We drove over 400 miles today. And nearly got to see some amazing sequoia trees. Upon our arrival, we discover that it costs a mere $20.00 to go through. Well worth it, obviously. Except we picked the wrong day to go, as the guard pointed out casually. "Well, you'll need chains for your tires if you go up there. You can rent them down the way a few miles, or if you're in the area, come back tomorrow, it'll be better." Bastard. I mean, "Sure, we'll just drive the 200 miles home and then come back in the morning, no problem." Dammit. But we got some good pictures (sort of) along the way, and the drive itself was quite awesome. And considering that all we did was drive the whole day, I"m awfully exhausted.

A day at the beach. Actually, a day driving to the beach, and an evening at the beach. Fun in the sun. And the sand. And the wind. Oh the wind. Blowing the sand. Everywhere. Foggy glasses. Bare feet. Water. Waves. Exhaustion.

While midterms don't generally lend themselves to be very interesting times, I'm lucky the news has been so exciting lately. I woke up to news about the illustrious sex life of one Eliot Spitzer. I've no opinion one way or another about the man, because I know pretty much nothing about him. You have to give him some credit though, for at least paying for some action, unlike some people. The one thing about Spitzer that gets me is this: what was the "official wiretap" that picked up his private business? It seems to me that something like this should be between Spitzer and his wife, not the public at large. In other fantastically fun news, I got a delightful email from my cousin earlier this week. She normally sends me great forwards from the south that talk about rednecks and illiteracy. And this one was no different, now that I think about it. Here's an excerpt from the email:

But for minorities, and in particular blacks, this election represents a moment of long-awaited validation. There is no question that the election of an African-American president will empower the blacks of this country. Don't misunderstand me - this is not a racist statement, this is just a fact, and in many respects this could be a good thing. But there is no denying the sense of audacious rebellion that constantly simmers in much of the black community, particularly with the youth of the large metropolitan areas. I have some concern that the election of a black president will take us back to a consciousness that promotes the power of race over intelligence, reason, and the value of law, and that this may divide black and whites more than uniting them. I hope that I'm wrong.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but would not the fact that we've never once had an African American candidate make it this far in the presidential race be promoting race over intelligence? I would venture a guess that the author of this "article", one Michael Reisig, has spent too much time reading the papers and not enough time in the real world.

My roommate has the biggest, gaudiest clock in the history of the universe. No doubt she bought it because bigger is better. You can tell she bought it within the last five months or so too, because she's clearly never experienced a time change with this, the Cadillac of clocks. Generally, I'm not terribly bothered by the time change. I just change the clock, and that's what time it is. Only now it's not that easy, see, because every time I'm in the kitchen and I look at the clock, it's wrong. I'd gotten used to the idea that the biggest clock is always correct, because bigger denotes authority, right? WRONG. Bigger is now an hour behind.

So this morning I'm making breakfast and I see that I've got like an hour to go before I have to go to work. Except when I run back to my room to grab something I see that I've only half an hour to just barely be on time (I usually like to go in early in order to mosey in, rather than run).

And then tonight I'm eating dinner at the kitchen counter. (The dining room table never actually gets used; I set my keys on there once and got berated for that, because what if the table gets a scratch? May Zeus strike me dead if that ever happens. For the record, the worst my keys did to the table was to move some of the layers of dust that would have been on the table if my roommate didn't dust it religiously.) I decide to watch something on TV while I eat. The Office! Sex and the City! The Colbert Report! And when I check the time before I head back to my room, it's only 9:00! Wow, early! Except it's 10:00. Bastard clock!

Instead of trying to change said bastard clock, I'm voting we just get rid of the damn thing. Somehow, I don't think my roommate would agree with me, though. Call it a hunch.

I want to like you, NeoOffice. I really do. But you make typing such a slow process, and I want so badly just to be done with this stupid paper. And your word predictions actually waste more time than they save. Your pirate ship logo is cool, but the rest of you just isn't very practical. I want to like you, Apple keyboard. But your weird quirks are sometimes a bit frustrating. Like how you won't delete everything I want you to delete. Or how you sometimes catch or are slow to respond to the touch of my nimble fingers.

I want to like you, desk chair. I normally do like you, but I've spent far too much time bonding with you today. Give me a few days and I might like you again.

I want to like you, roommate. But your poor taste in home decor is getting kind of annoying. Why must you change my bathroom, which I've finally gotten used to? I appreciate the new cabinet, but I cringe at the sight of the new matching towel set with gold-colored trim and froofy miniature dangling cords that are only on one end of the towels. And by the way, I don't appreciate you deciding to make these new changes TODAY, when I was home all day and was therefore unable to actually ever USE the bathroom. Next time I tell you I'm going to be gone all day, as I was gone yesterday, take that as your cue to get said work done THEN.

A whole lot is going on around here. I can barely keep everything in order. Which is why, for your reading pleasure, I’ve compiled things into a list. Fun!

