The Price of Tomatoes

Last night, in that strange and vulnerable liminal space that exists between bouts of sleep, I remembered something I hadn't thought on for quite a long time. Maybe I called it back to me in a dream.

When I was about seven, I was in the grocery store with my mother. Up front was some great commotion, just beyond the great plate-glass windows. As I approached the sliding glass doors, I saw an arc of police officers cupped about the feet of an aged and indigent man. He lay there, supine and sprawling across the thin padding of the automatic door landing. He wore various earthen shades, and many layers of it, topped by a long overcoat, splayed open across the ground. Barely conscious as he was, everything about him was the dun of a snowless winter.

Except for the cadmium violence of the tomato clutched by his left hand - it was a tomato he had stolen. Having fled only as far as just past the exit, his fugitive arm stretched up over his head in the same place it must have landed when he fell. Had he been standing, it would have seemed to bear a torch. As it was, the fruit was bitten and spilling its guts.

What a scene under the great red letters of the "Safeway" sign. The irony of it didn't strike me until now, but then, I didn't look for the odd coincidences in names when I was a child.

What held most tightly in my memory was a grave image, and the colors, saturated by the enchanted light of dusk approaching. What I felt was the aching dread of helplessness, and a desperate fear for the old man and the fate of my own perpetually drunken father.

Sex and the Snitty

(gasp)
I have just read off another blog that the authoress would like to profess that all women are represented by the four on that now defunct absurdist HBO hourly which had y'all throwing back Cosmopolitans and wishing to cram your painted toes into a pair Jimmy Choos.

I need air.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Alternatively, one ought to entitle this post, "Keeping up with the Joneses."

If you think there is nothing wrong with our commercial culture... If you think our sense of entitlement is not out of measure... If you think we are righteous... If you think we even have the slightest inkling of our place in history, or even a rational relationship to our origins as Americans...

Look a little deeper.

The thing is, common people are basically decent. I really believe this. Look at the woman in the top photo lending a hand to the old lady. But we all have to throw off this yoke of materialism. Giving shouldn't be stressful, aggressive, competitive, ANGRY. Giving is about seeing into the heart of another, identifying need, and lifting that person up. Giving shouldn't cost. It should lift you up, too. So do it when you really feel it, not because you were manipulated.

And stop watching so much television.

Thanks forgiving

Today we celebrate escaping British repression -
the pilgrims got their religious freedom,
and I'm out from under Henry's thumb.

Sometimes not getting what you want is exactly why you should be grateful.

God bless him.

Rogue Switch

Some folks call it a "Rogue Switch," when a blog pops out of a parallel universe and seems so much like another. A blogging doppelganger. A posting katzenjammer. A jamming katzendoppel. Some folks call it a "Rogue Stitch," though they won't tell what that means, even though they've been asked to define it. Some folks call it being left in the dark. Sigh. Some folks need to get a life, or just a more challenging job. Double sigh.

It don't matter. What matters is that this blog: hotdigger.blogspot.com
is a cranky, geriatric, nasty-ass, persnickety, (pseudo?)radical right-wing version of this blog: roguestitch.blogspot.com.

What they have in common is the same format and hilarity.

Levi's Growth

My roommate's dog has a nubbin at the back of his cranium. It's about the size and consistency of the pink pearl eraser you chew at the top of your Ticonderoga #2 pencil. Recently it has developed capillaries, and we are pretty sure they are feeding rapidly developing cerebral tissue. Soon the thing will be barking as much as Levi does.



Any attempts to remove the growth will undoubtedly be met with swift Draconian

justice from the Religious Right.

This just in: my roommate has just announced that she prefers not to do her school work, or yoga, or anything. Rather, she "just wants to eat, sleep & fuck."



Suddenly it is clear why little Levi has decided to grow a second head.

Happy Hookers for Jesus

T-shirts I'd like to make:

Happy Hookers for Jesus

Yoga, the silent killer.

(This one got me in trouble with an old roommate, a bourgeois white-male Buddhist. Generally speaking, that category of man, when not being passive-aggresive, is just plain aggressive.)

Supermodels are People, TOO.

HPV! 'Cause Everybody's Got It!

and this one, from Rima:

It's not me, it's you.

Cockblockers

Things you learn when hosting a blow-out:

1) Your front yard, porch and drive are now officially a zone known as the ashtray. why you smokers don't recognize your butts as garbage is beyond me. Provisions were made, people.

2) When playing Yenta, once the two people actually are introduced, best not to stagger up to them and slur, "aww, you MET!" This is how natural situations instantly become awkward and even alienating.

