Pox Americana

So, a few days ago, I was lunching outside with the lovely branawyn , when we were approached by a guy who was clearly selling something. He was perfectly polite, but had that religious zealot look in his eye. branawyn and I exchanged glances, and he said "excuse me, but I was hoping I could give each of you a free book..." we simultaneously tried to decline, but he just started talking over us "It's in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's 'The Origin of the Species'!" This, clearly, was a game-changer. He had a whole backpack-full of these things! And yes, I checked, and it's not a bible with a deceptive cover. Who knows. it's probably covered in anthrax, or something, but whatever. I'm still marking this as an Auspicious Moment.

Saw (and Heard!  and Met!) David Sedaris on Monday!  Aspects of this which were expected:

1) He's totally awesome.
2) I was driven to tears laughing  through a carefully constructed mixture of hilarity and extreme emotional discomfort (my guess is 80%/20%). 
3) I made a complete fool of myself when I met him.  I was expecting this to such a degree that I spent the whole day up to that point speculating on the precise method I'd use for my inevitable humiliation. 

Things I did not expect:
1) The bottle of Purell he kept beside him on the table.  Sensible, and probably customary, but still unexpected.
2) He kind of laughed at his own jokes more than I expected him to!  It came off as charming more than anything else.
3) He read from his upcoming book, rather than his latest book.  And he read his own diary entries!
4) I think I was kind of rude to him!  He was signing my book, chatting about swine flu, and I was determined not to gush at him.  But as soon as he wrote "Hamthrax is for lovers" in my book, I just started babbling about OMG my initials spell HAM, isn't that funny?  It's so funny you wrote that blah blah blah!  Eventually I strengthened my non-gushing resolve, and he asked me my middle and last names, and (so I heard) whether I was a Virgo*.  To which I responded, in my best jr. high school girl's voice, "Ummm... NO."  Like I was all offended, like he had asked me if I was a Celine Dion fan, or something.  Ashoo has since named this the "Virgo?  NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" exchange.  So, sorry David Sedaris!  I hope you weren't offended, and if you were, I hope you put me in a story someday!

*Yes, I now realize he probably misheard my last name and was asking me to clarify, or something, but still. 

So, my beloved former psychiatrist has moved overseas.  I knew it would happen because I DRIVE THEM AWAY.  Seriously.  I have had five mental health professionals either retire or move overseas in the past 8 years.  If this had been my track record with relationships, I would probably be crying and asking Dr. Phil to fix my life and watching Nora Ephron movies on repeat.  But instead!  I bravely soldier on, wearing my heart (well, psyche) on my sleeve, expecting the best.  This, my friends, is the power of psychopharmaceuticals over reason! 
Anyway.  I liked the new psych at first sight.  Imagine you're casting the role of a grandfatherly doctor for a TV show.  That is my man.  Mustachioed and old-fashioned-fastidiously-dressed.  He wore a stethoscope around his neck the whole time.  Love!  I tried to remain reserved and objective, however, until he started talking about which psych meds were OK to take during pregnancy, and which were not, and he said:

"Many medications, like lithium, are not recommended during pregnancy because they can cause damage to the feces."

At which point his eyes got really big, his face turned bright red, and he said "fetus!  I mean fetus!"

Oh, l'amour!  I expect terrific things from this relationship!

I'm here!  Here are some things that have been going on lately:

1) My uncle's funeral.  Was sad, but lovely, and it was good to see my awesome cousins.  It wasn't really a traditional funeral at all- just family hanging out together in a GORGEOUS park in Seattle, on the hottest day on record.  Followed by a yummy dinner downtown.  It was also my cousin's 40th birthday, so I hope it was not an overwhelmingly sad day for him...

2) Other than my uncle, it seems like all the other people I know who were hospitalized a couple of weeks ago are much improved and homeward bound!  Excellent.

3)  It's my dad's birthday today!  Happy birthday, Dad!  We will celebrate tonight with pizza (and, I suspect, some beer). 

4) T and I were both kind of sick with some mystery ailment this weekend.  We both felt kind of hung over, but hadn't had anything substantial to drink within recent memory.  No fun.  At one point T had the genius idea that playing some Wii tennis would help shake the bug out of his system.  I know you're all on the edge of your seats to know how that experiment turned out, so I'll save you some anguish.  It was a FAILURE!  A failure which sent him back to bed for a while longer.  Poor misguided T!

5) Despite the Mystery Ailment, I managed to see TWO movies this weekend!  Like, actual movies in the theater!  Julie & Julia (to which T accompanied me) and Funny People (to which he did not).  I must say, I think he chose poorly.  While the actual Julia Child Meryl Streep parts of Julie & Julia were SUBLIME, the (normally wonderful) Amy Adams parts were EXCRUCIATING.  Like, I started out feeling "Wow, this makes me kind of ashamed to have a blog!", and ended up feeling "Wow, this makes me kind of ashamed to be human!" in that way that Nora Ephron films always do.  But Meryl Streep was beyond wonderful, and it inspired T to go home and make me Croque Monsieur for tea (two nights in a row!), so I really shouldn't complain.
As for Funny People, all I can say is yumyumyumyumyumSethRoganyumyumyum.  And it was pretty fucking funny.  So: win.

