sweetheart redux

If you are a frequent reader of the blog, you know that much of what appears on here is an exploration of two of the main characters of my life, my mom Jill Crane and her best friend Bill Tunilla , and the years spent with them in Pasadena.   Whenever I walk around my old Pasadena stomping grounds (often), I take note of the changes versus all the things that have stayed the same, and I take it all so personally, thinking things like “When I was a kid, I had no idea they would build a Target on this block someday.”   I have a hard time keeping up, and often give Geof (who is unfamiliar with the area) directions that apply to the Pasadena of two decades ago, like the other night when we went to a movie at a Pasadena theater he hadn’t been to before and that I guess I hadn’t been to since I saw “Me and You and Everyone We Know ,” which seems like just last year or something but was actually released in 2005 (I looked it up).   I told him “Just park behind this bui...

Tender Monster Destiny             Hope Street is a street just like any other in Los Angeles, except that its name makes it seem promising.  A useless person sitting in his or her car at a stop light and seeing that they are about to intersect Hope would probably think, Could this be a sign?             Are there plain white college boys hidden in apartments on this street, writing screenplays for a movie they’re going to make someday for Public Television about their L.A. experience?             The name makes this street sound full of action and import, a street with a secret, a street that lives out its charm with the clean bend of palm trees and Hopscotch formations drawn on its pavement.             It was on this street that Joe’s car pass...

21. "Why do you love me so much?" Beth asked George once, and he was so irritated by the question that he was tempted to pretend he hadn’t heard.  The question had so little to do with what effect his love for her had on him; she was really just asking him to tell her about herself.  It was so selfish.  But oh, how could he not give in to this request.  It was the innocence at the base of her selfishness that was one of the most irresistible things about her. "Oh Beth, he replied, "I don't know, you're just special," and then what he'd never actually said to her before, "I really do love you." Now, he brought the bedside phone into the bathroom so as not to wake the three gently sighing sleepers in the hotel room, and he dialed Beth's home number, just in case.  No answer.

14. "So tell me more about your childhood," Richard beseeched Beth on their first date. "Hmmm.   I don't think I will," she teased. "What?   Come on, that's not fair.   I just bought you a sundae." "No, it's just that -- it was no good, you know?   I had toast for every meal, and every man who ever set foot in our house was horny and poor.   Mom always slapped us too hard -- I had an imprint of her hand on my check for a week, once -- but she was too stupid to stay mad at for long.   Gloomy stuff like that.   It's so boring, though, really.   I can't stand when people talk about their dysfunctional families, like it's enough to make them interesting, just because they suffered a little.   Everyone suffers, even if you have a happy, smart family, you end up suffering wondering if you're happy and smart enough.   That's just life." "Well, what do you like people to talk about, if not the...

9. George loved to buy drinks for Beth, he loved to be around her when she drank, because when she drank, she became so relaxed and so much kinder, and she almost never lost control by becoming too drunk, at least not for the first several years.   She just became happy, when normally she was guarded and dour. It was a dark and stormy night.   There was something they'd been talking about that George couldn't stop turning over in his mind as he sat in his car in the bar's parking lot, watching the neon light of the sign catch on the rain drops and turn them red on his windshield, while he waited for the car's engine to warm up. He'd told Beth about driving Molly to Josie's house, not worrying about betraying Molly's whereabouts on a school night, because it never occurred to Beth to worry about her daughter. "Josie's probably having more problems with this man she used to see.   I overheard the two of them talking about it," -- a...