Hawaii, Part Two

aloha, punks. ready for the second installment of our hawaii series? what follows are details of the eerie psychic experience! oooh. aaah.

Lan Vo
that's her name, in case you ever find yourself in oahu wrestling with life's questions and sixty bucks to spare. she's a vietnamese lady in her forties, maybe fifties, and she has a thick-ass accent i often could not cut through. "please, no smoking, eating or drinking. thank you. have a nice future," the sign near the receptionist read.

since lan is booked months in advance, the only way to get an appointment with her is to arrive early and sign the walk-in list in hopes that some of that day's clients cancel or just don't show up. we were the first ones there at 9am, and lo and behold her first appt was a no-show, so i went in (kiana managed to get her reading first thing after lunch, so we spent the better part of the day there, leaving at around 3pm.)

she took out regular playing cards, prayed silently while holding them, and then had me shuffle and cut them into three stacks. she then spread the cards onto the table separating us and began asking me questions, while gluing her eyes onto my face, which makes me a bit nervous. then she seems to abandon the cards altogether and just begins spewing things out, one thing after another. some are past events, others are premonitions for the future. this continues for close to half an hour, with me interjecting often to ask questions or ask her to repeat herself because her accent's a bitch.

-- past: one of the first things she tells me is that i have two degrees (and i'll eventually get one more, which i think is unlikely). she sees last summer's trip to europe, and that i've been moving around alot (and i will continue to do so, she says). she sees the scholarship money that i received from USC this past semester and that i "make reports" for work. she sees my back surgery and that i have recurring bladder infections, but says that neither is of serious concern.

then, as if in a vision, she sees pablo and begins to describes him, saying that he has three tattoos (he does), one of which is a formula across his back (it is); that the hair on his head is thinning, but he has plenty of it on his chest (all true); that he has a greencard and is not from around here (he's from argentina); describes one of his old girlfriends as being tall and blonde (erin, i've met her); says that he is an engineer who does programming and has recently left his job (true that); and that his name is "something with P and B." there's a lot more pablo talk that follows this, but i'll keep it to myself.

she also sees my ex, describes him, and we discuss him briefly. we then move on to my family, and she spells out my sister's surname -- "N-G-A-I" (her husband is chinese). she tells me things about their marriage, but that their kids will be fine. she tells me how my grandparents died and that my paternal grandpa -- whom i was named after and who died before my birth -- was a "good man." this sends a chill over me.

we talk about my parents and she sees that my dad had a brain tumor when i was growing up and that it made his eye twitch. she also sees my mom's hysterectomy. she also sees the history of diabetes in my family and tells me that as long as i'm careful with my sugar and salt intake, i won't get it. she also saw my dog's hip dysplasia ("she walk funny") and said she has 7-9 years, which bummed me out a bit.

-- future: there was certainly more about the past than the future, which is to be expected. she did provide some insight, however, which i am sure is subject to change. namely, that i'll marry only once, have two girls and a boy ("maybe twins"), will write a book that will be successful, will travel all around the world, will get a new car in the next year, will own a horse (!) at some point in my life, will work in either radio or television, will get a new dog, could own my own business, will teach at some point, will always live near water, and will be OK overall. "you worry too much," she tells me, causing me to smile. she also tells me to go see a dentist because i have a cavity and that my cholesterol is high. (there's much more, but again, i'll keep it to myself.)

i can't explain how i felt when i walked out of there -- definitely rattled, introspective, somewhat elated, somewhat disturbed. i sat quiet for a long time thinking and trying to remember everything.

now, of course i know better than to take this as the ultimate gospel. but i've always believed in the metaphysical and this woman certainly had the gift. she's probably the only one i've ever met who has, and i've seen my fair share of charlatan card and palm readers over the years. this whole experience has left me feeling a bit more spiritual than before.

and although she touches on everything, lan's specialty is health. she told kiana years ago that a lump in her mother's neck was not cancerous and did not need chemotherapy. turned out to be true. i would definitely consult lan on health matters, and probably other stuff as well. i'm sure i'll see her again and would easily recommend her to others. i have her number if anyone's interested.

