Hollow Chocolate Bunnies

Here's my first book review of 2010!

The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin (2002) * * *

Jack, a thirteen year-old country boy and Eddie, a sawdust-filled teddy bear prone to drunken benders, embark on a (literally) hard-boiled detective case: Humpty Dumpty has been murdered, boiled alive in his own swimming pool. The case takes them to the chocolatey power center of the corrupt metropolis of Toy City, as one by one, the well-known nursery rhyme celebrities in town (otherwise known as Pre-Adolescent Poetic Personalities) drop in the most macabre ways possible. Rankin's prose is at times too gimicky, and unfortunately blemished with several instances of fatphobia trying to pass as humor. It's also hard to buy that Jack, with his proper English diction and mad detective skills, is actually thirteen. Nevertheless, the convoluted title of the book is confidently redeemed by the end as the formula-aware crime novel unfolds in a clockwork cascade of predictable unpredictability.

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What does that star rating mean?

Star Ratings

As promised, I'm going to be devoting discrete entries to the review of the culture and popculture I consume throughout the year, in an effort to blog more frequently and to stem the tide of writing I tend to do at the end of every year in preparation for posting my annual Year-End Wrap. In reviews, I will supply a star rating of one to five stars, and a key to my ratings system is as follows:



Yours in anality,
Bree

Malaise

I really wish it'd stop raining. I don't mind it when I can stay inside and sip a hot beverage, but I gotta get out there in the world. I gotta go to work (what little of it I have) and walk the doggie, who is, for her part, in a seemingly similar malaise. She hates the rain; she's so skittish, poking her nose out the door, looking up at me with those puppy eyes. She's resigned to spread out in front of the heater and sleep the day away, though I know she'd rather be out at the dog park wrestling and running around.

Money just keeps sucking and sucking, and it's sucked about as much as possible at this point. Astrid and I are both maxed out on our credit cards. I really don't know where the rent is gonna come from next month, short of asking my family for it, which I so very dearly do not want to do. I recognize that I have the privilege of having a family that loves me and a few members of the family who can help me at times like these, but the asking is still awful. I'm 37. I should be making a living for myself. External factors (the economy, just starting out in private practice, the paucity of therapy internships that pay) aside, I just feel so ineffectual and weak. I am getting new clients, and I'm projecting that I will actually net some money next month for the first time, which is wonderful. It's hard to hold the positive feelings, though, when "netting" will mean bringing home a few hundred dollars in February. It's not enough.

Bloggage

I love social networking, and I use it to good effect, I think. But I hate that Facebook and Twitter have pulled some of the life out of my blogging here at Toothpick Labeling. It's true, FB and Twitter are tools that I've used to build and promote my more recent blog, a blog that I can't link here because it's attached to my "real" identity (for those who haven't caught on, "Bree" ain't my real name). In order to keep personal subjects somewhat anonymous, at least to all you readers who don't know me in the flesh, I've sacrificed some serious cross-marketing potential for my other blog by not promoting it here. If you're curious about the contents of said blog (they're of a subjective-popculty-music oriented nature), and would like to know the URL, feel free to drop me a line and introduce yourself, and I'll float it your way (if you're nice!). I'm reachable at bree_zip@yahoo.com.

So I think this entry really is somewhat of a 2010 resolution: I'd like to get back into blogging more at TLab. Reflections on daily life, emotional states, health issues, political gripes, cultural and philosohical obsessions, love life updates, the process of becoming a shrink, vintage anecdotes, and the ilk, have been neglected far too long. I'd like to expand on some of the spontaneous ideas that I jot down so noncommitally in my FB updates, and, by gum, this is the forum for it.

Many of you, I know, are also anxiously awaiting the behemoth entry we've all come to know and love as the Year-End Wrap, and writing here more frequently is part of my master plan to make that project a bit less of a behemoth. Example: for the last couple years, I've been saying to myself, "Well if you just take a few minutes to review a movie right after you see it, you'll save yourself the deadline scramble come January. Sheesh!" To that end, look for more entries of brevity about daily goings on and cultural consumption that will ultimately be linked back to in the next Wrap. This is the concept, anyway. We'll see about the follow-through.

