I Will Destroy You Something Beautiful

The Vagina Monologues ended around one o'clock in the morning last night, and as I walked outside of the theater, I saw an eight-year-old boy standing outside waiting for me. "Oh shit." I remembered he had approached me earlier in the evening to tell me that he was lost, and I had offered to help him find his parents. Instead, I had gone to see the play and forgotten about him completely, so he had waited for me outside for the duration of the two-and-a-half hour show. I asked him where he lived and he told me, "East L.A." We climbed into my car and I started taking surface streets east eventually only to hit a dead end. At that point, I had to turn around to find another street east, and it suddenly struck me how creepy it was—and compromising even—to drive a little boy I didn't know home at one-thirty in the morning.

Pop Jungian Interpretation: The boy must be my inner child, not the effusive, jubilant one, but the needy one who nurses drawn-out, draining and improbable crushes. And even though I am in control—I am driving, after all—I am playing to his whimsy. And it is creepy that despite knowing better, I still head east: a vague destination that can only lead to dead ends.

Quiet Life of Desperation

Story of my life, kids. I'm frantic.

Hot Little Hands

In my hot little hands, I currently hold a boarding pass for tonight's Hawaiian Air flight. If this experience has taught me anything, it's that I can't take anything at face value. Still, I can't surpress a slightly giddy feeling: things look promising.

By the Numbers

50: Number of people by which Friday's flight was overbooked.
115: Minimum number of people who held valid tickets on previously cancelled flights who were placed on stand-by for Friday's flight
165: Sum of previous two statistics; maximum number of people who held valid tickets but not boarding passes for Friday's flight
15: Maximum number of those people who were eventually given boarding passes
80: Minimum number of additional ticketed passengers necessary for Hawaiian Airlines corporate office to send a second plane
2: Minimum number of people arrested for assaulting Hawaiian Airlines representatives
2: Hours by which the closing of the gate was delayed by long lines to check-in

Worst Case Scenario Repeats Itself

Three planeloads of passengers attempted to check themselves in for the Pago Pago-Honolulu flight this evening. Among those were people like me who were booked on the Sunday or Monday flights, which were cancelled, but still have not been told how (if?) they will be accomodated. Check in started at six-thirty; people began lining up at three. The line stretched forever: those who showed up at six-thirty were finally met at the counter at eleven-thirty for a flight scheduled to leave at 11:20. People began boarding the flight at around ten-thirty, but it did not leave until two. Sound familiar to anyone? It would if you'd tried to check in for their Wednesday flight when the exact same thing occured.

So call Hawaiian Air and berate them senseless. (Their number is 1-800-367-5320; let them know exactly what you think of their reprehensible treatment of the people of American Samoa. Go!) Visit their offices and tease them endlessly. Stop by the airport, stand in their lines and bite their passengers. There are no innocents anymore.

Desperate Logic

The defining characteristic of postmodern capitalism, i.e. multinational consumerism if you will, is its ever-increasing interconnectedness and density of networks. As borders become permeable, corporations become multinational. Monopoly still refers to exclusively providing services within a given geographical boundary, even though horizontal and vertical integration can now occur on a global scale. Some experts have suggested we see this not as corporations become bigger and more powerful, but smaller and consolidating. The middle class disappears as the fat cats become fatter and fewer. Underlings multiply as there are now less positions in which to move up. This increase in bureaucracy parallels fascism in an eerily sobering way, and it makes it that much harder to kick the teeth in of the person who's screwing you over.

Hawaiian Airheads

Rumors circulating include: there would be an extra flight except that two planes are currently stuck in Portland; they're allowing people from all three overbooked flight to check-in for tonight's to show headquarters just how many passengers they're forced to turn away; they've had to postpone flights to Seattle and Portland so those routes get priority for planes; they are fifty seats overbooked on tonight's flight; there is no such thing as a "priority waiting list;" and the Portland planes are bogus.

Riot likely impending.

If you happen to know the home phone numbers of any of the upper management of Hawaiian Airlines, now is the time to make that call.

Gasping for Hawaiian Air

I am told that I currently on the Priority Waiting List for tonight's flight, which is customer-service-speak for, "Fuck you, leave us alone."

Who knew I was a revolutionary?

Participatory media, I like that.

Dispatch from the Homefront

There’s nothing quite like a natural disaster to make you feel just how petty and inconsequential your life really is:

“The Tutors’ Club. This is V---- speaking, how can I help you?”
“Hi, is Mark there?”
“I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting at the moment. Could I take a message?”
“Sure, could you let him know that due to tropical cyclone Heta, I won’t be returning to work this week, but I will let him know as soon I can schedule a flight out of here.”
“A tropical cyclone?” he asks, in his wannabe-movie-star, Southern Californian accent. “Su-u-ure thing!”

And that’s it. No one really misses you.

Dispatch from the Homefront

I thought Samoa was dull over the the two weeks leading up to today. At least, then, we had electricity. I hadn't realized I had it so lucky.

Crash No. 5

No bear this time. And for those who are keeping track, this was the first one that was not my fault.