• I spent the last two days incommunicado, as several of you have noted. Turns out the server hosting my website was totally fucked, so ‘they’ve been working on it.’ Which is true, because it’s up now. It’s inconsistent, but with any luck it’s up to its usual speed and awesomeness fairly quickly. So all we can do at the moment is wait it out, I guess. While you’d think my website going offline would make me more productive in other areas in my life, such as school, you’d actually be wrong.

• I had a rough week, but it’s ended nicely. I’ve gotten to put in some time working on a more personal theme for the stamp blog I run with my partner. If you have a moment, go check it out. We’re getting the hang of the whole craft blog thing, so there will be more to see there in the near future.

• I was at the grocery store last night and encountered quite possibly the strangest and mind-blowing new food ever. Whilst picking out some Fuji apples, I noticed some apples in a plastic container. And I picked up on an odd smell, considering I was surrounded by apples. I wasn’t quite able place the smell until I read the container: “Grapples”. As in, apples that were genetically engineered to taste like grapes. Mind, you’re not allowed to eat them unless you pronounce the name properly: “Gr-ay-pple.” Wow. Science at it’s finest. “Hey Dr. Williams, let’s get going on this cancer treatment breakthrough!” “Not now, I just figured out how to fuck with people’s heads by making an apple taste like a grape!”

• The law may have looked at radios, cell phones, make-up, and electric razors as potential hazards that can and do cause car accidents. But I doubt they’ve looked into spiders. Especially the ones that decided to move into your car and make their little web right by your visor in the driver’s seat. And then, while the car is moving, decide to mosey on down to see what’s with all the commotion, only to have a certain Phil yelp at the sight of you in your quarter-of-an-inch glory and then proceed to ignore the road and his fellow drivers as he fights for his life from the minute eight-legged beast. Next time, don’t startle me when I’m driving, lest I have to squash the life out of you again. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I didn’t get into an accident; I’m just fine, but the spider is no longer with us.

It's week seven of school, so I'm nearly half-way through my first semester of grad school. Tomorrow I have my first test of the semester (and the year), and while I'm not altogether excited about it, I haven't been in "frantic Phil mode", as I had sort of expected. Which worries me, somewhat. But on the other hand, maybe that's a good thing? While I don't believe it's good to be OVER-confident, I have a history of forever believing that I could never do well enough. While others might have seen that as a reason to not try as hard, my Jewish background deemed it better to kill yourself trying rather than being human about it. I must be at an impasse somewhere in between, at least for the moment. The worry comes from the fact that other people are freaking out. Again, family instinct tells me that I, too, should also be freaking out.

Only I'm not. A local theater (and by 'local', I mean it's 20 miles away from me) held auditions for an improv theater that's looking to form an all-new ensemble. Note to self: never go to an audition immediately after taking part in a study group. Because no matter how much you've just exercised your brain for school, bringing up quantitative mathematics, even when it's supposed to "over-the-top", is just plain not funny.

The audition was hands down the weirdest one I've experienced, and I've done quite a few of those puppies. It was like some crazy improv teaching lesson, only since I was about ten minutes late (and four dollars short--thanks, parking people), I missed all the warm-up time and just got thrown on stage into some scenes. I'm talking cold turkey that's just been plucked and knows it's naked.

One of the notes the guy running the audition kept telling me was that I kept shifting feet every time I did a scene. Every scene got harder the more I stood still, but I was pretty sure it wasn't from nervousness. I'm no stranger to improv; just a stranger to these crazy people. It wasn't until I hopped into the car and was coasting down the highway on my way home that it hit me. The urge to pee, I mean. And then--AND THEN--my jaw dropped in sheer mortification at what that meant. I was up on stage, surrounded by nine other people, in the glare of bright stage lights, doing the fucking pee dance.

If, by some freak chance, they actually decide they want me on their ensemble team, that means either A. I did a superb job of hiding the fact that I really, really, really had to pee (heck, if even I forgot, that's definitely a possibility) or B. these people have a sick sense of humor and enjoyed watching me squirm. Let's hope it's not the latter.

Just for kicks, let’s do a list of things that distract me from whatever it is I’m doing at any given time.

• Whenever I walk or ride my bike around campus, I’m prone to noticing one or two of the gazillion squirrels around here. Every ten feet. And every time I see the little critters, I have to take a moment and watch them, because I’ll be darned if they’re not just the cutest things in the world. Running or pouncing or munching bread crusts or fighting to the death over their territory. I was almost late for an appointment I had last week because I got too involved watching two squirrels duke it out over who got to climb a tree.

• Other people multi-tasking distracts me. I got home tonight and my roommate was changing the soap in the fancy soap dispenser for her kitchen sink. She was going off about her day and I found myself tuning her out in favor of wondering what on earth could possibly be wrong with something in this house (given that everything gets so little use around here). It reached a point where I interrupted her diatribe by saying “What’s wrong with the sink?” probably louder than was actually necessary.

