Heather's Blog

Hello, New People!

Aaron Berman's story about teens and technology is starting to circulate around Gannett's various newspapers around the nation, and whaddya know, my blog's URL got published! That would account for the 244 visitors I've gotten thus far today... This is really cool, I didn't know I'd be in the article so much. Want to see the story? Here's a copy from Arizona.

If you just came to this site from the article, hello and welcome! For a quick recap of the latest events, I've been attempting to produce my own television show with the help of Emmy-winning Producer Dean Love. The show's about a Romanian Count/Prince adopting an heir (me) and that heir going through "Princess Training." There, with that recap, the past few weeks of posts should make a bit more sense if you care to peruse them. In fact, I should be hearing quite soon about whether or not I'll be going to Berlin to meet this Count/Prince to work on the final contract before selling the show to the networks. Wish me luck!
Apart from that, here's the novel Aaron referenced in the article, "(In)sane". Please read, enjoy, but please don't steal it. If you do, I've got years of proof behind me that it's mine and I'll sue your sorry little butt.

All that said, please sign my guestbook and say "Hi!"

Huzzah! Three big cheers for Aaron, everybody!

Can I calm down yet?

Bless Dean! I've been running around like a maniac today, worrying myself silly, because today was the deadline Dean and I had set to hear back from the Count about whether or not we had a meeting set up in Berlin for next Monday. I was sick over the idea, because I knew there was no way the Count could reply by today. There was only a teensy little chance that a miracle could occur and suddenly he'd know how to speak English enough to call me and let me know that everything's on the square. Not surprisingly, that didn't happen.

Oh, I just realized you all probably don't know what I'm talking about, because I meant to blog about the latest developments last night but then I forgot to. So here's a quick recap:
My new bestest friend - Drew, the Remarkable Instant German Translator - got a hold of the Count yesterday afternoon. They talked for a while, but Drew says that the Count is a very traditional German businessman in the sense that he always wants an outline of any proposal in writing before agreeing to a meeting with anybody. And, on top of that, he also wants background information, which apparently is another typical German business practice (who knew?) So I hurriedly threw together a two-page fax and sent it right over about an hour after the telephone conversation. Only problem was, Drew didn't have time to translate it, but he said that the Count said he'd have a translator on-hand Monday. As in today. Hence why I didn't think we'd get a reply by today.

I didn't think a fax was enough. Not only did the Count want a fax, but he also didn't remember me. Drew said that didn't seem so surprising, really, and I suppose he's right. So I was awake until 2:30 in the morning preparing a package to mail to the Count, complete with copies of my original letter to him from last year, his reply, the booklet from the Childnet Awards, as well as a lovely little present - a small photo album that I pulled together to show him some of my best photography. I figured that would be a nice gesture, and a good way for him to see where all I've traveled to. I wrapped it up in beautiful hand-made gold paper and stuck that in with all the letters and things. All of the papers I put together in a beautiful, professional looking portfolio thingie, so it was all very polished and charming. The FedEx man just came about 15 minutes ago to pick up the package and send it over-night for me to Schenkendorf. Phew. Thank heavens for FedEx men! Heh, and as a funny side-note, turns out my FedEx man lived in Schenkendorf for a while. --singing-- It's a small world after all... --/singing--

So, I sat around making myself sick today, running around doing absolutely nothing useful apart from mailing that package. I watched a ridiculous movie that TiVo recorded for me. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that too - we got TiVo last week. I've been recording movies on TCM and AMC that I previously never had the chance to watch, since the majority of the ones I want to see air at around three in the morning. So I went through their listings for the next few weeks and found all sorts of fun movies to watch. Today Steven and I watched, "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?", a classic with Tony Randall and Jayne Mansfield. It was actually incredibly funny, and it was great to spot all the famous people that had bit parts in the movie. For instance, the beginning of the movie is a montage of stupid advertisements, and one of them happens to feature a young, beautiful Majel Barrett - for all of you non-geeks out there, she happens to be the voice of the computer on the Starship Enterprise, she was Deanna Troi's Mum in Star Trek:TNG, AND she was married to Gene Roddenberry. (Are you scared by my geekiness yet? I am...) Tony Randall was great in the movie, and it was interesting to finally see Jayne Mansfield in a movie. She was definitely better suited to be a pin-up rather than an actress.

Anyway, I've completely strayed from where I first started. Bless Dean! After all of this worry, I finally decided that it was hopeless to count on a miracle for today. It just wasn't possible. So I called Dean, explained, and said since we're past the deadline he might as well just book his flight to Nice (as in France. Yes, he's a nice guy, but this is a different Nice.) Thank heavens, he said we could give it until tomorrow or Wednesday! I'm SO relieved now. It's far more likely that a miracle can happen on Tuesday or Wednesday - that gives the Count enough time to at least have the gist of the message translated and to make his decision about whether or not we're worthy enough to attend a meeting. Now let's all just cross our fingers, pray, knock on wood, or whatever it is you do, so that this miracle can happen, we can fly to Berlin, we can Wow the Count, and I can be a Princess and get my own TV show, okay? The more people we have rooting here, the more likely it is it'll happen, right? I think so.

And now, I have to go marinate some meat, because that's what every girl does when she's waiting to find out if she can go to Berlin. That's not really why; I have to go to a barbeque thing tonight and I have to bring my own meat. So I'm taking a lovely steak which I plan to marinate in a lovely mix of soy sauce, honey, brown sugar, and a variety of spices. Now let's just hope my nervous stomach can take it.

I'm still here. Really.

For some reason there has been quite a gap between blogs lately. Sorry about that, I've been rather busy. And, on top of being busy, I've been having pretty bad headaches right around the time I usually blog, and since that means I can't be all happy and fun I tend to avoid wanting to blog. Otherwise I feel that things are just too blah for words. Also, I need to apologize to all the lovely people who have written to me and I have yet to write back to them. I'm really sorry, I promise I'll get to it as soon as I possibly can. Things have just been ca-razy here. In a good way, but still insane.

So, an update, which will be quick since I just took some medicine for my head that's supposed to help (and hopefully make me sleepy), but it's still in a trial run right now. Even though I've only gone through ten percocets in a period of three months, they're really worried I'll get addicted to it so I'm not supposed to use it much. Believe me, I'm tempted to take some tonight, this is killing me. I loath headaches.

First off, all by myself I managed to redirect all of the Prophet-Inc domain names to the new server, so now when you go to Prophet-Inc.com, .net, or .org, they'll all point to the same place on the new mammoth server. Which means that soon enough, this blog will move to Meggers.org. How exciting is that? I'm dead chuffed, honestly. In other exciting Prophet, Inc related news, my cousin Jennifer has given me proper permission to use that picture of her daughter Rose (the one that's the place-holder right now for Prophet, Inc, and will soon be featured on the main page). Yay! It's all legal now and I don't have to worry about it at all. I'm allowed.

I did make it to Dean's place on Friday. I had a great time. We tried desperately all morning to call the Count, but the call wouldn't go through because of this dorky phone card I was trying to use, and Dean doesn't have international calling through his phone company at the moment. We still had other things to do, though - Dean was nice enough to set up his PAL and NTSC VCRs so he could dub over a VHS tape of the Childnet Awards ceremony from London. See, they had videotaped the whole ceremony for all the winners, but the tape was in the European format. I was pretty miffed and was even more upset when I found out that PAL tapedecks are about $1500 over here. Thankfully Dean had just gotten one to do some editing and he was nice enough to take care of it for me. So we watched the awards ceremony while trying to find airline and hotel information for the trip to Berlin, and I sat on the couch and played with his little Yorkshire Terrier, Murphy. It was pretty entertaining, really, sitting in Dean's basement, surrounded by all of his awards. To the right were a couple Telly Awards and a regional Emmy Award (which was, surprisingly enough, broken. If I had one of those, I think I'd get it fixed...) :) To the left, were another Telly Award, the national Emmy Award (the big one, which definitely wasn't broken), and an Aurora Award. Just sitting there, on a filing cabinet, there they were. It was pretty cool.

