Please read the title to the tune of Aerosmith’s “Love in an elevator.” And now that we have that taken care of:

I’ve been reading a self-help book, as I am wont to do, that told me to look for love everywhere I went, and to look for the connections between others and myself, and between others and other otherses. This was very good for me, because lately I’ve been witnessing a lot of hate in the world, and it’s started to get me down in a major way. I’ve gotten so tired of experiencing all the aggression that occurs 1,000 times a second on the freeways, for example, and it all culminated a couple weeks ago when someone put a pre-printed business card on my car that said it hoped I got cancer, because I was parked a little bit over the line in the tiny compact car space that my compact car does not fit into properly. Yes, I will repeat that: Someone went to the trouble of ordering and purchasing business cards that say on the front, “Way to park, asshole.” And on the back, “I hope you get cancer.” It was actually quite a visually appealing card, with a lovely combination of fonts printed on a nice brick-red color. But the point is, feeling that malice directed at me was the straw on the camel’s back of hate that I’d been witnessing, and it made me really, really sad.

So, back to the self-help book. The day after I read the section about looking for love everywhere, it was “one of those mornings” where all forces of the universe were determined to slow me down, and after running to catch the metro, I got there a minute too late, and had to wait, all sweaty-like, for the next one. When I finally got on, a woman using a walker (with difficulty) got on, too. A youngerish woman and a blind man both got up for her to take their seats. (Side note: The question has been raised as to how the blind man knew to get up for her, and my guess is that the youngerish woman said something, or maybe he’s just that good.) Well, the walker woman (henceforth referred to as Walker Woman or WW) took the blind man’s seat and began talking with him and the youngerish woman (YW). When the blind man got off, he said goodbye to YW, and she and WW kept talking. Throughout their conversation, I unabashedly eavesdropped and exchanged eye contact and smiles with both of them at various points. When it was time for me to get off at my stop, I said goodbye to Walker Woman, and Youngerish woman got off there, too. And here comes the best part: Youngerish woman crossed to the other side of the platform to wait for the train going in the opposite direction. She had gone past her stop, and I believe it was out of love, because she didn’t want to prematurely end her conversation with Walker Woman. She wanted to make sure WW was taken care of, and then and only then did she get off and make her way back to where she needed to go.

Love.

I’m so glad I missed my train that morning and ended up on the one I ended up on.

That day marked a new chapter for me, one of looking everywhere for love and kindness, and finding it. I make a point to make eye contact, smile at, and talk with more strangers, and I’m making new friends all over town. I still see the hate, and it still bums me out, but now I have something with which to balance it.

I think you should try it, too. We’ll fill the world with love, one person at a time. Then one day, we’ll realize that we don’t see any hate, because there won’t be any.

(Do I sound like a hippy, or what?)

It’s the end of an era.

I’m moving out of the house I’ve lived in for the last six-plus years, the only place in Los Angeles that I’ve called home. On March 1st I’m moving about half an hour away to Los Feliz with my friend Mary. It happened so much faster than I thought it would. We started looking with the intention that we wouldn’t move unless we found something absolutely perfect in the exact neighborhood we wanted. I thought it would take months, but within a few weeks, there it was! We went last night to talk about deposits with the property manager, and as soon as we left her apartment and she shut the door behind us, Mary and I gripped each other’s arms and started jumping around in a silent, elated screaming fit.

Then I woke up this morning and realized that not only am I moving to a great new apartment in a delightful community, I’m leaving my house and the neighborhood I have loved SO much for the last six years. So much has happened here, and its walls have always been a welcoming refuge. It all sort of hit home this morning, and I started out my commute with a heavy heart. Then I did the only thing I could do. I started belting out “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” by Boyz II Men. As I finished up the last notes the second time through, I perked up to listen to what they were saying on NPR. It was about the bill Barack Obama signed into law today: The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, named for a woman who sued Goodyear for gender discrimination after learning she’d been earning 40% less than her male co-workers for twenty years, and ultimately lost, due to the dumbness of the dumb old law.