Hawaii, Part One

damn, what a good time i had. i hope to return over spring break for a continuation of the goodness. here is a partial lowdown of the weeklong trip:

-- fly me to the moon: can i just tell you how much i love my very dear friend kiana? i've always believed that having friends with diverse professions is beneficial: a doctor friend for free medical advice, a lawyer friend for law consultations, a chef friend, a hairdresser, a masseuse for obvious reasons. but a flight attendant is just as valuable, and kiana's indentured servitude to American Airlines translated into a first-class, roundtrip ticket to honolulu for just 200 smackers. i dined on duck salad, shitake-encrusted rib eye and guava cheesecake and downed an entire bottle of merlot on my own. (i'm a fearful flyer, i needed to relax.) it was lovely. i'm never flying coach again. well, as long as kiana is still my friend. did i mention how much i love her? here's a pic of her on her wedding day:



-- accommodations: since kiana is from hawaii, we stayed for free at her grandpa's house in manoa valley and rented a car from enterprise. we didn't spend too much time at the house, just paid visits for sleeping and clothes-changing. her grandparents are adorable japanese people in their eighties who rise early every morning to pull weeds out of the yard.

-- heavenly weather: PERFECT. you could be naked and never get cold, nor did it ever really get hot. it maybe dipped once to 72 degrees and the locals began talking about it being "freezing." no rain, just infrequent bursts of drizzle that seemed to pour out of a cloudless sky. "hawaiian sunshine," kiana called it. we took advantage of the great days and spent many of them on the beach, drinking beer and smoking doobs while watching the surfers do their thing. i couldn't have been more relaxed.

-- pidgin: i also spent a good part of the week studying the most bizarre pseudo-language called pidgin. it's kind of like an asian creole based on dumbed-down english and loaded with hawaiian words. it has the unfortunate side effect of making its speakers sound like idiots, much like a boston accent does. not everyone on the island speaks full-on pidgin all the time, but many words and expressions seem to appear in everyday conversation. helping me with my studies were the two illustrated versions of pidgin to da max. so goddamn funny. if something's yummy, in pidgin you say that it "brok da mout" (broke the mouth). if someone's gossiping, you might urge them to "no talk stink." and if someone's staring at you, feel free to ask them "i owe you money o' wot?"

-- food and boob: the best thing about visiting with a local is that you don't waste your time in waikiki walking up and down that commercialized boardwalk. instead, kiana took me to the local hotspots and the best eateries. the food was soooo gooood, i can't even describe it. as a lover of all things fishy, i was in heaven, chowing down on sashimi daily. we also spent much time shaking our tail feathers at various bars and clubs throughout the island. all went well except for one night when a drunken meathead approached kiana's friend kimi with a digital camera and asked to photograph her (38DD) breasts. and later that night, we saw a seemingly insane girl take out her breast in front of a bouncer and squeeze milk from its ducts to prove that she wasn't lying when she said she was lactating. that was about all the tit we could take, so we hurried back and stayed up late talking about boys.

that's all for now. check back in the coming days for Part Two of our story, which will be all about my eerie visit to the psychic.

Thanks, Skanks!

so yes, another thanksgiving passed, and i'm glad it did because i really dislike turkey. never have i tasted a juicy turkey breast -- always dry. dark meat's not bad, though. but the best thing about the day is that it marks the start of the winter holiday season, which i really do enjoy. seeing houses done up in lights, smelling that xmas pine and feeling the cool chill in the air just gets me all warm and fuzzy inside.

what sucks about it is all that gift-giving nonsense. maybe if i had a ton of money to blow, i'd buy something nice and thoughtful for everyone i know, but i got no dough, and the pressure to spend and the commercial nature of the season make all those presents seem insincere. i'd rather take that money and buy my homies big birthday gifts instead of little holiday trinkets that i probably stole from the clearance table, anyway. i'm sure this will make me sound like such an asshole, but a word to the wise: if we're tight and you're thinking of getting me a little gift for the holidays, don't bother cus i can offer nothing but gratitude in return. i know, you're not expecting something in return, we all say that, but i'll feel guilty if i have nothing for you, and i have neither the time nor money to deal with malls in the coming month. let's just know that we love each other and that's enough. (but if you're my mom, a digital camera would make me so happy.) yeah, what a scrooge i am. bahumbug and all that shit.

and on that note, i wanted to get to the real purpose of this post, which was to recognize all the wonderful blessings in my life. (see, that's what the holiday spirit is truly all about.) so let's all take a collective pregnant pause before moving on to the list of all the things i'm thankful for this season:

• my parents (duh.) the older i get, the more i appreciate the people who were there from the very beginning and who will certainly be there until the very end. i adore my parents, and am glad we get along so famously. their love and support have always been unconditional and selfless. they never hesistate to tell me the truth, for better and worse, or to tell me with teary eyes that they're proud of me. nope, mom and dad, i'm the one who's proud. (how bout that camera now, ma?)


