Step right up and save the marvelous Mr. Sideshow.

In beginning my studies of the tattoo community and tattoo history, local artist Permanent Mark (who did the triskell behind my ear) told me about the man in the photo above.

That man is Captain Don Leslie, a living legend in both the tattoo and sideshow communities. The Captain worked in the sideshow for 42 years. He is a tattooed man, a sword swallower, an artist, a firebreather and a true performer.

Permanent Mark has a painting in his shop that the Captain made for him. It features PM as a sideshow performer, like Leslie was. It is designed like the old sideshow promotional banners that the Captain lived so many years under.

Leslie's own writings and interviews with the writers I'm studying have been incredibly helpful in my research. Had I the means to get to Chico and the time to do so, PM would have helped me interview Leslie myself.

But it seems that, at this juncture, that will be impossible.

Captain Don Leslie was diagnosed in August with terminal cancer of the mouth and throat. He was given 6 months to live. At times, he cannot speak. This, I feel, would be absolute agony.

Madame Chinchilla and Mr. G at Triange Tattoo & Museum in Humboldt county have set up donation fund for the Captain to make his final days more bearable. You all can read about that here. Donate if you can, if you're interested in helping someone who has lead such an incredible and full life.

The Captain is one of the last remaining vestiges of a performance tradition that pushed the human body to its limits. The fact that his marvelous body is now failing him is really the irony of show business.

He is an amazing man--and I hope that Chinchilla and Mr. G will receive enough donations to help his final days be as good as they can be.

TransNYC.

NYC to Change ID Rules for Transgendered

I came across that AP article this morning on Yahoo! News, and all I can say is that this is why New York is fantastic. As the body is a site of conflict that I am particularly interested in--says the girl writing an English department thesis on tattoos--I can only smile with the hope that a number of other progressive cities will realize that the flesh we are in does not define our gender identity, and that in this culture of plastic surgery and body modification, making our exterior packaging reflect the internal should be a standard. If its culturally acceptable to fix your nose, why shouldn't it be so easy to fix your genitals?

This is an incredible stride for the transgender community. I expect my home metro hub of San Francisco to follow suit. After all, we were all about equalizing the queer community with the straight community by allowing same-sex marriages. We should be next in line to take the transgender community out of the margin by giving them birth certificates that match their reassigned bodies.

Double plus ungood.

I am amazed at the logic here. It's as though they don't realize the irony, despite the fact that the father had to literally read the entire book to cite which phrases and passages he found objectionable.

My wedding, my dowry.

Discussing the cost of my wedding with my parents went far better than I expected, especially considering the fact that the conversation began with the cost of their wedding, back in 1980.

(a slightly fictionalized version of last night's conversation with my parents*)
Me: How much did you wedding cost, Mom?
Mom: Oh, well, hon, you know, we had it at on the base in the military chapel and we only had about 50 people there so, I don't know, um, $500 to $700.
Me: What? What the fuck? Mom! Mom! That cannot be the cost of your wedding. That is unfuckingfathomably low!
Mom: Well, hon, it was over 20 years ago. Money is different now.
Dad (yelling, in the background): Hell, our cars were only $2,000!
Me (stammering): But, how? What? I don't understand! Plane tickets to Ireland are $500! How much was your dress? My god! It had full sleeves! How much!
Mom: Oh, Grandma made it. And she did our flowers, too.
Me: Gah! What? $500?!!

I then inform them that my wedding will be at least $9,000. To which my mom goes, "Gah! What? $9,000!"

Initially, that figure was unspeakably high for me, but it includes a 5 hour sit-down dinner for about 100 people with a choice of 2 entrees, an open bar, cake cutting and coffee services, 5 different kinds of butler passed hors d'ouevres, free champagne and a free suite for me and Marcus for the evening. I also get chair covers and centerpieces.

When I discussed this figure with my father, he said, "Are you sure its not missing a zero somewhere or there isn't a one in front of that nine?" and then "And that price is with an open bar? And they'll let us bring our own wine without a corkage fee? That is pretty damn good."

I love my dad. Paying to help Marcus' parents get rid of their son in such a manner is basically my dowry.

"For my daughter, you get a 3 course meal and all the booze you want!" I can imagine my father actually saying this. But anyone who marries me gets free booze for life anyway. When the intial parental introductions were made, Marcus' father wanted to know if livestock would be exchanged, but the faux dowry of wine won out over the faux dowry of camels. Because my dad has wine. My dad does not have camels.

