New Thing #70: Being Samantha

I did several New Things last night. I don't have time to write an epic post right now, so I'm going to spread the New Things out a bit and start with the last New Thing I did.

But before I get to the end of the evening, I suppose I should set the scene.

It was my friend Marvin's birthday (actually, I think his birthday was a couple of days ago) and he had a party at the White Horse. Celebration in the hizzouse.

This is Marvin:

I should have said "this is quintessential Marvin." Even though I'm not exactly sure what "quintessential Marvin" is supposed to mean, I think that this photo kinda captures it.

It was a pretty great party. There were lots of awesome people there. People I haven't seen in manymany years (manymany beats). There also happened to be a huge number of frequent blog readers. People like, for example: Joe Chandler (who used to leave lots of comments on my blog) (but who doesn't leave as many comments anymore) (but who still reads, so I forgive him) (because, apparently, he's a busy man) (I still forgive him) (even though, part of me is like, whatever) (because we're all busy, dude) (but--and this is an even better "but"--last night was the first time I had seen Joe Chandler [I like using his whole name, like he's a character from My So-Called Life or something] since I started the blog and so last night we were able to do some New Thing scheming, which was rocktastic) (just wait!); and people like Lindsay (who helped me do an AWESOME new thing last night) (a new thing that will get its own post later, because it's just too awesome to not have its own post) (and who I haven't seen in manymany years, like, since 1999) (oh, man, these parantheticals are getting confused with their possesives--I didn't mean to imply that I haven't seen that awesome post in manymany years; I haven't seen Lindsay in manymany years) (which was probably obvious) (I don't know why I felt compelled to explain that) (I was just reading Wil Wheaton's blog--and when I say "just," I mean this morning at, like, 3am--and he was making fun of people who use parenthetical statements) (and I know he wasn't talking to me specifically because we don't know each other or anything, but I was like, dude, whatever) (wait, since 1999? is that possible?????) (I think that's how long it's been since I've seen Lindsay) (sooooo good to see her); and people like Eleanor (who flew in from Flagstaff just so I could tell her I dissed her on my blog) (but, Eleanor, you see what I was referring to now, right? It wasn't really a diss. I just called you a failure at getting TBOGR:SNL--but now that I own it on DVD, we must must must watch it together) (it will change your life) (that's a riff on a quote from LA Story, from when the talking billboard tells Steve Martin that the weather will change his life three times) (I just mention that because I love LA Story and I wanted to point out that I was quoting Steve Martin when talking about Gilda Radnor because Steve Martin and Gilda Radnor are like tuna fish and mayonaise in my heart) (which means they go together and I really really like them); and people like Bo (who commented once on my blog, but thought that his comment didn't get posted, and then complained that comments on my blog don't work, or that you need to be registered somewhere to make them, which is SO NOT TRUE); and people like Steve (I don't know why I keep saying "people like" when I'm actually talking about very specific people) (Sorry, Wil Wheaton, but it looks like I'm still making parenthetical statements) (Steve likes it though) (I think) (no, I know) (Steve and I went to college together, though we didn't really know each other well at school) (last night, when I saw him, we had a really awkward "hello" moment, and then, about an hour later, we were talking and he was like, "I don't comment either," referring to Fiona, "but I read your blog, and I wanted to let you know that I'm a fan too") (and so then we talked about the blog awhile and it was really cool) (Steve, you must comment on this entry) (do it) (consider it a New Thing) (OMG, I am such a comment whore it's out of control) (I need help) (Steve, help me) (how can you help, you ask?) (by commenting!); and people like Urp (who inspires me to be bold with men) (have you noticed? i do bold things when you're around) (and without whom I probably wouldn't have done the New Thing I did at the end of the evening that I'm about to blog about) (which I should probably get to already, shouldn't I?) (I mean, I said this wasn't going to be an epic post) (I am such a fucking liar sometimes).

Here's some photographic evidence:

That's Lindsay with the red hair, Urp with the sour face (she hates photos), and Joe Chandler with the beatific smile.

That's Eleanor on the far left and Bo on the far right. I kinda feel like this photo should be used to promote awesome teeth.

That's Steve, and he looks kinda scared in this photo, but I think that's just because I ambushed him with my camera. IRL, he was really charming and not scared of me in the least. (Or if he was, he did a really good job of hiding it.)

Okay, so, on to New Thing #70...

After Marvin's party, I was planning on going to a post-party at Joe Chandler's house, but I was famished and so first I went to get some food at a diner with Urp and Bo, and then we never made it to Joe Chandler's house (my apologies).

At the diner, we were eatin' and gabbing and making googly eyes at our waiter (because that's what you do at diners) (especially if you have a really hot waiter) (and we did) (are waiter was really hot) (I JUST WROTE "ARE" INSTEAD OF "OUR") (HOW STUPID AM I?) (anyway) (he was, like, Anderson Cooper hot) and I guess I got kind of drunk on hash browns or something because I decided that I wanted to tell our waiter that he was really hot (ANDERSON COOPER HOT), and I wanted to give him my number, and I wanted to be bold, but being bold with men isn't necessarily the thing I usually am.

See, I'm a Charlotte, which means that sometimes I'm shy, especially when it comes to men. Jessica and I talk about how I need to "be Samantha" in situations like this, and so last night I tried to push my inner Charlotte aside and just focus on BEING SAMANTHA. I ended up writing him a note (because he was busy and working and it seemed more right at the time than interrupting his flow).

Oh, that's New Thing #70: I gave my phone number to a waiter. With a note. On the back of the check.

Here's what the note read:

Dear Danny (which I assume is his name because that's what it said on the check, but there's always the possibility that he was signed into the computer using someone else's screenname or something and he's not really Danny and someone else is Danny and someone else will get the note) (but I think he's Danny) (because Danny's a hot name and he looked like a Danny), I'm the guy with the glasses. (I said that so that he wouldn't think I was Bo) I think you're really attractive. (I thought the word attractive worked better in the moment than the word "hot," and I decided it would be better to keep it simple and just say "I think you're really attractive" than to be like, "I think you're as attractive as Anderson Cooper," because what if he doesn't think Anderson Cooper's hot and then he thinks I'm dissing him or something) (even though it's hard to imagine someone not thinking Anderson Cooper is hot) (I'm just acknowledging it's a possibility) I don't usually give my phone number out to strangers, but this is my year of new things. Erik.

And then I wrote my phone number and I wrote my blog address, figuring that if he was on the fence about whether or not this guy who left him a note was sane or not, my blog might serve as a character reference.

I have no idea if anything will come of it. He probably threw the note away last night after he read it. He probably has a boyfriend. (I mean, he was Anderson Cooper hot.) Or maybe he didn't even see the note, maybe it just went into the pile with the other completed receipts. But maybe he read the note, and maybe he doesn't have a boyfriend, and maybe he'll call, and maybe this will be the beginning of a movie-style romance. (Way to build expectations, Erik.)

Regardless, I gave him my number, which means, last night I was Samantha, which is definitely New.

New Thing #69, dudes!

I suppose, since this is New Thing #69, it should be something sexual, but since I ain't gettin' any, y'all are gonna have to make do with a non-sixty-nine-ish New Thing.

But my Sixty-ninth New Thing is still pretty cool:

I met a fan.

Yes, you read that right:

I MET A FAN! How cool, right?

Okay, here's how it went down. Last night, I went to a party at my second (and last) ex-girlfriend Gina's house. It was another High School Friends reunion, except now that we're hanging out again more frequently I suppose we can't really call these get-togethers reunions anymore, and it wasn't just old friends from high school, there were new peeps there last night as well. Anyway, this was our second Game Night. I was kind of late (kind of? okay, try: last to arrive) and people were, um, buzzed by the time I got there. Which explains the "raising of the roof" hollas (is that a word) (I'm trying to be gangsta, but I'm not sure if "hollas" is a word) (but would gangstas worry if it was a word? hells, no--they would just use) (therefore, fuck that worrying shit, these bitches was hollasing) when I arrived.

Okay, so, before I met my fan, actually, well, the first thing I did when I got to the party, was eat about seven deviled eggs (made by my second [and last] ex-girlfriend Gina's fiance Matt) because deviled eggs are perhaps the most delicious fucking thing ever invented.

