This morning I decided to take myself on a short Artist's Date (as discussed in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron) to The Getty Museum in Los Angeles. My favorite part of the Getty is the location. Talk about a key piece of real estate! If your corneas can survive the glare of the white stone, you can see a 300 degree view of Los Angeles (the museum itself takes up that last 60).

First of all, I'm not sure about that tram that took me from the parking lot to this Castle of Art. It jerked a lot and I wondered if the financial dilemna of my freelance life would be resolved by a horrible crash of the museum tram; WOMAN DIES WHILE TAKING ARTIST'S DATE TO THE GETTY (Julia Cameron would be screwed). However, I survived the tram ride and arrived at the museum to be greeted by the blinding white stone and little old ladies with museum badges. I wondered if someday I'll be a little old museum lady and decided that it's a dream worth keeping.

However, my dreams of taking a peaceful leisurely church-like stroll through silent rooms decorated with famous and passionate works of art were quickly squelched by the masses of people, mostly students, breathing all over Van Gogh's Lilacs and Monet's something or other. I don't know what I was thinking. That I am the only person in Los Angeles who knows about a mammoth museum that's free to the public? That's the problem with public places; they're full of people.

I did gain inspiration from Pollock's "No.1." After examining the flight of the paint that landed on the canvas, I'm not going to let anyone tell me that my screenplay needs a story. It's words and scenes thrown on paper. If it doesn't make sense to you, that's fine. The important thing is that I know, that it's my soul's signature. Thanks, Jackson!

After visiting the Impressionists I wandered through the furniture and tried to measure the French bed to see if it would fit in my studio. One thing's for sure, the French were short 300 years ago.

The whole trip took two hours and I learned that the world won't come to an end if I take a few hours out of my day to visit a museum (although, did just feel an earthquake...so, let me get back to you).

Just for today, I can go on an Artist's Date.

My boyfriend and I drove to Santa Barbara to see the God of satirical writing, David Sedaris, speak. Although we didn't have quite the degree of people worship mojo necessary to wait an hour in a book signing line, we were both very inspired by his awesomeness.

As for Santa Barbara...well, it felt a little odd to be in a town where perfect strangers will strike up conversation with you on a street corner or in a restaurant as if it's normal. In Los Angeles people only speak to you when they're strange and scary. Likewise, if you decide to randomly strike up conversation with the cashier you (I) simply accept the designated vibe of "strange and scary person." However, in Santa Barbara people who speak to you on the street don't seem to see themselves as anything but social animals. One nice guy with a beard and dreadlocks actually approached us and asked us if we were lost and then spoke to us for ten minutes about his chill vibe . We decided he was extrememly lonely, but admired his well-groomed beard (I'm still recovering from my boyfriend's unkempt beard that he recently shaved...thank God).

We eventually succumbed to the pace of this small town and spent hours in a coffee shop watching people stroll by as if there were no such thing as traffic to sit in and Cost-co lines to stand in...

Just for today, I can slow down.

'Kay, so I'm talking about porn here. Before I start...just FYI, I have never given much thought about porn except for that it's skanky and degrades women, but there are many things I consider "not good for me" that aren't going anywhere (Krispy Kream donuts, loud people, crack..to name a few) anytime soon.

So this weekend I was surfing through some blog sites and I stumbled across an upscale porn site (i.e., images created with some artistic integrity with models who looked capable of healthy relationships) and for a moment, I thought, perhaps not all porn is skanky creepiness. So, I decided to see what all the fuss is about, but soon found that my first instincts were correct. Yes, 99% of porn is, indeed, skanky creepiness. However, the entire venture did make me wonder if it's not the porn that's the problem, but the people involved. I might be interested in watching good-looking, successful, happy people having erotic sex. However, for whatever reason those people do not, generally speaking, work in the porn industry. The majority of the people that I've seen appear to be in highly desperate circumstances and like they aren't taking very good care of themselves (to say the least). Do I want to help them find a better job, process their emotional baggage, and pursue loving relationships? Yes. Do I want to watch them have sex? No.

The whole experience made me feel so yucky, I had to go wash my car (which was also looking a little dirty).

Just for today, I can have an open mind.

My boyfriend and I had a Weird Lunch with three other people. While weirdness with my boyfriend is pretty normal, this was the kind of group weirdness that crops up when one party crashes another and you're not really sure why you're all having lunch together. They were nice enough people, but the conversation never got past my earnest initiations which ranged from "Has anyone seen Palendromes?" to "This tuna tastes like old chicken." Everything fell on the table like wet toast and I had to ask myself, is it not better to just say, "we'd like to eat alone?"

