Suzy Says

I picked the roses from a bush in my back yard yesterday. I soon discovered that Guns N’ Roses are 100% accurate and every rose does indeed have a thorn, and its whole point in life is to point it into you. I minimized the damage to Self by holding them carefully by the leaves. Here you see them looking perfectly innocent, in a vase made by my former neighbor, the swooningly handsome Aaron.

This morning, the cats were cutely sniffing the blooms, but by the time I grabbed the camera to document the adorability, June was trying to eat them. So I had to shoo them away, but I still found a lightly mangled bloom on the kitchen floor later.

They miss no opportunity to be naughty. I didn’t even realize a vase of flowers was an opportunity.

Besides arranging flowers, I did two loads of laundry* yesterday, and not much else, because it was hot (still 83 degrees in the house at 11:30 pm) and I was more slothful than usual after my busy week. Two full days of conferences is like a flashback to high school. I was sitting there in my uncomfortable clothes, listening to various Suit Guys drone on while my mind wandered. If I had to be at the Four Seasons, why wasn’t I in the spa? Or ensconced in a suite? When can I sneak out of here? Has my watch stopped completely? During lunch and recess, you had to chat animatedly with the popular kids. Fortunately my complete ignorance of golf excused me from having to go to a second location. We all know how dangerous that is.

On Friday, I had meetings at the office in the city (I think I went to the city 4 out of 5 days last week, and I’m beginning to think of it as the three hour tour. My rescue appears to be equally unlikely) and a date with Mr. Wayne Shorter at 8:00. With a little time to kill between appointments, I did some shopping until it was time for dinner.

I stopped into a fancy bookshop. I found a lovely birthday card for my sister, a couple of other cards, and was unable to resist the latest Us and People with headlines about Beyoncé’s secret wedding. When I took my haul up to the cash, the fashionable cashier looked at me with disdain, which I enjoyed like a secret wedding. I even asked her to put them in a bag, which she did with visible horror. I enjoyed that, too. It?s fun to be perverse sometimes.

Wayne Shorter is celebrating his 75th birthday this year, but you’d never know it. He is as amazing as you’d expect from a guy who played with Miles Davis and Art Blakey and co-founded Weather Report. This evening was the US d?but of a piece he wrote for the Imani Strings, and it was breathtaking. It’s been a real honor to have been in the presence of three legends in the short space of a week. I’m pretty sure this coming week will be a lot less eventful.

*I found three separate dollar bills, all curled up coke style, in the dryer. Somehow they seemed like extra money, or in nature of a tip.

The last few days have been too busy being fabulous for me to write. The polar opposite of my most recent post, in fact, so maybe these things balance out. In this case, in this week(end), dare I say it…I may have actually come out ahead.

I’ll present the evidence and you can decide.

Friday

Went to Sacramento to see Bruce Springsteen.

Apparently, music is my only reason to hit the state capital, since the last time I was there was with my fabulous sister to see the fabulous Blackalicious. That evening is one I will never forget, and so was this past Friday. At nearly three score years, Springsteen still has charm and charisma to burn, and burn it he does, giving 110% when he’s on stage. I can almost forgive him for being an hour late and not apologizing.

The crowd crowded into the Arco Arena was all ages. Right below me were two mothers with their teenage kids. One of the kids tapped my knee partway through and told me to tell him if his dancing got in the way. I’d be amazed if he were as old as 16. Two seats down was another teen talking on her cell, saying “When Mom and I went to see Eminem…” Given the fact that this day would have been my mother’s 76th birthday and that she gave me my love of music and was always, I now realize, listening to the cutting edge at the time, it was entirely appropriate.

Also a blast.

I’ve loved Springsteen since I was in high school, so finally seeing him live was really special for me.

Sunday

Saturday was a recovery from the long, late show and the long, traffic-challenged drive home. Friends from out of town had arrived on Thursday evening and were staying at an extremely posh hotel in the city, but after the horror of getting home, there was no way I was getting back in the car and facing yet more bumpers, even for them.

On Sunday, I had tickets to see yet another legend: Joe Sample. He was playing at the beautiful and intimate Herbst Theater. It was intimate in a good way: small-ish, beautiful room, but my knees didn’t touch the seats in front of me and I wasn’t in peril of having someone’s head in my lap the way I was at Arco Arena. It was just Mr. Sample and his piano and it was heavenly. He introduced each song with its history, putting it in context, and told amazing anecdotes of his long career (he must be nearly 70 and has been playng professionally since he was in his teens).

He took questions and answers from the crowd, many of which were children, since it was a matinee. It was wonderful to see these kids lining up to ask very, very good questions, and getting heart-felt and considered answers from a legend. I’m sure they’ll remember it and talk about it when they’re grown-up.

You’d think that would be enough for one day, but I collected my friends from Fancytown, explaining that the luxury part of their visit was now over, as we crossed the bridge to the Siberia side of the Bay.

They were delighted with my tiny house and my not so tiny kittens. They were tired of restaurant food, so we got dinner fixings at Farmer Joe’s and had a barbecue. It was a splendid evening of catching up and swapping stories and relaxing. They’re the kind of company that helps you make dinner and clean it up and are pretty much just like family.

What a day!