• the rest of my family. yeah, them too. even though my older sister, tatyana, used to torture me relentlessly during our youth, we make pretty good siblings now. and though i like to think that she and i are very different, i know that fundamentally we're the same on the inside. same thing with my cousin, gitella (you, too, roman!). and my niece and two nephews -- paulina, jack and derek -- are golden as well. they're growing up to be awesome little people.


• the light of my life, the apple of my eye, my darling puppy juice. i'm crazy about this dog -- like super, crazy, madly in love with her. she's my kid, and for her i'd do what any mother would do for her kid: anything and everything.


• the man with the master plan, the p-funk daddy, the big-brained sugarbearama: my pablo. although we've had our fair share of relationship bumps and bruises in the past few months, i wouldn't trade the four years we've had for anything in the world (not even for johnny depp). he's truly my best friend, all 6-feet, 5-inches, 260 pounds of his luscious, dark, argentinian self. you wanna know one of the many cool things about pablo? he has an equation tattooed across his back -- the formula for what happens when a neutron star dies, which is his favorite astrophysics fact. strange, yes, but you know that not another mothafucka in the world has that inked into his back. yep, my pabs is one of a kind.


• my friends, who i love love love, for they are my true soulmates. i gotta say that my friendships are lifelong endeavors, so if you're in it with me, we're in it to win it. fair-weathered just won't do, and i've been lucky to find a mess of people i can lean on, laugh with, cry to or just sit there in silence with. special thanks go to my innermost circle who have to deal with my bullshit on a daily or near-daily basis: raidis, jon-david, sharon, jeremy, kiana, juan, zahra, demetria.


• ok, this is gonna sound so friggin LA, but i'm very thankful for yoga, which has changed my life in so many positive ways. it really keeps me sane and keeps my rickety back strong. i'm converted for life and urge all to give it a shot. namaste.


• USC, i love you! the annenberg school for journalism has given me so damn much: knowledge, connections to amazing students and faculty, an opportunity to work and live in london, a $20K debt. umm, maybe that last one isn't too great, but it's been worth it -- definitely. i'll be even more thankful if it'll somehow help me get a job to pay off all that debt come graduation in may.


• this may be self-evident, but i'm really thankful for all the good music and books that exist out there for the many times that they've served as my therapy, my friend, my fun and my hope.


• thanks go to all the both evil and wonderful people from christmases past, present and future, as they have helped make me who i am today and will continue to shape my future. i really am grateful for all the gentle souls who've encouraged me, boyfriends who've rejected me, strangers who've affected me and bosses whom i've despised. the best life is a nuanced one, and i'll gladly take a (hopefully small) serving of struggle with my big scoop of success.


• and finally, a list of honorable mentions: the dorky yet cools guys i work with at CFQ/FF; the great deals and films i find weekly at the 20/20 video store down the street from my ghetto apartment; www.nerve.com; all the editors who have ever published my writing; strawberry cheesecake; other good friends: greg, stevie, angela, zee, garron, als, ann, courtney, tania, ali; the kind neighbors who've watched juice for me in the past; my favorite LA restaurant, puran's (on labrea); the doctor who convinced me to quit smoking; this past summer spent in europe; anyone who's ever bought or given me drinks, a meal or drugs; quiet cafes; noisy bars; KCRW, which broadcasts NPR and great music; the new york times and la times for being great papers with fabulously written stories; and, perhaps most importantly, you, whoever you are, if you're not already mentioned here. thanks for hanging in there.