Just for today, I have boundaries.

Lately, I've noticed, that I can't create a consistent fashion statement out of my wardrobe. Perhaps, this is what happens when one spends her formative teen years with a calculus tutor. At 33, you end up with a closet-full of lace and sequence, and nothing to wear that says, "Hi, I'm business casual today." There should be some FDA health statement about the importance of a healthy balanced closet with "business casual" being the fashion equivalent of brocolli. Clothes that gives strength, rather than requiring great amounts of energy to wear (i.e., certain stilettos that shall remain nameless).

The pickings hanging in my closet could only possibly be described as a Vintage/Teen/Over-priced Boutique medley (I do my best to stay away clothes that could have possibly been made by children, but that doesn't mean that I don't have them).

It used to be that Banana Republic was the business casual pit stop of the world...that is until the world exploded into sea foam. Yesterday, I had to dig through an ocean of pastels on the Banana sales rack to find the plain not-exciting-but-will-save-the-day items that have dissappeared from my life like vitamins. I managed to secure some tops, but not after watching my skin turn yellow in contrast to ten different shades of sea foam. I will probably move my last minute business casual shopping elsewhere...perhaps Ross?

Just for today, I'm business casual.

I just came back from visiting the high school where my boyfriend works as a school counselor. I love high school kids. They are so real. Their hearts haven't been calcified by bad relationships and SUV entrapments on the 405.

I connected with one girl who likes horror and Goth music by telling her that the last time I went to my father's house I was greeted with a life-size sculpture of him made out of wood. When I share this with adults they look at me and say, "Good for him!" Only a high school girl can connect with the comedy of parent-weirdness. I'm not opposed to the idea that I haven't grown out of my own teen angst....

Just for today, I can love my inner-teen.

Tonight I told my student to take her fifth grade standardized test and shove it up America's pompous keep-up-with-the-workaholic-Jonses-who-have-no-family-life-because-mom-and-dad-are-always-working ass. This made some light shine in her eye. While her mother agreed that tests are just a bunch of silly sillies, we both (madre and I) had to make some case for why she should give a gosh darn about it. The only reason we could think of is that doing well on standardized tests means that you've somehow conquered the challenge set forth by The Man. But she wasn't buying. What else was I supposed to say? Welcome to the real world, Kiddo. Ten years from now you'll thank your lucky stars that you knew how to fill in the right bubbles...The truth is that thinking inside the box does help in some situations. Unless you're REALLY rich and successful it's tough to be a healthy eccentric in this land cuz most people want to hang with the normies...

Just for today, I am so freakin' cynical.

Today I went to my D.A. (Debtor's Anonymous) meeting and shared about how I feel about not having a regular paycheck. I told them that it feels like I'm going to die. People tell me that I won't. That eventually some freelance work will swing my way, and even if it doesn't I won't die, I just won't be able to pay my bills. They say things like, "feelings aren't facts," and other canonized slogans that condescend to the human condition as if it were some dated fashion statement, like leg warmers.

After my meeting I had lunch with my friend Bruce and we commiserated on our common experience of working jobs far beneath our skill or (more importantly) interest level. Like me, he belives that he has to be bored to tears to make a living. However, since I've made the decision to refuse a Dilbert life-style the the fear, the terror...the horror of financial uncertainty plagues me like a bad sugary coffee drink hangover.

Between Bruce, my boyfriend, a trip to Santa Barbara, and the end of Los Angeles' rainstorm, life feels good again and I'm grateful for all that I have.

Just for today, life is good.

BAD NEWS = Verizon Wireless Bill

Sure, everyone is entitled to "make mistakes," but is there any compensation for the heart attack I almost had when I checked on my upcoming verizon wireless bill (via the heartless voice automated system)?!! We cleared it up and got it down to a measley $136, but I just don't think "whoops...the system didn't calculate your bill correctly," really cuts it...My breathing just got back to normal a few minutes ago.

GOOD NEWS = Good Skin

I had lunch with my friend Al yesterday and he commented on how good my skin has been looking. I responded with, "Oh, yeah, it's a new skin remedy called Not Working." As it turns out, despite the financial stress, waking up at odd hours, going to yoga for two hours a day, and staying away from neon lighting is a great remedy for dry, puffy, acne ridden skin (do all these go together? On me, they do).

