Holy friggin' crap.

Man.....
Here I am...
I was looking through google image search for some cute little picture to put on my list of managers' meetings, 'cause... well... that's what I'm up to today...
Well, I came across this lovely comic...

www.toothpastefordinner.com

you can't help but love them...

Almost as much as I love visiting my friends down at the coffee cart. I was saying hi to Kim (hi Kim!) one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, catching up, leaning on the coffee cart while she served someone a cafe au lait.
I had plenty of time to observe him, since he wanted to know what every espresso drink was, cafe au lait, macchiato... He was tall; perhaps half a foot over six feet, and skinny enough to be nearly living on espresso products. He was wearing tight black jeans -- they may have had pseudo lacing up the sides -- and a black leather belt that was about four inches wide. The belt had no buckle; instead both ends had eighteen inches or so of fringe, and the fringe was tied together in a square knot under his navel. His shirt was tight as well, and under one eye he'd drawn two black spots of eyeliner, while the outer corner of his other eye sported two swishes of the liquid eyeliner brush like eyelashes.
He was very friendly.
He didn't quite understand that, for a cafe au lait to be a cafe au lait, you have to leave some room in the cup for the steamed milk to fit in.
Other than that, it was a fairly normal transaction. Kin made his coffee, handed it to him, took his money and gave him change.
And then he shared with us a little tidbit about himself.
He said that he'd not become tall until he was seventeen.
He clarified, "My growth was stunted because my babysitter fed me human blood when I was a kid."

He thanked Kim for the coffee and headed off down the street. Kim and I stood looking out across the pastries for a moment.
"Did he just say his growth was stunted because his babysitter fed him human blood as a child?" I asked her.
We stood for another moment of silence.
"Yes. ...yes he did..."

... ahhhh... San Francisco...

This is a picture of me in front of New York, New York that John took on the Sunday that we took forever to leave Vegas.
Not that I was complaining; I was quite happy to hang out, although rather tired. There's a suggestive picture of him with the Luxor obelisque, too.. I hope he posts it... heh heh heh.. 

On the way to Vegas.... I can't believe it's been a month!

Strange to think it was a month ago that John and I were in Vegas. I guess that's what happens when I wait for him to post the pics for bloggy motivation. Anyway, as I was saying in the caption to the pic above...

We'd gotten to Vegas the evening before, after a morning of getting vaguely lost in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles as we were trying to get away from the traffic laden highways. The morning in LA was actually a success in the end; despite our detour, we found a Walgreens and I pumped myself full of Airborne for the rest of the day, saving myself from the horrifying cold that my housemate's ladyfriend had been willing to share with us.
John and I finally got out of town and headed off through the desert. The plants were green and covered most of the sand, so that only small patches of the Mojave's signature aridity seemed visible. We stopped in Calico to visit the ghost town; it seemed like the right thing to do, despite having started later than expected. The wind was warm and dry, and it was lovely to stretch our legs. The entire town of Calico had been bought and was being run by Knotts Berry Farm... every building was either empty or a concession stand, and nearly all of the buildings had been rebuilt with fresh, smooth wood. John and I were rather disappointed in this, both of us having memories of visiting Bowie when we were younger. We both remembered the cemetery, and so we wandered over to the Calico cemetery. Unfortunately, it was locked, but John took some pictures from the gates before we headed back to the car. And I had an amusing time crawling up a dirt cliff in my heels; of course, there had been a road we could've driven up, had we realized. But in all truth, despite the thorns and the dirt sliding out from under my feet and into the insoles of my shoes, I really did appreciate those few moments of differing physical activity.
The best part about visiting Calico was that we saw real tumbleweeds. The kind you see in Western movies. They are super fast, and they are yellow like cornsilk, and super bouncy. Rather than just rolling along, they bounce at every touch to the compacted sand, twisting slightly as they rise into the air, and whirling the other way as they rise, like a backtwisted ball ricochets off of a young tennis star's racket. Except, of course, that he tumbleweeds don't rise very far from the ground; they seem stuck to it; tripping over their own shoes. We stopped in the sandy parking lot before packing back into the car, cheering on the tumbleweeds as they rolled towards the hills and the abandoned silver mine, where tourists leaned over a shute, trying to pan for gold that the Knott's Berry Farm may or may not have deemed necessary to include in the attraction's water.
We drove out of Calico listening to Nirvana's Nevermind, which John was correct in suggesting was good music for the desert. Who would've guessed that grunge works with or without the rain?
At the border of California and Nevada, we ran into the first casinos; a large cluster of oversized buildings poking out of the flat desert like a wart. We drove to the minimart to make a pit stop, but the only thing they were selling was soda and lottery tickets.
And it was packed. People were standing in three lines, each 10 people long, to play the California lottery. John noticed while I was in the loo that all of the employees were Eastern European because of their thick accents, which only added to the surreality of the experience. A near empty minimart, packed with serious-faced couples, singles and people with children under ten (most of whom were screaming), had driven out into the middle of nowhere to give their money away to another state.... and they didn't have any salsa.

links of joy

For all of you who are bored:

Check out my friend Siobhan's birthday cake, the lucky girl!!!

