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Learning to Stand

Sirasana is a complicated pose. To prepare for Sirasana, a specific type of headstand, one must first practice tadasana. Tadasana roots a yogi to the floor, stacks the body, and releases the shoulders. It looks like standing, it feels like something very different. After practicing Tadasana the next logical step is to turn it all upside down.

I cried through much of March and April in 2020. When I finished crying I exercised, and when I was filthy and wrung out I’d clean our home. I oozed sadness; then discomfort. I desperately tried to tamp down my fears by controlling my environment. By May, I was fine, possibly even happy, and there was no corner of the house left to clean.

Los Angeles was quiet and I drove around town as if I owned it. We threw golf bags over fences and squeezed our bodies under them playing 9, 18, or fuckit maybe 7 holes of golf at a time. Most often I saw no one else during the hours I trespassed. Sometimes a friend would keep me company, sometimes Mr. G, most often I was alone, and I was content.

I adapt nicely to solitude.

As the world skipped over Summer and Spring turned into Fall I’d stopped worrying about the kids. I stopped caring about all that we missed and routine took over. I settled for what little was offered to me and expected everyone else to do the same. It wasn’t that I didn’t want more for them, it’s that I forgot more might have been available. They didn’t forget.

Humans are creatures of habit, and after a few seasons pendulums would swing, sometimes wildly, from contentment to rage. Our home was like many others, blissful and enjoying our family back under one roof. Content with languorous backyard lunches with my folks where we’d run up extraordinary bills for Bahn mi or equally absurd salad deliveries. Our kids would pop in and out of the garden and we’d watch them with their grandparents and our hearts would be full.

And then there would be rage because I just wanted to get out of the house goddamnit and be around people. I didn’t want to know the people. I wanted to eavesdrop or small talk or something else that I didn’t know what it was, they were flashes of heat that bubbled out in the most inappropriate moments. In retrospect, I note that indulging in sadness might have been too scary. I know how to recover from rage.

Everything passed. The feelings, most of the mourning, the losses, the gains. It all moved from foreground to back and the coldest of January almost did us in but gave way to February and our first vaccines.

The kids are in school and working, the offices are open, I pay for my golf these days, and I haven’t been angry in a very long while. I allow myself moments to indulge in the sadness of my kids having these oh so important college years stolen from them, but only as an indulgence, and not as a wallow. All the in-betweens are gone. I forget to notice the ordinary and uneventful.

Perhaps the in-betweens are what led to hugging a stranger.

After waking up to a text that read, “I’m all good and not near the shooting – haven’t left my apartment yet.” I read half a snippet of a partial headline and realized there was a subway shooting one, two, not quite three stops from our daughter’s home in Brooklyn. Not knowing more than the fact that it occurred, and that she was safe was enough for me to put my phone down, have some coffee and start my day quietly. Meditatively.

It wasn’t until four hours later that I would see the text reply that read, “it seems premeditated so I’m going to stay home today or at least until they catch him”. A few moments later I’d be on the phone and learn that she’d woken to a text alert for her neighborhood. A warning to shelter in place.

Shelter In Place wasn’t a term I heard until my 30s. My children, however, have been practicing it since they were 5-year-olds in North Hollywood, attending a school that was all too often crime adjacent, particularly on the side of the school where the organic garden is.

We talked about the shooter, about leaving the house, about school and work prospects, about friends, and about graduation. We didn’t talk about feeling afraid or being resentful that once again she was locked in her apartment. We didn’t talk about the insanity of the apartment, once again, being used to hide her from deadly events outside of her control. I told her I loved her because often that’s how we get off the phone, and because she is loved.

I would go on to spend the next hour folding and unfolding myself in a yoga studio. In a truly remarkable session, we concentrated first on tadasana and ended with an extended amount of time in sirasana.

Moments after leaving the studio I stood dazed and sweaty in front of the prepared food at Everytable. I tried to imagine which plates would make our staggered meals simpler for the next two days. Clear-minded I let out a breath that might have been confused for a sigh just as the store manager asked me if I needed any help.

“I have kids,” I told her, smiling.

I didn’t mean it in the, “I’m overwhelmed by my kids” kind of way. I meant it in the, “I’m standing here wondering if my son would eat cauliflower mac and cheese” kind of way (he hated it). No matter, she told me about her three, and between us, there were five teenage to adult children that were the apples of our eyes and the pains in our asses. We were the same age, the same size, the same height, but where I’d fought to tame my hair she’d piled hers atop her head. She sported an unconstrained crown of curls.