Monday

Woke up belatedly to find that friends had folded up the couch and all the bedding and were happily sipping tea and reading and playing with the cats. Left me alone while I made actually good coffee, woke up, talked to my boss, and generally accepted the horrible fact of being awake and waiting to fully caffeinate.

Once I was (relatively) awake and (relatively) dressed, we headed out to what was effectively brunch at Bette’s Oceanview Diner. I hadn’t been there for years, but it was as great as I remembered. Note to those who may visit sometime, anytime: there is no ocean view and never has been. Though the neighborhood has gotten on the fancy side. Fun shopping, too.

After that the fun was over, as I drove my friends to SFO to pick up their rental Prius and make their long way up the coast to Seattle. I was sad to say goodbye, but so happy and energized by their loving and positive presence.

It looks like a busy week: all day in the office tomorrow, a conference at the Four Seasons on Wednesday and Thursday, more meetings on Friday, followed by Wayne Shorter that evening.

It’s good to be busy, but it’s even better to be loved.

…all my troubles wouldn’t go away…

I had a really excellent day.

Got up for an early conference call which my boss had scheduled without a) checking with me first; 2) telling me what it was about. About ten minutes after I got up and was in the process of making bad coffee (why am I so bad at it after so many years of practice? Why?) he called me to say he couldn’t join the call, but here’s what it’s about. Fifteen minutes later, he called again to say we’d have to reschedule it. Oh, and could I cover for him at a conference in SF today? He couldn’t remember when he was supposed to be there (but it’s after 11 so if I got there at 10:30 it should be OK) or who he’s supposed to see there, so I get to go to the St Francis and ask for whoever is running whatever conference is on, and then tell them I’m replacing the person who is supposed to be meeting with someone whose name I don’t actually know.

All this after rush hour on BART. Yippee.

When I got to the hotel, I discovered it was the wrong hotel. Called my boss, got the right place. Went there. By this time, both my heels were blistered from the new shoes I had bought for work but foolishly hadn’t broken in before trailing all over town in them. Tried not to visibly limp to the registration desk, where they asked me if I was taking Boss’ place on the panel that afternoon and whether I brought a PowerPoint with me. Excused myself to call Boss. The naughty words were hanging invisibly over my head as I dialed. He told me he couldn’t do it and didn’t have anything he could email me so I could replace him. I explained this to the people running the show, and they were nice about it, but dang. Can’t imagine why he didn’t mention this minor fact when he asked me to replace him at the meeting.

Turns out it wasn’t one guy, it was four. And it was at noon so I had an hour and a half to kill. Went to Walgreen’s, got moleskin for my heels (hope it’s not made of real moles), went back to the hotel and managed to apply moleskin to both heels in a teeny-tiny cubicle in the ladies’ room (how does Superman change his clothes in a phone booth? How?), struggled back into evil, unforgiving nylons (who invented those horrible things anyway?), put on the shoes that caused the whole thing in the first place, and went to have breakfast.

Oddly, the meetings took place in one of the hotel rooms, which the person before me had locked, so I had to go back downstairs in my Little Mermaid shoes (the original version, in which it feels like she’s walking on knives with every step) and get the concierge to open it again. Spent the next hour doing weird speed dating meetings (15 mins each!) and explaining why Boss wasn’t there.

Good times.

I seem to have felt increasingly frivolous lately:

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke

It’s been a long time since I was as taken with a book as I was with this astonishing, witty novel. The last time was Jeanette Wall’s heart-rending, yet inspirational memoir, The Glass Castle, and before that (you guessed it), Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. With a fresh, unique voice, Clarke gives us the unlikely story of a teenager who accidentally sets fire to Emily Dickinson’s house, killing a husband and wife in the process. He does his time, is released from jail, and starts a new life. But he can’t escape his past, especially when writers’ homes start going up in flames again.

A tragi-comic delight, from start to finish.

Bridge of Sighs, by Richard Russo

It’s been six years since Russo’s tour de force, Empire Falls (the mini-series was, unusually, as good as the book), so I was more than ready for one of Russo’s guided tours of small town New York State. In all fairness, I will disclose that I have a sentimental attachment to small town NY, having been brought up there (mostly) and to Russo’s poignant portraits of everyday, small town life. As with Jane Austen, it’s a small canvas, but painted with great richness.

Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, by Dana Thomas

Thomas knows whereof she writes: she writes for the New York Times style magazine, that staple of my Sunday reading, and covered fashion for Newsweek in Paris for 12 years. This gives her access to the big guns of the big luxury houses, gets her behind the scenes at factories and offices, and gives us a peek into the secrets of the world’s most famous designers and brands. Sadly, luxury brands are now almost entirely owned by huge conglomerates, and few women wear couture. But for the very wealthy, true luxury is still available – at a price. And the rest of us can read all about it.

The Deep and Other Stories, by Mary Swan

I went looking for Ms. Swan’s latest book, The Boys in the Trees, but the library didn’t have it. They did have this earlier work, and by page 7 I was completely enchanted, in a different world. Graceful, lyrical, with characters popping in and out of stories. Unexpected. Moving.

I’m going to have to buy the new one.

The Little Lady Agency and the Prince, by Hester Browne

The third in a series of fizzy books about a well brought up London girl who opens an agency to help hapless men. Not in the traditional way, but helping them to buy stylish clothes, get good gifts for their girlfriends, improve their manners, break up gracefully, and other things that most men just can’t manage on their own.

