Deconstructing Sightseeing

 

A beat to step to.

Dancing in Detroit from kayekilla on Vimeo.

Anticipation

My favorite Angelinos, Bethany, Heidi, and JG are making their way through the Pennsylvania wilderness (turnpike) right now. They are on the run from a bar fight after last nights Philly-Dodger "game". The last text I got from JG was "F these Goodwill Hunting MFers" and I assume that he got punched in the face for mistaking Philly for Boston. It's an honest mistake for a west coaster. The whole Atlantic coast is just a blur of people and funny accents anyway. Not many people know that Goodwill Hunting originally took place in Saugatuck, Michigan but there has been an aggressive anti-peninsula sentiment in mainstream entertainment since the eighties (American Pie and 8Mile  are proof).

I like movies that are about a poor or underachieving guy that lives close to an ivy league school and sits in on classes every day until he has a chance to do an elaborate math problem on the chalkboard. What was the one with the homeless guy? Was that Pesci near Harvard or Gary Oldman near Columbia? I can't remember. But I want to be clear that just because you live by Harvard doesn't make you smart. I didn't get this adorable because I lived close to Pepperdine and UCLA for a couple years. It took real work. The closest school to me right now is a beauty school. I'm already seeing my next film: A girl, down and out on her luck, damaged hair but a big brain full of fresh ideas for pony tails. She has small hands perfect for rolling perms and she always wears something fun, like a smock. One day after getting rejected from another bank job, she sneaks into the senior class at a beauty school, sets the curls of a cranky blue-haired regular who is about to close the school because of comb sterilization infractions. The old lady is so happy with her hair she forgets to call the state board and actually leaves a two dollar tip!

I think my video is done rendering now.

Can't wait to see y'all soon.

Don't Make Her Call You

In or out of conTEXT

Everything but game information from my phone:

yay. I’m filling in as your seatwarmer. I never thought I could love a team so much!

Woo! I love la! We Love it!

Hellz YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for introducing me to the greatest past time ever! We miss you.

Btw, I’m drunk.

Omg!omg! loney! Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Me, jage, and heidi are watching the game at neighbors. Missing you!

F**k yeah!:D!!!! Yes we did!!

Broxton has earned some serious subs!

Let’s get this party started!

You know Eithier just wants to party on a ranch.

And we would attend every ranch party he threw.

YEAH!

Perfect he can live there and braid our horses tails.

I got my big girl butt in your dodger viewing seat. Wish you were here fighting for it.

Sara Kaye Blake.

Dewitt just gave him a shave.

Yeah, some bad hair all over that Philly team.

The team will shave him in his sleep.

Why is Lowe sweating so much?

His brain is just hot, he’ll be fine. Thinking mans game, you know.

My new religion is dewittism.

Oh damn! Sacfly.

Atlantis and Werth’s facial hair – great mysteries we will never solve.

I don’t know how Manny missed that homerun. He tattooed that thing. More to come, I’m sure.

Please say you just read Lowe’s lips?

F**k Yeah. Mother F**in b***h!

G**D****t

Keep your head up lowe!

FOCUS YOUR MOJO

I think so, he said “F**k Yeah. Mother F**in b***h!”

You gotta love Donnie Baseball

Blake blake blake.

DeWitt!

Wtf? Come on boys!

I was sweating when we were 10-3. I’m just a sweater. Keep ya warm in the winter.

All hail DeWitt!

Yes, Just to satisfy your uniform related lust.

Alright, it’s only one game.

Are you ok?

They played really well. Nothing to be ashamed of. We got this.

Please say you just heard biemels starting line up?!! I want you to marry him. For us.

At a callback, no more Dodgers for now.

That one hurt. Bad

Some little kid just told me he wanted to “hump me in the b**thole”

Oh, I know sportsfan, I know.

Go dodgers!

Praise!

I told him to give ‘lil puddn’ Blake DeWitt a second look.

Trying hard. Go Loney!

Good for you. You are amazing! Now turn on the game: )

And Then I Found Him

 

Lucky Duck

Little mint holder

Little baby holder

We watched 'In the Shadow of the Moon' tonight. The space footage is so beautiful, so warm and peaceful like listening to someone make a wish on a dandylion (sp?) over analog tape.
The one part, where the earth rises over the moon and you can see the whole round perfect blue and cool whip ball, is a real clarifying moment. When I saw it - that earth of ours so tiny and moveable - I just thought, "how can the Dodgers lose?"
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Sent from my Verizon Wireless mobile phone

You, only fatter.

You ever run into someone that is a friend of the family in a very un-familial like circumstance? Like when Ronnie Slater ran into his dad's UAW pal in a state park restroom in Petosky Michigan when he was on three, oh what do they call them... doses of LSD and washing his hands after taking five hours to change a flat tire. Ronnie is a prison guard now. Things happen in our lives that send us on trajectories that we could have never imagined.

I like to think I can imagine anything but I am just saying, for some of you stuff is going to happen that you can't possibly imagine. Like, did you know that not only is it a possibility but it is actually a probability that all that we are, all that we do and see is actually a computer program run by a higher being in an alternate universe. We are someone's World of Warcraft. This is hard science and I find it very comforting that what I believe to be my imagination is actually the imagination of someone even doper than I. Someone who loves the Dodgers. Someone who thinks it's ok to apply lipgloss 10X a day and to eat peanut butter a lot.

