You Might Want to Sit Down for This

these are words i never care to hear again, especially from my father, who called me the other week to say, “you might want to sit down for this. i went to the cardiologist and he said my heart has a clogged artery. i need to have surgery this friday to open it.”

thankfully, i had sat down, though i’m not sure it made the news any easier to hear. it sounded bad, very bad. my father was basically on the verge of a heart attack, had been FOR YEARS with a tightness in his chest that had been misdiagnosed as gas, as anxiety. the arteries sounded mighty blocked, if the doctor’s tests were to be believed. an angioplasty was scheduled and, if it didn’t work, pops would have to be rushed into a bypass, an open-heart surgery that had risks that made my head spin and hands shake.

pops sounded worried, so i was worried. he started telling me some things about taking care of my mother, that he loved me. the tears were already rolling off my cheeks. i sat frozen, stunned, speechless. this was an impossible situation because my pops is a superhero and heart problems only plague mortals.

“dad, i love you and you’ll be fine,” i managed to stutter through a cracked voice.

friday came and we were all nervous as hell. my mom, sister, Mo and sister’s husband sat in the waiting area waiting impatiently while trying to distract each other from the fact that we were waiting impatiently. we played Scrabble and Rummicube while checking the clock wall, which indicated that the surgery was taking longer than expected, first by 10 minutes, then 20 minutes, then by an additional hour. still, no word from the surgeon.

my hands started shaking again while my head was reeling with an imagination that i couldn’t get a handle on. with mom already teetering near meltdown mode, i had to get it together. “G.I.T., girl,” i repeated to myself. Get It Together. stay calm and don’t panic unless there’s a reason to panic.

finally, the surgeon appeared. his white outfit made him look like a butcher. we quickly gathered around him, arms folded across our chests in a mirror image of each other, the dent in our brows creased, eyes searching his face for reassurance.

“the surgery went well,” he finally said. i let out a deep breath, my first in days. the surgery went well. mom was crying. doc was talking, telling us about the three out of five arteries around my pops’ heart that were clogged 99%. i wish that were a typo, but they were clogged 99%. my pops is only 62. we were mortified.

“i imagine your husband has enjoyed a rich russian diet of vodka, caviar and beef tar tar for many years,” doc tells my mom. and he’s absolutely right. i don’t recall seeing my pops order anything but steak at a restaurant. nor do i recall him eating any vegetable beyond a potato, usually a baked one with his steak that’s piled high with butter and chives. family suppers at home always feature cold cuts, cured russian sausages, smoked fish, herring in sour cream, a cheese plate and a variety of barbecued meats. vodka and red caviar also made an appearance.

exercise did not. beyond looking for the remote so he could change the channel (usually to Fox News, just to piss me off), i’ve rarely seen my pops exert himself. he had no hobbies that kept him active. he is not a nature guy or rugged outdoorsman. he is a sports nut with a big-screen TV and leather recliner, which he rarely parts with. why had i not recognized this as a problem before? why do i need this doctor to point out the fundamentally obvious?

mom is thinking the same thing, i can tell. it’s not like pops does much of the cooking at home. doc is saying that pops needs to make major lifestyle changes, his diet among them. we are all nodding. we are sorry it came to this. we will make it better, we promise. pops will also need to take blood-thinning medication for the rest of his life.

one more thing, doc says, before leaving us: the catheter attached to my pops’ heart during the surgery several times sucked out copious amounts of cholesterol and fat that surrounded his heart. this is a rare sight, doc says. we hang our heads in shame. we are all changed people now.

we visit pops in his hospital room, where he’ll be spending the night. he’s awake, cheery, drinking cranberry juice and waving us all in. we huddle around him, like we usually do. he’s says he’s hungry, but only for food that’s good for him. he can live without the steak dinners. and he wants to live. my mom’s not done with him yet, she says. she ordered two rocking chairs for the porch, where they will sit and grow old together. he’s onboard with that plan.

i lean down to kiss him and stroke his graying hair. it’s thinner now. i hold his hand. my superhero. he’s looking up at me, smiling, looking happy, looking different.

“do me a favor, eh?” he says.

“anything, pops.”

“don’t get old.”

Shout Outs

it’s been a weird few weeks when everyone i know who was going to have a baby had their baby. sometimes the baby was early, other times late, but mostly they arrived on time. there must have been a lot of fucking going on last november. and now the fruits of all that fucking have emerged as ridiculously cute babies that i just want to put in my mouth and devour with one swallow. i have this compulsion with dogs as well, where i just want to chew on their rubbery noses. with babies, i’m more prone to chewing on their hands and feet, which remind me of soft shell crab.

to all my friends who’ve had babies, please don’t call the authorities on me. i promise i will not eat your child when i’m babysitting. but i will smell it and kiss it and cuddle it and tickle it and sit it on my lap for an hour in a vain attempt to make its first word “milla.” i will say, “come on, little one, you can say it even though you’re just hours old, say meeeee-lah.” and they will say it and i will be overjoyed, though you might cry since the first word wasn’t “mama,” but you’ll get over it. my sister did.

so yes, send me your babies to eat. and if you have a puppy, also send it my way so i may spend hours smelling its warm belly and getting drunk off its puppy breath. just make sure you send them to me after their bowels have been emptied and their bodies have been bathed, because i don’t change diapers or scoop up foreign dog poop. no thanks. oh, and no toddlers please. i don’t do tantrums or terrible twos and threes.

you can handle that because you are brave, fearless and infinitely patient souls who are embarking on the hardest job in the world. for this, The Milla Times salutes you! both to the new moms and dads and the old ones, good job on having the kid you just had. one day, i hope to join your ranks, but for now my dogs will have to bear the brunt of my impatience and neglect.

here’s a rundown of the new child army:

• Allison Rona and Nick Stevens spawned Rhys Rona Stevens. apparently Rhys is pronounced Reece, which i didn’t know until i looked it up. Rhys is the first kid for Nick and Ali and my guess is that i’m gonna get to know him pretty well, despite the fact that his parents live in san francisco. maybe this will be prompt them to move back to LA, closer to family.


