lookie here
It’s Bentley’s new band! Congrats, boys. Ernie said your 7th Street Entry show was rockin’.
On an unrelated note, I had coffee and hunks of beef for breakfast this morning. I felt like a cowboy.
confidential to molly
Fallow your fashionable little heart and order from Zappos. My sassy sandals just arrived yesterday, and I am so pleased. They came really fast, and they’re cheap, and you can return/exchange/whatever.
once more into the breach
Please welcome our newest blog-obsessed friend!
PWe and I are doing a cleanse this week. I’ve probably talked to some of you about it, but just for my own future reference, here’s what’s happening.
Day #1: Soup and Fruit
Day #2: Soup and Veggies and one Potato
Day #3: Soup and Fruit and Veggies (no Potato)
Day #4: Soup and 3 Bananas and 1 Qt. Skim Milk (This is today)
Day #5: Soup and Chicken and Tomatoes
Day #6: Soup and Chicken and Tomatoes and Veggies
Day #7: Soup and Brown Rice and Veggies
We can have as much soup as we want. We can have black coffee and unsweetened fruit juice (in small amounts) and lots of water. The soup is cabbage and green beans and celery and tomatoes and green pepper and carrots in beef stock. It’s the same menu that cardiac patients are put on before heart surgery. I’m feeling way less crave-y than I normally do around Christmastime. After all these veggies, the thought of putting fat and/or sugar in my body kinda yucks me out. Of course, once I get to MN and have the fried potato dumplings in front of me, I will probably change my mind.
Check out Sjet’s blog for info on snowflakes. We had a damn fine time.
several thousand words
More pictures, for your viewing pleasure!
You may already have seen these. Now, for those of you who just can’t get enough pictures of the 7 Strangers, here are more!
Last but not least, here are pictures from EXITheatre’s white elephant Christmas party. I had an excelent time, and managed to walk away with a huge blue glass vase. (Everyone called it “the penis”. It was covered in balls and had a huge glass brick for a base. I think it’s beautiful.)
Thanks to Heather for the pictures! (You’re a rockstar.)
a very merry trekmas to you - to you!
I just got this email from my little brother …
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 18:27:37 -0800 (PST)
From: “EnsignParis@FakeEmail.com”
Subject: A Trekmas poem.
Based on the Original Works of Gene Rodenberry, and Clement Clark Moore. And the concept of some nameless guy from the Internet.
‘Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the ship
Not a circuit was beeping
Not even one chip.
The phasers were hung
In the armory with care.
In the hopes that no aliens
Soon would be there.
The Day Shift was cuddled
All snug in their beds.
While the Night Shift punched buttons
And wished they were dead.
Geordi kept on swiveling his chair all around
And Riker played ‘bone scales. All up and down.
When out on the bridge
There arose such a clatter.
Picard sprang from his chair
To see what was the matter.
When on to the view-screen there came in a flash,
An image of something that made him gasp.
For let me explain,
Just what had appeared.
But a miniature sleigh
And 8 warp-speed reindeer.
So close to the saucer they all flew
I knew right away
That it had to be Q.
More rapid than Cochrane
Their courses he changed,
And he whistled and shouted, and called them by name,
“Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet and Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!
Right on past the nacelles and the engines and hull.
“Now, warp away! Warp away! Warp away all!”
So, up on the bridge the coursers they flew,
With a sleigh full of toys, and the villainous Q.
And then, in an instant, I heard on the hull
Prancing and pawing, a thud that was dull.
As Worf drew his weapon and was turning around,
All on the bridge heard that transporter sound.
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his belt
But all were exotic, there were no Terran pelts.
As boxes of presents he threw on the floor,
he cried “This is enough, so don’t ask for more!”
His eyes didn’t twinkle, he wasn’t that merry.
He actually looked quite demonic and scary!
His droll little mouth didn’t quite want to bow,
His polyester beard was as white as the snow.
He walked the bridge hanging up wreaths.
The stump of the pipe he wouldn’t hold in his teeth.
Why - it just seemed a little too risky, too chancy.
Plus, Rick Berman didn’t wish cancer for John de Lancie.
He had a round belly that wasn’t pathetic
But that was entirely thanks to prosthetics.
Who ever heard of a CONTINUUM elf?
Troi laughed when she saw him, in spite of herself.
Then, the glare of his eyes, and the tilt of his head
Let her know she had something to dread.
