Like Little Drowned Rats

This week at work was crazy. It rained and rained and rained. It was too dry, the water didn't sink in, and the top-soil basically turned to oil. We could hardly drive the 4-wheel gators, much less the big trucks. We even got the Suburban stuck.

All my clothes are covered in mud.

Fight for Your Right to Party

The past two weekends have been full of partying....I didn't get too crazy, but the parties were pretty wild and everyone had fun.
Two weeks ago, we had the 903 Hyperion annual celebration of Jesus and Lauren. Apparently, it's always a good time, and we were hoping this year would be even better because it was Lauren's 30th. Her boyfriend Clark, offered to let us use his house because it's bigger, has more parking, a better dancefloor, and most importantly, a maid. It's always cocktail attire, so everyone looked really nice.

Then this past weekend, I went to a cocktail party on Friday night with Dana...although it was pretty uneventful.



On Saturday, first I went to a Xmas party(another semi-fancy one). After that, we went to a Mustache and Wigs party. It was pretty funny...there were some great wigs.



After that we crashed a party down the street that we'd noticed when we'd arrived at the Wig Party. There weren't a lot of people by the time we got there, but it didn't matter....the cool part was that they had brought in a snow machine and covered the lawn in snow. It was so cool!
Then on Sunday, I went to a early afternoon holiday party at Barb and Jimmy's. I'm gunna need to shopping for more holiday clothes at this rate.
Other than partying, it's just been a whole lot of work! I can't wait for Christmas and my visit home.
PS. I just reread this post....and it doesn't really make much sense and is not a very good read. I guess that's what happens after working 15 hours, on 2 hours of sleep. I'm going to bed now.

Thriller Night

Last night I went to dress-up dance class party. It was at a club with free vodka, and a dance instructor teaching about 65 people the Thriller dance! It was so fun. Not everyone danced, but my friends and I were lucky enough to get the last few dance stickers...so we were allowed on the dance floor. It took about an hour to learn the dance, and it was a workout. We were all sweaty and thirsty by the end of it all. A lot of people dressed up as zombies, we would have, but we went straight from work.

I ended up on a party pic website. I'm in the background dancing....the white arrow points to me. Here is a link to the website if you want to see other pics. http://www.thecobrasnake.com/partyphotos/dancedancedance/index.html

what have i done lately?

A few weekends ago, I was forced to go to the LA County Fair. I went without a fight, because i wanted to hang out with friends I hadn't seen in ages...but the fair was exactly what i expected. Expensive, hot and dirty. I did however, go to the Insect Zoo, where a giant millipede was allowed to crawl on my hand. It was weird, but I handled it pretty well. After it was on me, the bug wrangler told me it's basically just a giant rollypolly, which made letting it crawl down my arm much easier

The week before the fair, I went to Vegas. It was kind of a last minute decision. I'd been thinking about going anyway, but driving by myself just didn't seem that appealing. I asked my friend Sylvia if she wanted to go, not really thinking she's say yes, and lucky for me, she thought it sounded like a good idea. The reason I wanted to go was because Interbike(a bicycle tradeshow) was happening. There would be parties, and I knew lots of people that were going to be there.
It ended up being a lot of fun. We hung out at The Hard Rock pool, and played lots of slots, although neither of us won. We also managed to get passes into the tradeshow, which was huge....anything bike-related you can think of, and probably some stuff you can't. The NORA Cup Awards happened the 2nd night we were there. It was a big party, lots of free alcohol, Mini Kiss played....a KISS cover band made up of midgets, and of course, there were lots of BMX boys.
The only bad part was there were too many people that I knew, most of whom I don't get to see very often, and I really only got to say "hello," "how are you," and "goodbye." Thinking back on it, there are definitely a few people that I would have liked to have seen more of...but I guess they were there to work, not socialize with me!

I also went to London to visit Maggie. I think that anyone who reads this blog knows that already. She has all the good pictures though, so maybe she'll post a blog soon. We had a good time, other than me getting sick for the last couple of days. We went to Barcelona, which wasn't quite as impressive as I'd hoped, but still pretty cool. We also managed to find some new things to do in London. It was a a fun trip and definitely too short....and if I'd known I still wouldn't be working 3 weeks later, I would have stayed longer.