• Jeremy and Heather Nisen brought out second son Gram to play with his big brother Judah. Jeremy is a longstanding friend, former coworker and frequent commenter who lives in Santa Barbara with his beautiful, dark-haired family. Heather is a super mom and all around saint.


• Mo’s brother Brandon (Bo?) and his lovely, yet surely tired wife Christy, welcomed their third child, a girl, to join her older siblings in their quest of depriving their parents of sleep.


• friends i know mostly through facebook nowadays: Randy and Melody Johnson: Grace Hope joins big bro Randall; Nathalie and Jason JosephLynch: Anais joins bro Ettiene.


• even fellow blogger Heather "Dooce" Armstrong birthed her second daughter in the past few weeks, Marlo, who joins older sister Leta. for the uninitiated, Heather is only the most famous personal blogger on the internet. she’s also a former neighbor of mine whose dog Chuck had a torrid love affair with Juice when they were puppies.

honorable shout out to Miguel and Tara Collins whose baby Micaela is already a few months old but she’s remarkably cute so she deserves mention. there are a few more babies baking in the oven who are due to pop out in the coming months: Doug and Christina Segovia’s spawn among them. good luck to all the parents! and welcome to this cruel world, babies!

i also want to send a special shout out to my future baby daddy, Mo, who has quit smoking recently. next to parenting, quitting smoking is up there with the Most Difficult Things Ever, so congratulations to Mo for the progress he’s made. i also need to thank him for doing the bulk of the cooking and household chores in the past few weeks while i’ve spent weeknights and weekends getting through freelance work.

oh yeah, i need to thank the kind universe for that, who’s apparently still a reader of Milla Times. thanks, universe, for sending me money by way of an overwhelming amount of freelance work, and thanks for those few good nights of sleep you also sent my way. thanks, everyone else too. thanksgiving must have come early this year, because i’m feeling appreciative and giddy with this whole miracle of life thing. babies for everyone! i’ll take mine with a side of ranch.

Let Me Count the Ways

oh july! how i love thee eternally, for you always remind of summer vacations, even though i’m a working stiff now who can’t take summers off anymore like i could when i was middle-school-aged and carefree, and spent days at the mall with my friends, hanging out in arcades and making eyes at boys — “he was totally checking me out!!” — while wearing blue-and-yellow eye shadow stolen from my mom’s makeup kit, applied haphazardly and looking quite garish, though it didn’t matter because it was eye shadow that i considered myself old enough to wear, forget what my mom had to say. plus she would never find out anyway because i would lick my palm and remove all traces of the color on my way home in time for dinner.

oh july! how you and i go way back, way way back, almost as far as the stone age, or maybe it was 1988, the same summer i turned 12, got my first period and became obsessed with “Days of Our Lives” and man, wasn’t Bo the most handsome man ever with that beard? he had a boat on the show that he named The Fancy Face and i was sure he meant me despite the fact that my face was fancy with pimples at the time, but i knew he would still love me unconditionally because he still loved his girlfriend on the show who one day woke up to find herself deaf and even forgave his mother for not telling him that his archnemesis across town was actually his father from a tryst his mother had 30 years back during a hot Salem summer, i’m sure it was in july.

oh july! do you remember that one time we were hanging out with my cousin Gitella, i was probably 9, and we were giggling and trying to see who could fart the loudest, and she accidentally fell off a bar stool and onto the floor, which somehow caused a giant wall mirror to fall on top of her and shatter into a million little pieces, pieces that wedged into her skin and made her bleed like something out of a horror film, streaks and streaks of blood down her freckled face. she was crying and i was crying, worried about those seven years of bad luck we would surely have. then a neighbor came to our rescue and helped clean up our mess and reassured us that everything would be ok, though i knew it wouldn’t be ok because my father was going to kill me when he got home, but my mom came home first and i begged her on hands and knees, crying hysterically, not to say anything to my dad. and she was a champ and didn’t say anything and instead took the blame for the whole thing, saying she closed the screen door too hard and the mirror fell because of that, nevermind all the bandages on my cousin’s face, they were because of something else. and he bought it.

oh july, do you remember me? because i remember you.