(They're so delicious that I had a seriously difficult time spelling "delicious" just now. I was all "delishious?" Um, no. Then I was like "delishus?" Way wrong. And then I was like, "delitious?" And then I was like, "dude, seriously?" And then I was totally, "am I having a stroke right motherfucking now?" And then I was like, "delicious!" And then, I swear, I was like, "wait, delicious with a 'c'?" And then there was this other part of me that was all, "dude, delicious with a 'c.'" And then I resisted the urge to check dictionary.com because I wanted to trust that other part of me. And then I spent a few moments being sad that I don't ever use a real dictionary anymore, I just use the cyber one. And then I wondered how long it would be before computers took over the world with their superior brain power and turned all of us puny little humans into slaves. But then I took solace in the fact that cockroaches are going to outlast us all and manymany years [manymany beats] after we're all gone and the computers are all gone, there will be giant cockroaches roaming the planet, which is kinda cool if you think about it. I mean, sad that humans won't be around any more, but this is a couple of million years from now and just think about a cockroach the size of an SUV and you've gotta admit it's pretty dang cool. And then I thought about our eventual extinction a little bit more, except I actually [honestly!] just typed the word "distinction" just now instead of the word "extinction," which is further proof that I recently had an undiagnosed stroke in the middle of the night, but then I realized that "distinction" was completely not the word I meant and I went back and replaced it with "extinction," so, anyway, back to what I was thinking about before I was thinking about my undiagnosed stroke, I was thinking about our eventual extinction and that made me think about all of the kids in our world that need parents and it made me mad that gay couples can't get married and therefore have such a hard time adopting, and that made me wish that people would stop having so many dang babies and that they would adopt more [because we've got so many dang babies that need you!], and then I was mad at Britney Spears for about thirty seconds, I was mad at her and Kevin's apparent inability to recognize [1] the need to take their child to the hospital when he has a motherfucking skull fracture and [2] the need to wear condoms in order to lesson the likelihood of any more Spears-Federlines running around our fine city eating Doritos and drinking Jack and Coke, and then [after thirty seconds] I decided to let go of my anger at Britney and to fantasize some more about adopting lots of Chinese babies with my own Harry Greenblatt, and then, suddenly, every single word in this paragraph looked like it was spelled wrong except for "delicious." Finally, now, after all of these words, "delicious" looks right, yes, motherfucking right.)

So after I ate seven of these de-lish-eeee-ous (I don't mind spelling it wrong when it's a choice) deviled eggs, I ate a couple of theses scrumdiddleiumptious (spelled correctly) cherry tart thingies (they were really good) (I love maraschino cherries)

(if I could get all of my daily vitamins and nutrients from maraschino cherries, I'd be a happy man) that my friend Lane (who I've known since I was fifteen, but whom I've never dated) (and who's going to be mad at me for spelling her name "Lane" and for not spelling it "Lanie," which is how it's pronounced, but it is spelled Lane on her driver's license and I have always thought that Lane is a super cool name and that Lane without the "i" is a super cool spelling of said super cool name and that you can still say it with the "ee" sound at the end even if you don't spell it with the "i") made.

(That's Lane on the right, Gina on the left.)

So after I ate the scrumdiddleiumptious cherry tart thingies, Fiona, one of Gina's friends who I've never met before, comes up to me and says, "I never leave comments."

And I'm like, "huh? what?"

And then she continued: "You wouldn't know me because I never leave comments, but I read your blog and when you walked in I immediately recognized you and I've never met anyone before who I already knew from a blog before meeting them. I'm your number one fan. You're like a celebrity."

(Okay, she didn't say the "I'm your number one fan" thing, and she didn't say that "you're like a celebrity" thing either, but I'm allowed to embellish because I'm not talking about having half of my teeth pulled out of my mouth without novocaine and I'm admitting my embellishments.)

But she still acted like she was meeting a celebrity, and even though I was beginning to feel slightly nauseous (which I want to spell "naucious") after having eaten so many dang deviled eggs and cherry tarts, it was still pretty cool to have a stranger come up to me and be like "I know you from your blog!"

(That's Fiona, my #1 Fan, in the center of the picture. That's Gina on the right, and that's Gina's friend Moe, who I also met last night, but who [as far as I know] doesn't read my blog, on the left.)

Oh, and (since BonBon McBonBon and Babes McPhee have started calling me Kiki Longpost, I figure I might as well really embrace the name), one last thing: Gina gave me the most awesomest gift last night. Check it out:

"The Best of Gilda Radner: SNL" on DVD. I had "The Best of Gilda Radner: SNL" on VHS when I was a kid and whenever I felt down about something, I always knew that watching "The Best of Gilda Radner: SNL" (henceforth TBOGR:SNL) would make all of my troubles go away. And it always worked. No matter what. If I didn't get cast in a play and I was upset about it, I would put TBOGR: SNL into the tape player and I suddenly didn't care about that play anymore because I knew there would always be more plays to audition for. If it started raining and I couldn't play outside anymore, it didn't matter because I knew I had TBOGR: SNL. If one of the school bullies decided to chase me around the playground for the entire lunch period, threatening to beat me up (and, to be honest, this only happened once) I knew that, whether I got beaten up or not (and I didn't), at least I could go home and watch TBOGR: SNL afterwards.

She's brilliant, she's funny, and she makes me cry (in the La Dolce Gilda sketch, which isn't really a sketch, it's actually a mini-movie, and it's perfect).

(The caption in the above photo, from La Dolce Gilda, reads: "Leave me my dreams. Dreams are like paper, they tear so easily.")

So I would watch TBOGR: SNL all the freaking time when I was a kid. Like, all the dang time. I watched it hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. It entered my life in elementary school, it was (pretty much) my only friend in junior high school, it stayed with me through thick and thin in high school (BFF! KIT!), and it was one of the first things I packed when I went off to college.

Flash forward a couple of years to 2004, or thereabouts. I was living with Urp and Eleanor. Eleanor and I were hanging out and I forget what was bothering her, but Eleanor was really upset about something, and I told her I had the perfect solution. I knew what would get her out of her funk, out of her depression, out of her doldrums, or upsettedness. I knew EXACTLY how to turn her frown upside down. GILDA.

I ran to my room and grabbed my trusty old VHS copy of TBOGR: SNL. I put it into the VCR. I told Eleanor to prepare for brilliance and sunny days. And then a terrible thing happened. The VCR played fuzz. Nothing but fuzz. FUZZ. And there was this weird sound coming from the machine. This weird whirring sound.

I hit "eject." I looked at my tape, my old friend, my TBOGR: SNL. And she was broken. After so much play, the (apparently) flimsy film was loose. It was no longer connected to that plastic circle thing. (Look, people, I'm a writer! I use descriptive words like "thing!") It wouldn't play anymore.

My TBOGR:SNL was dead.

So then I was thrust into a depression of my own and Eleanor and I sat around the living room eating pints of Chocolate Chocolate Chip Haagan Daz ice cream and cursing the universe. It was a really sad day.

Flash forward a couple of months. Eleanor told me she had a surprise for me. She told me to close my eyes. When I opened them again, I found a new copy of TBOGR: SNL in my hands. On DVD! Oh my god, awesome. The world is good again. The world is right.

Except it wasn't. It wasn't a DVD. It was some sort of weird computer disc that wasn't a DVD and so it wouldn't play on our DVD player and there were even instructions on how to download the program thing that would allow us to thing the thing that we would need to thing if we wanted to watch our new copy of TBOGR: SNL. (I used the word "thing" so many times in this paragraph in order to illustrate how useless and frustrating this computer disc's instructions were.)

So now we had a copy of TBOGR: SNL on a disc that we weren't able to play and we were thrust into even deeper doldrums.

This was, like, a year ago. No, wait: two years ago! I finally stopped eating Haagen Daz ice cream and moved on with my life, but there has always been a part of me that has been upset that whenever I've needed any sort of pick-me-up, I haven't been able to go home to my TBOGR: SNL. If I was a weaker man, I would have resorted to a whole slew of drugs by now. Thankfully, I'm strong. Thankfully, a part of me knew that Gilda would one day come back into my life, and thanks to Gina (who succeeded where Eleanor failed) (sorry Eleanor), I now have TBOGR: SNL on DVD and this is one of the happiest days of my freaking life.

It's like I've been missing a chunk of my mojo for the last few years and I just got it back and now I'm ready to take over. So watch the freak out, world.

Word.

Kickin' cancer's butt one buck at a time

My best friend Urp (pictured, left) is running in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life to raise money in support of our friend Erica (pictured, right) who was diagnosed with leukemia in February and is currently working on kicking leukemia's ass.

I just wanted to send a shout out to Urp and to try to help her out in her fundraising efforts. If you've got any spare cashola you want to give to a good cause (Urp's goal is to raise $1,000 and she's at $175 right now), please CLINK THIS LINK to make a donation. (Every little bit counts!)

Thanks, and rock on.

Go Pre

I have this shirt this shouts "GO PRE" and whenever I wear it out in the world, someone inevitably asks me "What's Pre?"

Now, the real answer? "Pre" is short for Prefontaine, as in Steve Prefontaine, the runner whose life was tragically cut short in 1975, whose "rare combination of talent, discipline, determination, and star-quality," according to his official website, inspired fans "to roar [in] encouragement, 'Go Pre!'"

So, yeah, that's the real answer to the question, but it's also a pretty boring answer. (No offense, Pre.)

So, depending on my mood, I tell people my shirt is proclaiming my support of various other "causes." Yes, depending on my mood, I tell them it means:

GO PREMARITAL SEX!
GO PRESCHOOL!
GO PREDESTINATION!
GO PRELIMINARY ELECTIONS!
GO PREFIXES!
GO PREPARING YOUR TAXES!
GO PREMATURE EJACULATION!
GO PRELL SHAMPOO!
GO PREMONITIONS!
GO PREMED STUDENTS!
GO PREMIES!
GO PRE-WRITING!
GO PRETTINESS!
GO PREHISTORIC ANIMALS!

Things like that. (Oh my god, I just got SO TIRED.)

(This post is true, but it was also an excuse for me to just be obsessive compulsive for a few minutes and start to collect a list of "words that begin with pre." Because I'm weird.)

(I have a feeling this is one of those posts that will inspire my mom to say something like "your posts are never bad, but some of them just aren't as good as the other ones.") ('Cuz she's a punkass.)

