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. .  -- MMCXX --You know what I just realized? I never did post my requisite before & after picture after having my hair done at the beginning of my Birth Week a few weeks ago! I guess it's just as well; I was combing it straight down on my forehead for pretty much that entire week, but since the beginning of this month I have been combing it more to the side, deliberately avoiding a stark straight line for the part -- the result it possibly the best look I've had in years. So hey, I'll just show a before & after right here!  
April 28 vs. May 11How about that? You know what's strange? I actually kind of like having my roots grow in, at least just a tiny bit. It gives a sort of depth to the color overall that actually makes it look, ironically, more natural. Right after I had it colored, it just looked incredibly stark. I think this was perhaps because the roots were just as light as the ends, and in natural hair it tends to be the other way around, for most colors -- especially if you spend much time in the sun. There's not necessarily a big difference between roots and ends in natural hair color, but it still tends to be darker near the scalp. In any case, I'm glad I finally made the choice to stop trying to give myself straight-down bangs -- rather difficult with even semi-curly hair anyway. I haven't parted my hair on the side since 2006, and I can't really remember why I started parting it in the middle to begin with. Just for something different? I don't know. In any case, I'm so happy with how it looks now that I am constantly distracted by reflective surfaces. I was at Faith's last weekend and caught myself in the right light in her living room mirror and I was just like, God damn I look fantastic. I had two new people at work notice my hair for the first time today. Eva saw me and said, "Your hair is so different!" She was smiling, so I guess she liked it. And then Tracy, our CEO, noticed it, and he told me it looked good -- twice. You see? Everyone agrees! I look awesome. Actually even the "after" picture above doesn't quite do it justice, but I don't have any other recent shots that are good and of only me. But you can just take my word for it, I'm sure. I look great in that picture and even better in person. -- MMCXX -- -- MMCXX --Work work work. Work work work! If I were any more of a busy beaver I'd feel like a whore. I've still got lots to get done today, after being busy all morning, and I have a minimum of two days next week on jury duty! I suppose I'll have to be careful what I write about on those days; I keep remembering ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7) susandennis getting released after she posted something in her journal. I can't remember what it was; some observation about one of the lawyers? I know she didn't say anything about the actual case but I guess saying something about people involved in the case is verboten too. And you know me: it's so hard to control myself when there's a keyboard within a three-foot radius of my fingers. I did perfectly okay when I was summoned in 2009, but I never got chosen to be on a jury. And I would submit that the social media landscape is markedly different now even than three years ago. I bet lawyers Google every single prospective juror now. Maybe I'm shooting myself in the foot right now! They're going to Google me, find this entry, and then say, "Fuck this guy!" (Or maybe they'll be too lazy by next week to bother scouring entries more than five days old? God knows how meticulous these people really are. They should hire me to do this shit. I'd have the presence of mind to do searches on keywords in archives.) Anyway. I worked a bit on captioning photos from last weekend last night, and am now maybe a quarter of the way through. I really enjoy captioning photos when I have the time for it. I may finish tonight, after going to my appointment at my new eye doctor on Broadway. No movie tonight, but that'll be more than made up for by the six SIFF movie tickets I purchased last night. I've already seen six movies so far this month and have at least seven more on the schedule before the month ends. This always happens when SIFF comes around. One of these days I'll finally get serious about researching venues for Shobhit's and my wedding next year. Auntie Rose has already said she's marked her calendar. Isn't that awesome? So now same-sex marriage definitely has to remain legal through voting season in the fall. Last night I went to see The Dictator, which I really enjoyed. I can think of very few people I know who likely would have enjoyed it with me. I did have to come into work today to tell Russ about it; I knew he'd get a kick out of it, especially since the main character, a North African dictator, ends up getting a job at a natural foods store. I had to see it downtown, which has its good points and its bad points. The downside is it's a downtown theatre, where they put shit on their popcorn so I don't buy any. The upside is there are always much better movie time options, combined with better proximity to home than the U District. I saw a 6 p.m. showing and was home by 8:00. I had my review written by 9:00, and spend much of the rest of the evening either captioning photos or Skyping with Shobhit. I was actually up fairly late, until around 11:45. And then Guru insisted on waking me up this morning at about 5:05. The fucking pussy bastard. -- MMCXX -- . . Tags: haircut
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- Wed, 05:53: RT @DowntownSeattle Another view of that ENORMOUS Ferris wheel project on the Downtown Seattle Waterfront http://t.co/L6WiJ7Ud
- Wed, 12:25: RT @spartacuffs So worried cause I dropped my son while he was playing with my iPhone and my upgrade isn't for another year.
- Wed, 15:11: I keep listening to Garbage. http://t.co/5bXZ5twC
- Wed, 17:42: Bypassed 4 other cyclists on my ride home today. Unprecedented. Either I'm getting stronger or it's just today the wimps are out en masse.
- Wed, 17:55: RT @someecards: Advice column receives letter from worst man you could possibly sleep with. http://t.co/LB83il8x
- Wed, 18:02: You have my attention! RT @movies Aaron Sorkin to write screenplay for Steve Jobs movie. http://t.co/ztlua5Co (via @writerswrite)
- Wed, 19:41: Shobhit worked as an extra on this movie. But I got so into it, I forgot to look for him! (@ AMC Pacific Place 11) http://t.co/F5ebz6Ff
- Wed, 21:45: Ha! I'm such a sucker for humor this dumb. RT @AlecMapa HEY HEY HEY! E=mc2! -Fat Albert Einstein
- Wed, 21:47: I just eat a lot of fruit. RT @nwfoodette Today I'm 39 wks pregnant. Moms out there: which foods kickstarted labor 4 you or 4 your friends?
