forgot a jacket, so I should probably stop by Lululemon.”  He told me I’d have to freeze before we’d delay our trip any further.  Or that’s what I heard, anyway.)

Marfa is about seven hours, or roughly four Dairy Queens away from Austin. It is a largely flat drive, punctuated only by stops for Blizzards and chew.  (I don’t chew, Mom.)   We arrived at Hav’s friend’s house, an adorable adobe on a street with no sign.  This speaks more about the size of the town than the street.  We unpacked our stuff, and I immediately started searching for Internet connectivity.  I had a piece that I needed to post for a related article in Magazine of Yoga before 9 p.m.  I walked into the home office.  The router looked like no other wireless router I’ve seen before, and I know these things.  Ugh.  Hav made the mistake of suggesting that I post in the morning, which prompted an accusal from me that “You’ve never supported my writing!”  Fortunately, he has a high threshold for my outbursts.  Everyone left and I promised to catch up.  Which I did, but not until I had checked every place in town for some semblance of a connection.  (Whoa.  That sounds woo woo.) It wasn’t until I resigned myself (surrendered, if you will) to missing my deadline that I walked into the bar where my friends were waiting and found a free internet connection.  Thank Krishna.

Padre’s is, I think, the only bar in Marfa (pop. 2121).  On Friday night, the entire town pushed Padre’s to its capacity to see Black Joe Lewis, a seriously fun band from Austin.  If the crowd were just a weensy bit more raucous, I think we would have seen undergarments flying.  That’s how good they were.  Here’s a little known fact about Marfa:  it contains the largest concentration of hipsters per capita of any city in the United States. And if you were in Padre’s that night, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a pair of Wayfarer spectacles.  Not that I swung any cats, deceased or otherwise.  I was too busy taking advantage of the four dollar Kettle One’s w/ lemon wedges.

*Said eggs

On Saturday morning-ish the grand plans we made to ride bikes through town became grapefruit mimosas at Cochineal.  They know how to bake an egg*, sir.  Also, the host looks like Harry Potter in skinny jeans and topsiders.  After breakfast we headed through town to shop the wares.  First stop:  JM General Store, a great one-stop shop for all of your chic home and clothing finds.  The best part of shopping with friends around your birthday is that all you have to do is marvel over something, and said friends do things like buy it for you.  I recommend the approach.  Especially if you really want a Native American duvet.

Repetition.  Subtlety.  Whoa.

Post-shopping we hit Chinati, a museum in the middle of nowhere, and also the center of all things art in Marfa.  We ran into the guys from Black Joe Lewis and all sludged through exhibits on repetition and subtlety.  I feel like the artists were playing one big joke on me.  Endless fluorescent light exhibits …  imperceptible differences between sheets of paper on a wall…  Good one, fellas.  This is probably the time when I should explain that Marfa is the kind of town where Type A artists go for rehab.  (“Rehab” mostly because, with spotty cell service and untrustworthy wireless connectivity, you are forced to withdraw from the wired life.) The town itself is one big exercise in artistic detail, from the post office font to the clean, modern lines of the laundromat logo.

Lo’s expression, speaking for itself.

On Saturday night we trekked up to the McDonald Observatory, which is about 40 minutes from town.  I’m sure you’ve heard of it.  It’s the place that sponsors the Star Date vignettes on NPR.  I love those Star Dates.  We booked a tour for 6 p.m.   When we reached the observatory, our guide, Kevin, explained a bunch of neat stuff about stars, planets, nebulas (globular and planetary), and galaxies.  It was in this two and a half hour session when I realized I could have probably been good at science.  (#unfounded) Mostly because I relate everything back to metaphors.  For example, did you know that globular nebulas are where stars are born (kinda), while planetary nebulas are where stars go to die?  I like to picture a space aged hospital and a cemetery, respectively filled with comets in bathrobes.  Among our sitings:  Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, M2, M15, and some other stuff.  Plus they fed us cookies, which I liked.  I considered the evening a success.

The drive.  Pretty, right?