When I was at the hotel waiting for my things to arrive, I ran out of books so I picked up the first in the series at the local Borders, and couldn’t wait to read the second one. Great escapism, lots of fun, like a champagne cocktail beside a Riviera pool.

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon, by Crystal Zevon

What with the excellent Californication (a must-see; just get past the silly title and even sillier first scene and it’ll charm the pants off you) constantly playing Zevon songs and/or referring to them, and at least two of the New York Times book critics choosing this book as one of their top ten of the year, I had to check it out. I couldn’t put it down. You don’t have to know anything about Warren Zevon (I didn’t) to be fascinated by this book. He knew everybody and did everything. As he put it himself, “I was Jim Morrison for a lot longer than he was”. Amazing.

The Spare Wife, by Alex Witchel

The title refers to the glamorous former model and current socialite Ponce Porter, who acts as a “spare wife” to both people in a couple, equally helpful to husband and wife without being threatening. Quite a feat, as is her being a pro bono lawyer who never gets up before noon.

Her perfect existence is threatened when a power-hungry assistant editor at a well-regarded magazine learns Ponce’s deepest and darkest secret and threatens to expose it. But Ponce won’t give up without a fight.

Set in the glittering high society of present-day New York, it’s all surface and no substance.

Gossip Girl, by Cecily von Ziegesar

Apparently her real name and pretty much her real life, since she grew up on the Upper East Side and went to a fancy private school, like the girls in the book. The drama! The drinking! The heartaches! The shopping! Frivolous fun, and I’ve already started downloading the TV series. What can I say? I’m the world’s oldest teenager.

Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella

I can’t help myself, I’m a “Shopaholic”-aholic, even though I know their heroine is irresponsible and the consequences of her actions would be anything but amusing and easily resolved in real life. Reality, whether on TV or in your life, is overrated in my opinion, especially when your current reality includes the shopping cart people and buying groceries at Lucky. So I need my escapism, and I need it bad.

Shopaholic Becky is missing from the latest effort, replaced by the delightfully named amnesiac Lexi Smart, who wakes up in the hospital one day to find that she had a car accident. She can’t remember a thing, including her gorgeous millionaire husband, her insanely luxurious apartment, and her high-powered job. Is her glamorous life everything it seems to be? Will Lexi regain her memory? It’s a fun premise and a romp of a read.

On deck:

The Monsters of Templeton

Like You’d Understand Anyway

Later, At the Bar

Summer at Tiffany

The bunny makes up for the bad paint job on my front door.

I was surprised and delighted by the mail earlier this week. And it’s not even my birthday*.

I heard a clunk in the mailbox as I was doing my favorite form of multi-tasking: working on the couch with the TV on. Even Bewitched wasn’t enough to stop my Curiousness from immediately checking out the mail. Also, any excuse to pause in working is a good excuse as far as I’m concerned.

Making sure the curious cats stayed inside – I never let them get the mail – I peeked in the mailbox. It was full of intriguing packages, which would remain a mystery less than ten seconds longer.

One in particular was remarkably heavy, and addressed to my name in its entire non-glamorosity (all you expectant mothers out there: don’t inflict something as dull as “Susan Jean” on someone who may well grow up to be far too fabulous for such a dull label – you can do sparklier than that!), so of course that was first.

Guess what it was? My license plates, at last! For some reason, there were also three extra sets of keys with the plates, so baby, if you drive my car, you can use your own set of keys. And in one of the envelopes, my fetchingly pink title to the car. It?s official.

The other star of that day’s haul was the adorable bunny ornament pictured above, from my former neighbor P, to celebrate Easter, the equinox, spring…you decide. P keeps me up to date on the neighborhood (a mutual friend sold her entire show of 38 sculptures to a single collector; my former pad is now, sadly, being used for storage) and sends me surprise cutenesses in the mail. For Valentine’s, I got two perfect handmade chocolates and an eraser with a heart on it.

It’s nice to feel loved. And to have your license plates.

*Though it should be noted that it’s just over two months until the most important day of the year. And there are zillions of things on Etsy that I would love. And I’d love you for giving them to me.

The secret stream

I walk to the corner store through the early twilight. I love this time of day, when the sky is an ethereal blue, just about to darken, the lamps start glowing through windows, the stars begin to wake up. I pass by a bower of palm trees, unpruned, the wind rattling the stiff leaves, and notice that there is a little stream. A lemon tree stands sentry and ivy grows beside it. The rippling water is golden in the setting sun. It?s like a little secret, a little gift. The world is quiet here.

When I arrive at the store, someone?s being arrested. The police car lights are flashing and the police are bustling around with their arrest duties. Makes a change from people being arrested and their cars towed right across the street, I think as I go into the store. In the store, I notice that they actually sell Thunderbird, Night Train, and Boone?s Farm* wine. I don?t think I?m their target market. I?d like to take a picture, but I can?t imagine that would go over very well. I?m already being eyed suspiciously by the cashier.

