Thursday, April 29, 2010
The Rains
It started raining on Monday.
On Monday I went to a screening of Nicole Holofcener's new film "Please Give" with my friend Jenny. We met at the Westside Pavillion mall. First for hot dogs and really good Pinot Griggio. I thought the Pinot Grigio would stop the rain from coming. Wrong.
When we watched Nicole Holofcener's movie I just lost it. I mean really these tears were crying me. The movie was about loneliness and a family living in New York. It was simple. But what I like about Nicole's films is that she reveals human character, and doesn't really make us something we're not.
I don't know about you, but there have been moments, let's say in Bed Bath and Beyond where I have had to clamp down on my lip, to keep the tidal wave of irritation and annoyance, at just plain life, from spilling out. Take mortality. Mortality makes me just about lose it, at Bed Bath and Beyond, almost once a year.
I want to scream at the other patrons in the line
"We don't have that much time! Why are we waiting in line? Why is so much of this gorgeous experience spent in line? Isn't there someone you have to tell you love? RIGHT NOW???"
I am the "Beyond" of Bed Bath and Beyond. I am THAT woman in line. I like Nicole's movies because she seems to write about THAT woman in line. After the screening there was a Q and A, which she gamely participated in. Although, I could tell some of the questions were annoying her. And she didn't hide that she was irritated, and this made me cry even more. Seriously. I'm surprised Jenny's still my friend. I just feel like so much of being human requires hiding how it actually feels to be human.
When the screening finished the guests filed out, all three hundred of them except for me and Jenny. Jenny had a much bigger problem on her hands: me. I was fine, I had thought before the movie. I had had Pinot Grigio and red vines, the combination usually quiets the rush of my own humanity. Jenny sat with me for a long time.
"I'm scared to go home" I whispered. "I'm scared to be this single."
And as Jenny coached me on the fact, that I wasn't that single, that yes, it was true that everything recognizable in my life was gone, but perhaps I could take up painting, more and more water fell out of my eyes. Then Jenny said the kind of thing that Jenny says, "You need to lean on your friends more". And when Jenny says that kind of thing I listen. Jenny is the hearth, the light we gravitate towards. Jenny is a human embodiment of a candle flame.
Before the movie Jenny had run into an acquaintance who's husband had died unexpectedly of a brain tumor in their first year of marriage. At Christmas. So. Go figure. I don't know. That made me cry too. The crew was dismantling the equipment used for the Q and A. They kept kind of tip toeing around us. I was THAT girl. The one crying in the theater. Finally I wiped my face. Trying to get the mascara before it dried.
We crept out of the theater, but the tears would not stop. We stood in the florescent lights of the outside world. I glared at the red vines, in the glass case.
You let me down. You stupid red vines.
And then Nicole Holofcener, her husband and mother walked by us. Trust me if I could have a superpower of fading into the wall, and if I could have used it just once it would have been then.
Nicole, stopped, looked at me and whispered, almost in awe "You're crying."
"Yes" I said.
And then I said "Thank you for your beautiful work. It's not easy out here in LA being a single chick".
Then I started to cry some more, (somehow my tears sprung tears), then, Jenny started to cry, and then Nicole started to cry, and her mother started to cry and we all stood there crying, making the red vines blush.
But the crying didn't stop it kept on keeping on. I cried at Real Food Daily with my friend Brian. The waitress came over and asked if everything was okay, then noticing my tears whispered- "oh". Again almost in awe. "Life's just really complicated" I whispered back. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Or why the torrential down pour. But here they were. The rains.
When I was a little girl of 8 my father died. And I never cried. But I never expected the tears to come, like a flu, so many years after the fact.
The entire time my father was dying (two months) I refused to accept it. Instead I woke up at 6:58 am, almost religiously to watch "my shows".
My poor mother would creep into the living room at around 7:15am and ask if I would like to join her at the hospital that day. "No Mom," I would say solemnly "I have to watch my shows". I followed Gem and The Rockers, as if they were animated angels.
I find myself now, however many years later, waking up early and turning on the TV. Gotta watch my shows. I make some breakfast and sit in front of the TV, alone, and try and ward off the impending loneliness. For anyone reading this, who might feel the slightest bit lonely, let me say that I have found that being around people who love you is a really great solution, whereas sitting in isolation just prolongs the problem.
I don't know if it was the tears, or the luxury of being single, but as I reached for the remote, to press that green power button- I didn't.
Instead I throw my running shoes on and head for Runyun Canyon. I run up the hill. And as I'm about to sit/crawl down the steep part, on my ass, as I've always done, an elderly gentleman and his wife slide past me. The man stops, looks up at me, and then in a very fatherly way, explains, that if I go down the hill, looking for rock rather than dirt, and walking on train tracks rather than on a tightrope, I'll have a much more successful descent.