I feel like this is an excellent choice for us. I (theoretically) only get married once, and it may as well be goddamned opulent. I will never get to have a party so exquisite again in my life . . . unless I become unspeakably wealthy. I may as well have my wedding be the epitome of 1930's Hollywood glamour.

Now its just a matter of getting in touch with the wedding sales manager at the hotel and booking this place.

*The slightly fictional parts are the parts where I swear a lot. Even now, I still don't say fuck around my parents. Unless it's really well deserved. Or if I stub my toe on something.

Fishy fishy fishy fish . . .

This is the most awesome photo ever. I found this while stumbling around blogs. Here's the link to the whole photoset.

At some point, we all change how we look.

Welcome to my new look!

In the spirit of Halloween, my blog has dressed up. In that same spirit, I did as well. But apparently, its not considered cool to dress up when you are an Adult and live in Adult World (which is not as pornographic as it sounds).

I work downtown. In an office. At a newspaper. Most of us dressed up. But most of us also did not leave the office. When I left the office in the middle of the day, I received a number of odd looks from many people on the street. But then again, I was dressed like this:



That's right. I was Jem today. I fulfilled my little girl fantasy of being a music executive by day, rockstar by night. Oh, it was indeed showtime, Synergy.

In addition to the huge pink rocker wig, crazy makeup, pink dress and earrings that you can see in that photo, I was also wearing pink patent leather pumps.

There was a whole lot of pink going on in my general vicinity. So I suppose the looks of concern were somewhat justified. I guess those poor onlookers didn't grow up in the late 80s and early 90s.

Surprisingly, I think I received more disparaging looks from the hobos who drink outside the Borders on State St. than the business people I encountered during the day.

I'll have everyone know that I lost the costume contest we held at work to the Hamburgler. I feel like that was well deserved. I mean, I was every girl's fantasy character from the 80s, but Stephanie was the motherfucking Hamburgler.

So I dressed up for today, and tomorrow I return to Steviness, which is considerably less pink. But I fully intend to use that wig for years to come in a number of costumes: Debbie Harry from Blondie, rock singer Pink, Gwen Stefani during her "Return of Saturn" years, any number of anime characters including Haruhara Haruko from "FLCL" . . . the possibilities are endless.

The blog, on the other hand, will be dressed up for some time. I am also in search for a new name for it. Suggestions? I think some rebranding would be good overall.

Scratchers and ink slingers.

I don't know how I neglected to tell this story here, as I've told it to basically everyone who encountered me moments after I witnessed the following event.

A few weeks ago, I had pizza and beer at Gio's in IV with Leah. As we're sitting on the patio, enjoying our pitcher of Hefe. Slowly the table next to us begins to fill with leering men of some indeterminately Central American origin. They loudly sing Spanish shanties over our conversation. Leah glares at them. I notice the scrawny, dirty white man who has joined them is taking out of a paper bag what looks to be pots of either ink or black salsa from Baja Fresh (in little take out plastic containers). As Leah and I continue our conversation, I glance over periodically to see what's going on. One of the men is sketching in ballpoint on another's arm. Before the scrawny white man evenproduces his battery-operated electric tattoo machine, I say to Leah. "Dude, you are totally going to witness a scratcher give a tattoo tonight."

All Leah can say is, "That's not . . . sanitary."

But what does a scratcher care?

Sure enough, we sat there through half of the tattooing, the little handheld electric machine whirring away through Spanish shanties and our conversation.

Suprisingly, no one else seemed to notice this.

As a tattoo enthusiast, I can't say I wasn't entirely fascinated by this act, this public tattooing. But this kind of act is the most negative part of tattooing, the part thats associated with being on the fringe, with inappropriateness, with illegality. Not that parts that adhere to standards of art, to delicate sterilization, to some level of cultural awareness. Tattoos deserve to be given by artists, or by those who respect the art enough to understand that a studio, a shop is where the lighting, the equipment, the ink, the sterilization process and everything else are done properly. Not by scratchers who will ink anyone anywhere and not care if their work gets infected or disrupted or the ink falls out.

And if you own an electric machine, which is expensive in its own right, don't you probably have at least an apartment or a garage in which you have a better space to tattoo?

