January 5, 2007

Marlena's Daughters and Energy's Son

Isn't it weird when you meet people and it feels like you have known them forever?

This is Kasch and her daughter Antonia, my brother Tom's new family from Berlin. I haven't written too much about this because I wanted to make sure it was cool with them first. Basically, Tom met Kasch when he was on tour in Germany last summer, and now he is moving there!

Kasch and Antonia were here for a little over two weeks and now that they are gone there is a void. When my brother moves, there will be an even bigger void. Thankfully I myself am going to Berlin for two weeks in March, otherwise I would be hella bummed. I am sort of fantasizing about moving there myself, but of course I won't. I don't think. The problem is, I am an urban girl living in a beach town. I love my beach town, but I really get off on subways and outdoor cafes on big boulevards and bridges with statues on them and stuff. Though if I lived in a big city I would probably be fantasizing about sunsets and the smell of the sea and fried clams. Was it Hemingway that said, write about the summer in the winter, and the winter in the summer? That is the way I think, all the time. If you get my drift.

Anyway, I love Tom's new family. They are both beautiful and, well, the epitome of cool. Kasch is already Cool Beyond Words and Antonia is The Coolest Chick In Town Waiting to Happen. For now though she is a Cool Little Girl. She loves, LOVES, my nephew Ryan. Here she is with Ryan and Ryan's mama Carrie:

Speaking of Cool Little Girl Antonia last night was pretty funny. She hasn't been speaking much to me since I can't understand German, though I think she understands quite a bit of English. But last night, I went to Tom's for dinner with Kasch and Antonia, Scottie Blinn (from the Mudsharks) and his wife Roxanne and kid Little Man Jackson. After dinner, the four other adults wanted to go down to Tony's bar so I stayed with the kids. Little Man Jackson is basically a meteor trapped in a child's body, and spent the first twenty minutes carreening off couches and walls like a pinball. It was some pretty intense energy expenditure, let me tell you. Antonia and I wanted to play Uno with the Hello Kitty Uno cards I got her for Christmas, so we kept asking Jackson but he was like, "no way, I ain't playing with no Hello Kitty cards!" (Good boy, Scott would later say.) I finally talked him into it because you can't play Uno with only two people so I was kind of desperate. Anyhow, I was like, "Jackson, you are CRAZY."

Then, out of nowhere, Antonia says, completely deadpan, "Crazy Boy." Then she proceeds to play Uno with us, SPEAKING ENGLISH THE WHOLE TIME. I was blown away, she just turned 10 but obviously has a mind like a steel trap.

Jackson continued cracking us both up, saying stuff like "I'm the weirdest!" and doing break-dancing moves on the floor when his energy got to be too much. Later, when his dad mentioned my blog Poptarticus, Jackson exclaimed "I'LL HAVE A BLOG TOO, AND I'M GONNA CALL IT FARTICUS!" Dude. I almost fell down laughing.

Antonia and Jackson got sick of Uno after three hands and started instant messaging each other on their little handheld Nintendos, drawing each other pictures and teaching each other words from their languages. It was really cool.

Kids. What a trip. FARTICUS. Too much. I wish I was that creative.

Posted by Shannon at 6:24 PM | Comments (1)

December 4, 2006

I Got Puffed

I spent the weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico hanging with my mom and friends and it was really, really great. Colleen and I rented a little apartment with a fireplace, and there was snow on the ground, and we ate a lot. Like a LOT. There are some killer restaurants in Santa Fe, and one that has the famous Pimientos de Padron peppers that I fell in love with in Spain.

I have to say though - flying is really, really getting to be a drag. It is just really starting to bug. Today, we got Puffed by a GE Puffer. Today was the first time I have seen this machine and of course, me and Colleen were chosen for this special experience. I am convinced it was Colleen's subliminal fuck you of putting one tiny hotel lotion in a quart sized bag (subliminal, because Colleen is too nice to do that on purpose. I added the fuck you.) I thought it was kind of hilarious, myself, but obviously security finds this sort of behavior, well, threatening.

I guess I should preface this by confessing to my own attempt at a "fuck you" on the way out of San Diego. In my quart sized bag, in addition to my lotion, toothpaste and shampoo, I put a knife-less corkscrew and four vials of grappa. The corkscrew was a Guillotine style, the kind with a built-in foilcutter instead of a knife, one that I thought would be a common sight to the TSA by now. The vials of grappa were, well, vials of grappa. They look like those free samples of perfume you sometimes get. The crazy thing is, I didn't even drink the grappa, I just wanted to see what would happen if I tried to get them through. Did you know you can bring beverages from home in your quart sized bag as long as they are three ounces or less? I take this to mean you can bring a quart sized bag with a mini bar of little bottles, but I thought I would try the grappa first before testing that theory.

I got stopped for the corkscrew. Not the grappa. I had to go to the special area where you aren't allowed to put anything on the table while they inspected the corkscrew for a really long time, and then went back to run it through the xray machine again. Well, it is pretty obvious that this thing is a piece of plastic and there is no knife on it, but whatever. The vials of grappa were not even a Blip on their Radar.

Anyhow, back to the GE Puffer. If you have ever been on the Raiders of the Lost Ark ride at Disneyland, then you have been puffed. But, believe me when I tell you, it is a lot more fun being puffed by fake arrows on a crazy jeep at Disneyland than it is by this big hunk of metal that you have to walk into after you shed your shoes, your belt, your coat, and after you put your quart sized bag of lotion and grappa in the bin. There was a sign next to it that read (I kid you not) "if you are wearing a skirt or a loose shirt, please hold them down." You walk into that thing and it blasts air at you, just like on the Raiders of the Lost Ark ride, and it SUCKS. It is weird, it is disconcerting, and yes, it blew my shirt up a bit. THEN you have to go through the regular xray machine. Then you can collect your shoes, and retrieve your quart sized bag.

I guess this is the way of the future, but friggen GE is making $160,000 a pop on those icky things. Maybe it's not just about terrorism. Maybe it's about MONEY. GE and Ziplock are in cahoots to line their pockets while the TSA is stripping ours.

Having said all this, I'll probably go down a notch on the acceptable flyer list, but whatever. That puffer thing SUCKS and I want you all to know it.

Posted by Shannon at 6:59 PM | Comments (2)

December 29, 2005

Flirting with the Pastor

I have been having the most insane dreams. I can't even write about them here, they are just too sick. Mostly they involve doing bad things, the least of which is a lot of weird sexual stuff, which isn’t necessarily bad, but also stealing and lying. I don't steal or lie in real life, but I am sure doing it a lot this week in that other reality. This morning I told a blatant lie that I was Jeff Tweedy's girlfriend and spent the rest of the dream trying to figure out how I was going to get out of the lie. And I am not even into Jeff Tweedy that way! Where is Britt? Man, I wish Britt could appear in one of these dreams. Then it might all be worth it. But why Jeff Tweedy? Is it because I am feeling guilty that I’ve not yet bought Kicking Television? What kind of Wilco freak am I? The kind who already has a couple of live show bootlegs, I guess. I’m listening to the Madison Square Garden New Year’s Eve show right now, just to de-guilt a little.

So maybe it is the end of the year, so I am working stuff out in my head, or maybe I am just getting more sleep than I am used to. Too many people are getting sick around here and I cannot get sick. My party is this Sunday. Can’t, can’t, can’t get sick. Sleep is a form of prevention, but on the other hand, all these crazy dreams are, well, making me a little insane. I feel unbalanced by the symbolism that's going on in my head. I don't have time to understand it right now. The sex. The crimes. The getting back together with ex-husbands. Too freaky. How I wish for a couple of nights with no dreaming! Unless, of course, Britt Daniel is involved somehow.

I’m slowly getting ready for my party. Once again I am making massive quantities of food with absolutely no idea as to how many people will show up. This year’s menu:

Pate di Tonno con Capperi (a pretty name for tuna spread, heh heh, I even made it up)
A very colorful spread of antipasti
Little Weenies with Bourbon BBQ Sauce
Cheeses served with Mostarda I brought home from Venice last year
Cheese Date Biscuits
Bread with Chocolate, Olive Oil & Salt
Diva’s Pesto Siciliano
Scalloped Potatoes with Ham
Pasta e Fagioli
Chilequiles de Puerco (or, tortilla casserole with pork in it)
Salad (the one Green Thing)
Panettone Bread Pudding with some mystery sauce I haven’t yet invented

Even more than last year. That is scary. If you are reading this, and live near here, please come by and help eat some of this stuff. I promise to make your New Year’s Eve hangover go away, at least temporarily.

Posted by Shannon at 7:08 PM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2005

Smells Like Christmas Spirit

"He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows: and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk -- that anything -- could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house." - Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol."

On this sort of eve of the week leading up to Christmas 2005, I sit here unaffected. Strange, really, as lit trees and egg nog have, in the past, made me excruciatingly happy. But this year is different. I'm not sure if it is the acceleration of time (Christmas just got here too fucking fast, I am still thinking in Summer-time) or the manipulation of the holiday by the media (holiday tree vs. Christmas tree, right wing Christian vs. Everyone, also SHOP SHOP SHOP motherfuckas) or age (Huh? What's going on?) It could be age. It could be, that I am getting too old to enjoy things anymore. Wait, is that eggnog with brandy in it? I fucking LOVE that shit. OK, maybe it is not age.

I don't like to be unaffected. The fact that I am unaffected is affecting me. I WANT the joy of the season to wash over me, but there is no joy. Oh. Maybe there is no reformed Scrooge kind of joy, period? Maybe I have been expecting joy when there is actually none except for the bought and manufactured kind? No, I don't believe that either. Believe what? Here I fucking go, getting into fruitless arguments with myself again.

What is holiday spirit, anyway? What is TRUE holiday spirit? What is the point? Have I been buying in to the wrong thing all along?

Sometimes I have to breathe deep and remind myself, this is the 21st century. Most likely, you will have to deal with Walmart taking over the world and dudes in giant pickup trucks cutting you off on the 405 for the rest of your life. There is no Christmas, really, only life, and Walmart and assholes in giant trucks are a part of life now, regardless of the time frame. But when I breathe deep, it stinks. My Christmas wish is, that people could take an interest in the world around them and also, be a little nicer on the road. My Christmas wish smells like brandy laced eggnog. We are already hungover anyway, so any sweet, enebriating potion is welcome medicine, at least until January 2. And joy happens when you aren't expecting it, and joy can't be bought. Still, I wish I could look at my little tree and feel something there.

Maybe now that I have written this I will feel sorry for the tree and feel something. Or at least SMELL something. One can hope.

