You know that song by Albert Hammond and it never raining in So Cal? I wish it were true and about a larger geographic area, like the whole state. I’m happy to be out of the snow and cold of New England, but I didn’t really consider the rain or the fact that such a fecund state aggravates the piss out of the allergies.

Still and all, walking down the street (or driving in a fab convertible) surrounded by palm trees and mad splashes of flower color ain’t half bad.

(Speaking of Albert Hammond, M. never ceases to amaze me with the depth (or shallowness if you consider importance) of his American pop culture knowledge. The other day I mixed a California-themed playlist for the iPod Mini as we drove up to spend the day in Berkeley. About two notes in, M.’s mumbling “Albert Hammond.” It’s a welcome respite after having dated another guy from not here, who almost had me convinced with his pontifications that all US anything is crap.)

Speaking of M., anyone perusing this BS might notice I haven’t been posting much about the relationship and the living together and all of that ripe with possibility junk. Why? Because ain’t no thing. No big fights about toothpaste tubes and toilet seats and personal space and sturm and drang. Nothing.

It’s cool. I even said to M. the other night that “I’m like, kind of close to like ‘happy’ or ‘content’ or something.” Weird all around and kind of disappointing. I figured I could at least get a couple of hacky relationship jokes for the old stand-up thang.

I hope he feels the same. (Because, of course, in my little head of neuroses he’s seething with unspoken contempt and his sweet smile is just a mask. He says “no,” so I’m working on the rational world and trying to take the smile at face value.)

Other than that, I had a bout with pure, somewhat irrational, angst the last couple of days. Like all good daughters, I blame my mother.

One paranoia she drilled into my head enough for it to stick is worry about money. I still have some in the bank, M.’s working and there’s no reason to believe that I am unemployable. Yet, for a bit I’ve been beading up with sweat over my homelessness and empty belly potential. So, I hammered out letter after letter to Craig’s List postings. Cross your fingers for me.

On the good and bad note, I had a Grand Canyon pic blown up into poster size, and it looks good. The downside is now that I’ve framed it, the picture’s such a Kodak moment that it looks like a cookie cutter print that came with the frame. I should be proud, but I’m mildly distracted.

After far too much deliberation and screwing around with Photoshop, I finally determined which picture I would have printed to poster size from my Grand Canyon trek.

I have so many photos from my trip, I could spend days and days and days going through them.

Anyway, here’s the winner (chosen because hopefully the tree in the foreground and the little man on the distant knoll provide some sense of perspective on the almost unfathomable vastness of the Canyon):

So, I checked out another open mike last night down here in the South Bay area. This time at the Rose and Crown in Palo Alto.

Once again, I didn’t perform. Even after so many shows and open mikes, I like to check out the room quietly and unobtrusively before jumping in myself. Mostly, a new room is where the clench of pathologic shyness starts to get me.

I really am such a pussy sometimes. The bartender was friendly, and after seeing me whip out a notebook surmised I might be a comic. Even though he said he would introduce me to the organizer, I didn’t press it, because of the pre- and post-show chaos and the large number of young boys who all clearly knew each other milling about. Passively, I’ll send an email.

The place looked fun enough with a pretty sizeable crowd for a Monday night comedy show at a dinky little English pub. However, unlike the other handful plus shows I’ve checked out so far around SF in the last year of visiting, it was heavily young, white boy dominated. (As was the audience probably because of Stanford.)

I just want to punch myself in the eye socket to counteract the pain of hearing yet another 20-something boy make the same wry observations, have the joke fail and blame anything else besides the joke and his delivery sucking.

(Worse yet, I fear the supportive California, I’m OK-You’re OK, have a nice day vibe here might sometimes be a bad thing in comedy. I observed a little camraderie-type reassurances on some not great shit, when constructive criticism may have been warranted. A lot like the Emerald Isle.)

The weird thing about the show for me, apart from the eerie and painful similarities with your average Boston open mike sausage fest, was the number of comedy doppelgangers. There was a Dan Newbower sort of Jew, doing some similar stuff, but with Max Silvestri’s haircut and sideburns. I literally did a doubletake, when from the corner of my eye I thought I saw Dan Sally.

