I came home from the airport last night after five days in Los Angeles. It rained all the way home, as I dozed in the back of the cab all the way from Oakland. When we pulled onto my street, it was clear there was a power outage; my entire block was completely dark including the interior of my flat, which always has the twenty bulbed tips of an industrial-looking retro-sixties Sputnik chandelier burning twenty quiet amber glows in the center of the living room. I paid my fift

God, life is way too short. I find myself going through cycles, regarding how much I "get done" versus how much I "play", and I'm constantly analyzing the use of my time. I used to think procrastination was my enemy; and thinking like that made me feel like I let a lot of time slip through my fingers, not doing the things I thought I should be doing. I'm starting to think more like: What I think is procrastination isn't that at all - I'm doing plenty of stuff, it's just not t

So you may have detected my love for architecture, antiquity in particular. Why ancient things, foreign places? It's not the surprise of the unknown which elicits awe; it's the discovery of a jewel just as it was left: ancient, perfect, immesurably perfect. In the darkness split with laughter we stumble, holding hands, down narrow passages and unexpectedly spill into an open piazza. Dizzy, drunk on excellent chianti, struggling to comprehend the ancient structure hulking abov

Boy, do I love fast things. I have a big love affair with those monstrous, powerful American cars of the late '60's and early '70's -- the Barracuda, the GTO, the Camaro and Corvette, the Nova and Malibu; the Mustang Mach I and Shelby. Similarly, I adore a good rollercoaster and also pounding at a full gallop on whatever horse I can get my hands on. I really want to learn to fly a helicopter, maybe airplanes too, though they seem little scarier. I understand helicopters are a

Here's a question: Is there any danger that keeping my magnetic, magic door-opening Schwab card in my pocket might render me sterile? That would be *cool*. It's like being in school again: gotta have a hall pass. So, the woman who asked about my lower-back tattoo, whom I described as a "TV mom", turned out to be the president of the agency... funny huh? It's so nice not knowing who anyone is; you don't act funny around them as a result. Actually I got called into my boss's of

It's kind of surprising that I took so readily to scuba diving. You know, given my historical fear of water-filled things. Not like bathtubs or fishtanks; in fact, when we were kids, my brother and I used to take fishtanks into the shower with us as toys. Anyway - I was afraid of open toilet tanks, pools and jacuzzis with no water in them, and particularly the drain at the deep end. I recall diving under the deep end to retrieve a sunken plaything, the pressure of more than o

A good friend of mine has had her heart broken now about three times too many. It pains me to see her hurt, reeling from feelings of injustice and deception and a pendulous sense of failure. I can't help remembering my own heartbreaks, and how I dealt with them. My friend tends to reach out to her pals for support, honest discussion, and distraction. My tendency is to recoil from everything and everyone, and spiral into some strange schedule of physical or psychological ritua

O joyous reunion! Finally I've spent ten days with Ash after nearly six desperate weeks without him. I felt such despair when I thought of him, missed him so acutely that I began to substitute anger for the sadness. It was getting ugly. So I went to England. Spent most of the days wandering around Cambridge, where Ash is working, as I did last time. I didn't think Cambridge could possibly have more than two weeks' worth of activities to offer the visitor, and I spent that muc

This girl Ashley knew in England was a gymnast. He and his friends call her "Bendy Wendy". Very cute. I can only imagine the sexual implications of a gymnast's flexibility. Does any of that stuff come in handy during sex, or is it all a myth? I've been able to do the splits since I was 7 or 8, and I excel at cartwheels; I can still do a pretty good backbend. But I can't put my feet behind my head or anything. I wouldn't call myself "bendy". Guys like that sort of thing, don't

Going diving in Monterey this Saturday with a few friends. I hear Monterey is Great White territory. Cool. I've been down there, in a number of countries, with sharks of many varieties: black tips, white tips, whale sharks, dogfish, rays... but my very, very favorite was a creepy, unforgettable encounter in Mexico with... a hammerhead. It's dark and cold and alien as you descend beyond 70 feet into the bottomless watery midnight. When the bottom is too far down to be seen, it