6) I also, in a fit of insomnia, watched Tarnation, which I had greatly anticipated when it was in the theaters.  And I have to say?  It was kind of boring.  Like, blahblahblah, more mental illness and queers into experimental film.  Seen it!  Jonathan Caouette, you should have just turned your footage over to Citizen Rahne.  She would have made that a MOVIE!

7) We have resurrected my Roomba!  It was like Sleeping Beauty all year, waiting for someone to wake it up with a kiss (well, not literally- its job is to hang out in close proximity to a whole lot of dirt, so it will have to forego the typical expressions of affection), and so it spent the weekend roaming my livingroom floor like a mad trilobyte!  I swear, Hello Kitty has nothing on my vacuum cleaner in terms of cuteness.  Or cleaning power.

And she's married!  Wedding turned out great, with only a few hiccups.  Like, we only got through not even half of my carefully-crafted dance mix before our time was UP and they turned on the lights and we all had to go home.  Oh, and all the buttons fell off of my dress.  Thankfully, said buttons were decorative, rather than structural, in nature, so it was fine.  But T looked AMAZING in his tux- just like James Bond, but T has the sense to prefer his martinis with gin (sensible fellow).  We're still waiting on the photos from the professional photographer, but the sneak-peek slideshow I saw was pretty incredible. 
And now I'm exhausted.  Got back from Bali on Saturday, but haven't been able to get much sleep since then.
Ok, time to get back to work.  wish me luck in getting myself to update this thing regularly!

1) There is this nice Japanese lady who comes to my office every week, gives me chocolate, and reminds me *intensely* of my grandmother.  This is her last day coming to the office, and I'm really very sad about it.

2) The Young Alumni party last Saturday was fun!  I got to see a bunch of people I don't see enough of.  And I won a bottle of wine and a pound of coffee, both of which I have sorely needed this week.

3) I woke up this morning unable to move my neck!  Which is inconvenient, to say the least.  Perhaps this is payback for moving furniture all weekend. 

4) Tony and I had a lovely Friday night, eating sushi, drinking our anniversary bottle of Perrier Jouet champagne, and desserting with two cakes from Satura.  Yumyumyumyum!

5) The wedding dress fits!  And I'm picking it up on Saturday.  Huzzah!

Wedding-prep stress has proved TOO MUCH for me recently, and has taken a toll on my back.  So I booked myself a long-ass massage (not, as my homies on Facebook pointed out, a long ass-massage) at the Well Within in Santa Cruz.  Massage therapist had my same name- I asked for her specifically because I knew that when I showed up for the massage they would ask who I was seeing, and I always end up forgetting the name of the person, and then feeling like an asshole.  I figured this would just maximize the chance of me remembering her name.  And I was handsomely rewarded!  With 80 minutes of really superlative massage.  I mean, seriously- my shoulders still feel kind of squishy to the touch, and I feel like I could, if I wanted to, turn my head 360 degrees, Exorcist-style.  Nice.
Apres-massage, I walked around downtown for a while, and I must say that Santa Cruz was in fine form.  Sunny warm weather always brings out the best calibre of freak on Pacific.  Notably non-freakish were as really great acoustic guitar trio who played only Beatles tunes.  They had maybe 20 people completely captivated- I stayed and listened for maybe 10 minutes, and I clearly left before the party was over.  Other wonders I witnessed: two excellent panhandlers, one of whom held a sign that said "lazy pothead needs cash" (I always give points for honesty), the other of whom was wearing a green alien mask and held a sign that said "spaceship out of fuel".  Just a few blocks down, I overheard a woman holding an intense argument with some guy dressed as a clown.  Parfait!

quick update, because that's all I seem to ever have time for these days.  But!  I just wanted to say!  That I got to try on my wedding dress on Wednesday, and it was great.  Of course, it still had a bunch of pins holding it together, and one of them STABBED me directly in the center of my palm!  So now I'm walking around with stigmata* that I received on Ash Wednesday.  If only I had waited to see my dress until Good Friday, yes?

*ok- the language nerd in me (and we all know that joie_de_livres are composed almost entirely of Language Nerd) needs to clarify that I *know* that it's actually a "stigmatum", since there was only one)

I am currently drinking champagne from my favorite glass:


And watching Waking Life for the eleven-thousandth time:

As I've said before: I've seen this movie eleven-thousand times.  And this time, the thing I'm taking away from it?  That I have had the exact same inner monologue for EVER!  Blah blah, nature of reality, blah blah, evolution of language, blah blah.  I guess if I'm going to be in a rut, this one is OK.  Especially since it often involves champagne!

