Earthquake

Just an FYI for all of you on the east coast who emailed me and called me yesterday: I'm fine. It was a little weird, but somehow I survived. And so did my vanity mirror...which was the only thing I was thinking about the entire time my office building shook. Yes, these are my priorities. I never said I wasn't screwed up.

Panhandler

Panhandlers are just a part of urban living. New York had an interesting array of them. Mostly druggies or alcoholics looking to score a couple of bucks for that next hit. That partixular breed would roam the streets of Times Square. They really hardcore ones -- the true homeless -- would huddle up in subway stations and in doorways. You wouldn't see them until the very last minute. These beggars had the habit of trying to grease you up a bit before going for the kill. "God bless you, Miss. You wouldn't happen to have a dollar to spare, wouldcha?" And the minute you said, "No, I'm sorry." They would sometimes mutter -- sometimes just plain out say -- "Bitch." Yeah. Thanks. After a few instances like that, any pity I might have felt for these poor souls blew away.

Los Angeles isn't much different. Though the homeless here seem to be psycho. No, seriously. Like, clinically disturbed individuals. I'll take a druggie over a schizo any day. The druggie just wants your money. The crazy could think that you're the CIA trying to read their mind. If the druggie pulls a shiv on you, just hand over the wallet. If the psycho pulls out a shiv, start praying and run like your hair is on fire. Aside from the obviously disturbed, you have the guys (and gals) at the bottom of the freeway exits. There's this one guy who works the Laurel Canyon exit off the 101 who, by now, could be a Foreman at a factory if he just put in the hours there that he puts in over at that ramp. He's got sign telling me that his wife's just died. I suppose she was the one who worked and now he's looking for someone else to support him. Namely people at the CBS Studios on Radford. The one that really disturbs me though, is the one that seems to work the 7-Eleven and the Bank of America on Laurel Canyon between Magnolia and Chandler. I'll call her Large Marge.

Large Marge is HUGE. Really. This woman is so obese that she's confined to one of those zippy wheelchairs that are usually reserved for quadriplegics. She looks like someone you would find parked in front of the nickel slots in Vegas. Big, round glasses, pink sweat pants, and a t-shirt pulled down over her stomach. There's something excessive about her and I'm not just talking about the puddles of fat. Honestly, I'm not lying. I can't even explain how upsetting I find her. Especially, when she's sitting outside my bank asking for money.

I want to feel bad for her. I do. I want to feel some sort of humanity when I look at her. "There for the grace of God, go I," and all that rot. But I can't. And -- this is going to be unbelievably cruel -- but I can't help but judge her and wonder what she needs the money for? Druggies need that next hit. Alcoholics need that next drink. And the homeless are pretty much one step away from being locked up in a state institution. And as much as I acknowledge that I'm an obsessive eater myself, there is a point where one has to start saying No. And all I can think of is: Isn't she on state aid? Where did that zippy wheelchair come from? And those rhinestone Elvis inspired spectacles? She's always clean. I'm assuming her medical bills are being taken care of through Social Security and Medicaid. Which means, aren't I already paying for her through my taxes? Why does she need more money? I'm not paying for her McDonalds supply. I'm more forgiven of the drug addicts! I completely admit that my prejudice is unfair. But I can't help myself. From a far, she disgusted me. And for that, I felt guilty. Awful. Awful that I judged her so harshly. And then, one day, I finally came face to navel with Large Marge myself.

Two weeks ago, I rode my bike down to Bank of America to deposit a couple of birthday checks. Large Marge was outside. I inwardly groaned. As is often the case, the panhandler did not talk to me when I went into the bank, but waited for me to come out. Because, you know, people have spare twenties that they just can't wait to give away. "Can you spare a dollar?" Large Marge asked. "No, I'm sorry," I answered. "I don't carry cash."

Large Marge looked at me and said, "Bitch."

Yeah. Thanks.

