evany, evany thomas: my friends do the greatest things

one is silver, the other gold: part two
Thursday, Jul. 24, 2008 | link

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.

q.e.d.
Tuesday, Jun. 24, 2008 | link

Evany: I think that’s actually one of my best qualities, my willingness to laugh at my shortcomings.
Liz: Well, first you get offended, and then we tease you, and then you see how funny it is.
Evany: [Momentarily offended, and then] laughs and laughs.

the true price of free
Thursday, Mar. 27, 2008 | link

Stephen has started reporting on what he finds crawling under that particular rock known as the free-giveaway section of Craigslist. Here's a stirring sampling:

"Ha ha! Crappy shelves and . . . wait, there's nothing funny about this. What's funny about a chair that looks like it's about to die of loneliness?"

And...

"Hi, how are you! We've decided this futuristic trigon of a cheese grater is either (1) too unsanitary (2) too dangerous, or (3) too useless for its intended purpose to allow it to stay in our home for even a moment longer. Right now, we've got it in the garage. But that's not quite far enough away. Do you want it?"

And...

"Retro Sofa poster, your piece of furniture is why god gave man fire."

Keywords he's felt compelled to use so far include broken, dangerous, dirty, ugly, unsanitary, useless, and old and busted -- it takes the true grit of genius to find the laughter in those defeated words. I bow to you, eyes shut respectfully, friend Stephen!

I'm right here!
Monday, Oct. 1, 2007 | link

Sorry, sorry, sorry for the blogio silence, it’s just that I somehow got myself a real job, not at the kids detective agency (pictured above), sadly (though how amazing would that be?), but at a big-girl bank by the name of Wells Fargo. And while I like the work, and I’m thrilled by the regular dollars, the sudden onslaught of regular working hours and meetingsmeetingsmeetings and the office coffee and the “conduct training,” it all just sort of threw me for a loop for awhile there. Basically all I could manage to do for the last four months was:

6am: Get up.
6:10: Drink cups and cups of ambition alone in the quiet still-dark.
6:20: NPR.
6:30: Walk the squeeziest dog in the world.
7:30: Leap into the shower
7:32: Apply makeup (what? who?).
7:40: Iron slacks.
7:45: Don slacks.
8: Walk to the casual carpool pickup spot (each unique snowflake of a ride described in 140 characters or less via Twitter).
9: Work, work, work (right alongside the great and awesome and awesomely talented Annie, lucky!).
5:30pm: Walk to the bus station.
6:10: Disembark at the top of the Oakland Rose Garden.
6:10 to 6:15: Walk through the Oakland Rose Garden, sniffing and smiling.
6:20: Home again.
7: Eating.
9:30: Yawning.
10: Bed.

Notice that there’s no naps in that schedules, none. Weaning myself off the 3pm nap was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do — there were some real zombie days in the beginning there, lots of shuffling and “huh?“ing.

When I was first considering taking the job, a friend of a friend (who works at the company) said hopeful things about how the hours are sane enough that you can actually do other things with your life, but he warned that it would take “about four months” before I would work up the stamina to be able to do anything beyond stare at things during my off hours. And today? Is my exact four-month anniversary! And so, Hi.

In other news, I’m back to desperately writing about Desperate Housewives. And! I appear to have gotten myself shangboozled into another reading (and ohh, just typing those words gave me a wooze of panic):

Opium’s Literary Death Match
Friday, October 12, doors open at 7pm
The Swedish American Hall
Tickets: $15 (price includes the latest copy of Opium)

The unfairly talented Daniel Handler will be anchoring the lineup, along with Wesley Stace and Gary Kamiya (whom I’ve never met, but I really have a good feeling about those guys). And of course I’m going to be there, all drunk and sweaty and nerve-poisoned, and who wants to miss out on that? Really, I could use your strong, honest-work-coarsened hands, both to offer soothing pats/sippables and to bring the noise when it comes to the clap-o-meter portion of the competition. Here’s hoping!

