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First full day in Tulum, Mexico: January 18, 2009.
Pretty much says it all. But more to come soon.

There’s no real “chaos” in a negative sense happening, mind you… It’s just been an incredibly full and busy few weeks and now, two days before Ryan and I board a flight to the Yucatan Peninsula. I am still in total denial about that.

As with most people, I’ve been feeling the financial crunch here in the first month of 2009 in acute ways: cutbacks at work, a new workload that is challenging me in several ways (many of them interesting, if a bit daunting), and the overlying hope that business will pick up to make sure that, moving forward, the job will still be here. It’s a weird time, to be sure, but I also try to remain optimistic. My job of editing, assigning, thinking, reading, researching, and synthesizing information of all stripes is something that can sometimes feel futile and like it exists in a vacuum, but I’ve been learning that it is actually having an impact. Which is lovely.

Now to make sure I do that outside of work, as well. I was reading Rick’s New Year blog a while back and wanted to just paste his words here because they resonated deeply with me… It’s a year in which I, too, want to keep putting my creative work out there and seeing what happens. I’ve been avoiding jumping into anything that might possibly attach commerce and bureaucracy to my writing. But I am also ready to share that writing with more people. And I’m 35. (Wow, I accidentally just typed “25”; what does that say?)If I don’t do this now, will I just continue to wait for “the world” to change. It’s not like I ever thought I’d get rich off my writing. If I know that, why don’t I look for ways to share it? I can’t still be harboring a giant fear of rejection, can I?

Don’t answer that. I know the answer already.

These are just some of the thoughts that swirl around me as I enjoy my week with Lissa and Tom, who are visiting from Portland; look for a house to rent for Ryan’s birthday next month; get back into trapeze after three weeks off; scramble to finish work assignments; and pack my bags to leave for Mexico on Saturday at 8 a.m.–a trip that’s been planned for 7 months now. (It’s been a while since I traveled anywhere where you actually have to be careful of the water and/or people speak another language. Then again, I know how to say “Donde estan los banos?” so I think I am OK. And I am missing the inauguration, for which I already love Mexico.)

I am actually taking a notebook with me for a change. So instead of visualizing stories and structures in my head, I will try to “re-learn” how to brainstorm some ideas. It shouldn’t be arduous. And I shouldn’t be scared of succeeding. After all, imagine what would be possible if I did?

Pics from Mexico to come at the end of the month. Happy 2009.

Jennifer O’Connor
“Here With Me” (album)
A summer sunset, with fall fast on its heels. Driving in the morning listening to the spooky strums of “Valley Road ’86” and having the CD get stuck (and remain stuck) in my car CD player. Hearing “Always in Your Mind” on a road trip in Indiana and thinking how lucky I really am–to be this age and this self-aware. It’s a deceptive album, one full of so many small epiphanies. Underrated and understated. I like an underdog.

Department of Eagles
“No One Does It Like You” (track from “In Ear Park”)
Like gothic Beach Boys infiltrating a too-hot Los Angeles September and October… during which I lay in bed sweating, hearing this loop through my head over and over. It conjured for me New York City summers with no air conditioning, when I’d walk through Brooklyn with headphones on, searching for a cool breeze, mystified to find myself living in this place. That same sense of wonder followed me 10 years later to this song, here, on the other side of the continent.

Bon Iver
“For Emma, Forever Ago” (album)
A critical darling whom, for once, I totally adored. “Skinny Love” made me sob in my car when I first heard it last spring. It’d been years since a song had moved me so much on first listen. The rest of the album unspooled around me, hovering somewhere between grace and nostalgia. It’s music made by someone shattered and made to pick up the pieces of himself. I know that feeling.

Robyn
“Robyn” (album)
How many pop “divas” released albums in 2008? Almost all of them. This is the only one that mattered. Perfectly made morsels of songs lined up on a tray for the taking. If only I’d actually been able to dance to this all summer long…

TV on the Radio
“DLZ” (track from “Dear Science”)
A moody, masterful track from a moody, masterful album. The first line here: “Congratulations on the mess you made of things.” The sentiment seemed to me to be about the country, the upcoming election, the sheer exhaustion and frustration permeating everything this year, as well as a resilience.

