wedding date for hire

anytime a friend mentions some dreaded wedding they're obligated to attend, i am quick to offer my services.

"looking for a date?"

i love weddings, particularly when i don't know the people getting married. watching two strangers pledge their eternal devotion to one another is like watching a movie. slipping into my fancy pants, gorging myself on finger food, and dunking my slice of wedding cake into a never-empty flute of champagne is my idea of a quality saturday night. and all for free? yes, please. sign me up.

i accompanied an ex to an A+ wedding on saturday evening. outside the greystone mansion, we navigated the garden paths, trying locate the ceremony. the invitation had said "formal or semi-formal," which was puzzling. it's like saying "dress for the ball or the beach." i erred on the side of extreme caution, and wore a macabre black lace anna sui dress. a summertime garden wedding in beverly hills, and i looked brazenly gothic. around my neck, an antique black onyx dangled, worn to cool the ardors of love.

we turned a corner and bumped into a well-dressed gentleman eating a banana.

"we're lost," said the ex. "do you know where the ceremony is taking place?"

"i hope so. i'm the groom." he kindly pointed us in the right direction, which of course was the opposite of the one in which we'd been headed.

my date, a college friend of the bride, introduced himself. the groom turned to me. "so you must be meghan," he said. i was impressed. had he studied a set of wedding guest flash cards the night before?

post-ceremony (which was near-perfect: brief, touching, and devoid of religion), the date and i walked the same path and discovered the groom's discarded banana peel, empty and yellow, hanging on the wall. the last hurrah.

the reception was held at the beverly hills hotel, and upon our arrival, we were presented with miniature brown boats (the groom is a sailing enthusiast). on the paper sail, the name of our assigned table was written.

"i think they're chocolate," i told him. it was the cocktail hour, and we were being assaulted with mojitos and skewered coconut lobster tails.

the tiny vessel was balanced on his extended palm. he narrowed his eyes, inspecting it.

"chocolate? are you sure?"

"pretty sure. smell it."

we brought the boats to our noses, sniffing simultaneously.

"you're right," he said. "definitely chocolate."

we tossed the paper sails and popped the boats into our mouths. the date scowled.

"i think i just chipped a tooth." he spit the boat back into his palm, newly slick with saliva.

"bad call. definitely plastic."

other reception highlights included: asparagus-wrapped mushroom hors d'oeuvre; a trivia contest; a spirited LC vs. dewey debate; my date pouring booze down my throat, attempting to lure me onto the dance floor (he was eventually successful).

once, i attended the birthday party of an acquaintance, themed "let them eat cake." per her request, every guest brought an entire cake. it was a well-attended event. i think there were at least 30 cakes inside the golden gopher that night, including a couple that were illicit substance-infused. i felt compelled to sample almost every variety on offer, and then fell into a Cake-Hole, growing numb all over and losing the power the of speech. i wandered deliriously from the bar, sugar-sick and stoned, and somehow stumbled into a metro station. on the train, i curled into a little ball on my seat, and coasted back to hollywood. that night i learned an important lesson, something that most people figure during a childhood birthday party: there is such a thing as too much cake.

at the wedding, i was having "let them eat cake" flashbacks. i was overwhelmed, and (still not completely trusting myself in presence of so much frosting) a little frightened by the volume of dessert on offer. wedding cake service followed a separate dessert course. and on the way out the door, there was a table towering with jumbo gourmet cupcakes.

"please take some with you," the bride urged the guests. "i don't know what we'll do with all of these cupcakes."

my date proceeded to grab a box meant to accommodate four cupcakes and stuff it with eight.

"what are you going to do with eight ginormous cupcakes?"

"eat them, obviously."

"you're going to eat all eight of these cupcakes before they spoil?"

"i was going to give one to you. maybe two if you behave."

"i have eaten enough dessert tonight to last my ass the month. i'll pass."

"cool. more for me. hold this while i get the car."

he thrust the cupcake box into my arms. the lid wouldn't shut and pink frosting was oozing through the cracks.

"this is disgusting. can we please put some back?"

"no."

i rode in his passenger seat from beverly hills to hollywood with the overstuffed box in my lap, and watched as the oil stains spread across the cardboard lid. exiting his car, i noticed that my goth frock had been redone in pink: streaks of buttery frosting snaked down the front, crusted into the lace.