Tags: twitter
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. .  -- MMCXIX --Well, it looks like the changes susandennis have been warning me about being imminent at Flickr for months are finally happening. So far, I can't say that the changes have been too drastic, or that I hate them. It seems the images are much larger now when you look at single photo pages; I have mixed feelings about that -- I like seeing the larger images but am not as pleased with the fact that they are so big, you have to scroll down to see captions. I do like the much-increased number of sizes they make available for the images, though. That's why the photos in today's DLU are larger than usual -- but, hopefully at least, still not too large. In the past, there were pretty much only four options for sizing: "thumbnail"; "too small"; "workable"; and "too big." Now when you click "view all sizes," there are 12 different sizes to choose from. I actually really like that. I'm not sure I'd always want the images to be this big, but I like having more control over the options used. I like being able to consider larger sizes for images with a lot more visual information and detail in them. -- MMCXIX --I'm 21 hours behind on Twitter. I'm supposed to be checking Twitter for what's happening right now, aren't I? Today I'm all up on . . . yesterday. I guess I have only myself to blame. I had to go grocery shopping and process photos -- that I still haven't found time to caption -- last night. And I wrote a fairly lengthy journal entry about my weekend. So Twitter suffers. It's such a tragedy! *sob* -- MMCXIX -- -- MMCXIX --Ugh I've got too much to do! Book a rental car for a weekend in June. Figure out what seven SIFF movies I want to see and when -- and the festival starts this week! Make weekend plans. Caption my photos from last weekend. And then there's this whole work thing. I'm gone for two days and then it's practically impossible to catch up on email from the days off when I get bombarded with new emails all morning. And then I get a call from a guy representing a Health and Beauty Aids brand because he's upset by the retail his products have on the shelf. It came to me because all the office HABA people are out for the rest of the week. Normally I could at least ask Jennifer but even she's out today, as she usually takes Wednesdays off. Oh well. At least I'm still alive. That seems like something I could put in the plus column. I'll be meeting with susandennis and another one of her LiveJournal friends I've never met for brunch on Sunday. He's apparently from out of town but is in town currently for some reason, and suggested it. He was born in 1986. And someone born in 1986 is now twenty-six years old. That's fucking depressing. I'm well aware of how obnoxious and insufferable that must sound to someone who is, say, 30 years old than I am. Maybe I really need to apply a glass-is-half-full philosophy to my issues with aging. Instead of thinking, It sucks I'm so much older than that guy, I should think, Well at least I'm not as old as that</i> guy." Also: it really is great consolation that I look so awesome, and so much younger than I really am. I still really enjoy reflective surfaces. I'd totally fuck me. Isn't that what matters?? -- MMCXIX -- . .
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. .
This was ostensibly, more broadly a trip to L.A. to visit Shobhit. But we ended up going out to Palm Springs to spend a night with Faith, and on our way out, we stopped at the Palm Springs Aerial Tram. My intention had been to do the tram on Sunday and then the Living Desert gardens/zoo place in Palm Desert on Monday, but we ended up scrapping the latter and saving that for another time. The heat was just too much and Shobhit wanted the extra time to visit with Faith. And, as it happened, the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway was possibly the most significant thing we did -- I didn't realize there was so much to see with that. The above videos were all taken on the tram. Two on the way up, and two on the way down. The thing that cracked me up about the tram on the way down was that, each time the tram passed over one of the support towers holding up the cables, it would dip down kind of quickly, a little bit like an amusement park ride. The whole crowd in the tram would make a sound like, " Ooo-OOO-ooh!" That sound was really the whole reason I took the latter two videos. Faith told me she had been on the tram both before and after they upgraded the cars, in 2001, which now have rotating floors, much like the rotating restaurant in the Space Needle, just on a much smaller scale. Neither Shobhit nor I had any idea of this feature, so when we first got on, Shobhit made a point of getting into the center of the front of the car facing the mountain as we would be ascending. And then the floor rotated, so we ended up with a 360° view anyway. I could have spent a whole lot more time up there. It was much more significant than I was anticipating. I expected something more along the lines of the Silver Mountain Gondola in Kellogg, Idaho. That one also has a visitor center at the top -- and it's possibly my favorite thing in all of the Idaho panhandle -- but, it turns out, the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway actually takes you up to Mount San Jacinto State Park. And from up there, you get spectacular views of the desert and Palm Springs on one side, and then the state park on the other side. I was quite fascinated by how lush and green the area was up there, at least as compared to the desert of Palm Springs and Coachella Valley down below. The difference is rather stark -- desert on one side of the mountains; fairly thick forest on the other. And we were up at the top of the divide. I hadn't allowed for a whole lot of time because I didn't realize there was so much to see. We were told the tram took us something like 8,000 feet above sea level; it was some 6,000 feet above the base station where we boarded the tram -- a place we drove several miles up fairly steep roads to get to to begin with. Shobhit found information showing snow up there during the winter, and we ultimately decided we want to go up there again in the future, sometime during the winter. I do think that will be fun. I was kind of struck by how much I took to the landscape this time around on our visit to Palm Springs -- most notably the desert areas. In the past I have always hated that kind of terrain and found it butt ugly, but now I seem to be developing a certain appreciation for it. In any case, that was the definite highlight of our roughly 24 hours venturing out of town from L.A. this visit. We weren't up there at Mount San Jacinto State Park very long -- probably less than an hour -- but the whole experience still yielded just as many photos as the rest of my time in L.A. combined. Well, okay, I got 56 photos while visiting L.A.; I got 52 photos during the trip out to Palm Springs -- plus 4 videos. And that makes a total of 56 items for the set! Interestingly, the weather was really quite mild in L.A. this visit -- never highs any more than in the low seventies. Palm Springs, on the other hand, had consistent highs above 100° this weekend. Amazingly, the heat is so dry, as long as it's not in extended doses, I actually found it fairly tolerable. I didn't spend a huge amount of time complaining about the heat. And besides, up at the top of the mountain it couldn't have been more than in the sixties. Still, once we were back down from the mountain, it was nice to get to the Spa Resort Casino in Palm