(On a sidenote, have you seen this: Tom Cruise runs. Clink it. It made me laugh.)

New Thing #68: starting an investigation

I just got off the phone with my friend Courtney. Courtney is going to NYU right now, she's a budding playwright, actress, designer, jack-of-all-trades.

I was in New York last October for a reading and Courtney let me crash at her pad. (Does anyone really use that phrase in real life? "Crash at her pad." I'm not sure I would ever use it speaking, but it felt right to type the phrase.) (Anyway, moving on:)

When I was in New York, I decided to look up an old, old friend (someone I knew from childhood) who I literally had not seen in over ten years, but whom I had heard had opened up a clothing boutique in Courtney's neighborhood.

Well, it turned out, my old friend's shop was literally around the corner from Courtney's apartment. Like, it was 45 feet away from her front door. Like, boom, smack, right there, you know?

So I went to the boutique and my old friend and I were both like, "oh my god!" and "wow!" and we did some catching up, and he sells clothing for designers in his boutique now, and Courtney's a designer who recently designed a line of sweaters, and yadda yadda yadda, long story short, I hooked them up and my old friend worked out a deal with Courtney to sell her sweaters in his store.

This was last October...Now flash forward to today...

Courtney just called me:

"Have you talked to your old friend lately?" she asked me.

"Well, no, actually, I haven't spoken to him since I was with you--when I got home from New York, I couldn't find his number."

"He's gone."

Huh?

"He has all of our sweaters and he's just gone. We went over there to see if he had sold any of them, and the store was empty, gutted. All of the merchandise, just gone."

Courtney talked to the landlords and it turns out my old friend was several months late on the rent. Like, many many* months. Business must not have been going well. And instead of calling it quits, returning all of the merchandise he was selling for designers, and filing for bankruptcy, or whatever it is you're supposed to do in a situation like this, my old friend packed everything up in the middle of the night and skipped town.

One day the store was there, and the next day, poof, gone.

And Courtney just wants her sweaters back. It's like the time my stereo got stolen in college and all I wanted back was the Lemonheads cd that was in the stereo, and I posted flyers on bulletin boards all over campus asking the stereo thief to return my Lemonheads cd, except, actually, it's not like that at all. Maybe if I was Evan Dando and then someone stole my cd, maybe it would be like that. Okay, whatever, it's like if I had designed a whole bunch of really cool sweaters and then someone stole them, except it's not me, it's my friend Courtney.

So now I'm calling mutual friends of this old friend and trying to track him down so I can help Courtney get her sweaters back.

I am so Nancy Drew it's ridiculous. (Actually, I'm not really very Nancy Drew yet, since I haven't done any snooping yet, but I'm gonna be really Nancy Drew, believe me: I'm gonna find my old friend and I'm gonna get those sweaters.)

*On a completely unrelated note: (and this will only mean something to you if you were living in Southern California about fifteen years ago or so) Whenever I hear someone say the word "many" two times in a row, or whenever I say the word "many" two times in a row, I think of Gloria Estefan.

That might sound weird, but she was in the very first commercial for The Los Angeles Times Calendar Section (or if it wasn't the very first one, it was one of the very first ones) that they show before previews start at the movie theater. I absolutely hate commercials before movies at the movie theater, but I hate the Los Angeles Times Calendar Section commercials even more than I hate other commercials because the Los Angeles Times Calendar Section commercials never really seem to acurately represent anything you might actually read in the Los Angeles Times Calendar Section, and I think they were ahead of the curve when it comes to commercials before movies at the movie theater and so I kind of blame them for starting the trend. Anyway, in this particular Gloria Estefan commercial, which I saw so many hundreds of dozens of times (because it ran in front of movies for a heinously long time, until they finally retired it and started making other bad Los Angeles Times Calendar Section commercials), Gloria Estefan says "Latin music has manymany beats." And she literally ran the words manymany together like that--like, she almost manages to say "many many" in one syllable, it just rolls off of her tongue so quickly. And I always thought that was funny (even though I hated the commercial). And that commercial affected me so much that every time I hear someone say the words "many many," (which you would think wouldn't happen very often, but when you're attuned to something like that, you end up hearing the phrase "many many" many many times) I think of Gloria Estefan and I can hear her saying "Latin music has manymany beats."

Props to My Peeps: from The Strip to Cannes

I went to The Strip at the Evidence Room the other night. (It’s only on Saturday nights, so when I say “the other night,” I mean that I went to The Strip on Saturday night. Why didn’t I just say “I went to The Strip on Saturday night” instead of going to all of the effort to explain that “the other night” meant Saturday night? I dunno. Because I like to type.) (And because my blog buddies BonBon McBonBon and Babes McPhee [they’re IRL buddies too] [though we’ve had much more blog interaction than IRL interaction] [look at this! I’ve got parenthetical statements inside of a parenthetical statement!] [it’s like that moment in the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Xander’s trying to sing his stanza and then Anya starts dancing crazy and she yells out “look at me! I’m dancing crazy!”] [except I’m not singing and I’m not dancing and there’s only one person here, not to people] [so it’s not really like that at all] [but parenthetical statements inside of a parenthetical statement are still kinda exciting!] [to me] [do you even still remember the thought I began in the parenthetical statement that preceded all of these inner-parentheticals?] [I was saying that my blog buddies Bon Bon McBonBon and Babes McPhee] recently started calling me Kiki Longpost, and I wouldn’t be Kiki Longpost if I didn’t write really long rambly blog entries) (hence this whole “the other night” tangent) (is anyone even still reading this?) (sometimes I freak out, like, what if people just stopped reading my blog, like, today?) (or what if something in my brain snapped and I just went crazy, like, today?) (these are honestly things that I worry about) (I worry too much) (I suppose the “snapping and going crazy” thing would be worse than the “exodus of blog readers” that might happen if y’all got tired of me and my rambling) (much worse) (whenever I’m in my car talking to myself and I see crazy people walking the streets talking to myself, I know that the only thing that separated me from them is my car and, I guess, a little bit of sanity) (WHAT THE FUCK WAS I TALKING ABOUT BEFORE ALL OF THIS RAMN DAMBLING) (or, “damn rambling”) (oh, right: THE STRIP!)

So I went to The Strip at the Evidence Room the other night. The Strip is a serialized late-night outrageous campy theater piece, written by (my new friend) Michael Sargent (we’re in a writing group together) (Michael is freaking high-larious), Justin Tanner (who wrote the “Guns and Gossip” episode of My So-Called Life!) (hello), and Hugh Palmer & Patricia Scanlon (who is a brilliant freak). The Strip runs for three more Saturdays (don’t quote me on that—but I’m pretty sure there are three more Saturdays).

The cast is a rotating assortment of awesome LA actors, several of whom I am proud to call friends—including blogger-extraordinaire Colleen Wainwright, who is awesome. Go check it out.

*

Okay, so this is huge…

HUGE.
(The hair in the above picture is merely big. The hair in the above picture is nowhere near huge. What I'm about to tell you is much huger.)

My friend Sian Heder wrote and directed a short film (produced by my friend David Newsom) called Mother. (Making your own film is a pretty huge thing in and of itself, but it’s not the huge thing I was alluding to, like, two sentences ago.) (Wait for it—the huge thing is coming.)

Sian and David are incredibly talented people. (When I met Sian in London in 1998, I quickly realized that she was one of the most talented people in London in 1998, and she keeps getting’ mo’ and mo’ better at her art.) (When I met David about a year-and-a-half ago, I quickly realized that he played Hank on one of my favorite shows ever, Homefront, and so I was able to quickly peg him as one of the most talented people in the room, too, but because I’m neurotic and weird I don’t think I mentioned to him that I knew him and loved him from Homefront, and then, after we became friends, I felt like it was weird that I hadn’t yet mentioned that I knew him and loved him from Homefront, and then I felt like it was too late to mention it, so I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it, and now we’ve been friends for, like, a year-and-a-freaking-half, and, well, David, I’m coming out of the Homefront-loving closet right now and telling you that I know you and love you from Homefront) (why am I so neurotic?) (I blame my Mom) (I blame my Dad, too—I’m sure he had a hand in this as well.) Anyway, what I was trying to say was that Sian and David are really talented.

They made a lovely, funny, sad, moving, visually beautiful film. It packs a really strong emotional punch.

In other words, it’s really freaking good.

Well, guess what? (Remember when I said “this is huge,” about five sentences ago? And then I was like “HUGE” in case you didn’t get how HUGE it was? Well, here’s the part where I tell you what the frick is huge.)

Mother was accepted into competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Did you just read that sentence? MOTHER WAS ACCEPTED INTO COMPETITION AT THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL.

Yeah, you read my ALL CAPS correctly. How fucking cool is that?

So:

Felicitations, Sian and David! (That’s French for “congratulations.”) And felicitations to everyone who helped make Mother an awesome movie!

You so deserve this. You guys rock. Your movie rocks.

Bises, (that’s French for “kisses”),
dimsum (that’s French for “Erik”)

The shortest post in the history of My Year of New Things

Does anyone else get dandruff in their eyebrows? Or is it only me? What's that about?

My Week, as seen through the eyes of my phone.

Click to enlarge.

