International Kitty of Mystery.

I have never been keen on the prospect of owning or living with a cat. Generally speaking, cats leave me alternately nervous and annoyed. Anything with claws and sharp teeth and an ill-developed sense of loyalty is something I'd rather leave outside.

That's why it was weird to move in with Dusty last March. Neither of us wanted it this way, but we were sharing someone, and it was unavoidable. We pretended to ignore each other, each of us obviously feeling that a ridiculous compromise was being made somehow, and that surely this situation wouldn't last.

Eventually, he learned to accept me as an occasional substitute for his primary owner, usurping my lap and begging me for food. I learned to accept the eradication of cat hair as my new goal in life, and slowly began to take more than a passing interest in Dusty's welfare.

I would sometimes jokingly complain that Dusty does absolutely nothing around the house, and the defense was usually this: "He's fuzzy 24 hours a day. He wakes up and he's fuzzy, and all day he's fuzzy and when we go to bed he's fuzzy. He never stops being fuzzy."

Hard to argue with that one.

So we had achieved a nice stasis, but I didn't realize the extent of my affection for Dusty until I noticed one evening (with surprising swiftness) that he had disappeared. At first it seemed maybe he was chilling in a hiding place somewhere in the apartment -- but by dinnertime, the cat was nowhere to be found and it had been too long. We looked. We called. We peered out the windows, into the dark backyards behind our building. He was gone, leaving only puffs of hair in his wake.

It was around this time that I also noticed two cats -- one in the window next door and one in the yard below us -- were both staring intently at us, as we stared intently outside trying to locate Dusty. The yard cat was especially ominous: He sat, stock still and luminous in the moonlight, just... staring. It created the sense that Dusty had been kidnapped, and these cats had something to do with it.

It doesn't make me proud to admit that there was a time when this scenario would have been my dream come true: freedom from cat offal, and no blood on my hands. "How old is Dusty?" I had asked at the beginning of our acquaintance. The answer had been disappointing. "He's six -- he's going to be around for a loonnng time."

Now that I'd gotten used to the little hairball, I found myself worried and unhappy, even more so when we heard terrifying catfight sounds at 5:00 the morning after Dusty disappeared. Was he injured? What if he got picked up by someone else? Would he ever come home?

Our investigations turned toward the Pork Store. The Pork Store is a restaurant that, despite its coarse name, is wildly popular here in San Francisco. Up until now, the only noticeable things about living near the Pork Store were the line on the street at breakfast time on weekends, and hearing the phrase "Nelson!! More biscuits please!!" shouted incessantly into the air shaft outside our bathroom window.

I banged on the door after closing time the day after Dusty disappeared, since the catfight sounds had emanated from the cafe's backyard. The famous Nelson let me in. I resisted the urge to ask him for biscuits and explained about the cat. He thought I was crazy, but let me look.

For such a little restaurant, the Pork Store had a suprisingly extensive laybrinth behind it. I walked around a corner, through two small rooms and up some stairs before I got to the backyard, which was strewn with debris and weeds. I braced myself for a Dusty carcass, but found none. There were two other alleyways, but they were too quiet and creepy for me to venture down. "Dusty?" I called. No answer.

We spent another lonely night with no clicking claws on the floor.

The next morning I got a call at work. A second visit to the Pork Store had proved fruitful. Dusty had been found sitting under some stairs in one of the back alleys, meowing and unharmed. He was eventually coaxed back home.

We will never know what compelled our usually unadventurous friend to desert us, or how exactly he made it downstairs. The most likely way was out the bathroom window and down the garbage chute. The fact that he pulled off a move so bold, and managed to survive it, gave me a newfound respect for him. It made me wonder if... if I ever knew Dusty at all. How well can we ever know the creatures we live with?

He doesn't seem all that psyched to be home, and it's hard not to feel a bit slighted. "Isn't it better to be here? With food and a litter box and a clean blanket?" I asked him. He just twitched his tail and gave me an aloof glance. I guess the Pork Store really is popular.

All Natural.

Yesterday, I made my first visit to Rainbow Grocery, the legendary crunchfest in San Francisco.

Best quote heard while in the store: "Well, we have organic pinot noir, but no, we don't have sulfite-free."