3) Beer DOES facillitate the tanning process. We proved this in college.

4) Singing Carpenters' hits at 4 am to try and encourage a mass Exodus does NOT, in fact, work. Actually, the guests become rather excited, not so much as when Snoop Dog howled, but still. Mariah Carey doesn't clear the place out, either. We were at a loss what to try next. John Mayer?

5) Red wine can defy laws of physics when spilled, and actually travels AROUND corners to stain walls.

6) ANYTHING in your fridge is fair game to these people.

7) Your dog is amazingly well-behaved.

8) If everyone jumps up and down on the dance floor, it does start to feel like a severely restricted trampoline. Visions of fallen fraternity balconies, and even a tragic 80s Who concert will suddenly erupt from your limbic system. More frightening is the thought of explaining the broken joists to your landlord.

9) Getting cockblocked by your neighbor friend is a reality you have to accept as constant. Just because he was on a hit tv show for a decade does not mean he is capable of getting laid on his own. Or will give up on YOU. At least he's consistent. Let's recap our favorite examples:
- a year and a half ago at a favorite neighborhood restaurant/bar, sunny afternoon, all was quite good... You make some reference to The Myth of Romantic French Men, who are really too critical to be romatic at all (an opinion that will change, in time). Anyway, the table of cute guys overhear, and the hot Greek-American actor summons you over. Conversation is funny, lighthearted and flirtatious. A week later you make the mistake of asking your friend if he has seen that guy around the block. HE says, "No, but you know, I meant to tell you - after you left I was kind of talking to that guy, and he was calling his dealer to line up some coke for the evening. And I had said something about you and he said, "Yeah I've got ten more just like her around." So that hurt my ego for a couple of days, though the more significant damage was done to my confidence in my instincts, which is a fragile area to begin with. The guy seemed really nice. Then it dawns on me: it was all a ruse.

- Same area. Some handsome sweet-faced guy, who is always with his dog, keeps checking me out. This goes on nearly a year. Never approaches. Finally we are introduced by a mutual acquaintance. I say something about him in my friend's presence, who then too rapidly informs me that the guy is a Scientologist. Wholly untrue, as it turns out. What is true is that the guy has a voice like a Muppet.

- I won't bother you with the banal Machiavellian tactic he used Saturday night, but I will tell you that I smelled him coming like the first crack of the expired milk carton. Something was rotten in Denmark.

The saddest part of this is that the first examples inspired me to start writing a Will Ferrell/Owen Wilson vehicle entitled, "Cockblockers." But then this happened:

"Par blocks all bidders: Studio snags comedy starring Scott, Grace

By CHRIS GARDNER

Paramount Pictures has snapped up "Cockblockers," plunking down $1.2 million against $1.8 million amid competition for the comedy pitch.

Seann William Scott and Topher Grace will star in the project, which drew strong interest from Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema and Sony."

And I was worried they wouldn't accept the title for a mainstream movie. The decline of Western Civiliztion is upon us. Gotta love it.

I'll Fly Away

The attraction or even the love you feel for your lover, sometimes it just evaporates. It's not a usual course for me. Pretty sure I've been dumped more than the reverse, so losing "the feeling" is particularly disorienting and strange.

The question is this: Where does that feeling go, when it goes?

All that Glitters is not Gold

Sixty-one and livin' in sin with a 15 year old girl in Vung Tau, Vietnam. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Just admit you're Gay!

Do you see the sweet somewhat sad face on the fellow in the picture below? I'll grant you this - he is tall, dark AND handsome. He's a whopping 100 lbs of muscle, his balls ( I left them intact; no one can call me a castrating...) are bigger than yours, and he might even be a little smarter than some of you. But all things considered, why are you worried about his presence in my life, fella? My feelings for the dog are strictly maternal - in truth, good news for you, because for the most part he keeps my biological clock on "snooze."

Why the panic when he quietly pads into the bedroom? I promise he could care less what we're up to. He's not watching; he's asleep.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this one, people. Most guys are not bothered at all by the dog, while some become utterly rigid and even a little hysterical (why anyone tries to pretend this neurosis is the sole province of women is beyond me, but that's another posting). My observation is that the perturbed are not confident about themselves or their sexuality.

Of course, I'm just kidding about the gay part.

Get off my Burrito!

this is what I had to yell at my dog today.

the last time i gave him a half, he picked it up by the seat of its tortilla and shook it as hard as he could. the contents flew all over the kitchen floor. he was then able to pick out what he wanted, which was everything except the lettuce.