One of the hosts, half of a funny bass and drum comic duo called Naomi Crystal, had exactly the same sleepy eyes, skinny build and lips pursed in a half-smirk delivery of purely offensive shit as Randy Winn. A semi-attractive, semi-lecherous guy could have been Ben Joplin, especially with the line to Terry Schiavo with a self-grab, “I’ve got your feeding tube right here.”

Perhaps the eeriest was the Andy Ofiesh twin. Jimmy Gunn has a not dissimilar body type and came out as a crappy magician working the same flavor of squirmy uncomfortable, odd character and fucking funny as Andy. Weirder still, later in the show someone yelled to him something about streaking the show, and his dismissal of “not tonight” made me think that the dude had bare-assed a few shows, just like buddy Andy.

Not sure (although I probably will, because I’m a masochist) if I’ll try to do this open mike. Everyone just felt so twenty-ish and testosterone-y. (Of course, the Walsh Brothers Show isn’t exactly devoid of either, and I loved it and did fine there.)

It’s not even 10 a.m., and I’m pretty much up (although unwashed). That reality at that time was pretty rare during the past six months of lollygagging in Boston.

For fun and to assure that AP does not remove such a wonderous site from the web, I’m uncharacteristically uploading a non-Dee-Rob pic.

It’s only salad dressing, but in my mind it’s the final reel in the Pat B. porno.

I’m also posting it in honor of Pat now getting to be Mr. Catholic on Fox News last night along with Sean Hannity. Best line was him telling Sean to “control his women” or some such bullshit as he was grappling with a couple of less wing-nutty Catholics over chicks as priests.

Hannity and Buchanan discussing the conclave and the dead pope and the potential new pope and all the pope-y (OK, papal) stuff just makes me cringe at the American Irish Catholic heritage we all have in common.

RIP to his eminence JPII, Mitch Hedberg, Frank Perdue, Johnnie Cochran and the rest of Terry Schiavo.

That must have been one heck of a chat in line at the gates to heaven.

On the relationship front, sadness and desolation. M. refused to bring me coffee in bed and instead made me get up and go to the kitchen.

Nice day with him and some of his old friends in Berkeley, though. And, I got some good cautionary advice from a woman who moved here from the Netherlands. She’s noticed a little resistance in the Californian, politically correct workplace to her accustomed direct style. So, I’ll be practicing saying shit like, “How do you feel about that?”

On the Nick front, I haven’t yet mentioned the best interaction yet, which happened Friday afternoon. A general ruckus outside is punctuated with “Denise, help, call the police.”

Turns out a disgruntled, young man wasn’t interested in giving Nick any promised money (sounded like a whopping $100) for the month of March, since he wasn’t able to move in just yet. For once in my life, I have to say it sounded like the landlord was actually the one in the right. Not sure what planet the young guy lives on where you don’t end up paying the man who owns the place whatever you agreed to in writing.

There is something a tad sad and dicey and uncomfortable about watching an angry, shouting guy in his 20s getting right into the face of an old Greek, such as Nick is, and looking like the punching might commence.

I felt sorry for Nick. I felt sorrier still when he came by our place a little while later feeling he needed to explain himself after the shouted allegations. (At one point the kid was screaming to everyone in the complex that Nick was a thief and we should all know it.) Nick’s hand was shaking as he showed me the paper the kid had signed.

Meanwhile, I’m still getting settled and feel almost there. One last milestone was being told about this website, which has info on where to perform. It’s about on par with stupid at this site. Pretty much proving that among comics there will always be a subsection of retards.

Not sure what I am thinking, but I just applied for a job on Craig’s List in the not-for-profit sector.

It spoke to me, perhaps the same way an abusive boyfriend convinces you again and again that he does love you and you do belong together.

BUT, and it’s a big but (kind of like mine (cheap, sad joke)), it’s for someone to write proposals and grants, not manage them. And, lord fucking knows I want to write and get paid in some capacity for it. Lord also knows, that I could have written the shit out of some of the grants I helped submit in the past, but it was not my “place” in the genius factories of academia. God, fucking, forbid an M.D. or Ph.D. admit that my skill was greater than her own.

It’s also a part-time position that pays better than most. If I could get a part-time gig that pays comparable per hour to what I had made per hour at my old job, life would be fucking fine. I want enough money to survive, but almost as importantly I want TIME. Time and a room with a view to write, or some such bullshit about which I am badly abusing the memory of Virginia Wolfe.