Obliteration Room!

The results of this installation, where children were given thousands of colorful stickers and let loose in a white room, are both wonderful and sort of terrifying...

It was made by Yayoi Kusama, and you can read more about it here.

Independence Day

One sunny evening, a few days before the Fourth of July, Jared and I were hanging in the scrubby backyard of a friend, eating hotdogs and watching a band play a Bee Gees cover.

There were a few dogs at the party, some of them standing timidly between the legs of their owners, some casually cruising for scraps among the guests.

"Aw, I wish my dog was here," I said to the girl beside me. "Though, I guess he might be kind of freaked out by the random fireworks." In the distance, we could hear faint explosions. People were practicing for the 4th. I sipped my drink and thought of Loki, home alone with the windows open for the breeze.

As magical and unique as we like to believe he is, our dog is pretty standard-issue. Ferocious when it comes to squirrels and bees, (and annoyingly friendly to skunks and raccoons,) he is utterly terrified of fireworks. You'd think that being born in a barn in the middle of an Iowa blizzard and then spending the first 3 years of his life enduring its spectacular summer thunderstorms would have toughened him up a little, but alas, he's a trembling, crying, leash-pulling baby when it comes to explosion sounds. The worst part is, we are no help to him. He doesn't want to be held, or pet, or spoken to in a soothing manner, he just wants to RUN. I used to jokingly wonder, as the sky cracked open above us, where he would actually go if he got his wish.

With Loki safe at home, we stayed a few more hours at the party, first watching the sunset from on top of the roof, then moving to the front porch to eat an entire bag of "Touch of Lime" tortilla chips.

We drove back around 10:30pm, parked our car and walked up to our house. We glanced up toward our living room window as we approached, expecting to be greeted by two fluffy white ears, but the window was empty. "I guess he's asleep?" I said to Jared as we walked up our steps.

Upon opening the door, instead of the usual skittering of nails, crying and tail-wagging, we were met with a strange silence. Jared frowned, "Loki?" Silence. I looked at Jared, confused. Very carefully we began walking through the apartment, opening all closet doors, expecting any moment for him to come bounding toward us. "Loki?"

Then I noticed a slight flutter of the curtain that covers the sliding glass door in the office, then the breeze picked up and it blew into the room, revealing a slightly open door, and an enormous, dog-sized rip in the screen. My heart caught.

We stared silently at the ripped screen for a moment, the curtain innocently waving, unable to fully understand what had happened, and then we ran outside. The screen door leads to a fenced courtyard shared by four apartments, but in a panic he could jump that fence. He had. We dashed to the car and began driving through the neighborhood, up and down the winding streets, our heads through the open windows, calling his name. But he was nowhere to be found.

In a daze we made it back to the house and set out an action plan for the morning. We tried to sleep, but  found we couldn't. He hadn't been wearing his collar. He had never been missing before, and our darling neighborhood now seemed cruel, full of terrible strangers. I thought of the men who came in vans in the night to pull on car door handles and root through the garbage. I thought of the freeway, so near. I thought of the cars that raced through the narrow streets. We were no longer in Iowa City, where a lost dog could bound happily from one yard to the next until friendly neighbors gave him biscuits and walked him home. We were in this huge scary place. Who knows what they do to lost dogs here? My mind was on a loop. I couldn't shake the image of him, scared and alone, running endlessly, dodging cars and coyotes. It was too much to bear.

The morning was a fog. Jared called the shelters from work and I made a million flyers. As they printed I put an ad on Craigslist and on some LA blogs. Then I set off with my cell phone, a staple gun and a roll of duct tape, following a few paths we liked to walk together, sticking my flyers to every telephone pole and utility box I could find. I carried a dull, cold feeling in my chest. It felt surreal to be walking these paths without Loki beside me, and I couldn't quite bring myself to understand that he might really be gone.

When I exhausted my stack of flyers I walked back home to print more. I frantically checked Craigslist and the blogs and my email, then set off in my car. My plan was to hit the local coffee shop, then the library, then the dog park. I parked at a meter a block away, stuck a flyer to a telephone pole, looked at the picture of Loki's happy, trusting face, and then, I looked up toward the coffee shop to see that same, real-life face looking back at me.

I had been looking at his face all day, and for for a split second, what I was seeing didn't fully register. Was that really even him?

