letterman gets savaged!

Sunday, jul. 27, 2008   |   0 comments

Look! Adam Savage! Staying up late with David Letterman!

Oh just sitting in our living room with Adam’s GIANT HEAD.

Dave makes Adam laugh.

Adam makes Dave laugh.

I love this. I want a painting of this. Instead of my actual television.

Adam is one of my favorite people for a whole rainbow of reasons. First of all, Marco and I met at Adam’s wedding (at where he tied himself in a knot the lovely and witty and sharp-dressed Julia, pow!) close to four years ago now, a turn of events that I thank my lucky charms for each and every day.

Also Adam is pure awesome, a contagious laugher and thrower of the kind of all-night eating, wining, and dancing dinner parties that your teenaged you always hoped that grown-up you would be invited to.

And he’s also such a good story: The kind and chatty, juggling, card-throwing, unicycle-riding, people-loving maker of whips and R2D2s is desperately in need of a job, and one day he discovers himself…at a job where he chats and juggles and throws cards and meets new people and builds things! Adam’s life reads like an inspirational book for kids, with pages packed with adventure and pictures, pictures, pictures. A book your kids would love without even knowing that it was teaching them fundamental truths about how happy endings (the job, the girl, the guest spot on Letterman) can come from those weird fun hobbies that you obsess on and teach yourself and just love doing when you’re little.

Yay, Adam!!!

one is silver, the other gold: part two

Thursday, jul. 24, 2008   |   0 comments

When last we spoke, I was telling you about my rambling, scrambling ten-or-so previous days, and I’d made it as far as last Monday. And so:

Tuesday: Party-favor stuffing at Maggie’s house!
Now this was a really fun day. First of all, I finally got to pat the in-the-flesh pattables of the beautiful and hilarious Alice of Finslippy and the perfectly toothed Melissa of Suburban Bliss (is it possible to have a crush on someone’s mouth?), which right there makes for a Dear-Diary-caliber day. But then you add on special toppings like Bryan mixing Glass Houses (and even going so far as to walk to the store to purchase more vodka, wow), endless Thai food, relaxed catch-up time with both Ally and Maggie, and—the cherry on top—Hank’s perfect cheeks, and suddenly you’ve got yourself a metaphorical sundae of epic greatness. On a Tuesday!

Pill popping in preparation for the Mighty Haus launch party.

Each gift box was ingeniously furnished with two doses of hangover relief.

Wednesday: So You Think You Can Dance…Dance…Dance
Yes, on Wednesday Marco and I stayed home and sat on our dog-haired couch, eating cereal for dinner and watching the best season of the best reality show on our gigantic black hole Death Star television. That’s right.

Thursday: Insecurity, perverts, and grilled cheese
Thursday got off to kind of a rocky start when I walked into the party for all the BloghHer speakers, wandered the circumference of the room, realized I knew no one, and was promptly blindsided by a wave of social anxiety the likes of which I’ve rarely (never? ever?) experienced. I tried to quash the discomfort with alcohol, a trusted friend which, when applied orally, typically brings on the happy, but it didn’t even dent my feelings of intense dorkwardness.

A nice woman (whose name I completely forget, such was my panic…I’m sorry nice woman!) came up and chatted with me and my social anxiety for awhile, but I still keenly felt the sting of my inability to gel with the partygoers as a whole. Finally I noticed someone whom I sort of recognized, so I took a big sip of booze and lurched at her with a, “Don’t I know you? Don’t you have…twins? I think?” Of course she turned out to be Stephanie of Greek Tragedy, who is hugely famous in an online web diary sort of way? Or something? Enough so that she was actually lined up for the closing night Keynote about “Living the Truman Show”? I know nothing.

At that point, my first nice woman friend left the party, and Stephanie and I were left to chat about the recent release of her third book (!), and how maybe it was going to be made into a movie (!), and how the actual Amy Sedaris had actually just called to chat about actually being in said movie (!). And I…told her how I like to take photos of my outfits.

I had these outfit cards Moo-ed out for the conference, pretty much the best $20 I’ve ever spent.

Throughout our conversation, Stephanie super-nicely smiled and nodded and asked interesting questions, all of which I, in my self-cringing state, interpreted as just polite tolerance. But I’ve since read that she felt equally outsidered at some of the BlogHer events, which has prompted some real “isn’t life funny, etc.” thinking over here in my head. Huh!

