a million moths.

this morning the beautiful and the tragic danced cheek to cheek. to the right, a quinceañera. a riot of dandelion yellow skipping down red steps. zoot suits, sparkly heels, puffy dresses and bouffants sweet and sticky with hairspray. the girls and boys giggled and squinted in the sun while waiting on the sidewalk. to the left, a makeshift memorial for a tamalero shot to death the day before. a half dozen lit candles, red and white roses, a few prayers and dry blood. for 25 years, the father of three sold tamales on that block, festive cumbias flowing from his old white and green station wagon.

a garden of art would bloom in the time i was gone? mona lisa, jimi hendrix, obama and che. brilliant and grimy, sprayed on the walls like guerilla graffiti. 

*photos: downtown arts district. february 2009.

put on a show along the 71 this morning. green hills, crisp air and streaks of white cotton candy.

with new girls. amazing girls. there was white wine and spicy thai (freshly cooked by marie); chocolate brownies, chocolate cake and chocolate cookies. at the center of the dining table in a house more fit for dolls, peach roses and a love therapist. (a love therapist!) beautiful and full of great advice. like “watch your romantic blind spots.” never heard of such a thing. really made me wonder how many nice boys have gone neglected in my blind spots.   

*Photos: Pasadena. February 2009.

and there they were. tucked between the marshmallow peeps and the chocolate bunnies: this year’s cadbury eggs. manufactured springtime wrapped in tin foil. tulip fields and cherry blossoms of LA, where the only sign of season’s change is often found in grocery store aisles: beach umbrellas, plastic pumpkins, christmas lights and wind-up chicks. kinda sad, i know. but i’ll take it. i’m a sucker for those creamy eggs.

* photo: scottsdale, arizona. february 2009.

 
low to the ground like a chola, in a black jaguar down sunset boulevard today. past record studios, past movie studios, past a homeless man with matted hair that studied me and us and the car at a red light, taking it all in. up the private hill and into the parking garage to the famed chateau marmont where lunch awaited in the courtyard. so bizarre, this west side world. every time i come here, i hunt for a little piece of me. anything that might scream home, not tinseltown, but home. this afternoon, i looked up from my fancy plate and there it was, smiling back at me, singing holllaaaaaaaaa! the tiniest bottle of tabasco sauce i’ve ever seen. i poured three botellitas on my sandwich and slipped a fourth one in my purse.

since when did being brainy become so cool? went to two academic decathlons and a spelling bee today. came away a bit inspired, a bit befuddled. back in the day, (circa 1993) scoring As only scored you jeers. they’d call out from across campus: “smack … smack! smack!” (this was the thing to call nerds at my junior high for some reason. not nerd. not geek. smack. ’till this day, i haven’t found someone familiar with its use.) one time, my picture (a photo i’m still lighting on fire in my mind) ended up taped to the flag pole outside the school — just in time for everyone to see on their way home.

there was a period (short-lived, but sweet) when my brainpower (and by brainpower i mostly mean literary stuff because math and science is like hieroglyphics to me) won me some cool points. i began writing poems. about boys and girls and crushes and heartbreaks. soon, people — people i’d never met — like other smacks and cheerleaders and goths and jocks and gangsters started to tell me their love problems and ask me to write poems for them. once, i wrote one for aja baruch, this tough, cherub-faced 13-year-old who had just learned she was pregnant. my poem was like:

i wanted to trust you

but i was so wrong

you made me cry

and now i’m gonna be a mom

genius, i know. (i was 13 and pubertal, people!) but somehow, for some reason, people dug it. and i dug it. i wrote more than 200 poems by year’s end. wrote a poem on behalf of our class for the yearbook, too. should have charged all those cool kids for my stanzas instead of wasting my time hawking all that cheap mexican candy out of my kerokerokeroppi lunch box.

* photo: usc. february 2009.

when i turn the corner on my way home each night. it amazes me how much downtown la transformed while i was gone. there are art galleries and lofts and fancy restaurants and young professionals strolling on the sidewalk with their pups. blows my mind.

* photo: on 3rd looking toward broadway. february 2009.