Cyndi Lauper
“Into the Nightlife,” “Echo,” and “Rocking Chair” (tracks from “Bring Ya to the Brink”)
These may be the gayest songs of the year (sorry, B-52s comeback.) To that end, they were also moments of solace during a volatile time. It wasn’t always so easy to be gay in 2008 (um, hello…equal rights?), but that’s exactly why music like this exists.

Portishead
“Third” (album)
In 1994 I drove through a frigid Midwestern winter with Barbie listening to Portishead’s debut, “Dummy.” I never thought that 14 years later this same band would still raise the hairs on my arms. I wanted, for a brief moment, to drive through North Dakota in February again when I heard this. Instead, I put “Machine Gun” and “The Rip” on loud during every single trip to the elliptical. Oh, how the times change.

Fleet Foxes
“White Winter Hymnal” (track from “Fleet Foxes”)
The week before Christmas. I am watching Ryan wrap lights on the tree, suspended for just a moment, musically framed by this gorgeous song exploding from a simple a capella round. It’s nice to feel my heart capable of swelling again.

School of Seven Bells
“Alpinisms” (album)
This year, I discovered there must be a bit of Pacific Northwest hippie in me. That, and I clearly still miss the Cocteau Twins and shoegazers. It’s nice to be surprised, and nicer still to hear music that seems as if it’s not rooted to anything else.

Santogold
“Santogold” (album)
December: Driving the 101 in the gloomy drizzle, tracking the green-blue Pacific Ocean on my left as we head north, daydreaming of the spring, the hot sand and warm water at the beach, of being just a little bit drunk on a hot night, hanging out with friends, not giving a shit about what tomorrow brings. It’s all rolled into one thing–a mish-mash of moments, just like the mixture of musical styles spread out here.

Beyonce
“Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” (track from “I Am…Sasha Fierce”)
What other song could end the year with a perfectly choreographed dance number? If I had a hairbrush to sing into, you best believe I’d use it. Note to self about things to buy in 2009.

I take some responsibility. I’ll admit that from the get-go. Kathleen, however, is also to blame. Oh, sure, I came up with the idea, and, instead of surprising her with it, I made the gracious move of warning her ahead of time. But–and here’s the crucial thing–she confirmed that she wanted to go. In fact, she emphatically declared her desire in all capital letters in an e-mail. And thus our fate was sealed.

Those who know about the Bunny Museum in Pasadena will look at you and laugh the minute you tell them you are going. If they have no idea what you are talking about, they just say the words “the” … “bunny” …”museum?” slowly, perplexed, and with a sense of wonder.

Kathleen, you see, had never been to Los Angeles. And she collects cool vintage bunny things. She’s not crazy lady about it. We’re talking a few figurines and salt and pepper shakers. And I refuse to simply take people who have never been to L.A. to Venice, Hollywood, Disneyland, etc., so I thought the Bunny Museum would be…well, memorable.

Pulling up to the house in a quiet residential neighborhood, there’s really not much to tell you where you are, until, of course, you see the topiary (which I made K pose with):

“Cute,” I thought at first, as we walked up the walkway toward the private home that is apparently, if you believe its operators, a “living museum.” What that meant, we soon discovered, was that the couple who owns the museum actually lives in it, surrounded by 23,000 bunny, um…things. But first we were greeted by a woman with bleach blond hair that was possibly crimped and then pinned back and up. Her name was Candace and she could have been any number of ages. She asked me to drop my bag into a chest on the front porch decorated with pastoral bunnies in a field; this was to keep it from hitting and knocking over things inside. So far, so good. I grabbed the camera and followed Kathleen and Candace inside…