The part that moved me the most was the ad Lilly made for Obama’s campaign after learning that John McCain opposed the bill — an ad that, according to political consultant Frank Luntz, was one of the few effective negative ads in the campaign: “John McCain opposed a law to give women equal pay for equal work,” Lilly says in her endearing Alabama accent, ”and he dismissed the wage gap, saying women just need education and training. I had the same skills as the men at my plant. My family needed that money.”

“Wow,” I said outloud, and then shouted, “TAKE THAT, JOHN MCCAIN!” Then I immediately burst into tears. I must have been well-hydrated, because tears were shooting out of my eyes at an alarming rate, soaking my face and making my collar damp and soggy. I reached into the glove compartment to see if I had any kleenex or napkins, but all I found was a clean pair of underwear.

There I was, driving down Wilshire Boulevard at 7:45 AM, mourning the impending loss of my old home and experiencing crippling gratitude for this moment in history, for Obama and Lilly Ledbetter and for everyone who has fought so hard for their fellow human beings. And crying into a pair of panties.

So much is changing in the world. Some of it is bad, but a whole lot is very, very good. I tend to be optimistic to a fault, but I’m very hopeful about this world shift, and feel in many ways that it’s a new dawn of sorts. On a much smaller scale, I know the change will be good for me, too. It was time, and it felt right. But that doesn’t mean I won’t miss the cozy, sunny house I’ve come to know as home.

All together now: “And I’ll taaaaaaaake with me the memorieeeeees to be my sunshine after the raaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnn. It’s so haaaaaaaard to say goodbyyyyyyyyyeeee to yesterdaaaaaaaaaaaaaayeeeeeeeeeee!

In 6th grade, our teacher Mrs. Harter had us, as a class, write a rap — yes, a rap — about taking care of the earth. We called it the Pollution Rap, and we spent, I don’t know, like an hour a day for at least a week working on this thing. Some highlights that I remember include these golden nuggets:

“Oil spills and landfills give you chills

when you think of all the things it kills.”

and

“Air conditioners and aerosol sprays

are ruining the ozone and letting in the rays.”

and of course we had the requisite “Reduce it! Re-use it! Just don’t abuse it!” chorus, with Kenji Lunsford beatboxing in the background.

Mrs. Harter loved it and wanted to call up the local news station to put us on the news. Of course we were mortified at the idea, and hugely relieved when that never happened.

In any case, though, in the same way that DARE might have worked for me, because I never got into drugs, maybe this pollution rap had some sort of permanent effect on my priorities. I care about the Earth a lot, y’all! And I want to do whatever I can to help a sista out. Unfortunately I’ve been going about my business with not enough information. For example, the whole time I’ve lived in LA I’ve been wondering what to put in my recycling bin. Plastics coded #1 and 2 only? Aluminum foil? Stray cats? I’ve heard various information from various sources about what the city will recycle, and rather than finding out for sure, I just sort of guessed. But just now I remembered to look it up… after 5.5 years… and I found these helpful links, which I shall now share with you! It turns out we can recycle a lot more than I thought. Yay!

I’ve included links to recycling guides for LA, We-Ho, and Santa Monica. I found this by Googling “recycling los angeles,” so if you insert your city, I imagine you’ll find something similar.

Los Angeles
West Hollywood
Santa Monica – single family houses
Santa Monica – multiple family buildings

Happy recycling to you, and, um… just say no to drugs.

I’ve lived in LA for 5 1/2 years, and pretty much the whole time I’ve been here I’ve sung its praises. I love LA! I know I still do somewhere in here, but this summer, for the first time, I am ovah it. I want to get out of here. There are 2 reasons I can think of why my attitude might suddenly have changed:

1. I quit my office job. (Yayayayay! After 5 years straight of being office girl, for the last month and a half I have been unemployed girl, and it’s been a wonderful break, although I’m starting to get a little antsy). So anyway, maybe I always have to find something to be discontented about. Now that I can no longer be tired of my job, maybe the only thing to be tired of is the city. Maybe? I don’t know.