So I do, and then perched above the city, above the smog, above the buildings and houses- I find a rock- I sit on the rock- and you guessed it- I cry. I rain all over Runyun. I let myself really go. And it feels so good. To be in my body. To have my feet in the dirt, my head in the clouds. It feels good to be a joiner.
When you watch a parent die as a young person your sense of time gets so warped. That is why I get so Beyond, in Bed Bath and Beyond. So irritable. It's why I can't get off the phone without saying "I love you". It's why I tell the Barista at Starbucks that she really means something to me. Because sometimes all I can hear in my ear is: tick. tick. tick.
I didn't realize setting off on my single journey that I was this terrified of being alone. Of being in the world without a father, a boyfriend, or a lover. So I let myself cry. And cry and cry and cry.
ee cummings wrote-
let all go
dear
so comes love
Or in my case... so comes dinner.
It's the following Monday night, Dionna , one of my buddies, glamazon, rock star, sweetheart, (who seems to cascade into a room on her life force alone) and I drive over to Nicks, in Silverlake. Nick has invited us for dinner. I stand in his kitchen between my two friends and look at the light hitting the dishes, the light on the tomatoes, the steam rising from the frying pan, the bread fresh and sliced. We carry trays up the stairs to sit on his deck. I see the fancy houses surrounding Nick's, I hear the traffic, I smile at my friends, and in the distance is this proud fucking mountain, just standing there, bearing the light.
I feel like a city looks after it rains.
Nick's Basil-Butter Broiled Swordfish for 3
Cook the swordfish in the broiler on high for 4 minutes, on each side, with some improvised compound butter
about 1/2 cup to 1 cup of Thai Basil leaves (but any basil or herb you like with fish works)combine with about 3 or 4 tablespoons of softened butter
Combine the basil and butter with a mortar and pestle, but you can use your hands if you're willing
For the mustard sauce, (from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything")
"Combine 1/4 cup olive oil, 3 tbsps Dijon Mustard, 1/4 cup minced shallots, 2 tbsps minced fresh parsley leaves, 2 tbsps freshly squeezed lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste"
If you happen to have Zinfandel Mustard from the Hop Kiln Winery in Sonoma instead of Dijon all the better.
*Oh Nick, I think you are the only person I know who would "happen" to have Zinfandel Mustard from the Hop Kiln Winery, in Sonoma.
Real Food Daily
414 North La Cienega Boulevard,
West Hollywood
(310) 289-9910
www.realfood.com
Bed Bath & Beyond
1557 Vine Street, Hollywood
(323) 460-4500
www.bedbathandbeyond.com
On Monday I went to a screening of Nicole Holofcener's new film "Please Give" with my friend Jenny. We met at the Westside Pavillion mall. First for hot dogs and really good Pinot Griggio. I thought the Pinot Grigio would stop the rain from coming. Wrong.
When we watched Nicole Holofcener's movie I just lost it. I mean really these tears were crying me. The movie was about loneliness and a family living in New York. It was simple. But what I like about Nicole's films is that she reveals human character, and doesn't really make us something we're not.
I don't know about you, but there have been moments, let's say in Bed Bath and Beyond where I have had to clamp down on my lip, to keep the tidal wave of irritation and annoyance, at just plain life, from spilling out. Take mortality. Mortality makes me just about lose it, at Bed Bath and Beyond, almost once a year.
I want to scream at the other patrons in the line
"We don't have that much time! Why are we waiting in line? Why is so much of this gorgeous experience spent in line? Isn't there someone you have to tell you love? RIGHT NOW???"
I am the "Beyond" of Bed Bath and Beyond. I am THAT woman in line. I like Nicole's movies because she seems to write about THAT woman in line. After the screening there was a Q and A, which she gamely participated in. Although, I could tell some of the questions were annoying her. And she didn't hide that she was irritated, and this made me cry even more. Seriously. I'm surprised Jenny's still my friend. I just feel like so much of being human requires hiding how it actually feels to be human.
When the screening finished the guests filed out, all three hundred of them except for me and Jenny. Jenny had a much bigger problem on her hands: me. I was fine, I had thought before the movie. I had had Pinot Grigio and red vines, the combination usually quiets the rush of my own humanity. Jenny sat with me for a long time.
"I'm scared to go home" I whispered. "I'm scared to be this single."
And as Jenny coached me on the fact, that I wasn't that single, that yes, it was true that everything recognizable in my life was gone, but perhaps I could take up painting, more and more water fell out of my eyes. Then Jenny said the kind of thing that Jenny says, "You need to lean on your friends more". And when Jenny says that kind of thing I listen. Jenny is the hearth, the light we gravitate towards. Jenny is a human embodiment of a candle flame.
Before the movie Jenny had run into an acquaintance who's husband had died unexpectedly of a brain tumor in their first year of marriage. At Christmas. So. Go figure. I don't know. That made me cry too. The crew was dismantling the equipment used for the Q and A. They kept kind of tip toeing around us. I was THAT girl. The one crying in the theater. Finally I wiped my face. Trying to get the mascara before it dried.
