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I just got back from the dentist. I am slightly freakish in that I seriously enjoy my dental visits. I really wanted to ask about whitening my teeth, for even though there’s nothing really non-white about them, what if I wanted them REALLY white—but yesterday a whole ton of money was spent on my person, so I refrained.
Yesterday was really fun—I always feel completely superficial saying that.
I GOT LOTS OF THINGS YESTERDAY AND IT WAS FUN.
But it’s the truth, sometimes it is fun to get things.
Yesterday I went shopping for pants. For those who know me, it’s well known that about 1.5 years ago I suddenly discovered I was female. This led to the wardrobe makeover which is now referred to as, “OMG SKIRTS WEE!!1!”
I had no pants.
No. Pants.
It’s not a huge deal. I don’t like pants because they always tend to accentuate what skirts seem to mask. I have, I guess, an hour-glass figure. My hips are quite literally, slightly more than double the width of my waist. It is IMPOSSIBLE to find pants to get over my hips, which fit my waist. I don’t even know if tailoring would be an option, because if I make them fit my waist, I’ll never get them over my hips! Let’s not mention, either, I have some sort of stubby leg or something syndrome, because I always end up with Fred Murtz pants (aka pants up to your breasties) or knee-crotch (pant crotch at your knees). In addition, I just watched “The Devil Wears Prada” and stupid as it might be all I could think about was how Ann Hathaway and her size 6 was considered the fat girl and how I would sit there and ponder which would be better 8 or 10 for my hips. I realize, it was supposed to be a joke within the film, but still. Ann was a good role model and whittled her massive frame down to a 4 so all little girls could realize, even if you’re not really fat as a size 6, you’ll be SO MUCH PRETTIER if you can shrink a size or two down.
THANKS FOR THE NORMAL GIRL REPRESENT, ANN.
Diatribe.
Anyhow, I eventually found two pairs of pants. I really like them and they are a low cut, which I have never experienced. The STILL have that gap at the back and I’m constantly pulling at it. Seriously, is there anything to fix this problem?
My mom and dad also got me my first belt. It’s this awesome brown leather one with silver studs.
Coupled with my awesome pants, I found a nice WWIIish dress and two pairs of shoes! Ballet slippers, brown and red. I can finally pretend to be Dorothy Gale once again!
I can’t believe I got to replace or finally purchase every item of clothing I have desperately needed or wanted for the past year. I can’t TELL you how pretty cool it is to own pants again, even if there is a gap at the back still.
Christmas was much fun this year. I think I had the most fun giving my dad his gift: a new iPod shuffle which we had engraved to read: WE LOVE YOU, DAD! He really, really liked it! He spends all the time on the computer now downloading from iTunes and making sure the iPod is charged. He was super, super excited about the engraving.
After the gift openage, we went over to the home of friends of the family’s for a Christmas lunch deal. That was a kick in the head. It’s all my dad’s coworkers, but they all have babies now and I LOVE those kids. I know I’ve written about them before—one is a little girl, 5. Her dad is this big DUDE, her mom is a tomboy and she has a little brother and SHE is the biggest GIRLY GIRL alive. Her parents claim they have no idea where she came from.
For the luncheon, they were trying to get her dressed and out the door. They told her she could wear her sweats because everyone was going just to be comfortable and she told them, “I DON’T WANT TO BE COMFORTABLE, I WANT TO LOOK CUTE.”
5, guys.
At the party, she was showing all of us her new Fisher-Price camera which she kept in a case with her lip gloss. My mom found an old bottle of perfume and gave it to her. She was so excited she lifted it to her mom and said, LOOK MOM, PERFUME. FOR ME!
She cracks me up. She always runs and gives me a giant hug.
Her other friend is a little boy who turned 6 on Christmas Eve. This was kind of his bday party. The little girl’s baby brother (not quite a year old yet) loved this older boy. The old one would take a ball bounce it on his own head, then wiggle around and pretend to fall. The baby thought this was so hilarious he would laugh and laugh and laugh until he was so red in the face I thought his cheeks would burst. Eventually the baby was laughing so hard, he couldn’t even stay standing.
My sister brought her boyfriend. I don’t know how he tolerates these things. He’s survived more of my family’s outings—
Oh. That reminds me. I never talked about a few things last entry.
