The City that Care Forgot: New Orleans, Mon Amour

The General who saved New Orleans visited our office today. (I work in the entertainment industry, and we represent him.) New Orleans is one of those visceral cities for me. I went to college there and have very rich, sensory memories of it that will stay with me forever. I often wonder what more I could be doing to help the slow-going recovery. It's strange how little we hear about New Orleans and the Katrina-affected areas these days. As they say, it is "the city that care forgot."

It's still like losing a friend. I miss it.

Courage

Tonight in Zumba class, there was a guy. Yeah, a man was taking my dance class. Now, besides Diego, our instructor, I have only ever seen two guys in class. One is obviously gay, and one is obviously black. And they are regulars, too.

This was a white, perhaps straight (if dance skills are an indicator) MALE. He had a look of sheer panic moments before class started. He was looking around, for another man, any other man, but it was wall-to-wall girls.

We started our warm-up, and I had a flash forward of what the next 59 minutes would be like for him. We women forget that early dance classes (ballet and tap, even a little African in 3rd grade, for me) and a lifetime of Jazzercise and step aerobics have trained us in the basic moves and the ability to follow along. Add to that, being more relational, we are generally more aware of other people within our space, a quality that adds to our dance skills.

So, my friend in the row behind me, the male, performed about how I expected he would, and I commend him for staying for the entire class, despite how his every move violated all of the rules of dance classes. I was actually impressed with his ability to be so off the mark. I found myself smiling to myself a lot.

The sandpiper in the image above embodies the reality of stepping into something bigger than you (here, the ocean) and then having it nearly envelop you lest you run, and then having the courage to wander back towards it. I watched this little bird as I was enjoying the scenery near Capitola Wharf.

This guy, should he return to the class, which he might, is like the sandpiper.

Some days I feel like the sandpiper.

Metro Ride Read: The World is Flat

I've been engrossing myself on my daily Metro rides in Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat (Version 3.0). He describes all of the confluences in technology and communication and exchange that are flattening business and society, giving the individual access to information and the ability to empower his/herself like never before. (He does recognize that there are plenty of people who still live in unflat circumstances, however.)

Anyway, around page 516, he articulates some of the very tensions that concern me as someone who bridges the analog and digital ages.

He recounts when he arrived to an airport in Paris and was met by his driver. His driver was talking on his bluetooth, watching a film on a monitor in his dashboard, and driving. Friedman was listening to his iPod, typing an article on his laptop, and riding in the back of the cab.

....Technology can make the far feel very near. But it can also make the near feel very far.
For all I know, the driver was talking to his parents somewhere in Africa. How wonderful! But that meant that the two of us wouldn't talk at all. And we were sitting two feet away from each other. When I shared this story with Linda Stone, the technologist who labeled the disease of the Internet age "continuous partial attention"---two people do six things, devoting only partial attention to each one---..."We're so accessible, we're inaccessible. We can't find the off switch on our devices or on ourselves.... we are everywhere---except where we actually are physically."

Friedman points to a number of social downsides to this "continuous partial attention."

That we have entered an "Age of Interruption" where all we ever do is interrupt each other through our I/Ms, e-mails and cell phone calls, or that our concentration is broken when someone else's cell phone rings. That connectivity equals productivity, but does it result in creativity. Will civilization decline because of attention deficit disorder?

That we crave the completely unplugged experience. Perhaps one day there will be hotels that promise rooms WITHOUT Internet service.

That we may not be better off having millions of unedited, unfiltered, uncensored bloggers creating and uploading information that isn't fact-checked.

That the language is becoming corrupt. That people have too little time to spend writing properly. That no one ever wrote a great book with his thumbs. That I/M short hand is now creeping into the essays of high school and college students.