2. Um, I totally just blanked on the second reason! It’s coming, I know… OH, yes, here we go: I haven’t been on a long vacation since Jep was a pup, or since you were knee high to a grasshopper. The last place I went, other than home to North Carolina for Christmas, was to Mexico for 5-ish days last October for my friend American Virginia’s wedding. That was wonderful, but I don’t think I was away long enough to fully recharge.

3. (I just thought of a third). The SMOG, you guys, is totally out of control this summer. My chest has been burning for months, and I got a cold for the first time in at least 3 years, and I’m convinced it’s because the smog caused a bunch of goop to build up in my lungs and sinuses, which made an ideal home for the cold virus to lodge on its vacation in my body. See? Even the cold virus is traveling! Shouldn’t I?

So… now that I’m unemployed and untethered, Operation Travel shall commence! The bad news for me is that I don’t have a great deal of money (see #1), so going anywhere far, far away or for a long time is out of the question. My weeks-long tour of Japan, hiking in the Andes, and skiing in New Zealand will have to wait a little longer. Instead I’m going to New York next Wednesday for 6 days to perform with one of my improv groups in the Del Close Marathon, and most excitingly, I’m planning a trip to Seattle next month with my friend Elise. I’ve never been, and I’ve always wanted to, and right now the thought of rain makes me want to run around in circles with excitement. Just for something different, and for some clean, fresh air to breathe, and to be able to look out the window and actually see what’s there rather than know there is a beautiful landscape that I can’t see because it’s buried in haze.

P.S. The whole time I’ve been typing this, something on me smells good, and I can’t figure out what it is. My hands smell pretty good, but I don’t think that’s it… maybe it’s my deodorant? Oh, gosh, nope, definitely not that. Hmmm. I think it is my hands, actually. But I don’t know why! Neither my soap nor my lotion smells like that. Maybe it’s a combination that chemically combined to create this new delicious aroma. Must be. OH! I just figured it out. I got home and my feet were filthy because I’d been wearing flip flops all day, so I washed them in the sink with this new bath gel I got (Alba Botanica honey mango) (mmmm). And I also got some of it on my hands, obviously. Mystery solved!

P.P.S. I realize this blentry is totally boring, but at least I wrote something, right? Right? mmm?

I just did the dumbest thing. I was pulling into the parking garage at work and putting my window down so I could scan my keycard, and I was concentrating on the window, because there’s a blob of bird doodoo on the top part, and I didn’t want to put it all the way down and get the doodoo all over the window and between the door panels, which I already did once, and as I was being super careful about that, I forgot that the car was also moving forward, and BAM! I hit the thing on the side of the thing where I was pulling in, and put a big fat dent in the front of my new car. I feel like such an idiot. I’m glad this happened today and not tomorrow, because I can chalk it up to being part of 2007, and I’m moving on to a much smarter 2008, a year in which I will not run my car into anything out of sheer stupidity.

I went to North Carolina for Christmas, and the minute I got there I was immediately slapped in the face with the most intense culture shock I’ve experienced in my entire life. My mom, grandma, and my mom’s elderly friend all came to Charlotte to pick me up, and the friend drove no faster than 55mph for the entire 2-hour ride home. Then the minute we arrived in my home town, we stopped at the J&S Cafeteria for dinner (because that’s what old people there do), and I could not believe my eyes and ears. Between the strangers all talking to each other and us, the Christmas sweatshirts, and the John Deere pocketbook of the girl in front of us in line, I felt like an alien in another universe. I couldn’t help but think, what if a very large giant took that J&S Cafeteria and lifted it up and plopped it down in LA? How different would the scene look? Everyone would be facing forward, not speaking to anyone else, the food would cost ten times more, and the jeans and flannel shirts would be replaced with Ugs and Juicy sweats. Maybe it would even become a kitchy, trendy place where hipsters would eat “ironically.”

Last night I flew back to LA, and for the first time felt disgruntled with the lack of friendliness of folks here. I was on the shuttle coming from the airport wearing my seat belt (buckle up for safety!) and a woman couldn’t get to the seat behind me, and instead of saying, “Excuse me, can you move your seat belt please?” she just stood there all hunched over and pinch-faced, kind of staring/glaring at me. When I noticed, I was clearly still in NC mode and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” and instead of saying, “Oh, that’s okay!” and then striking up a conversation about Christmas, traveling, and her uncle’s homegrown honey, like any respectable Carolinian would have, she didn’t say a cotton-pickin’ word! Not one word. I’ve been here for five years and have suddenly just realized that people in Los Angeles are unfriendly.