Thanksgiving
(More importantly) THE DINNER PARTY.
Memo to self there.
After the friends’ house, we went over to my aunt’s where we capped the evening. It was really fun.
I think the best, best part of the day for me was right before going to lunch. My phone rang, which never happens and I ran to grab it. It had some huge long number which I couldn’t figure out—
ME: San Francisco?
I picked it up.
SOAF: Hi! Happy Christmas.
My knees just gave out on the stairs! I was so surprised. I couldn’t believe So. Africa would call from, well. South Africa! I’ve never talked to someone from so far away before on the phone. It was really nice and seriously had to have cost 65 million dollars. It was very fun and I told him all about every stupid thing I had done and American’s Next Top Model and he laughed and laughed which made me happy.
So it was a very good holiday I should say, INDEEDLES.
suddenly i was @ 11:57 am
(no feathers)
wednesday, december 20, 2006
Riddle me this, for it can’t be normal. WTF Solar body is moving to align the stars for this week:
Sayyes comes in town.
Raedances comes in town. (Same day mind you)
I have a hike.
My phone dies.
My car dies.
David Lynch is coming to my school.
I go to the Observatory
And Britney finally cuts lose K-Fed. Finally, finally, I can put my K-Fedex joke to work!
Oh today was a good day.
Yesterday was a bit tough. It was my teacher’s memorial. It was more just a gathering of his past and present student. We all sat around and told stories about it. I didn’t think it would be so bad—for as I told you here, I didn’t have close personal ties to him, but it was really upsetting.
People told wonderful stories—my mentor (the Walk the Line writer) had a wonderful little talk, for it made everyone laugh. We talked about the teachers unique blend of darkness and optimism. My mentor said, you could give him the most domestic, bland piece of fluff and he would have said, “where’s the darkness? Where’s the rape and incest?” And turned the whole thing on its head.
Another student stood up and used a famous quote of his. It was about writing, even if you think it is bad, “make your shit taste like icecream.”
Another teacher got up and told a story about when Len at University of Iowa. He was at the school with Kurt Vonnegut—both part of a writing program. The campus was laid out as such, for the writers there were two buildings atop a hill. One for poetry, one for fiction. Len said the two would sit at the bottom of the stairs and watch all the students come up and together he and Vonnegut would try to pick the poets from the fiction writers. Vonnegut told him it was easy, “the poets are butterflies, not long for this Earth. The fiction writers are wounded bears.” The teacher went on to say he always thought of Len as a wounded bear and never knew he was actually one of the butterflies… someone who wouldn’t be here long.
It was pretty amazing to see all the students touched by his teaching. He gave himself completely over to students. Honestly, I can’t think of anything more noble. Someone else was saying the thing about teaching… it’s a profession of complete giving.
One student came up to the stage in tears and said, after the death of her mother, Len’s death was the one she would most mourn.
By the end, I was so moved by everyone, I was about to burst into tears. I tried to make a bee-line and escape, but So. Africa wouldn’t let me go. He patted my shoulder and stood by me and I kept it all down. I was glad in the end, I stood around and got to talk to people. I heard Adventure’s story about asking out Kirsten Dunst (ask if you want details). When it came time to go though, So. Africa was giving me a ride home because my car was still in the shop. I got into his car and all the tear came out and I cried and cried. Not because, necessarily, I was missing the person who was gone—but because of that great swell of sadness around me and the gaping huge hole they all felt. It hurt so much and I felt bad for crying. The teacher was So. Africa’s, not even mine and yet there I was crying!
It felt good to cry though and I ended up feeling much better.
Today, was a different story. The L.A. Observatory just opening up. Let’s see if I can get a link for ye.
HA. I started this entry well over a week ago.
NOW. I am sitting in an airport preparing to fly home. I apologize for the huge lack in writing these days. I’m just very, very busy… writing. It’s lame to write about writing. I will continue with my updates of COOLNESS though.
Where was I?
Oh! The Observatory! Well, I can’t get a link for you now because I am without weebles,
A week a so after the opening, Shades came up to me and told me about some deal the Observatory had going, where you could only get in by reservation if you wanted to take their shuttle service. See, for reasons unknown, the Observatory closed off all roads going up to its premises, so you could only get their via their shuttle. But, if you wanted to HIKE up, you could go without a reservation.
