April 25, 2003 05:22 PM

So, yes, I've been feeling very Clarissa Dalloway lately, with my birthday party coming up. Lesson learned . . . e-vite is way cool, but not quite as effortless as I imagined. See, just 'cause you SEND the e-vite doesn't mean people will actually GET the e-vite. So you may think you've invited people when you really haven't.

So if you are reading this, you are definitely e-vited to my birthday party!! And if your personal e-vite never showed up in your inbox, just click here to tell me you're coming! (Or just to check out the vibe of the party-to-be!!)

Oh, yeah, tonight is also opening night of my show, which is another reason why I've probably seemed a little pre-occupied lately. And . . . if you're feeling all incense-and-crystals this weekend, you can find me at the New Living Expo in San Francisco most of the day Saturday . . . hangin' with my Psychic Posse.

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April 24, 2003 08:31 AM

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April 20, 2003 10:50 PM

This last week has been one of extreme movie bliss.

I just saw A Mighty Wind, and let me tell you . . . having been involved in show business pursuits that many would consider a little bit on the Velveeta (i.e. cheesy) side - can you say Christian pop? How about Show Choir? - and having a husband who actually once performed regularly at AstroWorld themepark, the folk musicians portrayed in this movie are not only ludicrously funny, they are also heartbreakingly and terrifyingly realistic in a way that I'm not sure the general public is equipped to understand. If you see this movie and you think it's one big joke, think again. These people exist.

I mean, I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say . . . the flower arrangement drama? Far stranger things happen in your average professional theater on a regular basis.

From the ridiculous to the sublime . . . I also saw Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke last week on DVD for the first time. Oh. My. God. My world has totally changed. What is there to say besides SEE THESE MOVIES and rediscover a part of yourself you lost long ago.

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April 17, 2003 06:11 PM

Hahahahaha.

You know what happened today?

My "to do" list disappeared.

I was asking for it, I guess. I was using a cheesy little freeware program that put a collapsable sticky note on my computer desktop. What can I say? It was easy, and it looked kind of cute.

My "to do" list is my number one sanity tool at work. (That and my little boom box.) Whenever anything pops up that I need to do, I just slap it onto my "to do" list, and then I don't have to keep it bouncing around in my brain, I don't have to have extraneous e-mails cluttering up my inbox, I don't have to keep files and papers on my desk to remind me of tasks that need to be done, and I don't have to worry about forgetting something.

It was a complex list . . . multiple categories, projects digested down to their individual steps and mapped out with time frames, indicators for whether it was something I needed to do or something I needed to follow up with someone else to do.

There were easily more than 150 tasks on my "to do" list as of yesterday.

And now it's gone.

Whatever file it was that stored the data on that goddamn sticky note was vaporized.

I am so screwed. I literally don't know what to do.

But I can't stop laughing. All of a sudden, I feel like I'm on this great amusement park ride, and I have NO CLUE what's around the next corner.

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April 15, 2003 05:35 PM

On another family note . . . a while back I shared with you a series of e-mails exchanged amongst my syblings. We had another one of these "conversations" recently. My youngest brother and my sister are graduating from different colleges in San Francisco at the end of May. Drama was already impending, because their graduations (and associated events) were sheduled for the same weekend. But then the unthinkable happened:

Catie: Tommy's graduation was moved to the same day and time as mine. You have to choose who you like better (or whether you want to sit in bleachers or in a Church).

Joe: I am open to any and all bribes including cash, jewelry (i.e. pinky rings) and real estate.

William Ted: I have an idea! We can boycott both graduations, you two can just get your diplomas in the mail, and we can all go out together and get drunk at a sleazy strip joint in North Beach.

Joe: Let's hire some look-alikes . . . better yet, let's get clones made of ourselves. After the graduations we can use the clones for spare parts.

Catie: I have a small fake graduation on Friday night for my department. If you flip a coin and have to go to Tommy's on Saturday you can still go to the little graduation for me on Friday, but I still want someone to come to mine on Saturday. Maybe the cousins? I think Mom should go to Tommy's on Saturday so that she can see the NICE graduation and be in the church.

