Remember that time you gave me the ants?

One of my best gal pals, Malo, surprised me with a small, blue vase she bought at an art school. There were wild flowers crowding the stem, which she had picked while singing and prancing, thinking of me--but that's her version of the story. My story kicks in an hour or so later, when we were waving our goodbyes. I placed the tiny gifted ceramic in between my legs for the drive home to ensure its safe travels. Once parked, I realized that there were ants crawling everywhere. And not just any ants, the bitey kind. I began slapping myself on all exposed skin and hunting down the runners with an opposable thumb. More than a few got away, though they have probably suffocated in their hot, leather hiding places by now. That is my hope, at least. I am still itchy with bites from that time Malo gave me the ants...

**Stay tuned for tonight's adventure: Malo and I go to the Prince concert.

Summer of Erin

According to the tarot card reader on the Venice boardwalk, my social cup will runneth over as long as I open my iron fist, let go of the past and remain open to beauty, art and love. Even though he never stopped picking his nose and talked entirely too much about himself, his roommate, his ex-girlfriend and did an uncomfortably long Rodney Dangerfield impression, he seemed to know a thing or two about reading a deck of cards. All he really told me was to take my own advice, which is pretty good advice... So begins the chronicles of the Summer of Erin.

Dodgy

People have been saying "Get the hell out of Dodge" for a while now. I'm guessing it's cleaned up all right by now...

Hawaii in a Coconut Shell

I finally made a trip to Oahu, Hawaii, a life-long dream come true. As I marched down the tarmac, I wondered what the temperature aboard the plane would be, since it was 25 degrees in Chicago and 75 degrees in Honolulu. It turns out, the destination rules the thermostat. The air conditioning blasted the entire trip there, with the heat roaring the whole flight home.

The anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, overlapped the vacation, so there were many vets on board, headed to a memorial at, well, Pearl Harbor. (Side note, I worried that the water I was drinking in Hawaii was contaminated with rocket fuel and other radioactive indigestible ingredients from all the military testing sites.) Apparently, history is not a strong suit for flight attendants. On the flight to the island, one woman over the mic thanked our veterans for their brave fight in World War I. On the returning flight, a different woman actually referred to the "Vietnamese" War.

Another interesting observation I made after a few days at breakfast, where birds outnumbered people: there was no bird crap anywhere. Thousands of birds, no waste. Where does it go--or more accurately: where do they go?

On my birthday, December 5th, I spent the day on a scooter, driving to the North Shore and down the entire east side of Oahu. The scenery was the most unbelievably beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. From the greenery, to the mountains, to the beaches and blue, blue ocean water that was so clean you could see straight to the bottom. Everything was just gorgeous--except for me. It turns out, I had a pretty severe case of "scooter face". That is when all the dirt in the air collects in the creases of your face and is glued there by your sunscreen. I had a full-on unibrow, deep smile lines and black under eyes like a linebacker. I'm afraid to know what my lungs look like, since it took about five cotton balls to clean the soot off my face.

The whole trip was amazing, from sunning on the beaches of Waikiki, to swimming with the dolphins (in the wild, on the west coast of the island), to hiking to see a waterfall that most tourists don't know about, to all the delicious fish dishes. New goal: get back to Oahu.

Black Beauty

I grew up in poverty, raised by the television. My mother was busy working and earning her PhD, so there was limited supervision at the homestead, save for the cartoons. The hours that were not devoted to the old boob tube were spent trolling around on my pink and purple Huffy bike, which was stolen daily by a black kid in the neighborhood--as a flirtation. In retrospect I realize most of the people around were minorities, but at the time, I was sure I was black, or maybe a Smurf, but at least no different from everyone else.

One day, a girl named Natalie wanted to spend the night at my house. I said yes without asking and a few hours later we were drying off from the bath we had just taken together. Natalie pulled some hair grease out of her bag and worked it through her hair. I stared in awe and was quick to accept her invitation to use some of the bottle on my own 'do.

Cut to five days later, after rigorous scrubbing, the grease was still weighing down my white-girl hair as if it were wet and plastered to my head. That's when I found out I wasn't black. At least, not on the outside.

Cracker Jack

The Midwest is known for its white people, so it was really no surprise to see the whitest man alive standing in front of me on line at the post office. He had all the honkey tells: thinning brown hair with a bald patch at the dome, wire rimmed eye glasses, jean shorts pulled up to his bitch tits, a tucked-in green t-shirt, a brown, fading leather belt and black socks pulled to the knee. What was bewildering were the perfectly white and meticulously cared for FUBU sneakers. Nice curve ball, guy.

Checking One Off

Life has been a bit crazed lately, as the intention and the decision and finally the act of moving 2,000 miles across the country to Chicago to be with my guy became a reality on August 26th, 2010. But every story ever told is a love story, so mine should be too, right? Even if it takes me away from L.A., the promise land, and even if leaving seems like a failure to many, love conquers all.

My (new) plan is to become the next Tina Fey, so I start classes at the Second City on Monday. I've also been writing daily and dreaming up sketch comedy characters. Determined and deliberate on my path, I was completely startled yesterday at an intersection near Union Station when part of my life's dreams came true: I witnessed a hobo rivalry. (See blog entry "To Do List" from November 3rd, 2009.) One man carrying a stack of newspapers was yelling at another man, who was missing half of his face and limping behind his accomplice at a safe distance. The leader, the loud one, was demanding that I tell him the name of the red-headed snowboarder who was at the Olympics. I pretended not to hear or have any such information, for fear of being further involved in whatever grift they were pulling, but he sounded it out for himself in front of me, finally coming up with Shaun White from the tip of his tongue. Then he scolded his quiet, half interested partner in crime that Shaun White was the man, and not Tony Hawk. I could hear him repeating this ad nauseam as they disappeared down the block, beating into his follower's thick skull the truth about who deserved to reign currently as The Man.

Maybe "rivalry" is a strong word for this exchange, but it still made me feel like I am in the right place in my life right now--the mean streets of Chi Town, bearing the gifts of fulfillment, one rowdy crook and his lackey at a time...