Springs, where we went for dinner Sunday night. Faith came and met us there. Having gambled enough there in the past, Shobhit had enough credits (or points or whatever the hell they call them) that he was able to get all three of us comped for dinner at the buffet. Shobhit was hell bent on "getting his money's worth," and Faith mentioned more than once how she couldn't believe how much food he could pack in. (He currently weighs roughly 20 lbs more than I do.) Unfortunately, when Shobhit was at the counter finding out where he stood with his money at the casino, they told him he still had $75 in chips, and did he want them. He said yes. Not a good thing. Shobhit spent some time gambling with that money after dinner. For a while, I was fine with it. It was Mother's Day, and I had called Mom earlier in the evening to wish her Happy Mother's Day, but had to cut the conversation short when Faith arrived. So after dinner I just went outside, sat on a bench, and called Mom back again. We talked for slightly more than an hour. It was a really nice conversation and a good way to kill some time. Actually I called Sherri right before calling Mom back, as I hadn't yet had a chance to call Sherri either, but as usual, Sherri cut the conversation short after just a few minutes -- she's just not a big phone talker. Mom sure can be, though. Of course that kind of makes sense given how many times a year I see Sherri (quite a few) versus the two times a year I actually see Mom. Faith even came out at one point, telling me she was looking for me for Shobhit. Well, she found me; I went back to my conversation with Mom. When my call with Mom finished, I went inside and found Shobhit at one of the card tables, where I figured he'd be. I asked him how he was doing. He said, "I had to withdraw $1000 from my credit card." ??!! I could not believe it. I let it sink in for a moment. Shobhit continued playing. Then I just said, "Unbelievable," and turned around to leave again. Shobhit tried to stop me but I just went back outside. He texted me, "I'm sorry. Come back to me." I replied that I wasn't actually that upset (true), but I had no interest in watching him waste money he didn't have (also true). It was after dark, but now the heat was oddly getting to me more than it had been during daylight -- even though the temperature was technically lower. (Now it was all the way down to the mid-eighties.) I took a walk around the outside the casino. A couple of times I came back in as far as the sort of mini-lounge areas just inside entrances with their upholstered benches and I would catch up on Twitter. Finally Faith found me again, and she asked if I was tired. By now it was nearing midnight, and I said yes. I got the clear message that Faith, who in the past has gambled for even longer periods of time than Shobhit, simply had no money to gamble with, so she suggested just giving me a ride back to her place, and Shobhit could stay at the casino. I took her up on the offer. Faith likes to talk, though, so I was probably up for nearly another hour at her house, trying my best to keep her company. Finally I had to tell her I was about to pass out and I was going to bed. Shobhit told me the next morning it was around 1 a.m. when he got back, so it was not that long after I went to sleep. He actually finished with a moderate net gain. What bothers me is that he had to take a cash advance from his credit card to get there, and even this was probably just a stroke of luck. Had he continued losing, he might easily have stayed there until sunrise, in a desperate attempt to get back on a winning streak. I really feel like it's just not a good idea for him to be in a casino, for any reason, ever. I had been okay with going there for dinner because we'd all get a free buffet, but I naively thought we could do that without him getting sucked into gambling. At least he got home relatively soon after I did. I was sound asleep by then. Faith's guest bed is so comfortable, I slept like a log. It's soooo much better than the inflatable mattress Shobhit uses in his West Hollywood apartment. Anyway, the original plan had been to go out to the Living Desert yesterday before heading back into L.A., but Shobhit had squandered much of the time he wanted to spend with Faith on Sunday night with his gambling, and he clearly wanted to be able to visit with her as long as possible yesterday before leaving. Actually sometimes Gabriel has conversations with me about how things get lost in translation, as he and I are both in relationships with people who speak English as a second language. This came up with Shobhit and Faith, because Shobhit was talking about this visit and said, "I want to talk to you." What he meant was simply that he wanted to be able to have some time to visit with her, but of course at first Faith was thinking he had some serious conversation he needed to have with her. I immediately translated for him: "He just means he wants to be able to visit with you." So, that's what we did yesterday. I still really want to see the Living Desert place, but I needed little convincing to postpone it considering the heat out there yesterday (above 100° before noon). Faith's house was nice and air conditioned. Faith talked about how they decorate out there with lights at Christmastime, which sounded cool -- but then Shobhit reminded me that my plan was to go to New York for New Year's. (I'm amazed Shobhit is so open to this idea for New Year's, given the potential cost -- even though he says there won't be any acting work between Christmas and New Year's anyway. This is a clear indication of how much he loves and misses New York. And I presented it as an idea because, frankly, I miss going to New York.) Shobhit then suggested we go out there during my visit for his birthday. His birthday is the day before Halloween and thus far I have always gone to Olympia for Halloween, but when I found out apparently West Hollywood goes all out for Halloween, I decided I wanted to go there for that holiday this year. Halloween day is a Wednesday this year, so that will give plenty of time to go out to Palm Springs sometime over that weekend. Let's just hope we can keep Shobhit from getting sucked into gambling. Anyway! We left Faith's yesterday at about 2 p.m., and most of the trip was really hot. I didn't even realize quite how hot until I found myself dripping with sweat on my face. There had been a bottle of water left out in the car, which had not been in the shade in Faith's driveway in Desert Hot Springs, and I was kind of revolted when I took a swig. It was so warm, it was almost like drinking water out of a hot teakettle. Blech! By the time we reached a town called Redlands, the temperature was in the mid-eighties -- and it felt cool. Dry heat or not, that's just insane. We had a sort of deadline for getting back to L.A. yesterday, because Shobhit got us on a list for a SAG-AFTRA screening of the HBO movie Game Change. Beforehand, I was almost indifferent; I had already watched the movie with susandennis and just though it was okay. But in the end, I was really glad I went to this event, as it was just an overall really cool experience. One of the supporting actors, Sarah Paulson, was there for a Q&A after the screening. She had played the woman tasked with getting Sarah Palin up to speed on foreign policy and prepared for interviews and debates -- in the movie she had shoulder-length, very straight blonde hair. (She had also played the older sister in Martha Marcy May Marlene.) Given that she was a supporting character, and given my relatively extensive