On the upside, my sister gave me a t-shirt that says, “You mess with this Carolina girl, you will be messin’ with the whole trailer park!”

I now consider them warned.

It’s officially Autumn, and in LA it’s gloomy and cold (60 degrees), and overnight I went from riding my bike everywhere and wanting to hike every day to having one desire in life: to sit in the house in sweatpants eating carbohydrates. Why, as a human, and in Southern California, do I instinctively want to hibernate? Were my ancestors bears? Maybe this is why when I asked my grandmother where her side of the family had originated she said she didn’t know. And here I took my family’s ignorance of our heritage to mean we’d been in America for hundreds of years; I never once considered my great-great-great grandfather may have caught fish with his hands and gotten his head stuck in beehives. Well, you learn something new every day.

So yesterday I had this audition for the part of a Texas debutante in a TV show. It was a fun part, and I felt great about it and was really excited.

So I get in there all confident-like, and the dude takes one look at me and says, “How old are you?”

“23,” I said. You may think this is an untruth, but you’ll note he didn’t specify whether he meant actual years or how young I felt in spirit. How was I to know?

Apparently this was still the wrong answer, because he said, “They’ll never cast you as Deb. Here. Read for ‘The Mom.’”

Um.

The mom? Really?

So anyway, that happened, and I went home to complain to my roommates and run an errand before heading to work, and then something very interesting happened:

I went to the bathroom, then got up and noticed something in my pants that didn’t seem like it should be there. I thought, did the toilet paper get waylaid in my jeans on its way into the toilet? Surely not. I can be on the scatterbrained side, but come on, now. So I reached in and pulled out… another pair of panties. A balled-up pair of underwear that was outside of the underwear I was wearing, floating around in my jeans. The jeans I had worn to the audition.

I guess when I had worn them before, I took them and my underwear off at the same time and folded the jeans and put them on my “clothes chair.” Then yesterday morning I put them on, not noticing that there was a pair of panties inside. Then went to an audition.

Could it be the casting director thought I looked more like a mom than a teenage debutante because no young woman with a large butt tumor would ever be selected to make her debut into exclusive upper-class Dallas society?

I can’t imagine how I didn’t feel anything the whole time… parking, finding the audition, talking to the security guard, standing, sitting, walking, moving around in front of the casting director and all the other people who were waiting to audition… I can only hope this means the auxiliary, contraband panties were flattened against my butt in a way that made them invisible to the naked eye, and only when I shifted things around in the bathroom did they ball themselves up and appear like a freakish butt goiter.

I can only hope.

This has to be short because I’m sick with the cold that’s going around and I’m so, so tired… but before I forget I have to just say that I’ve been listening to Brandi Carlile a lot lately, and as a side note I saw her last week and she is amazing; so badass and incredible… but anyway there’s this song and I swear at one point she says, “my mind is full of raisins.” I know this can’t be, so I listen as hard as I can every time it comes around, but that’s all I can hear. Tomorrow I’ll look up the lyrics and let you know how far off I am, but right now I’m so tired I feel like my mind is full of raisins.

I had an audition today and have a ridiculous story to share. I think this story will make you all wonder why I’m not on a sit-com. Not because it will awe you with tales of my acting acumen, but rather because I pretty much live in a sitcom in which I’m the character who always runs into the doorjam on her way out the door, slips and falls, and walks around with toilet paper on her shoe. I’m that one. If my actual, real life were a sit-com, you’d watch it and go, “Yeah, right, nobody is that ridiculous in real life.” But you’d be wrong. Anyway, so I have this ridiculous story but again I’m dying of tiredness, so I will leave you with one final mysterious tidbit before I go to sleep: I just got a high five from Ryan Gosling. WOOT!