Also: My good friends The Kids Are Alright have written the world a song about blogs, and love. You’re welcome!

a month of phat tuesdays!
Thursday, Mar. 29, 2007 | link

I've been having such good Tuesday luck this March! This past Tuesday, Adrienne and I met up with Liz, Brett, and Josh at the big "Meat & Greet" launch party for the shiny new Meatpaper, a magazine which is proving to be one of those overlapping circles of coincidence that life sometimes hands you -- I heard about it because Sasha, the woman who designed the Sleep book, is one of the founders, but then her co-founder is magically the wife of my special new internet friend Chris, and she also works with Adrienne at KQED, and she also is ultra-close friends with a woman I went to college with, and, and, AND -- which leave you feeling like you're the superstar of a complicated Dickens novel, where everything puzzles together with a satisfying, cardboard-y SNAPPP! (And then Adrienne and I went to the St. Francis for warm brownies and cold ice cream. PERECT ENDING!)

Last Tuesday I finally, finally flesh-met Amelia Bauer, the woman who illustrated the Sleep book. For a year now, she and I have somehow managed to keep missing each other -- I'm in New York, she's in Santa Fe, she's in San Francisco, I'm in, I don't know, somewhere stupidly not-San Francisco -- and anyway, you know how you meet someone and you just instantly like the way their face moves when they talk? That's Amelia...just a fresh little plucky cloud of yay! She and I enjoyed a nice rice storm at Little Baobob along with a bunch of the McSweeney's kids, and a bunch of pitchers of that crazy-great fruit booze punch. There may even have even been some jerky public puppet dancing along to the dreaded (hoh!) reggae music?

And then the Tuesday before THAT, one of my oldest, greatest friends Shree and I went to see Word for Word's take on a story by the bogglingly likeable Lorrie Moore. Dave and Vendela and Lisa and Daniel were all there, milling around in the lobby before/after the show, and Dave nicely introduced me to Lorrie, and I smiled and shook her hand (!) and said, "hello" and "nice to meet you," like a completely normal person, which as you well know is a big step for me. But then I countered that small victory by babbling strange, uncomfortable things to everyone else in the room. (Evany to Vendela: "Sorry I had to keep leaving your reading, but I had to go outside and cough so hard I peed my pants." Vendela: "I don't think that's supposed to happen until you have a baby." Evany, gesturing in a circling motion at her peeing apparatus: "Oh, I've got a LOT going on down there." World at large: "Shhhhhhh?") I also ate a incredibly fine vanilla cupcake from snooty Greens!

And then...something really good happened the Tuesday before that. Was it the Trapped in the Closet Sing-along? Where, while waiting in line, I overheard someone say, "Is there an age maximum for this?" No, that was on a Wednesday, so that doesn't fit in here at all. OH WAIT! After an archeological dig through my e-dusty email inbox, I now remember exactly what happened Tuesday, March 6: Jennie took me to the Kasper Hauser SkyMaul powerpoint show! After which we stupefied ourselves with tracter-pull portions of Indian food! Oh right. That was good.

Coming up: chicken-shopping with Caroleen, also everyone's favorite Brangien's in town!

two days in the life
Sunday, Mar. 18, 2007 | link

Things have been gloriously busy in both my life and head these past weeks. To give you an idea of just how much of a liar I’m not about this, here’s a little glimpse at my schedule from last weekend:

9am Saturday: Wake up, do some gentle puttering and coffeeing in my delicious cashmere robe.

Noon: Marilyn (in town all the way from Boston) and I hit the dog-friendly Redwood Park for a thigh-shaking nine-mile hike with Pigstar.

4pm to 5:15pm: Frantic showering and outfit-fussing.

6pm: Marilyn, Marco, and I join Liz, Ivan, Heidi, and Paul for a delicious dinner at COCO500, wherein much pink wine is consumed (by me), mini crowns are doffed, three different cameras are flashed, and the conversation lurches from Beaches to the Dutch East India Company with lusty (if ignorant) verve.

