This is going to sound really smug, but it’s not like that. I’m actually surprised this is such a mystery to most people. When I was in high school, I’d pore over European fashion magazines, wishing I had a machine that could scan (before scanners) a photo from the pages (usually Gaultier) and make a copy of the actual garment, only you know, at a price I could afford. Well, I went to fashion school and quickly became that machine. I was fortunate to have an awesome patternmaking teacher in Connie Amaden Crawford at FIDM. She helped me uncover my talent for draping & patternmaking.

This is not my bike, it's my friend's bike. But it goes so well with my dress I had to take it for a spin
I’ve had 5 concussions. The last 3 would’ve been negligible if I’d been wearing a helmet for the first 2. The first one felt like “no biggie”, as most injuries do to a teenager. 40mph into the side of a Volvo? Whatever, stop asking me how my head feels, I just wanna see my scooter. How’s my scooter? And why does this ambulance reek of piss, don’t they ever clean them? Oh. right.
Continue reading Why I want to wear my motorcycle helmet on my bicycle
Traumatized By Carburetors
Some people enjoy working on bikes more than they enjoy riding them. I am not one of those people. I hate taking time out of my life to maintain my vehicles. Which is yet another reason I’m so gung-ho about electric vehicles. However, when I lived in NYC, I took an awesome motorcycle maintenance class my friends recommended. Only because it’s so hard to find a decent mechanic in NYC, particularly with reasonable rates, that you may as well do it all yourself. I was lucky because the teacher was really cool, the exact opposite of the ogre who taught auto shop in high school and forced me to study carburetors. On my own, because of some heinous and forgotten crime I’d committed as a student. And every time I’d return to him, convinced I knew every thing there was to know about those infernal devices, he’d ask me the one question I couldn’t answer. To this day, I despise carburetors.
How about instead of whining about the price of gas, you all do something about it? The only way to bring the price down is to reduce demand.
If I’m paying a premium to help American end its dependency on blood oil, I should be allowed to drive/ride as fast as I want.
Memories of Cheri came flooding back when I saw a Vespa go by tonight in Valencia, Spain. The passenger wore black lace tights, like she used to on my Vespa. Practically from the day I got it, before I even had the nerve to shift out of 1st gear, she rode with me.

How will we survive without the talent that came up with Steampunk Ballerina stiletto platforms??? Oh, and metallic, too. absolute genius. I have found a kindred spirit and very, very bad influence in this teenage boy, Allanté Cathé. He blogs about shoes. Not just any shoes, but the sorts of shoes I live for.
I just moved to a faaaaaabulous loft downtown, brand new and sexy and gorgeous. They sucked me in with the silver kitchen. Silver. In case you didn’t know, I love silver about as much as I love pink. Since pink isn’t appropriate for everything, some things I prefer in silver. Like my motor vehicles (ok, only because it’s cheaper to buy the silver one than get one painted pink, but i digress) and of course kitchen appliances and cabinets are much better in silver than pink. So as soon as it’s photo-ready, pix will be posted.
So glad I’m enjoying interesting dreams again. Last night I dreamt I was pimping out my brother Gary on some reality dating show back when he was single. For their first meeting, I made him ride up to the chick on his bike, because everyone loves a man on a Ducati. Then I was squeezing through this antique market I’ve been to in other dreams, in some unknown city. Felt like NYC when I passed Andre Léon Talley (with straight, white hair now!) and thought of him as a visitor. He lives in Paris in the real world, creative director for Paris Vogue. Then the space cleared out and that was nice. I remember being unimpressed with what was for sale, though.