William Ted: If Tommy's is the "NICE" graduation, then what's yours, Catie? The NAUGHTY graduation? The RUDE graduation? The SKANKY graduation? The GHETTO graduation? If so, I'll probably have to go to yours. It sounds more fun.

Maybe we should have a point-system. Make it like Weight Watchers or Deal-A-Meal or something. Mom is worth eight points. Brothers are worth four points each. Cousins and boyfriends / girlfriends of brothers are worth three points each. Catie gets one point for each person that goes to her Friday event. Then someone just does the math to make all the points work out evenly.

Or it can be like picking teams in grade school . . . Tommy and Catie can be the Captains, they flip a coin to see who picks first, and then THEY tell US which graduation to go to.

Jon: I think [family friend] should be worth at least .5 of a point, and if someone can somehow get [our former live-in housekeeper] to come to one of the graduations, that is worth 15 points.

Joe: Are there negative points? Like if [unnamed person] shows up is that -15?

[This spawned a side conversation about people who would be considered "negative points."]

Tommy: Can I get a Swiss au pair for 10 points? [We had several growing up.]

Due to the recent deaths at over-capacitated clubs making headlines, the school decided to split the ceremonies. I can not promise pyrotechnics, however a large banner with a crest on it depicting the silhouette of two squirrels drawing water from a well will be hung.

Admission will be denied without a ticket. I have eight tickets. If more than eight want to come, they will have to sneak through the sanctuary in altar boy robes. I will keep everyone posted.

Jon: That's it, I am not going . . . my policy is no "Great White", no graduation attendance by me. I have to say, I will consider it if "White Snake" or "White Lion" shows up . . . but if you try to come at me saying, "Hey Jon, I think Jackal is playing my graduation," it just wont fly. We all know it was not a hair band without a "white" in the name.

As with many family plans, this one is shady at best. I even think Catie mentioned a post party. But at this point I am expecting wrong directions, rain and power outages . . . so I will bring my coal miner's helmet and a military MRE (meal ready to eat) to whatever graduation ceremonies / graduation parties I go to.

[As of today, the issue of who is going to what graduation remains completely unresolved. What are your suggestions, Dear Readers?]

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April 12, 2003 07:48 PM

So I'm at my mom's (which is right on the shore of the San Francisco Bay) and it's been kind of rainy. And I look out, and the clouds are starting to clear, and there's a rainbow stretched out over the water.

I can't help but remember my dad's funeral. About three years ago, he died pretty suddenly. Right after New Year's, two five mile runs on consecutive days. No problem. The next weekend, he was in the hospital because he couldn't breathe. Six weeks later, he was dead of lung cancer.

He died pretty easily, all things considered. He basically just went to sleep in the chair at the doctor's office while he was receiving his second round of chemo. And then his heart stopped. He had been losing hair and weight from the chemo, but otherwise he seemed to be doing really well. He had driven himself to the doctor's office that day.

His funeral was on a rainy day a lot like today. Everyone's shoes got muddy at the gravesite. Afterwards, we came back here to the house.

My dad was an attorney, and one of his clients was the owner of a fleet of Alaskan fishing boats. My dad had become very close with this guy, because during their case together the fishing-boat owner had made it through a nearly fatal brush with prostate cancer.

He sent us a wreath for the funeral that was wrapped with blue and gold ribbon and flowers. To be honest, we initially thought it was kind of unattractive. But then we realized it wasn't a wreath . . . it was actually a circular life preserver. Seen in that light, it was perfect. And the note that came with it explained that we should throw it into the Bay in memory of my dad.

As the day wore on, the sorrow and fatigue and alcohol reached a level where someone finally said, "I think it's time to throw this thing in the water."

There's a levee that runs along the Bay, a raised bank that keeps the Bay from flooding the town, which is built on landfill below the water level. Along the top of the levee there's a bike path. And within moments, a mob of about fifty of us was marching down this path, looking for a good spot to throw the wreath from.

I wonder what the passing joggers thought?

The water was low in the Bay . . . which is quite shallow in some parts. Not too far from the house, we actually found a spur of land that had been revealed by the low tide which stretched a good thirty yards out into the water.