We crept out of the theater, but the tears would not stop. We stood in the florescent lights of the outside world. I glared at the red vines, in the glass case.
You let me down. You stupid red vines.
And then Nicole Holofcener, her husband and mother walked by us. Trust me if I could have a superpower of fading into the wall, and if I could have used it just once it would have been then.
Nicole, stopped, looked at me and whispered, almost in awe "You're crying."
"Yes" I said.
And then I said "Thank you for your beautiful work. It's not easy out here in LA being a single chick".
Then I started to cry some more, (somehow my tears sprung tears), then, Jenny started to cry, and then Nicole started to cry, and her mother started to cry and we all stood there crying, making the red vines blush.
But the crying didn't stop it kept on keeping on. I cried at Real Food Daily with my friend Brian. The waitress came over and asked if everything was okay, then noticing my tears whispered- "oh". Again almost in awe. "Life's just really complicated" I whispered back. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Or why the torrential down pour. But here they were. The rains.
When I was a little girl of 8 my father died. And I never cried. But I never expected the tears to come, like a flu, so many years after the fact.
The entire time my father was dying (two months) I refused to accept it. Instead I woke up at 6:58 am, almost religiously to watch "my shows".
My poor mother would creep into the living room at around 7:15am and ask if I would like to join her at the hospital that day. "No Mom," I would say solemnly "I have to watch my shows". I followed Gem and The Rockers, as if they were animated angels.
I find myself now, however many years later, waking up early and turning on the TV. Gotta watch my shows. I make some breakfast and sit in front of the TV, alone, and try and ward off the impending loneliness. For anyone reading this, who might feel the slightest bit lonely, let me say that I have found that being around people who love you is a really great solution, whereas sitting in isolation just prolongs the problem.
I don't know if it was the tears, or the luxury of being single, but as I reached for the remote, to press that green power button- I didn't.
Instead I throw my running shoes on and head for Runyun Canyon. I run up the hill. And as I'm about to sit/crawl down the steep part, on my ass, as I've always done, an elderly gentleman and his wife slide past me. The man stops, looks up at me, and then in a very fatherly way, explains, that if I go down the hill, looking for rock rather than dirt, and walking on train tracks rather than on a tightrope, I'll have a much more successful descent.
So I do, and then perched above the city, above the smog, above the buildings and houses- I find a rock- I sit on the rock- and you guessed it- I cry. I rain all over Runyun. I let myself really go. And it feels so good. To be in my body. To have my feet in the dirt, my head in the clouds. It feels good to be a joiner.
When you watch a parent die as a young person your sense of time gets so warped. That is why I get so Beyond, in Bed Bath and Beyond. So irritable. It's why I can't get off the phone without saying "I love you". It's why I tell the Barista at Starbucks that she really means something to me. Because sometimes all I can hear in my ear is: tick. tick. tick.
I didn't realize setting off on my single journey that I was this terrified of being alone. Of being in the world without a father, a boyfriend, or a lover. So I let myself cry. And cry and cry and cry.
ee cummings wrote-
let all go
dear
so comes love
Or in my case... so comes dinner.
It's the following Monday night, Dionna , one of my buddies, glamazon, rock star, sweetheart, (who seems to cascade into a room on her life force alone) and I drive over to Nicks, in Silverlake. Nick has invited us for dinner. I stand in his kitchen between my two friends and look at the light hitting the dishes, the light on the tomatoes, the steam rising from the frying pan, the bread fresh and sliced. We carry trays up the stairs to sit on his deck. I see the fancy houses surrounding Nick's, I hear the traffic, I smile at my friends, and in the distance is this proud fucking mountain, just standing there, bearing the light.
I feel like a city looks after it rains.
Nick's Basil-Butter Broiled Swordfish for 3
Cook the swordfish in the broiler on high for 4 minutes, on each side, with some improvised compound butter
about 1/2 cup to 1 cup of Thai Basil leaves (but any basil or herb you like with fish works)combine with about 3 or 4 tablespoons of softened butter
Combine the basil and butter with a mortar and pestle, but you can use your hands if you're willing
For the mustard sauce, (from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything")
"Combine 1/4 cup olive oil, 3 tbsps Dijon Mustard, 1/4 cup minced shallots, 2 tbsps minced fresh parsley leaves, 2 tbsps freshly squeezed lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste"
If you happen to have Zinfandel Mustard from the Hop Kiln Winery in Sonoma instead of Dijon all the better.
*Oh Nick, I think you are the only person I know who would "happen" to have Zinfandel Mustard from the Hop Kiln Winery, in Sonoma.