On my way back home, I think of how different it must have been here in the 1920?s, when my house and most of the neighboring houses were built. It would have been quieter: no freeway, few cars rushing down the narrow roads. Most houses don?t have garages, or if they do, they?re clearly built long after the houses. One house has alyssum carpeting its driveway with white blossoms. I?d love to go back in time for just a day to see the way it looked then. I imagine its original residents would be shocked at the way it is now.

*When I got home, I just had to Google these fine vintages. The reliable sources at BumWine inform me that all are made by our friends at Gallo, the same ones who merrily advertise their “premium” wines. Surprisingly, these are not listed on their website. Apparently they also made Ripple, as popularized by Sanford & Son, back in the day, though it’s no longer manufactured. Wonder why it didn’t make the cut?

My father would have turned 77 today.

He might have gone up to town and visited a gallery, maybe the Tate or the National, or done some research at the University library, or edited his journal, or gone for a walk on Wimbledon Common. He would almost certainly have done some gardening, spring being so near and his garden being so near to his heart.

Whenever I visited him, one of the first things we did was take a tour of the garden, with Dad pointing out the new additions and features (the one I liked best was the little table and chairs set above the goldfish pond which looked over the whole garden toward the house). At breakfast, we’d watch the birds in the garden while we had our toast and coffee and planned the pleasures of the day.

He would also have planned a menu meal, even though he never cared much about his birthday, or about fuss of any kind, especially when it came to himself, but an excuse for a menu meal could not be passed up. So here’s my menu meal for my father’s 77th birthday. It’s still his birthday, and it always will be.

My boss observed recently that “nothing works anymore” (I hasten to add he did not, at least at that point, mean Me), but rather the world in general, and he may be right. The evidence is certainly piling up in the chaos I call my life:

Cable & Internet
You guessed it, more fun and frolics with yet another utility company. In this case, the internet has the work ethic of a particularly lazy and capricious sloth. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, just to make it interesting, it stops working in the middle of something. This is especially effective when the user has been lulled into a false sense of security by the internet service actually working for a day or days at a time*.

The service itself is bundled into the phone and TV cable, and though my understanding of such esoterica is extremely limited, I will just say that when the cable guys come to “fix” the internet, nothing works for the duration. The phone unexpectedly cut me off during a very important conversation with the fabulous K, which is how I learned this hard way.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen more of more cable guys than I have of my friends and family. One visit lasted more than three hours, during which they changed all the cables, climbed around under the house, and had incomprehensible consultations with still other cable guys by radio.

The internet remained unmoved.

On the most recent visit, I was still in my pajamas and just waking up in the living room (see “Bed” below) when the latest guy in the series appeared. They are supposed to call first, but this guy didn’t get the memo, since he just turned up, peering in the door at PJ-clad Self. It was quite embarrassing. Or like the beginning of a porn movie. “Did you call for…service?” “I certainly did!”

Bed
Somewhere between here and there, the salt flats of Utah and the Donner Do Not Pass Go, my bed was mortally wounded. I did not become aware of this important fact until I got into bed, having been fully preoccupied with checking off the list of my earthly possessions as they were unloaded from the giant truck into my tiny house and wondering where I was going to put everything.

So the movers put the bed back together here, as they taken it apart there, and either didn’t notice or didn’t care that the center beam, which supports the whole cheap IKEA thing, was broken. Possibly they thought it would be funny for me to learn this the hardwood floor way after nearly a month of inflatable bed hell.

Either way, I was summarily dumped like a first wife when the trophy wife rears her cellulite-free rear. I propped up the broken beam with bricks, but this was a band-aid on a fatal wound. Since I now had all my all-too-many belongings, I got out the inflatable bed I kept on hand for guests. It features a sort of stand on which the inflatable mattress resides. As I unpacked it, I noticed that the stand

has a disturbingly bier like appearance.

I should have realized this was a sign, because the inflatable bed died a thousand deaths. At least it was already on the bier. All I had to do was give it a proper burial.

The dead IKEA bed, on the other hand, got an improper non-burial. I had to pull it apart with a hammer, and discovered that it was cardboard inside. It’s always upsetting to discover that someone you’ve been sleeping with is not who you thought they were. The remains of the bed remain in my driveway until I can figure out an inexpensive way to get them to the dump.

I went bed shopping, and discovered that they are surprisingly expensive (like children’s clothes, where the amount of fabric is in inverse proportion to the price). I actually ended up buying one from Wal-Mart. While I was waiting for it to arrive, I slept on the pull-out couch in the living room like the early Mary Richards, hence the close encounter with the cable guy (see “Cable and Internet” above). On the bright side, it has yet to collapse, but I still can’t believe I resorted to Wal-Mart.

I have the worst bed karma ever.

Car
The car itself is fine, despite the ticket, but I still haven’t received my license plates. It’s been three months since I bought it, so this may be a record. I finally made an appointment at the DMV, and and when I arrived there and saw the line and its huddled masses quality (I?m sure they were all yearning to be free of the line), I was glad I did. I eventually learned from a girl named Brazil that the dealership didn?t do the required smog check, or, if they did, failed to report it. I checked my bill of sale, which indicates the smog check was done, and, more importantly, that I paid for it. Brazil suggested that I call the dealership, so I did. They said they’d call me back.

They didn’t.

