Maggots, M*A*S*H and the Plantation

Have you ever been to a speakeasy party? It looks like this:

These ladies, minus the transvestite at the end, are attire appropriate. Ladies will latch on to any old excuse to dress cute and dance the Charleston, and the guys don't really have to dig too deep, just don a hat and some suspenders.

I recently went to one of these and met a bevy of intriguing people:


1) Kevin- Everyone's first question to him is,"How'd you get the eyepatch?" His answer,"Have you eaten yet?" Turns out it has something to do with a bacteria in his eye and maggots. He is a superb storyteller and to this day, I still have my doubts. I have heard of medicinal maggots, but the eye? It seems drastic. He and I decide to start a game of bocce ball and he invites...





2) Ed- He's pretty hilarious, but more importantly he sounds like someone I know. Kevin and I conference while Ed talks with his girlfriend: "Well I dunno, maybe someone with a nasally voice...He kinda looks like that guy from that series....I got it...Oh, that's him.....Well don't tell him!" Ed is a carbon copy of Alan Alda from M*A*S*H. We subtly suggest he adopt an Australian accent for no good reason (to deter the A.A. comparisons) and Ed good-naturedly asks why. He's gotten the Alan Alda before and strangely, Quentin Tarantino. We need a fourth and invite...




3) Ben- He snuck into the party uninvited but he paid his entrance fee and isn't leaving. He is a Kentucky native and a Ph.D grad from Cal. He paid for his entire college education by renting land from his father and growing tobacco and corn on it, starting at the age of 13. He got tobacco poisoning by 16 and is a smoker at 30. He confesses, his parents live on a "Gone With the Wind" style plantation.

I am losing at bocce ball. I balance the bocce ball on my bicep to simulate a muscle and blame the unevenness of the dirt for my losses. It doesn't matter though because Ben just asked me out and I'm happy as a jaybird.

To be continued....

I have a history of infographilia

Every time I visit my parents, I walk into my room and go through something like re-entry shock. As astronauts must again acclimate to the earth's atmosphere, I must readjust to my childhood room.

I forget that it still looks like a fairy princess dream. Pink blinds, pink nameplate, purple comforter and a glass window jewelry box that contains snowflake earrings and cheap birthstone rings that turned my skin green. My ceiling is encrusted with glow-in-the-dark stars. I snoop around to rediscover my own treasure.

I stumble across my diaries and lay back to enjoy the angst. I received my first one when I was 5 years old. It too was pink and gagging with hello kitty. After skimming VERY shallowly, here's a breakdown of its' contents:

75% - interactions with people and subsequent confusion at what was being said
20% - boys (imaginary scenarios and real, but the imaginary ones are more interesting)
5% - grab bag

Nothing amazing, what was really fascinating was that everything was explained using primitive, first-grader infographics. For example, "I like Greg. Does he like me?" would be accompanied with a drawing of a flower, each petal labeled 'l' or 'ln'. This translates to 'loves me' or 'loves me not'. Huh. That's weird.

I bounch off my bed, unzip my overnighter bag and push through clothes, books, chargers and ah hah...there it is, my current diary. It has a sleek black leather cover with a band to keep it closed. Each page is mono chromatically tuned to off white with sterling grey hairlines. I write in it with special, 0.5 tipped, black ink pens that can only be purchased in Japantown. No chintzy ballpoints for this diary.

I flip through it and sure enough...

Infographics everywhere. This infographic illustrates my favorite sleeping positions when someone else is also occupying the bed.

Other infographics include:
1. Things I'll be able to do when I can walk again
2. Reasons to break up with my bf (an outline)
3. Reasons I love Tee.
4. Scenarios during which, I'll need someone to carry me (part two of the knee surgery saga)
5. What I ate and where at the Street Foods festival.


At least I'm consistent.

This tastes like burning.

My best friend Tee has been doing field research in Guatemala for the past month. She studies amphibians and spends long wet nights camped in the forest for days at a time. My over eagerness for her return is on par with a golden retriever:

"I can pick you up from the airport?"
"Do you want me to drop off your car?"
"I'll make you a sandwich."

When she does come back, she is toting what appears to be an industrial-sized rice sack along with her field gear. Being white and unlabeled, it peaks my interest, much like unlabeled booze. If I was a worldly traveler of culture and refinement I'd stroke my pencil thin mustache and say:

"Hola, mi vida! ¿Dónde usted encontró este bolso rústico fino y qué contiene? (Hello dearest one! Where did you find this fine, rustic bag and what does it contain?)

but in reality, I said:

"What's with the bag? Is it full of bananas?"


Turns out it's 7 pounds worth of raw coffee beans. She had been looking to buy some authentic Guatemalan coffee and it only came raw and in 7 pound doses.

What should we do tonight, watch Sex in the City as we usually do on Thursdays, or skillet roast coffee beans on the stove?

