we went to the park on saturday with her work friends and it was sweet.
really good people work over there.
it was a park in beverly hills that had tennis courts and a softball field, basketball courts, and lots of grass.
everyone was socially distancing, which was good.
two cops patrolled the people and for some reason were messing with the senior citizens.
kids were everywhere, happy to be out of the house. tons of dogs yapping. even saw three black women — one who arrived in a wheelchair.
in the back there is a playground that had some mushy material under it. spongey. magical. you stepped on it and it gave a little, which was freaky at first, but squishy. you could see a kid take a spill off the swings and be perfectly fine.
beverly hills.
today we watched church then the news. then coming to america.
i shoulda worked but it’s ten minutes to midnight and technically if i work in 10 minutes itll be monday
and i wont be breaking a commandment.
but still i feel like if its dark, it’s still today.
At a coffee shop somewhere in Cambridge, I sit between a nerdy math whiz filling up piles of graph paper with hieroglyphics alla Good Will Hunting, and a society of three overweight girls who are knitting. I text “towards the back, red shirt” and kizmet56 takes a seat across from me. He looks barely 20, is rosy-cheeked and smooth-skinned and dressed like a Harvard asshole in a Polo dress shirt. He is so nervous he can’t train his sloe-eyed blue eyes on me, and it seems to me he might have Tourette’s. Ten minutes into the conversation, I think God, this dude might be a virgin.
but it wasnt the phone, it was the text messenger.
tony, i am in LA, lets make love.
but thats not at all what it said. but thats what i read.
thats what i read every time she writes anything.
for twelve years i have been following every word americas favorite half japanese half naughty nurse has written in americas favorite mommy blog.
and surprise surprise she was in LA and was wanting to hang out. with who? with me?
so i switched over to speaker phone and dialed her up. i was in malibu. deep in malibu. but no matter where she said she was, i was ready to go there.
hi tony! im in a car. its a convertible. so i cant hear very well. can i call you back tonight?
of course!
she called me back. that night. she was in santa monica at the home of a famous writer director. we made plans to meet the next afternoon for a late lunch. when i arrived she was playing the french horn so i took a picture. i learned in our high school marching band that if a girl enjoyed sticking her hand up a french horn she probably liked lots of things. so i said zulieka, how are you prettier than the last time i saw you many years ago. two children ago?
it was no line. she was prettier and somehow shorter and lovelier. her dress was a size small but still not tight enough for LA standards, nor short enough. but the truth was written all over her face. she loved me. and missed me and was happy to see me. and likewise. im sure.
the writer director was a wonderful man. zulieka has good tastes as you can imagine. we talked about LA punk rock, lone justice, X, elvis, tom waits. then i took your girl to sushi and she was all, im half japanese youre gonna have to do a whole lot better than this.
so i said, americas sweetheart heather “the rabbit” havrilesky is having a party far far up in her mountain retreat. lets all go in the writer director producers porsche. and we did. and they were both loved by our friends. it was a joyous night. new friends were made and new schemes were plotted.
i tried to convince your girl that if she really loved LA she should move from mass, a place she doesnt love. FOR THE KIDS. i told her that children need to learn at an early age that if they dont like somewhere or someone that time is short. life is precious. and fleeting! vamoose! turn the page bob seger! she said but money?! i said it grows on trees. look at it growing over there.
she said tony. i said fine, i’ll marry you and pay for everything. she said but i want another child. i said i’ll go on youtube and learn how they are made. she said but the children love their father. i said who doesnt love their father? who doesnt want somewhere fun to spend their summer vacations while their new father gets some alone time with his wife?
she said you have everything figured out. i said i do. she said yes you do. i said i do.
then she said did you ever put that left over lobster in your fridge?
i said, see how desperately i need a thoughtful wife?
I watched Freddy in the shower today; he is packed and moving out tomorrow. I think he is relieved. I watched him soap up, closely, measuring his shoulders among other features. I handed him a towel and wanted to dry him off myself, which he hates. I feel like he’s going off to a war zone. I thought I would be relieved too, but I am very sad. I don’t know what it is we are saying goodbye to–I don’t know who he is anymore. I’m sad that we once shared our dreams with each other, and then did not fight together to keep them alive.