Appreciation

There is one component of my birthday week that I deeply appreciate. I absolutely adore that my family and friends call or email or text or send cards to let me know that they remember me. Its like a great big tidal wave of love. Mostly fueled by estrogen. My grandma, my aunts, my mom, my sister, and my girlfriends. (And my stepdad. He is the token boy. Everybody has got to have one.) Its pretty terrific. So I just wanted to take this opportunity to say, "thank you. I love you, too."

Birthday

So, today is my birthday. (Yes, yes. Thank you.) I've never been the type to lament a birthday. In fact, I'm often the girl that goes around telling everyone and anyone when my birthday is and how old I will be. And yet this year, I didn't really care. My mother warned me this would happen. There would come an age where I finally thought to myself, "eh." Who knew that the magic number would be 35?

I'm not sure why this is. Part of me fully acknowledges that I've never been a party person. Meaning, I'm not the type of girl that likes to dress up, go out and stay out until my feet hurt and my stomach heaves. I find this to be forced friviolity and have always despised it when it was done in my name. Instead, I'd rather just order in Chinese, pop open a bottle of champagne, and play Scrabble. Good enough. Happy Birthday. Another part of me is getting introspective these days. I'm trying to figure out what what I want out of my life. And the answer isn't clear. I find this amazingly distressing.

I'm a five-year planner. I tend to shy away from long term goals. I like to say things like, "I'm moving to New York to pursue publishing. I'll give it five years and then reassess." And whaddya know? I lived in NYC for five years. I reassessed and said, "I'm moving to Los Angeles to pursue a TV/film career. I'll give it five years and then reassess." Two years in and it's okay. I can't really complain. But these days I'm feeling a bit...I don't know. Done with it. I'm kinda done with pursuing a career. What does that mean? Hell if I know. There is a definite part of me that's saying, "Time to get married and have that kid!" While another part of me is telling me to stay on track. I know there are people who think you can have both, but I'm not one of them. I know waaay too many working mothers who are struggling to keep up. Career on one side. Family on the other. It's like Germany during WWII. Once the Allies were on the western front and the Russians started to push in on the eastern front there was only thing a body could do: Kill yourself in a bunker. OK, maybe not. But it's definitely a squeeze and there are a lot of women who would love nothing more than to just surrender. Remember that Calgon commercial? Um-hmm.

I have a pattern that I've been following for about ten years now: Get a new job, love it for two years, get dissatisfied, get a new job. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. And sometimes that job has been a whole new career. Maybe that's what's bothering me the most right now. At 35, I don't feel like I should be doing that any more. I feel I should have a career that I'm actively working on advancing, not looking for something new or different. At the same time, I'm kinda freaked out because, well, I don't want to be in California for the rest of my life! Pretty soon my sisters are going to start having kids. My parents are going to get old. And what if I do get married and have kids. My kids won't know my family! Who is going to tease them mercilessly and then tell them to "stop crying, you big baby" forcing them to learn how to repress emotion in the way only a true New Englander can? AGH! (I might be getting ahead of myself on that one. But, umm, these things do go through my head.)

At times like this, I try to slow down and get quiet. I also start going to church like the Second Coming is scheduled for a week from Thursday. I figure its best to be quiet where God might see me and realize that I'm being quiet for a reason. Ahem. Its hard, however, since I like to be a woman of action. "God helps them that help themselves." That kind of thing. But sometimes the best plan of action is to do nothing at all. To wait and be patient. Let it play out. Maybe something will happen all by itself. A man opens the door for me at the Jiffy Lube and proposes six months later. That job I forgot I put in for last month calls. I'm trying not to let my fear of aging drive me to into doing something radical. So. I wait...though not that patiently. And hope that an answer will present it self. In the meantime, I'm going to see The Dark Knight and, later tonight, pop a bottle of champagne with my roommate. No one said that I had to be sober while I waited.

Terrified

I brought up this page to click on my links to everyone else's blogs and my boss walked in. He was very interested in the fact that I had a blog. Now I'm terrified he's going to find it on the web. I just Googled myself. Thankfully the only things that come up are the blind songstress and my books. However, I will be deleting blogs from MySpace that link to here. And I'm going to have to read through the posts to find anything incriminating...like the ones posted Monday through Friday during daylight hours. Ack!

