October 03, 2007

Sometimes at the End of a Long Day

. . . I have to decide what kind of gin I want in my martini. I feel that this really brings me close to the memory of my great-great-grandfather, who used to ferry people to the West Coast over the Oregon Trail.

I'm sure at the end of a long day, as they circled the wagons and started a campfire, my g-g-g was wondering whether it was a Bombay Saffire night or a Tanqueray occasion.

Times were hard back then, and I imagine he had to go without ice now and then. But he was a tough guy, like his descendent, the blogging chick.

Of course, it might be a slightly different type of toughness, now that I come to think about it. He probably had to hunt small game to keep the wagon train fed. I hunt grammatical errors, to keep my Cruiser fed.

Other than that, it's exactly the same lifestyle.

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Practical Uses for Proofreading Skills, Part 1

I'm at the restaurant with my mother. She insists on picking up the tab. I protest, but I'm secretly relieved.

The waitress runs her card, and comes back with two pieces of paper. They are both the same color (white). Neither of them says "customer copy," or "merchant copy," or anything that obvious.

"I can't figure out which one is mine," she complains.

"Hand 'em over," I insist.

After less than a second of examining the slips I give them back, explaining that "this one is yours; they put a thank-you note at the bottom of it."

Had I looked for another split second, I would have noticed the fact that the merchant copy had a line on it for her to sign.


Later that evening, as we were discussing the oddity of being nearsighted in one eye, and farsighted in the other, it occurred to me that not only is that a potentially adaptable trait; it might also be one of the reasons I'm such a good proofreader.

In any event, if you want someone to compare two documents to see whether they match—and, if not, to figure out what all the differences are—then I'm your man.

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September 30, 2007

Lies We Tell Ourselves:

1) "There's nothing to read around here."

Which is simply a reprise of

2) "I don't have anything to wear."

Which is a way of reconceptualizing

3) "There's nothing to do-o-o-o-o."

Which I am a bit old for.

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September 19, 2007

I Know What You're Thinking.

"What kind of person chases a bowl of Cheerios with a dry martini?"

I'll give you one guess.

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I've Been Informed

. . . that this site is not banned in China. Which of course gives me something to aspire to.

In other news, I've become awfully interested in making money. Actually, I'm doing so. I just don't have it yet, due to the vagaries of the billing cycle.

According to my calculations, I could live perfectly decently on 20 hours a week, if I billed at my top rate.

Something to be said for working for larger entities, at that.

Another copyeditor told me recently that the world had lost "all interest in perfection." It's gone beyond that: the world appears—to the average English major, at least—to have lost all interest in excellence. At least, most smaller magazines would rather put up with typos, stylistic errors and prose that simply doesn't make sense, when the alternative is paying someone a decent amount of money to check it over.

So I continue to work on my crime books, and I continue to learn book-keeping. For knowledge is rarely a liability in this world.

Even in China.

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September 18, 2007

Monday Night at "the World's Biggest Living Room."

Yeah. That's Hog Beatty's term for the bar and lounge at Casa del Mar, where he used to go with his ex-girlfriend JG a few years ago. I'm not so sure about that: sure, it's comfortable place. But it does have that old-hotel grandeur. It's a thrilling place to be. (Many of you know it as the place Larry David refused to take his television wife on an old episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.)

I took my mother there last night in honor of (1) her 71st birthday this coming Friday, and (2) the fact that there is no Boston Legal soundtrack on the market.

I thought if we went to listen to Billy Valentine live, it would be the next best thing. But it was better—so much better. For one thing, I discovered that the slice of the music pie that represents the spot where my mother's and my taste meet is much larger than I'd thought. I know she likes classical music—but rarely the stuff I listen to (I'm all Bach, Beethoven and tone poems by, among others, Saint Saens). And I knew she liked jazz, and music with bitchin' vocals, including well-executed gospel music. But there is a lot of bluesy stuff out there, a vast range where the Kay-Joy tastes meet. Valentine even sang Sinatra, and my mother and I both dug it: I'd never pictured her as a Sinatra fan. Not in the least.