Posted by Shannon at 9:02 PM | Comments (0)

December 8, 2005

The Dream of the Motorbikes

First of all, I am TOTALLY IN LOVE with Elbow's new record Leaders of the Free World. The first song is so totally epic, industrial, tripped out and cool... I love it when a record starts out with EPIC. Fuck waiting until the end for that. The rest of the record is killer, too.

I can't stop listening to it... I know my life is hella boring. Just the way it is.

Also, I found out today that Sigur Ros is going to be in Austin, Texas at the end of February, at the same time I will! All of a sudden I am all excited about everything again. What is WRONG with me. I fear that I am hopelessly out of touch with anything resembling reality.

And I already have a ticket... more on that later. I was already so excited to go to Austin since it is the home of you know who but now I don't even care about that! Well actually I do, but whatever.

So the other night I dreamed about Britt Daniel for the first time since, well, the first time. That I can remember anyway. I woke up right after in a sweat. The dream was perplexing, not like the first one. I was in a big lot, almost like a junkyard, and Britt was there too. We were both working on our motorbikes. We never spoke, though I was always trying to get his attention. He looked on with a detached, unconvinced air.

What is the symbolism of the motorbikes? That one is weird.

Posted by Shannon at 9:50 PM | Comments (1)

November 6, 2005

Outsanity

Once upon a time, in a different world, I had a conversation with someone who I'll never forget but probably will never see again, and that conversation basically came down to this: my friend (who was extraordinarily bright) had once been institutionalized, and when he was in the loony bin, the feeling was that the INsane people were IN, and the other people, like the nurses and doctors, were OUT - or, as my friend said, OUTSANE. In this world, described to me so eloquently, the real world was inside the ward, and all the patients were the rational ones. The crazys and the true psychotics were the people on the outside. The Outsane.

I am not an outsane, or an insane, I don't think. I guess I like to believe I am on the perimeter of something resembling sane. But what is sane? Lingusitics, basically. Insane? Outsane? How do you describe these, personally? The inability to deal with emotions, or the total lack of emotion? A blank stare? A careful answer? A raw look? A sharp fingernail in your jugular? Pissing in your cereal?

We are all capable of all of these things. We are all insane, and outsane. OK, maybe you are a little unsure that you would piss in someone's cereal, and I agree - I am too outsane to ever do something like that. But what I think I really want to get at here is (getting back to ME), by spending too much time alone (which I have been doing alot of) I am cutting myself off from what makes me fucking write in the first place.

Tonight I met, out of the blue but kind of not, a man who told me so many things about his life that I felt I should be charging an hourly rate. But, his stories were well-told and sort of riveting. I asked him why he was telling me all this stuff, and he said, you never know where you are going to get information from. That, faithful reader, is what it is all about. WHERE is that random insight coming from? It could come from anywhere, it could shoot out from around a fake tree at a lame hotel, it could come from a busboy refilling your coffee in a diner in Nowhereville. It can come from anywhere. These total randoms don't know how strong I am, they just see right through my shit. Yours, too. Don't try to hide. Hiding is a human condition, and we are all guilty of it.

I ended up telling my stories too - brutal, harrowing, Iwassofuckedup stories. And in the end it came down to one thing, a response from a therapist to my new friend, in a cab in Milwaukee, to the question "what." (I say, just "what," because that is the question, basically. Just add on whatever you want to "what.")

People just want to love, and be loved, is what the therapist said. It is easy to poke holes in this, as a single woman with no intention whatsover of getting into a relationship at the moment. But, there are alot of other kinds of relationships and alot of other kinds of devices to get love. Some of which I am guilty of, I think.

Is this what it comes down to? Loving and being loved? Probably, it is. When I think about love, the love I have for my family and my friends, or when some stranger in the bar reminds me about how important love is, I just want to lay down my sword - and it is big - and let love in. I'm not scared but, I AM scared. Life is scary, whether you are insane, outsane, or inbetween sane. Love, even if it makes people totally, uh, insane, is what holds us all together. It's fucking crazy.

Posted by Shannon at 10:02 PM | Comments (2)

September 8, 2005

Fireman's Call

I know you are all just dying to know if there were fireman at the Fireman's ball. But seriously, my computer is overheating, and I am not sure I can make it that far. It doesn't seem hot, but it IS. This morning when I went out for my morning walk I thought I was having a hot flash! But I think I am still too young for that. I hope. At any rate it really is hot. Flashingly.

The other day I posted an entry about the end of the world and I got a really heartfelt and time consuming comment from one of my readers. But, I had to pull the entry down, because it was pretty sad and negative and let's face it, we don't need that right now. We need to take the community feeling we've got going and intensify it - and not think about the future or lack there-of. Still, I felt bad deleting the comment more than the entry, because someone actually took the time to write that, for me and my other readers. It's not so easy to write stuff like that, believe me. The cool thing is, this comment I got, and some comments from my mom, made me see through my own bullshit, whether or not I "had" to write it or not. This is the weird thing about having a blog. I mean, what the fuck is this thing? It's not a music blog, or a travel blog, or a food blog. It's ME. Everyday I look at how many people have had a look and think about the numbers, but holy cow, those numbers may be really reading what I am writing!

It's really hard to be entertaining and to write kind of well and to not spill your personal anxieties and nastinesses all over, but it's also almost impossible, since this is pretty much a diary written for the entertainment of others. Where to draw the line?

Since we are getting close again, I can say this: and I don't care about fucking punctuation; sometimes it is so hard to be entertaining. But other times when I think I can't write, like I felt tonight, I just sit down and write. And sometimes it works.

Well then. It's still really hot.

On another note, and one that I am sure EVERYONE will be thrilled about, Spoon is COMING TO SAN DIEGO! That's right, Britt Daniel will be here, and at Canes, a little postage stamp of a club right down the street in Mission Beach, where I can try not to get too close because I will just look like an aging groupie, even though everyone will try to talk me into talking to him. (I won't talk to him. I'd be too scared, also I'll most likely be drunk, and I know not to open my mouth in these situations. One of the good things about age.) I got FOUR tickets because let's face it, one is not enough. The show is not until November 18, and my solemn vow is to not mutter one mention of Britt Daniel on this blog until at least October 3. Not one! Except this one:

The Dandy Warhols have a new album coming in a couple of days and the title is really stupid but the record is GREAT. It's like the old Dandy's, the Dandy's of 13 Tales of Urban Bohemia, one of the best records ever made in, like, 2000. You can listen to the record before it is released here. I love it... and must really have Britt Daniel on my mind because in "All the Money or the Simple Life Honey" all I can hear is Britt Daniel's voice... not Courtney Taylor-Taylor's. Not ALL the lyrics, but for sure some of them... Courtney loves Britt too, I can see that. How could he not? YEAH. UH HUH.

Now I promise, not one word, until at least October 3, about Britt Daniel. Maybe, by then, I'll have a different obsession. Sorry about the randomness, I must admit, I am getting a bit lax with the run-ons. But you can take it, or you wouldn't have got this far.

Posted by Shannon at 9:26 PM | Comments (2)

August 17, 2005

Everything Hits at Once

There are a few things I want to write about tonight. The first thing is the emails and comments I got from readers who have been following whats been going on this last week. Seriously, sometimes I have no idea who is reading this thing. Thank you to everyone who sent me, verbally or electronically, love and support. It is appreciated and, well, it just makes me feel good.

Now I am back in OB and the skies are clearing of fog, but it seems like Fall is here already. We've somehow skipped summer even though it is not over yet! And the noise level of the last couple of days had me thinking - is it a full moon?

Well, yes, as I saw tonight since there is no fog, it is indeed almost a full moon. During the full moon, the noise level rises, and the freaks come out. Last month was a record month for the freaks but this month the noise makers are winning.

I guess I have to vent a tiny bit here. A few months ago, a family from Texas moved in next door to me. There is a wall seperating us, but I might as well be living in their house. They have a dog that barks, a phone on the highest volume, and a daughter who, I kid you not, has the loudest voice in these United States. She is making my life hell and I am too nice to do anything about it.

Why is that? I just lay in bed at midnight suffering while she bellows "Daddy" and drones on about the most inane shit and I have to listen, listen, listen. It would be OK if it was more interesting eavesdropping. But it is eighteen year old (and the stupidest and lamest eighteen year old) complaining and whining. No good stuff in there. It just bugs.

Today I was working here, and I hear screaming over there. It went on for TWO HOURS. Homegirl got her car taken away, and she was SCREAMING at her mother about it. It went on and on. At one point, I screamed out my front door, into their house six feet away, "GIVE HER THE FUCKING CAR SO SHE WILL SHUT UP." But they didn't hear me! It's useless dealing with the Clueless. But I am thinking of moving to Galicia in Northern Spain, and these people are helping me to make up my mind.

So what else? There's that bad heroin that is killing youngsters in New York City. There are numerous plane crashes. And then there is the bling.

In the current issue of Rolling Stone, there is an article about bling with interviews with a bunch of hip hop guys. The amount of money spent on diamonds and gold (and cubic zirconia) is pretty astounding. What is up with these diamond teeth and shit? And these five pound diamond bracelets? I'd like to think everyone thinks it just looks ridiculous, but there is a whole group of people that think that shit is cool.

I'm not trying to diss on this whole bling phenomenon. I'm just thinking, and expressing. And here is what I think: that in a couple of years, the whole bling in hip hop thing will be over, the movement/fad/setback turned to dust by that new revolution - the hip hop folksters. I can see it now - the new talent of hip hop, pissed off and horrified by the excess and obnoxiousness of the current hip hop stars, getting back to the grass roots of music and forgetting the bling. I foresee a hip hop Ani DiFranco. Hippie Hop. The pendulum will swing, and Tiffany's will be pissed. Well maybe not pissed but their stock will certainly go down. And then, real tits will be back in style. Watch. It's right there, just waiting...

Posted by Shannon at 9:26 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2005

A Farewell to a Friend

I lost a friend today. Really lost a friend - not through misuse, abuse, or long-term seperation. I lost this friend because she died today.

I've not much experience with this kind of thing. Family members and acquaintances, yes. But a friend - someone who wants to come to your party, even if it is in Sicily, someone who covers your back when it is needed, someone who will have an 11:00 A.M. prosecco with you - this I have not lost before.

So I am having a bit of a hard time even knowing what I am feeling, or feeling what I am knowing. For sure, there is a section of my gut that feels kicked in, deflated. And there is an emptiness where my friend once was, but not totally, because I have this crazy feeling she's hovering, waiting to make sure there are plenty of cocktails at her memorial. Cocktails and maybe some serrano ham or good gorgonzola. She'll want people to eat, to drink, and to raise their glass to the New Mexico sunset while a fire burns and her kids smile through their tears.