…and immediately felt claustrophobic as we had to shuffle down a narrow hallway created by shelves crammed full of every bunny knickknack, stuffed bunny, dead-eyed statuary bunnies, etc. imaginable. But before we could even really begin to take in the nature of our strange, new surroundings and assess how the living room was actually divided into three different viewing spaces, Candace insisted we have pictures taken in the TV room, which was the only room that had a defined, clear space in it. (I later discovered that my camera had the wrong flash on, so the pictures are blurry, but they do more accurately show what it felt like to be there.) After the first image, Candace backed up further and asked K and I to make bunny ears behind each others’ heads. We felt we had no choice as we whispered to each other, “Is this where they watch TV every night?”:

Awkward posing over, Candace ushered us into the dining room, which sat between the living room and the TV room. This was the nerve center of the Bunny Museum, as it held the gigantic table that bore the name of the museum, the requisite bunny image, and was surrounded by some of the most precious bunny figurines Candace and her husband owned–not to mention a collection of old pet bunnies that had been taxidermied and freeze dried after they died and put in a curio cabinet. I think K was close to laughing hysterically already:

Candace told us the story of how she and her husband started the museum by giving each other respective bunny love tokens–a stuffed, plush rabbit and a porcelain (?) figurine respectively. And soon that bunny love grew big, with the couple now giving each other a bunny a day. Now I began to shut down, but instead of going mute, my PR training kicked in and I began to ask questions, such as:

Me: “So, what’s the oldest piece you have?”

Candace: “Oh, we have rabbits from every century, all the way back to 100 A.D. Of course, we don’t keep something that valuable here in the house. We keep that in a safety deposit box.”

Me: “Oh, well, that totally makes sense.”

What had happened to me?! I’ll tell you what happened to me. It was seeing the kitchen, which, like every other room, was overflowing with…things–including boxes of cereal and other food items with bunnies on their labels, haphazardly strewn about and stacked on top of every open surface. The kitchen also exhibited the signs of stress this living museum must be under, as the ceiling seemed to be caving in, with pinatas hiding some of it:

Granted, there were cute bunnies to be found amid the chaos of so many other arbitrarily chosen items, such as the yellow cookie jar here:

But I didn’t muster the right mix of chutzpah and gumption to photograph the small pantry, in which three live rabbits scattered when you came near them and, when you looked up, you saw insulation dripping out of a hole in the ceiling.

Seeing a door that led to the backyard, I practically lunged for it and Kathleen and I stepped cautiously out into the driveway, where a curious mixture of rabbit paraphernalia awaited us. First, it was impossible to miss the odd, maybe rotting (?) bunnies that transfixed us (see image at top of this post and below):

Were they from a carnival? Were they papier mache? Candace appeared at the back door with a basket of chalk:

Her: “Do you feel like big kids? Do you want to draw some bunny pictures?” (Shakes basket of chalk at us)

Me: “Um, no thanks. Um….what are these?”

Her: “Oh! Those are from past Rose Parades! Aren’t they something?”

Us: (nodding)

Her: “Out here is where we also put our broken bunnies.” (Sad face.) “You know, of course, things break from time to time, so this is where they go.”

So…we were in the bunny graveyard. And sure enough, as we walked a bit of the way down the driveway, we were greeted by an array of odd(er) sights, including in one place, a pile of plastic eggs that were just kind of heaped up against the house for no real reason:

Then there was the broken-eared bunny, which looked like it may be beseeching us to smash it to smithereens so as to put it out of its odd misery–not to mention the series of 3-foot tall stuffed rabbits that looked like maybe someone had tried to decapitate them:

Backing slowly down the driveway toward the back yard, we found little else to entertain us, save this nifty little sign that (at this point) did NOT seem creepy AT ALL:

But as we climbed into the yard, which was littered with stacked debris (was that a door?) in the back, we could go no further, due to the power lines that drooped down through a tree, and effectively stopped you from making a loop through the yard.

Kathleen: “Oh. Um. I guess we shouldn’t go that way.”

Me: “Well, it’s either kill ourselves by walking this way or be killed back inside.”