I did it!  I successfully cooked a bona fide meal!  Bona fide, as in it was not a sandwich, and it did not involve anything on toast!  This involved an actual recipe for dal, provided by poetofthefuture , and I did not die from fire or food poisoning or starvation!

first attempt, burned beyond redemption:

Fortunately, I took the Poet's implied advice and bought enough ingredients for two batches!

Just in case, I had provisions for disaster:


and:


But thankfully, I didn't have to use either of them!  Because I ended up with this:


And this:


which turned out like this:

Believe it or not, I didn't even *eat* the naan, because the dal was completely superior (if undercooked).

Earlier on today I got bored and decided to try some (fairly tame) eye makeup!

I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out, especially since I'd been looking at Bono on the cover of Rolling Stone, and the eyeliner makes him look like he has a black eye, and I was cautious of avoiding that particular pitfall.  But maybe that's just because I hadn't actually seen Bono's eyes in, like, 20 years.  Anyway, tomorrow I go to rachbomb 's house to get test wedding makeup done!  And in retrospect today's eye makeup will look amateurish and silly.  But it served its purpose today: I felt all hot while shopping for bikinis at Target (no pics of actual bikini becuse it is SCANALOUS and suitable for viewing only by future husbands and anonymous Balinesians.  Also: putting on new eye makeup and going to Target is totally one of those thing that Should Have Been In Dubliners, am I right?

Ok, not qutie.  But we have had TWO houses just taken from under us!  Original move date was April 17 (eek!), but we're hoping our current landlords' offer to keep renting to January still stands.  I guess we'll find out soon enough, right? 
Other news: we have booked our honeymoon!  In Bali!  We're only staying two places: 5 days in Sanur, 5 days in Ubud (for the Bali-familiar), which I'm hoping will be a nice relaxing combo.  Many thanks to fiatlouis and his lovely bride for the advice!  We did not manage to book the awesome-looking Ubud hotel they recommended, c'est la vie, but T made up for it by booking a  bungalow ON the beach in Sanur.  mmmm.... beach...
T has been in Europe for almost a week!  And he'll be there for 5 more days!  I don't like this at all.  Which is silly, because when he was in Phoenix we would routinely go weeks without seeing each other.  Just shows how quickly you can get used to something good.  This lonely weekend, the plan is to clean house (!!!), watch Man On Wire, buy some new swimsuits (!!!), visit rachbomb to get my test wedding makeup done(!!!) and play with her doggies, and perhaps write my wedding vows.  For a lonely weekend, it looks like fun will be had!

...in no particular order:

-I will be all on my lonesome for two weeks, while T is on business in Germany!  Am imagining him drinking beer with chesty women with blonde braids.  Am feeling mostly just jealous for the beer.

-we had a house stolen out from under us!  Which was perfect, except for the lack of dishwasher and garbage disposal!  We were literally at the rental office filling out the application when the realtor discovered that it had been rented the night before.  Damn!  Cheap, big, all original 1950s cabinets, etc, but everything was in superb condition.  It had a basement full of spiders, which I found charming rather than scary.  Damn you, mystery renters!  Although the rental agency S-U-C-K-E-D, no one had their shit even remotely together on this one- took the original rep 2 weeks to call me back about seeing the house.  What if the plumbing broke and it took them 2 weeks to respond?  NO THANK YOU.  Basically, I'm just trying desperately to not want this place anymore. 

-But!  There is a chance! (a chance, which I have probably now jinxed!) that we will be able to continue renting our current place, which is small but very cute and has a hot tub.  There would be worse fates!  And moving all of our shit six weeks before wedding and honeymoon etc is going to be a nightmare no matter how you slice it.

-we found a caterer!  yay!

-my project while T is gone is to cook (and eat!) some dal, thanks to recipe and encouragement from poetofthefuture .  I have been wanting legumes like a mofo (and we all no about those mofos and their legumes, don't we?), and am kind of looking forward to regressing to that college-student-with-a-kitchen phase than I never had: make a big pot of beans, eat it for several days.  Yum!

