A Poem

Once every year or two a poem comes to me. Sometimes on a hike, sometimes driving, sometimes when my head hits the pillow. Until now, I have written them down, stuffed them in drawers and forgotten about them. But now I have a blog, so I can share my flashes of poesy with the world.
Or, you know, you three.

Sleeping With The Animals

Zoey
sleeps curled in the Vee of my knees,
tiny twitching, dreaming
girly dreams of dainty things
like pretty clothes and fangs.

Gus
slumbers beside me,
his fur soft as a doyenne's stole,
snores cutting the night
like a serrated knife, trying in vain
to carve a coconut. But

Eddie
lies on the floor,
my sleeping dog prince,
silent, stately, his heavy head cradled
by his sizable paws.
Dreaming of more ways to be
inscrutable.

How Are You? (Don't Answer That.)

Here's one thing you should know: I love Facebook. I am a True Believer in Facebook. I am to Facebook what 13-year-old girls are to Twilight. I am to Facebook what single man-boys are to Guitar Hero. I check it constantly. I love seeing what my FB peeps are up to. I think reconnecting with old friends is actually a good thing--kept, as it is, at a nice, comfy, digital remove. I adore the faux Scrabble. I totally dig knowing what cousins 20 years my junior are thinking. (Like to keep up with 'the kids'.) I utterly enjoyed following a friend's trip in virtual real time as she uploaded her pictures onto FB daily.

In fact, I think Facebook is a brilliant invention, one of the few that does exactly what it was designed to do, and does it well. It has not--as of yet--become a bastardized version of itself, tweaked by its own success and mutated by its own users into Something Else. (The way MySpace, for instance, started as a promotional site for bands but turned into, apparently, Facebook 1.0. The way Craig's List began as a nice, shared cyber-bulletin board for finding roommates and used bicycles but metastasized into a marketplace for white slavers and serial killers.) Facebook--despite growing pains and terms of usage scandals and awkward new page lay-outs--seems to still do what it promised it would do: create and maintain an Internet community.

And I love the status update. I'm probably, truth be told, a status update abuser. Particularly with the old layout, where your status update hovered atop your 'home page' forever? I changed that thing constantly. I changed that thing when the wind blew weird, when the dog belched, when Keith Olbermann expressed righteous indignation. Any little, silly thing or oh-so-clever solipsistic thought that flew into my addled brain made it into that rectangular box.

But there is status update abuse and there is Status Update Abuse. Some of you people need to back away from the laptop. Stop. It. Really. The complaining, the bragging, the blah blah blah. If it's not at least a little witty, informative, interesting, day brightening...I'm gonna say it. I don't think we care.

But there they are anyway: The Complainers. I can mock them because: I am them. I complain on my status update like lucky people poop: every day.
I have a headache.
I still have a headache.
Headache: Day Three. (This is fun stuff, right?)
I try to make them somewhat informative (Don't park on Highland after 3; you'll get towed just like I did). Or even better, a little entertaining (3am, the cat's snoring like Ernest Borgnine after a Baja bender.) But I can't lie. Bottom line, I'm just a grouch.

Nevertheless, I pale--pale--in comparison to the major league Complainers. These are some serious, professional, don't even, Complainers. Their complaints are intimate, sad, shocking, depressing, graphic. About planes missed and babies up-chucking and mothers dying and illnesses caught. All on Facebook. Where people know you just wrote that. Obviously, everyone's entitled to bitch. I'm bitching right now. But folks: that shit just makes me feel bad. And honestly, I feel bad enough already. Can you dial it back, just a bit?

Then there are The Braggers. Now, honestly, I just feel bad for the Complainers. The Braggers are the ones I loathe. You got the all out, swaggering tools: "Trying to decide between the Land Rover and the Land Cruiser." Really? Instead, how about trying to decide whether your kids get asthma or cancer from the belching fumes you're going to spew into the air so you can drive around in a pimped out station wagon pretending you're taller than you are? How about trying to decide whether you're an asshole or a douchebag. What's that you say? Oh, right: both.