As always, thanks for being out there, y'all.

xo
The one who calls herself Bree.

Wraptease

It's December. You know what that means, don't you? Yes, children, it's almost time for Bree's Year-End Wrap, coming soon to a blog near you. This blog, specifically. Meantime, why don't you study the last several years of Bree's life? (Because I know you have more important things to do, and I like providing distraction.)

2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003

Now can you grasp the magnitude of the task at hand? Look for the Wrap on 2009 sometime 'round January/February, depending on the intervening factors of life.

Kisses!
Bree

Thanksgiving at the Compound

Can't believe I haven't told you about the Family Compound yet! It's apropos now, since we had our first Thanksgiving there yesterday. Here's the deal: the vast majority of my immediate family has moved into a condo complex together in the thriving pseudo-metropolis of Campbell, California, home of, among other things great and small, the Pruneyard Shopping Center.

It's not like a kibbutz or like Jonestown; it's actually five discrete condos in an upscaley complex, initial purchase made possible by some shifting around of real estate and assets by my sister C. & brother-in-law Sid. The population of the compound includes both my sisters, my brother-in-law, my nephew Joey and his wife D., my niece Halina and her husband M., and my niece Ursula and nephew Zach. And five cats. The family thus far makes up approximately 25% of the sold units in the building, which means my brood will utterly dominate the HoA. The family-bearing units in the Compound are distributed thusly:

Unit 1 - C. & Sid's place: three-bedrooms, and the likely hub of many future family gatherings.


Unit 2 - My sister J.'s place: two bedrooms, one filled floor-to-ceiling with skeins of yarn (I should know; I helped her unpack it). Locus of crocheting and creative fiction writing frenzies to come. Also home to two kitties.



Unit 3 - My niece Halina & hubby M.'s place: three bedrooms, a laundry room, and likely site of much newlywed bliss. One cat.


Unit 4 - My niece Ursula & nephew Zach's place: two bedrooms, a sweet loft, and likely home of many poker games and Buffy re-viewings. Urse and Zach are cousins, and had been sharing a place together before the Compound was hatched up. Zach has a new kitty named after a maneuver in a popular video game.

Unit 5 - My nephew Joey & wife D.'s place: two bedrooms, an enormous veranda, and likely scene of many future Rock Band games. Hopefully also a hot tub, when the family rules the HoA and does away with the hot tub ban. Oh, yeah, and they've got a cat, too.

The married young couples are taking over paying the mortgages; the others, pretty much renting from C & Sid. It's more complex than that, but that is the pertinent gist. The only close family members not living in the Compound are Mom, happy in her own place for now, and Astrid and I, who are still attempting to eek out a living in San Francisco. I guess if we'd wanted to live in the South Bay, a glistening new unit may have been ours as well. I tried to convince the above players to pack up and move to the City, but it was a no-go.

What's fantastic about this whole thing is that all the twenty-somethings seem to be completely on board: everyone actually wants to live in such close proximity to their parental-types. I dig my family. But yes, they're weird. Present company included.

* Yes, I'm using the highly-gendered bathroom icons knowingly.

