1.13.99

    Put on a pot of coffee. French Vanilla.

    Go to the bathroom. Spend a moment in the mirror examining a pimple. Leave it alone.

    Pick out some music. Damn — all the good stuff's in the car. What's this? Nina Simone. Will have to try it out. Sounds good.

    Tap. Tap. Tap.

    Where is that muse?

    I've been busy. So very busy. T.'s sister came in from out of town and she just left this morning. We did all sorts of fun stuff but it kept me very busy doing the entertainment thing. Exhausting, really. I've been keeping notes since last Wednesday but haven't had the time to write. Everybody has been on my computer and when we haven't been out it's been bedtime.

    Feeling a little inspiration come on. We'll see if it lasts through the entry.

Thursday

    One of the things that T. and I have been wanting to do since we got here is go to a taping of a show. How can you not when you're living in Los Angeles?

    I got tickets for us to see The Price is Right but they were taping so early that I couldn't go (had to walk those dogs). When I got home, however, they were here and I was informed that we'd all be going to see Politically Incorrect. Apparently, people started lining up for Price at 5 a.m. and T. and Stephanie showed at around 9:30. Too bad as I was hoping to come home and find a "Brand New Car!" waiting at the curb or at least a "Top of the Line Dinette Set!" in the cupboards. Maybe some denture creme?

    In consolation they were offered tickets to either the Roseanne Show or Loveline. They chose Loveline and Steph even got to ask a question. However, they both insisted that the experience made them feel "dirty and used." Steph should be writing this up in her own travel journal so I'll link to it when she does.

    We met a really cute couple out in the cattle line-up who were visiting L.A. We gave them all sorts of neat ideas for places to go and things to do with the rest of their week. I'm almost feeling like a native.

    We were seated in the very back row of the studio audience. There were to be two tapings, one for that night and one for Friday night. (We've already seen both -- there was only the barest moment where we were on camera and you wouldn't know us unless you are us because we were right under the spotlight.) The first round of guests was Sherry Lawrence and, uh, some guy who is a newscaster at Fox and, oh, you know, that guy who always plays cowboys and then some "citizen" panelist — a blondie from Jersey.

    The most amusing thing about the blondie is that she was obviously chosen not just for college-student smarts but because she was cute. She got the most camera time and said the fewest things.

    Bill Maher looked really strange. To see him in person was just so odd. He is, like every other man in showbiz, very short. What is it that all the guys are these tiny things? Except for Tim Robbins (meow) and Rupert Everett (double meow) I can't think of a single very tall man in the movies.

    Scattered around the studio were various television sets so that we could see the guests up close. The contrast between what we could see with our eyes and what we saw on the TV was somewhat startling. The set looked very constructed and small. On TV it looks less fake, seamless and large. The guests were, of course, overly makeupped. Bill looked incredibly orange. In fact, the tone of his skin and his overall stature reminded me of Oompa Loompas.

    During the commercial breaks and between tapings a fairly bad comic came out and entertained us. I got so sick of clapping. They gave us all a single, miniature Recees Peanut Butter Cup in order to up our energy. It's hard to cheer when you're dry throat is attempting to work up enough saliva to deal with a little lump of peanut butter. If our bodies could speak they would ridicule us.

    The second taping was a tribute to the Grammys or some such nonsense. Guests were Debbie Harry from Blondie, Coolio, Dick Clark and Mark McGrath from Sugar Ray. It was much better than the first one and Dick Clark was so amusing and so very nice.

    By the end of it all we were pretty exhausted. All the clapping done wore us out.

Friday

    Did the dog-walking thing in the morning. Steph was supposed to come with me but she was too sleepy. *ahem*

    When I got back I took her over to Melrose. You have to do Melrose. Besides, she's 20 so we really had to go shopping on Melrose. I've now been shopping on Melrose three times in my life. I don't think I need to go again.

    For one thing, everything is almost all the same. There are a few vintage shops which are kind of fun to poke around in. I loved watching all the guys combing the racks for the special something to wear dancing. I assume dancing because that's pretty much where the vintage stores are at this point. Of course, there's your basic "dress up" crowd but there was so much stuff there that just begs to be worn out Swing or Salsa dancing. But, seeing the boys holding bowling shirts up to their chests and twisting in front of the mirror was too cute. They weren't all gay either.

    Steph found an adorable workshirt. It's the most hideous shade of green and has "Cheryl" stitched in cursive on the front. The back says something like "Gresham Electric" on it. We're thinking it could possibly be Gresham, Oregon, so that's cool. She also bought some overalls. They were both steals. I think the overalls were twenty and the Cheryl shirt was $6. Can't beat that with the kitsch stick.

    I didn't buy much. I bought some ridiculous sex stuff for the upcoming bachelorette of my friend, Sonia, and two wind-up walking toys. I have a few wind-ups on my desk: a walking nose (from Nikolai Gogol's The Nose), a waddling goose, a hopping skull from Halloween and two dinosaurs. I bought chattering teeth and happy feet. No collection is complete without chattering teeth, I say.

