When did Cheese become precious?

I can understand the cutesiness of chocolates and cupcakes, of berries and of candy. The sugariness equals sweet equals candy equals kids equals cute. (Yeah, that's my brand of math.)

The coffee cutesiness fad made me somewhat more uneasy, given caffeine and the potential that too much of it makes people short, a subject I'm testy about.

But coffee became cutesy when starbucks hid its bitterness under layers of cream, syrups, whipped cream and, obviously, sugar.

And as it became cutesy, I retreated from the frothy drinks to regular old coffee, and felt myself superior.

After all, I always had that timeless mature classic, wine and cheese.

Then came the inevitable wine and cheese bad art.

The giant paintings of red wine in glasses with labels obscured so the purchaser can infer whatever variety she holds dear. The wine glasses placed on manuscript pages with red circles upon them, or super-imposed over classical music scores.

I saw them in mediocre art galleries in tourist destinations like Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Waikiki.

They naturally devolved into this:

A grape playing a sad violin as I weep for the non-kitchy wine tasting days of yore.

But I thought cheese was safe.

Some of it smells like feet.

Some of it looks like smegma.

It's possible some of it tastes like smegma, but I remain blissfully ignorant on that count.

It's curdled milk.

It's fuzzy with molds.

It's aged in dark caves.

It comes from a goat's udder.

It's biological and filled with bacteria and, if you think about it too much (as I just did) it's downright nasty.

And now, it's cute.

I've just come from Borders, where I saw several postcards featuring cheese.

Swiss cheese with heart-shaped holes.

Blue cheese spread on heart-shaped crackers.

Cheddar cheese cut in heart-shaped wedges.

And of course it doesn't stop once it starts. The cutesiness will take over. Cheese earrings, cheese tattoos.

Everyone's asking, "Do you like cheese? Because your answer will alter the course of the world and put you in one camp or the other, because you're either with us cutesy cheesites or against us, because liking or not liking cheese will tell everyone SO MUCH about your personality!"

I even saw a book, a suspiciously pink-jacketed novel, in which cheese plays an important role.

I have forgotten the title, thankfully.

It's not that I am against cute, oh my, no!

I have been known to spend [waste] hours flipping through Flikr sets of cupcakes.

I spent an embarrassing number of hours in my [mostly] 20s watching girly-cute anime like Sailor Moon, Fushigi Yuugi, and Fruits Baskets.

I wear pink unironically.

But you know?

We need some ugly, too, something to offset the cute chocolate, cupcakes, berries and candy.

A little contrast.

I'm just saying.





At any rate, there's always scotch. Probably not likely to become cutesified anytime soon.

Uh oh...

My brother at Easter Island

(from the Seattle Times Travel section)

Guess which one is my brother?

It had to take something truly horrific to jog me out of blogging hiatus.

Not the actual bee swarm.

Today, whilst walking the twenty-odd blocks to my favorite coffee shop, I nearly walked into a swarm of honey bees.

They’d just made their chaotic way over one of those cool SoCal garden-style apartment buildings on Olive Street. The paranoid tailor on the corner with the "please knock" sign on his locked door actually had his door open today; the friendly guy with the shabby chic antique store and the white poodle had his windows open, all oblivious to the potential catastrophy swirling overhead.

I, of course, hastened back the way I’d come, trying not to panic--bees can smell panic!--and trying to find a store I could duck into. No such luck--this part of Fifth Avenue is all medical offices or nighttime restaurants.

I warned a woman slowly walking to her car. "There’s a swarm of bees on Olive."

"Really? I’m allergic to bee stings."

"Yeah, me too."

This is an exaggeration--I’m not actually allergic to the sting of bees. I don’t go into anaphylactic shock. But I do swell in unpleasant ways when stung by bees, and I certainly have an aversion to the stings and the insects that cause them.

I’ve only been stung by yellow jackets, though. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Freaking ow.

I actually called 911.

I know it’s spring, and that bees swarm in the spring, and birds sing and animals have sex and procreation reigns supreme.

Hordes of homeless bees are unfortunate but necessary parts of this new awakening.

Still, I live in the kind of place where stories of Africanized Honeybees scare the shit out of us every year--they’re coming! they’re here!--so I figured someone official-like and wearing protective gear ought to come and do something about it.

Might want to put on some boots, don’t you think?

911? Busy.

Good thing the woman standing next to me hadn’t been stung and in need of medical help, eh?

Then a group of women walked right through the intersection.

Didn’t they know there were bees overhead? They seemed totally unconcerned. I’m not sure they even noticed.

So, feeling...well, not brave, but stupid, I walked back and crossed the intersection. There were only a few bees lazily circumnavigating the airspace we shared.

They didn’t attack me. I didn’t see the group, until I did...across the street in front of the church, terrorizing saints in the middle of the road.

They had moved!

"The best thing to do is be calm," the guy with the poodle told me.

"Yeah, but they’re icky," I said, as calmly as I could as I ran away.

I didn’t feel calm until I arrived at Cafe Bassam and the door closed behind me. Sanctuary!

A picture of the old Cafe Bassam, with Bassam in the foreground.

I hear bees are going extinct.

As I sat with my tomato soup and my ice water (soon to be followed by coffee) I thought it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if someone created stingless pollinators. They could look like bees, that’s fine.

They just shouldn’t act like them.

Domesticated bee-lets. They won’t take over wild populations the way the Africanized ones have done because they wouldn’t have the capacity for aggression, and wouldn’t have the weaponry even if they did.