Dorrie

Wow. Astrid's coming home from her parents' house with a dog! Her name is Dorrie, and she's about eight months old, a mix of some sort, maybe pit and terrier. Cute, right? She reminds me of my dog when I was a kid, Biskit, who was also a black and white terrier mutt. Looks as if Dorrie is a bit smaller, and she's got shorter hair. I'm really excited, more so than I thought I'd be - the whole thing is completely unexpected. I didn't even know Astrid's family had a dog they wanted to give away. Seems Dorrie is a real city pooch: she tries to dig her way out of the huge yards she's been given to roam in the high desert, and longs to be with the two-legged creatures on the inside. It's a good deal: she's already housebroken, spayed, has her shots, and reportedly she's a real sweetheart.I've always been really ambivalent about owning pets, and to stretch the metaphor, about having kids. They seem like similar inconveniences to me, kids obviously the more labor-intensive of the two. I could easily live with never owning a pet, and therefore not having to deal with scooping poop, veterinary and care costs, the smell of dog in my carpet, the extra responsibility, the unknowns of their behavior--from potentially whiny bleats to the eventuality of all my shit getting chewed into pulpy sog. But my biggest fear is having to pay another being attention when I want my time to be my own. I live a somewhat solitary and often self-gratifying life. I'm glued to the internet. I contemplate about adult, human concepts. I write. I play with friends, adult, human kind of play. I come and go as I please. Will my self-indulgent life be altered irrevocably? Will I feel guilty if I ignore the dog while I'm doing my thing? Will I resent her for her neediness and be forever frustrated by her lack of sentience? (A crucial distinction if it were kids we were talking about and not dogs.)
I think there will be some benefits to having a lil pooch. It'll get me out for walks every day, which will no doubt be good for exercise, invigoration, anxiety reduction, and for accessing more outward social energy, and it'll be nice one-on-one-on-dog time for Astrid and I. And I think it'll also get us visiting with our friends-with-dogs more. So I think it might be a good way to get me out of my self-imposed shell more frequently. So I'm excited, if cautiously. I wonder how Dorrie will impact my sense of space and home. I wonder how co-parenting a dog will fit for Astrid and I. And I wonder about my threshold for dog slobber.

Bathroom

The office building where I bookkeep on Wednesdays isn't in a glamorous location. It's south of Market, next door to a detox shelter, down the street from the only food vendor in the neighborhood: a donut shop that also makes sandwiches. Still, I love the view from the bathroom, and I often gaze outside after peeing just to give myself a little repose during the work day.

This is facing north toward downtown. If I had a better camera, it would capture more depth, the tall buildings in the background would look crisper. I enjoy the corrugated metal roofs of the offices in the foreground. The view puts me in touch with the collective consciousness of cubicle workers everywhere who have nothing but carpeted grey walls to stare at all day.

Every time I use the bathroom in this building, I have to laugh at the idea of gender. As if it's not enough that the universal symbol for "ladies' room" is a silhouette of a skirt-wearing person, the actual key I use to get into the bathroom is printed with a floral pattern. I don't work for a particularly conservative company; it's just the way it is, no questions asked. Never mind that I haven't worn a skirt since approximately 2002 (at a dead celebrity party for which I was dressed as Dorothy Parker, martini in hand) and before that probably during George H.W. Bush's administration.

Inappropriate Therapy Dream

Dreamt that I was in a therapy session, which was also a performance review, with my client and my supervisor. My client was my ex-girlfriend N. She reported to us that the therapy had been enjoyable and productive so far, to her surprise. Relieved at this news, I then proceeded to tell my client/ex that it was time for us to start talking about termination, since it's clear that I should no longer be her therapist. I was nervous about "breaking up" with her in this way, and she was a little upset, but nothing unmanageable.

After she left the office, my supervisor and I chatted lightly and she revealed that she had previously done therapy with N.'s current partner. She then showed me cards she'd received for her birthday, a card from my friend Mag with pressed, dried sunflowers in it, and a card from my friend B. with pressed, dried tulips in it. As many of you no doubt are aware, Mag and B. themselves are a long-ago broken up ex-couple. And, as you can imagine, neither of them know my supervisor in "real life."

Venture some interpretations, dear readers?

I've had a productive couple weeks, attending to a long list of to-dos I'd been avoiding for ages. I applied for deferments, forbearances, and other sorts of formal pleading with my lenders to get my student loan debt dealt with, at least for the time-being. I wrote ad copy for my listing on the Psychology Today website. I went through a huge stack of paperwork, billing statements, and receipts that had been sitting around for months waiting to be processed, paid, recycled, or otherwise dealt with. In fact, I went through about four such stacks. I cleared out from my files any financial records more than seven years old.(Fascinating, the kinds of relics you find when you clear out old files. I happened upon the above bank statement from when I was a member of the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union a decade ago, announcing the local area code change from 408 to 831, devastating to me, a lifelong denizen of the 408 until then.)