On Sunday morning, we drove to Big Bend.   Big Bend is one of my favorite national parks for its expansiveness, beauty, and quietude.  I remember three years ago being in Patagonia and feeling like it was so similar to southern Texas, for those reasons.   I still do.  It is as if it hasn’t been touched for centuries.  And, in the ten years that I’ve been traveling to Big Bend, its cell reception, in case you were wondering, has not improved.  (Although that could just be AT&T.  Verizon’s probably better.)  On the drive, we stopped in Terlingua, to eat at a cafe which will remain nameless because I really liked the owners, but I was also kinda grossed out.  The restaurant held maybe six tables, and we were its only patrons.  They smoked while we ate (she a cigarette, he a pipe) without regard to things like laws prohibiting smoking in restaurants.  I wanted to see their fingernails.  As we left, their cat ran in the front door.  Hav tried to stop it, but the cat wasn’t having any of it because well, you can tell, she is ALWAYS indoors.  On the tables, I’m sure, except for when people like us walk in and she’s shooed through the back door.  It’s not all health code doom and gloom though.  What they might have lacked in say, regulatory regard, they accounted for in heart.  Really sweet people.

A black bear.  (Not ours.)
(Photo courtesy of blackbear.biz)

After the questionable breakfast and stone hunting at a nearby rock shop, we finally arrived at Chisos Mountain Lodge in the Chisos Basin.  If you go, book Cabin 103.  We didn’t get 103 because it was already booked, but you totally should.  We were in 104.  That’s okay too.   Once checked in, we stashed our stuff and set out for a trail called The Window.  The pinnacle of this trail is a beautiful keyhole view of the mountains.   You have to walk a couple of miles to afford that site.  On the way, we passed a couple who told us there was a bear up ahead.  Sure enough, but 1/3 mile later, we saw the bear in the middle of the trail.  Actually Hav saw him first and jumped back, which frightened the bear into retreating up a small, wooded hill.  I assumed the bear defensive position, which varies
depending on how you were raised, but it wasn’t needed.

The Window

We trekked the remaining mile and a half to the peak, stayed for about thirty seconds, and headed back.  I’ve been told before that I’m not about the journey, I’m about the destination.  I would agree.  I lose all perspective when I’m either cold or hungry.  I was both.

When we returned, I grabbed my laptop and headed to the lodge, where the only wireless connectivity for 40 miles could be found.  I had to.  I had a conference call I was supposed to be on and we had zero cell reception.  Yes, on Sunday.  My life is just that awesome sometimes.  I carefully chose a spot at the lodge, outside near the bathrooms, far away from anyone else so I wouldn’t be that guy, and dialed my co-worker via Google Talk.  Apparently, I didn’t get far enough away to escape the chiding of a lodge worker who delighted in walking by several times, just to snicker.  As if I go through a project plan on vacation on a Sunday in the middle of a beautiful national forest because I think it’s fun, douche-kabob.  When I got off my call, I went into the gift store to buy a Scrabble board.  The lodge worker came in.  ”Finish with your call?” he smirked.  And this is when I escaped into a magical dreamland.   One in which I stabbed a stranger without punishment while asking him if he felt better about the choices he’d made in his life by making fun of mine.  The price of the $32 game snapped me from my daydream.

After dinner we played a quick game of Scrabble and set our alarms for 6 a.m. so we could catch another hike before heading back to Austin.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t get light until around 7:30 in southern Texas.  We didn’t have time to wait around, so we decided to forego the hike.  And this is where Havis vowed to never travel with me again in a million years, ever.  (The first time was when we went to Norway and I made us late for our outbound flight.  Oops.)  The next significant town past Marathon is Ft. Stockton.  We had a quarter of a tank left of gas when we hit Ft. Stockton.  Hav told me to stop and get more.  He said there wouldn’t be gas for another 100 miles.  Nuh uh, I countered.  I kept driving.  Turns out, he was pretty close to right.  Who knew?

About 65 miles in the gas gauge was below empty.  I grabbed my phone frantically searching the Around Me app for the nearest gas station.   I panicked as we went in and out of reception.  The screen finally displayed our choices:   deviate from I-10 and drive 14 miles out-of-the-way to Iraan, or continue on 35 miles to Ozona.  I chose the former, and we coasted the last few miles into town.  I tried to play it off like I knew all along that we’d make it, but the truth is, I was calculating how fast I could run per mile in the event that I needed to.

