Broken Hearts for Valentine's Day

got two more stories published on Osmosis Online, neither of which is a Dish-Interested piece. i don’t think i’ll be doing too many non-Dish pieces as i don’t have a ton of bandwidth lately, but these two were easy to repurpose and timely for Valentine’s Day.

first up is a modified version of the blog post i wrote recently about my dad’s heart surgery. big thank you to all who reached out and extended me their well wishes and support. the short update is that my pops is doing well after surgery. his three-week checkup confirmed that the stents are doing what they are supposed to do and his wound healed the way it was supposed to heal.

however, there is still an issue with one artery that couldn’t be opened during the angioplasty, which means there is a real possibility he’ll need another surgery in the future, so we’re not out of the woods just yet. the good news is that my pops is holding steady with the profound changes he needed to make to his diet. he even ate the soy-based meat substitute i bought him! small victories, folks. here’s the story that appeared in Osmosis to commemorate the soy-eating occasion:

Heart Strain

“You might want to sit down for this.”

These are words I never care to hear again, especially from my father, who called me the other week to say the above, adding “I went to the cardiologist and he said my heart has a clogged artery. I need to have surgery to open it.”

It’s a situation that’s hardly rare. Only today, President Clinton had a stent procedure. Turns out my father was basically on the verge of a heart attack, and had been for years, with a tightness in his chest that had been misdiagnosed as gas, as anxiety. An angioplasty was scheduled and, if it didn’t work, pops would have to be rushed into a bypass, an open-heart surgery that had risks that made my head spin and hands shake.

This was an impossible situation because my pops is a superhero and heart problems only plague mortals.

“Dad, I love you and...

the next story is the story of my valentine’s day six years ago when i was newly single, freshly heartbroken and attending a Match.com singles mixer in Hollywood with a former beauty queen. i do not recommend spending your valentine’s day in the same way.

truth is that i’m mortified i’m still publishing this story — which appeared on MillaTimes four years ago — as it involves an ex-boyfriend i no longer care for and a time in my life i no longer think about. but when i can suppress my gag reflex and fool myself into thinking that the story is not about pathetic me, i do like it as a piece of prose — one that will likely be the opening essay in my hopefully-one-day-but-probably-never-published collection of personal essays titled “Everything Sucks and So Can I.” here it is:

Valentine’s Day. I find myself suddenly single again after four years off the market. It doesn’t bother me much that I’m alone on Valentine’s Day, but it seems to bother other people, who insist I join them for the evening. I tell them I’m too busy unpacking boxes, having just moved into a new place following the sudden split, but Zahra is damn persistent.

“Girl, I got us on the list for the Match.com party in Hollywood,” she says in her Jamaican accent.

“Ah, the coveted Los Angeles list,” I remark.

“Yeah, as in we don’t have to pay $25 at the door.”

It’s Saturday. I’ve been single exactly three weeks, and she’s insisting I dive headfirst into what’s sure to be the largest and saddest meat marketing event of the year.

“Match.com, that online dating service, is throwing a party in Hollywood on Valentine’s Day? It’ll be full of losers—”

“— And us,” she quips.

So we go. It’s my first foray into L.A.’s treacherous bar scene as a solo artist, and I commemorate the event by wearing high heels, a dangerously low-cut top and a push-up bra that thrusts...

Meatless February

i wish i could say it’s been easy, but the truth is i’ve been fantasizing about all manner of meat since day one. the cravings have been pretty steady, waning only slightly in the past few days as i’ve renewed my dedication to make it to the end of the month with no cheating and, perhaps, even extend it into march. the maddening, constant hunger of the first week has also finally passed, leaving my appetite more or less normal.

