summertime....livin's easy

so far the summer seems to be shaping up nicely. for the past few years, the arrival of summer has not meant that much to me; i usually didn't go on any specific summer journey, nor did go to the beach every weekend. this is not to say i did not enjoy myself. i am sure i was happy, for the most part. i just never said to myself, "yeah, alright! summer! best season ever!"

this year is different. i have left my job, which was quickly taking over my life. i am doing lots of little jobs that i love, jobs that don't come home with me, except for maybe a grin when remembering something fun. i have an amazing trip lined up, my first off of this continent, with one of the most beautiful souls i know. when i return, i get to live in a fantastic house, with all kinds of flora and fauna, part of the time with my "second family". the drive by truckers are coming back to southern california, which anyone who knows me knows is cause for jubilation.

i also just found out that steely dan are here in july. STEELY freakin' DAN! my obsession with the dan started for me in the fall of '98, when i first heard the album 'aja' in its entirety. i was living in gainesville, florida, working as a live in nanny, and my family had the cd. yeah, i had heard these guys, but they had yet to permeate my soul (ok, so i'm a bit fanatical). i must have listened to this cd over and over for weeks; i'm pretty sure that nathan, my charge, knew the words to 'black cow'.
{on a tangent here, i want to tell a quick story about nate. he is amazing, and i have always adored him, and always will. when i was living with him and his family, he was two years old. i was, as usual, listening to a lot of neil young at this time, as well as steely dan. nate loved dinosaurs, and would always throw the word "dinosaur" into any form of communication he could. one day i heard him singing to himself "hey hey, my my. rock and roll will never dinosaur!". i will never ever forget that for as long as i live.}
right. so. steely dan is forever ingrained in my psyche. i am very excited to see them live, even if it is probably going to cost a fortune to go. so be it.

after all this madness is a visit from beth, who is my thailand travels partner. if she is still speaking to me after 2 weeks together in a foreign country, she will be coming out here to l.a. and then we are headed up north for the outside lands festival. holy crap, this looks like it's going to be a great one.

yeah! summer! finally!

a rose by any other name

i have been talking about changing my last name for a while now. it will happen, hopefully sooner rather than later, but because i needed a passport in a hurry, i couldn't go through the procedure. so after i get back to the country, i will work on changing my last name....to 'rock'.

rock is one of my favorite words. it can mean so many different things: to be rocked, either by person or chair, is quite soothing. someone can be your rock in times of trouble, or one can be 'solid as a...'. and then there is this 'rock music' i've heard so much about.

i have no illusions that things will be different after my name is changed. i currently have no connection to my last name, so i simply wanted something i could be happy with. someone suggested that i have a big party and register myself at a store somewhere, just as someone who was getting married (and probably changing their last name....get it?) would do. seems like a good idea. any time there are presents to me are involved, i've been pretty o.k. with it.

i have been celebrating a little too often as of late. i wrecked my liver and pulled a muscle in my back last week by "celebrating" a bit too enthusiastically. "i found someone to sublet my place, let's celebrate!", "i got my passport, let's celebrate!", "i am entirely too broke and kinda hungover, let's do this!". no more. the jubilation will remain, but going out for drinks and/or karaoke for every small accomplishment. that's just ridiculous. that being said, though, i will for sure be having a send off before i shove off for thailand....be prepared.

simple twist of fate

recently, i was having a discussion about music with my friend clyde, who is 6. he is learning to play piano and his parents had told him that i was a singer. he asked what kind of music i sing. i told him that i would sing most anything, but mostly rock and blues. i told him that some of my happiest memories were singing at northside tavern in atlanta, a dive; a leaky-roofed blues bar in atlanta. clyde, being an old soul (which i guess is why i could be nostalgic about a smelly old bar with him), said "oh, the blues! i know about the blues. it's music that's not supposed to make the person playing it feel better, but make the people listening to it feel worse."

that's one way to put it.

i wasn't lying-being on the stage at northside, those nights when my dear friend devon was hosting an open mike there, or when some random band asked me to sing with them-these are some of my fondest memories. some of them are fuzzy, due to all the jim beam i was drinking at them time, but for the most part, i remember them well and with a smile on my face. and when i wasn't mucking about on stage (because i was seriously out of my league), there were some kickass musicians playing their heart and soul out to a lucky audience.