And you know what? We chose to go back inside. Because the piece de resistance was, indeed, the living room, which featured all kinds of bunnies from all over the world:

If you happen to notice a roll of paper towels in the first photo, well… that’s because K and I were not the only ones there. Oh, no. Two house cleaners were also trapped, I mean, stationed, inside… carefully dusting and cleaning hundreds upon hundreds of figurines, trinkets, oddities, and so on. While later it would cause Kathleen and I to create whole short stories in our heads told from their points of view–including details such as they could no longer have sex with a boyfriend unless he dressed as a rabbit first–at the time we simply stepped around them, politely saying, “Oh, excuse me.”

In the living room, though, we did find a few of our fave things in the entire house. Sadly, the skiing bunny is fuzzy:

But after 30 minutes, I’d really, seriously started to feel like I was in that basement in “Silence of the Lambs,” except..you know… filled with bunnies. I was almost ushering Kathleen toward the door, but not before making her pose with something else that looked somewhat psychotic:

And that’s when Kathleen made her fatal mistake. She let slip as we were saying goodbye to Candace that she, too, collects bunny salt and pepper shakers. There was a small glint in Candace’s eyes (As K said later, “I think I detected a hint of competition”):

Her: “Well, have you seen all the salt and pepper shakers?”

Me: “Um…”

K: “Yeah…I think so.”

Candace: “Oh, you HAVE to come see them and get pictures!”

And off we went…back into the dining room, where our tale began, near the freeze-dried pets, and I took photos of the admittedly impressive cabinet of shakers:

Sated, Candace asked if we cared to purchase anything from the small gift rack in the corner, which included her new book, the subtitle of which alluded to living in a “post-apocalyptic world.” Fidgeting now, I subtly moved toward the door again, and Kathleen grabbed a few postcards. But instead of simply handing over the $2, Candace instructed her to insert the folded dollar bills one at a time into the slit (what looked like a gash or stab wound) in the back of a purple, fat, plush bunny wearing a shirt that said “Bunny Money” (SORRY: NO PICTURES. MY BRAIN SHATTERED AS I WATCHED THIS.) But you couldn’t simply insert a dollar. No, you had to then use a letter opener to forcibly thrust the dollar into the rabbit’s back gash, so you could trigger the mechanism inside that made it laugh like a crazed hyaena and vibrate.

Really.

And Kathleen didn’t have the best hand at making this happen.

And then she had to do it again.

It was the longest payment process I’d ever witnessed.

And yet, I wouldn’t trade it, for as we thanked Candace and left, we felt like we had truly shared something significant that had bonded us yet again. This was, after all, a cultural landmark…honored by the Guinness Book of Records, the city of Pasadena, and countless others. And now, we, too, had been inside.

We didn’t say much as we descended the steps to the sidewalk and back to the car. Even now I think I’ve not done the museum justice. But Kathleen still has her own story to tell–somewhere, sometime–I am sure.

Sometimes the most innocuous music becomes the most enduring. I didn’t know this to be true when I first heard Book of Love. But their now-22-year-old debut album still imparts to me small moments and vignettes of only happiness.

Seemingly manufactured purely for the sake of dance-club hits, Book of Love is hardly the kind of band I thought I’d still listen to in my approaching middle age. I first heard them when I was living in Southern California during the summer of 1990. My first boyfriend was a fan who introduced me to their mix of clever pop songs frosted with drum machines, hand claps, bells, and probably three different kinds of keyboards. The brilliant “Boy, in particular, was a revelation simply because of the disaffected voice (Susan Ottaviano) recounting how she is denied entry to a gay bar and can’t play with all the other boys. Her tone–balanced somewhere between dismissive and wistful–was unlike anything I’d heard on Top 40 radio. Learning that two of the band members were gay was not exactly a revelation, but it made them feel that much more important.

