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September 29, 2006

Excuses For Why I've Been Silent

(1) BIRTHDAY.
The big day was September 26th. Wasn't as traumatic as I'd predicted. We threw a big party on Saturday night--combination birthday and house-warming--and that was a success. I think over 50 people showed up. Friends from NYC and even LA visited Boston for the weekend. Pictured below left is the cake, from the Greek bakery in our local neighborhood village. (The words on the frosting duplicate the words on Divine's cake in Pink Flamingoes. I laughed. Then I ate it.)

(2) SISTER.
I didn't take enough pictures of the party, but here's one: above right, my LA friend Eryk and my NYC friend Tony; between them is my sister Tamyra. My sister's visit was a huge surprise--Michael had secretly flown her from Kansas to Boston. Seems like everyone (but me) was in on the surprise, but no one leaked it. So it was cool hanging out with her and showing her around Boston. We even headed out to the Cape one afternoon, where we had dinner at my #1 sushi restaurant.

(3) TV.
While Tamyra was here, we got to share our love for reality TV. Thankfully, the new fall seasons of Survivor and The Amazing Race have started, so if you know me, you know what that means. Below: four of my favorite Survivors so far, including hot hot hot J.P. in picture #2.

(4) BEEHIVE.
Yeah, I'm watching too much TV again... but I've also made myself watch and re-watch my favorite film Spirit of the Beehive, which was finally released on DVD, thanks to the ever-wonderful Criterion. Photo below.

(6) SLEEP.
Both the literal, under-the-covers kind, and also the cinematic kind (Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep, below). As for the film, it's difficult and messy and has a lot of flaws, but it's also weird and fantastic and visually mindblowing, so I sort of loved it. Michael didn't. This disagreement started a fight.

(7) NYC.
Before all this birthday stuff, I drove to New York to meet with my editor and agent to discuss the new book. On the way there, my rattletrap car's windows and windshield wipers started malfunctioning--all in the middle of a heavy east-coast rainstorm. Scary. While in NYC, I stayed with my friend John (see more about him in this past entry); he took me to some of the new spots in Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill/Red Hook, areas that have totally exploded since I lived there in 2002. Pictured below are three of the celebrities I saw around these Brooklyn 'hoods: Elijah Wood (he sat at the table next to us during our Cubana Cafe' Cuban brunch); Amy Sedaris (she was walking out of the Carroll Street subway stop... she and I used to know each other, but it's been a long while, and she looked at me strangely) and John Kenney, a past contestant on Survivor (he was riding my late-night subway car into Manhattan. Okay, maybe he's not an actual celebrity, but he is to me, sort of).

(8) BOOK.
Yeah, I've been revising We Disappear. Or trying to. I'm going a little crazy with it right now.

(8) INTERNET.
Like everyone else, I'm obsessed with YouTube. This giant doll film is one of my favorites--spooky yet soothing; I can't stop watching it. Then there's this bizarro German review blather about the Mysterious Skin DVD, of which (with my 17-years-ago, barely remembered college Deutsch knowledge) I can only understand about half. And then there's this breakdancing teen. And on and on and on. Outside of YouTube, and on a completely different (and disturbing) level, is this totally fascinating and sad 9/11 film that I'd never seen before last week.

(9) TOMATOES.
Right after we moved into our new place, I planted cucumber, butternut squash, and tomatoes in a little square of dirt in our backyard. These past couple of weeks, we've had more of the latter (pictured above, on our kitchen windowsill) than we can use.

(10) MUSIC.
New cds I've been listening to:

Junior Boys, So This Is Goodbye.
The Album Leaf, Into the Blue Again.
Isan, Plans Drawn In Pencil.