Stephanie also later revealed (in her Keynote talk on Saturday night) that she’s not really a big laugher in person. And really, nothing throws Nutty Confessor me more than a non-laugher. I always think the reason the person isn’t laughing at my self-defecating and neurotic comments is that they don’t realize I’m (kind of) kidding and they’re trying to spare my feelings, and so I EXAGGERATE even more in an effort to make it clear that I don’t really, truly believe what I’m saying. And then, when I STILL don’t get the chuckle-release I’m waiting for, I just start talking faster and waving my arms around and opening my eyes wide and sweating and tap-dancing. Poor Stephanie!

(She actually bought one of my books later in the conference and then voluntarily came up and asked me to sign it, so at least she doesn’t seem to be actively pursuing a restraining order in my direction, which I consider a small yay.)

Anyway, anyway, anyway. Once my word storm on Stephanie finally ran dry, me and my feelings of self-craziness scampered off to grab my coat and remove myself from Dodge before I could take another hostage. But as I was walking out the door I found myself pulled into the attractor-beam that is the supermodel eyeballs of Kelly from Mocha Momma, whom I fell in love with instantly. And then I met Kelly’s wildly together daughter, Mallory (oh to have been that wise and poised at her age…or even at my age), and before I knew it, another hour had passed and all my social weirdness had totally evaporated. (Wow, just look at all this typing. Is anybody still reading this?)

Liz and our Awesome New Friend Lisa, sipping drinks on Gawker’s dime.

By then I was late for my next engagement, and so quickquick I lurched over to the Otis bar on Maiden Lane to join Liz for a Gawker-financed drink to celebrate her triumphant appearance on a panel at the PSFK conference. Due to the phenomenon of free drinks, the place was packed well beyond my capacity as a 38-old, so I hovered in the corner with our Awesome New Friend Lisa and drank whatever drinks that this weirdo guy, an asshole-obsessed asshole who was trying very hard to get with Liz, brought to us. The man was not the greatest, but the drinks he procured sure were. And they totally worked! After about an hour I was too liquored up to weather the cramped, crowded cement hole that is Otis, so Liz and I snuck ourselves away from the Ass Man and she walked me back to the BlogHer hotel, where…

…I was immediately overwhelmed with a whole parade of Ladies on My List of Want-to-Meets, including (but not limited to): Sarah of Que Sera Sera, Eden of Fussy, Whitney of Ugly Green Chair, Antonia of Whoopee, Leah of LeahPeah…just like that. Bam, bam, bam! Rat, tat, tat! After a flurry of hugs and business cards (so many business cards), we all decided that we were in dire need of food, and so we turned to the place that so many San Franciscans turn to when it’s after ten and that grilled-cheese sort of hunger strikes: Sparky’s.

Eden, Maggie, and Sarah say “blog.”

Friday: In which I stand up in front of hundreds of people and say “Wow”
So on Friday I cut out of work early and hustled over to the St. Francis ballroom, home to the BlogHer opening Community Keynote in which I was scheduled to read a short entry I wrote for this very website. After many, many talented women and even a smattering of men had their turn at the mic (I laughed, I cried!), it was time for shaky and profoundly sober me to get on up there. I went directly after the mythical Jenny of The Bloggess, who had been back stage sipping from airplane bottles of Disaronno. Jenny loose-cannoned out onto stage and, clutching the curtain for balance, announced that she was wearing her “confidence wig” because of her “anxiety disorder” and then she warned us that she was going to be saying “cunt” a lot, and then she said something about her “riot gun” (I think?) and threw her hands up in the air and yelled “NRA!” And I, from my warm-up spot just off stage, started to get very worried that she was going to go completely off the rails of her crazy train. But! Somehow, someway she managed to bring it all home and proceeded to tell the all-time funniest story about oral surgery that I’ve ever had the pleasure of. Truth! She brought the house down and was pretty much the funniest read of the night. And so, it was into that vacuum that I tiptoed out into the spotlight and, looking offstage at Jenny’s teetering retreat, summed up my shellshock with a small, whispered “Wow.”