At the moment, my life is fairly boring, minus the 3 days Kristen Reed came to visit. It's hard trying to think of things to do with visitors in LA, but we had a good time. We went to Venice Beach, walked around Hollywood Blvd, ate out a lot and met up with some Normanites. The coolest thing we did was go to El Matador Beach. I'd been told it was awesome, but it's north of Malibu and just hadn't made it there yet. Now that I know how cool it is, I'm taking all my visitors there. Of course the day we decided to go, it was really windy and cold, so we didn't get in the water, but it was still really beautiful. On our way home, we stopped at the beach in Santa Monica and watched the sunset. I'm always amazed at how fast the sun sets once it hits the horizon.


Anyway, I'm just hanging out, waiting for my new job to start on Oct. 22, and trying not to spend to much money before then. I've watched the entire first season of Weeds, and My Name is Earl....but I'm forcing myself to leave the house tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Rock the Mic!

I got to go to The Beastie Boys concert earlier this week. Dana took me cuz she got free tickets from The Beasties' publicist, who is also Spoon's publicist....hence the free tickets since she works for Spoon's management.

The show was awesome! I forgot how much I used to love The Beastie Boys. I was in the 2nd row...so close. They are getting old, but they still rock it. They looked like they were having so much fun. At one point Ad Rock messed up....and they had to start the song over.

We got to be in the VIP area....free beer and cheese. It was cool, and reminded me that i want to be in a band again. These pics kinda suck cuz they were taken with my camera phone. Luckily I was close enough that they came decent.

a full frequency of vibrations

I felt my first earthquake last night....although at the time I didn't realize that's what it was. I was asleep, when the sound of rattling and the feeling that something fell on my bed woke me up. It took me a few seconds to fully wake up. I assumed that the rattling had been something falling off a shelf or wall, because that happens occasionally in my room due to my makeshift wall hangings. However, once I woke up completely, I realized nothing on my bed was out of the ordinary. I couldn't figure it out. Had I left something on my bed and it had fallen off, tugging at the bedspread on the way down? Was it just a dream? Or possibly my room was haunted. Telling myself it was a dream seemed the least scary, so that's' what I did and fell back asleep.

This morning when I got to work, one of my coworkers asked if I'd felt the earthquake. At first I thought no, but when he said it happened around 1AM, I remembered my night-time disturbance and that when I had looked at the clock it said 1:03. So...that explains the bed. Nothing fell on it....it was just moving. Yikes!

Revisions

Well, I wrote the post below on Friday, but kept it as a draft because I wanted to scan in my Playboy nametag. I didn't have time until last night because I went to the X-Games on Saturday, then ended up having to work on Sunday.

I went to the beach a week ago, and got sand all over my floor. I swept it up, but couldn't find the dustpan, so I just left the pile with the intention of vacuuming my room. A week later and the pile is still there. I'm only home between the hours of 10pm and 7am(if i'm lucky) and it just doesn't feel right to vacuum.

I went to a movie at the cemetery a couple of weeks ago. His Girl Friday. I just remembered I sent myself a picture that I took on my phone.

is it bad that i'm excited to get the WHOLE weekend off?!

It's the X-Games. I sure wish Maggie was here. Going to these bmx events just isn't as fun by myself. Even if I find someone to go with me, it's still not the same. Most people get bored, whereas I can sit and watch forever...and talk about the people I see(which is where the not going alone is important). I'm going anyway, alone or not. I managed to get a pass, so that's cool. At least I won't have to hang out with the commoners.

This week was crazy. To start it off, on Saturday I took my car to the shop to get it checked out because I noticed it was smelling alittle weird. I'd recently had the oil changed and thought maybe something didn't get tightened enough and it was leaking. Turns out the oil pump was busted. If I'd driven it for a couple more days, I would have destroyed the engine! The car was unsafe to drive, so the dealership had to keep it. The gasket for the oil pump was on back-order, so they put me in a rental. I orginally got a Jeep Liberty. It was sweet...although I didn't really drive except to work and back. Once the dealership found out i had such an expensive car(and not a Chevy), I had to go pack and trade it for a Chevy Cobalt(it was either that, or an Aveo that looked just like mine. Finally yesterday, my car was finished, so I went and picked it up this morning on the way to work.