Scariest product purchased: GT's Organic Raw Kombucha. I have no idea what's in this stuff but it practically talks to you when you drink it. You know that story by Stephen King, "The Langoliers," about the tiny ferocious gremlins that eat away the past? I think they live inside this beverage. It is munching up all the bad things inside of me right now. The devil is screaming.

Gross generalization: The shoppers at natural food stores never look any healthier than anyone else, do they? In fact, they almost look worse. It seems to me your average Safeway shopper just looks happier and healthier.

No one at the register gave us dirty looks when we used paper bags instead of hemp totes to carry out our items, but it did remind me of something that happened recently at my neighborhood grocery. It was a U.M. for everyone.

It seemed to be a routine exchange at first. A woman stood ahead of me in line and as the cashier rung up her purchases, the grocer came up and offered her cherries, which apparently she'd been asking for but unable to find.

"Oh no. I don't want your packaging. You think I want your packaging?" she said. The cherries were in a latticed plastic bag. The woman turned away from them as if someone had tried to get away with offering her a sack of angry bees.

She went on as the poor man went to restock the cherries, still within earshot. "I don't waste packaging. You know I don't waste packaging. That's why I bring my own shopping bags in here."

The grocer was thoroughly confused. "But, how am I supposed to sell the cherries? What are people supposed to put them in?"

"You sell them in bulk! It's a waste of packaging! Why don't you sell them in bulk?" the woman said. She appeared to be completely normal, but obviously some switch had been tripped off. I was too fascinated to be annoyed at the checkout delay. I had never heard anyone say "packaging" this many times in two minutes.

The grocer and customer went for a few more rounds, gesticulating at each other with exasperation. "I'm just saying there are other options!" she cried, leaving the store while the befuddled man shook his head.

The cashier rolled her eyes at me and smiled. We all went on our merry, packaged way.

The woman was crazy, but there's no one more susceptible than I am to environmental guilting. I can't use a plastic bag now without thinking of her. "Don't give me your packaging! I don't want your packaging!"

After School Special.

Of the many secret delusions I harbor in life, one is that I would today be a great musician, if only someone had offered adequate training and encouragement in my youth. I like to tell myself that since my raw genius went unnurtured, there's really nothing to be done about it now. This allows me to continue spending my time on episodes of 24 while blaming my parents for my own sloth and lack of achievement.

The only possible explanation for my having signed up for drum lessons recently is straight-up denial. I bought drum sticks and keenly awaited my first lesson, ignoring the fact that we have no room for a drum kit, that most of my peers have by now traded rock-star fantasies for children and promising careers, and that I can't really read music.

I arrived at the community music center early and waited until my instructor was finished with the lesson in progress. An eight-year-old boy and his mom emerged from the room, and then the seat was adjusted up to "rejuvenile" level for me. The instructor excused himself to make some photocopies. "Have you ever played drums before?" he asked. "No," I answered. "Well, I'll be right back," he said. "Go ahead and play. The room's soundproofed, you can hit 'em hard!"

For a moment it felt like I had been told to race a burro. I slumped in front of the drum kit. I hit it tentatively, but all of a sudden I wasn't feeling very Sheila E. What was I doing here? It was a relief when the teacher came back and I didn't have to make conversation with the drums anymore.

He had a brisk, well-developed patter you could tell he had used time after time, probably mostly for audiences under 10 years of age. "You'll want to buy a drum pad," he said. "The reason for that is, you don't want to ruin your furniture practicing."

I laughed dutifully. "Or my cat," I offered. He frowned. "Your cat?" "Well, it's my boyfriend's cat," I said. He seemed thrown by the audience response. "OK, some issues there. Moving on..." I decided to let him be the jokester and focus on learning the rimshot.

We went through the basics and I felt some pride when the instructor commented that I was picking things up quickly, until I realized that basically meant I had managed to make contact between the sticks and snare on some kind of rhythmic basis.

Now I sit in my apartment, happily tapping out exercises on my drum pad. I love this phase; it's like dating, where it's 100-percent potential and imagination. If it were a movie, you'd just see a montage of me rehearsing (over a couple months, maybe?) before I get to the big gig and knock everybody out with my amazing percussion skills.