Real Food Daily
414 North La Cienega Boulevard,
West Hollywood
(310) 289-9910
www.realfood.com
Bed Bath & Beyond
1557 Vine Street, Hollywood
(323) 460-4500
www.bedbathandbeyond.com
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Treats
Picking Rachel "Treats" up from LAX I am listening to pop rock on the radio. Because Ne-Yo got it right I'm so sick of love songs and I can't turn off the radio. So I just change the channel. I don't care: Korean rap- Mexican news- Brittney Spears- anything without connotation, is my jam these days.
Rachel produces the Canadian radio arts show Q on CBC. We've also been friends since before she had a clear queer consciousness- in other words since we were seven years old, trying to make our way on the playgrounds of Toronto. As we drive back from the airport, we talk, of course, about Jesse James and Sandra Bullock. There are some people I would drive across town from in order to avoid their opinions about health care reform - with Rachel I would fly across the country to ask her her thoughts on butter. She's my Dorothy Parker. In terms of Sandra and Jesse- she likes Sandra, she wants to remain on the correct side of history, but the man was married to an ex porn star...
I take us immediately to the 101 Coffee Shop. It's Thursday and I know the UCB show will be letting out around the time we get there. So there we are in hipster highschool heaven, Charlyne yi, Aziz Ansari, adjacent, sipping on decaf coffee and successfully avoiding my ex boyfriends.
Upon arriving at my apartment we immediately decide that the best action plan is to leave Los Angeles. Rachel has scored us some passes to the Dinah festival in Palm Springs. The Dinah Shore Festival is Disney Land for Lesbians across America and Salt 'n' Peppa is playing. Enough said.
We arrange to stay with her cousin, I put together a California mix, with Dr. Dre, Chili Peppers, and some Ani DiFranco (lest we forget our hippie, feminist, tortured, vegan roots in a sun drenched moment of bliss) and we hit the road.
Palm Springs comes and goes in a quick 24 hour blur. There are a lot of women. Salt n Peppa plays "Shoop". And interestingly enough "What a Mighty Good Man" to which Salt calls her husband on stage, and makes all the girls cheer. It was one of the most culturally confusing moments of my life. It was the 90's intersecting with Lilith Fair, with palm trees, and way too many Mojitos. Rachel's cousin took us out to eat at Spencers. An aptly fancy restaurant with beautiful California casual undertones.
I remember when I was a teenager, my cousin worked as a storyboard editor for Ren and Stimpy, and my best friend and I used to fly out to Los Angeles to visit her. She had connections with Woody Harrelson's drug dealer in Venice. We used to get really high and drive out to Palm Springs. We would sit in restaurants like Spencers, and I would try to imagine what it would be like to be famous, and to be loved. Two dangerous aspirations. As a teenager, in sleepy dreamy Palm Springs, the combination of the repose and the rich always made the hairs on my arm tingle.
Spencer's was perfect. A group of 60 year olds looking like teenagers were there for a disco themed birthday party. We ordered Mojitos which is definitely the drink of choice in Palm Springs. The dishes were farmers market fresh. And the molten chocolate cake was perfection.
It rivaled the molten chocolate cake at Pace. Pace, nestled in Laurel Canyon, is one of my favorite restaurants. It is Bohemian chic, softly lit, with the likes of Hilary Duff getting her Joni Mitchell on in the fairy lights of another era. At the beginning of the meal the waiter will ask you if you would like the Molten Chocolate cake. The only answer to that question is: yes.
They begin cooking the cake at the start of your meal, so that when it arrives it is baked at a temperature that feels personal to your palette. A temperature that is sexy and loving. Who needs a boyfriend when you can have warm chocolate in the canyon? However if you can eat that cake in Laurel Canyon when in love, (which I have been lucky enough to do) well then, the temperature will feel even more personal, even more sensual, even more calculated to your own DNA, as everything does, when in love.
We drove back from Palm Springs directly to Downtown L.A. It was Easter and we stopped in at Royal Clayton's for some fish and chips. Rachel had one of the best Bloody Mary's I have ever tasted.
Then we met our friends at the Basketball game at The Staples Center. We were watching from a suite: the Clippers play the Knicks. Two teams that were sure to lose. Nick and I have a running contest to see who will be signed by CAA first. Again, two teams that are sure to lose. In the middle of the game, Nick leaned over to inform me that his manager was pitching his (excellent) script at CAA that week, and that it looked like it would be me who would be buying him dinner at AOC, as I was undoubtedly going to lose the bet.
This sent me on a downward spiral of questioning how every decision I'd made in both love and career had brought me to this moment in time. This very well fed, losing moment in time, in both career and love.
During the game I couldn't decide which team to root for. Nick being from New York, is a die hard Knick's fan, and the rest of the suite was rooting for the Clippers. I kept switching teams. Because I wanted some sort of guarantee of winning. In the fourth quarter, I decided to cheer the Clippers on. Because here I am in L.A. Because in basketball, in love, in career, pick a side and fucking play your heart out. The side that you choose can be arbitrary or connected to some tribal pulse so deep within you that it seems to choose you. Play to Win. In the heat of the game, the moment of passion, you make choices, whether the crowd is cheering or booing. And sometimes you pay for those choices for years to come. But looking back on that moment you remember: there was a crowd, a cheer, a choice, and a play. And you played yours- no one can ever take that away. We're always made more interesting by the games that we lose anyway.