"i'll pay for the dry cleaning," he offered, proving there's no such thing as a free cupcake.

on monday he wrote:

"Hey, thanks again for being such a great date to the wedding on Sat . . . though the cupcakes are such a gross, coagulated mess that I've decided to just toss them out. "

no surprises there.

blood, peanut butter and puke: the BOTB round-up

mom and i had discussed the possibility of a tournament weekend visit, but she didn't think she could get the time off work. a month went by, and i didn't hear from her, so i assumed this was the case. but where my mother is concerned, i shouldn't be so naive. she is notorious for her vacation-by-ambush tactics.

it was the tuesday night preceding "battle on the bank" when my mom called to tell me she would be driving to LA from phoenix the next day. she's staying at my apartment, of course, which had not been sanitized in preparation for a mom visit. i would need more than 24 hrs notice to accomplish this, and so the dust remained on my windowsills.

though she remains a controversial figure, my mother's services proved indispensable during the tourney weekend. on saturday, i arrived at the doll factory and realized i'd left my trusty peanut butter and jelly sandwich on my bed, forsaken in its aluminum foil casing. i called my mom, who was still lagging at my apartment, and she promised to bring the elusive PBJ.

mom! bring me my goddamn PBJ!*

following the L.A. Golden Girls' first match of the day (against OC, who we defeated), i spotted my mom in the stands.

"i have your sandwich, meg!" she called out.

"thanks mom."

it wasn't until later, as i was stuffing that sandwich into my sandwich hole, that i learned just what a headache Mission: PBJ had been.

"i forgot it at home." she told me. "i was halfway here and i had to turn around and go back for it. and then when i was going through security, they tried to confiscate it."

"oh shit! how did you get it in?" i asked, my mouth full of peanut butter.

"i threw a fit! i was yelling at the security guard, and then someone overheard me say that i was your mother. i was escorted inside."

despite my mom's efforts, peanut butter wasn't enough to secure the win against SD. the score was close throughout and it came down to the last couple of jams. LA actually skated an erroneous victory lap before being called off the track by the refs. our winning points were erased from the scoreboard (we'd committed a major penalty during the previous jam, which rendered our points null and void). the refs put another minute on the clock, and the final jam was skated sans LA jammer. SD held onto their one-point lead and won the game.

the golden girls lose and crystal deth sheds tears of blood!

after the match, i joined my mom in the bleachers to watch the LA vs. TXRD bout. it became apparent that she had been swept away by the Orange Flood. as she congratulated me on my skating ("i'm so proud of you, meggie!"), i noticed the peculiar way her speech had become simultaneously rapid and slurred; the telltale orange glow around her mouth; and the giveaway empty cans at her feet.

the league is now sponsored by Sparks, as evidenced by the profusion of Sparks signage throughout the Factory and our rabid, orange-mouthed fans.

eliminated from competition, i spent Day 2 of the tournament (sunday) alongside my mother as a Sparks-drinking spectator. i don't hold Sparks responsible for what went down during the LA Ri-ettes vs. Team Awesome bout, which was the final match-up of the tourney. i'd only had one, but it did lend my buckets of vomit a distinctive orange hue.

in my defense, i didn't feel the puke coming. one minute i'm sitting alongside my mom, the two of us enjoying our respective Sparks (hers regular, mine "the always blue, never sad" light variety), and the next thing i know, i'm blowing chunks onto the back of the VIP sitting directly in front of me. i bolted from my seat and made for the VIP restroom, pausing once to vomit into a trash can en route.

on my way out of the bathroom, i crossed paths with the woman on whom i had spewed.

"i'm so sorry! i'm not drunk you know. i'm just really, really ill."

"it's OK. you barely got me." she was kind.

"i'm so embarrassed."

"don't worry about it. it's not like i know you! who am i gonna tell about it?"

i just hope she didn't notice the name emblazoned across the back of my LA Golden Girls t-shirt.

i returned to the bleachers toting paper towels, and found my mother where i'd left her: watching the game, Sparks in hand. everyone else in the section had cleared out, presumably because of the wretched smell. at my mother's feet was my vomit-encrusted "This Is How We Roll" LADD tote bag. she turned to me.

"where did you go?"

"mom! didn't you notice that i just puked all over the place? look at my bag!"

she looked down, and i watched her orange-tinted lips tighten with repulsion.

"that's pretty fucking gross, meg."