Unable to stop myself, I went to Craigslist and looked up "drummer" in the musicians listings. At the moment, no one seems to be looking for someone with one week of experience who doesn't know how to use the cymbals yet, but my eyes are peeled.

Fruits and Nuts.

This blog got started because of my ability to make a vaguely or potentially awkward situation certifiably... you guessed it, uncomfortable. Let's begin with my latest "success story."

We were meeting another couple for dinner, a couple whom we had only met once. I always get nervous in these kinds of situations. Statistically speaking, UM likelihood is directly proportional to the number of people in any given social setting, and inversely proportional to how well you know the people involved.

As we made a third loop around the restaurant, looking for parking, we spotted the male half of our dinner friends. I slowed down to a stop, and we let him know we were looking for a spot. What I didn't realize was that a handshake was in progress at my passenger window. I began to pull the car away, only braking when I realized our friend was doing a weird jog to prevent his arm from being pulled out of its socket. What kind of a jack-arse pulls the car away when two people are shaking hands? Me, that's who.

Anyway, it all turned out fine. At dinner we heard a story about our friend's relatives in Pennsylvania and their reaction to the fact that one of their flock lives in California now. "Fruits and nuts, that's all they've got out there," the relatives said. Apparently this was the refrain whenever California came up: "Fruits and nuts." Our friends rolled their eyes. We laughed.

Let's leave aside the ugly aspect of this comment, an attitude that explains why this country has managed to elect a chimp two terms in a row, and why that supposed freedom-spreader talks about taking a prejudice-filled dump on the Constitution. The comment here was, for a split second, interpreted by my brain as a literal reference to food. Thus, my attention is diverted.

It seems impossible to be awake lately without hearing something about organic food and eating locally. It used to be virtuous to spend $12 on five heirloom tomatoes, because they are organic and good for you. But if those tomatoes had to be shipped across several states, you are now a thoughtless twit who is personally responsible for climate change. Clearly, while buying your groceries, you have failed to adequately contemplate the food chain and our entire globe. You have to get your produce locally, friends, organic or not. Who do you think you are, anyway, with your Earthbound Farms, Big Organic bullshit? Do you even know a farmer? With people like you, it's only a matter of time before the label "organic" means "grown with radon and sprayed with landfill essence, imported from India."

Fortunately, here in the Golden State we have many options when it comes to buying locally grown organic produce, as opposed to when I lived in D.C. and would have had to depend on one weekly farmer's market and whatever was growing in my apartment.

For me, the main disincentive to buy organic is not so much that it costs more, or that it might not look as pretty. It's that those fruits and vegetables have to last until we eat the tortilla chips, cheese, bread, candy and whatever other inorganic items we have in the apartment. Usually by then, it's too late. I have to throw the produce away, newly aware that I am wasting not only the food itself, but the resources used to grow and ship it.

This conflict came to a head recently in the form of a hotly debated issue at home: The "Mostly Fruit Box." (See no. 10 below.) It's a nice idea: We support a local farm, and a box full of organic surprise goodies arrives at our doorstep every month.

The reality has been less enchanting. First of all, there have been a lot of beets. Second of all, I have seen items rot literally within hours of receipt, because they couldn't be refrigerated right away. Third, it's a fruit-fly party. And fourth:

Republican: we just don't eat most of the stuff, that's my main objection
Democrat: we will this time
Democrat: we don't throw most of it away
Democrat: we eat at least half, often more
Republican: I do, out of guilt
Republican: anyway you like it, it's your thing
Republican: I'm not going to eat out of guilt anymore
Democrat: it's got bananas and peaches and plums
Republican: it can all rot
Democrat: ok, don't eat it out of guilt
Democrat: jesus

I know who comes off badly in this IM exchange. Call me a killjoy and a hater of small local farmers across America. It's just that I can't stand the idea of rotting food, especially rotting pricy food. For other people, it's, "Hey, we got some neat stuff in this box! That's great!" What gets eaten gets eaten, and the rest, ah well. Done and done. It's a fun treat, like a monthly gift.