Senility

I have got to stop moving around. I'm having one heck of a time remembering where I live. Earlier today, I signed up for a AAA membership and wrote the wrong street name. I confused my home street (Burbank) with my work street (Ventura). I'm trying to console myself by reasoning that it was an easy mistake as they are both cities in the L.A. area. But just a moment ago, I typed my address out again for a friend and this time typed Manchester (as in CT) instead of Valley Village (as in where I actually live).

This is happening a lot lately. For instance, last week I popped over to Trader Joe's for lunch (as I often do) and there, sitting to the side of the Entrance Doors (where she was not supposed to be) was a woman screeching about "animal rights!" So, I turned and looked. The woman was probably in her late-40s, maybe early-50s. A compact, wiry body. Short, curly blond hair. And an amazingly strident voice with a tinge of menace to it. And at first, it confused me, because I thought I knew this woman from New York. I literally thought, "Huh, I thought she was in New York." But as I entered the cool interior of the market, my over heated brain cooled and I remembered that I was right! I did know her from New York. She was the Crazy Cat Lady! Except there, she used to be in Union Square and would set up her table outside Petco. She would walk around with a huge Army issue backpack slung over her shoulders. And in the winter, she'd wear a big parka with the stuffy sticking out. So it was definitely New York. Weird, weird, weird. If she wasn't a nut job, I would have went over to her and asked her about it. "So, do you summer in L.A.? What's the scoop?" And for those of you in NYC who read this blog and know who I'm talking about, she looked good! Tan, clean, and she totally fits in with all the other zealots who chase you down in the TJ parking lot asking you for money...ahem.

Its getting harder and harder for me to remember how I know people. Connecticut is pretty easy: Family. High school gals. Police Department. I attribute this to long term memory. I've known them the longest and the most consistently. New York is a little more difficult. There was the magazine (Julie, Greg, and Kim). The bookstore (Marcy, mostly). The publishing house (too many to list) which is divided up between two imprints (compounding the situation even further). And the roommates (Claudine and Molly...and Daniel, but we won't go there). L.A. is probably the trickiest yet as there are a lot of NYC links. There's Rebecca who now defies category as she is not only New York, but Hoboken, Oceanside, and some of L.A. Don't ask. I know L.A. Amy from NYC Meg. Linda and Cameron are from New York and we talk about all things New York so it's hard to remember that we didn't know each other while in New York. L.A. Andreen is so much like NYC Janete that there are times when I think they know each other. To make matters worse, a few of my NYC friends have moved to the Seattle. And one New York friend, one Connecticut friend, and one L.A. friend have all moved to the D.C. area. Honestly, I'm getting to the point where I need to make a large color-coded flow chart to keep it all straight.

Two days ago, I applied to a new job. I won't say what. However, I will say that next to being a princess, it's my dream job. I really, really want this position. Except. It would require me to move. Again. And not to any place where I've lived before. Sigh. And while there is a part of me that wants this job with every fiber of my being, I'm really ambivalent because any move that might have to be made will probably have to be executed without my mind. It's getting to cumbersome to take with me.

And by the way, if I've blogged about this before (which I think I have) just let me apologize now. You're not going crazy. I am.

Google

Google is Big Brother. I have a gmail account, and awhile ago I noticed that Google scanned my mail, targeted specific words, and then on the side of the text window proceeded to give me links to things that pertained to something in the email. For instance, if I wrote something like, "she had Princess Leia hair," suddenly there would be links to Star Wars websites, Star Wars merchandising, and Star Wars movies. It was a little creepy. Today, my sister and I were emailing about Disneyland park prices. Now, in a little blue bar above my email account, there is a sponsored link to Disney deals.