I'd like to write a bit about my friend Nancy. We meet lots of people in our lives. Some stay a couple of years, some split right away. Some are lifers. Some ease in softly, and ease just as softly out. Not Nancy. She barrelled her way into my life fueled by Italian cigarettes and Spanish brandy and a deep and primal love of life. She was a giant with a huge heart and a deep love of the space around her. I knew her in Florence, when she was a part of Florence and the life there, when she knew all the guys down at the San Ambrogio Market, like the guy with the best gorgonzola, or the guy who could maybe get her a big turkey for Thanksgiving, or the old man with the tastiest sausages. After, she'd head on down to the bar San Ambrogio, or one of the cafes in Piazza Santa Croce, for a glass of white wine or a Mojito. I bet they are still wondering where the hell she went, in the Florence neighborhood she loved.

Yeah. She blew into my life in Venice, blown by Botticelli's winds and unseen forces, and immediately asked me to come down to Florence to stay with her cats while she went off to Sorrento, something I was more than happy to do. It was the beginning. When I met Nancy it was like I'd known her forever. Longer than forever. Even though she is not here now, that hasn't changed. She was part of the fabric of my life - a friend of my best friends, a friend of my mothers. She was part of their fabric, and we were part of hers.

Just as she blew her way in, she blew out. In a heartbeat, she was gone. No real goodbye, just a wha-the-fa. Somehow, it's how I knew it would happen, though that doesn't change the shock of it all.

I'll be there, come Saturday, with the biggest Mojito of all, raising my glass to that New Mexico sunset, raising my glass to Nancy. Crazy, fierce and totally unique Nancy. Smiling, through my tears.

Posted by Shannon at 9:16 PM | Comments (2)

July 26, 2005

1,225,675,932 seconds to go

July has been a crappy month. Rent hikes and pay cuts, sickness and what seemed like a decade of fog. Every high must be balanced by a low, and June was so much fun I guess I had to pay for it somehow.

Last week I got the flu on the first really hot day of the summer. I was flattened on my couch with a fan blowing on me, too tired to even watch TV. It was the kind of heat where sweat drips on the backside of your knees. With a fever, well, let's just say that was kind of knarly.

Whenever I get sick I get really freaked out about my mortality. I don't know why because I believe in reincarnation and I am not so much scared of death as I am of my body failing. The day after the worst of it, when I was able to sit up again, I spent the whole day angsting out about all the horrible things that could be inside of me waiting to come out. It's so hard to live in these times, when there are so many physical things to be frightened of. I thought myself into a corner, convinced I had a really scary disease. Sickness does bizarre shit to my brain. Especially when it happens in the middle of the summer when you aren't suppose to get the flu. It must be something worse, but just SEEMS like the flu...

But of course it was not something worse and it was just the flu (I think.) It's strange how being physically unbalanced can make your mind go a little batty.

During my temporary insanity, while I was looking for symptoms of all my new diseases, I found the Death Clock. According to the Death Clock, I will live until 2044. I have a lifetime subscription to Rolling Stone magazine, and they seem to think I am going to be around until 2054. While I'm not sure that is possible, it's nice to know statistics are on my side.

It's almost August, and believe me, I'd rather be writing about shows at the Hollywood Bowl with drag queens dressed as cheerleaders and quaking walls of sound. August, though it won't be the killerfest June was, will definitely be better. Already, as I pet my new iPod my brother gave me today, things seem a little better. And for the moment, all thoughts of dying have gone into the fog at the back of my head, until the next time I can't get off the couch.

Posted by Shannon at 7:03 PM | Comments (1)

July 23, 2005

A House Built of Sod

When I was in the 7th grade, I had a big crush on a boy named Alex. He was blond and had the face of an angel. If I'd known Botticelli paintings in the 7th grade, I'd say Alex resembled something out of one. But I didn't know Botticelli, yet.

In the perfect 7th grade world of 1977/1978, if you liked a boy, you would go to the dance and slow-dance to "Stairway to Heaven" with him. This was the be-all end-all of the romantic junior high school mind. I spent way too much time obsessing on this in the Fall of 1977. Me, Alex, colored lights and "Stairway to Heaven." If only it would Really Happen.

But the 7th grade is a hotbed of gossip and scandal. And there was another girl after Alex. Her name was Toni. Neither of us was particularly pretty, so the fight for Alex was fairly even, except that Toni had one thing I lacked - claws.

I don't even know how it came about that the whole school, it seemed, knew about me, Toni, and Alex. How did they know? I certainly wasn't talking about it. It was a whisper, then a shout - who will dance "Stairway to Heaven" with Alex? Then, the day of the dance, during gym, Toni came with her friends and starting yelling at me. I yelled back, though I was absolutely terrified. It almost came to blows. I can still see her Filippino face, turning all pink and twisted as she yelled. It was pretty fucking scary. Then she walked away.

Shortly after, still shaking a little, I was approached by my own set of best friends. Their faces were grim. They led me solemnly to the girl's bathroom, where, they told me, Toni had left a little something for me.

I entered the bathroom and almost died. All over the walls, doors, and mirrors, Toni had written every possible slur she could think of, with a thick, blue marker. My name and a thousand cliches swam at me from all directions. It was a brutal and heartless thing to do, and for no real reason, because Alex would choose who he would choose with no help from us. You'd think only a 7th grader could be so brutal, but then you grow up.

Though the ink was permanent, I don't think it remained on the walls very long. I never went to the principal, because that was just not done. I spent the rest of the day with my stomach in knots. Then me and my friends got dressed and went to the dance.

I wish I could tell you it was romantic, that the scorned child got her revenge through love, but it didn't happen that way. An 8th grader named Michelle swooped in like a hawk and Alex was history. I watched her dance to "Stairway to Heaven" with him from the sidelines, barely able to control my angst. I am sure Toni was doing the same, from another part of the room.

The youthful heart recovers quickly, and I learned a great lesson from Michelle that night. Within a couple of weeks I had a cute, blond, 6th grade boyfriend named Kregg. And in the 8th grade, I had a 7th grade boyfriend (though, as my brother will tell you, this one was the biggest, scariest guy in the school. Take that, Toni.)

I guess that these incidents from our youth are necessary to give you the defenses you need to survive as an adult. It would seem that way, since though they might slip to the back of your mind, you never really forget about them. They pop in to your mind when you need them. Yeah, today I want to die. But tomorrow I'll wake up and it'll be better, and maybe I'll have a cute blond boyfriend. Tomorrow, is another day.

Posted by Shannon at 8:52 AM | Comments (2)

July 20, 2005

Moon Over Mental Instability

Sorry for the lack of posts... sometimes it's just not there.

Full moon tomorrow, and of course today was full of bizarreness and angst. The freaks always come out at the full moon. You know what I'm saying?

On a more pleasant note, I heard from my dear friend Prentiss Smithson today. I have mentioned him a couple of times on my blog, but we did not have contact for a couple of years. Guess how he found me? That's right, The Blog! Maybe I can also search for my 4th grade boyfriend this way (Richie Arambula, where are you?)

Just kidding.

It was so great to talk to Prentiss. There are some friends you meet in life that, no matter what happens, will always be like family.

Prentiss told me a couple of other friends I haven't talked to in a long time also read Poptarticus. Sneaky devils! Hi Bill, hi David, maybe I can come to Portland, Maine and Palm Beach or wherever and visit you sometime!

Today, out of nowhere, it rained. With the freaks comes the earthquake weather. No sweat, when one hooks up with a lost friend, all else can be forgotten.

Posted by Shannon at 7:18 PM | Comments (1)

July 12, 2005

No Pain, Lots of Gain

The checks and balances of the universe and of each and every person and thing that inhabits the universe work in a cycle. I, being a creature of said universe, am no exception. And today I am seeing the upswing, the light at the end of the tunnel, the fat purple lollipop after a somewhat scary few days of agony.

Damn, I am such a Woos. But I am sorry, that fucking HURT.

I am out of it now. But it is a wake up call to be so messed up. Gotta start taking better care of myself, drink less wine and take Omega three gel caps and shit. It is a wonder that I am in the somewhat decent condition I am in, after all this abuse.

In my early years in San Francisco, I knew a photographer who I had worked with, had an affair with (in Boston during Hurricane Gloria) and eventually just ran into, from time to time. The guy had been in a motorcycle accident and fucked up his knee, and the constant pain CHANGED who he was. He ceased being the cool, fun photographer guy and became the guy who whenever-you-were-around-him-bad-thoughts-would-happen guy. The pain permeated him and everything around him. I remember sitting in his bedroom with him once, coming down off a crazy weekend of ingesting who-knows-what, and Patsy Cline was playing on the turntable. He went on and on about his pain and how he was drinking a pint or quart of vodka or whatever a day to kill it and before you knew it, I was crying hysterically (maybe that was his game). One time I sat in his kitchen and he rolled the I Ching for me. The I Ching told me "there is no relief or hope in sight." Hmmm.

After a while I stopped hanging with the photographer so much (otherwise I might have hung myself. Seriously) but I ran into him from time to time, mostly at the Rainbow Grocery, when it was still on Mission Street. Every time, I would say hey Paul, whaddup? And he would answer something horrible about his knee, and how he was taking this or that or doing this or that. It was a fucking broken record, man. Eventually, after maybe a year of not running into him, I did again and he immediately went into the pain. And I just started laughing. I couldn't stop. All the people looking at the index cards advertising room rentals or Spanish lessons in the foyer of Rainbow Grocery looked at me with furrowed brows, but I could not stop. The photographer yelled "it's not FUNNY!" but fuck, after all those years of hearing about it, it WAS.

I guess my point is, I never want to be like that. After a few days of major discomfort, I see how it would be easy to kill everyone with your pain. And a pain that is there for always? Deadly for the bearer, deadly for everyone else.

Posted by Shannon at 9:07 PM | Comments (1)

July 8, 2005

Summertime, and the living is...

I got some email about my apocalypse entry today. Seems I'm not the only one I know with intense dreams/thoughts about the end of the world. Tanks rolling down Newport Street. Cities nuked one by one. The rest of the world choking.

I'm in an in-between place. Half of me thinks there is no way to change the course. But half of me thinks, if we can change the energy, we can change the world. It's kind of bizarre that I have this half totally morbid and half new-age way of thinking. Or is it? Maybe I am just one of katrillions that have this same half and half thing going on. I wouldn't want to be all morbid (or I'd be dead, for sure) and I certainly wouldn't want to be smelling like patchouli, either. There has got to be a balance. And the same goes for the earth, and for the universe. There has got to be a balance, and there is not.

Sadly I am just one of most who do absolutely fuck-all about this.