Then you have your 'passy-aggressy' "I'm-gonna-say-something-mildly-curious-to-get-you-to-ask-me-what's-up!" braggers. Like this beaut: "First day of work jitters!" Oh, Lordy, now we have to ask: New job? Where? Good for you! Then they answer and it's all so, "Well, I don't want to brag, but...". And then of course they do brag (I mean, you asked!). I just want to channel Aaron Altman: Keep it to yourself.

Then there are the STOs. State The Obvious. Anyone who has ever written as their status update "TGIF!" needs to be forced to eat at TGIFs. And not just on Fridays. If whatever you're thinking seems like something a 3rd grade teacher might write on a sheet of oak tag, you know, maybe you don't need to share that with your 164 friends. If whatever you're thinking isn't even a little specific, a little fresh, a little goddamn interesting: no need to write it down and make me read it, mmkay? Just, well, try a little harder. Please?

Personally, I wish everyone would just aspire to my favorite status update category: The Quippers. Cause that's what a status update should be, right? Droll, pithy little comment. The news of the day's bon mot. A laugh, a smile for your Facebook community. A quip. I must confess, this is the group I would choose to live in if I could choose. Unfortunately, the funny chooses you. So though I try, mostly I leave it to Richard. (He knows who he is.)

This is a theory I have about the Internet; it's not only the greatest communication and information and connectivity device of all time. It's also a magnifier. It not only gives us more, it allows us to be more. More informed, more connected; yes, fabulous, love it. But also more crazy, more neurotic, more paranoid, more creepy. Thirty years ago someone who might have liked the occasional bit of porn actually had to leave their house and face a shopkeeper and buy it. Now: that person can fill their hard drive (no pun intended) with so much porn they never have to leave the house. Ever. Icky. A fan of Joseph Cotton circa 1943 might have bought copies of Photoplay and Modern Screen and cut out pictures and articles of Joe and glued them into a scrapbook. Harmless. Today, there are multiple Zac Efron fan sites. Whole websites. Built by fans. In their free time. Just...for the love of Zac Efron. Creepy. In 1989 some guy spent too much time driving back and forth in front of his girlfriend's house; now he can download her credit report. Actionable.

Facebook Status Updates can be a little like that. Just too much. A passing, casual comment shared at a party or in an elevator would be promptly forgotten. Now, as a Status Update, that comment is magnified and takes on so much--too much--meaning. It's posted, people. Posted. Think about that. Would you write that thought on an index card and pin it to your jacket? And wear it around all day? Probs not, I'm thinking. So just...have a little discretion, okay? Think twice before you post. Cause if it's just complaining, or saying something we all know, or bragging for the sake of bragging? Yeah, you might get some positive reinforcement. A comment on your comment. Maybe the old thumbs up. Probably nothing at all. But what if the people reading that comment sneer in the privacy of their homes/offices/cubicles? And people who previously might have found you mildly irritating? Don't look now: they just unfriended you. See? Magnified.

Paper Cut

Oh, the "Fempire". A tiny, exclusive, moneyed emirate, perched in the hills, where its denizens can look down on the hoi polloi toiling below in the flat lands. Kind of like Andorra, but with yoga mats.

Apparently--thank goodness--I'm not the only one who found the article in yesterday's New York Times a bracing antidote to any germs of self-worth that might have been metastasizing inside me. Well done, New York Times and (journalist) Deborah Schoeneman! Good job Dana Fox, Diablo Cody, Liz Meriwether and Lorene Scafaria! Now I hate myself even more than I did before! I know that wasn't your intention (well, I'm pretty sure), but what a great side effect. Just sit down with these groovy galpals in Hollywood, talk about their dogs and their matching bespoke necklaces, and their Hollywood Hills homes, and their limousine rides to their movie premieres...and bingo: less successful writers everywhere start Googling, "suicide, techniques".

