dawna's 40 x 365

206/356 stella

2009-12-05T14:57:00.001-08:00

you can tell by looking at her she commands ancient magic. she makes clothes that could make a woman feel like she's a queen & some mysterious handsome man is waiting. i have her to thank for my beloved bella & giovanni.

205/365 jerry

2009-12-04T10:06:00.000-08:00

step-cousin, 6 months younger-which mattered a lot when we met at 16. it was christmas eve, i was tanked on 7&7's, he was wearing race car pajamas. we went on to find lots of trouble that wasn't even looking for us.

204/365 tom from guam

2009-11-30T14:06:00.000-08:00

has an uncanny ability to pop up & graciously offer his help when it's needed & stays just as gracious whether or not one makes a monetary offering for the assistance. is rarely without a cheery smile & wave. in spite of everything.

203/365 nicky

2009-11-30T14:02:00.000-08:00

used to be a muslim. used to live in baltimore. used to take meds for his bi-polar illness. wrote poetry and scripts for children's movies. now he gently panhandles, self-medicates, sleeps outside and is the oldest kind of LA story.

202/365 miguel

2009-11-30T13:57:00.000-08:00

may or may not live in the parking lot. usually has a kind word for almost everyone and is the unofficial local spanish-to-english translator. without guile, tells me it doesn't make sense to be alive if you're not happy.

201/365 sy

2009-11-30T13:45:00.000-08:00

escaped from bulgaria to palestine during ww2 as a teenaged boy. now he crankily holds court behind a counter in LA-sells milk of magnesia, vintage 80's t-shirts, cheetos & spanish soap. his stories cost nothing & are his most inestimable offering.

200/365 colette

2008-01-13T09:20:00.000-08:00

surfer chick-goddess with a weakness for big ole cars. which wouldn't mesh with her greener-than-anyone-i-know life, unless she made them all run on french fry oil. which she does. squeezes more juice out of one day than i do most weeks.

199/365 jackie

2008-01-12T09:10:00.000-08:00

spoiled princess of a girl, but so smart & funny & good-hearted you had to like her. used to gather the girls in her rec room when her parents were out of town...drink margaritas, play poker in silly pj's all night.

198/365 christy

2008-01-12T09:02:00.000-08:00

used to go & watch her boyfriend & his friends do tricks with their lowrider cars on saturday nights. even then, this blond, blue-eyed slightly goofy & very smart beauty was incongruous among the cholos. but he loved her like crazy. everyone did.

197/365 miss palmer

2008-01-12T08:57:00.000-08:00

3rd grade. she wore go-go boots & lipstick & short skirts that even a 3rd grader could recognize as chic. i vaguely recall that she was related to the golfer. i clearly recall my crush on her. she wasn't like other teachers.

196/365 graciela

2008-01-09T21:36:00.000-08:00

met her on the beach in san felipe...both of us looking for seashells. used my poor junior-high spanish to find out she was a grandmother. she didn't have running water, but fed me lunch & taught me to make tortillas.

195/365 reynaldo

2008-01-09T21:19:00.000-08:00

worked together dropping french fries, we'd never've been such good friends if we'd met at school, i was too rebellious & smart...he was way too cute-- & not quite smart enough. couldn't have been sweeter, though. i hope he still is.

194/365 danny

2008-01-09T21:10:00.000-08:00

fancied himself a latin lover. & he certainly was loverly. smooth. charming. smelled wonderful. brought flowers. could dance all night & buy breakfast in the morning. problem was, his wife back home turned out to like all that about him too.

193/365 tim

2008-01-09T21:01:00.000-08:00

partner in the terrible "crime" of helping kyung. we got written up & restricted to barracks for a month for "disobeying a direct order." made this goofy california girl, & that redneck from mississippi much closer than we'd ever have been otherwise.

192/365 colleen

2008-01-09T20:50:00.000-08:00

grew up a gorgeous surfer-girl in so-cal. grew up again in the 1st gulf war. it amused her buddies to pretend to negotiate more camels & mercedes from a rich saudi in exchange for her. she came back broken & hating men.

191/365 jim

2008-01-09T20:31:00.000-08:00

he & madonna had a bad break-up before we met. (she told him she hoped it turned green & fell off) as it turned out, i didn't like his cockiness & persistent sweaty-sock smell & abrupt falling asleep after, any better than she had.