Hmm, what else did I manage to do? Ooh, I thoroughly dusted Astrid's bedroom, since she's been sneezy lately, and cleared out a junk drawer to help make more room for her voluminous t-shirt collection. Next major project will be counting up my therapy hours for the BBS, a chore I will continue to dread periodically for the next two or four years.

I have no idea where this sudden spurt of organizational energy has come from. Maybe it's related to eating healthier? It feels really great to get all that shit taken care of though, putting things in order that have been chaotic for months, years. I like paring down the details, and therefore the amount of worrying I do about said details. Makes life a little more peaceful.

Food, Glorious Food!

It's been three months since my last update claiming I was going to commit to a new eating regimen, the regimen I've been thinking about for years. But I've actually been doing it for a week now, and it's starting to feel really good. I've cut way down on meat and the use of oils for cooking, I've totally eliminated dairy, refined sugar,* and alcohol, and seriously increased the amount of fiber and complex carbs in my diet. So I've basically been eating legumes, nuts, brown rice, fresh veggies, fresh fruit, multigrain breads and cereals. Tonight I had my first meat in about six days, some chicken breast that I poached instead of adding oil for pan-frying. I don't want to be this acetic all the time, but I'm trying to do two weeks of this sort of cleanse, and then introduce some cheese back in, and some weekend-only alcohol. I've been having digestive icks with some kinds of dairy, and I'm trying to be sparing with it. But it seems like cheese is way less the culprit than ice cream.

I've noticed a couple cool things over the last week: eating less, but healthier, food seems to be satisfying my appetite more than my usual food, without making me feel uncomfortably full. Specifically, I gather that the higher-fiber, less calorie-dense foods are filling me up and keeping me pretty happy about not eating as much as I normally do. This is the first time, maybe ever, that I've noticed this.

The other totally cool thing I realized today is that, even though it was an emotionally hard day for me (money stress and an intense supervision session that completely wrecked me for most of the afternoon) I retained the distinct feeling of not wanting to put unhealthy things in my body. Normally I would've dove into a burger on a day like today, or gotten Chinese food, heavy on the traife meats, but I stuck with my snack of almonds, walnuts, and raw cauliflower and I was fine. Don't know how long this'll last, but it's feeling good.

I will say, though, that whole wheat tortillas can suck it.

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*Had one lapse: my tea at a fancy tea place was sweetened with natch evaporated cane sugar. But it sure was yummy. Thanks Mag!

Viva Ambivalence!

The blog formerly known as Ambivalent Fat Girl is in process of a friendly merger with Toothpick Labeling. Apologies to all who follow me on RSS feeds or aggregators or whatever the heck those are, because you're probably about to see that I've updated the blog about thirty times. I'm actually incorporating all the AFG entries here at T-Lab for two reasons I'm rather satisfied with:

1. I feel weird about compartmentalizing my blog topics, as if health, food, and fatness issues shouldn't be mentioned in the primary blog where I'm sharing my personal narrative.

2. I've got too fricking many blogs, and I need to downsize. Since AFG & T-Lab are published under the same blognonymous moniker, it's easy enough to merge them. And I haven't been posting much at AFG anyway.

If you'd like to read any archived Ambivalent Fat Girl entries, just click on AFG in the label cloud to your right. I should have all the backdated posts up and running here pretty soon.

Enjoy!
Bree

Spaceship

I dreamt that a huge spaceship, not unlike the mothership in District 9, was hovering over the cityscape. I felt excited and terrified beyond measure: would the aliens invade? Would they be friendly? I had the vivid feeling that everything that I knew was about to change dramatically.

Aside from the take-home message that marketing works (see the bus shelter posters, the write-ups in EW, the constant buzz in the blogo-twitter-facebooksphere) the dream perfectly captured that threshold between the amazing possibility and terror I'm feeling as I start my private therapy practice. My life is going to be altered in ways I can't quite imagine.