No thinking . . . shoes off. Socks off. Cuffs and sleeves rolled up. Barefoot people in funeral best running out into the water. The spur was narrow and still submerged by a few inches. It wasn't firm ground, but a shelf of sharp stones and shells formed by some odd pattern of currents. It scraped and tore our feet. But who noticed, who cared?

The wind wailed and the air still smelled of rain, and we were freezing with torn feet and ruining our clothes, but it was the only experience so far that was reaching through the numbness of the grief. We marched out of time, out of our lives, out of suburbia, and into some great, throbbing pagan festival. We were Romans at Saturnalia . . . Indians at the Ganges . . . ecstatic Jews being baptized in the river Jordan. The depression was giving way to anger and insanity, which in turn gave way to exhiliration.

We reached the end of the spur. One of my brothers had just had knee surgery. He had to be carried out. We waited for him. And then my biggest brother threw the life preserver as far out as he could. It caught a current, and we watched it float slowly away.

We watched it for a long time. We watched it as the tide rose. And then the trance began to fade, and we realized the water had risen a good four or five inches . . . was now up above our ankles. And the spur which would lead us back to dry land was becoming hard to see. We started to pick our way carefully back, the pain in our feet now more immediate, less ignorable. We made it to land, wandered back to the house, exhausted, bodies frozen, feet tortured. We took turns in the bathrooms washing the grime out of our lacerated heels, arches, and toes.

And then we saw the rainbow. Just like I see right now outside the window. A rainbow that was way too perfect to be real. A rainbow which, obviously, was just an optical illusion of sun shining through water droplets. But to that primal part of us that had sent us charging out into the water . . . it meant so much more.

I see the rainbow today and I think . . . "Hi, dad!"

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April 12, 2003 11:36 AM

A tiny moment . . .

I'm dogsitting at my mom's house. I'm hungry. I crave a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I find four kinds of jam in the fridge, but no peanut butter. I look everywhere . . . cupboards, drawers, pantry . . . no peanut butter.

I give up my craving, and settle instead for some beef & vegetable soup. As it's heating up, I turn and notice a big jar of peanut butter, sitting in plain sight in the middle of the kitchen counter.

Now, in the days when I was less aware of how the universe works, I would have been frustrated by this. I would have criticized myself for being so stupid as to not notice the peanut butter in the first place. And because I couldn't possibly waste the soup once it was prepared, I would have eaten it bitterly, constantly aware that I had been forced to settle for my second-string food choice due to an unhappy string of random events that proved the universe was ultimately out to get me. Guilt, self-denial, self-criticism, pessimism, paranoia, anger at the world and at my own incompetence . . . all over a jar of peanut butter.

As a psychic, though, I get to see what's REALLY going on. I get to see that my body really wanted the warm, savory soup at that moment to help it stay healthy, not the oily semi-sweetness of the PB&J. The original craving was not in my own best interests. I didn't find the peanut butter, because finding the peanut butter was not the best thing for me at that moment.

To take it a step further . . . I have absolutely no proof in my reality that the peanut butter was even there before I started heating the soup. I wanted peanut butter . . . there was no peanut butter . . . now there's peanut butter. I created what I wanted out of thin air. And now I'll have a tasty, satisfying PB&J second course to follow my soup.

I can't say which story is more "objectively real" (whatever that means). But the "creating peanut butter from thin air" story is a lot more fun than the "I'm a stupid blind idiot" story. Given the choice to make, why would I choose the unpleasant option?

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April 10, 2003 05:35 PM

Got this from my uncle in Oregon:

Anti-Terrorist Day, next Saturday...

As we all know, the Taliban considers it a sin for a man to see a naked woman who is not his wife. So, next Saturday at 2:00 PM Eastern time all American women are asked to walk out of their house completely naked to help weed out any neighborhood terrorists. Circling your block for one hour is recommended for this anti-terrorist effort.

All men are to position themselves in lawn chairs in front of their house to prove they are not Taliban, demonstrate that they think it's okay to see nude women other than their wife and to show support for all American women. And since the Taliban also does not approve of alcohol, a cold six-pack at your side is further proof of your anti-Taliban sentiment.

The American Government appreciates your efforts to root out terrorists and applauds your participation in this anti-terrorist activity.

God bless America!

IT IS YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO PASS THIS ON!