"i know. tell me about it."

despite my profound illness, i was determined to watch the remainder of the game. though i rested my head in my lap between jams, from what i gathered, LA won, and then Team Awesome won, and then LA won for real. everyone was confused: the skaters, the announcers, the crowd, and the refs. it was very tense and dramatic and i think a riot almost broke out (i felt a few empty cans of sparks whiz by my oh-so-heavy head). the moment the game was finally called, i made a mad dash for the bookmobile, and booked it onto the 101. the car ride did nothing to improve my condition. as i was exiting onto gower, i had to pull over to vomit onto the curb, and was only partially successful.

it felt like a million years later that i was finally home, upchucking in the comfort of my own toilet. i couldn't keep anything down until the next day.

my sunday night sickness begs a few questions: is there such thing as too much derby? will your own stomach turn against you as an act of protest against the questionable calls made by LADD refs? does the collective over consumption of Sparks malt energy beverage incite riots? is judy gloom totally gross, and did her car smell like death the next day?

the answer to all of these questions is a firm "maybe" (except the last one, which is an emphatic "hell yes"). though it is worth noting that i received a monday night phone call from the dude i kissed on saturday. he told me that he spent the day trying not to vomit up his internal organs. so yeah, i'm inclined to think it was just a bug.

*photo is actually from the LA vs. SD, but i couldn't resist using it out of sequence.

triumphant return?

i'm skating this weekend with a tournament team called the L.A. Golden Girls. my uniform t-shirt has an image of Bea Arthur on the front and the slogan "Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend was Hot Like Bea! [sic]" oh wait, here's a jpeg:



you can see why i haven't been heavily promoting this event here at the Hollywood Librarian. i will also be wearing these:



in addition to my silly getup, there will be some serious skating going on. the tournament schedule and ticket info is on the LADD web site.

this will be your last chance to get some derby action until september. after this weekend, the L.A. Derby Dolls are taking a much-needed vacation. sort of. there's still the mayor's day of service and junior derby camp happening in july. yep, vacation, derby style.

"so loud, you can barely hear yourself drink"

the derby dolls were on the front page of the LA Times this morning (ok, technically, a small photo and a blurb on the front page with the full story on pg. 1 of the California section). i have been working with the Times' photographer since February on this piece, and am so thrilled that it's finally out. and just in time to sell out our "battle on the bank" tournament at the end of the month.



photos by Francine Orr.

library dispatch

i'm sitting at the reference desk right now, and i just noticed that the librarian working alongside me has a cigarette tucked behind her ear. at first glance, i mistook it for a dirty white pen.

should i say something? is it intentional? she's on the desk for the next 2.5 hours. it's not like she's waiting for a smoke break.

i keep staring at that cigarette. it looks so unhygienic brushing up against her hair. isn't this a violation of some health code or another? mechanics put their cigarettes behind their ears, which makes sense because they work in garages, which is pretty much like working outside. librarians work in libraries where there is never any smoking. did i mention that i work in a community college library? what message does a librarian with a cigarette behind her ear send to our impressionable student body?

can't. stop. staring. i am too hungover for this shit.

seeds in my ears

i have been told on more than one occasion that i have nice ankles, which struck me as an odd bit of praise the first time i heard it. later, when i was introduced to the concept of the cankle, this compliment made a little more sense.



these days, i have one demure ankle and one less aesthetically pleasing ankle. my ugly ankle is adorned with a bulky mass of fibrous scar tissue, which can be seen and felt beneath the surface of my skin. manipulating my bulky mass in his office a few weeks ago, my acupuncturist called it "meaty."

"it's like. . ." he started, struggling to find the right words to describe it further. "do you eat meat?"

"no."

"think back to what it tastes like. that texture in your mouth. that's what your ankle feels like in my hand."

i have an acupuncturist. the needles he sticks into my left foot and ankle feel like they're on fire when they pierce the surface of my skin. he puts them other places, too, those needles. inserted anywhere else, the sensation is weird, vaguely uncomfortable, but i wouldn't describe it as burning.

i tell him this -- that the needles in my left ankle feel like they're on fire.

"that is the afflicted area," he says.

my acupuncturist has many tricks up the sleeve of his white, doctorly-looking lab coat. he has taped seeds inside my ears. he has scraped my ankle repeatedly and vigorously with a buffalo horn (a technique that i later discover is called gua sha). he has applied a curious-smelling herbal salve, vintage 1993, purported to "wipe bruises away," concocted by a revered kung fu master. he has "smoked" the needles in my ankle (that is, to heat them via an ignited bushel of twigs, an instrument that looked and smelled not unlike a blunt).

yeah, it sounds like hocus pocus to me too. i don't know if i buy it, but this particular acupuncturist is sponsoring the league, and treating our skaters at a pittance. i want to be back to 100% badly enough that, given the rightness of the price, i will swallow my skepticism. i will buy it at a reduced rate. and my fibrous mass does seem to be losing weight, though my ankle is a shadow of her formerly svelte sexy self.

i leave my acupuncturist's office in a much better mood than i was before i arrived. i feel inexplicably cheered despite having spent most of the previous hour splayed out and alone in a small dark room, needles rising from my skin, a roller derby voodoo doll. my acupuncturist vanishes before the needles do their magic; i'm not sure where he goes or what he does as i lay there, soaking up the light streaming through the room's single window, and listening to the music made by the sad, sick dogs crying out from the animal hospital located across the alley.