Ghetto Not So Fabulous

today i want to use this space to discuss my wacky neighborhood and how much i've learned to both hate and accept it. since i'm locked into a year lease, it'll do me no good to let my disdain for this shithole consume too much of my energy, but yeah, it sucks here.

now don't get me wrong. i'm not some prissy rich bitch who grew up in beverly hills with silver spoons and picket fences, though i will admit to having a misguided crush on ricky schroeder in my youth. anyone who has been to my hometown of van nuys will tell you it's not the great area that comes to mind when one thinks of, like, the valley. people usually think of places like encino, where michael jackson's family lived, and granada hills, where valley twang is at its strongest.

no, van nuys' great claim to fame is being the porn capital of the world. examine any of your vivid videotapes/dvds and you'll find a van nuys postal address. we also had some gangs, most notably BVN (boyz van nuyz), and tons of undocumented immigrants. but in spite of all that, it was neither the worst nor best place to live -- standard working-class neighborhoods, plenty of used car lots on van nuys boulevard, strip malls galore. in short, it was a slightly rundown suburban hell that could get sketchy at times, but it was nothing like south central or detroit.

after that, i lived in my fair share of other assorted, sordid areas in both los angeles and san francisco. can deal with sketch, no prob. when in da hood, i know to keep my hoody on and my eyes averted. i avoid confrontations, walk quickly and act nonchalantly. urban survivalist, that's me.

but before i drift too far into tangentland, let's get back to the current hood and how much i fucking hate it. again, moving here was so we could be close to the metrolink (which finally started running again, yay!), since pabs and i are sharing one car. i could complain about the ridiculous traffic congestion (especially during hollywood bowl season), lack of parking, the charming dog shit lining the sidewalks, but i won't. that doesn't really irk me.

what does irk me, however, are the fucking cop cars that appear at least twice a week on my street. one time, they even taped off the entire block next to mine while they waited for a shooting suspect to emerge from an apartment building. oh boy, was that fun! i was ready to grab a bag of popcorn and stand around watching and waiting with the rest of the rubbernecks.

and another night, i came home to find a mountain of trash -- couches, broken chairs, garbage -- piled high in the middle of my street. i dumbly thought it might be a piece of expressionist art, but it turns out a tenant from a neighboring building didn't like his eviction notice, so he decided he would burn down the entire block by setting the pile of shit on fire.

but wait, i'm forgetting my favorite one: one time i was casually looking out my second-floor window when i saw a cop car breezing down the street, its blowhorn blaring, "quit buying drugs on that corner. hey, i can see you buying those drugs!"

oh yes, the junkies. (funny, as i write this i'm hearing sirens approach -- i shit you not.) seen lots of junkies talking to themselves, yelling at other people, lighting their crack pipes in the parking lot behind my building. there's been some hookers and pimps, too, and there was even that one guy i passed on my way home from the video store one night, the one who ran from a darkened alley, pants falling to his ankles. wonder what lucky lady (or tranny hooker) he left in his wake. silly people, why didn't they just use the motel 6 down the street like everyone else? and let's not forget the miserable couples that argue up a storm nearly every day. there seems to be a set in each building and when they all start their bitching at once -- wow, what a crescendo!

i should have known better. the two "checks cashed" places directly across the street from each other on hollywood boulevard should have tipped me off to what a dump this place is. is it as bad as i'm making it sound? yeah, probably. is it livable for the next two years? yeah, definitely. but as i approach (gasp) 30, i feel a bit crankier and less inclined to live in what i used to romanticize as bohemian centers -- just brimming with life, dude. now i see them for what they really are: GHETTOS. granted, it's still no south central or detroit, it's more ghetto-lite, but it's ghetto enough for me.

i've sworn to myself that my next residence will come equipped with a parking space. the neighborhood should also have well-manicured lawns, and the dumpsters should not smell like dead bodies.

but in the meantime, i've made my proverbial bed. besides, my apartment is really gorgeous and relatively cheap, and i have truly never (knock on wood) felt unsafe here. more annoyed than anything -- especially when i step in that dog shit.

Hermitism and My Diva Moment

(yes, that's a real word. i thought it might be "hermitude," but i looked it up and the noun form is indeed "hermitism." now onward with the entry.)

haven't felt much like doing much of anything lately. maybe it's the change in the weather, which, granted, is minimal compared to worldwide standards but huge if you've spent most of your life in sunny hell-lay. temperature's down, clouds are up. i generally like that scenario, especially when i can be at home with warm socks on and a cup of cocoa, staring out the window as the puddles fill up. maybe that explains the apathy and why i haven't been too interested in the rest of the world lately. friends, school, work, family -- no, thank you. i just want to sleep in and be left alone.

the good news is i can do just that, as the semester is finally winding down, leaving me with just two papers to write and a shitload of ones to grade for my TAship. that, i think i can manage before year's end. then comes next semester, the final semester.

