The Albuquerque airport has an excellent skylounge. You don't need to be part of the Admirals Club or anything like that to get in. I'm sitting on an adobe inspired chair looking at an American Airlines jet to the sounds of a little mophead carpet monster screaming about what gate they are leaving from. The kid is stoked beyond repair about getting on a plane. I share his enthusiasm but I don't have the energy to express it.

Operation puppy delivery went without so much as a bump. The fluffball did do a bit of whining during take off but it was mostly offset by screaming children. Children and airports are a combination much like baking soda and vinegar. Very cool for things like enthusiasm and science experiements and very bad for others like peace and quiet and douches. And that is the wisdom I will depart in this sweet missive. Looking forward to getting back to LA.

Testing

P1040550
Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

As you can see, the results of my testing clearly show I am highly allergic to dogs.

Cultural sounds abound. I am in the Glendale library trying to type to the mellow sounds of a whispering female Armenian accent. Sounds like a girly choo-choo train recording slowed to 13rpms. I stopped in the bathroom on the way in and a middle school age Asian girl in a navy short skirt private school uniform was practicing singing “I get weak” by SWV. That is Sisters With Voices for those of you that weren’t at the Arts, Beats, and Eats in Pontiac, 1992. And now that I have my headphones plugged in, Vivaldi’s four seasons is on the classical radio station and it’s still spring even though it’s fall.

If you can, drop your pants and go see "The Assassination of Jesse James by soandso..." It's worth full price admission to the Arclight. I like westerns that take place in the cold west, like "McCabe and Mrs. Miller." This one is more sparse. I especially enjoyed the use of white space, eye color, and diagetic sound.

I went to a birthday party last night at The Griffin or Griffith. It's new and it's in Atwater Village. I am astounded every time I go out on that side of AV, which is less than three quarters of a mile from my side on Glendale Blvd, how many rockabilly people are out and about. Where do you all live? I don't see you at Von's. The birthday party was extra special because it was a milestone birthday - the big three OH. Parting gifts were framed photos of the birthday boy in other milestone moments. The one I got was of him recycling.

I can't stop my visual media fest today long enough to write about much else. I have to catch part of the new Ken Burns deal. I am susceptible to hypnosis by slow pans of black and white photographs so it wouldn't be a wild deal if I ended up giving 14 hours this week to see the whole thing.

I'm writing this from the Ritz in Marina Del Ray. It's so nice to be on the west side watching 'Ratatoui'and drinking some Pino. The pino is in honor of the dear departed B who left LA a few weeks ago for the east side. I don't know how people can leave this place after getting a taste of paradise but she insists that not having to drive everywhere is a luxury. Sounds like just another line we say out loud to ourselves to convince ourselves of things that deep down we feel need convincing.

I think public transpo is a big robbery haven. A claustrophobic tube where you just sit waiting to get picked off by the crazed armed unlawful citizens of the world. I believe we should all be transported by hayrides. A sensible low-emissions tractor pulling a wooden trailer full of hay and people. It's out in the open, natural, and fresh. Isn't that what we really want?

White Bag After Labor Day

P1040496
Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

My mini bottle of lotion exploded on the plane. That is my punishment for not declaring it as a liquid at airport security.

I went to Wisconsin looking for love and I found all these mushrooms. They remind me of the kind of polyester stuff I used to freak to find at thrift stores. Coffee and flour canisters, macrame wall hangings, and crusty half used hippy candles.

P1040032
Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

It has been a short while since I last updated what I was hoping would be a great travel and adventure blog. Although my summer has been magnificent, my documentation has been far from great. Many things can distract a writer. Many good things as well as boring things. Forget those things. Let's concentrate on the most recent adventures.

In reverse and jumbled order, today, I spent the day in Colton for work. I am sealing deals all over the place. It is very exciting to know that you are on the precipice of being a millionaire. I also realized that I have a very serious affection for the Inland Empire. I mean when is the last time you have seen Riverside? Adventure number two in reverse order: stayed in Riverside at the Mission Inn. The place looks like someone transported a block of Italy and slapped it in the middle of the desert. The lobby has a presidential lounge that has quite literally large paintings of our beloved presidents on the walls. The spookiest thing is that George Bush looks exactly like George W Bush. Teddy R and Ronald Regan look the best in paintings.

But really, the Inland Empire. The desert. Something about residential communities in the dusty desert. It isn't of these times. And the giant palm trees, the kind out near the salton sea that look like the dog from sesame street was impaled on them. These are the kinds of things that just flip mid-westerners out. And as I am approaching my three-year LA-Anniversary I can testify that none of the wonder or glory of SoCal has worn off. It has refocused to places like the IE, Central Coast, and interstate 395 but it is still there.

