A little-known fact: My very first boyfriend was a redhead. We dated for about 36 hours in kindergarten. He let me play with his blocks and I’m pretty sure he let me cut in line at the monkey bars. He dumped me by snack time the next day.

I’m not going to apologize for stereotyping here, because the type-cast redhead is my favorite kind of redhead. Maybe it’s their tendency towards passion, or perhaps it’s their propensity for craftiness and cleverness that makes me feel like they’re my perfect fit. Whatever it is, there’s something about redheads and me that just seems to click. As the aptly named Amber G. once pointed out: I have a type.

It would seem that my love for the ginger-tressed goes beyond housemates, soul sisters, and BFFs, because I’m nothing short of obsessed with the inferno-haired Neko Case. I’d call her a tough cookie, but that would undermine her. In terms of cookies, she’s more like a brick, which I guess is appropriate, all things considered.

No one does eerie dust-bowl balladry like her and with lung-power the strength of a cyclone, her vocals leave me happily blown away, rolling in the tumbleweeds. Too romantic for you? Then listen:

Basically, my life is going to totally suck until Neko Case becomes my best friend. Until that time, I’ll just see her perform any chance I get… like next Monday at the Fonda with The New Pornographers, for a start.

And a little photo montage of some of my favorite Gingers. Those who have dyed their hair blond or brown don’t make the cut. Those who have lost their hair due to time and circumstance do.

No photos here were taken by yours truly. Sorry.

Speaking of being a better person, for the next couple of weeks, StudioKMO will be selling her line drawings of New Orleans for $35, and all proceeds will go to cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico, which is more than the fucktard nation that runs Best Petroleum is doing, let me tell you. And they’re pretty nifty, too: A long series of straight, vertical lines make up this drawing. Look closely, if you don’t believe me.

A beautiful gift. A good cause. Nothing better.

Photo by Mary Lee Crocker

What I have been doing lately is exploring the west side of our country, with trips to Ojai, Las Vegas, and Vancouver, and cultivating a new career (I hope) in television. Both exploration of the world around me and the world within me has been going quite well. Happiness is a regular occurrence, and overwhelming joy is just the icing on top.

One of the things that has recently brought on a bout of bliss, has been my rediscovery of my love for photography: Not only the activity of snapping pictures myself, but of experiencing the story-telling of others through visual, letter-less words. Of course, I love the work of professional photographers, but it’s the semi-anonymous photoblogs that have been the most daydream-inducing.

After a long respite, I’ve started to love Flickr again–not so much for my own posting, but for tip-toeing quietly in the sidelines of someone else’s world. I won’t gain any friends with this confession, but I actually love anonymously trolling other people’s photo streams. It’s wonderful when I do know them but, when I don’t, the photos morph from a visual catch-up on the lives of others, to an unfolding fairy tale (urban, suburban, whatever…).

Today, I wonder what “Shades of Mediocrity” is thinking when she shoots her romantically diffused photos. I look forward to visiting again and again so she can tell me more.

Grammie, as a babe

St. Joseph is the patron saint of Sicily, so his influence over the Sicilian-American household is held in higher esteem than that of other saints. Growing up, my cousins and I would be picked up at school and brought to my grandmother’s house every March 19, where we’d all congregate like little ants to a picnic table, angling for Grammie’s fresh baked bread with anchovies and olive oil, various salads, and for a traditional pasta made with white beans and fennel that I only know as St. Joe’s Bista (Bista means pasta in Americanized Sicilian. Don’t ask; I don’t know the answer.), but probably has some other name that Mario Batali would slap my wrists for not knowing. There would always be such a whirlwind of activity: hellos, hugs, kisses, catch-ups, laughter, yelling (not out of anger, but out of heritage), praying, singing, eating; you were always left a little shocked when it all subsided in a blissful food coma that left my enormous family quietly waddling to the living room to recover.

My brother's St. Joseph rolls

These days my Uncle John and Aunt Sandi have taken over the annual St. Joseph’s Day celebration. Typically, they have a large group of us over the night before to make the pasta by hand. This year I didn’t get to go back home for St. Josephs’ Day, but ate a bowl of pasta in reverence and thought about my family, my Grammie in particular, all weekend.

Family was Grammie’s greatest love, but it was closely followed by food and music. As a young girl she enjoyed small-scale fame with her sisters, where they would yodel (yes, yodel) and sing country songs at community events.

As semi-musical progeny, she took interest in my passion for music and during the last years of her life, our musical tastes unexpectedly began to meld. She was an enormous fan of Emmylou Harris and I introduced her to some of my favorites: Gram Parsons, Lucinda Williams, and Gillian Welch, making my 80-year-old grandmother mix tapes during the last year of her life. Gillian Welch was her favorite. Words can’t express the beauty of—after decades of musical divergence—sitting on the side of your grandmother’s bed, holding her hand as you both listen raptly to a favorite musical artist you both adore equally.

Shortly after she died, I was introduced to one of Gillian Welch’s favorite musicians, and one Grammie would have loved. This is a song that reminds me of my grandmother and one that I would have loved to have played for her, written by Greg Brown about his grandmother and sung by his three daughters.

I can almost hear her humming along in heaven as she’s baking bread for all the saints up there. I hope St. Joe saves a roll or two for me.

My new favorite personality test asks four simple questions to find out your perfect typeface and what it reveals about you.

I am categorized as the furiously fair and somewhat utilitarian Van Doesburg, thereby revealing my remorseless inner simplicity, hidden deep beneath all that Sicilian flash. Or whatever: at the very least it’s a fun way to spend a Tuesday morning.