You can compute your way to the infinite numbers of exact yous in parallel places all you want. There is also infinite numbers of almost yous. I like to call those people Sara with an H. Math is fun.

I think my head cold is clearing up but not in time to see THIS because it is one of those early shows, which indicates to me that it might be PUNK. I just wanted to see BFA's young luva anyway. I'll save my strength for my boys in blue.

Eat My Sneeze (an old fashioned rant entry)*

I loo-oove getting on the ol horn with Tdawg, my BFF who is seven months preggers and who loves chocolate covered pretzels. Tonight I was going off about my other friend that got pissed off at me for being sick and not going to a club meeting, “you have been sick for MONTHS, you are sick ALL THE TIME.” This friend tells me and then adds, “I’m just worried about you.”

T tells me that she got some similar same crap when she was trying to enjoy some nice albacore tuna for lunch today. Apparently people love to tell pregnant people what to eat just in case the woman hasn’t researched how NOT to have a mongoloid child. So one of her coworkers lays into her about tuna and fish and babies dying in the womb and baby brains splitting in half and webbed feet. She, the perp, of course ends with, “I’m just concerned.”

The kicker in these tales is the bullsh*t qualifier. Reminds me of people that just want to be honest. Well I’m just concerned about your assy manners people.

Since I’m no stranger to being sick I’m intimately familiar with the hatred, jealousy, and frustration people feel towards sick people. I often wonder why we don’t say such things to sick children as "Jesus you are sick all the time little man, what's with this? Just trying to get out of play time are ya?"  Children get colds and flu way more often than adults. At what age do we start to blame the person? 16? I would guess the blame should start at whatever age people can shop for herbal supplements.

The anti-sick thing, this seeing sickness as a weakness (when really deep down you all see it as a reminder of how helpless you really are)is all part of the great unhinging of civilization. The growing popularity of antibacterial mania and germaphobia represents a deep distrust in the soul and a fear of nature. I want no part of it.

Another response I get from time to time when I have a cold is, “I NEVER get sick.” To which I always respond, “really, that is so interesting. I’d love to hear all about it. Can you tell me more about how you earned your superhuman immune system through living righteously?” My friend Drew never gets cavities. Same with Trimblers husband. They are highly evolved. I’m not. Don’t worry I’ll die soon enough and then everyone who doesn’t EVER get sick (due, I suspect, to a life of mind-numbing sameness and a daily routine that has created an impenetrable fortress of virus-proof boredom blubber) can just f**k each other until the world is full of diseaseless DNA and masters of small talk. Ok, sound great?

If you encounter someone that has a headcold say nothing at all or just, “I hope you feel better soon.” Common manners.

Clear Eyes. Full Heart. Can’t Lose.

I's like to thank Bethany who, upon witnessing several strokestyle head attacks simply said, "so sorry dude, it is the price you pay for a brain like that." Or maybe you were just telling me that you never get headaches and I should go on a master cleanse ... I can't remember.

* this post available on audio cassette.

White Bread, Cole Slaw, and Soul

I got something caught up in my face, some call it a head cold, I call it Memphis. The city is a key player in my next-big-move vetting process so Ems and I took a trip down to The Bluff City to visit my favorite penpal Bob M (who has not approved any of the following photographs or anecdotes and may have to look kinder and more sensitive than he wishes for the sake of readability) and to see if there were any suitable retirement communities that I could call home. As some of you know, I retired from my life of lies a few months ago. Just kidding, if I was living a life of lies don't you think I would come up with something more interesting?

The trip was boppin' right from jump. We stopped at an Applebees to eat soggy salads and watch the Dodgers smear the Cubs all over their old smelly cramped jumbotron-less ball field.  I think Em would say that the real highlight was when we stayed at the Super 8 in Fort Wayne to break up the drive.  Hotels have cable TV. Emma around cable tv is like Sho in the Kalahari desert around a coke bottle. 

She's so cute. They make a good couple.

The only problem was that she was suffering so much from withdrawal that by the time we rolled up to B's place in Memphis, right in the middle of the VP debates, it was nothing but a handshake and a grab of the remote. We were rewarded with cheese and pickled asparagus. Dudes love it when you use them for their tv.

The next day Bob took us to Graceland. He is close personal friends with Elvis and got us passes.

So we TCB-ed around the grounds of Graceland for the afternoon. Sorry. No flash photography.

 

 

R.I.P Elvis

Later that night we went to see William Bell at the Overton Park Shell.

A lot of people did the hustle.

The Hustle at Overton Park from kayekilla on Vimeo.

Em is certain that you can do the hustle to ANYTHING. Even silence. Even to the crunch of beet salad at the Beauty Shop Restaurant.

Since we spent Friday in a hedonistic hustle we decided to make Saturday a bit more soulful and went to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Bob wanted to make sure no one took down his article in the gift shop and Emma and I wanted to see Isaac Hayes' Superfly Cadillac.

The museum was definitely a turning point in the trip since we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. We were forced to pay attention, you know, live in the moment. The moments included insider Stax Records details provided by our host.

Then we ate a bunch of fried chicken at Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken. Another round of slaw!

