Spice, Teeth & Flora

I just remembered that I said I post pics of the projects that we made last week, and I actually have a bunch of new pics from this last week, and here with - spice, teeth and flora...

Front of fajita spice escort cards - we mixed the spices ourselves, bagged and sealed them with the Food Saver and then stapled cards to the top, with instructions for cooking on back... So wedding guests find their name and then find their seat, then take these little guys home for some spicy cooking later on.

My new front teeth! The dentist turned out to be a-ok - and now i have not snaggly front teeth, and the dentist even stained them to match. Quel awesome.

Ferns in the backyard.

Below the front window in the front of the house - Queen Anne's Lace, some grass of some kind, and some blue poppies coming in .

The raspberry bushes on the side of the house - Jim tied them each up with string so they wouldn't flop over, and I think it looks like some overlarge nature-y musical instrument, or an art installation - "Noose Berries" perhaps?

Bleeding hearts which I think look far too spry to merit such a catastrophic name.

This GIANT rhubarb root ball Jim wrestled out of the ground last night - it wasn't growing, the other rhubarbs stole its light and bullied so, it failed to thrive (I replanted ferns in its previous dirt spot today). I was shocked by the size of its roots and made Jim wait, wait so I could take a picture before he threw it away.

The one tulip that came up this year, which was one more than last year I think. Jim picked it and put it in a vase for me to enjoy while I was busy writing last week.

A Bright Spin on Everydayness

Thursday night, I have girlfriends over to help me make wedding projects and we're preparing dinner before that, cooking and printing out things to cut and paste, I have my hands in food and papers. Jim says, "your phone is ringing, it's Matt." And because my hands are dirty he answers and hands it over while I wipe them; he's on the way to play at the Wiltern in LA, driving into my old 'hood, he says, while I saute chicken in Anchorage.

We catch up a bit about this and that. Yes, he'll play the Nick Drake song we requested at the wedding, and I say I'll send some chords. We talk about him touring with The National and he asks which are my favorite tracks from their new album which I think is called "Hot Lavender." He laughs, says, "You mean 'High Violet'," oh yeah. I say I'll have to listen again, because you know me, I never remember track names, only certain lyrics. I like that one about "I don't wanna get over you..." I think that's that one, I think, watching Jim talking to, laughing with our friends in the kitchen, in his jeans and blue sweatshirt, as easy as everything, as permanent as anything you want for the rest of your life.

A couple days later I send those chords I promised and I also relisten to the new album and remember my favorite track - "Sorrow" - it's the one upon hearing it for the first time that wrenched me, was immediately familiar for some reason. Heard again though, and a few more times after that, it's a song about being sad for a long time and persisting in sadness as a habit, but not wanting to stay there or to persist in sad anymore. It's about knowing and understanding the sad that could happen again if you lost someone you loved, but refusing to get there ever again - "I don't wanna get over you" - or something like persisting, keeping. Then the music is this epic guitar and driving drumbeat plus a "ooh-aah" choir in the background, it's all building up right to the very end when violins come in just barely. All in all it adds up to hope, a wish to never have to get over loving someone.

That's why I adore The National, and what I wrote Matt was that I love them for putting this bright spin on everydayness, making something epic out of the mundane, elevating things like hanging out in your apartment, feeling awkward at a party, into feats of everyman heroism and endearing confessionals. So when I write or tell about wedding, I can let myself feel like a little bit of a heroine - simply for doing it all, for reflecting about it, giving it its due space in written. Especially when I've got friends over and calling to help me realize ideas.

DJ Sticky Fresh

I'm home alone playing air drums. Yes, I rock hard and this is what I do while you're away, darling, in case you wondered. After a hard day of writing wedding magazine articles I like to unwind with an air drums session, and my kit is way kitted out with overhead crash cymbals a la Neil Peart and a double bass drum - I know this because both feet are going in opposite double-time syncopation while my fists are flying overhead keeping time.