Of course, these women are allowed to be successful. My evolved, logical side knows that as far as female genes behind the cameras in Hollywood goes, the more the better. But my reptilian brain is toggling between wanting to go all Collyer brothers and never leave my house again and considering sneaky ways to give all four of them scabies. I think it's the "entourage" part of it all. As irritating as Diablo Cody is on her own (when oh when will everyone realize this "femperor" has no clothes?) I could just cast her aside as another annoying anomaly. But grouped together like this, these chicks--I'm sorry--are just hateful. And they did the grouping themselves, so it's not old Deborah Schoeneman's fault. Naming their little clique? Last girls I knew who christened their posse were the "Flagpole Girls". In elementary school. And all the inside crap and smutty gifts and liturgy...let's face it: as hip as these chicks are, this is just a sorority with better lodgings. And I freaking hate sororities. For all the high minded reasons. But also because they'd never ask me to join.

Maybe if "Fempire" were men. Maybe if they were novelists. Maybe if they lived in Portland. Anything to separate these babes in Hollywoodland from my experiences. Anything except their ability to "command seven figures" for their star-laden scripts, that is.

I know you're not supposed to compare yourself to other people. We're all valuable in our own right, blah blah blah. But I just can't help it. Horrible confession: I'm a jealous, vicious bitch. There, I said it. Any time I hear about anyone that's in any way bumping into the bubble that is My Life, I do an elaborate compare/contrast to try to make myself feel better. For instance: High School Nemesis is married with children. Ah, but she lives in Ohio and is a dentist. I am the glamour girl in L.A. I have hugged Hugh Jackman! I have had dinner with Jon Hamm! Whew. Potential self-flagellation averted. Some part of me is better. I can carry on.

But lately, sadly, this has been getting harder and harder to do. People I know--actually know--are successful (in my field), are in happy relationships, have nice homes, aren't recovering alcoholics, etc. etc. I can't find a slow leak in their bubble that makes my bubble look bigger and shinier and...bubblier. This has been my horrifying realization: at a certain point, you're no longer a Late Bloomer. You're just a Loser. And that's when paeans to younger, prettier, more successful people hanging around together doing your exact job in the New York Times can really, really, well...hurt. So that's the real thought for today: Ouch.

Invisible Stuff

Warning to people of faith: The following will offend you. Sorry. (Sort of.)

I finally tucked in the other night and watched Religulous, Bill Maher's scathing look at organized religion; it was well worth the 3.99 on pay-per-view. And then I read Frank Rich's column in the Sunday Times, in which he commented--hopefully--on the waning of the Religious Way of American Life; there are more people claiming 'no religious affiliation' than ever before. Nevertheless, we're still a nation of remarkably faithful church/temple/mosque/yoga yurt-goers. Much more so than other industrialized nations.

What the hell is with us? Maher incisively and hilariously skewers all the silliness of believing in some giant, invisible, all powerful "sky-man" (as John Oliver cheekily put it on The Daily Show) who has the time to manipulate the outcome of football games but leaves Darfur littered with corpses. Not to mention the general absurdity of the bible ("a talking snake? really?"). And the insanity (okay: stupidity) of taking said book literally. With a few clever montages and some bracing on-screen factoids, the movie limns all the hypocrisy, all the flimsy justification, all the general wackjob-itude of believing whole-heartedly in these thousand year old fairy tales. I mean, really: no one believes Rumpelstiltskin spun gold from straw, so why do people believe a Jewish carpenter turned water into wine?

But here's the thing: seems to me religion--sadly--isn't the only farcical, invisible thing we've decided to believe in. The "faith" we put in things we can't see or touch or smell or quantify in any way at all is rampant. I think we've been caught--for a while now (eight years? maaybee...)--in a kind of collective, willful ignorance. We've been having a hoe-down and doing a dumb, happy dance to a tune we can't even hear.

For people with anti-biotics and computers and statistics we believe in a lot of invisible stuff. We put our faith in invisible stuff. We get unbridled joy and a feeling of safety and entertainment value and sense of import and urgency out of Invisible Stuff. Like, for instance, just for starters:

--God, natch
--Money in your 401(k)
--Love and/or "a real connection" on any dating reality show
--All sorts of Byzantine financial transactions that don't make sense to anyone
--WMD
--The value of your house
--Anti-oxidants
--Anything that 'reduces the look of fine lines and wrinkles'
--That Patrick Dempsey's hair just looks that way

What do we get out of all this? Ever-lasting childhood, that's what. We're not just chumps, we're children, living out not even an extended adolescence (fuck, adolescents do nothing but question the status quo; I wish we were adolescents) but an extended toddler-hood. We are actually slobbering, sticky three-year-olds who believe anything someone taller, older, cooler, richer, prettier or On TV tells us to believe. Regardless of fact, regardless of evidence. We might as well assume we'll get rich by putting errant teeth under our pillows.