Honestly, though, I was most entertained by Murphy. For some reason I've been really popular with children and small animals recently. In Denver, I got remarkably close to a bunch of squirrels and I have the pictures to prove it. I went to a church social barbeque thing two weekends ago, and this big golden retriever fell in love with me. He hung around, wouldn't leave me, and at one point walked straight between my legs and just stayed there. I have *no* idea what that was about. And then there was Murphy. He loved me right away and didn't want to leave, it was the cutest thing. He's pretty well-trained considering he's only a year old - if you point your finger at him and go "Bang, bang!" he rolls over and plays dead, complete with his little feet up in the air.

Anyway, I didn't go to Dean's just to play with Murphy. I also had my picture taken. I think I broke a land make-up speed record - I had my make-up and hair done in under eight minutes. Not only that, the make-up actually looked decent! Not too shabby for a rush job. Although, I still don't know how the pictures turned out... I'm kind of nervous about that. But you know what? Having the pictures done really made me feel better; it's nice to know Emmy-winning producers take pictures using plain house walls too. Heck, he even pulled pictures down off the wall, just like I do. Of course, he did think it was rather funny that I usually take my own 8x10s... so maybe I'm still unique in that.

After all of that, though, we still couldn't get a hold of the Count. In fact, Dean tried again this morning and once he got through, he kept asking if there was anybody who spoke English, and they eventually hung up on him. He was resolved to just sending a fax, but that has been bugging me all day. And wouldn't you know it, all day I kept bumping into people who knew people who were fluent in German. It was fate, I'm telling you. Tonight, my Mom went to this church thing and was talking to some friends about me calling all these strangers today looking for a German translator, when a stranger walked up to her and said, "I know someone who does and would be happy to help." Just some random lady! So Mom called me right away, gave me the name, I looked up the number, and called this guy. Turns out he was a bit rusty, but *he* knew someone *else* who was completely fluent. So I called that random guy, and sure enough he was amazing. He has the most beautiful German accent I have ever heard. Turns out he spent a great deal of his youth in Germany, went to a German university, and actually worked as a professional translator for several German firms, as well as Germany's form of the Senate. Who knew? But what's more important is he loved the TV show idea and is so enthralled with it that he's going to call the Count for me tomorrow morning - completely free of charge - and set up a meeting for me. How nice is that? I love random people, they're so fabulous. Of course I'll be paying him back for the phone call, and believe me, if this all works out because of him, I'll be sending him the nicest Christmas present he ever had.

Things are just fitting together so nicely with this show. I just hope the phone call goes well tomorrow. If it does, then I'll be in like belly-button-lint. (Okay, I know that's not the phrase, but who cares. I like mine better.) After being so nervous, I'm starting to feel more positive. I mean, after all, in one day I've managed to bump into five perfect strangers who happen to speak German. It's a sign. Or something.

I just hope Dean isn't irked by me kind of taking over with the whole meeting-set-up thing. We had kind of agreed to just send a fax tomorrow, but that was really bothering me. And I did *try* to call Dean to double check all of this - called him twice, in fact - but he was out doing something and I couldn't reach him. I decided it would be better to take charge and get a meeting, than to sluff it off and risk the fax not even going through. Right?

You know what else happened today that's exciting? Max's fourth birthday party! It was a riot. I was the official photographer for the event, and had a great time following the kids around with the video camera as well as my digital camera. Although, I think Max was a bit overwhelmed by the whole event. About halfway through when we asked him what he wanted to do next (meaning, what game he wanted to play) he said he just wanted to go home. We had to keep convincing him that games were fun, cake was fun, opening presents was fun. It's a very good thing we only invited about six kids instead of sixteen. They were all good kids, it was just overwhelming for Max. Once they all left he was able to calm down. He opened the present that Steven and I gave him - the book "If You Take a Mouse to School" complete with the matching mouse stuffed animal. We all sat him down on the couch and I read the story to him. After that, he was okay. Quiet, but okay. He managed to open the rest of his presents. It's no wonder that kid got overwhelmed - you could have climbed that mountain of wrapped goodies, stuck a flag in the summit, and claimed it for Spain. Max is one seriously loved child.

Okay, I'm tired, the pill has kicked in now. My headache hasn't been touched, but at least I'm tired and can hopefully sleep through it. I'll know tomorrow if I'm going to Berlin or not, so I'll post a message when I can and let you all know. Good night!

Way-hey!

Three big rounds of applause for Kevin!! His first act as Prophet, Incorporated's Technology Expert and member of the Board of Directors was a fine one, one that has saved the entire project. Thanks to Kevin, the Daily Prophet now has a webhosting plan that I can actually pay for out of my own pocket. In other words, I don't have to rely on donations!!! For a total of $119.40, the Daily Prophet will have 1.6GB of webspace for a whole year! That's only $9.95 a month, people. How amazing is that? And not only that, but the whole package also includes some amazing features, like MySQL, online shopping security stuff, loads upon loads of email accounts and unlimited email aliases. And, and I got a free domain name!! My blog will soon be moving to Meggers.org. How fun is this?!

This means that we can leap right into action, working on the Daily Prophet. No more having to wait months for stupid IRS forms, no more uncertainties if this will work out financially or not. The bothersome money part is over, I think I might even be able to handle this on my own. It's my own little investment into the future of Prophet, Inc. We may have lost Battle School thanks to the threats of Orson Scott Card, but baby, we're growing faster that I ever thought possible.

You've got to check out Meggers.org, which is now the place-holder for the server until I can move my other domains over there and get it all organized. I think what you'll find there is the best possible visual explanation for how I feel right now.

What's even better is I spoke to Dean on the phone this evening, and I'll be heading over to his office tomorrow morning to call the Count, take some headshots of me, and (granted all goes well with the phone call) book airline tickets to Berlin. In a matter of only 20 minutes this evening my day turned a radical one hundred and eighty degrees; I started out in a funk, and now I'm so happy I've given myself a headache from all this bouncing around.

After I told Mom about having to spend the day at Dean's office tomorrow, she dragged me out of the house to buy a new cell phone because now she's all worried about me heading off into the world all by my lonesome. Psh, I'm not worried, but hey, I got a phone out of it, so paranoia isn't all bad. :) It's pretty and has a color LCD screen and everything. Mmmm, techno nummies.

And to Alexi, again, thank you very very much for your kindness. :-D That really means a lot to me today. It's hard to believe that people feel nervous about emailing me, because I'm just me, you know? But you see? Don't be afraid of approaching people, and most of the time, you'll get something happy out of it. Sometimes you don't always get what you expect - for better or worse - but you'll always learn something, right?

To Spencer, who posted a comment on my "Day at the Spa" entry - thank you very much indeed. :) And here I thought I might have scared you off. I'm glad you enjoyed the morning at the diner; that was loads of fun and I enjoyed it immensely.

Well I'm happy. But now it's time to go to bed, as I'm exhausted and I have to get up relatively early tomorrow to drive to Dean's office. One last time, everybody all together now, WAY-HEY! DP, TV Show, Kevin rules, you people are so nice and lovely; what could be better?! Life's good.

All's Well That Ends Well

I can now breathe a highly desired sigh of relief - Dean emailed me to let me know that the partners loved the idea. Everything's peachy and it looks like once we get a meeting set up with the Count I'll be shipping off to Berlin. I got way too nervous over this, I'm a wreck now. And I'm also very hungry - I was so nervous and punchy at dinner that I could only eat half of my waffle. On the way home I got funny looks from people in other cars because I was laughing so hard at the stupidest things. So when I got home I decided to wind down. I got two movies at Blockbuster: 'Zoolander' - something stupid to keep my mind off of everything, and 'Labyrinth' because of the previously mentioned feelings about how much of a Princess I thought Jennifer Connelly was in that movie. I figured it'd be a good omen, you know. I only managed to watch Zoolander, haven't gotten to Labyrinth yet. But it was great to just lay down in the basement, wearing my biggest, fluffiest pajamas, and laugh at a ridiculously stupid movie. It helped, I think. And believe me, in the mood I was in, that movie has never been funnier.