By the time we made it back into Austin**, we heard news that Hav’s dad had to go back into the hospital, which is really sad.  Also sad was the looming knowledge that I had to get on another plane back to New Jersey within 24 hours, by way of LA.   Looking back over the weekend, I recall all of the failed connectivity attempts.  By the end of it, I had adjusted.  I’m considering it a major breakthrough because, while Mercury’s retrograde was in its shadow and I obviously would have been totally justified in making it my scapegoat, I chose instead to figure out if I could appreciate the radio silence.   And while I wasn’t exactly the picture of equanimity, I was better at it than I expected.  And that’s what I call success.

**The highlight of Monday, just after staving off certain death at the hands of my travel companion, was seeing Leslie.  And busting her w/ this copy of Yoga Journal.

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

Part 1 of 2, check it here:  http://themagazineofyoga.com/blog/2010/11/16/conversation-recoveringyogi/

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

My friend Joslyn had the brilliant idea last Spring to create a web community for people to talk about how ummm… funny the New Age industry can be, and specifically yoga.  To a yoga teacher, this can feel heretical.  It’s not.  I wholly believe that a privilege of being human is to laugh at oneself and maybe others while you’re at it.  So she called the site Recovering Yogi, and I’m honored to say she’s using my drawings throughout the site.  And my writing.  And my creative perspective.  And still, I’m most stoked about the artwork.  We’ve collaborated on a lot of it, so in many ways it feels like a natural expression of our friendship.  How lucky is that — to get to do your favorite things with your best friends?  To boot, our friend Leslie has joined the mix so now we’re a bonafide trifecta.  As if Mcsweeny’s wasn’t enough.

Several years ago I went to this awesome psychic who told me that I’d be a famous writer (they NEVER say those things to ANYONE), but that it wouldn’t be on my own.  He said that instead, I’d be part of an established group of women.   It’s been a while since that session, and in the interim I’ve met about ten wicked inspirational girls.   I always assume I’ll work with each of them.  Incidentally, this psychic story is exactly the kind of thing I’ll be making fun of on www.recoveringyogi.com.

Oh, and I almost forgot!   I was going to save this for my new site, but in the meantime, guess what?!

Okay, I’ll tell you.  I’m easy like that.  (And only that.)  We’ve got t-shirts coming.  They’ll be sold on my site, and featured through Recovering Yogi.  Sooo cute.  Organic and all that other sustainable stuff.   Peep ‘em:

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

1. Inhaling vitamin gummy bears
2. Catching up on my friends blogs (ahem, write kk, write!)
3. Thinking of words / phrases I don’t like
4. Research travel options
5. Work
6. Clean out my closet.  Again.
7. Write down the ways in which I hate my life
8. Pick out my clothes for tomorrow, a task which I haven’t done since I was probably 8
9. Go to bed early, for maximum stress
10. Pretend like I don’t have something due in 10 hours

That is all.

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

Artificial suffixes, e.g. any word where  -licious or -tastic are appended.  I know, I know.  I’ve heard the arguments for portmanteaus.  I’ve already stated my position.  Also, it’s no longer creative when cougars are using it.

Diva:  I particularly despise it when used to describe feminine products.  

Fabulous:  If I was a noun, which technically I am, but if I was like, a meta noun, and someone used “fabulous” to modify me, I would throw up on them as a thank you.

…and for good measure, a couple of *Words I Love:

Cheeky:  It just sounds so British.   Note:  If you affect an English accent, however, I will mock you.
False!:  As in exclaiming that something is not true.  I like this especially if you were to shout it to your grandmother or something and then push the table over, after her tender suggestion that you eat your peas since you love peas.

*In case you didn’t get that link the first time. Click it.

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

Here are the choices: crack whore, Hustler model, call girl, prostitute, Playboy model, stripper, mainstream porn actress, and hardcore porn actress.  