Maher ends his movie by saying, among other things: Grow up. And despite the fact that most of the time I feel like a 12 year old weepily singling along to Janis Ian songs, I've got to agree. Maybe it's time we stopped believing in voodoo and magic in place of science, and smoke and mirrors light shows in the place of actual balances in actual brick and mortar banks. It's time we stopped think 'reality shows' are really...real. It's time we looked at something like the cold hard truth and lived our lives and fashioned our economy and developed products based on fact and empirical evidence, instead of wisps of pretty twinkling lights. It might not be fun, it might not be comforting, it might not be easy. But at least it'll be grown-up. At least it'll be real. Cause here's the thing about invisible stuff; when you need it most, it might turn out not to just be invisible. It might turn out to be non-existent.

Poof

There was money. And then there wasn't. Simple as that. There was this nice number; not a huge number, not a rich person's number, but a number that I could use, that could help me out, that could make things easier. Right there, in my bank account. A surprise, yes, but not impossible in the fickle business in which I work. Money comes in dribs and drabs, sometimes when you expect it, sometimes not. So it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. And after making a couple of phone calls to check it out, it seemed more than possible. It seemed probable.

But then: poof. Adios. Gonzo. A computer blip. Human error. Bank mistake. The having it, not the not having it. It was never mine to begin with. A fantasy. A chimera. A cruel joke.

And boom: I got an up close and personal experience with this, our second Great Depression. There was money. And then there wasn't.

That's pretty much it, right? The Dow is at 14,000+, then it's below 7,000. Where did it go? Citibank is worth 60something a share, then it's worth less than a biggie pack of Orbit White Bubblemint. Say what now? Investors have millions with Bernie Madoff and then they're paupers. Howzzat? And just like my 'phantom money' (that's what I call it; the phantom money) this is my belief: it was never there to begin with. We all acted like it was there, we felt cozy and comfortable like it was there, we spent like it was there, but it never was. The "money" we thought we "had" was just a bunch of black slashes on a white computer screen.

Look: Donkey. <-- That is not a real donkey. That is just some black slashes on a computer screen that looks like 'donkey' and makes you think 'donkey' but it is not actually a donkey.

Now, I'm a fantasist; I admit it. For the few days I (thought I) had that money, my life was swell. I exhaled. I actually felt a sense of calm descend, an unexpected smile curl the corners of my mouth. I even toasted with friends. I thought I was about to live a life (relatively) free of stress and worry and bizarre nightmares of becoming a crazy homeless woman living under the 405. I actually imagined...buying things. Books from the bookstore and not the 'used' section of Amazon. Getting a facial. A cloud of equanimity even settled over me, in place of my worst fears: if my computer continues chipping off little pieces of itself and finally there's nothing left but the F9 key, my life won't be over. The new 17inch environmentally friendly Mac will be mine.

But that's me. I make shit up for a (sporadic) living and I'm afraid of math. But can everyone in the country be fantasists? Can our entire economic system be an illusion? Can all those smart young best and brightest master of the universe Turk-types on Wall Street be delusional or liars--or both? Apparently, yes. We all believed. We believed in "Zero interest for one year!" on over-stuffed sectionals from LivingSpaces. We believed in "You've been pre-approved!". We believed in "No money down mortgages". No money down mortgages. Didn't anybody think, "Um...that...can't be right. I mean, for an entire house? Seriously?" Apparently not.