...long overdue!
Friday was my actual birthday, which was lovely.  I got moderately dressed up and went to work and treated myself to a slice of chocolate cake.  One of the lovely portal monitors bought me an almond croissant, which was superb.  One of my coworkers gave me a gift, even though he didn't know it was my birthday!  Sometime over the weekend, a MYSTERY COWORKER made me a sign, printed in color on photo paper that says HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOIE_DE_LIVRE, with pics of a bouquet of roses and birthday cupcakes.  I don't know who it was, but THANK YOU, MYSTERY COWORKER!
After work I met T at my parents' house for fondue and champagne!  I must say: I was absolutely spoiled with gifts this year.  Mom and Dad gave me a place setting of my (I must say) gorgeous wedding china!  Love, love, love it. 
And T completely outdid himself- He gave me the Eton hand-crank radio that they give away for NPR pledges I can only dream of affording!  I have been lusting after this particular trinket for YEARS.  Yay! 
And then he told me that he wasn't sure if the radio would arrive in time, so he got me a backup gift, too.  And then he pulled out a little blue bag.  And inside the little blue bag was a little blue box with a little white bow!  And inside the little blue box with the little white bow was this:



Ok, my wrist was not in the little blue box.  But isn't it cute?  I guess the salesperson at Tiffany suggested that he should get a heart-shaped charm for me, but he said "No!  Joie_de_livre doesn't like hearts!  But she does like puppies!" and the rest is history. 
I will eventually get around to posting about other stuff (like an awesome party on Saturday), but for now this is it!

Spotted by T, while we were out house hunting.



He's got a sharp eye, my beloved.

In which our heroine is told by two different people, within the space of two minutes, that it is her Lucky Day.  It is suggested that she should maybe buy a lottery ticket!  So, having never done such a thing, she inquires as to how to go about this.  Eventually, she makes her way over to 7-Eleven and buys a single scratcher ticket marked YEAR OF THE OX, and wins absolutely nothing.  But then on the drive home, she sees a Jogging Man in Loose Shorts scratch an itch, and inadvertently show her his ass.  She smiles the whole drive home, thinking: that man has no idea that I've seen his ass. 

FIN

So, there is this lady I work with once a week or so who reminds me OH SO MUCH of my grandmother.  I'm not really sure why, because this lady at work is Japanese, and with quite a pronounced accent, and my grandmother was not Japanese, and had a fairly standard-issue American accent.  Anyway, it's always a little bittersweet talking to this woman because I get all nostalgic and grandma-missing, but she's totally great.  So we were working away, when I hear Nice Work Lady gasp, and I look over:

NWL: this magazine!  It's full of pictures!
JDL: uh huh?
NWL: pictures of Naked French Women!
JDL: !!
NWL: I can't believe this, Why isn't this in the Locked Stacks?
JDL: ...
NWL: Oh, but look at her- she has a very lovely figure!  They *all* have very lovely figures!
NWL: [shows me a picture of a naked lady in a cage]
JDL: um, it looks like someone's keeping *her* in the Locked Stacks!

FIN!

Ok, I just had a cooking-induced panic attack, complete with hyperventilation and racing heart and dizziness.  Yes indeed.

Watched "Milk" last night!  And honestly?  I was kind of disappointed.  I mean, it was fine.*  I'm not saying it was "Ray" bad, or (dear lord!) "Philadelphia"!  No!  But I was pretty disappointed that a movie about being different and making radical changes in culture, essentially turned out to  be *exactly* like every other biopic I've ever seen.  Ok, admittedly this is not my favorite genre (tho I did quite like Kinsey, but mostly because it was SEXY!), but I can't really think of a biopic I've seen that I can truly, wholeheartedly endorse.  Maybe if Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry made one some day? 
Some day when it's on DVD I will probably watch it again, with an eye towards nouns and adjectives.  I mean, inevitably the two players in this story end up being Harvey Milk and Dan White, right?  What does it mean that "white" really does describe "milk"?  Like, is the first adjective that kids learn to apply to milk? (that is, unless they have good vegan parents, in which case the first adjective they might learn to apply to milk is "soy").  Except that the idea of White just describing Milk, whereas Milk actually was Milk just kind of leads me into the whole latent-homosexual-defense (see: American Beauty, etc. etc.), which to be honest just bores me.
One other thing: I kept confusing the names "Dan White" with "Dan Brown", which is of course terribly unfair to Dan Brown.  Except that "The Twinkie Defense" does sound like a suitable sequel to "The DaVinci Code", no?
Wait!!  What do you think the connection is between "Twinkie Defense" and just plain "Twink"??  See, MORE boring latent homosexual crap!
Also: [TINY SPOILER HERE], the little memorial description of Harvey Milk at the very end of the film says his friends scattered his ashes along with bubble bath (who doesn't like bubble bath, really) and grape Kook Aid (WTF Jonestown!).  That *had* to be a Jonestown thing, right?  Because the two sets of murders were, like, nine days apart?  Gus Van Sant: Why would you throw that in there without even a hint of a mention of Jonestown in the film?  WTF?

*and Sean Penn was just transcendent!  As in, he was so good that I found myself forgetting that he was Sean Penn, or even that he was an actor.  I mean really, really good- "I drink your milkshake" good!

This is what comes of knowing a tiny bit of French.  I have a phrase from what I think might be a Leonard Cohen song stuck in my head on repeat.  It could be many things, but my brain can't decide whether it wants to be:

Les morts, aidez chez moi!

or

L'amour, aidez chez moi

or

L'amour etait Chinois

Quel conundrum!