A Year in Highland Park

i can barely believe that at this time last year i was deep in the throes of The Escrow From Hell, a painfully disorienting six weeks that would turn me into a broke but happy homeowner in Highland Park, California. to be honest, i hadn’t spent extended amounts of time in the area save for a few parties and meetups with friends. i liked the area well enough every time i did visit, probably because it reminded me of Van Nuys, the little neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley where i grew up, which was also full of taco trucks, carnicerias and cute little houses.

when it came time to buy my cute little house, i wanted to move to Silver Lake but knew i could never afford it so i set my sights farther east. i had heard rumblings that Highland Park was supposed to be the next “it” neighborhood as other aging hipsters, also priced out of Silver Lake, were moving in and gentrifying, lured by its affordable houses and proximity to the Gold Line.

i had also heard about problems in the area, particularly with the Avenues Gang, with some people even advising me to “stay out of that ghetto.” it made me wonder whether Highland Park really was a ghetto, whether i would be shot at daily when stepping out to gather my mail. i knew that it didn’t seem ghetto during the many weekends i spent house hunting in the area. i didn’t see anyone brandishing a gun or shooting up in the street, nor did i see any homeless people. i saw working-class families mostly, having cookouts and birthday parties for the kids with those inflatable ball pits in their front yards.

sure, i did notice the graffiti and an unsavory-looking character or two, but didn’t think much of that as i see graffiti and unsavory characters everywhere in Los Angeles. to be safe, i drove through the area at night several times, waiting for bullets to whiz by my head. but all that whizzed was ranchera music. definitely not my favorite but after having spent four years living in west hollywood, where techno is blasted out of every apartment, i figured ranchera might be a nice change. still, i saw no chalk marks in the street, not even a panhandler or a prostitute.

but of course living in an area is the only way to know it, and now, after having lived here for almost a year, i’d like to say i understand why people would think Highland Park is a ghetto, but the truth is i don’t understand. i’m sure there are headlines people can point to, but it’s easy (and lazy) to find a headline that can damn pretty much every part of Los Angeles because bad shit happens all over the city, even in the “good” parts where people are quick to tell you that “these things don’t happen in this neighborhood” when they are interviewed on the evening news about the fucked up shit that just happened in their neighborhood.

i saw these people countless times in the coverage of my friend Alexander Merman’s murder in his (north of Montana) Santa Monica condo last year. and in the supposedly nice part of West Hollywood where i last lived, a man was stabbed to death at the park i took my dogs to every weekend. and Highland Park is not without its problems. indeed, there are nights when i see the ghetto bird circling overhead and copper cabs whizzing down the boulevard, presumably after the unsavory characters, whom i still see. but i accept this as the reality of living in a metropolis like Los Angeles, where safety just isn’t a guarantee.

as far as i can figure, the people who badmouth Highland Park and drive through it nervously with windows rolled up and doors locked are just petrified of Mexicans, which is stupid considering that LA is half Latino. personally, i’d rather live in an all Mexican neighborhood than all anything else, including white. my Mexican neighbors don’t knock on my door asking me to turn down my music, nor do they hassle me whenever a leaf from my tree falls into their yard. as a homeowner, the thing i want most from my neighbors is this type of healthy distance, where we respect each other’s space and stay out of each other’s business. here, i have that.

but Highland Park is more than Mexicans and taco trucks. in fact, most of the homeowners on my block are white. there’s a married couple the same age as Mo and i, middle-aged hippies who host barbecues and blast Jefferson Airplane, a retired UCLA professor and the widow of novelist Hubert Selby Jr. (she rocks). and in the blocks surrounding my house, i see black families, asian families and even gays.

it’s this kind of diversity that attracted me to the area. there is a real sense of community here, with folks looking out for one another, looking after one of another in a way i had never experienced as a renter. there are neighborhood councils and clubs, local weeklies devoted to covering the happenings in just Northeast LA, and cool events like monthly art walks and annual festivals.

plus, it’s populated by cozy mom-and-pop eateries, which means better food and no ugly strip malls full of Red Lobsters, Gaps and Applebee’s. (though the cheddar biscuits at Red Lobster are pretty good.) and for those times when i do need to pop into the Gap to buy some tank tops or hit up Crate & Barrel to buy a proper patio set, Old Town Pasadena shops are just a hop and skip away.

Highland Park is also super duper old — 123 years and counting — so it’s not uncommon to find 100-year-old craftsman houses that are just stunning. Edwardian, Victorian, Queen Anne and Eastlake styles are all represented here. this is a historic district after all, so it’s full of landmarks galore: Judson Studios, the Lummis House, the Southwest Museum (the first museum in Los Angeles), the oldest freeway in California (the 110), even soda-pop stop Galco’s (founded in 1897), which sells such hard-to-find, novelty sodas as Fukola Cola.

not as old, but equally as cool is the Audobon Center in gorgeous 400-acre Debs Park, which is the only building in Los Angeles to function fully off the grid. Mo and i took a tour of it after we first moved and i must say that their countertops, crafted entirely from sunflower seeds, were quite cool. and of course there’s the wonderful Gold Line that stops in Highland Park — a farmers market held in its parking lot every tuesday — which has changed my entire outlook on being a commuter in Los Angeles.

there are plenty of things to love about this area, and each day i live here i am thankful that i do. it’s a neighborhood that suits my sensibilities perfectly, unlike a gross place such as Brentwood, which still tops my list of LA neighborhoods i would never want to live in. (beverly hills is pretty ungodly, too.) i suppose those towns suit some people — the type who would call Highland Park a ghetto? — but for me, they are just vapid capitals with zero culture that give LA its ugly reputation as a city full of plastic and pretense, a reputation any local will tell you is unfair and untrue, simply because of the existence of neighborhoods like mine, where you'll see street vendors selling hot dogs and fresh fruit instead of anorexic pill poppers with fake tits and inflated lips.