“You look like you need a hug. Would you like one?”

I don’t know that I’ve ever been asked that by a stranger, and as I stood there confused by the question my mouth said yes. I embraced her and relaxed my arms quickly, stepping back, as one does. She tightened her arms, pulling me in, and for the second time that hour, I sank into my breath. In the safety of her orbit, I thought about our daughter last September running from campus as a classmate was shot and texting me that the gunman was taking the subway in a different direction than she was headed, that everything was alright. It wasn’t alright then, and it isn’t today.

It’s easy to react passionately to an inescapable pandemic. The in-betweens are where the endemics live, and they’re sinister.

I took my cauliflower mac and cheese, my veggie curry, oatmeal cookie, and buffalo chicken wrap to the car, plunked myself down, and reflected on how very much I missed strangers. I missed touch.

Two days later I am caressing the arm of a boy, a man really, but since he’s the same age as my children, he’s a boy with me. I’m shipping some packages and we’re talking about the CHP shooting a motorist that morning. We’re talking about policing and his mother’s worst fears, and I tell him about the time I got a call from one of ours who had been pulled over at night by an inept highway patrolman. I can’t offer him a hug because he’s across a counter from me, but I continue to rub his arm the way I rubbed my kids’ arms when they were very young and needed to be soothed into a nap. I held both his hands in one of mine because they were shaking. Or perhaps that was me.

Reemerging is complicated, it might even be overrated. So I use the four corners of my feet, place my heart over my hips, and stand like a mountain. Unshakeable. Immoveable. Solid. Perhaps I’ll hold this pose when, inevitably, I am once again turned upside down.

a photograph of a young man standing on his head under scaffolding in new york it is the yoga pose savasana

Whatever Happened to Broccoli and His Rat?

Maybe you saw a video I posted to Facebook very late Wednesday night. It was simply captioned:

I’m going to set my house on fire.

Because that seemed reasonable at the moment.

Broccoli who is a Grey Cat with Rat in his Mouth

Click to watch

In fact, it’s still sort of a good idea.

So yeah… we’re not great with vermin and didn’t help the cause at all. I admit it. It was late, I was tired, and the only reason we even have cats is that back in 2011 we really did have a rat and mouse problem and I grabbed Sparky from the pound and she went on a murderous rampage. She eliminated all the rats and a couple of lizards too.

She’s a very effective cat… a good eater too.

In any event, after I screamed and the rat got loose (my bad) I did a quick Facebook update. Here’s a link to the video of Broccoli completely wandering away from the rat he dropped in our closet.

And then it went down. And by down I mean downhill. Like a spiral. And it was terrible and I was up until 3 am. Mercifully my husband was out of town so only my son had his Thursday hijacked by lack of sleep.

We sealed off the bedroom door. My son slept in my daughter’s bedroom and my daughter and I shared a bed the first night. We left Sparky in my son’s room, hopeful that she’d kill the rat. When we awoke and there was no dead rat we decided to open the door and I ran to the hardware store for snap traps.

36 hours later there was still no dead rat. We were grossed out and dejected. We also had to keep doors shut so that pets couldn’t get near the snap traps. Then my friend Jerome told me about his last crummy landlord and the efficiency of electric traps.

I ran back to the hardware store and this time I bought The Rat Zapper
The rat zapper killed the rat really fast They were expensive compared to snap traps but my sanity was slowly spilling away so it felt like money well spent.

This morning I woke up to a red light blinking on the Rat Zapper, and the best news was that Mr. G was home and it was his turn to deal with the rat. I knew it had been electrocuted but I didn’t know what it would look like.

I went to play tennis and came home to this in the outdoor trash bin. A bit unceremonious, but let’s not pretend that anything has been dignified lately.

[gross image ahead – you’ve been warned] Read More »Whatever Happened to Broccoli and His Rat?

November 5, 2024 (Updated October 9)

LAUSD School Board District 1

  • Khallid Al-Alim: Absolutely not. Unfortunately UTLA spent $650,000 and mobilized volunteers before researching his social media pages which were littered with anitsemitism, the glamorization of guns, and porn. It’s not a good fit for a school board member.
  • Sherlett Hendy Newbill: Yes. She’s taught for 25 years at Dorsey, is endorsed by everyone – including the retiring school board member, and is an advocate for community schools.

LA Community College District Member of the Board of Trustees, Seat 1

  • Baltazar Fedalizo: No. This is not a serious candidate. I cannot be bothered to list all the reasons why.
  • Andra Hoffman: Yes, she is currently in this position and her experience is valuable – see ballotopedia. Endorsed by LA Times
  • Peter V Manghera: No, it is unclear what he has to offer that Andra Hoffman does not.
  • Cheyenne Sims: No. She is impressive and could add value with HBCU routes but her press release is littered with typos, grammatical errors, and most alarmingly, biblical references. I’m certain her name will pop up again in other races but religion in your public school press release is deeply problematic and must not go unnoticed.

LA Community College District Member of the Board of Trustees, Seat 3

  • Nancy Pearlman: I am still on the fence, she has an impressive record of service including 16 years in this same position but I cannot find any endorsements. She’s got the CV and knows endorsements matter. I will update this after poking around more. I like what she stands for, now I need to research what she’s accomplished (or not)
  • David Vela: Fine. Current member of the board of trustees, endorsed by LA Times – other than more of the same I’m unclear why we’re voting for him.
  • Louis Anthony Shapiro: No. He doesn’t appear to be seriously in this race

LA Community College District Member of the Board of Trustees, Seat 5

  • Michelle M. Henderson: I mean this husband of hers is everything, the progressive democrats and LA Times both endorse her, but I think we just need to vote for her and get the man out of his “undisclosed location”.
  • Elaine Alaniz: No. It appears she’s also running state assembly.
  • Jason R. Aula: No. It appears he’s also running state assembly.

LA Community College District Member of the Board of Trustees, Seat 7

  • Kelsey Iino: Yes
  • Robert Payne: He has done a great job of identifying the problems but government (thankfully) moves slowly and I’d probably vote for him with a short list of plans that can be accomplished rather than a litany of complaints (which I wholeheartedly agree with)

Member of the State Assembly, 51st District

  • Stephan Hohil: He sells cruise trips? I mean… I dunno. Even his website doesn’t have words, just some selfies. This cannot be real.
  • Rick Chavez Zbur: Yes. He’s endorsed by everyone and he’s the democrat. This could be all the research one does with a post Trump GOP. It’s tragic and I wish I needed to know more about this person, but the reality is that being a Republican is completely unnecessary in a state with open primaries. It’s not so much that we vote for the democrat, it’s that we vote for the people who don’t align themselves with an insurrection.

US State Representative 36th District

  • Melissa Toomim:
  • Ted Lieu: Yes

Measure DD

  • Yes. This has no opposition. During my lifetime Los Angeles’ redistricting has been a blood sport and this takes power away from politicians.

Measure HH

  • Yes: this also has no opposition and requires city commissioners to file financial disclosures before they can be confirmed. We need this.

Measure II

At the moment I think my vote is no but I’m going to reach out to trusted friends for more information. This is what we’d add to the city charter:

Clarify that the El Pueblo Monument and the Zoo are park property; (why?)
● Clarify that departments may sell food and merchandise to support City operations; (why does this need clarification? does this mean we will not be able to have vendors?)
● Include gender identity in non-discrimination rules related to employment by the City; (great!)
Clarify the Board of Airport Commissioners’ authority to establish fees, rules, and
regulations regarding ground transportation at airports;
(how are fees currently established?)
● Allow electronic signatures on certain City documents; (ffs I cannot…)
● Allow the City to lease sites in public parks to the Los Angeles Unified School District
for uses that are consistent with public park purposes; and (why would the city lease property to the city? it’s a park, lease it for a dollar. This is insane)
● Change the title of “Director of the Office of Administrative and Research Services” to
the “City Administrative Officer.” (idgaf – whatever)

Measure ER

Yes. This increases the power and autonomy of our city ethics commision.

Measure FF

No. It’s $23 million this year and more than a million each year thereafter that we don’t have. It’s for the police and fire pension funds. When LAFD requires their firefighters to live in the state of California I’ll consider it. Until then I’ll be voting no. This is absurd.

Measure LL

Yes, emphatically. We need politics out of our public schools and independent redistricting is an essential tool.

Measure US

Yes I hate adding onto my already enormous tax burden, but we need to maintain our schools.

District Attorney

  • George Gascon: In a perfect world a progressive DA would work with a progressive police department and we’d all sing kumbaya and offenders would go to prisons where they would be rehabilitated. In this world we had a half dozen homes burgled in our neighborhood in two weeks and Gascon won’t use the gang enhancement for sentencing. We tried. We cannot do this anymore. I want to ride my bike under the freeway, I also cannot do that. We need a prosecutor who will actually prosecute.
  • Nathan Hochman: Yes. I’m sure he’s deeply flawed too, but I want that gang enhancement in play. I’m tired of havoc in my neighborhood.

Judge of the Superior Court Office No. 12

  • Rhonda Haymon
  • Lynn Olson

Judge of the Superior Court Office No. 39

Judge of the Superior Court Office No. 48

  • Ericka J. Wiley: not a wrong vote, but not mine.
  • Renee Rose: Yes.

Judge of the Superior Court Office No. 93

  • Victor Avila

Judge of the Superior Court Office No. 97

Judge of the Superior Court Office No. 115

  • Christmas Brookens
  • Keith Koyano

Judge of the Superior Court Office No. 124

  • Emily Spear
  • Kimberly Repecka

Judge of the Superior Court Office No. 130

  • Osman Taher
  • Christopher Darden
  • leslie Gutierrez

Judge of the Superior Court Office No. 135

  • Steven Yee Mac: The LA Times endorses him as the more experienced candidate which I find to be confusing as Ms. Huerta appears to be infinitely more experienced.
  • Georgia Huerta: Yes. Voting for either candidate will deliver a capable judge but Huerta’s endorsements tell a story.

Judge of the Superior Court Office No. 137

  • Tracey Blount: yes, the bar association finds she is the more qualified candidate.
  • Luz Herrera

County Measure G

Emphatically Yes! This would increase the number of commissioners on the County Board of Supervisors and create an independent ethics commission. Currently Commissioners cover huge districts – you wouldn’t know it’s all the same city. This would also require department budgets to be presented in public meetings – of course the sheriffs and firefighters are against this, they never want oversight.

County Measure A

No. Current funds are woefully mismanaged, more money will only be more money gone, not more people helped.

State Measure 2 (California Prop 2)

No. It breaks my heart to vote no on a school bond, but we must take the charter schools out of it. If they won’t serve their local community they shouldn’t get local funding. We all know that the charter schools (funny how my typo autocorrected to cheater) will find a way to get the bulk of the funds.

State Measure 3 (California Prop 3)

Yes. Obviously everyone is entitled to marry. (If you’re deeply homophobic a yes vote means that gays would have to deal with divorce too so this should unite everyone)

State Measure 4 (California Prop 4)

No. I have read the full text and it looks to me like all of these objectives should be met with existing agencies and funds. If I am wrong then perhaps the text of the measure should be written in plainer language so we can see which gaps taking out more debt would fill.

State Measure 5 (California Prop 5)

No. Higher property taxes, higher rent, more homelessness. Stop it. This is dumb.

State Measure 6 (California Prop 6)

Yes. Amends the California Constitution so that prisoners aren’t forced into labor.

State Measure 32 (California Prop 32)

No. This isn’t the moment to increase the minimum wage, but it doesn’t matter all that much because the large city mayors will do it step by step the way they did for $15.

State Measure 33 (California Prop 33)

AbsoFuckingluetly NO. Michael Weinstein is behind 33 this – nuff said. (if it’s not enough for you read this, he’s terrible for our city)

State Measure 34 (California Prop 34)

NO This is insane. Anything with Michael Weinstein attached to it is bound to be problematic, but this is the worst one yet.

State Measure 35 (California Prop 35)

No. We already have a Medi-Cal Tax. We don’t need to make a $7 billion commitment permanent. Health insurance is not static, our funding shouldn’t be either.

State Measure 36 (California Prop 36)

No. This is a good enough idea but it won’t stand up in court the same way three strikes didn’t. Brown and Black youth will pay the price and it will cost us a fortune to defend the indefensible. We are better off electing District Attorneys who enforce existing laws and Mayors who will appoint department leaders that align with your personal beliefs.

United States Senator

  • Steve Garvey: Never. He will strip away your rights to bodily autonomy starting with abortion and who knows where it will end.
  • Adam B. Schiff: Yes. Without question Schiff is who we want and need on the Senate Floor.

United States Senator Short term

  • Adam Schiff