Most people - me included - will do nothing until their own well-being or the well-being of their families is threatened. Well, maybe we'll all send a check. Whatever. It's not enough. And even if we were to all actually DO something to change the course of the world, would it work? Maybe the course is already plotted by forces way bigger than us and there is nothing we can do. Or maybe it is all a big game of karma and we are all failing miserably.

Twenty years ago I thought I'd be a leader of the new age. What shit is that? That's youth, I guess. The only way I'll be a leader is if someone blows up a bomb in my 'hood and I'm forced to. And the morbid half (borderlining on nihilism) says, that's what it will come down to, so just fucking wait.

Posted by Shannon at 7:22 PM | Comments (1)

July 7, 2005

Readying for the Apocalypse

This morning I had a very intense dream about the end of the world as we know it. Basically we had two weeks left, and then, poof. I ran around trying to figure out what to do. Get in the car and drive to the mountains? Stock up on food? I got mad at my mom because she wouldn't let me come to Santa Fe. Everything was crumbling, falling apart. It was so colorful and real. Two weeks left until the end of the world.

I woke up thinking, exactly how much time do we have? Is everything going to go down in this lifetime? And my answer to myself was, like it has been since I was eighteen years old, yes. It is.

Then I turned on the computer to the news that there are bombs and sirens and mass confusion and people dead and wounded in London. It's all so sad and fucked up and scary. People just going to work.

I've never believed much in the future, but on days like this it really sinks in. I am totally bummed.

Posted by Shannon at 8:35 AM | Comments (0)

June 13, 2005

Let the Healing Begin

Everyone is all in a mega-uproar (or in that "I told you so" pose) about Michael Jackson walking out of that courtroom today a free man. I wasn't surprised. How can you prove that shit? Especially when you've got boocoo bucks to pay a really good lawyer. The whole story, the whole scenario, is totally stomach turning. I am glad it is over.

I have to say though, that I do feel kind of bad for Michael Jackson. That guy is so twisted and out of it that he doesn't even understand he has done some really fucked up shit. I really don't think he knows. His ranch is called Neverland - in his brain, it is neverland. Coming out of the courthouse today he looked so drugged he could barely lift his head or wave at the 100 people there screaming his name. He was acquitted, but he is dead. He is the walking dead.

Yeah, it is messed up that he did what he did and walked away. Yeah, if he was poor and black instead of rich and white (now) or even poor and white, it probably wouldn't have gone down this way. Let's just hope he gets some serious therapy, that the boys involved get the same, and that this vicious, twisted cycle gets stopped here.

The media has sucked all the humanity out of us. Michael Jackson is a human being, though he made himself look like a circus animal. What came first, the media or the circus? I am not trying to defend him. I am just trying to say - make it stop. And let the healing begin.

Posted by Shannon at 7:22 PM | Comments (1)

May 6, 2005

Minds (Not) On Fire

OK, so a little more about San Francisco.

I lived there for so long, that it doesn't really do anything for me when I go there. I mean, I am not dying to be there; it isn't like an exciting vacation destination for me (plus I am always working when I am there.) It's like going home, just 'cause I know it so well. It always feels like I never left.

I ate Thai food twice in four nights there - both times Tofu and Spinach with Peanut Sauce. For some reason they can't get that dish right here in San Diego. They always throw some broccoli or baby corn in it here. Or they make the sauce too thin. So that was pretty awesome. Now I am thinking about it all the time. That is one of two things I am thinking of.

Staying at the Phoenix Hotel was cool, but MY GOD, was it noisy. I knew it was going to be kind of noisy, but it was like being inside of a club until 2:00 A.M. and then being in the parking lot of the club for the hour after. Cool rooms, uber-nice staff, killer pool. But I'll only stay there again if I seriously don't want to go to sleep at night. Well, maybe not. I'll probably stay again next year, knowing me. Even with the loud bass & drum coming from the bar area, even with the crumpling of beer cans and gay guy giggles at 3:00 A.M.

One night I went to the Edinburgh Castle and had Fish & Chips with Paul, the designer of my book. Do this next time you are in San Francisco - tell anyone who has lived there more than two years you went to the Edinburgh Castle. They will ask you, "did you have Fish & Chips?" Every single person will ask you that. But they are really good - they deliver them from someplace else, all hot and wrapped in paper. Everyone there seemed like 12 years old but they still have The Bends on the jukebox. That place rocks.

Our big wine tasting thing was great this year - after fourteen years, we are kind of getting the hang of it. Plus I must say Andrea Immer/Robinson (she just got married and popped out a brat) is totally cool. She actually came to my table at dinner and thanked me & Chad for working so hard all day. (Don't know what she was thanking Chad for, hee hee.) THEN she thanked us when she made her speech accepting the award. This is the first writer in fourteen fucking years that did this. Wine writers don't thank me, though I have probably sold more of their books than any other single person on the planet. It doesn't do a wine writer any good to piss me off. Let's just put it that way.

After the dinner a bunch of us went back to the Phoenix and drank many, many bottles (more) of wine, hence the drunk chick picture in the previous entry.

This entry is pretty scattered and needs editing but let's face it, I am still totally wiped. This is the sucky thing about having a blog, that constant pressure to write something good. Sometimes I can't, it's hard, but I have to write SOMETHING or it wouldn't be a blog, right?

I do have something really cool to write about, the awesome thing, the better than sex thing, the I can't stop thinking about it thing. But I have to get my head around it a little more. Before the end of the weekend... though I have a feeling only two other people are going to get it. We shall see....

In the meantime check out this interview with Paris Hilton. Man, there's more to her than meets the eye!

I thought the whole ditz thing was suppose to be an act. Whatever.

Posted by Shannon at 5:58 PM | Comments (0)

May 5, 2005

Finally home but...

Totally Exhausted. I have lots to write about when my brain returns.

Something really cool happened in San Francisco. I knew something awesome was going to happen, and something awesome did, but it was a different kind of awesome, a better awesome, than the awesome I was thinking of.

OK you can see how tired I am. Until tomorrow, here is a shot I took in the Shenandoah Valley in the Sierra Foothills.

Awesome.

And here are a bunch of drunk chicks on a bed.

Good memories, but awesome to be home.

Posted by Shannon at 5:35 PM | Comments (1)

April 20, 2005

Gotta give it time

Tomorrow I am taking off again, for two weeks. I seems I just got back. It's a familiar scenario. I seem to be forever moving.

I can't believe it has been a year since our last Big Event at work. Today, I have to drive to Lodi, and I'll spend a few days in the Sierra Foothills before I head back down to San Francisco. This year's winner is Andrea Immer. I bet SHE won't give me any "oh you're not Gloria Swanson looks." (You'll have to read that first link to get what the hell I am talking about here.)

San Francisco will be hella fun - I am staying somewhere I have always wanted to stay - the Rock N Roll Hotel , also known as the PHOENIX. SWEET. And on May 1 there is the Doves & Mercury Rev show at the Fillmore Theater. Two of my favorite bands at one show - bonus. I am bringing earplugs on this journey. Last time I saw Doves they played an old Sub Sub song that did serious and permanent damage to my hearing. It was truly and unbelievably LOUD.

Other than that:

There are themes in life, and they fluctuate, but are also impossibly present. It's either great, or fucked, depending on where you are at the moment. It's fun, and heartbreaking at the same time, not to make any sense.

Whatever. I've long given up that I actually have any control over anything. I learned that I don't a long fucking time ago.

Posted by Shannon at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)

April 4, 2005

Poped Out

I arrived in Rome on Saturday afternoon. The Pope died on Saturday night. I knew the Pope was going to die when I was here.

Where I am staying, in Trastevere, things seem as normal. It is beautiful and sunny again. I have not used my umbrella once on this trip.

Yesterday I walked up to and along the Gianicolo and then down to St. Peter's to watch part of the Post-Pope Sunday Mass. There were a gazillion people there, of course. I get panicky in crowds these days so instead I sat on a little wall right outside the Piazza. I could see part of the choir and the mass of bodies packing the Piazza and up the street that leads into the Piazza. The choir sounded beautiful and I almost started crying, though not for the Pope. I think I was crying for humanity. This always happens to me when I am around so many people.

I can't believe I am here for this.

After I left the Vatican I walked over the bridge and into a cool enoteca on Vittorio Emmanuele for a glass of prosecco. The woman there told me there will be more people here for the viewing and the funeral, than there was at the Jublilee. Something like two million people.

Last night there was a get together with some slow trav people. We ate and drank until almost midnight. So, because of this I got a really late start today... it is pretty embarrassing, how totally lazy I am.

Pretty soon I will be heading back to Ocean Beach. I am ready, I think... I miss the Pacific, I miss my bed, and I miss The Vine. I'd say I miss work but I would be lying. I don't miss work quite yet. I miss tortillas.

In a few months though, I'll miss traveling again. So it goes.

Posted by Shannon at 5:00 AM | Comments (0)

January 14, 2005

Better look out below!

I am heading out tomorrow on a two-week journey, my usual January journey up the coast, the final stop being the Unified Grape Symposium in Sacramento, a trade show overrun with not only winemakers but also cellar rats and vineyard workers. One of the coolest thing about this show is, some of the seminars are presented in Spanish, because, hello, who do you think tends the vines in this great State?

First though, I am spending the weekend in Arcadia, and hitting the Santa Anita racetrack for two whole days with my friend Nancy. She has never been to the races before. I LOVE Santa Anita... it's a world-class track. This weekend, it'll be clear skies, we'll be able to see the normally smog-obscured mountains, and drink some overpriced Pinot Grigio at the Uber-bar there. Someone won the pick-six today, so there is no carryover, but heck, who am I kidding? I'll be lucky to win one race.

My grandparents saw Seabiscuit run on one of their first dates. My mom told Nancy, never bet on a sweaty horse. I will always bet on the horse with a foodie name. Learned my lesson at Del Mar last summer when a longshot, Habanero, came in and I didn't bet on her. That was (in a long history of racing fuck-ups) the stupidest bet I didn't make.

I am a little bummed I am not going to see the Arcade Fire in one of their many SoCal shows this weekend. Especially because I listen to their record constantly, and dream their music when I am asleep. But oh well. Nancy, the Golden Globes, and a take-out pizza will make me forget what I am missing (hopefully.)

It's going to be a riotous weekend, and from there I hit the road and head to the Central Coast, working all day and then at 4:00, having a taste or two. Working up there doesn't suck.

Next weekend, am taking a class with the famous Diva up in Sonoma. After that there will be a Slowtrav party, always a good time. I'm heading down to my hometown after, will chill with my brother Jay and his wife for a day, then start working again.

The weather is fantastic. I am hoping for no more rain. I am SICK OF RAIN. No more rain, please. For awhile there, it was reminding me of Venice, where in March 2001 it rained every single day. Only here, palm fronds might fall on your head, instead of decaying plaster.