A long time ago, I read (or perhaps watched on 60 Minutes or some like show) that this kind of individualized marketing was going to happen. That the keepers of the internet would be able to specify its search engine to refine advertising strategy so that it knows exactly what you want and how to get it to you. Ultimately, it would be able to read your mind based on previous purchases. This freaked me out. I don't want to be consumer #456,687 who shops at the GAP, Trader Joe's, and Target, likes the color blue, and makes one big ticket electronics purchase a year, so maybe I'd like this new eco-friendly Blackberry in ice storm blue for the low, low price of $99.99. It felt like an invasion of privacy and -- worse! -- it felt like I was definable as a human being by my purchases. In the intervening years, however, this fear has been unrealized. Afterall, I often check out my "iTunes Recommends for you!" And let's just say that I like John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen just not as much as Apple thinks I do. Amazon is even worse. They're constantly saying, "perhaps you'll also like..." and I recoil in horror. These botched attempts have soothed me. But then along comes Google.

I like Google. There's something cool about it, and since it's what my generation has birthed to the world we can get that "Gen-X is nothing but a bunch of lazy slackers" label off our backs. (Thanks, Larry and Sergey!) It's a user-friendly informational tool that not only comes up with exactly what I want to know 99.9% of the time, its a terrific way to waste an afternoon at work by Googling all your friends' names. Because, yeah, Google is a verb now, identifiable by Merriam-Websters. Google is fun and makes me look all kinds of smart. Google is also reading my email.

OK, so it's definitely my fault. If I don't want Google to read my email, I should just go back to my AOL account full time and shut it. But, umm, I don't wanna. You see, it's almost like a personal relationship. AOL feels more like my high school boyfriend. Reliable, the It Guy at the time, but I've so out-grown him. While Google is like that cute gent at the pub that understands my needs and treats me like I'm valuable, but then tells all his friends that I sleep in Hello Kitty flannels and pop my zits. In the end, it's a trust issue in addition to my level of comfort with personal information being out on the web. And while there is a part of me that wants to howl in outraged indignation over an "invasion of my privacy", I blog just about every intimate detail anyway, so... really, who am I kidding? It just sorta weirds me out that someone out there might not only be privy to my personal life, but taking notes on it in an effort to depersonalize me and force me into a quantifiable category with marketable value. Not that Google is doing this. Right now, I think it's all computer programming, and as far as I know these links aren't gathering data on me to be sold to Coke or Wal-Mart, rather it's a crap shoot of information. However, I will say that if I wake up late one morning and my computer starts telling me that I might want to stop by the Starbucks to help get me through the day, I'm totally going back to AOL.

Paranoia

Do you ever get the feeling that something has been said about you behind your back by a grouping of people who have agreed upon one aspect of your character? Then you go into a room, you open your mouth, and as you speak you notice that two or more of those people are looking at each in that "Umm-hmm" way that's not only annoying by unnerving. I hate that.

Vanity

Yesterday, Roomie and I went to the Rose Bowl. Every month on the second Sunday, the Rose Bowl becomes one massive flea market, and I went with high hopes of finding something I loved. I had no idea what that would have been, but I figured I'd know it when I saw it. I also wanted to keep my eyes peeled for a vanity as we only have one bathroom in the apartment and I've become extremely lax about getting up on time so there are mornings when Roomie and I overlap in our schedules. Totally my fault. So, I figured it would be a very good idea to get a vanity and place it in my bedroom so that I could just do my hair and make-up there.

I've been awful about getting my room into order. I've got boxes of stuff just sitting on the floor. My excuse is that I'm completely perplexed about how I want to decorate and, therefore, haven't made any decision about what I might want out and what should be stored away. I need a sense of style. A decor. This room just begs for something light and airy, like a home on the Cape. However, all my furnishings are black and urban as my last apartment just begged for something more citified. (What can I say? I'm a little bit summer house, a little bit LES tenement. Donny and Marie would understand.) And as I haven't made a decision about color scheme or wall art, my stuff is just about everywhere. This causes all kinds of anxiety because if a thing doesn't have a place then it can't be in it, and therefore I have not started to classically condition myself. One day, I found my hair brush with my purses. I don't know how that happened. However, if I had a vanity then the hair brush would be there because that would be its proper place.