This was no easy ranking.   The group ended up with the following:
1. Playboy model.  (Unanimous.)
2. Mainstream porn actress
3. Call girl
4. Hustler model
5. Stripper
6. Hardcore porn actress (the distinction between this one and its, ahem, sister, is a little murky.)
7. Prostitute
8. Crack whore  (don’t hate on the barter system)

And because I wanted a more scientific approach, I asked my friend TM what he thought.  I forced Joslyn to take it too.  Their feedback was astounding.  From what I can surmise, basically the whole world ranks Playboy model first; hardcore porn actress as sixth; prostitute, seventh, and the crack whore last.  Poor thing.  

This is not a question of libido or even sexual interests.  It’s a question of how we see these professions in our society.  So get your mind out of the gutter and tell me, what do you think?

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

So naturally I’ve found other critical things that I *had* to do before I could start the assignment.   Namely:

1. Googled “capitalization style rules.” (Lowercase all articles, coordinate conjunctions and prepositions.  But don’t confuse prepositions with particles, which should capitalized.)  (You’re welcome.)   (Also, in a nod to synchronicity, the website I clicked on was writersblock.com.)
2. Revised a friend’s resume.  
3. Listened to a David Cross bit on crapping himself.  Clearly I didn’t know the topic before I embarked, since bathroom-related anything incites a morbid anxiety attack softened only by something like Xanax.  Which I don’t have.  So I: 
4. Took an Advil PM.  It’s going to be really hard to write when I’m falling asleep.  Oops.
5. Checked my upgrade points on American which I’ll never be able to use because the trips I usually take are a) international, which do not qualify; b) on a partner airline which also do not qualify; or c) to popular destinations like NYC or Austin where you have a better chance of seeing a real unicorn than the complimentary warmed mixed nuts of first class.  Turns out I have 24 upgrades.
6. Checked gmail a billion times.  Nope.  No new email.
7. Ate 12 fiber gummy bears and a half of a bag of organic cheddar popcorn for something to do.
8. Talked on the phone.  
9. Tried to think of an excuse for why I don’t have a new story.   
10. Started writing this blog.

And now, given that I have no plausible excuse, and the fact that I’m waning, quickly, I figure now is as good a time as any to start writing.  I mean, I want to feel like I gave it my all, right?

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

“You look very French,” she says first.

F*ck.  Was that a compliment?  Maybe she hates French people?  It can’t be a compliment to say you look like a nationality, can it?  I mean, I think it’s a compliment, but how can you be sure about these things?  What if instead of French she said Russian?   Would that be good?

“Oh, ’cause I’m Italian,”  I reply.   Crap.  Another one bites the dust.

And that’s when somewhere in the room a record needle screeches across vinyl, and the whole room looks over at me in unison with a metaphorically-audible, “Who invited her?”  At that moment I long for my goddamned iPhone.

Yet parties are a fact of life, and I really do want to support my friends, and well, I can’t hide forever.  I suppose I could lie – I’m sorry for the last minute cancellation, my aunt is really sick!  Believe me, if I felt good about lying, I would.  But because I do my best to lead the generally honest life, I avoid saying things that I know to be untrue, even when it means I’ll be horribly uncomfortable.  And so, despite my social ineptitude, I accept the invitations sans witty Evite replies.  To cope, I have developed a smile the size of a small rodent, which serves the dual purpose of feigning interest, while buying me time to think of something clever to ask or say.

This has all been to tell you that I deserve a lifetime achievement award for attending multiple — okay, two — parties this weekend.   To boot, they were for a 1 year-old’s birthday and a baby shower, respectively — two demographics that I’m only tangentially connected to by virtue of having been a 1 year-old myself at some point, and also for having known several pregnant people throughout my life.

On Saturday I went to the birthday party.  I stretched myself by talking to three strangers, when I could have hid behind comfortable dialogue with my friends.  In truth though, I spent the majority of time with the 2 cupcakes and 2 buckeyes I later ate as if I were accepting an Academy Award.  If you are throwing an event, know that I am indebted to you if you have sports things playing on the TV, or a backyard game for which I can look busy spectating.  I also appreciate free booze.  Anyway, the baby was cute, and the visit long overdue.