And that encapsulates their paradox: On the surface they were shiny, twee, forgettable pap. But the music was also more melodic, yearning, and–dare I say it?–soulful. The jubilant yet distanced tone permeates the eponymous debut, beginning with the nearly effervescent “Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes).” Ostensibly a love song about looking into someone’s eyes and being lost in them–you know, the usual that was already done by, say, Debbie Gibson–the title name checks a prominent 20th-century Italian painter who was known for his mystical, somewhat creepy way of depicting his subjects’ eyes. So, I wondered while sill in high school art history, is this really a love song to the painter? Um, well…duh.

It wouldn’t be the last time I picked up the album after a number of years, only to be hit by some sense of nostalgia or new found respect for a band that had precious little of it in their own time. It was only upon listening to “Die Matrosen” in 2002 or so, for example, that I realized Book of Love had covered a song by the infamous all-female Swiss punk band, Liliput–a band almost no one had heard of in the U.S. in 1986.

In college, I would sneak songs from “Book of Love” onto mix tapes made for dance parties in the houses on campus and although many people would snort when they’d come on, few could resist the pull of an anthemic dance hit like “I Touch Roses”–cotton candy in sonic form, with no meat or nutritional value, and yet irresistible. The dance floor in the house living room would fill up with any number of Book of Love songs. When you’ve had a few drinks, they simply amplify the euphoria.

Just last week, my high school friend Kathleen came to visit me in Los Angeles and, seemingly out of nowhere, asked me about a song she remembered from years ago with a girl singing about boys, or not being a boy. “You mean ‘Boy’ by Book of Love,” I said, and not only did I then need to hear it, but I had to make her a mix of Book of Love songs to take home.

I’ve been re-listening to “Book of Love” all weekend, remembering these small moments I’ve experienced with it: dancing at college house parties; riding in my first boyfriend’s car from suburban Claremont to Los Angeles to go shopping on Melrose Avenue, unable to believe that I A) had been sleeping with a boy and B) was in Los Angeles; driving in the middle of the night through the empty streets of Portland with Susan, cranking the music out of my shitty car speakers on our way to go dancing downtown; traipsing through the Australian Outback with my iPod looking for emus and kangaroos.

Now, the album feels like an old friend–the one you see after any number of years and with whom you still have an instant rapport. You may at first forget what you had in common, but then, the memories begin to flow. And before long you’re laughing about some memory and re-telling the story–turning it into another part of your personal history. And happily so.

Just because I was surprised to find it and remember May 2007 so clearly. What an incredible month it was–full of exciting trips, lots of laughter, warm sun, a (then) new boy, beer, and much more. Funny how even the “downer” songs here sound optimistic to my ears:

1. Open Your Heart–Lavender Diamond
2. Winter–Kristin Hersh
3. A Good Start–Maria Taylor
4. Million Dollar Smile–Jennifer O’Connor
5. Georgia–OMD
6. Full Moon, Empty Heart–Belly
7. Fiery Crash–Andrew Bird
8. Everyday Boy–Joan Armatrading
9. A-Z–Tracey Thorn
10. In Between Days–The Cure
11. Black Mirror–Arcade Fire
12. You Know I’m No Good–Amy Winehouse
13. Heavenly Day–Patty Griffin
14. That Teenage Feeling–Neko Case
15. Clumsy Sky–Girl in a Coma
16. Mambo Sun–T. Rex
17. Sunday Morning–Velvet Underground
18. 1234–Feist
19. Earth Intruders–Bjork
20. Silently–Blonde Redhead
21. Rainbowarriors–Cocorosie
22. Back to Life–Soul II Soul
23. Song to the Siren–Chemical Brothers
24. Destroy Everything You Touch–Ladytron
25. Look at Miss Ohio–Gillian Welch

Connecticut officially legalizes marriage for gays, and the weddings begin today. A lovely little piece of news as the infighting, confusion, and anger over the passage of Prop 8 continues in California.