Other than dealing with my car, I've been working....and working and working. I've never worked so much in my life. Not only do I get up at 7am or earlier, I usually don't finish until 9pm, or later(it was 10:30 tonight). Then I work allllll day...I don't even take a lunch, just little 5 minute breaks here and there. Today I was on the phone nonstop...sometimes on my cell and the office line at the same time.

The show I'm on now is called Mean Girls...or was. They just changed it to Queen Bees. It's going to be on the Nickelodeon network The N. I got a promotion to APOC...Assistant Production Office Coordinator...which explains the working. I boss the PAs around, answer questions for the crew, order camera expendables, book hotel rooms, etc... It's basically being the Mama Bear...although I'm more like the Big Sister Bear, and my boss is the Mama Bear. We make sure all the departments are running smoothly and that the show happens. Even though there's alot of stress, I'm learning alot and I'm having a good time. The only problem is in this particular setting(TV/film), being around all the crew, makes me really wish I was on the crew.

Even with all the work, I've managed to throw in a couple of social activites. Last week, my friends Amalia and Bridget and I went to the Open House of Anderson Printing. Amalia and I had met a salesguy/brother of the owner at a bar the week prior. He invited us to the party, and Amalia gave him her card, which is PlayboyTV. When we got to the party, I was the only one with an official printed VIP nametag, and it said I worked for Playboy. It was awesome. Wearing a nametag that say Playboy gives you the right to act as crazy and stupid as you want, and still feel cool. We sang like 5 karaoke songs, we were like the house band.

The best part about the party was that I felt like I was in an episode of The Office. It was in the warehouse of a printing company. There was a wide variety of people...some of the managers were giving tours of the plant. It was fiesta themed, and there was a karaoke bar, massage bar, free food, free alcohol. It was alot more fun than I expected.

I also met up with a girl from Vienna the other night that emailed me from Couchsurfer.com...an online community of travelers that can use the site to find people in cities they are going to that will meet up for a drink, or provide a couch to sleep on. She emailed asking if I'd like to go for a drink, and i figured "What the hell". It actually ended up being a lot fun...and now I know someone in Austria.

Also, since I've last written, I've had some visitors. Mom and Dad came for a week. We went to Griffith Park, Canter's, Big Bear, The Hollywood Bowl to see John Williams conduct, and we saw Mike Tyson at the airport. The next weekend Amanda Yankovich came to visit. I felt bad because I wasn't able to get any time off work, but we had a fun
weekend and she managed to keep herself entertained during the days. It was really nice having some visitors and doing stuff, because I have a feeling I won't be doing much, or seeing much until I go to England.

I guess that's about it for now. If anyone has digital cable, the first show i worked on, Solitary 2.0, premieres on August 11 on FoxReality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3-ENe-vFf8

too...busy...to ...update...blog

it's 10:43pm. i'm still working...even if it is from home. i've been up since 7am. maybe i'll have time to write more tomorrow.

Double Whammy

On Monday, I was driving a rental cargo van, a car pulled in front of me, and I slammed into their driver's side door. Everyone was fine, but it was scary. On Tuesday, I got rear-ended in the Aveo....by a Jag who then fled the scene. There's just a little dent, but it pissed me off that the girl left....and unluckily for her, I got her license plate number, so yesterday I went down to the police station and filed a hit-and-run police report. The best part about the whole thing was talking to the USAA representative....he was totally pissed that the girl hit me and didn't stop. He kept going one about how they would go after her insurance, and the next time she had to renew, her premiums would go up, and it would serve her right.

I've stayed pretty busy this week. Went out for Cousin Danny's birthday on Monday...Mexican food and Karaoke. Then, I've hung out the past 3 nights on the West-Side. Turns out it's not so far. Went to Venice on Tuesday...it was fun. Me and 5 dudes. All the girls I've met here are totally nice, but I definitely miss hanging out with groups of guys. We didn't do much...went to a bar which turned out to be the only bar I've ever been to in Venice, and then went back to the house and watched Family Guy.