8pm: Heidi, Paul, Marilyn, Marco, and I pile into the brown, brown Marco-mobile, new home of the mysterious authentic ali-croc head, and putt on over to the Grey Area Gallery, where the opening friend Annie was so fired up about is being held, and where I ogle the find arts (Amy Ruppel’s beeswax/resin painting/collages are even more lux in person, hoo!), talk to one of the gallery owners about her most excellent Proenza Schouler for Target top, and (eek!) forget to tip the bartender (oh how I woke the next morning full of panicked regret over this!).

9pm: We all leap back into the car and head back to SOMA, to the Utah, where my friend-from-grad-school Buzz reads from his brand new book, Madonna of the Toast, and where I am so happy to run into friend Kirsten, it’s been too long! Bands play, multiple readers read, and finally…

Midnight: …Marilyn, Marco, and I head back to our place, where we tuck Marilyn into the couch and shuffle off to buffalo (bed).

9:30am Sunday: Already well coffeed and yogurt-fed, Marilyn packs up her rental car and heads off to the airport — bye, Marilyn, we’ll miss you! — and Marco, Sandra, Pigstar, and I roll off to Pacifica, where Marco surfs, Sandra and I fondle sea anemones, and Piggy runs and runs.

11:30am: Marco, Sandra, and I brunch it up on an insane three-way split of hash, olallieberry crepes, and a towering Rueben, jesus christ!

2:30pm: Drop off Sandra and head home.

3-4pm: Power nap.

4:30pm: Drive to San Jose.

5:30pm: SHARKS ON THE POWERPLAY!

7:30pm: Drive home.

8:30pm: (Without, of course, neglecting to stop at In-N-Out for a burger animal style, which I always mistakenly refer to as “Monster Style,” much to everyone’s mirth and confusion.)

9:30pm: Home again, home again, only barely conscious enough to brush our teeth and hobble to bed.

5am Monday: The alarm blares…

a breathless story about a small series of events
Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007 | link

A couple weekends back I got a great deal on Southwest and flew down to LA for my friend Megan’s housewarming party (her loft is insanely gorgeous, with brick walls and tons of light and space, wow). The trip perfectly coincided with an art opening for one of my favorite web people, Lisa Congdon, which was held at the Reform School, a store I’ve long wanted to poke into.

So even though it was the scheduling was a tad hectic — Megan’s party started right at eight and the opening started at seven, giving me only the briefest window in which to navigate to the Reform School (in Megan’s ridiculously sporty convertible Audi thing), ogle everything, and then dash back to Megan’s — I scrambled my way over there, managing to get turned around only once or maybe four times along the way.

Now, as a small subplot to all this, I’d tried to get Pam to hit the opening with me, but she couldn’t go because she had to go buy a ball gown for this black-tie event (she wound up coming to Megan’s party instead, which was such a delightful clash of my worlds, delightful and booze-soaked). By the way, that’s my new favorite excuse for bowing out of any invite: Unfortunately I shall not be able to accept your kind invitation as I’ll be otherwise ensconced in a ball gown shopping spree. Anyway, so as I was heading off to the opening, my Sidekick rattled with a text from “AB”: “Are you going to Lisa Congdon’s show tonight? YOU MUST CALL ME!” AB. AB? Who do I know by the initials AB who also knows I’m headed to this opening? Huh. So I called the number, and the one and only Anna Beth answers; she’s busy making cupcakes in Louisiana, and thus can’t make Lisa Congdon’s opening, but would I be so kind as to buy one of Lisa’s pieces for her? You know, which ever one looks the nicest? (A little more background: She’d asked Pam to go on her behalf, and Pam, amused by the strange coincidence of two of her out-of-town friends trying to get her to go to this thing, gave her my number, much to AB’s confusion, seeing as I’m supposed to be in Oakland, etc.)

