Dispatches from the City of Angels
I'm a writer and humorist living in and writing about Los Angeles. You can catch my novel LOSING CLEMENTINE out March 6 from William Morrow. In the meantime, feel free to poke around. Over at my website you can find even more blog entries than I could fit here, as well as a few other ramblings. Enjoy and come back often.
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"Taint what a horse looks like, it’s what a horse be." - A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
"Trying to take it easy after you've finished a manuscript is like trying to take it easy when you have a grease fire on a kitchen stove." - Jan Burke
"Put on your big girl panties, and deal with it." - Mom
"How you do anything is how you do everything."
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Road bogeys
Husband: "Did you run through...what is that?...mud?"
Me: (back from a 24-mile run and sitting up to my waist in an ice bath in the vain hope I'd be able to walk the next day - and perhaps a tinsie-tiny bit ill humored) "NO, I did not run through mud."
(Subtext: "It hasn't rained in L.A. for 10 months, you goober brain." I consider it a great show of personal strength - under the circumstances - that I did not say this out loud.)
Husband: "Well, if it's not mud..."
Me: "It's not poop!"
Husband: "Then what is it?"
Me: "Road bogeys."
Husband: "Uh huh." (In a great show of personal strength, he didn't say what he was thinking out loud either.)
Me: "It is!"
Okay, I have an elaborate pre-run ritual that mostly involves rubbing every clothed part of my body down with Body Glide, Vaseline, chicken fat, motor oil. that stuff that congeals on top of cold beef stew, anything and everything to keep the dreaded chafing at bay. Chafing being a nice word for "to feel as if your skin has been removed with a belt sander."
The thing is the goop tends to attract...stuff. Sand. Dirt. Dog hair. Grass. Gnats. And it all sort of mixes together after about 20 miles into something resembling - okay, maybe mud. But definitely not poop. We need to be clear on this. Not. Poop. Road bogeys. Street snot. Earth mucus.
Meanwhile, back in the ice bath:
Husband: "I'm just saying it sort of looks like..."
Me: "I will shove an ice cube up your nose, you know."
Me: (back from a 24-mile run and sitting up to my waist in an ice bath in the vain hope I'd be able to walk the next day - and perhaps a tinsie-tiny bit ill humored) "NO, I did not run through mud."
(Subtext: "It hasn't rained in L.A. for 10 months, you goober brain." I consider it a great show of personal strength - under the circumstances - that I did not say this out loud.)
Husband: "Well, if it's not mud..."
Me: "It's not poop!"
Husband: "Then what is it?"
Me: "Road bogeys."
Husband: "Uh huh." (In a great show of personal strength, he didn't say what he was thinking out loud either.)
Me: "It is!"
Okay, I have an elaborate pre-run ritual that mostly involves rubbing every clothed part of my body down with Body Glide, Vaseline, chicken fat, motor oil. that stuff that congeals on top of cold beef stew, anything and everything to keep the dreaded chafing at bay. Chafing being a nice word for "to feel as if your skin has been removed with a belt sander."
The thing is the goop tends to attract...stuff. Sand. Dirt. Dog hair. Grass. Gnats. And it all sort of mixes together after about 20 miles into something resembling - okay, maybe mud. But definitely not poop. We need to be clear on this. Not. Poop. Road bogeys. Street snot. Earth mucus.
Meanwhile, back in the ice bath:
Husband: "I'm just saying it sort of looks like..."
Me: "I will shove an ice cube up your nose, you know."
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