Tonight I attended the baby shower and talked to at least five strangers.  I pretty much had to, since the only person I knew there was my sweet pregnant friend, aka The Guest of Honor.   I could have really made a go of it, but I committed a couple of grave errors.  First, I was overdressed.  Just as I was about to leave the house in my Lululemon tights and long, casual sweater, Dre stopped me and insisted that I couldn’t go to a shower looking like I had just come from vinyasa.  Little did she know that this party was filled with yoga people whose idea of formalwear are rhinestone Hard Tail pants.  My second mistake was not drinking.  The affair was held at this ridiculously beautiful Venice pad — in the Canals, no less — but also 45 minutes from where I live in Hollywood.  I didn’t want to drive in the rain with alcohol in my blood, which meant that my ability to converse was limited to the aforementioned smile and a couple of Neanderthal grunts.   Here is a sample exchange from this evening.  I’m such a douche.

Nice lady:  Ooh, those are those shoes!  [Points to the father-to-be wearing Vibram Five Fingers].  I hear they’re really great to hike in!

Me:  Yes, they are.  I actually hiked the Arctic Circle this summer, you know, in tundra, wearing those.  They’re great.  Really makes it easy to articulate the ground. (Because apparently hiking in the Arctic Circle is somehow relevant.)

Nice lady:  [Stares blankly.]

Eventually we all made our way to a prayer circle with drumming, which was awesome since silence was the protocol for at least 15 minutes.  I finally spoke when it was my turn to offer a blessing to my friend.  I did this with pleasure.  It’s different when you’re talking to someone you feel comfortable with, you know?  And that was it.  I had to duck out shortly after, since dinner plans awaited me, but not before I marveled in my weekend accomplishments.

Still, with holiday season rapidly approaching, I am going underground until January.

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

Of late there have been two recurring events so egregious I’m at a loss for how to approach.  Reader, that’s rare.  (I wanted write to Dear Brutal Truth, but rumor has it those wenches drained the DBT coffers and retired to some unpronounceable exotic location where they’re now sipping Chi Chis and bringing back child labor.)  The first involves conference calls.  In the bathroom.  In a stall.  On SPEAKERPHONE.  UNMUTED.  [shaking my head in disbelief]  I’m begging you to think about this, woman!

I can’t even figure out what bothers me most.  That…

1. I already get stage fright, and knowing that some guys in India are listening to me pee feels like the time I found out that the Korean restaurant I frequented got busted for installing a peephole in the women’s bathroom
2. The people on the conference calls with whom she is talking never interrupt her to ask why they hear toilets flushing
3. The phone, which at some point she must hold close to her mouth, has been within inches of a fairly public commode, which at times smells like a port-a-potty at a music festival

I have considered posting official-looking signs in all of the stalls declaring, “In case it’s not completely obviously, cell phone use is strictly prohibited.” I’d add a footnote:   This means you, lady.   Everyone knows italics and footnotes are the linguistic equivalents of finger wagging.

Secondly, I work in a fairly open area.  I am surrounded by guys, most of whom I’ve been working next to for the last several years.  I like these guys.  In the last month or two, new people have moved in.  I’m assuming there’s a correlation between our new neighbors and what I’m about to tell you, since this is a fairly recent development:  Someone has murderously foul gas that they find acceptable in sharing with everyone within a 30-ft radius on a daily basis.  I am incapacitated when it strikes.

I don’t know what to do.  It’s not like their rotgut carries sound so that it can be traced.  The cubicle walls are high enough that I’m unable to study the faces of those around me, searching for the shifty eyes of telltale guilt.  After audibly uttering “F*cking hell” the first few times to no avail, I tried broaching the subject with a nearby friend, to see if he had any ideas.  Like say, staging a homeowners association meeting.  I contacted him over IM, because, well, I’m a lady and I like to be delicate.

Me:  Is it me or is the smell f*cking rancid in here lately?  Suggestions?

Friend:  Well, it’s so stressful around here, people are literally rotting from the inside out.

Me:  Well, don’t I feel like a jerk.