Both Sides Now - Veteran's Day

Thank you to all people who do what they believe in, no matter what differences I may have with your views. I am grateful for many things about this country and the people in it. But, are we supposed to say "Happy" day? By the way, Google did no masthead graphics today, whatever that means.

Unequivocally, I am opposed to this war. We are long past due for a new paradigm. To all you Christians in the house, I honor your basic principles. I strive to live by them, pagan-hearted though I am. A lot of your bylaws suck, and directly contradict your dogma. Nonetheless, I find I consistently defend you to people who call religion "a crutch," "for simple-minded people," "a force for evil and greed," etc. Most all of us are really after the same good things, whatever our practices. Religion isn't bad; bad behavior is bad.

God is mightily disappointed just about now, and before the grace of a second coming, we need a 2nd Moses first. Since the rules have been too complicated to follow thus far, the New and Improved Ten Commandments will be simplified to this -

repeat ten times:

Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not kill...

If you can brave this (not too graphic, just too sad), please watch the video so you can sign the petition at the end. I think it's a Mitzvah for Veteran's Day. Take a moment of silence.

http://www.afsc.org/iraq/movie.htm

(i apologize for my lack of web mastery. someday i will learn the tricks of the trade and get all my references high-lit, linked, and baubly. you can click on the post title to get the flick.)

Pennywise

Read yesterday on another blog about survivors of the Great Depression being unable to give up their stinginess, having known true want. Has anyone written the Economics of Scarcity? Or at least a psych tome re: Fear of Lack? Poverty Consciousness?

I know a lot of my old relatives were obsessive-excessive hoarders. Rooms packed with nothingness, just in case it was needed. When I was fifteen, we cleaned out six large Hefty bags and about twelve grocery sacks full of junk from my Grandmother's kitchen alone. I found old leaden wine foils - you know, that cover the cork, I don't know the name... Anyway, these were saved for the war effort. I mean, as in number II. There were powdered cocktail mixes, whose graphics and obsolescent names (think Mai-Tai and Singapore Sling), seemed likely to be of the Eisenhower era.

At Christmas and birthdays Grandma Virginia gave very generously, but often it was mostly junk she had gleaned from garage sales. When I was twelve I got a box of as many 70s leather and pleather patchwork purses. They were hideous then, but I probably could make a killing selling to Japan off eBay today. We threw them away, but Mom looked in the pocket of one and found a hundred dollar check before they hit the ashcan. Lucky for me. I'm sure there's a lesson in that.

The inability to throw anything away seems to have skipped a generation in that part of our family. My mother goes through cycles of Stalinist Purges. That's another childhood trauma I won't trouble you about, but I will say I tend to clutch things too tightly. I'm working on it.

Beer and Loafing in Los Angeles

Like a poor man's Paris Hilton and Tara Reid, we slagged about on Halloween. Falling out of limos, falling onto dance floors, falling out of favor, and into the arms of the hollow men. Damn, that paparazzi won't leave you alone! That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight, losing my...

Wasn't drunk, though. Just play one on tv.

Or maybe this is just satire.

Down in the Holler

On Monday my friend, Michael, and I left our cozy Glen to wander up the Canyon to some crazy old lady's house. There the civic duty was performed; I voted. Take THAT Arnold! Thanks for wasting our tax dollars and personal time on your absurd measures.

On the other hand, had I not wended my way to Grandma's house, I never would have seen The Klumps sitting on their steatopygic asses, marking off the citizenry as we queued through Granny's living room. Really, I admire people who give their time to important things. And, I don't want you to think that I am so spiritually recidivist as to scorn obese people. Honestly, I'm not that ugly. I'm the girl who fell for that wheelchair-bound bastard, Henry (I guess I've never actually mentioned his condition in my various whinings, but he is disabled).

Yet, have you ever been stunned by the surreal appearance of another human being? It can be a person of any shape or size, but sometimes you really feel that you are peering into a comic strip, or at a wax effigy. Maybe it was the wig, maybe it was the splay of pendulous breasts, or simply that mother AND son had hiked their waistbands high enough to gird their ribcages. Perhaps it was simply the uniform and strict adherence to earthen tones in their garments.

I really don't know, but when Michael and I walked out, he surely did see the stunned look on my face. It's possible I dissociated and flashed back to childhood, when I was chained to my step-father's various political campaigns. Eight-year-olds should NOT be stuffing envelopes until 11 pm, Sir. Nor should they be in the society of overly ardent time-donatin' 'cause we got no life liberal volunteers; they are just plain weird. Or maybe it was the disbelief of watching those fatuous neophytes getting sucked in by you, would-be prophet that you were. Plus, when I think of the second-hand smoke... I've been leery of politics ever since.

