Fast Fiction

For those of you not currently in the know, 1.4 pounds of “junk” was removed from my abdomen two weeks ago. Weren’t we all surprised that it was that much? Makes me sorry that we didn’t have a pool going on how much it would weigh or how many tumors there would be.

For the record, there were twelve uterine fibroid tumors and one polyp. (Yes, the polyp would have been a tiebreaker.) The entire mass with the uterus weighed 630 grams and the largest tumor was the size of a Japanese eggplant (seven or eight inches long and three or four around). A normal uterus weighs 60-80 grams. Here’s a short list compiled with the help of Google of things that weigh approximately 630 grams.

A pregnant hedgehog
All of a bald eagle’s feathers
A pair of Vittoria Bike Shoes
A Video Camera
A Red Billed Whistling Duck
The Question of God by Heinz Zahrnt in hardback
A Lafuma Daypack
A twin sized down comforter

For those of you not metrically inclined, 630 grams is about 22.25 ounces (1.4 pounds).

LA Blogs has their LA Insight questions for the week (eight is always enough). This time it’s about geography.

1. What city or part of Los Angeles do you live in now?

Silverlake. Yes, I prefer to spell it as one word.

2. If you have lived somewhere else in the area, where was it?

We used to live across the hill, but still in Silverlake. Here for six years, there for four and for eighteen months in Sherman Oaks on Moorpark.

3. Besides where you live now, where else would you want to live in the area?

I really like where I live and don’t want to live anywhere else in the area.

4. Where would you not want to live?

I don’t think I’d like Santa Clarita on account of it being so hot and so far away from stuff. I’m not sure if I could live in the flats anymore. Any flats - I think I would feel exposed and claustrophobic (yes, I can have both those feelings at once).

5. How often do you venture out of your area?

All the time. I work in Hollywood. We go out to eat downtown a couple of times a month. We go to Orange County to visit relatives twice a month. Sometimes out hiking (when I’m feeling better we’ll do that again). Pasadena sometimes once a week. Burbank, Glendale, Los Feliz, Century City, Sherman Oaks, Beverly Hills for shopping. I’m lucky though, all my friends seem to be moving closer to me!

6. Where do you usually go when you get out?

Mostly down to Sunset and I really prefer walking if I can since it means everyone can drink! We usually stick to Silverlake and Eagle Rock for restaurants. But sometimes downtown.

7. How far do you work/school from where you live?

Exactly four miles. I’d like to start walking it again. I used to do that once or twice a week.

8. Money is no object; Beach, the Hills, the City or Leave?

If money were truly no object, the Beach. But if I still had to commute, I guess it’d be the Hills with a killer view and a pool.

I’m on an email list called WIST (Wish I Said That).

Today’s quote was about religion. But I reckon it’d work pretty well for homosexuality, too.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
  —Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

So I woke this morning and remembered my dream.

I thought I’d recount it for you.

I was leaving work and instead of carrying my large shoulderbag, I was carrying just my wallet and iPod. There were a few other people in front of me, including the dreadlocked fellow who works as our messenger, and he docked his iPod to a little spot next to the place where they scan our ID cards and then the guard fellow waved him on and he undocked and left.

The guard then directed me to dock my iPod, which I had a little trouble doing. (The connector was like the one for the remote and earphones, not the long one that you usually use for the docking/synching thing - but hey, it’s dreamworld.) Once it was on there it threw up an alert and I was told that they’d have to scan my iPod as it held questionable files.

Okay.

They called a tech guy, who came down, but took about twenty minutes to get there. Meanwhile the sun is going down and it’s getting late and the guards have changed shift and are getting ready to go for the day. So the tech guy gets there and he’s probably 22 years old and could have ridden a skateboard there. He take the iPod and docks it to his little laptop and shakes his head and says, “yeah, there are questionable files on here.”

I explained that there were non-mp3 files. That I was using the iPod for additional storage and if he simply opened one of those jpgs he’d find that they were all pictures of me. 7 gigs of pictures of me.