The Clipper's lose about 30 seconds after I make that realization.
With Molten Chocolate cake, and with love, with life, it's the heat that you apply that matters. It's the passion you bring to the moment that matters. The game is always losing, there is always the timer as we play, but somehow in the playing itself, we win. So as Juliet says when dreaming of her Romeo "learn me how to lose a winning match"
It's an old worn metaphor that love is a game. Two teams show up to the Staples Center ready to match each other. And two teams play. Same with career. I often find myself questioning choices. What would have happened if I'd gone this way rather than that? What if I had played that one game differently? What if I had let my guard down more? What if I had held it up? What if I had stayed with my manager even after he asked me to sit on his lap at the Rickie Lee Jones concert?
Driving Rachel back to the airport, I still have dust on me from our weekend of playing. I still have dust on me from our childhood days of running around in the playground. I still have the taste of chocolate in my mouth,from when I did have that chocolate cake at Pace, when it was the perfect temperature, when I was in love, and the night seemed to sing to us. I still have the red sharpened CAA pencil that someone, yes a special someone, stole for me at a meeting he was at, in my purse, because a bright red sharpened pencil says more to me about hope than a penthouse.
Remember being a kid and playing for hours out in the street? Playing so hard that you're only opponent was the night itself coming. Playing hard enough to over ride the sound of your mothers voice calling you in, playing hard enough to shake off all the cuts on the playground, the racial slurs, the pains of home, playing so hard that you shook it all off, until you kind of were the game. Until you were free.
I call Rachel "Treats" because she has the same insatiable taste for sweets that I do. We arrive at the airport, she grabs her bag out of the backseat. I tell her that her leaving is not helping my state of mind. She smiles her perfect smile at me. I can almost hear the streets of Toronto calling us back outside.
"Get home safe Treats" I call after her.
I drive away. Windows down. Listening to terrible music on the radio, which I still refuse to turn off, searching for a match for the cigarette I am trying to light, and being as much of a Juliet as I can muster, as the bill boards hustle past me. Please, learn me how to lose this winning match.
Pace'
www.peaceinthecanyon.com
2100 Laurel Canyon Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90046-2004
(323) 654-8583
101 Coffee Shop
www.the101coffeeshop.com
6145 Franklin Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90028-5220
(323) 467-1175
Spencers Restaurant
www.spencersrestaurant.com
701 West Baristo Road
Palm Springs, CA 92262-6325
(760) 327-3446
Royal Clayton's
1855 Industrial St
Los Angeles, CA 90021
(213) 622-0512
www.royalclaytonsenglishpub.com
Q
www.cbc.ca/q/
Dinah Shore Festival
www.dinahshoreweekend.com/media.html
Rachel produces the Canadian radio arts show Q on CBC. We've also been friends since before she had a clear queer consciousness- in other words since we were seven years old, trying to make our way on the playgrounds of Toronto. As we drive back from the airport, we talk, of course, about Jesse James and Sandra Bullock. There are some people I would drive across town from in order to avoid their opinions about health care reform - with Rachel I would fly across the country to ask her her thoughts on butter. She's my Dorothy Parker. In terms of Sandra and Jesse- she likes Sandra, she wants to remain on the correct side of history, but the man was married to an ex porn star...
I take us immediately to the 101 Coffee Shop. It's Thursday and I know the UCB show will be letting out around the time we get there. So there we are in hipster highschool heaven, Charlyne yi, Aziz Ansari, adjacent, sipping on decaf coffee and successfully avoiding my ex boyfriends.
Upon arriving at my apartment we immediately decide that the best action plan is to leave Los Angeles. Rachel has scored us some passes to the Dinah festival in Palm Springs. The Dinah Shore Festival is Disney Land for Lesbians across America and Salt 'n' Peppa is playing. Enough said.
We arrange to stay with her cousin, I put together a California mix, with Dr. Dre, Chili Peppers, and some Ani DiFranco (lest we forget our hippie, feminist, tortured, vegan roots in a sun drenched moment of bliss) and we hit the road.
Palm Springs comes and goes in a quick 24 hour blur. There are a lot of women. Salt n Peppa plays "Shoop". And interestingly enough "What a Mighty Good Man" to which Salt calls her husband on stage, and makes all the girls cheer. It was one of the most culturally confusing moments of my life. It was the 90's intersecting with Lilith Fair, with palm trees, and way too many Mojitos. Rachel's cousin took us out to eat at Spencers. An aptly fancy restaurant with beautiful California casual undertones.
