Last night, I went to a fabulous graduation party for Persian Surgeon Salsero. Now that he's completed his 100 years of medical school training, he is now officially employed as a Surgeon Salsero who plays salsa music while he performs liver transplants on children at any given hour of day or night (talk about responsibility...and I worry about making it to the coffee shop before noon).

I had thought I might meet some nice cute surgeons, but never got around to it because I ended up dancing to Persian techno till 3 am. I'm sure there's much more to Perisan dancing, but I did the best anyone can do with a drink in one hand. Add to the other hand a plate of food, and it's a whole other type of dancing. Not good for the digestion, but I did get plenty of protein (loved the food!).

The point is, if I can't tear me away from a mojito, beef shishkabob, and the techno version of Thriller to make an effort NOW, when will I? Although, let's face, I'll never be one to walk away from a techno version of Thriller. Maybe most surgeons know not to dance and eat?

The 26-year-old guy I was dancing asked me how old I was and when I said 36, he told me that I seemed like his age.

"That's because I'm very immature."

At least it's a lot cheaper than Botox.

Just for today, I can have fun at 36.

There's nothing like pulling out a journal from high school to remind me that youth is wasted on the young. Tonight, I read, for the first time in years, the journal I kept between graduation from high school and the beginning college. For the most part, it's one big list of guys I had crushes on, thought were "fine" or "really attracted to." However, I also detailed a lot of the end of high school. Here's one section:

I decided to go with J. to the prom. Aside the fact that he's not the most popular guy in the world, I see no reason not to go with him. And according to what I just said, that shouldn't matter. But if he tries anything with me, I'll kill him.

Damn. Didn't realize what a stuck-up bitch was.

Here's another part where I actually respect myself.

Today I got infuriated with A. and with being a girl. It had to do with an argument I had with him and 3 other boys in physics when he told me that girls are genetically inferior to boys in math/science. So today, he and B. were rambling off about their esoteric bullshit when I started wondering why I can't get into a frenzy over Physics like they can. Then it hit me that if I asked Mr. S. a question like what happens to time in the black hole or something like that, he would probably make into a joke or cute comment. It made me so furious and convinced me that girls are negatively reinforced in math and the sciences...being feminine is by all means a LEARNED thing.

Damn, again! You go girl!

I was 18 and for most of the summer I worked at a restaurant where I lusted after most of the male waiters in their twenties.

I have a serious high school crush on S. It drives me crazy because I can't talk to him anymore, and I have an orgasm every time he touches me. I immediately start to imagine what it would be like to have him on top of me...he is very affectionate with everyone so it's really no big deal for him to grab my shoulders and start massaging me or something, but it drives me crazy. Especially, because he's so nonchalant about it...

I have a name for guys like that now. And it's not "creep," but he was probably that, too.

Anyway, it gets more embarrassing, but mostly it's just very telling and boring. Mostly, I can see how woefully unprepared I was for adulthood.

Just for today, I can read my journals from high school and college.

Somebody removed my coffee card with all my stamps on it. There's a file next to the register where customers like me get their coffee card marked until that glorious day when I have enough stamps to get $5 mocha concoction that usually makes me feel ill, but who cares because it was FREE! Anyway, my coffee card was stolen, probably by a local Coffee Shop Weirdo who scratched out my name.

Lately, Strange Old French Man has been offering me lots of encouragement as he keeps complimenting me on my dedication and work ethic.

"Something good will come out of this," he said to me yesterday.

Thank you, Strange Old French Man!

Occasionally, Cute Guys wander in here. My friend told me to smile at them. Sometimes they smile back. Then what? Look busy and pretend it never happened has been my choice, but something tells me that's not going to get me too far.

Just for today, I can have adventures in Coffee Shop Land.

One year, 11 months and five days ago I wrote 10 Things To Do To Keep From Thinking How Damn Hot It Is.

Two globally warmed years later, I'm too hot to think of any more...

All I came up with was...make jello.

Just for today, I'm too hot to be funny.

I went swimming yesterday and realized, yet again, that there's no place like the women's locker room for discovering the latest fashions in the hoo ha hair-style department.

I'm always surprised at how many women go Brazilian. Being the cry baby that I am when it comes to my eyebrows, I can't imagine that kind of pain. Even my Eyebrow Lady, who makes a good part of her living in the pube department WOULD NEVER DO IT. Granted, she's in her 60's and has been married for forty-sum years, so not sure how important to her happiness a shaved pube is (probably not much). But even if I could tolerate the pain, how high on the maintenance ladder does the hoo ha go? Except for us ladies in the showers, isn't that area, ideally, reserved for a party of one (two counting yourself)? There's probably some real obvious reason that I'm missing (like great sex?!), but, well, clearly it's been a while...