This fall I did some canvassing for Obama in Las Vegas. And in the worst neighborhood you could possibly imagine--an arid, flat, chained up mongrels, surrounded by used car dealerships Appalachia kind of place--people would open the doors of their small, sadly shabby homes and inside would be...a 52" flat screen TV. Flat screen TVs in every house. Two, three thousand dollar TVs. Everywhere. People bought those TVs--poor people, people who were un-employed or under employed or barely employed, people with too many bills who lived paycheck to paycheck--with money they didn't have. Phantom money. Black slashes on a white computer screen.

If we get through this in any kind of intact--please, let's get through this--I just hope we can all remember: This is not a donkey.

"i gave my power away"

Who would have thought Top Chef would provide a teachable moment that had nothing to do with skinning an eel or how strong redfish is? (BTW: am I the only one who thought "redfish" was something Dr. Seuss made up?) But Wednesday night's lamentable finale did just that. Carla Hall--dear, Beeker manque, hootie hoo Carla--who had won over fans and judges alike with her exuberance and soulful cooking and delightful goofiness, lost tragically; so tragically she wasn't even in the running at the end.

And why? Bad choices, forgotten details, over thinking her menu, poor time management? Probably, sure; all of the above. But everyone made mistakes: Stefan decided to freeze salmon halibut carpaccio before serving it--in a pool of melted fishwater (delish!)--and delivered a dessert the judges deemed dated and pedestrian. Hosea presented a sashimi trio that everyone agreed was bland and poorly seasoned, lacking the most obvious thing in the world: salt. So how did Carla's few mistakes snowball enough to prove fatal?

She admitted it Thursday on NPR: she second guessed herself. Presented with some ideas by her appointed sous chef (Casey, a runner-up from a previous season), Carla thought, "Okay, let's try it." Yeah, let's "try" cooking the beef 'sous vide'--a technique Carla had never done before (and which involves a plastic bag; sorry, but it seems a little Shake-n-Bake to me...). Let's try making souffles (who doesn't know how temperamental souffles are!?! wasn't this a Three's Company episode?) instead of the tartlet she'd planned. Presented with ideas from (let's face it) a subordinate--'sous' means under, after all--Carla said, "Okay, good idea there, Casey." Carla, ever kind, ever compassionate, ever open minded. She succumbed to the Achilles (high) heel of women everywhere: she decided to be a team player when in fact she needed to be just the opposite. She needed to not just have a vision, but also the confidence and dedication to stick to it. She needed to lead.

Why do we (women) do this? We lean towards empathy, kindness, compassion. We care about the group, often at expense of ourselves. (Every Mom, ever, yes?) We want everyone else to feel included; we want to hear opinions from all quarters. And that's all great. I love that about us. But when the task at hand doesn't call for a team response, when you're competing for Top Chef, not Top Kitchen Crew...sisters, I hate to say this, but: man up.

Look at how Carla's male competitors treated their sous chefs; like number twos. Hosea and Stefan looked at their sous chefs and saw Watsons to their Holmes, Spocks to their Kirks, Dwights to their Michaels. Carla looked at Casey, hugged her in solidarity, and saw Thelma and Louise. And yes: together, hands held, they drove off a damn cliff.

Is this why there's still a glass ceiling? (And there is: look up the stats--they're shocking.) That when push comes to shove we look for consensus when we should be decisive? And here's an even more frightening thought: what if we're not looking for consensus because we're so frigging nice? What if we're looking for consensus because we're--gulp--just freaking scared? In the myriad post mortems Carla has admitted she had a loss of confidence. This, from New York Magazine on line:

"When you are in a situation and you’ve done it on your own and you try to keep everything together, as soon as there is somebody in front of you who has been through it, you almost exhale at that point and say ‘Oh my God, thank God I have help!’ And you’re like, ‘okay, let me lean on you, let me listen, what do you have for me? Let me take some of your energy.’ And I think I did a little bit too much of that and I gave my power away."

Wow. Maybe we're not just tragically nice team players. Could we actually be...pussies? Is that possible? I mean, I know I'm a pussy, but I'm sitting in a dark room commentating. Carla was a competitor. Carla cooked her ass off. Carla had it going on.

