open letter of apology to my future children

i expect my children will often give me the finger

Dear [insert children(s) name(s) here]

First I would like to apologize for the high cost of energy, that 50% of your income  goes directly to your energy bills is probably my fault.  In my defense those energy saver light bulbs are terrible and make everything look like an office building, the only reasonable thing to do was to replace all the lightbulbs in my house with halogen bulbs, even though they suck more energy then those ladyboys down on Santa Monica boulevard.  (Santa Monica boulevard was a street in Los Angeles a city in California before it sank into the Pacific ocean.)

I would also like to apologize for a shortage of water.  Contrary to what President Bristol Palin would have you believe, we were warned of an up coming world water shortage and instead of preparing, I continued to run the sink while brushing my teeth and washing the dishes, I also needed let the shower run for three minutes in order to get the perfect temperature.

Unfortunately we were also warned that we would eventually run out of oil.  It was a huge surprise to us there really wasn’t any oil in ANWR and we destroyed the landscape looking for it.  It was very beautiful (you can find pictures on wikipedia).  I’m also sorry about the beaches, apparently offshore oil rigs were not as safe as we thought.  If you ever got the chance to ride in a gas guzzling car you would understand why oil was so difficult to give up.

Finally, I’m sorry that you won’t get to eat at McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Applebee’s, KFC, or any other fast food or national chain restaurant.  I know that you probably see all of your friends enjoying Big Macs, and Double Downs and I’m sure they taste delicious.  During our senior year of college we gave up eating at those restaurants.  They may be quick, efficient, and seem delicious but the dark side to these companies is that their food is horrible for you, horrible for the people who work for it, horrible for the food industry, horrible for the environment, and while it may be tasty at first not long after you finish that seemingly delicious burger you will start to feel sick about yourself and in your stomach.

I also should apologize for not keeping processed food in the house.  No Kraft mac n cheese and definitely not with little ball park hot dogs chopped up in it.  No Oreo’s or TV dinners, pop only on special occasions and no juice boxes or Capri Sun.  Though you will be bombarded with hundreds of commercials for sugary cereals like Lucky Charms you won’t be getting any.  Prepare yourself for brown rice, whole wheat pasta and organic granola only.

What you will get an abundance of is fresh vegetables, fruits, legumes and roots (locally grown only.)  At this point I should also apologize for you having to spend every Saturday morning watching your parents swoon over organic eggs and vegetables at the farmers market like kids in a candy store.  You may also be required to log some time in your own garden tending to whatever can be grown in the back yard.

Why am I so guilty about raising you as a healthier better person?  Because in my youth I gorged myself with every one of those indulgences.  I could eat an entire bag of Cheetos in an afternoon and in my college years was known to drink a six pack of Dr. Pepper and fix myself a plate of bacon cooked in the microwave.  I ate McDonald’s and my favorite fast food dish was the Burger King chicken sandwich.  As I got older I became more conscious of not only what this food could do but what this food stood for.  I educated myself on the history of food and farmers and drastically changed my lifestyle.  I began reading the labels on food packages not looking for nutritional information but checking the ingredients.  

There was a time when I ate processed and fast food, had every cable channel available and wanted to be rich and famous in a big house with tons of toys.  Now my dream is to move to Maui and live in a small house with a poly cultural self sustaining farm.  I’m truly sorry your parents became hippies, it happened long before you were born and was in no way decided upon to make your life more difficult.

Love,

your caring parents.

you’re never lonely when brad pitt’s around.

this is comforting 

When you live in Los Angeles if you see someone that you think might be famous they probably are.  It took me about two and a half years for me to get used to that.  When you live in Seattle if you think you see someone famous, they’re not, unless that person is a TV news anchor.  It has been an adjustment period to suddenly find yourself in the middle of a room full of strangers with whom you have no connection.

