A Journal of My Mid-Life Crisis

23 November 1997 - In Which My Car Becomes an Immovable Object and I Ponder Irresistable Forces

I read Gita Mehta's Snakes and Ladders this week and one of her comments got me thinking about personal aesthetics. About India, she says "Posessions are not so much displayed as lurking about, waiting to be used - in themselves incontrovertible evidence that when an irresistable force such as life meets any immovable object, something's got to give. In India that something is usually good taste."

So I have a new excuse for the chaos of my apartment. It's simply that my life is an irresistable force. I suspect that my mother would not consider dust to be an immovable object, though.

Seriously, what this got me thinking about was how I'm going to deal with storing my stuff for my trip. At an intellectual level, I know I am far too attached to my belongings. But I really don't want to get rid of a lot of things. It's the same way that I find the austerity of the Japanese aesthetic far more attractive than the gaudiness of the Indian aesthetic when I think about. Yet, how little of life seems to involve thinking about it!

This week was too stressful for a lot of thinking. We had a major design review out in Boulder, of which one day was useful and the other two mostly tedious. Thursday I had two meetings to be at simultaneously in the morning and two to be at simultaneously in the afternoon, in both cases set up to be about as far apart as possible within the building. At least I got my exercise in running back and forth between meetings.

Oh, yes, the usual Boulder restaurant report. We went to Zolo on Monday night and, for the first time, I was a bit disappointed in what I had there. It was supposed to be "wild mushroom polenta with red pepper coulis" but the dominant flavor (aside from some roasted garlic on the side) was eggplant, and overall it was a bit bland. Not bad, just not wonderful. Tuesday night was a reception which meant making dinner out of various hors d'oeurves and a glass of Fat Tire ale (local microbrewery, not bad at all). Wednesday night Mary Joan and I decided we needed to hit Rue Morgue to stock up on mysteries (an irresistable force but I did control myself and only bought four books, one of which doesn't count since it was something I had actually been looking for for years - Sol Weinstein's Loxfinger. Mary Joan bought a stack of hardcover books which she had shipped.) Anyway, the bookstore expedition provided an excuse to try a newly opened place on the Pearl Street Mall. Alleycatz has a somwhat 1920's atmosphere but a very contemporary menu. Their big gimmick is a large list of light appetizers they call "amusements." We split an order of something called "The Diplomat" which is a mixture of wild mushrooms and taleggio cheese, served in a thin pastry shell. It was quite good, very intensely mushroomy. The autumn salad was truly outstanding - mixed baby greens with artichoke hearts, hearts of palms and spiced nuts to add a bit of heat. For the main course, I had buckwheat crusted grouper with a sweet and hot chutney. The combination of flavors was interesting and worked better than I thought it might. Mary Joan seemed to enjoy the salmon in puff pastry she ordered. Overall, I'd say it was a good meal and I'd go back to the restaurant gladly. Thursday night I went to Dolan's, which is not new but I'd not been there before. The balsamic vinaigrette on their salad was barely noticeable in flavor. The salsa which accompanied a fish special was weird - avocados and pineapple and cilantro, too unbalanced towards the sweet side - but the rice pilaf on the side was particularly good. I did succumb to the tempatation for dessert because their special is a bread pudding, which is just about my favorite dessert in the world (and, thus another irresistable force). This version was too gussied up to be perfect - white chocolate mixed with the custard and caramel sauce drizzled on the plate which made it too sweet. I suppose I'd try Dolan's again, but only if I'd been going to Boulder a lot and was tired of other places. Oh, and I did have my favorite Boulder breakfast one morning at the Walnut Cafe. Mexican omelet, hash browns, blueberry cornbread, coffee - if it weren't for business trips necessitating eating breakfast out, I'd feel that I was self-indulgent!

I've been running all over trying to buy things I still need for the Antarctic cruise. I looked some when I was in Boulder, but it looks like the Eddie Bauer catalog is a cheaper source for Goretex pants and a parka than most other places. I looked more back in L.A. and was absolutely astounded by the prices at A-16 and at how some manufacturers size their clothing. The average American woman wears a size 12-14 so why does anyone think a size 12 is an "extra-large"? I intended to drive down to R.E.I. on Sunday to see what they had (not that their prices are exactly low either) but disaster struck.

On the way back from assorted errand running (including the sporting goods and outdoors stores) on Saturday, the antilock brack system warning light came on in my car. I got home fine and checked the owner's manual which said this means some problem with the antilock braking system (duh!) and to get it serviced as soon as possible. So I figured I was probably fine to drive over to Audrey's (maybe 5 miles) to carpool to Long Beach for Tellebration and didn't worry about it. I left myself lots of time to get over to her place, fortunately. The brake warning light came on as well after I backed out of my parking spot and the engine died totally just at the corner of my street. So I put on the flashers, walked back to my apartment and called first Audrey and then AAA. Audrey said she could pick me up and I went back out to wait for AAA. The tow truck driver said the problem was probably the alternator (at this point, the car would no longer start, by the way) and jump started the engine, enabling me to get the car to a real parking spot on the street. I guess I'll have to have it towed to the Saturn place on Monday morning and see what's wrong.

On the plus side, I'd rather my car died 50 feet from my apartment than on a busy road. And I did get to Tellebration, which was fun as always. I told "The Three Sisters" which got a lot of laughs but I was more surprised at how many people remembered my performance from last year, when I did "Sam Short's Story" which is a lengthy piece (roughly 400 words) which was written around 1890 by Katy Whelan in which every word starts with "S". One woman told me that when I was introduced her son turned to her and said "that's the tongue twister lady!" Aside from the ego fulfillment (and, to be fair, that is a big part of what I enjoy about storytelling), the whole program went very well. We had about 100 people and roughly half had not previously been to any storytelling events. Since the whole point of Tellebration is to promote storytelling in general, I would say Long Beach Storytellers did quite well for our third year at it.

In Los Angeles, one feels like a virtual prisoner without a functioning car. This is, in fact, the worst thing about living in Los Angeles, in my opinion. If it takes any significant length of time to repair my car, I will have to rent a replacement as it would take me over an hour and two bus changes with half mile walks at both ends in order to get to work via public transit, while driving is normally under half an hour. (To be fair, there are places I could live where I could commute via transit more easily. I could even rent a place in El Segundo and walk to work, but one must remember that, while El Segundo looks like a cute little beach town, its nickname is "where the sewer meets the sea.") I did manage to accomplish some of my usual Sunday errands using that good old fashioned form of transport - shank's mare (i.e. walking). Functional walking is quite unusual here, though fitness walking has its periods of trendiness. I had forgotten how heavy grocery bags can feel when you are carrying them nearly a mile instead of the few feet from the carport to the apartment door. I should do this every day to really get fit for my trip! But I did feel seriously conspicuous.

One other thing about car trouble, which is actually true of crises in general, is that I am always convinced I am not going to be able to cope at all when anything goes wrong. I know these sorts of things are trivial in the grand scheme of things and I actually have coped just fine with things from breaking my ankle to a series of threatening obscene calls at work to an obviously mentally ill man sleeping in the carport to totalling my previous car, not to mention assorted Los Angeles events (riots, earthquake, and the like). But it's these little crises that stir the desire to be in a relationship. Of course, I usually seem to get involved with men who are more panicky and cope less well than I do, but at least there would be someone to kvetch to who'd be more or less obliged to listen. Which is a horrible reason to get involved with someone, which is probably why I keep hobbling along falling only for those men with whom chemistry seems an irresistable force.