Mar. 31, 2006

---

friday morning [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:19 am

i leave for the airport in an hour. weird, to think about going back to real life. weird.

on wednesday i took a little walk around downtown, and went to the top of the Standard Bar, which is right up the street. i went there after having lunch with Gary on my first day here. i took a few photos, until a guy came up to me and said YOU CAN’T TAKE PHOTOS OF THE PROPERTY.

but by then it was too late, the deed was done.

here’s the coolness of the bar.



here’s another angle, showing the fireplace.



and the very cool pool.



and next door to the Standard is a very cool loft and this one in partiular has such a fancy balcony, complete with a full bar setup, that i had to take a picture.



because everybody else was asleep before eight o'clock last night, that made me sleepy (might have also been all the wine and beef) so i went to sleep before the game let out next door. before ten.

at three thirty there was lots of baby crying, and this morning brendan and jerri told me that not only was the baby very very unhappy (VVUB), but Brooklyn the dog had diarrhea as well. wow. that’s a lot of drama in the middle of the night.

i’m going to spend my day sitting on a plane. but that’s ok.

ok then,

friday grace.


Mar. 30, 2006

---

a funny moment at 9:37 p.m.... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:40 pm

i’m lying here in bed flipping the channels on the TV. and on TNT is the game, los angeles lakers vs...somebody. san antonio spurs, perhaps. so the game is going on on tv...and at the very same time, i can look over to my right at the staples center where the game is going on, and there’s the big screen projecting the game. watching the game on tv, seeing the same images outside the window. very funny. it’s all happening just a little earlier on the screen at the staples center than it is on the TV.

here in LA.

ok then,

grace.

---

8:07 p.m. and i’m the only one still awake... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:13 pm

brendan and jerri had to get up at 4:30, new york time, and then they flew for five hours. and then we had plenty of wine and lots of DELICIOUS beef stroganoff...and now i’m the only one still awake.

jerri apologized for going to bed at 7:50, but who could blame her? so i’m sitting here on the hideabed upstairs in the very very cool loft, and i’m about to watch a bunch more sex & the city episodes. plus there are all the cars now parked in the lot next to us, all the people at the lakers game, and maybe if i’m still up i’ll watch them all leaving.

jerri warned me that because of lucy’s messed-up schedule, she’ll probably wake up at 9 and then again at one. and i said that i was fairly sure i’d still be up at nine, not to worry.

the goose sure did look adorable, sleeping peacefully there in her crib.

the bad news - brendan tells me that because my computer has a bad connection - the power cord is plugged in, but the computer doesn’t think it is, and then i have to jiggle the cord to make the battery icon go away - it will eventually go bad and i won’t be able to do anything about it and i’ll have to get a new computer. this is pretty sad, but i’ve been dealing with the bad connection for quite some time now, so maybe it’ll limp along for a while longer. jerri says i can get a dell laptop for 500 bucks right now, which seems really really cheap.

i’m not going to think about that right now.

people are still going in to the game, and it started 40 minutes ago.

whew. sex & the city.

ok then,

not so late at night grace.

---

6:35 p.m. PST [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 8:40 pm

i’m sitting here at brendan and jerri’s table with them, and we’re all sitting at our computers, typing away.

we’ve been drinking wine since 4.

and i’ve had lots and lots of bread and butter.

i’m still able to type without too many typos, so i must be doing ok.

brendan is making beef stroganoff. which i’m not hungry for at all, but of course i’ll eat it.

afterwards we might watch a movie.

plus i keep looking out at the people pouring into the game across the street at the Staples Center.

the goose is sleeping peacefully. maybe all through the night, if we’re lucky.

brooklyn is also sleeping peacefully.

i hope to do so as well, later on.

and then tomorrow, a day full of flying.

ok then, maybe more later,

grace not drunk on thursday.

---

THE GOOSE IS BACK! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 4:44 pm
lucy, that is. that’s what jerri and brendan call lucy. i think it’s because of the term “loosey goosey.” i’m pretty sure. i used to know, but like everything else, i forgot.

they arrived about 11 this morning; i was on a walk after finally getting the place tidied up so it didn’t look like a hellhole anymore. not that this place could ever look like a hellhole, but let’s just say it was QUITE messy. plus lots of pawprints all over the wide expanse of floor.

brooklyn followed me around a little bit and got fresh pawprints on the floor. i walked around with paper towels under my feet, trying to get it all clean and dry. it looks MUCH better. i should have taken before and after pictures! then they’d have been really really impressed by my cleaning efforts.

here are just a handful of the many many photos we took at the El Matador Beach. this first one is the spectacular view you have up at the top of the path that you walk down to get to the beach.



here’s me in front of one of the cool caves.




as we walked down the beach, this is one of the houses we saw. i remember this house from the last time i was there, and i love it. it’s so close to the water, and it would be unbelievable to actually stay there, or to live there, so close to the ocean. i’d like to live on the ocean someday. is it even possible? is there anyplace in the US where you can live on the ocean without being incredibly wealthy? or better yet, is there some way for me to get incredibly wealthy? must research making a bunch of money having a blog. SURELY it’s possible.



when we first got to the beach, it was slightly cool and cloudy. but then the sun came out and it was warm and fabulous and i took so many pictures.







we walked south, towards malibu, and there were lots and lots of houses. i’m sure that celebrities must live in some of them. but then again, if they did, wouldn’t there be a fence? but can you put up a fence on the beach? i don’t think so. up the other way, where i took a photo of that lone houses, there were a few places scattered up high, and they had long long stairways down to the beach, but most of the stairs had a fence halfway up, so anybody couldn’t just walk up to the house.

so surely this huge houses must not belong to celebrities. but very very very rich people. i know that you can’t just drive on the road to the houses; they’re all gated.



i kept telling people that you see El Matador beach on TV commercials and in movies and stuff. and on Monday there were two different photo shoots going on. both were using male models. I had G. (Grover) pretend to take a photo of me, so he could get a good shot of the photo shoot. the guy had just taken off his shirt and gotten it wet,then they were messing with his hair.



one more cave.



on the way up the hill to the car.



after the beach, we drove back down the pacific coast highway and stopped at a restaurant called Duke’s and had a drink out on the patio overlooking the water. nice.

there are many beautiful places here in LA.

but i’m still looking forward to going back to Spfld tomorrow. i hear that spring has sprung.

ok then,

grace.

---

stuff on wednesday night. [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:35 am

jerri sent me an e-mail this morning; she and brendan and the goose will be arriving tomorrow morning around 11. she said that maybe after VBB goes to sleep, we can play some cards.

VBB is “very bad baby.” i guess cute and adorable little lucy is being kind of bad. i assume this doesn’t mean she’s shoplifting or smoking illegal drugs or anything.

bad. maybe she’s just tired of NYC. she’ll probably be a perfect baby when she gets back here to LA. i’m interested in seeing how she and Brooklyn, giant white wolf dog, interact.

i’m also going to miss this place which i now think of as my own.

how can i go back to spfld and my plain dishes and stuff after all of this splendor?

especially the staples center right across the way. there’s no game tonight, so it’s eerily quiet over there.

i have to put up some photos from the beach where we went on monday. we took lots and lots of pictures of the beach. el matador beach, the coolest beach in LA.

but not right now. i had a massage and now i’m pretty sleepy and am going to bed.

the massage was great. at the New Otani hotel, it’s a japanese hotel and i had a massage there many years ago. they call it shiatsu massage. i studied shiatsu massage as part of my massage training, at the shiatsu school of santa monica. this was kind of like the stuff i learned, only different. the woman massage therapist was fairly big and BOY did she used a lot of pressure. and i realized that every single thing on my whole body hurts.

i’m feeling very mellow tonight. i toyed with the idea of going to the beach, and going to see a comedy show tonight, but i just wasn’t in the mood.

before the massage i was sitting in the tiny waiting room dressed in a hospital gown and this guy came in wearing boxer shorts and he was also waiting. he struck up a conversation and i told him i’m a massage therapist and he said he felt a little weird being there in the boxers they supply, but he felt comfortable talking to me because i’m a paid professional, and he asked me lots of questions about myself.

his name is dwight. he’s a third generation angelino, very rare indeed. he’s a commercial real estate broker. he gets lots of massages, but had never had a shiatsu massage.

i don’t know if he liked it, because he was gone by the time i was done.

afterwards i sat in the sauna. i walked in and a japanese guy was sitting on the floor reading a paper. i thought this funny. the sauna was quite hot.

after that i went to Little Tokyo, a place with restaurants and shops very close by, and i was going to buy some sushi at a little grocery store but the selection was sparce by then. also i was slightly leery of buying sushi at the grocery store.

instead i came back to the fabulous apartment and had leftovers and watched sex & the city.

everything is good.

i sleep now. also good. pictures tomorrow, after i vacuum and mop and straighten things up, all before eleven a.m.

ok then,

sleepy wednesday grace.