In addition to wailing on my kick-ass drum kit I'm singing along (a la Phil Collins), probably way off key, but I can't corroborate this on account of the fact that I have headphones in and can't hear myself, and Jim is away camping so he can't hear me either. This inspiring song? Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap, I dare you to not play air drums when listening to this song. Or air bass, if that's your thing.

(Authentically and parenthetically, last night I played the real piano. I made up a song about spruce sap smelling really nice in the summer. I called it "Sticky Fresh.")

Actually, I'm making mixes for the 4-5 people who have recently asked me for mixes in the last week. For different reasons they ask for new music - to commute by, to study by, to put the baby to sleep by, to work out to, et cetera. I always say "of course," and I always forget right afterward. But not this time, I'm so on it. I need a good DJ name. Oh oh! - DJ Sticky Fresh.

A Lot of Math and Measuring

What a busy day. Started with an interview for an article I'm writing, then meeting Shana to set up banking for our new shiny business which took forfreakingever - apparently it was training day at the bank. After nearly an hour of THREE people learning as they go about establishing a business account, we leave, only to learn later that they've screwed it all up and linked business accounts with personal accounts. But my trusty business partner sorted it all out late in the day - WMF! as we always say, or "Women Moving Forward!"

Then it was off to some more interviewing and some more wedding planning, and that pretty much sums up my life at the moment - writing articles, doing radio show business and planning my mega-DIY-super-fabulous wedding. It's going to be so much fun, such a great party. We've chosen delicious wines and microbrews by the keg, selected music, rented things, planned entertainments, begged borrowed and not had to steal, really special guests have RSVP'ed and we have a great menu planned. I worked out the actual menu last night - how it will look printed - and sent it off to my family, including Grandma Mary to correct my Spanish since it's a Mexican menu in both English and Spanish. She called me twice today to discuss before I could call her back, and when I did she says, "Your Spanish is so good! But there are a few things..." The main thing is that I titled it "El Menu" and she says, "No "el" - it's just "menu" - you know, like they say in America." Then I said "maiz" instead of "elote" for the roasted Mexican street corn on the cob, and she says she wasn't even sure but she called Cuca from the across the street (no longer across the street she lives on, but from years ago in Pico Rivera) and Cuca says it's elote. Thank goodness for old Mexican women, they know everything, I really think they do and I trust them implicitly.

My mom surprised me with a day of wedding stuff - she was in town and called me last minute for a late lunch and to shop. After lunch and margaritas we went all over to see about details and look for things and yammer on about this and that still needed to be found for the wedding, and it was such a sweet relief for me to share some of this detail-y headmess with someone else. We had a lot of fun and maybe made a bit of scene in Forever 21 trying on hats and fascinators and headpieces and taking our own photos amidst the teenage clientele and teenage employees. Like what are they going to do - tell the maturest clients in the store to stop messing around? I dare them.

We got home, divvied up the shopping and then Jim and I got to work on more wedding madness - and it does feel like madness. So many details. Like the detail of how my kitchen smells like cumin, garlic and chili powder right now because we're making these escort cards that are bags of fajita seasoning for take home favors which required that we make 7 cups of the stuff, two tablespoons per bag which required A LOT of math and measuring, and also sneezing as a byproduct. But it smells nice, too. We made most of it with what we had in the pantry - I just need to get a couple more spices tomorrow in preparation for Shena and Rebecca coming over tomorrow night to put it all together with me.

Ay, I have so much to do tomorrow - interviewing more and going to the dentist. I effing hate the dentist with all my teeth. But he's filling in some bad ones and making some front chipped ones look even and lovely, so I'm going to pop some Aleve and suck it up for oral hygiene's sake. Then my girlyfriends are coming over to do wedding projects with me tomorrow eve - I'll post pics tomorrow or the next day of those. We're crafty like that, and even considered "super crafty" after a box of wine. Yeah, a Bota Box, delicious and recyclable.

