Spread the Love.

So I don't get out much without my dog, until she is better. So today walking in front of my house, Nola in her shirt sniffing around, a man appears wearing plastic gloves and glasses that could not be penetrated. I think he was going through peoples' trash. He asked me, of course, why Nola was wearing a shirt, again I gave the whole story. Then he told me that Earth was in a sorry state, and without people that did these small good deeds the world would have ended. I agreed with him. I told him about a guy who stabbed his dog 7 times for no reason. His girlfriend luckily discovered the dog, took it for medical care and the dog ended up surviving and getting adopted by a nice family. The asshole that stabbed the dog got jail time for animal cruelty. I told him it was sad how many mean, idiotic people there are, they should all be cast off onto an island to destroy each other. After I said that, he came a little closer and talked in a hushed tone. He said he knew a better way, he told me that somewhere in South America, and also apparently Pennsylvania, people are getting rid of their rivals. They use huge pots filled with solvents, and put their rivals in alive until they are dissolved by the solvent. Only their bones remaining. 

Out of my own sick curiosity I decided to research whether or not it was true. He was a strange character but I believed him for some reason. I did find a man in Mexico that was arrested in January, he admitted to dissolving 300 people in acid. Crazy fucking people in this world! All of this makes me want to do so many good things, like sing at an old folks home, pick trash from the beach (which I do already), give soup to the homeless.

But I ended up making a charm bracelet out of all my broken jewelry pieces. And that adds some goodness and cheer to me!!!!!

But let's all open doors for others, not get so pissed we missed the traffic light, smile at strangers, buy that homeless man a sandwich or give him your leftovers, if you see someone struggling help them out, but don't ever get too close to a stranger with a car they might abduct you and you might end up dissolved in a vat of acid...

I'll be Ripe with a Pipe.

So I walked by a group of old people boarding a bus. The old men smiling, one of them tells me it's a great day. Another wants to pet my dog, Nola, and ask me detailed questions about her life. She did just have surgery and has to wear a shirt and e-collar. About another five old men stand in a half circle listening and staring at me grinning with their arms folded. I explain that she had a fractured shoulder and a cancerous growth removed. One old man tells me he has had those same surgeries, and he healed well and so will Nola. He proceeded to show me how mobile his arm still is by making small rotations in the air. Nola gave him kisses. But not one old woman said anything, some scowled in our direction, but would avoid all eye contact. I tried to smile at them. The men were so jovial, and snazzy in their loafers and funky thick glasses. The women were all shriveled up, they all had that same white cotton swab hair do. Every last one of them had on a cardigan even though it's a hundred degrees out. You either age or you ripen. When I am old I will never cut my hair like that. I will wear sundresses, and smile at everyone. I will pet dogs and ask people questions. I want to be like an old man. I will be chipper and stylish in my most favorite hats and scarves with dark painted fingernails, smoking from an old pipe.

Unintelligible Truth.

"On the surface an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth." It's a quote from The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I finished reading it today and I cannot get it from my thoughts. So often we think we know what is going on with another person,  but we really have no idea what happens in their minds.

You never know anything, except youself.

It makes life that much for exciting and that much more scary. We don't know who or what is coming and we don't know when and where it is coming...Who to trust? Who to love? Whose advice do I listen to? Did they really know what I meant? Did that come off the right way? But I will never know. To the rest of the world I am an intelligible lie. I am an unintelligible truth. We are all unintelligible truths.

Come Black.

 It's almost time for summer to come to an end. Of course, living in Southern California all my life, this doesn't mean much. But I am excited to put on my boots, scarves and jackets. It's time to start the transformation to my "other" side, even though for weeks now I have only been wearing my black sandals. Bright prints say your goodbyes. Black dominates in all areas of my cooler wardrobe.

My affection for all things black began in the sixth grade. I was fond of my striped knee highs and my colorful assortment of Converse, and then one lunch period I met black lipstick. It was love at first site. The next year I was reading Poe. In high school I had my first serious boyfriend, we ate too many Italian dinners and watched too many movies. I soon discovered the flattering qualities of black, it started to take over my wardrobe one shade at a time. Gradually color started to creep back in, I slimmed down, but my love for black never did.

Hoard of Culture.

L.A. is like a giant collage of all times and all countries lined up like aisles in the supermarket. A hodgepodge of culture to sift through. You can find anything here, a Coca-Cola dispensing robot machine to vintage 1920's Italian handmade leather boots. A city where it's Halloween all year around. You can dress however you'd like and nobody will bat an eye(I once saw Superman paying his parking meter). Days of shiny, dark, over-sized sunglasses and nights full of sirens and helicopters. A city where you have to ask people's genders and sexuality's continuum is an infinity sign. Yes the guy serving your coffee was in an episode of "Will & Grace", and yes, he is bulemic. Dogs are treated like children and the children are left with the nanny...and yes it seems even the street signs here have alter-egos...

My Stranger Therapist.

I saw a hitchhiker along Santa Monica Blvd and I really wanted to pick him up. Maybe if I was a man I would have done it. Pick up a stranger, drive to anywhere...I wonder what the conversation would bring. I think I could really talk to this hitchhiker, we wouldn't have to see each other afterward, I could say anything I wanted and it wouldn't matter. He could be my stranger therapist. I could tell him about all of the people in my life in pure honesty, without worrying about hurting anyone's feelings, or if so-in-so is going to tell so-in-so what I said...Maybe I should have an actual therapist, but a hitchhiker is so much more exciting. My stories would be with him, they would travel too. Maybe he would tell someone about them, maybe they would be his secrets. If only I had the guts to actually pick him up, but the gut says No, I'm going to end up in pieces in the freezer...