A long time ago, my grandfather offered me my grandmother's vanity. I was very excited about this. I ran down the stairs to the basement and whipped off the sheet. The style of vanity was very popular in the 40s and 50s. It was called Waterfall and it was cheaply manufactured during that economic boom time post-WWII. Before technology over took our lives, furniture used to be crafted. It was expensive. It was not unheard of to inherit beds, dressers, or dining room tables. The stuff was made to last. However, after we become industrialized, manufacturers learned how to cheapen the process. In this case, they used plywood and got rid of the drawer coasters (this will be important in about a minute). Unfortunately, since my grandmother's vanity had been stored in a cement cellar in Connecticut, a place that dominates my memory as feeling coolly damp and smelling of mildew, it had warped on the bottom. I was sadly disappointed, and I've always felt the loss of that piece. So, I would be lying if I said that I wasn't looking for a very specific kind of vanity when we showed up at the Rose Bowl yesterday.

I'm not the greatest bargainer in the world. I admit it. I feel that its in bad taste to haggle and that you're inferring that the seller is dishonest if you try to negotiate the price. I also fear that I'm not as knowledgeable about antiques as I should be. For instance, what if I value a punch bowl at $50 and the dealer is asking for $65? I try to get it for $50, but they hold firm at $55. I buy it, because I love it, and then I go two stalls down and see it for $40. I'd slit a wrist, I swear. I had been looking on eBay and craigslist for a vanity for sometime, so I had a pretty good idea about the going rate for one in the Waterfall design. The trick was going to be to get one in good condition.

I found a vanity I liked right away. It was in great shape. It was a Heywood-Wakefield. But it was blond wood and I was hoping for something a little darker, like a walnut. The guy was asking $300 for it and I just couldn't bring myself to bring the hammer down within twenty minutes of walking into the place. So, I said, "Thanks" and kept going. The next vanity I saw was $100 and felt a little delicate. The wood hadn't been kept and it seemed to be splintering. It worried me so we passed. Finally, I saw a vanity that looked like Grandma's. It had the slopping edges and the big round mirror. The only problem was that it was painted white. "Shabby Chic." I had seen this a lot on eBay and especially craigslist. People buy old furniture and instead of paying for it to be refurbished, they slap a coat of white paint on it and call it "shabby chic." The idea is that it refreshes otherwise damaged pieces and gives them new life. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't know how to paint a piece of furniture. Most of them don't bother to sand the item down and the rest don't know to shellac the piece once it's been painted. You touch it and it has the dull uneven feel of a wall. More shabby than chic. We walked on.

For the next two hours, all I saw was 1940-1950 plywood painted white. Some people were obviously catering to the market, as they not only shellacked but would hand paint or stencil on the piece. Other people, just threw the white paint on. Drawers were hard to open as the paint got tacky in the summer sun creating a bit of a seal. The more I inspected, the angrier I got. While shabby chic is the trend of the moment, what happens to all this furniture three years from now? I didn't get wrathful until I got to a gorgeous vanity that had everything I was looking for. Round mirror, cascading lines, coasting drawers, interlocking wood. But it was painted white. The inside of the drawer revealed that at one time, the vanity had been a deep walnut or mahogany color. I wanted to lop somebody's head off. At this point, I realized that the chances of me finding what I wanted in the color I wanted in the condition I wanted was pretty minimal. I wanted to scream at all these shabby painters to "cut it out or I will exact revenge like the Greek Goddess of Furniture!" And there must be one because then...manna from the sky.

Right before we left, I saw it. It was blond wood, but had an art deco inlay design of walnut. The drawers weren't on coasters, but they slid in and out easily. It had Bakelite handles which tickled me. It was in very good shape and they they quoted me $195. I felt I had to buy it quickly before it too became a victim of the shabby chic movement which encroached upon it like the crocodile hunter before that stingray got to him. Roomie figured out how to get it into my car and we moved it into my bedroom last night. I felt like I saved an endangered species.

Oddly, even though all my furniture is different color and different design, I feel like I have an idea of how to set up the room now. Which is good. All I have to do is get a stool for the vanity. Now if only I could choose a color.

