the OK Cupid experiment...

SO.... (big breath)

Before I left Portland, my sister gently shoved me into the online dating world via OK Cupid.

"Look," she said, with a note of resigned pity on her face, "we both know that you are a breeder."
Before I could shake my head, "no", she went on.."A MATER - someone who likes to partner up. Am I wrong?"

"Well..." I said, thinking about it. "I guess so."
"And this is how it's DONE these days, Jennifer." she instructed me. "At the VERY least - you can just look at the guys in Texas and see what you think."

So, I started looking at the guys in Texas.
I was rather amazed at how many lovely, intelligent men were swimming around the pool of the OK Cupid waters. AND with good taste in books and music and film!

The first conversation I had online, was with a nice Atheist man from West Texas who scolded me for not having good photos up. "You need one where we can see your FACE." he wrote to me.

Ok, ok. I put more photos. 2 without sunglasses.

"That's good." He wrote. "Now fill out your profile and answer some of those questions."
"I don't like the questions. " I wrote back. "And I can't sum myself up in one page!"
"Well, I don't know what you want out of this experience.." he replied, "but I don't really want a pen pall. I really want to meet someone - and the more specific you are, the better chances that you'll meet someone you actually like.."

I thought about that. What DID I want? Just to look at the big, tall Texas cowboys? A pen pall? Well, no. I DID want to meet someone cool and great and all that. But I was NOT going to answer a million questions about sex and intimate stuff like that on a public site. So, I decided to try something different. I put up a link to this blog. Now - it's ALL out there. They could research me if they so chose to. My thoughts, my worst Christmas, my past - some of the TV shows I was on - easy to google, etc, etc.

I thought for sure I would get some hate mail - but I was ok with that. It certainly would be a weeding out process, wouldn't it?
Instead, I got lots of positive responses. Not one hate mail. (not yet, anyway). This OK Cupid thing was going pretty well - and the most LOVELY men were writing to me! Maybe it would WORK!!!

But then, conversations began to develop. Online. On screen.
These lovely men all had a LOT of questions. Good ones.
"Do you have a job lined up?" "Where will you live?" "How many times a week do you work out?"

Uhhhhh.....
Uhhhhhhhhhhh........

I realized very quickly that I have NO answers to these questions.
Then I felt like a COMPLETE IDIOT.

"What the hell is wrong with you, girl?" I asked myself - while laughing at myself.
I have no job lined up, not sure where I'll be living and last week I worked out ZERO times and in fact was sitting in a car for 12 hrs at a time and only now am regaining feeling in my ass, and am on some road to recovering my poor stomach from the dreadful road trip crap I've put into it over the last few days.

In short - I am a mess.

So...as much as I really do want to cover all of those lovely Texas men with freshly sliced Texas peaches and eat them all up - as much as I want to go on a million coffee dates with different fellows - this one gentleman told me something that sticks in my head. He told me that he went on a date with this woman from OK Cupid and she BRAGGED at dinner that she just went out with all these guys to get a bunch of free meals out of it. If you can BELIEVE that! Not cool!

I in no way want to be like that woman.
And these super nice guys deserve a little better in my book. They deserve to go out with someone who can  answer at LEAST those first 3 questions. I mean, they ARE pretty basic, after all.

Gentle readers - I have torn myself away from the scintillating and slightly addictive world of online dating for NOW.
I intend to get myself into a place where I can answer those questions (and more)very happily, and then I'll just dive back in.

 Maybe.

In the mean time - single ladies who read this blog - if you EVER thought about moving to Texas - I can tell you that there are some MIGHTY FINE gentlemen here - smart, cool, athletic, single (unless they're lying - but I don't think so) - that are ready to meet you for coffee!

Sandy Hook Massacre

On Dec. 14th, I couldn't sleep.

All that early morning I was awoken by terrible, horrifying, violent dreams. I kept sitting up and physically shaking myself to try to get away from the nightmares.

I dreamt about my mother, after my family's car accident, on the side of the road just outside Clovis, New Mexico, with her 10 year old boy in her lap, his neck snapped. I couldn't shake the extreme, deep horror and sadness of that moment.

Then I dreamt about my best friend, Mieke.
She, too, held her daughter in her arms after it was too late. Nothing  - no amount of love or desire - could bring her back. I dreamt and felt so distinctly how that MOMENT - those moments - must have felt. A mother losing her child. It felt so real.

Then, I was awoken by a random dream. It was vague, and hazy - but there was a man with a gun. I heard the shots, and again was awoken in terror and a deep, deep sadness - not knowing why these dreams were coming to me this morning. I shook my head, hard. "Perhaps it's just because I'm leaving today.." I thought. "Maybe I'm scared and don't realize it fully?"

