The other day a man from a newspaper interviewed me over the phone about this blog. I'm not so hot on the phone, nor am I much for analyzing the big blog thing, so it was basically ten minutes of him asking me simple yet provocative questions while I choked on my own split infinitives. I did come up with one reason why I started this web site, though, and that was because *drumroll* I didn't want to join a playgroup. I could go on about that, but really, Flea says it better.

Jack and I finally saw"the most overrated movie in America" yesterday: Sideways. I enjoyed it. If you were looking at me when I wrote that you would've seen me shrug. Certainly it was a medium-sized thrill to see a movie that was shot so close to home. One of the things I like about this director is the way he doesn't glamorize places or people. They have all kinds of shit all over their house; men have flabby asses; humans are weak and they lie to their friends; the sky is often gray. But then you load your movie camera into a car and drive down Foxen Canyon Road on a warm summer evening and you put it in your film and the rest of the world goes, Oh my fucking God that's one of the most beautiful places on earth, who's that blogger who lives there, maybe she'll post some recommendations about places to go when we come visit.

You know what? Sure, I'll clue you in, I'll tell you where the real magic lies. It's right over the hill. And it's so insanely, perversely, head-burstingly Merlinesque that it's an insult to call it just a place, for it's a Land. It's . . .

I actually took all of these photos last summer and never bothered to post them. But now I will give you a glimpse into the privileged world of a Santa Ynez Valley ostrich farm, which I heard is for sale for a somewhat reasonable $85k. Someone's dream will soon come true, I can feel it.

You have nothing to fear from the ostrich. The ostrich is your friend.

Your friend that must be fed THE WARM HEARTS OF HUMAN CHILDREN bwa ha ha ah ah achoo!

He used to be one of the beautiful people.

The emu enclave.

Ostrich Land as a metaphor for life: in the end don't we all sort of end up as a bag of jerky?