I’d still like to start a drive to put a measure on the ballot in 2010 that eliminates the word “marriage” for all unions performed in state. From then on, you only get a “civil partnership,” and if your church, synagogue, what have you, wants to perform a religious ceremony for you, then great. Otherwise, shut up and see that your special union is merely a tax break in the eyes of city hall.

The other option? Make divorce A LOT harder to get. That might do the trick, right? If divorce was not as easy as going to a salad bar, then maybe a lot fewer people would get married. And a lot fewer people would ask you to spend outrageous amounts of money on buying them shit they don’t need just because they managed to buy fancy clothes, two rings, and have sex a lot.

Can you tell I am still pissed?

More and more, I can’t go outside without looking at people and wondering if they voted away my rights. Which is horrible, because what good does that do anyone in the end? I am also sick of people telling me they’re “sorry” about Prop 8. Yeah, you’re sorry!? Thanks! Now, please don’t DO anything to help the cause or help build awareness in communities that still need to be educated. Just keep saying you’re sorry. Or better yet, just don’t say anything, OK? Or do me another favor, get divorced (since it’s so easy) and then try and figure out how to own your house, get health benefits, and raise your kids when the state doesn’t consider you and your partner a couple. Imagine if you had to do THAT? It seems so HARD, doesn’t it? Phew, I’m exhausted… and I’m still sorry, but I need to go home and enjoy my rights that you don’t have now.

And don’t even get me started on taxes. That hits home right now, too. I pay just as much in taxes as the rest of y’all, and yet I don’t get equal rights. Yeah, that seems fair. It’s a wonder I am not just casually saying “Fuck you” to more people I pass on the street.

Either way, I am done with ever feeling like a victim here again. I am angry, and will remain so. I will continue to march, and to yell, and to lobby, and to find out which businesses supported Prop 8 so I don’t have to support them. And I will not let anyone tell me that it’s time to simmer down. To do that is to have someone say they’re sorry and then just say “Gee, thanks.”

In other words, it’s really not my style.

As for protests, there is one this Saturday–part of a coordinated effort nationwide:Join the Impact.

And for just one example of how the boycott is beginning to spread, look at this example of El Coyote here.

…and though I am still angry I don’t feel as isolated as I did a few mere hours ago. Tim stopped by to pick me up and Ryan came along at the last moment, and we picked up Tim’s friend Dave and headed to West Hollywood, where a big rally was taking place to protest the passage of Proposition 8. When we first got there, there were speakers emphasizing what we need to do now, what we have NOT lost. Ryan and I got separated from the others and ended up next to a gay couple whose young daughter was all smiles at all the people around her. Best sign: I WANT THE SAME RIGHTS THE CHICKENS GOT (in reference to Prop 2, which makes it law that egg-laying hens need to be treated humanely).

Just before 8 p.m., a guy moved through the crowd and said we were going to “take the intersection” at Santa Monica Boulevard and San Vicente, so Ryan and I headed with a big chunk of the crowd into the middle of the intersection, chanting, yelling, clapping. Already, it was cathartic to be surrounded by so many people who were just as angry as I was. We were drifting eastward on Santa Monica until suddenly people in front of us said “Go to Sunset! Go to Sunset!” And so we did–a wave of hundreds of people crossing traffic and heading uphill through residential areas to the busy Sunset Strip–which is much more straight, to boot. And at the Viper Room we turned right on to Sunset and saw emptying eastbound lanes in front of us.

The police presence at first was minimal, as I think we surprised them. After all, we left the rally in the middle of the speeches. We need to yell and scream and remind ourselves that we were not alone–that others felt this way, that we were angry, outraged, and hopeful for the future. Especially on the march down Sunset through what is ostensibly a straight (and often gross) ground zero for scenester nightlife, it was gratifying to get affirmative honks from westbound traffic, see businesses empty as workers came out to stare or hoot with us, give us a thumbs up, or just smile–strippers, waiters, valets, limo drivers, truck drivers, Starbucks employees, even straight guys who looked befuddled and then would honk.

