My 25 things from stupid facebook

1. I used to think that it was coincidental that all my best friends, boyfriends and significant crushes have been left-handed, but now I think there's some sort of identification here. lefties are the world's privileged minorities; they'll never share with you sorrowful tales of marginalization and oppression but they'll switch places with you at Sardi's so your elbows don't bump while dining; they know the world won't change to accommodate them and for the most part that's ok.

2. Sometimes, if I'm invited to an event that's going to be crowded, I lie and say I'm sick or have food poisoning or that the cable guy is coming in to repair my broken Tivo.

3. I tend to divide the world up into binaries: samoa people vs. thin mint people. English Patient people vs. Braveheart people. This helps me, on a practical level, place people but it rarely gives me any sort of deeper insight into their psyches. Really, in a larger sense, I don't believe in binaries. Most Buddhists don't.

4. One of my favorite things to do is drive up to the top of Griffith Park when it's really really foggy and stand with my arms outstretched till I can't see my own fingers.

5. I have a specific playlist when I write. It's a mix of Afro-beat stuff, Caetano Veloso, Cuban music and (ambient) Brian Eno, a lot of Aphex Twin. It's like a writing crutch. I'm always asking music junkies to add to it.

6. My dad is a really methodical cook in terms of precision and timing. He marinates eggplant while he roasts tomatoes, he seasons couscous while he braises vegetables. he always knows which knives to use and cleans the counter after every step. I rarely cook like this but when I do, the food tastes better. It tastes like my dad's.

7. I'm good and lively for the first 3-4 hours of a party. Then I fall asleep. it's not like I'm narcoleptic or anything. Just all that talking makes me really tired.

8. My favorite brunch is the brioche French toast at Square One with roasted cherries, almonds and creme fraiche. After this meal, I am always happy.

9. At some point, I'd like to lock myself up in a room for a year, tell people not to call me anymore and just write. Right now I'm just training for the marathon by...I don't know, writing a couple hours a day and eating raw food and...lounging on my couch watching tons of Battlestar Galactica. Yeah.

10. I wish I had the capacity to move forward and never look back but I am driven by nostalgia. I am forever looking back, forever worried that I've left significant things or people behind. I am forever torn and conflicted, forever existing in a space of ambiguity. And I'm not even a Gemini. But my Vedic sign is Pisces, perhaps this is why I am constantly swimming in simulataneously different directions.

11. Re: the living in ambiguity thing, I wonder if all that walking while looking back is the reason I am constantly breaking toes or spraining ankles.

12. I make fun of hippie dippie people, even as the offending words are coming out of their mouths. But then I realize that I have no right to laugh at them behind their backs because I have an ayurvedic doctor and consult a Vedic astrologer (I know).

13. I want to be friends with certain authors. Definitely Arundhati Roy, definitely Murakami, definitely Erica Jong (even though she seems full of herself) maybe Milan Kundera (Even though he's kind of a mysogynist). Definitely Joan Didion.

14. I really liked Kim Gamble's Modern Love column in the NYT this week. I kind of identified with the idea of dropping $3000 to fly to China to meet a guy. Actually, I have on several occassions engaged in (or helped friends (and by "helped" I mean actively encouraged)) massively coordinated, heavily complicated plans in order to "make something happen." It always blows up in your face but I still think the euphoria of the adventure is worth it.

15. I think all desserts are better with sea salt sprinkled on them.

16. I like people who are able to construct temporary realities and then slip into them for a time, at least until the accomodations become uncomfortable as imaginary accomdations eventually do. Curating your reality always has an expiration date.

17. Like Amelie, I love stratagems and am fairly skilled at them.

18. I was an East coast snob before I moved to LA but I think it was the nostalgia factor, again, that pulled me in. LA reminds me of India - the traffic, the pollution, the mango, chile and lime vendors downtown, the mediterranean style homes.

19. I live for yoga in Runyon Canyon. It's really one of the best things that LA has to offer. And the Hollywood Forever Cemetery screenings (though they've kind of jumped the shark). And the LA Conservancy tours. And that fig farm in Malibu.

20. Sometimes I take the subway down to Union Station and sit in one of those big leather chairs just to think. I used to spend an inordinate amount of time at Grand Central too. I love train stations.

21. The worst feeling in the world is coming up with a writing idea and not having a pen or paper to write it down.

22. I love writing letters. Long, confessional, Jane Austenian, handwritten letters. I wish more people wrote letters.

23. I admire restraint in people. I think its a pretty sexy quality overall but to be honest I haven't ever found a pure version of it in anyone. The flip side of restraint is always repression and that's no fun.

24. My problem is overexpression, not repression. It's not that I have no filter, just a really poorly functioning one.

25. I always run into people I know in airports or in foreign countries. I like this. It makes me feel as though I am connected to everyone through a large and complex web that doesn't just exist in the virtual world. Sometimes, if I have some sort of epiphany or signifcant memory emerging later as a result of these chance encounters, I think the chance meeting was somehow mandated by our unconscious. I know. Hippie dippie. Again.