Drinks with Girlfriends

I was spoiled this last weekend. I had drinks (see above) with my friend Nanci on Friday night, and lunch with my friend Jessica on Sunday. Hanging out with girlfriends and being able to say whatever the Hell you want and feel like you have someone whose experience of the world is sympatico with yours is precious. We all know the feeling (and may encounter it daily) of wishing we could meet a friend for coffee and spend an hour or two just processing life together. I have great friends living all over the U.S. and abroad and so wish I could go have coffee with each and everyone of them right this second. But since I can't, I'm writing this blog instead.

Let's toast to drinks with girlfriends.

And in the spirit of grrrls, check out the Tina Fey "grrrl power" plug for Hillary! Thanks, Whitney for sharing.

Shut In and Shut Out: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Savages

I'm over the fact that my two fave films of the year: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Savages fell short of winning a little gold statue last night. Apparently, the French-language TDBATB ran a PR campaign to NOT be nominated for the Foreign Language film honors and Laura Linney (Wendy Savage in The Savages) and her sweet smile got so much coverage last night that I feel she got honored nonetheless. In any case, I wanted to make sure that you saw snippets of these both fascinatingly sweet films dealing with bittersweet subjects.

My Shoulders: Massage, Yoga, and Cleansing

I have a complicated relationship with my shoulders. I like that I have strong, broad shoulders. Following in my father's flutterkick, I was a competitive swimmer during high school. I barely use my legs, I extended my reach and pulled volumes of water, building enviable muscle mass. I loved when we did laps with a pull-buoy, and I could really go to town.

When I was in fifth grade, my school gave us scoliosis tests, prompted by a popular Judy Blume book called Deenie. Even then, while I didn't have scoliosis, the nurse warned me to wear my blue, Velo backpack on both shoulders, not slung over just one (the cooool way to wear it). That day I became aware of my shoulders for the first time in my life, always trying to pull them back and stand up straight, and that awareness has never left me.

In November 2004, while I was uninsured, I also damaged my left rotator cuff while snowboarding. I've never gone to physical therapy.

A number of things have come up this week to make this subject blog-worthy:

Now that I walk everywhere, I think about my shoulders a lot. Correction: now that I schlep my life around DC with me, I think about my veritable packhorse existence. One of my recent obsessions is finding the perfectly fashionable, yet ergonomic backpack. I bought a $300 green leather backpack from the Village Tannery in NYC, but returned it in a rushed taxi ride to Penn Station because I realized 1) that it didn't fit my stuff and 2) that it wasn't all that comfortable (defeats the purpose, right?) My ideal backpack would double as a small fashionable vest, a massage therapist, and a storage locker. Needless to say, my search continues...

Last night, being indulgent Friday, I got the most intense hour-long deep tissue massage just on my shoulders, performed by Michael at Natural Body Spa in Arlington. It was deeply intense and at times, I was so relaxed (although in some pain) I almost forgot to breathe.

Wednesday before class, my yoga instructor Corrie (who reminds me a lot of my yoga instructor Suzanne back in SLC) was telling me about her current detoxing cleanse: lemonade, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. (FYI, this is the same cleanse that Beyonce did prior to filming Dreamgirls.) She said that after feeling a bit sluggish, she was feeling really energetic and that she could move in ways that she couldn't before.So, on my lifelong quest for supple, flexible, pain-free shoulders, which includes weekly yoga, and semi-regular massages, I'm considering my first fast---not only for my shoulders, but also for my general health and energy level---most probably over the weekend that my food-loving boyfriend is in California. Does anyone have any advice?

Change You Can't Believe In

By Gabor Steingart in Washington from Der Spiegel, Germany's leading newspaper

The rise of democratic frontrunner Barack Obama signifies an alarming victory of style over substance. Not unlike the dot-com hype, his campaign promises more than he can deliver. The one thing his voters can count on is that they will ultimately be disappointed.

He can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk? Read the entire story online.

FYI, it's still not too late to show your support for Hillary with the superdelegates. This is a much tighter race than we are being led to believe by Obama's campaign and by the media. Click here to learn more.

I don't want to jinx Hillary by saying it, but if Obama gets the nomination, I will have to seriously consider voting for John McCain. Why is no one talking about the mass number of "Democrats" (technically, I'm an independent who votes Democratic) who will abandon the Democratic Party if not given a qualified candidate?

