Boom! My boyfren's dead SEXY

Steve and I went to Big Bear Lake last week.







We went jet skiing and hiking, and we hit balls at the Moonridge Golf Course driving range.







The town is small, designed for skiers and wealthy summer vacationers who, apparently, like to go to bed at 9 p.m. We had a hard time finding things to do at night because the town was dead. We played pool and darts at Chad's Saloon three nights in a row, and the busiest it ever got there was us and about five other people.







The best hike was this trail called Castle Rock. We had to scramble up HUGE boulders to reach the summit, which gave us a 360 view of Big Bear Lake and the surrounding mountains. It was amazing. The air was so clear, and the views so beautiful.







Our trip was AWESOME!

Daisy and Delilah (and Coke)

I'm not sure what to do with my life right now.

See, I've got a bit of a split personality - perhaps it's a Gemini thing - that causes me to feel pulled in opposite directions a lot of the time.

Personality A - Let's call her Daisy - knows for sure that she wants to write books and paint pictures and perform on stage. She doesn't give a crap if these things generate zero wealth. She wants to play and be happy and take the risk of pursuing such delightful artistic endeavors.





I love Daisy. I've been trying to follow her heart for about 10 years now. But I'm always several steps behind her, trying to grasp at her heels, begging her to just fill me with the confidence I need to do these things. But she's whimsical. Hard to grasp. Difficult to fully embody.

I think this is because aside from Daisy, I also have Personality B - Let's call her Delilah.





Delilah is smart and conscientious and focused. She's also tremendously practical. She wants to live in a house and drive a new car and live a structured, stable life. She forces me to scour the employment ads every day and apply for positions I know I will hate. She has insufferable anxiety attacks when she thinks about paying back student loans or being almost 30 years old and still living below poverty.


How in the world am I supposed to get these two sides of myself to coexist, to work together to make me a true DYNAMO of a woman?


The struggle has got to stop.



***


By the way, not only do I believe I have a split personality, as a child I had an imaginary friend named Coke.


Coke.


You judge for yourself the soundness of my mind.

Mango Leaves My Mouth Unsatisfied

I tend to think that mango tastes like a fragrance instead of an actual flavor.



It's like a partial flavor.

It would be just as well if someone sprayed the inside of my mouth with a fruity body mist.

I don't understand the mango hype. Give me a Rainier cherry over a slice of mango any day. Rainier cherry....

Now that's a fruit.



I've only ever had one good piece of mango.



It was last week, and Steve gave it to me out of his mango tub from Trader Joe's.


It was actually pretty succulent, which surprised me. It made me realize that maybe I've based my fragrance-taste theory on nothing more than a series of unripe mango slices.



It disurbs me when my reality gets all discombobluated like this.

There are a couple reasons why.


First, because I have to admit I was wrong about something.




Or, secondly, because I am forced to realize I don't understand life as well as I thought I did.


For instance, when I was seven, I believed in wishing on a falling star. This, most likely, was the result of recently watching Pinnochio and being convinced by Jiminy Cricket that star-wishing miracles were possible. In any case, I truly thought my wish would come true if I were lucky enough to spot one dazzling star streaking across the city-bright night sky.

One evening, after spending a week visiting my ailing Grammy in Florida, I saw my shooting star in the Phoenix sky. I was in my Dad's arms, and together we stared in awe at the beautiful sight. Knowing this was my chance, I closed my eyes and wished my Grammy wouldn't die.

I wasn't religious, so I suppose you could say I placed my faith in the cosmos.



It didn't work, though.


My Grammy passed away a few days later.


Sad and indignant, I realized there was no such thing as wishing on a star.


I've never done it since.






Hey,

Have you ever noticed that non-cartoon images of Homer Simpson are just plain creepy?

Katie's Alphabet Game

Courtesy of "Songwriter's Notebook".

argentina baboon courtesy dog elephant fairfax gargantuan hello icecream juxtaposition kilometer lobster marine nanosecond octopus period question rockstar steve utopia valentine water xylophone yes zebra

***

don't question my utopia
who cares it's my life
if i choose to live with
elephants or octopusses
it's my life
period

***

gargantuan bowl of icecream
mint chocolate
a baboon's dream
to roam free in argentina
playing xylophone with the claws of a lobster
eating a gargantuan
bowl of mint chocolate
ice cream

Street Urchins and Tasty Leaves

I was just thinking back to the first play I ever did. It was called "Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd."



I was 13 years old. It was a summer workshop type thing for high school kids, and my friend Heather and I were the youngest cast members.

I played a random street urchin. A chimney sweep, to be exact. Heather played a prostitue. She wore a low cut, slutty outfit befitting of a cockney whore. She was also 13.

That seems a little young to be playing a prostitute. Of course, I didn't think of it at the time.

Heather's mother did the makeup for the show. I recall the mother accentuating her 13-year-old daughter's bosom by contouring it with dark and light makeup.

Weird.


Isn't it weird how sometimes things aren't weird to you until you look on them in retrospect?

For instance, only in looking back do I realize that picking leaves from the bougainvillea in my family's backyard, putting them in my mouth and pretending they are sandwiches is odd.




It seemed normal when I was ten.



Bougainvillea Leaf:


Sandwich: