saturday night

red carpet productions used to premiere here. cushioned seats lined the balcony and five dollar italian sodas were sold just inside the ornate entryway. today, we still wear our finest to its guarded doors. we have to, or we're turned away. we queue up outside and exchange bills for tickets at miniature glass windows. but now we must be twenty-one. now we arrive at ten o'clock. now we come caffeinated, for a two hour flick is not why we flock here. we come to salsa.

a three-tiered stage stands where the screen used to hang and few wallside stools replace the endless rows of plush, rockable, side-by-side chairs. but the walls of The Mayan are still etched with columbian runes. the ceiling is still a handpainted sun-calendar. save for the giant swinging disco ball, we could be trapped in the depths of some great archaeological find.

i couldn't possibily be in southern california.

benny leads me out to the floor as the salsa band picks up its pace. skirts, so many skirts, spin out around me. millions of men. and heels- 3 inches, platforms, stilettos- pose a danger to everything but the feet they cling to. a minute ago, i was clickclacking down a cement alley between the lakers' staples center and cheap hot dog kiosks. a minute ago, illuminated skyscrapers- self-proclaimed properties of various money-centric accounting firms- sprung up at my sides. now i am underground in latin america. now i am a spanish cinderella kidnapped by cannibals. i am a meringue goddess. dip me, flip me.

but i am in l.a.

when the early morning curtains close and the gilded guitars close themselves in cases, i grab the grey wool coat that followed my mother around in her twenties. i live under eversunny skies and when night arrives, i don't care if it is only 40 degrees, i shiver. so the coat and my five fellow dancing friends find our way above ground, hop into imported cars, and drive on north up the 405, another night of dancing under our belts and under our skin.

want to come next time?

lost and found

i worked in the a/v booth tonight, decked out in black and sporting an oh-so-cool intercom that must be left over from a 1970s rock show. between changing the lighting cues for the brave souls who dared compete at an oratory contest at ucla, i rumaged through the crosswords and daily bruins left abandoned in my soundproof hideout.

sometime after the judges left to deliberate and the half-asian gospel choir began swaying, i found it. one of those square hallmark envelopes that require an extra seven cents postage was home to the little treasure addressed to marcello. it remained unsealed. my fingers slid the card out.

"happy anniversary," smiled its yellow front. open up. "i still remember the boatride to catalina, and with the look you gave me, i needed no words. mabel."

i returned the message to its corner in hope that it gets to where it is going. or maybe it already achieved all it was meant to. it made a long night shorter and a lonely booth warmer for one student working late in january. i'm thinking i should start writing love letters to strangers and leaving them between library book pages and on coffee counters. just for kicks.

what is real

"i just want this understood. i cry at songs like these," while listening to damien rice.

another four

there isn't an atom in my body that celebrates the continued presidency of our fearless, foolish leader. but, as bush was sworn in two days ago, as he promised to value the support of our allies, and as he proceeded to find 27 different ways to squeeze hot word freedom into his inaugural address (please, count them yourself), i found a renewed faith in something unexpected.

taking the alley into westwood on january 20, i caught up with my mom on the phone. "strange, the roads are all blocked off," i mentioned in passing. i planned to meet someone for dinner on a central village corner, so i took a sharp left, heading towards our rendez-vous. that sharp left led me right into a horse's mouth. i screamed (poor horse), much to the amusement of the hundred or so policemen lining the avenue. five or six dozen horses grunted, spat, and defecated on streets normally lined with impatient l.a. drivers. my mom calmly suggested i wait on another corner.

the streets had been cautiontaped off by lapd to give term two protesters free passage around the village. they were not isolated to two-lane side roads, either: famed wilshire boulevard was trafficless for the first time since i took up residency in so cal. the police did not grasp tightly to their holsters, waiting for an uprising. they, instead, smiled and escorted the thousands down through the centre of town. i excused myself from the dinner table to wave peace signs at the marching crowd, a crowd that grinned at the prospect of having passed the halfway point of our dearest emperor's reign.

since starting my studies at ucla, i have heard nothing but complaints from my elders about the apathy of modern day students. according to them, we just don't care anymore. we immerse ourselves in a material world and do not concern ourselves with the consequences of our inaction. we attend what is supposed to be the bluest of blue institutions- a public californian university- but we do not so much as lift a finger to change the world around us for the better. i now see that they are wrong.

all in a minute

today, a friend of mine found me in the park as i lay with my bare befreckled back facing the sky. a quick hi there and some words i don't remember, nor need to. he walked away and i was happy because it had seemed long since the last hello.

but serenity is so short.

laughing and pacing and cracking leaves balanced on the january green, a stranger in reflective shades pointed in his direction. "i can tell, i can tell..." he trailed off into a broken cackle characteristic of men who know they are smarter than they are. "he rehearsed for three, three hours before coming to- i can tell!- coming to talk to you." he stayed near, repeating and uttering disjointed nothings. then a lavender lady in a wide-brimmed sun hat with a ribbon that ran off it and down her spine passed. we both watched her. his antics ended. trying to dislodge a frisbee, a child lost his thrown shoe in a tree. and i lingered in simple flattery.

the question of the evening

what is just a reaction and what is true emotion?

sunsetcanyonrecreationcenter. thisisclare. howcani [breath] helpyou?

"yes. lemme speak to the manager."
"i am the manager."
"well then." long pause."you should know... there was a person today in my lane who was going too slow-"
she spat person as if she was referring to a slimy bottom-feeder.
"i'm sorry, ma'am. there are signs in front of each lane that indicate the speed of the swimmers and i can talk to the head lifeguard-"
"nonono. you. don't. understand. every single day, this person swims in my lane, and every single day, he swims too slow. when i arrive, he takes off his fins and starts doing breaststroke. just to get in my way! he does it onlywhenheseesme. he does it just to annoy me. then the pool temperature drops to 72- which is wayyy too cold, especially in los angeles, goodness!- and it begins to thunder and lightning and you close the pool. every single time i come you close the pool. and the locker room is too hot, the soap is out, and the parking meters are broken. every single time i come. it's all done on purpose-"

how right she was. every time i see her walk in, i summon up my godly powers and bring about all possible miseries.

sigh. after a day of pool patron placating, it is clearer than ever that you need una poca di grazia to do more than dance la bamba.

on underwear

there are two things in this world that never fail to make me feel completely irresistible: my black fedora and sexy lingerie.

men have figured out the secrets of the fedora. long have detectives hidden beneath its brim; even indiana jones himself used one to up his charm with the ladies. (and it worked.) it has been proven that my eyes, shielded in the shadows, hold more mystery than a giallo any day. just ask marlene dietrich.

but no matter the extent to which the male species has used the hat to its advantage, it is women (yes! us!) who have exploited the secrets of scintillating undergarments. i can march out of my apartment in old sweats and flip flops, and if satin, silk, or lace is stretched across my behind, i can still rule the world. an omniscient power overcomes me. i know something no one else knows: whether today's choice is satin and navy or simple white lace.

men, you say there is a certain something about a woman that is attractive... something you cannot put your finger on... something that could be called presence. well, allow me to let you in on a little secret. it is simply our underwear that affects our disposition.

ella, louis, and frank

on that thursday night, he wanted to go dancing. i had been driving north on pch and turned around to follow the coast back south to santa monica or venice for some late night jams. we flew through a few patches of low cloud and let the fog lights guide the way. there was no moon that night, and the stars above us dimmed as they stretched towards the horizon. los angeles projected its brights up from earth, turning the first third of the sky a smokey green.

a desire to listen to the waves took us to the side of the road. i dug my shoeless feet into his sides and hopped on his back for a ride to the edge. the winding coast hid the city from our sights and i doubt anyone would have heard me had i screamed. (i didn't.)

back in my roommate's car, he changed cd's and smiled (god, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles). "would it be worth putting your shoes on for a dance?" i loathe sneakers, but i'd do anything for a dance. reaching towards the steering wheel, he turned on the headlights, which cut through the black morning air to reveal our gravel clifftop dance floor. down went the windows. up went the volume. out stepped clare.

for the next hour, the drivers of each car that passed a certain viewpoint north of pepperdine caught a glimpse of two jazz-inspired 20-something silhouettes swinging the night away in the highbeams of a honda. they then wondered why they themselves weren't dancing- weren't living- as we were, deep into the midnight hour. i hope they rolled down their windows as singsingsing faded, breathed in the salt air, and remembered the last time they wasted hours on pleasure.