190/365 mick

2008-01-03T19:55:00.000-08:00

cabbie in limerick, gave me a tour including the homes of the cranberries. loved clinton & said there was work for him in ireland if we didn't want him. invited him to san diego for golf- a year later, he showed up!

189/265 max

2008-01-02T20:26:00.000-08:00

was already my godmother. already someone who'd always, always, no matter what, be on my side. her casual mothering love was so welcome & so bemusing to my complicated & anxious & screwy kid-self. on top of it all, she gave me dewey.

188/365 bill

2008-01-02T20:05:00.000-08:00

"once was lost, now is found!"my baby brother. kindred spirit. creator of small empires & tiny philanthropic endeavors. an artist. broken boy. kind & cautious man. quicksilver mind. wickedly funny. couldn't not be creative if he worked at it. amazing grace.

187/365 officer bill

2007-12-31T18:53:00.000-08:00

came to school in 2nd grade to tell us how to be good citizens. then he told us we already were good citizens. thrilled, told my mom when i got home. i cried when she said he was a pig.

186/365 lajuanna

2007-12-30T11:25:00.000-08:00

meth-head with bad teeth & a good heart--lived next door. once went to sleep with a candle burning & refused to call the fire department. got our garden hose & doused her bedroom through the window. then she went back to sleep.

185/365 "grandpa jug"

2007-10-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

my grandpa's dear friend. played poker like a real live hustler, & had a seriously devilish laugh. his voice spoke that he'd smoked like a fiend for years, but there was something tremendously appealing about its timbre. & the jokes it told.

184/365 bobby

2007-10-09T22:45:00.000-07:00

of those cousins, he was the teddybear-est. patient, smiled easily, kept us safe. then he decided to keep the city safe & became a cop. took some time, but he doesn't smile much anymore or have a hint of softness left.

183/365 tom

2007-10-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

dashing- what else would he be with a bentley? probably owns paisley silk pajamas. definitely owns tiffany martini glasses. marooned by age in texas, he sends his outrage & laughter & intellect with a "FW:" in front of it almost every day.

182/365 john 2

2007-10-07T11:06:00.000-07:00

should've been writing for the daily show, instead, toiled in wrinkled shirts & thick glasses, over spreadsheets & ledgers. he's the pocket-protector kind of cute, blushed furiously if you mentioned anything even remotely relatable to sex. candles, batteries, or zucchini, for instance.

181/365 "I am not a plumber" mike

2007-10-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

another of the factory's prodigious art talents. head-over-heels with his adorable & smart-as-a-whip daughter. tattoos in all the best places. bought smoothies @ the hustler store. resisted the establishment, & made you want to follow him enthusiastically down that road. (or anywhere else)

180/365 another aunt norma

2007-10-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

grandma's sister. another woman in my family that funneled all the artistic & creative energy she had into being a good wife & mother. painting & poetry were "just hobbies." guess her family's glad about that, but the injustice & waste just kills me.

Free Burma

2007-10-04T08:34:00.000-07:00

179/365 karen

2007-10-02T22:51:00.000-07:00

journey to happiness was arduous, including a marriage that ended shortly after she found her husband was fond of foreign hookers--since their honeymoon 20-some years earlier. she's radiant now...a woman in love with herself, a new man, & the world.

178/365 aundi

2007-10-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

rife with captivating paradoxical juxtapositions: gorgeous face & shaved head, writer of beautifully precise, delicate poetry & former featherweight boxer, cerebral scholar with a myspace page. off to england to study theory but her brilliance will likely result in inventing her own.

177/365 val

2007-10-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

the kind of lush, saucy woman you'd call a firecracker. picture of her that's still with me: her laughing face rising from a 3-foot high mound of lace & tulle & sparkle-her wedding dress- piled around her in a bathroom stall.

176/365 ulysses "gonzo"

2007-10-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

radio-man, melting chocolate eyes & a buttoned-up way about him. one of the army people i met who genuinely wanted to be a professional soldier. when he got unbuttoned, encouraged by his marriage to val, it was a sight to see.