Mo and i decided to go meatless for the month partly because of my pops’ heart condition, but moreso to give our bodies a much-needed cleanse. i’ve been a long-standing subscriber to the theory that it’s only a snack unless there is a dead animal on my plate, in which case it becomes a meal. but after reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (highly recommend!), it’s hard for me not to be sympathetic to porky’s plight.

i’m trying to be better. i’m trying to live and eat more ethically, but i’m having trouble escaping an undeniable fact of my life: I LOVE MEAT. there, i said it. i love meat. it may be murder, but it’s tasty murder, and i can’t stop thinking about how amazing chewing on a slaughtered animal would be right about now. and not the bland or lean stuff, like chicken breasts or turkey burgers, which i have not once fantasized about, but the hard stuff, the good stuff, like a prime steak cooked medium rare, sausages stuffed with mouth-watering swine, bacon wrapped around everything. the thought of it drives me wild enough to eat my own arm!

sorry for the digression. one bright side of a meatless month is that i have lost a bit of weight. nothing drastic as it’s only been two weeks, but it’s enough to make my clothes looser and face slimmer. i don’t own a scale, so i’m not sure about the actual amount. another benefit is that i don’t fall into food comas anymore, even after a big meal. my energy levels are mostly high and my digestion is easy.

and the meals have been pretty good. it’s not just steamed veggies and white rice for dinner every night. we’ve made some delicious veggie lasagna, falafel from scratch, potato tacos, meatless pizzas, bean soups galore. plus, we’ve been eating fish a couple times a week so there is plenty of yummy tummy going on. admittedly, it hasn’t been enough to quell my cravings for the flesh, but i don’t feel bored with the food.

if anything, i hope this meatless month will result in fewer meat-centric meals when i return to meat-eating in the future. and i’ll return, oh yes i will, just counting down the days now. this little experiment has taught me that i’m not cut out for vegetarianism, or even pescetarianism, which i had been semi-seriously considering, but in the spirit of wanting a healthy heart and a long life, eating less meat seems like a good place to start.

now if you’ll excuse me, i have to go wash the steak sauce off my arm.

Dish-Interested: I’d Like to Thank the Academy for Justifying My Superiority Complex

Photo courtesy Osmosis Online

It’s Oscar season, superstars — the time of year all A-listers love! It’s a chance for celebrities to pull themselves away from the hard work they do for humanity each day and enjoy a night of endless fawning and accolades, which we all know makes them very uncomfortable.

But they put on a brave, Botoxed face and suffer through a night of dressing up in designer duds, their limbs dripping with jewels, teeth bleached, lips plumped and tanner applied before sitting impatiently among an audience of their frenemies, watching cheesy dance performances while waiting...

p.s. please become a Facebook fan of Dish-Interested and i’ll be your best friend!

You Might Want to Sit Down for This

these are words i never care to hear again, especially from my father, who called me the other week to say, “you might want to sit down for this. i went to the cardiologist and he said my heart has a clogged artery. i need to have surgery this friday to open it.”

thankfully, i had sat down, though i’m not sure it made the news any easier to hear. it sounded bad, very bad. my father was basically on the verge of a heart attack, had been FOR YEARS with a tightness in his chest that had been misdiagnosed as gas, as anxiety. the arteries sounded mighty blocked, if the doctor’s tests were to be believed. an angioplasty was scheduled and, if it didn’t work, pops would have to be rushed into a bypass, an open-heart surgery that had risks that made my head spin and hands shake.

pops sounded worried, so i was worried. he started telling me some things about taking care of my mother, that he loved me. the tears were already rolling off my cheeks. i sat frozen, stunned, speechless. this was an impossible situation because my pops is a superhero and heart problems only plague mortals.

“dad, i love you and you’ll be fine,” i managed to stutter through a cracked voice.

friday came and we were all nervous as hell. my mom, sister, Mo and sister’s husband sat in the waiting area waiting impatiently while trying to distract each other from the fact that we were waiting impatiently. we played Scrabble and Rummicube while checking the clock wall, which indicated that the surgery was taking longer than expected, first by 10 minutes, then 20 minutes, then by an additional hour. still, no word from the surgeon.

my hands started shaking again while my head was reeling with an imagination that i couldn’t get a handle on. with mom already teetering near meltdown mode, i had to get it together. “G.I.T., girl,” i repeated to myself. Get It Together. stay calm and don’t panic unless there’s a reason to panic.

finally, the surgeon appeared. his white outfit made him look like a butcher. we quickly gathered around him, arms folded across our chests in a mirror image of each other, the dent in our brows creased, eyes searching his face for reassurance.