Then he spoke not a word,
But went straight to his work.
He took back her present, and called her a jerk.
Then giving a nod to that Betazoid,
Beamed backed out into the vacuum, the void.
He appeared in his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle
And away they all flew, like a rocket or missile.
And I heard him exclaim, ere he warped out of sight,
“HAPPY HOLIDAYS ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT.”
Manndilorian Armor: 50,000 Credits,
Mandil Motors Jet Pack: 16,000 Credits
Replacement Missile For Mandil Motors Jet Pack: 500 Credits
Having Your Head Cut Off By Mace Windu: Priceless
There are somethings credits cant buy, for everything else there’s Jengo Fett.
let’s pretend it’s still my birthday
Okay, here’s what I’m thinking.
I want to go to a John Leguizamo movie.
Then I want to go Bowling.
a little music lesson
Okay, so I was looking at horns online the other day and I started to get very sad. Here is a picture of the horn I used to have - a Holton Merker-Matic, named after Ethel Merker. See the rotor caps? They’re all round and shiny. That’s how you can tell a Merker from the other ones. The only difference between this one and the one I had is that mine had a detachable bell and this one doesn’t. It was so pretty.
Here’s the one I’m thinking of saving up for. It’s a Holton 279 - which is basically a Holton 179 (what most of us played in high school) but with a detachable bell. Pretty, huh? Someday, I’ll play again. My life goal of the day - to get really good again and do a duet with Erin at Spin the Bottle. Wouldn’t that RULE? Yeah, I thought it would.
cheek-pinching cute
Here I am, [MyAge-1] years ago. This was the first year I got to burn my MONSTER birthday candle, but only after chewing on it for awhile. It only went up to 21, so I don’t know what happened to it. I was very cute.
This was my Gingerbread Snowman birthday cake that year. It was pretty scary.
This morning, I went to Starbuck’s and they were giving out free samples of gingerbread. Some things never change.
kicking and screaming into the world
Look what I got this morning … happy birthday to me!
From: “nenie, who loves me”
To: freesia@freesialand.com
Subject: me me memememe
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 10:12:03 -0600
*ahem*
*hack*
happy birthday to you
happy birth day to you
happy biiiiiirhtday mdearaliiiiiiiiishhhaaaaaahhhh
haaaapppyybiiiirthdaaaaaay toooooooooooo youuuuuuuuu
and maaaany moooooore
someday my prince will come
Dear Santa,
I want this and this. Also, a pony.
I have been very good this year.
Love,
-Freesia
my little brother would be amazed
Hey, look at this! Here’s a picture of Howie Seago when he was on Star Trek. I remember watching that episode with Brandon, who’s obsessed with TNG. Today I discovered that he’s the brother of Billy Seago, whom I work with. That’s two degrees!
blasts from the past
So, a week or so ago I sent out a big mass email saying “Hey, I miss you, I never talk to you anymore. Your email address is getting dusty in my address book. What’s up?”
One of the people I sent that email to was Brian Barr, a guy I met in Band Camp when I was 13. He played tenor sax and was going to be a junior, I played french horn and wasn’t yet a freshman. He was six feet tall, I was still just clearing five feet. I idolized this guy. He lived in Altamont, and I lived in Charleston, so I couldn’t see him very often. The rare trips he made were really exciting - because he had a car and could do that sort of thing, and I didn’t. I hadn’t spoken to him since summer of 1994 - but somehow, I’d managed to finagle his email address from someone, and so I dropped him a note. The email he sent back shocked me - he apparently just got married last month, and he sent me a picture.
Part of the drama with Brian was that even though my pre-pubescent heart was breaking over him, he was in love with my best friend. I just found some pictures online of her too … so here they are! I can’t seem to find her, though. Lara! For the love of pete, where are you?
Another person who responded to my email was Mike Rollins. I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing, but he did send me a picture. (I think he’s in Japan.) He was a friend of Bill’s and Ernie’s from Carleton.
Also, here’s a picture I got from Megan. This is where she is right now. Dammit.
I was very sick yesterday. “Oh My!”esque, almost. Bleh. Don’t ever eat Kettle Chips that are a couple of months old, even by accident. You will NOT be happy. If you get sicker than I was, you might even ralph in your car. (If I were Ben or Paul, I’d write an entry about it, but there are some things I just can’t bring myself to share.)
Tonight is Spin the Bottle! Huzzah!
deeeeng, boieeeee
Just got the Thanksgiving pics back. Holy crap are we cute.