175/365 stacy

2007-09-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

muse factory co-conspirator & talented artist. pretty & sweet with an interesting juxtaposition of fascinations...very pale pink, airstream trailers, suitcases, kilts...finally understood she was better than a bad relationship & left for the frontier of oregon & a centered & peaceful & glowing-from-afar self.

174/365 amahl

2007-09-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

beautiful sad jordanian poet. hated la & recently stowed away on a cargo ship to france. we were old friends when we met. miss her fiercely, but it pleases me to imagine her scribbling in cafes & on the metro in paris.

173/365 christine

2007-09-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

james' mother. southern as they come. then, the horrible things she told me (& didn't tell james) made me furious...distraught. with time, & some growth in my compassion bone, i'm glad to have been there & a safe repository for her burdens.

172/365 great-grandpa fletcher

2007-09-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

caretook my grandpa's avocado ranch, lived in the one-room cottage. avocados are home to tree-frogs, who took drinks from the toilet in his bathroom. re-married at 87. grandma found out when she was 64 that he wasn't really her father.

171/365 connie

2007-09-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

t.r. & brav's mom, ex-husband was a well-known jazz saxophonist. drove a convertible red mustang, had long blond curls & wore silk scarves with nothing under them. i knew that even when i grew up, i'd never be as impossibly sexy & cool.

170/365 donelli

2007-09-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

so pretty the drill sergeants in basic nicknamed her "face." endearingly, she was also an ungainly klutz. the only already-married one of us (@18!!!), it was a thrilling vicarious pleasure when she read her husband's erotic letters aloud in the dark.

169/365 tara (2)

2007-09-26T09:47:00.001-07:00

neighbor with a bourbon problem. just wanted to be one of the girls...but her loud clumsy obnoxious loquaciousness & know-it-all-ness pushed everyone away. her sadness & loneliness was so thick, it was visible to the naked eye. i closed my eyes.

168/365 tara (1)

2007-09-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

bonded at silverlake farmer's market over her gorgeous blooms...silverlake farms is her backyard! thought, upon meeting her, how deliciously randomly miraculous the world is- who'd have thought there could be someone as utterly besotted with sweet peas as me?

167/365 diana curran

2007-09-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

high school drama teacher. great big voice, dry humor, & katherine hepburn-y clothes. from a herd of misfits, she cast us larger-than-life into people we didn't know we had in us. said being 16 was no reason not to be scintillating.

166/365 hans (Mr. Polaha)

2007-09-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

i was the greenest emt & he played macabre jokes that stood my hair on end: first cpr experience- person died- he sent me back into the er, right as the breath expelled. i though death had been greatly exaggerated & freaked.

165/365 'kump'

2007-09-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

cleveland "dawg." compassionately dragged me back to the barracks whenever soju cocktails bested me- he seemed immune to them. cute like your brother & shockingly blunt. he transferred to infantry years ago, i lost touch, & have worried about him since 1991.

164/365 auntie ann

2007-09-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

she & uncle tom took me when i was "incorrigible." told her when I was 10 that i wasn't getting married until i was 30...she didn't believe it, & made me write it & sign my name & date in her family bible.

163/365 bettyann

2007-09-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

"mom" i've adopted for my own. cheers me on, & makes it seem like i can do anything. sends unexpected little presents. gets it that sometimes you really need a pedicure. mistakenly thinks she needs me more than i need her.

162/365 clay

2007-09-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

he gives me so much more than haircuts. when they were almost tapped out, he & james finally got their baby,(rosie helped)... they were so hopeful in the movie...something's so very right with the world that they're dads now.

161/365 kelly

2007-08-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

the girl i envied, so-- hated, in junior high. smart, fit, had expensive haircuts, & always wore the precisely perfect thing. we all surreptitiously peeked during gym, even her underwear was soooo sophisticated. bras & panties matched. she'd always get her man.

160/365 dave

2007-08-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

the 25-year-old i told i was 18. had a boa constrictor named loretta, who loved to take showers...with a friend. she'd slide right up, & wrap herself around you, gently. turned out, she was both gentler--and sexier---than dave.

159/365 susan

2007-08-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

an actual freudian analyst, her razor-sharp critique in our poetry workshop added a new dimension, replete with myth, allegory, & id. with her, as seems often to be the case, the more one knows about neuroses, the more neurotic one is.