But for me, it becomes a daily race against produce time, as once-edible items turn into desiccated, moldy proof that I am a wasteful person who was not worthy of them. I compulsively slice and stew and wrap as fast as my little ungrateful hands will allow, mainly to avoid the alternative of throwing it all away. You might reasonably respond, then why don't you just let it go? Why not just live and let Fruit Box? I'm resolving to try, but a phrase keeps coming to mind: "Fruits and nuts... fruits and nuts..."

Supposedly Fun Things.

As the average U.S. home grows ever more bloated in size, this blog continues to operate out of a disproportionately lean abode. It's been this way for awhile, unsurprisingly for someone who has chosen to live in expensive cities with an earning power based on her English B.A. and a smart attitude. For me, "living large" means that my bedroom has an actual door on it.

However, in recent months, my apartmenthold has been fueled by two incomes instead of one. Despite the boost in finances, our current place is smaller and sparser in amenities than the home of anyone we know. It is situated in America's Hangover, otherwise known as Haight-Ashbury, where most of the T-shirts cost $45 or more, but grating street performances and abusive commentary from drug addicts can be had for free.

This setup is fine with me. It's cozy, and the low rent allows us to save money. It also permits us to indulge -- giddily, though not without guilt -- in yuppie pleasures that we were previously unable to afford. It's like being DINK superheroes. By day, we wash our clothes at the laundromat and give away belongings because there's no room for them at home. By night, we dine at Danko and treat ourselves to spa packages.

This list began when I was mocked, deservedly, for uttering the first sentence below. Here are my top 10 ridiculous yuppie complaints of 2006 so far. The items that follow are not verbatim, but they are actual situations that one of us has commented on, usually resulting in a stale look from the other party.

They never give us enough olive oil for the bread at this wine bar.

My roadster convertible is getting totally ruined by street parking.

I can't believe the prices for manchego at this store.

It has taken Kenneth Wingard fully a month to deliver our chairs.

I don't know what it is but I can *never* find an organic chocolate bar that I like. Why is all the good chocolate not organic?

This farmer's market is out of control. Look at that line for microroasted artisanal coffee.

Closed? But this apothecary is the only one in the Marina that stocks Yon Ka products.

That massage was great, but my sinuses always get so clogged from the face cradle.

My tongue is burned from the latte I had today, so I can't fully appreciate this sopressata.

We need to cancel the farm-fresh fruit box delivery. This time they woke us up at six in the morning trying to deliver it, then left it on the street.

Vintage U.M.

The show Mortified operates on the clever theory that within those self-indulgent diary entries you've squirreled away during your teen years, there lies a comedic gold mine. Adults everywhere are encouraged to pick at the great scab of adolescence by dragging out their old journals and reducing -- or perhaps elevating -- them to an onstage act, played for laughs.

I have chronicled every single day of my life in writing since the fifth grade. I keep five-year diaries, which have room for about two or three sentences on each day. I have filled up five of those. For long-form angst that transcends the 24-hour agenda, I keep journals.

Watching people read at the latest Mortified show in San Francisco a few weeks ago, it struck me how often diary entries seem to be addressed to another reader, even though they certainly are written in utmost secrecy and meant to be kept that way. They are filled with apologies ("I'm sorry I haven't written lately"), sign-offs ("Until later,") and queries ("You know what?").

That's how being a teen feels -- like you'd be just as well off talking to paper rather than a human. In terms of loyalty, relatability, and the kind of understanding that can be conveyed only by silence, a journal is about the only thing that will never let you down. It will remain steadfastly -- mercilessly -- true to you, preserving your deepest feelings without rendering judgment. It will stay so true to you that it begs to be betrayed, and that's what Mortified is all about.

I carried my purple, polka-dotted journal (1983-1989) to a Mortified audition one morning last weekend. In a nice parallel of my high school experiences, the casting director had forgotten who I was and that we had arranged an appointment. Nonetheless, he let me in to read.