BAD NEWS = Mysoginy in Improv Comedy

I watched an improv show last night in which a young improviser was cast as a "slut," a mute wife, and the woman banged by a prison security guard in the same show. I think Larry Moss said it best when he said that, "It is harder for women (in acting), but the better they are, the better the men are." As a burgeoning improviser, I am working on ways of refusing to cave in to the endemic mysoginy in the improv community. Unfortunately, the representation of female characters in humiliating life circumstances emits laughter from most audiences. Who's to fault? The actors or the audience?

GOOD NEWS = Good Therapist Relationship

Things are going well with my therapist. I'm not annoyed at her for talking so much...(just for today).

Just for today, there is good news and bad news.

While I was in agony today in yoga I thought about a new type of 12-step meeting, one in which people can only share while in a position. This would solve several issues: 1) the shares would be short and concise, thus, reducing the pain of co-dependent's tired of listening to other people's problems 2) the pain of whatever was being processed would seem minute in comparison to the pain of the muscle being contracted.

Just for today, I can have ideas in yoga.

I had breakfast with a very old and dear friend yesterday. We used to buy cigarettes from this obscene liquor store when we were 12 (that's why they were obscene) and that was only the tip of the iceberg...By most accounts she was crazier than me, but that's really a matter of perspective. In the end, we both smoked pot with random stray high school kids who had nothing better to do than to get 13 year olds high. We both cut school to make out with boys who would soon be behind bars (or really should have been). And we are both guilty of ripping off Bill's drugs from a sizeable amount of Wet n' Wild lipstick, Aqua Net, and Laffy Taffy. Just because she got busted by the police while I and two boys (one of whom, believe it or not, is now her husband) waited around the block for her, is no reason for me to feel absolved of the hormonal insanity that was my adolescence. In the end, you could burn down a house with the amount of gel and hair spray that held up our hair up like cement foundation.

TWENTY YEARS LATER...we are inside a kitchen in the latter stages of renovation, discussing the third trimester of her pregnancy and the miracle of life.

I think Bob Dylan said it best...(just for today) things have changed!

Yes, I just saw Top Gun again.

I was at my father's house eating dinner and afterwards my brother went into the other room to watch TV. After a while I heard these strange familiar sounds coming from the other room..music with the lyrics,"Take my breath awaaaay...", F14s taking off, and before you know it I migrated into the living room like a zombie, and planted myself in front of the TV like it was 1986. I hung onto every last bit of dialogue, like it was poetry. Lines like, "I think it's my fault that Goose died," and "No, it's not your fault," and "You can be my wing man, anytime," were like a balm to my soul. And the finely cut scenes of "bogeys" flying around were like cotton candy to my eyes. For the next hour I was in a "Top Gun" trance that even the site of those 80's bomber jackets (I know they'll eventually come back in style, but I had to get rid of mine), could really pull me out of it.

The fact that Top Gun was a pro-military Bush #1 era movie seems like a distant dream when in the throws of a Top Gun trance. I think if Tim Robbins was actually in it (a small part), I'm forgiven for enjoying to watch it.

Just for today, I can enjoy the movie (not quite a film) Top Gun.

A student at the school where my boyfriend works as a counselor was shot and killed last week. It was a random shooting and it happened in front of his two younger sisters. There wasn't so much of a peep out of the media about it, while the news of Teri Shiavo's death made it's way down my and everyone else's throat. While I feel for her family's pain, how is a white woman's vegetative life more valuable than a young living functioning black male's? How was she more innocent? It's times like these when I have to compress the monstrosity of the media into the voice of an annoying loud guy screaming on his cell phone at Starbuck's about the problems with his SUV. If I didn't have the ability to dissassociate (a skill developed in my childhood), I'd likely go live on a leper colony in South America (Che Guevara style).

All I can do is write a blog full of sound and fury, and quietly ask White America why it insists on just plain ignoring the violence, poverty, and pain of black urban youths. I'm not asking anyone to absolve anyone of their responsibility, I'm just saying, when young men and women who aren't white or rich get shot, could the press amount to more than a tiny story on the back page? Could someone just talk about it a little more?

Just for today, I'm sick of the media.

The trauma actually came when I realized my bill came to my monthly budget for groceries. I told my boyfriend and he pointed out that Whole Foods is a fashion statement that my bank account isn't ready to make. It's not that I don't like to spend money that I don't have, because I do. But if I'm going to be flashy I'd rather it be on a status symbol that I can show off for longer than just from my car to the kitchen. But for the moment I am enjoying my $12 pears and $10 tampons (the organic cotton really does make a difference).

Just for today, I'm shopping at Trader Joe's (the frozen chow mein is fan-tastic!).