One Day You're In.... The Next Day You're Out!

Spoiler Notice: Don't tell me what happened on Project Runway this week! I watch it a few days after it airs!

On this Wednesday evening, I hope you have had the pleasure of getting as addicted as I am to Project Runway. Thank goodness it plays opposite So You Think You Can Dance? season, or I would never leave my house. Last week, my favorite contestant (although not my favorite designer) Sweet Pea was told "auf wiedersehn" by Miss Heidi Klum. FYI, I'm rooting for Jillian at Bryant Park.

On my trip to NYC this last weekend, I did not get my money shot of Parsons School of Design, where PR takes place, and many other creative things have happened long before the inception of reality television, so I borrowed this photo.

The other great thing about shows like this is that there are games that you can play online. I became a designer in the "fashion fastlane" at www.bravotv.com. You can view my outfit. I'm still waiting for Tim Gunn's insights before taking it to the runway.....

No suprise that I love Project Runway since one of my favorite toys as a kid was....


Make it work!

Stop/Go: What Does It All Mean?

Last Saturday night while walking around the East Village in search of a meal, Wood and I and my good friend Moya and her boyfriend Evan were presented with this street signal:

Reflecting on this now, the existentialist message seems very clear, or very not clear depending how you look at it.

It reminded me of the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. In this book which you should read, if you're so inclined, Christopher John Francis Boone, the protagonist and narrator, who is an autistic kid, detests the color yellow, doesn't understand human emotions, knows every prime number up to 7,057, and thinks that if he sees 5 red cars in a row it makes it a super good day.

Somehow, I think he would have a very distinct reaction to this sign. Stop/Go.

Back Home: NY 2 DC

Back in DC from NY.... I do *heart* NYC and how different it is from DC. And Wood is tired of hearing it. (God bless him.) I also thank him for humoring me by being my guest at the Joyce Theater, the place to see modern dance. I took him to Ronald K. Brown/Evidence dance company. While the dance is even more interesting with music, I only could find this one clip on You Tube from Summerstage. It gave me the craving to do African dance again.

More on our trip shortly.

On the Road: DC 2 NY

I apologize for the lack of photographic description here. And hope my words suffice.

I took the blog on the road this weekend. Wood and I took DC 2 NY: a very nice $40 round trip bus from Washington to New York City. As a newbie to the drive, I was happy to find that yes, they do play Bruce Springsteen at the rest stops along the New Jersey Turnpike. From New Jersey we caught a glimmer of two skylines blending against eachother: Newark and New York.

As we debused near Penn Station and took our roller bags down 34th Street toward The Marcel (24th @ 3rd Ave.), the harried rushing-to-get-ready-for-our-trip gave way to the realization that we had arrived in the city of tall, tall buildings, the city that never sleeps, the city of dreams. The sun shined on us, warming us on a cold winter day in mid-February, blessing us with the sense that anything is possible, the world is our oyster... but that is just the effect that New York has.

We arrive at our hotel, the very hipster The Marcel. (Right now I am enjoying the complimentary wine and cheese hour and the free Internet). Room 911. Certainly you understand the significance of this only a few miles from ground zero. Not that it could ever be an ordinary weekend in New York, but now we have the spectre of something quite unusual hanging over us. By the way, the rooms are very 21st century: flat-screened, iPoded and retromodernized up the yin-yan. Me-likey. (Even the free Internet defaulted to French. Tres chic!)

After 7am oatmeal and mid-day box of granola bars, the afternoon was dedicated to getting food. Our first meal was a bit of a waste, but since our needs were so basic, perhaps this is why it presented itself as mediocre. (Chat and Chew near Union Square.) Fortunately, the company and ambiance was interesting enough.

Stay tuned.