But then I thought: is the fact that art can be created in public spaces somehow comprimised by the fact that tattooing is always done in shops? Is tattooing then fringe and not art by that nature? I can't call this pizza parlor tattoo, however public, anything even close to art. Tattooing, I think, exists in some semantic space between a medical procedure and art. Anyone who deals with modifying or repairing the body is an artist in their own right, be they surgeons who reattach muscle and bone or plastic surgeons who scrape it away and bind and shape the skin. Surgery is an art of the body, and I think that tattooing navigates that space, as well.

You wouldn't want to compromise your body with lipo in the back of a nail salon, or Botox at the cafe. Why would you compromise your body with a tattoo from a scratcher on the patio at Gio's?

My first steps toward becoming a crazy cat lady.

My roommate was gone for two weeks, and she took her cat with her. Everyone in the house has a significant other, so not having people around at night is fairly normal here. But when Audrey took Batshit Catshit with her on vacation, I was all alone in this house.

And houses, no matter how new and how nice, are fucking creepy without signs of life in them. I realized during these few nights I spent alone that I really need living things around me. As fucking weird as Zoey is, I need her in the house. Even when I was younger and my parents weren't home, I always had my dog.

So I got another cat.

That's putting it dramatically. We'd talked about getting another cat, hoping that a second cat would give Zoey some kind of stability. I wanted an older cat, one that would like to cuddle and be held. Basically, a cat that wasn't as wacky and unsociable as the creature I so lovingly call Batshit Catshit.

As fate had it, I did not fall in love with the big fat orange cat I had been eyeing at the Ojai shelter. And I drove to ASAP on Labor Day, knowing full well they would be closed, but secretly hoping that the county would be smart enough to know that when people who can afford pets don't have to work, being open would be a good idea. Later that afternoon my co-worker calls me and offers me a kitten that she and her husband had brought home. This little girl was 5 weeks old, and very small. But so adorable. So I brought her home.

Calliope's arrival in my home.

She is the sweetest cat in the world. She likes to spend hours snuggled against my chest.

Who doesn't want to snuggle on my chest?

Every morning before I go to work, we watch the news and she snuggles on my chest. When I get home from work, I watch Jeopardy and she snuggles on my chest. In between all her comfy snuggling, she can voraciously attack feather toys for hours at a time.

The face of pure evil.

Her sweetness and whimsy have given her the name Calliope, and I love her so much.
I always dreamed of a big orange cat named Geoffrey Chaucer, but I think that the Fates had Calliope in store for me. As my mom says, we were meant to be together.

Calliope checks produce for ripeness by batting at it.


We knew that introducing her to our Ninja Cat would be a challenge, as Zoey didn't really seem to enjoy many things in this world. But Zoey came back from her vacation a changed cat. She suddenly purrs. She meows. She actually lets people hold her and wants to be touched. She curls up by feet.

She and Calliope spent their first couple of days growling at each other. Calliope took to Zoey instantly. Zoey was really not having that at all. They hissed. They fought. But now, at the end of a week together, they love each other so much. They still play fight, and sometimes Zoey forgets that Calliope is very small, but they are the best of friends. I left them sleeping together on the couch this morning, and when I returned at 5, they were in the exact same place. Later, Calliope was biting Zoey's ear and scruffing her neck to get her big sister to wake up and play.

The babies: derranged but so, so playful.


So that is the story of our cats. They're both really wonderful creatures, even if I know they spend their days secretly plotting to kill us.

Maxim's makeover.

The white cover of the October 2006 issue of Maxim didn't throw me. They've done a white cover before. I was thrown by the fact that MTV V-Jay Vanessa Minnillo was on the cover. And she was very much on the cover in 2005. She, like the magazine, has also made a transformation. Her 2005 cover featured her as a naughty school girl. On this cover, she looks like an extra in a Bob Fosse musical. Oh, she had it comin'.

Vanessa's transformation seems to reflect the design change of the overall magazine.
When I open the magazine, I am struck by the white pages. Men's magazines don't traditionally use white as a background. Maxim, in the 5 years I've been reading it, has always had black pages. The table of contents pages have been streamlined, boxed and color-coded. The layout of the articles is much more striking and clean, less cluttered. The art is better.

Maxim's new Editor-in-Chief Jimmy Jellinek, who sports a pink checked shirt a la Marc Ecko in his headshot, seems to be taking the magazine in a bold new direction. Maxim is growing up, departing from the world of Stuff and its teenage/college boy allies and becoming more like GQ.