Then yesterday, the 4th, Dana and I drove to Long Beach where a friend is sub-letting a house on the beach for the summer. It's literally on the beach...so rad. Too bad the water in Long Beach is kinda gross. After the beach, we drove up to Venice and went to a BBQ at a friend's mom's house. Another fun night.

Tonight, I got invited to go to the bike night at the Santa Monica skate park. I got up the nerve to go, but couldn't get up the nerve to ride the park. Instead I rode around the parking lot practicing my bunny hops and foot-endos. Next time, I'll go in the park.

It's gettin' hot in here....

Whoever decided that homes in California don't need AC, didn't foresee global warming. I'm going to have to invest in a wireless router very soon, I don't think I can take sitting in the baking kitchen to be on the computer much longer. Luckily, my room is the coolest spot in the house.

The job at the Hollywood Bowl is over. It was fun, and I saw some amazing perfomances. I watched most of the show on Thursday during rehearsal, and then managed to sneak out and stand with the ushers for the ballet on Friday. The rest I just watched on the monitors backstage. By far, my favorite part was Jack Black...he was hilarious. Placido Domingo was pretty cool too...and I found out one of the other singers, Kristen Chenowith, was first-runner up for Miss Oklahoma in the 90s. Too bad she didn't seem very friendly. Everytime I walked by her, I thought to myself "Oklahoma represent!", but I never said it aloud.

Now I'm working for a production company making webisodes for Break.com. It's basically a YouTube type thing, and we are making 20 webisodes in 3 days. Should be fun...and I'll post the link once the shows are online. That's easier than trying to explain what I'm doing.

As for non-job related activies, I'm trying to make it a weekly ritual to go see a free movie screening. I've seen some really great movies...this week was Joshua, a psycological thriller about an evil little boy. Scary kids are always the worst. I also got to go to the Playboy Jazz Festival (at the Hollywood Bowl.) One of my friends works for PlayboyTV and got some free tickets. The seats we had were great, but always wanting more, we managed to sneak our way into the boxes...free booze, close to the action, etc... Sitting in the next box over was James Spader, and fairly close by was Hef and his girls.

I finally went to the beach last weekend. It was fun. At first, I thought no one was going to get in the water with me, but luckily Dana was willing to brave the ocean. The water wasn't too bad, and the waves were fun...but I need to get a boogie board for next time.

New Stuff

I started a new job this week. I'm working at the legendary Hollywood Bowl, working for the entertainment group that is putting on the Hollywood Bowl Opening Night/Hall of Fame Gala. Basically it's a concert celebrating the beginning of the summer season, as well as inducting a couple of people into the Hall of Hame. It's also a benefit for children's musical education.

It was fairly slow this week, but the show happens next Friday, so I expect to be working late nights. There is a lot going on at the Gala...the LA Philharmonic plays, there are ballerinas, flaminco dancers, fireworks, Jason Alexander(George from Seinfeld) will sing and Placido Domingo(one of the Three Tenors) will also sing. But, I'm most excited about Jack Black's performance.

I also got a new haircut. I just went in for a trim, gave my usual "surfer girl" description, and instead the girl went crazy and cut it much shorter than I wanted, with way more bangs than I expected. It doesn't look awful, but every last bit of blonde got cut off. So, if i'd ever wondered what my natural hair color was, i know now. Hopefully, I can go get some highlights soon...or maybe go to the beach and get real surfer girl hair. I found a beauty school that will do it for $40 on weekdays, or $55 on the weekend. I might have to give in and pay the extra $15. It's like 2 different haircuts depending if I have side swept bangs, or regular bangs. Looking on the bright side, I guess my forehead won't be getting a sunburn this summer.

49 square miles surrounded by reality

I wasn't going to write about San Francisco since I feel like I already told everyone about the trip in person, plus I didn't get many pictures, but I'm at work and tired of looking at Myspace. So, a summary of my trip and the posting of the few pictures I did take sounds like a good way to entertain myself.

Barbara and I flew up on Friday. She had some free drink coupons, so we treated ourselves, and also treated the guy sitting in our row. We ended up talking to him the whole flight...he was an interesting guy. Turned out he was recovering from a disease that had paralyzed him from the neck down for a couple months. Basically, he caught a virus(just a little cold), but his body's defenses malfunctioned and instead of just attacking the bad stuff, it started attacking his central nervous system. One day he had a cold, the next day he noticed he felt kinda stiff and fell twice in the shower. He called 911, by the next day he was completely paralyzed, and ended up spending 2 months in the hospital. Apparently there's only like 1000 cases of this a year, and all you can do is just ride it out.