• Watching the actions of pedestrians while I’m driving is distracting to me. As I was leaving campus today, I had to wait for a pedestrian to cross the intersection before I could turn right. He was taking an awfully long time to cross, so I looked at him more closely. He shuffled along, hat on his head, glasses sliding forward, and finger up his nose. I stared after the guy until he had safely made it to the sidewalk, and marveled at the audacity to pick one’s nose not only in full view of the public, but to actually stop traffic while doing so. I was so distracted, in fact, that I didn’t realize that I was actually in my car, and able to drive onward, until the light turned yellow. Damn.

I'm working on a take-home portion of an exam for one of my classes. Basically, I'm supposed to create a table that charts "observable" behavior that indicates a certain level of communication. The age range is supposed to be 0-24 months. While the assignment isn't exactly holding my interest, what IS holding my interest is that for all I know, I could be an infant. Just this weekend, I exhibited a number of characteristics that would lead one to believe that I am, in fact, less than two years of age.

• Identifies self in mirror - I did that just this morning, when I looked up after brushing my teeth and started at the sight of bed head staring back at me.

• Finds partially hidden object - I couldn't find my keys when I went to go out last night, and thus tossed my room for the better part of ten minutes before I realized they were in my jacket pocket. Partially.

And the list goes on. I'd write more, only I'm feeling unequal to the task because suddenly my body is all tired. And if I don't put myself to bed, I'll get all cranky and start crying. I'm sure my roommate would love that.

A morning reminder that yes, I'm still in Academia, and yes, it's still pretty lame. A one hour and fifteen minute timed test is supposed to prove that you can write at a level consistent with one who has a college education, or one in my case, who's already in grad school. Why I had to take the stupid thing, I'm not sure. And why they felt that 75 minutes plus pen and paper equals a good measure of skill. So with any luck, the super rough draft I turned in will hopefully earn me the school's stamp of approval, despite having already admitted me. A day of mild study intermixed with some cleaning. Company was to be had, and I was given until 4pm to get everything in order.

An afternoon of more mild studying. Intermixed with some badgering on my part for my roommate to check the mail. It only took her an hour and a half's worth of my asking her about every 20-30 minutes or so, to actually go outside and get the mail.

An evening of excitement sparked by a certain item in the mail. A trip to the mall. Entering the bright lights of the store known as Apple. Three weeks of patiently waiting and carefully figuring out what would work best for me comes to an end. But more importantly, a beginning.

A night of organizing and rearranging my desk and parts of my room. Setting up the new addition. Turning it on and being thrilled by the ease with which it runs. Transferring files. Making it mine. Testing it out. Writing some emails. Scoring some much-needed software updates. Typing a blog entry.

A busy Saturday indeed. And with the exception of a certain 75 minutes, an all-around bitchin' day.

In some senses, I suppose I'm adapting well to my living situation. While on the one hand I really like it, there's the other hand to consider. The other hand being my roommate. My roommate who, because she's just so interesting, I've diagnosed with a never-before-seen condition: Bipolar Anal Retentiveness

I can think of no other explanation for hearing "Make yourself at home" and "We don't use trash bags in the trash can" from the same mouth. The bipolar thing also relates to the fact that some days she's fun and amiable, and actually enjoys conversing with me, or at least exchanging pleasantries.

And then there's the other side. The one that makes me want to yowl like a cat in heat and flee the premises. An action that's rather difficult to accomplish, however, because she's like a minx and corners me. Then she kills me with her absolute lack of sense of humor. Her 'pounce', if you will, involves her saying "Um," before beginning. Yesterday, I'm pouring a bowl of cereal for breakfast:

B.A.R. Roommate: Um, Phil? Phil: Yo? B.A.R. Roommate: Um, I've been meaning to talk to you. Phil: What's up? B.A.R. Roommate: Um, well, I've been noticing the plates in the dish rack, and the bottoms of them don't seem to be getting cleaned. Phil: That's strange. Must be water streaks or something. B.A.R. Roommate: [ignoring Phil] Um, see, it's not nice to have the bottoms of your plate dirty. Imagine going to eat at a restaurant and having the plate with your food on it dirty. On the bottom. Phil: ... B.A.R. Roommate: So just make sure to clean the bottoms of them really well. Phil: ... B.A.R. Roommate: Okay, thanks. See you later!

Later, I wondered why I didn't deliver a more catty remark than the stunned silence I gave her. I don't know, but one thing is becoming clear: if she's looking at the undersides of plates and thinking that water streaks (she's as guilty as I am, leaving the plates to drip dry and all) are somehow causes for infectious diseases, then it's time for a serious intervention. Food needs to be stored on the counters, couch pillows need to get tossed around and left in disarray*, magnets need to cover the entire refrigerator, and by golly, she's got to wear something other than her little business suits that are only black and white, and her sweats and sweatshirts that are all navy blue.

So, any predictions about what will come next? I'd be interested in hearing what you think will be the next order of contention, once I fool her into believing that I've actually taken her words to heart.

*I'm thinking that perhaps a family of Sock Zombies might really come in handy to hide between the pillows, especially on the days when she has company. The super elite guests will go to move the pillows and sit down, and suddenly their unsuspecting fingers will get bitten off. And if she gets upset, I've already got my own personal zombie body guard to throw at her, so I'm covered.