the bad news is i'll have to take one more class than i thought i would if i want to graduate on time. this is because i dropped my thesis and need to make up the units. why, you ask? well, i thought i would try to 'push the envelope,' as they say (sorry for the cliche, but it's apt here), by doing a lengthy broadcast piece on the straight men who do gay porn. yes, the very fascinating gay-for-pay phenomenon that runs through the porn industry. chicks do it all the time, why not guys? i think most people would be surprised to learn that about a third of the guys who do gay porn are straight. i was gonna take that into an exploration of the vast divide that separates sex and sexuality. they're not the same thing. it was going to be educational. stellar idea, i thought.

the faculty disagreed. but wow, some of the looks that crossed their (old, white man) faces were priceless. they gave me every excuse: "it's not the topic itself, it's that it's not 'newsy' enough"; "how do you think this will further your professional goals?"; "what's the real purpose of doing something like this?" and so on. it was an ordeal. there were some heated debates. but in the end, i'm still the lowly student and they have all the power. they insisted i choose something else, but i said if i couldn't do what i really wanted, then i wouldn't do anything at all. so i had my little diva moment and that was that.

i'm not really surprised by the school's resistance, just a little disappointed. if anything, it justs proves their hypocrisy. college can be a pretty liberal place, but only if you want to focus on welfare reform or the three-strikes law in california (two topics of my friends' theses). but start talking about sodomy, and whoa, sister, slow down! i understand, though. it's their school -- they make the rules. but it's my fucking money.

yet in all honesty, i'm a bit relieved that it didn't work out, because it would have been a shitload of work and i was already way behind schedule. it's november already. by now i would have had to turn in my outline. so instead of all that, i'll need to take an extra class. i'm trying to find an easy one.

Publishing Error in My Favor

yay! it's out -- my first big cover story for NoHo>LA. Click on the cover to go to the story, which is about a very funny play called jewtopia. i immensely enjoyed watching the show (highly recommend, if you're local to LA) and meeting the two crazy jewish dudes responsible for it. if you're truly a fan and a friend, you can find the rag in LA's more eastside locales -- NoHo, Hollywood, Burbank, Larchmont, etc -- at coffeeshops, indy video stores, clothes shops and the like. it'll be out for the next two weeks.

truthfully, i'm sure my editor assigned the story to me because of my surname (goldenberg), which is synonymous with "superjew." maybe she figured i could never be accused of being insensitive to the jewish plight and all that, especially since the play is humorously self-depracating. i can certainly understand her concern, as a gentile might have handled the assignment like a hot potato (i think i treated it more like a chicken soft taco), but in any case, i hope she gives me more shit to write about. like i said before, i'm all about them bylines nowadays. i'm sitting on a few other publishing eggs; let's hope a few more of them hatch soon.

Stuff and Things

i'm going to try to get into the habit of updating every sunday night, and more often than that hopefully. sunday is the funday. no, actually, sundays are worse than mondays because they remind of not only how much shit you need to take care of in the week ahead, but of the shit you never took care of in the week before. so the old shit compounds the new shit to give you a whole lotta shit on your plate. well, my plate.

that's what it feels like sometimes -- that i'm just going through the motions clearing shit off my plate to make room for the new stuff. i'm pretty eager to graduate already, senioritis is setting in. the classes i've chosen for next semester seem like the easiest ones offered. it's not that i hate what i'm doing, i fucking love it and know that i will miss it terribly once my graduate schooling is all done. i just feel like i should dedicate more of this school year to writing papers for publication, not for professors. i need more friggin clips, some bylines that prove that other people believed in me enough to print my ramblings, so you -- new editor -- should too. with this in mind, i'm going to refocus my energies on picking up more assignments for NoHo>LA and be on the hunt for other writing jobs as well. if you know of any, e-mail my ass at milla666@aol.com.

anyhow, the weekend was fairly pleasant. i saw an interesting play on friday night with zahra bizarra and then had a midnight meal with my sugar mcman. saturday saw a day of running a few errands and enduring an ass-kicking flow yoga class. last night i went out a bunch of high school peeps whom i hadn't seen in forever and we caught up on all our new and old times. then i met up with pabs and some of his b-school peeps at an after-hours party in venice. we didn't know too many people there and given that this is hell-lay, no one (us especially) seemed interested in making small talk with strangers, so we bailed at an early 3 am, hit up the always open del taco, and fell into bed near 4.

today i've felt like a complete waste of space.