Row One, photo 1: Uma doesn't like it when I take her picture, so when the camera phone comes out, she either runs away from me or she gets crass. I don't know whose hand that is in the photo. I think it might be Scott Caan's.

Row One, photo 2: I am totally obsessed with my camera phone (obviously) and I cannot stop taking bad pictures with it (obviously) and I'm also (obviously) obsessed with taking pictures through my windshield while I'm driving (or taking pictures of myself while I'm driving, which, if you think about it, is really kind of strange--I like to think that it's not a completely narcissistic thing, but rather just an obsession born out of circumstance and that if I wasn't in the car alone so frequently I would be obsessively taking pictures of other people in the car, but since it's most often just me in the car I need a subject and so I end up obsessively taking pictures of myself driving) (further proof that this is a circumstantial obsession and not a narcissistic one: I have deleted all [or most] of the photos of me driving and none of them are in that little collage in this here post) and I don't know what this is a picture of. I think it's someone's headlight, warped by my shitty little camera phone that turns lights into huge explosions of pixilated activity.

Row One, photo 3: This is me and Aki and Carie. You can't see Carie in the photo because my bad camera aim missed her, but the three of us are in the middle of a group hug. My camera, or, um, my phone, does this weird thing where if you leave a photo in it for a long time it starts to warp, kind of like the photo of the McFly siblings in Back to the Future, except instead of slowly disappearing, people start to stretch and melt in my camera photos. Part of me worries that my camera phone is some sort of conduit of evil and my friends are stretching and melting in real life along with their camera phone pictures, but so far I haven't heard of anyone losing their face.

Row Two, photo 1: Another picture of the road taken while I was driving.

Row Two, photo 2: Aki and Carie again, except this time Carie's actually in the photo. Carie was in town for a couple of days from DC, so we hung out on Friday night. It was great to see her. And it was great to see Aki, too, who lives in LA, and who needs to teach me how to cook something again really soon. (She taught me how to make challah bread from scratch back at the beginning of My Year of New Things.)

Row Two, photo 3: Another picture of cars driving.

Row Three, photo 1: Yeah, again, driving cars. I'm special.

Row Three, photo 2: This is my brother Matt's mouth filled with lasagna.

Row Three, photo 3: Bo.

Row Four, photo 1: Aki and Carie looking scared. When I showed this picture to them, they were both like "what are we looking at?" and "why do we look so scared?" Maybe a subconscious part of them knows that my phone is going to melt their faces.

Row Four, photo 2: Carie chugging a beer in preparation for the inevitable melting of her face by my camera phone. (I accidentally typed "Carie chugging a bear," which would have been a tremendously more intriguing photograph, had it happened.)

Row Four, photo 3: Clouds. (Clouds?)

Row Five, photo 1: It was my brother Mike's 18th birthday. We went out for dinner. He was hungry and pounded back his lemonade while waiting for his meal. The waiter brought a refill. Mike pounded that back too. The waiter brought another refill--boom, pound, no more lemonade. Finally, the waiter brought out an entire pitcher with a straw so that he wouldn't have to refill Mike's lemonade anymore, and then, to be funny, Mike tried to pound back the pitcher of lemonade as well. By the time his dinner was brought out, he could barely even take one bite and he kept having to excuse himself to go to the bathroom (where I suspect he was having lemonade diarrhea, but I didn't ask). Happy 18th birthday, Mike!

Row Five, photo 2: Those are Laural Meade's hands. She's offering me my choice of chocolate bunnies. Heaven.

Row Five, photo 3: Uma being really dark in a really dark bar and being annoyed that I'm taking another picture of her.

Row Six, photo 1: Yep, it's another picture of the street through my car window...

Row Six, photo 2: ...and another.

Row Six, photo 3: Matt's lasagna.

Row Seven, photo 1: Really old English muffins. Seriously. (Yes, they're green.) (Yes, that's mold.)

Row Seven, photo 2: There's this dish I like to make every once in a while. It's called a chocolate chip omelette. It's exactly what it sounds like. A lot of people think I'm crazy, but hello, don't almost all chocolate desserts have egg in them? Given, the egg is usually part of something people like to call "cake dough," but still, it's there. I've tried to order a chocolate chip omelette a couple of times at Jerry's Deli and other assorted diners and no one will ever make it for me. So, the other night when I was craving one, I just ordered a side of eggs and then asked for a cup of chocolate chips and I mixed it myself. YUM. (Seriously, you guys, YUM.)

Row Seven, photo 3: Carie and Aki posing in my favorite photographic location: the street. (Okay, and actually, they aren't "posing"--they're walking away from me because they're tired of me taking pictures of them with my dumb phone.)

Row Eight, photo 1: Degrassi's back! And I love it more than ever. Stop reading right now if you don't watch Degrassi: TNG because you won't have any idea what I'm talking about and you won't care, but if you DO watch...how much do you love Paige and Alex together? So much, right? And how gay is Marco now? So gay, it's great. Ug, and Spinner? My heart goes out for him. He's one fucked up little dude and he just needs a friend. And I feel bad for Snake. He made a mistake. I want Spike to talk to him at least--I think they can work things out. ANd, like, ohmygod, when are we going to see JT???????? What, he attempts suicide at the end of last season and two episodes into this season and we haven't even seen him yet??!??!!??? What the frig is that about???? And pregnant Liberty, where are you, too!?!???! I used to hate you, Liberty, because you were such a goody-little-two-shoes, but now that you're preggers, I wanna see you every episode, so come back. Please. (I have a problem.) (Okay, I have many problems, but my obsession for Degrassi is high on the list.)

Row Eight, photo 2: Ingrid! MySpace!

Row Eight, photo 3: Oh, it's just me taking another picture of the street.

New Thing #67: My new haircut/new look.

My hair was getting wily.

Really wily.

Just so, so wily.

Mangy. Out of control.

So I fucking got rid of all of it!

Or, most of it.

This is the shortest my hair has ever been. (Aside from the few times I've shaved my head--but I don't count those times because both times I shaved my head, I did it for plays I was acting in. This is the shortest I've ever actually cut my hair just for myself.)

Rock on.

Angela Kang requested these photos

The movie Back to the Future changed my life.

I was a shy kid. I listened a lot. I read a lot. I played with my He-Man action figures a lot.

I was not much of a talker. I was not much of a go-getter. I was not an in-your-face, out-there, have-wild-fun type of kid. Not that I wasn't any fun. I don't mean to imply that I was a boring kid, or anything. I'm sure I was really cute and charming. Hell, adorable even. But I wasn't very bold--I think that's what I'm trying to get at.

Until I saw Back to the Future.

Back to the Future came out in 1985. I was eight-years-old. I saw it at the Big Newport Theater in Newport Beach. After the movie, I turned to my mother and said, "I want to drive a flying, time-traveling car when I grow up."

And then I'm sure my mom was supportive of that idea, but she was also probably realistic, and she might have told me something along the lines of "flying, time-traveling cars don't actually exist--that was movie magic," and then I decided that I wanted to be just like Michael J. Fox and become an actor so that even though I might not ever be able to drive in an actual honest-to-goodness flying, time-traveling car, then at least, maybe, one day, I might be able to pretend that I was driving a flying, time-traveling car.

That was the second I decided I wanted to become an actor. Now, I'm not an actor anymore, but if I hadn't decided I wanted to become an actor when I was eight-years-old, then I never would have enrolled in acting classes at South Coast Repertory when I was ten, and I never would have become obsessed with theater, and I never would have gone to the school I went to, and I never would have gotten tired of acting, and I never would have taken Laural Meade's playwriting class, and I never would have started writing plays, and I never would have quit acting so that I could focus entirely on writing, and I never would have realized that the first crush I ever had was on Michael J. Fox and that I'm totally gay, and I never would have met all of the people I've ever met in my entire life, and I would probably be working at Kinko's right now and completely uncertain about what I wanted to do with the rest of my days on Earth.

In 2001, I had the good fortune of working on a show on the backlots of Universal. I was working on the same lot where they filmed Back to the Future. It was like working in Heaven. One afternoon, we hung out on the lawn in front of the clock tower and I have a couple of pictures to prove it. The pictures aren't great--they're really shadowy--but they're proof and they make me believe in magic.

In this photo, I'm pretending to be that lady in the first act of the movie who comes up to Marty urging him to help her "SAVE THE CLOCK TOWER!"

And in this photo I'm pretending to be Doc Brown and I'm worried because Marty's late and the clock is going to be struck by lightning really soon.

New Thing #66: Crunches

I've decided I want to get rid of my belly and grow some abs.

This is not a picture of me today. It's a picture of me in a couple of months. Well, without the trampoline. I honestly don't see a trampoline in my future. And I probably won't be so clean shaven in the future because I don't foresee myself shaving on a daily basis. But I do see abs in my future. Lots and lots and lots of abs.

I asked my brother Matt for some advice, since he works out, and I figured he might know how I could grow some abs, and he suggested I start walking (okay, sounds good, I'll start next week) and eating better (I just ate an apple!) and that I do one hundred crunches every night before going to bed and every morning just after waking up.

One hundred crunches is a lot of crunches. I just did fifty. I figure it's better to start with fifty and then have a goal to reach that to try to reach one hundred today and give up and never do it again. But I just did one hundred crunches, and I don't think I've ever even done ONE crunch before tonight, so this is definitely a New frigging Thing.