http://phoom.blogspot.com/2005/07/corpse-cake.html

And also some lovely anatomy art:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/dreamanatomy/da_gallery.html

Here is the photo that Katerina was going for, in exchange for my headshots. I love it. Go buy some of her prints, 'cause she's friggin' awesome!!!!!!!!

http://katerina423.deviantart.com/

Here is one of the headshots that my lovely, wonderful new photographer took of me during our photoshoot just before I left town. You can see more of her work at:

http://katerina423.deviantart.com/

This picture is for Shannon, who insisted that while in New Mexico we stop at her favorite fast food place and get not only some cheddar jalepeno poppers, but also that concoction in front of me. I don't remember what it's called, but I do remember that it was so huge that the styrefoam cup slipped out of my hand just afterwards and spilled all over the floor, and that I still had 30 oz of it, even with 14 of those ounces splattered all over the restauraunt. It's a Dr. Pepper, with added vanilla syrup, cherry syrup and half and half. They were supposed to go easy on the ice, but didn't (this wasn't so bad, since it was crushed ice,) as well as marachino cherries and whipped cream. It was pretty good anyways, and since we'd gotten to Roswell too late to see the alien museum, this extraterrestrial drink was a welcome jolt of sugar to push us the last hour to her mom's house... I must admit that I was both disappointed and releived that they didn't have any hedgehog burgers. 

After spending the night in Flagstaff, AZ, we were back on the road again. We'd worked up quite a habit of drinking way too much Rockstar (depending on one's opinion of too much), and I had already discovered that finding Diet Rockstar was not always as easy as I'd hoped. So we stopped at a large supermarket to stock up and get some more ice. Even with the A/C on constantly, your drinks don't stay cold in 100 degree heat. The night before we'd stopped for junk food, where the clerk had taken me perhaps a little bit over-seriously about my request for tons of katsup. So when I opened the cooler the next day, I discovered that we had our own little pond of cooler tadpoles. Aren't they just adorable, swimming around the yogurt and Hershey's bars? 

Ah, the Journey Mural. We stopped rather often after our night in Vegas. Probably had something to do with the fact that we stayed up 'till dawn in our hotel room after seeing Zumanity and walking up and down the strip a few times, checking out the different casinos and playing lots of video poker.... but more on Vegas at a later time. In any case, we were in Arizona, and we saw the signs for Chloride, which was in my book of Eccentric America. The mural itself is entitled, "The Journey, Images From an Inward Search for Self". I suppose this should have given us a clue of what to expect.... The book told us that Roy Purcell painted this mural, "using automotive paint bought for him by a freindly miner," and that "some of the images tower 75 feet above you," and that despite the fact that you have to drive 1.3 miles down a bumpy dirt road, "it's worth it." Getting into the town was sort of a journey itself. From the highway, it looks as though Chloride is only a mile away, but as you drive along the road to town, someone has set up little signs every tenth of a mile that say things like, "don't worry"..."you have reached a town." Not surprisingly, the town itself is a small artsy community; every yard has found art sculptures and twinkly lights. There are tiny little adorable bunnies everywhere with little fluffy white tails; I'm not sure if it was just young bunnie season or if Chloride is infested with dwarf bunnies. I wouldn't mind living in a town infested with dwarf bunnies; except when they dash across the road and fill your mind with flashes of burning in hell for running their tiny little fluffy tails over. We got to the bottom of the road and, after a mere 50 feet, figured out that it was no longer suitable for anything to drive on besides ATV's. So we got out to walk, figuring we could use a touch of excersize. Of course, it wasn't 1.3 miles, and the sun got to setting, which was gorgeous, but since John and I had gotten nowhere near the distance we'd intended to that day, it was a little nerve wracking. But the cute little bunnies guided our way up the hill through the rocks, and after the fourth time we were sure we'd gone the wrong way, we came upon the murals, which were most certainly not 75 feet tall. And we both looked at each other and said, "what the fuck is this hippie shit??!!" Apparenlty whoever was so obsessed with this guy's work had never lived in Berkeley, where there are hippy murals on the back of every third mini-market. The desert walk and sunset were quite lovely, in any case. More pictures of that to come when John posts them.... including the picture of the tadpoles we saw in the creek on the walk back, which inspired the next picture.... 

This is the Hoover Dam itself. You can just barely see the blue of the water on the far side of it, dark blue and oddly cold looking in the red desert. We could tell immediately a difference in the landscape here at the Arizona border. All through the Mojave, the desert ground had been yellow-brown sand and low, green brush. But just as we entered into these mountains, the soil became drenched in rust. Even the cement changed, as you can see from the parking lot I'm in.... The reason I like this picture so much is because Jesse left me a voice message today, knowing that I was leaving Vegas. He quoted Hunter S. Thompson: "So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back." And you can see it here in the picture; where the water has bleached the sides of the mountains that have beaten it back. 

This is a pic I took of myself at the Hoover Dam. The dam itself was closed, so we just paid $5 to drive up to the top of the parking lot, where we could take some pictures and stretch our legs and smoke. 

Industrial Ibiza!