experience with post-screening Q&As, I really didn't expect much out of that part of it. Boy, was I wrong! Wow, is context everything. First of all, I sometimes don't bother staying for Q&As in festival screenings because the audience questions can be so vapid and stupid. Not so here -- this audience was full of working actors, and all of the questions (at least the ones the moderator allowed) were surprisingly intelligent. But most importantly, Sarah Paulson was so gracious and generous with her actors, the result was that this was quite possibly the most insightful post-screening Q&A I've ever had the privilege of seeing. I wonder if all of them at SAG-AFTRA events are like this? Paulson had a lot of truly fascinating things to say, from her amazement at how "not-method" Julianne Moore had been at portraying Sarah Palin (apparently she could basically flip a switch as soon as she heard "Action!", never being anything but herself when cameras were not rolling -- I've always regarded her as one of our greatest living actresses, but this made me even more impressed with her) to her own experiences with auditions and how she approaches the process. Apparently, although Julianne Moore had known for a long time she would be doing this movie, Sarah Paulson auditioned for it, and was on set a matter of days after finding out she got the part. (Also: the real-life character she portrayed actually came to the premiere, and told Paulson she actually played a more noble version of the truth of how she felt about dealing with Palin.) My favorite thing Paulson had to say, though, was really more philosophical, regarding the audition process -- something relevant to nearly everyone in this audience. She said she had to sort of convince herself that auditioning was just part of the job, and given how much she loves acting, she decided to take auditioning as a reason to be grateful for the opportunity to act. I really, really loved that. And I could tell it really resonated with this crowd. The screening room had a medium-sized projection screen for the movie in the middle of the wall -- the interviewer and Paulson sat on chairs in front of it during the Q&A -- and then a large flat-screen monitor mounted on either side of the screen. These monitors had rotating messages on them before the screening started, and one of them was to ask that no recording devices be used during the screening. I suppose it could be argued that "screening" does not count the Q&A, but I still thought the guy in the row in front of us taking several videos and photos with his iPhone -- a couple of them with a flash -- was a douchebag. That was a small blip in an otherwise really cool evening, though. I even enjoyed the movie more the second time around. It's amazing how your experience watching a movie can vary depending on who you're watching it with. This crowd was so on board with the movie and its expose of Sarah Palin's idiocy, it sometimes bordered on pathetic. There was no criticism whatsoever of the film during the Q&A -- it was largely kissing the ass of the actress present, and anyone else who made the film, which I suppose is not all that surprising. But this made it a markedly different experience from viewing the movie with Susan. Although Susan has long been very open about how happy she is Barack Obama is president, I've never really gotten the sense that she's got some huge amount of contempt for Sarah Palin -- which is a totally different thing. This crowd clearly had it in for Palin. And, amazingly, what struck me the most about the movie seeing it the second time was how much it made me feel compassion for Palin. I'm still horrified that that woman got so close to the vice presidency, but her political opinions aside, she really was kind of used as a pawn by the Republican party. Not that I particularly want to make excuses for her, mind you -- a person should know the right choice to make when it's clear something will be too much for them. (Frankly, I'm a little horrified she even managed to become governor of an entire state.) But none of this changes the fact that she still deserves a little compassion. It's easy to lose sight of that when all you can think about is how much of a moron she is. So, I thanked Shobhit for taking me to that event, because it was really cool. And then we went to Swingers Diner -- for the second time this visit. Because it's a great restaurant with delicious food and we still need to go back in the future to try other items on their menu. Much of the rest of the weekend was spend with Shobhit working as a cater waiter. In fact, we didn't leave L.A. for Palm Springs on Sunday until around 4:00 because Shobhit had spent most of the day working -- though we did barely manage to get over to Hollywood in time for him to do a quick audition before we left town. I had even already packed up all our stuff and loaded bags into the car before driving it to pick him up, so we could get on the freeway as soon as his audition was done. Before that, I filled my time by taking myself to see Dark Shadows, which I found kind of disappointing. I gave it a B-. Gabriel should love this: Shobhit actually explained to Faith, "For Matthew, average is B-minus." I had to drive straight from the theatre at the Grove to pick him up from work, and then the rest of the day was pretty cram packed. I didn't manage to get a review written until I wrote it up on Faith's computer yesterday morning while she and Shobhit were visiting on Faith's back patio. Later they made eggs and hash browns together for us all to have for breakfast and it was delicious. I actually already wrote about Saturday so I don't need to rehash that. I haven't written the photo captions yet but I have tagged them, so between those and what I've written here, you should get a pretty good idea of what's going on in the pictures. The first picture below is a link to the Los Angeles photo set; the second one to Palm Springs. 
 . . Tags: los angeles, palm springs
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- Mon, 10:30: Shobhit gets to lick the hand mixer beaters! http://t.co/6d0ZNjRS
- Mon, 10:44: RT @matthewbaldwin: I heard on NPR that Zuckerberg turns 28 today, making his birthday the only one in three years that I haven't learned about via Facebook.
- Mon, 11:05: Faith offered us strawberry cheesecake 4 my belated birthday. Because I didn't pack in enough last night at the buffet. http://t.co/2QzO9Zh5
- Mon, 13:26: Apparently, Thomas Edison was "mixed greens with a douche vinaigrette." http://t.co/vPw2V7Rp
- Mon, 13:39: Faith has a first edition copy of BLACK BEAUTY. I've never read it. It's narrated by the horse! http://t.co/yyjQUwsr
- Mon, 14:59: OMG it's so hot. Took a swig of water bottle left in the car in 102� weather. BLEH!! hot water! http://t.co/V0CcAvFk
- Mon, 15:01: @FaithLarsen Thanks for having us! I'm glad we postponed Living Desert so we could visit more.
- Mon, 16:15: RT @HRC: New Poll: 62% of Americans support same-sex unions. RT if u support relationship recognition for same-sex couples: bit.ly/J4Pkdu
- Mon, 16:48: RT @toddmarrone 'An outfit is the union of one linen skirt and one printed blouse.' - Banana Republican.
- Mon, 17:15: In my Twitter feed. @AlecMapa must be REALLY serious. (cc @KenJennings) http://t.co/kC9CYbzz
- Mon, 18:45: At a Q&A screening of Game Change with @Shobhit_Agarwal. On my way to becoming a trophy wife! (@ SAG-AFTRA) [pic]: http://t.co/0k5QbA30
- Mon, 22:03: Post-screening Q&A with Sarah Paulson was awesome. She was very gracious and generous w/her answers. Most insightful Q&A I've ever been to.