Anyway, back to my confusion. On a rare occaision, I see a person whose physical appearance seems to so thickly mask who or what they are inside, that it creates a cognitive dissonance. That's the experience I am feebly trying to express. Other times people can appear to be so truly what they are on the inside that the effect is equally startling. Of course all this is just my projection.

A few months ago, I listened to some generally inscrutable new-agey tapes a friend lent me. The best thing I got out of it (and this really was good), was an idea that the physical appearance of a person, the skin they live in, is like a set of garments they have chosen to wear throughout this lifetime. Any defects or so-called flaws in the person are like holes in the clothing that allow the soul to shine through. The tears allow the true person to be revealed. This means that people who incarnate in "ugly" clothes are the ones who are most honestly showing you their soul.

Conversely, someone who chooses gorgeous, seamless, untorn garments is hiding behind them. Pretty people are not showing their true face. Think of the most famous examples of neurotic self-concealment or obfuscation: Michael Jackson, Joycelyn Wildenstein, Tammy Faye Baker (though I really kind of like her), and pretty much anyone who tries to deny the aging process, which means most of us.

I'm not saying I think attractive people are inherently bad, dishonest, maladjusted, spiritually bankrupt, etc. But it is really an interesting way to look at it, especially to overthrow the bogus notion that beautiful people are somehow more virtuous, heroic, or desirable.

On the other hand, my friend who is studying accupuncture says that in Chinese medicine, beauty is an expression of health and good spirit.

Whatever the case, "variety's the very spice of life." - William Cowper, some centuries old Brit.
& "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in its proportion." Sir Francis Bacon

The Last Seduction

What has become of the erotic art of undressing a lover? This is a part of foreplay that seems tragically overlooked in modern sex. Maybe I've slept with the wrong men. I am willing to admit that in this I have been heavily influenced by cinema. I won't apologize; sometimes it really is better in the movies.

Put it this way, when you have a new lover, there is a process of unveiling that occurs psychologically, spiritually, and physically. Peeling back the layers of an onion (oh, unfortunate metaphor!). This is the process of knowing the other. It's at the heart of mating rituals; we court each other, whether it's for a night, a month, or a lifetime.

For me, the act of undressing for the first time is far too potent to be reduced to some manic upheaval of garments. Nor should it occur fully supine, with each struggling awkwardly to get the damned jeans over knotted-up socks and uncooperative joints. Jeans are SO resistant to nudity, but they do look good on.

Anyway, here's how I envision it: undressing is like a dance. One partner, regardless of sex, may take the lead. Standing or at least seated is preferable. While you are unbuttoning my blouse, I want you standing in front of or behind me, as you wish, kissing my neck, grazing your hands across whatever part of my body you like, just so long as there is intermittent contact. Let the anticipation build. This is not a race. Are you so bored with sex that you just HAVE to get it over with? Are you scared I might leave the room if you don't seize the day? I will fuck you, I promise. Stick around, and so will I.

Do not try to pull clothing up over my head or off my wrists, legs, or hips without properly loosening all fasteners. You can put my fingers in your mouth while you unbutton my cuffs. You can lick my stomach when you untie the sash at my hips. Promise me you will never, NEVER pull my shirt up over my head again at the same time you remove my bra. In fact, don't even THINK of unfastening that bra before you get the shirt off (at least get it completely unbuttoned).

Don't you want to see the bra? It's black, it's lacy, and I paid 80 Euros for it in a swanky little shop in the Marais in Paris. I'm not even a girl who is particularly into lingerie, but I tried to branch out, for you. So behold the fucking bra, alright? Cup my breasts from behind, right after you turn to face me toward the bedroom mirror. Make me look at us for a moment, then take my chin and bring me back around to your mouth, or keep me facing the silvery Narcissist's window so I have to watch you get into my panties. You might even like it enough you'll want to do this again sometime.


Linger awhile, be creative, try not to behave like you are participating in a Wild West Land Grab. You can do that later, when I will, upon occaision, be fired up and trusting you enough to let you ravage me. And I will like it. Just not tonight, on our first night together.