I tried to sleep for another hour, then gave up and switched on the TV to see what time it was. Almost 8:30 am , on the West Coast. I was getting a late start to my journey back to Texas.

And then I saw the images.
Little children being hustled out of somewhere. Grown ups hunched protectively over them - cars everywhere - a scene of chaos.
I turned the sound up and listened to the news in disbelief. A SHOOTING? At an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL??? TWO FREAKIN' DAYS AFTER THE MALL THING HERE IN PORTLAND!!?????

It was hard to believe. Awful to believe.

I tore myself away from the terrible images, packed my car, made a couple of sandwiches, and left.
I'd been looking forward to the drive through Southern Oregon. Grant's Pass, all of those beautiful mountains - and I was also in a hurry to beat the next snowfall.

My cat, Zyll, and I , took in the glorious scenery as Handel's Messiah washed through me. Clouds swept and swirled around the tops of tall evergreens and snow capped mountain tops. Then, as I lost one radio station and searched for another, I landed on NPR. The reporters were clearly accounting the details of the Sandy Hook Massacre. TWENTY young children believed to be dead, and SIX adults, not including the shooter and possibly his mother. It was almost too horrible to believe - and RIGHT before Christmas!

I cried and cried through the beautiful trees, mountains and vistas. The sun popped out at times looking like those paintings of 'God'. The green pastures dotted with white sheep were so vibrant they almost  glowed green. I lost the station, and switched back to classical music. It was raining off and on, making my over active imagination feel like the beautiful sky was crying with me. Then, just passed Grant's Pass, a rainbow appeared.

I went to Catholic school as a kid. I am not Catholic any longer, but all of those stories stuck in my head. And, I feel like the bit about rainbows being a sign of hope just makes sense. Even if I never heard those stories - I think a rainbow WOULD make me feel hopeful. Just from it's sheer beauty and magic. Maybe there IS a pot of gold, maybe everything WILL be ok....

But then again, if there is a God - how the hell can these 2 realities be reconciled? The horror of those poor families losing their children ( AND the adults, too, of course) in such a terrible, disgusting way -  and this incredible, peaceful, glorious rainbow - looking innocent and HOPEFUL!!!???

I stayed in Lake Shasta, then continued my drive yesterday, crying off and on all the way into L.A.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
No sense at all.

Back to Roots

After I sold my house a year ago, I didn't know where to go.
I felt homeless.
So, I traveled the globe looking for options.

I thought perhaps it would be good to go back to where I was born, South Africa. I could get citizenship there if I wanted to, and I hadn't ever been back. "Perhaps these are my roots?" I thought as whizzed through the sky in a huge man made machine, looking down at fluffy, white clouds underneath me.

South Africa felt familiar and strange all at once. There WAS something of me there. A tiny part of my history. But it was not where I belonged. Not now, anyway.

Then, after much travel, I decided on Portland. Partly because of my sister. She'd been wanting to move here for years, and I truly loved the city when I was coming to "scout it out".

But now, after a few short months, I know that Portland is NOT where I belong right now, either. I feel like a ghost here, and that's quite something for ME to say. If you know me at all, you know that I am not a shy or introverted creature. I did not feel like a ghost in Bali or Paris or South Africa when I was traveling there alone. Not in Amsterdam or Scotland.
Something about this beautiful place and I - is just not clicking.

AND....I do feel, after many conversations with my sister, that perhaps both of us were running away from something at the beginning. She certainly was and is. And maybe I was, too. From family - from perceptions of both failure and success - from my past....

But I've come to a glorious and wonderful new enlightenment.

I don't WANT to run away!!! NOT FROM ANYTHING!!!
I WANT the messy family stuff - the lovely, complicated, complex relationships that make us who we are. I want it ALL.  I want the drama, the stress (sometimes) the laughs, the love, the food... I want to see my little cousins and my niece grow up ...I WANT IT ALL.

So...I am packing up my car once again. getting rid of even MORE stuff (a serious shedding)...and heading back to my roots, and my family in Texas. Of ALL places.

Shaken, not stirred.

There is a great debate in my family.
About martini's.
One camp (my father and his cousin, Jim, belong to this camp) believe that a true martini is made ONLY with gin - NEVER vodka. This camp prefers their martini's shaken, not stirred.