Mar. 29, 2006

---

more photos on wednesday morning [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:36 am

i went to sleep last night at 1:30 because i kept watching episodes of “sex & the city” on dvd, because brendan and jerri have all of seasons three and four and if i keep watching i might get to all of them before i have to leave. but i stayed up a little too late because there was no voice of reason anywhere about to say, “uh, it’s kind of late...” and then this morning i got up at six thirty, and i DO NOT FUNCTION on only five hours of sleep. i’m going to return to bed soon, i think.

i took C.(Charlie) to the airport last night; his flight left at midnight. actually, yesterday morning he thought it was leaving tonight instead of last night, but then he checked his schedule and realized it was last night instead and he tried to change the reservation but because he was using his frequent flier miles there were no seats on any other flights till april 6th. but actually, the flight from here to chicago was full, so maybe there were no seats no matter how you got your tickets.

we went to the airport early because there was another game across the street at the staples center and we didn’t want to get caught up in that traffic. i said we should go to the bar Encounter which is at the airport and is a really cool structure and i’ve been there and drew barrymore was there, back when she was with that one annoying actor she married for a while...what’s his name? i knew it last night, but this morning i’m not really clear on much of anything. anyway, they were at the bar and she was just kissing him all over.

we got to the bar last night, however, and it had just CLOSED. which was a big bummer, because there’s no place to hang out and have a drink at the airport if you aren’t flying anywhere. so instead we drove down the street to an airport hotel and the guy was going to charge us seven bucks to park for less than an hour, but then he said we could park for free. the bar inside the hotel wasn’t so much a bar as a little bitty thing set up in the lobby, with two drunks standing in front of it trying to drink as much as they possibly could in a half hour. i don’t know if they had a flight or they were just in some kind of frenzied heavy drinking program.

we sat at a table where they serve breakfast and had our drinks and it was kind of nice and all the people who worked there at the hotel were very very friendly which made up for the rather tacky surroundings.

i need to go get some gifts. a little something for my family. but where? i don’t want to go on the freeways anymore if i can avoid it. i can’t think of anyplace good to go. i’m sleepy. i want to get a massage today. i need to go back to sleep.

i have to mop the floor. jerri and brendan’s fabulous place has nice hardwood floors although actually Gary says they’re really made of bamboo, i think he said, but they look like hardwood and they’re covered in dog hair from brooklyn the dog who has short hair and yet sheds a LOT plus there are quite a few muddy footprints all around and it’s a little bit bad.

so i have to mop the floor. and THEN the massage. and maybe a few gifts. maybe i could wait and get some at the airport? because where else would there be such a selection of stuff that has LOS ANGELES printed on it?

anyway, here are a few more photos of the huntington. i also have about a million photos of the beach, but those will come later.

this first one is a formal garden in front of the mansion with a whole bunch of statues in front of it.



these are some bamboo trees along a path.



here’s a japanese rock garden - there were a bunch of bonsai trees nearby.



and this is the japanese garden, except they used to call it the chinese garden. but they’re building a big new chinese garden nearby, so they just changed the name of this one, which seemed a little odd to me.



the rose garden is spectacular, but there were few roses blooming. we’ll have to go back later in the summer.

one more thing before i go back to sleep - we were driving back from santa monica and were going to stop at a very fancy grocery store i knew about in brentwood, but when we got to the little shopping area that looks like a homey country place because that’s the kind of fake expensive faux down home place brentwood can be because this the land of illusion, the store was no longer there.

we walked into this huge, delicious-smelling bakery full of scrumptious-looking bread and pastry and i asked if there was a bristol farms market nearby and the guy behind the counter started to answer me but then this guy sitting at the counter who was typing on a laptop looked up and said “you’re the second person to ask me that today” and he said it used to be bristol farms but it’s gone now. and i said i used to live there and i knew that it was around somewhere and we chatted for about a minute or maybe less and then the guy, who was clearly the owner of the place, handed C. and me some big pieces of bread and he said they were croissant-pretzels. he said “they’re crunchy on the outside, but on the inside they’re soft and buttery and warm...like you.”

this seemed just a little bit odd, the soft and buttery and warm like me part, but the pretzel-croissants were delicious and C. and i talked about the guy as we drove away and C. said the guy was certainly hitting on me and i said maybe he was just trying to be a good businessman and C. said it wasn’t good, hitting on me in front of my boyfriend.

soft and buttery and warm. it did make me laugh, anyway.

i wish i had one of those pretzel-croissants right now, come to think of it. but i don’t feel like driving all the way back to brentwood.

ok then, enough already, i think the delirium could make me sit here and type all day.

goodnight for now.

wednesday grace.


Mar. 28, 2006

---

greetings from LA... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:02 pm
ok, it’s suddenly 10 a.m. and i’m still sitting on brendan and jerri’s couch upstairs in their fabulous loft, overlooking the staples center and today it’s grey and rainy. we’re headed off to the peterson car museum in a while, but it has been challenging to get moving.

i have many photos today, but only time to post some from saturday, when we went to the huntington library and gardens. the huntington is a mansion and a big library with stuff in it like some of shakespeare’s original plays and a guttenberg bible and really old stuff like that. the museum has things like the blue boy by gainsborough and a bunch of art, and it’s all good stuff, but i love the gardens more and especially the cactus garden. in addition to that one, there’s a huge rose garden and a tropical garden and a japanese garden and the place is really cool. so here are a bunch of photos we took of the cactus garden.

















whew. we took millions of photos that day. afterwards we went to the Norton Simon Museum, a small museum in Pasadena that has lots of great art, like a bunch of Degas paintings and sculpture, plus some van goghs and all kinds of big names in the art world.

afterwards we went to Trader Joe’s which is a FANTASTIC grocery store and there’s one in st. louis and we need one desperately in spfld. maybe someday? we made dinner here at b&j’s cool pad. a good time was had by all.

ok then,

tuesday grace.


Mar. 27, 2006

---

tapas! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:14 am

last night we had tapas with my friends gary and ben. tapas, in case you don’t know, are spanish appetizers, and i love having tapas because then we got to try little plates of many different kinds of things, instead of being stuck with one big meal.

at this particular tapas restaurant each tapa (tapa? is that right? the singular of tapas? but maye it’s always tapas, singular or plural) was pretty small and all four of us split each one and sometimes it was quite funny because we had to cut everything into such small little bites.

at the end we had ice cream - it was chocolate brandy chocolate chip ice cream, to be exact, and i shared my bowl with O. (Oscar) who can’t have much of anything very sugary, so i got most of it and even though the main meal was little bits of food the ice cream was an ENORMOUS amount. delicious.

we were going to go to ben and gary’s house at 6:30 but we had some problems getting out of downtown. the streets were clogged, the freeway was clogged, getting onto the freeway took forever. this made me very happy not to live here. on sunday night, things shouldn’t be so crowded.

we’re headed to the beach now. instead of headed to work. nice.

ok then,

monday grace but it feels like sunday.


Mar. 26, 2006

---

sunday morning, [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:06 am
and everything is calm and quiet again. it says in an AP story that yesterday’s demonstration was “one of the largest demonstrations for any cause in recent U.S. history,” with over 500,000 demonstrators.

and we pretty much missed it. i know the traffic must have been insane. we weren’t here.

ok, before we go out today, here are some highlights of the day before yesterday. we went to disney hall right here in downtown LA, and i took many photos because it’s so cool. it was designed by frank gehry, who designed the guggenheim in bilbao, spain.







we took a self-guided audio tour (narrated by john lithgow) and it was pretty interesting. outside the third level there was a garden, and in it was this giant fountain in the shape of a rose. the blue that you see are lots of pieces of broken delft china. here’s what they say about it on the website:

“It is made up of Royal Delft China vases. The china was specially imported from Holland and hand broken onsite into over 8000 pieces by a team of artists led by architect Tomas Osinski. The team worked over four months, eight hours a day, six days a week to complete the tile rose.”

we talked about how interesting it was to think of all the people working on the rose, as compared to the one man, simon rodia, working on his watts towers.

john lithgow talked about how frank gehry went to lillian disney’s house and saw all the Delft china she had. lots of it was cheap imitation stuff, and lillian told frank that she and walt liked to buy the cheap stuff on their travels. so when he was going to make the fountain, frank asked delft for some cheap china, but they refused, instead giving him only their finest quality china. which was then broken up into little pieces.