After the reading, we went over to Ruby Skye for chicken pot pies and raw-chicken pasta. And then, lickety splickety, the great Sarah and I cabbed over to the Mighty Haus party, the big kick-off housewarming for the spanking-new Might Haus site, brought to you by the mighty Maggie and the bliss-making Melissa. And it was a truly epic party. It was. I learned how to sip wine out of a cracked cup (tip: drink fast). I “Push[ed] It” all over the dance floor. My new favorite Zan of A Cup of Tea and a Wheat Penny may or may not have cupped my ass. Marco talked jacket fashion and practiced fancy handshakes with Zan’s Jonathan. Heather of Dooce and I exchanged shouts of “So nice to finally meet you!” The beautiful Holly of Nothing But Bonfires and I talked The Knowledge. And…and…AND I got to take home my own antique key necklace and aspirin and a DOUGHNUT!

Me, wearing my key to the Haus party.

And here, as I stumble home from the best party of 2008 with sore feet and high-heels in hand, I will leave you to give my story-fingers another break. Tune in tomorrow-ish for Part Three of the tale, in which a microphone is attached to my clothing.

one is silver, the other gold: part one

Tuesday, jul. 22, 2008   |   0 comments

As I said during my panel this past weekend, sometimes life serves up so many great experiences all at once, and my head gets so full of words that I want to use to describe it all, that I get overwhelmed and wind up watching Ghostbusters on TNT instead of writing it all down the way I so want to.

But this has been such a fun week, so packed with people I admire and love—from some of my oldest and dearest friends to spanking-new meets whom I’ve only just had the opportunity to greet after long admiring their writing, websites, and art, and things—that I refuse to let my bad habits swallow these experiences into the void of my non-written-down memories. I will not! My apologies in advanced, however, if this reads like a catalog for a summer daycamp for adults, which is actually very much what it felt like. Starting with…

Last-last Thursday: Art and edible doglets!
I’d say this lucky string of events I’ve been enjoying started on Thursday last, when I hit the Rare Device opening for the most excellent Julia Rothman/Caitlin Keegan (such intimate, fun, funny paintings and drawings!). The opening turned out to be a hot-house hotbed of women whose websites I’ve clicked all up and over, women I’ve always, always hoped to meet in the face one day. Happy in-the-flesh surprises included Elizabeth of a Browner Brown, Victoria of sfgirlbybay, and even out-of-towner Grace of Design*Sponge.

When I met Grace, I actually struggled for a minute to come up with her human name—I’m convinced my brain is filled with a finite number of slots, one name per person, and once a domain name gets in there, it’s forever difficult for me to put another name to that face. And embarrassingly enough, I think actually referred to Grace as Design*Sponge in that same way Buster on Arrested Development talks about “Army,” like an all-powerful entity with no softening “the” before it? Like, “Design*Sponge is so pocket-sized pretty and friendsome!” (Though now that I’m letting this out of the confines of my head, I’m realizing that the Buster analogy doesn’t make much sense at all…really, adding a “the” before “Design*Sponge” would have so much more dehumanizing and worse?) In anyway, Grace was very nice and chatted with me about a whole number of different topics until I noticed that I’d had her cornered for like ten minutes and I stuttered off to get myself a drink and give her leave to snap her amazing photos of the show in peace.

Meanwhile I got in some quality time with my true and great friends Maggie and Annie, and even the Judith (an URL no longer!), whom I’d met once before way back at the Web99 conference? Or maybe it was Web98? Ten years ago? TEN YEARS. (As you read those words, know that I was saying them out loud in an ominous zombie voice as I typed them.)

That’s me, chewing on Lisa‘s magical mystery dog, Wilfredo. In a world where such a perfect dog can live and breathe, how could crime and sadness and rotten milk even exist, I wonder?

Elizabeth, Grace, and Maggie, oh my!

Afterward, Annie rode me on the back of her motor bike to Chow (a ride that earned me a totally authentic exhaust-pipe calf burn), where we met up with Marco and I had myself some delicious chicken-and-steak-and-peanut noodles with ginger cake and pumpkin ice cream on clean-up, the perfect sponge-meal for my many servings of art-opening wine, whew.

Friday: Condo-warming floor party!
Inger just landed herself her very own condo! From the 1920s! With cute built-ins and vintage octagonal bathroom tile and everything! To celebrate this celebratory event, her friends (all people from Marco’s side of the friend family, whom I’m so happy to have in my life now, too) gathered on the day of the official key hand-off for the traditional pizza-and-champagne-on-the-empty-floor ceremonies. Loud, echo-y fun was had by all!