I can already feel my abs growing into a six-pack!

New Thing #65: I stole money from a child.

I did. I stole money from a child. ON EASTER SUNDAY. I've never stolen anything from a child before (at least, not that I can remember) (I suppose that when I was a child I might have stolen something from another child, but I don't think that can really count because if you're a kid and you don't know any better then it isn't really stealing) (is it?) and so this is definitely (as far as I can remember) a New Thing.

I am sorry to this child who I stole money from, but it was only a dollar and I'm sure they had too much chocolate to even care. Let me explain.

On Sunday morning, I woke up early (or, around 8 a.m., which isn't early for a lot of people, but it's early for me) and as I was pouring myself some orange juice in the kitchen (this is a lie, I don't think I was actually in the kitchen, I think I was actually in the bathroom pooping, but I thought the story would sound better if I was in the kitchen pouring myself some orange juice) (I thought the story might sound healthier, like: look people! Erik drinks juice in the morning!) (not that it's not healthy to have a good bowel movement in the morning too--it is) (but you know what I'm saying) (so, I woke up early) and I heard this clangling sound outside. It sounded like a coin hitting glass. I finished pouring my glass of orange juice (a.k.a. pooping) (wow, I'm really sorry, but all of a sudden it seems really weird to me to be saying "pouring my glass of orange juice" when I'm really talking about pooping, because it's taken on this weird metaphorical meaning and all of a sudden it's just really gross) (but whatever) (I finished pouring my glass of orange juice) and then I looked out the window and didn't see anything. So then I sat down at the table to eat some cereal (this isn't code for anything--I actually did sit down to eat some cereal) (Special K with the dried strawberry chips) (which sounds strange, but is actually amazingly good) and then I heard this tapping sound, coming from the back door. So I go to the door and I open it and find that there's this very large black crow tapping its beek at my back door. Of course, as soon as I open the door, the bird flies away, but then I noticed that there was a blue plastic Easter egg on the table outside--it had cracked open and the silver dollar that was once inside the Easter egg was now on my glass table.

Well, my neighborhood has a big Easter egg hunt every year and this silver dollar egg was obviously part of the Easter egg hunt (which had not yet begun). The crow that had knocked on my door must have found the egg and then when it realized that there wasn't any food in the egg, the bird dropped the egg into my backyard. I saw the silver dollar and put it in my pocket.

It didn't occur to me until the next day (when I mentioned this story to my Punk-Ass Mom) that by pocketing the silver dollar, I was stealing it from some kid who was supposed to find it later that afternoon in the Easter egg hunt. I honestly didn't even think about it. Which just shows you how broke I am right now. Because instead of being like "I should put the silver dollar back in the egg and hide it for the kids," I was like "a silver dollar! Score! I can get something else from the McDonald's Dollar Menu when I get lunch today!"

How sad is that?

Bad blogger

1. I am such a bad blogger lately.

2. This is my 100th post. Happy birthday blog.

3. I have so much fricking wax in my left ear right now. Q-Tips aren't helping. My fingers aren't helping. Prayers aren't helping.

4. Toshiba can bite my butt. My computer broke today, but then a very nice man at Comp-USA fixed it. He rocks, Toshiba sucks.

5. I promise to write a real blog entry before I go to bed tonight. Real life and real writing has been keeping me real busy this week. Many apologies to the blogosphere.

I will not be defeated

Remember a few months ago when I so righteously got the Top Score on the Ms. Pac-Man machine at the Golden Gopher?

If you don't remember, here's my score:

Well, last night I went back to the Golden Gopher and found out that I have been served. Someone has topped my score.

Check it out:

The gauntlet has been drawn. I will not be defeated.

YOU ARE GOING DOWN, anonymous Ms. Pac-Man player.

Happy happy

I'm still obsessed with this scanner. I thought the blog was threatening to take over my life before I had a scanner, but now, well, game over, you know?

Anyway, I just found this picture. It's me (big surprise--sorry--I promise the next blog entry I post will not have a picture of me in it) on Easter god-knows-how-many-years-ago. (I have a really hard time gaging the ages of children--even when the child is myself. I have no idea how old I am in this picture. Am I one? Probably not. But two? Three? Four? Ten? I have no freaking idea.)

Of course it's probably not even dawn yet and I've already eaten all of my chocolate. (I think "eaten" is a kind word for what I've apparently done to the chocolate, considering how much of it is smeared on my face.) (Speaking of my face, I like the forlorn/glazed over look I've got going. It's like I'm looking for more chocolate--dear god, please, more chocolate--but part of me knows that if I have any more chocolate, I might die.) (Yet I still want more.)

Oh, this was supposed to be a "happy Easter" post. So happy Easter. Or happy egg day. Or happy Passover. Or happy whatever-you-believe. Just happy. Lots of happy to you and yours.

*

Speaking of Easter, this really big bunny just brought me several old photo albums and I thought I'd share a few more photos with you. (Okay, fine, there was no bunny, I fucking made up the bunny. I just wanted to use the god-danged scanner a few more times tonight.)

(Okay?)

(1) The Chansonettes Get Ready To Perform at Their 8th Grade Graduation, July 1969:

At first glance, there's nothing particularly exciting about this photo. Just a gaggle of girls getting ready to perform at their 8th grade graduation.

However, when we look at the photo again, and give it a new name this time, this photo takes on all sorts of levels of excitement. So let's look at the photo again, k?

(2) My Two Moms Get Ready To Perform at Their 8th Grade Graduation, July 1969:

Yes, six years after this photo is taken, my mom (pictured, center) will marry my dad. Two years after that, they will have me. Two years after that, they will get divorced. About five years after that, my step-mom (pictured, left) will marry my dad. They will later get divorced too. But both of these Chansonettes are still mothers to me and the fact that they've known each other since kindergarten only makes my two moms that much cooler than your two moms.

(3) My Dad's Mouth, circa 1978:

I don't know what to say about this photo other than: Dad, what are you doing?

Oh, and some might say that my dad looks like Jeff Goldbloom in this photo.

I, however, think he looks like me. Or I look like him. Or--whatever--you know what I mean. Let's look at the photo again, with something to compare it against.

(4) My Dad's Mouth, circa 1978, and (5) My Mouth, 2006:

It's kinda eerie, isn't it? I'm guessing my dad is around 28-years-old in this picture, the same age as I am now. Maybe it's just me, but I think we look almost exactly the same. Except he's looking into the camera lens and I'm looking at a computer screen. But they didn't have computers back when his photo was taken--if they did have them, I'm sure he would have been looking into a computer screen too.

(6) Hallaween [sic], 1988 (aged 11):

I just found this photo and I was like OH. MY. GOD.

I think it kinda speaks for itself.

In other words, no comment. None from me anyway. Feel free to comment yourself. (And here's where I was like "OH. MY. GOD." again. But not about the "hallaween" photo above, this time I was like "OH. MY. GOD." because of the shameless request for comments.)

(I am a comment whore and I admit it.)

(At least I'm not a whore.) (Though I think I was dressed as a whore for "hallaween" in 1988.)

I love my new scanner so much, we just got married

Oh lordy, lordy, (I just typed the words "lordy, lordy," and they reminded me of Jack Tripper, which reminded me that I never winnowed my list of Greatest TV Characters down to a Top Ten. Obviously Jack Tripper is on the list. I will winnow and publish soon), I love this new scanner I have.

It's awesome. It's rocktastic.

I just scanned a whole bunch of pictures into my computer and I thought I would share some random shots, just 'cuz I like to share.

(1) Wet Eyeliner, London, 2003:

This shot was taken before going out one night in London. Earlier in the day, I decided that I wanted to wear some eyeliner that night, because eyeliner is hot, and so I set out to find some eyeliner. You'd think this would be an easy task. But it wasn't. I couldn't find any eyeliner anywhere in the whole god-dang city. Finally, I found some eyeliner at Harrod's. It cost 15 pounds. It was wet eyeliner. It got all over my face. I wore it once.

(2) The Bates Motel, Universal Studios Backlot, 2001:

This is Jessica and me at the Bates Motel, outside the room that Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) stayed in, in Psycho (obviously). We're acting like we just heard something suspicious.

(3) Donna Hayward, Beverly Hills, 1998:

Lara Flynn Boyle was nice until I mentioned that I loved her in Twin Peaks. The second I uttered the words "Twin Peaks," she literally turned and walked away from me. It was like, chatter chatter chatter, pleasant conversation, photo taking, more chatter, "I loved you in Twin Peaks," boom, gone.

(4) Nadine Hurley, Glendale, 1999:

I was working as a host at Louise's Trattoria. This was the summer before my senior year of college. Wendy Robie walks into the restaurant. I start to freak out. Oh my god. It's Nadine Hurley. I could not be more excited if I tried. I want to say something to her, I want to tell her how cool she is, I want to tell her I've watched the Twin Peaks in its entirety 5 times and she devastates me in the last episode of season 1 (when she takes the pills) and she devastates me in the last episode of the series (when she remembers who she is). But I don't want to interupt her dinner, I don't want to be rude. I call about 15 people. "Should I say something to her, or just let her be?" My co-workers are annoyed with me--I'm not working, I'm not making them their coffee drinks, I'm just obsessing over Wendy Robie.