It's surprising how easy it was to stand up and read mockingly from my own, heartfelt longings as if they were just random discoveries penned by some jackass I never met. I won't even pretend to have evolved much from the 14-year-old who wrote entries such as this one:

DECEMBER 25, 1985

Here I sit on the last hour of Christmas, 11:07 PM exactly. And what a great Christmas it's been! We got a keyboard and the Prince concert video, great clothes and other things. We got a lot of presents. I'm happy, but I feel like crying, because not only is my favorite holiday of the year almost over, I also think about how lucky I am. That's not something to cry about, but I just think about other people who aren't so lucky. Maybe I sound corny -- or hypocritical because I don't do a lot for charity. But that's the way I feel.

I love X-mas so much!!! I love my things, my house, my parents, my family, my health. Maybe I'm making you throw up. Maybe I'm tempting fate, pressing my luck. So I'll shut up....

Every time I read something about Prince, it amazes me how much we seem alike. I always thought if I became a musician, I would play things by ear -- like I do now. Wouldn't learn to read music unless I had to. But I thought, maybe if you're going to be a musician like Prince, you'd have to learn. Then today I read that he couldn't read music either!! He played TV tunes by ear when he was young, just like me! Not to say that just because I have some things in common with Prince that others don't also. But it just freaks me out sometimes. Am I being strange?

It's only because I feel like we're so alike that we should meet or something. I don't know. Maybe we're not as alike as I think. Maybe I'll never know. Maybe it's just an idiotic fantasy. Probably. I'm so strange sometimes. But everyone's a little strange.

I've also been thinking about God more than I used to -- and it's not because of Prince. I think it's Christmas! I may not go to church, but I worship God just the same. I pray more than I used to because I'm starting to relate him to what happens to me. This is not to get really religious or commit myself to a convent (although I might as well, boys are too scared to ask me out or talk to me anyway).

...I realize I sound weird, but don't get the wrong idea. I'm kind of pouring things out because I'm a little melancholy -- end of '85, Christmas, etc.

What I'm trying to say is, I thank God for the things I have. The other thing I'm trying to say is, life is fine, this Christmas was GREAT, and I want to meet Prince, because I think we have a few things in common, and I like him a lot. Now, when you think about it, I'm not so weird after all.

You'd think it would be humbling enough to read such material aloud in front of other people. But what's really humbling, or mortifying if you will, is the possibility that your own failings aren't even compelling enough to pass muster as comedy.

It will, in fact, take more digging and edits if I am to achieve the privilege of publicly humiliating myself under the Mortified imprimatur. But who needs those people? I have the World Wide Web, and all five of you loyal readers out there.

Postscript: OK, so the casting director from Mortified saw this posting and notes that he did remember who I was and that we had an appointment, but just didn't think the time was confirmed. But then, the fact that I always put the worst spin on things is the reason this blog exists, after all.

Danko.

My future mother-in-law turned 65 recently. When we asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she answered that she would like us to take her to Gary Danko.

At first I thought maybe this meant we were going to a magic show or a motivational speaking engagement. It turns out that Gary Danko is the eponymous restaurant of a chef who is so confident in his own skill that he need not be concerned by the fact that his name is about as appetizing as a prison dungeon or a movie villain.

Danko is force to be reckoned with. It demands two months' notice for reservations, a large sum of money and a willingness to dine at an establishment whose chef has a logo. We knew, and embraced, the fact that we were going to pay a lot of money ($130 a person, it turned out) for one meal. We hoped, quietly and nervously, that we would not be culinarily hijacked.

And Danko was kind to us. The service was impeccable, the food glorious and the bathrooms equipped with shoe buffers and a feng-shui fountain. I tasted risotto, foie gras, a vegetable tart, various cheeses, lobster, salmon medallions, bananas flambe and a very good pinot noir.

It was necessary to point out how great everything was, earnestly and assiduously, throughout our meal. Why? Because having a meal like that is like going to a movie. You don't break the frame. You decide to believe: believe in micro-cilantro, believe in $2,800 bottles of burgundy, believe in the amuse bouche, believe in Mobil Star ratings. To do otherwise is to let in the notion that what you are doing is vaguely obscene, and perhaps foolish. So we say things like "It's amazing how you can tell the difference with a true quality wine," and "Other places are kind of a rip-off, but this is really worth it," and "This is the best [insert dish here] I have tasted in my entire life!!"