Saturday: Renegade Craft Fair and BBQ and, what the hell, Hell Boy
The fair was an overwhelming parade of greatness, which is why we (Marco and the Mellos) immediately had to hunker down for some giant hotdog fortification before we dove in, despite the fact that we had a BBQ on our horizon. Filled with frankfurter, we were finally able to face all the ingenious and cute and satisfying wares, and I bought all kinds of stuff, from earrings to giant stuffed logs. My log purchase led to a long-hoped-for meeting with the amazing Erika of My Imaginary Boyfriend, the creator of my beloved felt robot ornament and whose felt rock valentines I profiled during my stint filling in and Mighty Goods.

Erika and me and my new log!

The log in action.

After the fair, we went to good friends Peter and Laura’s for face-stuffing of all kinds (including Lisa’s homemade apricot tortelets, holy god), and then ten of us scampered off to the very loud and just-okay but still fun as an overall experience Hell Boy—not nearly as funny as the first one, I’m not sure what happened there. And yet…popcorn! Coke! Marco’s hand to mash!

Sunday: Another BBQ, what?
This time the grill was grilling out on Yerba Buena island, the halfway body of land that splits the Bay Bridge…of all places. Mapquest gave me the most awful directions, causing me to get immediately lost and panicky (you wouldn’t think there was enough room to get lost and panicky on that isle, and yet). After driving around and around, and getting pulled over (by two whole cop cars!) for lurching over a bump-encrusted double-yellow line (no ticket, thank the law, but lots and lots of disappointed head-shaking), I finally found the party. I quickly fell to with the chicken-eating and beer sipping, and nuzzled up with some of my oldest and dearest friends: Sunny (and her cute mom all the way out from Florida!), Leisa, Cash, Caroleen, Scott, Liz, Heidi, wow. In short: lots of laughing and screaming and angel food cake.

Monday: Rest day
Work. Home. Cereal. Sleep.

…Wow, this is getting really long. And my fingers are so hot and sweaty and full of complaint! So I think I’m going to stop the story right here and pick up where I left off (key parties! confidence wigs! liverpudlian! BLOGHER!) tomorrow. Tune in, turn on, and stay cute.

let your chest do the endorsing (was: "barack you like a hurricane")

Thursday, jul. 10, 2008   |   0 comments

Nothing says “support your favorite presidential candidate” like a double-inverted-meta-ironic ringer tee:

Perfect for standing around in your kitchen and drinking half-and-half by the gallon.

Why I’d say this tight, tight tee counts for two votes right here! PS: I’m actually talking about my knockers…I mean my Barackers! Boy are my arms tired. I mean my Obamarms! Help.

My own favorite Marco made these tees and he is very excited about them. And now, if you are similarly excited, you can buy your own for just $14.99 on his etsy-ma-thing, with 25% of what gets made going right into the Obama. Get some!

simple bra necessities

Monday, jul. 7, 2008   |   0 comments

What to do when you’re a big-topped lady in a bra that refuses to map to the cornered terrain of today’s latest silhouette?

Jill recommends a balconette bra, while friend-from-high-school Jennifer claims the 100-Ways Bra from Victoria Secret to be just the answer. But how annoying to be forced into buying special underthings just for the sake of one simple summer dress! Especially a simple summer dress that was purchased at Ross Dress For Less for just $29.99, i.e., less than the relatively steep toll of either specialty bra. Ffft!

My cheapskate solution?

The ribbon was FREE, part of the cute wrapping that Kari used to wrap her happy birthday gift to me this year. I just snipped off two generous lengths, cinched the visible bra buttressing into a tight bow, and done!

I wore this outfit to our fabulous Russian River Escape this weekend with Annie and Eric and their pride of oh-so-friendly friends. Sadly my ribboned ingenuity couldn’t help solve the dress’s other fatal flaw, which is its intolerantly narrow-minded bodice, the boning of which strained uncomfortably against my weekend intake of steak, corn, blueberry pancakes, American apple pie, pulled-pork sandwiches, wine, mimosas, greyhounds, and s’mores, and I was forced to change into a more accommodating dress with plenty of eating room. Triple-hooray for room-to-gorge Plan B dresses!