SCREAM.
So Shades asked if I would be interested. I said, HECK YES. And this was all I heard of the matter, until a few days later, Shades let me know he got our free tickets, saying we were hiking. It was then I found out, none of the other hikers were going! Instead, there were four tickets one for me, Shades and then his two comic buddies. You may remember a while back I went to a stand up show? Same guys. I was scared to go with people I had never met before, but it ended up being all right! They were all super, super nice. Shades, in all his hilarity, is a little bit of the middle man of that trio of comics. His one pal, Moses is a goof, all over the place and possibly A.D.D., whereas his other pal, Carboni was a bit wry and preoccupied. As I said though, AWESOME people.
We hiked up the way and ran into some woman who informed us, when we asked if we were going the right way, that yes we were going the right way, but just know they don’t serve beer—though they do have some reasonable wine. Sad news, since we were only hiking to get a beer at the 93 Billion Dollar Restored Observatory. In the middle of the day. When we have to hike back. And drive home.
When we finally got to the observatory, it was great. Wait, no, at first it was totally embarrassing. Somehow, I misunderstood and didn’t realize ADMITTANCE cost—we just had the free reservation! So of course, like a moron, I had left all my money in the car. I thought we were just hiking! I was so embarrassed but both Shades and Moses offered to spot me—then Shades did! KIND!
Inside, was fun.
OMG it’s December. I started this entry in November!
Inside was fun, in an elementary school way. You could do such things as measure your weight on Pluto or, watch time-lapse photographs of the surface of the sun. Moses would walk up to every time-lapse animation and say, “is this really is what really is happening?” or “is this real time?” and everytime Shades would answer, “No.” or eventually: “What don’t you get about the phrase ‘time-lapse!’”
We would go up to all the displays and press all the buttons at once. Moses would usually run up and hit everything and say, “It’s not working!” until Shades stepped up and said, “I think you have to hold it…” and would proceed to make it work. Sometimes Shades and I would get separated from the other two, who would finally run up to show us a cellphone picture of what looked like them giving a statue resembling Einstein a blow job. HOT. I laughed. And here, Shades and I had just pretended to pick his nose.
W R teh innocentz.
Oh my god, then we went to the dome-cinema screening. Have you guys been to such a thing before? It’s a huge room with a dome ceiling and all the chairs are tilted so you are lying completely back. The effect is you feel like you are in space or whatever.
Well we go to this “Birth of the Cosmos” type of show. Moses was out cold snoring the second Mesopotamia came up. There was a woman speaker who narrated all the screen images. She literally looked like Emma Thompson in Harry Potter and was so over the top in speaking. It was like bad Shakespeare acting.
At the end, she rose up, and walked towards the audience holding a glowing sphere. (read with faux English accent please) “And remember, we are all made of stardust; so when we go exploring the cosmos, we are not venturing into the great unknown—we are going home!”
(raises glowing sphere, music swells)
ME (to Shades): Please use the door marked ‘exit’ to board the mothership.
Afterwards, Moses was traumatized he had slept through the whole thing:
MOSES: Did they show Egypt?
SHADES: Yep.
MOSES: Crap. Did they show the Russians?
SHADES: Yep.
MOSES: The 60’s?
SHADES: Yes, they showed it all. What’s that one guy you like?
MOSES: Some Name?
SHADES: Yeah, he came out and did a musical number.
MOSES: Man.
After the screening, we essentially left and made the descent down. While we were thundering along the dirt path, I saw something in the way and stepped over it, thinking it was a twig. Then someone else did the same, but they yelled out, “Hey!” We all looked back.
The thing I had stepped over?
A BABY RATTLESNAKE.
Teeny, tiny. Probably about six inches long with two little rattles on its tail.
We stood over and watched it, when out of no where English Editor from school cropped up with his visiting English friend. We all stood about and took photos.
AWESOME.
This was the week of “fun elementary school times!” That very next day, Raedances of LJ was in my home and our first order of business?
THE ZOO.
We went, it wasn’t nearly the age-long epic Adventure and I endured, but rather a quiet jaunt. I took my sketchbook and for the first time in AGES drew something. I am so out of practice it’s a joke. After giggling through the zoo, we went to something pretty special—so I think. David Lych came to visit our school. So we ventured over to his lecture.