They said they were going to have to scan the entire iPod to verify that nothing of Paramount’s was on there. I rolled my eyes and said I’d wait. They said it could take all night. I wanted a receipt if they were going to hold my iPod.

Anyway, that was the dream. Not a bad dream. I wasn’t frustrated or anything, it was just another hassle.

When I woke up I realized that what they were searching for were non-MP3 files and when they found JPGs on there, that’s what threw up the red flag. I also figured if this happened in my dreamworld again, I should just temporarily change the file extensions for my JPGs to MP3 and they’d be none the wiser.

I’m not sure why I’m trying to solve my dream problems in my waking life. I think I should be solving my waking problems in my dreams.

I’d like to count myself among the first people to recommend you go out and buy this book when it comes out next month: No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty.

There is a rumor going around that I’m quoted in this book and I’d like to believe it’s true. (Okay, yeah, it’s true and I think I get mentioned in the acknowledgements as well. Or I hope I do. Not that it matters to me. I enjoy the whole process of writing bad novels quickly and enjoy talking about it even more.)

Though that’s not why I’m asking you to buy it. Well, actually, don’t buy it if you know me well enough, I’ll probably give it to you for Christmas. Aw, crap, I just spoiled the surprise, didn’t I?

LABlogs.com is doing a thing: LA Insight.

Here are my answers. Who know’s if I’ll keep up the weekly pace. (You know how I am lately.)

1. Where is the last place you ate out?

Rambutan Thai the night before I went into the hospital.

2. How often do you eat out?

Out? Probably once a week. Order from some of the same places that I go to? Sometimes twice.

3. Where is the place you eat most?

We order a lot from Rambutan, and go there just about as often. Cirxa on Sunset. Cafe Beaujolais in Eagle Rock. For special occasions we go to Edendale Grill or Blair’s.

4. Where do you tell your friends that they “have to try”?

I like Rambutan. It depends on what they’re in the mood for. Quick bite: Senor Fish. Decent meal: Rambutan. Long lingering meal with friends: Cafe Beaujolais. Special: Edendale.

5. What dish do they have to order when they get there?

Ba Mee at Rambutan. Start with the Thai rolls. Drink a Soju Praying Mantis hold the marachino cherry.

6. Where do you eat when money is not a concern?

Edendale.

7. Where do you eat when money is tight?

Leela Thai for lunch. (Cash only.)

8. What restaurant have you wanted to try but haven’t been to yet?

Gingergrass over on Glendale Blvd.

I saw this article this evening.

It’s about a study that shows a statistical link between birth month and likelihood of brain cancer. And then it goes on to state that left-handedness and ambidextrous people are also at higher risk. Those born in the winter have the highest risk.

Great.

LA Blogs just posted LA Insight. Maybe I’ll give this a try. I’m not even sure if you’re interested in these things, but hey, maybe asking questions will get me blogging again.

1. How long have you lived in Los Angeles?

Twelve years as of July 29.

2. Were you born here?

No. Pennsylvania.

3. How long did you plan on staying here originally?

I’m not sure what my plans were. But I believe it involved my entire adult life.

4. How long do you plan on staying here now?

Pretty much the same. Unless we get the comma. The Man and I have a joke. That if the value of our house goes up so dramatically that we actually gain another digit on the price of our house, we might just cash out.

5. What keeps you here?

I like the climate. I like the people. I like my house, my neighborhood. My job. The Man’s job. It used to be pretty affordable for a large city, not so much anymore. We just redid the kitchen (gotta stick around and enjoy that!).

6. What makes you want to leave?

How housing prices have skyrocketed. The air pollution.

7. What is your biggest suprise about living here?

How much nature there is around. I guess when I was coming out here (sight unseen for the most part), I just thought it’d be more urban. I didn’t expect coyotes, lizards, the profusion of birds and wonderful plantlife. The accessibility of natural recreation areas is a huge plus.