158/365 judy

2007-08-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

old-school nurse, & consummate mother-hen, diagnosed my dvt before I'd even heard of dvt, probably saved my life. you don't have to have dinner with her to know that she cooks comfort food & means it, in a bright, cheerful, sensuous kitchen.

157/365 lydia

2007-08-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

her family emigrated from russia, & you got the idea that it had been sort-of rushed & covert. she was willowy, witty, & had perfectly streaked & coiffed hair. it added up to 007 exotic. we drank champagne while we primped to go dancing.

156/365 charles

2007-08-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

walked me 6 blocks to 3rd grade every morning. i was making poems then by imitating...learned not to share them anymore when "worn & tender hands" became his hands in the eyes of my mother, who teased me without mercy.

155/365 marilyn

2007-08-23T14:42:00.000-07:00

at first, we all thought the 17 years she had on bill were too many. then it made sense, he was the baby boy with indulgent older sisters. pretty & quick- her humor came from a sharp, hurt place in her.

154/365 queen latifah

2007-08-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

met her waaaay back in the day, through makeda,when she was part of native tongues posse. she carried herself like royalty, & she was stunning. not even a shred of doubt in my mind that she really was a queen.

153/365 dana

2007-08-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

looks like a 40's movie star. especially for someone raised jehovah's witness, with the attendant belief that celebrations are wrong, she was so very festive...always ready to make merry. a hairdresser with curiosity that encompassed the whole big universe.

152/365 norma

2007-08-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

sort-of step-aunt. the year her mother died, she & her sisters were too sad to make tamales for christmas. the next year, her sisters still didn't want to so she didn't. the year after that, i asked her to teach me.

151/365 pat

2007-08-18T20:47:00.000-07:00

scary-smart, funny, beautiful. if she was wearing sunglasses, you knew it was bad. mixed her vodka with kool-aid, which her very young sons sometimes accidentally imbibed. she was the beginning of my learning about the futility of my "helping" problem.

150/365 ira glass

2007-08-18T20:27:00.000-07:00

years ago...had a vegetarian breakfast & went vintage shopping with him, dennis, & nina,after she met him @ a conference, & they were inseparable for a day or so. he was one of those combo hipster/nerds. way too cool for us.

149/365 kinky friedman

2007-08-16T08:57:00.000-07:00

said i'd propose if i ever met him. using all the courage i possessed, i asked. he said yes! in writing! sooooo wished his governor bid would've been successful, so i could've arrived with my "yes" to be 1st lady. :^)

148/365 lisa teasley

2007-08-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

she's luminous. told me i had a shiny soul, but the truth is, the reflection from hers bounces everywhere & makes everyone glow. her books aren't afraid of our dark places ...but they still end up at how love redeems us all.

147/365 chris

2007-08-14T14:05:00.000-07:00

father of tyler & becca, & fran's man. maybe the nicest guy i've ever known. gifted with saying the exact right thing, at the exact right time. meeting someone nice, i always think: "bet they'd really like chris." as do i.

146/365 barbara

2007-08-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

farmer, former studio-cellist. fell asleep driving their truck, crashed into a ravine- but wasn't hurt. her husband painted a mural on the truck that says "Oh- Oh My! We are Blessed!" & it still sounds that joyful message everywhere they go.

145/365 "billy" (bilal)

2007-08-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

busker who plays a homemade cross between a banjo & a sitar at the farmer's market, made of scraps & looks as hillbilly as they come. but the music! haunting & exotic...deep & dirty & low-down blues threaded through like embroidery on a saree.

144/365 ary

2007-08-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

farmer @ the santa barbara farmer's market. bought holy basil & cilantro roots from him, & he told me extraordinary stories about miraculous healing. in cambodia, his relatives made poultices of holy basil for sprains & fractures...bones & muscles knitted back together like magic.

143/365 matt

2007-08-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

gave me my first dozen roses on valentines when i was 13. crazy about tennis & a complete geek. (then & now--i like geeks!;^) even before i knew about wine & beer families, i knew his was a wine family & mine wasn't.

142/365 keith

2007-08-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

dapper, charming & smart...but never lost the fear of being outed "not-good-enough." said we knew each other too well to be lovers. told him it was because of knowing him so well that i loved him so much. still do.