Lynch is an interesting guy. He’s so amazingly sweet in person, it’s ridiculous. You’d think he’d be all aloof and intellectual, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. He talked about all sorts of things. He told funny stories about when he went to AFI. How when they weren’t going to let him make Eraserhead, he threatened to quit until the Walk the Line Writer went in and bawled out their principal at the time.
The funny thing about Lynch, when he talks, he always had one hand raised up with the fingers wiggling. Raedances surmised there was actually a creature in his hand which controlled his mind, so when Lynch spoke, it wasn’t Lynch the man, but Lynch the Hand-Dwelling Dream Creature.
The next night we went to dinner with So. Union, Soaf and Glinda. I was so happy to be able to show off these people. We had much fun, at least I hope. For I love all those people. Glinda was still star-struck by Lynch. She was on Cloud 9 because she got to ask a question. After dinner ended, I gave Soaf a ride to his car with Raedances and he gave me a kiss! Right in front of Raedances! I was caught off guard and you bet your booties Raedances and I giggled about it all the way home, where we were set to watch Silent Hill and American Tail.
SWEET JESUS. So much has happened in two months!
Speaking of So. Union and Soaf, we all went to see Borat together. That was good times. We went to see it at the Chinese theatre- the one with all the footprints. I love Hollywood at night. With all the lights and overblown huge structures… that’s what the Hollywood of my imagination looks like. We were there early so we wandered up and down… looking at all the crazy people, the Oxygen bars. So. Union told us his quintessential Hollywood story. How he was staying at the Hollywood Best Western and the first thing he saw when he left the building was a tiny man dressed up as Yoda, but he had his Yoda head off, and was smoking a cigarette.
Only in L.A.
After the movie, we all went to dinner. So. Union went on and on about being speechless about the film. Amazing because nothing leave him speechless!
Then we started talking about elementary school gym. So. Union was telling us, remember he actually spent his early childhood IN the Soviet Union, about how in his school for gym they would do these gas mask exercises and all the little kids had to put gas masks on. So. Union was terrified of putting the mask on, convinced somehow the gas was INSIDE the mask. So he ran away and hid in the volley ball netting. When he got home, his mother had heard about it. She was big on making him face his fears, so she borrowed a gas mask from a neighbor and made him wear it in the living room.
Soaf, So. Af., told some of the stories I have already told here. How he and his friend were the only two “of colour” children at his school. He did go on, however, to talk about how his family received flack for it on both sides. The one obviously, but the rest of the “coloured” community was angry saying why would his parents let the people they were all fighting against teach their son?
As So. Af. then put it: “SO I COULD READ.”
Needless to say, I was embarrassed to just say the only thing we did in gym was play with a giant colourful parachute and when it was your turn, you were picked to go in the middle while it was lifted high into the air and lowered over you.
There were also some good stories about sexual education.
ME: I don’t remember anything. I was just traumatized for an hour and then they gave out rice crispy treats.
(So. Union looks to So. Af., I pity So. Af. knowing I just put on display what he must deal with).
So. Union’s stories, as they always are, were funny. He told us his dad had invented a fail-safe way to get you to stop answering questions. You would ask one, e.g. Where do babies come from? – and he would begin to answer in the most boring, minute, scientific detail possible. If you became confused and asked another question, e.g. Wait, there’s an egg? – he would start all over. From the top. Until eventually you became too bored and gave up and left with no real answers.
So. Union said he really learned what sex was from a boy in Italy. When his family escaped from the USSR (his father was a political prisoner), first they had to bounce around Europe before they could emigrate to the States, so for a while, they lived in Italy. There, So. Union met a boy whose father worked in a condom factory (his childhood is like a Roald Dahl book or something). That boy knew exactly how sex worked and told So. Union. So. Union didn’t believe it.
And here’s the kicker: he convinced the Italian boy he was wrong.
So that was Borat.
So. Union also in November, for no reason, bought me a ticket for a musical called “Light of the Piazza.” It was SO nice. I wish I had been able to go with someone. There was only one ticket. It was down by the L.A. Opera house and the Disney Concert Hall.
It was so, so pretty.
I was afraid of getting lost, so I left about three hours early when I only live about 17 minutes away. So I had plenty of time to wander. It’s an oasis in down town L.A.