I'll try to write from the wine-soaked road.

Posted by Shannon at 7:35 PM | Comments (0)

January 4, 2005

It feels like this year is going by so fast...

I'm having a little bit of a hard time, er, moving into the new year. It's already January 4th and before we know it it will be Valentine's Day and then Bastille Day and then Halloween and then, it will be this day again.

I don't remember it being like this last year. I think it is this heaviness that is covering the whole world. I remember when Princess Di and Mother Teresa died like the same day or same week or something, and right after I was feeling uber-crappy, and my mom said it was because half the world was in mourning for those two women and that energy was affecting everyone. This feeling is like that feeling, times 800.

The ocean, eating people. I think the earth is really pissed off at us right now, and who can blame her?

I'm not one of those people who jumps on the diet and exercise bandwagon January 2nd and this year, I seem to have even gone in the other direction. I am stuffing my face with whatever is around, trying to drink all the wine and eat all the chocolate at once instead of saving some for tomorrow. If I don't watch it I'm not going to get that mystery guitar player I've been wanting (it's even a mystery to me, so don't start guessing quite yet.)

Everything moves on though, so maybe I will finish all the candy tonight, and tomorrow the sun will come out and I can walk up the hill, and look down at the ocean and still love it. We'll see.

Posted by Shannon at 6:58 PM | Comments (0)

December 9, 2004

Death to all Spammers

The past few days I have been totally bombarded by spammers who post ?comments, which are really ads, on my blog. Man, they are fast. When one hits, if you can't catch it (the asshole spammer) in time, there might be ten comments, in just a couple of minutes. I am pretty fast and I immediately delete the comment/ad and also, ban the ISP that it came from (I get an email notification every time someone posts a comment on my blog.) But these it-creatures seem to have a trillion ISP addresses.

These spammers have fake email addresses. YO, BOB DURRELL. Go fuck yourself and take your Texas Holdems with you! Hey Tom from cheapchristmas.com.uk - your awe-inspiring comments make me want to go shopping, on your site, even though I live on another continent! Yeah, right, you wanker.

But today I got hit with the worst ? spam from websites about rape and torture. I am almost too disgusted to even tell jlkkjkjkjljjl@jkfdsjfskljfdks.com to fuck off.

But here is a little message for all you dickhead spammers - you can post, but I will just delete. Go ahead and waste lots of time. I am way too anal to let even one of your nasty-ass comments remain on my blog. And just to let you know, rape, torture, and harassment are ALL Really Bad Karma.

Posted by Shannon at 6:16 PM | Comments (2)

November 17, 2004

Half of it's you, half is me.

It has been a week of births and deaths. While some beings are pushing themselves screaming into the world, other beings are quietly leaving.

Doesn't it seem like crazy things happen in November? Things like Jim Jones and Guyana and Dan White shooting up the San Francisco City Hall. I guess that was a long time ago, but for some reason it seems like crazy shit just happens in the month numbered eleven. And for me, the day of eleven eleven can be even more hectic. I was happy that eleven eleven passed with no major personal craziness this year.

I am listening to Wilco live on KCRW's Morning Becomes Electric, they were there this morning. And in two days I will see them live in L.A. I must say, listening to this radio interview, I forgot how totally nerdy Jeff Tweedy is. Not that it matters. Most of my favorite people are nerds. I won't name them here, because they might read this. In fact I can only think of two friends that aren't nerds that might be reading this and they are Laurie Bushman and Lisa Wood. If your name is not listed here, sorry you are probably a nerd. But that is OK, for reasons stated above.

So there is half of this crazy month left. I've got nothing to do on Thanksgiving. Maybe I will go to the beach and drink white wine and read Vanity Fair like I do on the weekend. I could bring a turkey sandwich! Or maybe I will be totally anti and eat a Stouffer's Mac and Cheese dinner on Thanksgiving. Before you scoff, you should try one of those things. I've been curing hangovers with them for years.

Between the time you push yourself out and the time you leave, quietly, you've got the crazy months and the boring months; the Thanksgivings with 20 nerdy friends and the Thanksgivings alone. You might have two hangovers, maybe 2000. There will be some picnics, a few coincidences, a couple of lovers you are glad didn't work out. There will be songs that make you let out a heavy sigh, and days when you walk around with a furrowed brow. There will be random moments of pure joy. How we can absorb it all is a mystery to me.

Posted by Shannon at 7:00 PM | Comments (3)

November 9, 2004

Generalization X

When I was in college, I had an algebra tutor. Algebra was something I just couldn't understand. I couldn't figure out why 2 over 5 equals x over z or whatever the hell they try to do there. I mean, it seriously just didn't compute in my brain, not in those days, and it wouldn't in these days, either. I was, and remain, mathematically challenged.

So when I was in college I got this Chinese tutor, and she spent an hour with me going over and over the whole x over y = whatever thing. I was totally baffled but she kept on until, all of a sudden, I got it. A godly note from a Casio keyboard sounded (this being the eighties) and a pink light shined down on me. I really got it! For one second, because when the session with my tutor was over, I totally lost whatever I had, forever. Frustrated, I quit algebra and took statistics, which I would have failed except everyone else in the class failed worse than me so I got a B.

Anyway, I guess the point I am eventually going to try to make is there are some things I will never, ever understand, even if I try really hard and maybe even listen to people who seem to know what they are talking about. Such as:

That freaky red state/blue state county-by-county who-voted-for-who map of the USA. I keep staring at this thing and I must say, I am totally baffled. I won't even go into how many red counties there are. The freaky thing is the whole composition if you look at it with a baffled mind. The patterns and non-patterns of blue; an oasis of blue in a trillion miles of red desert; large clumps of blue in weird places, like West Texas. What's down there in West Texas that I don't know about? Also, how come 90% of Washington D.C. voted for Kerry? Almost every county on the Mississippi River is blue, from the top of Minnesota to New Orleans, Louisiana, while everything around it is red. Isn't that like, just a little weird?

I was shocked, and baffled, to find that I live in a red county. I guess I was living in a La La Land here in OB, which is as pretty far from red as one can go. If they showed OB as a county on this map, it would be blue, maybe in a sea of red, sort of like Louisville, Kentucky. But then lots of cities are tiny blue dots in seas of red. I guess I'm not so baffled about that one, but it is weird to see it so spelled out on a map.

I guess I don't really understand the whole Democrat/Republican thing, either. Why should a person be one or the other, and why do these parties even exist? What purpose does it all serve? Also, do the people who label others, and themselves, even know what those labels mean? Maybe they are all like me, with the algebra. At least the Communist party in Italy has cool festivals with cheap wine, fried squid, and Beatles cover bands who sing in bad English; the D's and R's here - at least the serious ones, have pretty much forgotten a) how to have fun and b) how to get people to get into it on a regular basis.

But me being a Democrat (which I'm not, as I don't really understand what the hell that means, it's just the, uh, thing I've been labeled with and the road I'm forced to follow, since the Italian Communist Party doesn't exist here) I do find some Republican behaviors even more baffling than my own. Such as:

Today, driving up to another Republican county, on a highway I travel often and with an assortment of people too usually the same (asshole, SUV driving, cell-phone talking, tailgating morons) I noticed an slight exception from the norm. A guy drove up right behind me, in a giant white pick-up truck, got right on my bumper, then made a quick lane change to the right and started on his whole weaving/riding the guy-in-front's-bumper-then-brake/weaving some more/then exiting at the next exit procedure. He probably wouldn't have been a blip on my radar since there are so many of them out there, had it not been for his two bumper stickers. One bumper sticker said one word: REPUBLICAN. The other said, REAL MEN LOVE JESUS.

OK. Excuse me, while I barf now. What the hell is going on here? I really don't understand. For one thing, homie in his hot white truck looked about as far from a political guy as you can get; like Homer Simpson canvassing for the Green Party. Also, what is this shit about Jesus and men? Has homie ever really thought about the teachings of Jesus? Er, would Jesus exclude a fairly huge part of the world's population from being Real Men just because they don't believe in him? Wouldn't Jesus be like, uh, dude, it takes a little more than that bumper sticker, believing wise? Also, would Jesus advocate that kind of driving? That kind of driving is not loving thy neighbor, that kind of driving is saying fuck you get off my road to thy neighbor. I wonder what kind of car Jesus would have? Probably a used Volvo, or a Vanagon. Probably an old Vanagon that only goes 50 miles an hour that asshole Republican truck drivers would harass! Now that is something I can understand! Hallefuckinglujah.

Posted by Shannon at 9:39 PM | Comments (3)

November 2, 2004

I personally don't have anything to say.

A Sound of Thunder

Posted by Shannon at 9:55 PM | Comments (1)

September 9, 2004

Simma Down

Everyone sure does seem all agro-ed out and stressed these days. It is because Summer is over, or is it because of the election? Is it because no one feels they can do anything about anything or because things seem to be totally out of control?

Maybe Mercury is in Retrograde, hadn't even thought about that one.

Friday night I found a palm frond that looks like a witches broom and I started beating the trunk of a palm tree with it pretending it was my neighbor I was beating. I accidentally hit Mark in the thigh with the handle end, barely missing a very important area. So I sort of got my agro out early and was then able to just view all the other stress from a fairly calm standpoint. The feeling at the beach was a lot different than the beginning of the Summer. I watched some kids litter pretty badly and their mom just ignored them because she was having a fight with her boyfriend. I found myself getting agro but then a guy sitting in front of me picked up the litter when he left. Another woman started screaming at her husband because he was letting their daughter eat drumsticks for breakfast. I am not sure if she was talking about the ice cream drumsticks, or turkey drumsticks. But the woman wanted the daughter to eat cereal.

Then there were middle fingers on the freeway and arguments in the bars. I watched it all trying not to let it affect me.

Last night a kid got hit on his bike right down the street from my house. I was just getting home and was looking for parking and could see the kid's bike all mangled and people all around, helping the kid who I was really scared might be dead or crippled or something. He wasn't, but I've never seen that in my neighborhood before (though the way people ride their bikes around here combined with the driving habits of others, that is pretty shocking.)

Anyway I hope things get a little calmer soon. And absentee ballots are a good way to go, folks.

Posted by Shannon at 7:36 AM | Comments (0)

September 6, 2004

We're gonna party like it's 2009

Even though Summer is not officially over for a couple more weeks, it seems like it is done, here at the beach. It is hot outside, and the Summer fog seems to be gone, replaced by Indian Summer, almost overnight. Last night the light was different and at sunset the clouds turned pink and stretched across the sky instead of rolling in low and gray off the ocean. Everything was colored rose and yellow and all the kids in the 'hood sat outside drinking beer because now, everything changes. School starts, the days get shorter, and the tourists go away. It becomes our beach town again. Some youngsters who lived next door to me all Summer are gone. Just like that, that apartment is empty and no trace of them remains.