I called the dealership twice more. The last time, I refused to hang up until I got an answer, any answer. Eventually, I was assured that they?d submit the necessary paperwork to the DMV and I?d receive my plates in two weeks. Now, where have I heard that one before? I?m hoping that it just slipped through the cracks at the time I bought the car and that they really will do the paperwork this time. I?d hate to have to go to Fremont and wait for it. I?d rather wait at home, even if I am waiting for Godot.

*Great. Now I have that One Day at a Time theme song in my head. As if the constantly barking dogs next door weren’t enough.

I usually leave serious topics like politics to greater and wiser blogs than mine, but the need to complain has outweighed more weighty considerations.

Is it just me, or have the primaries gone on forever? I think they started when I was approximately 18, and now look! There are either too many states (really, 50 does seem a little excessive) or too many primaries. Isn’t there some way of streamlining this process? I can’t believe we have eight count ’em months until the actual elections. That’s almost a whole year, you know. Almost a whole year of bickering that would be considered petty in a grade school school yard. Almost a whole year of pointless, repetitive rhetoric. Almost a whole year of boredom. And you know how I feel about that.

Unable to escape the political tide every time I put the TV on (it’s either the primaries or Britney Spears, take your pick), I noticed that Barack Obama’s ears stick out in a truly comic manner. Now that I?ve noticed, I can?t stop staring at them whenever he?s on TV. I also think his name sounds like a noise a bird would make on ?The Flintstones?, maybe one of the ones they have doing all the work. ?Ba-ROCK, Ba-ROCK!? Something like that. I wonder if he ever wishes his parents had given him a middle name like Steve instead of Hussein. I did vote for him, though, in my spare time when I wasn?t musing over his name or mentally making over Hillary and then giving up on it.

As for the Republicans, I’m glad that Huckabee dropped out, not only because he’s a bananaheaded weirdo (“training our children to be our replacements”), but because it would be so embarrassing to have a president named Huckabee. It’s too silly. Maybe in Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, but not in the real world.

Whenever I hear McCain’s name, I think of frozen food. Coincidentally, his wife’s face is so frozen that she looks like a scary doll. Barbie for First Lady?

Audrey wonders if she has a new sister

Audrey kept biting the sequins off the toes of my slippers, so I got new terrycloth ones with kitty faces on the toes. OK, I saw them on the way to Safeway yesterday and had to have them. Fi’ dollah! Fi’ dollah! Anyway, I had to try them on as soon as I got home, even before the groceries were safely put away from prying paws. Audrey was totally mystified by them, and kept sniffing them suspiciously, then looking up at me as if to say, “What the…”

I’m sorry to tell you that Audrey isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. In fact, she may be the butter knife. Adorable, yes (hence her official title of The Adorable Audrey Grey). Intellectual, no. The intellectual slack is picked up by The Beautiful June Bug, who is too clever for my own good.

I feed the kittens (they were 8 months old two days ago) twice a day. Of course they get fabulous, though repetitive food. I have to hide the bag in one of the few kitchen cupboards that actually closes, since June is accomplished at opening doors of all kinds. You can tell I learned this the hard way, because the bag is taped shut from all those secret snacks.

So twice a day (bi-daily?) I ask the kittens if they’re hungry. They race into the kitchen, where they proceed to mill around under my feet, making it almost impossible to extract the food and get it in the bowls without tripping or paw injury on all sides.

Once I get the food in the dishes (and June has grabbed the scoop at least twice to make sure she got everything that was coming to her), June starts eating and I go to look for Audrey. For some reason, when I put the food in the dishes, she runs away. So I have to go and get her and persuade her to come with me. I promise I’m not taking you to the vet! Finally after I capture her and place her wriggling body in front of her familiar bowl she looks up at me questioningly, as if I had given her a particularly difficult calculus problem to do.

Eventually they both eat, while somehow conveying that feeding time was far too late and the food disappointing. And such small portions.

I really should fill you in on the rest of the Film Noir Festival instead of blathering on about mundanities like my utility bill.

I soon learned that parking is nearly impossible in the Castro. I never had to worry about this during the halcyon days of living in the city: I either walked or took a cab. Sometimes I’d resort to public transit, but all the really important things, like the office, restaurants, gym and the lingerie store were within walking distance. And why waste valuable real estate on a parking lot? I discovered a street up the hill where there were no meters and am inordinately proud of my secret Castro parking space. I’ll tell you where it is if you come out and visit. I might even show it to you personally.

On with the show.

On Day Two, I saw Conflict (1945), which is widely regarded as the “lost” Bogart film, and is not available on DVD. Bogart and his then-wife, Mayot Methot, were known at the time of filming as “The Battling Bogarts”, and many people feel this played into his portrayal as a wife murderer with a crush on his wife’s sister. After spectacularly disposing of the troublesome spouse in question, he is haunted by her presence, smelling her perfume, glimpsing her on the street. Will his demons or Sydney Greenstreet catch up with him first?

Coincidentally, the woman Bogart couldn’t wait to get rid of is the same one Joseph Cornell was obsessed with: Rose Hobart. Cornell even took footage of one of her movies, cut everyone else out, colored it his favorite blue, and with a wild leap of imagination, called it…Rose Hobart. It is his most famous film. Like everything else, including your third birthday party and the time you stole that money from your mother’s purse, it’s on YouTube.