They could be easily carted from field to orchard without causing pile-ups when their trucks roll over (it’s never the tomato trucks, you notice. Only the trucks carrying bees).

And yet, the bee-lets would still have the yellow warning stripes to ward off predators.

But then again, would I know the difference?

Maybe let’s make their stripes a nice pleasant blue color so I know when to panic and when to run with the swarms.

Idiot.

To leave you on a happier note:

Yesterday I saw a junior hummingbird flittering amongst the nectaring flowers at Balboa Park.

Not a baby.

A wee little adult about the size of the first section of my thumb.

Hummingbirds. We like them because they don’t sting.

Graywolf picks up Marie Mutsuki Mockett's debut novel!

Congratulations to Marie Mutsuki Mockett, also known around here as Murasaki, on the sale of her debut novel, PICKING BONES FROM ASH, to Graywolf Press!

What can I say, except, it's about time someone other than me (and HopperFu, and Taizhu) recognized your genius. :P

Look for it in Fall 2009, bookmark her website where you can read the synopsis, and support small presses!

People! Get in on the ground floor of this one. I've read the book and it is really amazing.



PS Since it's my blog I get to mention that I'm the one who thought up the title. Let's hope it sticks. :P

Cure for the Common Valentine

Write a Relationship Obituary.

Highlights from my NYC trip include fun people and fun times.

AWP 2008 has come and gone. I tried to register too late to get a badge but in the end it didn't matter, as I got to do all that I'd hoped to do. Thanks to Marie for letting me crash on her spare bed for a week, and to Alexi and Vanessa for traveling out to the city so we could spend some time together!

Highlights include:

--Spending too much money on four black dresses (and one pink dress, and one coat) at a sample sale with Marie

--Drinking beer with my agent, Desmond, at the Empire State Building while talking books

--Meeting Marlon James randomly at the AWP book fair and getting a little fan-girlish, then gushing about it to the guy behind the table at the Akashic Press booth

--Discussing ways to encourage at-risk girls to write with Keren Taylor, Executive Director of WriteGirl, at the private CLMP party hosted by Jeffrey Lependorf, then scoping the room for cute guys

--Shopping at Uniqlo with Alexi and later beating him soundly at Taiko Drum Master

--Meeting Maud Newton at a fabulous Japanese dinner hosted by Marie and Gordon, and going from there to a strange Japanese speakeasy karaoke parlor where we belted songs from the 70s and 80s until two in the morning

--Hearing about Colm Toibin's workshop at Stanford from Vanessa and seeing pictures of her brand new niece

Seriously, I almost *died*!

So last Wednesday, after a dinner of Korean barbecue, my New York friend Marie took me and our Upstate friend, Alexi, to the top of the Empire State Building.

I had never been.

It's late, after eleven, actually, so there is no line and no wait.

We go right to the top and don't have to jostle for space on the observation deck, half of which is closed due to high winds.

Beautiful skylines in every direction.

We're up there for a while, outside, leaning against the walls and looking through the wide wire mesh and it's cold out. I mean, really cold. January in New York cold.

I go inside.

When I find my friends through the window I see they are looking out across the city, in the direction of La Guardia.

They peer into the night quite intently.

Later, I find out the extent of their conversation, which I am recreating here:

Marie: There's La Guardia.

(Planes land and take off in linear formations, following a strict path.)

Alexi: What is that?

(He knows very well what it is. It's a plane that has taken off and veered what seems to be off course, headed straight for, yes, the Empire State Building.)

My friends look at each other. They're thinking, is this really happening? Is this really our fate? Can we do anything about it?

Marie: Is there time?

Alexi: No.

No, there is not time to get to the elevators, to descend 86 floors, exit the building and get out of the area.

And they think, This is it. There's no time to run, no time to even think of something eloquent to say other than, it has been fun being your friend.

Meanwhile, I'm watching foreign tourists take pictures of each other, I'm thinking their pictures won't turn out because the flash reflects on the glass. I'm mildly surprised by an Asian guy who speaks English with an Australian accent. Then I'm surprised by my surprise.

Outside I see Marie and Alexi are sharing secrets and I want to know what it is that has them so fascinated. But I don't want to go back out in the cold. So when they start hustling to the door, I go to meet them. They stop, so I go outside.

It's still cold out.

They point up.

I see a plane directly above us. It's larger than a Cessna, smaller than a 737. And it is so close to the building I can see its windows despite the fact that it's nearing midnight.

And I say, "That's not okay."

For obvious reasons, that is not okay.

We decide we've had enough of the 86th floor. It takes us mere minutes to descend as again, there is no wait and no line.

And no, there wouldn't have been time. I think, but don't mention, about the fire that would have shot down the elevator shafts.

Alexi: For a minute there I was sure it was headed straight for us.

Marie: Some diplomat must have received special permission to fly over the city.

Alexi: Tom Cruise.

Me: That really offends me. Someone "important" gets to buzz the Empire State building, with no thought to what that might do to those of us who just want to see some city lights.

We are quite bothered, so much so that we have to either get a drink or get dessert.

We need something to steady our nerves.

To reset our minds and regulate our heartbeats.

We pick dessert and decaf coffee at a Korean bakery, but in the immediate after-minutes nothing really helps.




Now that I'm not only safe but across the country, I kinda like the fact that I got that scare. People live with scares like that all the time, all over the world. We're pretty insulated here.

It can hinder our empathy with a very unfortunate but very human experience.