12 of 12, July 2007

I should have posted this yesterday, but I didn't have internet access yesterday. I haven't participated in Chad's 12 of 12 project in many, many months, and I finally decided to get back in the game. Here goes.

#1: Highland Park, 8:46 a.m.

I just woke up. The night before, I'd had a fever of 101. I was all loopy and shit. (I'm still trying to get over a cold, but at least the fever's gone, thank the lord.) Anyway, taking the above photo was the first thing I did when I woke up and I wasn't happy about it. I am not a morning person. And 8:46 a.m. is early for me.

#2: L.A.X., 11:36 a.m.

Despite the fact that I woke up at the crack of dawn (I'm telling you, 8:46 is really early), I was still late to meet my mom for our planned carpool to the airport, so she was really paranoid about whether or not we were going to catch our plane or not (she'll scoff at the notion that she was "really paraniod," but it's true). In the above photo, we're about to go through security. The woman standing in front of my mom was, like, 4 feet and not an inch taller. I wanted to stow her in my suitcase and take her home with me.

#3: L.A.X., 11:38 a.m.

It only took two minutes to get through security, so now we have plenty of time to kill. I am fairly certain that my mom took extra time putting her shoes back on (above photo) so that it wouldn't seem like we had so much time to kill.

Bonus photo, "hotness," L.A.X., 11:52 a.m.

I was wandering, aimlessly, looking for something to eat before getting on the plane, when suddenly, I see a man enter the corridor and I freeze. I'm not even exaggerating for effect, I literally froze in my tracks. I think my jaw might have dropped, but I won't say that it did because I can't tell for sure because I pretty much lost all control of my body. Hell, I might have been floating and I wouldn't have even known it because the man who entered the corridor was Leland Palmer. Now, okay, yes, now that I'm at the home of my cousins Sue and Alan, I realize that Leland Palmer is a fictional character from the television show Twin Peaks and that he was portrayed by an actor named Ray Wise. Yes, I know that with every logical fiber in my body. But if I was stuck on a desert island and God told me he'd give me a TV set with one condition, that I'm only allowed to watch one television series and I can watch it as much as I want but seriously I'm never gonna get to watch another series so I'd better choose wisely, I would choose Twin Peaks. And my love for the show is really unabated, i.e. I get so annoyed when people say "Oh, yeah, that show was great in it's first season, but the second season sucked," because, okay, sure, some of the second season sucked--okay, maybe chunks of it did--but if the only thing you see in the second season is suckage, well, I'm sorry, but you're really missing out, because the second season has at least twenty brilliant moments. What am I saying??? MORE than twenty brilliant moments. (Every scene with David Lynch as Agent Gordon Cole, Piper Laurie's big reveal moment in the prison, the "Don't go back to Missoula, Montana" scene, that diner scene between Major Briggs and Bobby when Major Briggs tells Bobby about the dream he had and Bobby realizes that his dad loves him and he breaks down and cries...I could go on, but I won't.) The only storyline that's completely bad, IMHO, is the one with James and that blondie who tried to set him up for the murder of her husband, and that storyline isn't bad because of James Marshall's terrible acting (which actually WORKS most of the time BECAUSE of its badness, and I could go on and on about why, but I won't), no, that storyline's bad because it's the only storyline in the entire series that takes place OUTSIDE of Twin Peaks and suddenly melodramatic soapyness that's essential to the show started to feel out of place. And one of the best peices of the Twin Peaks puzzle is Ray Wise. I know that the actors have said that they didn't know the answer to the question "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" until the killer was finally revealed on the show, but if you go back and watch the show again from the beginning, Ray Wise knew. He had to have known! Watch the dream sequence in episode three, and then watch every single scene that Ray Wise is in, because it all points to him, but it's so subtle and Ray Wise is so brilliant and sad that you don't see it coming at all. With each episode, he builds to madness. But it takes, like, 14 episodes for him to get there, so it's a looooong build. And he teeters on the brink of absurdity without ever for one second losing the core emotional truth that he is a father who just lost his daughter in the most horrible way. It's such a good acting job that he is completely and utterly real in my head, and when I saw Ray Wise walking towards me, I swear to you: I held my breath. (On a side note, he's extremely handsome in person, and he looks completely un-crazy. I, on the other hand, probably looked bonkers, standing there, frozen, holding my breath, trying not to look like I'd noticed him while simultaneously STARING.) I didn't want to freak him out, and also I wanted to respect the fact that he's just trying to be a normal dude at the airport, so I didn't take my camera out of my pocket until he'd already walked upstairs on his way to the private airport bar. That small speck of a head you see in the above photo is him, walking away. Seeing Ray Wise was thrilling, and starstriking, and completely hot.

#4: Mid-air, 4:38 p.m.

How beautiful is that sky? I was enjoying the view. Until...

#5: Mid-air, 4:59 p.m.

...we started experiencing turbulance. And when I say "turbulance," I mean it felt like the airplane had been plucked out of the sky by the hand of God and he was shaking it to see if anyone was inside. I've never been scared in the air before, but for a few minutes there: I was scared. My mom was scared too, and she said that she was scared, and I didn't think it would do the two of us any good for BOTH of us to be scared, so I pretended like I wasn't scared and I took this photo to be like, "ha, ha, look at us, we're having fun on an airplane," but now that I'm safe and sound and on the ground, I can admit that I was out of my wits.

When the plane landed, all of the passengers erupted into applause--that's how scary the turbulance was. True story.

#6: Ronald Reagon Washington National Airport, Washington D.C., 8:29 p.m.


Never have I been so glad to see a non-descript airport tunnel. We're in Washington D.C. now, so I've added three hours to my camera's timestamps to account for East Coast time.

#7: Washington D.C., 9:03 p.m.

My cousins Sue and Ellie picked us up at the airport. I tried to get a good photo of the Washinton Monument as we drove past it, but this was the best one I got.

#8: Washington D.C., 9:04 p.m.

And then I tried to get a good photo of the Lincoln Memorial as we were driving towards it, but this is the best one I got. Despite the shoddy photos (we were driving, after all), it was beautiful.

#9: Chevy Chase, Maryland, 9:27 p.m.

Arriving at the home of Sue, Alan, Ellie, and Scott. Family reunion time.

#10: Sue and Alan's living room, 9:56 p.m.

That's my mom, my step-grandma, and my great-aunt Muriel.

#11: Sue and Alan's kitchen, 10:46 p.m.

That's Granny Joanny teaching Uncle Bobby and cousins Steffani and Taylor how to do that twisting-your-middle-fingers-through-your-hands trick. You know the one.

#12: Basement make-shift bedroom, 12:10 a.m.

The end of a long day. I was about to collapse. My cousin Taylor snapped this photo in the mirror, just before her mom yelled for her to go brush her teeth.