Family

I have a slight obsession with all things old. I've always wanted to have a house where I've lined the walls with silver framed photos of my ancestors. These pictures speak to my vivid imagination. I think about the person who took the picture, the moment the picture was taken, who has held the photo before me, what memories it might have sparked for the occupant. I look for myself and my sister and my family relations in their faces. There is my uncle's nose. There is my aunts eyes. This process happened to me again this morning when my mother forwarded some photos her cousin has in her possession. The photo included here is of my great-grandfather, his siblings, their spouses, and a few unidentifiables. I love the turn of the century garb on his sisters. Grandpa Ed is standing on the far left with his hand on his hip. My uncle Ritchie looked like him.

Bicycle

I bought a bike. I got it on Craigslist about three weeks ago. I figured that I could conserve on gas and get a little exercise by riding to work each day. But as with all my best-intention-purchases (yeah, I'm looking at you rollarblades), things did not work out the way I envisioned.

I had been monitoring Criagslist looking for the perfect hybrid bicycle, 18-inches in height, girl's frame, at a good price, and I found one. I excitedly emailed the owner and negotiated the price down. I said, "I'll give you cash and pick it up tonight, if you you'll take $X for it." And she wrote back, "Done. Get here by 7PM and it's yours. My address is XX, Los Feliz. My number is XX in case you're running late." Now, Los Feliz is close to where I used to live, but not close to where I live now. (This figures into the story. Hang with me here.) I wrote back and said, "See you at 7." I actually got there around 6:30 and drove around the neighborhood then parked in front of someone else's house and probably freaked them out by sitting there for 25 minutes while reading a Publisher's Weekly. Now I know some of you are thinking, "Why didn't you just call her number to see if she was in?", but I always figure that if you agree upon a time then that time was convenient for the other person and just because you're schedule has changed does not mean that the other person should have to accommodate you. What can I say? I'm the last of a breed. Anyway, promptly at 7, I rang her phone (I couldn't figure out which doorbell was her's), and she brought the bike out. It's a blue Schwinn, female frame, with a basket. It was the basket that was the selling point. (Shut up.) I gave her the cash, she gave me the owner's manual, and the bike was mine! HAHA! I wheeled the bike over to my car and...couldn't get it into the back seat. So, I popped the trunk. Didn't fit there either. I climbed into the backseat and folded it down (thanks, VW!). It fit. Kinda. Well, not really. You see the basket and the front wheel were in the way of closing the trunk.

I owned a mountain bike back in Manchester. I paid $450 for a beautiful red number made by Trek. I loved that thing and rode it to the PD softball games. When I moved to New York, I left it in the possession of my roommate-at-the-time Audra and thought that someday, I might ask for it back. But then I moved from NYC, to Queens, to Hoboken, back to Bristol, then out to Oceanside, and here I am in L.A. And Audra moved from Manchester to Oyster Bay, Long Island to two different cities in Maryland. Where the bike is now, I haven't the foggiest. What I remember about that Trek, though, was that there was a quick release on the front wheel. You just popped the little thingy on the wheel, and -- did something else, I can't remember -- and the wheel would just drop off. Easy-peasy! And I noticed on this bike that there was also the quick release levers on the tires. So, I popped the little thingy, and...crap. The brake. That was the other thing. I got back into the car, grabbed the owner's manual and looked for the section on releasing the front brake.