With only a few hours of daylight left we headed to The National Civil Rights Museum. It is built into the Lorraine Motel. No photography was allowed so we just got these pics of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. It's probably better that I wasn't shutterbuggin in there.

It's an elaborate museum full of more stuff to read and video to watch than possible in a single visit. We were about three-quarters of the way through the main spot when closing time was announced and we had to jet across the street to the second building. That's what they kept saying - the second building - it's extremely difficult to write about, let alone come up with sensitive phrasing for public announcements, when the topic is assassination. There is a huge CSI/Minority Report style set-up, spanning about four hotel rooms, that explores all of the evidence against James Earl Ray. It's creepy.

We finished the evening off with a pork butt, more cole slaw, another Dodger's Victory, and a drink at a nautically themed bar.

Em and I got up early the next morning to try and steal the rest of the Luna Bars in our gracious host's home but were unsuccessful and had to spend the first half hour of the trip home trying to find an open coffee shop in town (one strike against Memphis). We survived.

I recommend driving through Tennessee right now. It sure is purty. By one thirty pm we were in Loretta Lynn territory and decided to take a break for a ranch and museum visit. The museum is packed with every outfit and signed autographed picture that ever belonged to Loretta. I'm talking random photos of Sandra Bernhard, Patrick Swayze, Rosanne Barr... you name it.  Her scriggly handwriting is featured on white boards next to the bigger exhibits like the cars and tour buses and rooms staged to look like her old coal miner home. No cameras allowed inside.

I ate a ranch style potato and some mushy turnip greens. Emma had corn bread and white beans. Just like regular old ranch hands!

By the time we reached Detroit it was after midnight, cold, and rainy. I'd developed a full-blown head cold that has led me to believe that I may have left Memphis but it hasn't left my face. Whether or not it is a sign that I must take up residence there has yet to be determined. I may have to go back and try sleeping in Overton Park or something more rugged to get a feel for the earthiness of the place. I'm already convinced that the food, folks, and fun categories are covered.

Loretta Lynn's Dude Ranch

You Can't Cut Infinity in Half

I just recently had a convo that brought up the high-concept of I Love Super Beautiful. It made me homesick for gatherings on Garden Ave.

Also, I have a head cold and I prefer to update my blog in list form until I can get my southern photos uploaded.

So here's a useful list of things I find beautiful (from memory for this evening in honor of nostalgia): National parks, federal land, and commie stuff. Bethany's singing voice, gift for description, and her unapologetic love for love. My car and the two free, three white, and one champagne cars before it. The open road, the closed road, and the dirt road. Heidi's enthusiasm, dog-walking dreams, and classic profile. Sports, narrative structure, and pills. Beth's ability to use an old fashioned corkscrew, her charmful drawings, and amazing freckles. Jamie's born-free-birth-right, hilarity, hair cut, and alcohol tolerance. Peonies and poppies. Emma's huge heart, handsome height, and road trip expertise. JG's confidence and business sense. My sister my sister and my sister and my brothers. My brothers' love for cars and fixing things like my computer and my hi-fi. Cameras, kittens, bulldog puppies, love letters and like-letters.  The Desert. Cari's unrivaled - borderline freakish - spontaneity and precious little ones. Coffee and secrets. Liz's man-handlin', beach knowledge, and commitment to higher education. What it feels like to have someone stay after class to show you a draft of their essay. Community. Community service. Believing in someone. Believing in the Dodgers and being rewarded. Music, movies, and music in movies. Walking. Channeling dead writers. Quitting. Starting. Moving. Mojo. Julie's precious helpful intelligent nature, lack of internal dialogue, and badass midCen house in Albuquerque. Kelly's ability to move anywhere on five dollars and self-certainty. And of course: rainbows, found money, and apples.

That is all I could fit in before the Nyquil... How's that for hope?

We have been south for a couple days now and I haven't been able to fully enjoy myself knowing that the last thing I posted here was about Iraqi bjs. E is right when she says maybe I should post something a little more hopeful.

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Sent from my Verizon Wireless mobile phone

Look Out Behind You

Undoubtedly the most valid reason I have heard against voting for Barack Obama came from a Southwest Detroit couple. The young wife told E and I that she had seen pictures, awful, terrible, bad, sick, totally grossed-out pictures of the things that American soldiers have been doing to Iraqi prisoners and the things Iraqi insurgents have been doing to American soldiers. She was extremely disgusted and adamant and detailed about describing the horrors of what she had seen online. In fact, it took giving her E's email address to get her to wrap up her point. (E should be expecting some good email forwards any moment now.)

Obvious conclusion:

If Barack gets into office he will pull American troops out of Iraq. What do you think will happen then? Logically, the Iraqis, free from their perverted rapist captors, will head straight for American soil. Yep, to do guess what? Force American women (and men) to give them all blow jobs and perform various reenactments from the same Internet photos seen by our friend the unregistered voter. If Obama gets into office you could possibly wake up with an Iraqi you-know-what in your mouth.

So we need to stay there and keep the rape cycle where it belongs.

You can't argue with an air tight argument.

Alt Life

Do you know what I need? A hundred dollar haircut. Hard to find in this state and when I say state I mean the state of the economy. Kidding of course. This kind of wall street stuff doesn't affect me at all. As long as the Donut Villa sells nickle nuts and scratch-off tickets, my economy is strong.