- Mon, 22:10: We loved it here so much, we had to come back! Waiter said to me, "Hi guys, welcome back!" (@ Swingers) [pic]: http://t.co/NATe9tvY
Tags: los angeles, palm springs, twitter
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- Sat, 9:47: I love this place's menu. Also salivating in anticipation of my stuffed French toast! (@ Swingers) [pic]: http://t.co/6JS6FgNe
- Sat, 10:40: Catching an early show! (@ ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) [pic]: http://t.co/IHJjqnf2
- Sat, 13:47: I'm his #2 because that's how he treats me. :( http://t.co/7PAOOnOD
- Sat, 13:54: RT @EW: Biff from 'Back to the Future' answers all your questions on one handy postcard http://t.co/kZBprT5Y
- Sat, 14:56: Well, this room doesn't really do it for me. (@ MOCA w/ 4 others) [pic]: http://t.co/FZoTHC0c
- Sat, 15:45: About to take my first L.A. subway ride. Hopefully The Big One doesn't happen while I'm down there! http://t.co/vMgQ4xVB
- Sat, 18:05: I survived the subway ride! Then walked 2.5 miles here so I could be rewarded with this sandwich. [pic]: http://t.co/wogCYvPY
- Sat, 19:50: Sunset in L.A. right now is 52 minutes earlier than it is in Seattle. I never get used to it. The sun goes down and I'm like, What the hell?
- Sat, 23:53: Gonna dance the night away! Or at least the hour! Whatever. (@ Micky's w/ 4 others) [pic]: http://t.co/p3UyUffO
Tags: los angeles, twitter
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. . Well, this day hasn't turned out so bad. Not even after frustrating last-minute changes, which I guess are the story of Shobhit's life. I've known -- or thought I've known -- for days that Shobhit was working as a cater waiter both today and tomorrow, probable full shifts, morning through late afternoon each day. At least I had that to prepare myself with, and I made my plan: I would take the bus down to the Museum of Contemporary Art this morning, and spend however many hours it took to go through the museum while Shobhit was at work. He's never into museums, so days like this are always a good choice for that activity. Then, we'd go and see a movie in the evening after he was done with work. For the first time ever, my flight to L.A. last night was delayed. Only slightly, though: the plane was a connecting flight from two other cities before us, and each stop had been slightly delayed. Still, we boarded at about the time we were set to take off, and we landed in L.A. maybe ten minutes later than scheduled. So really, it was fine -- especially since I did not have a checked bag this time. The flight was not completely full, so they did not ask people to check their bags at the gate, which is usually my plan. The only downside was that still, being near the front and thus among the last to board, the overhead bin above my row was full when I got on, so I had to put my suitcase in the bin above row 8 when I saw in row 5. I still half-forced my way back to it during the unloading last night; I wasn't going to just wait for everyone else to get off. This meant that, instead of having to wait for my suitcase at baggage claim, I was just able to walk right out of the airport and have Shobhit pick me up. Traffic was crappy as usual, and Shobhit got all uptight about other drivers as usual. I wish he would learn to take a deep breath and get over it. Anyway, he got a call during the drive home last night: his cater waiting gig today was canceled. As consolation for the last-minute cancelation, though, the guy offered him a new gig, at a significantly higher rate. Naturally Shobhit took it. The difference is that instead of working from 8 in the morning, his work would start at 3:00 and last at least until 10:00. Dammit, this totally fucked up all my plans! I was really disappointed and annoyed for several minutes. But then we whipped up some alternate plans, and that's how they played out today: I just go up when I woke up, at about 7:45. (I had been up until around 1 a.m.) I immediately got in the shower, so I'd be ready to go by 9:00. I thought I'd have to wake Shobhit up, but when I weighed myself and texted him what I weighed, as I do every morning to keep a record (140.6 lbs, down from the previous day, a minor miracle considering all I ate yesterday), that woke him up. And I egged him on to get ready as fast as possible, so we could barely manage to get to breakfast where he had suggested last night we go. We went to a place he recently discovered called Swingers Diner. Shobhit really seems to have a thing for diners. There are a lot of them, most of them quite old (or old looking, at least), in New York, and he used to go to them all the time -- mostly because of their low prices. Their quality was not always the greatest. The diners here in L.A. that he finds are usually either famous (Canter's) or seem to fall just short of being a theme restaurant (Swingers); the prices are reasonable but not as cheap as New York diners, but the food tends to be markedly better. So really it was brunch, as I never had lunch afterward: I had the stuffed French toast, which was topped with a bunch of fruit and totally delicious. Shobhit had the "veggie joe" sandwich, which he loves and which I thought was all right. There was a bunch of other stuff that looked delicious on the menu and I had a really hard time deciding. So, I declared we'd have to go back. After brunch, we barely had time to drive up to Hollywood and the ArcLight Theater, where we went to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which I thoroughly enjoyed -- even more than I already expected to. Shobhit had said he didn't care if we saw that one or Dark Shadows (which I'm thinking now I'll see tomorrow while Shobhit is working), but in the end I was really glad I opted for this one. I figured he would really enjoy it and I was right. From there we drove back home, where he changed and I gathered a few things and my bag. He then drove me to a bus stop about a mile south of here, so I could hop on a bus that would take me straight to MOCA. Shobhit then went on to work and he's been there since. I read Entertainment Weekly on my iPad while riding the bus into downtown L.A. The bus stop took me all of a block from the museum. I was disappointed they didn't have a AAA discount, but I thought the $12 ticket price was more than reasonable. And then it made sense: that museum is far from huge. It's just one floor, has one wing with permanent stuff and one wing with a temporary installation. I saw the whole thing in about an hour. I still think it was worth it, though. I got just a few semi-interesting photos, at least in the permanent collection section; photography was not allowed on the other side -- " The Painting Factory" was in several sections, all of which had wall-to-wall cream colored carpeting as part of its "art." I had never been in an art gallery with carpeting and I found it oddly discombobulating. Also, some of the "art" on display there was completely mystifying. What tended to fascinate me most was the highly intellectual way the artists inevitably talked about their work, regardless of how pointless it looked (to me, at least), in their quotes on plaques hung on the wall next to the pieces. Then, with nothing else to do, I walked around outside and got a few pictures of downtown buildings, and then finally took