Nothing in Particular

not sure where i'm going with this one, not that i have anywhere i need to go with any of them. just procrastinating really. i should be working on my website instead, as i have the evening free to do so, but the thought of firing up dreamweaver always makes me uneasy cus i know it will frustrate me somehow. it's not really a hard program, not nearly as bad as photoshop, but it'll still get me somehow. just when i think i've semi-mastered the fucker, it suddenly won't let me add a return or resize a box -- something lame will trip me up.

anyhow, writing in this blog is also good preparation for writing the captions that will accompany the summer's photos. it always helps lube my brain, writing here. after an entry, i can sometimes just fart out my assignments with ease. it helps turn off that internal editor. but with each sip of this boozy wine, it looks less likely that i'll be doing anything that requires too much brain tonight. i might just slide instead into movie-watching mode. or perhaps music-listening mode.

i rented the matrix reloaded the other night and just didn't dig it much. i heard it was horrible and i expected to hate it fully, but it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either. just like watching a video game -- way too much CGI. and keanu reeves is just a terrible actor. he has no range. neither does drew barrymore. i can't handle seeing either one of them in a movie -- they always play the same character. i also rented the entire second season of the osbournes on dvd and that was fabulous. they crack me up, that family. they kinda remind me of my family, minus all that money and cursing. actually, if you cross the osbournes with a woody allen movie, you may have something resembling my family: slightly dim dad who needs things constantly repeated and re-explained, a busybody Jewish mother who's quick to give out praise, insults and guilt trips. then there's my sister and i -- we don't really bicker too much nowadays, but we used to. my family is also pretty loud. it's really shocking how much noise three people can make, but get my sister, my mom and i together in a room and it's nonstop yap and kvetch, kvetch and yap.

yeah, there's no way i'm working on that website tonight. i wonder if i should have joined pablo and his b-school peeps in their post-finals bash. (his school is actually on a quarter system, so he just finished exams and will begin another term monday.) but i figured they would need to commiserate and celebrate amongst themselves.

i'm also still trying to nail down my master's thesis topic. but before that, i need to find an advisor. i've gone through two faculty members already, both of whom seem too busy to help me out, so i'm onto a third, whom i will ask next week to give me a hand with this thing. i have three ideas in mind -- focus on either high-schoolers, immigrants or porn stars. hmm... which do you think i'll choose?

Friday at the Journalism Job Fair

i should have trusted my instincts and not gone at all, as it was a complete wash for me. i talked to maybe three or four recruiters, all of whom i reluctantly (and rather unsuccessfully) tried to sell myself to. i just can't play the i'm-great-and-this-is-why game that job fairs require. but it's really more than that. it's the fact that i just don't want to do daily news, and the fair featured folks from the fresno bee and bakersfield californian and a bunch of other no-name dailies from podunk towns.

i did visit the LA Times booth and that was a complete disaster. the chick actually handed me back my resume. fuck, lady, couldn't ya just humor me? i've never had my resume handed back to me at a job fair. she was nice about it, though, saying i should keep my resume and clips and apply for the times' summer internship for next year, as if i would forget to include them then. i asked whether that would ultimately help get me a job at the times. she said it was unlikely. if i really wanted to work at the times, i would have to go to those podunk towns and write kick-ass stories for those no-name dailies while earning a slew of awards in the process. after several years of this, i could apply at the times and we could talk.

now, i'm not sure that i believe in an afterlife, so the thought of suffering for years as a general assignment reporter writing obituaries and covering city council meetings and fires in some backwoods shithole for the chance to possibly, maybe, perhaps write for the los angeles times one day (which i've already done, by the way) just doesn't sound appealing. call me crazy. the lady gently reminded me that journalists end their careers at the times, not begin them, and that we all have to pay our dues.

yes, granted. i never expected to walk into a cushy job as a features reporter at the times straight out of graduate school, and if it were worth it to me, i might sit in that shithole writing obituaries, but that's just not my bag, and if this job fair did nothing else, it helped me to realize that. i don't want to work for a daily. that's the bottom line. i don't like working in a pressure cooker, having to crank out story after story under daily deadline pressure. i wouldn't want to have to compete with my peers for the big "get." i'd much rather have the time to set aside a piece and come back to it a little later. i don't want to have to start everything i write with the inverted pyramid, answering the who, what, when, where, how and why in the first graph. maybe i'd rather begin with a quote or an anecdote or some imagery. daily news is great to read, but it sucks to write, and i don't have it in me to try. i wish i did. no, on second thought, i guess i really don't.