No sirree. There was no reason why the midsized boat, captained by an elderly black man who—and I wish I were just making this up—was literally eating fried chicken and chewing on a toothpick, could claim it had right-of-way. Pulling out of a mini-mall to turn left does not give you right-of-way against oncoming traffic, especially if said oncoming traffic (me) has to veer into oncoming traffic (them) to avoid you, so that you—quite luckily, due to the skilled maneuvering on this same oncoming traffic (me, again)—barely tap each other.

Stop!

Do not steal the stop sign right outside the Department of Public Safety office. They will catch you. Especially if you decide to stop in the middle of the street next to the stop sign and put on your hazard lights so that your friend (Julianne) can run out with a knife to pry off the last remaining nail. While it may be true that the stop sign is now remarkably easy to steal—because someone pryed off that last remaining nail—that white SUV you see might actually be an unmarked DPS vehicle that will pursue you. And if you don't pull over right away when they flash their white lights and a low-speed chase ensues down McClintock towards Parkside, they will call for reinforcements. And reinforcements will come. And the bitchy officer who will take down all your friend's information won't even crack a smile when she says, "You could be going to jail for this." And when she makes your friend return the sign, you might be tempted to giggle, which will only prompt the officer to remind you that you are an "accomplice." And it will occur to you, isn't stealing a stop sign attempted manslaughter, and thus a felony? And while the anxiety of the moment might make you inclined to giggle again, giggling at felonies is inappropriate. So even though the stop sign may look like it's begging for a new home—just lying there, propped against the orange construction sign—avoid the inevitable faux pas and talk your friend out of it. The officer will only tell you that what you should have done anyway.

Rise of the Machines

The makers of the voting machines say no one can look inside of them, because they would reveal trade secrets. What secrets? Isn’t their job to count votes? Or do they get secret messages from Mars?

And all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration.

So Bush will probably win if the country is covered with these balloting machines. He can’t lose.

—Gore Vidal, LA Weekly Interview 11/20/03

Booty Calls Dos y Tres

Lacked the same endearing novelty when they came in at eight-thirty Friday morning and nine o'clock Saturday morning, respectively.

My Brother

gave his girlfriend a $110 white gold necklace to celebrate their one-month anniversary. And I just want someone to give flowers to. Seriously, if you dated me, I'd give you flowers every day. I wouldn't mean anything by them, but I have wandered through the downtown flower market twice in the past month, and those flowers are so beautiful, I'm just craving an excuse to buy them.

I don't like having a blog...

I realize there's something patently absurd about someone who writes to the anonymous void that is the internet. It reeks of a need for self-validation, and I assure you, I am not that person. These anecdotes are not latent cries for help. They keep me distracted on occasion, and that is all.

Case In Point

Today I photographed strip malls in Inglewood, and this, dear friends, is why I have become obsessed with them. I found one that featured not only a check cashing place but 99¢ Stuff and Thangs, Neville's House of Glamour, Hot Gossip Nails, Ms. Bea's Hats, and a barbershop.

Brilliant, no?

Strip Malls

I chose the topic, because I didn't want to do portraits. I didn't want to do what everyone else would do. In fact, I didn't want to do something pretty, since even that can be passé. So I chose strip malls. But now that I have spent hours driving around in seach of them to take their pictures, I've become obsessed. They are fascinating. First of all, do you know how much they have in common with each other? Donut shops, check cashing centers, and 99¢ stores are remarkably consistent strip mall staples. That and the one on Santa Monica and Vine had hookers hanging out outside of it when I went to photograph it this morning.

And I realize how crazy this makes me sound, but each one really does have its own aura. Just look at how much they differ geographically: how much ones in our neighborhood differ from those in Hollywood or Japantown.

Yes, they're ugly, but they're also amazing.

Play Crushes

There's the boy in this organization I'm in whose solitude is adorable and whose sexuality is still indeterminate.
There's the boy in another organization I'm in who's taken, but his laughter is addictive and contagious.
There's the boy I joined an organization in order to meet but was so dumbstruck by his presence that my pursuit was in vain.
There's the boy I've never met but have seen—in movies.
There's the boy whose LiveJournal I became addicted to, but could never contact due to his stance on certain ethical issues that shall remain unnamed.
There's the boy I contacted on the internet ages ago but who never wrote back. He actually said, "Hi," to me on campus recently, and I like to think of that as progress.
There's the boy I went on a date with once but didn't really like. Then I found out he was deeper and more sincere than I am, and I was humbled by my blasé.
There's the boy who was in a play I wrote—who is straight. Actually, there are a few of those, since my only criteria in casting is physical attractiveness.
There's the boy I loved freshman year only to realize how pretentious he was as the year progressed.
There's the boy who's intelligent, sexy and experienced, but he's a friend of friends, and I'm not sure how to break that barrier. "Hey, do you want to hang out?"
There's the boy whose intellectual catfights with me are pitiful at best, whose intellectual counterpart is most closely—quite literally—a cat. But he's stocky and built like a corn-fed midwestern boy, and I hate what he stirs inside me.

And, finally, of course, there's the boy I'm in love with and will probably always be in love with—stupidly, stupidly in love with—precisely because he is unattainable. Imagine: if I really did take dating seriously and found someone I could relate to, the pedestal I've carved for myself would crumble before me; no longer could I take self-satisfaction in conceiving of myself as so intelligent as not to have a match. So I pine after the boy who could play match for me and wonder why all of my play crushes have yet to work out.