Adventure number three was smack dab in the middle of Echo Park where the great ball crew witnessed a 14 inning game against the dumb Colorado Rockies. Longest game in my personal sportsfan history.

And my last adventure to report was a jaunt back up to The Giant Forest and Kings Canyon. This area is not a place to be underestimated. GIANT Forest, KINGS Canyon. Medieval nature. Prehistoric nature. Believe that people. There are many things to write about for example, driving out to Mineral King area to camp was worth it because nobody was there. But the real highlights are when you are around other National Park People. Especially the concerned self-righteous hippies that make it their business to report human interactions with wildlife. We saw one couple dressed in baggy purple t-shirts carrying nalgene bottles, tell a ranger that a family was agitating a bear cub. Good thing they knew better. The ranger, who must hear this crap all the time said, "yeah.. I dunno... people are stupid."

Ah. I love those NP Rangers.

I woke up thinking that there was an intruder in my room. That someone was hanging from my shitty old ceiling fan waiting for me to almost fall asleep and then at the right time he jumped down knocking off all the books on my nightstand and rolled around on my bed. I thought he came from the ceiling fan because it was moving around like a dead animal was offbalancing the motor. Awful noise I tell you.

But there was no one there. I grabbed my baseball bat and waited for the poltergeist to reappear. I came to my senses knowing that one doesn't wake up completely insane, that it is a slower process involving no-pants in public and shit-smearing on walls, I realized that shimmy-shake was an earthquake. I called K to confirm and she said she had already got several messages from her concerned friends (I am sure mine didn't come through because of the fault quake-ridden network) and that it was indeed an earthquake.

Not a good time for a quake. I need to get beauty rest for a special visitor coming in tomorrow. I started to watch the first part of "Field of Dreams" before bed and knowing that I could possibly fall into a crack in the earth at anytime makes me want to stay up and finish watching it. So I can finally understand some of the Saturday Night Live sketches of the 90s. Oh anyway, so much to do before we all fall into the big crack.

What does it mean to have a recurring dream? That your brain is out of ideas or that you have a serious neurosis?

Bergman and Antonioni died this week. Too bad, I bet Bergman would have liked to hear about my recurring dream. It's also too bad that I can't come up with anything intelligent to say about them. I loved "Blow-up" and watched it 60thousands times in undergrad and I was always creeped out and confused by "Persona" - two great works. Rent them tonight.

Anyway, we went to the Dodgers again last night and thanks to the easy-to-update jumbotron we learned that Barry Bonds went ahead and did the damn thing in San Diego. That's totally fine because we have enough excitement in Los Angeles.

I have so much stuff (photos and brochures/artifacts) to shift through from my recent travels I don't know if I can get it all done and still sleep until noon on the weekends. For example the photo above shows a small child humping some textile art in Washington DC. That's practically a 3000 word article right there. I need to stop traveling and having good times at losing Dodgers games so I can just get settled and TCB.

On Tuesday I bit my lip eating a hot dog in the all you can eat section of Dodgers Stadium. There was no reason to be eating like a middle child but there was a sense of urgency and competition, you had to be there. Maybe I was just jetlagged and my mouth was still on eastern time. All that I know for sure is that life has been really hard since then because my lip still hurts and because a lot of stressful events have conspired in the past couple days. Like for example I had to get back to work at my day job. And I had to compose a firm yet tactful letter to Delta Airlines Corporate Customer Care that dug up very painful emotions. And no one has shown up at my house to do my laundry. And my precious myspace account for the office sign project was compromised and now I can't reach the people, my fans. Even worse they may think I am giving out Macy's gift cards or promoting an Argentinian Record Label. Oh and I got another street cleaning ticket. I also happen to think I found proof that my right eyeball is falling out.

I hope that the weekend brings excitement of the happier variety.

Stuck in Baltimore for one more day. I wouldn't mind a bit if this day hadn't included getting up at 4:30am - wait- not only getting up at 4:30am but, rallying up a non-morning person friend at 4:30am as well (Thereby using a valuable favor) to take me to the airport only to find that my flight is delayed and I have to wait in line for a boarding pass because the self-check kiosk is blitzed out from storms and delays and whatevers. While waiting three hours in line I miss a flight and my other flight gets delayed to kingdom come. Meanwhile truly angry passengers that actually have someplace to go unlike the rest of us taking a vacation in the Delta Airlines Check-in line are cutting in front. And the two people at the counter couldn't give a crap. It was pandemonium. It still is. I'm nervous to go back. I have a reissued ticket for a United flight that connects in Chicago but I don't believe it.