A great, and very old friend of mine, I have recently learned - is staunchly in my father's camp about the gin, but he prefers his martini's stirred. Gently. "You'll bruise the gin if you shake it." he explained to me earnestly on the phone. "Gin has a distinct and delicate flavor - you want to taste that." he explained.
I laughed on my end of the phone - hundreds of miles away. I laughed because people can be so very passionate about these seemingly little things. My father and Jim are the same way. When I order a VODKA martini in my father's presence, he shakes his head and looks very sincerely disapointed.
"It's not a MARTINI, Jennifer." he'll say. "Ask Jim! He'll tell you."
"I know, Dad." I said the last time we had martinis. "I remember."
"Well..." he said back to me with an accusing look on his face."When you went to Harry's Bar, in Venice - you went, right?"
"I did. I went. I promise. I took photographs to prove it."
( I HAD gone, and I KNEW I'd have to have some evidence, so I begged my friend, Dorian , to take some pics of the martinis, the bartender - the whole scene)
"Well....did you have a REAL martini there? Or a "VODKA martini"?" (I could hear the sarcastic quotes hanging in the air around those 2 words)
"Oh, Dad...gosh..." I struggled to remember exactly what I'd ordered. For some reason it seemed important. It had been important to my Dad that I go there in the first place, so I had. These strange little strings of communication that we all hung onto in our family. Our bizarre versions of tradition, I guess. Harry's Bar was famous for being a Hemingway spot and an American x-pat spot, so of course the artists and writers of our family felt they had to make it ours as well.
"I just ordered a martini, Dad. That's what I did. You told me to order a martini, and that's what I did."

My father's face was suddenly covered with a cloak of righteous happiness. He looked fulfilled and delighted. A half laugh forced it's way out of his lips, "Ha...WELL..then you had a REAL MARTINI. A GIN martini - that's how they do them!"
"Mmmhmm. Yep. It was gin."
"A PROPER martini! THAT'S Harry's Bar for you!"
"It was a good martini, Dad. Cool place."

I prefer vodka martinis in general. But my father and I do land in the same camp when it comes to shaken, not stirred. I don't think a martini is drinkable if not shaken vigorously. And of course, I grew up hearing 007 say, "Shaken..not stirred".

This Thanksgiving, I had the impossibly great pleasure of having all of my children around me. And my brother, my sister and my mother. These days that's quite something. We are all so spread out and mobile. And after the girls all got on their planes and trains, the boys and I decided to go to a movie as it was spitting rain. The new James Bond on Imax won out. 50 year anniversary of the series this year. Wow.
It was great fun seeing that with my boys - Jake, Max and August Blue. The theme of the movie (or the hook, rather) seemed to be 'Sometimes the old ways are the best ways'. And I loved that. But - with that set up - I was disappointed that James never ordered his martini "Shaken, not stirred".

I found myself daydreaming during the movie. Remembering the drive around Lago Maggiore a couple years ago - how I felt like I was truly IN a James Bond movie - and little drives around the English countryside when I lived there many years ago. "Shaken, not stirred" was really sticking in my mind. I couldn't shake it (pardon the language).

That night I dreamt about all of the roads not taken. The safe roads. The predictable roads. The destinies I so often yearn for. And every night since, I have had similar dreams. The life that eludes me.

How can I say what I am trying to say?
I don't know how yet.
I am an awkward toddler of a writer at best.
I write like a toddler walks - like a drunken sailor. No balance, no form, no grace, no expectation or taking for granted that the next step will land well...or at all.

These dreams have been tormenting me.
I could have taken over my Grandmother's shop. She wanted me to. I didn't hate it. I sort of loved it.
I could have done a lot of things differently.
But I didn't.

I must come to some peace with the fact that I like my whole freakin' life shaken, not gently stirred.
I have loved so passionately, been hurt so terribly.....bruised all over. My martinis must be shaken. HARD. So must my life - at least up until this point.
And the question that remains - that dangles in front of my face like a cat toy - is...

......STILL??????

Fall in a rain forrest

Halloween has just come and gone.
The sunny fall days have turned into rainy, cold days here in the Pacific North West. When I drive into school at 6:30 am, the sky is pitch black. When I get to the lit up bridge, I can finally see the beautiful curves of Portland reveal themselves as curtains of fog move and sway like a dramatic set. The city is placed among hills of Christmas trees with this giant river and many beautiful bridges acting as a frame as you come in from the east. The darkness and fog at that time make the city look like a grey-blue water color painting - or an old photograph that is slightly out of focus. It is heartbreakingly beautiful to me every single morning. And every single morning I am reminded of all the different types of people who have cultivated and built this place - from the rich people in the twinkly houses that scatter down the hills, to the working class people who built these bridges and have worked by them, on them and under them, to the native American Indians who were here with the bears and the salmon and all this luscious growth long before any Europeans found it.