and i’m NOT on my cell phone; that’s the hearing thing for the audio tour.

yesterday afternoon we went to santa monica and rode the ferris wheel located at the end of the Santa Monica Pier. here’s me on top of the ferris wheel.



and this is the view from the top:



right now there’s this huge art instillation in the parking lot at the pier. the building itself is made of 152 steel cargo containers. it’s 34-feet high, and a total of 56,000 square feet inside the structure.

so, inside...it’s Ashes and Snow. The website is ashes and snow. inside it’s kind of murky and there’s that eastern kind of music playing and there are huge photos along the passage of people interacting with animals, like a little kid touching the trunk of an elephant. The artist’s name is Gregroy Colbert, and he went to india, egypt, sri lanka, a bunch of places like that to take photos and shoot film.

so, there are all these intersting photos, and then at the end there’s a film, and it’s something like a woman with a muir cat sitting on her head, and the woman is reading some really old-looking book and of course it’s all shot in black and white. and maybe the woman is on some really old-looking boat that’s gliding through the water, and then maybe there’s a bobcat on a boat, gently touching the woman’s head to push off.

it was pretty good, this first film, and it was short - maybe 10 or 15 minutes. but then there’s a giant hall with a big screen an a film of blowing sand and people sitting around with different large cats like leopards and a lynx and maybe some shots of a man underwater swimming around with elephants. and it was interesting, but then it went on...and on...and on. and finally i said to O. (Oscar), do you want to go? and luckily he, too, was ready to leave. i mean, it felt a little..sacreligious...to leave the film but we’d had enough. it went on too long.

as we walked out, there were tons of people standing around, all of them in complete silence, watching the screen. that was a pretty neat moment.

we walked down the second row of photos and out into the clear sky overlooking the ocean. and went on the ferris wheel.

afterwards we went to the Gate of India, which i kept telling O. was the BEST indian food ever...but it was a little disappointing. Gateway of India RIGHT IN SPRINGFIELD ILLINOIS is better, i think. i think the Gate has slipped a little.

so that’s one more reason why there’s no reason to move away from spfld just now, because we have fabulous indian food.

yesterday, more stuff, more photos, and i feel that i’m going to be slipping behind on my travel report, but i have to get out and LIVE right now. randy called and chastised for not updating more often but like i said, i have to go out and have the experiences and take the pictures right now...

ok then,

sunday morning grace.


Mar. 25, 2006

---

SO RETARDED... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:48 pm

OF COURSE that photo i posted of the tornado in spfld ISN’T A PHOTO OF THE TORNADO! my mom sent it and i blame it entirely on her.

i could have looked at it twice, though, and realized that OF COURSE that big building isn’t the hilton, and OF COURSE that’s a PALM TREE there on the left and WE DON’T HAVE ANY PALM TREES in spfld! not to mention the fact that that photo was clearly taken during DAYLIGHT HOURS and our tornadoes touched down WHEN IT WAS DARK.

so i’m sorry about my retardation.

i guess it’s all this LA sunshine and warm weather that’s making my brain addled.

but hey, today there was a demonstration right here in downtown LA. this morning we saw a few groups of people walking down the street past our window, and i was talking to my mom on the phone and she said they were protesting a bill about illegal immigrants, she heard it on the news.

we left for the Huntington Library and Gardens shortly therafter and there were plenty of people on the streets, but we made it out of downtown pretty fast.

but then at about 3:30 this afternoon, jerri called to say that she saw on CNN that there was a protest with ONE MILLION PEOPLE downtown and hoped we weren’t trapped in the apartment. i told her, no worries. she head that there were anywhere from 100,000 to a half million people protesting. bugt then tonight on the news they said there were a million people.

but this could be GROSSLY INACCURATE.

when we got back, they were all gone. but people were pouring into the staples center for the kings (hockey) game. actually right now i still see a a few peopl;e heading towards the center, and right now it’s 8:45. the game started at 7:30.

and we saw the first person LEAVE the parking lot of the game at 8:25. so somebody left before everybody get there. do you think people will still be showing up when the game is actually over?

i’m SORRY, RANDY, that i haven’t been giving MINUTE BY MINUTE accounts of my trip. but i’ve been busy trying to experience it. yesterday morning we went to the very cool disney hall, and yesterday afternoon we went to santa monica, and today we went to the huntington, and i took MANY MANY PHOTOS but i just don’t have the time or inclination right now to do all the stuff required for getting the photos up here. rest assure that there will be many photos, but just not now.

people still heading into the game.

did i mention that it’s warm and beautiful here?

ok then,

saturday night grace.


Mar. 24, 2006

---

yesterday... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:32 am
we went hiking up in the santa monica mountains about Will Roger’s home. incidentally, we could have toured the home except it’s closed for renovations. but they’re going to have a grand re-opening on saturday, complete with the state’s governor arnold schwarzenneger, live music, etc etc etc.

i mentioned the possibility of mountain lions, and here’s the sign:



we hiked up for about an hour and a half, and stopped at this tree, where i’ve stopped before. i sat down and T. (Turtle) snapped the photo and i felt something on my arms, thought it was cobwebs or something - but it was ANTS! lots and lots of them, all over my hands and arms and crawling up my legs. i screamed a little and brushed them all off.



i’m wearing jerri’s shirt, because i didn’t bring enough short-sleeved casual shirts with me. i hope she doesn’t mind. i don’t think she’d mind. she wouldn’t mind. she doesn’t know that i’m secretly planning on BECOMING JERRI. with the shirt and the dog and all.

we spotted no mountain lions, but we did see a lone bunny. plus lots of little lizards running around; maybe they were gekkos? not sure.

here’s just one of the beautiful views:



this is just a little part of the trail. some of it was sunny, other parts were shaded, and some had canopies of trees overhead. did i tell you that it was EIGHTY DEGREES yesterday?



we hiked back and had a picnic in front of will rogers' house. they spent $5 million renovating it, but i couldn’t really tell a big difference.



but this is LA, you must keep in mind, so there’s always somebody shooting something. yesterday it was a news guy doing a story on the house. so here’s how it really looked while we were picnicking, with the guy trying to videotape his intro. for the story.



after we hiked, we drove up Sunset and the traffic was pretty darn bad in places. we stopped by my old apartment in west hollywood, and here it is.



and here’s one more photo of Brooklyn, just because he’s not only sweet but quite photogenic.



i’ve been up for three hours now and we’re about to head out.

ok then,

grace a little more awake.

---

and more photos this morning... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:40 am
i just want to show you a few more views of the watts towers. this is a place that people might have heard of, but they have no idea what they might be. when i told F. (Ferdinand) about Watts Towers, he thought they were going to be an actual building, some kind of unique architecture. it’s wonderful to take somebody there who has never seen them, because they are so truly unique. it’s incredible that this guy, simon rodia, worked and worked on the towers for years and years, and when he finished them, he gave the property to a neighbor and moved far away shortly thereafter and never saw them again.

simon rodia’s quote about the towers is “I had in my mind to do something big and I did.” i really love that. here are some more photos.

this first shows the detail of the steps which went up to front door. (The actual house that Rodia built was burnt to the ground, leaving just the folk art he created). can you see the chicken in the piece of pottery on the top step? and that green piece of glass on the lower step has the face of a man in it.












more soon.

ok then,

still sleep grace on friday morning.

---

good morning from LA. [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:30 am
7:30 a.m. here in LA. on vacation i can sleep really really late if i want to, but i went to bed last night at 9:30 so i just couldn’t sleep anymore. but i bet i’ll have a nap today, which is just as good as sleeping late.

my mom sent me this photo of one of the tornados that touched down over springfield. amazing.




Mar. 23, 2006

---

p.s. I LOVE BROOKLYN [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:43 pm

brooklyn the dog, that is. jerri and brendan’s dog is SO SWEET and i just want to take him home with me.

but they’d probably be pretty mad if they came home and their dog was gone. plus he wouldn’t fit in any carryon bag because he weighs 80 pounds and he’s very very large.

so instead i’ll try to keep showering him with love while i’m here.

brooklyn. good doggie.