To answer Alexi's question of how do I meet such interesting people; you know what, I have no clue. I think it's because my sense of inappropriateness is backwards. To explain - I have no problem emailing perfect strangers who happen to be in positions of power and inviting them to lunch, but you know what? I get really nervous trying to order a pizza. I'm backwards. My Anxiety Poles have been reversed. Dealing with this oddity usually means I end up doing things that are quite honestly incredibly weird. Like developing a TV show at the age of 18. I'm weird. That fact has really hit me over the past few days. I'm strange, I'm weird, I'm even scary. But you know what, that's okay. Now if only that meant it wasn't so hard to get asked out on a date. That's the only thing I don't really like about being weird.
Anyway, I digress. (Not surprising right now.) How do I meet interesting people? I have no fear of them, even though in some cases I should (i.e. PotterWar and those nasty Senior V.P's.) It just so happens that most of these people tend to think I'm weird, or entertaining, or strange, so somehow we keep talking. With several of these people, that mutual curiosity has lasted long enough to develop into some pretty strong relationships. For instance, Alastair, my PotterWar brother-in-arms. That started with one ridiculous email; I read about him in an article, decided he'd be nice to work with, and sent him an overly formal email asking for assistance. He wrote back, told me I made him laugh, and that was that. Now he's one of my best friends, which in unto itself is strange as well - he's in his thirties, I'm only 18. It all started because I was being ignorant of nerves and shot off an email. I'm really glad I did in this case, as in many others.

To sum it up: I have misplaced guts. I know I'm weird, but I don't think I'm anything remarkably different. Anybody could do what I've done if they had the same polarity mix-up that I have. Anybody could do this if they didn't have that fear of approaching these people.

I think I'm going to bed now; I need to sleep. I have to talk business with Dean tomorrow, which will be loads of fun, but I want to be coherent for it. Hopefully this newfound nervousness will wear off and I'll be able to slip back into fairytale mode. It makes everything so much more fun. Thanks to everyone's kind words in the comments for the last blog, that was very sweet of you. I needed every word of it.

Eeps!

I really didn't expect this, but I'm a nervous wreck all of a sudden. Dean emailed me to let me know that the conference call between him and all of his partners in the production company is going down tonight, to determine if he can get to the bank account to pay for me to fly to Berlin and all that jazz. He had some other questions as well, and for some reason it really got me nervous. It probably shouldn't make me too nervous, but it suddenly seems real. It's not just something horribly funny and entertaining, this is serious. All of a sudden, no real warning, and BAM, I'll find out tonight or tomorrow morning what's going on with my life for the next few months.

Plus, it's an incredibly odd feeling knowing that five men, only one of whom I know, will be discussing me and making a decision that will have a rather substantial affect on my life. Beyond that, I have no say in that decision. I don't even know what they'll be saying. Suddenly I feel very small indeed.

I need to relax and stop thinking about this. What will happen will happen, right? If this is right for me, it'll fall into place. If I'm supposed to be doing something else, then this won't work out. All of that aside, I'd still really love it. It's a fairytale. And I want one in my life.

I'm going to go watch a stupid movie now. Wish me luck.

A Day at the Spa: Heather Style

Today has been my day to relax, according to Doctor's orders. Apparently my neck and shoulders are an absolute mess of knots, so my Doctor told me to get a massage. I like that kind of prescription. So at 1:00pm I went to my masseuse, Nancy, and had a whole hour of an absolutely fantastic massage. I really needed it, but believe me, it hurt. My neck, shoulders, and shoulderblades had so many knots that it felt like I was being stabbed whenever she would rub in certain spots. Even though my shoulders feel looser, they still hurt. I suppose I really need to learn how to loosen up, but I don't know how, because I don't even know what I'm doing wrong. Nancy says it's from stress; I'm not sure what I can do about that either. Thank goodness Chinese Sam is coming over this Saturday to give me another Chinese head massage. If you've never had one, you're really missing out. It's the most amazing and efficient way to relieve a headache or put somebody to sleep. I actually fell asleep last time he rubbed my head.

The next step in my day at the spa was to drive over to the BMW Dealership. :) You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. Really. I went there, walked in and said, "I want to test drive one of those, and one of those," pointing at an X5 and a Z4. I was so convincing they didn't even look at my license! They handed me the keys to a 4.4l X5, and a 3.0l Z4. I was one happy girl. I drove around with the salesman and he asked what an 18 year old is doing looking into buying two $40,000+ cars. So I told him about the TV show. :-D I *love* being able to say that I do something now, that I do something that has a recognizable job title. Before it was always so hard to explain; "Well, I run websites, I tutor kids, I run my own company, yadda yadda yadda." It was too cumbersome. But now, Dean has given me permission to say that I am a TV Producer. I love the way that sounds.

Hello. I'm Heather Lawver. I'm a TV Producer.

Wheee! So I told the guy all about the show and he was incredibly impressed. When we were on our way back from driving the Z4, he asked what I do for fun. I said that I like photography, that I write a lot. He asked what I write, so I told him about my novel and my screenplays. Yet again, he was severely impressed, and that felt great. I know he was probably just kissing up to me, but I don't care. After all, this is my Spa Day, a little kissing up is always good. Of course, kissing might be nice too, but not with the BMW guy. (Ha ha.) Hey, it burns calories, that's a good thing, right? It's exercise!

Okay, now you know I'm kidding. About the kissing anyway.

So, I have lots to get you all caught up on, don't I? It's been a while since I last blogged cause I've been so dang busy. Let's get started at the beginning.

I met up with Dean (Mr. Producer Man) on Saturday at Tysons Corner. That was quite an adventure - we started out planning to go to P.F. Chang's, but they were closed by the health department because of Isabel's effects on the water. I called Maggiano's and they said they'd be open, so we changed the plan to meet up there at 12:30. I got to Tysons ridiculously early so I hung out at Neiman Marcus, then entered to win a $10,000 shopping spree at Bose. When I got back to Maggiano's at 12:30, they had just been shut down by the health department as well.

I was getting slightly kerfluffled, so I called P.F. Chang's. They said they were open, but in "Hurricane Mode" - no water, no ice, just serving what they could. Only problem was, they were packed. But Dean showed up and said he was game, so we walked down through the mall. Funny thing is, we were both following each other, and we ended up walking straight into Saks Fifth Avenue. Tee hee. We stopped when we reached a make-up counter and both said, "Where are we going?" Yeah, we should work together on a show that involves travel... :) Just kidding.

When we got to P.F. Chang's they were indeed very busy, but we happened to look across the hall at Legal Seafood - they were practically empty. We walked in, asked, and sure enough they were open. So we ate there, which was quite a change from the original plan, but fine with me; I got to eat some fish n' chips! I was one happy camper. Although, only one slight thing was wrong - it wasn't haddock. Alas!

I had a great time with Dean, as always, and we ended up talking for three straight hours again. While we ate we just talked life, not business, which was very classy. Once the food was eaten and all out of the way, we got down to planning the show. I'm not sure I should discuss details, but believe me, it's going to kick serious butt. We figured everything out and it looks like we're getting to the contract stage. Timing, schedules, and money were all discussed in their preliminary stages, which is incredibly exciting. Dean's really investing a lot in this show, the idea, and in me. I'm really grateful to him for that, and more importantly, I feel that I can trust him.

The most exciting bit of news, however, is that I'll most likely be going to Berlin in October. Dean's going to Europe then anyway to attend a Producers conference thing in Cannes, then he has to go to Geneva to film a show. In between Cannes and Geneva we figured out we could hop over to Berlin, meet with the Count, and convince him that I'm wonderful and that he should adopt me so we can make this amazing TV show. I'm not sure how my schedule will work with all of this, whether I'll end up in Cannes for a few days or if I'll just fly to Berlin, but either way I'm happy. This whole trip is hinging on only one thing - Dean has to make sure he can get access to some funding for the trip so it won't come out of our own pockets, which would also make me even happier.

I think once we get to Berlin it shouldn't be too difficult. I still can't imagine the Count will say no. It's just too sweet of a deal for him and for us. I'm looking forward to the trip, though. Dean is just such an interesting man and he's so much fun to talk to that I bet he'd be great fun to travel with.

The next job for me is to find a member of British royalty who's willing to be my mentor on the show. Thank goodness for Auntie Hazel! Alastair has an Aunt who's worked with the Queen and has loads of connections, so I'm hoping she'll put us in contact with just the right person. Hooray!

I'm really pleased with the way things are working out. The last roadblock right now is getting the Count to agree. After that, it's sold and on the air. Life rules.