The truth is, the separation is going to be easier for him, and even beneficial. He will be relieved of my corrosive criticism. Everyone thinks I’ll be just fine except they are worried that I’m going to be totally broke. My ten-year-old daughter said “Mom, how are you going to pay rent without Dad? I think you’re being naive.”
there was a time when i proudly said how all of my friends who got married were still married. then this one got divorced then that one then over the last couple years a bunch of them split up.
at first i thought that we, many of whom were raised in divorced homes, had figured it out.
but as it turns out, two people, who are hopefully continuing to grow, sometimes grow apart.
i suppose it’s normal to feel a bit like a failure when the happily ever after doesnt come true but in what part of our lives has forever-ever really been forever-ever?
remember when they told us that CDs could never get damaged?
i change my mind a half dozen times on a variety of things while driving from work to home every night: what im going to eat, what im going to drink, what im gonna watch on tv, which playmate im going to woo, which cubs hat im going to wear to bed.
how on earth did we ever expect two people, with equally changeable minds to change in unison?
the only way it would have worked would have been if the pair got married at 18, had kids at 21 and died at 39.
sadly we live a little longer than that these days.
i have seen people i never thought would ever even fight get divorced
and i have seen people who i never thought would last a second date stick together.
life is a crazy random illogical always surprising series of WTFs that sometimes ends with a warm body in your bed forever who you dont hate.
if you can sprinkle some love in there too
then you are the luckiest person on your block.
something tells me that zulieka will soon be filthy with men
So what is happening, is that I am starting to think that I don’t need this guy in my life. All of his affection, and my affection, is heaped onto our daughter and we have nothing for each other. He is always dead tired, and you have to feel sorry for him, but when did feeling sorry for someone keep a marriage going? I asked my mother on the phone “do you think it’s bad that we are so loving to Zumi and so awful to each other? My mother related this story, in typical Japanese nihilistic gloom, about her cousin. The man and his wife adored their son. The wife has an affair. The man kills himself. The son is now in a mental institution. HO, ho, ho.
the more i read blogs and the more i talk to young women in relationships the more im starting to believe that today’s male species is going through a major bout of douchebaggery.
how are we so tired all the time? why arent we creating miracles?
and if women are so smart, why do they keep choosing these dudes who almost instantly turn into absolute losers?
does a huge package and a six pack really hypnotize even the wisest women down a path of years and years of misery and disappointment?
what happened to all those gurls who swore they
i dont see any nerds with the hotties wearing those tshirts.
perhaps the next generation will change everything.
as often as she posts this very day (and because of that i know that she has deleted some posts – tsk tsk)
yes it’s true i just had breakfast with the mysterious and glamorous zulieka from zulieka dot com.
i am not all that crazy about meeting people from the blogosphere generally but i have been known to make exceptions. and when you have revealed your soul in your writing And revealed your flesh in pics, and you contribute to Lick and send me sweet emails then my arm has been known to accept the twisting.
zulieka is in town to make her dreams come true. her nights were booked as were her afternoons so we agreed on a breakfast meetup at the pantry, which is very close to the standard downtown, where all the cool kids stay when theyre in town.
for some reason i always expect people to be taller in real life.
zulieka isnt what i’d call tall. probably normal sized. very smart. gorgeous eyes. i liked the way she did her hair. much thinner than her nudes. she had pancakes and eggs and bacon. eggs scrambled. grape juice.
i had the eggs, also scrabbled. bacon, hash browns, sourdough toast that i didnt touch cuz we were yapping away too much.
we talked about blogging, and hollywood, and sex. even ventured into some not-really-meant-to-be-talked-about-sex-over-a-meal topics and she not only hung in there but smiled and encouraged the conversation to stay over there.
i think if she moved to LA she would do very well here.
again, very smart. im very happy i met her.
and i didnt get into the office too late so alls good in the hood.
she did ask me about the xbi and after i told her i erased that part of her memory with a sprinkle of “Splenda” in her juice.
sorry, hottie.
the next time we met a year or two later we drove around LA, shared a glass of wine, and she said she felt like she might be pregnant. turned out she was, with a beautiful lil z.
update: zulieka asked me to swap out the original photo with this new one so we can better see her bathroom.
i predict no one will watch the playoffs out of universal sadness over the collapse of the only team in baseball that people really care about. with that said, the dodgers dont even want to be in the playoffs, the cards are from st louis where even Nelly has jumped the shark, the phils are fat, which leaves the rocks.
if the angels can get past the red sox then it will be a rockies / angels yawnfest until the rallymonkey gets loose and starts stealing peoples beers.
angels will win it all in a sweep capped by an inside the parker by your boy Chone.
alecia: what do you think the future of social networking sites is going to be? i often think about this concerning facebook. am i going to have my facebook account for the rest of my life? will they have to start charging considering people are going to have thousands and thousands of pictures on there? (i already have 81 photo albums…) what happens when someone dies are they going to have shit tons of dead people on there eventually? how many friends am i going to have when i’m 50, like 3,000? many questions.
i forsee the future of social media reversing. people who are so fed up with always being accessible go back to the one land line phone, and snail mail mailing address.
its nice to hear every last sigh from every last person, but in the future people will go back to not giving flying f and doing their best to hide out.
hopefully by the time youre 50 you will only have the friends who youd actually wanna party with. to me, that would be progress.
