Frogtown.

Tonight I came closer than I ever have to the LA River. I went to the Frogtown Artwalk (Frogtown: something to do with a plague of frogs many years ago; a little snip of land between the 5 and the river). Tonight is one of those nights when all LA has an overlay of magic. I love LA in the winter. It's 64 degrees and almost chilly. I walked along the LA River footpath and followed glowing green balloons through the dark down to the sandy water's edge. The river was probably 50 feet across, the widest I've ever seen it. Fringed by bamboo and other leafy things, gurgling and flowing like any river should.

I really love connecting with the LA art scene. All of us wandering around looking at art and architecture, and each other, could have been in Brooklyn, Chicago, San Francisco, anyplace where people put out cheese and crackers and sangria in their fabulous beamed lofts where the smell of oil paint, dust and turpentine mingle most bewitchingly. I met an elderly dalmatian the same age as mine and a large white pit bull with brown spots. I saw some transcendent oversize color photographs of the Mexico/U.S. border. I looked longingly into people's spare industrial loft living spaces. I drove back through Silverlake and Los Feliz. I've been househunting lately and I'm getting the feeling that my house is out there, much like the feeling that one's true love is out there in the world before that fateful meeting occurs. My house-to-be, I believe, is in the 90026 area code.

Romance is so not dead.

OMG!

Trolling craigslist today for writing gigs, I came across this gem:

NEED AN ONLINE DATING PERSONAL ASSISTANT

Reply to: i'mtoosexy@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-10-30, 5:09AM PST

I'm seeking an individualo to work about 12 hours/wk primarily from home w/ flexible hours at $10/hr to manage my online dating accounts, send out emails, reply to emails, etc. this is steady ongoing work with cash pay.

Perfer mid 20's to 30's man or woman with significant experience dating online. Email us your resume with a brief cover letter describing extent of knowledge of teh various popular dating websites.

Preferred also: College degree

Compensation: $10/hr, Performance-based bonus

Could I be the “individualo” to take on this unique challenge? I mean, this poor guy clearly needs help. Swamped, overwhelmed by so many online dating accounts that he needs to hire me, a total stranger, to manage his social life. (No more dangerous double bookings!) Get paid to email sweet nothings, innuendos and brazen propositions to chicks? (Hell, I know a thing or two about that.) And on a “steady ongoing” basis too. Doesn’t sound like he’s looking for true love, does it?

But what if all this college-educated, vicarious online flirting leads to a Cyrano-esque mistaken-identity crisis? What if the guy (or gal) he hires just happens to fall for that saucy redhead who was lucky enough to get sucked in by one of those multiple ghostwritten profiles? Oops!

But hey, courtship and marriage and fatherhood are so freaking labor-intensive. Maybe our busy Mr. Outsource-My-Love-Life would dig this time-saving way to outsource the whole shebang! At very reasonable rates!

And how ‘bout that “performance-based bonus"? I love that. I guess that’s in case, against all odds, our Lothario ends up actually falling in love – or even tying the knot. Thanks to my – MY – online wooing! The nerve!

Now I'm going to think about other areas of my life that deserve a performance-based bonus.

Serendipity in Los Feliz.

Tonight after work, I took my watch to get fixed at the home of a charming, grandfatherly Bulgarian/Armenian watchmaker. He was kicked out of his shop after 23 years, along with all the other tenants (to make room for a giant new Hollywood nightclub, I suspect), and is mending watches on his balcony in Los Feliz while he looks around for a new shop.

As soon as I stepped into his cozy apartment, his wife Mary asked if I'd had dinner. Whatever was cooking smelled divine. I sat down, their grandson brought me a cold Corona, and I ate Lebanese flatbreads covered in ground meat, tomatoes and parsley, drizzled with fresh-squeezed lemon juice. Never mind that I don't usually eat meat. My new friends were kind and hospitable and I wasn't about to say no. (Was it lamb? Don't ask, don't tell! Anyway, it was yummy.) We talked about our travels as we ate, then we went out onto the balcony and Mr. Haig took apart my watch.

While he tinkered, he talked about how lucky he is to live so close to his kids and grandkids, and what it was like to leave his country during the Communist era and make a new life somewhere else. Then he looked straight at me and said, "It's very hard to build your life. You have to have power. You need to have someone behind you."

Wow. It was as if suddenly a celestial messenger were speaking directly to my own roiling personal angst. I felt a blinding awareness, like connecting with the source of all wisdom and compassion. Did he have any idea how much I needed to hear those words?

Then he offered me Turkish Delight, rose and orange-flavored, and Mary brought out strong, sweet Armenian coffee and her own homemade pastry. So much for my sugar fast! But if there was ever a reason to break it, this was it.

A woman's place.

In keeping with yesterday's theme of making time for the important stuff, and with a nod to Nancy Pelosi's new job, here's another shout out to a NY Times OpEd columnist, this time Judith Warner, who in her memorial to Texas governor and all-around hell-raiser Ann Richards writes:

You can’t clean house and make it to “the dome” too. You can’t bake cookies and make it to the Senate. And that’s not just because there isn’t enough time. More profoundly, it’s because it just isn’t human to do all that. With all of our spouting off these days about the glorious variety of women’s Choice, there is one basic choice that we are not humanly able to make: we cannot choose what kind of people we are or what we are driven, drawn, destined to do. The best we can do is be ourselves – and stand up for what it takes to bring our self into being.