I can't argue that Maxim is growing up as its readership does. Men's magazines don't work like that. Maxim boys will always be Maxim boys, even in suits and ties and $100 glasses of Scotch. Part of me thinks that Maxim is trying to appeal to its female readership, come off as less chauvenistic, less filled with balls-out bro-dom (which, my feminist friends, is total irony in the first place.)But more than that, I think Maxim is trying to grow its readers up. It wants to be a magazine for young male professionals like GQ. It is aiming for a new readership, a readership of men who appreciate all kinds of beauty--good layout, nice graphic art, organization and the inherent beauty of Maxim's content: women.

Maxim, thank you for growing up. You've become more refined. Even your portraits of women in the magazine have become more refined. Next time I see you, I'll buy you a $50 glass of Scotch and we'll talk about how to give my publication that kind of redesign.

Cheers, boys.

Crikey.

Farewell, Steve Irwin.

You and I were not alike in any way. I have been known to say I hate nature, but being an animal loving vegetarian contradicts that statement. For me, the surest sign that I respect nature is that I stay the hell away from it.

You sir, you loved nature by getting in its face, and wrestling many freaky and deadly animals.

We're all sorry about that stingray barb, because you've given us so many years of entertainment on Animal Planet, and we had hoped you would continue to give us many more years of Crocodile Hunting fun.

But at least we all know you died doing something you loved. For the Crocodile Hunter to die any other way, such as passively in his sleep or an ironic traffic accident, would be unacceptable.

Cheers, mate. It's been a helluva good run.

A brief taxonomy of English language and literature related Facebook groups.

Let me begin by saying that the English major in me is overjoyed, and the linguist in me is completely appalled.

I am pleased as punch that there are groups uniting English majors, uniting specific classes (like Arden of Tombstone), professor/TA fan clubs (Prof. Rita Railey has one), and some others.

But the groups that proclaim that English needs to be spoken in this country at all times, the groups that proclaim a hatred for non-native speakers being TAs and professors, and the groups that are dedicated to the so-called preservation of the English language . . . I am worried about all of these groups.

Mostly because there are a fuckton of them.

I'm sure that group of hearty defenders of the English language would really not appreciate my use of "fuckton" just now.

But you know what? Fuck them.

English is a wonderful language because its most heralded writers have contributed so many completely made-up words to a language that had otherwise cannibalized basically every language with which it came into contact. No language is pure. Languages change and evolve as people do. And anyone who thinks that languages are better off in their dictionary form really has no basis making an opinion about language use.

Dictionaries do not include the richest parts of languages: slang and dialect. English dialects are so rich, and if these naysayers had read any Harlem Renaissance writings they might understand that Zora Neale Hurston is a better speaker than they are because she can successfully navigate both dialect and cannonical, grammatical English. When you push out slang and dialect, the language loses the character of its people. Which is a complete tragedy.

These people also seem to have a disdain for "netspeak." Which makes me wonder about their opinion on medical and legal speak, both of which are comprised more classically than the rest of English speech as they are heavily reliant on Greek and Latin. As for netspeak, I can only assume they're talking about IM shorthands and misspellings, which, for my side of the story, are really only improving the completely whack spelling of this language by reducing it to what language essentially is: symbols that stand for phonemes. Netspeak reflects an essential part of English-speaking culture: the internet. It's our essential mode of communication. It has its own grammar, own rules for usage.

To the people who hate this, get with the times. I'm sure you can't stand that you're reading this diatrbe in a blog, which is a far better word than weblog, for my money.

For those who are represented in the groups that discuss the frustration with non-native speakers, I understand. I know its hard. I can't fault you for expressing your frustration. But you all have won. English is now the official language of the good ol' USA. And I can not even begin to tell you how much that kind of Nativism hurts me. My family lost its language coming here because back in 1901, being American was the thing to do to fit in in America. That, and Italian-Americans were only allowed certain kinds of jobs, so being a fucking WOP got you absolutely nowhere. So we stopped speaking Italian. And now, 3 generations later, I am the only person left in my family who speaks our once-native tongue. And that's because I chose to learn it on my own. It's all I've got that's Italian about me. That and my last name.