Later, I met Mika Kallio, and he was Dominique Aegerter’s new teammate for Moto2. I congratulated him, and told my friend how I knew Dominique. Also, I lived in or was staying in some rambling, massive stitched-together duplex with rooms upon rooms, all partially inhabited. It was one of those old houses they turn into apartments in LA. The real kitchen had fallen into disuse and water shot up out of the hole where the faucet had been, but only if I tried to make the garbage disposal stop. Meanwhile, the owner had set up a makeshift kitchen near a couple of half bathrooms, as I discovered in my quest for a sink to rinse something out. The banquette featured an old black leatherette barca-lounger. Comfortable, I’m sure, but very strange. I’d parked my car down by the railroad tracks, and when I went to get it the next morning, it’d been stripped. Not so much stripped, as completely thrashed by some lunatic. All slashed up and broken up and things destroyed. The police said it was probably someone on drugs. you think? that part was just a manifestation of the anxiety around finding a dirt-cheap yet safe off-street place to stash the damn thing. If I pay $100/month to park it, I may as well sell it, put the money in a savings account and rent the 1-2 times/month I actually use a car…
Those Pesky Battery-Powered Cars
Exhibitors at the Alt Car Expo ran the gamut from cutting edge to low tech sustainable transportation. The Tango, one of the electric cars available for test drives is pictured above. The Tango claims to be suitable for lanesplitting, but I wouldn’t want to squeeze that box between the lanes of SUV’s that populate LA freeways! The maneuverability of motorcycles is critical for safe lanesplitting.
On Friday, thanks to Karen Solomon at Opportunity Green I went to this heartwarming awards ceremony, which was far more meaningful than your typical LA awards ceremony:
http://cleantechnica.com/2009/10/07/sisters-on-the-planet-united-against-climate-change/
Enjoy!
well I was gonna get some work done tonight… two articles I need to write for Green Options. Riveting, exciting, world-changing articles. But the fabulousness that is LA has held me in her thrall too late, and now I want only to sleep. Did I tell you how much I love LA? Well, I do. LA kicks every city’s ass. Although I don’t think I could live here without my motorcycle. It must suck to sit in a car all day.
My weekend began with a Friday afternoon at Oxfam America’s Sisters on The Planet event, courtesy of my new boss at Opportunity Green. The event honored women who are leaders in helping us with this whole climate change mess. Met some very interesting women kicking ass for the planet. More about that when I write it up. Djimon Hounsou was there, but since I already fawned over him once and got the cold shoulder, I left him alone. Next, I met a bunch of friends to watch Zombieland at the Chinese theater. It was very meta when they passed by the very same theater in the film. We clapped in glee, knowing that we live in a city so great people think they can be safe from zombies here.
Then I got some rest, got up early to meet up with friends and go to the Alt Car expo in Santa Monica. A schlep if there ever was one, but worthwhile. I’d love to see the rest of LA embrace sustainability the way Santa Monica has. Even the convention center food they were serving was veg and delish.
Then home to relax for a minute and get some shit done. Then off to downtown to rehearse and prepare for the show. Then to the Hive, coming out of retirement to perform with Zombies Without Borders. Then a stroll 5 blocks uptown (which is more like 20 blocks uptown if you’re in NYC) to get back on my bike and ride home to wash the zombie stench off and go to Bootie LA. To listen to music, as by then I could barely stand, I was so tired.
Woke up early enough to meet Wade for breakfast then ride to the rock store to watch world superbike, 250 & MotoGP back to back. It was 4 solid hours of racing heaven. If only the MotoGP racing was as exciting as the SBK racing…Teased Nathaniel mercilessly about pitching his bike down a hill, because he was in shape to laugh about it. caught up with Britt and generally had a good time. Had a little too much fun racing some guy on an R6 down 101, and we actually got pulled over together. Lucky for us, we weren’t even going that fast when the cop saw us, but he did see him speed up to get in front of me and warn me. He let us go with a warning. That warning being that Glendale has one of the worst crash rates in the country. Very nice, being pulled over by a fellow biker with mercy, even though he was stuck in a cage all day (not a bike cop). Then I let Kevin follow me to the grocery store, where we chatted while I shopped.
Then dropped by a friend’s picnic in Hollywood, then to Machine Project to check the status of last night’s bite victim. still not a zombie, I guess being bit by a fake zombie is safe. aren’t you glad you know? And, enjoyed some really bizarre choral music by Killsonic, the likes of which I’ve not heard before. Then dinner at Brite Spot and now I’m supposed to just sit here and do something that can actually bring me fame and fortune? I’m too busy having fun with all the fun people I love!
on that topic, I neglected to mention how I know I need to focus. Keep my eyes on the prize, as it were. Here’s some sage advice from Barry Schwartz, via Derek Sivers, a man living my dream:
Most good decisions involve these steps:
1. Figure out your goals
2. Evaluate the importance of each goal
3. Array the options
4. Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your goals
5. Pick the winning option
6. Later, use the consequences of your choice to modify your goals, the importance you assign them, and the way you evaluate future possibilities.





