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.