Every time I would meet someone who was visiting Los Angeles they would lean in to me and say some along the lines of “I’ve been here for 5 days and I still haven’t seen any celebrities yet.”  They would stagger up and down the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard hoping to catch a glimpse of Matt Damon standing right next to his star, they would hang out near the entrance to the Chateau Marmot or the lobby of Capital Records or front gates of Paramount studios without spotting even a single celebrity not even Andy Dick.  The trick if you really want to see a celebrity in Los Angeles is to think mundane.  In three years I never saw a celebrity in an obvious place, they all caught me by surprise because of how normal the situations were.  Lawrence Fishburne standing next to me a the used bookstore, John Hamm driving his car past my street corner, Patton Oswald pushing a stroller on my sidewalk, Judd Apatow asking me for assistance at Borders Bookstore.

The minute you stop thinking about them they magically appear.  My wife and I once saw Lindsey Lohan at a Gelson’s grocery store across the street from our apartment, Michael Cera while we were walking home from Albertsons, one of the hobbits at that same Albertsons.  None of these were star studded events, never did I imagine that while I was looking for Orange Juice Buster from Arrested Development also be looking for Orange Juice as well or even that I would walk in front of Harrison Ford in his car at a stop sign.  It’s not just knowing that anytime you go anywhere in Los Angeles you could cross paths with someone famous, they also had this effect on me where once I found myself in their presence I started to feel truly alive.  I’m not sure if I can completely explain their powers but I could feel the blood flowing through my veins.

Of all my celebrity sightings the one which seemed most surreal was the time my wife and I saw Brad Pitt at a well known restaurant in West Hollywood.  The best way to describe this place was well... it’s on Santa Monica boulevard in West Hollywood, the ambiance is dark, the chair cushions and couches were the color of dried blood and I’m sure this floor had seen the vomit of more than a hand full of OD(ing) rockstars.  It was a Thursday evening and we were with our softball team, it was the last game of the season and we were celebrating our second glorious win.  The restaurant had a private room just off from the entrance where we all gathered in our sweaty dirt covered shorts and softball shirts.  I’d fallen into third base and had a terrific raspberry on my left arm.  We were enjoying some drinks that cost enough to feed an entire village in Ethiopia when a small entourage of people walked in and then shuffled into our room, they stood around for about a minute before Jaime looked up and without taking a breath blurted out “Oh shit! It’s Brad Pitt.”  It was loud enough he definitely heard us and a moment later he and his entourage shuffled back out of our room and into a secluded booth at the far end of the restaurant.

What?  Maybe you were expecting that he sat down with our team and bought us all a round of beers to congratulate us on our victory.  He slapped me playfully on the back laughing hysterically at my jokes and made a toast every time a new round was brought out.  No.  “Oh shit!  It’s Brad Pitt.”  That’s it and he was gone but I felt like Jesus was nearby.  I was now in a kind of  celebrity sphere where I was protected and nothing bad could happen.  Even though I knew non of that was true.

I’m embarrassed to admit this because I’m no celebrity whore.  I never went looking for them, in fact most the time Jaime would notice them first or would have to point them out to me.  “That was Emma Roberts” she would whisper to me as we passed by Little Dom’s (which by the way if you are looking for your Los Angeles celebrity sighting, Little Dom’s Italian restaurant on Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz always has a celebrity sitting outside.)  But there is something, a feeling that I can’t fully explain or completely identify that when in the presence of a celebrity of any kind I suddenly felt less lonely more like I was in the presence of a family member or an old friend.  Had Sarah Palin walked into my favorite restaurant and taken a table next to me all the supreme hatred I have for that woman would have melted away like an ice sculpture and left me only with a feeling of familiar comfort.  Once she was safely away from our vicinity I would carry on loathing her pathetic celebrity.

Now that I am back in Seattle there is a noticeable element of surprise missing in my life.  I stroll up and down the aisles of Trader Joe’s, wander out to the street to retrieve my mail or sit at a table in a restaurant with my wife and I can look at all the faces around me and no one is familiar in a famous celebrity way no one will enter the frame of my personal movie and place the bubble around me.  For now I will simply have to find the company of compete strangers satisfying and surprising enough to keep making me feel alive.