In other news, Yuki and I went to a Kentucky Fried Taco Bell last night and had the taco/chicken strips/potato wedges value meal. So tasty, and so evil.
Right now, it’s rainy and crappy out. I suddenly wish I was back in California. Sigh.
Beverly Hillsillies
Day #3…
Kim has found a brochure about this Dog exhibit at the Natural History Museum, so we try to go there. This turns out to be a stupid idea, since USC is playing Notre Dame and it takes us over an hour to drive around a three-block radius trying in vain to find parking for less than $50. We give up.
Mitch drives Kim home, and we head out to Beverly Hills. We drive around looking at houses and talking about which ones we’d like to live in … my favorite was a huge white boxy number that was covered in turquoise glass. Very modern-art-y. What do the people who live there actually do for a living? How are they so loaded? I am unable to answer this question.
We cruise down Rodeo drive, mocking the rich teenagers with their perfectly-coiffed hair and tight pants. I mention the fact that our high school experience doesn’t even vaguely resemble theirs. We agree that we wouldn’t give up our freaky high school for the world - even if it meant being rich and shopping on Rodeo Drive. We had more fun at 16 than they can ever hope for. This makes me feel better about being poor.
We eat cookie and ice cream sandwiches at Diddy Riese. We shop for toys. I say to myself “I’m in Beverly Hills. I’m going to go into this drugstore and buy a trashy-looking snakeskin lighter.” I do. We have a great moment outside of “Aaah’s” - I’m smoking near the five-foot-tall singing dancing Santa. This little girl runs up to him, pats his nose, and says “Hi, Santa! You’re coming to town!” and runs off. We look at lavalamps and I introduce Mitch to Emily the Strange.
It’s getting dark now, so we head off to Santa Monica. I tell Mitch that the only thing I really want to do while we’re there is get our picture taken in one of those photo booths - it’s kind of a thing with me. We end up forgetting to do it. We wander the pier, listen to a guy play Christmas carols on a three-octave set of chimes, watch people lose those stupid rigged carnival games, check out a carousel populated entirely by shape-shifters. Realize that there’s a reason we’ve been close for so long. Make fun of people. Practice unsafe jaywalking.
We end up at the promenade, listening to the 12-year-old boy who does a damn good Santana. We watch breakdancers. We look at paintings and I buy a monkey and we check out furniture and spiked-leather-wristwear. We sit on a big cushy expensive couch while I call Patti to tell her when my flight gets in - but first, Mitch calls James who looks it up for me online. Our goal is to waste a few minutes until we meet up with Ryan Fox, whom I haven’t seen since New Year’s 1997, which was held at Ryan Casey’s house. He’s just recently passed the bar, and I am excited for him! Woo hoo!
We sit by the dinosaur, and every time someone walks by, we comment on how much Ryan has changed. A group of basketball players walk by, and we say “Wow, Ryan. Were you a seven-foot-tall woman last time I saw you?” Finally, he arrives, and he is just the same. As always, I want to pinch his cheeks. We have a big group hug in the middle of the street, and I feel more at home than I have in a long, long time. We wander up and down the street - we see one of those guys wearing all black and wearing a sandwich board for a website. Ryan tells me that he always wants to go home and look the website up, but he can never seem to remember the URL. I can’t remember it either.
We end up - after much deliberation - at Buca di Beppo. The plates of food are bigger than anything I have ever seen. They are the size of a small child! We stuff ourselves, and after eating more than I have ever eaten, I go out to have a cigarette. Now, let me go back a bit. During dinner, Kim calls. She is upset about something, but won’t say what it is. We are worried. Mitch calls her back, and discovers that nothing is actually wrong. As far as I can tell, she was upset that Mitch and I were hanging out where she couldn’t keep an eye on us. I spent a lot of money on a plane ticket I couldn’t really afford. I have come to see the person who is the most important friend I have ever had in my life. I have made a point - all weekend - of keeping my distance. Of being good. I’ve been trying not to sit near him or touch him or make questionable comments. I’ve done everything I can think of to make Kim like me - to make her comfortable with me being around. I guess it wasn’t enough. It is my last night in Los Angeles - and Mitch goes home.