so when an opportunity to document my beloved area arose, courtesy of a local blogger (Walter) who conducts a Highland Park photo survey each year, which he kindly opened to readers like me, i jumped at the chance and spent the last week of 2008 armed with my trusty G10, snapping away at everything i saw. the result can be seen in the flickr slideshow below. or you can view it with captions and commentary via my flickr photostream.

also worth checking out are the 555 photos Walter took for the survey. his informative captions provide insight into the area that is unmatched. reading them will make you smarter.

for me, doing this survey was fantastic, not only because it gave me a great reason to shove my camera into people’s faces and blind them with my flash, but also because it allowed me to explore my new community in a more thorough way. after doing so, i can conclusively say that Highland Park is where i plan to live for many more years, if not forever. it possesses just the right blend of flavor, quirks and grit that, when taken together, are the very definition of what Los Angeles means (to me). plus, the tacos are kick-ass. (hullo, La Estrella!)

the graffiti i can do without, but i hear it used to be far worse and that the whole area has been turning cleaner, kinder and gentler over the years. a stronger police presence is helping it move away from being the gang and graffiti stronghold that gave it its ghetto reputation. everyone who’s lived here longer than i have has confirmed that Highland Park is changing. it’s gentrifying. cute shops and bars are starting to pepper the main boulevards, with more slated to open in the coming year. i feel like i’ve moved here at just the right time — after the first starbucks but before the first yoga studio.

i see great potential in this neighborhood and only hope that i can contribute to its growth in some small way, even if it’s just by standing on the sidelines, beaming with pride, my heart at ease with the knowledge that i’ve found the right home for it. but if the day comes that i step onto the boulevard and see street vendors with fake tits and inflated lips, i will move in a heartbeat.

Hubba Hubba

Mo got a headshot. ain’t he the cutest?? of course i think he is and of course i’m totally objective. it was Mo’s birthday recently and we’re coming up on our 3.5 year anniversary of being a couple. i’m telling you this to justify my posting a photo of him that i think is hot. consider it timely.

y’all are watching his Archinect Travels series, right? the short films on architecture that Mo shot, produced, edited, wrote the script and score for, that showcase his mad creative talent? better get on it if you’re not, because they’ll enrich your life. i’ll be making an appearance soon in the Chicago episodes.

beyond that, i wanted to take this opportunity to wish Mo a happy birthday, a happy early anniversary and a big thank you to all the work he’s put into our house. not only has he made every executive decision on the design, he installed the entire kitchen, which was no easy feat. so thank you, Mo, for dealing with the house, with me and with the dogs, all of which are better off because of you. we love you relentlessly.

and thank you also for being an exceptional architect, standout designer, fantastic chef, grill master extraordinaire, renowned cactus gardener and backsplash wizard, funny as hell — especially with your impersonations and sadistic humor that make me giggle like a hyena — and thanks also for being so hot in the sack.

ok, i’m sure we all need to get a napkin to wipe our tears and clean the barf off our keyboards, but love sometimes warrants that reaction. i hope it warrants some reactions from Mo, too, some of which i’ll likely try to elicit in the coming months with a sentence that begins, “remember when i wrote that loving blog post about you...?”

How It’s Been

i know, you don’t really care about how it’s been being a homeowner for three weeks. you’d rather see the after photos that show the gorgeous bamboo floors and beautifully painted walls that don’t resemble monkey shit. rest assured, they are coming. it’s just that no one room is truly done and fully presentable. bedroom is close, but it’s still missing window treatments and closet doors. the office is piled high with boxes. kitchen is without backsplash and needs its baseboards painted. and the list goes on ad infinitum. i won’t bore you with it here.

ok, maybe i can bore you a little bit: why is it so hard for ikea to make backsplashes for its countertops? why is it that when you buy an entire kitchen from ikea, as i did, you have to buy an extra block of countertop and cut the backsplash from it yourself? wouldn’t it make more sense for ikea to carry precut backsplashes for its countertops as a basic constituent part of a kitchen?

alright, bitching done. thanks for playing. let’s resume with our originally scheduled program of praise for homeownership…

so far, it’s been pretty fantastic. i’m not sure whether it’s homeownership itself that is fantastic or just the fact that i’m living in a place i dig a whole lot. i did like my old place a whole lot, too, but it was small. about 650 square feet of bite-sized charm that worked perfectly when it was just Juice and me, but when Mo and Pinko joined our equation, life at home became decidedly less charming and more sardine-like.

but now we all have space. now, Mo no longer lives out of his suitcase — as he has for the past two years — because he has a closet of his very own. now, he no longer has to use our living room as his studio because he has an office of his very own. and there’s space for storage: a basement and a garage. and there’s the driveway where i park my car. a driveway so big that it fits TWO whole cars, meaning my friends no longer bitch about parking when they come over because we’re not in west hollywood anymore, Toto, and they can park right alongside me in the uber-driveway.

so yes, the space is nice. the house itself is also extraordinarily nice. (yes, yes, photos are coming.) i find myself walking around the place daily, studying every molding and kissing every piece of hardware in the kitchen before i lie in bed and cuddle with the refrigerator.

in short, i’m in love: deeply, passionately profoundly in love. every love song i hear on the radio reminds me of the house. every vacation i daydream about taking involves me hanging out at home. i miss the house when i’m at work and spend my days imagining all the things we can do together in the future. i’m not sure if the house has become my new boyfriend or my new baby, but i’d breastfeed it if i could. if it needed a kidney, i would so deliver. i love it so much that i find myself telling Mo daily, “have i told you how much i love the house today?” only adding as an afterthought, “and you, too, baby!” then i go make out with the baseboards.