I'm really busy to the max, and also really happy with it all - working to pay for wedding, and wedding plans to have a great week of celebration with all my favorite people, and I just love that maybe all that self-sufficient stubbornness as a wee baby girl paid off and also predicted this time of DIY fabulous celebrations and entrepreneurial media ventures of my adulthood. I can do it myself! If I learned anything from Grandma, mom, my good friends, my aunts, and my Jim it's that a bunch of people all working together, hip to hip in the kitchen, at the extended dining table, hunched over computers can pull off any kind of good thing! Viva!

Staff Benda Bilili

More about the band, and the documentary about them here.

Books I've Read Recently

I recently got the Kindle app for iPhone, which I believe I mentioned in a previous post, and not since I was a book review editor have I read so very many books in such a short amount of time. I thought I'd briefly give my thoughts on my last few months' reading list.

In reverse chronological order (or first read to most recent), rated from 1-5 stars:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson -

I think everyone has read this book by now - an enthralling mystery novel set in Sweden. A controversial magazine journalist is hired to solve a decades-old family disappearance, perhaps a murder. Through a series of events he is assisted by an unlikely young woman (with the dragon tattoo) who excels at solving problems and hacking computers, but is less apt at real-world relations. I couldn't put it down. ****1/2

The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson -

The sequel to the above (and second of the "The Millennium" trilogy), this books focuses more on the girl with the journalist playing a bit of a lesser role. Her storied and troubled history emerges throughout the tale, and is accompanied by gangsters, mental hospitals, more computer hacking and sex trafficking. Again, couldn't put it down although the first was slightly better, and have been tres anticipating the third installment (all of these published posthumously) of the series. ****

Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner -

Kind of a let down. I expected something more captivating - combining math and sociology! Yes, please! But it was more a series of somewhat interesting statistics that didn't often resolve into any grand epiphany. Perhaps I came too late to the Freakonomics party because none of the stories seemed like news to me - they may have already pervaded culture (read: NPR). **

Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann -

An entirely fantastic literary novel. The author took a real life event (Phillipe Petit's high wire traverse of the Twin Towers in 1974) and built up an entire scurrying, feeling, living, breathing, aching city of stories around it. The major event takes a back seat to the characters living their everyday lives, but knowing what is about to occur way up in the sky gives the plot an immediacy, an extra dose of poignance to the characters' narratives. I also found it to be something of a love story to New York, a gentle commentary on 9/11 - the power of an event that occurs in a very small geographic footprint of space to affect on a humongously wide scale. *****

The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold -

Years after this came out, and even after the film (which I haven't seen), I decided to see what all the kerfuffle was about. It was a pretty good read - violence tempered by hindsight, and fantastical and colorful descriptions of heaven. It's one of those tricks of literature where you know the perpetrator from the beginning, and no one else (except the dead narrator) knows, so it adds some wink-wink insight into every one's actions, pulling in the reader as sort of a co-conspirator in the unfolding plot. I can see how that literary device would serve to produce a best seller - who doesn't like being in on the action? ***1/2

Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane -

I'd seen the film trailers and they spooked me a bit, but the plot really interested me - a troubled US Marshall and his newbie assistant attempting to solve a missing persons case on an island housing a hospital for the criminally violent insane? Sign me up! All I can say about this novel was: yes, it was spooky; yes, I solved the mystery before the author even came close to dropping the final clues; and yes, it was really well written even despite those things. It read like it was written to be adapted into a screenplay, which made it a visual page-turner. ***1/2

The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific, by J. Maarten Troost -

A true-story of a directionless, over-educated East Coastie who finds himself living in Kiribati after his girlfriend gets assigned an ambassadorship position there. Seriously washed up in the middle of the ocean, he learns to adapt to the punishing heat, the lack of sanitation, eating fish everyday, the thieving, but also kind, locals, and being way way out of the Washington DC loop. I found the book laugh-out-loud funny at times, and also seriously examining our relations with these tiny "economically insignificant" island nations in the Pacific that are at risk of disappearing over time because of global warming. Having spent a summer in Vanuatu myself, I found his tales particularly familiar and nostalgic. ****