---

GOOGLE MARS! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:32 pm

of course this morning i forgot to mention the most important piece of information that i’m sure you WANT TO KNOW - the host of the show last night, j. keith van stratten, asked the INVENTOR OF THE INTERNET, vint cerf, about new things. vint works for google now and his title is CHIEF INTERNET EVANGALIST. he said he wanted to be Archduke, but they didn’t like that. but anyway, he said that google is going to be taking photos of mars, and like Google Earth, they’re going to now have GOOGLE MARS. cool, huh? vint cerf. inventor of the internet. got lots of awards. sat in front of me last night.

tonight things are more quiet because the hiking was a little bit exhausting. i thought about randy, who wouldn’t have liked the hiking, and christine, who REALLY wouldn’t have liked the hiking. it was a gorgeous, GORGEOUS day, sunny and so warm, and everything was really green on the trail and we hiked for about three hours and now we’re very very tired.

tomorrow, El Matador Beach. this is a rather remote beach north of malibu, and i know you’ve seen it in commercials because they’re always shooting them there; it’s a secluded beach with lots of big craggy rocks jutting out of the ocean.

photos later. now, must rest.

ok then,

tired LA grace.

---

more here in LA... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:25 am
it’s already 52 degrees and it’s supposed to be 76 today and i’m going hiking! at Will Rogers state park, so first we can take a tour of will rogers' cool home and then we can hike up into the mountains behind it. i’ve been there a lot and there’s a sign at the entrance to the trail that says BEWARE OF MOUNTAIN LIONS so hopefully i won’t see any of them.

if you want to read more about the incredible watts towers, here’s a good link.

watts towers site

yesterday we had lunch at a great little sushi place near the Hollywood Bowl where Christine and i had gone the last time i was in LA. i’m trying to remember the last time i was here, and it must have been a while ago. the sushi was delicious and i could eat it every day.

this is the Hollywood Bowl, a great outdoor ampitheater that holds over 17,000 people.





the season there doesn’t start till the end of june, but it was fun to walk all around and go into the museum. i saw lots of performance there when i lived here, inluding the LA philharmonic, the great jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, and Tom Petty. lots of variety. plus on the 4th of July they have the BEST fireworks display i’ve ever seen. you can take a picnic and eat in different little picnic areas scattered around, or you can bring stuff and eat right there at your seat. down in front are boxes that people sit in and the first time i went to the bowl, the people i was with brought along all kinds of delicious and elegant food and we had a lovely dinner and sat in a box near the stage and watched a great show and it was an experience i’ll never forget.

last night we went to see a guy named j. keith van stratten. he used to do a comedy show that was like The Tonight Show, only it was on stage instead of on TV. before, he had interesting guests including the guy who does the voice of Homer Simpson, Dan Castellaneta. Lisa Loeb the singer and Colin Hay who plays guitar and used to be with the band “men at work” were also on the show.

the format of the show has changed since i saw it last, and now it’s “what’s my line,” modeled on the old tv show. if you want to look at the site, it’s J. Keith Show.

the premise of the show is that there’s a guest and some panelists who have to guess the occupation of the guest. the panelists were all funny, sharp and entertaining. one of the guests was an older woman who was a private detective, and then next guest was the INVENTOR OF THE INTERNET. his name is Vint Cerf. In 2005 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom - the highest civilian honor given in the United States.

and he was quite funny and after he was done he sat in the audience in front of me, with his wife and son.

the inventor of the internet and i then watched a guest who looked a little scary - she definitely had a nose job that made it a little too short, and she had this kind of scary smile. but she was a ballroom dance champion and at the end she taught j. keith some dance moves and then she started dancing and i could see why she was a champion because she was in incredible dancer.

there was a mystery guest at the end, Edie McClurg, who is a very funny comedianne and was the secretary on “ferris bueller’s day off” and she was on some tv show called “the hogan family” which i never watched.

after the show i saw the guy who played Fish on “ally mcbeal.” and also an old boyfriend of mine from LA was there.

so not only were there interesting people onstage, there was quite an assortment of characters in the audience, as well.

i have to go outside where it’s warm now.

ok then,

thursday LA grace.




Mar. 22, 2006

---

sunny, warm, perfect.... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 8:34 pm

aaahhhh....another day in paradise. the sky was bright blue, the air was warm. this morning i took U. (Umberto) to Watts Towers. this is an amazing and extraordinary piece of folk art created in the Watts section of LA, the place where the infamous riots took place in the 60’s. nobody touched the Watts Towers when the riots happened, by the way.

they were built by this little (five feet tall) man named Simon Rodia. he started the towers when he was in his 40’s, worked on them dilligently until he was in his 70’s, and then gave the property to a neighbor and moved away, never to see them again. the thing is amazing and really impossible to describe. plus i have no time for that now because i’m about to go see a show. but here are a few photos of the place. he did it all without scaffolding, without power tools, without welding stuff to connect the underlying iron bars. he embedded thousands of pieces of found glass and pottery into the cement covering the structures, and made all kinds of designs in the cement.

like i said, no time now, more later:







ok then,

grace in a rush on wednesday.


Mar. 21, 2006

---

very quickly here... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 7:30 pm

I HAVE HIGH SPEED INTERNET AGAIN! brendan called me from new york and now it’s up and running and i just want to show you a couple more photos before i have to get on the freeway and head to the airport.

here’s another view from their loft window:



it’s been sunny and beautiful all day, although a little windy. have i mentioned my joy at missing all the SNOW which just fell on springfield? very very happy about that. alhtough at least there wasn’t a blizzard; last night i was watching the weather channel and they kept talking about A BLIZZARD IS HEADED FOR SPRINGFIELD ILLINOIS. i guess after the ACTUAL TORNADO, people are thinking spfld is now a hotbed of dramatic weather.

here’s a photo of brooklyn, brendan and jerri’s giant dog. he’s standing between two of my dirty socks, because he loves dirty socks, as do many dogs. brooklyn doesn’t tear them up or anything, he just likes to carry them around in a friendly fashion.



and here’s another photo of brooklyn, in the beautiful loft which i’d like to move into.



i had lunch at a trendy and hip place called the standard, it’s a hotel with a groovy restaurant. there’s also a cool bar on the roof and i’m disappointed i didn’t have my camera because the view from the roof is awesome. there are lots of couches up there, and some girl in a short dress was sprawled out on one of them, talking on her cell phone. LA is just so...LA. people in black everywhere, and everybody is so much better-looking than they are in other places, and it’s quite interesting. not that i ever exactly fit in here. but today i borrowed jerri’s jean jacket (jerri, can i please borrow your jean jacket?) and so i felt slightly like i wasn’t out of place. i also wore my boots instead of my usual tennis shoes, in order to blend in a little better. not that i actually CARE because none of these people will EVER SEE ME AGAIN.

maybe i’ll wear my tennis shoes the rest of the trip.

ok, i must dash away, wish me luck in rush hour traffic on the great big huge freeways.

freeways and traffic, the reasons i’m very happy not to be in la anymore.

ok then,

tuesday LA grace.

---

photos from LA [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:47 am

here’s brendan and jerri’s kitchen, taken from the loft living room above:



and here’s the loft living room:

alt="loft" />

here’s the view from the loft. this is the staples center. you can also see the hollywood sign off in the distance from this huge window, but i couldn’t do it justice in a photo.



that is all for now.

---

here in LA... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:28 am

well. i’m sitting here in jerri & brendan’s bed, computer on my lap. the sun is pouring in the window. it’s going to be 59 today, but then warmer and warmer and in the 70’s by thursday.

their place is SPECTACULAR. i took some pictures but i don’t know when i’ll get them up here. i also have some more good photos from the tornado.

but there are a couple of little snafus in this otherwise idyllic day...

first, i can’t figure out how to get to the internet. the wireless network is OPEN and RUNNING, but i just can’t get to the internet. there is some problem, but i cannot figure it out and neither can anybody else who has tried to remotely help me. so instead i’m sitting here using their phone line. but at least it’s working.

but there’s also another phone problem, which is that i left my cell phone charger at home. i don’t know how i managed this since i brought almost everything else i own with me. it must have fallen on the floor or something when i was packing packing packing. so i’m running low on phone power.

the good news is that R. (reginald) is arriving today at about 5:30 and he’ll be bringing my charger with him. also my hair dryer. today my hair will look a little unkempt and i won’t be making any frivolous phone calls.

but aside from that...things are good.

i’m going to go to the grocery store in a minute because although brendan and jerri have many many fancy dishes and cookware, there’s no actual food in the house. except for a bag of chocolate chips i found in the freezer. i didn’t eat them ALL.

yesterday i spent an hour and a half in a plane in dallas, while we waited for the winds to die down so we could take off. sometimes the plane would drive around the runway but i think the pilot was doing this just so we felt like we weren’t just sitting there with no snacks or beverages. the guy next to me was going to hawaii after touching down in la because that’s where he lives. he’s a police officer for the navy and he lived in japan, and for a while he was in cuba where he met his (current) wife. i don’t know where he met his old wife. but he was in dallas visiting his daughter and was sad to leave her because he only sees her twice a year. that’s not very much. but he’s trying to get full custody of her. she’s eight.

it’s funny how you can learn so much about a person sitting on a plane. most times i don’t talk to people, but this guy was friendly, even though he had big shoulders and they kind of encroached on my personal space. but he said he was glad that i was “tiny” because when really big people sit next to him it’s a problem, so how could i NOT love a man who describes me as tiny?

he also offered me some cashews.

i didn’t tell him my entire life story, which was a refreshing change for me.

things are good right now. more later.

ok then,

LA grace.