i sometimes wonder whether i should have taken the opportunity to study magazine journalism at NYU when i had the chance. USC's program is really geared toward newspaper reporting, and it really tries to convince you that you should be too (undoubtedly so you can go out a win a pulitzer to honor the school). but i like magazines -- they're like little illustrated books, self-contained and portable, and the ink doesn't rub off on your fingers. that's way more my bag. radio's not bad either. but a newspaperwoman i shall never be. and that's just fine with me.

now, i don't expect to walk into a cushy job as a features writer for Newsweek either, but for that opportunity, i just might spend years slaving away at smaller publications until i got the chance. and i wouldn't have to move to fresno to do it. i'm already writing for NoHo LA and will have a cover story coming out for them in the coming weeks. it's a small start to what will hopefully become a very long and fruitful love affair with the magazine world. it's still journalism and it's a much better fit for me. ok, now i know that. case closed.

Home Alone

home alone with a glass of wine on a friday night; it's nearly 1 a.m. i would feel pretty pathetic if this situation weren't by choice, but luckily, i had options that i passed up to spend some QT with M, M & I (me, myself & I). well, the evening didn't exactly begin in solitude. i went to see a surprisingly good play tonight with ms. zahra the great. it was called "the shore," and i'm to review it for NoHo>LA. then zahra and i went out for an always satisfying girlie chat at a coffeeshop before retiring to our respective abodes. there was a raging '80s party going on, sponsored by pablo's business school, but after checking in with him via cell phone, i quickly realized that i was far too sober and unenergized to attend. so i mozied on home, found rock-star parking (which means within a block of my building) and fired up the iMac. hang on, lemme refill my glass.

back. so, what did i want to talk about? i don't know, i was thinking about delving into politics, an area i've deliberately avoided so far. and not because i'm apolitical -- i'm as opinionated as they come -- i've just realized that waxing realpolitik does little to further my understanding of the wacky world of politics. instead it gets me into heated debates with good friends, and ultimately never ends up in anyone's mind being changed. it only reinforces beliefs and sometimes sours friendships, at least in the short term. not that all my friends need to share my political beliefs (though it never hurts), they just need to respect them. and i know i need to work on respecting people who hold beliefs that differ radically from my own -- but to a point, cus if you hate homos or think i'm a murderer for the abortion i had when i was 19, then you can go fuck yourself.

but i'm digressing. i wanted to talk about ahnold. and not about his womanizing or nazi ties -- that all speaks for itself. i'm just curious why he's ahead in the polls when i don't know a single person who'll admit to planning to vote for him come election day. maybe it's cus, yes, i tend to surround myself with left-leaning folk (though no knee-jerkers, please), but where are these terminator fans coming from? are they too (rightfully) ashamed to come forward? i just don't see it.

i, for one, am still unsure of whom i will vote for. maybe i'll just vote no on the recall, period. or maybe i should throw my support to busterman, the only viable democrat, though i don't see him being too different from davis. i was all over the arianna campaign, but when that whole income tax thing blew up i just lost faith, and she's out now anyway. i do like camejo, but he hasn't got a true shot at it. i just don't know, i'll likely make up my mind at the last moment, and it'll probably go to bust-a-move-man, since i don't want to waste my vote. but i will say that i promise to give the benefit of the doubt to whomever is ultimately elected, ahnald included, though i don't see that happening anymore with all the bad press. god bless the LA Times.

in other news, juice has recently been diagnosed with hip dysplasia, which has upset me greatly. we're still investigating our options and might get a second opinion, but she's been limping in recent weeks. now she's on glucosamine and painkillers, and that seems to have made a slight difference, but i want to ensure that she enjoys a high quality of life, so i'm looking at the surgeries available to her (and the pet insurance available to me). and i still intend to start her on frisbee lessons in the park as planned, though she'll have to take it easy on those hind legs. it pisses me off, and i've resolved to do whatever it takes to help her. it might sound silly to anyone who doesn't understand the singular bond a pet can offer, but juice is like my kid, and i adore her with my whole heart. it's certainly been a distressing time. hearing the hip dysplasia news is like finding out your kid is retarded and will require special ed for his whole life. it sucks and you feel helpless -- yet determined.