Previous Convictions: Assignments from Here and There, by A.A. Gill -

This is a collection of essays by London's Sunday Times travel columnist (who I understand is very much of the love him/hate him division). They read like any story would read if written by an overpaid, full of himself, spoiled middle-aged white man who (OMG!) visited an outdoor summer musical festival, or (Bloody hell!) found himself in Texas, America! When he wasn't totally succumbing to his own personal horror about being somewhere so far below his station in life, he wrote long snore-inducing essays about art and Scotland. I'd always wanted to visit Scotland - it seemed cheeky albeit regal, verdant and proud - but after reading this, not so enticed. However, his essay on the French photographer Cartier-Bresson was downright smashing, probably because he made himself a lesser component of the story and focused on this revolutionary artist instead. He's a great writer, yes, just not as fascinating as he thinks merits being the center of a tale. **

Open, by Andre Agassi -

See the first half of sentence two above. I read the whole thing though, trying really hard to empathize with this star athlete who was kind of a self-centered brat, taking his employees away from their own families to form his own and making really self-destructive decisions when he was on top of the world. Of course, that's what sells autobiographies - previously unrevealed indiscretions - but I found the scandalous parts very minor, and the looooooooong court-top details very tedious - I finally began skimming over all the tournament recaps until it got back to something more interesting - like pursuing Steffi Graf - which was still pretty unremarkable. (I'm really so very over celebrity testimonials - shilling everything from charity to acne medications - why are people who are good at sports or at acting worth taking advice from? But that's for another time...) **1/2

The Financial Lives of the Poets, by Jess Walter -

Pretty engaging novel this self-deprecating tale of a suburban white-man's American dream gone to shit. He loses his real job, his house, his second entrepreneurial job, his wife, his third sorta job as a drug dealer, his kids, his dignity, and it's all pretty funny. It's meant to be funny. Honest and brutal, but eking out hope in the very end. I found myself shaking the bed with laughter as I read at night, reading aloud the next day those parts where he engages with the witless gang bangers in his family sedan. ***

The Believers, by Zoe Heller -

A family saga told in such a way that none of the characters were sympathetic. As I read, I often thought - "man, all of these characters are assholes!" The author is a really good writer, certain turns of phrase and particular metaphors I remember being downright moving, causing me to ponder how deep was her sync with humanity. But this version of humanity was so dismal that I couldn't totally get on board. When it ended I was like - meh, where's the bathtub and the wine - because after that I needed to either get clean or drunk. ***

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz -

I started this one with great enthusiasm - a misfit, overweight Dominican-American kid in New Jersey into sci-fi, gaming and writing poetry who possesses an enormous imagination and you know (from the title) that he's going to meet an early demise, sounds intriguing! I was totally hooked in the first third of the book, and somehow when it started tracing back his family's history in the DR and all the name-specific political detailings of that, I lost interest. I wanted to know what happened to Oscar at college - did he finally get laid, did his writing get published? I'm sure that comes later, it has to, I just got distracted and was bummed that it wasn't pulling me back in to keep reading. I hate when that happens. ***(so far...)

The Irresistible Henry House, by Lisa Grunwald -

This novel really irritated me - a great premise (an orphan raised by multiple "practice" mothers at a university home economics department in the 40's) was slogged down by the main character's (the orphan baby growing up) unexplained despising of the woman who raised him. It was not clear why he detested her so much, which was supposed to be the foundation for all of his other actions that made up the remaining 1/2 of the novel - so the book fell apart for me. He was entirely resistible, it turned out. **1/2

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot -

I'm approximately in the middle of this one right now, just started it two days ago, and I can't stop talking and thinking about it. It's a biography/non-fiction narrative written and extremely well researched by a journalist all about the titular poor, black woman whose cervical cancer cells (taken unwittingly from her) have been used since her death in medical laboratories to find a vaccination for polio and to treat genetic abnormalities; they've been sent into space and used the world over for research, reproduced into the trillions since they were sliced from her cervix. She never knew all this, she died in 1951, and her family was never told until years later about these famous "HeLa cells" as they are known throughout the international medical research world. The book unfolds the untold (and very hard to come by) story of the woman from whom the immortal cells came with compassion, fervor, heartbreaking remembrances, a little bit of voodoo and sometimes humor. I can't recommend this enough. *****

Snappy Month of May

Here are some recent photos from this month - sunlight, bunny washing, flowers, a yawning cat, the lake, and the first fire I built this year.