Finally, I got to meet Tonio K, in the flesh. Wait—that link has loud music on it, so be ready. Or try this one.

I was also surprised by how incredible the Stuart Elster Trio were, all on their own, while Billy was drinking wine with his friends and fans. There is something fundamentally pure and fine in listening to a pianist, a bassist, and a drummer (working mostly with brushes, natch). They did amazing work. This was not piano-lounge mood music. Nope. One of the cocktail waitresses couldn't help swinging her hips as she went from table to table.

And there was one more discovery: the siren singer Heather Loren, who performed one number: a great rendition of the Peggy Lee version of "Fever." (The Wikipedia entry lists all the people who have ever performed the song, and now I'm going crazy trying to figure out from whom I first heard it. I'm not even sure I know if it was a man or a woman.)

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August 19, 2007

Adorable Pit Bulls!

This nice doggie site is wonderful. It doesn't just include examples of media bias and reflections on how to combat Breed-Specific Legislation (BSL); it also has lots of pretty pictures of lovable Pit Bulls.

Since yesterday was the day of the Big Nonprofit Meeting, I stayed over at my mom's place on Friday night. I usually ask her to take the dog in with her at night and close the door, so I don't have to worry about putting all my gear and books and purse and jewelry up/out of reach.

But the other night the puppy sounded like she wasn't settling down quite yet, so I went in and brought her back out to the hall. My mother got up later to get her midnight snack and found us curled up together on the rug. Apparently, I didn't wake up when the mom raided the refrigerator, but she checked the dog bowl and got out some dry food. I hear that was too much for Mandy, who had to desert me so she could go into the kitchen and show my mother what a good dog she was. There is, as I understand it, genuine magic in the sound of a dog-food canister.

So I woke up alone and went back to bed—which means the back couch in the family room at my mom's.

In the morning my mother came back out, and the dog with her. Mandy jumped onto the end of the couch, and curled up there at my feet while my mother made breakfast.

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August 02, 2007

Everyone Draws the Line Somewhere.

My mother doesn't mind my keeping beer in her fridge, or a bottle of vodka in her closet.

She refuses to let me leave Cheerios there, however.

Of course, what she doesn't know can't possibly hurt her. (Unless she finds it, in which case I'll simply disavow. And, yes—that is, in fact, a word, though one wonders how much currency it enjoyed before the 1960s.)

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July 31, 2007

Professor Purkinje:

"Aw, come on. Everyone knows that liberals are best at licking pussy."

I don't buy it. But I do believe someone (some lucky young unmarried thing, slumming in Academe) should do a study.

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July 26, 2007

I Feel Like a Teenager

. . . on the last day of school. It turns out that Client A won't need me tomorrow during the day, and Client B didn't pin me to my computer tonight. So I want to my mom's for a few hours to make sure she was okay—and to hang out a bit. I nursed a beer, ate half of a turkey sandwich, giggled at stupid things, threatened to take a nap on her couch, and threw a tennis ball for the dog to fetch.

I was unable to locate my cell phone, so every half an hour I'd get up, look on the counters and the mantel for the phone, rummage through my purse, and then announce I'd gotten over this obsessive-compulsive silliness, that I expected the phone to show up, and that I wasn't going to worry about it.

So I'd sit down for another ten minutes, and then grab my keys, toss the dog a treat (she has to be bribed to let me leave the house), and go out to search my car again.

It isn't altogether clear to me why my mother didn't either (a) kill me, or (b) have me committed.

The cell phone was under the cassette tape of Aladdin Sane on the passenger seat, by the way. I'm so glad my phone is so compact that it can hide under a cassette like that.

I need to go to sleep soon, as I still have plenty to do tomorrow. I did want, however, to announce that I'm on the verge of Having a Life Again, and that I would hang around online a bit longer if I didn't have a hot date.