As a means of fast and incredible (and fun) transportation, I got a back bike, that is, shortly after moving here (and by 'shortly', I mean 'a week'). Of course, LA isn't know for having the bike-friendliest streets around. Heck, it's not even all that friendly when you're driving a car. Decent bike paths and marked bike lanes are nowhere to be found. So that leaves two options for the biker: sharing the road with the insane drivers. Or sharing the sidewalks with the insane walkers. I've generally opted for the latter, for the simple reason that there tend to be far fewer of them, and also they generally move slower than, oh, 50mph when on residential streets.

I'm willing to bet that brake specialists are among the richest people in Los Angeles. Why? Maybe it's because there's so much stop and go traffic. Maybe it's because there's so many traffic lights and stop signs. OR, maybe it's because people like to travel no slower than 40mph, even in parking lots, and then slam on their breaks when they're no further than ten feet from wherever it is they need to stop. The only thing people in LA do better than slamming on their brakes is hitting the accelerator.

Don't even get me started on the pedestrians here. As a general rule, it seems that ONE person walking a sidewalk ten feet wide must take up approximately 80% of the available space at any given time. So when I'm biking and want to pass them and allow plenty of space, I"m left having to pick whichever direction they're not moseying, and hope that I'm right.

After working for the better part of today, I was riding home (uphill) in the wind. Whilst traveling up the final part of the hill to the street I live on, I came across a small driveway that's generally deserted due to no one really occupying the building right there.

If there's anything I've learned about getting around in this city, it's this: don't trust anyone! I slowed down a bit as I approached the drive, and saw nothing in my line of site. Except there was something there; something I did not detect due to the greater distance. In any normal city, this would not have been a problem. But when you're going 45mph in the little alleyway, you tend to approach the driveway at a rate of holy-shit-fast! And then have to slam on your brakes because, lo and behold, there's a biker crossing your path! A biker by the name of Phil, in fact. A Phil-biker who didn't (and doesn't) much fancy the idea of being introduced to you by means of the bumper on your Mercedes.

Thank goodness for adrenaline, and for those super-fast reflexes of mine.

Good grammar skills do not come with Ph.D.s, I'm finding. I refer to writing here, and the use of run on sentences and inappropriate commas. And the fact that authors of certain textbooks, as well as my esteemed professor for my online class, all seem to constantly need to repeat themselves, that is, they say the same things twice. I probably wouldn't mind it so much, except it makes for such a huge workload, that is, there's too fucking much to do. All that reading and rereading and reiteration of the same thing instead of just saying exactly what they mean.

This is why I've decided to not waste my precious time on such menial tasks, as muddling through the sludge of the academician's poor excuse for writing. I'll instead find other texts to enjoy, that is, I'll read whatever the hell I want to and totally (or mostly) ignore what I'm "supposed" to be reading. But I won't feel guilty because I only want to read something that's of quality and substance, that is, nothing that I consider to be absolute shit due in large part to its excessive word count and abstruse generalizations about the mundane.

Just thinking about it all is putting me to sleep. Which seems like a wise course of action, indeed.

I've never felt so in touch with my vagina. Eve Ensler and an occasion known as V-Day have opened my eyes up even more into the world of women via a school production of The Vagina Monologues. Having only read a few of the monologues myself, and seeing a few performed for various theater classes I've taken, I decided it was high time I actually see the production. What I saw was a very powerful performance by a group of incredibly talented women. During the ninety minute production, I experienced a variety of emotion. There were times of extreme laughter, times of pain and sorrow, times of joy, times of aggression, and times of peacefulness.

Indeed, The Vagina Monologues expresses what is close to the hearts of women. But more importantly, it touches the lives of every human being, and it embraces life on every level.

The production I saw was not of individual women on stage, one at a time, as I had pictured in my mind it would be. Instead, it was a group of women, united as one on stage, each taking her turn to have her say. I was honored to be granted the privilege of being present in that moment, and of getting this special glimpse into the lives of those around me.

After the fact, I'm reminded of how powerful words can be. It's impossible to see this show and not be moved. The more people who see this production, and others that strive to touch our hearts in similar ways, the better this world will be.

I thought people subsisting on only one food was some sort of myth. Namely because any one-fooders were typically actually one-food category-ers. Like "junk food" food people. Or "fast food" people. At least with those types, they're eating their hamburgers both with cheese AND without. I went to the dollar store tonight (ahem--the 99-Cent Store) to see what there was to see. I generally avoid the grocery aisles in such stores, because when deli meats cost only a dollar, and so does some tasty off-brand factory-made and supposedly edible cardboard chips, I start to wonder what exactly those animals looked like before they were made into lunch meat.

So while I was standing in line to check out at the lone register, I eavesdropped into the carts and hands and baskets of my fellow shoppers. The guy in front of me was purchasing hair care products. And lotion. The lady in front of him was buying some paper and art supplies for elementary schoolers. I had my little smell-good air freshener. And then there was the guy behind me. He was purchasing only one product. In bulk. Without the fancy Costco packaging.

