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.

thunder, lightning

Wednesday, jun. 25, 2008   |   0 comments

Driving up, moments before the sky tore open.

I drove far, far away up north this weekend to hang out with my great friend Kristin, who’s currently recovering from gnarly gut surgery. Which meant I had a totally reasonable excuse to lie around and watch retarded amounts of television all the live-long weekend—best birthday present ever. If only Kristin would get surgeried on more often!

The sun was just about slipping away when the air weirdly filled with that unmistakable electric smell of rain, and then suddenly…big drops on the windshield, then bonafide cracks of shazam-style lightning all across the sky, plus real loud thunder. In California! In June!

When I drove across country with Jill a few years back, we were in I think Ohio when suddenly all this water started falling on our car. Born-and-raised-Californian I just could not get my brain around what I was seeing—I actually asked Jill if maybe a fire hydrant had burst nearby? Midwestern-born Jill just laughed and laughed.

But I tell you, summer rain does not happen out here like that, no. But wild forest fires, with their poisonous, eye-searing reek (nothing at all like the cozy whiff of a fireplace wood fire, or fun Halloween-time leaf fires, despite the fact that forest is nothing but wood and leaves?), those we do just great.

The brown-filtered drive back down, after passing eleven firetrucks and also a freaky man lying on the side of the road with no shirt on and a smiling policeman at his side.

madonna and friends

Sunday, nov. 26, 2006   |   0 comments

Friday was Brian Mello‘s fortieth birthday, and to celebrate this huge day, we all surprised him with a mass gathering at the insane Madonna Inn. His beautiful and highly motivated wife, Sandra, started organizing all his friends and family three whole months ago, and we’ve all been sitting on our secret reservations for months and months now. Marco and I stayed at the red, red Nautical Way room:

After we creeped around, trying to avoid Brian and Sanra spotting us (which led to a ridiculous, sneaky jog through some weird construction site behind the hotel, which Marco described as like an “episode of the Monkees“), we all gathered at the bar and yelled “yay!” when he and Sandra finally walked in. And then we wagon-trained into town for a decadant cram-fest of pizza, pizza, and more pizza (including a gorgeous “dessert pizza,” a drizzled, apple thing). And then we came back to Peter and Laura’s Tack Room, which was somehow even redder and pornier than our own Nautical Way, and we drank and drank.

Note my shoes! The gorgeous, perfect, perfectly tall, and comfortable Park shoes from Jeffrey Campbell, a birthday present from Marco that has made me so happy:

They’re almost identical to the Marc Jacob’s mary janes, except only cuter (the shape of the toe, plus the color selection, is much better on the Park) and $200 cheaper.

I wound up turning in at a shocking, pathetic 10 o’clock, but the photo session spiraled deep into the night.

The next morning, I woke up bright-eyed and bushy after ten hours of solid coma sleep, and Marco and I joined all the other hungovereds for breakfast in the Madonna Inn café (they have pink sugar in their sugar mills!). And then I climbed some rocks.

(All photos by Marco, you bet.)

nyc2, joan sweat, shitbeans

Monday, jul. 10, 2006   |   0 comments

I locked myself out of the apartment yesterday. Again. I think it’s the dog that’s doing it to me, all the hustle and rush and frantic jumping and wiggling that goes into getting her leash on frazzles my brain, which is plenty flighty to begin with, and I just completely forget to grab my keys, which are RIGHT THERE by the door, resting in their little wooden apple key holder.

Since Marco didn’t get home from work until 4:30, and since the lock-out occurred circa 1:30, I had about three hours of alfresco time to kill. So I strolled to 7-11 and got a Slurpee, then I set up one of the beach chairs in the backyard and alternately dozed and read my sidekick (and made a huge dent in the mimi smartypants archives, what a sweet treat to discover someone whose writing and outlook you really adore and admire so much you just want to BITE ITS CHEEKS OFF, and then lo! You dig a little deeper and discover that there’s also a fat, fat archive to binge through, yes!). Basically, aside from the fresh-air part, Locked Out Evany spent yesterday the exact same way Regular Evany did every other day this week: lounging, reading, and drooling. Which gave me some pause. Maybe it’s time for me to for real start thinking about getting a job? You know, before I completely lose the ability to maintain consciousness for longer than three hours at a stretch? But oooh, my job muscle is going to be so SORE when I get to working again! Assuming there’s even work out there for me to be found, ugh.

