Excerpt from "A Field Guide To The North American Yaga":

"The diet of the North American Yaga, while based predominantly on staples available year-round, such as coffee, cabbage (all varieties but particularly sauerkraut and sweet red), polska sausage and macaroni with cold tomato soup, can also expand to include such seasonal offerings as acorn squash and ice cream sandwiches."


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Location: Home
Background: "The Falcon and The Snowman" on Bravo
Listening: "Chopsticks" ~Liz Phair

Tumultuous day, but a very commonplace tumult. Woke at 9, per usual on the weekends, SIM'med for about an hour before Peter woke and sauntered into the den. Oddly exhausted after attempting to have my SIM household juggle their positions as Federal Judges and new mothers (my openly lesbian couple adopted a baby boy--ah, the permissiveness of the fictitious community!--I named the kid Churchill, remembering that one of my exes used to insist that all infants resembled the notorious Brit), I proposed that we go back to sleep for a few hours. We did--and woke just after 3. *sigh*

After fretting myself into a black mood over the condition of the house, I relented when Peter suggested that we get out of the house and go to dinner before grocery shopping (my primary mission after cleaning). We ventured out to Acapulco, where Peter, who revealed that he had never had Mexican food that was not Taco Bell, asked me to order for both of us. The result was a spread fit for a family of eight: ceviche; tequila-lime chicken fajitas; chile relleno; chile colorado enchilada; beef tamal; rice and the ubiquitous beans with queso blanco. I even ordered a shot of Cuervo Gold with salt and lime for the first time in six years (although I still stand by the motto "Tequila--NEVER A GOOD IDEA."). Needless to say, we toted four boxes home, but in the meantime, I managed to recover from my snit and we had a customary romp through Ralph's (which ended with our checkout clerk asking for a price check on the "plantations" I had bought to fry up later this week).

While we were out, Peter and I tried to ferret out the cause of my recent malaise. I finally determined that it resulted from a lack of a sense of forward progress. I've never been a sedentary creature by nature. I've moved every year when my lease was up simply to have the experience of living in a different place. I've become bored with every job I've held after two years or less. I spend part of my days making lists of languages to learn, countries to visit and hobbies to take up--and, although I'm happier with my life now than at any other time I can remember, I'm still restless. My final conclusion was that it's time for a change--specifically, it's time to get the hell out of Dodge. To this end, I start an extensive--and covert--job search tomorrow, with Seattle being the primary location targeted. This decision was also fueled by the fact that much of what I moved back to California for a year ago has disappeared or changed radically and the realization earlier this week that in order to get promoted at my current position, I would need to weasel my boss's job out from under him--something that is simply not an option since Hitoshi is a family man and my friend. The move is not imminent as money needs to be set aside and a better position found before I'll consider leaving Long Beach; but the sense of joy at being able to plan for the transition is tangible. So while I'll continue to savor my experiences in CA (the weather, my morning jogs along the beach, the friends I've made here and the places I've come to love), I'll also be looking forward to starting a new phase of my life sometime in the not-so-distant future.

Creatively, I've been a sine wave--rolling up and down the scale energy and inspiration-wise. While researching new recipes in "The Joy Of Cooking" this morning, I jotted down the following fragments:

...dissolved and resurfaced this morning
in the same careful lines,
regimented, still unrhymed
a more ordinary lyric
of accessible lemons and milk
pork chops--asparagus edited
for economy.


...when the weather was an engine inside of us
pistoning us through the days into dusk
when we idled on the grass of our parents' homes
pulling shirt-tails, picking fights
finding every excuse to touch
revving once, twice, and again
with nowhere to go in the end
but bed before midnight
where we lay, sweating and breathless
listening to distant thunder.

So yes--just pieces right now, stops and starts, lines that spring to mind unfinished and often awkward--but better than nothing.

As a footnote, listening to Jay Z and Jermaine Dupre rap "Money Ain't A Thing", I catch the following lines:

I live the life
Eating crab, watching bitches shake shit all night
I make the big moves
In the big game
Take the small groups
Turn 'em into big names
With the big chains
Frost-bit bracelet
The mad cats say I'm the shit, man

...and I'm suddenly reminded of New Year's Eve 1998, sitting on the front patio of The Sunset Bar & Grill on 3rd Street--wearing my blazer and black skirt with a bottle of good champagne in one hand, a cigar in the other and Shunit giggling on my knee...Scott winking at me conspiratorially just before midnight when, drunk out of his mind, he surprised me by kissing me against the wall outside the bathrooms (an incident he now swears he can't remember and blushes)...the time in my life that earned me the reputation as a "player" with friends and strangers alike. Not nostalgia--not really--and not longing...just a very real sense of time passing a little too quickly for my taste. That girl is still lurking somewhere in this housecleaning, meal-making, corporate chica--along with the little skate-chick in oversized jeans and flaming red hair and the compulsive club-girl in PVC and fishnets. Makes me wonder who's next and where I'll find her...