At one point in time (within the last ten years), I had a sleep over friend (since I'm working to publish a book about my personal life, I need some practice in the Baring My Soul And Other Stuff dept), who complimented me on how I "let it grow out." What the...?! He acted like I was stating a new trend...Have we entered the 1950's of pubic hair?! It's not like there's no shape or structure, I'm just not looking like a nine-year-old. I guess it shouldn't be surprising in a culture where women inject all kinds of substances into their bodies for the sake of lookin' hot...really, are there not enough ways for women to torture ourselves?

Bottom line, I would need a really good reason to wax my nether regions.

Just for today, I can make decisions about my hoo ha.

Where is the June gloom? It's supposed to be foggy and overcast, and us Beach People are supposed to stand around and say things like, "Sure, doesn't feel like summer, but at least parking isn't a problem..." But no, it's still only June and already my apartment is a brick oven. Who were the geniuses in 1924 who thought to build a brick building on the beach?

Even if I was capable of concentrating in my apartment and wasn't tempted to raid the refrigerator for Trader Joe's trail mix every five minutes, or make another shot of espresso, and I didn't live in a neighborhood where every every home owner didn't insist on a high-powered leaf blower, or having their hard wood floors sanded every other year, or just having someone employed using a tool with a chain-saw-like sound, I would still wilt from heat exhaustion like my poor plants (they looks so sad after hot days).

I suppose I could try to install an air conditioner, but that would probably screw up the feng-shui...so hard living in LA.

Just for today, I'm ready to move inland.

I'm back in Coffee Shop Land, listening to Journey and Kool and the Gang, as well as to Loud Screenwriter discussing his character's arc in the third act, and his recovery from a gambling addiction (not the characters', but his own personal addiction). The guy is sitting right behind me, but I'm sure if I were on the other side of the room, I'd still know all of this.

I had taken some space from this place because I was tired of coming home smelling like a grilled cheese sandwich, not to mention the assault of personal information volunteered in high volume by Loud Screenwriter People. [While I know I have no right to criticize the quirks of writers as they are my peeps, and I'm surely as weird as the most disheveled of them (though, I hide it much better), there's only so much I can tolerate before I get jugemental.] However, having sampled coffee shops throughout West Los Angeles I have found Coffee Shop Land home to the hardest working people and coffee drinkers in Los Angeles. In the end, it was the strong, if not loud, work ethic, that brought me back for inspiration as I trudge along this godforsaken lonely path (at least project managers get to talk to programmers).

Just for today, I can work around loud people.

In an effort to move away from my Ice Queen Attitude towards Strange Male Persons, I've been working on more congenial behaviors when out in public. Yes, there are a lot of Creepy Guys out there Los Angeles' coffee shops, bars, AND salsa clubs. But, it's not like the nice ones are wearing a sign.

Last night a couple of guys standing at the bar were wearing Lakers t-shirts and a Lakers baseball caps.

"This might sound crazy, but are you fans of the Lakers?"

"Yes, and we just came from the game!"

Whoosh.

Wherever my facetious comment landed, it was way over their Lakers baseball caps. Do they not teach irony in schools anymore? Were me and my fellow 10th grade students in Mr. Bye's English class the only ones to get Oedipus branded into our craniums? Ok, in all fairness, they were probably still excited about the Laker win.

One of the guys proceeded to show me his ticket stubs lest there be any question.

"Hey, my friend doesn't know how to salsa dance. Do you want to teach him?"

Lately, when meeting younger men in groups, I find that they frequently speak on behalf of each other. I wish I had a dollar (or make that a Euro) for every time I heard a twenty-something guys say "My friend here wants this..." or "My friend thinks this...". I don't remember this from my youth. Have we become, in the last 15 years, a nation of increased co-dependents? I don't want to turn into a walking Self-Help Workshop, but if I did, I would reply, "Who gives a crap about your friend? What do you want?" But since I've got other things to do, I'll let them work it out in therapy in ten years.

"If you want to learn salsa, there's a great class at 7:30" I replied and then walked away.

Just for today, I can be open to meeting new peoples (even if I do make fun of them in my blog...I just can't help myself).

I really wanted to buy a new coffee machine. Not because I needed one, my old one worked fine. I just didn't like the way it looked anymore. So, I didn't have much an excuse for shelling out $50 for a stainless steel deal that would probably take up half my counter space. Then I found a nice sized coffee AND capuccino maker at Bed, Bath, and Beyond on sale for the bargain basement price of $20.00. I had my little 20% discount card and so I ended up paying $17.31 for it which is far less than what I spend on coffee in a week. I asked the guy why this thing was so cheap and he gave me a little canned speech about how BB&B was passing on savings to me and blahblety, blah, blah...that must be the "Beyond" part.

I bought this Arabia Mocha Sanani blend from Peete's and today I made a sweet Capuccino.

I think you know you're getting old when this stuff makes you happy.

Just for today, I can celebrate my new purchase.