Rainy days are for lovers.
They always feel especially lonely to me when I am without it.
Here, I find myself moving from one rainy day to the next like an invisible woman. Other than my one friend, Chris, and my sister (whom I see once a week if I'm lucky) - I am invisible here. It's a strange feeling for someone as extraverted as myself. I know there is a lesson to be learned - I'm just not sure what it is yet.

I'm not invisible anywhere else.
And, as if to prove my point, the ONE person I have met on my own in Portland - I met in the air (on a plane) above Los Angeles. ( my invisible cloak had not yet descended, you see)
Her name is Cindy. She is roughly my mother's age, and she has invited me out to hear her daughter sing tonight. Of course I am going. I am dying for a friend!

I miss my friends and family in L.A. And I miss my friends and family on the East Coast. So many of them are STILL without electricity after hurricane 'Sandy'. Some I have not heard one word from since the storm and have no assurance that they are ok. So I worry and hope from this far corner of the country.

There is nothing wrong with this beautiful rain forrest. No terrible storms here, no fires or drought. The fall days and nights are saturated with colors and nostalgic smells - smoke from fireplaces mixed with rain and flowers. There is no shortage of culture here, either. More art house cinemas, live theatre  and music venues, more amazing restaurants than I can relate to you. The only thing missing is all of the people that I love.

Now I'm Pissed.

Just got back from school. From my first practical final (which just means all of the actual cooking and everything else that's done in the kitchen - as opposed to written tests, math, etc) - and I was so mad, I drove straight home and took it out on the dishes. Not throwing them or anything - just DOING them.
I know - it would be so much more exciting if I told you I threw them all across the kitchen and glass and porcelain were flying everywhere - but that didn't happen.

(Now, Mark has a GREAT 'throwing glass' story, and if he doesn't agree to write a guest blog one of these days soon, I may just write it FOR him - as heard second hand, of course!)

The thing is, these chefs are (as so many people warned me ahead of time) such ego-maniacle jerk- holes, it's hard to take sometimes. Let me, at this time, try to paint a picture of the three chefs I have had the occasion to study under so far. I shall not use their real names, of course, and as you may have noticed, I will never even name the school which I am attending for fear of being sued or failed.

First, there was the night time chef. Let us call him Churchill. He seemed like a nice enough fellow - just a little defeated and not seeming to love his job. Churchill is an older man (late 50's , I should guess?)  quite tall, with a thick head of salt and pepper hair and an unfortunate goatee/mustache combo. I posit that he would be much more attractive if he would grow his full beard in. I asked him meekly one evening if he ever DID wear a full beard and he looked at me as though I had asked him to join my satanic cult.
 Despite the fact that we are expected to learn about a jillion things every night and our lecture time is precious, Chef Churchill chose to amuse us with stories about his glorious youth. He told us all about how he was a super star in San Francisco - smoking weed and doing blow with the hottest chefs in town. He had been an unstoppable young gun in one of the most exciting cities in the world. He told us all about how he could do any station on the line - and how he frequently did (when someone called in sick or something) - all the while dangling a cigarette in his mouth, or resting it on the edge of his cutting board. Those were the days before health and sanitation were concerned with things like cigarettes in the kitchen. "We all smoked in the kitchen!" he laughed.
I rubbed my hands together in the freezing cold lecture room and tried to imagine him when he was young, hanging out with my heroin, Alice Waters. I imagined that he was very cute back in the day, and very cocky.
 I can tell you all kinds of things about Chef Churchill. Because that's how he spent our evenings. Telling us all about his personal life. I know where he grew up, that his first restaurant job was at Mc Donalds, all about his culinary training, his 2 wives that both divorced him (he seemed a little sad about that), that he used to have a cat and he doesn't have any children...I could go on and on.

Next in line comes Chef Jefferson. That's what I'm calling him, because he thinks he's so cool. And if he had slaves and lived in the time of Jefferson, I bet he'd sleep with them. This chef seems to think of himself as the young, groovy, "hot" chef. He's married with kids (cute kids - we saw pictures), but he's not really all that. It is immediately apparent that lots of young, female culinary students get crushes on him, and of course he loves it. Why wouldn't he?
 Jefferson's the one I'm so mad at right now. This man makes my bullshit detector go off like crazy. In fact, I'm so mad at this moment, that I think that's all I'll say about him right now. Except to say that he's only made ONE dish that was any good so far.
 And THAT is what my sister thinks is really bumming me out so much about this whole school experience. That the FOOD doesn't taste very good. Seriously. So far, it's like we're learning to cook for a geriatric cruise ship.