It's been the kind of past couple days that just seem to escape documentation. Anytime I have a bunch of stuff going on I neglect to write down the fascinating details - even though I have kept a diary since I was seven years old. When I die (an event I have to mention every six days) and my vaults are uncovered you will find that these diaries are not full of publishable anecdotes or deep dirty secrets (I've never even written a good sex scene in a screenplay  - I'm no Judy Blume ya know), but I want it to be known that between entries regarding my roommate and quotidian confusion, some really radical and racy stuff was going on.  I think that is called subtext. Look for it. It is happening right now.

Tonight however, I am converting IFO to AVI and maybe I will send a MPEG your way or on the way by way of the internet.

Stand by for stories about the political philosophies of uninformed, unregistered, and insane voters on the streets of Detroit.

The Change We Need

A Mental Milkshake

It is hard work saving the world. E and I were out canvassing SWD until it got dark and someone told us a story about someone's cousin getting shot in the butt.  I personally would give a buttcheek for a good PR op for national healthcare,  but me offering up body parts for attention is nothing new.

I wish Doris Kearns Goodwin was my grandmother.

Jamie cracks me up.

I can't even stand the Dodger excitement.

I think of Don Draper when he told his estranged brother "My life moves in one direction: forward."

Don't trust people that fear nostalgia or that don't have a list of regrets.

It is scientifically proven (in some kind of science) that people that lie to themselves are usually more successful in life and athletics.

I rather enjoy being miserable. I don't like being cranky or frustrated or interrupted when I am trying to concentrate. That makes me angry. I'm talking about heartache and longing and obsessing about the perfect romance of the past. The state of mind that is best supplemented by early sixties soul and alcohol or opium derivatives. I'm pretty sure I am doing something useful because I feel so sad and wistful that I should be gettting paid for it. B just sent me a picture from Dodger stadium and it is driving me to drink. There's only cans of La Croix bubbly water here but things could still get dangerous. She's at the game, helping the team go to the world series, eating soft pretzels, and drinking twelve dollar beers. I have to look back and long for the old days because right now, in the present day, there is only real-life responsibility, a losing local team, and what-the-fuck thoughts. Who wants that?

What Else Can I Exfoliate?

So so many people showed up tonight. The Obama meeting was kicked off by a twenty year old kid wearing flip-flops and a Big Lebowski T-shirt (FYI: The Big Lebowski and J Mascis are two dudecentric entities that I have never, ever understood). He told us an inspirational story about the life events that led him to take a semester off from Emory to help out. It worked. I’d like to know how a privileged kid from west mass can get up in front of a room of Detroiters and tell them what to do. That is the power of the campaign of change.

Let me tell you a few things I would like to change: The size of my computer screen, the look on people’s faces when I sing or demonstrate “AirRobiX”, the cost of socks and other foundation garments, and the year 1997. 

I also wish that “The First 48” would air at a reasonable and constant hour for just once in my life but I’m trying not to make everything about television.

Put the Books Anywhere *Parker Posey in Party Girl from kayekilla on Vimeo.

The Sound of a Loud Voice Next to an Aching Head.

I'm fascinated by my own crankiness. I feel like I can hear the people in the brick house across the street chewing their food. Like a draft is following me around. Like I am in my recurring dream about not being able to type in my name to check in for my flight. I keep typing and the letters keep coming up ahskjadsakj argh. I feel like I put a twenty in a dollar bill pop machine slot. Like someone just told me something I already know and then drank my last beer. Like I have to clean a bathroom, get an oil change, or wait for a senior citizen to write a check. Like I'm at a movie and the people in front of me are texting and the people behind me are talking, talking, talking. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up so I can just just concentrate, type in my name, get on my plane, and fall asleep. 

Life Before Death Lessons from DFW

Someone posted this on one of my email groups.

Don't go poking around places you don't want to be poked.

We took the 'back roads' to the mall this evening. The country looks like bowl of superman ice cream thanks to all that rain. Seems people don't much like when you stop and take pictures of their farm equipment and stacks of steaming manure sod rolls because some meathead in a big truck chased us down a dirt road for a while.

I wasn't driving so I thought if I hung out of the car and made it obvious that I was taking more pictures he would just think we were tourists or people that were doing something important or people that were so set on taking pictures that they had no regard for their own safety and the he would leave us alone. I was right.

All I wanted was some pictures for SFTM. Poor dude probably thought I was some insurance agent coming out to check on their flood claim or something.

Nothing like a nice high speed drive on dirt roads. Reminds me of so many good times, so many hot cars, and so many near death experiences. (Cari, testify)

I didn't just minor in film... I majored

I saw the Cohen Brothers film and I will say that it really is time for John Malkovich to start doing commercials and for Brad Pitt to become the architect that he has always wanted to be - seeing these actors in yet another film makes me realize that while there may be a giant pool of money, there is not nearly a giant enough pool of actors. I've got an idea, lets put Malkovich in a bathrobe and make him scream and give Brad Pitt highlights - it will be ironic because he usually wears Armani - his character will just develop from there. Or not. Or here's another idea let's bring back DeNiro and Pacino and 90210 and Knight Rider. Or how about this idea: iced coffee at McDonalds, or organic fruit at Meijers, tight-rolling jeans, rain-X on windshield wipers, roll-on perfume, costumes for cats, self-adjusting shampoo, 9/11 Truth Seekers, coasters on coffee tables, downloading music, manual transmissions, and fashion magazines.