I just had lunch with an Old (as in "a friend from a long time ago", not as in "dang, we old!" - though, let's face it, we are) College Friend who I hadn’t seen since graduation. We did our best to compress 13 years into 1 1/2 hours, or 26 years of combined time. She said I looked the same, but she's also missed a lot of phases. Like the 15 lb Weight Gain, Pat Benatar Hair Cut, and Blond Highlights phases (not necessarily in that order). She also missed the depression, bad relationship(s), boring job(s), and apartment-smaller-than-most-SUV's phases. Basically, she arrived back into my life as I have come full circle to Long Brown Hair Aspiring Writer, minus the bushy eyebrows and LL Bean attire. Which is exactly where I was when I graduated from college 13 years ago. Can't say I've made much progress but at least I've settled on a hair style.

However, strangely enough, she also had her own depression, bad relationship(s), boring job(s) and apartment-for-compressed-people phases. Don't know why life has to suck before you learn to appreciate it, but that seems to be how it goes...

However, we do differ in some respects as she is currently on the Marriage Track, and I have yet to find that railroad. She assured me that The Single Life is worth embracing, while she also believes that marriage and partnership (and all the PIA that comes with it) is a path to health and happiness.

"I just keep telling myself that it's good for me..." she said.

"It sounds like you're taking vitamins."

In college we were both judgmental of snooty privileged East Coast people who were either totally oblivious of our judgmental-ness, or just didn't care (probably both). Now that we're experienced in the ways of the world and, if anything, justified in resenting the Haves (while we aspire to be them), it seems like kind of a waste of energy.

Still, spending time with her was great. Like taking a deep breath of mountain air after breathing in Los Angeles for 13 years.

Just for today, I can have lunch with an Old College Friend.

I can't seem to blink these days without wondering if I'm doing something that's bad for my health. There's currently a fly in my apartment that's landing all over my kitchen and laying eggs and puking and spreading semonela, everything in my refrigerator has too much acidity, and the crappy air and car exhaust of Los Angeles is floating into my apartment. So stressful being paranoid...

I'm thinking of getting a mindless part-time job that will allow me to not exhaust my brain in the Rat On Steroids Race and, therefore, finish my book. However, it's so expensive to live in LA, a less skilled job will probably also not allow me to roam the aisles of DSW with boxes of shoes. I just don't want to spend any more precious minutes of my life letting The Man suck me dry until I'm a pathetic puddle of frayed nerves half-heartedly searching the Internet for something she forgot five seconds prior to noticing the lovely Google design of the day.

I'm also drinking some magical water that has been filtered through a $4,000 contraption. What makes it magical? Probably the fact that the filter cost four grand. If it was a filter I could buy at Targae, it would probably only be mildly beneficial to my health. See how cynical I've become?

Giant sigh.

Just for today, I can be alive on a Monday.

I was in Santa Barbara (a town that seems to be on a permanent vacation) for a few days spending time with my dad and brother. Just the feel of hotel sheets brought tears to my eyes. It was kind of a tease because all it did was bring to light just how tired I really am.

I went on a hike with my father and now that he's 64, I can almost keep up with him. I remember when anyone who knew him refused to hike with him because he inevitably led said victim off the trail into a all-day-and-night quest. This time we managed to get back to the car before it was totally dark.

Just for today, I can take a short family vacation.

Not sure if it was the Sex and the City movie anticipation, my short but brain-fryingly intense re-entry into the work force, my presence at the dysfunctional salsa congress (latino time and organization), or my recent trip to the gyno (do such visits count as play?)...but I've been going at warp speed for the past two weeks and have neglected to give my blog some love...so here's the quick recap:

1) Sex and the City - Ok, I get it. The affluence and ostentation of this NY fantasy world is a little over the top. But come on, if Indiana Jones can run from boulders in his geriatric years, then Carrie Bradshaw can get photogaphed in every top designer's bridal dream dress. It's called suspension of disbelief. And while I can't say that I totally swallowed the romantic resolutions to Mr. Big's chronic abandonment (am I giving it away?), and while the clothes, as creative and fun as they are, seem to take away from the believability of the characters (I think even Carrie would have her ugly t-shirt and jeans days), I'm still looking forward to SATC VI when they're in their sixties and seventies and commiserating in Florida about advanced Viagra and plastic surgeons.

2) Job - Ever notice what happens when the popcorn bag is left inside the microwave for too long? (A frozen burrito might serve the same metaphorical purpose...).

3) Salsa Congress - As a recovering Project Manager, I don't understand events or projects in which things don't function. Really...Albert Torres, could you stand to cough it up a little for an IT and sound guy/girl...?

4) Gyno - No matter how old I get, I don't think I'll ever understand the mentality of male gynocologists (I don't care what color crocs he's wearing).

Just for today, I can give a download during busy days.