Reminds me a little bit of my favorite e-mail forward of all time . . .

With all the virus and scam warnings & false urban legends floating around, I usually just throw stuff like this in the garbage. But this one seems important enough to forward to all the women that I really care about.

Men, I thought I'd cc: you so you can pass this on to women who may be in danger and keep those you love safe.

WARNING !!!!!

If a man comes to your front door and says he is conducting a survey and asks you to show him your tits, DO NOT SHOW HIM YOUR TITS.

This is a scam and he is only trying to SEE YOUR TITS.

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April 6, 2003 12:26 AM

A few dates to put on your calendar . . .

I just started rehearsing for a Jerome Kern musical, "Roberta", which opens later this month at the Eureka Theater in San Francisco.

Our Special Guest Star - doesn't that sound so very "Love Boat"? - is the wonderful Kathryn Crosby. As in, wife of Bing. I get to serenade her, actually, in my role as an exiled Russian prince-turned-doorman.

Hot boys. Beautiful music. Polish scat singing. Me.

Something to satisfy everyone!!

And then . . . well . . . let's just say that there is a Birthday coming up . . . namely mine . . . and it looks like there will be a party involved. I'm worried, though . . . if I invite my theater friends, my psychic friends, and my blogging friends . . . well, I'm a little concerned that the world might just implode from the sheer magic of it all.

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April 3, 2003 11:32 PM

I loved Casey's subtly ironic April Fools frolic.

And of course, Min Jung, that naughty Jesuit fetishist, had everyone convinced her life was falling apart.

I didn't stage any April Fools jokes myself, but two struck close to home.

First, my husband called me, very excited, and said he'd gotten a new job.

In Australia.

He half-way got me. I told him I would have totally fallen for it . . . if he didn't make up stuff like that all the time. As he said, "It's April Fool's Day every day at our house!"

Usually, the made-up stuff is a little more obvious, though. Like when he says, "Honey?"

"What?"

"The Martians are here."

"Oh."

"They want to talk to you."

"Mmmm."

"Don't you want to talk to the Martians?"

"No."

"But they need to talk to you."

"Tell them to go to hell."

And then there's our fake dog. Every so often, my husband asks, "Where's the puppy? Honey, did you walk the puppy today? Does the puppy need to be fed?"

But of course, we have no puppy.

Lately, there's been a hamster as well. "Honey? I can't find the hamster. Do you know where the hamster is?"

What can I say? Things never get boring.

The second April Fools joke was the incredibly well-engineered "firing" of local DJ's Sarah and No Name from the Radio Alice morning show.

Back when I lived in the suburbs and drove to work, I listened to this morning show all the time. When my husband first heard them, he turned up his nose and said they were nothing but "dirty potty mouths." (I failed to see anything wrong with this.)

Now that he drives to work, he has become addicted to them. They're the only thing that can keep him awake on those mornings where he has to hit the road at 6:15am. So the day before April Fool's day, when Sarah and No Name disappeared after a long week of publicly criticizing their management, he called me, distraught. He totally fell for it, and was furious with "faceless conservative corporate radio management." He was ready to stage a revolution.

But of course, by the end of the April 1st show with the "replacement" DJ's, it was revealed that it was all an elaborately executed charade. Long Live Sarah and No Name!!

It's funny, all that time I listened to them, I never went to their website to see pictures of them . . .

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April 1, 2003 05:51 PM

I swear, my friend MsR is practically writing this blog for me. You may remember her . . . she's the one who told me about the Russian erotic knitting website which made my old website the #1 Google search result for "erotic knitting." (Well, OK, that's a lie. Chris is the #1 result for "erotic knitting." But she credits me for the link.)

Recently, MsR also sent me this link to a gay knitting blogger's demo photo of a pastel knit penis warmer. (Note my restraint in not commenting on the size of the demo.)

She was also the one who found Gothic Martha Stewart for me.

And now . . . an incredible duo of fabulous links . . .

First, this article on anus bleaching (reportedly the new craze of the Rich & Famous . . . and Lara Flynn Boyle).

And this coincidentally related picture:

Thanks MsR!!! You make my days bright!

Oh, and as a bonus, here's a (non-MsR) link to cheesy - but funny - computer joke graphics.

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