All these things may even be true -- but anyway, they have to be. At Danko you have to shut an eye, open your wallet and bask in the experience. You also have to try not to imagine actual dollar bills being cleared from the table when you fail to finish your dish or beverage. When you discover later that the flawless $100 bottle of pinot is readily available from the vintner for $42, your only consolation is to remind yourself that in the moment, you allowed yourself to believe that it tasted like $100 wine. And it tasted good.

Going to My Head.

One evening in New York, I was making my way through the crowds in Union Square and noticed that one guy, in a group of passing guys, had trained his gaze on me. He was preparing to say something, I could tell. I braced myself for a "Hey, baby" or something of that variety.

As he faded past me and into the crowd, here's what came out: "Nice forehead."

It was the first time that I had ever been publicly mocked by a stranger for my forehead, but it wasn't exactly surprising. I learned early on that my sizeable frontispiece was an aesthetic liability. I wore bangs for my entire childhood and adolescence -- first because that was the cute hairstyle that my mom had picked, and later because hairdressers informed me that I "needed" them.

When I decided, at age 18, to seek independence for my forehead and grow out the fringe, it felt like a major rebellion. On the one hand, I had set myself free from my grade-school look. On the other, I became subject to people telling me that I looked like Helen Hunt, a comparison I do not find desirable. The Hunt comments later gave way to Leelee Sobieski comments. I hoped that the similarities would remain superficial, and that my life trajectory would not mimic those actresses' careers.

I know that Helen, Leelee and I have company in our forehead status, but none of them makes me feel better. It's one thing to have a fivehead and be famous with a great body. It's another to resemble Clint Howard.

Having extra space up there affords me little advantage, as far as I can tell. It would be nice if it meant I could rule a planet, or come up with the cure for cancer using my huge frontal lobe. Instead, all it really means is more real estate for my skin problems.

Women's magazines always say to accentuate anything "different" that you may be self-conscious about, thus turning beauty lemons into lemonade. I'm not sure how one would accentuate a large forehead, other than using it as space for advertisements or tattoos. Lately I'm wondering if it's time to just grow my bangs back instead.

No Relation.

A coworker brought her young daughter in to work today. The coworker looks to be in her late 40s; the girl is probably eight. They both have full cheeks, fair hair and blue eyes. "You guys look alike," I say.

The girl smiles. "Do you hear that a lot?" I ask her. She nods and kind of rolls her eyes.

"Yes, we do hear that a lot," my coworker says. "Which is very funny, because she is adopted."

There's really no way to recover from that, is there? Nonetheless, I tried to defend my comment by continuing to point out the specific similarities between these two totally biologically distinct people. I didn't really get anywhere in trying to convince them that they could be related.

Just Waitin' on a Friend.

I don't know whether this represents a feline U.M., but let's anthropomorphize for a moment. Dusty seemed to be spending more time than usual sitting on the desk, looking intently outside. It soon became apparent why: Right across the window bay, no more than five feet away, was another kitty cat, sitting on a table, staring back out its window at Dusty.

The tension was palpable. The other cat would only show half of his face in the window, using one eye to surveil his neighbor. We humans excitedly got behind Dusty and stared too, hoping no humans would show up on the other side. "Dusty! You have new friend!" we exclaimed. Dusty meowed. The other cat stayed silent and half hidden, but watchful.

Days elapsed and Dusty developed what could fairly be called a fixation. Every morning he sat by the window, stock still and vigilant. Many times his new "friend" was a no-show. Dusty waited. "This might not be healthy for you," Dusty was advised. He ignored us.

On the days when Mr. Big would materialize, now fully in the window at close range, Dusty would jump from the desk and onto the window sill, meowing and pawing the window pane as if to say, "I can't get this thing open right now -- but don't worry, I'm working on it." Big never moved or made a sound.

Now we look for Mr. Big along with Dusty. We don't see Big's humans, and we like it that way. It keeps the relationship pure.

But it's a dysfunctional relationship, and we know it. Some mornings I wake up to the sound of claws tapping on glass, as Dusty tries ever optimistically to open the window between him and the one being he identifies with in the world right now. Big remains impervious, as does the window. It's a fitting allegory, no?