All the lights were up, the fountain was going. There was a huge out door restaurant and the grill sent huge billows of smoke up into the sky which smelt mm-hmm, so tasty.
I called So. Af. on the phone and described to him what I saw, then I went and bought myself a sandwich, so I could sit outside and just watch it all from my quiet little corner.
What else?
I attended the official memorial of the teacher who died. This time people like his brother, Paul Schrader, came and spoke. It was really moving. Len did a lot of work in Japan and one guy was the producer of the first film he made there. He told this great story with a wonderful thick Japanese accent.
Years later, after the first film, this Japanese Producer was sent to Los Angeles to learn about the Hollywood-way. He was young and foolish, so he boarded off his plane onto the streets of Hollywood with only a suitcase filled with 30,000 dollars. He found his way over to a payphone in the Denny’s on Sunset (omg, have SO eaten there) and called Len, since he was the only person he knew in the states. All he wanted to know was where a hotel was, but Len told him—WAIT. RIGHT. THERE.
When Len showed up, it was obvious he hadn’t understood a word on the phone. – But he took the Japanese Producer to his home, where he was to stay 3 weeks. It ended up being three months. The two would sit around, with Len’s wife as a translator (she’s Japanese) and talk about everything. Len teaching the Japanese Producer English.
He ended his tale with a little anecdote. After his stay with Len, the Japanese Producer finally had a little apt set up and he needed a phone. So Len went with him to the phone company to get one hooked up. They waited in line together, until it was the Japanese Producer’s turn. It was then Len told him, “go on.” Meaning, the Japanese Producer was to go by himself.
He was terrified! But he went up and just said, “I want a phone.” He then looked back to Len to see if it was a stupid thing to say. Len just waved his hand, “go on, go on.” The Japanese Producer then said he went on. He couldn’t remember what he said, but at the end, he and Len walked out and he had a phone.
The point being, Len was a teacher by occupation and in life.
His brother, famously the author of Taxi Driver, made the same point. He said when they were young their father was “harsh” on them. He had wanted to be a minister, but for some reason never did. So he wanted his boys to follow that path. He had a room made in the basement, filled with religious studies and Bibles and they would have to go down there to study. When their father was “harsh” with Len, he would be in that room with his brother and would teach him how to avoid getting in trouble like he did, or would tell him about all the other great books there were to read. His younger brother always looked up to him as a teacher.
Later on in life, when Paul had had his great success and was trying to help Len with writing he thought they had switched places. He was now the teacher. – But he said, he realized now, it wasn’t true. He never was, he was always learning from his brother.
Paul was saddened because in recent years, sibling rivalry had come between them and though they talked, they were never as close as they once were in that little ministry room in the basement. He assumed, they both thought they had more time, but they didn’t.
It was profoundly moving and just such evidence as life is too short to be angry at the people who are most important to you.
I hope these stories aren’t boring, they were very interesting for me.
As I mentioned up top, school has been very, very difficult this year. More than it ever has been for me. I was so busy and pulled so thin, everything suffered. I did, however, finish my script and I think I have won some favor with the Dominatrix, for she emails me and talks with me after class.
I have such turrets in that class. I always belt jokes out without thinking if they are proper or not.
For example, last class, we were critiquing everyone’s final pages. One person finished and I said, “I am going to have to give you one of these.” I then did the slow, solo clap you see in movies. That got a laugh. Later, we had gone over my ideas for next year—basically I haven’t chosen a story. We then started critiquing someone else and she was talking about the excessive violence of his last pages.
DOM: Now, if you want a riot of carnage—
ME: (GASPS).
(silence)
ME: I know what the name of my next feature is.
I think it took the Dom. so off-guard she just sat there laughing for a whole minute.
But finishing my feature was hard… it was just so weird. I felt NOTHING when it was finished. Any creative person knows usually after you finish a HUGE project there is this amazing sense of release. I usually cry and cry when it’s over because I feel like I have lost a good friend.
Nothing this time.
I finished and it was like: ok, when’s the next Next Top Model on?
Awful.
I hope next year’s is better.
Speaking of NASTY situations.
Thesis.