One look into his basket was enough for me to want to leap over the register and hide. The entire bottom of his shopping cart was lined with boxes of sardines. A SHOPPING CART FULL OF SARDINES. All lined up neat and tidy, and in such density that I could practically smell them through both their tin containers AND their individual cardboard boxes.

I tried, and failed, to be sensitive toward this very portly gentleman. But I simply cannot fathom someone being allergic to every single food known to man with the exception of tiny fish soaked in olive oil. Granted, I don't even like sardines. But he's probably the only person on the planet who eats them three meals a day, 3,650 days per decade. Heck, just looking at them made me swear to myself that I would never again eat those icky sardines, regardless of the fact that I had no intention of ever eating them anyway.

Living in LA has a way of making you think you're losing your mind. On a daily basis, no less. And then it always takes a good slap in the face (from yourself) to realize that everyone else is insane, not you. Those crazy "pedestrian cross walk buttons" that cause lights in the road to suddenly flash and supposedly make it safe for people to cross when there's no traffic light? Crazy. Even more crazy are the people who go running up to push the button and then leap into the street to cross it. Because, you know, there's only half a dozen cars traveling 35-60 miles per hour on this street, all of which can stop on a dime (I originally had typed dame by mistake; let's hope none of us stop on any dames). Unless, like me this evening, they happen to be halfway through the little crosswalk thing when you decide to Peter Pan it. I realize I'm attractive and all, but at least wait until my car comes to a complete stop before flinging yourself upon it.

Those crosswalks that allow pedestrians to walk diagonally across an intersection? Crazy. Especially because the first time I saw one of those things, I happened to actually BE a pedestrian, and thought people were putting themselves in mortal danger. Holy shit.

Those two guys who chased me in the grocery parking lot the other day? Fucking crazy. At least on that occasion, I knew I wasn't the one who was insane. All I wanted was my Quizno's sub sandwich, and you crazies decided to chase me into the store asking if I would buy you a sandwich or spare a dollar. Um, when you put it that way, SHIT NO. And for future reference, (in case one or both of the chasers happens to be reading this), running after a complete stranger in a parking lot is not the best of options when you're seeking some form of charity. Just a thought.

In case you ever wondered what would happen if you microwaved a frozen pizza that was actually meant to be oven-baked, allow me to put all such questioning thoughts to rest. But first, a few rules to avoid the fate that befell me this otherwise fine evening.

1. Pay attention to the box of pizza you place in the shopping cart. Even if you're rushing through Target trying to grab everything you need as fast as you can because you showed up there ten minutes before they closed.

Should this first step fail you, for any reason, the following step should act as a second safeguard:

2. Pay attention to the instructions on the box before popping the pizza into the microwave for the standard 6 minutes you've become so used to for the purpose of zapping frozen pizzas.

Those are really the only two important things to remember. Should you fail to follow both of them, as I did, you're in for a real treat: boiled cheese atop a delicious-looking-but-totally-nasty-and-uncooked crust. The microwave does a fantastic job of heating things up. That amazing-looking frozen crust retains its appetizingly white color, and it's definitely hot to the touch. The cheese, in its melting and boiled glory, is just fine. Once I realized how badly I'd butchered the preparation of my savory frozen meal, I was mildly surprised that the explosion wasn't louder; or present, for that matter.

Sadly, I was forced to dispose of the pizza carcass, because there was no way I was going to eat it, and seek out other sustenance. Of course, I still have one more such pizza in the freezer, because I thought I would be clever and buy enough pizza for me to have TWO meals instead of just one. (I'm not sure if the oven actually works, or if my roommate might suddenly try to evict me for rooting through the cupboards for a pan to use, and then she may press charges against me for actually trying to use her oven, which was, until I blundered in, mint condition.) So the fate of the second oven-baked pizza is hanging in the balance. Where, at least for the moment, it shall remain.

I don't think I'll ever understand some of the culture of this place. Or maybe it's just that I live with someone who's extraordinarily anal retentive and obsessive compulsive. Both? At this point, I have no way of knowing. Part one: As I've started to settle in here, I've been working really hard to get all my things in order. I've also been trying to get used to living in a new place. Yesterday, my roommate approached me.

Roommate: So, uh, what kind of schedule do you want to have to clean the bathroom? Phil: Oh, I'll probably clean it once a week. On Saturday or Sunday. Roommate: Um, actually, I'd prefer it if you cleaned it on Friday or Saturday, because I usually have company come on Sunday.

Never mind that in the month or so I've been here, I've not seen ANY company here on Sundays. And really, if she was going to tell me what days she'd prefer I clean, I'm left wondering why she bothered asking what days I wanted to do so.