Mar. 18, 2006

---

more and more stuff [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 3:43 pm

i’m sitting at amy’s salon, about to get HAIR EXTENSIONS.

so when i go to la i will fit right in.

i was looking through a “springfield scene” magazine from jan/february and there was one photo in particular that was VERY VERY FRIGHTENING. two women who looked like they’d had lots of plastic surgery/tanning/all kinds of fake stuff that made them look just plain scary. SCARY.

i have some more photos of the tornado aftermath but i haven’t had time to put them up here yet.

i was planning on taking more photos of my new place but of course i haven’t had time for that either.

i had time for an eighteen minute nap just now. if i’d had a little more time, that would have been great. maybe 21 or 25 minutes.

but that’s ok because the day after tomorrow i’m going to LA where it will be WARM AND SUNNY!

that is all for the moment.

ok then,

saturday grace.


Mar. 17, 2006

---

flurry of activity [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 7:56 am

yesterday i had very little time for much of anything, but i managed to squeeze in a few minutes to buy a new pair of running shoes, because i was afraid i wouldn’t have any more free time. i rushed into the Running Center, which is the best place to buy running shoes in spfld, and i told the man the kind of shoes i have and he was out of my size in the style, but there were some sale shoes there in my size.

i looked at the sale shoes. they looked very nice, a lovely shade of pale blue. i quickly tried them on and they fit ok and i thought they sort of looked familiar.

i dashed around for the rest of the day and intermittently worried that i hadn’t walked around in the shoes and maybe they weren’t comfortable enough and i had been too hasty.

i finally got home around nine o'clock last night and tried them on again.

they seemed ok.

and then i looked at my old running shoes.

IT’S THE EXACT SAME PAIR.

EXACT.

SAME.

except of coure that the new pair is fancy and new and the old pair is a little dingy and the bounce has left the shoes.

how is it possible that i didn’t recognize the exact pair of shoes i’ve been wearing for the last several months?

how?

sometimes i bewilder myself.

that is all for early (for me anyway) friday morning.

ok then,

friday grace.


Mar. 15, 2006

---

very close to nirvana... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:05 am
i woke up and reached down to pick up my computer off the floor. and here i sit in bed, typing away.

new place. computer in bed. perfect.

here’s the view from my bed right now.



and here’s the view from my dresser to my bed.



that piece of art behind the bed is my dad’s. i have a few of his pieces in my place now, which i’m very excited about. amy no longer has the market cornered on dad’s artwork.

before the drama of the tornado, other things happened during the weekend which is quickly rocketing into the past. randy and W. (wilberforce) and i went to Little Saigon for dinner on friday night and randy and i got two of the shittiest fortunes ever. i hate fortunes that just declare something like “you are a nice person.” i want a FORTUNE, i want to KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME.

but these two particular fortunes were really more retarded than usual. randy’s read “power dazzles the beholder as well as the wearer.”

i mean, is somebody going to read that and think, wow, people will love my power as much as i do? or will they read it and think, i shouldn’t try to dazzle folks too much with all the power i have?

retarded.

mine was EVEN WORSE, though. it was “a man who dares to waste an hour of time hasn’t discovered the value of life.”

OH MY GOD. what kind of subversive chinese propaganda is this, exactly? i long for the precious moments i have to loaf around, i do my best creative thinking when doing very little, and life is infinitely more valuable when i’m RELAXING.

really retarded.

W., who has been on a new and glorious path of life-changing and life-affirming joy, of course got a lovely and sweet fortune.

all right, i’m going to get out of bed now even though i really wouldn’t mind staying here for at least another hour.

i’m leaving for la on monday. W. had made plans to join me there, but now he might not be able to. christine was going to hang out there for a while too but she’s not. so if nobody who i care about is there with me, i’m going to spend PLENTY of time just loafing and hanging out. i’m going to go to the beach as much as possible, as well. i wonder if brendan and jerri have a big beach towel?

you could look at their fabulous place where they live right across from the staples center, but christine keeps forgetting to put the link to their website up here again. but maybe jerri will send me a photo of their place and i could just upload it right here. i could write to her and ask her to to this, but since my friends pretty much don’t write to me anymore so much,they just read this and respond every once in a while, this is probably the best way to get a message to jerri.

and actually, i’ll be posting plenty of photos of their fabulous place once i get there. i plan on spending plenty of time in bed writing. with brooklyn, the dog, who really likes to nap.

my kind of dog.

ok then, i hope your week is going well,

wednesday grace.




Mar. 14, 2006

---

here in my new place on tuesday morning... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:59 pm

no new photos right now. it’s nice to just sit here and watch the world go by.

all the places i’ve been to today were pretty much untouched by the tornado, so it felt like it didn’t even happen.

yesterday i went to two different walgreens, and it was funny to be there because they were both packed with people. i know that at least some grocery stores were closed, plus all kinds of other businesses, so everybody went to walgreens. because shopping is the american way. people seemed to be buying a lot of junk food and batteries. and i bet that at least for the next few months, nobody will be without a battery-powered radio, and maybe other battery-powered appliances as well.

i did go to the muni auditions for a little while on saturday afternoon, to watch randy try out. he wanted to be in “chicago” and we had to wait quite a while because lots of people showed up, but finally randy got to audition, and he was GREAT. if i could sing like that, i’d sing all the time, wherever i went, whatever i was doing. all the time.

i’m sorry to say that he didn’t get the part he wanted, and didn’t even get in the show. this seems pretty stupid to me, because the guy who auditioned right before him got the part and that guy was boring. no pizazz.

this is the problem with the audition process, the fact that directors make mistakes in casting. i’ve had a few experiences with community theater directors since being back here in spfld and i guess it’s best to remain CENSORED about my opinions there, because i’ll probably want to be in more plays.

this morning i talked to a very fit guy who complained of lots of shoulder pain. he then told me he works out every day. weights every other day. and EVERY SINGLE DAY he does ONE THOUSAND SITUPS.

hmm, might this be a potential cause of the shoulder pain, i wonder?

i suggested that he try NOT doing ONE THOUSAND SITUPS for a while, but i could see that’s never going to happen, because he is obviously addicted to ONE THOUSAND SITUPS. i tried to convince him to just go one little day without doing them, but i doubt he’s going to take my advice.

exercise, it can be just as addictive as heroin.

well, maybe not JUST as addictive.

but just as deadly.

well, maybe not JUST as deadly.

but it’s stupid to do one thousand situps a day. if you do situps correctly, you shouldn’t be able to do a ton of them because it should take some effort.

but perhaps the guy was the bionic man, in which case ONE THOUSAND SITUPS were indeed necessary to keep his bionic stomach perfectly toned.

if your stomach was bionic, though, shouldn’t it always be toned, bionically?

the bionic man didn’t actually need to exercise, did he? if i was bionic i would expect that all that bionic-ness would be in place, helping me to leap over buildings (did either of those bionic people do that?) and see in the dark and stuff.

i have to go work now.

bionic-free, i regret to say.

ok then,

tuesday grace.




Mar. 13, 2006

---

more tornado photos [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 9:58 pm

this is on macarthur boulevard.


more toppled power poles on veterans parkway.


a trampoline in a tree along the wabash trail. the rest of the trampoline was draped over the fence, as if it was there left to dry.


who’s going to clean all this up?


D. (Dwight) and i bravely walked across all this traffic and lived to tell the tale.


just one of the many many trees down in the city.


pine trees all over town had their tops ripped off.

that is all for right at the moment.

ok then,
action grace.

---

FINALLY! I SURVIVED THE TORNADO! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 3:26 pm

when i was a kid, sometimes when there were tornado warnings we’d all go down in the basement, but a tornado never actually went through springfield, as far as i can remember.

but last night...

T. (trevor) and i were at my place and we drove to his place and things were all fine and good. but then randy called to say there was a tornado in new berlin heading for springfield and so we turned on the tv and sure enough, gus gordon was going on and on about a tornado that was headed our way and there was a constant scroll on the screen about when the tornado was expected to reach various cities and i think we were due at about 8:27.

i didn’t think that much about it really because like i said, tornadoes never actually touch down here.

but then at about 8:30ish, they reported that a tornado had touched down near KNIGHT’S ACTION PARK. this was kind of close. outside the rain was pouring so hard that you couldn’t see more than a few feet.