today, one of the people from this community of amazing musicians has died, way too early. sean costello was great at what he did, and my heart goes out to his loved ones. he would have been 29 tomorrow.

hear is a video of him doing bob dylan's 'simple twist of fate' at northside.

it's official: i'm goin' to thailand!!!!

i just purchased my first ever ticket to bangkok. hell. yes.

it all began about a month ago. my friend beth called me up to tell me that she planned a trip to thailand. by herself. which only proves how kickass beth is. when she voiced only the slightest trepidation about going alone, i, like any good friend, said "i'll go too!!!" i wasn't sure how i was going to swing it. i was in chicago when i talked to beth, on a business trip. it was my last week working for a company i had worked at for 2 years. i had no real job lined up for when i got back, and i was strangely calm with that. my life, you could say, was in a serious state of flux. a dangerous place to be when trying to plan a trip to thailand ("maybe i'll go for a few months! and teach english as a second language!") with the help of my amazing friends, i was able to finagle a ticket. once i get over there, things will be very cheap. thank god for the "economic stimulation" check i will be getting next month!

i cannot stress how much i adore the people in my life who have helped me out over the years. i try not to question what i have done to deserve them.

so. beth and i meet in bangkok on may 25th. then we are off to chiang mai, the mountainous region in northern thailand. there for a few days and then probably off to a beach, maybe ko tao. beth leaves on the 7th and i am alone (gulp) until the 11th. some planning will go down between now and then. if anyone has been to thailand and has any suggestions, please get in touch with me and give me your opinion!

also, i am looking for someone to sublet my l.a. studio apartment for the months of june/july. if you know of anyone who might be interested in a furnished pad in lala land for a couple months, again, contact me.

i am too excited.

also accomplished today: dmv, yoga in the park, got yet another job, this one at a bakery/cafe that specializes in making caramels and marshmallows (http://littleflowercandyco.com/) which could prove dangerous to my plan of getting my ass into shape before i hit thailand, AND i met dave eggers. while i was dressed as a viking.

pretty busy day, i would say. life is fun, life is good.

i'll get you my pretty....and your little dog too!

i saw wicked today at the pantages theater in hollywood. i went with my friend bindi, who is 6.

i am a dork. i knew all the words to this musical before even seeing it. this is largely in part to my friend emily berry, (strawberry festival queen '03) who gave me the soundtrack to the show years ago. i read the book, which was WAY darker than the musical (more death, more deformity, more gender ambiguity). but i gotta tell ya-this is a good effin show. in order to not embarrass bindi, i had to make sure i a) did not sing along and b) did not start crying. i am the kind of person who is easily moved by big ass musical numbers, even if they're singing about something as lame as...oz. clearly, i have issues. big ass musical issues.

as my friend molly pointed out-what a great show to bring a young lady to. there are two strong female leads and the moral is to be yourself. bindi was perplexed that the wicked witch (elphaba) was "actually kinda nice" and that the good witch (glinda) was "very silly", or in my words "a pain in the ass". but you end up loving everyone in the end. plus, laugh-in's joanne whorley is in the cast...who could ask for anything more?

on another topic-jesus h. it's hotter than georgia asphalt in l.a.! just in time for me to realize the a/c in my car no longer works. my mechanic is right: i should really find a husband to help me out with all this car madness.

what are you wearing?

last week i applied for a job as a phone sex operator. i had knocked around this idea last time i was without a job, but ended up not going for it before i landed work. in the spirit of adventure, i decided to scope it out this time.

after calling the number on a craigslist ad, i went to a nondescript office in burbank. i was handed a thick stack of papers to fill out. these papers included the manual for dealing with calls, which i thought odd considering i was just there to apply and ask questions. perhaps they had too many people come in not knowing exactly how graphic these calls got, and this was their way of showing applicants just what they were getting into. i had to really stifle my laughter reading this thing.