From Tuesday

P1100823
Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

New Name, New Game

From now on, when referring to our job or another person's job we will pronounce job just like the book of Job (johb) from the bible. It makes a statement. Kind of like calling your mother by her first name.

Also, I bought a lipgloss today that has a new, innovative spatula applicator.  Lookout.

Obituaries for People I Like

It's fall now. New leaves and caterpillars and cocoons and such. A few of the people on the blog roll/link list to the right have to get moved into mini storage -  meaning this blog post. The link list cannot be cluttered with inactive blogs and websites.

First I am removing my "netflix friend" link because no one else besides the people I watch with movies with seem to be interested in sharing their queue with me. It's a personal thing. I get it. You don't want people to know that you have had "Georgia Rules" at home for four weeks. No biggie. That link is gonzo!

I Love Super Beautiful

What happens when blog precedes content? Even from a group of heartfelt masterminds (the immensely no, immeasurably, talented writing group La Croix) it produces an empty corral. A place where Clydesdales and fantasy beasts of dreams fear to tread. They cannot be caged. Or updated.

Bosom Bloggies

Oh Skeet and JG. If you didn't get enough momentum off the Barry Bond's Ball diagram, nothing was going to do it. I had such high hopes - I don't see why you guys can't continue the project as a NoCalSoCal collaboration.

Julie Likes

J is quite possibly the worlds greatest homemaker. I never did get to see her Martha Stewart Apprentice audition tape but maybe that is something she could put up on the site. I have a feeling that she is just too busy growing, sewing, and showing stuff to write about it. I could offer to post her extremely long emails and scan her handwritten postcards - she is quite the corresponder.

Yesterdays News

It's a shame to hog such a good blog name. The beauty of it is that even if you don't update it people can't get mad at you - read the title again, ya know? I'm just going to assume that Cory has switched to microblogging on Twitter.

That is it for now. Gone but never forgotten. Who knows, maybe there will be a resurrection. Be sure to keep updating or you too will be put in a post graveyard. If you have any new projects or blogs that I must know about, holler!

Am I just real tired or does Gossip Girl not have the staying power I thought it did? Yawn. I can barely resist writing about how much I am suffering because I have to give up caffeine to stop the deadly ministrokes in my brain from ruining my days and impairing my driving. But I won’t say a word about it. I won't! Rapping about health stuff is in the same manners-category as talking about dreams or describing in beat-by-beat detail what happened on The Sheild or in March of the Peguins (that has actually happened to me sosyaknow). But just for the record: It’s not my fault that I got a jump-start on health problems early in my life. Most people wait until they are sixty-plus to start talking about gluten-allergies and intestinal sensitivities. Oh wait, nope – I got that wrong - that describes nearly everyone my age. Looks like Gen-X is a couple decades ahead of our grandparents.

I just recently confirmed this at Borders when browsing through Things White People Like. I didn’t mean to read so much of it (white people don’t like to admit spending money or being ironic or saying hipster or watching tv or getting silly books like that) but I did. White people like natural medicine and tea. True and true. Although my brother likes both Tylenol and TV and he doesn’t give a f%k who knows it. But we aren’t really one hundred percent white. I became convinced of that after watching The Gangs of New York.

So I read nearly the whole thing and put it back on the shelf. I had to make room in my hands to buy one of those notebooks that Picasso and Hemingway used. Talk about road tested!

Without coffee I have to find something else to love. Oh and I already thought of that, but no, I can’t replace my coffee habit with whiskey or wine or Andy’s Hot Fries.

Three Stacks of High Society

Tonight I went to St. Agnes as my mom’s training partner. She is learning how to deal Texas Hold ‘Em for the Fall Fun Festival. So it was her and about fifteen other sweet moms in sweaters squinting over reading glasses at rule sheets and cards.  Mini pretzels, pop, and wine were served.

“So we burn a card, when?”

“What’s the big blind?”

“What if people are blind and can’t see the cards?”

I could tell the local poker expert was getting frustrated. He drank like seven glasses of Coke Classic and kept rubbing his forehead trying to understand how such innocent women could stump him with card questions he'd never been asked. So I decided to throw in a few more questions like, “What happens if there is a hostile bidder? Who is going to protect my mom? What is your take-down plan?”

I leaned over to my mom and told her, “All of this could all be clarified if we just went home and watched Rounders”

W. Grand Blvd.

 

We parked in the only organized looking parking lot we could see and the little uniformed guy chilled on a nearby porch and watched us pack our valuables in the trunk and lock the doors and walk halfway across the dirt patch before saying, "you ladies planning a funeral?"

"Aren't we all ?"

You can't park there.