Cut to me, at the crowded, crowded opening, on the phone with the hilarious AB, whispering descriptions — I was painfully aware of being the frantic Los Angeles asshole on the cellphone — of all the different pieces as AB tried to match each one to the small photos on Lisa’s site. “There’s the painted ‘Regret’ platter thing,” I hissed, “and a small wood block wrapped with butcher’s twine? With like…antique sort of photos of I think Asian people on it?” All the while, the list of available items was dwindling as more and more “sold” stickers got stuck next to item after item. “Oh my god! AB, people are buying everything! Fast! Faster! PICK ONE!” And then in the middle of all that, Megan beeped through, in a panic over needing a bottle of cooking oil (for her mind-meltingly great parmesan beignets, holy shit). So quick, quick I bought a piece for AB (one of the gorgeous little collage blocks), and whoops, I also got myself a little something (see below), and then I scrambled over to pay my (deep, so deep) respects to Lisa, whom I’ve never met before. But Lisa was already talking to another one of her fans, so I hovered off to the side as unobtrusively as I could manage, but then yet another fan swooped into the respectful two-second cushion I’d left open. So finally I just dove in, and what witty opener did I wow her with? “I HAVE TO GO BUY COOKING OIL!” And then I followed up that insane greeting with a bunch of bumbling half-gushes — “such a big fan” and “everything…so lovely” and “the walls…pretty!” — all while pumping her hand feverishly.

And then, sweaty and mortified, I raced off and bought cooking oil at the weirdest 99-cent store ever.

Here’s the shedding tree I was lucky enough to grab for myself (image pinched from Lisa’s own Flickr set from the show — I won’t actually get it in my hot little hands until after the show breaks sometime in March).

from baby to benatards
Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007 | link

It’s a fine Thursday eve that starts with champagne, cupcakes, and a brand new baby named Hank Mason and ends with a cover of Hell is for Children so rousing, you pull a smiler muscle.

This last shot is of the monitor featuring a live feed of the band, but doesn’t it kind of look like a sonogram? And oh what a womb that would be! Like a white womb, with black curtains, maybe?

oh my friends are all such gifts of giftedness!
Monday, Dec. 4, 2006 | link

Good news is coming in fast from every corner of my network of golden pals:

Stephanie Vander Weide Lucianovic, also known as Keckler from Television Without Pity gives us CocktailSmarts: “It’s a booklet! It’s a game! It’s some brightly colored coasters! With recipes!” An educational drinking game that teaches you stuff that makes you want to drink even more? It’s like Quarters, only better. I KNOW! I’ve already ordered three: one for me, one for a Christmas gift for some secret special someone, and one just so I’m prepared the next time an emergency hostess gift scenario rolls around.

This past Sunday, dear Maggie appeared on NPR’s Weekend Edition show! Maggie was so eloquent, and her shopping advice so compelling, that half the world clicked over to Mighty Goods, creating a traffic storm so frenzied, it temporarily choked the site. And as a long-time fan of Maggie’s writing and sixth sense of style, I absolutely understand all the hullabaloo.

The Bellyachers (superfine friends Brian, Sandra, and Peter) have just launched a stylish little mini-trampoline of a site, lovingly designed to give you the jump on their new album, “300 Letters to God Found in the Atlantic,” which they’ll be releasing song by delicious song.

And friend-since-third-grade China Adams has assembled a majestic sampling of her tight body of work. Looking at her stuff all in one place like this, I’m awestruck by how smart and talented and inspired and funny and, wow, just so incredibly hard-working she is, and how lucky the world is to have her. (Back to me: though my photo isn’t one of the ones up on the sample site, yours truly was one of the ten people photographed for her Blood Consumption project — I donated a pint of blood and everything. I’m kind of a patron of the arts that way.)

How did I get so lucky to be surrounded by such a candy cloud of smarts and talent? I wonder.

nyc2, joan sweat, shitbeans
Monday, Jul. 10, 2006 | link

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.

wheeeee!
Thursday, Apr. 6, 2006 | link

Adrienne’s piece was so perfect, and the artist Tracey Snelling so quietly appealing, and the woman’s art (little pitch-perfect houses which stand on their own but also photograph beautifully in the strange context of the real-sized world) so fantastically awesome and satisfying! Watching it was like a tidy little reminder that the world is filled with wee explosions of light and possibility. (Also there was a lot of champagne.) See what I mean?