my first ride on a Los Angeles subway train. There's one from downtown to Hollywood, and I ended up getting off two stops early by accident and so I got back on the next train about ten minutes later. I've walked through Hollywood too many times to count now, so I very rarely find anything new to get pictures of over there, so I just started walking home. I knew it would be a relatively long walk; that subway station is something like two and a half miles from Shobhit's place. But I realized I was going to have to take care of my dinner myself, and I remembered there was a Veggie Grill on Sunset Boulevard -- so I walked the 2.4 miles to that, and then had a truly delicious veggie chicken sandwich. The place was all of about a mile from Shobhit's place, so it was a pretty quick walk back home from there. While I was wakling, I passed a guy whose dog just walked right over and licked my hand. Cute, but yuck. By the time I got home it was past 6:00; I got right down to writing the movie review. Then I got to writing this entry. And here we are. Shobhit has texted me a few times and called during one apparent break. Otherwise I've had Madonna and Rufus Wainwright to keep me company. Shobhit can't decide if he wants to stop working at 10:00 or take the option of continuing to work until midnight. I know he needs the money, but come on -- can't we compromise a bit? He did say he wanted to go dancing; if he works until midnight it'll never happen. I'm kind of hoping it does. I want to dance off that veggie chicken sandwich. I also really want a pina colada for some reason. Otherwise, I've got tomorrow fairly well planned out now too: Dark Shadows at the Grove theatre on my own; Shobhit may have an audition to go to after he's done working; then we head straight out to Palm Springs, where I really hope we arrive in time to ride the last Aerial Tram. Then we'll stay the night with Faith, and on Monday go to the Living Desert in sweltering heat before driving back here in time to see a SAG screening of Game Change with a Q&A with one of the supporting actresses. I've already seen the movie and am honestly not keen to watch it a second time, but I am interested in seeing how these SAG screening events go. Anyway. Everything is working out fine. Just as it usually does. . . Tags: los angeles
Current Music: "Bitter Tears," Rufus Wainwright
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- Fri, 15:59: Headed to L.A. tonight. Will go to Palm Springs Sunday evening and spend most of Monday there. Forecast: kill me now. http://t.co/JpEOrwxt
- Fri, 17:51: My Light Rail train is so crowded it feels like I'm on a New York City subway car. http://t.co/a9S6aP5S
- Fri, 19:06: I've got the time, so I'm joyriding the levelators! (@ Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) w/ 73 others) [pic]: http://t.co/KjHt06jb
- Fri, 19:32: RT @someecards The single-most deranged anti-gay rant ever read calmly into a microphone. http://t.co/tdt9Qmyr
- Fri, 20:11: It'll make guys with paunches coo too! TESTIFY RT @nwfoodette Got a pregnant friend? These will make her coo. http://t.co/yrmPOoDL
- Fri, 20:35: "Now boarding Group E, E as in Elephant. [*makes VERY convincing elephant trumpet sound*]." I love that @VirginAmerica staff are so fun.
- Fri, 23:02: There were not one, but two screaming and/or bawling kids in the row in front of me. It was SO AWESOME. http://t.co/ezMsElFt
- Fri, 23:39: Vanity plate seen on the 405: CRZYLDY
Tags: los angeles, twitter
Current Location: US, California, West Hollywood, Los Angeles, Romaine St, 7785
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. .  -- MMCXVIII --Shobhit will be working as a cater waiter both tomorrow and Sunday, full shifts. It sounds like he may get off earlier on Sunday, which I am hoping for -- although naturally he'll be hoping for more hours to get paid extra on Mother's Day. But, we plan to drive straight out of L.A. after his shift on Sunday, and to Faith's place in Desert Hot Springs. Actually I'm hoping we leave early enough so we can hop on the last Palm Springs Aerial Tramway of the day. I really want to ride that thing. And I really want to ride it at dusk! The plan now, anyway, is to stay the night at Faith's, and then go over to Palm Desert on Monday to visit the Living Desert, a zoo and gardens that focuses on desert life and which I'm sure will yield plenty lovely photos. Here's the catch: the weather forecast for Palm Desert on Monday. High of 105°. I'm going to die. But, if I'm going to die, I might as well do it in comfortable footwear. I've had my sandals here at work in my desk drawer for months, because I changed into them whenever I came to work in my rubber rain boots. I still hadn't brought them back home as of yesterday, so I emailed myself a reminder this morning. I need to take those sandals home and then pack them for my trip! I sent myself the reminder because I just knew I'd forget about the sandals without it. And guess what? The email never came to my work inbox. Out of sight, out of mind: I never thought about the sandals. Until Marianne in HR emailed me back at my Comcast address, clearly a bit confused. My email had no text aside from a subject line that said, simply, "Sandals!" So she wrote back, "Uhm, sandals?" I actually thought it was pretty funny. -- MMCXVIII -- -- MMCXVIII --I'm a little bit concerned about this trip to Desert Hot Springs (and Palm Springs and Palm Desert). Will it be at all possible for Shobhit to spend time with Faith and not go to a casino? Hell, can I resist the pull if she manages to get us a free buffet dinner again, even though I know I'll be bored as shit there? We'll see how Sunday night goes. I wonder if the casino is busier than usual on Mother's Day? Probably not in the evenings. Mother's Day is all about brunch, after all. For years it was the busiest day of the year at Dad and Sherri's restaurant. Now, curiously, it takes the #2 position behind Father's Day. Maybe dads just like the Shipwreck Cafe more for some reason. I'm digressing a bit. Might as well continue rambling! I rode my bike to work and back yesterday. I did again today; Wednesday this week was the only day I did not bike to work. I did little of note after getting home last night. I made my requisite grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich -- it's been my dinner every day this week -- and watched an episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Oh! I actually did some housework. Exciting stuff! After my dinner I vacuumed, and swept both the kitchen and bathroom floors, and even Swiffered with seriously outdated Swiffer wipe thingies that are supposed to be much damper than they are now. Because I do this so seldom that I'm still not out of them and the box was probably purchased at Costco in 2007. I even refilled the cats' large jug of dispensing water for their water bowl. Shobhit kept nagging me to. They absolutely did not need it; the water would have been perfectly fine and lasted a couple more weeks at least. But, whatever, I did it to make Shobhit happy. (The cats are pretty indifferent, the fucking ingrates.) Shobhit grew up in India with no pets at all, in a society that regards animals as too dirty to be inside the house, and here he is well on his way to becoming a Crazy Cat Lady. -- MMCXVIII -- . .