Keys

Had a dream that my old friend Ives, who I haven't been in contact with for years, created a mechanical gadget that he wanted to show me. I don't remember the purpose of the thing, but it managed to distract my attention from a pile of valuable possessions of mine. When I got back to my stuff, it had been messed with, but nothing material was stolen. I found the key to my apartment and the key to my new office bent and unusable.

I just received the key to the office from my supervisor a few days ago. When I left the office, I'd had a momentary pang of anxiety because I hadn't checked it on the door to make sure it worked. The dream emphasized this fear. It's as if I feel like I don't belong in either my home or my profession. Or I'm distracted by shiny things, by connections to the past, and not tending to my life and work. This isn't entirely true of course, but it's the feeling I was left with.

Blue, Part Two

Today's been difficult, a confluence of sadness and irritation, plummeting self-confidence and escalating fear. I've felt insecure with Astrid, who for her part has been cranky with me since yesterday, ornery 'cause she feels like she has no space and time for herself, especially since her summer work schedule has been so hellish. I've in turn been pouty and needy and self-involved to the nth. We had planned to go to a queer tango event, and at the last minute I said I felt ambivalent about going. And I was ambivalent, am almost always ambivalent about going dancing, because it touches so many tender spots for me: it makes me feel clumsy, self-conscious of my body and doubtful of my capacity to learn new things, to be open to change, to be open to what Astrid needs. I want to be able to shut off my symbolic thinking, focus on the moment, the dancing, the feeling of being in Astrid's arms as she leads me on the floor, but every misstep, every blunder feels like failure, feels like I'm not good enough, I'll never be good enough.

And then I get even more angry at myself and withdrawn, because I've heard this all before. This internal monologue of punishment is so fucking old and tired and old and old and old. And then I remember that this is exactly what I'm not supposed to do, what I tell my therapy clients all the time: feel your feelings of sadness, of fear, but don't pile self-hatred on top of it. Be kind to yourself. Feeling fear, feeling grief, is okay. It's not going to disintegrate you. Neediness is not going to drive your lover away. Be gentle to yourself. Be curious about your feelings. Breathe.

Too many good byes of late, and too much imminent uncertainty. P.'s death just two weeks ago, still reeling internally from ending my two years at the clinic, saying good-bye to my supervisor and to my colleagues. And I'm mourning my changing relationship with Minoba, and missing her. It's all weighing heavily. And then there's this craziness of starting my own therapy practice. Who the fuck is gonna pay me $90 to listen to them for fifty minutes, for christ's sake?

I did end up tangoing today. I'm glad I did, though it wasn't free from the above anxiety and sadness. I had fun; I always enjoy it more than I think I will going into it. And Astrid was glad I came, I guess. She said so, anyway, and she's good on her word. Just wish I believed it today.

Blue

Saying good bye to the clinic, to my co-workers, to my supervisor, to the organization that's been such a big part of my life the last two years. It's tough. I'm feeling melancholy. At the same time, I'm beginning my new private practice psychotherapy internship, which is so much more anxiogenic right now than exciting. I have no idea when I will actually start making an income.

I'm also feeling unsure about where I'm at with the person formerly known as Myna and heretofore known as Minoba.* We're wrapping up at the clinic next week, and then we'll have a couple days together before she leaves on a summer adventure to the craggy shores of an unnamed island in the north Atlantic. We've been enjoying each other, and it's been close between us, hot as always, but I'm feeling confused about what might be next. I don't want my presence in her life to inhibit her from putting energy into finding a person to connect with as a more full partner. It seems questionable at this point if Minoba can really embrace being in my life in a more "secondary" way, always for lack of a better term for this. I fear it will be too triggering emotionally for her to carry on this way, and on my end, it saddens me that she seems to feel reticent to become part of my life more fully, connect with Astrid more deeply, and accept my situation as not indicting in any way of her or of my care for her. There aren't any easy answers; I think it's just a wait-and-see thing, something that will unfold with more time and experience between us. I'm just curious and anxious about how much time there will be to allow it to unfold.