My friend K** swears that watches don't work on her. It runs in her family - they didn't work on her grandmother either. Magnetic anti-time bones or something. The battery on my cell phone has stopped holding a charge. This was a huge problem when I was lost in the formidable Auburn Hills area the other night. I had to stop at a 7-11 to plug in my phone in the outlet next to the ATM so I could text B for directions. The teen boy working the counter was totally maddoggin me and I was like "dude don't act like I'm the only one affected by the energy crisis" and I bought a Vernors to appease him and his dumb 7-11 laws. I couldn't finish it all because it's a sneezy drink that should be sipped slowly and my nerves were shot. I had heard stories about being north of 8 mile for too long. You could wind up in a condo or the Detroit Zoo. And go figure, my phone ran out of juice ten minutes after I got on the road and I was forced to stop at a Target to plug the phone back in kattycorner from customer service. Lesson learned: The busier a place the more people mind their own business. I could have been firing off remote detonated department store explosives for all they cared. Later that night B told me that I should get a charger that works in my car. Yeah right. That is how they get you. You can't just keep throwing money at all the problems of life. When would it end? The Dodge Nitro has a plug, like a regular AC/DC outlet, in the back near a net that holds your sports balls and fishing poles. Maybe I should just buy a new car then?

Cultcher

Met my sister for the sibling car swap in Mid-Mich today. I have been driving around her little scooter for a couple weeks so that people will think I am a commoner. And apparently she has been parking my ride under a tree that drips tar and alien waste. Thanks, sis. I don’t even feel bad that you haven’t been able to donate plasma because you have iron poor blood.

Maybe I have iron poor blood – my eyes hurt from reading. I still read regular old books but I find some of my most favorite things to read are on the web. Not only in the brilliant word sprayings of Bethany or Kim, or in PDFs of Spin articles from BM (wait, I’m going to need a middle name that starts with an A or a U– those can’t be your initials) but also in the form of comment/feedback posts from anonymous people on giant websites. I especially identify with the minds that troll IMDB.com and Amazon.com.

I was researching a film and came across a post some tween girl had thrown up about how she wanted to meet and marry some actor, let’s say Clive Owen because that is the only sensible choice as far as actors to meet and marry because Mark Ruffalo is way to indieobvious. Well the rest of the IMDB let her have it with comments like “Just because your birthdays are in the same month, your parental situation is similar, and you both used to be fatties doesn't mean you're remotely meant for each other. At all.” Some guy called LiberalsSuck84 posted that. It was far more cruel in context and I couldn’t stop reading all the RE: Re:s! I felt so bad for her I wanted to go get Clive and get hitched just to show her dreams do come true.

Amazon reviews are the best. I know all about the cattiness and controversy about writers posting their own amazon reviews and then their jealous ‘friends’ from writing group snarking back – it makes for ok reading but who wants to hear smart people argue? Does anyone check the product reviews for things like door alarms and pizza stones? Well, because I am considering moving the south (lifelong dream: Yazoo City, porch swings, and sweet tea) I was researching hot rollers and I came across this: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1XJ6V2P76KQ6W/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

I’m not even sure which part of the video is a legitimate review or if it is just a cry for help from a drugged and abused women living in the back of some guy’s 18 wheeler. I do love fake eyelashes.

Does any of this reek of procrastination? Yeah well, I’ve got way too much to do. My entire life is hanging on by a thin thread - can I finish this project? I need to go find some apples and ephedrine and then research Mark Ruffalo. Maybe he isn't so bad.

Ladies, I miss Oinkster - first OOB when I get to LA. (OOB = Order Of Business)

If I knew as much about money as I do about boxed wine I would be able to get my name to the top of the Chevy volt waiting list. DB calls boxed wine 'mom crack'. If I had a lot of lot of money I would name a bench after myself and my future dead husband, a civil engineer and known philanthropist, on huntington beach or maybe in DC near Ford's Theater, it would say "forever young" and maybe I would start up a county fair fuchsia ribbon award for sewing named after my 4H sewing teacher B Tanner. E says that the stupidest question someone can ask is, 'hey, what's that you're reading?' I was personally asked to leave the library tonight because they close so early and I didn't know, I ignored the announcement. I was listening to brazilian folk music. I love folk music and folk art and country folk and folk dancing. B thinks that Rob Bresney is on to her. J is in NYC, she should meet up with K. K makes me think of things I miss terribly. If I didn't miss things I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I suffer from sentimentality and a mild dog allergy. I can't decide what I miss the most - walks around the 'voir, the Olympics, or the curtains and photocubes I left behind. Dodger Stadium for sure. That place and Chichen Itza make me feel like cutting someones heart out and putting it in a decorative bowl on top of a very large hill or smallish mountain. If the leaves don't start turning colors here as promised I will feel duped.

That is the second time in a few weeks that I have mentioned cutting out or removing a heart. I'm going with it though. I had a dream the other night that I had two purple couches. Kierkegaard says the only people afraid to revisit things are robbers and gyspies.

It can't really fit in your hand.

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Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

I'm full of shame once again. Emma and I just got back from the Michigan State Fair where we paid a dollar to get into an exhibit to see the worlds smallest woman. It really was a real live woman from Haiti. She was watching tv and wearing sandals sitting cross-legged in a white box next to a sign that said she was born in 1977 and only knows a little english. The sign outside said you could talk to her and I had an overwhelming urge to ask her my future. I didn't though because I already know the future of people that pay money to gawk at people. And it is very bright indeed.

My favorite fair exhibit was the chick hatchery. We saw a little baby turkey beak-busting out of an egg. It totally tops that god awful 'Miracle of Life' human baby video we were forced to watch in science class. Egg births are far more civilized.

It's storming like a wench without beer here. Like a dozen dragons breathing fire on their crying dragon babies. Like like like, well I don't know, this isn't my weather blog. I'm suffering from heatarexia and Renaissance Festival sunstroke on top of having to drive in midnight torrential downpour on these skinny Michigan two-lane highways with all those butthugging SUVs! Lay off people seriously. You can have your friend punch your time card for you if you're a little late to third shift. I only say that because I know from experience and I have read Rivethead.

I don't know if Renaissance Festivals would thrive as much if they took place in area where people live a more affluent and leisurely life like say, Laguna Beach. There is something about the world of warlocks that makes me believe its enthusiasts live quite oppressive off-ren-season lives. I know I do, but really - what kind of suffering does one have to endure during the week in order to find relief only by sticking a foxtail on his ass on a Saturday afternoon? And the girl has such a sensible purse?

There is so much I don't know about life and I realized it seventy times a million over and over again today thanks to the magical world of the Renaissance Festival.

* Next day note: I wrote this entry late at night and I woke up thinking about what a cheap shot it is to go to a Ren Fest and take pics and then poke fun at people wearng jorts and foxtails. My brother, an enthusiast of magic: the gathering told me that the foxtail may be from an anime character and then he told me a story about one of his coworkers who used to dress up as sailor moon. He was a six-foot-two dude.

I’ve lived alone awhile so being back in a communal living situation is interesting. I love being able to sleep through the night knowing that my chances of getting attacked by werewolf or serial killer are reduced by each additional body in the house (10% reduction for each adult, 5% for children, 25% for each adult sleeping on couch near door or window). But, there is something about living with other people that makes me think I don’t have to do dishes. The beauty of living with other people is that things get done even if you don’t know who did them. Some things bad, like drinking the last Coke Zero and other things good, like replacing the toilet paper. Of course in most living arrangements that involve more than one person these everyday tasks will inevitably rake on someone’s nerves until they have to leave a passive aggressive note or have a blow up right in the middle of a perfectly entertaining marathon TV sesh of “The First 48.” I don’t plan on sticking anywhere too long to deal with that or dishes for the matter. I’m a rolling stone.

In other news, I visited my ol pal Kendra* today in the posh suburbs of West Bloomfield. She showed me how she taught her baby "baby sign language" - it's not for hearing problems, it's just so the little bugger can ask for more food without having to learn adult english. Funny, a little creepy, and useful. A triple hit in my book.

*Kendra and baby E are cute as cupie dolls!

For the past week I’ve been staying in the one-stoplight town I grew up in. It has a few more stoplights now thanks to urban sprawl but almost-small-towns don’t have quite the narrative impact as small towns do so try to hold the one-blinking-stoplight image in your head. Also think about how people leave their kids strapped in their car-seats, trapped in minivans, windows cracked, engines still running while they run into the IGA and then post office and look oh there’s Mrs SoandSo let me stop and talk about band boosters. If this place were LA I would be a childnabber. I have needed a small chubby-cheeked child since opening day at DodgerStadium. It is nearly impossible to get on the jumbotron in the cheap seats unless you have a 6-16month old to dress up in baby MLB gear and throw over your head. But kidnapping will not be my crime here, I barely had enough time to settle in and wake up my criminal self. This place is even more suited for drunken disorderly. I am moving on to the city tonight. My offense there will be small town envy.

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I saw this in real life. I captured it in my Lumix and in my heart, like Bethany and I do with sunsets. Someday, and the time may come sooner than I'd like, I will die and the coroner (there will be an autopsy if my final wishes are adhered to by my friends and family) anyway the coroner will have to crack open my chest to rip my heart out to put it on that metal scale that weighs bananas and murder evidence. My heart will weigh exactly six tons of butte, mesa, rainbow and road. And even if everyone had thought at first that I died by setting my self on fire or by choking on an apple fry from BK, the evidence will show the cause of death was road denial.

Pops! from kayekilla on Vimeo.

Modesty and humility rule here. The grass is a nearly green and the trees are nearly tall, they aren’t trying garner praise or win awards, everyone and everything will be paid off in heaven. The cars are spotted with rain marks on gray and burgundy paint jobs. The trucks are brown and forest green – all the colors in the lifespan of a blade of grass. It all rolls out on bumpy two lane highways made of crumbly blacktop and faded paint. Every so often a pothole throws you up in your car seat and you wake up and fear for your tires, and your transmission, and your windshield, but not your future, you rest in the comfort of knowing that you are doing the right thing. You are in the motor city and there’s more where that came from.

I made it back to Michigan. My first thoughts about being back in the Midwest are that the place still reminds me of bugs and moist skin and animal hair and two lane highways and Mountain Dew. But I do feel the possibilities and the excitement of adventure and change. I think that has something to do with the Olympic opening ceremony - it makes me feel like a champion.

I miss my Angelinos but I can't wait to see my gals tomorrow.

Be sure to check out my new favorite website: Beth and her benches.

The Devils Rope

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It's amazing how fast you can pack it all up and put it all behind and dream it all away and put it back together and stand in four states at once and make to it Shiprock in time for tater tots.

I thought the earthquake was a sign for me to leave but now, after packing up, throwing away, and shipping off all of my stuff, after driving 300 plus miles to our first destination, I get the news that the Dodgers got Manny.