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. .  -- MMCXVII --Busy busy busy! Not much time to write a whole lot today. I don't suppose it matters. What did I do last night? I met Sara W at the Guild 45 to see a movie at 5:00 -- so I left work 20 minutes early. Don't tell anybody! (I rode my bike to work today and got here 20 minutes early anyway.) We saw The Sound of My Voice and we both really liked it. I think a lot of people would hate how it ended but I thought it was kind of great. Still, I really wavered between giving it an A- and a B+. I wish there were some in-between grade I could give movies; this kind of thing happens relatively regularly. In the end, since I gave Monsieur Lazhar an A- and if pressed I'd say that was a slightly better movie, for this one I settled on B+. I kind of hate that though because Gabriel makes me all self-conscious about B+ graded movies, as he thinks it's what I give everything. But I just need to get over that. Yesterday was rather cold compared to the previous two days. I might still have ridden my bike but it was raining in the morning. So, in the end, after the movie, I took the bus home. I wrote my review last night, talked with Shobhit on the phone for about twenty minutes while he was walking home from some workshop he'd gone to, and I watched New Girl and Cougar Town. I just saw the news that ABC was going to cancel Cougar Town after this season but TBS swooped in and saved it. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't get TBS but I'll be able to watch it online. That means I'll have to remember to go looking for it, though; it won't be on my TiVo anymore. My life is so difficult! -- MMCXVII -- -- MMCXVII --President Obama is in town today. Is it just me, or does it seem like he's been here a lot? The president can't possibly visit all other cities -- or hell, other states -- with the same apparent frequency he comes here. I'm seeing lots of social media chatter about his presence disrupting business as usual downtown. You know what's been far more on my mind, though? That cover of Time magazine showing a woman breast-feeding her three-year-old son. It's all kinds of weird. I don't think I necessarily have any problem with women breast feeding children that old -- it's not like it's any of my business. On the other hand, isn't Time kind of making it everyone's business with that cover photo? It just seems like such a transparently desperate grab for attention on the magazine's part -- which, obviously, is working; everyone is talking about it. I'm not sure everyone thinks it's that great a reflection of the magazine, though. It's just like the cover Newsweek had of Michelle Bachman looking all bug-eyed crazy. That woman is crazy, to be sure, but they didn't need to publish such a sensationalist photo to prove it. It feels like Time doing the same thing with this breast-feeding woman and her boy. I guess both magazines are just desperate. And the picture itself is just so bizarre. The kid is standing on a chair. Do you think that's how they do it at home? Also, the kid is looking at the camera -- while sucking on a breast. He seems to be saying, "Look at me! I'm breast feeding and I'm totally aware of this bizarre situation!" I can't get that image out of my mind. -- MMCXVII -- . .
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. .  -- MMCXVI --So yesterday North Carolina passed Amendment 1, which effectively reiterated a ban on same-sex marriage that already existed, now putting it, redundantly, into its state constitution. And even though I already knew it was likely to pass, when I saw the news last night, for some reason, it really got me down. This doesn't usually happen; I'm usually more emotionally resistant to stuff like this. It certainly didn't help that, right after seeing that news, Shobhit contacted me on Skype to tell me he could really use the money from an offer to get two cater waitering gigs this weekend that pay higher than usual; he said Monday will likely garner a bonus because it's Mother's Day. This means that two of the three full days I'll be down there this weekend, he'll be working full shifts. Yippee. I won't discourage him from doing it, though, because I understand the necessity. It's still disappointing, and makes the whole trip feel a tad less worth it. On the other hand, maybe I'll take myself to the Museum of Contemporary Art on Saturday. I mapped it out and I can catch a Rapid Ride bus a couple blocks from his place and get to within a mile of the museum, and this would be an opportune time because Shobhit's never been into museums. Google Maps suggests a transfer to ride another bus that last mile, but I'd rather just walk, so I only have to take one bus. It'll still take me an hour to get from point A to point B, but that's okay. I'll have a book. And all things considered, getting there by bus is much easier than I anticipated. It's still L.A., after all. One of these days I'll find an excuse to take the L.A. subway. I've always been curious about it, mostly because so few people outside of L.A. even know the city has one. (Of course, being L.A., its five lines all go in completely different directions and only criss-cross downtown, so it's absolutely nothing like, say, the subway in New York -- or in several other cities for that matter.) Anyway. I think there was another reason I was sad last night, or at least put into an emotionally susceptible state. I watched this video that a gay man posted as a memorial to his partner a year after his partner died. It made me cry, and the statement "To the government, we were mere roommates" genuinely made me angry. It's so preposterous that people should be treated that way. I thank God I live in Washington State, where the mere act of being a registered domestic partner would have prevented virtually every issue that young man faced (including having the hospital refuse to share information because he "wasn't family"). That said, this video illustrates the need for all of us -- gay or straight -- to have wills and advance directives and things like that, which Shobhit and I do have. We may not be married (yet) but we've self-protected on multiple legal levels. -- Legal levels, mind you, which are not an option for any same-sex couples in North Carolina, which is completely disgusting. I thought about sharing that video on Twitter and Facebook and Google+, but ultimately decided against it. Although I do feel the whole thing came from a very genuine place, I found parts of it to be a bit much. Three separate clips of the guy videotaping himself sobbing in grief? Yeesh. Also: I really want to know how his partner fell off that rooftop? At first I assumed it was a suicide; it was later referred to as an accident. So was he just goofing off on a rooftop they had no business being on? I'm not saying he deserved to die, of course, but I did find the vagueness of the circumstances surrounding the guy's death very odd. Incidentally, the guy was fucking gorgeous. In any event, I had just been crying watching that video, and then I saw the news about North Carolina and it just put me in a funk, and then Shobhit gave me the news about how much he'll be working this weekend. Apparently these things do come in threes. But! This morning I saw a wonderful tweet by Alec Mapa, which really put things in perspective for me: 39% of North Carolinians voted for fairness and equality. That's HUGE. Chin up y'all.Now, to be fair, I'm certain that 39% of North