Venetian Light
Twilight last night found me doing something out of the norm. Usually I’d be on my butt watching The Wire and eating an indifferent dinner around this time, but after work my husband changed out of his business casual and headed out to the garage. His industriousness put me to shame, as all I wanted to do in the week since we returned from Italy was nap, read novels, and try to locate ice cream that tasted a quarter as good as Italian gelato. Following him outside, I half-heartedly offered to help with whatever home improvement project he was currently tinkering with. He had formulated a plan for working on our love-worn…
Let That Be Enough
Perpetual dissatisfaction marked my childhood. The neighborhoods I grew up in were too sterile, too full of cement and subdivisions. There was nothing left to explore; nothing that hadn’t already been tracked, catalogued and secured by adults. I could never properly explain this feeling to my mother. “I want to live in nature!” I would whine. I would plot how I could possibly run away and take enough reading material and Oreos to last me to adulthood, in a My Side of the Mountain scenario. Both my parents tried to explain how lucky I was. Everyone wanted to live in America, and everyone who already lived in America wanted to live in Los Angeles.…
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I arrived alone, and I left alone. In between I built on past relationships and set the foundation for new ones, but ultimately it was me. Alone. Like I am all day, every day. Just me. Instead of sharing a hotel room with another blogger like last year, I stayed with family members who happened to live five minutes away from the convention center. It was the only way I could afford to attend this year’s BlogHer, cutting corners and accepting hospitality. Ultimately, this fostered relationships with relatives I only get to see infrequently, so I didn’t mind in the slightest that I was away from the hub of excitement.…
In France: A World Cup Story
France, 2006. My sister and I were on a we’re in our early 20’s so why the hell not? adventure, back before either of us had been bitten by too much cynicism and the economy was still friendly enough toward young ladies in college with part-time jobs. It was totally by accident or serendipity that we arrived and exchanged our dollars for euros during one of the most thrilling times to be in the country. We had heard the buzz of the World Cup during our week in Paris, but the excitement didn’t ramp up until the final 16, when we were on the Côte d’Azur. Games were on in every café, crowds stuffed onto the…
Une Serviette and Other Words
Running out of tissue while in a foreign country is exactly my sort of predicament. I had been walking around the citadel all morning, and now I headed toward the peninsula where the naval memorial stood. I wondered if it would look like the beaches of Normandy, swelling green lumps between craters, beyond the smooth beach. Like others with severe allergies, I carry tissue with me wherever I go, as if it were an EpiPen or, more accurately, a pacemaker, because it’s something I always, always need. As I sniffled my way down Rue Dauphiné, I searched for a drugstore, or at the very least, a café. A burgundy awning poked out up ahead, sheltering…
Rocky Mountain High
Armed with my black pen and handmade journal, I am sitting out on the back deck, which overlooks the Rocky Mountains. The peaks are covered in snow – an unfamiliar element to these native Angeleña eyes –and I keep gazing out at them, hoping they’ll whisper their secrets to me. There are no secrets in Los Angeles. It’s too hot and bright and phony for mystery. Yet like it or not, it is my home, and at 31 I am growing resigned to the prospect of never living elsewhere. Now though. Now I am here, and I am more often trying to live in the Now. The mountains provide a snow-capped, otherworldly backdrop to my scribbles, and I am…
Ride of a Lifetime
“So, see: clutch, front brake, your back brake is down there, and here is where you shift.” He demonstrated with each punctuation, squeezing handles and pointing to various pedals. The bike stood silently, a lime-green beast that looked as if it had chewed and spit out riders far more experienced than I. Nodding, the giant helmet forced my head to swing a comically wide arc. “Do you want to try and start it?” he asked. “Okay,” I said. I was along for the ride, an empty shell. I would do whatever he asked. “It’s not just a push start, you have to kick-start it, here,” he said, sliding out the…
Las Vegas, City with No Poetry
Las Vegas is a city with no poetry. When people suggest going there, I groan inside, usually followed by a lengthy protest. “Eh…I don’t know…,” I hem and haw, not wanting to hurt the person’s feelings but still wanting to make my dislike abundantly clear. When people ask me what I think of it, the first word that comes to mind is “fake.” The second is “flyers for hookers” (I know, more than one word). The third is “bad decisions,” “liquor,” and “staying up past my bedtime,” all in one fell swoop. The fourth is “I hate the desert.” Then there are the casinos brimming with smoke, gambling and drinking.…
Guess Where
Just so you know, this is a stand-in post. It’s not a real post. I miss you and this blog like crazy right now, but I wouldn’t want to lie to you guys and let you believe this is my best work, because it’s not. I’m a little (no, a lot) distracted right now. Why? Oh, because I’m in Las Vegas this very minute. No, that’s not entirely accurate. I’m not in cheesy Vegas, so don’t think about Circus Circus, the Mirage or even the Dunes. I’m in Las Vegas at the most upscale, coolest hotel ever. And when I say “coolest,” I don’t mean that loosely. I mean it…
Good in a Crisis
With another subtle glance over my shoulder, I nudged my sister. “They’re still there?” she whispered, without moving her lips. I nodded slightly. Walking back to our hotel from the café, we had just finished watching Les Bleus win yet another game in the world cup. The metro had closed for the night, and like typical twenty-somethings we had carelessly missed the last bus by about 20 minutes. “What should we do?” she asked under her breath. She had clearly deferred all judgement to me, the Francophile of the trip. Either that, or she thought my two years on her had prepared me for late-night muggings. “Just keep walking like nothing’s happening. If we…
