Yes, I am alive. Just on the road… one week down and three weeks to go. I’ve listened to Anthony Bourdain read “A Cook’s Tour” (twice) and driven over the Golden Gate Bridge (twice) listening to Spoon’s “A Mathematical Mind” (both times.) For the past few days I have been taking care of my 15 month old nephew Ryan. Kind of. Actually I have been helping my mom take care of my nephew. I have learned that it is virtually impossible to watch a fifteen month old by yourself. Not impossible, I guess, because people do it all the time. Maybe the right word is exhausting. I don’t know how people do it. As a single, childless person, I can do whatever I want. If I wake up with a hangover and decide to lay on the couch all day, I can do it. If you have a kid, that’s just not a possibility. I already had a lot of respect for the job of a parent. Now I have a sort of awe going on. How on earth do you do it with more than one? Also, if I was a parent I think I would be constantly worried that the kid was going to choke on something or fall off the slide at the park or somersault themselves into a head injury.

Tonight is our last night. I have a sort of empty feeling in there somewhere, along with the borderline exhaustion and emerging homesickness. I did learn a new skill – changing a diaper without puking. I have never changed a diaper before now, and I am forty-one years old.

It’s been a dream of mine to have no home, and to just travel around and blog about it. But I am not so sure I am really cut out for that anymore. Could be age, could be that I really love where I live and don’t want to leave for too long. Like being gone a month is… hard. Even with constant movement, with seeing all my old friends up here in the Bay Area.

So. Onward. I wish I had time to write what I wanted to write about the Golden Gate Bridge, I wish I had time to write about my now almost overpowering desire that I could not only meet Anthony Bourdain, but that I could BE Anthony Bourdain. About Top Chef: everyone knows what a mess this season is, and how it should be about the food (but not Kraft or Nestle) and not about these weird, petty squabbles. It’s just getting really old now.

I’m off to Sacramento tomorrow for the Unified Grape Symposium, one of the only trade shows I like working. I’ll try to write more after. Also, I had to turn off comments because I was getting spammed pretty bad, so go ahead, authenticate yourself. You know you want to.

I almost forgot.

Lest you think I have given up on Top Chef, you’d be mistaken. How could I with bizarre head ensembles such as this? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….

Is to pinch my nephew’s cheeks.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Today was one of those days where I ask myself: doesn’t Christmas suck? This is my busiest month and it is crazy and I make good money and everything but damn if it doesn’t just totally burn me out. I get sick of talking to people. Some lowly sales clerk at one of my accounts was a little short with me today (“what do you think of this book?” My contact asked him. “I don’t think there is much there.” Lowly sales clerk said. “Yeah, but they are SELLING.” I say.) Upended back-hairs and borderline dirty looks ensued. Tis the season. I can’t blame the guy for acting like a dickhead, as he has been having to explain why young, expensive Cabernet Sauvignon might not be the best choice to go with turkey and stuffing or oyster stew or whatever to way too many people in the past couple of weeks. And I can’t blame myself either, because I have been working this account for fifteen years. Fifteen Fucking Years! I know what sells there, believe me. I have gone through the first three weeks of December – AKA Hell – for fifteen years straight, except for when I took a break to start my own catering company but then also moonlighted at another kind of hell, the Williams-Sonoma call center. Even when I lived in Italy I came home just before Christmas and went to work packing orders for the rep who was handling my territory while I was gone.

It’s so exhausting. Also I think I might need glasses. Everytime I drive for more than an hour or so I get a headache. Does that mean I need glasses? At first I thought it was from playing Sonic Youth or Spoon too loud but today I was listening to a learn-German tape so that can’t be it. Unless both loud music AND German gives me a headache. Today I learned some cool stuff, like how to go to a pharmacy and ask for some toe plaster in German. I kid you not. There is a plaster you can buy should you get a stubbed toe.

I do have something remotely interesting to write and that is this (especially for my readers who know her): I got an email from Lisa Doucette and she is living in NEW ZEALAND! Lisa is one of my best friends ever but she moved to Vancouver a few years ago with her husband and kid and we lost touch. I wrote to her a week or so ago and her email got bounced back – because they are in friggen New Zealand! Now with two kids. Thankfully she got a bee in her bonnet to write me just after I unsuccessfully wrote her. Her husband Andy is working for… OK this is how exhausted I am, I can’t even think of the name of that Hobbit director dude. Anyhow. Lisa and Andy are blogging about their new life in New Zealand and it is hella cool. I’ve always wanted to go there, and now I HAVE to! Check it out.

New Zealand sure is lucky.

First things first – today is the second anniverary of The OB Vine! Crazy to think that exactly two years ago, I managed to wander in to be the second customer (who was the first one? Can we cancel him out?) after many months of waiting. And now, the whole crew and the bar itself has become such a part of my life. It is remarkable, really. One day you are in a one place (in my case, a very solitary one), the next day you are in a totally different place, a better one. And that is because of The Vine and the people I have met there.

Second thing – Happy Thanksgiving. This is an American holiday, but with a sentiment I try to acheive every day. I am incredibly lucky and truly thankful every day. Regardless of the fucked-upness of the world in general, things and events I see daily remind me that there is a lot of beauty, love and compassion in the world. Maybe I am an optimist, maybe I am just blind, or stupid. But if you can take that love, even if it is blind, and spread it, well.. maybe you can shift everything from bad, to good.

I love my family and want to tell Jay, Carrie, Ryan, Tom, and my mom, Connie, that if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be writing this mushy stuff right now. You are the best family ever. Kasch and Antonia, I can’t wait for you to come here and hang out with us and I am oh, so happy that you will be here.