What happened to this Summer? It went by so fast this year. It seems just yesterday we had our street fair and 4th of July, but that was two months ago. And now the best part of the Summer, the races at Del Mar, are over too. I always love the first day I go to Del Mar to bet on the ponies, and I usually go every weekend for all six weeks, but this year I couldn?t, because life got in the way.

We went to the track yesterday. It is always bittersweet, that last day at the races, knowing you won't be able to go again for almost a year. Last year I won an exacta on the last race, by choosing two random numbers. I didn't have that kind of luck yesterday, probably because we bought a racing form and that always screws me up. Blind luck is better than too much information at the races, at least for me. Or choosing any jockey that wears pink is another good way to win. Oh well, there is always Santa Anita in the wintertime if I need a fix before Del Mar starts up again.

I guess today is the real, official last day of Summer. I am going out into the heat to sit by the ocean and watch the tourists one last time until next June rolls around.

2005 is coming fast. Get ready to party like it's 2009.

Posted by Shannon at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)

September 4, 2004

What is really going on over in Russia?

I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to write about all those kids dying in that school in Russia. And I am telling you, it is hard. I'm scared that my ignorance will come through, or that someone will tell me to fuck off or something. Which would be OK, I guess. I don't have a very thick skin and that is probably why I move through life blissfully unaware of what is going on in the world. I don't read the paper and I don't watch the news. The only way I find out about stuff is when I load up my homepage and Yahoo news comes up.

Like everyone I was totally saddened and horrified about the events that unfolded at that school. Like everyone I thought "why, oh why would they target children?" But for once I knew I needed to understand what was really going on over there, and why the Chechens would do something that would make everyone hate them really, really bad.

Well, I still don't understand too much, but I do know a little more about the Chechens. How Russia declared war on them in 1994, and how Russia has been killing thousands of THEIR children and raping their women. How young Chechen men are taken away for no reason, never to return. How the Russians hate them and won't give the Chechens who live in Russia jobs or respect. How the Russians pretty much went in Chechnya and leveled much of it and killed a lot of people who were normal people, not "terrorists."

So, the Chechen fighters (I'm not sure I want to say terrorists, because isn't this a war they are fighting against a big, nasty invader?) must have thought they might get some attention by taking over a school. And I, for one, know a little more about the situation and the plight of those people now.

I hate it that all those surviving kids and parents will have these events and images to haunt them for the rest of their lives. And I hate that desperation drove the Chechen fighters in to try to make their stand, and I hate that Russian soldiers stormed it and there was all kinds of gunfire with kids in the middle. And I hate it that it took something of this magnitude to get my lazy brain off my own trivial thoughts.

Blast away at me if you must, but I think there are two sides to this story.

Posted by Shannon at 6:55 PM | Comments (2)

August 12, 2004

I must be getting old

Everything has caught up with me and this has affected the one part of my life I thought would never change. Live music - going to shows - used to be the most important thing. It still is, but life is getting in the way.

I had P.J. Harvey tickets for tomorrow night, at the Belly Up in Solana Beach, a tiny place for her to be playing. But, I am working all weekend and I just know how I am at shows so, I sold the tickets. I know I am going to regret this. At least I sold them to a really cool guy who met his girlfriend at a P.J. show three years ago and is surprising her with these tickets, which sold out in a flash.

Me: That place is so small you'll be able to lick P.J.'s shoe!
Him: I am ready for some shoe licking!

He deserves the tickets.

I also have tickets for the Curiosa festival a week from Tuesday, but I get home from my brother's shotgun wedding in Hawaii on the Monday morning before (after that gawdawful night flight, how I hate that flight) and have to leave for a work trip on the Central Coast the day after. How can I possibly go to a concert that starts at 5:00 P.M. forty-five minutes away from here? Not to mention, driving 300 miles the next day in who knows what condition.

A year ago, even six months ago, I would have figured out a way. I really want to see Mogwai and Interpol bad, and the Cure are so awesome live, and they are all playing at that festival. Plus my seats are fantastic. But I feel a scary edge coming on and that edge, to me, means nervous breakdown. As in, I cannot do it all anymore. I've got to sell these tickets. I've got a sinking feeling, just thinking about it.

Posted by Shannon at 7:03 AM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2004

Sailing fast, in a Rickety Boat

Once again, I find myself in the last half of a year and with insane amounts of stuff going on in the months leading up 'till the end. What is this all about, anyway? Why is time going so fast and why is there so much going on all the time? Even when I'm not doing anything, it still exhausts me. Like tonight I am not doing anything really, just throwing some stuff on ebay and looking at websites about Malta. Pretty mellow stuff. To make things easier I am going to eat a baked potato. The ultimate low-stress meal. I can't figure it out, this being tired when nothing is going on/being tired when there is too much going on thing. Maybe it is all the dreaming I do at night. Maybe my dreams are a parallel universe so really, I'm not getting any sleep at all. Maybe, I am suffering from sleep deprivation because there isn't really a thing like sleep anymore, because the mind reels with dreams because the days are so insane that the mind can't cope.

I dream about merry-go-rounds and ferris wheels spinning manically. Colors fly off of them. I simply don't get any rest, this way. But I love my dreams, even if they are sick and twisted and full of sex and violence. (Except for the ones where people are trying to kill me. I hate those.) Maybe I am Quentin Tarantino in a parallel universe? Or maybe Todd Solondz. No, that is too suburban weirdo. I was never living in the suburbs. Was I? Hmm... maybe I did, in a dream once. I suppose my nighttime visions are all mine. Daytime seems pretty boring, when you get right down to it. All that barreling down freeways one second from death, threats of terrorism and disaster everywhere you look, disease, mean people, etc etc. It's all pretty boring these days, since we get so much of it. But dreams! They are different every night! (Well, for me, but I'm not one of those people who dreams the same dream. Though I think it would be really cool if the dreams were good.)

Sometimes when I go to sleep I try to ask for a certain kind of dream, but I never get it. I read that in a dream book, that you could ask for the answer to a problem, and the dream would tell you the solution. Sadly I have never been that "in-tune" that I could figure out the symbolism. Plus, the symbolism is different, depending on what book you read. And really when you get right down to it, if you are trying to read all this shit into it, that takes the fun out of it. Then dreams become as severe and boring as being awake! Now that is a frightening thought.

OK I'll stop now. Sorry.

Posted by Shannon at 6:53 PM | Comments (1)

August 8, 2004

She's Going the Distance

It's 10:15 PM on a Sunday night, and my neighbor Neil, who may or may not be gay, is having a party. I've never seen him entertain, but tonight he's got some dudes in the back and they are all drumming on stuff. Man, it's all primal and shit. Like, I am so thinking I am ready to die. Go back to the earth, as it were. The drumming is making me crazy.

I'm probably ready to die, not only from the drumming, but from the excess. Yesterday I excessed to the point of frenzy. It was only slightly out of control, though. The day left me wondering, in this order: What? Why? How? When? But in the end, the highest power redeemed everything.

I'll leave it to ya'all to figure out the one thing that slays me. If you can't figure it out well, you don't really know me at all, also you haven't been paying attention.

There are some questions that have been haunting me for the last fifteen minutes.

1) Is it just me or are the a) the drug experiences and b) the sex scenes in Six Feet Under totally contrived? Were they written by people who only write dialogue and who have never really smoked crack or screwed guys that work at Paintball fields?

2) Is it really necessary to crowd-surf at every single show, even to the slow songs? Doesn't anyone remember why crowd-surfing started? Do I?

3) When my liver fails, will there be new technology that will rebuild it?

4) Why does everyone love the pizza at Pizza Port in Solana Beach? That pizza is nasty. It's like white bread with sugar and tomato sauce on top. That shit is rank. And I am an expert, I swear.

5) Why are there drumming circles?

Maybe the answers to all these questions will come to me someday. In the meantime, I will probably sleep a little and have bizarre dreams of ex-husbands and murder and stuff.

Posted by Shannon at 9:33 PM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2004

The escalating price of butter

I am going to cook for a friend's party in Venice in September. We've been emailing back and forth about things to eat, what to do, etc. etc. It's like jumping into a black hole, cooking for a party in Italy, especially since I have not been there in eighteen months. Mostly, because of Euro-inflation. What little surprises have I to look forward to? Chicken wings at 8 Euro a pound? A pound of pasta twice the price of what I remember?

It used to be cheaper, buying groceries in Italy. I think those days may be over. But even here in the States, where prices were never super low (unless you buy in mega-lots meant for restaurants or families of 10, or buy and throw half of what you bought in the garbage because there is no way you could consume all that, which sort of defeats the purpose of buying more to save money) food prices are rising even higher.

This is pretty frightening. Gas is going up, up, up. It's easy to say, well fuck you big Escalade or Esplanade (or whatever that mammoth vehicle is) driver, you are well up it without a paddle now! It's easy to see how the mammoth vehicle drivers have it REALLY bad. But the simple fact is, they probably are as "who gives a shit" to the fact that they are paying $158 more a week in gas as the rest of us are that butter costs a buck a pound more these days. Even worse, the grocery chains are training people to eat their own cheap label crap, squishy English muffins and poison injected yogurts, by offering it at a lower price.

It is 2004 and I am 39 years old. Somehow, this all sounds like 1974 when my mom was 29 years old. She went all health foody and co-opy. Me and my brothers grew up on dry wheat bread and peanut butter sandwiches that would glue your mouth shut. (Perhaps this was intentional?) I think it is time for another revolution, but this time a price revolution too. Everyone has got to make money, but also, childen need to eat, and something besides a four dollar peach on the one end, or a lifeless cheap bagel, on the other. There has got to be a middle ground, and one for everybody to stand on.

Posted by Shannon at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2004

The mega-carb diet

Once, about a year ago, I tried a no-carb diet. I made it about five days, but then I started to feel really awful. My body was doing something funky. It's hard to explain, but it was sort of like wanting to jump out of your skin. An uncomfortable pressure. I think it might be sort of like coming off heroin, which I've never done but I've seen it happen in the movies. It was a horrible feeling and the next day I ate a sandwich and some rolled tacos.

Yesterday, I was feeling very depressed because, once again, my horrible luck proved to be, well, horrible. Even the promise of the upcoming meet at Del Mar Racetrack next week couldn't ease my sadness. I was just totally glum.

The day picked up a bit when I played Bocce Ball with friends and went out for a pizza after. We ate a bunch of pizza and drank a bunch of wine. Walking home, since the weather was hot and balmy, I decided to nurse my broken spirit with an ice cream.