Part two: I cleaned the bathroom last night. You know, to make good on the whole "schedule" thing. She has this trash can in there that has totally been grossing me out because she NEVER uses a bag for it. So I'd taken to putting plastic Target bags in there, in an effort to be a tad more sanitary. Unfortunately, she noticed it this morning. Worse, she knocked on my door and then proceeded to raise her voice at me:

Roommate: Um, Phil? Phil: Yeah? Roommate: Um, I just wanted to let you know that we don't put trash bags in this trash can. It looks tacky when company comes over. Phil: I was going for cleanliness. Roommate: I know, but it doesn't look nice when you have a bag with little red Target symbols in it.

Where I come from, people who visit your home don't judge you based on what sort of trash bags you use, least of all in your bathroom. Actually, they'd probably be more likely to frown upon the LACK of trash bag. But I think the bigger question here is: who the fuck looks at the bags in someone's bathroom? I'd be inclined to suggest they seek help if they're in such a habit.

Meanwhile, I have to figure out some way to sneakily use trash bags. If it was up to my roommate, no doubt she'd say I would need to find chrome-colored bags if I wanted the privilege of not suddenly catching some rare non-lined-trash-can-borne illness. I might be inclined to be less afraid of the no-bag thing if it was wood or plastic. But the fact that the shiny metal shows every scratch and smudge just does me in.

Note to self: for future reference, never again go to the nearby mall on a Friday night, especially if it's not yet 8 o'clock. No matter how much you're craving Cold Stone, either exercise some self-control or find another slightly less convenient location. Or even restrict your cravings for ice cream to any day of the week other than Friday. I'm generally big on exploring. It's pretty much all I've been doing in my spare time: jumping in the car and driving to wherever the road takes me. This I've been exploring the area where I'm living as well as its nearby neighbors. I took a slightly less than Magellan approach to things tonight, and wound up hitting the biggest high school hangout in the area. All Christopher Columbus style, no less, ignoring the surrounding signs and just jumping into a place that turned out to be totally what I didn't expect it or want it to be. It was like Back to the Future part one, only Chuck Berry was conspicuously absent on the radio.

I devoured my ice cream and then moved on to my real destination for the evening (Cold Stone was, too, but I don't think I've ever wanted to scarf that stuff as fast as I wanted to tonight): a soulless and evil giant corporate bookstore that I happen to enjoy, known as Borders Books. I've found all sorts of useless stores in my area, such as a sewing shop, a whole bunch of real estate offices, and some makeup stores, but I've yet to find a good used bookstore convenient to me.

I entered Borders in the hopes of finding a book and/or book with a kit for Calligraphy. I found both, and ended up buying the latter of the two. The catalyst for the purchase itself is interesting. Given my love for the written word, I've lately been fascinated by more stylistic representations of writing, and have been itching to give it a try.

I wandered the store, browsing the shelves and eventually coming to the 'art' section. Before settling in that area to skim the titles and some of the books, I didn't notice anything unusual. People milling about and reading books, or groups of people wandering and chatting about books or boyfriends or living in the ghetto (I actually heard a snippet of a conversation regarding that last one). Once I found the book/kit, I plopped myself down on a small wooden stool to leaf through it.

Whilst leafing, I noticed, using my superior peripheral vision, a guy walk up and stare around the area before grabbing a random book from a shelf in front of me. Without bothering to actually look at the title. I continued reading, and looked up suddenly when someone walked in front of me. And there's this random guy, probably in his early 20's, leaning on a center display of books and holding a big book displaying pieces of art, and staring right at me. And then offering me what I guess was supposed to be his most winning smile and a toss of his head so that his shoulder-length thick, shaggy and in all likelihood lice-ridden dark hair flopped backward.

Fortunately, my reflexes are state of the art, and I instantly focused on my book once again. Not one to give up, though, he remained. Which made it very difficult to focus on my book because, frankly, I was found the whole situation creepy. I've been to gay bars here. I've been to the gay district in West Hollywood. I've shopped in a mall that may as well get it over with and change its name to GAY WORLD. And, out of all these places, I'm getting cruised at fucking Borders? Holy shit.

When I moved, he moved. Where I went, he followed and tried to stay back a few shelves for the sake of remaining conspicuous. And he kept trying to catch my eye. I got my break when I rounded a corner and he didn't notice. And then I ran for it, Calligraphy book/kit clutched to my chest for dear life. I flew down the stairs to the first level, looking back only to check that I wasn't being followed.

I made my purchase (I'm super excited about it, by the way), and then made my escape. Obviously, I weaved my way through cars to make my path extra difficult to follow. And when I got to my car, I jumped in, locked the doors, scrunched down really low in my seat and turned up my rap music so I would just be another one of the cool high schoolers hanging out. Oh, and I also wore my baseball cap sideways and at a slight tilt. In other words, it was the best getaway ever.

Now the only thing I'm left fearing is that I'll wind up the subject of some advertisement in a local alternative newspaper. He'll have mistaken my look of horror and revulsion for something resembling interest, and will run an ad in the "I Saw You" section that reads:

Me: Dark and handsome, reading a book on Baroque art at Borders. You: Smiled at me over your Calligraphy book and then kept looking at me as I was eyeing you. I want your body.