Baltimore will be a fine place to set up my new homestead anyway.It's just that I have an awesome ticket to the Dodgers game tomorrowm

Yesterday we went to DC. It was an incredible day and a true test of travelogy toughness. We walked six thousand miles in pouring down rain dressed in plastic smithsonian ponchos and saw every war memorial known to man. We saw the Ford Theater where Lincoln was shot.It is a national historical site so there were a couple NPS rangers there. One gave a talk on stage in the theater that was so moving, so impassioned, I was brought to tears. I was also very inspired to visit the house right across the street where Lincoln died. It was a crowded exhibit and they were only letting a few people in at a time and this meat head raddad in front of us was taking forever to read this sign that said 'Lincoln Died In This Room' and he was completely ignoring his fat litterbuggin' child and it was really pissing Nat off so she eventually shoved him out the door of the very place when Lincoln took his last breath. She actually pushed a grown man and hit him with the door. She said Lincoln would not only understand but would be proud.

Maybe, maybe he would.

I'm waiting for the rest of my writing group posse to show up. Here's another lesson for you: Don't put your apples in the freezer. Not even for fifteen minutes to make them cold and crisp. They won't be crisp. They will actually get a bit shrively. Just yuck.

I kind of take back my tirade from yesterday I smoothed everything out with my most earnest girl voice on the phone today. Looks like we'll be able to get a tour and an interview after all. I don't retract my advice to never ask for permission. That's a bunch of negatives but I think it works. It's negative Wednesday, like Backwards Friday!

I'm outta here again tomorrow. I need some guest writers that live in LA to email me weather descriptions for 80 and Sunny. Let me know if you are up to the task.

B Bonds is on base. What an awful state of anticipation, he's been walked like a hundred times tonight. I am sure none of these pitchers wanna be the guy that had a perfectly fine career until Barry Bonds hit his record smashing home run off one of their pitches.

I write tonight to teach everyone a lesson I have learned time and time again but I often forget to take heed. I would put the lesson in a fable but I can't come up with two animals other than a horses ass and a donkey's ass and that's just not reader friendly.

So the lesson is - in today's suspicious times, do not try to plan ahead for any sort of radical media project. Do not try to ask ahead of time if its ok to stop by or shoot here or there or to talk to so and so or look at this or that. I got an email today canceling my interview with some of the Harper's Ferry National Park people. They said they needed more time and the director wanted to be involved with the interview and maybe some of the drafts and what are my credentials?

I sent the poor secretary/go-betweener a lengthy email that started off with my credentials as a baddass and ended up in a thinly veiled battle cry for the first amendment. I said something like if your director wants to look at a draft he can hire me otherwise, I will continue to follow the tradition of all radical media artists and writers throughout history and just write free! Create free! What a dumbass. Why did I press send? I should have spent the night going through my draft box to finally send out those tearfully composed emails to ex-boyfriends. That would have been better.

I might be on some federal list now. I hope they don't take away my national park passport book. The big thing that irks me is that I could have just walked up in the joint and casually talked to some workers. Instead I have been working with this lady on the phone for a while and now she's had enough time to freak out and hide behind some unspoken September 11th statute. All anyone has to say is, well we need more information because, you know, security issues with the government.

But seriously, we have reached an era when you can't even check out federal printing facilities just because you said you were going to write something. It's not like they are printing hundred dollar bills or shiny pennies or copies of the patriot act.

Ehnrenreich doesn't fucking tell Merry Maids shes infiltrating. She just takes a job there and scrubs some floors and makes friends with sad women and then writes the facts later.

God!! Lesson learned.

Game is over. No homers. Nothing for the grand roundtripper tonight. Seems the pen has been mightier than the bat, for once, sniff..sniff.

P1030359
Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

Lor and I went to Catalina this week. It's a 70 minute boat ride and I wanted to throw up about ten minutes in. I've never been sea sick before but I never took a go-fast boat across the Pacific so I guess there's a new experience in every day.

L is a great travel companion because she likes the same dorky business that I do. We went on a bus tour narrated by a cranky old resident. She didn't give us a lick of historical information about the island other than that the Cubs used to spring train there. Then we got on a special tourist boat that has seats set in about six feet under water with individual bench seats and windows so you can see the fish swimming by. The tour guides toss disgusting slimy suction-cupped squid limbs into the water so the fish will snack out near the windows. It's really great actually. It is like scuba diving without any effort and you don't have to touch slimy kelp. This boat made L want to throw up.

The best thing for motion sickness is Heineken beer. So we got some of that and then walked around the beach area to the place they call the "Casino" which isn't actually a gambling facility but an old fashioned name for a social gathering place. Kind of like a 'salon'. It's a gorgeous art deco building, at least that's what I gathered from the outside because it was locked up. They show movies there on the weekend evenings. They also have boat tours in the evening that take you up close with flying fish and I mean wouldn't you rather see flying fish. You can catch a movie on the mainland any time.