I don’t even think I want to talk about it because it makes me so, so, so, so cross. I’ll give a quick summary though and try not to beleaguer it. Basically, after months of reworking. I mean, 6 hour meetings and three different drafts in just as many days, Glinda had a creative melt down. The story had gone through the AFI machine. AFI is good for many things, but it DOES NOT encourage artistic films. It’s a Hollywood school. I have heard many times, thesis projects kind of suffer from the too many chefs in the kitchen complex. Everyone gives their opinion. Over and over and the stories get flattened out.
This is what happened with ours… it wasn’t bad by any means, but it was much more a little Hollywood package. Glinda, because of this and other personal things, just broke down. Said she couldn’t connect.
So there was this HUGE hullabaloo. Committee meetings, this and that. The DEAN. Walk the Line Writer in our corner. And our production got pushed into February.
This never happens, so it was a big deal.
After this happened, our team was at a lost. We thought we had been helping her, but since we weren’t we didn’t know what to do. We told her to go off and decide what story she wanted to tell, because only she could decide. Once she had, we would support her and go from there.
WELL.
She holed up and soul-searched and with Walk the Line’s encouragement, wrote an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT STORY.
Nothing, friends. Nothing is the same.
Different title, no good girl thinking she’s dying, not a comedy, no Little Women. Basically the ONLY thing which is the same is the little girl’s name is Beth.
Basically it’s a triptych vignette story in the vein of “Nine Lives.” Three moments in this girl’s life, but with no real overlaying theme. It’s more just a comment on “little moments make our lives.” It’s heavily dramatic in the way our Acting Teacher loves. IE People talking about pancakes where the subtext is I want to kill you. Or for an example from this, the mother stops being a mother and somewhere an ornament falls off a Christmas tree and shatters.
I sound bitter because I am, but the work is actually lovely. Maybe as a new project I would be gun-ho to participate, but as is it’s the type of art film I least, least enjoy. My least favourite subject matter: sensitive child is not understood by her parent. And heavily dramatic. If I read this blurb in a magazine for Sundance, I wouldn’t go see this film.
I am pretty sure my producer feels the same way. But of course, since AFI creams its shorts in the presence of any director and no one else exists, when my Producer says, “I don’t connect with this” he’s told to suck it up and make it work, whereas when my Director says it, the world stops and she’s allowed to write her very own story even though it’s SO BLATANTLY against the rules.
Why was there even a green-lighting process?
Well, I read it. It was nice or whatever, but I was kind of mortally offended it had been written in script format. I know why she had to, kind of and I know no one else but I writer could understand, but once it’s WRITTEN like that… that’s all I have. Anything else I do now, I am a rewriter.
I DIDN’T RAISE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FROM MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY FOR SOMETHING I WAS REWRITING.
It was also completely insulting to just sit there and listen to him pontificate on the new scripts brilliance. “This is Magnificent” “This is the best thing I have read in 10 years” “Not like anything else here.”
THAT’S BECAUSE IT’S DRUMMED OUT OF US BY THE SCHOOL, IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED.
He did make sure to take a moment for me, “Don’t worry, she never would have got her if it wasn’t for your help.”
Thanks. Thanks. But again, I didn’t raise thousands of dollars from friends and family to help someone else reach artistic nirvana. What a bastard.
Anyhow, to not go on. We ended up having another group meeting where I sobbed in front of everyone in my semester’s low point. You spend a year feeling worthless and mediocre with your work, then to have this part of it all thrown out for something “magnificent” – it feels justified. You are as talentless as you thought.
Whatever.
Glinda told Walk the Line our issues. She’s a pet-student of his, so I really don’t think he cares. His answer was to push forward and shoot the storyboards. Basically saying: we’re doing this script.
My team says I will still get screenwriter credit, but I don’t want it. Not even an INT. or EXT. notation was written by me. I don’t want to be a writer in name only. But what a terrific waste of time. Everyone says, “it’s not a waste of time” but tell that to my endless sleepless nights, meeting hours AND MY WORK which suffered and suffered and fell short all year because of this project.
So yeah.
Pissed.
AFI can go suck itself, I am sick of the institution.
Side note: because I am fat-assed lard now because the days are so short and all I do is work, my sister’s obsessive exercise REALLY pisses me off.
What else?
Aw, let’s talk about Sebastian because he is cute.