The dog was being walked by a girl about my age, and from a distance, there was a chance it was a different samoyed, hers, and so as I charged toward them I actually worried about scaring her, and I took out my stack of flyers and sort of waved them in the air as I ran and began babbling incoherently about I'm sorry I don't mean to be weird but is that your dog because if not I think it's my dog and see here are the flyers I made cause we lost him last night and I've been going around trying to find him and- the girl's eyes got huge, Loki was crying and wagging and jumping up on the end of the leash. I grabbed his fluffy face in my hands, tears in my eyes. "I can't believe it!" the girl said. "I'm here with my husband, he's inside hanging Found flyers in the coffee shop at this very moment!"

It was a doggy miracle. They were our neighbors two hills over, they lived along one of our walking paths. He had run into their yard the night before and they had taken him in, given him water and cared for him. I hugged her. I was overwhelmed. They walked with me to my car and told me how he kept staring out the windows and whimpering all night, presumably looking for us.

(In my flustered state I didn't even buy them a cup of coffee or get their full names or anything. I felt awful about this later and I actually tried to find them on Facebook by typing in "Maggie," which was the girl's name, but did you know there are a lot of Maggies living in Los Angeles?)

I drove Loki home and he ran up the stairs to our house. I gave him a slice of turkey and a dog treat, and we played tug of war with his toy skunk for a while until he fell asleep next to me on the floor.

He was exhausted. As he slept, he twitched his little feet and yipped loudly, and I couldn't help but wonder if he was dreaming about his wild adventure. I petted and hugged him, waking him up gently. He opened one sleepy eye and looked at me, lifted his head slightly, looked around the room, and then, with a flump, fell back into sleep.

Welcome home, good boy.

How to Entertain Two Teenagers in Los Angeles Without Going Crazy or Going Broke

One of the best things for us about hosting out-of-town guests is getting to go into tourist-mode in our own city. Los Angeles is huge (duh) and broken up in to a million distinct neighborhoods, and it can be easy, during our day-to-day, to stay within our manageable 6 mile radius of Silverlake-Downtown-Echo Park-Highland Park-Los Feliz, and ignore the glittering Westside or the sometimes underrated Valley, or the vast Southside, or even (shudder) Hollywood...

So whenever visitors are in town (note: please visit!) we take the opportunity to break out of our familiar routine and go forth into distant neighborhoods. There we try new restaurants and bars, take more impressive hikes, partake in whatever cultural activity is on offer, all in an effort to entertain and pamper our guests while giving them a taste of the diversity of this city. Also, often, we try and convince them to move here. (Note: move here!) And as a bonus, we pretty much always have an awesome time discovering new things to do.

Usually a large part of our plan consists of simply eating and drinking at interesting and delicious places, because really, what more do you ever need? But last week we were charged with hosting Jared's 15-year-old sister and her best friend for a few days, and for a moment we panicked. What do you even DO with children that age? They can't go out for cocktails, or even most concerts, they're too old for "little kid" activities like the zoo, and their culinary interests are firmly in the spaghetti-with-red-sauce/bean-burrito-no-salsa/cheese-pizza-no-toppings camp. To make matters worse, we don't have a TV, and our apartment is quite small, and we had no idea whether they would be into outdoorsy activities like hiking, or cultural activities like museums or concert halls (lol, as if)

(Diorama at the Natural History Museum, not a live elephant.)

Well I'm happy to report that aside from a few flight-related frustrations, the visit turned out to be a smashing success. And in case you are interested, here is exactly how you entertain two young girls in Los Angeles for five full days:

First you stock your kitchen full of Trader Joe's Frozen Pizzas, dry pasta, and multiple jars of spaghetti sauce. Trust me. Then you simply go to: Third Street Promenade for window shopping and watching street performers; Umami Burger for a coke and a burger with all the goodies scraped off (for them), and one with all its regular deliciousness intact for you; Venice Beach for ice cream, strolling, watching skateboarders, and getting henna tattoos; the Stairs of Silverlake to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood Sign; Amoeba Records for music browsing; a hike to Griffith Observatory on a beautiful day with an enthusiastic dog (making sure you run into Odd Future shooting a video (score!)) Mexcali for authentic tacos; a long stroll through Chinatown, Olvera Street, and Little Tokyo to look at tchotchkes; Pinkberry for pinkberry; the Americana for shopping and a PG-13 movie (Rock of Ages); Beverly Hills for a long drive past the fancy houses and a slow trek down Rodeo Drive; Santa Monica Beach for chillin' and getting a rosy sunburn next to the screams of the roller coaster; In-N-Out in Eagle Rock for scarfing animal-style; Hollywood for an obligatory walk-through including Grauman's Chinese Theater; LACMA for culture and pictures of Urban Light; Leela Thai for the girls' first Thai food; the Academy 5 in Pasadena for two-dollar matinee of 21 Jump Street; the dog park for dogs; a few more walks; annnnnd you're done!

There now, wasn't that a breeze?