Also: I know this is a rather silly thing to post after being radio-silent for such a long time, but this is what I've got.  That and, although I love Facebook, the possibility of FB-style communiques replacing LJ-style makes me impossibly sad.

The Good News: I bought an iPhone!  hip, hip, hooray!  It probably won't be delivered until Monday, but still.  Craptastic Cell Phone of the Beast: your days are numbered!
Also good news: I get a discount on cell phone service, and so with that and a slight rearranging of my minutes, my new voice + data plan is ~$10 cheaper than my old Verizon voice plan. 
The Bad News: the plumbing in my house has turned out to be merely a *rumor* of plumbing!  This time, it's the showers.  And the plumber can't come until Monday!  I took the world's shortest shower last night- maybe a minute and a half?  Maybe. 
The Ugly News: Did I mention I have to wait 3 more days until I get my  new iPhone??  

So, on the advice of poetofthefuture , I am watching High School Musical.  yes!  And it is kind of totally amazing!  I'm only halfway through, but I'm telling you: there is some rich soil here, in, like, *every* scene!  At first I thought it was going to be kind of a standard coming-out parable, but no!  It turns out that it's also about gender expression, and stars a miniature drag queen named Sharpey!  Who totally gets all the best lines, and is in love with her gay brother.  Hooray!

I went in for my couple-of-times annual lithium level blood test yesterday after work.  I was in the waiting room for about 20 minutes, which seemed like an *eternity* (sick people, screaming babies, one overly-enthusiastic woman who kept telling her two nearly-teenage sons that they are SO GREAT and SUPER PATIENT in babytalk).  UNTIL!  I was called back by this completely hot, charming, young phlebotomist.  So I gave him my usual schpiel about how I have terrible veins, so he'll probably have to take the sample from the back of my hand, and how I *will* try to pass out, so I should probably lie down.  And he was very nice about it.  He even brought me a couple of fliers (one about the power of positive thinking, the other advertising CPR refresher courses) to read so as to distract myself from the actual blood-and-needle nastiness going on.  Except, of course, he couldn't find a vein.  So he called in for some backup!  This time, a completely hot, charming, young lady phlebotomist!  Who told me stories about getting all squirmey when she had to get shots when she was in the air force, and whose first name was "Sultana".  Nice.  But she had no luck, either, so they called in a *third* completely hot, charming, young phlebotomist (who kept calling me "ma'am", but whatever).  It was just like Scrubs, you know?  They each kept referring to themselves as the "Three Musketeers", which was cute, if a little codependent.  In short: it took NEARLY AN HOUR to find a suitable vein!  Even after running hot water over my arm, etc. etc.  Finally they had to take it from the underside of my wrist (eeek!).  When phlebotomist #3 was bandaging my poor wrist up, he made a crack about how it was going to look like I had escaped from the psych ward, which was probably not something he would have said if he had known I was getting my lithium blood levels checked, but whatever.  Despite its protracted nature, it was certainly the most entertaining blood draw I've had in a long time.

came across a book at the library, entitled:

"Ethnic Cleavage in a California School".

I suspect this book is not about what I want it to be about.

Standout part of yesterday: T and I went into Sur La Table looking for a nice fondue pot and were helped out by a totally faggy Sur La Table worker with the words "Lucy Liu" tattooed on his forearm.  He had been talking to us for a little while when his supervisor came over and kind of bitched him out for whatever reason.  As soon as she turned around and walked away, he whispered to us "get it at Crate and Barrel!  Their stuff is WAY better!"  Hahaha!  Thank you, Lucy Liu!

T's mum sent us the sweetest ornament for our tree!  Of course, we didn't actually have a tree, so we had to make do with a tiny living tree from Trader Joe's:



It kind of dwarfs the tree, doesn't it?  :)  Love!

The elevator to my parking garage at work has been occupied since Friday... by one large trashcan, and one Stanford-issued park bench, standing on end, and covered in bird shit.  They are beginning to feel like old friends, and I'm afraid I'll miss them when they (eventually, inevitably) disappear. 

Are there any sort of neuro-linguistic ramifications in a society which writes more and more frequently with a keyboard?  I'm thinking specifically of the alphabet becoming fractured- the letters a, s, d, and f, for example, belong exclusively to my left hand, while j, k, and l belong exclusively to my right. 

So, I have a confession to make.  I just can't seem to get myself worked up much about the whole Rick Warren Saddle Back Obama Inauguration thing.  It's not that I *like* the idea, either- it's just that I can't really seem to believe that in the grand scheme of things, it's going to make much difference, and also I'm not all that familiar with Saddle Back's history and positions, other than my general distrust of religious institutions across the board.  What I *do* think, though, is that this is a superb opportunity to coin a new Aberrant Homosexual Act!  As in:

GWM, 31, into role play, saddlebacking, and light BDSM

I know I'm not the first to think about this.  The question is, what could it *be*?  Something really gross, and totally gay, and preferably involving santorum.  Yes!