Got home, and that feeling came back again. The no-carb feeling. But, I had eaten mega-carbs. The only thing that was missing was a Big-Gulp. I couldn?t sleep in bed, I couldn't sleep on the couch. Some weird chemicals were going off in my bloodstream.

I finally slept, but I want to know what causes this. Am I just getting to the point age-wise where pizza and ice cream will cause me great pain and anxiety? Because if it is, I might as well hang it up.

Posted by Shannon at 7:59 AM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2004

The In-Between

I've become a sort-of slave to my blog. That is, I feel I need to write in it every two or three days, to keep it going, to keep me going. This is all fine and good when there are things going on to write about. But what of those days when you are in Valium mode? When you've got no visions popping into your head that you could write about?

So I just sit here and write. It's possible that I am all written out, as I am trying to finish various projects before a certain June 30 deadline. I am way behind, bit off more than I can chew, and also, am worried that it all will be lame. I live in fear of being boring.

So now I'm in the In-Between. In between scattered and grounded, in between flying and bedridden. In between planning and doing. In between words pouring out, and words hiding. Somewhere in there, is where I am at.

I'm not on Valium - I wish I had some though.

On a happier note, yes, it is true, Wilco's "A Ghost is Born" is the #1 seller in the amazon.com CD department. Yes, it is true, it is a brilliant record. Everyone else I listen to is turning out less than stellar albums. But Wilco... thank you for making 2004 a better place to visit.

Bill Clinton has the #1 book, Wilco the #1 CD. So fantastically American! It makes me very happy that this completely deserving, incredibly talented band is getting the recognition they deserve.

It's the only place I'm not In-Between. "A Ghost is Born" is my church right now, and the guitar solo in the song "Muzzle of Bees" is the sermon. I pray that these moments continue to lift me.

Posted by Shannon at 9:12 PM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2004

Public speaking 101

Where do I begin? It's been a bit of a crazy time the past few days. So I think I'll start at the end, and go backwards.

Last night I spoke at the Distant Lands Bookstore in Pasadena. Odd that I would be speaking in front of a group (at least one that I do not know) in the same town that I was born in. I only lived there for the first year of my life, but I think I must have viewed the Castle Green Apartments at a very young age, and the viewing of these apartments directly affected my view on life. The Castle Green is a giant structure covering at least one city block, all stucco and crazy Arabic windows. It is bleeping fantastic. It's the kind of building you drive by and say What the Hell is That and How do I Get In. I have a crazy fantasy that I was conceived there.

So before I went to speak at Distant Lands, I stopped in one of my Pasadena accounts, a wine store with a tasting bar. This was a good move as I was able to kill a couple of pre-talk hours there and therefore, feel less nervous. There were a couple of older, rich, wine-drinking dudes at the bar, and me. There was a girl and a sort of schizo dude working at the shop/bar. Between the four of them there was enough stimulus that I could effectively not think about the speaking in public thing. I drank a glass of New Zealand Riesling, and one of the older wine-drinking dudes told me about his life. He reminded me of my dad - a guy who is aging yet, he still thinks he has a way with the ladies. He actually said to me - "stick around - I'll wine, dine and line you." Dude. 1985 is over, nobody is packing an eightball in the glovebox of their Datsun 300ZX any more. Those days are gone. The girl working behind the bar told me how stressed she was and how her co-workers and her customers were treating her. Her life is a living hell, pretty much. It was an odd couple of hours and then I left and checked into the Pasadena Inn, changed and walked to the bookstore where I was to speak.

I was shocked to find that there were over sixty people coming to hear me talk, that it was the largest crowd in many a moon, according to the bookstore personnel. I was worried about people looking at my toenails! I did not have to worry about that. The crowd gathered, I was announced, and we were on.

I started out talking about the way Venice has two parts, the tourist part and the local part, and how they were invisible to each other. It didn't take long before the crowd began asking questions, and then it was easy - they asked, and I answered. This went on for some time until the bookstore staff made us stop. Some of the questions were good ("what do the Venetians drink?") and some not so good ("I went to a restaurant on an island that served all you can eat seafood, we were part of a tour, do you know that restaurant?") It all moved quickly, only one guy fell asleep, two people left early, but the other sixty-two seemed to enjoy themselves.

It was a good night. Tomorrow I will write about a fantastic 36 hours in New York City.

Posted by Shannon at 8:20 PM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2004

No Wonder We're All Screwed Up

Tonight, in a rare moment away from the computer, I flipped through the free San Diego rag, the San Diego Reader. What I saw there shocked and horrified me.

Aren't these free papers suppose to be all left-wing and PC and shit? At least that was the way they were, back in the day when I use to read them (San Francisco, circa 1991.) Of course I remember the large number of personal ads that I suppose paid for said papers. But... with the advent of internet dating, I guess the free liberal papers have had to look for their income elsewhere.

Times, they are a changin'. Used to be that with a paid personal ad in one of these papers, the possibility of getting laid from placing a simple ad calmed people down and they were able to realize that no one is really getting laid, not really. Now, everything has moved past getting laid into some crazy no-mans land of depression and other disturbing afflictions (besides not-getting-laid), which of course keeps one from getting laid, even though that person probably would not have gotten laid anyway.

I fear I am not making sense, but the number of horrific messages flying off the page into my sensitive brain are befuddling me. The messages are as such (and off just a scant few of the pages of the free paper:)

Unable to ENJOY the things you use to do? Sad? Depressed? Is Lack of Sleep Making it Hard for you to Face the Day? Angry & Irritable? Is Your Mind Like A Storm? (Kind of liked that one...) Shift Work, Sleep Disorder? Tired of Being Criticized for Smoking? Lack of Concentration? Bi Polar? Drinking? Smoking? Hepatitis? Bad Knees? Bad Hips?

This totally frightening part of the paper moves on into ads that offer "Mexico's Premier Plastic Surgeon" and "Get Ready for Summer - Start your Plastic Surgery Now." Complete with some nice Before and After Pictures.

Oh, my. It would be nice if we could just go back to those days where it was just "am I getting laid, am I the one everyone wants to lay, or do I have no chance, ever, of getting laid. " Now, our worlds are controlled by sinister forces - people who want you to think it doesn't all come down to that.

Posted by Shannon at 9:27 PM | Comments (0)

May 8, 2004

The Power of Rock 'n' Roll

All that I'm asking tonight, is that I make it back home alive. No explosions, no crashes, no fights. I want to get back home tonight.

Jason from Grandaddy

Posted by Shannon at 9:36 PM | Comments (0)

May 6, 2004

The Trouble with Travel

I remember, in the early days of my travelin' years, I was oh so happy with Destinations like Las Vegas. I was in my early 20's, and really, Vegas was a pretty cool destination in those days. In 1991 Vegas, the Sands was still there, they still had $4.99 prime rib and you could still envision Doris Day being thrown into the pool. The MGM Grand was the hip and happening new spot then, and now the MGM seems as has-been as the Riviera did then. Vegas was a different place in 1991, full of bad wigs and nickle slots, and I loved it.

Here we are fifteen years later, and my scope has broadened just a bit. First, lots of trips to Vermont and Chicago, both places I love enough to live in, and then finally, in 1998, my first trip to Italy.

Damn. (Swear word. Swear word.) I touched down on that tarmac in Rome and I was a goner. I mean, really gone, like a (swear word) slave. If I had thought weekend trips to Vegas were addicting, I was not prepared for what Italy would do to me.

For a few years, I was a slave to Italy. Then the pull was too great, and I pushed myself by sheer will into an apartment in Venice. There, I tired of my master and moved on to other lovers, by way of the St. Lucia Train Station. How I loved them all.

Amsterdam, Copenhagen. Budapest, where I spent a sick and twisted yet colorful summer month. Strasborg, Vienna... the blood of the nomad was in me, and Europe was the flying carpet on which I rode.

Now. I am in a place I love, an ocean community full of freaks. It is truly beautiful here, and very, very free. But I can't calm myself, the thought of unseen cities makes me scratch the mosquito bite on my chest a bit too hard. I am a nomad of the 21st century - I can have it all, so why isn't it here, now?

So I have been playing the lottery, and waiting, waiting. Thinking of writing to the Icelandic Tourist Board to see if they perhaps need someone to write a restaurant book. I don't know. It's the bleeping trouble with travel.

Posted by Shannon at 9:39 PM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2004

Re-Entry

I am not handling this getting back to the real world very well. Work; guys in large trucks, passing me on residential roads; the election news, just the news in general, all seem to be tidbits of life that seem hard to swallow. Everything is irritating me. Everything is like a lover that you are done with, when there is someone newer and more glamorous on the horizon. When a lover is done with you, they are done with you. That is just the way it is.

Anyhow, one of the really irritating things, even more irritating than normal life things that are like lovers you are done with, is that I am getting a lot of pharmacutical companies advertising in my blog. In the comment area. I keep deleting them, they keep posting them. They seem to be focusing on my entry entitled "Guys Who Drive SUVs and the Women Who Hate Them." Is there some kind of drug magnet text in there? Golly knows I could use a sedative once in a while, but why are they honing in on this topic? If you can see, please advise.

Other than this sad by-product of travel (my inability to cope with the real world) I am working hard on my trip journal. I am now on day 2 of Madrid, so sometime in August I should be almost finished.

Hope you all are tuning in, the journey is far from over.

Posted by Shannon at 7:41 PM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2004

Guys who drive SUVS and the women that hate them

Holy cow, we are almost in the air. Everything went smoothly packing and finishing up work wise, BUT:

(Rant ahead. Read at your own risk.)

This is not really part of the rant, but on the way to the airport to pick up my mom, I got pulled over on a residential street for doing 34 in a 25 (school zone.) I got a fix-it ticket because my front license plate fell off, but no speeding ticket. So the cop was hella cool.

But then I was driving (at the speed limit) down Harbor Blvd. towards the airport, in the left lane so I could turn into the terminal, when some honking (as in huge, not really honking) SUV gets up right on my ass. Threatening to knock off my other license plate. Since I had just been pulled over, I was like, waaa the faaa... and I slowed down so in-a-hurry-homie would give up and go away. He switched to the middle lane, all agroed out, and sped up until we reached a red light 5 feet away. I pulled up next to him, looked over, and said "what is your problem asshole." He flipped me off in a steady and unflinching manner. Since I did nothing to deserve this, I rolled down the passenger window and said, a little louder, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM ASSHOLE. Well, he kept flipping me off, but he wouldn't roll down his window. PUSSY! I screamed. Scared to roll down your window to fight with a GIRL. The light changed, and he roared off, still with his finger in the air. What a wanker.