The Future Has Addled My Brain

I'm no luddite with regards to writing. I love technology. I think computers are a gift from the gods and there is no part of me that can pretend we lost something important with the functional extinction of quills and little pots of ink, or lovely smooth fountain pens, or adorable pastel typewriters and their design-y tins of ribbon. And while I feel like it's really great and sweet when people want to scrawl hand-written missives to each other and walk to the post office to deliver them and what have you, I know that if I were forced to do such a thing A) basically no one would ever hear from me because I am extremely lazy, and B) no one would be able to read my letters anyway because I have the most atrocious handwriting in the history of ever. Seriously. I cannot even read it myself.

So, since I tend to do my only good thinking in the dead of night and then forget it all by morning if it is not immediately recorded, I know that the best way to prevent my thoughts from disappearing into the ether is by keeping my (old, weirdly heavy) laptop on the floor next to the bed. Then, cozy as I may be as I am drifting off to dreamland, if I'm hit with an idea, or a sentence, or a scene that must be noted, I'll force myself to switch on the lamp, reach down and lug the laptop up to my bed, pry it open, wait for it to wake up, pull up the giant email to myself called "notes," and jot the thought down as quickly as I possibly can in my sleepy state. Then I'll put it back, roll over, and try to sleep until the next thought comes. 

It's a pretty stupid system I know, and the fact that on a good night I have to do it about five separate times makes it even sillier, but I swear it works for me better than actually writing on scraps of paper (my previous system) ever did.

But I will admit this:

Last night, long after midnight, I had some apparently inspired, book-perfecting THOUGHT. So I switched on the lamp, reached down, lugged the thing up to my bed, pried it open, waited for it to wake up... and was met with the endless beach ball spiral of death. I panicked. Frantically I tried force quit things and restart things and press all the keys on the keyboard while keeping the THOUGHT in my flighty mind, but it was no use. The device was frozen.

So I gave up, closed the laptop, put it back on the floor, switched off the lamp, lost the thought forever, and not once did it occur to me to reach over to my bedside table to grab the pen and the little notebook that live there and THAT, my friends, is pretty messed up.

P.S. Awesome wallpaper image by Wall & Deco

Happy Birthday Harry!

Happy 71st birthday to my dad, who was pretty much the coolest, as evidenced by this video:

I miss you!

          (Also, I remember watching this as a kid and having NO IDEA how they did it. 

           Actually I still don't fully understand. Magic!)

Isn't it, You Know, Ironic?

Things that well-meaning people say when you are suffering from anxiety that somehow only make your anxiety that much worse:

"What you need is a nice long walk."

"Maybe you should just get out and socialize a little"

"Have you tried yoga?"

"Are you meditating?" 

"You probably shouldn't be drinking." 

"What about Passion Flower extract?"

"Maybe you should just focus on all the positive things in your life."

"Deep breathing"

"Deeeeeeeep breaths"

"Kava Kava?"

"I don't see why you can't just get off the couch, find a doctor, make an appointment and be done with it."

Things that probably help when you are suffering from anxiety:

         A nice long walk

         Socializing a little

         Yoga

         Meditation

         Probably not drinking

         Passion Flower extract

         Focusing on all the positive things in your life

         Deep breathing

         Kava Kava?

         Just getting off the couch, finding a doctor, making an appointment and being done with it.
         (ha, ha, ha.)


But we all know that what will really help is this:

My Kind of Igloo

Sure your color-coded bookshelves are neat, but can they do this?

That's right, it's a self-supporting igloo made out of books. Colombian artist Miler Lagos made it and it just about kills me dead. Can you imagine how comforting it must smell in there? I would pile cushions all over the bottom of it and then just curl up reading ALL DAY LONG.

Heaven.

Spotted on Colossal

Love is a Battlefield AKA The Greatest Story Ever Told

Remember when we were young and we had that big fight with our parents and they were all “if you leave this house now etc” and so we waved goodbye to our kid brother through the window and took a bus from our small town to The City? Remember the men in the city? Their muscles when they bumped into us? Our father was a butcher or something, maybe a grocer? He wore an apron. Our mother worried. We wrote home sometimes, not to them, but to Billy. We made up stories about The City and had him promise to stay in school. Billy was a good kid. We didn't want him to end up like us. We wrapped ourselves in rags and dishtowels and found work as dime-a-dance girls in a place with low lights and a seedy boss who stared at us over the glint of his gold front tooth. We were tired all the time. We were barely making it. We draped over each other in heaps. The boss was taking deep cuts. He was taking liberties. We were sick of dancing his way. We took a stand...

Heartache to heartache, amirite?