“the surgery went well,” he finally said. i let out a deep breath, my first in days. the surgery went well. mom was crying. doc was talking, telling us about the three out of five arteries around my pops’ heart that were clogged 99%. i wish that were a typo, but they were clogged 99%. my pops is only 62. we were mortified.

“i imagine your husband has enjoyed a rich russian diet of vodka, caviar and beef tar tar for many years,” doc tells my mom. and he’s absolutely right. i don’t recall seeing my pops order anything but steak at a restaurant. nor do i recall him eating any vegetable beyond a potato, usually a baked one with his steak that’s piled high with butter and chives. family suppers at home always feature cold cuts, cured russian sausages, smoked fish, herring in sour cream, a cheese plate and a variety of barbecued meats. vodka and red caviar also made an appearance.

exercise did not. beyond looking for the remote so he could change the channel (usually to Fox News, just to piss me off), i’ve rarely seen my pops exert himself. he had no hobbies that kept him active. he is not a nature guy or rugged outdoorsman. he is a sports nut with a big-screen TV and leather recliner, which he rarely parts with. why had i not recognized this as a problem before? why do i need this doctor to point out the fundamentally obvious?

mom is thinking the same thing, i can tell. it’s not like pops does much of the cooking at home. doc is saying that pops needs to make major lifestyle changes, his diet among them. we are all nodding. we are sorry it came to this. we will make it better, we promise. pops will also need to take blood-thinning medication for the rest of his life.

one more thing, doc says, before leaving us: the catheter attached to my pops’ heart during the surgery several times sucked out copious amounts of cholesterol and fat that surrounded his heart. this is a rare sight, doc says. we hang our heads in shame. we are all changed people now.

we visit pops in his hospital room, where he’ll be spending the night. he’s awake, cheery, drinking cranberry juice and waving us all in. we huddle around him, like we usually do. he’s says he’s hungry, but only for food that’s good for him. he can live without the steak dinners. and he wants to live. my mom’s not done with him yet, she says. she ordered two rocking chairs for the porch, where they will sit and grow old together. he’s onboard with that plan.

i lean down to kiss him and stroke his graying hair. it’s thinner now. i hold his hand. my superhero. he’s looking up at me, smiling, looking happy, looking different.

“do me a favor, eh?” he says.

“anything, pops.”

“don’t get old.”

One-Hit Wonders: January 2010

• heavy petting to frustration


• hope 2010 brings promises of greater heights to conquer


• sunshine daye lesbian wedding


• "dating a yoga instructor"


• che guevara rogue brew


• all russian online sex and friend dating @hotmail.com . emails 2003/2010


• will the world get destroyed on 2010


• men drinking and massaging milky breast


• milla tube galore


• nipples and big tits on the dinner menu


• why did some homes in the 1930's have curtains on their cabinets instead of doors

Roadtrip: Portland (Part 2 of 2)

about to get sauced: the big day finally arrived! my baby cousin was going to get married, which was the whole reason behind this trip. thankfully, i had packed a flowy, flowery dress to wear for the occasion that did a good job hiding my emerging beer belly.


non-beer belly: my cousin Mike (on the right) and his new bride Kerry are efficient people. not only was their wedding ceremony short and sweet (always a good thing), they wasted no time with family planning and are due to have their first child later this year, a boy.


don’t tickle me! my cousin is rad despite the tickling. she’s nothing short of a superwoman who impresses me endlessly with her ability to juggle working, mothering, gardening, budgeting, cooking, cleaning, blogging, project planning and tending to that shock of beautiful, red, curly hair. plus, no else is named Gitella. yep, my cousin is one of a kind.