Owner's manuals can be divine moments of intervention. For instance, a friend of mine just spent $330 on trying to figure out what was wrong with her brand new washer only for her husband to pull out the owner's manual and realize that their washer still had shipping attachments on it. Once the extraneous bits where removed, no more problems. (Ah, humans. We're cute when we're dumb.) But sometimes, the manufacturer is -- hmm. shall we say -- lazy. You get one manual that's supposed to work for six products. And the thing that really irritates the hell out of me these days is each paragraph is broken down four times: the first paragraph is in English then the same information underneath it is printed in Spanish then another paragraph under that one is in French then another one after that one is in German. I appreciate that we're trying to conserve on the trees. And I even appreciate that we're accommodating every non-English-speaker here and abroad so that they can use the product efficiently. I, however (and maybe I'm the only one), feel like I'm wading through a pool of letters trying to decipher exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. And like an illiterate, I just start looking at the pictures for guidance. Fig.1 shows a wheel. No, I don't need the wheel. I figured that out on my own. Fig. 2A shows the brake. AH-HA! Yes, the brake! But this brake doesn't look like my brake. Neither does Fig. 2B nor Fig. 2C. Which means, I must have Fig. 2D. According to the instructions, I need to release the brake from the tire by disengaging the thingy. I look for the thingy. I don't have a thingy. According the Fig. 2D, I should have a thingy. I read on a little further, and it says, that bicycle retailer should have shown me how to remove the front tire when I bought the bike. Which the retailer had done when I bought the Trek ten years ago, but according to the girl who just sold me the Schwinn, they didn't show her. (I know because, yes, I asked.) Which meant, I was screwed and needed to go to Plan B.

My car is a hand-me-down. It came to me through my parents which came to them through my sister, Kate. Kate lives -- metaphorically -- in her car. Kate is the type of girl who if you asked her to come pick you up in Canada she would. The car came to me with CDs, a Susan G. Koman lei, a tampon, a couple of hair ties, an expensive "easy-to-use jack," and a couple of golf balls in case I wanted to putt a few while waiting for AAA to come and get my useless ass. And twine. Plan B was to tie the trunk of the car down over the bike. Easy-peasy, right? Wrong. Seriously, I'm useless. I couldn't figure out how to do it and I doubt AAA would send someone for a bike emergency. I have seen the tie-down process done before. I've got a dad. You usually thread the twine through the trunk lock and it's hasp, pull down and tie. However, trunks are manufactured now to be entered with a keyless remote and easily opened from the inside in case you've been put into the trunk to be transported to the place where you'll be murdered and buried. This easy-to-release feature is great. Except when you just want to figure out how to tie your trunk down just to get a damn bike eight miles down the freeway. No matter how I tried to tie it, the twine kept slipping through and slipping off, and it just wasn't working. As you can probably guess, I had been in front of this chick's house for about a half hour, and I was on the verge of tears.

Plan C would have been to call a couple of friends of mine who live in Los Feliz. However, it was Friday night and I knew that the wife was at the Daytime Emmys. Which meant I would have to prevail on her hubby's good graces. Hubby is a lovely man and probably wouldn't have minded coming over and trying to figure out what the hell I was doing wrong. But Plan C was my absolute last resort because, goddammit, I'm an independent woman and I can DO THIS! ROAR!....And I haven't worked out that "asking help from others isn't weakness" issue in therapy yet. So, I went back to Plan A. I shifted around the bike a little more. Pulling it further into the car, trying to turn the handle-bars so that they faced backward. And somehow, through all this jerking and jimmying, the brake released by itself. HUZZAH! The tire came off, the handle bars spun around, and I was able to get the trunk closed. Yey, ME!

You think the story is over, don't you?

I happily drive over the freeway, pleased with my purchase, and smugly satisfied that I did it all by myself. (One should never be smugly satisfied. Its just asking for trouble.) I arrived home, pulled the bike and it's tire out of the car, replaced the backseat, and hunkered down to replace the tire. I flipped the bike over, dropped the tire in, and...umm. Remember the selling point? The basket? Yeah. The girl had said that the bike shop had put the basket on. Baskets on adult bikes are not like the plastic Easter baskets that get put onto the front of a little girl's bike. You know, the type with a couple of snap clasps over the handlebars? No. While there are some clasps over the handlebars, there is also two long strips of metal that attach to the front tire. I thought they attached to the outside. They don't. They attach on the inside. Which means, the tire doesn't just drop in. You have to wrench it in. By this point, I was so tired and frustrated that I didn't have the physical strength to even attempt wrenching. So, I dropped the tire in without the basket attached, wheeled it into the gate, and left it until the morning.