i know, it’s the honeymoon phase — and i hope it lasts as long as possible. i like this phase, need it really, so when the ceiling crumbles and plumbing floods the basement later on, i’ll have developed a solid love for the house and won’t mind pouring the time, money and effort needed to make it great again. so for now, i’m happy to have that love grow and sustain me later when things turn to shit, which i’m sure they will. i’m sure there’ll be situations that make me curse the day i stopped being a renter, situations borne of uncooperative appliances and unexpected expenses. already, there has been a toilet that broke, outlets that have gone boom and a kitchen overrun by ants. and i anticipate many more unhappy surprises of the subflooring variety when future phases of construction begin on the house, with one (hopefully) beginning later this summer.

but for now i’m happy to relish in the newness of this love, when anything seems possible. i’ll regard this time always with fondness, as it marks the start of the next profound relationship of my life, akin to when i first brought my puppies home and first committed to Mo.

and did i mention the view? the glorious view that serves as the backdrop of each waking moment at home, comforting me during each meal, during each cup of coffee in the morning and glass of wine in the evening, the view that has already done wonders for my usually variable mood. it does indeed soothe me after a hard day’s work, “adding minutes to my life,” as my new buddy Miguel says. it’s the one thing that will make all future household drama bearable as all i’ll need to do when things get tough is step on the deck, take a few calming breaths and stare.

Meet the Parents

even though we had been living together for the last six months, dating for a year and a half, Mo still hadn’t met my family. this was the result of equal parts accident and intent -- ok, mostly intent. i’ll confess the thought of the Big Family Meeting made me uneasy, so i didn’t push it on Mo, who never asked. my parents, however, were asking often, and when they started up with “what should we get Marlin for the holidays?” i knew i could no longer delay the big reveal. we settled on the saturday before christmas at my parents’ house where we would exchange gifts and have dinner. my sister would be there with her husband and two kids. i would be there with Mo and my furry kid Juice. easy as pie.

truthfully, i had avoided the Big Family Meeting because it was too damn important. given that i’m 30, unmarried and jewish, such a meeting was incapable of being unimportant. and it was incapable of being easy: Mo is not jewish, nor is he russian — he’s actually a black man whose light skin allows him to regularly pass as white, a disorienting concept for most. he’s also without full-time employment, spending his free time daytrading and writing articles for Archinect. for me -- and probably Juice especially -- having him home often is a welcome treat, but for my parents, he’s probably not the guy they would have picked for me out of a crowd, especially with all the “nice jewish boys” on JDate.com.

plus, my family had grown close to my Last Serious Boyfriend and were as heartbroken as i was when things didn’t work out. during the unraveling of that relationship, my ex even told me, “tell your dad i’m sorry,” a message i relayed to my father who choked up and declared, “it’ll be hard for me to trust the next important man in your life.”

thankfully for him and me, there were plenty of unimportant men to keep me distracted until Mo came along. and while i know he’s important, i’m not sure that he’s “serious” in that one-thing-leads-to-another way that tends to be the hope of jewish parents with unmarried daughters who are 30. i feared that Mo might not be serious enough for the family introduction. his move-in was circumstantial and presumed temporary. we never discussed “our future,” never explored the mystery of “where is this going.” i always figured that our relationship would continue until it began to suck, at which point it would end, just like the relationships i’ve had before.

*******

i woke up early the day of the meeting to begin chewing my cuticles and planning my exit strategy. was that pneumonia i felt coming on? doesn’t my numb left arm signify the onset of a heart attack? no, i probably just slept wrong. Mo gets up and i begin the prep pep talk while he fixes his morning coffee — “my sister’s husband is Patrick. he probably won’t talk to you much but don’t worry about it. my parents’ dog is Chip. he’s small so careful not to step on him.” Mo is barely awake, looking at me askew, but i keep the facts coming, regaling him with details, life stories, russian proprieties he must follow in order to make the right impression. (“you have to drink vodka with my dad.”)

Mo nods, or maybe it was an eye roll. he grabs my hands and squeezes.
“it’s too early?” i ask.
“it’s too much,” he says. “you’re worrying too much. today will be fine.”

i shake him off and keep going all the same, stuffing him like a holiday turkey. more information, warnings on their temperaments. i begin to think aloud: “maybe we should develop a secret language for today, like hand signals to let each other know what’s really happening. are you getting all of this?” phone rings. it’s my Ma confirming the time and asking whether Mo has any dietary preferences.

“i was just telling him all about you guys. you know, preparing him for today,” i say.
“what type of ‘preparing’? you think we’re all monsters or something?”
“no, mom! i’m just telling him everyone’s name and profession, that’s all,” i lied. an argument could easily erupt from here. “let’s have a nice day today, please.”
“ok, fine with me. come by in the afternoon around 5 p.m.,” she instructs.
“what should i bring?”
“your boyfriend and a good attitude.”
“i always have a good attitude, damnit!! Ma?? MA???”

but she had hung up. “damnit, she knows how much i hate it when she hangs up on me!!”
i feel the steam release from my ears, followed by a big exhale. i look at Mo, who’s quietly sitting on the couch, sipping his coffee.
“you know, my family,” i start, “they’re not going to be your ideal family to walk into. hell, they’re not my ideal family to walk into.”
“the craziest people anyone knows are always in their own family,” Mo says. “when i was growing up, the fabric of our couches matched the pattern of our wallpaper. they were both plaid.”