Like me, many 3rd generation sons and daughters are struggling with their cultural identity, their loss of culture. So why are we all so eager to make our new citizens conform? Have we really forgotten that they're here for the same reason our families came here? I guess we have. The reason I love Europe is because I can walk down the streets in Milan and here 8 different tongues. The same thing happens in LA. NYC. San Francisco. In any big city, there's multiculturalism. There are many languages. Deal with it. America is a country of immigrants.

You have your official language, but that doesn't mean you have to take away everyone elses.

And as to professors and TAs who speak English as a second or third language, they're not stupid. They have MAs, Ph.Ds. Just because they don't speak English exactly as you do doesn't make them any less qualified than those who do. In fact, even if they are teaching an English lit class, they may have a better perspective on the work studied as relative newcomer to the language. Just ask Professor Huang. The man gets Ezra Pound. And Gertrude Stein. And I do not have to tell you just how difficult of a work Tender Buttons is if you've ever read it.

Every language has equal value. And all languages evolve and change as the culture of its speakers evolve and change. I say we embrace it, and erase and notion of linguistic purity from our vocabularies.

Holy cock.

Right now, someone on Santa Barbara Craigslist is giving away one of these fine fowls.

He is a White Crested Polish Rooster (blue variety).

I've never seen a crazier looking bird in my life. I need him.

An inventory of stuff in and around the vicinity of my desk.

*Two luna bars. One, iced oatmeal raisin. One, chocolate peppermint stick. I am stocking up for winter and long Wednesdays putting the paper to bed.
*A shit-ton of file folders. Don't ask me how many. I have no idea. But you better bet they are impeccably organized. Especially the green one full of Who's Who in Financial Management data.
*Lavendar Chamomile Aveeno Baby lotion. Because I like to smell like babies.
*24 1.5x2 inch colored post-it note pads, organized in my drawer according to color.
*Burt's Bees lip balm. Take it and you shall experience a slow and painful death.
*A photograph of a water buffalo with the caption "Say Cheese: Water buffalo milk makes a mouthwatering mozzarella." The covershot from this month's AgAlert.
*4 movie ticket credit card reciepts stapled together by Bill and given to me prior to our viewing of the finest peice of cinema known to man, Snakes on a Plane.
*A list of the emails and extensions of everyone in the office.
*A post-it note on my monitor that reads: "Manitees are very ethical writers; either everything is okay to write about, or nothing is."
*A bag of Lay's Classic potato chips that I bought last week and will consume eventually. It's just good to know that they're there.
*A copy of about 6 different economic forecast guides, from a variety of universities, including UOP, of which I have fond speech tournament memories.
*2 notebooks, one black, one a white reporter's notebook.
*A picture of a wild west crayfish with a lasso. Caption: "The Bayou Goes Southwest." My subcaption: "Snippy Mosebar: The fastest claw in the west." I am collecting bizarre pets.
*A small stack of calendar entries I haven't felt like filing.
*Several of my ink pens from home because I despise ballpoint pens, even when free.
*A blue highlighter.
*Scissors--I lord them over everyone because they know I have them and they do not.
*A grip of business cards.
*The 2006 Book of Lists, both the love of my life and the bane of my existance.

What Not to Wear: Project Runway edition.

I read PostSecret every Sunday. While an overwhelming number of secrets pretain to sexual violence, there are occasionally some that bring an ounce of levity. Some of them, very well could be mine.

While that one is not mine, I, too, value Stacy and Clinton's opinions over all others. In fact, if last week's Project Runway decision was any indication, I think Stacy and Clinton need to be guest judges on the show. Vincent's dress should not have won, based on proportion alone.

I don't know what the hell that bizarre middy collar is doing on that dress, but it is not in any way suited to that model. The challenge was to design a look for the everyday woman, using the other designers mothers and sisters as models. Most of these women were in the 12-14 range. And there is a lot that can be done to make an average-sized woman look smaller. Most of which are simple things involving piping, adding a central seams down the center, rich colors, appropriate-sized patterns and, most importantly, making things that actually fit the model well! Basically, everyone failed this challenege. Though I think the best of the bunch was probably Uli, once again making a great use of her understanding of pattern.

Anything was better than Robert's atrocity for Vincent's very large and probably diabetic sister (woman literally gimped down the runway), which wsa a black jersey tube dress and some bright red kimono-like thing that made her look about 3 times bigger than she actually was.
Stacy and Clinton, Project Runway desperately needs your help. Please save Michael Kors from himself. And punch Elle magazine fashion director Nina Garcia in the face for me. She has broken the no miniskirts over 35 rule numerous times. And once with leggings.