If you end up taking this, let me know which typeface you are by commenting here. xo

OMG, I so need this. Found at BeepArt on Etsy.com

A good mix has, on more occasions than I care to admit, convinced me I was completely in love with a boy… and I’m not just talking about during high school and college. And I’m not just talking about boys that were even remotely dateable… you know what, let’s just change the subject.

I’ve kept every mix ever given to me and still relish the impressive storytelling through song on favorite compilations such as “I Can’t Believe You Made Me Wear a Tie”, “Who Gives a F**K About Laura Palmer When Audrey Horne Is On?“, “OMG! Let’s Go Hiking!” (which, incidently, didn’t really have any songs related to hiking, but was given to me just prior to a major Grand Canyon hike), and a more recent favorite from a friend who actually found a punk song where the only audible word screamed by the singer was an impassioned, “Jaaaaaaanellllllllle! Jaaaaaaanellllllllle!” for the three-plus-minute track.

Sadly, the art of the mix seems to have died with the advent of the iPod. Try as I do, the hints I drop never seem to result in the bestowal of a mix. As of late I have begun to bemoan the mix as a romantic piece of nostalgia, and a craft and skill that is steadily on the wane.

So, in my single-handed crusade to revive the fine art of mixes (in particular, the ones that are given to me), ownership of the awesome laptop decal above is crucial, as is this cool print, as is this beyond adorable keychain, as is this grossly over-priced, yet fantastic embroidered pouch, as is anything found on Etsy.com under search word “cassette”. I do have a birthday coming up, people!

Eh, or maybe I’ll just start saving my pennies for cassette-inspired trinkets: I’m nothing if not self-sufficient.

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Who knew Fonzie and Shirley would end up together?

Right now I’m thinking about the incredible love my parents have for each other, even after 40 years of marriage.

When my dad was courting my mother, her parents wouldn’t grant him their blessing until he paid off all of his debt. I don’t remember all of the details as well as I’d like to but, as I recall, Dad sold his vintage Corvette to pay off his bills, and to buy Mom an engagement ring. Soon after they were hitched they started a life–complete with a mortgage and a baby boy–that couldn’t afford them the luxury of a car any more pimpin’ than a seventh generation Thuderbird (sounds cool, but it was pretty much a sedan).

Fast forward 15 years, my mom picked up some extra work and saved every penny for nearly two years to buy my father a brand new Corvette convertible for their anniversary, to replace the one he gave up to have her almost two decades before.

Honestly, that car had never been anything but trouble, but my father babies it as though it were one of his children. I don’t think he’ll ever sell it, and to be honest, I love seeing it around when I visit. It’s a reminder that my dad was willing to sacrifice everything sacred to the 23 year old car mechanic he was, and that my mother knew what he gave up and never forgot it.

So today, I toast my folks: A couple of crazy in love kids who still completely mortify my brother and me with their affection for each other. I hope I’ve inherited an ounce of the open-hearted giving nature of my dad and the shy, soulful understanding of my mom. Happy V-day. Love you both. See you soon. Here’s a song for you. xo

From LAStreetFoodFest.com

If you totally messed up and didn’t get your Valentine anything, want to binge away the memories of the jerk who jilted you, or simply have designs to blow your New Year’s resolutions to hell, then the first LA Street Food Festival is where you’re going to want to spend this Saturday afternoon.

In LA, street food reigns supreme, and our gourmet food trucks have been making headlines, with their rabid disciples quite literally following their every move via Twitter location updates. For one day, we Angelenos won’t have to play Cannonball Run with fate, as we chase after a grilled cheese sandwich in Universal City, a Korean taco in Culver City, and an ice cream sandwich at Sunset Junction.

The first Los Angeles Street Food Fest is parking at LA Center Studios tomorrow, Saturday, February 13th from 11AM-5PM, with gourmet trucks, authentic LA street food, and vendors from the Boyle Height’s Breed Street scene. General admission is $5. Any other questions? See you there.

From LAStreetFoodFest.com

Strange enough, I’ve actually loved the weather we’ve been having. Not only have I gotten to fall asleep to rain battering against window panes, I’ve gotten to hunker down with hot tea as I’ve watch lightening storms from my couch, legs wrapped in the afghan my Nana knit me. It’s a little bit of New England seasonality, without having to wake up at the crack of dawn to shovel out your car. It’s given me the change I’m accustomed to, the sharply cold nights my body occasionally craves, and it has left the city glimmering in freshly-washed renewal.

Truly, winter in LA is the city’s best-kept secret. The city loses its overcoat of smog and with the crisp air comes breathtaking views of snow-capped mountains above all of the lushness 15 inches of rain in three months inspires in the city below.

Earlier this week, we had a thunder storm that dumped half an inch of rain on Echo Park, and over three inches elsewhere in the city. I made pasta and hunkered down to work in my kitchen, enjoying the storm for its percussive qualities, but not daring to venture outside until my housemate asked me to check on a tent she had forgotten to take down. A dutiful friend and housemate, I donned my Wellies and my raincoat and made the venture outside, just as the sun began to break through the clouds. What I noticed first was the dazzlingly luminous, Maxfield Parrish-golden light, streaming out of pocket-sized breaks in the clouds. I ran in to grab my camera and what I saw was this:

A double rainbow! I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before. Unfortunately, I forgot to make a wish. If I had remembered, I would have wished for the safety of the people and homes in foothill communities of La Crescenta and La Cañada Flintridge. While I do romanticize the torrents of rain against my window, they mean something very different to those in the foothill communities.