*****

as we approach the front door of my parents’ house, i could feel the flight instinct taking over my body, making all my limbs twitch. for a moment i consider dropping the holiday presents i have in my arms, the bottle of vodka and bouquet of flowers i made Mo buy for my parents, just tossing it all aside and running toward the horizon, but Juice manages to snake her leash around my legs in a way that renders me immobile. i glance down and catch her big brown eyes, wide with encouragement. she had grown to love Mo as much as i did. there’s no reason the rest of my family wouldn’t do the same.

i look over at Mo for added encouragement and sense strain on his handsome face. in my selfish paranoia i had disregarded his feelings. immediately, my thoughts turn to his thoughts and i conclude that our thoughts are identical and still center around me. he must fear, like i fear, that the Big Family Meeting would make me too human, too flawed, too prepossessed of traits i couldn’t overcome. any remaining mystery that shrouded me — the exotic, lovable goddess i had imagined myself being in Mo’s mind — would vanish upon the unearthing of my roots, like cinderella at midnight.

door opens. cries of “hello, happy holidays” bellow from everyone. gifts are unloaded, hugs and introductions all around. my father and Mo stand facing each other, eye to eye, my two big loves, both six feet tall, dark-haired, bearded. the resemblance is undeniable. handshake. hug!
“do you drink vodka?” my pops asks.
“yes. definitely,” Mo replies, scoring points.
“good! hey Meel, i like him already. go help your mother set the table.”

and then, i don’t know. i helped set the table. we sat down, ate, drank, laughed, told stories — same as always, only now with Mo at the table. he fit in nicely, warmed up to everyone. there was no weirdness to sort though, no visibly tense moments. my family never brought up his job situation, and as i sat at the table looking over at my sister’s chinese husband and two biracial kids, i realized how silly i was to worry that Mo’s race would be an issue in my family.

my father seemed to appreciate that, like him, Mo wasn’t fond of cats, and he even found funny Mo’s story on how, during high school, Mo and friends used to record soft porn off the television in my childhood home, taking advantage of my family’s illegal “black box” that received all the cable channels, including the naughty ones. i beamed when the joke went over well, declaring dumbly, and perhaps a bit too loudly, “see, we all have the same sense of humor!!”

even Juice had a grand time, rummaging as she was through the pile of dog toys set aside for my parents’ miniature pinscher, who sat nearby looking forlorn. my sister’s kids were sparkling angels, despite my young nephew’s attempts at joining Mo as he used the restroom; and my parents and i got along splendidly, keeping our respective monster claws under wraps. Mo and i received various gift cards as holiday gifts, and were sent home with warm wishes and tupperware full of leftovers. on the whole, the night was thoroughly anticlimactic, almost unmemorable.

as the night was closing, i managed to steal a few moments with my parents for the debrief, which amounted to “so far, so good. bring him back!” on the ride home, i got the debrief from Mo, which amounted to, “overwhelming, but not bad. i could do it again.”
“‘again,’ really? it wasn’t too hard on you?”
“no, it wasn’t so bad,” Mo says with a smile. “i told you today would be fine.”

The Road Ahead

i knew we were reaching the end of the metaphoric road. the signs were clear – reduced dependability, moodiness, dread at every interaction, the groans of discomfort that accompanied even the mildest request. each day together felt like it could be our last, saturated with the chronic anxiety: “will we make it? and what happens if we don’t?” i feared for the future, which exceedingly looked dim, hopeless and unavoidably real.

and at that final moment when the wheels stopped turning, i felt no sorrow. only a strange calm as i sat motionless and looking ahead, parked somewhere near fairfax and pico. sunday night, 10 p.m., hearing the death knell ring from afar. i put my forehead on the steering wheel and studied the dashboard, mileage: 165,955. i stepped outside and looked up at the sign: street sweeping monday morning. i would get a ticket.

Mo pulled up beside me in his ride, Juice wagging her happy tail in the backseat. i slide in back with my pup who cheers me with a face licking. “well?” he asks. “that hunk of shit is dead and i’m not dropping another penny on fixing it. they can tow it to the junkyard for all i care. i’m buying a new car tomorrow.”

and that’s what i did. i bought a car. this car. the very next day, i walked alone into a dealership after work, test-drove the car, spoke with the sales dudes, wrote a big check with an unsteady hand, and bang, i drove off in my new ride.

it’s a volkswagen jetta, in case you couldn’t tell. i went with a jetta because no one else in my generation drives one. actually, i chose it because it wasn’t a soulless, nondescript car like the civic or corolla, and american cars, of course, are uniformly out of the question.

but the truth is i had been researching the jetta for about a month and had pretty much decided it would be my next car. great reviews all around and cute to boot. i love me a good european engine and given that i couldn’t afford the luxury mercedes of my dreams, the still german and cozy jetta, which is small enough to park in hollywood and zippy enough to take to SF for the weekend, worked on every level.

it was used, very gently, a 2005 edition with just 20,000 well-maintained miles, bought from enterprise, which sells its cars after renting them. inspected, certified, still under manufacturer warranty with roadside assistance, financed through my work’s credit union for a no-haggle price well below blue book.