Tee poured out a handful of raw beans and they looked naked and albino, a lilliputian nudist beach in Ireland. I put one in my mouth. It tasted like sand.

A little research on the Interweb and in one hour we are setting off fire alarms with the pungent smell of burning coffee. We did a little tag team maneuver where Tee stirred and shook the coffee over flames for 5 minutes for every 1 of mine (weak forearms). They ripen from a musty khaki color to a glossy black very quickly. Be careful. Mistakes were made but essentially, it boils down to this:

1. De-shell the coffee beans.
2. Heat up a wok to 500 degrees F. (or rev up the popcorn popper)
3. Add the beans and keep stirring them for 5 minutes so they don't burn.
4. Remove the hot beans to a colander before they are the desired color and let them rest.
5. Eat with chocolate

Why eat with chocolate, you might ask.

"This tastes burnt."
"Well here, eat it with a handful of chocolate."
"Oh, that's much more like coffee, a mocha perhaps."

We are no connoisseurs but wow, it was pretty sabroso.

The Truth about Soda

At a petite 5'2, I once had a friend tell me that I looked like a chihuahua or pug type of girl. I told him I wanted a boxer. He said I was too small and that a boxer would disproportionately overpower me. He can talk. He can own any dog he wants, what with that sporty, blond haircut and 6'2 frame as if he walked out of a Leni Riefenstahl film after frolicking with the other polo sport players.

We sat in the grass after a pickup soccer game, talking about how I had always wanted a dog.

"But," I argued, "having a chihuahua reinforces the 'high-maintenance, bulimic girl feeding tidbits of her french toast to her pathetic purse-dog on Quaaludes' stereotype. I can't have that. I'm too progressive."

I'd be good at owning a dog. I would name him Flapjack or Tater. I try them out in my head like this, "Taaaaaaaateeeer. Come Tater, come! Have you seen a short, chocolate dog named Tater?" This would be posed to a handsome, slightly awkward bachelor who is doing his contemplative walk around the park. He might be reading Noam Chomsky so I would never have to, but I'd sound smart after he summarized it for me. "He was right here," I'd say, "and I always let him off leash because I love to watch him roam free, unfettered by his commitments to his loved ones and our home."

While I'm daydreaming about how good my +dog life would be, a set of fluffy, black haunches sit beside me in the grass. He is a chow mix, the size of a stand alone shoe rack. He is perfect, nothing I'd be forced to carry, not anything that could drag me into traffic. Best of all, he does not have the typical crunched Chow snout as if someone tried to cram him into a too small packing box. He is cool as a cucumber. He hunkers down next to me and I picture him saying, "So, I just got off the phone with a co-worker. I probably have to work on Monday." He's that casual.

He lays down and leans into me and I pamper him shamelessly. He eats my bread crust.

"NO, NO, NO! Bad Soda, bad bad bad! Did you just feed that to my dog? You could have killed him." His owner looks at me as if I shat on the carpet.
"Oh, sorry, it was just some bread crust. Not chocolate or anything."
"That's just as bad. Never, NEVER feed human food to a dog."

Soda sighs. He cups his hand towards his mouth and whispers to me, "I'm not really with her. She's just a bump in the road to finding my real owner.

"Come Soda, come!" and she barrels down the path. Soda leans into me for a heartbreaking minute, unfazed by the distance between himself and his shrill owner. She must be 100 feet away when he finally stands up and trots 10 steps toward her. He pauses and turns his head towards me, then his body and he ambles back and flops down next to me.

I knew it. The truth about Soda is that I'm his real owner. He's supposed to be mine. He's my size and temperament. But I let him go as he meanders away into the park.

"Niner, niner, zero. We have a Big Love situation here, over."

My roommate and I were hanging around the kitchen yesterday and put two and two together for some Enquirer-style conclusions. Here's how that convo went down:

"So yesterday I got yelled at for parking in our driveway for 2 lousy minutes."
"By that short, 'whip the curtains closed every time I see you' Mormon guy?"
"Yeah, he said 'My wife is pregnant. She could give birth at any moment so you need to stay clear of the driveway.' Isn't it our driveway? Jay--zus!"

"Didn't his wife already give birth? She's blond and really youngish right?"
"No, she's older and brunette, around his age with two young kids and a bun in the oven."
"I'm pretty sure I've seen a girl in her early 20s waltzing around the house with a baby in a sling."

"And doesn't that guy have a driveway on the other side of the house too?"
"Come to think of it, don't they have like 4 cars?"
"Yeah and they're expanding that huge house by two floors? Whatever for?"
"No way! Mormon guy, two wives, infestation of kids and pregnancies and an accordion-style house that keeps bigger and bigger? This guy is pulling a Warren Jeffs, Yearning for Zion operation."


And laughter ensued.