141/365 mr. song

2007-08-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

helped me find an apartment i could afford in seoul. little kids in the neighborhood were blase' about covering their faces with handkerchiefs when they were playing nearby & rioting students threw cs gas into my terrace because i was american.

140/365 will

2007-08-07T09:37:00.000-07:00

mailman, lover of poetry who had the kind of blue eyes that almost hurt when you looked into them. so hard to connect this peaceful man, who cared for his ill & aging father, to his hobby of indoor shooting ranges.

139/365 bobby

2007-07-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

first fiancee. we met in army advanced training, & i couldn't resist his punk wildness & charm. being engaged meant spending vacations together for 2 years. & it was all honeymoon. we mutually outgrew our long-distance relationship, but i still wonder about him.

138/365 andy

2007-07-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

quinnton's new dad. totally born to be a dad, quinnton thinks he hung the moon, & vice-versa. he adores my sister--constantly & visibly...she deserves it- & gives it right back to him. i've not discovered a limit to his generosity & compassion.

137/365 LeRoyal

2007-07-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

quinnton's father. handsome, smart, funny, loving. had it all, but still had a hard time resisting his temptation for escape. was clean & sober & getting it together, when his heart stopped working & he died. maybe in some universe, there's a reason.

136/365 steve

2007-07-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

@17, shared a 1-bedroom apartment- he got the murphy bed in the living room. our place was a wild gathering spot for shenanigans, most including tequila. we often threw water balloons out the window to splat in front of passer-by.

135/365 another jimmy

2007-07-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

"war buddy" of stepdad #1. from kentucky, was proud to be a country boy. adopted my grandma as his surrogate mom. drove for pepsi until a "reduction in force" sent him home after 22 years. taught me to ride a horse.

134/365 mr. jimmy

2007-07-21T07:19:00.000-07:00

no end to his creativity. wrote an explicit poem about unrequested auditory intimacies that neighbors in old buildings share. posted in the elevator, then i found a copy under my door. relieved to discover that it was under everyone's door.

133/365 tim

2007-07-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

stepdad #2. loves my mother. & she drives him crazy too. but he can't stand conflict w/ her or meeting her drive-him-nuts-qualities head-on. so he's always found those things he hates in her, in me, whether or not they're actually there.

132/365 kristie

2007-07-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

you can tell even though she's in her 30's that she was the adored baby of her family. she's smart, goofy & sweet...& a bit lost. i think she'd like someone to fix her life & tell her what to do next.

131/365 grandpa don

2007-07-11T08:59:00.000-07:00

navy man, missed most of his kids' childhoods. by the time i knew him, he played dolls with me for hours, stopped every time i wanted to look closer while we were walking, answered a million questions. told me stories.

130/365 angie

2007-07-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

met her on the tole mour. sailing was her escape from a family where she took care of everyone, & no one took care of her. she doesn't sail or make poems anymore. she married at 19. i cried all the way home.

129/365 mario

2007-07-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

met the day after basic training ended...in a raucous & seedy bar in san antonio. being that bt meant no drinking, & living with 100 women for 9 weeks, i was perhaps a tad overenthusiastic. he never knew what hit him.

128/365 anna

2007-07-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

brazilian beauty. her sweet inside bubbles out often, as if the word "goodness" is tattooed on her forehead. wants to leave the world better than she found it. started with healthcare...but it's a hard place to make a difference.

127/365 greg

2007-07-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

pat's s.o. perectly nice, loves animals, a good person, & probably flosses 2x/day. but he just can't go far enough into the labyrinth, ask too many questions, get passionately excited about something...anything. i wish larger-than-life-technicolor for pat.

126/365 francois

2007-07-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

indulgent french papa to marianne & husband to sylvie. gourmand who loved my gumbo. more than anyone, taught me to dine. his jokes took a minute to sneak around the corner of your mind...he was so smart. he's so missed.

125/365 jessica

2007-07-05T13:57:00.000-07:00

bonded over sociology of gender, spent a hard glorious year building muscle by sledge-hammering, stripping, dry-walling & electrifying & otherwise renovating our way into a gorgeous art studio/gallery with my brother. she's a soul-sister, a hot librarian & much too far away.