Cindy: What are you going to be for Halloween?
i hate dressing up for halloween, but danielle has gotten a group of good people together to go to a masquerade party. i plan on going as oderus urungus from gwar (and fox news)
g/d: by not seizing one opportunity, will a another opportunity present itself? where can get some chocolate filled karma?
even though it will sound like some tired metaphysical pablum, the truth of the matter is every moment presents new opportunities just waiting to be exploited. case in point: ever notice that in close football games, the last few minutes one team suddenly can march down the field with precision and style; conserving time like a master, despite the fact that for the first three quarters they could barely get into field goal range if it werent for some lucky turnover?
thats because most of our lives we’re just treading water waiting for that Two Minute Drill of Life to put us into panic mode which will give us permission to actually Live a little.
we’re boring people doing boring things for most of our days. we’re capable of so much more, including creating opportunities when there appear to be none. so sure, pass up this opportunity or that one, but dont do it because youre afraid more might not come, {they’ll come} pass up opportunities because theyre lame. but make sure to pounce on the good uns.
the best chocolate filled treats can be found at Michelle’s.
Sarah: When should dudes stop playing video games?
a dude knows that he has given up on an important part of his past when he has stopped playing video games. there was a time when video games, like heavy metal, ruled the world. there used to be a time when time was measured with quarter dollars. there was an era when the video game determined what youd be doing all weekend. sadly, for the rare exceptions, those days are gone, and yet the video game industry is billion dollar cash cow.
dudes should stop playing video games when they either have multiple wives or multiple offspring. even though im not thrilled with my ps3, i do appreciate the convenience and selection of GameFly the same way most of my contemporaries fawn over NetFlix. but i havent given up on my PSP.
i believe that love changes everything. therefore it is the most powerful substance on Earth. love can cure all that hurts you, but it can also make you fly off the handle like a maniac. it can teach you valuable lessons, it can inspire you to create magic, and it can also lead to misery and suffering like no other. so not only do i believe in it but i respect it enough that i only fall in love with about 80% of the people i make out with.
lindsay: what’s your take on roman polanski?
the reason i despise much of the politics surrounding the catholic church is because i dont think theres anything worse that you could do to a human being than to molest a child. our youth is so precious and sex is so trippy that for an adult to intentionally destroy those two delicate parts of human development is damn near unforgivable. therefore i have very little tolerance for a man who did what he did to a 13 year old girl.
for being so twisted youd think hed make better films.
Scott T. Sterling: Why can’t the world just get over the whole Kanye West thing? Even Chris Brown is on the radio again, and no one is saying a word. The hate towards Ye seems to not even be related to Taylor Swift anymore, and is moving into this nebulous, creepy realm similar to much of the current criticism of President Obama (i.e. quietly rooted in racism, although no one will ever admit it). Will there every be such a thing as a ‘post-racial’ America? And can Kanye West come home again?
some people need enemies, frienemies, targets. kayne the victim is a role that he can play in his sleep and create incredible scenarios around when hes awake. ultimately all of this will make him Stronger. chris brown, meanwhile is just a pretty boy who can dance like usher. i dont think its racism. i think kanye is very smart and knows that his current material does not hold up well on a live stage. thus, create some performance art. when you can bring it the way kanye can when hes inspired, the results can be breathtaking. expect his best album in the wake of all this. and a new way to wear socks.
Mack: List your Top 10 american bloggers. Female and male, please. In order of importance.
its very late. this is ridiculous. personal bloggers only. in order of how they come into my head.
there arent 10 dudes in the states that i read regularily
zona: if you laid all the naked pictures that chicks sent you end to end, would they stretch from L.A to Chicago?
probably, but i bet theyd get stolen before we finished the project.
Andrea: Are you looking forward to any movies coming up?
even though it didnt do so great in this weekends box office, i really wanna see the new Drew Barrymore movie costarring juliette lewis. i also wanna see the new Coen Bros film, and the one from the british guy who invented the office. and i cant wait to see Where the Wild Things Are, like everyone else.
adrienne: what’s going on with everyone’s favourite girl raymi? something’s not right in her world …
im sure if you asked her that very same question that very same way she would give you a clear, sober explanation without the slightest bit flavor. if indeed she is acting out of the ordinary id blame it on the change of seasons. no one likes summer to end.
barry: are Da Bears for reals?
Da Bears are winning, which is good, but they gave up like 87 points to the Detroit Lions. take away two special teams runbacks and two crazy runs from scrimmage and you have a close game. i dont like close games when we’re playing the lions. i also dont like the blue eyed black speedster getting hurt during the same time devin hester got hurt – against the Lions. thank God for bye week.
today we didnt leave the house.
but it wasnt the phone, it was the text messenger.
an excerpt from her blog 