(Here's a somewhat odd semiotic article on just this topic. I didn't read it in its entirety, but it popped up when I Googled tonight's subject):

http://www.arthist.lu.se/kultsem/sonesson/BodilySem3.html

I'm Your Huckleberry*

Recently saw Val Kilmer at a breakfast place in Los Feliz (the last time was at Sundance in 2000). He was there, flanked by three cutie-pie twenty-somethings. His face was about as bloated as that cyst on his left elbow (http://66.102.7.104/searchq=cache:KepVc9dixeQJ:itsb.ucsf.edu/~vcr/FiveAct.html+val+kilmer%27s+elbow&hl=e), but he was still hot. Why exactly does he keep that growth there? Maybe it's a sensory device, like the forehead of a Beluga Whale. Side note: Sorry for this, but Marcia Cross looks like one of these oceanic mammals. At least they are cute.

Anyway, coming through the doorway I nearly fell over the single tiny step down into that part of the restaurant, next to which the actor himself was seated. I certainly landed on my left foot far too hard. I'm actually kind of sorry I didn't positively splay on the floor, prostrate before him. It would have been SO much more memorable than the near miss, and really, that which excoriates our egos, only makes us stronger.

Leaving the bathroom, and passing by his table on my return, I heard one of the young ladies exclaim to Val, "But, you know, the French call it 'Choc-lat.'" He mumbled in reply, "Oh?"

Bored much, Val? Enjoying the company of didactic numbskulls? It's my personal predjudice that when teaching people you: 1)choose an interesting seminar topic, and 2)gauge the sophistication level of your audience. I'm guessing that a 40-something Julliard graduate, who has traveled the world, and filmed The Doors in Paris, probably knows what the French call their cocoa.

On the other hand, it's so easy to feel superior when the Green-eyed Monster has ahold of your earlobe.

"Successful felons, criminals love L.A. It's so big, there's so many freeways to get on after you do your score. Because of its possibilities, L.A.'s the most sorrowful city in the world." Val Kilmer

I wonder if he's related to this fellow, a peddler of Indian Medicines:
"Dr. Kilmer's Indian Cough Cure Consumption Oil. 19th-century patent medicine card purporting Kilmer's oil to be an authentic Native American remedy. "



Don't want you to think I'm obsessed with this guy, but I would like to play "Seven Minutes in Heaven" with him. Is it so much to ask?

* (click on title for explanation of this saying)

Meat is Murder

I'm in terrible danger of becoming a vegetarian. Somebody help!

Freudian Slip

Monday night I went dressed as Edie Sedgwick (think Andy Warhol's Factory) - shiny black-leather boots, fishnets, short short black skirt and a mod-ish black top. My eyes were heavily made up - fake eyelashes and lots of smokey smeared black eyeshadow. Really makes your eyes pop blue. My hands were bandaged with gauze (she set her room on fire in the Chelsea Hotel, c. 1966), and I carried a syringe (she was a famous junkie, and an unsmoked cigarette. I had big dangling chandelier earrings on of gold and aquamarine, and my hair was pulled tight against my head in a chignon. I'm sure I didn't quite look myself, as I normally wear almost no makeup. True to my word, I went as a loose woman, but a very chic one.

So, when I walked up the stairs to Henry's party (because he really wanted me to come, lord knows why), he took one look at me and said, in his saucy British come-on voice, "Well, hell-o there." Clearly, he did NOT recognize me. I just half smiled and waited for it all to sink in. He looked back up at my face and stared a bit, then the wave of recognition came over his face, then the embarassment, then, "OH! BLOODY HELL!!" To which I replied in a sweet but teasing voice, "Well, that's NOT a very nice way to greet somebody."

Some part of me was hurt to hear this violent expression of... not disgust exactly, but of him rejecting me after he showed a longing. He was pushing it all back out as fast and as hard as he could. I was annoyed that he was hitting on "someone else," but it was so amusing and oddly reassuring to be that stranger, yet at the same time not a stranger at all. A lot of his forcefulness was a reaction to the fact that he had just been SEEN. Seen flirting with someone fresh and new, and seen being undeniably attracted to ME. And we were both there to witness it. I WON.

I know that this sounds horribly egoistic, and I am sorry for it, but you must understand I laid my heart out for this man, twice, and he said "no." It is his right, and I will not persist with him. However, it is hard to be rejected when you smell the confusion and attraction from someone you want. Having undeniable proof of their attraction isn't simply about boosting the ego (though it cushions the fall), it's about having your senses and instincts affirmed. Feeling something from someone and seeing them do the opposite is crazy making.

Anyway, I could tell he was going to behave like a rascal all night, and I didn't need to be there swallowing it, so I left for another party. Then I made out with a boy. He kisses better than you, Henry.