Um, yeah. Terrifying.

It's the little things I miss the most. The smiles. The laughter. For no other reason than it feels so good. Sitting in silence because nothing needs to be said. Doing things without planning or without cause, just to be present in the moment. To have nothing else matter except that sense of complete calm and happiness. The moments when my heart beats the slowest are among the most exhilarating I've ever experienced. Feeling instead of thinking. Overwhelming me with wonder.

As if being the only member of the male population in three out of my four classes wasn't enough of a burden, tonight I was graced with the joy of being the only man present while a group of about thirty women decided to see who could do the best man-bashing. And not in the traditional girl-talk way. (If it was, I totally would have been able to gay-talk my way through it. This, dear reader, was new and dangerous territory.) It all started because we're studying human development, and specifically the development of the brain and cognition as it relates to language. And then we started talking about the sex of the baby. And then they* started talking about sex. And then they started talking about how sperm compete to see who's the best and who can reach the egg the fastest, in a "truly male fashion," to use my teacher's terms.

All this talk of straight sex was more than I could handle. And given that I'm brand new in this place, even though I'm openly gay, I'm not exactly in the habit of announcing that fact to a roomful of people I've only seen like five times in my life so far, most of whom I've yet to even talk to. So, feeling somewhat defenseless, and aware of all the eyes that were trained on me throughout the room, I said the only possible thing I could in the situation:

"AWKWARD!"

Which, while it didn't really help, necessarily, to put an end to the conversation, it did distract a number of people and suddenly cause a few of said distracted ones to say "Awww, poor thing." I wonder how many of them suddenly felt bad because they thought I was straight, rather than just basing it on the gender factor (and maybe because I had at least, like, 40 eyes trained on ME when I wasn't the one who asked for the attention). Those who I've talked to on more than one occasion probably weren't as worried, and I'm pretty sure that the girl who was wearing those fabulous red shoes last week was thinking to herself, "Yeah, he's probably totally agreeing with them, but just can't come out and say it right now," and then shaking her head and laughing under her breath. Bitch.

And by the way, the video that we had to watch that even showed the baby being born and then breast-feeding like it was going out of style, was it really necessary to show all that TNA? I get that you were monitoring the brain as the baby was born, but seriously, I don't think waiting until a few minutes after the fact would have made any difference in the data you acquired. I saw way more than I ever wanted to see, blown up on a giant 6'x6' screen, such that that close-up you used for "effect" and "detail" was like 25 times larger than real life. If the end goal of that was to make me even more uncomfortable than I already was, then the goal was aimed way below the mark. It was all I could do to not run screaming from the room.

*You'll notice the pronoun shift to they, which implies that yours truly was not an active part of that particular aspect of class discussion.

Tonight I feel like coming up with a list. Not just any list, either. A list of fucked up things, in varying degrees, presented in order of least to must fucked up, because it’s more fun that way. Plus, it seemed an opportune time to use obscenely vulgar language for no reason in particular.

• Since I’ve been in LA, I have noted its brilliantly awful reputation for driving. I’ve also documented how shitty the parking around here can be. Speaking of parking, let’s tally how many SUVs are driven around here. TOO FUCKING MANY, that’s how many. No doubt they’re all bought for the super inclement weather for which SoCal is famous. But that’s not even the fucked up part. The fucked up part is that people park fucking H2 Hummers in parking spaces marked COMPACT.

• The nearest post office to where I’m living ranks among the top five grossest places in which I’ve ever set foot. It’s in a building that should have been condemned twenty years ago, and it smells like a barber shop that hasn’t been cleaned in at least a month. Every time I walk into the place, my eyes instantly look down, expecting to find tufts of hair everywhere. Today, I nearly offered to grab one of the special hair brooms and sweep the place up a little bit before I remembered that I was supposed to be in line to mail something. So if some of those postal workers there wind up with some never-before-seen illness, I won’t be surprised. They’re all pretty far gone as it is, what with their crazily toothy smiles and totally strange senses of humor. I swear one of the guys today cracked up just by putting a dated stamp on a package. Shit.

And most fucked up of all…

• Plants out here are blooming already. But that’s not what I’m getting at. I have some pretty intense pollen allergies, and tonight they suddenly kicked in. So I’ve been sneezing quite a bit. Just when I thought I’d gotten over most of my sneezes for the evening (an irrational thought, but whatever), a sneeze decided to come up on me whilst I was brushing my teeth. I held it off as long as I could, but my efforts to stave it off only made me breathe more, and thus react to whatever pollen shit is in the air… and causing me to sneeze. Thankfully I was right at the sink, which totally saved me from potentially having to explain to my roommate exactly how I got TOOTHPASTE all over her immaculately painted walls or in her white quasi-shag carpet. But seriously. A sneeze while brushing your teeth? That’s about as fucked up as anything can get.