8. What is your biggest disappointment about living here?

I few disappointments about the city itself. Sometimes I’m disappointed by the intolerance of people, but I consider LA a much more liberal city than some that I’ve lived in.

I didn’t actually do any blogging in July. But when I looked at my archives list on October 6, 2004, I noticed that there was no archive for July 2004. I just couldn’t have a hole like that.

So this post isn’t real. I didn’t make it in July 2004. I made it in October 2004 and dated it for July.

My apologies for the deception. Or the appearance of deception, as the case may be.

I know everyone’s offering them, but I’ve got them, too.

I have two Gmail invites at the moment and I’m happy to share if someone wants them. Just pop me a note on any of the known methods of getting a hold of me (email or comment).

As a reaction to Gmail, SBC’s Yahoo email that I use most has upped their pitiful 10 megs to 100 megs without me so much as asking. And they removed the annoying animated banner ads. I appreciate that. Because I am, after all, actually paying for the SBC service and deserve that little perk.

I have trouble with Gmail, mostly because I have to check it. I have a great little client on my computers called eprompter that tells me when any of my email addresses gets a new message. And I can actually preview the message as text, too. Gmail doesn’t let me do that. So I’ve been hesitant to use it.

And I like my SBC, actually. It’s functional. Which is all I really wanted anyway. So, that’s where I’ll stay for the moment.

I never truly abandon any email address anyway. I still use my AOL address from time to time, even though we left AOL five years ago. Call me old fashioned, but you never forget your first email account.

I feel like I’ve let you down. I was posting so vigorously there for a while and now it’s been almost ten days. And the thing I left you with, well, some of you aren’t so happy with the roach.

The things I have to blog about are not things I’d put in my blog, so things will be sporadic here for a while. I may get inspired and inventive and want to keep in touch. Or not.

It’s nothing personal, of course.

In the mean time, I don’t think I’m going to give up on the photos, so if you want a little Cybele goodness, just pop on buzznet and you can at least see what’s in my back yard at any given moment or maybe on my drive home.

I won’t say where I found this fellow (not in my house!) but those of you who know me well will know where he came from.

Though I’m not the type to take photos at the site of an accident, I did huge photo shoot with this guy and used the “burst” mode on my camera where it takes three shots in quick sequence.

Once I saw those, I just had to make them into an animation.

Because I like to learn new things.

Okay, I really should be using these skills for good, not evil.

Every once in a while I get a song in your head. It’s been happening to me a lot.

And last night when a few folks were over and the topic was pretty much TV, it’s easy to get TV main title theme songs stuck in your head. Right now I’m having trouble with the theme to Night Rider. I have no idea how it got in there, but there it is. Lodged next to the damn Fanta song.

Thanks to Nathaniel I found this link to a great site that has gobs of ‘80s main titles themes in all their video and audio glory.

Great, now I can get Airwolf stuck in there, too.

I saw this link on 20/20 Hindsight and wanted to make sure everyone go to see it.

It’s a photo of the sunrise in Manhattan looking down one of the streets towards the east and it lines up perfectly.

See, as it’s explained at the site Astronomy Picture of the Day, Manhattan streets are not perfectly aligned to east/west and north/south, so the regular equinoxes don’t line up there. But on May 28 and July 12, they do and you can catch it coming and going (sunrise and sunset).

The photo there was taken in 2001, but stunning nonetheless.

I got this advice second hand from the coffee guy who was on the Paramount lot for the week doing the premium coffees for LA Screenings. (As we would have to explain to our clients - we offer plain old brewed American style coffee and his European style coffees.)

He also works his little coffee stand on movie sets and other big Hollywood parties and gets to know a lot of folks.

Turns out he was talking to one of those big young, up-and-coming action stars about how too much caffeine can give you the shakes. He had a great cure for that. He’d noticed when he was in auditions and was a little amped either because he was nervous or had too much coffee, if he wiggled his toes, his hands wouldn’t shake.