Keith’s opening was yet another huge yay. Marco and I were sadly there for only about ten minutes (last night being crazily jam-packed with television hosting and also bed-frame buying), but it was long enough to say hi, gobble some nuts, and also fall in love; Marco’s favorite was the ordway, and mine was 400 moons (which is wormishly beautiful in and of itself, but also prompts the very personal association of my dreamy trip to Redding).

In other news: I gave my one month’s notice at my beloved apartment. It’s true, Marco and I are taking the cohabitation plunge! I’m moving into his nice apartment in OAKLAND, which turns out is not actually in San Francisco? Eeeeee! Change is scary, and exciting, and wistful! And involves many, many boxes.

Up next: tonight it’s Alice Shaw’s book signing for People Who Look Like Me. (What a stupendous idea for a picture book, holy wow!)

note to self: take egg off speed dial
Thursday, Mar. 9, 2006 | link

Yesterday my very favorite Paul made his debut in the pages of the New York Times with a story entitled “Take Egg off Speed Dial,” which covers the art and feasibilities of cooking eggs with cellphones, an iron, a dishwasher, and even a drip coffee maker. The story looks even better on paper, as I immediately confirmed by running out and buying the tangible version of the paper for point-at-able posterity. A triumphant event on like seventeen different levels! Such, such good news.

Yesterday I also went to go see Alice Shaw’s slide show at the SF Arts Commission Gallery. Her photos always feature a funny/odd combination of elements — my favorite this time around were the two candid portraits of people caught wearing tees featuring life-size portraits of other (famous) people, with the tee-face coming off as an equal party in pose — and this, her latest show, had me laughing out loud at least six different times (or more…only my date Jill knows for sure). I’m a huge fan of both Alice and her photography, and if you’re ever in near proximity to either, I heartily recommend you rearrange your schedule accordingly.

Also good yesterday: Pride and Prejudice (total crying jags? two. additional notables? wow on that “thousand-year-old property gone to seed” scenery), cookies bought from Citizen Cake, pizza, and the company of Caroleen, Adrienne, Liz, and the aforementioned Jill. We also had yet another screening of Marco‘s new Trapped in the Closet DVD. (He and I accidentally got trapped watching the first five Trappeds one day on MTV and then we went on to spend the next few weeks singing along to all of life’s mundanities — “We’re out of half-and-half!” “You sipped it up? Now feel my wrath!” etc. So I bought the DVD as my Valentine’s Day present to him. And when he unwrapped it, he couldn’t help himself, he just said, with a blank face, “Why did you buy this?” Since then, he’s tried to explain away his underwhelmed response by saying the accent was on the “why” and the “buy” not the “this,” which of course makes no difference, which in turn is why I love him so.) Each time we force someone to watch this “hip hopera,” it’s met with a different response. Last night, it received an awesome stunned silence, which was an altogether different take than all the laughing, yelling, screaming, and carrying on that that went down when Stephen, Jessica, Sandra, Brian, Marco, and I first saw it (our experience pretty much exactly mirroring Pamie and friends’ shared laugh meltdown “moment just after the last word in Chapter Nine”). And there were a lot fewer giggles and puzzled objections than Kristin (giggles) and Pat (objections) gave out when I forced them watch it. And less horrified cackling than Shree produced when I made her watch it. In any case, I can safely report that, after four viewings in two weeks, the ten-second loop of moisture-drop beats doesn’t quite hold up. Still I say to you what Pam said to me, back when I was down in LA in February. I asked her, all innocent, “Can you explain this whole insane Closet thing, what the hell?” And she said to me, with the complete conviction of a true, true heart: “Do yourself a favor: just go out and buy yourself the DVD. Immediately. Move!” And that’s exactly what I did.

Not so good yesterday: the fizzle-nale of Project Runway, snore.

But, all in all, yay March 8, 2006!