Saturday morning, I awoke feeling refreshed and able. I was going to ride my new bike if it killed me. I clambered down the stairs and within twenty minutes, I had the wheel and the basket attached. Because I am woman! ROAR! And then, the brake. If the manual was no help in dislodging the brake, it was even less of a help in reattaching it. Just by looking at it and comparing it to the back brake, it looked like the plastic C-shaped piece clamped onto the metal O-shaped cylinder. I tried using my brute strength but to no avail. (It hurt my soft, pink girly fingertips.) I thought, "I need leverage." A flat piece of wood, maybe. I scrounged the backyard. Nothing. "Pliars!" I thought, and I ran upstairs to grab my pink tool box. (Shut up.) I grabbed the needlenose pliars out of the box and tried to snap it on. However, I started to have bad visions in my head. Visions of me breaking the plastic C-shaped piece. Visions of me compromising the metal O-shaped cylinder. So I stopped. I packed up my pink toolbox and put the bike away.

Currently, our internet is down at home. Which means, I have to come to work if I want to get directions to the Staples Center, or if I want to work on the manuscript that is due in a couple of days, or if I want to Google the nearest bike shop. I wanted the bike shop to be close enough that I could ride the bike there (afterall, I still had the back brake) and be able to walk home. I mean, it wouldn't do to have to put the bike back in the car because that was the exact activity that got me into this position in the first place. The Bike Factory is on Woodman and Burbank, approximately six Los Angeles blocks from where I live (Los Angeles blocks are...big). But doable. So, the next Saturday, I got up and wheeled my bike out onto the driveway, mentally prepared to pay whatever it cost to fix the brake. I mean, sure, it kinda sucked that I talked the girl down only to have broken the bike within an hour of owning it, but these are the kinds of obstacles that consistantly pop up in my life. (Seriously, I've got a catalogue of stories like these. I'm pretty used to the monetary consequences of my actions.) I grabbed my wallet, I put it into my appropriately attached basket, and rode down to the Bike Factory.

The Bike Factory is a grubby little place that is obviously for "serious" bikers. People like me must irritate the Eastern European guy behind the counter. But, hey, people like me, keep guys like him in business because when something minor goes wrong on our bikes, we're bound to screw it up so badly that we're willing to pay a couple hundred dollars just to fix it. I wait patiently for the my turn at the counter and then show him the problem. The guy leans down over the tire and looks carefully. He grunts. He unscrews this little piece up on the handlebars, leans back over the wheel and clamps the plastic C-shaped piece onto the metal O-shaped cylinder, then rescrews the little piece on the handlebars. He tries the brake and it works. He doesn't even look at me. I say, "That's it." He says, "Yes." I say, "Umm, do I owe you something?" He says, "No." I say, "OK. Thanks." I wheeled my bike out of there and rode back home using both brakes, abashedly feeling less like a woman and more like a girl who needed a man to fix it and make it all better for her.

So, here it is three weeks later, and I've finally ridden my bike to the office which is exactly what I bought it for. I rode it here today -- on a Sunday -- to write this blog because it's only 90-degrees. And for the rest of the week its supposed to be over 100-degrees here in the Valley and if you think I'm going to ride my bike in that kind of heat, you're crazy. Despite the fact that gas remains expensive, I remain pudgy, and my bike is fixed, my best intention purchase is going to have to be put off for a little while longer because my vision of me biking to work did not include arriving at my destination drenched in sweat and smelling of B.O. like I do right now.

Thighs

Yesterday, I was in line at Panera. In front of me, were two teenage girls and their dad. The more I studied them, however, the more I realized that one was not a teenager. In fact, she was the mother of the teenager and the wife of the dad. And I was stunned -- stunned, I tell you -- to note that the non-teenager did not have an ounce of cellulite on her thighs. I was mesmerized by this as every woman I know over the age of 30 has a bit of the saddle-bag going on, if you know what I mean. This woman was thin but not anorexic. Just thin. And I thought, "Wow, that woman has been watching her weight her entire life." And I was right. Because when she turned around, it was Lea Thompson.