"Who puts their resume in Comic Sans MS?"

I really don't know if its awesome or sad when I can identify a font. I clearly spend too much time in front of a computer screen.

But that's a serious question. I should never see a resume in Comic Sans MS. Never.

That's, like, 10 kinds of wrong.

You've gotta get a gimmick.

Everyone who loves kittens needs to know that our Zoey is now featured on catsinbags.com.

She is kitten #72. Her picture is doubly good because she's sitting inside a shoebox that's inside a bag. It's twice the bag goodness.

Just wait. We'll get her into places like stuffonmycat.com, kittenwar.com, catsinsinks.com, mycathatesyou.com. Baby's gonna be a star!

Hollywood missed connections. w4m.

Walking back from Java Jones with Rose, I was stopped in the middle of the State and De La Guerra by a tall man holding his coffee in line with his necktie. He looks at me for a long while before stopping me as we pass each other. He reaches out to lightly touch my arm.

"We really miss you at Hollywood," he says.

I am always so caught off guard when things like this happen. The witty part of me is dead.

"Do you, really?" I say, turning back.

"Yeah, we do. Seriously."

"Thanks." Because smiling is all I can do.

As we walk away, I know everything about this guy except his name. He always came in late, 10ish, and I always gave him shit. He would purposely ask for bad movies because he knew that I would give him some snide look that said, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Seeing regulars outside of the Hollywood Video environment is definitely odd. I feel like Donna Beth, my Chaucer instructor, must have felt when she spun around after getting her hair done last weekend to see me sitting in the chair opposite her. She looked at me like she was watching a dog walk on its hind legs. (Or a dog with no front legs at all, for that matter. Evidence here.)

It's nice to know that I'm that memorable, and that I managed to create a lasting impression with regulars. Somehow, that makes it better that I spent nearly 4 years of my life working for Hollywood Video, because I built a relationship with customers that made them feel less like they were entering a part of a giant corporation and more like they were visiting a neighborhood store. So many of them were so happy that I was taking a better job, a career-type job. But its nice to know they miss me.

Still, the exchange in the middle of the intersection was odd. What business does he have in a tie? And what business do I have in dress pants and heels? This is not how we know each other. Two-legged dog odd.

I must share this sentence with the world.

"And then Tim Gunn said, 'Don't worry, there's a Dairy Queen near my house.'"
--Marcus, explaining his dream about Tim Gunn after last nights wicked awesome Project Runway.

This sentence was followed by: "I just don't know why Tim Gunn wanted to take me to a Dairy Queen."

If there are people out there who don't know why I love this man and why I'm going to marry him, this is why. It's moments like these where we are absolutely ridiculous that make my goddamn day.

Baby, I love you. And next time Tim Gunn wants to take you to the DQ, invite me so I can get some advice on following grain lines. I'll buy.

Paisan'

The Italian Grocery on De La Guerra is my savior.

I no longer have to make pizzocheri with delicious, though rather flimsy and inadequate, garlic noodles from Trader Joe's. Now I have an outlet at which to purchase real pizzocheri, which is what thick, hearty Italian buckwheat pasta is called. For those who have not been blessed with this gift from the Vatellina, traditional pizzocheri are cooked with boiled potatoes and cabbage, then smothered in a garlic-butter-sage sauce and choked to death with a variety of cheeses. As I am unable to find Toma and Bitto in America, I've been using a blend of melty mozzarella, fontina, asiago and parmesan.


Pizzocheri, specialty of the Vatellina aka a meal to last a week if you get snowed-in in your small Alpine village

Learning how to make this dish was one of my Italian cooking goals I set when I came back from my summer in Italy. Mission accomplished. I also set out to learn my favorite dessert, Tiramisu, which I think I do a decent job of, especially with extra Kaluha.

Along the way, I've completely abandoned store bought pasta sauces. I can't stand them anymore, and I really don't know how I could ever stand them in the first place. They're never hearty; even when there are tomato chunks in them, its not the same. My father always made a rich, red Sicilian sauce from scratch for me when I was a kid. He put hours into it, which is why my sauces are still not my father's caliber. I make lighter, more Roman-style sauces. And I make a mean vodka sauce, which is creamier than one might expect.

