I had this dream last night that I was on vacation at a resort in Iraq with my friend Gina. We had to move from the hotel room to the pool in a heavily armed tank. I was wearing a white bikini with a t-shirt over – and I was trying to decide if it would be more culturally sensitive to wear the white bikini with its’ shorts-like bottom, or a black one-piece that covered my tummy but showed more leg.
This just goes to show you can take the girl out of LA and make her listen to a lot of NPR, but you can’t take the swimsuit-worrying, SPF-using, iced-blended-drinking LA out of the girl.
I blame this ridiculous dream on the warm weather yesterday. I played a pick-up game of tennis in Fort Greene Park with this guy who seriously kicked my ass. He plays in a lot of tournaments and teaches, and is like 18 I think, so I wasn’t that embarrassed. The ball was coming so fast at me over and over again, I was thinking to myself this is what it would be like to play against Andy Roddick. I held up ok considering – I got everything back (mostly).
I was walking home, tired and hot – and it occurred to me that I just didn’t believe the weather. It was like a lie, or a ruse. Tomorrow it would be a “slushy mix” and I’d have to trot out my big black parka.
I also blame the dream on Morning Edition, which I switched on at 8:30AM but kept on sleeping through. If things could get any worse in Iraq, it’s hard to imagine how.
I woke up from the Iraq vacation dream thinking I needed to arrange another game today, and maybe lay-off the peanut MM&Ms so I might look okay in the white bikini or the black one-piece (neither of which I own in waking life). Also, I’m cancelling the Carnival Cruises half-price Persian Gulf vacation.
In any case – I haven’t a lot to say. I am not working at the PR place until further notice. I wrote a piece for the newspaper on anti-wrinkle creams which thoroughly creeped me out. I noticed there’s a Denzel Washington movie coming out called Man on Fire. Isn’t it funny how the title Woman on Fire has a totally different feeling to it? I wrote the biggest check of my life to the federal government and now feel significantly poorer. I’ve been hanging around Gorilla Coffee perhaps too much…
New Angeles Monthly, June 2008
Weekend America, March 30, 2008
Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2008
Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2008
Nil by Mouth is written by Neille Ilel. Neille is a writer, reporter and user interface specialist in Los Angeles. If you think that's a lot, she's also got a host of meandering sidelines including improv comedy, tennis, cooking, drawing and thinking about learning to play the guitar.
Nil is her given name. It's a long story.
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