here's the deal with most phone sex hotlines: a lot of these ladies work from home, for 4-8 hour shifts, where they wait on their phone for a "call tag" to come in from the home office. these "call tags" describe what the person on the line is into; the caller tells the original operator what they want and the operator patches them through to one of the waiting ladies. the calls are monitored by supervisors.

just to be clear, i really had no qualms with doing this job until i heard how these supervisors treated the women who do the calls after the customer hung up. it was so degrading: "gloria, what the fuck?! why did you let him hang up so quickly? i swear to god, gloria, if you ever do that again you will no longer have a job here. we aren't here to get people off, we're here to make money."

now, i get it. it is a business, but that is no way to treat your employees, especially in front of people who are applying for a job! and these gals ain't getting paid well (another reason i did not take the job. for some reason, i thought it was going to be good money!) the way they were treated was way more degrading than what they were pretending to do over the phone. they signed up to say outrageous, sexual things, not to get dressed down by some random dude in burbank.

after i gave them back the paperwork, expecting to just get the hell outta there, they told me to have a seat and someone would be out to fetch me for training. what?!?! i just filled out the paperwork to *apply*, why the hell would they put me into training already? i had questions about the job, i told them, before i could jump into "training". the woman looked confused and walked away. another women poked her head out of a door and asked me to come in. we sat down and i asked her how much the job paid (again, i had to stifle laughter after hearing the amount) and what the hours were. she asked me if i had done this job before (no) and then asked me if i had ever done it "for fun". i am pretty sure that no matter what job you are applying for, they have no right to ask about your sex life. i understand that it can be considered amateur work, or a hobby or something, but we were talking about phone sex. i played it cool, though, and said "uh, yeah! of course." she explained that they pay wasn't great (thanks, captain obvious) but the great thing was, you could do it on your own time! for extra cash! you probably have four hours where you are at home not up to much, right? yes, i do. when i am sleeping. and i likes my sleep.

i got outta there, and of course did not have the balls to say i wasn't going to take the job. to be honest, there was a slight possibility i might have done it still, just for a short while, just to get some good stories. so i told them i'd call them if i could come in to train.

i never called. but i did get away with the manual, thank goodness. so, if you ever need tips on how to be "barely legal", "married slut", or "transexual", please give me a call. i promise i won't ask for your credit card number.

after i left the office, i headed for ikea. i was, after all, in burbank, and i needed to be in a neat, clean, safe environment immediately. plus i was out of tealights.

inaug-o-blog

lebowski: are you employed, sir?
dude: employed?
lebowski: you don't go out and make a living dressed like that in the middle of a weekday.
dude: is this a-what day is this?

yes, it's true. being unemployed in los angeles is a dangerous game. it's so easy to stay that way. there are lots of us here, strolling the streets, going to yoga in the park, taking advantage of easy trader joe's parking; hollywood is full of people without real jobs. and while i have no problem with breaking the desk job paradigm, things like rent and bills and needing beer money haunt my thoughts and make me wonder just how i'm going to pull it off.

o.k., so i'm not fully unemployed. i am no longer doing the 40 hour a week-benefits-paid days off thing. i am working somewhat freelance: babysitting, house sitting, pet sitting, book keeping, dog walking, gutter cleaning, foot massaging....whatever.

also, i am working at the echo park time travel mart. it is a convenience store for time travelers. we carry things from the past and things from the future, such as viking "odorant" and robot emotion upgrades. we also carry mcsweeney's books and magazines. i go to work in period costumes; this week i was a viking one day and from the 70's another day.

the mart is the storefront for 826LA, a free drop in tutoring center for kids age 6-18. it was started by dave eggers in san francisco and has now spread to 7 locations around the country, the newest being in echo park, down the street from my apartment. please check out 826la.org if you are in l.a. or 826national.org for everywhere else. i highly encourage everyone to volunteer, even if it's just a few hours a month. the goal is to provide a one-to-one ratio of tutors to students, so every bit helps!

another odd job i have is doing a murder mystery dinner theater show on a boat out of long beach. here is the website:
thedinnerdetective.com

it seems like i am doing a lot...but i'm not. so call me if you need your gutters cleaned.