how cute is this kid? this is one of Gitella’s many impressive accomplishments — her adorable son, Jack Ryan, who kindly allowed Mo and i to stay in his room during our visit and never once complained. i never get tired of this kid and his freckles.


other impressive accomplishments: her daughter Edie and 10-year strong marriage to husband Roman.


my impressive accomplishment: my date was super hot — like smoldering, combustible, flammable, third-degree burn hot. and i’m not just saying that because i want him to build me a shelf in the laundry room.


how cute are they? that’s my Ma dancing with my Mo and looking a little too cozy with my hot date. i think she and i need to have a little talk about boundaries.


yes to sugar: because Kerry’s dad is a caterer, all the food tasted marvelous. thankfully, my flowy dress accommodated seconds, maybe even thirds.


sibling head stack: and to think Gitella and i almost threw Mike over a balcony railing when we were kids. i’m glad we kept him alive, especially since he’s about to become a daddy. big congratulations to the new happy family.


circling the Hood: the day after the wedding, we headed 50 miles outside of Portland to Mount Hood, the tallest mountain in Oregon, standing roughly 11,000 feet high. according to its Wiki page, it’s still considered an active volcano with a 3% to 7% chance of erupting in the next 30 years. its last "minor eruptive event" occurred in 1907.


Hood in super zoom: it’s home to 12 glaciers and has its own weather pattern that renders it way colder than the area surrounding it. even as we approached it, the wind picked up and the temperature seemed to dip 20 degrees. still, people love to ignore Hood’s many dangers and climb it for sport, often dying in the process.


our sport: after shivering by the mountain for half an hour, we needed some warming up so we headed to Hood River’s Full Sail Brewery for a sampler platter. i love, love, love this brewery and count its Session Black Dark Lager, sampled for the first time during this visit, as one of my favorite beers. you should try it.


harvest time: the drive to Mount Hood wound us through Hood River’s famed Fruit Loop, where we ate apples picked from the orchard that morning, apples so delicious that we walked away with a 10-pound box of them, which Gitella converted to apple butter.


back to school: the day after our trip to Mount Hood, Mo and i continued the sightseeing at Clackamas Community College campus to see what the crazy kids are learning these days. not surprisingly, they’re learning how to ditch class and smoke pot, which isn’t a far cry from my college days, though mine were spent listening to better music.


actually: we were there to see the buildings designed by Portland’s Opsis Architects, who, to my untrained eye, did an awesome job. Mo seemed to agree.


not very comfortable: this "couch" is made of concrete. no lie.


delta skelta: after our stroll through campus, we decided to work off the beer with a hike through the Sandy River Delta, just east of the Sandy River. the hike was relatively flat and populated by hikers with their dogs, which gave me some much needed dog therapy. i made out with every dog i saw while Mo consulted the park’s directory in search of our next destination.


there it is: it took some hunting, but Mo and i finally found the Elliptical Bird Blind we came to see, designed by Maya Lin as part of the Confluence Project, a series of seven outdoor installations and artworks across the Columbia River that spans two states and commemorates the Lewis and Clark expedition of the early 1800s.


rabit, magpy, deer: the slats of the bird lookout are engraved with the names of the new animal species identified during the expedition and recorded in Lewis and Clark’s journals, the species’ dates of discovery, latin names, common names and current statuses (extinct, endangered, recovered or flourishing).


sweating for art: i must confess that i wasn’t expecting much when Mo told me he wanted to visit this site, but when i was standing inside the airy lookout, reading through the names (while sweating profusely), the place did feel — for lack of a better term — historical. and not just historical, but interesting. it almost made me forget about that great beer i tried at Full Sail and look at birds instead. almost.


the enchanted forest: but the day was waning and the drive ahead was long, so we left The Nature and returned to the city to enjoy our last night in Portland, which was spent ogling at the city while surrounded by family, beers firmly in hand.


