Stuff and Things

• meaty march: after four weeks of eating nothing but fresh veggies and fish — and feeling fantastic physically — i undid any benefit it gave my body in the first three days of march by consuming an obscene meat cornucopia that included bacon burgers and tacos filled with carne asada, carnitas, al pastor and birria. i felt guilty about exactly NONE of it, even when the stomach pains rendered me blob-like on the sofa. but instead of gripping my stomach and moaning, “what have i done?” i was overwhelmed with a powerful peace of mind that, no, i can never be a vegetarian, and that’s ok.



• the house: tax time is always my favorite time to be a homeowner and this year was no exception. i have plenty of domestic things to spend my refund on, among them a major remodel to the house’s exterior that i’m still ironing out with my contractor. it will be a big job, lasting several weeks and costing a fortune. i’m scared shitless, but excited beyond measure as well. and after it’s done, i’ll be another step closer to living in my dream house, which, granted, is probably a house i will buy 10 or 20 years from now, but with each passing month, i get closer.



• Landmark Forum: has anyone (besides Juan) done this shit? the Landmark Forum is this weekend-long self-improvement seminar that will either leave me brainwashed with the belief that i can talk to aliens, transformed into the best possible version of myself or totally unmoved and still ridiculously cynical. i signed up for it upon the urging of my friend Juan and have wasted many hours reading about it online, where reports vacillate between describing it as a cult and as the best thing that can happen to anyone. clearly, i am intrigued and must investigate for myself if for no other reason than to bring my cherished readers a good blog post. expect it sometime in april.



• more importantly: as everyone knows, tax refund means spa weekend (in addition to home repairs). for two nights and three days, my girlfriends and i will get rubbed and scrubbed at a day spa in beautiful Ojai, California. okay, Ojai is not that beautiful, but i better be after my facial, hour-long massage and seaweed body wrap. there will also be fine dining (and likely overeating) and maybe a yoga class if i’m feeling really ambitious. but mostly, there will be rest and relaxation and enjoying the company of two of my best friends during a weekend of shameless bourgeoisie pampering. i can’t wait!

The Home-Improvement Chronicles: The Coffee Station Revisited

the before shot: the original coffee station consisted of one of Mo’s old bookshelves that was repurposed to hold the mugs. it was simple and functional, and i was happy with it. though Mo felt it didn’t match the rest of the kitchen, which was more stylized. he thought the area needed some pizzazz.


did i just write “pizzazz”? we went to our home away from home, Ikea, to get some ideas. Mo quickly zeroed in on this plant pot, which was super cheap (just $3.99!), so we bought a bunch and Mo got to staining them in the garage.


paper towel pizzazz: i’m not sure where we found this paper-towel dispenser, but it’s pretty hot and matches the chrome in the rest of the kitchen nicely. plus, it frees up the space that was once occupied by the countertop dispenser we used to have.


hot countertop: Mo built this part of the countertop by fusing together pieces of walnut wood, sanding them down to make them smooth and then staining the whole thing before installing. he even built the backsplash. the result is one gorgeous countertop — but one that was also very expensive, which is why the rest of the countertops are white laminate from Ikea.


the artist and his work: Mo’s next project is building a dining room table that will serve double duty as a kitchen island. it will extend from this countertop, also be made of wood, be portable and fit barstools underneath. and then there is the wine rack, the laundry room shelves — all sorts of fun items from my honey-do list.


the vase: we found it in some random pottery studio when we were in San Francisco last year. it has been situated in a few other places around the house before finding its permanent home as part of the coffee station. we try to fill it with fresh flowers once a week.


the after shot: and yes, we do make coffee here every day. would you like a cup?

One-Hit Wonders: February 2010

this month’s search terms inexplicably pulling up this blog are all about the sexxxy time. and now that i wrote “sexxy,” i will get a million variations of “sexxxy milla fucking sex tit cock dog.” and now that i wrote that, well, you know...

• girls with big feet and barking cough


• heavily pierced tits hanging out of corset


• i love hating sarah palin


• skunk smell satanist


• dating@hotmail.com


• free pictures of lactating boobs fucking dogs


• here the longest lowhangers i`ve ever seen


• girls with flat abs fucking


• my mother-laws 38ddd's i want to fuck


• changing my diaper


• in how do i love thee, what skin disorder did the girl have

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)...