Welcome to the Future

Tonight Wood and his friend James and I went to see U23D. As you can see from the glasses, this was one hipster affair. (James said that Wood looks very German. And I'm trying to look serious as well, but as you can see, that just doesn't work on my face, and my expression ends up being a smirk more than anything else besides the fact that I am wearing glasses over glasses.) Anyway, it was reasonably cool in a gimmicky kind of way, as are most IMAX experiences.

But I have to ask, is this what our concert experiences will be in the future? I'm a purist when it comes to live music and make it a habit to never go to arena shows as they are not immediate enough for my taste. Give me a club show any day with a spot close enough to the stage that I can see the sweat on the drummer's brow. I also need to be able to cheer 'em on. (Wood and I represented by waiving our "devil's horn" hand signals, and by hooting and hollering, but quickly found by the lack of enthusiasm of our fellow audience members that this wasn't going to be the behaviour du jour.) So I'm stumped that now our heavily mediated arena shows are being made into media that makes these highly orchestrated events feel "more real." Strange.

In The Mood

Resident romantic Romeo wishes everybody a Happy Valentine's Day!
(Notice he's wearing his heart collar.)
Purrrrrrrr.

Catching My Breath

Wednesday is my night to go to yoga, that important respite from schedules and expectations, where I can simply breathe. The irony is that it requires that I stay late at the gym and then am rushed when class gets out at 9pm to get the 9:08 bus. (The #42 Mount Pleasant line.) To add insult to restoration, tonight I stepped out from the gym into wind chills in the 20s eventhough I wore a raincoat to work today. But you already heard about the weather in yesterday's blog.

Then I snip at my boyfriend, don't eat a healthy dinner and feel stress trying to devise some clever topic for my blog. Get the irony yet? Usually, I'm pretty good about maintaining my yogic mentality, but not today.

Ice Ice Baby

After both of us creeped home on slippery sidewalks, my neighbor commented that "you must be used to this, having lived in Utah."

"No, not at all!" I explained. Give me three feet of snow anytime.

I relish the beautiful days here in D.C. as much as anyone. We had a spectacular, sunny spring day last Saturday.

However, yesterday we had record wind chills of 4 degrees and today is warmer but we have ice today. According to Google, Washington is having this kind of weather:


Eeek! That's no good. So, tonight I am dreaming of the Greek Isles....


and California.... (courtesy my friends' blog)

Remembering the Resistance

Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) died today. Aside from the fact that he was the representative of my hometown of San Mateo since I was, like, eleven, he had the distinction of being the only member of Congress who was a Holocaust survivor. He also was (after escaping twice from German camps) part of the Hungarian resistance. The Nazi resistance movements have been underdocumented, so I'm dedicating my blog today to the people who knowingly and actively made the right choices.

I recently ordered an out-of-print Dutch film starring Rutger Hauer called "Soldier of Orange" (1979). It was $70 and only available on VHS and had poor sound quality at that. Why sit through a 2 1/2 hour epic of the Dutch students/Nazi resisters? In fact, my late father was a member of the Dutch resistance. He was a undergraduate, in fact, the student body president, and later a law student, at the University of Leiden, as was the protagonist of SOO. Based on the autobiography of Erik Hazelhoff, the film has details which I only knew by virtue of stories my father told us. If only now, I could ask if they knew each other. It's kind of wierd that Rutger Hauer looks a little bit like my grandfather, too.

So, I'm documenting the resistance. My grandmother Ella, shown here resting on the deck of a ship, was on a trip with my great-grandmother Jenny from the Dutch East Indies (later Indonesia) to Germany, as it was 1935, and Hitler was calling all Germans back to the homeland. (Nazi culture and means of enforcement were quickly crystallizing.) Ella and Jenny decided that they didn't want any part of what was happening in Germany and returned to their family back in southeast Asia. Phew!

There are many more resistance stories in my family. And I'm sure this would surprise none of my close friends. Thank goodness my dad was a record-keeper and storyteller.

String of Carlights

Sometimes you see just amazing sights in your everyday landscape. Here the stream of after-dark traffic going down Rock Creek Parkway creates a ghostly, serpentine effect against the bare trees. Taken while I was crossing the Roosevelt Bridge.