This is probably 10:30pm in May - the sun setting just behind our house, not quite dark and not quite light. Something about the quality of the light reminds me of movies from the 1970's.

Apparently bunnies hate to be bathed just like cats, but not Fatty - give him a carrot and he's all down for getting soaked.

Jim on the boat in Whittier, about to pull up shrimp pots.

He brought home 5 pounds!

I like when the sunlight falls on glass and flowers and wood,

it has a very cathedral-esque feeling about it.

Taking the first party barge ride of the season -

hard to believe the lake was frozen maybe just 2 weeks ago.

Max in the middle of a big yawn.

Lake coming to life. I went out last weekend to spend Mother's Day and do some wedding recon. I couldn't believe all the green already, it's going to look so beautiful when all is bloomed and leafed and built with steps! I can't wait.

I think it's okay to look at the sun when it's behind a cloud.

But I might need to re-up my glasses prescription.

Mom and Dad's house as seen from the lake - what a gorgeous May day.

The party barge about to embark on the 2010 maiden voyage.

My first fire of the year! I got kind of excited about it despite the warmer temps and the bright sunlight, it was nevertheless fun to build it up and watch it/smell it burn.

Waiting to Feel or Waiting Not to Feel

God, I love when anticipated things occur without my knowledge - things I've been awaiting - and then, like tonight, I search for some song on iTunes and I see that The National's new album is finally out - today, no less. I've been checking in on this for over a year, and when it's still months away it hurts a little, like having to pee but no bathroom in proximity, and so the best action to take is to forget, to trick yourself into distraction.

So there's this distracting business of walking, talking, doing whatever is the everyday thing, and there is suddenly a place to relieve oneself, and it's rapid rushing memory once again, such a sweet sweet relief, an overwhelming welcome after all the pushed back, dammed up waiting. And so it was tonight. It feels so much better not to have to bide time. Yes, I totally compared my favorite band to having to pee.

I shouldn't even have a "favorite band" at 32 years of age, I'm too effing old to say things like "that's my favorite band!" I make myself blush. I feel that at this age I know what I like and what I don't like, and I do not often feel the need to identify favorites as if identifying them contributes to my perceived identity somehow, helps me to get myself. I get myself.

However and that said: what a weird age, this 30-something-ness. I talked for hours with my dear Candice the other day - she's in Stockholm, called to say she's moving to London and she's getting married on the date of their 10th anniversary and we talked about that and about our weddings and our moving about and the realizing that we've known each other for 12 years. Can you beat that? She says something like "I like what I know but I don't know if I like myself yet" and I feel exactly the same way. The things she says half a world away are the same things I say on this other half of the world.

Here we are, far beyond then, but not yet at when. And yet, even so, still okay with everything because being this far in life means: A) you have to be okay, and B) you want to be okay, and C) you can admit without shame if you are not A or B. It's something about trusting your wherewithal to evolve and make better, and the glorious relief of being honest because those who would judge are less and less concerning.

Yes that's it. That's how it feels to be 32. The cusp between thrusting out pridey chests and needing to be appreciated for every skill you can offer the world, how you can make it better; and the other side of almost being old enough to not give a flinging flip what anyone else thinks of your deeds or thoughts or reactions. It's always a middle place, it seems, waiting to feel or waiting not to feel. The feeling, at all, is the point because life is a series of feelings.

I should have known about The National's new album because my friend, Matt, is touring with them this month. I registered the tour, but not the obvious that obviously it was because of a new album.

Everything at some point becomes personal - all of life, all of happenings, all of occurrences and all of everything we know. There's age + people met + experiences + things we read and it all adds up, mixes up, to these slim degrees of knowing, or at least - should of knowing. I forget more often now even as I know more things and people, and I write more things about all of this connecting and failure to connect, the mixed in ness of being a part of the human batter.