Also unfortunately unavailable for home viewing is Roadhouse (1948), with a sultry, sexy Ida Lupino stirring up trouble between friends Richard Widmark and Cornel Wilde at a small town roadhouse. Any movie fan knows you’d better not cross Richard Widmark, and after he loses the girl, he loses it and makes life hell for all concerned. With Celeste Holm in her always reliable gal pal role, and Ida Lupino singing torch songs in lam?. And driving Cornel Wilde wild in her tiny shorts and impromptu bathing attire. Yowza.

The final film was the bleakest, Night and the City (1950), with the most radiant star, the gorgeous Gene Tierney. Tierney plays a trusting woman in love with a scheming hustler played by our old friend Richard Widmark. Dark in every sense of the word, it ends in disaster. No happy ending here, but beautifully filmed on the mean streets of London and absorbing in its headlong rush to ruin.

I always disliked book reviews when I was at school. To me, deconstruction and analysis of a book, especially by self-centered adolescents, ruined the magic. If you dissect a bird to see how it’s made, it never flies again. Almost every book I was assigned to read and report on in school were thus ruined for me forever, save two, which I can still read with the same awed enjoyment: The Catcher In the Rye and In Cold Blood.

So it’s a little ironic that I have actually volunteered to write book reviews. I’ll put it down to bowing graciously to popular demand, but I’m not going to compare and contrast anything ever again. Just so you know.

Let’s get this party started.

Among Other Things, I’ve Taken Up Smoking, by Aoibheann (how on earth do you pronounce that one?) Sweeney

Given my fondness for “Catcher”, it may not be surprising that I enjoyed this postmodern coming of age novel, the first by its unpronounceable author. I could say it’s the story of a girl who grows up on an isolated island in Maine with her isolated intellectual father, her mother having died under somewhat mysterious circumstances. I could say it’s the story of this same girl approaching life in New York with na?vet? and charm. It is those things, but it’s also the girl’s discovery of herself and her father. The writing is lyrical, and I found myself turning back to re-read certain passages to experience their singular beauty all over again.

740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building, by Michael Gross

It’s as if the author knew about my love of gossip, especially high society gossip, and my love of fantasy real estate (as pictured in the New York Times) and wrote this book just for me. I revelled in the descriptions of the impossibly luxurious apartments inhabited by Rockefellers and Bouviers and the baroque lives they lived. A delightful break from the reality of living in Oakland, though some of the 740 Park denizens also had trouble paying their bills.

Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave, edited by Ellen Sussman

I found this one a little uneven, to say the least, but what else would you expect from a collection of essays that includes a meditation on the penis? Not to mention Erica Jong’s self-indulgent rant which unfortunately concludes the book. Joyce Maynard’s explanation of why she broke her silence about her youthful affair with JD Salinger was fascinating (I hope she’d be pleased that I sympathize with her despite loving his work) and I was delighted by Ann Hood’s account of making up a cool life to impress a makeover artist, but on the whole, not as fun as you’d think. You’d be better off getting together with your girlfriends, having a few cocktails, and swapping stories. Being bad might be one of the activities that are better to do than to read about.

The Almost Moon, by Alice Sebold

I have to agree with most of the critics who call it a disappointing follow-up to 2002’s best selling “The Lovely Bones”. The magic of the writing in “Bones” is missing in action in this tale of a woman who smothers the elderly mother who has destroyed, literally and figuratively, the lives of those around her. The characters and events are unsympathetic and unbelievable, and it’s hard to believe that the two books were written by the same person. Maybe some people really only have one book in them, and maybe we should be grateful that Harper Lee and Margaret Mitchell stopped when they did.

Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis, by Ed Sikov

A breezy recounting of the star’s life by a true fan who keeps it light and witty. I could have done without his constant drooling over Errol Flynn and knowing that Davis was difficult for costume designers to dress due to her refusal to wear underwire bras despite being in extremely desperate need of same (think National Geographic), though. If I have to suffer, you do, too.

Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote

Someone once said “Anyone who says ‘I love Truman Capote’ has never actually met him”, and that may be true. Geniuses and artists are notoriously difficult to live with. But I do love his writing, so it was a treat for me to read all his short pieces all in one place. I just dove right in and didn’t come up for days. If you have never read Capote, this is a great introduction to his art. And if you have…oh, honey, don’t let me commence!

The Sweet Birds of Gorham, by Ann Birstein

Really, Tru? I can’t believe that this slight, unsurprisingly out of print effort was Capote’s favorite book (though I can believe he’d say so as a joke). Supposedly a satire on the world of academe, in which a girl moves to a small town college from the big city and supposedly makes a stir. I remained unmoved. The best thing about it was the cute cover.

Up next:

Bridge of Sighs, by Richard Russo

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke

Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, by Dana Thomas

I hope luxury hasn’t really lost its luster. There’d be nothing left to live for.

Real life being so very unfabulous these days (stormy weather; three arrests accessorized by car towings on my block-and-a-half-long street in one week; a stinging case of mystery hives; the living room still garnished with unpacked boxes; my collapsing bed; and is that a bullet hole in the glass on my back porch?), I took refuge in the fantasy world of the New York Times Style Magazine. I can now tell you important things like:

• Orange is the new lip color for spring;
• I somehow managed to overlook the Osmoth?que perfume museum in Paris on my many visits;
• The perfect gift for the truly bitter: wedding ring coffins;
• Disco may not be back, but “disco waves” are (think Marisa Berenson); and
• I still can’t afford an estate in the Hamptons or a townhouse in the Village.