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* I'm in a quandary, 'cause I'm not liking the pseudonym "Myna" at all. I hadn't thought about the bird connotation, and that just doesn't seem fitting. I've decided to go with a version of her original suggestion which was Gertrude Minoba, but I'll just use Minoba for short. Sorry if I'm confusing anyone. So, you heard it here first, folks: the amorous friend of Bree's formerly known as Myna is now Minoba. New and improved.

Where's Che?

For a good couple years now, Astrid, DJ, and I have been playing a game called "Punch Che," in which we get to hit each other in the arm whenever we come across someone wearing the iconic image of Che Guevara. It's basically like "Slug Bug" 'cept the entire point is mocking people for buying into the unintentionally ironic marketing frenzy around one of history's most notorious leftist revolutionaries. I'm not a Che-hater, though being a pacifist, it's hard to get me behind the tactics of guerilla warfare (okay, a punching game doesn't count as violent; we're all consenting to being slugged.) It's not a criticism of Che, it's a game making fun of the absurdity of all the lily-white hippy kids who have no fucking idea what Che did or what he stood for wearing his image. Extra points for Che-wearing white kids with dreadlocks.

OK, so, on Sunday, during the insanity of Pride on Market Street right outside the posh Zuni Café, where Astrid, Giddy Girl, and I stopped for a very bougie bloody mary, and after running into my high school English teacher, who is a dyke, no less, at the bar, I spotted someone in a run of the mill Che t-shirt, and got to punch Astrid.

Then not five minutes later, another dude walks by with a Che t-shirt, this time the Argentine agitator emblazoned, tattoo-style, on the bicep of the equally recognizable popculture icon Homer Simpson. My brain broke, and I burst out in uncontrolled, tearful laughter at the sight of it. I'm sure many of you have seen Che's image mashed up with Homer before, but I guess I'd been under a rock. The brilliance of that many layers of irony packed together into a gimmicky t-shirt was just overwhelming to me.

Sigh

I ate everything in sight last night. What was in sight, you ask?

- steak
- fried potatoes
- fresh strawberry pie
- cheese cake. Need I go on?

My bike is in the shop. Once I have it back, I'm gonna ride that thing like there's no tomorrow. I'm thinking there might be no way to change permanently the way I eat. But I can always incorporate more physical activity into my life. We'll see how this fares.

Regimen Anew!

Alright. Back to the drawing board again. I weighed myself this morning, and I'm now 227 pounds, a full 7 more than when I started this blog, and about 12 pounds more than my top reasonably-comfortable weight of 215. Still not the heaviest I've ever been (which would be 235) but way too much, nonetheless. I'm bursting out of all me britches, and this can't stand. So today, I start fresh. No judgments, no guilt, just a healthier plan for eating and upping the weekly biking/walking mileage. I'm still really ambivalent about giving up the gym membership, even though I haven't been regularly using it for months. Mainly, the excercize is going to continue to come from biking, which means more miles from commuting and pleasure rides. Now that summer's gearing up, I really have no excuses for not doing it.

So, the food. Repetative as this is, I need to re-articulate, to myself and the world, I guess, what my regimen will be:

* Less meat - particularly less fatty and cured meats. Lean meats and fatty fish are fine. In fact, I'm trying to get better about Omega-3 fish oil supplements as well. Fish is the protein source I've been shortchanging myself on the most since Astrid became a vegetarian, and I'm not sure why. Need to eat more of it.

* Less eggs and cheese - though not total elimination. Mostly, I want to reduce the number of egg yolks I eat in a week.

* Indefinite moratorium on deep-fried foods (good bye chicken strips and french fries, for now at least)

* Way more fresh veggies and fruit

* Way less simple refined carbs (white breads, pastries, et al)

* Less refined sugars, or almost total elimination. I may continue a regular small square of dark chocolate, but otherwise, gotta ween.

* More whole grains to replace refined carbs.

* Slightly less alcohol, but not too concerned about this one, as my drinking is pretty controlled already.

* More agua.

