EastGirlsWest

Tay and I have finally collaborated in writing (sort of). We bantered our way through a restaurant review for Angela’s blog Culture Lust, and you can read it here.

Hopefully this is the first of many more online conversations about the activity we indulge in and enjoy the most. We could post a new piece every day and it would only reflect a few crumbs of the hours we spend talking about what we eat, processing the most insouciant details of what passes our lips. Thankfully, San Diego’s palate is growing more eclectic, sophisticated and delicious by the day, leaving us with much to chew on.

It’s come to this. The earliest episodes of SESAME STREET have been released on DVD, with the following warning:

These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.

Virginia Heffernan’s take on the undiagnosed addictions and depressive disorders of the original puppet cast is pretty funny. I grew up thinking it was completely normal that Big Bird couldn’t see Snuffy, not realizing that he may have been exhibiting a serious social disorder. And so what if Oscar was a major cranky pants? To a five-year-old fan: funny.

Of course I understand that SESAME has evolved for good reason. Similar reasons, in fact, that kids no longer roll around in the way back of big station wagons without seatbelts starting at the age of three. And hey, remember when all our mothers smoked and ate soft cheese through pregnancy? Still, as someone raised on the original kids TV formula, I can’t help but feel a bit defensive of My First Media. The children’s shows on PBS today are excellent, but they’re a long way from the SESAME STREET of 1975. As Heffernan says, “Anyone who considers bull markets normal, extracurricular activities sacrosanct and New York a tidy, governable place — well, the original “Sesame Street” might hurt your feelings.”

Substandard urban housing, unchecked cookie consumption and a neurotic group of friends and neighbors? Perhaps the old school SESAME was my first exposure to reality TV.

I started watching some of the national coverage, and it’s bizarre to see the mundane stops in our weekly routine as the backdrop to major disaster. I find myself occasionally forgetting that we are IN the place I’m watching on television. But then I see Katie at Qualcomm, and there’s IKEA in the background, and I think, “oh, I need to go there next week to pick up some coffee cups for Tay’s new apartment.”

And speaking of surreal:
The local CBS station has a reporter, in full fire gear, in front of a burned home. The have the homeowner on the phone, talking to the reporter as he sifts through the rubble, holding up unscathed, framed photos he’s found. She tells him that she called in because she saw him reporting earlier, and could see her home going up in flames in the background. He continues to search for her non-charred belongings while she thanks him.

…Anderson Cooper and Brian Williams show up to report live from the city you live in.

Another devastating day here. Feeling so useless and helpless, and the cabin fever is starting to kick in. The Husband is remarkably focused and forward moving in these situations, I’m more prone to being distracted, anxious and sad. And that’s watching and listening to coverage from my intact home. I really, really can’t imagine how I’d feel if I was coping with displacement at Qualcomm Stadium, like tens of thousands of San Diegans are. To be that disconnected from the comfort of routine and home, for an uncertain length of time, is scary.

On a positive note, I’ve been damn impressed with the media coverage here. I’ll admit to more than my share of eye-rolling when I moved here: about the quality of the local paper, the cheesiness of local network news (plastic surgery in abundance), and the lack of additional options. But I’m ready to take at least some of it back, because let me tell you, this town knows it’s way around an emergency! The coverage has been consistent, relevant, appropriate, and helpful - with remarkably high production values, both on-air and online. This is the kind of situation where you can see effective media coverage making a difference.

Of course KPBS leads the pack with a fantastic website and wall-to-wall radio reporting from all over the county. Bonus points for quickly getting back on the air after fire-related transmitter damage knocked them off. Double bonus for using Twitter for updates. The UT has done great work online, with graphics and blog posts in addition to their comprehensive stories. I’ve spent a lot of time watching the local CBS affiliate, where one dedicated reporter covered the destruction of his own home, flames raging behind him as it fell. And Voice of San Diego and the CityBeat team have each jumped in, utilizing their own strengths to cover a slice of this huge event.

And now the national news teams are here. Katie Couric is less than two miles from my home, and no offense to her, but I don’t feel good about it.

So I just wrote my last post and put it up on the site. Moments later The Husband, who was sitting five feet away from me, and who receives many Google Alerts every day to help him write content for this site, received an alert that included EastGirlsWest - specifically the reference in my last post to public television and PBS.

This is our life.

I can’t get enough of Jezebel, the Gawker media “women’s” blog. It’s dripping with the trademark Gawker-style snark, and dishes out fantastic headlines like “Lindsay Lohan and George W., Separated at Birth” and “My Existential Sarah Jessica Parker Crisis“. But my hands-down favorite post last week was about the store I hate to love: Anthropologie.

Looking through the latest “Anthropologie” catalog takes us back to that time we decided to keep starting and stopping our meds to see what would happen; that is, the time when we were crazzeeee. The catalog is all over the fucking place, price-wise; one cute cotton top on one page will go for $78, and an almost-identical piece 6 pages later is a staggering $200.

Finally, a blog that feels my pain! (read more here)