T. has no basement, so we sat in the hallway watching tv until the power went out, and many calls were made and received from family and friends and mom and dad didn’t even get any rain, i don’t think. amy and jim and their three dogs were down in jim’s bathroom in their basement and i suggested that this might be a good time to clean the bathroom since it has never actually been cleaned to my knowledge, but amy didn’t think i was serious about that. their four cats were all in their laundry room and since i don’t think any of them actually get along with any of the others, i’m sure they were fairly stressed.

the winds blew, the house didn’t shake, but things were eerily quiet for a few moments. but then the rain stopped and we went outside and decided to explore a little. on lindbergh boulevard we saw a house with no roof. it was hard to get a good view of things since it was dark outside, but we saw a row of pine trees whose tops were all gone, lying in yards. trees were down everywhere. we walked to wal-mart where it had been rumored that the roof was gone, and it sure looked like there was a lot of roof in the parking lot. it was also weird because it was so completely black everywhere.

there were plenty of cars up and down veteran’s parkway and the traffic was pretty bad because of there being no traffic lights.

we drove to my new place to make sure it was still standing and i was relieved to see that it was. it would have been too tragic if i’d done all this moving and arranging and unpacking and then the roof collapsed and everything was destroyed.

but then again, that would have saved me from trying to figure out what to do with my four or five remaining boxes of stuff, not to mention the many piles of things all over the dining room floor that i have no idea what to do with.

this morning it was sunny but windy and we walked around and T. took a bunch of photos. here are a few to begin with:

this is a building on macarthur. places all along the street had windows blown out, and some were in worse shape than others.



here’s one of the more dramatic photos. this is taken on veteran’s parkway.



here are a bunch of cars whose windows were blown out in the wal-mart parking lot.



this used to be the walgreens sign.



and here’s the house that lost its roof.



no more time to write right now, but more later. not to mention all the stuff that happened over the weekend before the tornado...

ok then,

busy grace.


Mar. 10, 2006

---

friday! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:28 am

wow, how did that happen? suddenly it’s friday and sunny and warmer and warmer...

progress is being made, apartment-wise. maybe i’ll even have time to take some pictures this afternoon. i know where the camera is as well as the cord. set to go.

last night i saw “transamerica.” and i just have to say that felicity huffmann should have gotten the oscar instead of reese witherspoon just because felicity had to look so very unattractive. reese did a good job too, but she was adorable with her little poofy dresses and getting to sing and all. but felicity - how did they achieve such a look? i mean, i don’t look so great without makeup but there’s no way i could create such ugliness without some ugly makeup.

felicity also had to do so much more acting - playing a man who wants to be a woman. much harder than playing a woman who sings. although for me, personally, i would not be able to accomplish sounding like june carter cash or really anybody any good at the singing at all.

transamerica was pretty good. it was much more low-budget than i thought it’d be. there were a few things that didn’t seem believable, like the therapist who suddenly wasn’t going to let felicity have his sex change because he found out he had a son. there were a few little character shifts that didn’t make so much sense, but at least the film addressed a topic that hasn’t been addressed before.

unless it has and i didn’t hear about it.

at the hospital every day i take this one elevator from the third to the fourth floor. i take another one back down, but every day i get on this old elevator and many times it’s out of service. it makes me a little nervous, because what if it broke when i was on it and plunged to the ground and i was killed? not that i dwell on this a lot, but it has crossed my mind. in movies when the elevators plunge the people jump up and save themselves or climb up through the ceiling and scramble up a ladder or something, but since the elevator starts out on the third floor there probably wouldn’t be any time for any of that.

frequently when people get on the elevator with me, because i’m pulling my massage chair, they chat to me about wanting a massage. but this morning an IT guy who works across the hall was there at the same time and he wondered if it was working and i said it was and then i confided in him about my fear. and he told me that since 1930 there have been all kinds of safeguard precautions on elevators, and there are about seven different things that will prevent the elevator actually plunging and crashing and the whole building catching fire and exploding.

this was such a relief. i thanked him for giving me some peace of mind on friday.

i guess, really, that even if it did plunge, the building wouldn’t catch fire and explode. but sometimes i feel that firey things will happen - when i was little i was always convinced that if you threw a brick through the tv set it would catch fire and explode and then of course the whole house would also catch fire and explode.

so this has been going on in the back of my mind for quite some time now. i wonder where on earth it came from. it’s not like i even ever toyed with the idea of throwing a brick (or anything) at the tv. maybe i saw this on a tv show. when i was four.

that is all the deep thoughts i have right now on friday morning.

ok then,

friday grace.


Mar. 08, 2006

---

wednesday night just here on my couch [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:36 pm

i still don’t have actually WIRELESS internet actually WORKING yet. but i have the modem and the router and all of that and i’m sure i’ll have it all working by tomorrow so i can lie in bed and type.

but i have managed to improve my lot in life considerably because before yesterday i was sitting on the floor because the cord was so short but then i finally bothered to take the three seconds to notice that the cord was all wrapped up and all i had to do was UNWRAP THE CORD and suddenly i had enough cord to sit here on my couch and type instead of huddled on the floor.

yeah, i was a phi beta kappa. you can see that i’m always putting my great intelligence to very good use.

more boxes, more unpacking, suddenly this is my life. i can’t remember what my life used to be about, to tell you the truth. but once all this stuff is unpacked i’m just going to sit around here in my new place and enjoy it. with my feet up.

many many MANY people visited this site yesterday because of the mention on thecapitolfaxblog.com. MANY people. more than have ever visited in one day. so that was exciting. now, will any of them come back to me? hard to say. not a big worry right now because of my focus on the boxes.

tonight amy and jim visited me and brought baskin robbins ice cream and we had hot fudge sundaes and a very lovely time.

so life can’t really get much better than this.

not to mention the weather which continues to get warmer.

spring. new great place. hot fudge sundae.

perfect.

more later.

ok then,

wednesday grace.


Mar. 07, 2006

---

FAMOUS FOR A DAY! [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 3:34 pm
i’m still here on the floor of my living room because i haven’t had a free moment to try to figure out the whole wireless thing even though i’m sure it will be very very simple.

today while i was unpacking my friend kurt called to tell me that i’m ON THE CAPITOL FAX BLOG. here is the blog, so you can see it for yourself: capitol fax blog

you have to go down to where it says “morning shorts” for today, march 7th, 2006. he linked my video about people walking down south grand naked. there are no naked people in the video, but looking at my statistics for the website, i always see that many people are frantically searching the internet for nakedness and somehow sometimes they land on that video and i’m sure are bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

the thing about this particular video is i made it for one of my one-woman shows, i think it was gracetalk #1. i was talking about how i could walk down the street wearing anything when i lived in west hollywood and nobody would notice. i mentioned that i could even walk down the street naked and nobody would care. but then i thought about what would happen if you saw somebody walking down the street naked here in lovely springfield. but like i said, totally out of context, i think a person would watch it and think, “what is the point of this?”

anyway, kurt says that my friend tim roseberry called him this morning and said WHY IS GRACE SMITH ON THE CAPITOL FAX?

because i’m a HUGE CELEBRITY, timmy?

i don’t know. i wonder how rich miller found this video, anyway? just a thought. kurt says it’s the MOST READ BLOG IN ILLINOIS, so maybe many high-powered and influential people will look at my own blog and they’ll say WHY ISN’T THIS WOMAN WRITING A WEEKLY HUMOR COLUMN SOMEWHERE, FOR GOD’S SAKE? and then i truly will be rich/famous/celebrity.

but for now, i have to deal with all these boxes all over all my floors.

it’s too bad if people just look at that video, since there are others that are funnier. like my singing video. and the state fair commercial that kurt and tim actually did. i just found that big pink wig i wore in the commercial and i’m THROWING IT OUT.

i know that last week i promised that i’d have many pictures here and i even know where my camera is right now, but i’m not entirely sure about the cable to connect the camera to the computer. plus i have to go work for a while. and then i’ll come home and start insanely OPENING BOXES.

do i own a dish drying rack? do i need to buy one? and what about dish towels? i found a couple but they’re a little bit crappy so maybe i’ll just buy some new ones.

but then if i start shopping i won’t be unpacking and then i will continue to be in disarray...

i think for a treat i’m going to go watch some of the muni auditions this weekend. a treat because maybe there will be some good people, and a treat because i have no desire to audition myself, thank god.

back to work.

ok then,

tuesday grace.