Anyway, we got to SF, went to the apartment, got changed and headed down to John's Grill for pre-opera cocktails. John's Grill is famous for being a place that Dashiell Hammet hung out at. People say he wrote The Maltese Falcon there since the Sam Spade eats there in the book.
After killing a couple of hours at the bar, we went to Berkeley to see Barb's brother's production of The Sylvan and Oceanic Delights of Posilipo, a fully staged court entertainment that was originally performed in 1620 to celebrate the return to health of His Catholic Majesty, PHILIP III OF AUSTRIA, King of the Spains." It was a pretty cool production. There were dancers, opera singers, and a Renaissance band that included harps, lutes, chitarroni(a crazy looking baroque guitar) and harpsichords.

On Saturday, we went down to Haight St., got some breakfast at the Pork Store Cafe(it's been there since 1916, although it was originally just a butcher shop). After breakfast we wandered around Haight St., and finally made to Ameoba Records where I got 8 CDs for $12.00. I love that store. Saturday night, there were more cocktails, we went to an art opening for Barbara McQueen(it was just a whole bunch of pictures of Steve McQueen), and we finally ended up at a French restaurant where I tried frog legs and escargot. I also randomly ran into a couple of people that i know from Oklahoma....Wes from Edmond in the morning at Anthropologie and Matt from film school while walking down the street near the art opening. I am once again reminded of what a small world it is.

Sunday was full of more SF sight. We met Jimmy's boss for brunch, then went to Fisherman's Wharf, looked across the bay to Alcatrez, saw the sea lions lounging on Pier 39, tried to take pictures of the Golden Gate bridge surrounded in fog, went to The Buena Vista to have some of their famed Irish Coffee(they serve up to 2000 coffees a day!), rode the cable car from one end to the other, went to North Beach for some amazing Italian food, and finally wrapped up the night with some wine on Barbara and Jimmy's balcony.

That pretty much wraps up the trip. Barb and I flew home on Monday morning. I had a lot of fun, and have decided that I really like San Francisco. It almost reminds of another country. I'll definitely go back sometime.

The palm trees are candles

So, now I've experienced major brushfires...lets hope the earthquakes stay away! All day yesterday I went back and forth from my balcony to my room where the TV is...getting updates on the fire, then going back upstairs to see the flames and helicopters dumping water. I kept thinking the firefighters had it under control, when all of sudden there would be a new batch of flames.

Around 7pm, i went to see a movie(Vitus...a Swiss-German film about a piano prodigy...i recommend it). On my drive home, I saw the fire still going and got a call from Christina, asking if I was being evacuated. No...I wasn't.....I'm not that close to the hills. When I got home, I went back on my balcony, and saw the hills glowing red...it looked like volcano. I ran downstairs and got my camera, and by the time I got back more flames had broken out. Here's some crappy pics of my view.


More than 817 acres have burned, and a couple of hiking destinations were destroyed. Apparently, the firefighters have it about 50% contained, and I can no longer see flames, but I still hear helicopters.
I obviously didn't take this picture, i just thought it was cool.

still a Rock Star...breathing a sigh of relief

This past weekend was fun. Coachella(a big music festival in the desert) was happening and my friend Dana, who works for a band management company, invited me to go to Palm Springs and stay in her hotel room. She wasn't able to get any extra passes to the fest, but hanging out at the resort, chillin' at the pool and going to parties seemed like a good enough reason to me to drive down.
So, Saturday morning, I woke up early and started driving. It was a nice drive through the desert, and there was hardly any traffic. I arrived at the resort right on time, and we (me, Dana, and her friend Sarah from NYC) headed out to the day parties. Our first stop was the Jane Magazine party. It was at a fancy house in Palm Desert. There was a pool, with lots of pretty people hanging out in their bathing suits. All the free alcohol and food you could want, and we even got schwag-bags..nothing too exciting in them, but I got some mascara and some lip-plumping lip gloss.
We knew of a couple other parties, so we hung out at Jane for about another hour, then headed off to the next party. It was a Hugo Boss/Nylon Magazine party, and wasn't nearly as good, although I heard the night-time version was much better. Regardless, we all had another drink, put our feet in the water, and admired the cute Australian boys from across the pool. By then it was about time to head back to the hotel, so Dana and Sarah could get ready to go to the festival, and I could go layout.