Besides the lack of escape from the horror of reality TV, the worst thing about the writers’ strike was the lack of glitz and glamor on the red carpet, the only good part of any awards show. It’s been months since there have been gowns and gems to admire. Withdrawal was setting in, so the Oscars are arriving not a moment too soon. I’m particularly looking forward to the million dollar Retro Rose shoes to be worn by Diablo Cody*, the writer of Juno. Who needs a glass slipper when you can have diamond slippers? And as Marilyn Monroe’s Lorelei Lee would say, “I just love finding new places to wear diamonds!”

I’d settle for these until I marry a millionaire or write an Oscar-nominated screenplay.

*If you think that name sounds like a stripper, you’re right: she was. You can read all about it in her memoir Candy Girl. Needless to say, I have it on order at the library.

Last night’s lunar eclipse was eclipsed by clouds here and sadness at my sister’s house. After a battle with acute leukemia, her beloved 14 year old dog Bear was laid to rest in the red moonlight, beside our adored Jed. They are together under a big tree in a sunny meadow where the wild irises grow. And my sister’s little house seems so empty now.

Snow flurries on the east coast seem to cause work flurries on the west coast, as businessmen flee the snows of New York for the sun of California.

I’ve had something of a blizzard this week, with early morning conference calls to the snowbound (and I do mean early; 5:30 yesterday and 5:00 tomorrow*); a visit to a money manager in a nearby city (where I was surprised to meet and chat with the CEO); and a day of meetings at our San Francisco office. I still find it weird to be clacking around the Financial District in heels, even though I did it for so many years in my former life.

I’m still getting used to the commute time from Oakland. It always takes longer than the schedules state, and I hate being late. On the other hand, I don’t have to feel guilty about driving, or find a parking space, so I guess it’s a trade-off. On my way home today, I took the bus from the BART station and felt like an overdressed freak. Two girls were conducting a loud, profanity-laced conversation about a mutual acquaintance who is a “gift ho”, a new one on me. The driver turned around and said very sternly, “Ladies, no cursing on my bus,” and a hush fell over the bus.

So, what with all the homicides this weekend, and the woman getting arrested across the street with three cop cars in attendance (and having her car towed), it seemed like a good idea to take a break from urban life.

I meant to leave today, but the meetings dragged on, so after my conference call 11 hours from now, I’ll head up to visit my brother and sister in beautiful Mendocino County for a few days. I’m expecting fewer murders and more wine.

*I used to start work at 6:00 am for years, along with the New York Stock Exchange. I haven’t done that for a few years, and now it seems inconceivable to me that I ever did. And that word does mean what I think it means.

Mail these days is rarely, if ever, fun. Since most of us use the instant gratification of email instead of the delayed gratification of the USPS, mailboxes now rarely contain love letters or cards or just plain letters. Sometimes you get a birthday card, and sometimes a postcard from a friend whose life is far more interesting than yours, but my mail mostly consists of items meant for the former occupants (who apparently don’t know that their friends at the post office would forward their mail if only they had been asked) and bills.

Last week, I got two horrifying bills in two horrifying days. One was for gas and electricity, and they wanted $127 from me. The other was from the Franz Kafka Utility Company, and they wanted $107. Apparently odd numbers are oddly popular among the odd. I was mystified by both bills, since I turn the heat off whenever I leave the house, turn it down to 57 when I go to bed, and rarely keep it above 65 or 66 ever. I also only light the room I’m actually in. I tried those eco lights in the bedroom, but it made it look like a dentist’s office or the dressing room of a cheap and cruel department store, so I had to go back to the warm glow of real light bulbs. I do have the ugly eco lights on the porch and in the laundry room, where atmosphere and appearance are less important, but every time I drive up to the house and porch light is on, I think, God, that light is ugly.

It’s not pretty being green.

Anyway, I was pretty much resigned to the gas & electric bill, but there were so many inexplicable line items on the FKUC bill that I called them and asked them what the FKUC. The person on the phone was very nice, and nearly the first thing she asked me was if this was my first Oakland water bill. She wasn’t surprised to hear it was – apparently my reaction to the bill is pretty much universal. The good news: the $15 new account charge is a one time thing – unless I move elsewhere in beautiful Oakland, in which case I will get to see it and pay it again.

The bad and the surreal news:

• The “water service charge” isn’t for the water usage. It’s for the meter, long since paid for, that the FKUC uses to read the water usage. The actual water charge is listed under “water flow charge”, and is considerably less expensive than the charge for the long paid off meter. Does this make sense to anyone?
• The sewage charge was nearly $40, and that’s apparently the least it will ever be. I asked what the most could be, and was glad I was sitting down when she informed me it could go as high as $110. As soon as she said “it can go up and down”, I knew I was in trouble. Has anyone ever known a charge such as this or, say, an adjustable mortgage, to actually go down? Didn’t think so.
• Since I don’t have a dishwasher or water the lawn (the Almighty, as my father used to say, has been doing an almighty good job of that lately) and turn the water off when I brush my teeth, etc., I couldn’t understand why the bill was so high. Here’s fun news: it isn’t. According to my utility company, I am a good citizen who uses half the water that the average Oakland resident does.