The good news: T fixed the heater!  Hooray!
The ridiculous news: have I written here about ordering save-the-date magnets?  And how they turned out great, except that the company sent 10 fewer than I ordered?  Well, I got my 10 missing magnets yesterday, and I just *knew* something was going to be not right about them.  Like, something would be misspelled, or it was going to be some other couple's picture looking back at me.  But no!  I opened the box, and they looked great!  Until, on a whim, I tried to actually put one on my refrigerator, and: they're not magnetized!  Of all the things I expected to go wrong, I never expected that the magnets wouldn't be magnets.  Weird. 

So, it turns out that they won't be able to fix our heater until tomorrow.  Boo!  But on the plus side, we *do* have a tiny space heater which seems to be doing the job, so long as we occupy only one room at a time.  Further on the plus side, T has taken to calling the space heater "the Little Monster" which is just so cute I can't even stand it!  Especially since he is very thoughtful and puts it in the bedroom while I'm sleeping, even if he's still awake and rattling around the house.  And then we have conversations which should be euphemisms, but aren't:

JDL: I'm going to go brush my teeth and get ready for bed.
T: Ok, let me know when you're ready for the Little Monster.
JDL: *dies of cute*

In my new favorite outfit!


I want to wear this every day for the rest of my life!  Also, I must say that one of the benefits of being in an opposite-gendered relationship is that you can accessorize your drag without going shopping.  I take advantage of this benefit much more than T does.

Other events in my recent history:

1) our heater broke yesterday!  this is a Bad Thing, as it is COLD outside!  Don't laugh at me, non-Californians.  It's cold!
2) Thanksgiving weekend, my parents came over and the four of us made a fruitcake!

Here's an inadequate picture of a completely adequate and beautiful bowl of sherry-soaked fruit!


And here is a picture of the finished fruitcake!


Well, mostly-finished.  We discovered a week later that the center of the cake was still not cooked.  So we stuck it in the microwave for two minutes at a time until it was done!  This took all morning, and it made the house smell like fruitcake and made me hungry.  Yum, fruitcake!

Driving to work this morning I turned my ever-present npr OFF just to listen to the engine of a Corvette as it drove by.  Shortly after I saw a Porsche approaching in my rearview mirror, and I turned the radio back on, because: meh.  Is this what they call patriotism?

Ok, I totally forgot to post about the TRUE best part of seeing "Australia" this weekend!  It was in the previews!

The BEST part was at the end when it announces that this isn't a movie trailer, or an ad for the Peace Corps, it's for something with much more... gravitas.  Louis Vuitton!  But the best part was actually the ROAR OF LAUGHTER from everyone in the audience.  I suspect this was not the Vuitton company's desired reaction!

T and I went out last night!  First to dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery (where we saw my parents in the parking lot- they were coming back from an early dinner, we were on our way to a late one), which was quite yummy (as usual- now that I've learned *not* to order the burgers).  Ordered "Naughty Scot" ale, which was quite good and apparently has a funny picture on the label involving a kilt and a breeze, haha. 
After dinner was... Australia!  Which was actually pretty much exactly as I expected it to be.  That is to say: good and large-scale and epic, and just not my cup of tea.  Keep in mind!  I'm no great fan of The English Patient, either, for many of the same reasons!  Which I know is blasphemy, and I should probably *still* be careful who I say that to for fear of getting some sense smacked into me.  But there you have it.  Also: there were many examples of white people being heroic and Black people being self-sacrificial, which are two things I have little interest in.  Hmmm.
But I did enjoy the very retro-Hollywood aesthetics, and also enjoyed Nicole Kidman in a truly excellent wardrobe.  But my favorite part was probably when T and I found our new Aragorn!  There is something about Viggo Mortensen in the Lord of the Rings movies that is too... swaggery and pretty (which I know is itself kind of a controversial statement).  So we have spent years searching for a suitable replacement!  and think we have found it in Hugh Jackman!  Because, I really like High Jackman and I know he's the hot thing right now, but I feel that he might look suitably unpretty after fighting orcs for days on end.  So there you have it. 

vegetarian thanksgiving yesterday!  A family of one meat-eating American, two vegetarians, and a Brit means: cheese fondue for Thanksgiving!  And it was awesome.  And there was much champagne!  Also, wine and beer!  And lots of fun, and my poor dad being very nice and not complaining about the absence of turkey.  There was, however, some discussion about the nation of Turkey, the substance of which I have forgotten. 
On the drive over to my parents' house, we passed a soon-to-be frozen yogurt shop(pe) called "THAT'S YOGURT!", as in:

Player 1: "Dear god, what *is* that??"
Player 2: "THAT'S YOGURT!"