Zumba Queens

For a good sweatfest, I do Zumba at least once a week. If you have yet to hear of Zumba, it's an exercise trend based on Latin, hip-hop and other world dance. (I personally get a kick out of watching our instructor Diego execute belly-dance moves. I swear his hips are double-jointed!) These Zumba Queens (and Diego) were gracious enough to dance for the camera today.

I Am The Subject

Friday nights are reserved for self-indulgence. It's the time of the week when I let concerns for the outside world fall by the wayside, in preparation for serious "me time." Last night, I couldn't even be bothered to write my blog (but you got a 2-for-1 on Thursday---I take care of my people.) At least, I took a picture of myself. Yet, another metaphor for my "self-focus."

Real and Raw: On My iPod

Tonight I went to a Georgetown club to meet someone I met in a French class. After a circuitous hour-long trek on public transportation (in this case, it was about twice as long as walking), I found myself at a posh bar with $15 drinks and plenty of people happy to pay the price. I had a feeling this crowd wouldn't understand that I was late because of the bus.

One woman told me that she does management consulting for firms dealing with weapons of mass destruction. She said it's not as scary as it sounds. (Really? I think.) I believe I'd stumbled upon a completely new breed of Washingtonian riche. A breed which is what I'm not, nor do I ever want to be.

This is the music I'm listening to tonight. Got to love Cat Power when you're feeling like you need to be in touch with something real and raw. Besides, she has the cutest grrrrl haircut and a "flying V" guitar. (It's from 1999.) Check it out.

Report from the Center of the Free World

I live a couple blocks from the Washington Hilton, where Reagan was shot in 1981. The above pic reveals a scene that rarely phases Washingtonians. Police cars everywhere---take a look, every car is a cop car---around the Washington Hilt---no, up and down Connecticut Ave and down every side street. I'm not even counting the numerous black unmarked vehicles with guys in trenchcoats sitting in them. And because you're asking the question in your head, no, I don't know why they were there. Something or someone important... like especially important because this is DC where everyone is important. That is, except for the poor people and those of us who can't vote.

So, on the living in the center of the free world tip... on the elevator down to the Metro today some grumpy, middle-aged white guy, a species rampant in DC... says to me, "I heard Hilary or Obama or someone is meeting somewhere along the Red Line [the line that serves Northwest DC], like it's not hard enough to get home! Hmmph."

I think to myself. "Sorry, dude (I'm from Cali, so I say "dude.") Must suck to live in the center of the free world." Why do these people live here? Move to someplace like Oklahoma if can't handle the action.

I use a lot of italics in DC because these people are seriously passive agressive. Dude!

Ash Wednesday Headline: Mardis Gras Gets Off to a Hot Start

Go figure that the cover photo on the Washington Post's McPaper Express announces "Mardis Gras Gets off to a Hot Start." How many Mardi Gras are there that it requires an "s"? And off to a hot start? On Ash Wednesday?

In case you're giving the benefit of the doubt to the headline writer, the caption reads "Revelers grab for strands of beads dring the Rex Mardi Gras Parade in New Orleans on Tuesday. Crowds were greeted with warm temperatures on the first day of Mardi Gras." Clearly, this newspaper intern (we hope) doesn't understand that Mardi Gras is in fact the grand finale of 10 days of parades and many weeks of parties starting on Twelfth Night (January 6th). In this picture, the revelers reach for an orphaned debloon that I found on the streets of Arlington today. Apparently, in Arlington, they know something about Mardi Gras.

Of course, DC isn't really Mardi Gras central, especially since this year it coincided with Mardi Super-Duper.

Random or Not?

On my way home from the gym tonight, I came across a dozen or so photos like this scattered on the sidewalk just outside the Dupont Circle Metro. They were b&w and of various couples. Clearly staged.

Did someone drop them accidentally or intentionally?

No one else seemed to notice.