The rest of my weekend was just as fabulous. I went shopping with Amber, since our other plans were dashed by the hurricane. We were planning on having a Hurricane Party on Thursday night, but wouldn't you know it, Isabel completely skipped over us. As Amber said, "It was a cute little storm." No power outages, no wild winds. Just some rain. Some stupid, piddly rain. I was so disappointed. I got all keyed up for nothing. Believe it or not, I love power outages. They're so fun and spooky and a great excuse to light candles. But nothing. Isabel's a party-pooper.

Shopping was loads of fun, though. I'm officially Amber's style consultant. I helped her redo her wardrobe with the help of Nordstrom Rack and Ross. The only things I got for myself were a really gorgeous deep red satiny skirt, and a black hat that's really rather fetching. I started out just playing with the hats as a joke, but then I fell in love with a gorgeous beige hat at Nordstrom Rack. Only problem was it was $40. Not *that* gorgeous. So when we went to Ross later that night I found a hat that was cute and only $8, so that made me feel a little teensy bit better.

Last night was Amber's last night here, which was very sad. But we occupied ourselves by creating a fabulous new blog for her! She's never blogged, can you believe it? She needs to, cause she's interesting, funny, all that good stuff. So I made one for her and introduced her to Blogger. She hasn't published any content on it yet because, well, she's on a plane right this minute. But she will soon, and you should check it out. Why? Because she's good people.

Man I'm hungry. You know what would make my day at the spa complete? A big filet mignon from Logan's Roadhouse, complete with a loaded baked potato. Mmmm. Meeeaat.

In case you haven't noticed, yes, I am a bit loopy at the moment. I didn't get much sleep last night, but that's okay.

My big eBay purchase arrived in the mail on Saturday! I'm very very happy about it - it's a vintage ad from 1954 featuring Rita Hayworth. It's really gorgeous. I framed it and now it's propped up on my desk, right next to my monitor. It's the perfect reminder of my goal to be the quintessential Anonymous One. Plus, Dean wants to get some 8x10s of me to take to Cannes, and I'm going to ask him if I can have my hair done like Rita Hayworth's in this ad. It's so gorgeous, I just love it.

Hooray! Mom just said we can go to Logan's! I'm happy, my spa day will be complete. Mmmm. A massage, nice cars, and steak. This day has just been way too perfect.

And finally, my interview with Aaron Berman went really well on Thursday. He was loads of fun to talk to and ended up asking me all sorts of questions about the TV show. I like journalists, they're so much fun.

You know what else is nice about massages? Massage oils; now I smell like cucumbers! :)

Wanted: New Head

My head's hurting really bad and the percocet should be kicking in pretty soon, so this is going to be short. Just wanted to let everybody know that Isabel has arrived but somehow it has managed to miss my humble little abode. So far anyway. No power outages, no major storms, just some rain and a touch of wind. Kind of funny, really - proves that if you plan hard enough and even make a party out of a natural disaster, that it won't even happen and all of your plans will come to naught. Pretty funny, really.

Amber also arrived today, safe and sound. We spent the day watching movies - 'The Bourne Identity', 'Lilo & Stitch', and 'The Other Side of Heaven'. They were all lovely. Tomorrow I'm going to that meeting with Dean, so my Mom's going to entertain Amber while I'm away. I know it's tacky to leave house-guests and all, but I have no choice. Has to be done, out of my hands, all that jazz.

I'm going to bed now. Good night, all.

Isabel Toss-ellini

Hehe, sorry for the bad pun... But I've spent all day getting ready for Hurricane Isabel and I just couldn't resist. Of course, I also spent two hours or so trying to buy some basic black shoes, but that's beside the point. :) I finally did find some comfortable shoes at Lord & Taylor, and wouldn't you know it, they were also having a sale! I got designer leather shoes for about 50% off. Not bad, eh? And really, shoe shopping for two hours wasn't so bad, because most of that time was spent driving from one store to another. And that made me happy.

The rest of the time I also ran errands looking for batteries, buying some milk, that sort of thing. And then this evening we all went outside, picked up all the miscellaneous bits and bobs that could become projectile weapons in the wind.

One bright, happy thing that will be happening tomorrow will be the coming of my dear friend Amber, my partner in crime and travel. She actually went with me to London for the first time. She wasn't planning on coming until Friday originally, but because of Isabel all of her business plans have been cancelled. So she's coming over a day early so we can both bury ourselves in the basement during the storm, eat candy, and watch movies for as long as the power will allow. It'll be great! Then, hopefully, everything on Friday will have calmed down. Then I have to go to my meeting with Dean, and then we'll probably end up going to a dance that evening. It'll be grand, and it'll be fabulous to see her again. It's been two whole years since we last saw each other. I'm curious to see if she's changed.

Another bright, happy thing - Steven has digitally recorded 'The Little Prince', then burned it onto a CD for me. I'm watching it on my computer right now! I really love this movie. Tomorrow, if I have time, I'll mess with the audio and create Mp3s of all the songs. You know what else is nice about this? Now if I ever meet anyone who can't find a copy of the film, I can make a copy of my CD for them, and then everyone can enjoy it. I just love it, it captured the spirit of the book so well. Even the songs, their lyrics, they fit as well as if Antoine had written them himself. For example, "This world is an ocean without any shore when you're on your own."

And besides that, I just realized how remarkable it is that they found such a little boy to play the Prince. I just watched the part where he explains why he left his planet, his history with his rose. It's remarkable that such a young child could capture the remorseful, reflective, meloncholy tone, married perfectly with that half sad, half inspirational look on his face. Everyone should see this movie.

Finally, the last bit of wonderful news, I'm going to be interviewed tomorrow by Aaron Berman of Gannett News Service for a column that will appear in dozens upon dozens of newspapers around the country. It's about teens and technology - Mr. Berman emailed me today about it. He interviewed me a while ago about the whole PotterWar thing. He remembered me, I remembered him, and it's working out quite swimmingly. It made my day, honestly - it's just fun, and makes me smile. That's always a good thing, don't you think?

Well, as I have to get up quite early to pick up Amber, I think I'd better get some sleep. Thankfully my headache has decided to go on holiday this evening, leaving me free. Hooray for that. Now I just have to rip myself away from this movie. That will prove to be most difficult.

Hand-Plucked for Success... Eyebrows, that is.

Today has turned out to be a pretty good day, despite having two appointments to see two different doctors. I had to wake up early today so we could take Steven to school – how sad is it that he has to go to school on this birthday? – but that was alright, since we got McDonald’s hotcakes for breakfast along the way. After we dropped Steve off we had to drive all the way to Fort Myer - a big Army Post in Arlington, where I sometimes see various doctors. The first appointment of the day was at 11:00 to see an orthopedic doctor about the recent developments regarding my left foot. You see, my left foot (the one with only four toes) is changing shape. Why? Because the bones are shifting around. Ewww. Pleasant, isn’t it? And boy can I tell you, it feels *fabulous*.

The doc took a look at it and is concerned that the shifting bones are actually shifting into a patch of nerves, which is causing more pain than normally expected. But, he wants me to see a podiatrist to make sure it’s not something more complicated, and to see if it can be helped at all with some kind of exercise or shoe-insert. Let’s just keep all of our fingers crossed that it won’t be bad enough to require surgery, cause the Doc did say the bone displacement was quite pronounced for having been big-toe-less for only 2 years.

My next appointment wasn’t until 1:20pm, so I waited around at the pharmacy for a while to pick up a prescription from the Rheumatologist that I saw yesterday. But even after all of that, I still had an hour and a half left over. So I decided to head over to the PX (the military’s version of Wal-Mart) to have my make-up done, cause I was bored. They have the typical department store make-up counters – a big step-up from Wal-Mart – with the likes of Lancome, Estee Lauder, Clinique, et cetera. I wandered around the department for a while until an incredibly happy, pleasant Iranian woman said she’d be more than happy to do my make-up and “play for a while”. She was fantastic, the absolute best Make-up Lady I have ever met. She told me that there was no pressure to buy anything since she didn’t work on commission or anything, and that she just works for Estee Lauder because she loves playing with make-up. She said she “lives for putting make-up on pretty faces like yours.” She taught me all about cleansers, facial care, anti-wrinkle stuff that I can do now while I’m young, and she got into such amazing detail teaching me how to apply make-up. Now, I’m definitely not a girly-girl, but this is just fun. It’s such a nice experience to go in looking all sloppy, then to have a nice woman take you by the hand, and put some make-up on your face while other Make-up Ladies stand around and remark on how beautiful you look; it’s such a cheerful environment that you can’t help but leave with a smile on your face and a bounce in your step.