The earthquake was actually a leaked super secret seeping up through cracks in the earth, directed by the universe to let me know the big one IS COMING. First Casey Blake, now Manny. It's no wonder someone stole my last mini-plan ticket out of my mailbox before B could pick it up tonight.

Enough of me trying to direct my attention away from my sadness. I'll miss you LA!

I was in Studio City in my parked car when the earthquake hit. I thought Doctor Dre had spontaneously set my car up with hydraulics or something. I was rolling and bumping alongside all the other cars in the parking lot. I kept looking for a giant ruck or a spaceship lift-off - I couldn't figure out what was making everything so windy and rolly. What an amateur.

Anywho...I sold my Nagel this evening. My bed too. I wish I could say I am sitting in an apartment full of nothing but the only thing that getting rid of furniture has done for me and my stuff is to let things that I never knew I had spill out everywhere. Furniture contains things. It is more useful than I ever thought. So now I have to just wait until my sister gets here and hope she knows what to do with my mountians of bullcrap.

I only have one DVD left unpacked: "Mommy Dearest" and I have been watching it with the John Waters commentary. It's quite good. I am most intrigued by the similarities between Joan Crawford/Faye Dunaway's cold-cream-make-up in the "wire hanger" scene and Heath Ledger's Joker makeup in "The Dark Knight."It is errie.

I made two trips to the Atwater Post Office today to mail some of my books to Michigan. I really should hire a personal assistant to help me with the packing and errands that I have to deal with to make this move happen. Anyone want to come work for me for five dollars an hour and all the frozen vegetables you can eat? Why should I hire someone really when my favorite mule/worker, my little sister, is coming next week.

Besides my friends whom I will miss beyond belief, I’m going to miss the Dodgers and Dodger Stadium, The Americana, the walk to the coffee shop, the 8 am street-cleaning panic, two-story Forever 21's and the people that forgive me for shopping there, the Arclight, Club Tee Gee, Carousel, Zankou, the Pacific Ocean, Glendale Public Library, Brand Arts& Music Library, Larchmont Beauty Supply, Eat Well, Dusty’s, The Vista Theater, walkin around the reservoir, teaching Body Blast at Total Woman, driving to the desert, Lone Pine, Writegirl, I Love Super Beautiful, Palm Springs thrift shopping, Bethany & JG's house, and Pinkberry.

After I got back from my trip to Seattle and vicinity I got right to work going through all of my stuff. I need to toss or sell nearly everything before I leave. In my piles of stuff everywhere I have found little pieces of paper with my writing notes on them. My favorite so far is a note that asks "How many times a day do you get slapped?"

I know this is child explotation but I can't help it:



Cari's Traveling Rock Band from kayekilla on Vimeo.

Back

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It’s past midnight so now it’s my birthday and I am already getting everything I ever wanted. I did laundry this evening and witnessed a bodacious Russian woman put her wet clothes in a side-loading washer because she thought it was a dryer. She didn't realize until it was too late and the water had started to pour in and the machine was on lock down. One helpful man told her that dryers usually don't cost three-seventy-five and offered to chat her up for the ten minutes she was going to have to wait. He asked her a lot of questions about where she lived.

Looking Out

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Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

I swear I remembered that I had a class to teach this morning. I was remembering all day yesterday but not in the productive way of remembering. I remembered just enough to set my alarm. I remembered to wake up to my alarm and put on my sneaks and leave nearly in time. I was a few minutes late to a room full of twenty plus elderly Armenian women waiting for me. One lady always sets up my “step” and weights and mat at the front of the class. They got new blue mat,s this place. The microphones weren’t working or maybe they changed them up in the past three weeks to another nonbattery supercellular system, who knows. I had no plan and no microphone so I just sent these women on a bare-voice-scream-instructed freestyle-fifty-minute lunge and squat odyssey that I am, well not me, but my legs are personally regretting at this very moment. And tomorrow is Independence Day for everybody but this body.

The other day, when walking with Bethany I had the strangest blackout migraine attack. I woke up a few days later with a medical condition that can only be described as a hybrid of chronic fatigue syndrome and agoraphobia. I did leave my place for long enough one day to sit on the beach and get a front-of-the-legs-sunburn but for the most part I have only been able to watch movies and nap and make lists of people I should call before dying of this terrible condition. If you haven’t received a phone call from me it is because I would rather you remember me as spunky. I went out once to Fresh and Easy and the post office but for the most part I have been inside watching such uplifting films as “Autumn Sonata” and “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days.” So I am even more convinced that you don’t have to leave your home to find pain and suffering. I wonder things like how does one age as gracefully as Ingrid Bergman and did communist Romania really keep track of their female citizens menstrual cycles or did they just withhold shampoo? Or was the only shampoo available for normal or dry hair? Why is everything always limp, greasy, and acid-washed in eastern europe? What does it mean that two of the last couple winners of the Palme D'or made movies about selling or aborting babies? What is that about? A step beyond baby-boomer apocalypse-ism. Future-murder? Feminist implosion? Tell me and I will stop having migraines.

I'm back from my trip to the mitten. What a time. Not fully recovered from jetlag or firefly separation anxiety. Working backwards, my most favorite moment was seeing the Dymaxion House at the Henry Ford Museum.


Dymaxion House Henry Ford Museum from kayekilla on Vimeo.