Finally, she finishes eating, and as she's leaving, I ask her: "Excuse me, are you Wendy Robie?" She's surprised that I know her name--she often gets recognized from Twin Peaks, but people don't often know her name. She could not be nicer if she tried. We talk for about ten minutes. I am a total Twin Peak Freak and Wendy Robie has made my entire stint at Louise's Trattoria worth it.

(5) Me or Jeff? You decide. Beverly Hills, 1998:

People are always saying that I look like Jeff Goldblum. I don't see it. Neither does he.

(6) Rawking Our Hawks, Eagle Rock, 2000:

This is me and my frequent blog commenter Joe Chandler. We just gave ourselves mohawks. (With the help of Uma, a fellow frequent blog commenter, and Tyler, who has never commented on my blog.) (But I don't even know if he knows about the blog, so I won't hold it against him.) You can't really tell that we have mohawks in this picture, but we did, and we're so freaking punk I wanna die.

(7) Graduation Day, Eagle Rock, 2000:

This is me and my Granny Joanny. It's one of my favorite pictures ever. I just graduated from college, which is why I have a tassle hanging from my mohawk.

#64: a new attitude, a.k.a. "saying shit out loud"

I have this new thing I'm doing--I guess you could call it a new attitude, but that's not really right. It's more like a new philosophy. It's connected to the whole idea of Positive Thinking.

Let's call it "The Power of Saying Shit Out Loud."

I'm sure people have written books about this idea, so I'm not trying to pretend this is anything new for anyone other than me. But just yesterday, I was really tired and it was 3 p.m. and I hadn't had lunch yet, and then I said to Jessica: "I'm too tired to even eat. I wish someone would literally put the food in my mouth." And then today, I spent the whole morning running errands (like, oh, filing my taxes, because I'm a Last Minute Betty when it comes to things like taxes) and then I stopped by my mom's house and she literally walked up to me and said "try this" and before I could even ask her what it was, she was spooning food into my mouth.

It's the Power of Saying Shit Out Loud, people. It works.

Like, here's another example: A few weeks ago, I was reading Premiere Magazine and there was this picture of the cast of "Friends With Money" at Sundance that I really wanted to blog about, but I didn't have a scanner and so I was like "I wish I have a scanner," and, hello, today I just got access to a scanner.

The Power of Saying Shit Out Loud. (If I keep repeating that phrase, you're going to think I'm in a cult or something, but I promise you I'm not in a cult. I'm just really happy to have access to a scanner because it means I can blog about this picture of the "Friends With Money" cast.)

Look at this picture:

Do you see anything weird about this picture? Okay, before I point out what's weird about this picture, in case you haven't noticed it yourself, I want to lay out our cast of characters. In the back row, from left, we have: Jason Isaacs, writer-director Nicole Holofcener, and Greg Germann; in the front row, from left, we have: Simon McBurney, Catherine Keener, Jennifer Aniston, and Scott Caan.

Now look at Jennifer Aniston's lap. There is a hand in her lap. It's a man's hand. And it's not Scott Caan's. SO WHO'S FUCKING HAND IS IT?

Look at the picture again:

Do you see what I'm talking about??? When I was looking through the magazine, I saw this picture and I couldn't stop looking at it because THE HAND DOES NOT BELONG TO ANYONE IN THE PICTURE!

Seriously. I mean, seriously. Let's look at some undisputable facts:

--It's not Jennifer Aniston's hand. (It's a man's hand.)

--It's not Catherine Keener's hand. (It's a man's hand.)

--It's not Nicole Holofcener's. (Ditto.)

--It doesn't belong to either Jason Isaacs or Greg Gerrmann. (It's too far away from them to logically belong to them, even though everyone in the picture is in a clump and Greg Gerrman's left hand is unaccounted for.) (Besides, it's a right hand anyway, and we can clearly see Greg Gerrman's right hand.)

--The hand cannot belong to Simon McBurney (the guy in the light blue sweater) because we can also clearly see that his right hand is in Catherine Keener's lap, and besides, the hand in question is not attached to an arm wearing a light blue sweater.)

--I want to believe that the hand could belong to Scott Caan, but look at the way he's sitting and the angle of the arm. If that's his hand, then he's pretty fucking double jointed.

Which brings me back to my initial dilemma.

WHOSE FUCKING HAND IS IT?????

The photo was taken by a photographer named Karina Taira (whose photos are entirely awesome, by the way). Karina, if you ever google yourself and find yourself here on my l'il ol' blog, and you feel like shedding some light on The Case of the Mystery Hand in Jennifer Aniston's Lap, please, please, I am begging you, please just tell me whose hand that is and tell me it got back to its rightful owner.

Thanks.

New Thing #63: the “12 of 12” project

Yesterday I was doing some blog surfing and I discovered Chad Darnell’s blog. Chad started up this very cool project called “12 of 12” where he asks people to take 12 pictures of their daily routine on the twelfth day of the month, and then he posts a link to your “12 of 12” on his blog, and then you get to see a whole lot of different peoples’ “12 of 12” pictures and it’s really kinda cool.

Since I love projects, I thought I’d partake in “12 of 12” today. (New Thing #63.)

Photo #1: 10:31 a.m.

My writing partner, Jessica, and I usually write together from around 10:30 until 5 p.m. on weekdays.

There are several thoughts running through my head as I take this photo:

1. I’m late.
2. I should call Jessica and let her know I’m running late.
3. But I’m usually about five minutes late anyway, and she usually expects me to be five minutes late, so I don’t need to call.
4. Oh, look at that, I’m out of gas.
5. I don’t have time to stop and get gas. Then I’ll really be late.
6. It’s okay, though, because my “empty” light isn’t on yet.
7. It’s hard to take a photo and drive at the same time.
8. Look! I’m going 60!
9. I better not freaking run out of gas.

Welcome to my mind, people. Fascinating stuff, right?

Photo #2: 10:45 a.m.

This is Jessica’s dog, Orson.

Orson just had a difficult poop outside. Like, his poop is connected to hair and won’t fall off. So Jessica is cleaning him up while I take this picture and I’m sure Orson’s thinking something like “um, Erik, how would you feel if I took a picture of YOU while someone was cleaning your butt?”
(I’m sure Jessica will be REALLY happy that I just shared that she was cleaning Orson’s butt during the taking of this picture.)

Photo #3: 11:00 a.m.

This is me at my computer. You’ll notice the computer isn’t on yet. That’s because I haven’t gotten to the writing portion of my day yet. I’m re-reading our outline right now while this photo is being taken.

Photo #4: 12:38 p.m.

It’s Wednesday, so Jessica and I go to our favorite Farmer’s Market to get some of our favorite Corn on the Cob from our favorite Corn on the Cob lady. BUT SHE ISN’T HERE. Our favorite Corn on the Cob lady is M.I.A. We’re thwarted in our corn cravings.

Hence the angsty look on my face.

I’m like, whuh?

Photo #5: 1:15 p.m.

Okay, we’ve eaten (not Corn on the Cob) (why do I feel Compelled to Capitalize “Corn on the Cob”?) (it’s not supposed to be capitalized, is it?) and now we’re writing. Notice how I hold the thumb in my left hand up in the air while I type. Isn’t that weird? That’s how my hand naturally rests at the keyboard. My thumbs are kind of double-jointed and my thumb just sits there in the air.

Photo #6: 2:45 p.m.

We’ve gotten some writing done. Time for a Cribbage break. (I’m not sure if Cribbage is supposed to be Capitalized, either, but I think I’m just in a mood to Capitalize every word that begins with the letter ‘C’) (apparently) (if you’ve never played Cribbage, you should try it one of these days) (it’s a great game)

(if you’ve never played Crubbage, then you have no idea what this hand means) (I can’t remember what my fifth card was in this hand, but it’s always good to have a 5, so this hand was okay, but not great or anything)

Photo #7: 5:10 p.m.

We got some more writing done and called it a day. Now I’m getting gas because, remember? My tank is, like, totally empty.

Photo #8: 6:20 p.m.

So then I go to a coffee shop because I need to get some work done on one of my plays. I get a hot chocolate, I sit down, and I can’t stop looking at the guy sitting across from me. Why am I staring at him? Because I think I know him. He looks like this guy Jonny who I took acting classes with when I was a kid. We acted in a few plays together as well. But I haven’t seen Jonny in about fifteen years. And even if it is him, I’m not sure that he’ll remember me because I’m about five years younger than him—so, like, when we knew each other, he was the cool older teen and I was the dorky young teen. I don’t know if it’s him or not. Finally I’m like: “Jonny?” And he looks up at me and he’s like: Beat. Blink. Then…recognition.

“Erik?”

So we end up talking for an hour and catching up and then we’re trying to remember when exactly we met and I tell him I remember that he was dating this girl Felicia. And then Jonny’s eyes go wide—he can’t remember that it was that long ago. He hasn’t seen or spoken to Felicia in over fifteen years.

Photo #9: 7:15 p.m.

I ask Jonny if he knows what Felicia’s been up to. He doesn’t. Well, you know I’m the King of Google, so I ask Jonny: “Have you ever googled her?” And he hasn’t. So we do.

And we discover that she’s now living in New York, she’s a (semi?) famous novelist. Which is cool. I want to read one of her books.

Photo #10: 9:30 p.m.