Sebastian’s most awesome new trick is as follows: he learned to jump on top of the refrigerator, a feat in and of itself, then open up the LATCHED cupboard ABOVE the fridge and pull out his bag of food which weighs more than he does and drop it to the floor.
By the time I got into the room, he was pulling out his treats.
As I told him: At first I thought you were medium smart, but now I think you’re brilliant!
Sebastian is currently living with Jigglykat’s family. I hope he is being good and they are enjoying him as much as I do when he’s cute. The first night there, I slept over. He kept escaping where they wanted to keep him and finally he crawled under the covers to sleep with me. It was so cute, I couldn’t put him back.
One room to him means time out anyhow!
God, getting out of L.A. was tough with all those animals. Sebastian, as I mentioned, went to live with the Californian contingency of my family and Napoleon the fancy guppy went to live with Rich Uncle Shades.
That was fun. Shades offered to fish sit Napoleon, he also offered to come pick him up (for he was going to stay in Shades’ apt). Shades has helped me so many times this year, I wanted to get him a thank-you gift. I remembered one hike a million years ago, he told a story about some shaving cream his mother gave him. It was really, really nice, but when he went to replace it—he found out it was 30 bucks a can! And so, couldn’t get anymore.
All I remembered was the store sounded like Octane and the flavor was Juniper and it was all supposed to be at the Grove. I went there. The place ended up being L’Occitane and the cream was made from cade—Juniper seeds.
I also wanted to get my spare key for Shades, in case he left for a road trip before I came back into town. Glinda had it, so I called her up to come before Shades arrived to get Napoleon.
They both arrived at the same time and luckily I also had a gift for Glinda! I am cross after my situation, true, but like I mentioned above: life is too short.
Shades was really, really surprised. He looked into the bag and then said, HOLY CRAP. It’s the expensive shaving cream!
And it made glad to give those presents.
Speaking of presents—AND THIS IS THE LAST TALE OF THIS ENTRY.
A while ago, I got a present for So. Af. This was before I realized I couldn’t make rent for January (note to friends reading this: sadly, my gifts to you will have to come in 2007!). It was the big anthology of Sandman comics. We saw it in the store ages ago—it runs for about 100 dollars, so he couldn’t get it because it was too expensive.
I really wanted to get it for him, but that was also too expensive for me.
ENTER THE INTRAWEEBS.
Thanks to the internet, I was able to find it for much, much less to give to him.
I called him up, on my last day in town and asked if he would come hang out with me and Sebastian as I was trying to maximize my kitten time. I told him I would be busy, so he could just watch TV and he said, “All right.”
Being the moron that I am, I then hid his gift in the drawer where the TV remote lives. He came over – but GASP. With his laptop.
HIM: I think I will do some work instead of watching TV.
ME: Um, can’t you just turn it on for me to listen to or SOMETHING?
Finally, after literally 20 minutes of totally OBVIOUS prodding, he finally gets into the drawer.
You should have heard his surprised. He sat down and began to open his gift, the second he saw the cover he looked at me, “You didn’t.” He opened it all the way, “You shouldn’t have spent this on me!”
He was so moved, he broke out into a sweat all along his brow and I swear he was going to cry.
ME: Look, you have sweat!
HIM: Well, you surprised me!
He was so happy, I was so happy. He said it was the best gift he had ever been given and no one had given him anything like it before. He opened the book and said it was beautiful and couldn’t stop looking at me and being sweet.
Afterward, we were going to eat dinner at his house, so we went over there and he had a gift for me!
This time I was shaking and was excited. He said he wanted to give me something I could wear to remind me of him while he was away and also something to remind me how pretty I am (!?). I opened the box and inside was a velvet bag. I opened that and inside was a silver locket!
I looked closer.
It wasn’t just a silver locket, but one with a pearl lid! The pearl was so pretty, it had a sheen like silver, but when it catches the light it gets a hint of rainbow.
Normally I don’t like anything bigger than my pinkie around my neck, but this was so quantifiably So. Af., I love it.
When I got home, I went to work and put his baby picture inside. I promised to wear it every day while he’s gone and I have. I like to hold it and pretend I’m Arwen. Ha.
But I am very thankful he is in my life and my friends are in my life. I am also SO thankful I could finally write all this done and it’s not lost forever!
Happy Holidays!
suddenly i was @ 09:25 pm
(no feathers)