Friend:  Don’t feel like a jerk.  You’re trying to kind by addressing this over IM.  I’m just sharing what some in our group are experiencing.  Not sure if it’s related.

Me:  I still feel like a jerk.

Friend:  Okay.

[IM silence]

Friend:  I guess we should all agree that we all share a space and we should respect the common space.

Me:  Yeah.

Friend:  Air seems like a good definition of common space.

Me:  Yeah.

Friend:  So that includes things like phone calls.

Me:  [clueless]Yeah.

Friend:  Everyone can hear each other’s phone calls.

Me:  [clued...] Uhhh, I think I’m guilty of that.

Friend:  Yeah.

[long pause]

Friend:  We all are.

I frowned to myself.  I hate when I’m impeachable.  Even still, isn’t gas WAY worse than annoying phone calls?  I mean, really?  Regardless, after my friend and I had that exchange last week, I spent the next few days believing that there was a connection between my phone calls and the noxious odors.   I embarked on a practice of stellar behavior.  And for a time, it was quiet.  (Well, I mean, it’s always quiet, but it didn’t smell.)  Then, yesterday it returned as if it were making up for lost opportunity.   I’m basically in a war zone.

So there you go.  I’m teetering on the edge of sanity at this point, and I eagerly welcome any suggestions.  If you submit the winning solution, I will buy you a car.

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

But then in lovely irony, while sitting down to type I opened the new issue of The Sun, read the writers’ bios, two short stories, and then happened upon the column, The Dog-Eared Page, where this month’s article was written (decades ago) by some guy named Abhishiktananda.  I rolled my eyes.  Please.  No one names their baby Abhishiktananda.

I continued.  ”It is the worst possible illusion to imagine that we have to struggle to find liberation or mukti…” he writes. Yawn.  I skimmed a sentence from each paragraph then skipped to the last line.  I found myself thinking that I couldn’t bear to read another article, another book, listen to another speech, whatever, about finding the Self and that there really is no finding, ’cause duh, it’s inside of us all along.

And then it hit me — well, when did this happen?  I’ve read countless texts on actualization, the meaning of the Self, and finding freedom.  I’ve devoured allegories and philosophies and whole schools of thought on these subjects.  I wanted to write my own brilliant guide for crissakes.  That’s interest.

Yet somewhere between then and now I developed an aversion for the thing I once loved to read about.  [Aside:  See, there are times when ending in a preposition just makes sense.]  Upon recoiling from Abhishiketc’s article, I immediately had the sense that at least for right now, reading about awakening can only be a (really boring) academic exercise.  That the act of reading about realizing your own mukti-ness is not entirely different from struggling to find it.  And I don’t want to.

Instead, I’d rather keep doing things that are fun, like reading fiction or Twitter (yeah, it’s both), dreaming of super cute outfits, practicing guitar, and running, and getting reacquainted with meditation.  Which, come to think of it, is probably A’s point.

It is the virtues, not the faults…which constitute one’s true legacy. — Gandhi

You see, never in a million years would I friend Heidi Montag on facebook.  ’Cause that’d be weird.  But on Twitter, I can read her missives about ear pinning surgery with anonymity and zero shame.  Her followers rise, I’m entertained, it’s a win-win for everyone.

And Twitter forces brevity, which I value.  Some would probably argue that its staccato format promotes the shortening of our already dismal attention spans.  I say it could make us sharper — you’ve basically got 140 characters to bring it.  It pretty much prepares today’s children for the real world.

As with most things, it’s not without its shortcomings.  I started following @spencerpratt on a recommendation.  At first, we, (Spencer and I, of course), had a charmed arrangement — Oh look!  Hahaha!  You made me laugh, Spencer.  Good job!… Awww, now you’re heartfelt.  That’s sweet.  But my enthusiasm quickly waned when I started to realize that he employs a ghosttweeter (save for the times when he’s writing something moist about @heidimontag).  I’ve watched The Hills for long enough to know that no effing way has Spencer Pratt either a) said something funny in his life or b) used the word “trifecta” on his own accord.  And that feeling — that you’re not getting what you thought you clicked Follow for — is an empty one.  The implicit code between followee and follower is breached.   [Full disclosure:  my friend has ghosttweeted some for me.  He's awesome and made me look really funny.]