so what have we learned? oh, portland! how do i love thee? admittedly, only sparingly. it’s not that you’re not amazing because your wonders are many — your eco-consciousness, smart city planning, well-paved roads, beautiful scenery and crisp air make you divine. your people not only recycle, they compost, grow their own crops, reuse greywater and bike instead of driving. you are a liberal’s wet dream of a city, a progressive wonderland full of funky shops, good breweries and people who really care.


the big but: you’re too damn white! and it’s a damn shame, because with a little diversity you’d be on the list of Cities I Love rather than the list of Cities That Are Too Damn White. i hope that you figure out how to attract more ethnic types in the coming years — not only because they can make some mighty tasty food with their exotic spices — but because your utopian ideal can never be fully realized without them. or maybe i’m talking about my utopian ideal, which, admittedly, looks a lot like my hyper diverse Los Angeles.


no hard feelings: because i still think you are gorgeous. all that rainfall (and time in the gym) has really paid off, giving you some breathtaking scenery just outside your city border.


thanks! Mo and i appreciated it during our drive through your state. so while i don’t love you, Portland, i do like you. and because you are home to cherished members of my family, whom i do love, i will see you again — and see you often.

many more photos in the slideshow:


next installment is the final stop of the roadtrip: Seattle.

Dish-Interested Double Feature

please note that Dish-Interested, my nonsensical celebrity gossip column, now has its own fan page on Facebook! granted, i created the fan page to shamelessly self-promote, but i can't create a million fake user accounts to populate the fan page so you need to either 1) do it for me; or 2) become a fan. (option 2 is easier.) thanks for the support and tell your book publisher friends! what follows are the last two columns:

Dish-Interested: 2009 Gossip Roundup

Oh, where does the time go, my superstar friends? Seems like it was only yesterday we were learning about Michael Jackson’s surprise demise. And now we have Brittany Murphy’s cold body to add to the pile of wayward celebrities who can’t get a grip on their prescription drug use. She joins Adam Goldstein (a.k.a. DJ AM) in the roped-off VIP room in the sky — a room Heath Ledger has surely been keeping cozy since his own prescription pill-popping death in 2008. At least he got an Oscar out of that deal.

But who cares about DYING anyway when there is so much more fun to be had by CHEATING? Yes, cheating was the new black this year, as countless celebs got caught with their pants down in the presence of people who were not their spouses, thereby making 2009...

Dish-Interested: Guidos Taking Their Fist-Pumps, Poofs and Self-Tanner Beyond the ‘Jersey Shore’

In an effort to prove that the Hamptons are not the only place to vacation on the East Coast, MTV brings us ‘Jersey Shore,’ a reality show that follows a group of self-proclaimed “guidos” and “guidettes” who spend a lazy summer partying at the shore in a guesthouse paid for by MTV. Think ‘Real World’ but with no diversity. Instead, the housemates chosen for this show are all unnaturally tan Italian-Americans with funny accents in their early twenties.

When they’re not recovering from hangovers, they pass their time at nightclubs drunkenly rubbing up against strangers… and each other. Cue the make-out sessions back at the house’s hot tub, from which spring some spectacular wisdom (in addition to some less spectacular STDs)...

Annual

oh hello, blog. how are you? i am fine, thanks for asking. i know it’s been a long time since i’ve given you proper attention. i have a lot of excuses for neglecting you for so long, but none of them are any good.

sure, i’ve been keeping busy with freelance work, some socializing, and a few lazy days of reading in bed and watching Jersey Shore online. it’s been a lovely reprieve, to be sure, but one i must snap out of because i have many things i want to write about. there’s that roadtrip from september i need to finish chronicling and some home improvements i need to detail. plus, there are Deep Thoughts i want to discuss.

let’s start now with some Deep Thoughts on the new year, shall we? 2009 was lousy for everyone and i’m as happy as anyone that time has moved us into a nice, even-numbered year that is a new beginning in so many ways.