I actually ended up spending an hour and a half just having my make-up done because we had such a great time talking. She was a very beautiful woman, and when we started talking about preventative skin care, she told me that she was forty years old! I couldn’t believe it, she had probably only four little wrinkles around her eyes and that was it. It was amazing. I have been converted now – I’m never going outside without sunscreen, and I’m loading up on special moisturizers tomorrow. I want skin like hers when I’m 40.

When she started working on my eyes, she asked if I had ever had my eyebrows plucked. My eyebrows were by no means bushy or over-the-top hideous, but she said that I should definitely have them done by a professional, that it just gives a very nice, clean, polished look. I trusted her because, well, her eyebrows looked fantastic. I said that I had thought about having it done, but didn’t want to try it on my own. She said, “No, no, always have it done first time by a professional!” Then, she looked around her and said, “I would do it for you, I wonder if it is allowed…” She ran off to ask one of the other Make-Up Ladies and they all decided that it would be okay. I didn’t have time right then, though, because I was already getting close to my appointment time. She said to come back afterward and she’d be happy to teach me how to pluck my eyebrows.

I *really* wanted this done, because normally it’s ridiculously expensive to have a professional do it at a spa, which is exactly why I’ve never bothered with it. So I went to my 1:20 appointment with my primary care doctor and ended up staying there for an hour as well; we had a lot to talk about. She’s going to have me reevaluated by another neurologist and to have another neuro-radiologist read my MRI results because of some confusion over whether or not I really have the Chiari I Malformation. The MRI report says I do, Dr. Carroll says it’s nothing but migraines. Honestly, as much as I adore Dr. Carroll, I think the radiologist is right. It just fits too well. It really makes me happy that my doctor is so willing to send me to as many specialists as it takes to play everything on the safe side. I love that, it makes me feel so much better, so much more confident with what’s going on.

Another thing I love about my doctor – she gave me more percocet. :) (And I also found out I’ve been spelling it wrong all this time… whoops.) Now I can finally fall asleep for a change when I get a headache. In fact, I think I may take some now, or at least a sleeping pill, because it’s nearly 2:00am and – like clockwork – my head is pounding.

After that appointment, I went back to the PX to see the Estee Lauder Lady. She helped me pick out the proper tweezers, and after I paid for them she sat me back down in the make-over chair and went to town. She was very cute – before she started, she held me gently by the arm and said, “Now honey, this is going to hurt, are you sure you’re ready for this?” I was thrilled, honestly, and didn’t really care about the pain. I didn’t think it could be much worse than everything else I’m used to. She did the first eyebrow without letting me watch in the mirror. Then, when she was done, I held of the mirror and finally realized how messy my eyebrows used to be. Comparing them directly side-to-side, plucked to non, it was really shocking. I never really thought my eyebrows were that bad before, but suddenly it looked so different.

She let me watch as she plucked the other one, so I could get a feel for how to do it on my own. It was great, I learned so much, and I’m *so* grateful for her. She’s the nicest person I’ve met around here in a while, and she was just so happy. It was obvious how much she loved her job. If my TV show gets off the ground, and if Dean okay’s it, I’d love to have her do my make-up on the show. She’d be so fun to travel with.

Steven’s birthday party went great. I decorated the dinner table, and I took care of decorating his cookie-pizza birthday cake thing. It was so cute! I’ll put a picture of it on here tomorrow. He enjoyed his presents, and now I can finally tell you what I got him that I was so excited about – “The Little Prince” on VHS. Our old recorded copy is so dead that you can hardly see anything at all. All of the colors kind of blurred together, and the sound was all warbly. Tomorrow we’re going to record all of the music digitally onto Steven’s computer, thanks to the fact that he now has a VCR and DVD player hooked up to his computer. I really want a copy of that soundtrack, and it’s not available to buy anymore. I just love technology.

You know what else I love? Childrens photography. I’ve decided I seriously love it. I spent a whole day in Denver playing around with my cousin Jennifer and her two girls, Rose and Ella. We went to the Botanic Gardens, then spent the afternoon at an indoor playground. I took about a million pictures of Rose and Ella and I just had the chance to transfer them all from my camera to my computer. Not all of the pictures were great; after all, kids move fast and cameras can’t always keep up. But there are a few in there that are just so incredibly cute that I can’t help but laugh. I wish I could post some online, but I think I should ask Jen first. I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about them. I made a series of desktop wallpapers out of some pictures of Rose and Ella to include on the photo CD I’m sending to her, that way she can use them on her computer if she likes. They’re just so freaking cute! My absolute favorite picture of Ella was taken at the playground; I had asked her to smile, and all she did was make a rather strange little face. So I leaned forward, raspberried her tummy, and she started to giggle. I pulled back and took a picture real fast, then went back in to give her a raspberry. I repeated this several times and got four fantastic, smiling, happy photos of her. She’s still only a year old, so she certainly doesn’t pose as beautifully as Rose does, so it’s quite rare to get a photo like that from a baby. It’s so cute that one’s my wallpaper at the moment.

And finally, an update on the TV show – I won’t be having lunch with Dean tomorrow because he has to run up to New York for two days to film something last-minute for Dateline. So instead we’re meeting up on Friday, same time, same place, and we’ll get this thing wrapped up and shipped off to the Count. I’m psyched, and I’ve decided I’m going to wear my nice black pant-suit. Now I just have to go out tomorrow and buy some black shoes… Wish me luck, I’ll need it. With the shoes, I mean.

And the orchestra begins to play...

--singing--
Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Steeeeeeeven! Happy birthday toooo yooooooou!
--/singing--

Today is officially my brother Steven's 21st birthday! Isn't that exciting?! *I'm* really excited about it because I've been dying to give him his birthday present for AGES, and now I'll finally be able to give it to him tonight. Hoorah! I love when I happen to find a gift for someone that gets me just as excited about giving a gift as I would be to receive it. That's when you know things are going to go really well when it comes time to unwrap the gifts. :) Now I just hope Steve loves it.

I think I should at least try to sleep now. I've got another really bad headache and I can't find my medications. They're somewhere in my suitcase, wherever that is in this house... So I watched an old Veronica Lake movie - "Sullivan's Travels" - and now I'm talking to Leland.

OH! Speaking of movies, before I forget, I updated my "Movies Everyone Should See, According to Me" list! I think I added three or four movies, as well as some comments on ones already on the list. This came to be because A) I was bored, and B) I made the mistake of adding more DVDs to my Amazon Wish List. Tee hee. I think this Christmas may be nothing but movies, movies, and more movies. Anyway, here's the list.

One last exciting thing to mention: I watched that TCM special about Rita Hayworth this evening. My family recorded it for me while I was away in Denver. When I first heard about the documentary I was thrilled, considering my recent decision that I wanted to be most like Rita Hayworth as far as her qualifications as an "Anonymous One". I watched it and it was remarkable to me how many bad traits I have in common with Rita. The most shocking being that I have a penchant for falling in love with controlling, manipulative, or needy men. That trait got Rita in trouble a lot; she suffered through five marriages because of it. Also, the one thing she wanted most out of life was a loving, safe, secure family of her own. And, most surprising of all, she was 5'6" too! :) Okay, so that wasn't quite as revealing as the similar tendencies toward relationships, and emotional wants and needs, but oh well. It's rather sad that she never found a way out of those pitfalls; that sense of always being used for someone else's agenda. They used a phrase in that documentary, "Dinner was always on Rita." That really seems to fit a lot of experiences I've had in life. Of course, nothing to the degree of her life, but just rather scary similarities.
Of course, I still hope that maybe one day I'll share some of her good traits as well. She was beautiful, graceful, a brilliant dancer and actress, and from what I heard in the documentary, a very kind-hearted woman and a good mother. While washing my hair this evening I got to thinking about who I would ideally like to be. I've come up with a list of what I want from whom:

- The poise and eloquence of Grace Kelly
- The figure of Marilyn Monroe
- The wit and spunk of Katharine Hepburn
- The balance of power and femininity of Emma Peel/Diana Rigg
- The innocence of Audrey Hepburn
- The unique attraction of Lauren Bacall
- The allure and grace of Rita Hayworth

That would be my ideal for who I would like to be, a mix of all those qualities from all of those remarkable women. Now I just hope that I can somehow, after learning about Rita's life, avoid the mistakes she made emotionally. I think maybe if I'm aware of my tendencies that I don't agree with, maybe that will make me more able to contradict them. I can hope so anyway.

