... whether to wear taffeta or satin to the movie this afternoon. It's supposed to rain. I have that sweet little Dior number that I've been dying to wear but I don't think it's waterproof.

(God, I hope you know that I am SO just kidding. If you happened upon this blog by mistake, I wouldn't want you to think that I was out of my fucking mind.) (Well, I am out of my fucking mind, but not in that particular way. My way is a little more charming and metaphysical.) (At least, I think it's charming but I do live alone now so that could be construed as a subtle clue...)

Anyway. I'll be wearing jeans and a tee shirt and a pair of Asics that are 17 hundred years old!! I so need a new pair of Asics. Those are by far my favorite walking sneakers. (Wow, from Dior to Asics in 3 short paragraphs; that's kind of charming, isn't it?)

Have you noticed that I say pretty much anything that pops into my head????

Well, here's something so sweet and exciting to think about: My best friend Peitor Angell in Los Angeles (West Hollywood, to be exact -- and only a few short blocks from where Alla Nazimova's villa used to stand off Sunset Blvd., where every famous person imaginable used to cavort, including Rudolph Valentino), wrote to me and said, "I can't wait until you're living here and we can have tea and scones together and chat everyday!"

He's an incredible baker, btw. Oh, and also btw, I'm not planning to move to L.A., only to stay there temporarily, off & on. But when that happens, I refuse to live anywhere except within walking distance of Peitor's place. What I'd really like to do is somehow convince his current roommate to move away and then I could, you know, maybe acquire half of Peitor's townhouse! He has a really beautiful little place w/ 2 separate suites upstairs -- the master suite overlooking the courtyard and a ton of gorgeous tropical flowers, etc; and the back suite which has a view up into the Hollywood Hills. That back suite has a smaller bathroom than the master suite has, but, hey, I would adjust. And downstairs, among other amenities, is a half bath, a built-in wet bar, a working fireplace, and a really cute little private courtyard-patio thingie that's filled with flowers. And of course the best thing about the whole deal is that Peitor lives there!

(Gosh, I hope his roommate doesn't read my blog!!) (I can't imagine why he would; he's some sort of sound engineer who's easily young enough to be my son.)

You know, I studied sound engineering in NYC many decades ago and I was extremely good at it. I actually have a head for understanding all kinds of physics. But in those days, sound engineering was a serious Boys Club. I was the only girl in the class -- in the whole school, actually, except for one of the teachers, who left right when I started studying there. Anyway. I was the only girl and I got the best grades. When test times would roll around, all the guys would try to get me to basically do their work for them. "Tests" in this instance weren't written tests; they were in the  recording studio and we had to do stuff. So it was kind of easy for me to do a thing for someone else on the sly and not get caught.

I would of course help other people cheat b/c I want everyone to succeed in whatever convoluted way, etc., and even when I was helping these guys cheat, they still couldn't pass the damn tests. However, that said, they did get job offers from some of the top recording studios in Manhattan while I was offered a job answering phones in a smaller midtown recording studio -- and it was readily understood that I had to wear something very sexy while answering those phones. And if that wasn't exciting enough, the real perk was that b/c of my education in sound engineering, I could be called-in at all ungodly hours to assist in the recording studio if the "real sound engineer" needed a "gopher" to do a bunch of tedious stupid stuff for some really immature "rock stars" at 2 AM...

This was 1981, gang; the music world itself was still an almost impenetrable Boys Club unless you had balls of steel. (Can you guess why I loved Joan Jett??) Perhaps you can also guess that I politely turned down the job offer, heady as it was, and then did the best I could to put together a little recording studio in my bedroom. Equipment in those days was extremely expensive but I played an acoustic guitar, sang, and did some percussion so I didn't need to have all that much equipment.

Well, that's just one among many delightful memories I have of the music industry -- and I did have a shot at Columbia Records as a singer-songwriter, so I was definitely "in there," but the whole industry made me sick; it just enraged me; from most (but not all) of the (male) musicians I had to work with, up to the studio suits, except for Bob Cato . When the Internet began unraveling the music industry, I found it very, very exciting. And the fact that now anyone, anywhere, of any sex or creed or nationality, can pretty much "make a record" in their room and get it out to the world -- you have no idea how happy that makes me. It really, really does. Even though I haven't been in the music industry since 1994.

Well, back to Hollywood. I won't state the obvious. I'll only say that my world is a different place now. I've had plenty of years to do some incredible stuff in new media and in publishing and no one cared one iota that I was a woman. So I don't need to be on any kind of crusade anymore. My life's not about that. There are certain things I'm not even going to attempt to change -- I just want to enjoy the hell out of my life for "a change"!! (That's the kind of change I guess I'm looking for...)

Okay, I gotta scoot! Enjoy Rango Day, gang!! I know I will!! Thanks for visiting. See ya later!!

[Bob Cato (r.) with Richard Manuel of The Band, 1983. Bob Cato was the nicest guy in the music industry EVER.]