So far, I've been living in LA for now a little over three weeks. While I'm gradually starting to meet people, I've not not really made any friends that I can comfortably "hang out" with. I'm sure that will come with time, so I'm being patient. Though as a generally social creature, that's not always easy for me. Since I arrived here, I happened to meet some people who get together every Monday night for "Margarita Monday." I've been going every week, and for the most part have enjoyed it. I've noticed a developing problem, however: the number of people I've actually come to like is far smaller than the number of those I've grown to more or less detest. Maybe 'detest' is too strong a word. Let me rephrase that statement to read: "the number of people I've actually come to like is far smaller than the number of people who require a relatively large quantity of alcohol to be consumed in order to actually enjoy their company."

At some point tonight, I stopped my feeble and useless (redundancy intended) attempts to actually engage others in conversation, and focused on finding an opportune time to get the hell out of there. While attempting to do so, I wound up meeting someone new who turned out to be quite fun to chat with, and as she said she'll probably be back next week, I may head back once again.

Of course, there could be a problem. If she, or anyone else whose company I'm actually able to stand (i.e. those who don't constantly talk about life in the fraternity and sorority--not that I'm against such talk, per se, but when it's the ONLY topic of conversation EVERY SINGLE WEEK, it gets kinda old), doesn't actually show up, how do I go about leaving pretty shortly after arriving? It seems awkward: "Oh, haha! Silly me, I just realized that I can't actually hang out for a few hours like I just said I could. Um, I'm supposed to do homework? You know, like I just swore I wouldn't do until the night before it's due? Yeah, I was 'just kidding!' Tee hee."

I'm not sure what to make of the situation. For the moment, I may keep on keeping on, at least until something better comes along. I'm not kidding myself, though; it's not about the need for company. It's all about the margaritas. Those things are fabulous.

Apparently, the Grammy Awards are happening tonight. I didn't realize this until well after they started. While producers of the show were no doubt hoping to gain one more viewer to up their ratings, I totally disappointed them by NOT CARING. The new popular music scene is riveting, no doubt, but more for its flash in the pan (did I really just use that phrase) drama than anything else. Basically, I said "Screw the Grammys, I'm going to dinner." And promptly left for the busiest Chili's restaurant in the universe. I had to wait for a seat at 8:30 for a party of one. On a Sunday, no less. It proved, on the whole, to be a mediocre experience. Having spent pretty much my entire day working on a stupid project for my stupid online class, I was feeling pretty drained. Hence, escape to the restaurant. Where I sat alone and people watched. Which is only so exciting when everyone is just sitting around talking.

My server probably thought I was a total pig. Or else she just had a sick sense of humor. She'd come wandering by to dote on me, but every time she did so, I had only moments before taken a giant bite of my delicious black bean burger. My replies always consisted of me saying "I'm doing great!" through a mouthful of partially chewed food, making it sound more like "Ib dnngg grrrr." Very attractive and cosmopolitan, I know. That's what I'm all about.

Whilst bustling about my still-in-the-fixing-up-stage room tonight, it got really stuffy and hot. That lead me to open the two windows to let some fresh air in. It really served to cool the room down nicely. As an added bonus, it brought in all sorts of ambient sounds from outside. Cars passing by. Occasional horns blaring in the distance. (Not the sound of sirens wailing, however; tonight was clearly pretty chill around here.) The conversation taking place across the street between two disputing daters. Two nights before I made the big move out to California, I was up late cleaning vigorously. The act of cleaning produced quite a bit of trash, which around midnight, I decided to run out to the dumpster. Being outside anytime past 11:30 at my old apart complex always made for an interesting experience. Tailgate parties were pretty common, for instance.

This night was no exception. I was treated to a raging dispute between two clearly fucked up lovers: one an eccentric woman with a buzz cut, the other her drunk boyfriend/husband guy. Who happened to be in the car, preparing to drive away while she screamed obscenities into his ear from outside the driver's side window (which was rolled down). Had I bothered to count, I may have found that she used an average of five swear words for each sentence, each sentence averaging 7-10 words. I didn't count, however, because I happened to be sane enough to know that I shouldn't probably stick around. Maybe I was clued into the fact that the guy kept inching backwards (by about a dozen inches at a time) while the nearly bald girl screamed and then profusely apologized and held onto the car and was being dragged across the pavement (sort of) as she begged him to come back inside even though she had just informed him of how much she "fucking hated his guts."

So tonight, when I heard the little "argument" across the street, I was profoundly disappointed that it didn't have the obvious Maury potential like the aforementioned fight. It was really more of an Oprah moment, I guess, as the girl spoke in a somewhat raised voice about having set aside time to spend with the guy, and he just didn't understand that other human beings had feelings. The whole argument was so logical and, well, rehearsed, that I couldn't bear to eavesdrop for more than a few minutes. I wonder what that says about me. Maybe it says that if your drama falls short of entertaining me with lines such as "I fucking know better than to fucking take your shit" followed by "Don't go! Don't fucking go! Arrrghhh!!!! I fucking hate you! Wait! I love you! Just come back inside, PLEASE!!", I won't bother breaking out the soda and snacks and trying to figure out the whole story there. Maybe.