Jonny’s gone. I’m tired.
Done working on my play. Hungry.
Coldstone Creamery.

Photo #11: 9:53 p.m.

That’s the clock in my car. I’m driving home. It says 8:53, but it’s really 9:53. I can’t figure out how to change the time.

Photo #12: 10:30 p.m.

Winding down. Watching The Amazing Race.

So that's my "12 of 12."

Oh, and Chad asked for a bonus picture inspired by the word “red.” I don't know if there's actually any red in this photo or not--I'm wearing a red shirt and I thought you could see it in the mirror, but I guess you can't. Oh well. It's still my interpretation of "red."

#62

Last week, I alluded to a fairly big New Thing that I had done and I said I’d blog about it later and then I got really busy writing other things. Anyway, here I am, finally blogging about the big New Thing from last week.

New Thing #62: I came out to my brothers. Finally.

Which means I am now gay to everyone in the entire freaking world. (Or, you know, all the people I know.) (And lots of people I don't know, too, I guess.) (I mean, I'm gay to you.)

I don't know why it took me so long to come out to them. There was just this period of time where it was like, "oh man, who else do I have to come out to?" And they got lost in the shuffle. I got tired of having the conversation. But then last week, one morning, I just woke up and I was literally like, "geezus, we're all practically adults now, just trust them and do it already."

So I went to my computer, right then and there, and sent them an email.

Which may sound weird--doing it via email--but it was really kind of perfect. I emailed them and then we had dinner the next night and we talked (a little, not much, but everyone was cool and normal) and now I don’t have this thing hanging over my head.

My brothers are really three rockin’ dudes.

Here’s what the email said…

*

Dear brothers,

I miss you guys--we need to hang out soon. I want to let you know a few things:

1. Remember that new years resolution I was talking about making? About doing 365 new things this year? Well I'm doing it. I'm on number 50something right now.

2. I have a blog, if you want to check it out, to keep track of the New Things I'm doing this year, it's My Year of New Things. (I tried doing one new thing a day, but that got too difficult, so I also write about random other things on the blog.)

3. I'm gay. (Maybe you guys already know that, but in case you don't, there ya go.)

4. You don't need to reply to this email. I know the gay thing isn't really an issue and doesn't change anything and we're all cool, I just hate having the "I'm gay" conversation and I thought it was time to get it out in the open.

5. Oh, also, and this is crazy, but: x xxxxxxx xxx xx xx xxxx xxxxxxx xx xxxx xxxx xxx xx xxx xxxxxxx, xx xxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxxx xxxx x xxxxxx-xx-xxx xxxxx Uxx.

6. That's it. Miss you guys.

Love,
your bro,
Erik

*

(Sorry I censored #5, but #5 is something I don’t talk about on the blog.) (I like to maintain at least a smidgen of mystery.) (Unless we’re talking about bowel movements—then I’m an open book.)

P.S. I don't have any group pictures scanned into my computer, so I nabbed the above photos from various places (i.e. MySpace profiles, etc.) and put that little collage together, but that's me and my bros.

*

P.P.S. an UPDATE: (4/14/06) So I just got a scanner and I've been going through boxes and boxes of old photos. Ninety percent of the photos I have in all of these boxes are from college. Apparently I took A LOT of pictures in college and I have barely taken any since. But I just found a funny picture of "the brothers" from 2001 that I thought I would add to this post:

Googlephoria

If you read my blog a lot, then you know I’m obsessed with google. It’s been a while since I’ve posted a list of my google searches, so I thought I’d satisfy all of y’all who are interested in my google dirty laundry with another list. (Also because I like lists.) (Which you also already know if you read my blog a lot.) (Or maybe you even know that if you don’t read my blog a lot.) (Because it’s kinda obvious.)

These are my most recent google searches (from the last seven days).

Unedited. Unexpurgated. Alphabetized.

(I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to turn all of the searches into workable links right now. Which means that if you’re reading this and you’re like, “I want to google ‘Donovan leitch naked’ too,” then you’re going to have to do the own damn search yourself.) (By the way, I didn’t find any naked pictures of Donovan Leitch, so don’t waste your time.) (AND WHY WAS I EVEN LOOKING? That’s the real question.) (But I promised you an unedited look at my search history and that’s what you’re getting.)

"A clockwork orange" screencaps
"audrey hepburn"
"Backwards evolution"
"Beagle virus"
"Billy zabka" penis
"boom boom"
"Brian de palma" "lapsed catholic"
"choose your own adventure books" barnes and noble
"choose your own adventure books" reprinted
"crystal meth" "Side affects"
"Dan futterman" theater
"Defending your life" Irvine
"Derrick shepherd" greys neurosurgeon
"Donovan leitch" naked
"dorian gray" "Boston court" naked
"Erik Patterson is a gay google"
"Erik Patterson"
"farmer's market" "Orange county”
"Florida film festival"
"Friends with money" sundance premiere
"gauntlet 2" host
"Grey's anatomy" "Season 2" "on vhs"
"Holly hunter"
"Hotel Fusion"
"Iliad books" vineland
"Iliad bookstore" Burbank
"it could be you" tootsie farm
"Johnny lawrence" karate
"Just one of the guys" Barbara
"Karina Taira" premiere
"La Belle Et Le Bad Boy" ringtone
"like a toaster" "being alone" mscl
"like a toaster" "being alone" so-called
"like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster"
"Malcolm mcdowell" sexy
"Malcolm mcdowell" underwear
"Marilyn monroe" script margins
"mercury poisoning" "daphne zuniga"
"mercury poisoning" "what is safe"
"mercury poisoning" deathly?
"mercury poisoning" levels
"mercury poisoning" salmon
"mercury poisoning" symptoms
"mercury poisoning" tuna
"My year of new things"
"myspace addiction anonymous"
"myspace addiction"
"named my penis"
"of contradictions"
"Pakistani busboy""sex and the city" single
"Samantha was" Single armor sex and city
"speeding ticket"
"speeding ticket" fine
"The green slime"
"Tom manning" comic
"Toothy tile is"
"Twin peaks" ringtones
"Uma Nithipalan" erik
"Uma Nithipalan" soaps
"Willam belli"
autistic basketball
average speeding fines
claire dances to "six feet under" towleroad
cojones
cronick valentine
eight men out
gay theater "los angeles"
Harvey pekar new work
hbo Atlanta
imdb murder she wrote
Ingrid "addicted to myspace"
internet explorer tool bars
johan Lauren
john cena
lesbian tootsie Idaho
Maupassant
paul rudd snarl
pus adjective
pusie adjective
pussey adjective
pussie adjective
pus-y adjective
riconculous
sarah utterback myspace
tranlate latin to English
translate Latin to English
trepadatious dictionary
zabka

*

Time for bed. No more googling. No more blogging.

BED. SLEEP. NOW.

New Thing #61: Camp Snoopy

Yesterday...

...I spent twelve hours...

...riding the kids rides at Camp Snoopy at Knott's Berry Farm.

Hence, New Thing #61: I spent twelve hours riding the kids rides at Camp Snoopy at Knott's Berry Farm.

A couple of notes:

--I took my friend Carol's two sons, so she could have a day without the kids.
--I look dreadful in these pictures. (Check out the wings in my hair.)
--Seriously, these are some of the worst photos ever.
--I mean, seriously.
--That thing they say about your hair looking its best (or whatever it is they say) the day after you've washed it? Yeah, um, not always true.
--Obviously.
--Apparently, I love -ly words.
--a.k.a. adverbs.
--I didn't take these photos. The kids did.

A couple more notes:

--Twelve hours at Knott's Berry Farm is a long time.
--Twelve hours at Camp Snoopy is even longer.
--I don't recommend it. (But the kids had fun.) (So if you're a kid, I recommend it.)

Oh, and:

--I just looked at these photos again. Oh. My. God. I can't believe I'm posting them on my blog. If I ever want to get a date out of my blog, I really shouldn't be posting these pictures. (And I'd be kidding myself if I told you I didn't want to get a date out of my blog.) (Even though I've sworn off internet dating, I still think that getting a date out of my blog is its own valid thing.) (And I know I've technically already gotten a date out of my blog--the one I had with my NBFF Bonnie--which should really progress to a second date, and soon--but I would also like to get a man date out of my blog.) (One of these days.)

Rickie don't mind

First of all, I just have to say that I was supposed to go on a date tonight and I had to cancel because of car troubles, which is one of the lamest reasons to have to cancel a date.

* This is by no means a "scoop." But it's still pretty crazy and amazing. (Cramazing?) My brother Josh pointed this out to me after reading it in Entertainment Weekly, which means that if you read Entertainment Weekly you're gonna be like, "oh, Erik, this news is so five minutes ago," but if you don't read Entertainment Weekly (because you read my blog, which is basically Entertainment Daily, and so you're like, "why would I waste my time on something that only puts out for me once a week?"), then this might be a bit of a revelation. However, it's only going to be a revelation if you used to watch My So-Called Life and you're also watching the current season of Survivor. (Angela Kang, you're not going to care about this post one iota because I know you've never seen a single episode of My So-Called Life and the reason I'm calling you out in this blog post is to shame you into watching it. Because you will love it.) (Watch it.) (Geeez.)

Okay.

Anyway.