by the end of practice on monday night, my foot was in a lot of pain. it was aching and cramping, but i skated through it. on tuesday, i saw my acupuncturist for the third time. yesterday, i woke up and went to the gym. i did an hour-long class called burn & firm, which involved an ungodly number of jumping jacks and other plyometric drills. then i went to work, and by 6 p.m., i was at the doll factory with my skates on again. i took a break from 7:30-8 to grab a burrito, but otherwise, i was on wheels until 9:30. by the end of practice, i felt like i might collapse from exhaustion, but any ankle discomfort was almost imperceptible. in fact, i wasn't sure if my ankle was only slightly aching, or if my mummification-style tape job was perhaps too tight. a complete turnaround from monday night.

afterward, as i sat peeling off my gear, a teammate approached me.

"wow! so you're totally back to normal now, huh?"

"not really, but i'm working on it."

"well, you look like you are."

"it's an illusion, though it's good to know that i'm pulling it off."

another teammate, leia, sustained a knee injury around the same time i severed the ligament in my ankle. we both resumed skating at practices about a month ago. it was great having her there skating alongside me, knowing that we'd been through the same ordeal over the previous few months. then last week, she went down in a jam, and blew out her bad knee all over again. it had probably been too soon for her to come back -- her injury hadn't completely healed, and now she was back at square one. so, rather than have the fight crew continue to hold her place on the team's roster, she has chosen to step down. she made the announcement at practice on monday night, and it made me sick to hear it.

likewise, i found this new york times magazine article about the injury epidemic in women's sports sad, moving and familiar.

mother's day

my mother wears her stethoscope like a necklace. it is always around her neck - in the car, in the grocery store, when she's cooking dinner. as a kid, i remember her stethoscope brushing against my face when she leaned over to tuck me in at night. she was perpetually on her way to and from work.

my mother is a nurse on the retirement home circuit. she used to work in hospitals, but that was before i was born. some of my earliest memories are of visiting my mom at the old folks home, where she stood beside her med cart, hunched over, counting out pills. the nurse's station bustled with octogenarians, mostly women, in floral patterned muumuus. some sat in their wheelchairs drooling or crying out for their mothers, while others scuttled down the fluorescent-lighted hallway, assisted by their walkers, muttering obscenities under their breath.

"you little bitch," a wild-eyed granny once called me as i stood waiting for my mother. we were the same height, though she was in a wheelchair, and clutching a raggedy ann doll exactly like the one i had at home.

i was terrified of old people.

occasionally, the more with-it grannies would woo me with ribbon candy or butterscotch. given other options, i would have turned my nose at such third-rate offerings, but certainly having something sweet melting inside my mouth, rotting my teeth, was better than having nothing at all.

my mother has worked at a dozen of these places over the years, and one thing is always same: the smell. it's a distinct odor exclusive the old folks home, medicinal and unsavory. it's the scent of antibiotics punctuated with imagined meats: liver and tongue, tripe.

my mom got me my first job, at 16, in a retirement home. i worked in the kitchen. i wore a hairnet and pureed food for the old folks who couldn't eat solids. i'd dump whole pieces of roast beef into a food processor, and scoop the resultant brown mush onto their sectioned plastic plates. beef mush, carrot mush and a pile of mashed potatoes. everything was doused in gravy. after dinner, when i'd bus the dining hall, i'd find the brown and orange sludge crusted into the carpet.

i didn't last very long at the old folks home. soon i was working at the mall like all the other teenage girls, selling jewelry at a kiosk next to the escalator. silverworld.

yesterday, i called my mom to wish her a happy mother's day.

"your mother's been sick," she told me. my mom likes to refer to herself in the third person, most often as "the mama," e.g. "the mama misses you so much!"

"what kind of sick? are you ok?"

"i've had pneumonia for the past couple of weeks. and can you believe they made me go into work when i could barely stand up? i felt like i was going to die."

"i'm sorry, mom. that's awful."

"i know it. i wound up giving it to some of the people on my floor, and now they're dead."

"wait...what? they died?"

"yes, my pneumonia killed them. can you believe that shit?"

"that's absolutely terrible."

"yeah. what are you going to do? anyway, i've got to back to work."

"did you get my mother's day card?"

"i haven't had a chance to go through the mail yet. i'll look for it tomorrow."

"i got you a gift card for the cheesecake factory. have dinner on me."

"oh, my favorite! thanks, meg!"

"sure, of course. happy mother's day."