A very Santa Cruz weekend

Ah, Santa Cruz. I miss it so, but it's always such a treat to get down there for a day or two. It was a fairly spontaneous plan. My old friend Vnes, who I hadn't seen in at least a couple years, was celebrating her 40th birthday, and I decided getting down there for the party would be a good excuse to make a weekend of it in the old stomping ground. Astrid and I met up with V and friends at Coaster's, a music/karaoke bar inside the Boardwalk Bowl where the ticket included three bands: Santa Cruz locals Beaver Fever and Fainting Goats, and the SF-based Slow Trucks. We rolled into town at 11:30pm, so only caught the Slow Trucks, who I really enjoyed - they've got an indy, Pixies-ish appeal, and the girl drummer had a charmingly removed-concentration that made the dykes in the house all swoony. It was priceless to see V's face when we arrived - a really lovely birthday surprise.

Astrid and I then went to Exene's new digs to spend the night, where we were joined by other San Francisco interlopers, Raquel and Juju. The next morning, we all met up with V for the mandatory breakfast at Zachary's (sourdough pancakes! artichoke frittata!) and then Astrid and I had some relaxed alone time. Strolled around Pacific Avenue, got a nibble at the Bagelry and then went for a soak at the Well Within. Saturday with Astrid was the second monthly "Luxuriate Day" in which we are committing to a full day of intentional, relaxing alone time together, an unplugging from the internets and the daily grind and a turning on to only nourishing, de-stressing, and healthful activities for our bodies/minds and togetherness. Hot tubs most definitely fit into all the above categories. Astrid's back was feeling particularly tweaked as well, so she scheduled a massage directly after our tub, during which time I walked back up to Exene's and lounged with the ladies on the upstairs deck, where they had arranged a mid-afternoon snack of olives, gouda and manchego, rice crackers, almonds, and tequila for sipping. I opted for water at this juncture, but alcohol was to figure prominently in the evening hours to come.

After break time with the girls, I drove back downtown and picked up Astrid, and we set a course for West Cliff Drive* for a more brisk walk filled with sea air and beautiful vistas. We hung out at a couple special spots on the cliffs, holding each other and appreciating the hell out of our amazingly connected and yet freeing relationship. It was a perfect cap to the Luxuriate portion of the day. Time to party with the ladies and meet Exene's new beau, Caleb.

So we got back to Casa Exene, and Caleb was dude-ifying at the Weber, in the most non-dudely dude way. Juju was in close tow, making sure the grilling operations were running smoothly. We grilled veggie skewers with onions, red bell pepper, and crimini mushrooms; huge portobellos brushed with olive oil and a little s&p, zucchini, fresh corn, and various varieties of chicken and turkey sausage. For sweets, we had brandied cherries, and we grilled up some pineapple slices and halved peaches, serving 'em up with Raquel's hand-whipped cream. The word is decadent.

All the while, the lot of us were getting nice and sauced on various drinks of choice. Exene's housemate Fela blended up fresh-frozen strawberry margaritas, which were as tasty as they sound, but several of us, including yours truly, opted for the icey comforts of locally-distilled Sarticious gin. There may have been some wacky tobacky involved, but I'm not naming names. And as it happens when in the company of wonderful friends old and new, fantastic food and drink, and a bit of stoney energy, the evening and conversation eventually devolved into glorious and giggly repartée, covering any number of topics from singing-drummers to trying to articulate to each other, drunkenly, our personal most passionately geeky areas of interest. The population of the room, being filled with both academically-oriented geeks as well as students of the live-life-to-the-fullest school, came up with personal-project callings as related and disparate as sex and polyamory, to memory and the operation of narrative and story, to death anxiety, to semiotics, to literature, to Looney Tunes. And then the weekend concluded with a lovely brunch with old pal Oliver at the Other Must-Go Santa Cruz breakfast eatery, Café Brasil, where I devoured perfectly poached eggs on a bed of sautéed spinach and mushrooms, covered in a rich brown cocota sauce. My mantra for the weekend: good shit.

* West Cliff photo by Astrid; Link goes to Scott Haefner's site for some awesome coastal shots.