Remember that great scene towards the end of the My So-Called Life pilot, when Angela Chase and Rayanne Graff and Rickie Vasquez are waiting for Tino outside Let's Bolt so that he'll get them into the club, and then they meet those two guys who basically maul Rayanne and try to get the girls to come home with them, but just the girls, not Rickie, and then Angela's like "well, I'm not leaving Rickie here," and Rayanne's like, "Rickie don't mind," and then Rickie's like, "I don't mind," but he does, and then Rayanne throws a bottle at them and the whole thing is terrifying and exciting and your heart aches and you want to be in high school again even though it's hell but for just one night you want to be underage and not know if you'll be able to get into Let's Bolt and basically you just want to "have a time."

Do you remember that scene?

Here's a picture from that scene:

Now, this is a terrible photo and you can't see the guy's face at all, but that guy in the photo who's being a dick to Angela?

It's fuckin' SHANE from the current season of Survivor. How weird is that?

I feel like worlds are colliding right now. Crazy freakazoid Shane has bullied Angela Chase and Rayanne Graff. What a weird world.

(Shane, I know I just called you a "crazy freakazoid," but I still love you, I do--you're good TV.)

Feeding the blog beast.

Several random thoughts:

My mother keeps begging me to write a new post on my blog because she obsessively checks to see if there’s a new post, but every time she checks she has to read about my penis, or, excuse me, Billy Zabka, and she doesn’t want to read about Billy Zabka anymore.

However, speaking of Billy Zabka, in case you don’t read comment threads, I would like to thank Angela for my favorite comment of the week:
















*

“I totally want to have business cards made up that list me as: Angela Kang, A.O.E.P.P.

“And when people ask what it stands for, I'll say (in a bad British accent): "Authority on Erik Patterson's Penis".

“(I don't know why it needs to be said in an accent. It just does.)”

*

Well, I think that’s a great idea,
so I am officially anointing
my friend Angela
as my A.O.E.P.P.

*
















My step-mom’s boyfriend Dale gave me a Motorola razor phone last night and it’s so fucking cool. I am completely obsessed with it. I don’t think of myself as a gadget person, but I guess I really am one.

This phone has a camera and a video feature too (though I haven’t completely figured out the video part of the phone yet) (actually, I kind of understand how to use it, I just don’t know if there’s a way to ever get the videos off of my phone and onto my computer) (but give me time) and, as you can see from the photos on the left, I have been having fun with my new camera phone.
















Do you remember when you were a kid (like 8 or 9 or 10 years old) and your parents would let you play with their camera and you would go crazy and take pictures of the dumbest things, just because you could? Like, I remember going on a trip, I can’t remember where we went, but I do remember the pictures I took:

--There was this great picture of the toilet in the airplane.
--There were several pictures of my feet.
--There were a few pictures of the sidewalk.
--I think there was a picture of my mom’s chin.

You know, when you’re a kid with a camera, you take lots of bad pictures like that.

Well, I’m kinda like that with my new phone. I’m all snap this and snap that. Like, I was driving home and I started taking pictures of the street through my car window. Why on earth would I ever want pictures of the street through my car window? I think it’s because my cell phone lacks the concept of “film” so I go hogwild.

*















Speaking of being a kid and taking really bad photos, that reminds me of this field trip we took in fifth grade to Chinatown in Los Angeles. It was this big field trip—we came up to LA in several buses—but I can’t really remember what we were specifically coming to see. I just remember eating lots of junk food, and I also remember that I had decided I was obsessed with this girl Katie Hawkins—I had decided that I was in love with her—and so I followed her around and took an entire roll of pictures of her. I got her backside in some of the photos, and some of the photos feature Katie giving me a look that’s like “why are you taking my picture again?” and then some of the photos feature Katie looking at one of her friends and talking to them and it looks like she’s probably saying “why is Erik taking my picture again?”

But that’s what happens when you’re young and in love and you have a camera.
















*

Two years later, at the end of seventh grade, Katie and I would run against each other for Eighth Grade Class President.

In my election speech, I vowed to “bring back school Read-a-Thons.”

Katie, my former “love,” won.

I remember, after the election, one of my friends who was already on the ASB, and was therefore in charge of counting the votes, told me that I had received two votes.

Two votes.

And I voted for myself, so one of them was mine.

*















I had dinner with my friend Lara and her daughter tonight and I haven’t seen them in forever it was so fucking great to see them. Actually, I should say it was so f-u-c-k-i-n-g great to see them, since we spent most of the night spelling out curse words. Not that we were participating in some sort of curse word spelling bee, I’m just saying that when the occasion to curse would come up, we would spell the words out for the sake of her daughter. (Why did I feel the need to spell that out?) (Sometimes I really wonder about myself.)

*

I still need to post pictures from my dinner with Bonnie and Keith and PAM the other night.
















*

Joe Chandler, you still need to post a comment on the “Best TV characters” blog entry. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.

*

I did a really big New Thing yesterday, but I’m too tired to blog about it right now. It deserves a blog entry of it’s own. But I just wanted to acknowledge that I did it.

New Thing #60: Billy Zabka is the name of my penis.

I was thinking about the fact that when I was fifteen-years-old, I named my girlfriends boobs. And then I was thinking about how a lot of guys name their penis. (Or am I crazy?) (Is that NOT something that guys do?) (Is that only something guys do on sitcoms and bad movies?) (Oh my god.) (Have YOU named YOUR penis?) (Whatever.) (I was still thinking about it.) And then I did this poll a few posts ago. And finally I got mad that my penis didn't have a name and I decided that it was time to name my penis.

So I named my penis Billy Zabka.

If you don't know who Billy Zabka is, well, he was only one of the most awesome actors to come out of the '80s. I am serious here. You might think I'm talking all tongue-in-cheek and shit, but I could not be more earnest. Billy Zabka was the jock-asshole-villian in Karate Kid and Just One of the Guys. (If you still don't know who he is, then you need to go rent those movies motherfucking now.) He achieved a bit of fame from those two movies and he's still working--he's still acting--but he hasn't ever quite reached the zenith peaks he reached with Karate Kid and Just One of the Guys. But he was fricking awesome in those movies. Like fucking kickass, you know? Such a badass. Such a dude. Such an awesome prick.

Which is why I think it's appropriate to name my penis after him.

I just did a google search of the phrase "Billy Zabka is..." and here's what the internet had to say about my penis:

Billy Zabka is the head of Cobra Kai.

Billy Zabka is still around.

billy zabka is my long lost lover.

Billy Zabka is THE guy who THE karate kid fights at THE end.

Billy Zabka is a jerk.

billy zabka is the best gift a girl could get on valentine's day.

Pretty cool, right?

New Thing #58: Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie. (Oh, and New Thing #59, too)

So, if you read the comments on my blog, you know my NBFF Bonnie.

Bonnie and I met through our mutual friend Colleen, who sent Bonnie to my blog, and then I read Bonnie's blog, and then Bonnie and I started having comment conversations, and then Bonnie and I started having obsessively long crazy amazing comment conversations, and then Bonnie and my mom started having comment conversations, and then we all basically had a blog affair, and then we talked on the phone, in the middle of the night, frenetically, frantically, freakishly, and then, yesterday, we progressed to the next step:

We met IRL.

(that's "in real life," for those of you not in the know) (I don't know why I always feel compelled to explain that IRL means "in real life") (I mean, I use the phrase a lot--online at least--and every time I use the phrase, I'm always like, "that's 'in real life,' for those of you not in the know") (when, really, you're probably all already in the know by now) (and if you're not in the know, you're still pretty smart and you could probably figure it out) (you know?) (so why do I always feel compelled to explain what it means?)

Anyway. Dude. We met IRL.

Bonnie was the first person I've ever met IRL who I met through my blog, so that's New Thing #58. We went to dinner at Dan Tana's next to the Troubador on Santa Monica Blvd., where I've never eaten before (hello, New Thing #59). It was me, Bonnie, my PAM (Punk-Ass Mom), and Bonnie's husband Keith. Which is a pretty fantastic foursome.

We ate steak, we ate chicken, we ate lobster, we ate veal, we flirted with the bartender, we told stories about ex-girlfriends, and stories about weddings, and we heard Keith's story about why he's "the luckiest man in the world," and we met a man named Joe who practically lives at Dan Tana's and who has sat at the bar every night for the last 37 years getting so drunk that his fallback salutation is "Happy New Years" to everyone who gives him even a cursory glance, and we told stories about gigantic labias, and people watched, and then we ate some more steak, chicken, lobster, and veal. It was awesome.

I think we freaked out a little bit. Just the fact that we were finally meeting IRL for the first time after this whole online blissfully freakazoid freakout. I mean, we forgot to do, like, half of the things we had planned on doing (i.e. blog from the bar via Bonnie's handheld, etc.), and at times it felt like an awkward first date--as we ran through our histories and tried to get out as many big life stories as possible--but it was so fucking cool to finally meet my NBFF IRL (someone should snap up that personalized license plate like fucking now) and I cannot wait to see her IRL again, when we won't be so eager and rushed to say anything and everything, when we'll have a little more breathing room, when we can get drunker on alcohol than we are on each other, when we can just spend hours talking about Anderson Cooper and how dreamy he is.

So, BonBon, let's do it again really soon, okay?

LYMI,
KiKi

P.S. I have pictures, but they aren't on this computer yet, so I'll post them later.