In lighter, brighter news, I just got back from yet another trip to New York, and this one was a lot, lot longer and funner than the two-day windsprint of early June. Aside from one harrowing reading (my favorite Todd invited me to do some slide-showing in June’s How To Kick People show, and despite people’s assurances that “[public appearing] is going to get easier,” the stage terror seems to be holding steady … I blame it on the varied nature of the events I’m doing; each one is so radically different from the one before it, and each comes with its own new set of new alarming features, that there’s really no way to get into a nice, comforting, nerve-soothing rhythym. For instance this time I was up there with two seasoned comedians plus the insanely poised and charismatic and comfortable and likeable Bob and Todd. And the show was held in a very “stand up”-style venue, with the low lights and the tables and drinks and the yelling. In other words it was terrifying, and terrifying in way totally different from the petrifying LA show, or the heart-stopping DC show, or the scary, scary first NY show.

So aside from the nerve-twanginess of the show, and aside from suffering under the dark influences of a fairly terrible cold (contracted the very day before my flight out of town), and aside from the great many surprise thundershowers (which as a Californian I just can not get my head around … in these parts, if you look out the window spot solid blue skies, the entire day is 99.9% guaranteed not to require an umbrella, not so New York, you slippery, wet traitor!), and aside from an unexpected and embarrassing teenage-style “I’m a third wheel” sulk that I had while shopping with two of my oldest friends, Liz and Megan (context: Liz and Megan are both beautiful blonde size super-smalls and we were at Century 21 and the two of them found bags and bags of cute things to buy whilst I bought zero because I fit into NOTHING, which was unfortunately followed directly by a yucky conflict between my desire of “I crave doughnuts” and their “we crave an invigorating workout at the gym,” which, if I’m being honest with my jiggly self, is potentially related to the afore mentioned “not fitting into designer clothing” issue? In short: isn’t it amazing how hanging out with friends from high school can sometimes make you feel young again, and not always in a great way?) … aside from all that, it was a very relaxing and delightful trip!

I finally did manage to find some cute clothes that fit me fine — a sale skirt and a sale top — plus two pairs of shoes and also some earrings. Also I got felt up by a Hasidic woman who then sold me six truly uplifting bras! And eventually my mouth and I did get the chance to pay my very favorite Doughnut Plant a visit (the coconut cream special was brain-bendingly tasty). And, once I got over my snit (and the ensuing horror over the fact that I, at thirty-six years of age, am still totally capable of irrational snits), I had a truly lovely time at my miniscule high school reunion: the three of us got in lots of walking and shopping and coffee and wine and heart-to-hearting and outfit-trying-on-ing; and together we invented a new term, the “blond spot,” as in “Wait, what? Butros Butros-Ghali is no longer the United Nations’ Secretary-General? Oh. Well. I do have a bit of a blond spot when it comes to political leaders.” And later Paul treated me to a new restaurant, Knife and Fork, where I enjoyed a very long and rich meal and managed to resist showing the waitstaff my thematically appropriate tattoo, which I view as encouraging evidence of my budding maturity; younger Evany was a huge fan of forcing my commonalities on barely willing participants: “Hey, thanks for the [buttered popcorn/double-tall latte/nuclear iced tea] I really appreciate it because I TOO USED TO WORK AT [A MOVIE THEATER/STARBUCKS/RED ROBIN]!!” But wiser Evany, I’m thrilled to report, is capable of keeping her trap shut and her tattoo in her pants. The snit thing, however, is still a work in progress.

Oh and Jeffrey conveniently turned forty while I was there, and I got to celebrate it over a beautiful, bountiful meal prepared by his sassy, shoe-gifted girlfriend Teva. (Did you know that there are no cabs in Brooklyn? That you have to locate some weird little man in a glass box and request a ride, and then three minutes later a dark, unmarked car pulls up at the curb and you hop blithely in, and then, after haggling up a price, you drive off with some strange man who doesn’t really know the area and you get lost and lost and lost? Well, that’s what happens.)

Chinatown pig (with piglets).

Tall, blond, gorgeous Megan designed and built her own light fixtures, see!

Shopping, walking, walking, shopping.

