West Hollywood's favorite day?

Today Ben and I walked down to West Hollywood park for the final day of the 2009 LGBT Pride festival. It is debatable whether Pride or Halloween is the pinnacle of WeHo living - for me it's obviously Halloween, which i find even gayer than pride. at least there's a lot more nudity.

Here are some highlights from our trip into the rainbow glitter wonderland...


optical illusion at the 2b hair products photo booth


this frenchie needed a break so he just laid down on the sidewalk


beads to promote gayness!


another photo booth this one by progressive insurance


temporary tattoo application


yogurt stop's yo-go dancer

super video

this is a video of a 15 month old baby who might like adam lambert as much as i do. worth watching through to the end.

A Weekend in The Bend

About a year ago, Emmy Selden moved to South Bend, Indiana to work at a rad women's liberal arts college called St. Mary's. and although we usually meet in arizona for her birthday in february, this year we could not make the trip so instead, i made my way to one of my favorite parts of the country...the midwest.

when i say i love the midwest, what i really mean is that i love iowa. i really really love iowa. thanks to emmy and the selden family, i have had the great fortune to visit iowa four times, including two visits to the iowa state fair. i'd also been to fort wayne, indiana and even passed through south bend once during a cross country drive, so i was pretty sure i knew what i was in for when i arrived in south bend.

however, the weekend was filled with unexpected quirks and firsts that belong to south bend alone

Quirks:
1. they have an original ms. pacman machine in the airport. you don't believe me? check it out:


2. they do not sell beer and wine on sundays. i think in a restaurant you might be able to order booze, but if you want to buy some you are s.o.l. don't believe me? check it out:

and if that oddly capitalized sign doesn't stop you, try getting past these barricades!


3. in lieu of beer and wine, on sundays you can quench your thirst with something called 'faygo'. if they sold 'faygo' in west hollywood it would fly off the shelves. don't believe me? check it out:


4. the ultimate end-all quirk was not in south bend, but outside of goshen, indiana. the local walmart has horse-and-buggy parking. this is due to the large amish population in the area. if you don't drive a car, how are you allowed to shop at walmart? seems contradictory but there it is. don't believe me? check it out:



you can see the parking barn in the far right of this photo

this photo is so you can see that it really is walmart


And now for the firsts. Over the course of the weekend I did these things for the first time:
1. Drove a Boat


2. Learned to play a drinking game called 'Flipcup' and proceeded to score the win for my team!



3. Visit the Olympia Candy Kitchen, founded by Ally Paflas' grandfather and still run by the Paflas Family


4. Checked out at one of 32 checkouts in a Target Superstore.


5. Watched 'Groomer Has It' and then used my newfound knowledge of topknots to give Bruiser this fabulous hairdo.



Thanks to Emmy and Bruiser for hosting me for three fun-filled nights!! Here's a pic of us at the D.Q.



Just do the cones... make sundaes, make Blizzards, 'n... put stuff on 'em, 'n... see a lot of people come in, a lot of people come to the D.Q... burgers... ice cream... anything, you know? Cokes... just drive in and get a Coke, if you're thirsty.

Lebowski Fest 2009 - A Natural, Zesty Enterprise

Last week Ben and I attended night one of Lebowski Fest Los Angeles 2009. The fest featured lots of people dressed as The Dude, plenty of Walter Sobchaks, a screening of the movie and of course, the white russians were flowing. It was so much fun to be around people who love the underappreciated cult classic like I do. We did not attend night two, which was the bowling party and costume contest. However, our costumes did make onto a couple of LA websites.

http://la.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=23509254&event=748853&CategoryID=34141


click and scroll down for a very good photo of ben as The Big Lebowski and me as Brandt
(could not get hyper link to work! - it's worth a cut and paste in your browser)

http://www.la2day.com/nightlife/la2day_at_lebowski_fest_09

and now for a few photos of Dudes


Duder


El Duderino (if you're not into the whole brevity thing)


This Dude brought his Lady Friend (do not call her his Special Lady)

Further Adventures in Hair Removal

anyone who reads this knows that hair removal is one of my top discussion topics, hobbies and research subjects. get a group of friends together, add a few drinks, and hair removal talk is inevitable. to that ongoing conversation, i add my experience from yesterday.

as you can see in photos, i cut my hair very short about five months ago. while i do love having a look somewhere between pink, sally bowles and rod blagojevich, i am plagued by hairline growth in my neck/nape region. ben has gone at it with our clippers, and i've taken a razor to it while in the shower. but it leads to stubbly regrowth and a yucky five o'clock shadow.

when i last got my hair cut, crystal rose said "you should get that shit waxed!". surely she must be joking. i didn't think it possible. but yesterday while getting my eyebrows and mustache did, i asked ina, my waxing lady, what she thought.

"oh sure, honey. i have done for girls before. we try it. if you like it we keep doing." she said in her soothing russian accent.

so we did it. and it hurt but not TOO bad. and the results undeniably beat the pants off either
1. as-is hairy neck or
2. shaved stubble neck.


comic attempt at trying to photograph my non-hairy neck.


maybe if i hold the computer upside down...


this is the best it's going to be for showing purposes. i have on a headband so my herr looks janky anyhow.

San Fran Friends Tour April 29-May 3

thanks to all my san francisco hosts for a fabulous weekend!