I remember when I was a teenager, my cousin worked as a storyboard editor for Ren and Stimpy, and my best friend and I used to fly out to Los Angeles to visit her. She had connections with Woody Harrelson's drug dealer in Venice. We used to get really high and drive out to Palm Springs. We would sit in restaurants like Spencers, and I would try to imagine what it would be like to be famous, and to be loved. Two dangerous aspirations. As a teenager, in sleepy dreamy Palm Springs, the combination of the repose and the rich always made the hairs on my arm tingle.
Spencer's was perfect. A group of 60 year olds looking like teenagers were there for a disco themed birthday party. We ordered Mojitos which is definitely the drink of choice in Palm Springs. The dishes were farmers market fresh. And the molten chocolate cake was perfection.
It rivaled the molten chocolate cake at Pace. Pace, nestled in Laurel Canyon, is one of my favorite restaurants. It is Bohemian chic, softly lit, with the likes of Hilary Duff getting her Joni Mitchell on in the fairy lights of another era. At the beginning of the meal the waiter will ask you if you would like the Molten Chocolate cake. The only answer to that question is: yes.
They begin cooking the cake at the start of your meal, so that when it arrives it is baked at a temperature that feels personal to your palette. A temperature that is sexy and loving. Who needs a boyfriend when you can have warm chocolate in the canyon? However if you can eat that cake in Laurel Canyon when in love, (which I have been lucky enough to do) well then, the temperature will feel even more personal, even more sensual, even more calculated to your own DNA, as everything does, when in love.
We drove back from Palm Springs directly to Downtown L.A. It was Easter and we stopped in at Royal Clayton's for some fish and chips. Rachel had one of the best Bloody Mary's I have ever tasted.
Then we met our friends at the Basketball game at The Staples Center. We were watching from a suite: the Clippers play the Knicks. Two teams that were sure to lose. Nick and I have a running contest to see who will be signed by CAA first. Again, two teams that are sure to lose. In the middle of the game, Nick leaned over to inform me that his manager was pitching his (excellent) script at CAA that week, and that it looked like it would be me who would be buying him dinner at AOC, as I was undoubtedly going to lose the bet.
This sent me on a downward spiral of questioning how every decision I'd made in both love and career had brought me to this moment in time. This very well fed, losing moment in time, in both career and love.
During the game I couldn't decide which team to root for. Nick being from New York, is a die hard Knick's fan, and the rest of the suite was rooting for the Clippers. I kept switching teams. Because I wanted some sort of guarantee of winning. In the fourth quarter, I decided to cheer the Clippers on. Because here I am in L.A. Because in basketball, in love, in career, pick a side and fucking play your heart out. The side that you choose can be arbitrary or connected to some tribal pulse so deep within you that it seems to choose you. Play to Win. In the heat of the game, the moment of passion, you make choices, whether the crowd is cheering or booing. And sometimes you pay for those choices for years to come. But looking back on that moment you remember: there was a crowd, a cheer, a choice, and a play. And you played yours- no one can ever take that away. We're always made more interesting by the games that we lose anyway.
The Clipper's lose about 30 seconds after I make that realization.
With Molten Chocolate cake, and with love, with life, it's the heat that you apply that matters. It's the passion you bring to the moment that matters. The game is always losing, there is always the timer as we play, but somehow in the playing itself, we win. So as Juliet says when dreaming of her Romeo "learn me how to lose a winning match"
It's an old worn metaphor that love is a game. Two teams show up to the Staples Center ready to match each other. And two teams play. Same with career. I often find myself questioning choices. What would have happened if I'd gone this way rather than that? What if I had played that one game differently? What if I had let my guard down more? What if I had held it up? What if I had stayed with my manager even after he asked me to sit on his lap at the Rickie Lee Jones concert?
Driving Rachel back to the airport, I still have dust on me from our weekend of playing. I still have dust on me from our childhood days of running around in the playground. I still have the taste of chocolate in my mouth,from when I did have that chocolate cake at Pace, when it was the perfect temperature, when I was in love, and the night seemed to sing to us. I still have the red sharpened CAA pencil that someone, yes a special someone, stole for me at a meeting he was at, in my purse, because a bright red sharpened pencil says more to me about hope than a penthouse.
Remember being a kid and playing for hours out in the street? Playing so hard that you're only opponent was the night itself coming. Playing hard enough to over ride the sound of your mothers voice calling you in, playing hard enough to shake off all the cuts on the playground, the racial slurs, the pains of home, playing so hard that you shook it all off, until you kind of were the game. Until you were free.
I call Rachel "Treats" because she has the same insatiable taste for sweets that I do. We arrive at the airport, she grabs her bag out of the backseat. I tell her that her leaving is not helping my state of mind. She smiles her perfect smile at me. I can almost hear the streets of Toronto calling us back outside.
"Get home safe Treats" I call after her.