I tried to outsmart the seasickness for the ride back so I downed some dramamine right before I got on the boat. I made sure to tell the teen working at the soda stand near the dock that I never get seasick so this is all very new to me. I am sure that she was so totally interested. I don't know why we have these conversations with retail people. I remember working retail and so many people just dishing out TMI all over the place.

I felt sick the whole boat ride back but my pain was instantly erased when we got to San Pedro near the Vincent Thomas Bridge. I flipping love the robot machinery on those docks. I really think I should apply for a job operating a crane. I wonder if I could listen to books on tape and take pinhole camera photos.

Wayfarer

P1030282
Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

On our way to the beach in Palos Verdes Am and I discovered the Wayfarers Chapel. Well, it might have already been discovered because it had a visitors center. It is a holy place built with wood, glass, and local rocks with genuine sea animal fossils. When you are inside you feel like you are outside (except there are pews) because the walls are lined with plants and the walls and ceiling are all glass with wood frames. The building was designed by Lloyd Wright, son of you know who. It is divine.
.
We drove around for a good while because Am neglected to tell me that she didn’t actually know where a good beach was and that the last time she was in the area she was on a private beach. It seems silly but I have often been driving right next to the ol’ pond we call the Pacific and not been able to just get there. To just 'get in the water' is not as easy as it seems. Thank the gods of Wayfarer that there is federal land otherwise all the hedge fund a-holes would make the whole west coast a private beach.

The drive did give me some insight to Palos Verdes though. It seems that The Wayfarers Chapel is only one of a number of places of worship. With rocky cliffs and trees as varied as the selection at TJ Maxx, what else can you do with such a coast line but build places of worship? There were more churches than condos. I’m not even exaggerating.

Whenever I am at the beach I sit and think the exact same thing I have always thought since I was just a little gal, “I could stay here forever and I just might.” But I always leave.

Bloomin

P1030243
Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

Last night we went to the Hammer for the Zineland exhibit. We got our picture taken reading the constitution. I think it was because B’s orange fingernail polish and Am’s hat were precise visual representations of the first amendment.

Four people were on stage for the zine discussion panel. All of them were in their mid-thirties so they have been around since before the world wide web. Much of their discussion centered around the end of zines. Independent publications have been around since stone carving so it was slightly annoying to see indie rockers presenting themselves as historical determinants of alternative publications. Their experience was changing so it must be the end. I think the people sitting at the tables with their handmade booklets and poetry scrolls would disagree that the end of zines is upon us. I saw a ton of good stuff, most of which was Xeroxed on newsprint, and I felt some pressure to buy – that’s what happens when the author is watching you look over their stuff. Good sales technique.

We had a deadline to get back to Echo Park before the fireworks started at the Lotus Festival. Traveling cross-town in LA is a true crapshoot but the 10 was clear and we were able to watch the fireworks on the walk from our parking spot (possible the last one on the entire east side) to Echo Park Lake. We stood by the lake for exactly one minute and three seconds of the grand finale so technically we made it back in time.

Besides the two kind of people in this world that believe that there is or isn’t two kinds of people, there are a second two kinds of people; those that love the Lotus Festival and those that avoid it. The way N talked about it I thought it would be a giant clusterf@*k.
But minus the immediate post-fireworks foot traffic, it was pleasant. The festival is set up all around the lake and the water has a calming effect. During the day there are swans in that lake. I doubt they stuck around for the fireworks though. I ran around with Am who was on a hunt for an old lady making papaya salad for a bit before we settled at Masa to eat meatloaf.

P1030139
Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

B told me that I have hidden guy parts because I like cars, fireworks, and baseball. Totally inaccurate. I am a patriot and you don't have to be a dude to be a patriot any more. This isn't the first gulf war ya know? Times have changed. You just have to love federal land, civic duties, and your right to explosive as well as contemplative pastimes.

Celebrate Good Times

P1030121
Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

What is going on at The Encounter?

P1030185
Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

I got back to LA yesterday. I was greeted by the blistering (ooh - that’s good, I will use that for 80 and Sunny) sun and a nice early evening traffic jam. There is nothing like sitting in traffic a few miles from home when you have been traveling for days. That is why I love living in Los Angeles and not in Mid-Michigan where you drive your car from point A to point B without any kind of build-up or appreciation for your destination.

I also love The Encounter restaurant and noticed from my view coming out of the Northwest Terminal that it is under some kind of construction. I can't help but wonder if anyone else noticed or if this is another alien mandated construction project. The scaffolding tells me this may be the case.