i felt mighty proud of myself as i drove off the lot, my eyes slightly misty at the thought of my conquest (and upcoming monthly payments). i had driven into adulthood finally with this, my first real car purchase, after years of enduring my parents’ hand-me-downs. i thought of the dead saab, lonely in the junkyard after 16 years of service to my mom and then me. yeah, whatever, i bought a friggin car!

my chariot is semi-loaded – charcoal grey with a grey leather interior, 6-CD changer, dual airbags, lojack, power everything, automatic 4WD, 2.5L gasoline engine, 5 cylinders and a bunch of other technical things i can’t comprehend. (who the hell knows what “tiptronic” is?) but best of all, it still has new car smell, baby.

driving is brand new. i had a joker grin the entire drive to work this morning, smiling dumbly at other jetta owners. this is the first car i’ve had with a CD player and nice sound system. (Mo has taken to singing “mr. roboto” around me – just like in the commercial.) this is the first time i’m the one volunteering to drive. this is the first time i haven’t been worried about taking my car on a freeway. this is the first time i won’t mind sitting in LA traffic. this is the first time i'm taking the long way home.

Brevity & Gravity

not to be confused with ebony and ivory, nor entropy and misanthropy.

many years ago, i read an interview with some super old geezer -- i can't even remember who he was, only that he was old -- and the interviewer asked him what surprised him most about life. his answer: "its brevity." i was stunned, and deeply affected. i remember thinking then that i better appreciate my twenties because i wouldn't have endless years to squander them. and i better die way old and without regrets. and i better be independently wealthy and retired by the time i reached 30. what a dreamer i was.

i still dream, i suppose, but i took the stars out of my eyes long ago. now i'd just rather be healthy (must quit smoking!) and i'd really like some peace of mind -- something to quell this restless soul i must have had since birth. terrible affliction, it is. my tarot teacher says spirituality brings peace of mind. perhaps i should start my own religion: Millaism. our bibles would be Dr. Seuss books. it'd be real simple stuff, with maxims like "thou shalt always look people in the eye and smile at least five times a day." did that make you smile? what the hell am i babbling about?

my new boyfriend (moniker: Momo, pronounced with two long O's), i'm still crazy about. his father died last week. you can read about it on Momo's blog and on his brother's blog. from what i've gathered, the father's life was quite storied, though not always charmed. strained, problematic relationships.

still, you only have one father, so this has been a difficult time. a few days ago, i called my own father to check in with him. i had seen him only a few weeks prior, and sat with him at his kitchen table shooting the shit like we always do. per usual, he was asking me about work and the state of my finances, trying as he does to make me a responsible member of society. i reassured him as i always do, knowing he would worry anyway. then he stared at me for a long moment before he said, "by your face, i'm going to guess that you have a new man in your life." daddy knows. hiding anything from him was always impossible. a new boyfriend, a bad grade, a dent in the car -- forget it. those strong hazel eyes would pierce into you and extract your bullshit. daddy always knows.

i get him on his cell phone and i'm near tears. i remind him of the new man who's been brightening my face for the past few weeks. "sounds like he hurt you, baby," my daddy says. no, no, his father died. "his father died and i need you to know that i love you. i love you so much."

i implore you, precious people: call your parents, if you're still fortunate enough to have them. call them and tell them. life's greatest surprise is its brevity.

Momo's sad, so i'm sad, too. we go through his old photo albums. he tells me stories. i hold his hand and kiss his forehead. it's a helpless feeling to see someone you care for suffering and know that you can't do much to alleviate it. one would think this would put a kibosh on the swooning, but it seems to have accelerated the mush metamorphosis. certainly, there are beginnings in all endings, and i find myself suddenly invigorated in the saddest of ways. it's made me snap out of the deadened detachment i've been so proud of these past few years, this numbness that has kept me from embracing the full spectrum of emotions i'm capable of experiencing. this has all been tragically life-affirming, and i find myself feeling like a woman again, where i can nurture and caretake and support, and offer the best parts of myself at the worst possible time. it's like a flower growing out of the manure. the gravity of entropy.

back on the phone, my father tells me he loves me, too. his voice gets shaky, and i can sense him getting teary as well. he asks the hows and whys (massive heart attack at 79) and offers apologies. i tell him i love him twice more. then, ever the doting husband, he says, "your mother is at home alone. call her and tell her you love her, too." so i hang up with him and do just that.

and i love the rest of y'all, too, especially you, Momo. :-)

Sing Blue Silver

wow, wow, wow. i saw the incredible duran duran in concert at the staples center on saturday night. wow, wow, wow. i screamed like a 14-year-old girl. i screamed so loud my stomach muscles hurt the next day.

it was the original lineup that included the three unrelated Taylors. it was their reunion tour used to promote their new album Astronaut (which isn't too shabby). they looked so hot, despite having the fortysomething faces of men who've partied like the rock stars they are. simon lebon is still the swaggering frontman, and he still had it -- so had it. cutie pie roger taylor, the shy one, hid behind his drum set looking all boyish and beautiful. nick rhodes is still the most stylish muthafucka ever. and, of course, my future ex-husband john taylor diddled the bass like the pro he is. i was swooning. i really was.

staples was sold out and the crowd stayed largely on its feet, leaving only after the final notes of "rio" were belted out. the band played most of its old hits and a few songs off their new album. just stunning on every level. a huge video screen behind the band played clips of old videos like "the chaffeur" and "girls on film" -- shit i hadn't seen in ages, but that reminded me what true artists those guys were. they had some serious vision, despite be panned as new wave fluff of the '80s. and i'm not just saying that because john taylor is gorgeous. duran duran is a damn fine band.

in high school i was a diehard duranie, my bedroom walls plastered with the faces of "the fab five." the concert was like entering a time machine, and i'm sure my fellow concertgoers had the same experience. hearing those songs took me back to a past life that's rarely revisited, reminding me of a certain year, hairstyle, moment, outfit. today, those memories seem kinda laughable, though wholly heartwarming.

cheers to D squared!