Megan, snapped while snapping photos of unusual fruits.

Megan, getting all her hair sliced off, with Liz (also tall, blond, gorgeous) watching on.

Liz shows off her new New York fashions.


Megan and Liz show off their new New York fashions.

Megan, Liz, and I show off our new New York fashions.

One last preview in the mirror in the lobby of Megan’s fifth floor walkup. (Spot a spot? Run into a run? Live with it, sister! because unless you like lost six buttons and your nipples are hanging out or you forgot to wear pants, there is no WAY you’re going back up those stairs.)

Walking the streets, full of red, red wine.

More street-walking.

I wish, I wish, I wish-ing at that park along the river (where a dog deliberately covered me with a fine shake of pungent dog water).

After the How To Kick People show, with Todd, Caroline, and Kathy!

(And here is where I was going to include the photo I took that same night of Todd and the awesomely talented (writing AND photographing, not at all fair) Lisa, but I seem to have captured the split-split-second that these two didn’t look glorious all night, my camera is such a villan.)

Rain, rain, rain, thunder, lightening, rain…in JULY, madness.

So! That was New York. I flew home and got back super late on Sunday, and then, THEN, the very next day, Marco talked us all into going to the Marin County Fair to go see Joan Jett. See?

Is Joan Jett suddenly now yogi Madonna’s body double? Or maybe vice versa.
(Photo swiped from the Marco: for more amazing shots of the sweating Jett, visit Marco’s Flickr island.)

PS: Did you catch that, I’m now thirty-six? It’s true, it happened on June 19th. And to celebrate, the searing Sunny took Leisa, Jeff, Caroleen, Liz, Ivan, Jill, Halliday, and Marco, she took us ALL out for dinner at Asia SF, and then everyone chipped in to get me a snootful of girly pink drinks, which went very well with the girly girls dancing along the bar. My favorite: the sassy sarsaparilla who came out in in a baggy orange jumpsuit and danced around to “Car Wash,” while snapping a towel, then — at the half-way point — she tore away the jumpsuit to reveal hot jeans and hot halter top, at which point both bartenders turned their drink guns in her direction and soaked her with sodawater. Happy birthday indeed.

(Yeah, again with Marco’s pics. And there’s more!)

PPS: Marco, Tom, and I went to the beach today, down in Pacifica (so Marco could try out his NEW LONG BOARD and also NEW WETSUIT), and I managed to sunburn my right calf beyond all reason. Also, I’ve been in a foul temper all day, an eight-hour crabbiness to match my crab-red leg, yay. Meanwhile: Did you know that they shit in the refried beans at the Taco Bell in Pacifica? That’s what they say.

more words on: high school, my friends do the greatest things, pals

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happy-birthday-leisa pie

Saturday, aug. 14, 2004   |   0 comments

First: I added a new sweater fix project to the permanent My Crafty collection. Check it!

And B, I am full of glee to report that Operation Leisa Birthday Pie ended in success, in my stomach. I went over to Jeff and Caroleen’s place, over on “High Crime” lane, to pick over their bush (winkie).

I after balancing on lawn furniture and shifting stacks of spare lumber, I managed to pick about four cups of berries, which I supplemented with two fantastically expensive boxes of not-even-close-to-as-tasty berries at Whole Foods, rolled out two batches of the incredibly fall-aparty crust that I was raised with (which is as easy as it is good: 1 cup flour, one stick butter, 3 ounces cream cheese), and pieced together a worrisomely outsider-art sort of pie. Baking it helped a lot, though, with the berry juice oozing and blurring over the patched-together parts, and it wound up looking passably pie-ish.

I stashed the pie in Liz’s trunk, next to her cache of fancy champagne, and we went over to fancy Public (nee “Wa-Ha-Ka!”, worst name ever) for pre-pie drinks.

Look up at the Eva Hesse-ish lamps at Public.

Jill doing the pose from Napoleon Dynamite.

Caroleen and Jeff doing the pose from Napoleon Dynamite.

Liz doing the pose from her own, sexy movie.

And here we have me,

doing an unfortunate birthday seizure,

for Leisa.

Then we went over to Amy and Sunny’s house for birthday pie and toasted coconut ice cream and hazelnut ice cream and balloons and champagne and dog patting!

Amy, Ivan, balloons!

Paco!