It's hard enough trying to find time and energy for writing while holding down a full-time job. Cleaning house on top of it? Always good for bad procrastination, as any writer will attest. I recently decided to just run all the errands on my list (Paul Graham's "small stuff") and get it over with: buy a printer cable and ink, get the dog's nails clipped, buy groceries at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Ralphs, restock my hair products, get a haircut, change the oil in my car and get it washed, get the sim card in my cell phone replaced, go to the post office, pay bills, sort a mountain of papers, blah blah blah. Factor in West Hollywood traffic, and it took me almost TWO DAYS.

Last weekend I bought flour and yeast so I could try this recipe for super-easy, supposedly amazing bread that doesn't require kneading. The only problem is, it has to sit for 18 hours. Then two more hours before it goes in the oven. Plus it turns out I have to find, then buy, a special lidded container in which to bake it. Figuring out how to fit all this into my schedule requires a complex mathematical formula that still eludes me.

A final word on Ann Richards: she was a hero of mine, and I'm sad she's gone.

Procrastination can be fun.

My friend Ron turned me on to this fabulous essay by writer and computer genius Paul Graham, about finding and doing the work that you love:

Whichever route you take, expect a struggle. Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail. Even if you succeed, it's rare to be free to work on what you want till your thirties or forties. But if you have the destination in sight you'll be more likely to arrive at it. If you know you can love work, you're in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you're practically there.

Another of Mr. Graham's essays, which talks about good and bad procrastination, should be required reading for writers, artists, scientists and all kinds of ambitious folk who are trying to Accomplish Big Things:

The most impressive people I know are all procrastinators...they put off working on small stuff to work on big stuff. What's "small stuff?" Roughly, work that has zero chance of being mentioned in your obituary.

Which reminds me of an exercise I did once in one of those self-actualization workshops: writing my own obituary. It was fun! Kind of like starting to write a script at the end, and working backward to find out how it all happened. Go on: list all your accomplishments, awards, and significant relationships as of the day you die.

Hallelujah!

This feeling of joy and disbelief reminds me of waking up the morning that Bill Clinton had first been elected President. A Democratic House and Senate! A female Speaker of the House! All this glory and righteousness takes a little getting used to.

I really saw the election and the weeks leading up to it as an epic battle in the clash of good vs. evil. I thought about all the ways we can be freedom fighters: by being artists, musicians, politicians with integrity, good parents, philanthropists, teachers, environmental activists, child advocates, civil rights workers. I feel a renewed sense of community with my countrymen and women.

Bob Herbert, my new hero.

Who's Bob Herbert? He’s a contributor to the New York Times’ OpEd page. I just discovered Bob because of his recent kickass feminist columns about the mass murder of little girls in an Amish schoolhouse, which should be called what it was – a hate crime – and the UN report on worldwide violence against women. Then I read his archives and was floored at such a brave, trenchant voice coming from, not The Nation or the HuffingtonPost, but the venerable Grey Lady herself (though let’s face it, the NYT is pretty liberal for a mainstream paper).

A Pontificator after my own heart, Bob Herbert writes passionately, angrily and articulately about racism, poverty, political corruption, and misogyny in all its forms, including certain Abercrombie t-shirts, genital mutilation, mass rape as a weapon of war, bride burnings, honor killings, female infanticide, etc. ad nauseam. Here’s a sample:

“The disrespectful, degrading, contemptuous treatment of women is so pervasive and so mainstream that it has just about lost its ability to shock.

“In a misogynistic culture, it's never too early to drill into the minds of girls that what really matters is their appearance and their ability to please men sexually.”

“We're all implicated in this carnage because the relentless violence against women and girls is linked at its core to the wider society's casual willingness to dehumanize women and girls, to see them first and foremost as sexual vessels – objects – and never, ever as the equals of men.” 10/16/06

He’s bracingly, outspokenly anti-Bush:

“His breathtaking arrogance is exceeded only by his incompetence…he is the worst president in memory, and one of the worst of all time.” (1/26/06)

Testify!

He’s a voice crying out in the wilderness, calling for an end to the Iraq war and for making our entire nation bear the burden, not just the troops.

“You never want to say that brave troops in Iraq died for the mindless fantasies spun by a gang of inept politicians. But what else did they die for?” 10/3/05

He reminds us what patriotism really is:

“A lot of Americans are like spoiled rich kids who take their wealth for granted. Too many of us have forgotten – or never learned – the real value of the great American ideals. Too many are standing silently by as Mr. Bush and his cronies engage in the kind of tyrannical and uncivilized behavior that has brought so much misery – and ultimately ruin – to previous societies.” 7/17/06

Bob has a new column today about Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House (second in line to the presidency after the VP! Just in case something were to mysteriously happen to Public Enemies #1 and #2!) Most of Bob’s columns are only accessible if you’re a TimesSelect member – in other words, you have to pay a fee. But you can sign up for a 2-week free trial and read all his columns, then cancel your membership if you must. Do it!