Whatever that means, like maybe it means the world is so much smaller than we originally thought when we were 18 and needed to explore it in order to find ourselves, and maybe it means that every permutation of everything you are supposed to know follows you wherever you go, or maybe you situate yourself in the same thing over and over. Maybe we know when we play house at 4 years old with the neighbor kids and assign roles and make up stories, maybe we predicted back then everything we'd strive for the rest of our lives. Maybe we agonize too much as adults over who gets to play the adult, who gets to play the baby. Maybe it's so hard now at 30-something because we don't get to just go home, have dinner waiting, have clean clothes and a mom to hold you until you fall asleep and dream of the future when we really do grow up.

But. I like being grown up because I like all the time that is already passed, I like everything that it has brought, that is has wrought; I like forgetting to wait for something I really anticipate because I'm busy doing other things and then it surprises me by coming even so. And, that's the main thing I know at 32 - even if I think I know what the world is about, I still can't predict what it will bring me - new albums, big loves, fresh opportunities, enduring friends.

I Heart Jellies

Remember jellies? Those 80's day-glo PVC basket-woven shoes that lasted for approximately one summer vacation? I had a pink pair (with glitter) in 4th grade that matched my plastic charm belt (yes, belt) and I pretty much wore them until my mom threw them away. Not the best footwear choice for playing in the Alaskan outdoors.

I keep seeing these shoes, or maybe these shoes keep seeing me. Oh! Vivienne Westwood's version of grown up jellies and I very much heart them, but again, perhaps maybe not the best footwear for playing in the Alaskan outdoors:

Spring, Magic and Zombies

Word up to spring! These lengthening days and mucho sunlight are meshing quite nicely with all the activities I am currently in the throes of doing. While imagining a DIY wedding AND a brand new radio show throughout the winter was a bouyant daydream, now that we're closing in on the big dates I feel amped and ready for all I'm about to dive into. Well - I'm already waist-deep, I suppose... And because every bride/radio producer needs smooth gams, it was my good fortune today to stumble upon:

(How was that for an excellent segue between totally unrelated topics?)

Mais oui, I bought my first "As Seen on TV" product today, except I got it from Target. The Smooth Away hair removal system is pure magic - well, very fine sandpaper masquerading as magic. But it totally worked - I rubbed in circular motions over my fairly hairy legs and while it took more than the 6 circular buffs the instructions dictated, it certainly removed all the hair, left them smooth and the weirdest thing is I have no idea where the hair went. It wasn't on the sandpaper-pad-thingy, it wasn't on the floor, ergo: magic. (Ah, I see whilst pulling a photo of this wonder product that some women are not believers, maybe my more hirsute sisters didn't have as reliable results?)

Perhaps the awesomest thing about this product, though, is that the box says "Discovered in Europe!" like it's been hiding out in the Black Forest for years, until some cosmetics exec/hiker came upon it, exclaiming: "Ach der lieber! American women will never shave the old fashioned way again!" And because American women will buy anything that says "Europe" or "Natural" or "Slim in 7 Days" on the label, it's probably selling like hotcakes would sell these days if only they came packaged with similar claims.

But, yay for Target - I found giant ice tubs for beer/wine in candy-colored metal and for less than the boring old galvanized gray ones at Home Depot. I think if this zombie apocalypse that Jim says is only a matter of time ever happens then I'd like to take my shotgun and my cats straight to Target and camp out there for the duration. Does a zombie apocalypse have a duration? Or is it just tough shit once they rise up like the Cylons on Battlestar Galactica constantly dogging what remains of the human race?

I believe that's enough geekery for the evening. Happy lovely colorful shiny spring! So say we all.

Music as Memory

There isn't one song, I suppose, in my music library (and there are thousands) that don't evoke a time, a place, and a person. Is there anything more noun-ish, more reminiscent, more historical than music? I would have to say no.