---

here in my new place... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:08 am

the good news - my wireless internet is working great and i’m finally having a free minute to write a little except i’m a little too delirious from fatigue right now. oh, and the actual wireless part of the wireless internet isn’t actually hooked up but maybe i’ll have time for that tomorrow.

i also still have heat.

i’ve unpacked many many boxes.

my stove continues to not work but the man alleged this afternoon that he’s going to fix it tomorrow or get me a “new” one. i didn’t snarl at him “you mean a CRAPPY USED ONE?” because i am much too polite for that.

maybe i’ll have a working oven tomorrow.

in moving i have realized that i have three cheesecake pans. granted, they are all different sizes, but does one really need three cheesecake pans?

just a thought. perhaps i should get rid of a couple of them.

TOO MANY THINGS. TOO MANY THINGS.

plus i just keep opening boxes and wanting to open more toxes and it’s getting a little ridiculous.

but now i’m sitting here on the floor because the wire for the internet doesn’t reach to the couch.

it’s always something, isn’t it?

i think it’s a good idea to sleep right now. my brain has quit working.

goodnight.

g.


Mar. 04, 2006

---

everything is alike [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 2:51 am

i woke up an hour ago and now i’m just bored and annoyed with being awake. i’d give approximately one million dollars for a shoulder/neck massage right this minute. one million.

the other thing about this retirement party is how many things are alike. after the band played there was a karaoke guy there. not that many people did the karaoke, except this one woman and this one man and they’d obviously both done lots of karaoke in their lives because they both did about, oh, four or five numbers at least that clearly they’d done before. the woman did more patsy cline-type stuff, and i can’t remember exactly what the guy did only it was more pop rock kind of things. they were both pretty good.

and the karaoke guy played lots and lots of songs that you hear everywhere, this could have been a retirement or a whatever kind of party or a wedding reception anywhere. and that’s why sometimes i feel that everything is really alike. i’m sure that last night there were parties like this going on all over the world. probably in japan they were playing one or two different tunes, and i bet they weren’t serving (delicious) poor boy sandwiches, but pretty much all alike.

and then the dj-karaoke guy played this one song, and that made me realize that it’s not just parties like this that are all alike, but more like everything is all alike. it was some kind of song where people get up and do a line-dance kind of dance. he started the song, and en masse, about 20 or so people got up and moved onto the dance floor and started in on these steps. most of them had obviously done this many times before.

the thing about this song is that i was at a bar about a month or so ago and it wasn’t a place i’d been to much (at all?) and most of the people there were in their 20’s and it appeared to be a serious meat market-type place. lots of women (many of them very drunk) with plunging necklines and lots and lots of makeup and big hair. i didn’t exactly feel like a martian per se, but at least like a traveller from a less distant place, perhaps the moon.

but so sometime during the night that VERY SAME SONG started playing and up the people got and they all walked onto the dance floor and started in.

everywhere, people are doing this dance. it looks a little like the beginning of some kind of cult.

it’s like the pop version of country line dances that they do in country bars, and it’s like that horrible macharana (sp?) that was so popular years ago.

and really, when it comes right down to it, it all stems from the hokey pokey.

doesn’t it?

i wonder if there’s a group synchronized dance move song that precedes the hokey pokey. surely there must be. but in the 20’s and the 30’s did people dance in big groups ever, instead of just in couples? and what about at the turn of the century, what about the 1800’s? did abraham lincoln ever dance a hokey pokey-type dance?

somehow i doubt it.

and what about further back, what about people in the elizabethan era? (that’s the only era that comes to me at 2:45 a.m.) i can imagine them doing some big group dance. but the middle ages? or those earlier ages? i’m sure no group dances or no dances of any kind were done during the dark ages. because, of course, people would have crashed into each other constantly because of the lack of light.

this begs the question, was Jesus ever involved in any line dancing? did he start it all out?

just something to ponder in the middle of the night.

damn, i wish i was asleep.

too many things to think about doing tomorrow and sunday and all week long.

goodnight again.

ok then,

late-friday early-saturday grace.


Mar. 03, 2006

---

slum landlords, retirement party cake [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:18 pm

when i lived in la i’d say my landlord was a slum landlord. i lived in a beautiful part of west hollywood, but my apartment complex was this little bit of slumdom in the middle of lots of people with money.

so now i’m sort of in the same boat. except this neighborhood is a little more iffy,and this landlord seems to be even cheaper, which i didn’t think actually possible.

I HAVE HEAT, which is the most important thing. the guy fixed it today. but then there’s the issue of the stove, with the knob that will not move. i talked to the guy who is supposed to fix it and he said that the thermostate is broken and he can’t find a part and he can’t call his suppliers till monday but he doesn’t think there will BE a part to be found. “so she’ll have to buy me a new stove?” i asked him. and he said “she won’t buy you a NEW one,” and his tone was SO FUCKING SNOTTY. i said “at least i need one that WORKS.” YOU FUCKING STUPID FUCKER. i left all that off of the end of my sentence of course. right now i sort of hate men whoe come to work on things. i think it’s just that this is a slum landlord. she lives in florida - she met a guy and moved there and she wants to sell this building and she doesn’t want to be bothered and she doesn’t want to put any money at all into the place which i can understand BUT I NEED A STOVE.

damn.

but i do have heat. hot water. wireless internet.

the fixtures are all shoddy. the faucet in the kitchen probably cost about three dollars. maybe less. it’s very very crappy. the water was dribbling out and dad came over and fooled around with it and by banging on it he managed to fix it. shoddy.

i’m in this place for exactly six months, not one day longer. i’m really hoping that once i have a working stove, i’ll never have to talk to this slum landlord again.

that’s my plan, anyway.

so tonight i went to a retirement party for a high-ranking law enforcement official. he started a band and the band played at his own party and i videotaped it which was fun. all guys either want to be in bands or are in bands, is what i’ve decided. it’s a very very guy thing.

it was a perfectly nice party, plus i figured that my purse absolutely could never ever be safer than at this party. cops everywhere.

there was plenty of food and alcohol, which i had plenty of. but then i waited patiently for the retirement cake.

THERE WAS NO RETIREMENT CAKE.

HOW CAN A PERSON RETIRE WITH NO RETIREMENT CAKE?

i bet they had retirement cake at his retirement party at the office. but YOU ALWAYS NEED CAKE. like i said, the food was quite good. BUT I NEED CAKE.

that’s all i’m saying.

if i ever had a substantial enough job in my life where i’d actually get to retire, of course i’d expect cake. i don’t think i’m ever going to achieve this, to be perfectly honest.

but luckily i can make my own cake whenever i want.

AT LEAST WHEN MY OVEN IS FIXED.

monday.

did i tell you what the very serious gas company guy said about my furnace in my new duplex? he said it’s MOBILE HOME FURNACE; he’s never seen a furnace like that in anything but a MOBILE HOME.

SLUM LANDLORD.

i do have pretty nice hardwood floors and 12 foot ceilings and i’m going to be very content when i’m actually living there with all my stuff and my kitties.

hopefully nothing will break in the next six months, that’s all i have to say.

and now, sleep.

i hope your weekend is filled with fun. might i suggest a trip to disneyland? i was toying with the idea of going there when i’m in LA but there won’t be time.

ok ok ok,

friday night grace.

---

gee whiz [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 8:18 am

i just re-read the stuff i read last night and was about to launch into an apology for all that swearing but then i decided FUCK THE APOLOGY! because swearing was certainly called for, all day long.

today, things are going to be mellow. at least they are right at this moment, here in my bed with my cat puring beside me. i don’t even have time to go to my duplex today and hopefully the furnace will be fixed and i guess i have to call the realtor who is sort of the go-between in all of this and hopefully they’ll give me good news. but i have to focus on other things today anyway.

HIGH SPEED WIRELESS INTERNET. there i’m going to be on my front porch, happily writing away. linda described to me in great detail about the many beautiful flowers that are planted all around my new neighborhood.

my personal goal for the day is to eat some vegetables. also maybe some fruit. yesterday was sort of vegetable/fruit-free, unless you count the refried beans in the burrito i had for lunch or the tater tots i had at dinner. oh yeah, i did have some lettuce and tomato on my chicken sandwich. and i had at least one pickle on my double cheeseburger snack i had mid-afternoon when i was ready to pass out from hunger.

fruits and vegetables, a nice easy, attainable goal for this friday which at least looks sunny but mighty cold.

at least i’m not paying a heat bill yet.

ok then,

friday morning grace.