Hooray for pool parties!
Full of rivetheads!
In black
without tans
IN A POOL
IN THE SUNSHINE!
Whoot!

http://photobucket.com/albums/b277/nurseglitch/Summer%20at%20Resort%20de%20Bockstiegel/?

AMBER AND JOHN's ROAD TRIP ITINERARY

Hello Everyone! I look forward to seeing you all in the next couple of weeks!

Friday 24th: Drive to Los Angeles, stay with John's friend, and also my friend, Nicole.

Saturday 25th: Drive to Las Vegas, stay at the Luxor. Bask in the pools there, ride the roller coaster at New York New York, see Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity at 10pm.

Sunday 26th: Drive towards Roswell, and camp out somewhere on the way. We'll be taking the US 93, I 40 (a.k.a. Route 66), US 285 south, US 380.

Monday 27th: Stop in Roswell NM for a snack and try not to be abducted by Aliens, then drive one more hour south to Carlsbad to stay with our friend Shannon Lark Estes' mother, Patty Joe. Eat sopas.

Tuesday 28th: Drive to Austin, where we will be visiting my friends Zoe and JP, and their new son, Max. We'll either be staying with them (their baby still wakes up in the night,) or with one of the lovely ladies whom I met at their wedding two years ago, Chryssa or Miranda.

Wednesday 29th: Drive via Houston, where we will hopefully stop for lunch and a peek at this weird “Orange Show”:

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/TXHOUorange.html

…and then via the I-10 to New Orleans!!!! We’re staying at a B & B with wrought iron balcony railings and a gas-lit courtyard only one block from Bourbon St. Hooray!!!

http://www.andrewjacksonhotel.com/

Andrew Jackson Hotel
919 Royal Street
New Orleans, LA 70116
504-561-5881

Thursday 30th: We'll stay in New Orleans through Thursday at the same B&B, have beignettes and chickory coffee at the Cafe du Monde:

http://www.cafedumonde.com/

... take a guided cemetery walk. We will heed the locals' advice to only go with a guide, and this looks like the best choice so far:

http://www.neworleanstours.net/candv.htm

also; ride the street car and do the river walk:

Friday July 1rst: Drive to Memphis via the I-55, hopefully stopping briefly just outside of New Orleans at the UCM Museum:

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tips/getAttraction.php3?tip_AttractionNo==3667

We don't have reservations in Memphis, so we'll probably just stay at a small hotel and check out the Elvis fans at Graceland:

http://www.elvis.com/graceland/

and perhaps Beale St.:

http://www.memphisguide.com/directory/dir00168.htm

Saturday July 2nd through July 3rd: Driving past Nashville, through the
Appalachians, and camping somewhere amidst the trees and hicks. Looks like, generally speaking, the I-40, I-440, I-81, I-66, I-495. (Yes, we'll have many versions of more specific maps!! This just seemed the easier way to describe it in general terms.)

July 3rd: Arrive in Baltimore area and spend time with my friend, Kati, and John's family.

July 4th: Independence Day party with John's uncle?

July 5th: John and I fly back home and arrive in Oakland late at night.

Flight 217 H
Depart BALTIMORE-WASHNTN (BWI) at 07:50PM and
Arrive in OAKLAND CA (OAK) at 11:40PM

the wisdom of late afternoon IM...

me: Holy shit! The end is in sight! It's 4:15!
me: Heh; that just goes to show that it's only teens who appreciate 4:20
Danielle: I appreciate 4:20, but not nearly as much as I appreciate 5:00.

I love my reseservations......

I just made reservations at the Andrew Jackson Hotel on Royal St. in New Orleans for less than $70 a night... It's one block from Burbon St, and it has wrought-iron edged balconies and a gas-lit courtyard...
eeeeeeeeee! I am so excited!!!

http://www.andrewjacksonhotel.com/index.html

Now I just have to decide how much I want to stay on the strip in Vegas... I already bought tickets to go see Zumanity. Unfortunately, we'll be in row B, which is sort of three rows back. I want the dancers to come out and tease us... that's much easier when you're in the front row... Oh, well...

And I have to look for a decent hotel in Memphis, near Beale St...

WHoooooooooooooooooooo! Only two weeks 'till vacation!

scary rodents...

Recently, I have come across a few little interweb videos that share the theme of terrifying rodents.

I think it's the stars aligning, telling me that I should buy my own personal copy of Meet the Feebles.

First:
A commercial for Chicklets.

http://www.visit4info.com/details.cfm?adid=7183

And a lovesong from some interesting porcupines.

http://www.rathergood.kewlio.net/flash/thinking_about.swf

And, for those of you who aren't yet familiar with Meet the Feebles:

Well... You're out of luck, cause I couldn't get any trailers to work...
I guess you'll just have to rent it...

Aren't you now even more tempted to see Shannon's film? This is from the shooting of the trailer last weekend. 

What I'd look like dead....

The lovely Heathur took photos at the filming of the trailer for Shannon Lark's upcoming feature film, Indignation.

You can see the pics at her website.

http://heather.magnesium.net/gallery/indignation_trailer

Now I know what I would look like if I were abducted and killed by aliens.
It's spooky.

heee!

Smells like pussy!