I went cruising on eBay earlier, looking for old movie paraphenalia, and I found a really cute vintage ad for Lustre Creme Shampoo which featured Rita Hayworth. It was only $6.00 so I bid on it, and I won the auction! I think I'll frame it and put it up near my bedroom door as a reminder; everytime I leave my room I'll remember what not to do, and what to aim for. Sounds like a plan, doesn't it? I think for right this minute, though, I'd better get some sleep before I launch into another introspective thread. :)

Have your people call my people

I'm doin' lunch with Dean (aka Mr. Producer Man) this Wednesday at P.F. Chang's to finish up the proposal for the Count and to iron out ideas for the show. I'm psyched! I'm really feeling positive about this crazy plan, I'm thinking I'm *this* close to pulling it off. I've never gotten so far on any of my other crazy plans, and so far this one is my absolute favorite.

There are also some important issues that Dean and I need to figure out, such as who to approach to sponsor the show. My Uncle Bud had a good idea; keeping the whole thing very German. I like that idea because the first two companies to spring to mind are Lufthansa and of course BMW. That would make me very happy indeed. If Dean okays that, I'm going to head straight out to my local BMW dealership and see if there's anything they can do for me. If nothing else, I'll at least get my ceremonial test-drive done of a Z4, X5, and a new 3-series. I saw a Z4 driving home from picking up my brother from school today - it came up behind me in all of its pewtery-goodness. Mmmm. That's definitely a swoon-worthy roadster. If the Count adopts me, the show gets going, and all of this really takes off, a Z4 will be my first Congratulations present to myself (once I can afford it, of course, and I'm actually in one place long enough to own a car). After all, every good little Princess should have a sports car that screams of style, sophistication, and undeniable power. Now the only question is do I want it in pewter or black... Honestly, I didn't like black at first, but after driving a black Z4 around for ten days, I got quite attached to it. It's so sleek looking; dangerous, even. There's just a different feeling from driving a black car, especially a black BMW. There's just something about it that's so different from anything else. In the case of the Z4, it was kind of like driving the Batmobile, in a good way...

I've also come to two other decisions regarding the TV Show. The first is, I really want Josh Agle to do the artwork for the title sequence (yeah, like that would happen... but hey, it's a nice dream). And, in my little dream world, all of this lovely Josh Agle art will be set to an original song by David Bowie. Why David Bowie? Because I realized that when I was really little and I first saw "Labyrinth", I thought that dress that Jennifer Connelly wore in the whole "As The World Falls Down" sequence was about as close as a girl could get to being a Princess - big poofy dress, dancing with some weird looking guy, and having the world's biggest hairdo ever. Yup, to me when I was three, that was the perfect image of a Princess. And therefore, wouldn't it be just too cute to have David Bowie do the theme song? Again, not going to happen, but it's fun to think about.

Anyway. That's my update for the moment, I didn't mean for this to turn into a drool-fest over BMWs again and dream musings, but oh well. It's my blog, and I can do what I want with it. :)

Guess what I did today!

Go on, guess! I got to meet one of my favorite authors today! And it's all thanks to Stephen. He knew of a certain event that was goin' down, and he invited me along.

So guess who it was. :) It was Orson Scott Card, that dude who wrote - among other things - 'Ender's Game' and the subsequent series. Cool, huh?! Orson Scott Card is (very obviously) a member of the same church that I am - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (otherwise known as Mormons) - and he was asked to speak at a little meet-up thing for the young single adults of a particular area of Maryland. So he presented this talk or discussion or whatever you want to call it (officially they're called "firesides" - like FDR's old Fireside Chat programs - but there's no fire in sight), and it was really interesting. The topic was education, both religious and secular, and their importance. It was really very interesting, he's a fantastic speaker. I had a great time listening to him.

And after his religious presentation, the "Die-Hards" left over sat with him for about an hour and a half for a Question & Answer session, that was also loads of fun to listen to. We talked about the Ender's Game movie, about the pros and cons of Mormon culture, the weirdo aspects of Utah, and the like. After all of that was done with, I got to shake his hand and talk to him personally for a little while. I was asking him about if I could include Ender's Game in the expansion of the Daily Prophet - sadly the night ended on a bad note, as he said if I did that he would sue me. Oh well, not that many people were really that excited about the Ender's Game section anyway. That just means I'll have to do Chronicles of Narnia sooner than I planned. I guess I'd better read them...

So all in all, he was a very interesting fellow, but disappointing when it came down to business. I was hoping to strike some kind of deal with him, but he wouldn't hear of it. It was still a nice evening, though, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Plus, Alastair's going to be quite jealous when I tell him I got to meet Orson Scott Card. :) Hehe. After all, it was Alastair who first introduced me to 'Ender's Game'.

You know, after having to wear a dress practically all day, and wearing the world's most horrific shoes (I have the bruises to show it), I can honestly say that I really hate clothing right now. Especially shoes. Shoes are evil. I'd walk around barefoot tomorrow if that were allowed. But sadly, I have to actually go somewhere tomorrow and I can't imagine they'll let me go barefoot. I have to go see a Rheumatologist to see if they have any other answers as to why I tend to feel so much like crap all the time. I checked out the calendar and unfortunately I don't get to see Dr. Carroll until next week, so I have to wait to get more pain medication for my head. Believe me, this makes me very sad indeed. More so than the thought of having to put shoes on again tomorrow.

Home again

I made it back home, safe and sound. Nothing horrible to report from the journey back from Denver to Atlanta to DC. I'm all good, just tired. So I'm going to sleep now. Good night!

We should stick together, like shoes and stockings,

Like the clock's tick-tockings! Oooh, we should be together you and I!

I can guarantee you that most of you will have no clue what song that is, and that's okay. But if you *do* know and you can post the song title and who performed it in a comment, I'll give you a great big hug... at some point. :) Depends how far away you are as to when that hug will take place. And no fair looking it up, either! (Unless you happen to be male, single, and rather charming. Then it's all fair and you're free to look it up. I'll give you a hint; curly hair and dimples. :)

You know what's funny? Ever since I posted my mother-load of an essay about me coming out of the Mormon-Closet, about a million and one Mormons have been frequenting my blog, and I theirs. It's really quite interesting for a change. It's very rare that I ever have an online friend that's LDS. I think all in all, I've had three maybe that I've known about. Now all of a sudden I'm surrounded by them! Dan, Levi, Cameron, Renee, Stephen; where are they all coming from? Okay, granted, a great deal of them are in Utah, but it's amazing how quickly Google is picking up on what I say, and bringing people to me. I quite like this influx of Mormon friends. I've gotten to email a few of them and it's been simply fabulous so far.

So, on that note, I'm going to ask Google for some things and see how fast it will oblige. Ready? Here we go, in no particular order: One rich man willing to pay my way through college, The Cosby Show on DVD, a very nice honest Mormon boyfriend, Ottomar Rodolphe Vlad Dracula Prinz Kretzulesco should adopt me, my TV show should go on the air, an 18th century house in France, and a free BMW Z4 3.0. I don't need or want all of that at once, just one or two things please, oh Master Google, Keeper of All My Wishes and Dreams.

Oh yeah, and before I forget: Richard Branson. :) (old joke)

Next order of business, I have a threat to dish out. Fun, fun, fun. On September 9, 2003, some dolt dared to misuse my comments feature on the posts of "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" and "Excuse Me While I Toss My Cookies". Those posts were as follows - "10? Wow." and "*agrees with Alexi*" - both posted under the name of my dear friend and fellow Mormon blogger, Renee.

Neither of these comments were posted by Renee. It was... Faux-Renee!

Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuu. Real-Renee was kind enough to trace the IP address of the fraud who impersonated her, and tracked the IP to Datapex.com of Daytona Beach, Florida. Faux-Renee, whoever you are, I'm warning you; quit this tom-foolery before I tom-whoop your sorry behind, got it? I will delete every comment you post, every sentence you type, and I will personally hunt you down digitally through your IP address if you do not stop. Rawr.

