A long week comes to an end

I've avoided posting most of this week because it's been such an emotionally intense, back-and-forth, up/down rollercoaster kind of a week, and that doesn't even include that silly Recall Election debate. I'll elaborate soon, but not right now.

All's well that gets better

Just a quick, mid-workday update:
I think an important thing in life is to feel free, whether free from others or free with others. Most of this past year, I have felt free with everyone, and free from whatever I needed to be free from. I feel free today.

Friends and music

Sunday certainly didn't seem like it was going to be a good day. A friend upset me Saturday night in a pretty intense way, and I was so hurt that sleeping wasn't happening. I finally got to sleep Sunday morning at 8 only to have a phone conversation at 9, and that conversation went pretty badly. You know, now life has some drama! Woo-hoo!

But then, an amazing thing happened. I had the best day. The BEST day. Michelle came by and we went to do some recording for her demo CD, and the work we did was just incredible. Something special happened at the studio, something that made us both feel like we're on the right path, and maybe further along than we thought. Then we went back to her apartment and played more music and talked. She (along with another couple friends) really helped me out by listening and talking to me about the Saturday night situation, which I may or may not elaborate on. Probably not. Don't want to mention too many names! Except Nicole's. She was really far away Saturday night when I called her to see if she could grab a beer with me, but I know she would have been right there with me if she were anywhere nearby. Just knowing that was helpful. She's solid, that one.

Anyway, back to Sunday: we (Michelle and I) played music and talked, and we also discussed how we're going to reshape our shows the next few times we perform. Then, we made Skye an Emmy out of aluminum foil. I'll see if I can get her to take a photo with her digital camera.

Skye picked me up and we went to a birthday dinner in the valley followed by an Emmy party. We were our typical self-involved obnoxious selves, reprising our incredibly grating "hand puppet" routine (we can't get enough!), setting the tone by ordering drinks upon arrival, finding the farthest corner to sit in, shooting uninflated balloons at passers-by, and occasionally busting out the "damn it!" fist. Then we ripped the heads off of all the gummy bears and put them back in the package. Oh, and we discovered that if you burn a gummy bear over an open flame, it becomes incredibly sticky. Even when cool! So we attached gummy bears to a balloon to make a bizarro-world version of Nelly Olsen from Little House on the Prairie. This Nelly had blue hair, a gummy bear eye, and a crazy eye which had fallen out of its socket (this was created by joining a melted, headless gummy bear with an uninflated red balloon).

If we sound like we were 8 year-olds, well... we earned it. We needed some goofy time. Oh, and we decided that this two-year-old kid who was at the party would most likely grow up to be on American Gladiator. Sometimes, you can just tell.

Anyway, Skye always knows how to make things better. Sometimes, all it takes is candy, fire, alcohol, hand puppets, and a healthy disregard for most anyone else. We're good that way.

OK, more later. Gotta sleep. NyQuil kicking in.

-M

What to do when you're sick in Los Angeles



Well, I've been way, way under the weather the last couple of days. Today, I poked my head into work for a while, just to fix a few things and, frankly, get out of the apartment. Also, I get to infect others. Fun!

Of course, tonight is the night Brian and I have the most expensive Dodger tickets we've ever bought, so I'm going to the game as well. Gotta take one for the team! In this case, the "one" I'm gonna take will be a Dodger Dog / Beer combo.

Above is a photo from the 30th birthday party. A photo album is forthcoming, I bet.

-M

Shannon and Matt: Wedding Photos

New Viva Las Vegas wedding photos posted! More to come from Skye's camera soon. These are from Matt's. The link:

Viva Las Vegas

-M

Viva something-something

It's been a wild couple of weeks since I last wrote, and this should just be a quick update. I'm going to post a lot more as soon as some photos come in, but I want to go ahead and throw a little something up here for the time being. As you can see in the photo, Skye busted out the 40s of Miller High Life beer, which can mean only one thing -- a birthday! Look closer, though: fans of the LLC will notice that, while she's small, someone else is in the photo with us.

Squint your eyes and put your nose right on the screen: somewhere in there, between a couple of pixels, is Shannon, Skye's sister extraordinaire who, less than two days after this photo was taken, married Matt Johnson (the diploMatt) in Las Vegas. Elvis performed the ceremony, which lasted about 8 minutes, including the two songs he performed. If Matt and Shannon ever get divorced, I'm going to insist they get Chuck Berry to perform that ceremony. I can see it now:

Chuck Berry: "Shannon Lee, why can't you be true
Oh Shannon Lee, why can't you be true
You've started back doin' the things you used to do."
Shannon: "But I have been true. We told you, we're just doing this for the hell of it."
Chuck Berry: "Alright. Shannon Johnson, do you wish to end this marriage?"
Shannon: "Not really. We just want Elvis to marry us again."
Chuck Berry: "OK! Matt, you want out?"
Matt: "Sure!"
Chuck Berry: "Go Johnny, Go!"

Matt and Shannon stayed at the lovely and spacious Apartment 7 on Sawtelle during their visit. Sunday morning, after Friday night's 30th birthday party/beer-swilling extravaganza, Matt, Shannon, and the LLC piled into the Matrix and made haste to Vegas for the big event. It was fantastic. Shannon provided a mix CD of actors singing poorly which is now among my favorite CDs. We all stayed at the Westward Ho in Vegas, gambled a little, ate a lot, and generally did everyone's parents proud. It was the best wedding I've ever been to, and I mean that seriously -- all weddings should be like this one. Low-stress, a little wacky, two great people getting married, and a bizarre dead man performing the ceremony. I understand that the State Department will eventually allow Shannon to move in with Matt -- talk about permissive parenting -- but for now their marriage spans a couple of continents. And to think, when they're really old, their marriage will include two incontinents! This visit was my first opportunity to meet Shannon, and not only is she a fountain of derisive trivia about the 7th Heaven TV show, she's also one of the only people I know who would jump through all of these State Department hoops with so much happy energy. More about that and about the wedding later, and more about the fact that, combined, Matt and Shannon still couldn't dunk.

OK, so I'm 30 now, which means... eh, none of the jokes I can think of are all that funny (this coming from the guy who made the "incontinent" joke). I'm very happy to be 30. It's nice.

More later,
-M