hello goodbye

Hell yes French kissing. A+ French kissing.

I'll tell you all about it when I get home. See you in a few days!

HEAT WAVE

Boys. French boys. Cute French boys. The Pet Shop Boys. Boyz Noize.

Now this is turning into an adventure. What good is all that beret wearing, all that mime, all that hard long...bread without some action. Here's a question: French kissing?

Here's another question: Portland? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last adventure to take place near Portland was when those kids went after One-Eyed Willy's treasure, before that it was Lewis and Clark. Oh shit, did I just forget Harry and the Hendersons? Get back to France where the lack of deodorant is charming and where an adventure is already in progress.

The sun has an office in Los Angeles. We're in the midst of a heat wave. 102 in the Valley, 90's in Santa Monica. When I go outside I feel like that nazi in Indian Jones who's face melts off. Caleb doesn't know what's good for him. His white, half Wisconsin-German half Polish-Jewish-New-Yorker-Los-Angeleno skin is naive. He wears more sunscreen in a day than most Pepperdine College sorority sisters where in a lifetime.  

As you know from living in Los Angeles, even though the sun shines through all four seasons, summer does still carry that carefree mentality.  We've been out and about a lot more. We've taken Caleb to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, we've been familiarizing ourselves with the old school soda fountains of South Pasadena, and the Mom and Pop ice creameries of Alhambra.  I've enjoyed the company of men, golfing before work at Penmar in Venice and drinking afterwork at Big Deans under the Santa Monica pier.  Caleb's tearing up the playgrounds of Studio City and Sherman Oaks.  All that's left to do is to smoke a joint in the parking lot of Dodger stadium and heckle baseball players from neighboring San Diego or snobby San Francisco.      

Summer is the time when you abandon your plans to leave Los Angeles and you get excited about all it has to offer again.  Summer is the opposite of having to go home for the holidays.     

Flowers and Fresh Love.

Hello future brainiac. What's new? Over a month has passed and I've written nothing. I feel terrible about it. Do you feel terrible, too? I hope not.

I've been a bit lazy / complacent about correspondence because my perception has been in a constant state of flux and I haven't felt that I can weigh in on any one topic, perspective, or feeling, with a definitive viewpoint. Definition is probably overrated anyway. Do you wanna know why? Boys. Or more to the point, one boy in particular. I'm totally ga-ga over the cutest Frenchman you could ever hope to meet, and it scares the hell out of me.

Relationships really get me nutty. There's so much pessimism and doubt floating around out there in regards to couplings, it becomes really hard to just close your ears and let what you've got going be it's own thing. I hear all these voices saying guys always cheat, women are always overbearing and jealous, everyone's suspicious, you'll never sustain passion..... ahhhh!!! Turn it off, TURN IT OFF!! I feel like I may be finally reaching a state of equilibrium, at least for the time being, so I write to you my friend!

I'm in Portland at the present moment, and it's exploding with flowers and green things. It's so damn beautiful here, and it smells amazing! If it wasn't so boring I might consider moving back. I was thinking about leaving Paris. The dollar situation is so grim, it's hard for me to afford living over there right now, and teaching myself French has proven to be very difficult. Now that I'm gone I'm totally missing it, and the summer was just getting good when I flew out, so I've decided to keep at it and have faith that the money issues will work themselves out, as they so often do. Also, I'm going to start speaking French like I really think I know what I'm doing and filter out all the giggling from the recipients of my broken dialog. I hope that helps. It will be a good exercise for my ego at the very least.

How's the baby coming? Do you know what flavor it will be, or is that a surprise? What else is new?

Bisous.

FUTURE BRAIN.

It's been a strange week for me. We had clients in town from Chicago on Monday and after a day in meetings, going over creative, we went out for one of those expensive meals where you don't feel like you ate anything. Afterwards we closed down Santa Monica with empty-ish stomachs that we filled with drinks. It was classic America debauchery. I felt like I was in a Cassavetes film. No chinese bookie was killed, but If one was, our party would have been investigated.

I awoke the next morning hung over, with Caleb perched on the bed watching the Backyardigans. It wasn't the weekend. It was Tuesday, and I wasn't a carefree 24 hour party person. I was a dude that needed to change a diaper, swap PJs for real clothes, walk a dog, eat a bowl of Golden Grahams, feed a dude some yogurt or something, kiss a wife and get in a line of cars driving slow speeds over a concrete hill. Balls.

That Monday outing gave time a surrealist tone that continues even now. Clocks aren't melting or anything, but I'm feel like Tuesday morning should have been Saturday morning. What I'm saying is, I'm living in 4 days in the future mentally, but I'm physically in the present! Could this be a plot for a Kevin Bacon movie? Answer: yes.