I always marveled at how my father rarely used a recipe for sauces, but the more I make them, I see why he didn't need them. I've figured out how to do an alfredo sauce sans recipe, which I really thought would be the hardest sauce I could ever make. For sauces, a recipe is too limiting. They're really meant to be more like guidelines--especially in an Italian kitchen.

So, pizzocheri and tiramisu are two of my completed Italian cooking goals. Now I just have to set aside the time to make gnocchi from scratch.

It is, however, unfortunate that no where in the country can I get cheap grappa. It's like 5-10 euro a bottle in Italy! It's $40 a bottle here! Even at the Italian Grocery! I guess my next goal is to learn how to put my winemaking skills to good use and figure out how to distill me some Italian rocket fuel.

Guess I shouldn't have made that left turn at Albequrque.

I discovered last weekend on a fabric run to Ventura with Jenn that the space between Santa Barbara/Monetecito and Ventura is suspiciously like West Virgina.

I also discovered I had a flat tire, which is how I discovered the strange cultural topography of Carpinteria and Summerland in the first place.

For those of you who have seen my car, you will know that it has two neat dents on the passenger side: a large one on the back passenger door courtesy of Sam and Kian's old apartment building and a small one on the front wheel well, thanks to my own shitty driving on moving day.

This is why I thought people were just being complete dicks as they pointed to my front wheel and motioned in confusing ways. "Yes, fuckass, I am aware that there is a dent. Thanks for being so observant."

Only after the third Samaritan pointed did Jenn roll down the window to hear people explain we had a flat. So we got off the road just past Montecito, in to Summerland, which bears absolutely NO resemblance to the faux-C show of the same name that allegedly took place there. It is also not particularly summery.

In Summerland, we pull up to the first gas station off the road and inspect the damage. Yes. It's flat. Awesome. We assume there's a nail in it. So we amble inside the convenience store to ask if there's a station with a service shop around. Inside, a leathery woman reeking of booze is conversing with a leathery man, wearing sunglasses, and smoking inside the store. They tell us that if we "drive about three miles down the road there, there'll be a 76 station with a service shop."

So we thank them and head on our merry.

But they really have no idea exactly how many miles down the road this place is, because we drove far more than 3 miles, upwards of 5 by my estimate, to this elusive 76 station. In Carpinteria.

Wouldn't it have been easier to say, "If you go down this road until you hit Carpinteria, you'll find a 76 station?" Then I wouldn't have feared breaking down by the fucking polo grounds and being devoured by rabid and angry horses.

Carp, as locals call it, is also somewhat desolate-looking. We pull into the gas station and drive all the way around to the back, thinking this will put us closer to the service shop. But we find no one available for service. Rad. This is so rad. Luckily, from out of the convenience store emerges a short, old man with a dingy baseball cap and spectacles so thick his eyes are magnified to three times their size. Oh yeah, this guy also has a grill like a dirty picket fence.

We inform him of our problem and all I can do is stare at his teeth. We pull the car over to the air box and he takes one look at my green-capped Nitrogen filled tires and announces that we have a problem, other than the flat. "These tires is filled with helium," he says.

Helium? Dude, you work at a gas station. Shouldn't you have a basic primer on gases? Like, at least to know that helium can not possibly be in tires. Or my car might float. I say might, because I really don't know how well helium holds up under 2 tons of pressure.

In any case, I hedgingly ask him if it is safe to put air in tires filled with things other than air, whatever they may be. He tells me to check my owner's manual, as though an owner's manual comes with the most-replaced parts of the car. All the while, Jenn has noticed that there is a man on a payphone who may and or may not have a glass eye leering at us as we sit in the car and read the informationless owner's manual.

Gas Station Attendant with a Mean Grill returns and knocks horror-movie style on our window. I think: imminent death. He tells us that he "called somebody" and they "said it was okay" to mix air with "helium." So I say, what the hell, fill 'em. At least we'll get to Ventura . . . if we don't DIE FIRST.

So he airs up our tires and slaps the hood to send us on our way. We say "thanks" and drive off wondering how the fuck we ended up in a scene out of The Hills Have Eyes.

The good part of this is that Ventura is a land of wonderous automotive innovation. Right across the street from Joann's is a place called Just Tires, where they happen to do work on just . . . tires. They took the nail out of my tire and patched it for $10 flat.

And brocade silk was on sale! Badass!