This is Ferris, my carry-on.

As of two minutes ago, I am able to say that I leave for Australia tomorrow. The passport has been located, the luggage has been packed, the apartment is (mostly) clean, and I think I'm ready to go.
Originally, I was going to fly alone but there's been a change of plan.Ferris will be coming with me after all. I tried to keep him out of the luggage, I really did. He'd hop in, I'd scoop him out, he'd hop in again, I'd scoop, he'd hop... It was ridiculous and there was really no way to keep him out, short of locking him in the bathroom so I developed a system - every time I needed to put something in the case, I'd lift him up with one hand, set the item down with the other, and set him on top of the newly packed item. There was no other way. He was going to hang out in that case if it killed him. After all, there might be ninjas in Australia! Who else is going to protect me? Who else really understands how sneaky those dastardly ninjas are?


Look at that. A face like that will let you get away with anything. Knock over the water glass? It's okay. He's cute. Tear the shower curtain? Aw, so sweet! (He thinks it's coming between us. ) Rip my arm to shreds? No problem. He's just practicing his ninja killing moves.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of my adorably vicious kitten, this apartment is a ninja-free zone and soon, if everything goes according to his tiny-brained plan, Australia will be, too.

counting down...

View Larger Map

It's only begun to hit me this week. I'm going to Australia. I'll be in Australia this time next week. I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO AUSTRALIA WHICH IS BOTH A COUNTRY AND A CONTINENT AND I WILL BE THERE. Honestly, it's kinda freaking me out a little. I'm prepared. Sort of. While I don't have my passport in hand, I know I've got one. That's important, I think. A start, anyway. Once I find it, I'll have it, and that's one item I can check off the list. Passport? Check (once I've remembered where I've put it). Clothes? Check (as soon as they're laundered). Plane ticket? Check (as soon as I've gone to work and printed it out because I've run out of ink at home). Camera? Check. I could practically run out that door and straight to Australia right now!
Really, it's not so bad as all that. I've got the next two days to sort everything out - I'm not working and I've made no plans for fun stuff. I will find the things I need to find, wash the clothes, clean the apartment, all that necessary-for-travel stuff and by Saturday, I will be heading to the airport knowing that I am Totally Prepared for Anything.

Image via Wikipedia

The Australian friend has given me a mini-itinerary. As far as I'm concerned, most of it is gibberish (I had no idea that Melbourne was in the state of Victoria. I thought Victoria was an island and that I'd be visiting it later in the week, as opposed to being in it the entire time). So far, the plan is to spend the first couple of days in Melbourne, then a couple of days on Prince Philip Island (I am geographically dense about Australia [Victoria's a state! Who knew?!] so I have no idea what it means that I'll be staying there but it sounds awesome. Anything involving royalty is a win for me.) From Prince Philip Island, we'll spend a few days exploring the Great Ocean Road or we'll head to Sydney and play in the city. Hiking or bar-crawling, we'll decide once I get there.
I'm bringing my laptop with me and hopefully I'll be able to update once in a while, with pictures.


And that's it. What my life is all about right now. The job's good, the cat's great, my friends are lots of fun, my family is doing well, and when people ask me what I'm doing this weekend, I very casually shriek into their faces, "I'M GOING TO AUSTRALIA!!!"

Just For Fun

It's late, the cat's sleeping on my lap, I'm out of new books to read....

For my own enjoyment, I've put together a list of my favorite dance scenes in films and TV shows. I love love love it when dancers are hilariously awkward and those are the clips I started looking for but pretty soon I was watching all my old favorite dance numbers.

Here are my favorite (excluding all those that don't have clips on YouTube, anyway) dances.

AWKWARD DANCES:
The master of dance, Fred Astaire, drunk. From the 1942 movie Holiday Inn.


Thandie Newton and Gerald Butler in Rocknrolla, planning a heist.


From Flight of the Conchords - Brett dances when he's angry and he's very angry now.


This is pretty much exactly the way I dance now. Except, you know, without guys lifting me up. Or rhythm. I don't bother with that stuff. (Mostly because I don't have any.)


Ellen, before she started dancing EVERY SINGLE DAY on her talk show.


Abigail Breslin's dance at the beauty pageant in Little Miss Sunshine.


My brother and I learned this dance from Perfect Strangers and used to do it all the time and every now and then, we'll do it just to keep in practice. The end is my favorite bit. Usually, I'm the one who gets carried but once in a while, we switch things up and as soon as he jumps into my arms, we both end up on the ground.



Another Fred Astaire classic, from Swing Time. His character, a professional dancer, has to pretend he can't dance so he can meet Ginger Rogers' character, a dance instructor.


Later, Astaire shows off what he's learned from Ginger Rogers. Infinitely less awkward.


I had to leave out that epitome of awkward dancers, Napoleon Dynamite because the only clip I could find starts automatically and I think that's obnoxious. If you want to watch it, it's here.

OTHER AWESOME DANCE SCENES:
That moment in The Fisher King when Robin Williams' character spots the love of his life in Grand Central Station.


This clip from The Fifth Element could have gone either way - the Blue Diva has some incredibly lame dance moves but Milla is nothing but awesome.


The Cell Block Tange from Chicago. Sexy, funny, brilliantly choreographed. Really, the entire movie is phenomenal. It's hard to choose just one song.


The always magical Singin' In The Rain. Happiest number ever.


I was torn between this clip and Fred and Ginger dancing to Cheek to Cheek but in the end I chose this one because her dress is prettier.


El Tango de Roxanne from Moulin Rouge. I could (and have) watch this scene over and over. Everything about it is just perfect. This particular clip is different from the film version - it's the entire song but the clip focuses on the dancers, not showing the scenes with Nicole Kidman.