But, you know: I do.

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July 10, 2007

Are You Trying To Tell Me . . .

that some high schools don't feature an open-air ampitheater? Well, then—where are the double-size steps that sadistic gym teachers make you run up and down, until you switch over to dance class, or "Run for Fun" (also known as "Walk for the Hell of It)?

It isn't that we were spoiled at Samohi; keep in mind that there was only one building on the entire campus that featured a decent view of the ocean. (Santa Monica High is built on a hill, and it's only from the top of that hill that one gets a full-on seascape.)

Also, Samohi was right in the middle of Dogtown, quite near Venice. On the South Side of Santa Monica, I'll have you know. There were students there who were neither blond nor Jewish. Really. Oodles of them.


Hat tip: Harry in the Night.

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July 09, 2007

So, I'm 45 Years Old Now.

I find that it does not make me want to acquire a 1911. Although, of course, there is that Commander that I've had my eye on for a decade and a half . . . but I'll get it myself this fall after the Big Gig for the Important Client.

I feel that most of my problems over the past decade relate to the fact that I haven't gone shooting quite enough. I shall fix that over the next 12 months.

Mostly, of course, I need to learn to use that sweet little scattergun I acquired seven years ago. One illustrious personage in the shotgun industry insists that if I learn conventional methods, it will spoil me for good old-fashioned Native American "point-and-shoot" techniques, which he is certain I ought to employ.

Hard to argue with that: instinct shooting sounds right on a scattergun.

This one is a Franchi. A nice little shotgun. Advice, my SoCal friends? Desert Cat: Does Daisy have any any thoughts? She's a one-woman Chick Shooting Bible, that one. Hold onto her.

I feel old. And dangerous. And wicked. Can any of you relate?

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July 06, 2007

On the Third, When I "Encouraged" My Employee To Take a Leave of Absence

. . . until some of her housing and mental health challenges had been met, I gave her $80 out of my own pocket that I didn't really have. But I was fairly sure that she had slept at the office the previous night, and it was late in the evening, so I wanted to make sure that if worse came to worst, she could get a hotel room that night, and go to an emergency shelter the next day. (We printed her out a list of the local ones.)

I told my husband what I'd done. The next day&msash;Independence Day—when I opened my laptop there were two twenty-dollar bills resting on the keyboard.

A the H denies all responsibility: He suggests that perhaps the "Liberty Fairy" dropped in. Supposedly every fourth of July, the Liberty Fairy distributes money onto the keyboards of those who promote responsible capitalistic development and free-market solutions to global and regional problems.

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June 26, 2007

Attila the Hub Went to Two Pitch Meetings Today.

Plus a pre-meeting meeting, wherein he, Dr. Cult Figure, and the head of the production company agreed on a strategy for selling the project.

Personally, I suspect that they nailed it, and partly because the husbandly acting background lent him an edge: participating in a meeting of this complexity is playing a role. But I also pointed out that this would be a great time for the Hub to take other projects to the same studio: he'll still have that Dr. Cult aura.

"It was weird," he told me. "Even with Spielberg, it wasn't like this: people kept coming up with excuses just to pass by our table in the Starbucks."

Yeah, but with Spielberg, people got out-and-out rude. And the divine Mr. S never had the temerity to go to a Starbucks where the hoi polloi hang out. Kudos to Dr. Cult.

It's been a good week: the husband's productive, I'm productive. And, should we ever get on our feet financially again due to his creative projects—or even mine—I've got some furniture picked out from a prop/artifacts store downtown that could dispose of our disposable income in a hot Los Angeles minute.

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You Know, I Have a Friend.

She once downed her multi-vitamin with a sip from her martini.

I was appalled, of course.

Mmmm. Nothing quite as dry as Wet. So far.

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June 22, 2007

Would Someone Please Turn the Heat Down?