I drive away. Windows down. Listening to terrible music on the radio, which I still refuse to turn off, searching for a match for the cigarette I am trying to light, and being as much of a Juliet as I can muster, as the bill boards hustle past me. Please, learn me how to lose this winning match.
Pace'
www.peaceinthecanyon.com
2100 Laurel Canyon Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90046-2004
(323) 654-8583
101 Coffee Shop
www.the101coffeeshop.com
6145 Franklin Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90028-5220
(323) 467-1175
Spencers Restaurant
www.spencersrestaurant.com
701 West Baristo Road
Palm Springs, CA 92262-6325
(760) 327-3446
Royal Clayton's
1855 Industrial St
Los Angeles, CA 90021
(213) 622-0512
www.royalclaytonsenglishpub.com
Q
www.cbc.ca/q/
Dinah Shore Festival
www.dinahshoreweekend.com/media.html
Friday, April 2, 2010
The Last Supper
Where do you have it? That final meal with the person you know you will spend the rest of your life not texting? The person who's name you will avoid. The person who when you run into on the street, you will automatically decide to a. believe in God b. pray that she put the right shade of lip gloss on you c. hope that the hours you spent lunging in yoga class has made your ass look like a Mazarati. Oh you know. That one. That always has your heart wrapped around his finger.
When I was a little girl I had a pink transistor radio in my bedroom. I used to listen to Bonnie Rait's song "You can't make me love you" on that radio over and over again. I was sad. Because my mom didn't love me. Or know how to love me. "You can't make your heart feel something it won't". Underneath the bulletin board in my pale blue bedroom unrequited love was given a very specific place in my psyche. Now I call it pink transistor radio pain. You know the pain. The pain you feel shoot through your heart when someone is ambivalent about you. When someone takes your beautiful face in their hands, tears pouring down both of your faces, in the parking lot behind M De Chaya and says "I gotta R.S.V.P with a maybe." It sucks whenever anyone chooses to evaluate you. Like a garage sale.
I think the reason I chose M De Chaya for my Last Supper was because of their kale salad. I think when you're about to go off the deep end in any romantic situation you should choose macrobiotic. Very grounding.
Also something about the oak tables and the light that streams through the windows makes me feel like I do add up to the sum of my parts. Like I am something worth considering. And even if I can't "make your heart feel something it won't", there are six billion people in this world, and more than enough love for me to fall into. Also they've got great sushi at an affordable price. But I'm getting three days ahead of myself.
On Tuesday night it was the Library Ale House with three artists. We discuss art, and commerce. The lights twinkle, and I think,
"Oh so this is what it is to be an adult".
I don't pay.
On Wednesday night it's a friends birthday party at Koi. We can't tell if the table next to us are playmates or hookers. Tomato, tomahto. The waiter brings over the dish and tells us that it just won the award for best sushi. That's L.A., everything's a contest. I don't pay.
Thursday is dinner with a writer who I dearly admire both as a person and as an artist. We venture off the 110 into downtown LA to, Church and State. A table filled with Montreal- ers is next to us and we are relieved. Finally a bit of home. He wears Converse. I wear heels. The Montreal-ers take smoke breaks during the meal, we order the ribs. There is a recipe for making absinthe on the chalkboard. The walls are deep read with with great art and just the right amount of exposed brick. It is both heaven and home to have a conversation, that is aerobic, that is never ending. Church and State is wonderful. It seems to be where all the smart, funny, cool people are hiding out. And that night I feel like one of them. I don't pay.
Friday is the Last Supper, at M De Chaya. I eat carefully and nervously. I cultivate a deep compassion for anyone who has given up heroin. I pay. Through my teeth.
It's always that way with pain. Walking away from whatever it is you are called upon to walk away from. Whatever situation is replying Maybe to your R.S.V.P. Ambivalance in love or in food is the least attractive quality I can think of.
Can't decide what to order.
Can't stay for the whole meal.
Always looking at the food next to you and wondering if it tastes better, than what's right in front of you.
That night I sleep on the couch and wake up three times to check and see if maybe his heart did feel something. Maybe he's outside my door. He isn't. Pink transistor radio pain.
Tonight the moon is full. The moon is free and full. Pouring down on me. Pouring down on any of us who have lost something that meant something. I guess that means all of us. Because this week between the meals, and the high voltage conversations, I talked to a lot of people who were losing things.
The city itself has lost a lot in the past few years. We tip toe around words like "recession". But I see it. I see people being scared to help people. Friends and friends of friends are losing their jobs. I see people moving to different cities, starting all over again. And I see myself, listening to my Bonnie Rait songs, in a room in Toronto a million years ago. I see us at our fancy restaurants, in our converse, our heels, feeling a bit like we're all dining on the upper deck of the Titanic.
The truth is we are all losing all the time. That is change. That is transition. And sometimes we are savagely torn from the thing we love. And sometimes we look up and see the moon shine on us anyway.