    If I had had all the money in the world to blow I would have bought some flaming, Doc Marten Mary Janes. They were so cute. I just loved the idea of kicking up my feet next time we go out swing dancing with flames. They were $150. I have about five pairs of Doc Marten's. I bought them all when I lived in England and they were so very cheap. I just can't bring myself to pay three times the amount they were overseas. Plus they're really not cool anymore. But...flames! *sigh*

    We sang Aretha Franklin's greatest hits to and from Melrose and pondered how amazing she is. You can be in the lowest of lows and there's Aretha. You can be on top of a cloud and there's Aretha. But you cannot, no matter how hard you try, be still in the dumps after singing Respect.

    For dinner we went to Inn-n-Out burger which was scrumptious as always. I swear they put crack in their special sauce. Must be what gives it the zing.

Saturday

    I woke up early so that I could have some face time with my computer. I could tell it missed me because it crashed about eight times on startup. I think it doesn't like my Wacom pen tablet. Every time it starts up it tells me that I don't have a mouse connected. There's a checkbox for "don't show this message again" but nothing on my keyboard will let me check it so I just hit enter and it continues on. However, sometimes that little message doesn't pop up which means that it recognizes nothing and I have to restart. Sometimes it freaks when I try to use my pen tablet and I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL and reboot or cold cock it upside the RAM.

    Something *is* wrong with my computer and I'm a fool not to have Norton Anti-Virus on it. Thinking about whatever might be ailing my computer is giving me the heebie jeebies.

    But, I digress.

    After I played, Steph and I went over to watch T. play flag football with his company. It was editorial against the mailroom. We didn't stay around to watch the whole game but apparently mailroom kicked the flabby, white butts of editorial. Actually, the people playing for editorial looked pretty good. I don't know why they lost.

    We bailed on the team to head for Venice beach. The day was just beautiful. Warm, blue skies, a breeze — perfect for people-watching at the beach.

    So, we wandered around Venice and we both took a lot of photos. I'm hoping to get a few more photos up and around these here stories. I still need to get a scanner though.

    One of the funniest thing was this comedy duo that we stopped to watch. They were two black guys and for the first ten minutes they cracked silly jokes and tried to get the crowd to form. When they were finally satisfied with the number of people they did this routine including a member of the "audience." Basically, they made this tall, lanky guy in a sport jacket follow all their moves in this exaggerated home-boy dance. It was quite amusing. However, when they were done with this they insisted that everyone hold out a dollar for them to continue. And the people that left they would yell at and make fun of. Since neither Steph or I even had a dime on us we actually had to wait until they were mercilessly teasing some guy to sneak away. We literally ducked and ran.

    It was somewhat amusing but the hard sell was offputting. Either perform or don't.

Sunday

    Sailing!

    Another perfect day. Blue sky. White clouds. Warm sun. And no wind.

    Did you know that it's hard to sail with no wind? It is. We did get a small gust while I was at the helm and got up to 5.5 knots which was the speed record for our day out. The saddest was watching the knots come down. 1.00 -- .50 -- .04 -- .03 -- .02 -- .01 -- and dead. You then hope there's still a little momentum and turn the boat towards water ripples and hope you catch the breeze. If you get really stuck then you turn on the engine.

    It was, however, the perfect day to float. The sky was a range of pastels. Along the horizon were scads of pretty sailboats engaged in a very slow boat race. The water was grey silk. I got a bit of a sunburn and took many photos.

    Afterwards, worn out from fresh air and sunshine we ate ravenously at Killer Shrimp. Man oh man. So good. I had a glass of red wine with my shrimp and rice. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to finish rice as the bowl was bigger than my head. I had the rest of it for lunch today. The spices in that dish are to die for. My stomach is growling just thinking about it. If you ever get the opportunity I highly recommend it.

Monday

    I took the day off from work and we did a little sightseeing. Went out to Hollywood and ogled Mann's Chinese Theatre and played with all the handprints and footprints. We meandered along the walk of fame and made fun of some of the stars. I mean, Tony Danza has a star. Tony Danza?! I guess those stars area all purchased, though. I'm thinking of looking into how much it would cost to get one.

    After that we came home and T. and I made our yummy, Jamaican jerk chicken. It's was delish and I think Steph was impressed. Well, even if she wasn't it was really good. I ended up drinking too much wine.

Tuesday

    I took Steph out to Pink's for lunch. She had a fajita dog and I had the colon-blowing Chili Cheese Dog. Hmm. That was a bit graphic. Well, I'm leaving it in.

    Then we went to Robinson's Beautilities to check out their hair dye. It's a costume and beauty supply shop that is left over from a forgotten era. They have a little bit of everything in there for making you look like someone else. It was amazing and if Steph hadn't have suggested it I would have never gone in. Will have to make a stop for next Halloween.

    Steph dyed her hair "copper fire" which is really "orange sherbet" while I napped. This entertaining stuff is hard work.

    When T. got home we made pizza and then went out to the Santa Monica Pier and wandered around. It was pretty boring because I guess they shut everything down early during the week.

Today

    And now Steph has gone back from whence she came and I really sincerely hope she had a wonderful time here. I had a lot of fun hanging out with her but it was tiring and I'm glad to be back to my old, boring, mundane routine.

    We have to put the apartment back together tonight. Fold up the futon. Clean all the dishes. Ugh. But, T. just brought home a video of all the Jack in the Box commercials so now I want fast food. I think we'll go hunt down something greasy.