I’d hate to see their bills. But then, I hate to see (and pay) mine, too.

Speaking of paying bills: remember that ticket for not pausing enough at the stop sign? Yeah, well, it was worse than either utility bill: $159 (again with the odd numbers). And they charged me a “convenience fee” for paying it on line. I wonder whose convenience that was?

Am hung over from unwise brandy after the Film Noir Festival at the beautiful Castro Theater last night. I must have missed the “please drink responsibly” warning on the label.

The movies were wonderful. It was, appropriately, a dark and stormy night. The theater was built in 1922 and has been restored to its full glory. When I arrived, the organist was playing the Wurlitzer organ on stage, which sinks out of sight when it’s time for the movie. It’s a movie palace, all right.

The movies were introduced by James Ellroy, one of the premier weirdos of our time and author of many books, including one on the Black Dahlia and one about his mother’s still unsolved murder, which took place when he was around 10 years old. He is a noir aficionado and helped to finance the restoration of the prints we saw last night. Both movies were written by Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted in the dark McCarthy era and whose name therefore does not appear in the credits. His grandson was also there.

I had never seen the first movie before, “The Prowler” from 1950. Attention-grabbing opening scene of Evelyn Keyes (Scarlett O’Hara’s little sister in “Gone with the Wind”) clutching a towel to her otherwise nude quite the figure and screaming as she catches sight of…The Prowler!!! She calls the police, one of whom is very taken with her and ends up being a homme fatale, as well as very possibly the original prowler. Ev really should close the blinds when she’s taking a bath. I think she learned her lesson.

I had seen the second, “Gun Crazy”, but it’s great to see it on a big screen in a beautiful place and enjoy the crowd’s reactions. The movie, released the same year, pairs a carnival sharpshooting lovely with a disillusioned WWII veteran on a crime spree.

Up next: “Conflict”, a Bogart rarity, on February 1, and “Night and the City”, with the luminous Gene Tierney, on February 3. Stay tuned!

I was chatting with my sister on the phone and minding my own business when I noticed an old man carrying a red plastic gas container coming up my front stairs. There’s a big window overlooking the stairs and porch, and the front door is mostly glass, so when I have the blinds open, it’s pretty much a two-way show. I can look out, and anyone who cares to peek past the giant camellia bush or come up the three front stairs can look in.

Since I rarely, if ever, do anything interesting to passersby or the police, this isn’t usually a problem. However, when strangers appear and start peering in, it is.

I told my sister about the unexpected visitor, and she told me (somewhat unnecessarily, but she tends to be protective of her older and sillier sister) not to let the guy in. Her view was that he was using the gas can scenario to get in the house. At this point, I had fled to the kitchen, making me temporarily invisible to Gas Can Man, though the TV and other stealables weren’t.

After a few minutes, I peeked out from my refuge and saw that my porch was once again weirdo-free. On further peeking, I noticed Gas Can Man shuffling away, presumably to scare someone else.

Nothing makes you feel like you live somewhere more than getting a library card and registering to vote.

As soon as I started camping in my house, I did both. Registering to vote was the easier of the two, since it can be done on-line, whereas the library requires a personal appearance. And the ability to read maps. The Oakland Library site just shows you a map of where the libraries are and lets you figure it out, not easy for the map challenged*.

Imagine my delight when I learned that the closest library to me did not require freeway driving and was in the Dimond District. Like you, I assumed that it was a misspelling of my favorite word, but no. Apparently it is named for Hugh Dimond, who made his money in the Gold Rush (how appropriate!) and bought the land in the 1860’s.

However…the library has a policy whereby new patrons such as myself have to be on probation for six count ’em weeks. Though I didn’t have to report to a probation officer, I couldn’t request more than four books at a time or have more than two out at a time, which you can imagine was quite the hardship for a book addict like Me, especially because I didn’t find out about the request thing until I had requested the first four of my long list. If I’d known, I would have selected the ones with the fewest holds/shortest waiting periods.

And you know how I love to wait.

I am pleased to report that I successfully completed my probation, and now have a comfortable 24 books requested and three in transit, which is just the way I like it.

In case you’re wondering what I’ll be getting in the next few days:

The Almost Moon,by Alice Sebold (how I adored The Lovely Bones)

Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave, edited by Ellen Sussman

Among Other Things, I’ve Taken Up Smoking,by Aoibheann Sweeney

While I was on probation, I picked up the following:

740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building, by Michael Gross
If I can’t be rich, I can read about those who are. And the real estate section of the New York Times is, after all, my porn.

Edie: Girl on Fire, by David Weisman and Melissa Painter
Purportedly the true story of Warhol muse, style icon and all around 60’s It Girl Edie Sedgwick.

The Sweet Birds of Gorham
Out of print; Truman Capote, whose writing I adore, always said it was his favorite book.

It occurs to me that I should perhaps review the many books I read. Any thoughts? Hit me at speakall@earthlink.net. You’re registered to vote, too.

*You know how it took me practically no time to buy the car when faced with not having one? It took me approximately the same amount of time to get a GPS to tell me where to go. I now have an unreasonable fear of the word “recalculating”.