Finally, two clips from my favorite canceled TV show, Pushing Daisies. I cheated a litte here - there's not much dancing but they're still magical musical moments.

Filthy Flashbacks

Tonight was the night I began my Massive Picture Project. I'm going to be scanning and then saving onto disc all the photos I have on paper. After all, paper may fade but DVD is forever. I started with a pile of pictures that I have floating loose in a box and I was surprised by some of the stuff that turned up. This, for example:

I know what you're thinking. You're, like, "What is she wearing? And why is she happy about it? Why is that guy so dirty? And most importantly, why would she allow herself to be photographed like that?"
Okay, maybe you're not thinking that but I'll explain anyway: I was playing a townie on the short-lived HBO series Carnivale. It was for Acting Purposes. Back in 2002 I did extra work on movies and TV shows and I was working a lot. That was how I supported myself for a year and this picture is one of the very few that I have from that time. I was pretty happy to find it, even if it does require some 'splaining.

Here's another one, from The O.C.

See? I really wasn't homeless.

Throw another shrimp on the.... Eh, whatever.

I am a very lucky person. Like, super lucky. Like, going-to-Australia-for-ten-days-for-free kind of lucky. That's how lucky I am. An old friend of mine moved to Australia a few years ago, flies all over the world for work, racks up frequent flier miles, generously offered them to me and I generously accepted. I AM GOING TO AUSTRALIA!!!
The idea for the trip came up last year but because of my wacko job situation, I couldn't even consider it. Now things are stable, the job isn't going anywhere, the neighbor can watch the cat, and I can fly half-way round the world practically worry-free. I'll head out of LAX on November 7th and return on the 18th.
Unlike my trip to Paris, I'll have a guide in my friend who's lived in Melbourne for a while and knows about all the cool places to see. Not that wandering blind through Paris wasn't fun - cause it was - but there were moments here and there when I wondered if I'd ever find my way out of whatever alley/airport/train station/neighborhood I happened to be in. More than once, I was convinced that they'd find me and my over-sized backpack twenty years later, hunched over a trash fire in some forgotten corner of the Gare du Nord, roasting pigeons and muttering to myself.
ANYWAY, that's not going to happen in Australia. And if it does, at least I'll have some company.


The Explosive Neil and I are going to The Cat and the Fiddle tonight to say goodbye to a former co-worker. I haven't seen this girl in a while but I'm glad I'll have a chance to see her off. My favorite memory of her was the time I took her out for her birthday. This was a few years ago and she'd only been in LA a couple of months. She didn't know very many people so I invited everyone I knew to meet us at a bar in Hollywood. Half an hour into the party, she was very, very drunk. This was completely my fault. She told me she was done after a couple of drinks and I wouldn't listen. Three drinks after that, we were outside and I was holding her hair back while she threw up all over the sidewalk. After some copious vomiting, she straightened up, looked blearily around, and said, "This is amazing. I feel just like Bukowski. Thank you."
That's what happens when you get literary geeks drunk in Hollywood.

Can I get a refund on this brain? It's not working right...

Image via Wikipedia

ACTUAL THOUGHT PROCESS WHILE I WAS DRIVING HOME TONIGHT. I was alone:

"La la la, la la la What a nice night. Oooh - smells like popcorn! Where is that coming from? Mnn. Smells delicious. It's really a strong smell.... Where IS it coming from? I should have already passed.... Did someone pour popcorn into my engine? Is the heat making it pop? IS THERE POPCORN IN MY ENGINE? Is my car going to break? That's kind of clever... Wait... What's that smell that people smell right before they have a stroke? Is it popcorn? It's burned something... Toast, maybe. OR MAYBE IT WAS BURNT POPCORN!!! Am I about to have a stroke? Should I pull over? OH GOD, IS IT BURNT POPCORN?!?!?"

And that's how it went for a little while until I realized that it had, in fact, been a little while and the stroke hadn't started yet. Then everything was fine again.

So, erm.... I'm still here....

Wow - the last entry promised that I would keep up with my blogging and then there's Radio Silence for six weeks. Sorry about that.
It's been a very crazy, very busy, very good six weeks. I've been five weeks into a job that I'm very happy with and about two weeks into living with a kitten that is very slowly learning that people NEED TO SLEEP AT NIGHT.
I don't have any pictures of the job yet, but I can show you a picture of a person that has the same job title as me.That's Joan. She's in Mad Men and while we're both office managers, she has much better clothing than me and it KILLS ME. This is a situation that will be remedied.

That is Ferris. He's named after my favorite carnival ride, not the Bueller. I took this picture the first day he was in my apartment and if you look past the filthiness, you can clearly make out his deep distrust of me. This distrust was justified the next day when I gave him his first bath. It took about a week but we've become friends now. He's still shy and will hide out in my closet whenever anyone comes to visit but when I'm alone, and he's awake, he'll come by for some head scratchies before he gets back to work - systematically destroying everything I own. I don't have any other pictures of him yet but I'll try and get a few that are slightly less demonic.


You'd think that after weeks of silence I'd have so much to say but I don't. Now that I'm sitting here thinking of all the things that have been going on this month, my mind has gone completely blank. I saw some great shows (Jarvis Cocker was amazing!), a few fun movies (I loved 500 Days of Summer), went on a few fantastic dates (I saved one of the targets from the shooting range - turns out I have some skill with a handgun and in the inevitable zombie apocalypse, I will totally save your butt and/or brains), and have spent a lot of time at work, learning the ins and outs of running a successful business.