FIN.

There were some backhanded shenanigans last night when it came to choosing a suitable movie to watch!  T and I were going through our dvds trying to pick out a selection to bring to my parents' house:

JDL: I think maybe we shouldn't pick anything too violent.
T: Ok, that sounds reasonable.
T: Oooh!  Let's take Sin City!

Finally, after dinner, we all voiced our opinions on the subject:

T: Happy Feet!!
JDL: Napoleon Dynamite!
Parents: Um, whatever.

So through some backhanded negotiations of my own, I managed to finagle Napoleon Dynamite,* only to retreat for a little bit into the kitchen with my mom to talk about wedding stuff, and find out when we started the movie that my charming fiance had switched the two dvds!  So, Happy Feet it was.  Which: it totally could have been worse.  Happy Feet is, I believe, a pro-gay, anti-religious movie about penguins.  Nice!

*In retrospect, I probably would have had more luck persuading the members of my family into the Napoleon Dynamite camp if I had convinced them that it was actually a History Channel documentary about Napoleon's strategic use of dynamite.  Will remember this for next time.

The past few weeks have been taken up almost entirely by MOVING.  I hate moving, and it has taken a toll on my mood.  But now everything is unpacked and relatively orderly, and I feel much better.  Last week T and I did, however, manage one SPECTACULAR feat of bourgeoisie!  We wanted to have some sake, but my sake cups were packed away somewhere in our suburban garage!  What to do?  Drink our sake out of espresso cups.  Bless me, Joey Ramone, for I have sinned!  Say three Hail Marilyn Mansons and repent!  I need to reclaim my rock 'n roll lifestyle!
On the lighter side, I had to explain to T the other day the meaning of the term "after-school special".  Have since been fantasizing wildly about a life oblivious to the existence of after-school specials. 

What's up with the color coding in the last two Bond films?  Quantum of Solace's villain was named Greene, and Casino Royale starred Eva Green!  Mr. White made an appearance in both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.  And the QofS theme song was done by (OMGILOVEYOU) Jack White!  Sounds like a nice Aston Martin in British Racing Green(e) with some White Stripes to top it off.  Vroom!

I never need to buy clothes again!  Except for the fact that I still have no work-appropriate pants that fit.  But other than that!  I now have new:

black shirt
blue sweater
brown short skirt
black velvet (!) short skirt
gray and black pleated skirt
black skirt suit, with a black satin tuxedo-style shawl collar on the jacket.
gray wool peacoat

In short, an orgy of conservatism!  But I don't care, because it's fall and I already have enough crazy clothes to last anyone a lifetime.  Also finished xmas shopping for T, and have begun stressing about xmas and bday shopping for others. 

Saturday my mom and I went to protest Prop 8 at San Jose city hall, which was really great.  My mom's favorite sign said "My family: two moms, two sons, two dogs, two Volvos".  I guess there were 2,000 people there?  Nice. 

Last night was Quantum of Solace!  Which was no Casino Royale, but who could really expect it to be?  It was still great.  Fortunately, T and I prefaced QofS *NOT* by watching Casino Royale, but by watching Die Another Day, which is utter crap.  And I'm sorry, Pierce Brosnan is totally the worst Bond.  And this coming from someone who actively likes Roger Moore!  Brosnan is so snotty in that movie that I needed a bottle of Mucinex.  Too much snot, Pierce!  You are supposed to be James Bond, not the rich kid in a John Hughes movie.  Thank god for Daniel Craig, who I'm sorry is every bit as good as Connery.  And is, you know, sex on a stick.  Yay!

Yes!  I still feel like my default position is set to "melancholy", but I've had some real caffeinated coffee, and now I'm listening to a very rough draft of our wedding dance mix, which I must say is quite heavy on manic dancy songs, and a little light on sappy wedding-type songs.  And I'm still amusing myself trying to find wildly inappropriate "first dance" songs.  Of course, we are not actually having a formal "first dance", so the pressure is pretty much off on that count.  But fun thoughts: "Short People"!  "The Thong Song"!  And the best: "Punch 'em in the Dick"!  (chancel , could you refresh my memory on the artist and/or proper title?).  This last one is truly a wonder, and if you haven't heard it yet, you must must must must.  You must!

this will be a post about absolutely nothing of any significance whatsoever.  I am in a bad mood, and still kind of sad (could this really be from turning my apartment keys in on Sunday?  That seems like way too long a time).  It's not like anything actually *bad* has happened to me recently- I'm just down for no good reason.  This probably has something to do with the fact that all my stuff is packed up in boxes and the house is a mess.  Gah!
Ok- the good no-substance news!  I have finally found a shampoo I really like!  Aveda rosemary-mint.  It smells divine, and generally does not turn my hair into a poofy mess.  rock. 
Ok.  half an hour more for lunch, then 4.5 hours till I get home, and then the rest of my boring-ass life.  Blah.