Tonight I am making mixes - for the wedding - for arrival cocktails, for just after the ceremony, for dinner, for dancing - and yes, there are specific moods for each. I listen to each song and I remember things, I feel places and there is just nothing like music to infiltrate your head and take you to a certain place where you abide for just a past moment like it was right now.

I listen to "No Woman No Cry" by Bob Marley and I'm with Sarah K sitting on a beach in Baja 10 years ago, sunburned and 21 and tequilaed and singing along with Bill, our Green Tortoise bus driver on the guitar, toes in the sand and butts on logs and realizing that we know all the words (how do we know all the words?!?), and suddenly I'm in Mexico with no cares except when I can next take a real shower.

I listen to "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle and I'm in Grandma and Grandpa's pool in Pico Rivera with cousin Dori and sister Jamie. It's the 80's, we are young, we are choreographing dances to this song in the pool during a heatwave - Dori, the tallest, her wide shoulders shielding us, stands in the front, Jamie and I, smaller, pop out from the sides behind her. Grandpa comes home and we make him watch our dance from the deep end, we do it again just for ourselves in front of the big living room mirror before Dori goes out with her teenage friends for the night.

I listen to "In Da Club" by 50 Cent and I'm with Kari in her Audi and we're feeling our flow - DUN DUH - after a shitty week of work as young magazine editors. We are in control now - she's weaving in and out of L.A. traffic like she does so cooly and we're on way somewhere to dance - bopping our heads, waving our hands, singing along, ecstatic to be ourselves and out. She parallels and we pull out makeup bags, talk about what's going to happen and apply lipstick in the flip down mirrors, switch glosses, close the mirrors, roll up the windows, zip up the makeup bags and open the doors in the balmy southern California night feeling tall and confident.

I listen to "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison and I think about Roz, a million years ago in high school, both of us singing along with her dad on the deck as he played guitar. We'd improvise, both of us with brown eyes, adding in some extra ad libs that I still, to this day, think are supposed to be part of the song.

I listen to "I Think We're Alone Now" by Tiffany and it's me and Matt in the garage, him on the guitar just after band practice, and I'm maybe trying to jam along on the keys, and he says come to the mike and so I do, both of us singing into it and inches apart singing and smiling like idiots because we are, trying to sing while concentrating on the chord progression "A, E, D, A..." But we play and smile and sing and I stick out my tongue and laugh because I mess up a lot and he never messes up - he always led with music, still does.

I listen to "Walk It Out" by Outkast and I'm at Dodger Stadium with Radiah. It's a hot July night and we're playing the mortal enemies - Barry Bond's Giants - and the Dodgers pitching bullpen walk him because he's due to score his 500th homerun, I believe, and so he gets walked over and over. Every time he gets walked Radiah and I do the cabbage patch, thrusting out our fists in a wide circle while intoning, "Now walk it out, now walk it out, westside walk it out, southside walk it out..." We are surrounded by Giant fans and they hate us, but they won't look at us, and somehow it makes us more strong, louder, rapping dancing just behind their quiet heads at the top of our lungs.

I listen to "Suerte (Whenever, Wherever") by Shakira and I'm back in college working at the UCSF urology department with the office girls who loved Shakira, who had kids too young, who left the price tags on their clothes so they could return them after they wore them to work, who were extremely wonderfully sassy and so much fun. We had lunch every day and they were deep into the politics of the office and I just wanted everyone to get along and I mediated a lot, and there was one woman with whom I went home one weekend to the Mission and we made empanadas with her mother and aunts in their church kitchen and they were delicious and I'm embarrassed that I can't remember her name. I hope she's happy, she was precious, she said smoothie like "smooty" - "Sarah - do you want to get a smooty?"