Last night at one a.m. I awoke with a jolt. Sat up straight in bed with a sudden inhalation of breath. There was some sort of loud noise and sense of movement, and I thought someone had broken into my house and was right outside my room. I remember thinking, “Should I scream? Would that help anything?” All this flashed through my mind in a fraction of a second, and then I noticed the chair near my bed was shaking. Ah! An earthquake. (It’s good to know that if there were someone on the way to hack me to pieces I’d just sit there frozen and confused — “huuh? Oh, you’re going to kill me? Ohhh, ok…)

I usually sleep through earthquakes, but I had only been asleep about 20 minutes, so I guess I woke more easily. The two others I have felt were just one quick jolt, but this one was just like the movies, where stuff goes on shaking for a while. Mind you, in my sleepy fog it seemed like forever, but I’m sure it was only a few seconds.

I was thinking about it today, and this, I realize, is completely backwards and a terrible way to think… but… I kind of wished I could live through a real natural disaster just so I could relax about some things. Does that make sense? You always hear people talking about their near-death experiences, and they say the whole thing has made them focus on what’s important, and suddenly the things that used to stress them out don’t seem like such a big deal anymore. They’re just so happy and thankful to be alive, they just want to enjoy their family and friends, and now they wake up every day with a smile on their face.

I think in general I maintain a pretty firm grasp on the big picture. I know I’m incredibly blessed in so many ways, and overall my life is amazing. And I also know that a big part of life and happiness is having goals to work toward — it’s the way humans are designed. So I know that no matter what I achieve, I will always want something more. It’s good, but it can also be exhausting.

In conclusion, God, if you read my blog, I am not asking for a natural disaster to smite me or my loved ones — especially not my loved ones! I’m just maybe going to try to pretend I’ve been through one. Yeah, I’m going to try that. I’m going to try to get up every morning and just be glad I’m here, breathing in and out.

I have a feeling it will be good.

My roommate Matthew is moving out, and we’re supposed to find a new roommate to replace him (not that anyone could replace you, Matthew) (not that you read my blog anyway) by July 1. And we have not. Mind you, we have interviewed several people and have offered the room to four of them, and all four have turned it down for various and sundry reasons. This leaves me befuddled, because we have never had this kind of problem in the past. Usually people are begging to move into our adorable house. This time it has been like pulling teeth, though, and as the clock ticks by, offers we would never have considered in the past are now starting to seem more and more attractive. You have a dog? Sure! A snake? Well… come over and we’ll meet you. A snake that roams free in the house and likes to cuddle on the couch and watch TV? Uh… I mean, I’ll try anything once…

The best of these, though, is the twins. Please enjoy their email and photo below (ALL IN CAPS! THEY ARE TWINS AND MUST SHOUT AT ALL TIMES!):

HI MY NAME IS J***. MY TWIN BROTHER J**** AND I ARE LOOKING FOR A ROOM THAT WE CAN SHARE. YOUR PLACE SOUNDS GREAT SO I THOUGHT I’D ASK IF THE TWO OF US COULD SHARE THE ROOM.

WE ARE BOTH 21. WE GO TO SCHOOL,WORK, WRITE AND WORKOUT. WE DON’T DRINK OR SMOKE. WE ARE VERY SOCIAL,OUTGING AND VERY CHILL GUYS. HOPEFULLY WE CAN HAVE THE CHANCE TO GET THIS PLACE. PLEASE CONTACT US IF YOU CAN, I’D LOVE TO TELL YOU MORE ABOUT US.

TWINCERLY, J*** L******

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. He signed the email “Twincerely.” Could this possibly get any better?

Sunday night I went to a party with my friend Brennan. I should have known this would be an eventful night, because the last time I went to a party with him we ended up chauffering a group of dressy young adults we didn’t know up to a castle on top of a mountain, where the valet yelled at us. Then at the party Brennan spent most of his time gone to get ice and trying to find a parking spot once he got back. Then when he finally did, and I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if that ice wasn’t melted anyway, the police came and the host got mad and started yelling at everyone, and it was raining and I kept slippy-sliding down the hill on our way back to the car. But that is neither here nor there.

