Physical Flaws

Where it’s at

I have a job! The dream is still alive! It’s $15 an hour, which is paltry by L.A. standards, but it’s regular income.

These past two, three years, all my posts have been about the struggle, what I think I need to do to stay productive and make something happen life-wise. Now I can move forward!

New life goals:

Learn Spanish.

Learn to roller-skate.

Learn Python.

Learn calculus.

Learn to play the…

In which she could have been my first

Once I was in love with Margo, and maybe once she was in love with me too. We were goofy together in high school, making excuses to spend time around each other, and then we’d spend the time trying to show off how smart we were. We’d flirt, too, but it never got anywhere. I had no idea how to take it anywhere, and I had nice-guy syndrome, waiting for her to make the first move.

There are…

It’s only heat

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We never used air conditioning growing up. At home we never even had it, and I don’t remember summer reaching the point of unbearable, except for one heat wave a year in August of course, which we’d spend lying around in front of the fan. Our parents didn’t even use it in the car. I remember riding around with my dad, the windows all the way down and classic rock…

The other girl on the train

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The girl on the other side of thaisle has a black sleeveless jumper and cute silver slip-ons. She’s in her iPhone looking like she’s trying to mind her own business. I like her tortoiseshell glasses, her freckles, and her high cherub cheeks.

The girl on the train

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The girl of my dreams is sitting two seats ahead of me on the metro heading down, I saw the muscles tense up in her sugary brown arm as she clutched the pole to steady herself and the second before she sat down I eyeballed her profile, the white tshirt long black hair khaki shorts and I knew she was the one for me.

I met the girl of my dreams in January at Corey Helford Gallery.

Have you seen her?

I was at the Hikara Shimoda show and loving it. This girl walked by rocking a jacket, matching shorts, and a hat and boots that were killing it and she noticed I was taking photos. I asked her if she’d pose for me real quick and she did, and I snapped that. I got her name, but not her number and no way to contact…

Tomorrow’s Monday and I’ve got to be on point. I need to assign my work to blocks of time and I need to go at it for real, and worry only about completion. Here’s what’s on:

Finish the fiction prompt. I’ve got a plan in yWriter and I’ve just got to spend a couple of hours filling it out.

Apply for those jobs in Todoist. Completely, with proper cover letters and all.

I need to do three blog posts…

I feel this is an important aspect of identity. We all collect something, or somethings. Carrie Bradshaw with her Manolos. Amanda with her clothes, her books, her memes. Jimbo with his counterculture toys. My mom with her DVDs. We notice these things when we see them places. We long to possess them. We visualize them in our habitats. We obtain, we acquire them. We sacrifice to obtain and acquire…

Things I do to procrastinate while I’m in front of the computer

Trim my beard.

Play Diablo 3.

Eat. Chips, mostly. Also, fruit.

Look at porn.

Install things on my computer.

Fiddle with settings on my computer.

Check vox.com.

What’s going on in the hoods

There are 98 neighborhood councils. Ninety-eight! There’s no way to keep track of all of those. Mine, I think, is the West Adams Neighborhood Council (WANC? How unfortunate).

WANC meets the third Monday of every month. It has an annual budget of $42K(where does that cash come from?). It consists of 11 board members and two vacant board seats, with five executive officers and Steven Meeks as the…

What to do with myself

I had a little free time on my day off. I ran some errands and then when I got home, I froze. I just couldn’t decide exactly what to do — apply for a job, get involved with this shady Verizon thing, reach deep into the network and see what I can do for people. I’m thinking of Patty, and of Stephania.

Time’s up, have to dash off into the rest of the evening….

Los Angeles has 45 city departments. Forty-five! There are some that are rather more high-profile, such as Water & Power, Parks & Rec, Fire, and Police. Then there’s the Coliseum Department, and the Department of Aging (where my mom worked, for years), and Project Restore, whatever that is.

The big question on my mind was which departments are the most important? Who does the most stuff? Who…

The first step: a little on the L.A. City Council

I like to say I’m interested in politics. I have been thinking about that Vox article from a while back, the one that said that increasingly we’re only aware of national issues at the expense of the local. I have no idea what’s up with my local government; the city and its departments, the county and its departments, and all the other municipalities that add up to Los Angeles. There was an…

I never knew them

I know nothing about this city. I never did know anything about this city. I spent my youth at daycamps, at parks, and occasionally at the beach. I played baseball, dodgeball, handball, and tag with my brother or some cousins. I went to Disneyland, Magic Mountain, Knott’s Berry Farm. I hung out at malls and played arcade games. I used to go to chain record stores in Hollywood, buying overpriced…

Once again, high hopes dashed by the daily grind. I’ve been working and working and working, taking on a bigger route (and failing!). I come home physically exhausted, with barely anything left for any other parts of life. I had an interview last week that apparently didn’t pan out, and I sent out about a dozen resumes and cover letters.

What I’d like to do is just work part time and spend the…

The world needs her

That one post was really just an excuse to post pics of Randa Jarrar. Just so, this one is really just an excuse to post pics of Michelle Wolf.

Michelle Wolf is a Daily Show correspondent who was invited to roast the room at the White House Correspondents’ dinner. After she did exactly that, public figures emerged to condemn Wolf for crossing a line (just as they did with Randa Jarrar last week).