Anyway. This whole encounter and being pulled over makes me realize, that even though I feel very calm about the upcoming journey, apparently I have some sort of energy that is attracting negative forces and buffoonery into my space. Hopefully, this energy is already gone and I won't have to get into a fistfight at the airport.

Next entry - Madrid.

Posted by Shannon at 9:06 PM | Comments (0)

March 22, 2004

Dreams in Spain and Breakfast in Monrovia

The weekend went wicked fast leaving me with only four days and four nights to go. I dreamed about Spain all night last night. Last week I was dreaming about Venice alot - but now it seems I'll be dreaming about Spain until I get there.

First, my mom and I were at the gate trying to check in for our flight, only they wouldn't let us on because we had paper tickets and not the new rubber tickets. They wanted us to go to ticketing and get rubber tickets. I was trying to tell them I didn't know about any freekin new rubber tickets, but they would not hear me. So, I told my mom to wait and I'd go to ticketing. But then she was in downtown Chicago and I was in front of a hotel that appeared to be in Miami, trying to hail a cab to go find my mom.

But I guess we made it on the flight, because then we were in Madrid and buying train tickets at the train station. You had to punch what you wanted into a computer, then an agent on the other side of the computer would give you the ticket. We got our tickets, but the destination was Warsaw. "Through the Soviet Union" the ticket guy said. "But we aren't going to Warsaw, we are going to Sevilla," I said. He made some scribbles on the tickets and gave them back to me.

Then I was in a crowded market, not with my mom, but with my best friend from high school, Celeste Karwowski. Someone cut my purse strap and my purse fell to the ground, and a guy grabbed my wallet and ran. Another guy chased him, I chased him, and the robber threw my wallet back at me.

Then we were in someone's living room that was also a bakery, and a woman was trying to sell me some of her goods. She had some little Easter duckies with the backs hollowed out and some filling in them. She had big cookies and chocolates filled with coconut. She was telling me the prices in pesetas (note to self - how much is a peseta?) I bought some of the chocolates.

Won't it be weird if I see some ducks with filling in them when I am there?

On to real life. We ate breakfast at a diner in Monrovia yesterday. It was very crowded so we sat at the counter to avoid the wait. We ordered an omelette to split and a plate of fruit. There was a woman next to us who was eating something, but we couldn't tell what because it had a whole bottle of ketchup on it. She also had a Burger King bag on the counter, which she eventually left with so it wasn't empty. The question is, did she need an appetizer of something with ketchup before her main course of ketchup? Or did she want a greasy dessert? But the fun doesn't stop here.

The next woman to sit down ordered not one, but two breakfasts. She ordered an omelette with fried potatoes AND a plate of pancakes. It's not like these were small plates of food - we ate one between two of us. The woman wanted a side of avocado on her omelette but decided against it because it was an extra 75 cents. Out of the kitchen comes these two big breakfasts and the plates are placed in front of her. I was like, there is no way she will be able to eat all that. Yeah, right. She inhaled the pancakes. INHALED them. One snort and they were gone. She moved a bit more slowly with the second course, but she finished it. We couldn't stop watching. It was totally insane. I'll bet she went to Burger King after that.

Posted by Shannon at 8:14 AM | Comments (1)

March 11, 2004

We are all Spanish today...

What a weird, sad, uneasy day. I spent it mostly trying to work but instead crying and staring blankly at nothing. Seeing those horrible images over and over. This day has affected me more than I can say.

Though I didn't really feel like it, I went to the first baseball game played at our brand new ballpark. It was very crowded, everyone in line for hot dogs and nachos and beer, and I moved from tier to tier thinking what the hell am I doing here? This is something that yesterday I was excited about. But today it seemed foreign and strangely distasteful, though I am American through and through.

I'm a Spaniard today. In the words of Dorothy Parker,

My soul is crushed, my spirit sore.
I do not like me, anymore.

I'm not so mad at myself, but that is essentially the way I feel about the world and my place in it at the moment.

Posted by Shannon at 11:09 PM | Comments (1)

I've just read about the

I've just read about the bombing in Atocha train station in Madrid. Probably news like this would not be affecting me so deeply if I weren't going to be there in a couple of weeks. I am already there, in spirit, and my heart hurts. Over 180 people dead, male, female, rich, poor, young, old, happy, unhappy.

Natural disasters are natural disasters. But planting bombs to kill people. I can't understand it.

I wish we didn't have to wage a war on terror. There is no way to win this war.

I woke up this morning with a line from the Coldplay song Don't Panic running through my head.

We live in a beautiful world.

Not on days like today, we don't. I will burn a candle for all the Madrilenos and pray that we all put down our guns before we completely destroy each other.

Posted by Shannon at 7:59 AM | Comments (0)

March 9, 2004

The science of healthy drinking

Life is full of misinformations.

Today, I went to the doctor for a check up. It was the second part of the check up - the first part was all kinds of tests, and today was where they (the doctor/nurse people) talk about the tests.

I am like, beyond healthy. Everything is normal or better. I have been blessed. (According to doctor/nurse person.) This is really great! I was nervous going in, what if they found some weird thing right before I am going to Spain? That would really suck.

But, the doctor/nurse person is concerned with my wine intake. You see, I did not lie on my questionaire, because that is not how I operate. I told the truth. My doctor/nurse person found this unsettling.

Doctor/nurse: So. Do you drink any alcoholic beverages? (Well, doy, she can see right there what I wrote on my questionaire.)
Me: Yes. I am in the wine business. I drink alot of wine.
Doctor/nurse: Uh, how many glasses in a day?
Me: At least a half a bottle a day. Sometimes more.
Doctor/nurse: Well, it would be nice if you could cut that back a bit.

Later.
Doctor/nurse: Well, I see here that your cholesterol level is very low! Gee! Must be all the wine you drink! But really you should try to cut back a bit.

Hmmm. Since I am the picture of health, why should I make these changes? Why fix something that ain't broke? Why does wine freak doctors out so bad? They should all go to Europe for a year.

Also. Went to the market - Henry's, a sort of "healthy" supermarket - to buy pinto beans for my dinner. On the top of the barrel, there is a note. "Pinto Beans MUST be soaked for several hours or overnight before you cook them." WHAT? Why is Henry's spreading this misinformation? Pinto Beans do NOT need to be soaked, in fact you can cook them up in a couple of hours with no soaking.

I don't know why this rattled me the way it did. The thought of all the poor people soaking beans when they do not need to - it just kills me.

Posted by Shannon at 9:31 PM | Comments (0)

March 8, 2004

Please, can we all move on now?

It's another hot day here. Already 70 degrees, before 9 A.M.

Two things. One, my quest for cool colored luggage was unsuccessful. I ended up with gray. Don't shop for luggage at the mall - shop at Ross Dress for Less. Instead of spending $150 I spent $45. It's a nice suitcase, too. I tested it by loading pants and shoes and a couple of mugs on top and rolling it around the store.

The other thing. When I was at the mall I had to walk through Neiman Marcus to get to the parking lot. There was, on display near the door, a pink T-Shirt, with the silkscreened words "Carbs Stink." The T-Shirt was $48.

"Carbs STINK?" Not "Carbs Suck" or "I am Carb-Free" or "Dare to Keep Your Kids off Carbs" or even "Protein Rules." No - "Carbs Stink."

Isn't this whole carb thing getting just a little out of hand? If I ever saw someone wearing that completely ridiculous shirt I'd pin them down and force feed them french fries.

Posted by Shannon at 8:48 AM | Comments (1)

March 7, 2004

Still life with moon

It is March 7 and it is already summer here in San Diego. Today was the first day. It was hot, with lots of beach traffic. The day seemed longer than it really was, and the dew of our tiny winter dried up before the moon rose.

Which gets me to the real topic - the full moon. What a moon we had tonight! And a full moon on a first summer night - what is more magical than that? Makes you want to go to the top of a mountain and climb into a shopping cart and get pushed, recklessly, all the way down.

Think about how many days fill a year. Then think about how many full moons you get, in a year. Only twelve. When I lived in Italy, I had a year - but every full moon, I would say to myself, only five more full moons till I move home. Only four. Only three. There is nothing like a full moon over the Miracoli Church in Venice. Or the San Francisco Bay. Or the Sierra Nevadas, or the Seine.

The full moon laughs at me and I laugh back. The next time I see her, I will be in Sevilla and it will be Semana Santa, and the air will be full of incense and hymns.

Posted by Shannon at 8:45 PM | Comments (0)

March 6, 2004

Lawyer seeks naked ladies

So, tonight, I tended the wine bar that I sometime tend when the owners need me to tend it. I don't work there, I just fill in on occasion. It is fun - there are lots of regulars, everyone knows me. I'd do it more except it is thirty minutes from my house.

Anyway. Tonight, it being the full moon and all, it is a bit of a weird night. People are hushed and subdued but you have the feeling they could any minute start screaming "get down, get down" at you. If I was a customer, I probably would have drank double. But since I was working (and driving) I only drank.

Towards the end of the night, after one of my co-helpertenders cut his finger on a broken wineglass and had to go to the hospital, a group of regulars come in. I know three out of five - a really sweet couple that loves jazz and a lawyer guy who was once fixed up with a friend of mine. Lawyer Guy had a date, and there was another, very quiet guy there too who I come to know as "the guy who once dated Elizabeth." What does this have to do with travel, or anything? You are asking. Nothing. This has to do with Lawyer Guy and my book.

The wine bar has a couple of copies of my book laying around. Of course I show it to people whenever possible. Especially in that setting - talking to strangers and semi-acquaintances, you need something to talk about. Somehow a copy found its way into the hands of Lawyer Guy.

Lawyer Guy: You wrote this?
Me: Yes.
Lawyer Guy (with furrowed brow): There's something wrong with it!
Me: What!
Lawyer Guy: There aren't any pictures! You need some pictures of naked ladies in here!
Me: Uh, OK, whatever.
Lawyer Guy: Hey. I've been to Rome, and I know about all those sculptures and stuff.
Me: Yeah - but this is a food book.
Lawyer Guy: You need some pictures of naked ladies in here!

Somehow this conversation gets even worse, with me comparing Bernini to Baywatch, the idealization of the human form, blah blah blah (for at least twenty seconds.)

Lawyer Guy then moved on to Elizabeth, how the quiet guy should never have let her go. Lawyer guy would have had her, but she was not Jewish, or a blond with really big tits. (His date is getting understandably pissed off by now.) Then his conversation switched back to Rome. He spent seven days there once, and he now nows everything about Rome. He insisted he'd seen every possible thing to see in Rome. But clearly, not enough naked ladies!

Posted by Shannon at 12:28 AM | Comments (0)