124/365 rebecca

2007-07-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

another early & short-lived "urgent writer." shaved her head as a feminist statement, & still looked beautiful & white & privileged, so it lost something in the execution. her background was in philosophy--which seemed to help her very little in figuring people out.

123/365 michael

2007-07-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

tell him he's the only republican jew in l.a. inspires strong feelings one way or the other...fortunately, i've always found him amusing & smart & good-hearted under his misguided politics so we've been a great team that throws a helluva party.

122/365 joan armatrading

2007-07-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

said history is our grandmothers & aunts & brothers...it's how we understand ourselves. found out she's entirely self-taught, she was tiny when she started on the piano, which her mother thought of as furniture. her smile illuminates the whole dark place.

121/365 dan

2007-07-01T22:24:00.000-07:00

we were a mutual admiration society. in pyongtaek, i'd see him walking & when he'd catch my eye, he'd start running toward me, ending in a hug that often knocked me off my feet. should have asked him to marry me.

120/365 judy

2007-06-30T09:21:00.000-07:00

part of the original "urgent writers group." that summer, she wrote through getting the nerve to leave her husband & falling in love with a woman. i'm the age now she was then, & regret our callousness toward her poems as therapy.

119/365 mrs. swanson

2007-06-30T09:16:00.000-07:00

honors english teacher with a blond bouffant. the reagans were her personal friends. the day reagan was shot, i commented that it was terrible, but at least hadn't happened to anyone really important. she suspended me for being uncompassionate & unpatriotic.

118/365 sherry

2007-06-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

my serious & mid-western "buddy" in basic training. felt victorious to reduce her to giggles. we smuggled a watermelon to base,(without knife or forks) cracked it open in a laundry bag on cement, & in our underwear, ate it by handfuls.

117/365 marianne

2007-06-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

from the seemingly-contradictory genesis of parisian privelege, she's come to be someone profoundly concerned with justice. her highly-developed & incisive sense of justice in the grand scheme of the world & its wrongs colors the personal, i often feel i've failed her.

116/365 tom

2007-06-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

invented the biafra analogy at the very moment work was most chaotic & dysfunctional, & it worked...got easier to think the day with flushing toilets & no locusts was a yardstick for a good day. he's a gem & a genius. & very tall.

115/365 phil

2007-06-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

introduced me to heinlein, which turned out to be more than science fiction. introduced him to mosh pits, which turned out to be more than violence. in a place where thinking was frowned upon, he was water in the desert.

114/365 ayfer unsal

2007-06-25T08:58:00.000-07:00

our great good fortune for a friend of a friend to tell her we were visiting istanbul. she's exactly like the gaziantep "women's salad"says: a little bitter, salty, sweet, bittersweet & a little bit spicy. & she has the dancingest eyes!

113/365 alex

2007-06-23T23:41:00.000-07:00

argentinian dj/soccer player. called to say he missed me 4 hours after we met. made me dinner & we danced to sinatra. the end of the whirlwind romance came when he called me his "little woman." with a straight face.

112/365 gladys

2007-06-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

made the border crossing every day to pay for parochial school for her daughter & son with scrub-brushes & mops & her back & hands. she loved my dia de los muerto book...said it reminded her of how beautiful things used to be.

111/365 eric

2007-06-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

my senior prom. when i heard he didn't have a date, i asked him. "buddies" didn't translate into prom date very well. it was odd & awkward & the most fun i had all night was hiding from him in the elevators.

110/365 ron

2007-06-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

i was his senior-prom date...he didn't have the guts to take the boy he'd have preferred. we were the only pair who were just good friends, & won the "newlywed game" at the after-party--to the dismay of romancing couples.

109/365 musa dagdeviren

2007-06-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

as best i can recall...tried about 60 different dishes. it took 5 1/2 hours. no wine. he sat at the table with us & his eyes danced as he watched our faces full of pleasure. still felt his warmth days later.

108/365 "mike"

2007-06-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

philosopher in an ali-baba's-cave empire on a hotel rooftop. took us to share tea with afghan merchants in the grand bazaar, introduced us to the (brazilian) queen of madagascar, & picked up the phone to make chocolate-covered espresso beans magically appear.