At this particular party, the one on Sunday, we walked up, all unsuspecting and innocent (read: dummies who never learn), and were greeted by a crowd of people out in the yard all listening to a band. As we approached and I was able to see this band, my first instinct was, “awwww,” because it was one kid that was probably about ten or eleven, and one kid that couldn’t have been more than six. The ten-year-old was lead singing and guitar playing (The little one was kind of doing nothing, although you may get away with calling him “backup vocals”), and starts in on “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” except instead of Heaven’s door he was knocking on Satan’s door, and throughout the song he was swearing up a storm, to the point that any sailor in the audience may very well have blushed.

Brennan and I stood there for a minute trying to process this incongruous situation, and then we just looked at each other like, “ummmmmmmmmmm… ” I kept glancing around expecting the kid’s mom to march up and stick a bar of soap in his mouth.

At one point? He started singing about things he would do to a woman that are, um, very sexual in nature and involve, you know, um, a mouth and a, um, a… hoo-hoo, if you will. And I’m like, holy mother of pearl, where are this kid’s parents?! And here’s the part where I start to sound like your granddad who says when he was your age a bottle of Coca-Cola was a nickel… but when I was this kid’s age I had no idea what any of that “sex” stuff was, and if you were a fly on the wall, you may have even overheard me saying, “I don’t get why kissing lying down is so much worse than kissing standing up! Like, why does my dad always stand in front of the TV when people start kissing in bed? I don’t get it.” In fact, when my friend and I were twelve and discovered her uncle’s collection of cheesy romance novels and I read something about oral sex, I was completely traumatized. “He put his tongue WHERE????”

I mean, maybe I had an unusually wholesome upbringing, but Brennan was equally as shocked… although I do have to hand it to the kid… he was totally badass. He could shred that guitar, and later in the night he actually shot a bottle of red bull, like how you’d shoot a beer by puncturing the side of it. As though he were practicing for the real thing. I have to admit that although I did get caught in the crossfire and sprinkled with red bull, I was a little bit impressed.

As we journeyed through the house and encountered various characters, we found that the rest of the party was no less strange than the beginning. I had brought a bottle of wine, being the classy broad that I am, and as we unsuccessfully searched around for a corkscrew, someone who had opened his own wine with a knife knocked over a glass (red plastic cup) of it on my shoe. Simultaneously, an awkward dude came around asking everyone for money, because apparently someone had stolen someone’s computer, and this guy was taking donations for, “you know, first of all, to like show appreciation for the party, and also for like, you know, Kevin’s computer.” Although we’d probably been there for a total of twenty minutes, we felt this was as good a time as any to get the H outta there, and we sidled our way to freedom and went up to Birds, which felt a lot more normal.

Normalcy is something I enjoy, although I’ve got to say, experiences like these are what makes the world go ’round — or at least, they make for fun “Remember that time… ” stories. Ahh, life. (shaking my head and giving you a knowing look).

Here are a couple thumbnails (I’ve just decided I hate the word “thumbnails”) of the more normal part of the evening when we went to Birds and met Eric.

I think in the second picture I was trying to make Brennan look at the camera, which he will not do without force, because he thinks he’s picture kryptonite.

I guess I haven’t been paying attention to the news, because I missed it when someone deemed today the official “Drive Like an Asshole” day. All day long, I have been swerving in and out and around idiots. This morning someone in an old VW Beetle cut me off to the extent that I had to slam on my brakes, then swerve into the other lane and lay on my horn; and I would like to share right here that what I shouted was — because I’ve kind of made a half-assed attempt to vary my vocabulary in such a way that makes me slightly less old-man-sailor-like — what I shouted was, “GEEZ LOU-FUCKIN’-WEEZE!” Yes, that’s right. Geez Lou-fuckin-weeze.

But I’m telling you, she deserved it.

I need to write more.
This blog is getting lonely.
Sorry, Internet.

Today was sunny.
I read a book in the park.
Don’t be too jealous.

With windows open
the whole house smells like flowers.
California rocks.

Men with arm muscles
make me get all swooney-like.
Show me those guns, man.