On one level, I’m fine with this. I haven’t seen Ryan in ages, and I’m excited to meet his new boy. I get to see his new apartment - which he just moved into THAT DAY - and it’s lovely. We go to a coffeeshop called “The Novel” to hang out, and we don’t leave there until one in the morning when we get kicked out. They drive me back to Mitch’s, and we arrive just as he does. By this point, it’s almost two - and I have to get up at 4:30 in the morning to catch my plane home. Despite all this, I’m so exasperated that I can’t sleep. I feel like I did my best to meet everyone else’s needs and to pacify everyone else’s insecurities, and it didn’t seem to help. I’m frustrated with everybody, including myself.
By five in the morning, we’re on the road. I am exhausted from the weekend and the hour of sleep I just got. I am an emotional wreck, and I tell Mitch everything. I tell him I’m angry and I tell him how hurt I was and I say that I don’t know what part I can have in his life if this is how it’s going to work. By the time we reach check-in, we have hashed everything out. He has allayed any fears I had about losing his friendship and I am feeling much better about the whole situation. We cry. We say good-bye, again… and I’m off. It was both the best and the worst weekend I’ve had in years, and I will remember both parts of it for the rest of my life.
So, anyway. Back to normal, I suppose.
hollywood and mine
Day #2…
Thursday night, Mitch and I sit up late just talking. It’s been over two years since he came to visit the ghetto-fabulous Belltown apartment Bill and I used to have, and I was really glad to have some time to catch up when we weren’t hundreds of miles apart. After that, it was time for some serious sleeping. (You know, as opposed to silly sleeping.)
Mitch gets up and goes to work on Friday, and I sleep in. After I get up, we’re planning to go hiking. So, we head out to Burbank to pick up Kim, and we meet Kathy there. While at Starbuck’s, waiting for our lattes, we decide that we’re going to do something else.
I can’t tell you what this something else is.
Mitch’s friend Matt is getting a gift certificate to do this thing for his Christmas present. Since he might be reading this, I am not going to divulge any information other than this: My ass STILL hurts, three days later. Have fun, Matt! Merry Christmas!
Afterwards, still smelling bad, we get ice cream and drop off Kathy, and head off to Hollywood! We do the standard touristy thing, take pictures with the stars (Shari Lewis, Ozzy Osbourne, Lawrence Welk, Marilyn Monroe - you know, standard fare.) We spend some quality time in a Frederick’s, where Kim tries on a Femme-Bot nightie and I wander around the lingerie museum. A few minutes later, we find ourselves at a sex shop looking at swings. (I know, I know. This is why I went. I was giving thanks, you see.)
My favorite part of the evening - I’m roaming around the “toy aisle”, and Mitch wanders back to see if I’m ready to go. I say “I’m still looking” and the sales lady spins on him and says “Of course she’s still looking! You give the girl some time!” and shoos him away. (Hee, hee, hee.)
Then, we head out to the Universal City Walk, where we wander in and out of shops until Kathy, Matt, Andy, and Theresa show up. (It’s amazing. In the span of about twenty minutes I go from being a third whell to being a fifth wheel to being a seventh wheel.) We check out every toy store we can, and finally end up getting hammered at Tony Roma’s. We are loud and obnoxious and are having a great time, and we decide to continue drinking at Planet Hollywood.
Matt’s partner Justin works there - he is AWESOME. They do comics together, and Justin has hands the size of my head. I shake one of his, and mine disappears. I’ve had two glasses of wine at this point - he seems about seven feet tall, and his huge dreds are the most amazing thing I’ve seen. By the time I’ve been there twenty minutes, I’ve also had two shots of scotch and most of a Pacifico. I am feeling brave. I pull Kim aside and I tell her that there are no bread trucks in my future. By this time, I have had it up to HERE with all the tension, and I am ready to scream - and if I have to get drunk and spill my guts in order for that to go away, that’s what I’m willing to do. Mitch has been my best friend off and on for nine years, and I am not going to give up that friendship - but I also don’t want her to freak every time I’m around. I remember thinking very clearly that there has got to be a middle ground here, and I will be damned if I can’t find it. I don’t remember what exactly was said - but I say a lot, and I say it very quickly because I’m afraid I will wimp out if I stop to think. I feel like it goes reasonably well. After four cigarettes (which I smoke end-to-end), Mitch finds us. Justin apparently saw us leave, and said “Women plus alcohol equals high emotions - you should go find them.” and he came looking. Kim’s response to that accusation? “Well, we were actually making out until you showed up!”
Amazingly, I make it home without puking in Mitch’s car.