Scarily, the recent event this most reminded me of? Hilary Clinton's presidential campaign. Remember her? The runner-up? Even though a tremendous amount of time and energy went into making us all believe that Clinton would be "ready to lead" on "day one"--and maybe she would have been--the inside dope on the campaign was that a real lack of leadership was exactly Clinton's problem.

In a Sept 2008 article in The Atlantic, Joshua Green writes, "...her advisers couldn't execute strategy; they routinely attacked and undermined each other, and Clinton never forced a resolution." After reviewing of a trove of internal campaign documents, Green comes to this conclusion: "...Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency." Of the internecine squabbles inside the campaign, apparently, "Clinton herself could never quite decide who was right." Could this be what was at the root of Clinton's routinely criticized "triangulating"? Not hoping to be all things to all people out of a callous political expediency but a sadly familiar, junior high school terror that the mean girls won't invite us to their sleep-overs?

Oh, god. Is Hilary Clinton--strong, bad-ass, pant-suited, snarky, smart as shit Hilary Clinton--a pussy too?!!?

I'm not suggesting we vanquish fear: obviously, that's impossible. But clearly men have figured out a way to feel fear but do it anyway. To never betray that they're afraid. To act like they're on top of it and in charge (even when they--so often--aren't; even when they bollocks up the entire goddamned world). Maybe we need to just take some acting classes and learn to behave "as if". Maybe Carla felt she needed help from Casey; but she clearly should have acted like she didn't and stuck stubbornly to her own style.

By the end of the Top Chef finale it was clear Carla knew that was her mistake. When asked why she should be Top Chef she swallowed a clear desire to say what she's admitted since: "I gave my power away." Even as it was utterly clear that that was absolutely what she'd done, Carla put the best face on it she could and only talked about her strengths, tried to throw a soupcon of braggadocio into the pot. Unfortunately, it was too late; the sauce was already broken.

paul krugman: fantasy dad

Well, I'm not entirely sure if Paul Krugman is even old enough to be my Dad, but he's so wise and has such gravitas that he seems awfully Dad-like. (The beard helps.) So I have this urge to call home, chat with Mom (about the Oscars) for a bit and then say, "Can you put Dad on? Does he have a minute?" Cause I have a lot of questions for him.

This was in a Washington Post article about today's fresh hell on the stock market and the past year's overall decline: "The total value of all shares of companies on the Dow has dwindled to $2.45 trillion, down from $4.51 trillion." Okaaay. I literally can't even do the math to figure out the actually amount the market has lost. Does the calculator on the Mac dock go up to a trillion? More importantly: exactly how many zeros are in a trillion? Seriously, is a trillion even a real number or something kids make up when their parents ask them 'how much do you love me?' (A kagillion!) No matter: it's a lot of money. Something like--ball park--$2 trillion has been lost, yes? That is a shit pot lot, lot, lot of money. That is, like, more money than Titanic made. That is more money than Oprah has.

So this is my question for Paul/Dad: Where. Did. It. Go?

Seriously.

Where? It just...disappeared? If it can just disappear, then...was it ever really there to begin with? (Is this too existential a query regarding the stock market?) I really, really want to know. If this $2 trillion was never really there to begin with, then our previous "good economy" wasn't really...real. It was just numbers on a balance sheet? So...that couldn't have been very good to begin with, right?

And people make this whole fuss about the 'irresponsible' homeowners who are now upside down on their mortgage, i.e., they owe more than their home is worth. But again, if the value of their home went down due to the generally sucky economy and crashed real estate market, how is that their fault? That prior "value" seems to have been based on...nothing, right? If it can just...go down like that? So then the whole real estate bubble is really, really, truly a bubble: not just because it can "burst", but because it only really exists when it's filled with air.

Is our whole economy based on mass hysteria and...air? (Dad? Are you even listening? I get the sense you're watching The NewsHour...no, I don't want to talk to Mom again!)

This kind of freaks me out. Is our whole economy one of those kid's birthday party entertainer's bubble cubes filled with cigarette smoke? Those look so cool, so magical, so unlikely. But then they burst. And all you have left is the sick taste of Pall Mall's and Pledge on your tongue and a deep sense of disappointment in your heart.