All in all though, Twitter’s my new favorite thing.  I’ll leave you with this recent tweet from @kanyewest:  ”These tweets have no manager, no publicist, no grammar checking… this is raw.”


Same here, Ye.  Same here.

http://mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/3munday.html

* I am not a fan of the word “besties” mostly because it reminds of “beasties,” which these two are definitely not, if you exclude days of the month coinciding with PMS, and mornings before they’ve had coffee.

** (Bart Shuler is responsible for the first one.)

In the process of brainstorming, I got to do all sorts of research for sites, pictures, and inspirational whatnot to give her an idea of my aesthetic.  Turns out, I love Alexander Wang, steampunk-y stuff, and the impose of analog on digital.  In my copious research, I also learned that if your business has the word “creative” in it, chances are you aren’t.

***
Another page in the Great Kombucha Prohibition.  My go-to place in Hollywood ran out!  I panicked.  Fortunately I remembered that my friend RKells spotted some in Echo Park.  On Saturday she texted me the location and I picked up 10 bottles!  Grape!  Ginger!  And then later that day the second most fortuitous thing happened — I found another source in Franklin Village.  So you know what?  Eff the Whole.  (Sorry Alo, but this has gotten out of hand.)

***
Happy Birthday, CLu!  You pale to no one.

Dear I’m-Not-Angry-It’s-Just-That-Joslyn-Hamilton-Is-Basically-Hitler People,

Hi there.  How are you?

Listen… we’re friends, right?  I mean, we *are* all connected — one love and shit?  Exactly.  Well, look, I wanted to tell you that I hear you.  I do.  And I truly believe you when you insist that you’re not angry and that you are only doing your moral duty in representing the voice of humanely farmed animals / oppressed yoga teachers / defenseless new age ideologies.  You elevate us all in your exhausting — my bad — exhaustive comments, citing the chakras and waxing didactic on Buddhist teachings to support your noble beliefs.  You’re the beacons of the spiritual community, for goodness sake!   You are the voices of consciousness!  No, no, you’re not angry.  You are just misunderstood, and it’s not fair.

Gosh though, it sure seems like you’re angry, given that you’ve called her tongue-in-cheek missives “superficial at best.”  You’ve implored her not to reproduce (whoa!), and have deemed her “openly ego-maniacal” and “childish.”    I guess I just got confused when you repeatedly called her “selfish” and “hypocritical.”

But then I remembered how you endearingly addressed her as “sister” in your comments.  You signed your letters with nice monikers like “Love,” and “YogiOne,” and “Inagaddavegan” (cute!), and “Kyle.”  And I realized you couldn’t be angry.  Those certainly don’t sound like angry names to me!

So, I want to say that I understand you.  You people aren’t angry.  It’s just that you have absolutely no sense of humor.  (Also, your pious rhetoric is really f*cking boring.)

Sincerely,

Vanessa

As far as the nice things go, well, did you ever see the movie Kick-Ass?  It was awesome.  Anyway, I’m a little like the inchoate action hero walking the streets looking for a mugger to thwart.  The nice stuff isn’t just hanging on trees, you know.  So I’m a little pleased with myself that I’ve managed the following:  let a stranger have a parking spot, supported my neighbor by seeing his play, helped a friend with her writing, and agreed to refrain from mentioning my mother’s impending birthday on this blog ’cause she specifically asked me not to. (Since it’s not her birthday yet, I figure this doesn’t technically count.)

I’d like to think my charity hasn’t gone unnoticed.   After dance today, I stopped by the Santa Monica Co-op to grab some G-water.  I threaded the aisles, strolling past the refrigerated foods section.  I made my way toward the checkout, when out of the corner of my eye I caught a row of familiar bottles to my left.  I looked again.   Great news, guys!  Turns out, there IS a Holy Mother of Jesus.  Right there, between the raw chocolate mouse and vegan pad thai, I happened upon this goodness:

And since this is working out so well, tomorrow I’m going to do TWO nice things.