When we got back, I took my new Jane Magazine and went to the pool. When it started getting dark, I went and worked out for an hour...go, me... after that got boring, I decided to give the hot-tub a try. While hanging out in the hot-tub, I start eavesdropping on the 3 dudes in the pool. I gather that they are in a band that played the festival and that they have toured England. By that point, I'm getting pretty warm, and head into the pool(i think the fact that it was pretty dark out gave me courage to strut around in my bikini). Basically, to make a long story short, I ended up befriending 3 of the guys in The New Pornographers.
After chatting the pool for awhile, we decide we should head into the hotel bar, have a drink and listen to the lounge singers. This turned out to be a treat because halfway through their set, Marleen, one of the 3 other people in the bar and a very old woman, gets up and sings Crazy by Patsy Cline. It was really good. About this time, Dana and Sarah get back from the fest, we decide to make a Del Taco run, and then call it a night.
The next morning, we met Kurt(the drummer from The New Pornographers) for breakfast before he had to leave for the airport. It had crossed my mind the night before that I should ask if they had any wristbands left from the festival...but I just didn't feel like I knew them well enough. Lucky me..he read my mind, and when he walked up to the table, pulled out his unused wristband and said "I thought you could use this". What a nice guy...plus it made me feel pretty cool to know that I can still get myself backstage!
The festival was fun, although very hot..(100 degrees). I saw Explosions in the Sky, CSS, The Klaxons, Jose Gonzales, Crowded House and Rage Against the Machine. There were quite a few other bands I would have liked to have watched, but I couldn't drag myself away from the backstage area if no one wanted to go with me. I was afraid I'd miss something. I also saw quite a few people from Austin that I know, like Grahm, the booker from Emo's, and Leigh and Thomas, owner of Factory People(and yes Maggie...they all asked about you!)
At one point when we were wandering around, checking out all the names on the trailers, we came across The Red Hot Chili Peppers trailer. I don't remember who started it, but the next thing I knew we'd snuck into the trailer and were having our picture taken on their couch. Granted, they'd played on Saturday night, and probably weren't even at the festival anymore....but still!
Shortly after that, it was decided that we were leaving and going to a party. Little did we know...until we were already back at the hotel...but the party we were going to wasn't happening. So, another night spent at the hotel...which probably was a good thing considering we had to get up fairly early to leave.
The next morning, we started our drive back to LA. Since I was on my own and was in no rush, I decided to make a few pitstops. The first was to check out the wind turbines just outside of Palm Springs in the San Gorgonio Pass. This place is one of the windiest in the world and there are 3,500 windmills there. Apparently, they make enough electricity for 250,000 people. I really wanted to take a windmill tour, but it just didn't sound like much fun on my own. I also wanted to go to the Salton Sea, but it was kinda out of the way, and once again I didn't feel like going on my own. Regardless, I got off the highway and drove down a little desert road to get a closer look, but didn't stay long, as it was pretty creepy out there, even in the middle of the day.
After that, about 20 miles down the road is Cabazon, CA where the world's biggest dinosaur lives. He is probably the world's most famous dinosaur too since he had a cameo in PeeWee's Big Adventure. His name is Dinny the Apoto and there is a gift-shop in his belly. There is also Mr. Rex T-Rex. He has a museum in him and you can look out his teeth, 4 stories up, but unfortunately he's only open on the weekends. The weirdest thing about this place is the religious stuff and references to the bible that are everywhere. According to their website they are a "creation science outreach ministry promoting a biblical world view to origins, education and life." There was some dude also looking at the dinos on his own, so we helped each other out and each took a picture of the other with Mr. T-Rex. You can see tiny me by his left foot.
After the dinosaurs, I got back in my car and headed home...there was a lot of traffic, but I eventually made it. I'm headed to San Fran this weekend. So...more pics and another blog soon.