Dorothy's Not Dead

So, I've had an entertaining couple of weeks.  

On Memorial Day Weekend, we went to Flight of the Conchordsat the Hollywood Bowl.  It was a lot of fun and a really great show.  If you're not familiar with their work, look at this, and this, and this.  Anyway, I love the Hollywood Bowl.  We parked in the Hollywood Dellat the home of one of Wilbur's fancy-pants friends (thanks for saving us $20) and then walked the couple of blocks to the park at the Bowl.  We picnicked with sandwiches from Bay Cities Deli, some delicious salads we made beforehand, and some rose and a great little pinot.  We had unbelievably good seats and took dessert (pastries from Viktor Benes) in with us.  

They played all of my favorites, Albi the Racist Dragon, Rhymnocerous and Hiphopopotamus, I'm Not Crying...  Okay, their almost all my favorites.  The thing that I found interesting is their stage presence.  It's really just the two of them and their guitars.  I was a little skeptical that they could really 'handle' the Hollywood Bowl.  I've seen more than a few shows get swallowed whole by the enormity of the place.  But they were great.  And they sold the place out - which I was also glad to see.

Then, the week before last, I went back to LA to help Wilbur out after a surgery. I realize how much I miss it there.  I love it. Anyway, Wilbur and I saw Exit Through the Gift Shop and we saw it at the Arclight Hollywood, which is hands-down my favorite move theater ever.  We had an appetizer and a couple of drinks before the movie on the cafe patio which is a great place to watch people.  The movie is great. It's really thought provoking and left me with a busy brain.  Even if it turns out to be not entirely what it seems.  If it's playing where you live and you like art, I highly recommend it. And if it's not playing near you, I suggest dropping it in your Netflix queue.

I love my husband... In spite of the fact that he is SEVERELY directionally impaired.

Case in point: Last week I was in LA all week. On Wednesday, I got a call from him asking me how to get to the post office. It's literally less than two miles straight up the road. He's been there a few times (with me). I told him that it's up the road on the left. I gave him cross streets. He called back a few minutes later to tell me that he can't find the post office. I asked him where he was and he told me the corner (or what he believed was the corner). Yeah. So he was on the totally wrong street. The saddest part is, he even located himself on his phone and still couldn't figure out what he'd done wrong. So that was kind of funny.

Then, yesterday, he left the house at 8:30a to go for a quick run. At 10:15, I realized he'd been gone for a long time and decided to call him. Only problem? His phone started to ring in the bedroom. So I started to get a little concerned. I decided to take the car and see if I could find him. Just as I was about to lock the door he walked up.

Yep. Lost. While running. I swear he's not an idiot, but he couldn't find his way out of an envelope without directions. He's lived here for 7 years. SEVEN. And still can't remember how to get to Caesar's. And the worst part? He panics.

When I was a wee girl, I hated the idea of being 'lost.' Lost meant irretrievable. We would never see home again. If my mother mentioned the word 'lost' in the context of me and where we were, I flipped out. And by this I mean I sobbed uncontrollably until we were 'found.' Fortunately, I have a really good sense of direction. And as I got older, I developed a willingness to not know exactly where I am. As an adult, I've never felt really lost. I feel like the only place I can really be lost is in the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland with the Blair Witch after me, in the desert, or in the middle of the ocean. All three of those places could mean I'll never find where I'm going. But in any reasonably populated area, I'm fine. In a city where I live/have lived, I'm totally fine.

The last time Matt and I drove back from Phoenix, we ended up on the 'wrong' road. Matt freaked out. Like I did when I was little. Like we'd never find our way home again. I knew where we were. Not exactly, obviously, but we were in Vegas. No sweat. I had to convince Matt to pull over, though, so I could drive, because he was (as my mother used to say of me) beyond zebra -- which is one of the best non-contextual uses of part of a kids' book title ever. I've never heard anyone else use it in this fashion, but it's kind of perfect for describing his state of mind at that moment. He was so upset.

I kind of understand because I remember the feeling. What I don't understand, though, is why, as an adult, he gets so irrationally upset. We've talked about it and he doesn't know either. I'm sure part of it is embarrassment. But it's more than that. However, until we find him a therapist (because he has issues), that will wait. I think whatever it is is kind of huge. In the meantime, I'm making him take the GPS everywhere he goes - even running. That way all he has to do is press the Home button and a nice lady we call Gypsy will tell him, turn by turn, how to get there.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if someone would develop a Life-Direction GPS? Teleporters would be fucking awesome, but for my money, a GPS to point me home when life goes astray is much more useful sounding.

Summer, that is. In a matter of about three days the temperatures have gone from quite pleasant to absolutely painful. It's like hell on a particularly warm day.

At 8:30 this morning it was 82. By 10, it was already 92. Ack. I'm not made for this. I hate the sticky-icky film that covers my entire body the minute I step outside. It also doesn't really make me want to step foot in the hot room to do any kind of yoga.

Matt and I had a discussion yesterday about how he'd rather live with the heat than the cold. I see his point. But he's never lived anywhere that requires more than a jacket in winter, so he's not really qualified to make that call. I hate winter, but I'd give at least half of my shoe collection for a light frost right now. Just to cool everything off and remove the stickiness.

The next few months will be hard. I'll feel like a roast by the time the temperatures start to cool off in October. Until then, I'll keep the blinds drawn and the air on and hope the power doesn't go out.