This week is dedicated to a dear friend, who is a bit of an angel, thinking of you.
Library Alehouse
www.libraryalehouse.com
2911 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 314-4855
Koi Restaurant
www.koirestaurant.com
730 N La Cienega Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90069
(310) 659-9449
Church & State
www.churchandstatebistro.com
1850 Industrial St
Los Angeles, CA 90021
(213) 405-1434
Greenblatts
greenblattsdeli.com
8017 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 656-0606
M Cafe De Chaya
www.mcafedechaya.com
7119 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles , CA
(323) 525-0588
I Can't Make You Love Me By Bonnie Raitt
www.youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQgDnZQogDM
When I was a little girl I had a pink transistor radio in my bedroom. I used to listen to Bonnie Rait's song "You can't make me love you" on that radio over and over again. I was sad. Because my mom didn't love me. Or know how to love me. "You can't make your heart feel something it won't". Underneath the bulletin board in my pale blue bedroom unrequited love was given a very specific place in my psyche. Now I call it pink transistor radio pain. You know the pain. The pain you feel shoot through your heart when someone is ambivalent about you. When someone takes your beautiful face in their hands, tears pouring down both of your faces, in the parking lot behind M De Chaya and says "I gotta R.S.V.P with a maybe." It sucks whenever anyone chooses to evaluate you. Like a garage sale.
I think the reason I chose M De Chaya for my Last Supper was because of their kale salad. I think when you're about to go off the deep end in any romantic situation you should choose macrobiotic. Very grounding.
Also something about the oak tables and the light that streams through the windows makes me feel like I do add up to the sum of my parts. Like I am something worth considering. And even if I can't "make your heart feel something it won't", there are six billion people in this world, and more than enough love for me to fall into. Also they've got great sushi at an affordable price. But I'm getting three days ahead of myself.
On Tuesday night it was the Library Ale House with three artists. We discuss art, and commerce. The lights twinkle, and I think,
"Oh so this is what it is to be an adult".
I don't pay.
On Wednesday night it's a friends birthday party at Koi. We can't tell if the table next to us are playmates or hookers. Tomato, tomahto. The waiter brings over the dish and tells us that it just won the award for best sushi. That's L.A., everything's a contest. I don't pay.
Thursday is dinner with a writer who I dearly admire both as a person and as an artist. We venture off the 110 into downtown LA to, Church and State. A table filled with Montreal- ers is next to us and we are relieved. Finally a bit of home. He wears Converse. I wear heels. The Montreal-ers take smoke breaks during the meal, we order the ribs. There is a recipe for making absinthe on the chalkboard. The walls are deep read with with great art and just the right amount of exposed brick. It is both heaven and home to have a conversation, that is aerobic, that is never ending. Church and State is wonderful. It seems to be where all the smart, funny, cool people are hiding out. And that night I feel like one of them. I don't pay.
Friday is the Last Supper, at M De Chaya. I eat carefully and nervously. I cultivate a deep compassion for anyone who has given up heroin. I pay. Through my teeth.
It's always that way with pain. Walking away from whatever it is you are called upon to walk away from. Whatever situation is replying Maybe to your R.S.V.P. Ambivalance in love or in food is the least attractive quality I can think of.
Can't decide what to order.
Can't stay for the whole meal.
Always looking at the food next to you and wondering if it tastes better, than what's right in front of you.
That night I sleep on the couch and wake up three times to check and see if maybe his heart did feel something. Maybe he's outside my door. He isn't. Pink transistor radio pain.
Tonight the moon is full. The moon is free and full. Pouring down on me. Pouring down on any of us who have lost something that meant something. I guess that means all of us. Because this week between the meals, and the high voltage conversations, I talked to a lot of people who were losing things.
The city itself has lost a lot in the past few years. We tip toe around words like "recession". But I see it. I see people being scared to help people. Friends and friends of friends are losing their jobs. I see people moving to different cities, starting all over again. And I see myself, listening to my Bonnie Rait songs, in a room in Toronto a million years ago. I see us at our fancy restaurants, in our converse, our heels, feeling a bit like we're all dining on the upper deck of the Titanic.
The truth is we are all losing all the time. That is change. That is transition. And sometimes we are savagely torn from the thing we love. And sometimes we look up and see the moon shine on us anyway.
This week is dedicated to a dear friend, who is a bit of an angel, thinking of you.
Library Alehouse
www.libraryalehouse.com
2911 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 314-4855
Koi Restaurant
www.koirestaurant.com
730 N La Cienega Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90069
(310) 659-9449
Church & State
www.churchandstatebistro.com
1850 Industrial St
Los Angeles, CA 90021
(213) 405-1434
Greenblatts
greenblattsdeli.com
8017 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 656-0606
M Cafe De Chaya
www.mcafedechaya.com
7119 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles , CA
(323) 525-0588
I Can't Make You Love Me By Bonnie Raitt
www.youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQgDnZQogDM
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