‘

Lately, because I’ve been in this sort of creative cocoon, I decided to do the whole 3 for 30 thing again.  This time with a couple of amendments.  You see, post-Artist’s Way has produced a soft-hearted me.  One Al Gore (sans Thai hookers) would be proud of.  And without blathering on, here are my changes:

1. One event can count for two categories.   For example, today I wrote one of my best friends a letter since she’s had a lot of super stressful things happening in her life.  I have been thinking about her a lot and I wanted her to know that I think she is like a popsicle truck on a summer day.  That counts as nice, you know?  And then I decorated the package with photo booth reels of the two of us, plus some DBT stickers (because they’re so effing cute), and that counted as creative.  I realize it all sounds a little self-serving, since it all meets my criteria, and, well… so what?  It’s no less authentic.
2. I decided to let myself be happy if I get two out of three for a day.   Today I ran the lot after work, so I met all three, but I’d have been just as happy (right?!)  if I’d only met two of the criteria.

So that’s that.  3 for 30 again.  It feels right.

***

Today’s my dad’s birthday.  Happy Birthday, Dad!  (Even though you don’t celebrate, which I think is totally lame because everyone deserves a birthday, but whatever.)

***

So you know how I was part of the show at the OK Hotel this month?  And it felt like kind of this epic event?  Well, the show was written up in The Slog!  That’s good!

And there was no mention of me.

That’s bad.

Those motherfuckers.

It’s a really weird feeling to be simultaneously happy for your boyfriend and friends (i.e. the other artists in the show) and also kinda pissed at the slight.  I love paradox, but this one sucks.  It’s hard not to take it personally because, holy fuck, I’m an artist, and we are a sensitive people, you know?

P.S.  Leslie has this brilliant idea for a sarcasm font, which I could totally use right now.

A few weeks ago when I was in Europe, news travelled across the pond that my beloved was being pulled from Whole Foods because of concerns over the alcohol content in the product.  I panicked slightly because I couldn’t do much about being 6,000 miles away.  There would be no running to the ten Wholes near my house to stockpile for the winter.  No big deal, I reasoned, I live in Los Angeles.  You can get anything in Los Angeles.  I ignored the nagging urge to send out an SOS to Dre.

And this is why you should NEVER, EVER ignore your gut:  because you will be savagely deprived of kombucha for what will feel like the rest of your life.

Upon my return, I discovered that not only did Whole Foods stop carrying it, but so did EVERY OTHER STORE in the entire United States.  Motherscratchers.  I took Dre’s last bottle.  I rationalized that since I bought it for her, and she knew the depths of my love (for kombucha, that is), that she’d understand.  And also that she probably wouldn’t notice it missing for a good week, and by which time, God help us, it’d be back in commission.  It wasn’t.  It hasn’t been, and we’re nearing four weeks.

You know what gets me the most?  Well, the second-to-most?  That the Whole, and most other places, are carrying tons of this bullshit impostor.  As if we’re not on to your pasteurized scam, fellas.  I’ve already reviewed Wonder Drink, okay?  Oh, it’s a wonder, alright.

I would make my own, but see, I can barely keep a cactus alive, let alone the most awesome fungus in the world.

And then the thing that most bothers me, that really, really saddens me, is that — fine, I’ll show my ID — just put it back on the shelves.  You win, Anonymous, I *am* a total alcoholic just addicted to the buzz.  Whatever.   I don’t care.  Please give me my effervescent goodness back.

But all is not totally bleak.  Today offered a lone bright spot in my otherwise solemn plight.  At the farmer’s market this morning, I went to the truck where I get my raw dairy products.  On Sundays I usually buy a kombucha from them for my stroll through the stands.  It kind of makes the walk more entertaining… Anyway, they were out today, but assured me that they will have some next week, and will reserve an entire case for me!!   I fell dizzy.  It gets even better.  They sell it for only $2.50 a bottle.  $2.50!!  And I know a handful of jonesing yogis who would gladly pay triple that.  It’s black market time, baby.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydcsf-LCc_g