Sarah, Nate and Vanessa at the VIP reception for Roger's event at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.


Roger's exhibit 'Jews on Vinyl' at the Contemporary Museum


Roger's exhibit: detail


Justin in the Longwillow's radical yellow 1973 Corolla. It might be a '71. Not sure but I do know it RULES.


Gio is CNE and Lynn's 5 year old son. Heavenly.


CNE ponders all the goodness that is Tsunami - Asian Tapas, Sushi and Divine Cocktails.


Rebecca and Justin Longwillow. Rebecca's smokin' hot hairdo .


Lynn makes a culinary dream come true by bringing me to Tommy's Joint for Brisket! Long ago I saw it on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network.


Sarah has her hands full at Nate's 40th Birthday party - Georgia 27 months, Hank 11 months.


Jeremy and Sara recently moved to Palo Alto after 15 years in Cambridge, Mass. Their son, Eytan, will be 2 in June. He calls me 'Carrot'. To die for.

seven visitors in thirteen days

the excitement! the "welcome prosecco"!! the building tour! these past two weeks have brought us visitors both domestic and international, planned and spontaneous- it's been so much fun catching up with old friends and getting to know newer friends better. meeting old friends' partners and babies, trying new restaurants and foods, and hooking our guests on a whole lotta reality tv.

visitors 1 & 2
olivia and louise
(no photo available)

o is one of my closest friends from college, we met in our first days at swells. her relocation to vancouver from santa barbara a couple of years ago has definitely cut down on our visits. whereas we used to pimp around every few months, it had been nearly a year since we'd gotten together. she came with her foxy dutch girlfriend louise.
trip highlights:
- the tastiest sushi in west hollywood after which
-olivia and louise learn that adam lambert rules and everybody else on american idol drools. ben figured out how to play youtube videos on our tv, so the ladies could watch his past performances. they are now lamb-fans/adamaniacs.

a fantastic but short stay, and i thank them for the trader joe's spread they left in their wake - sparkling sake, lobster rolls, and vegan cookies for our next pals...

visitors 3 & 4
alyssa and adrienne
(no photo available) (i am a loser)

next to natalie, alyssa's and my friendship is the "meet cute(st)". she tagged along when an old family friend came to see me during my first year at wellesley. since she also had a friend at wellesley, when joy came to see me, alyssa visited her friend. her friend would turn out to be CNE - in a coincidence-tornado, my dad once taught at their high school and my "uncle" stan was her biology teacher. neither alyssa nor i are still in touch with the girl who introduced us, but we've stayed friends for 15 years. alyssa and her ladyfriend, adrienne, were in san diego for a conference which they parlayed into a visit to la.
trip highlights:
- phenomenal dinner at vegan thai restaurant bulan
- ridiculous sighting of danny devito and rhea perlman at vegan restaurant in BFE (Tarzana),
-watching the ladies try to motivate to go out dancing but the pull of 'the biggest loser' on tivo was too strong. they went out the next night instead.

visitors 5 & 6
allison and kelly

unbelievable that we have not seen allison and kelly since their wedding in september 2006. but this weekend we made it happen. they drove out from vegas on a baby-meeting junket (they have several friends in la with babies). it was wonderful to spend time with them when none of the three of us was wearing a wedding dress.
trip highlights:
-learning what a raw diet is (they eat about 70% raw) and then lunching at Cru in silverlake. that place is BANANAS.
-cajoling allison into joining kelly and me in the photo booth at space 15 twenty, a new shopping and art venue in hollywood
-meeting eli patel fruchbom! son of rachna and dave fruchbom.
-re-igniting their passion for 'the biggest loser' - they do not have tivo in vegas so they had yet to experience tara's tenacity and the sleaziness that is ron.

space 15 twenty self timer on the chair sculpture

allison is the baby whisperer. seen here with eli.

visitor 7
olivia r.
(old photo below)
i first met olivia last february when we convened in scottsdale to celebrate emmy's birthday. this weekend she was in la on vacation with a friend, and we made dinner plans for sunday night. she was going to schlep to an airport hotel but we decided it would be a lot more fun if she checked in here instead. hers was the shortest visit of all, but that did not dampen our good time
trip highlights:
-spotting one drag queen and one tranny while enjoying wine-enhanced dinner with natalie at basix
-attempting to watch 'daisy of love' but deciding it's just too terrible - even for us!
-trying to diagnose strange water-rushy sound coming from the ceiling

trip lowlight:
-sewage line backup in underground garage just in time for olivia's arrival. p.u.!


millicent, emmy, olivia and me* atop the valley ho february 2008.
(emmy is the only person in this pic who has not spent the night in our apartment but we are working on changing that asap.)
* the coat i am wearing is featured in us weekly's 'who wore it best' this week! clearly i wore it better than rachel bilson and whitney port.

BONUS VISITORS!!
visitors 8, 9, & 10
kristin, christopher and teddy mcgraw

wow! kristin and christopher are old friends from my david e. kelley days who moved from la to denver about 5 years ago to open a pizza restaurant. their place is a raging success but they took the weekend off to bring their 21 month old son, teddy, to the beach. we zipped down to hermosa beach, where they were staying, for happy hour and teddy-meeting. he's simply gorgeous. what a special surprise that the mcgraws popped into town!


teddy knew the bar was BYOB (bring your own bike)


ben plays firetrucks with teddy and christopher