It's after 9:00 p.m., and the garage has just cooled down to 80 degrees or so.

I'd sleep on the balcony tonight, but there are lots of bugs in the air out there. And some of them are very, very big. They're, like, the size of mice. They'd hurt me, for sure.

I seem to remember sleeping on the balcony at my grandparents' place in Whittier, California on hot summer nights when the air was still clean enough that one could see Catalina during the daytime.

This would have been back in the 1960s, before they got air-conditioning at the family homestead on that hill. (Yes. It's still in the family; it's the only structure left from my early childhood, ever since my aunt-on-my-mother's-side burned her house down. The Whittier place has been in the family since the 1930s, and my other grandparents' house is still intact, and down the hill from it. Though now strangers own it, and someone chopped down one of the lemon trees in the front yard. Fascists.)

Hey, bro—are you reading this today? Didn't they have us crash on the balcony sometimes in the summer, on those outdoor chaises? Or am I making that part up?

Now someone is going to ask me why I don't just turn on the AC. Because I don't do that until it hits 100 around here: I may be a hedonist, but I'm not wasteful.

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June 17, 2007

Okay, Just Kidding.

No one ever stops blogging, unless they go on methadone.

Just ask Rachel Lucas.

Yeah, I was depressed last night, and earlier today. Utterly, utterly depressed. And I didn't want to admit that, so I sort of vamped.

But now I've cleared the air with the other individual involved in my emotional tailspin, and I think I'll go to bed early.

Nope; I didn't drive up to Shell Beach today, either: that got put off a few weeks, due to 1) the fact that I had a slight sore throat, which is a no-no when you're going to visit a 95-year-old woman, and 2) my suspicion that I'll be able to afford the gasoline a bit better at that point as well.

So all is well, here, but I'm taking one more night off from internet society.

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June 08, 2007

Watch Out for Colored Index Cards.

They are very dangerous. The husband and I have learned to be careful about what affirmations we place on our bulletin boards and bathroom mirrors, because they all come true. Even the ones that say "I weigh X (X being 15 pounds lighter than what my husband weighs, or five pounds lighter than what I weigh).

Even my car came about as the result of an affirmation: After I'd decided that it was too impractical to get a PT Cruiser, I bought a tiny one on a keychain, and it lived on my bulletin board for months. I saw it there every day. I think it worked on my unconscious, which in turn appealed to my Higher Power.

We become what we surround ourselves with, so those things have to speak a positive message about our aspirations.

My current affirmations:

• I show up on-time or five minutes early for all my business and social engagements. [My tendancy to multi-task sometimes wreaks havoc with this aspect of time-management, so I need to make it important.]

• I weigh 120 pounds. [This figure is just south of the truth. I don't actually care that much, but the older we get the more most of us seem to acquire around the middle, and a round belly is a health risk I don't need.]

• We own a second property, up the coast from here.

• My freelancing brings in $55K a year.

• I keep scrupulous track of my business expenses.

• People find the puzzles I write to be deliciously entertaining. [So far, so good on that score. But the positive affirmation will help me to send my babies out into the world, and given all the time I put into them, they may as well bring in some money.]

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May 26, 2007

Brunch with My Mother.

She knows I'm broke; I know she's broke. So neither one of us wanted to talk much about money, but I paid the bill while she was in the ladies' room. Afterward, she pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her purse and put it in the glove box of my car as we returned to her house.

The omelets of the Magis.

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May 17, 2007

When I Picked Up My Dry-Cleaning

. . . the clerk insisted on bringing the clothing out to hang it in my car himself. Outside the building, he saw my Cruiser next to an econo-box and a sedan, and pointed at it: "That car, right? It's small. It looks like you."

I copped to it, with pleasure.

The Cruiser is actually the largest car I've ever driven. I believe he either perceived it to be a truck, in which case it is indeed small—or the term "small" is a euphemism for "curvy and quirky."

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