not only do we have a whole new decade in front of us — yes, sticklers, i know the decade doesn’t officially begin until the start of 2011, but work with me anyway — but we finally have a name for that decade: The Tens! not since the nineties have we had a name we could all agree on for a decade. i’m not sure what the last ten years are to be called. the Aughts? the Naughts? the Big Zeros?

whatever they were, they are gone thankfully. sure, they had some bright stops for me personally, but 9/11, eight years of Bush, two wars, economic meltdowns — BYE BYE! i’m sure the next ten years will be nothing short of perfect and prosperous. if everything in life is cyclical, they better fucking be.

for me, this upcoming year will be rad because i am determined to make it rad. i have lots of BIG PLANS, all of which will effortlessly come to fruition because i want them to. (and yes, i am writing this after having two glasses of wine.) let’s start with some new year’s resolutions:

• take better care of my health: seriously, when did i turn 80? i wake up too frequently with weird aches and pains, amplified always by the rain. my energy is not what it used to be. i have ever-deepening crows feet and laugh lines. my hair has started to thin, with the rest of me starting to thicken. hello, thirties, you suck. i can do better and will.


• spend less time in front of the computer: actually, what i need to do is make the time i do spend in front of the computer more meaningful. this means not wasting 10 minutes reading everyone’s status update on what they’re having for dinner on facebook — and responding with my own lame comments — when i’m only going online to check email. i know i made the same exact resolution last year and then forgot to follow through, but this year i won’t forget.


• become prolific: along with spending my time with the computer more meaningfully, i need to write more than i currently do — and faster. the copywriting i do for freelance clients and the Dish column i write for fun are activities that take far too many painstaking hours to complete. plus, there’s you, little bloggy, who bears the brunt of my neglect. but no more! ooooh, look, Michelle is having taco soup for dinner.


• work as much as possible: in short, i need money for a bunch of home improvement projects i want to undertake, investments i want to make and vacations i want to take. work is the way.

but first, another glass of wine.

Somebody Was Sprayed in the Face by a Skunk

i’ll give you one guess who that somebody could be. i suppose it was only a matter of time. the skunk and Pinko had been flirting for months, maybe even a year, with a few near encounters averted only by my seeing the skunk first and screaming at Pinko to GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW, which she would do at lightning speed, confused by why the hell i was yelling. then i would shoo the Pinks back into the house while the skunk and i glared at each other as he casually walked away. sometimes he even gave me the finger. other times, Pinko would see him from the deck and bark like a retard while i yelled at her to SHUT UP ALREADY from inside the house.

this time it was 5am on a tuesday morning. Mo got up at that ungodly hour for reasons still unknown, leaving me to sleep until my alarm went off. he opened the front door to let the dogs out into the yard and BOOM!, my furry shithead made a beeline for the skunk, who sprayed her square in the face before scurrying away unharmed. her face scrunched and sneezing uncontrollably, Pinko ran back into the house, bringing the smell of satan with her like a little souvenir from hell.

i was lying in bed at the time, listening to the ruckus unfold outside and wondering whether i really needed to get up or if i could just feign ignorance, fall back asleep and deal with it later. once the smell hit my nose, i knew sleep was out of the question. by the time i got up, my sleepy eyes burning, Mo was already running the bathwater. i looked at the Pinks, who sat in the corner of the bathroom with her ears down, giving that i’m-so-sorry-for-what-i-did-let’s-just-focus-on-how-cute-i-am-instead face. she looked radioactive. i approached her face with my own and almost fell backwards when i got a whiff. she smelled like burning rubber.

two baths followed, consisting of five shampoo sessions. internet research also followed and revealed that a tomato juice bath does not actually kill skunk smell, but a product called Tecnu does. so we got some Tecnu and lathered her up. then we burned some sage, some scented candles, laundered everything, opened doors and windows, turned on fans — everything short of an exorcism to expunge the smell from the house.

a week later, the house still had a faint skunk smell and Pinko’s face still has a strong skunk smell. at least she’s been on her best behavior.

In 2010, The World Will Be Destroyed