Carolinans weren't exactly voting for fairness and equality. Surely a large number of those, perhaps even a slight majority, simply felt the law was pointless, while being perfectly content with the same-sex marriage ban already in effect. Nevertheless, it's still a reflection of changing tides, and I still maintain that in the long run, we will emerge victorious -- nationally. North Carolina won't go the way of New York or Washington any time soon, but eventually, when the federal government mandates it (and they will, one day), they'll be forced to allow same-sex marriages whether they like it or not. It's essentially the same sort of trajectory as the civil rights movement: states want segregation; the feds say "deal." -- MMCXVI -- -- MMCXVI --I guess there was also some good news out yesterday: PCC unveiling their "harvester" at the Issaquah store that turns food scraps into high-quality organic fertilizer. Granted, very close to zero people who read this are likely to be interested. Ordinarily even I wouldn't be all that interested. But I do take pride in the company I work for, and I think this is pretty damn cool. It got some relatively significant media attention, after all. King 5 was there. Several media representatives were there, actually. They streamed the press event live on Facebook and I watched it between 10 and 10:30 a.m. yesterday morning. I figured that was one half-hour streaming video I could get away with watching at work. If you bother to go to that linked King 5 page and view the video, you'll see Diana Crane near the end of it. She's our director of sustainability. She's the biggest fan of my email haikus I send out to the office every time I'm on kitchen duty and it's time for the Refrigerator Purge on Friday of that week. She'll openly tell me when she really likes the haiku; when she thinks it was weak; and when she's disappointed I didn't send one at all. Hell, as soon as she finds out I'm on kitchen duty, she says she can't wait until Friday when she gets to see the haiku. Such pressure! Anyway. I'm getting a little off topic here. They actually made an announcement about this WISErg fertilizer product at the annual meeting, but PCC people were asked not to talk about it publicly until yesterday's official announcement. They gave everyone at the meeting a sample bottle of the fertilizer. I may think the concept is very cool, but I sure as shit have no need for fertilizer. Elin asked me to grab one anyway and give it to her, so I did. There's a lot of talk about the amount of waste this process alleviates. But what about all the plastic used for bottling up this stuff? I keep wondering about that. Either way seems wasteful, but I wonder which is actually closer to carbon neutral -- just dumping all that food waste into compost, or bottling the fertilizer up in plastic jugs? (Even if the bottles are recyclable I'm not sure I see that as any step closer to carbon neutrality.) I guess there is the goal of moving from three compost pickups per week down to two. Is that worse for the environment than the manufacture of all these plastic bottles? I should ask Diana about this. I bet she'd have an answer. She's the Director of Sustainability, after all. That question aside, I still regard this announcement as very cool news, and very reflective of the region I live in. Take that, North Carolina! If you ever come visit Washington, you'd better beware of all us gay hippies! -- MMCXVI -- . .
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- Tue, 10:08: Watching streaming news conference about @PCC turning its food craps into organic fertilizer. https://t.co/zzxSBrZj http://t.co/Q8HqgaHq
- Tue, 10:27: LOL make that food SCRAPS, not food craps, although the latter is admittedly much funnier. https://t.co/GuzxAM0R
- Tue, 13:13: Trudy saw my new hair cut/color and said, "One thing I love about you is you've got guts, and spunk!" I didn't realize that's what it meant!
- Tue, 19:12: I'm proud of my state. North Carolina, on the other hand, makes me sad for my country. Only consolation: in the long run, they will lose.
Tags: twitter
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. .  -- MMCXV --Not much to say today. Busy busy busy. I rode my bike to work yesterday -- my first time commuting by bike in quite a while; I had almost biked to work the Friday before my Birth Week but that was the day I discovered it to have been damaged beyond ridability due to some asshole running into it with their car in my very own condo complex garage. I took the bike in to get fixed that evening and was able to pick it up the next day, and the whole thing cost less than $25, which shocked me. But then I was either too busy or the weather was uncooperative, so I didn't have a chance to ride it all last week. But! Yesterday was gorgeous by Seattle standards -- veering between partly and mostly sunny all day, with a high of 70°. Perfect biking weather, really. And since my bike's chain had also been knocked off, the bike shop fixed that too -- and obviously pumped up the tires for me. The bike was thus easier to ride yesterday than it has been in ages. I don't think I ever quite fill the tires up enough when I use the manual pump. I'm always paranoid about filling them too much until a tire pops (which actually did happen once). So, I got home at about 5:30, which gave me plenty of time to make myself a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich and eat it while watching Sunday night's episode of Harry's Law. It wasn't the show's strongest episode. It made me think of Barbara. I bet anything that if Barbara still lived here, and ever happened to be around while I was watching Harry's Law, it would have been during that episode. She always had a knack for being around during the weakest episodes of my favorite shows, making her wonder what the hell I saw in them. -- MMCXV -- -- MMCXV --But then I walked on down to the Egyptian Theatre to watch Monsieur Lazhar</i>, which I expected to be enjoyable but surprisingly turned out to be really good, bordering on excellent -- it got an A- from me, anyway. I liked it a lot. I also had a bag of popcorn. I totally did not need it, and I went back and forth about getting it. And then I got it. Because I cannot resist their White Cheddar Popcorn Seasoning/Crack! Even though it's ridiculously overpriced. I wonder what kind of profit they pull on that stuff? I did get a little lucky with that popcorn, though. Not just because the young man at the concessions counter was hhhhhot. He saw that the new popcorn was about to pop, and so he waited a minute so that I would get it fresh. It might have been the freshest popcorn I've ever had at a movie theatre -- popcorn served all but directly out of the popper. Damn, it was delicious. Obviously in the end I think it's worth the price; otherwise I wouldn't pay for it, would I? And besides, I was still down more than a pound this morning from yesterday. Probably mostly because, unlike with the popcorn, I successfully resisted the urge to stop at Old School Frozen Custard on my way back home. I walked home, and I wrote my movie review. I also tested a few of the audition videos Shobhit uploaded to his YouTube channel, which is mostly just audition videos. These new ones all had staticky audio and I can't figure out why. They play fine from their file locations on his computer. Most annoying. -- MMCXV --And that about sums it up, really. -- MMCXV -- . .
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