Mar. 02, 2006

---

oh dear. [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 10:24 pm

the TOTAL ASSHOLE serviceman from Ameren Cilco called me just after 8 a.m. this morning. he was at my place; where was the person to let him in. “are you at a big yellow house?” i asked. no. he was at 104 NORTH main street and i live on 104 SOUTH main (actual house color and street location have been cleverly changed to maintain my anonymity. at least until i get my lemonade stand/cookie business up and running out on the parkway.)

he then said his order was for NORTH main and so i’d have to call in the order YET AGAIN. which would mean waiting ALL FUCKING DAY AGAIN. and the thing, this ASSHOLE acted like i’d told them north instead of south!

can you see how upset i am by this? swearing in both of my opening paragraphs, when i always refrain from swearing on here all the time? very very upset.

i explained that i’d spent the entire day before in the freezing cold house waiting for the Ameren Cilco man and he never showed up and couldn’t he just drive down to south main? he then said in this TOTAL ASSHOLE SNOTTY VOICE, “let me explain this again,” and then he said all the same crap again and i was SO MAD and so i had to call in my new order and they absolutely didn’t care that they had screwed up. i kept telling the women that there was no way i’d have said NORTH main because the word “north” never crossed my lips.

she said somebody would be there by four. I HATE THEM ALL. A LOT.

back in the cold house. L. (lars) put up all my great new miniblinds. the Insight cable man arrived and now i have HIGH SPEED WIRELESS INTERNET. WELCOME TO THE 21ST CENTURY, MISS SMITH.

about time.

except of course that i’m not actually there using it because i HAVE NO FUCKING HEAT.

so the gas guy shows up at 2:30 and was quite nice and the burners on the stove are now working. and the water heater. but he couldn’t get the furnace to start. and the knob on the oven won’t turn so i can’t turn on the oven. there was suddenly a horrible smell of gas all through the place and out in the hall. luckily at that point my friend linda was there with me and so she supported me through all the ensuing crap. she went down in the basement with me to tell the gas guy about the gas smell and he said i had to CALL THE GAS COMPANY.

jesus christ, AREN’T YOU THE FUCKING GAS MAN?????

of course i didn’t say that.

i got so hungry today, and i’m sure it’s because i spent a lot of the day feeling pissed off, which is not how i typically spend my days.

i called the gas company about the gas leak and they said somebody would be there WITHIN TWENTY MINUTES.

wow. what service.

so then the VERY SERIOUS HARDCORE gas company guy showed up. he was in the basement for a long time and then he came upstairs and told me all about all the many SERIOUS SERIOUS problems with the furnace, including the fact that the furnace won’t work because of the electronic ignition or something like that. and there’s a leak. and there are all KINDS of problems with the upstairs unit only i can’t remember any of them except that a couple of things seems to be illegally connected, or at least they’re not up to code. i finally told him i’d call the landlord and he could talk to her on the phone.

so we did that and they had a long talk and he was very stern and told her about the many many MANY serious problems and maybe he’ll have to arrest her.

and so now the landlord who doesn’t even live in this state has to call somebody to fix the furnace and the knob on the stove.

and that went on for such a very long long time today.

and i’m so tired. i know i ALWAYS say i’m so tired but this time i really REALLY am.

will i have heat tomorrow? because now that i’m renting the place it would be kind of nice to actually live there.

don’t i have some sort of recourse if this problem isn’t rectified pronto? isn’t there somebody i could call to complain? shouldn’t i not be paying rent if the place isn’t habitable.

conflict and confrontation, i see lots of that on the immediate horizon and i’m not gonna evey think about it because i hate that kind of thing. a lot.

whew. i met with some people at the barrelhead after all of that and we were discussing things only i really didn’t feel like talking at all, i just wanted to nap. i had some delicious tater tots.

when i’m finally actually living in my duplex i’m going to be posting lots more photos because it’s so fast to put them up with the HIGH SPEED INTERNET CONNECTION. wireless.

i have to do a bunch on non-moving-related things over the weekend. a break from it will be good. maybe i’ll find some boxes somewhere while i’m doing things.

randy is having us over to watch the academy awards on sunday night and he’s going to plug in his chocolate fountain.

i’d like to have a chocolate fountain set up all the time in my place, so i could just have some chocolate-dipped stuff whenever i want.

i could, you know.

but it might get kind of dusty after a while. except the chocolate IS churning around.

but bugs might get in it.

but not till summer.

maybe i’ll get a chocolate fountain and keep it running till the bugs come out.

it could be a centerpiece on my coffee table.

FRIDAY, i can’t believe it’s tomorrow. and i’m going to be getting to bed so very very early tonight. finally.

ok then, goodnight,

thursday grace.

---

p.s. [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:59 am

i never meant for it to be one a.m. i have too many things to do tomorrow to be staying up all night frittering away my time like this.

ok ok ok goodnight for real,

gs

---

72 inches, clifford the big red dog, and modem-alerts everywhere [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 12:58 am

first: my friend kelly who lives in arlington VA with her husband Rob and daughter Katie who has a friend named Kate wrote to me and said she went to see the touring show of “clifford the big red dog” and i have to say that clearly an advantage of having children is that you get to see stuff like that, whereas i never ever go to kid’s productions and i’m sure it would be a lot of fun but i guess i could just go all by myself without any children with me anyway.

but so Kelly told me that some woman in the show looked EXACTLY LIKE ME with the same mannerisms and everything except she was a little heavier. so wow, i have a FAT TWIN somewhere, who’s touring around the country? pretty neat. and plus my fat twin must be REALLY fat because i weigh less now than the last time kelly saw me which was quite a while ago.

it is impossible to find miniblinds that are 72 inches long. the windows in my new duplex apartment (is it a “duplex apartment” or just a duplex?) are very long because it’s an old house and NOBODY MAKES 72 INCH MINIBLINDS.

i gave up on curtains because they are ridiculously expensive. i should really make some curtains except that sounds very tedious.

tonight i started at Menard’s, where i did save BIG MONEY on a shower curtain liner, and then i went to wal-mart that had four beige 72" ROOM-DARKENING mini-blinds and one white one, but i needed seven, plus they were kind of too much money because i’m just renting this place.

so then i tried target and they have NO MINI-BLINDS AT ALL and isn’t that rather un-american of them? and then meier and i bought three really cool bamboo blinds there and was very happy about that. then i drove all the way across town to SUPER WAL-MART except i didn’t actually get there because i decided to stop in at lowe’s just for the fun of plodding through yet another gigantic shopping emporium.

and there i found some cheap miniblinds that were 75 inches long and if they’re TOO long it doesn’t matter, thank god, except i hadn’t taken a cart with me because i assumed they wouldn’t have any and so i had to carry my four rather heavy and definitely unwieldy miniblinds all the way across the store.

but now i have NO MORE WINDOW WORRIES!

but then there’s the gas issue...

i got to my place and it was cold. i called the gas company and they said somebody would be there by four to turn on the pilot light in the furnace.

no hot water either, so it wasn’t so easy to clean. thank god for windex which i could easily use for cleaning everything.

but so nobody showed up and i called them again and this woman said that there was no order for the gas ever being turned off so there was no order to turn it on and somebody was supposed to come read the meter but that’s all.

YOU MEAN I WAITED AROUND HERE ALL DAY FOR NOTHING?

i mean, there was lots of cleaning to do, but still...

so now somebody is allegedly coming tomorrow, but we’ll see.

they say it was 72 degrees here today (ironic, that number 72, isn’t it?) but i spent the day inside the duplex which was about 50.

ok, and because i said i needed to buy a modem, i was told by two VERY VERY COMUTER-SAVVY PEOPLE that i DIDN’T NEED TO BUY A MODEM.

my friend jerri is one of the people, and yesterday or maybe the day before we were talking on the phone to arrange for me to go to LA and she wanted to look at a calendar so she had to go on her computer.

DOESN’T ANYBODY HAVE PAPER CALENDARS ANYMORE? I LIKE TO LOOK AT THE PICTURES ON CALENDARS.

calendars are one thing i found while trying to pack. what am i planning on doing with these old calendars? well, i could cut out the pictures and fram them.

YOU SHOULD JUST THROW THEM ALL AWAY. YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO FRAME THEM.

see, i spend so much time arguing with myself. i never get in an actual argument with any other human beings, but i do yell at myself quite a bit.

ok then, goodnight,

nighttime grace.


Mar. 01, 2006

---

things are GREAT on wednesday... [ General ] -  grace - grace@graceuncensored.com @ 11:07 am

because i slept last night, at least most of the night except for a two-hour period of being awake and very very annoyed by that, but i’m full of energy for the cleaning and all the stuff moving-related.

not to MENTION the excitement about going to LA in three weeks!

ok then, i must rush off now...

wednesday grace.

0.699 [powered by b2.]