I listen to "Go Missing" by Matt Sheehy, and christ, of anything, this is one precise memory of many. There is Radiah on one side of me, there is Kari on the other side of me, and we are three in a row in a Los Angeles club, their long strong arms are around my neck on each side, I feel small for once, surrounded in the middle, and nothing should be the matter on this night with friends, but it is. Matt performs to an audience, and we are part of that, and this is the one time where he says, "this is for Sarah" in front of everyone and I cry when he sings there's a hole in the ocean that wants to swallow me and when my body convulses from this cry I put my hand over my mouth just as he sings we're past the point where nothing is the matter and my two big strong girlfriends just dive in, they absolutely jump into the water when they see how I'm drowning, both sides of my face get hurriedly kissed, my hands get pulled into laps. both sides of my hair get lovingly stroked and I'm just squished in between a lot of big love. That night - we all four came home together, chili burgers and 2am on the back deck - we fell asleep at some point and there was nothing like knowing that three of your bests are merely feet away and will be there in the morning.

I listen to "Quiet Dog" by Mos Def and I think about Jim driving and me in the passenger seat reaching over to turn it up, me beating pretend drums and Jim going from road stare to head bob to lip purse to hand shake to both of us singing along, "Maintain the rock and you don't don't stop the rock..." neither of us can stay still or stop the rock.

I listen to "Chan Chan" by Buena Vista Social Club, and I think about my dad and I coming together in a kitchen making something for dinner, but most importantly able to discuss a music that he loves and to which I was introduced via viewing a documentary by one of my favorite directors, Wim Wenders. And there was a peace, then, over Cuban melodies - I don't think we could trust each other until we could find something in common.

All of these songs, and every single other one I've chosen but not mentioned, evokes a memory so clear and sensual that I can see it, I can smell the beach, the club, the car, the garage, the kitchen. I am tied to the past with these tunes, with the people that I cherish and I thank god for music, without it I would not love so well because I would not be so moved to remember what they preciously mean to me.

Our Handmade Wedding

Thought I'd share some of the big fat DIY wedding projects we've been working on.

We saved loads of wine bottles for months to make into centerpieces. To do this we had to cut the tops off and this proved to be not at all as easy as we'd been led believe from internet tutorials. But Jim persevered and finished about 50, caulking the tops and applying about 5 coats of shiny white spray paint to each one while only once asking "How much do real vases cost?" :) We're so economical and also, ecological, however the good we did by "upcycling" the wine bottles may have been negated by the spray paint fumes introduced into the air. Sigh, we do our best. I guess we could have whittled out stumps or bought "real vases" thereby stimulating the economy if not saving the environment. It's damn hard work being conscientious, good god, but there's such waste in planning big parties, like a wedding, you know, so many things to be used only once and then thrown away that we wanted to avoid that waste of money and also waste of materials.

I've been joking with Rebecca that I'll open a party rental store after the wedding - customers can choose from 3 tents, 50 vases and 200+ tissue paper flowers - what a selection!

The beginning bottles - we probably broke half of them in the process. (Yes, we and our friends drink a lot of wine - the easiest part of this process for sure.)

Scoring the bottles with the Dremel on a jig we made out of clamps and wood scraps to hold the bottle steady.

Heating the score over the flame.

A quick cold bath to shock the glass into breaking.

Some of the decapitated bottles.

The finished product with the first flowers of spring - the lovely crocuses from the front yard with a little bit of queen Anne's lace greenery, also from the front yard.

There will be groupings of 3-4 different height vases on each table.

I've been making tissue paper flowers all week to hang inside the tents, and to decorate with all around. The first photo is maybe half of them, or about 100. The second is all of them finished. Silly me - when I began I thought that I could fit most of them in a laundry basket for easy toting - you can see how off my calculation was!

The first batch for now stored on the hearth, awaiting transport to Wasilla - they're going to fill up my entire car!

All of the flowers, thanks to Rebecca for helping me to finish.

Then tonight I had the idea to make the table number cards using Talavera tile art. I swiped a whole bunch of different patterns off this gorgeous site which I hope to patronize very soon for improvements de la casa, and made borders for the 5 x 7 cards in Fireworks. The font selection took the longest time - I finally settled on Zapfino for the spice names (all the tables are named for Mexican spices/herbs) and Bell MT for the numbers. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.