So far the near future is just okay mentally. I can't speak to how I'll feel physically or what will happen historically, but I do know that mentally I just feel okay about 4 days from now. I still support Obama despite what may be revealed about him between now and say Monday. I'm not excited about or frustrated by the Lakers despite the outcome of the two games that occur between now and Monday. Also, my weekend, the one that I'm about to have, wasn't that exciting I guess.

Watching paint dry, and babies.

Hello my friend,

My god! Another baby! I am blown away. I really did have to read that sentence twice. I don't know why I get so amazed by all this baby business. Everybody can do it. Everybody is doing it, but suddenly it's happening to my friends and my cousins, and I'm totally in awe. I suppose in some respects I still feel like I'm an inept child myself. I still give myself a big pat on the back when I manage to make the bed and pick my clothes up off the floor, and here you are doing it for yourself, plus two other little people! Mon dieu!

For some reason I keep remembering the week I got my driver's license. I drove over to your parent's place to take you on a victory drive, or demonstrate my new skills, or something like that. I was in my little silver Ford Festiva, remember that thing? I had a bunch of change sitting on the dash, and you said you were going to test my abilities as a good driver based on the amount of change I could keep on the dashboard when swinging around corners. I think a bunch flew off. I remember feeling as though I had really messed up my challenge. Were you disappointed dad? Heehee. Is this how you'll teach Caleb to maneuver through the streets of Los Angeles?

I've been watching paint dry too, figuratively, not literally. Paris fooled me into thinking the sun was about to burst through the clouds and ask all the little buds and green things to show themselves. Alas, the sun is not ready to be put into spring service just yet, and instead the rain is working double time, and here I sit, thinking about babies.

I have two babies. They're much furrier and less maintenance than your kind of baby, but I love them intensely, nonetheless. My babies are a bit bored and dissatisfied with the Parisian lifestyle. They scoff at the idea of art museums and architecture in lieu of private gardens and large living spaces. In protest of our current living arrangements, Olive has decided to get fat. She's gone from 8 pounds to 10 pounds since we arrived. It's hard for me not to see how unhappy they are, all cramped up in this apartment. It's not a good life, so I'm considering moving down to the French Riviera, where the rent is cheap, and there are gardens galore, for kitties and humans alike.I'm going to try to make it down to Cannes for the film festival, and hopefully I can check out some places then. We'll see.

Drinksy? / Porkchop's Pants is sounding very appealing to me right now. I wish I could join you for a drink. I've been feeling really nostalgic for LA lately. It probably has a lot to do with the rain.

I hope your painting project turned out lovely. I'll talk to you soon. xo.

EVERY SUNDAY NIGHT IS LIKE SUNDAY (to be sung in Morrissey Voice)

I'm waiting for paint to dry. Watching paint dry isn't so bad. I'm enjoying it. I finally polished off this weird bottle of scotch I've had in my arsenal for some time. It was a hand me down. It was called Beam. Not Jim Beam, just "Beam," and it had a stamp like label with a small crew of red headed ducks flying across the sky. Every time Eric came over I'd poor him a small glass of Beam and we'd sit on the the edge of my bar, ("Drinksy?" that's the name of my bar. With a "?". Eric named it, It has another name, "Porkchop's Pants") we'd sit on the edge of my bar and smirk at the Beam in hand. "What are you Beam? " I'd wonder. Are you something Jim Beam released back '70's in an attempt to class yourself up? Are you Canadian? Probably, you seem kind of full of yourself, and you're not all that. One think is for sure, you're as free as those ducks that brand your face and you're all gone. Thanks for the memories.

I'm going to fill the empty Beam bottle with Jim Beam and keep the dream alive. After you figure out Santa isn't real you have to keep your own dreams alive. Did you know that? Finding out about Santa is actually the real defining journey into adulthood. You should be able to vote when you know that Santa isn't real. I'm going to put a second coat of paint on now. Good night.

The Kitchen to the Garage Monologues

There is a hole in the wall between the kitchen and the garage. It's a bold carefree hole that says, "Hey man, you're plumbing used to be here, but now it's there". It was made today by some combination of three plumbers and two contractors. To me it's a peep hole into a world of hope. It's a world where laundry can be done in the garage, and not the kitchen. It's a magical place like Disneyland or Narnia or something. One day the hole will be a door and the garage will be a laundry room/ art studio/ spider-free zone. It will be a much needed space, especially if we have another baby, like the one we're having in August. Wait read that sentence again.

Yes that is correct, I had sex a second time, and alas a second child in the works. Soon we will have the all the pieces on the table and we can look at the puzzle and say, "Oh shit, this isn't a kitten and a daisy, this is a puzzle of two chimps riding a tricycle". We're excited and scared, but mostly we're excited. Cheers.