Last night I had a dream that I was dating Eric Clapton.  In the grand spectrum of things I have dreamed of, this one was Not So Bad.  But I remember sitting with Eric in his BMW 5-series (dark grey, right-hand-drive) and thinking "He's really nice... he's just not T.  But he is English!  That's nice.  But... he's just not my sweetie!"  In all fairness I should say that while it's true that T can't play guitar like Clapton, my bets sit squarely on T's shoulders when it comes to speaker design.  Take that, Clapton!

I took today off to pack and move and all that fun stuff.  But instead!  I spent some time with some plumbers!  Apparently, there are plumbing problems at both my residences.  So Beto the Plumber came over to dig into the crawl space in the bedroom closet of the apartment.  And Dave the Plumber came over to fix the blocked drain at the house, and talk to me about his aspirations to go to nursing school.  He was pretty great, actually.
And then I had lunch at a diner surrounded by old people who wore trucker's hats and plaid flannel shirts unironically.  The waitress called everyone "honey", except for me, who she called "ma'am". 
Now I'm exhausted, but determined to make at least one more trip to the apartment to pick up some stuff before I give over to political obsession completely via TV tonight. 

1) Achewood from Saturday- how badly do I now want a "SALT-respect-moderation" tattoo?  Answer: SO BADLY!
2) this slacker surfer messy-haired undergrad came to the desk wanting to pay his fines, and when I told him we only take cash or check, he exclaimed "Blast!"

Other excellent things about today: unlike yesterday, our garage will probably not flood!  Yes!  Yesterday, our garage (still full of all my books packed in cardboard boxes from the move this weekend) flooded because of a blocked drain in the washing machine.  Miraculously, NOTHING was damaged (though the bottom edge of a plastic folding table got an unexpected bath).  But it also means that we can't use the plumbing on that side of the house until it's fixed.  No washing machine, no disposal, no dishwasher, and no kitchen sink.  Looks like we will be washing our dishes in the bathtub for a while.  Fun times!

Tonight on my way home from physical therapy, I ran out of gas.  I called T on his cell so he wouldn't worry when he came home to an empty house.  He promised to keep me company on the phone until the AAA guy arrived.  So we're talking about nothing in particular when I see headlights pull up behind me on the side of the freeway!  Was is Mr. AAA?  No!  It was my sweetie.  We didn't even get out of our cars to see each other because the traffic on the highway was all fast.  We just kept talking on the phone and waving through the windscreens.  Made my day!  And now he's singing along to the South Park theme song entirely with the words "deedle deedle deedle deedle!  deedle deedle deedle deedle!"  Love!

Have been home sick most of the week with the Plague.

Have watched more Dog Whisperer than any one person can bear.  Am confident that I can now control Cesar Milan with my brain.

Have used up three complete boxes of Kleenex!  (Don't tell the Sierra Club)

I still wake up at 5:30 on the dot, even when I'm sick AND need the rest AND it's the weekend.  Silly force of habit.

Watched Son of Rambow last night, which was lovely.

Had friends over yesterday who suggested that now that we're getting married, it's probably time to start thinking about... getting a cat!  T and I had pretty much the stereotypical sitcom-married-couple reactions.  Me: oooh kitties I love kitties  I want a kitty!!  T: um, yeah, someday, I guess...

Um... that's all I've got.  Back to sleep for me!
 

It's true!  I've decided that, since I already don't really live in my apartment any more, it's time to move in with T.  Living in sin!  A comingling of furniture!  getting rid of duplicates in our CD collections!  It does make me sad, because I *loved* my apartment.  But I've spent 3 nights there in the past two months.  It's kind of turning into just some place I perpetually need to clean and buy groceries for.  A couple of weeks ago, I was driving home from work and I was exhausted and famished.  And all I wanted to do was eat something and go to sleep.  And then I realized that my medications were at my apartment, which meant I had to choose between eating at T's house and skipping my meds (booo!), or taking my meds at my apartment and eating marmalade out of the jar with a spoon because I had NO OTHER FOOD!  So: good by, apartment.  I'm talking to my building manager tonight.  :(  Anyway, wish me luck with the impending working-out of what stuff ends up in the house and what is put in storage! 

Things that have happened:

1) bought Ashoo a bridesmaid's dress and shoes (truly excellent dress, unusual, on super-clearance, and we only went to one store, and she only tried on, like, four dresses)
2) been out late-ish every night this week.  will be out late again tonight and tomorrow
3) started physical therapy for my back.  am optimistic
4) we are sending back the sleep number bed in exchange for a similar bed from a different company which measures your "sleep number" in actual PSI. 
5) we are nerds.

ten-four!