I have had a lovely day so far. My cousin Jen picked me up at round 11:00 this morning (I got to sleep in! Yay!) and off we went to the Botanic Gardens. We walked around for about two hours, I got some lovely pictures of her two girls, and then we went to lunch. After that, we spent the afternoon at a hilarious indoor playground at a big shopping mall; the playground was full of gigantic breakfast food play-frames. I followed little one-year-old Ella around as she swam through a big bowl of mini-wheats, ran around the top of a waffle, and lounged on a chaise of bacon. It was great! I got loads of fantastic pictures that I can't wait to see full-size once I get home and transfer it all to my computer. After that she dropped me off back here at my Uncle's house, and now I'm just resting up before we head out to dinner. I'm hoping to get some emails answered, but I still have to check-in online for my flight tomorrow. I love AirTran's online system - I can even pick which seat I'm in. Hooray, I get to sit near the front! :)

I am really tired and my stupid headache's coming back. I have had a headache every single night for the past two weeks. And you know what's horrible? The naproxen that I have doesn't even put a dent in the pain, and I only have one perkaset left. :( I hope at least one of my doctors appointments next week is with the ole' cutie Dr. Carroll so I can get some more, otherwise I think I may be forced to do something drastic. Don't know what yet, but something. This is yet another instance where I only want Dr. Carroll for his prescriptions...

Drum roll please!

Ta da! I passed!! But due to no great skill of my own, I should add. I was such a nervous wreck by the time that I got to the driving test that I made enough errors that he could have failed me, but thankfully the cute old guy giving the test liked me. And, sure enough, he had some connection to my family - turns out his wife played golf a few times with my Grandmother several years ago (what an odd little world this is...) Here's what I did wrong:

Ever since I passed out, it's really hard for me to look over my shoulder because my neck is *so* tight. On most days I can't get my chin parallel with my shoulder, so I've developed a rather bad habit of only glancing over my shoulder when I'm driving. On my BMW, the mirrors are angled just right so that it minimizes the typical blindspot, so I don't have to worry too much as long as I'm constantly aware of everything going on around me, which I tend to be pretty good at.

Well. He told me to merge into the right lane, and there happened to be a parking lot entrance/exit right where I was merging. I had already looked into the parking lot and saw that it was completely and utterly empty, so I didn't check my blindspot to see if anyone was coming out of the parking lot. Oops. That was one mistake against me. That's when a little red Pontiac decided to come speeding around the corner at 40mph, out from behind a row of pick-up trucks that were blocking my view, and it whirled around the pine tree and nearly hit us. I still maintain it wasn't my fault - there was no way to see that car. Even if I hadn't assumed it was a four-way stop, there was no way I could have seen her coming. But I stopped before there was any accident or anything even close to one. She made an obscene gesture at me, to which I just smiled and backed up to let her go.

Unfortunately, this made me so nervous that I probably made a few more minor errors on the way back, but I think he could tell I was just really upset by what had happened. Plus, it didn't help that he was so dang talkative. I thought it was against the rules to distract the driver during the test.

All of that aside, the important bit is he let me pass, so I got my little certificate and off I went with Uncle Bud to the DMV in Littleton, Colorado (which also happens to be right across the street from South Park Plaza, but we couldn't figure out why it was named that - we weren't even in South Park [thank goodness].)

Of course, the DMV was an absolute mess. We went in, I got a number - I was number 5, and they were serving number 70. We decided to go get some breakfast (it was nearly 11:00 and I hadn't eaten yet) so we went across the parking lot to a Waffle House. That was lovely and we talked about cars the whole time. When we got back to the DMV, they were serving number 77. Ouch. Turns out their printer had completely crapped out. But by the time we had gotten there, things were up and moving again.

Until they got to number 95. Then it died again. We had to wait for 45 minutes for the repair guy to get there, fix the printer, and get things going again. I read some Dickens that I had brought with me, I let my eyes wander all over the place, I smiled at a bunch of babies; then finally my number was called. I went up to the counter as several people cheered me on (by that point I think we were all delirious). They didn't even look at my identification that I brought with me, they just took my permit, asked me some questions about weight, height, etc, and then a few minutes later, I got my picture taken. And that was that.

So here I am, sitting in my Uncle's basement, eating the last of my peanut butter cup frozen custard from last night, and trying to remind myself that even after all of that mess today, I got my license. It's in my back pocket. It's *mine*.

To celebrate, when we got back earlier from the DMV, Uncle Bud let me take Julie's car and drive to the mall. We thought that would be highly appropriate, and I figure it fills one of the final requirements of teenage life. I put my CD in, I drove off, and had a great time. Although, it seemed rather anti-climactic once I got to the mall - I don't really like big malls, my feet hurt, and I didn't want to buy anything. So I walked around for a little while then decided to come back home. So here I am.

The first song I listened to driving out on my own was "As the World Falls Down" by David Bowie, a classic from 'Labyrinth'. My how I had a crush on him when I was three... :) So it was just me and David Bowie, cruising down Van Gordan Avenue, looking out over downtown Denver, having a beautiful time.

We're heading out to dinner at 5:00 with Bud, Julie, my cousin Jennifer, her husband Kyle, and their two baby girls. I'm excited to see them - I haven't seen Jennifer in something like four years, and I haven't even met the girls yet. It'll be fun. :)

On the road again...

In about ten minutes I'll be leaving to take my driving test. Woohoo! *Finally*, after all this time, I'll be able to get on the road by myself (granted, if I pass the test.) I've had some pretty interesting dreams about the test. I wasn't even nervous until the night before last when I dreamt that Julie's car (my Uncle's lady friend whose car I'll be borrowing) went uncontrollable during my test, and (naturally, since we're in Colorado...) we went driving up into snowy mountains. I promptly swerved like mad around a tight, ice-encrusted corner and launched myself over the cliff. I flew 600 feet, landed right-side-up in a pile of snow, and thank goodness no one was hurt! There wasn't even a single dent in the car. Miraculous, eh? But I was soon met by a rather miffed Park Ranger who started explaining my prosecution options for flying off the side of a mountain. The funniest bit was the Park Ranger was drumming his fingers quite loudly on the top of the car; turns out that was the sound of my Uncle knocking on my bedroom door, trying to wake me up. I had slept through my alarm and we were supposed to be leaving at just that moment. Good thing I can get dressed in under five minutes.

Last night I had a dream that I went to downtown DC, leaving my BMW in a metro parking garage. When I got back, the car had been gutted and I was very, very angry. But somehow I got locked inside the car, while the thief was doing various things to the outside of the car. For some reason my father recruited one of my neighbors - he's not a cop, but he's a spook of some sort - and they came to my rescue. Still doesn't make much sense to me, since wouldn't it be more logical to just call the police?

Oh well, such is life in DreamyLand.

Want to know something slightly embarrassing? I forgot to bring a watch with me, so yesterday while I was waiting at the DMV (after getting my Colorado learner's permit) for my Uncle to come back and pick me up, I walked over to K-Mart (first aspect of embarrassment) and had to buy myself a new one. The cheapest one there had a shiny purple band, and the Powerpuff Girls on the watchface. Yeah, I bought it, cause I'm cheap (and it was so shiny!) It also came with a funny little charm bracelet that had detachable Powerpuff Girls charms thingies. I promptly removed them from the bracelet and attached them to my rucksack. Yeah, so I'm 18; yeah, so I have Powerpuff Girls on my wrist and my cute little backpack, that up until recently really did look quite nice (it's brown leather, very small, compact, and perfect for what I need); yeah, so I'm proud of it. It may be slightly embarrassing that here I am being accused of looking younger all of a sudden and instead of trying to counter that, I surround myself with cartoon bobbles. But I like it, and it was cheap.

Honestly, I'm more embarrassed about the going into K-mart part. Eeugh.

Guess who I met yesterday! A fellow student at the Courtauld Institute of Art! I'm so excited, I've never met one before (apart from just seeing them in the hallways and libraries at the school, but I never got the chance to speak to any of them. Although, one rather cute guy in the Architecture library said "Hi!" and smiled at me once...) Anyway. :) This very sweet guy emailed me to offer some advice and such on studying at Courtauld, of which I will be most appreciative. It'll be nice to go to school next year and already know someone there.