High on High School

my high school was a funny place. it was this sort of experimental magnet school, grades 4th-12th, where "gifted" kids were mixed in with average retards in the hope that the former would somehow elevate the latter. though a lofty goal, kids were kept segregated in either remedial, normal or honors classes, so the mixing stayed minimal. well over half the student body was nonwhite and bussed in from all over los angeles. it was a public school -- never a fee to attend -- but the waiting list was long and admission was awarded through a lottery system. so we had a mini melting pot of races, socioeconomic backgrounds, IQ levels and ages. it probably sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it worked out well.

i began that school in the 6th grade, attended it seven years and graduated from it three times before finally leaving. when i left i had been there longer than most of the administrators. imagine my surprise when i began UCLA in fall 1994 and found myself as the little fish in big pond when i had been just the opposite for so long. in any case, high school wasn't that traumatic. i did all the stuff one is supposed to do -- cram for exams, play hooky, smoke pot, attend prom, lose my virginity (the week before prom!), sign yearbooks, pass notes in class and so forth. normal american stuff.

my graduating class must have been around 130 kids, and we all knew each other. there was a real sense of unity among us, the Eccentrics of 1994. they say college is the time when you make your friends for life, but i'm more tight with my high-school peeps. after all, we went through all our 'growing pains' together, saw each other through the awkward 'wonder years,' went through divorces, custody battles and pep rallies together. they are my true homies and the loyalty runs deep.

so with this in mind, i had been looking forward to my 10-year reunion. we had all kept tabs on each other somewhat through the years, so it was less a curiousity of what everyone was up to now and more about getting people together in the same room. in a nutshell: It was great, really great. that school spirit was palpable, with everyone seeming genuinely pleased to see one another, hug and catch up. what's interesting is that people looked damn good. all the girls must have gone on a reunion crash diet or something, cus they were looking hot. and the boys -- thinning hair and all -- looked beefier in a good way; all the skinny stragglers had finally hit puberty.

the food tasted yummy, the wine glasses seemed to refill themselves, and the party felt right. to see photos of smiling fools you don't know (unless you're my high-school homey), click here, click here! although we did plenty of mingling, parts of the evening felt cliquish -- just like high school. during dinner, there was a black table, latino table, russian table, honors kids table and an everyone else table. i'm only bummed more people didn't turn out. and i'm bummed i didn't get to stay longer. i found out the next day that someone had rented a hotel room nearby, where i'm sure people played seven minutes in heaven.

i bailed out at about 11pm to attend the birthday party of one juanito de la plancha. (happy birthday, juancho.) but yes, overall it was a blast, and i can't wait until the next one.

venice is now officially my favorite place on the planet. this is not a whim. the whole of portugal had held the top spot for some six or seven years. but all that changed when i set eyes on venice. i can't adequately explain it. it must be seen firsthand. i felt like i was walking around in some fantasy land, like a set of a movie, where all the façades are cardboard creations that will just fall forward if touched the wrong way. i was elated there, spring in my step and all. a true lightness of being, despite the scorching heat and exorbinant prices. it's the most remarkable city in the world. i had heard as much before, but never truely believed it, especially about there being no cars there. but it was true, it was just canals and boat buses, not a single vehicle made an appearance all weekend. people have garages for their boats. venice is really over 100 little islands and about 400 bridges, many of them leading to peoples' front doors. we walked all over the place, and once passed the emergency room of a hospital, its receiving door opening onto a dock. i saw firefighters whiz by on boats, sirens blaring, lights flashing. it was completely surreal. i only regret that we couldn't enjoy a gondola ride, where i had planned to perform my rendition of madonna's "like a virgin," but the gondalier was charging about 100 euros a ride, so nope. but everything else was incredible. i am still reeling from the experience.

now i'm in barcelona for the last stop of the european tour. i still have to record some thoughts of budapest and vienna, but i don't believe the time i have left in this internet cafe will allow me to do so. but in a nutshell, nothing compared to venice. and i already see that my three favorite places visited during this trip were venice (of course), prague and paris. all three of those cities gave me these little unmistakable chills that let me know i was somewhere very special. all else was great as well, but those were the standouts.

budapest had its moments. it had castles that reminded of disneyland's magic castle, and the parliament building looked like superman's fortress of solitude. the city was similar to prague in many ways, with its fancy bridges and castles on a hill, but it lacked the unassuming beauty of prague. i had always heard that prague was a noir city, but i didn't find that at all. budapest was far more noir, much more dilapidated, certainly poorer -- its people dour. the hungarians were not a friendly lot, which probably tainted the way i received the city. we also didn't have a chance to see much, seeing that the museums were closed on sundays and mondays, the only two days we were there, but i'd love to go back and explore it properly. as it was we took a boat ride on the danube river and got a history lesson from the accompanying audio tour.

vienna seemed like a cross between paris and prague, very western, and just a bit too gaudy for my taste. shit, internet time running out. will try to update later on.