(it is no longer thursday, and i am sitting at my computer in my red polkadot underwear promising myself that days between dances will be few.)

in wake of the waves

the tsunami that hit the western shores of indonesia in late december washed up broken boats and palm fronds, broken hearts and foggy memories. those of us that spent our childhood wandering sumatran jungles found ourselves filtering through our years for moments of pure equatorial innocence. we need to hold onto these memories once again, for without them, the images of upturned lands and faithless faces that we see every day on Page One would engrain themselves in our minds.



we used to make necklaces out of peel-off 7-Up lids. soda was a luxury in indonesia and cans were nowhere near being childproof. my parents' generation had learned from their mistakes when it came to aluminum, and my mom insisted on opening my first one for me. after slowly peeling the triangle lip away, she bent the soft metal in half and gently squeezed it through the opening. "don't. ever. do. this." she turned the can upside down, and 7-Up splashed my feet. when the lid landed between her shoes and mine, she brought her face down to me and smiled. "that could have been in your stomach."

so, being forewarned of the dangers of sharp, jagged metal, my friends and i thought it genius to wrap chains of these lids around our sunburned wrists. we were regular ten-year-old masterminds and The Pool, rumbai, sumatra was our hq.

The Pool stretched a never-ending 25 yards across a cracking cement deck, and the jungled picnic area next to it was our playground, one into which no adult evil could penetrate. its exotic branches canopied the soda sippers below and served as our catwalk while we straddled the soft bark and shimmied from tree to tree. we laughed, we lived miles above everyone else. sometimes, indonesia itself seemed designed solely for the perfect innocence of children.

the green melted into blue where the leaves crept up to The Pool gutter. they would have gladly gone for a swim if they'd been allowed. anyone would, really. i'd like to say that my memory focuses on a hot, sticky summer moment, but it could have been a hot, sticky fall day. or a winter one. or spring. that's the way it was 45 km from the equator. everyone was always at The Pool. everyone always drank cold 7-Ups.

and there we were: my little brother in his red speedo and matching dripping locks, two fellow expats, and me. lathered in bare-bottomed-girl sunscreen and sitting indian-style on the grass, we hid from the glaring sun's reflection. the parents were nowhere to be found, and in one of each of our hands was a sweating green can of carbonated heaven. michael's was almost done. i took pride in taking the longest to finish. we had all brought our metal chains, and with the delicacy of a jeweller, we each folded the new lid through the end link, secured the chain around a wrist, and turned our chins upward to the tempting branches.

seeing as the wilderness was beckoning us, one girl hatched the brilliant idea of stringing her proof of pop conquests around her bare neck, freeing up her hands. but the 3 o'clock bells across the street at our fathers' office began to ring and our necks jerked sideways at the prospect of pushing papas into The Pool's accepting waters. the necklace sliced through the skin of our darling friend's young neck, dripping deep red onto her pale pink bathing suit. our mothers reappeared from hiding, removing shreds of silver from their children and wrapping an old teeshirt around the imperfect neck of an unlucky little girl. there would be no more jungle adventures that day. no pushing dads in the pool. our picnics were packed in a snap and from that day forth, we would sip our soda from glass bottles.

beauty is

"when i go from hence, let this be my parting word, that what i have seen is unsurpassable."
-rabindranath tagore

self-explanatory

...and we are tucking one more year away into the dusty cabinets of memory. after making the work out more/be more organized/etc. resolutions repeatedly with little or no results, i'm changing my ways not only in that i'd like to actually accomplish my goals this year, but in that my goals deserve to be accomplished. my pg resolutions for 2005:

1. carry a notebook everywhere [in an attempt not to forget all the mini-moments that i'll clog a novel with someday]
2. learn something or go somewhere new each week [i am explorer at heart; feel free to tag along]
3. start a blog
4. dance more [i can't get enough of it]
5. begin the long process that is researching my grandma's real life [partly out of curiosity and in hopes of preserving the past... but also because i'd like to write about her someday]

i don't know about 1, 2, 4, or 5, but number 3 is off to a pretty decent start, and my brother is banging out van halen's right now on the piano. it's my tomorrow.