And then there are my friends. I have SUCH AWESOME FRIENDS. Colleen, you fucking rock and I would take a bullet for you. If there are things to be thankful for, it is friends like you. Leigh and Laurie, Chad, Ariane, Lisa, Prentiss… you are all family to me even though you don’t live close to me anymore. No matter what though, you will be family forever.

My friends at home, my new home: well let’s just say life in OB is good, but wouldn’t be quite so good without you. Mark, Andy, Cheryl, Brian and Hannah, Margaret and Bob, the cast and crew of The Vine…

And then there my internet family from slowtalk. Who aren’t really an internet family since I have met and partied with quite a few of them. It’s a pretty awesome group – one that was enriched my life immensely.

It’s so crazy. I am living alone and have been for some time but to be totally honest, I feel totally surrounded by people and energy all the time. I am lucky. I am thankful. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

I am tired but it is done:

Thank the fucking gods. Yo, all you who want to a) write about food or b) think it’s really fun or c) think you’ll make a lot of money or d) would like to self publish a book. I’ve got news for you: it is hard, it is time consuming, it is expensive, and also, it takes all the fun out of life. There. I said it.

Anyhow, it is done, and in the end, if it helps even twenty people to find some great food, killer wine bars, and awesome times in Venice, then, well, it is all worth it (I guess.) In a nutshell, my version of a Jeff Spicoli-esque plug.

In other news. Due to exhaustion, I haven’t been feeling up to much. It’s funny though, because I have a feeling that all I have really been missing is my on and off infatuation with Britt Daniel. Sometimes I forget about him now, and this is totally horrifying to me. I think it is these moments (the non-Britt ones) that I am at my most bored and lethargic. Not even Top Chef can rile me up at these times, and that is sad.

But in the end, I still love, love, love Britt Daniel. You know those ads on TV for that movie Stranger than Fiction with Emma Thompson and Will Farrell? That music – that killer song – on that ad is SPOON.

Yes. They are on the verge of superstardom… they are almost as big as Wilco… and soon there will be a million Britt loving wanabees… and I will go to Spoon shows and will have to squish and shove and say, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY, I WAS HERE FIRST. BIYATCH.

Whatever. I’ll never grow up. In the meantime, for my listening pleasure, and yours if you want it, is a New Tune from Spoon.

Yep. It’s not the Beast and Dragon Adored… not yet… but it is awesome, and the best possible cure for this tired girl.

He’s his uncle Tom’s nephew. A future rock star.

He’s also takes after me in some ways.

Damn. Is he awesome or what?

My brother’s 40th birthday is tomorrow and I just want to get this in today in case he checks in the morning:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOM! YOU ROCK.

Last year I had my 40th in Sicily, with people I love. This year Tom will have his in Belgium, with people he loves. I wish I was there, but I can be there in spirit. Yum, frites taste GOOD.

Anyway Tom, if you get this (or Kasch if you read this print it and bring it to him) I want to say I love you and I am proud of you, little brother. Have a fantastic day.

All my readers feel free to leave Tom a little birthday message of your own. ESPECIALLY the ones who know him…

Something a little crazy happened yesterday. I have a six-CD changer in my car, but for the past few weeks I have been jumping around from Radiohead’s The Bends to Spoon’s Kill the Moonlight (sometimes I listen to “Jonathan Fisk” over and over just so I can listen to Britt’s little moan at the beginning) and Eels’ Beautiful Freak, ignoring the other CDs in there, pretty much. So yesterday I am driving around San Diego, a beautiful Saturday morning, and Takk comes on. After one minute, maybe two, of listening, I was suddenly gripped by this overwhelming sense of sadness. It was, well, almost crippling, and I almost had to pull over. Instead I kept driving, all over OB, stopping at stop signs and sitting there not knowing what to do and what the hell this was all about.

For a while I played with it in my mind. Just like everyone else, I am worried and scared and horrified by what is going on in the world, but it wasn’t that. I am really super bummed that I probably can never take wine or water on an airplane anymore and I am really not looking forward to flying through London in October if I have to check my cameras and carry my passport around in a plastic bag. But this is not freaking me out so bad I can’t breathe.

So finally it dawned on me. Takk. Nancy. Duh.

Nancy Lytle died suddenly a year ago last Thursday, and I wrote about it, but it was an angry piece, and I pulled it down. I think about Nancy all the time, and of course thought about her Thursday night as I sipped on many glasses of wine at the Vine (always the self-medicator, me.) But the sense of loss and sadness that gripped me yesterday was so overwhelming, and it was Takk that brought it on. Because one day after Nancy died I drove to Hollywood to see Sigur Ros at the Avalon, and heard those songs for the first time – the record wasn’t even out yet.

The music in my car brought me back to a grief a year old. It was the craziest thing. The heart, the mind. Crazy. Once I understood, I forced myself to listen to the entire record, and I drove all the way over to Pacific Beach and back. I drove and listened and tried to process it. It was a major relief when it was done and The Bends came back on.

I really, really miss Nancy. I am crying right now. But Brian has promised to play The Eraser and Gimme Fiction at the Vine later, because it is Sunday. And that is something to look forward to.

Today was Mr. Brian O’Loughlin’s birthday. I can’t say much more than: it was immense.

We drank so much good wine it was obscene. Also I ate half a ham sandwich. I’m not gonna use that word. I’M NOT GONNA USE THAT WORD.

Oh, whatever. I can’t help it. It was AWESOME. Happy Birthday Brian!