And the march kept going… We didn’t know til later that several groups had splintered from the rally and that WeHo police stopped a second wave of protestors further back. Our march continued through Hollywood, as mystified restaurant patrons and others came to Sunset to see what the news was broadcasting. And through it all, only ONE guy heckled us, calling us disgusting and he was drowned out by boos and people yelling “SHAME ON YOU!” We ended up at Sunset and Highland… a good 2 to 2 1/2 miles from where we started, Ryan by my side, yelling and screaming, holding my hand, smiling at me every step of the way.

We’d lost Tim et al back at the rally and now there was no easy way to reunite, so Ryan and I hopped the subway and then got on a quick bus ride to get home… walking in the door, feeling relieved, lighter, buzzed from adrenaline, legs throbbing, throats sore. It’s been a while since I have been part of any spontaneous protest like this–especially in L.A., a city not known for its protests. I can;t say if they really do help in the long run, but I’d be happy for more just to share some more time with such an amazing cross section of people.

…and as exciting as it is that we’ve elected our first African-American president and Democrats have taken commanding leads in the House and Senate, I am filled with a distinct sense of how hypocritical America is. California has passed Prop. 8, which, for the first time actually *takes away* the rights of a group of people. Arizona and Florida also voted to enshrine anti-gay discrimination by banning same-sex marriage. For all the talk of change and healing and unity that’s taken place in the last several years, there are many, many Americans out there who voted for Obama (for “Hope,” for “Change”) who were just as quick to single out gays and lesbians as people who somehow don’t deserve the same rights. I’ve also never been so disgusted about the idea of marriage. It’s not anyone’s fault that this is what our country calls this union. But I can’t smile fully today. I am still a second-class citizen.

What the hell is going on this week? It was 94 in L.A. two days ago. Now it’s just warm and it rained for 2 minutes this morning before the sun came back out, made the street steam, and then increased the humidity to 100%. My mother told me she’s playing Euchre online but doesn’t like that “people are looking at her.” Then she told me we were not exchanging gifts for Christmas. Um, OK. Others are flailing in some kind of stupor–boyfriends coming or going; election hell; general ennui. I managed to give myself the largest bruise I’ve ever had, that makes it look like someone spilled a cup of blood under my skin. Then there was today on my lunch break: parking near the park on 3rd and Gardner to zip to the Grave (aka The Grove, a hideous mall) to go to the Apple Store to look at my iPod–which incidentally my computer has decided does not exist and will not recognize. (Did I mention too that my garage door is haunted and now just opens and closes of its own accord and that my car alarm has taken to going off for no reason? Add that to the list). So, there I am, parking, and out of a Jeep Cherokee across the street is a really attractive man in expensive jeans, boots, and a knit cap, with no shirt on. He walks into the park, a jockstrap showing above his waistband, clearly showing off his chiseled torso. OK…. I am still on the phone with my mother, walking some distance behind him, and off he goes to do…tricep dips on some bars in the park. Fine. Whatever. Into the mall I go, emerging by the patch of grass and fountain in the middle of the complex, where three people who look like a cross between clowns and Pippi Longstocking are dancing and singing to a crowd of kids…some….song….about….respect?…I think…I am too distracted by clown noses, red, orange, and yellow wigs, white face makeup, and horrible sing-songy, vaguely carnivalesque music. I dart into the Apple store, where I learn my iPod is gaslighting me. There’s nothing wrong with it. Fine. Back out into the mall to walk to the car, and now the dancing fountain is swaying to “Last Dance” by Donna Summer, adjacent to the Pippi Clowns, who are angry and have started singing louder and LOUDER to drown it out, plastic smiles riveted to their hideously made-up faces. I almost run through Nordstrom to get out, out, out…only to have to cross the park again, where tricep dips are still happening. It’s now 80+ degrees, humid, and may..or may not… rain again. I jump in the car and sit for a moment, wondering if this is how people become agoraphobic. I can’t get home fast enough. Where my power is now out…for…no….apparent…reason. Oh, wait, now it’s back on! So. Um. Back to work.