You see, I'm ok working with or for megalomaniacs IF they are brilliant. If they are truly brilliant, they can be as nuts as they want to, as far as I'm concerned. And of COURSE I've worked with and for these types of people. I'm an actress! Directors have yelled at me, sometimes made me cry, sometimes I held my own...but, I guess I have this idea that one has to EARN the right to be a crazy jerk-hole.

Which brings me to my favorite chef. The only ray of hope I can see in this twisted learning environment. I shall call him Napoleon. Chef Napoleon.
I adore this man. He has made me cry already. That was embarrassing. But he is the ONLY one catching me out on my bad habits, AND the only chef so far that seems to have a real LOVE of the culinary arts.
Chef Napoleon is a smaller man (not tiny, but a hair shorter than me) with a HUGE amount of energy and sparkle. He is from another part of the world, where life is harder and he has worked harder than anyone there, I believe, to achieve what he has. He yells a lot, and his sparkle can turn on a dime into anger or impatience, but he doesn't seem to hold on to any bad feelings. He is funny and intimidating.
Chef Napoleon can yell at me or make me cry all he wants - because he is BRILLIANT. What this man knows about spices and flavor profiles is invaluable, and can NOT be found in any book. I believe he is the absolute treasure of the school. He is the reason I want to go to school every day, and dread going to school if I am even slightly unprepared.

It is another glorious day here. The sun is shining, it is barely cool and crisp, and the wind is sending the fist of the colored leaves around in flurries. Believe it or not, there are still roses blooming all over town, and the views outside my windows could not be more idyllic. All of this gentle fall beauty is taking the wind out of my little huff. And as I am calming down, enjoying the chestnut trees and the golden leaves, I have to laugh it off, shake my head and remember that I have a LOT of work to do before monday - Chef Napoleon demands perfection, you see. And HIM, I don't want to disappoint.

NOT sticking my foot in it - for once!

Just got back from another hard day at culinary school. All of the instructors over there seem to be in CRANKY moods.(how can they be when it is SOO beautiful outside?)

I should be going over my math quiz right now to figure out all the stuff I got wrong - but I just can't face it yet. I feel like I'm in some bad high school movie. What's that one where Drew Barrymore has to go back to high school as an adult - and they STILL treat her like she's a total dork? THAT'S THE ONE!!!! THAT'S THE ONE I'M IN!!! Only there's no cute teacher to fall for in my movie.

Oh well. I'm proud of myself for today. I can be pretty awful about sticking my foot in my mouth, and for ONCE in my life, I kept quiet.

I got to school 4 minutes before the classroom door closed, and some other chef was in there chatting with my instructor. Out of the blue, he turns to me and asks, "So, do you miss Chef _, yet?" (my other night-time chef instructor).

I just looked at him. Immediately 2 answers flew into my head.
The first one was,"Well I'm pretty damn sure he doesn't miss ME."
And the second one was, (dripping with sarcasm) "Oh yes. I really miss hearing him lecture us about his X-wives. Riveting!"
But instead - INSTEAD, dear readers, I merely looked at this chef for several seconds with my mouth open (I'm sure I looked like an imbecile), telling myself very sternly, "Don't say anything, don't say anything.." and finally sort of blurted out, "....uh...yea."

This was a small victory for me. Especially considering how out of it I am in the morning. I am just not a morning person. I do not like this new schedule very much. Sometimes I wish I could whine to someone over there about stuff. I wish I could tell someone that that other chef seemed to dislike me quite a bit for some reason (maybe I remind him of his X-wife - one of them? I don't know!) , and that I'm too lonely here as it to be able to handle that AND the mean kids at school. I don't know what it is about Portland, but no one talks to me here. It was so different feeling when I was on my own in Paris or Bali - even South Africa. I spent loads of time there on my own - but people TALK to you. If you are sitting at an outdoor cafe in Paris all by yourself - someone will strike up a conversation with you.

One lovely evening in Paris, I was having a drink at Duex Magots all by my lonesome. I started writing in my journal, and before I knew it, a handsome man a couple of tables over asked me if I was a writer. We ended up talking for two and a half hours - despite the language hick-ups. It was great fun to meet people like that - all over the place. This couple that Mark and I met in Bali are still our friends - we ended up hanging out with them in Portland when we up here scouting it out. Total strangers. But one of us was brave enough to say "hi", and now we have some really cool new friends. Mark's even written them into his screenplay!

Here, I may as well be a leper.
Thank goodness for you, gentle readers. You are the most communication I have in any given week.
Thanks for hanging in there with me!