Matt and I are big U2 fans.  We went to the Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Rose Bowl shows of the last leg of the tour.  While we were in LA for the Rose Bowl show, Mary (Matt's mother) started whining about how nobody asked her if she wanted to go.  This little display pissed me off for a number of reasons that I won't go into here, but mostly because it led to Matt asking me if it would be okay if, on the next leg of the tour, we took Mary and Iris (Matt's aunt) to the concert in Anaheim.

I was pissed that he would cave in to his mother's petulance like that, but what could I say?  No, you're mother's a fucking thorn in my side and a pain in my ass?  Not really.  As the dates were released, Matt called his mom and Iris to find out which date would be best.  We thought we'd take them to one show and go to one by ourselves.  Somehow, though, Mary and Iris ended up with tickets to both shows.

The tickets were purchased in the fall, mind you.  Matt and I told Iris that we'd probably fly in to LA on the day of the first show, drive Mary and Iris down to the concert and then drive back to Iris's house and spend the night there, then drive back down the next day for the second show, etc.

In March, when Mary and Walter were here, Mary told Matt that she'd assumed we'd be staying in Anaheim - that she didn't want to have to be in the car that much.  Now here's a little secret:  Mary barely drives.  When she makes the trip from her house to Iris's, she makes Walter drive her and once she's there, Iris does all the driving.  It's ridiculous.  My point, though, is that she's whining about being in the car for a couple of hours and she won't have her foot on the pedal once.  She could sleep her way home.  But I digress.  The point is, Mary said she thought we'd get hotel rooms in Anaheim for the days of the concerts.  This is not a bad idea, but the problem is that the combination of the concert plus Disneyland makes advanced booking of hotel rooms in Anaheim a MUST.  And by advanced, I mean at least four months.

So I immediately started looking for hotel rooms within about a 15-mile radius of the concert venue.  I kept coming up with nothing.  Finally, Matt suggested Priceline.  I don't like Priceline much because of the heaps of restrictions, but I looked and found a couple of rooms.  Mary said she'd pay for them since we bought the tickets.  So Matt explained that the rooms were non-refundable and that we couldn't change our minds.  He was explicit.  We all talked about it for a few minutes and we all thought it would be fine.

Two months later, the second leg of the North American tour has been postponed until next year due to Bono having emergency back surgery last week.  Bummer.

Matt got an email from Mary today asking if he could cancel the hotel rooms without a fee.  In the email she said that she thought they should let us cancel "because they cancelled the concert."

How do you deal with that?

I've had a recurring dream for the last few nights.  In the dream I am being quizzed (by persons unknown) about the artistic significance of Lorenzo Ghiberti's door panels for the Baptistry in Florence - known as the Gates of Paradise.  And question after question, the only things I can remember about art history pertains to Caravaggio's use of light in The Death of the Virgin.

I have this dream not only every night, but multiple times a night.  I don't get it.  And it's making me crazy.

Lately, I have not wanted to go to yoga.  I go, but I have to talk myself into it every day.  I'm avoiding it because I'm getting into my psoas and it's causing a lot of emotional stuff to come out.  And I don't feel like dealing with it right now.

First off, let me say that I don't believe in a lot of things.  The Secret, The Law of Attraction, Chiropractors, hell, I don't put much stock in Doctors, but I do believe in yoga.  And acupuncture.  These are two ancient healing techniques that are tried and true, generation after generation, for thousands of years that I've seen work for me.  But I know it sounds weird that stretching the front of my hips is creating an emotional release.  If I heard someone else talking about it I'd probably think they were, you know - granola-y.  It's happening to me right now, though.

I don't want to do any form of pigeon, camel makes me want to punch it in the nose, wheel makes me want to barf, dragon should fly back to it's mythical past, and splits can suck it.

King pigeon is the worst because of the depth of the stretch.  Camel comes in a close second, though.  Camel is emotional for a lot of people because your chest is open, but throw in a psoas stretch and it's wretched.  On a good day, wheel isn't one of my favorite postures.  I don't like being inside out and backwards, and that's how wheel has always felt to me - just wrong.  Then I got the instruction to straighten my legs and push with my arms.  Holy hell.  I wanted to stand up and hit the teacher I was so mad.  I mean, Jesus Christ on a crutch, dude, why are you trying to torture me?  Dragon is pretty pigeon-like, except that it's a Yin pose so you have to hold it for like five minutes.  FIVE.  It doesn't seem like much now, but while I'm in the positions, I feel like my life is shortening.  Splits are pretty easy to avoid.  Since most people will hurt themselves trying to get into splits, most teachers don't do them unless they know the people in the class.  Still, when they're there, I don't want to.

I've been pretty lucky that most of the time I can walk into a class, throw down my mat and, at some point, find at least a few moments of real blankness.  Acupuncture was better.  As soon as I was all pinned up, I could find an almost unconscious state of nothingness.  Yoga is also good, though.  Except not lately.  All I want is a nice meditative class.  It doesn't have to be easy, but I'd like it if every class wasn't a minor emotional breakdown.  Lately it's a fight.  I'm getting tired.  I guess that's the point, though, right?  I can only fight for so long before I get tired, give up, find my ease, and move on.

Catharsis is such a pain in the ass sometimes.