Yeah, it's September 11th, and I'm not going to say anything about it. I'm ignoring the news today. I'm happy, dang it, and that's the way it should be, today of all days. So I'm not going to drag that down.

I've got to run now, and drive. Wish me luck!

Are you lonesome tonight?

Is your kitchen a sight? Is your wardrobe all run down and bare? Is your lipstick all smeared? Are your stockings not shear? Do they make your legs show all... your haaair? Do the tears on your pillow, roll down as you turn... do they short out the blanket, and make the sheets burn? Is your heaaarrrt filled with pain!? Will you come back again? Shop at Macy's and love me tonight!

Ech hem. Excuse me. And now for something completely different.

I’m really ticked at Moveable Type. Why? It’s doing really rude things to my server speed somehow, or something. Everything’s moving so slow, and last night, it ate one of my posts. And it was a good post, too. Very funny. Mmhmm. I was really ticked and by the time I finally got over being mad I realized it was too late, the pain killers had already set in, and it was time for bed. I didn’t even attempt to rewrite it.

And I’m not going to. So there.

Let’s see, quick news report from the day and then I have to get to sleep. I called the Count today; I think I got his wife on the phone. I had prepared a big long list of things to say in German, and under the strain of nervousness, I promptly butchered the pronunciation. Oops. Apparently I can’t speak too well in foreign languages under stress. At least not yet anyway. Besides that, it’s German, it’s so hard not to sound really mean and nasty whilst already under considerable strain and frustration. Therefore, is it really so hard to believe that I completely messed up, “Ich telephoniere, um ein Geschäft Abkommen vorzuschlagen mit Prinz Kretzulesco.”? I was doing somewhat okay – I think – until I got to “vorzuschlagen”. I think she giggled at me.

Oh well, at least I probably made her smile, or grimace, whichever. Ugh.

At least she responded nicely enough – she gave me their fax number (which I already had, but it was nice to have it confirmed nonetheless) and invited me to send a letter to them that way so they could have it translated into German. I like that plan. No more butchering of their language.

So Dean and I will have to get together at some point soon, write the fax, and send it off to them. I was hoping to be able to meet up with him today, but his phones were all out and it was just a mess trying to get a hold of him. I’m hoping we can get together Saturday evening, right after I get back from Denver.

Speaking of Denver, I’m leaving in eight hours. Hooray! That means I have to get up in six hours. Ugh! And I have yet to have any time to research what there is to do there, which means I’ll be flying by the seat of my pants. Ouch! I wonder where that phrase comes from, it’s so odd. Curious!

Hehe, okay, sorry, I’ll quit. I’m just a wee bit loopy and sleep-deprived, cut me some slack.

Also, please cut me some more slack on the whole political post. I think I said some pretty stupid stuff while in rant-mode. One thing that I do think is really funny is that no one seems to have said anything about any of the Democrat’s stances that I had a problem with, only the expected comments that G.W.’s worse, and that politicians sometimes say stupid things. I was kind of expecting some interesting debate on socialized medicine or something. Just cause I disagree with a democrat doesn’t mean I’m automatically pro-Bush. I can’t believe it, everyone I talk to about this automatically leaps into that, just saying how horrible Bush is. You know what, just cause Bush is horrible doesn’t mean the Dems aren’t. Just cause Bush is nasty doesn’t mean we should support a Democrat who wants to turn us into this weird socialized messed up hole of a country (in my opinion, anyway). Honestly, I don’t like any of ‘em, so there. We can all just stop with the defensive strategy of how awful Bush is. I wanted to talk about Democrats, dang it! Their opinions, their platforms… *sigh*

Oops, there I went again… sorry. No need to respond to that stuff. Just ignore it. More half-thought-out political craziness.

Random opinion of the day: It’s really sad that Val Kilmer ended up smoking so much pot. He was kinda cute at one point, he could sing pretty dang well for a while, he was even really funny, now he’s just… weird. Too bad, really. What brought this on? I found an old Mp3 CD that I thought I’d lost (don’t you just love finds like that?) It had two Mp3 folders on it: Old Stuff and Silliness. In the Silliness category there were several of his songs from the movie “Top Secret”. Great spoof film where Val Kilmer plays an American rock star who gets caught up in the underground resistance of cold war East Germany. Good stuff, and he actually performed all of his own songs. I think my favorite’s still his Macy’s version of ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’

Kinda makes one wonder why he didn’t sing his own stuff in ‘Prince of Egypt’. Sure, it’s funny and all that he played both Moses and God, carrying on a conversation with himself during the whole burning bush business, but why’d they get someone else to sing his songs? Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.

I should probably go to sleep, but I don’t think I can yet. I just don’t feel that tired. I hate that.

You know, you should go rent ‘Silk Stockings’. It’s a great Fred Astaire movie. I’ve had one of the songs from it stuck in my head ever since I saw it a few weeks ago – ‘The Ritz Roll and Rock’. It was a really cute update for Fred; a blend of his old ‘Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails’ routine, and the whole explosion of rock and roll that was so popular at the time. You should rent it, it’s good people. Or something.

Yay! Someone just came online to entertain me… er, I mean, to keep me company. :) Yeah, there we go.

Two post-scripts to tonight's post. Firstly, I remembered part of the blog that got deleted last night that I'm really sad is gone, so I'm going to attempt to rewrite it. I got to talk to one of my new friends on the phone for the first time last night - his name's Leland, I met him a few months ago, and he's generally a really sweet, nice, outgoing guy. Now I'm trying to bed my parents to let me visit him on New Years Eve since he's a DJ and hosts some pretty nice sounding parties. I haven't been to one of those in ages, just a really exciting place to go and dance and smile at people.
It was nice to have someone to talk to on the phone for a change, especially someone who could discuss geeky things. :) We also got off on a funny little tangent about dogs, which has completely reaffirmed my never-ending childish wish to have a puppy. Sad, isn't it? I've been reduced to a whiney little 10-year-old who's dying for a cute, white, pure-bred Samoyed... Hehe, I don't want much, do I?

Speaking of being childish, this leads into my second post-script:

My inner child is ten years old!

The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether
I'm off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost
in a good book, or giggling with my best
friend, I live in a world apart, one full of
adventure and wonder and other stuff adults
don't understand.

How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

I think that fits, and oddly enough, I'm really proud of it. I'm 10! Yay! Next thing you know I'll be drawing snakes eating elephants, and no one will understand it but me and some cute pilot out in the desert... Mm, now that's a nice thought. :)

Hooray!

I get to go to Denver next week! I'm flying out on Tuesday to visit my Uncle Bud and to get my driver's license. I'm oh so very excited. The last time I was in Denver I was a baby, so obviously I don't remember anything. Anyone have any good advice about places to go and things to see in Denver? I'll have two days or so to play around and be a tourist.

As a recap for last night, I wanted to clarify a few things:
First - I'm not anti-Democrat. I'm not a Republican. In fact, I'm not associated with any party at all. I didn't mean the rant to come off as a slam against the entire Democratic party, I'm just saying that I really can't stand any of their Presidential candidates.
Second - Yes, Al Gore really did say he invented the internet. I saw the transcript from the meeting where he said it. And yes, he had not even been conceived yet when the very first version of the Internet had been formed. In fact, the Victorians had some sense of an "internet" when the first cable lines were laid (I learned this when I went to those Cable & Wireless classes in London.) Furthermore, the military has had another version of the Internet for a very, very long time. It just wasn't developed for the personal home user - as the internet we know today - until the 1990's or so. Even blogs have been around much longer than most people realize.
Third and finally - yes, I used to support George W. Bush. This was before I ever had any cause to doubt his trustworthiness or anything. Opinions change, it happens. I still don't agree with attacking his intelligence or Bush as a person. That's wrong, it's unethical, and it's no one's place to start name-calling. It's just childish. Contrary to popular belief, his IQ is not the lowest of any President we've ever had. I'm completely fine with people who have differing opinions on his policies, or if they believe he or his administration has done something shady. But there's no reason to attack them on a personal level by calling them stupid.

Okay, that's it. I'm going to stay away from politics, especially when I have a headache and I'm doped up on narcotics.

I think that's all for tonight. I need to go to bed somewhat early because I'm actually going out tomorrow morning on a job. Someone's hiring me to take portraits of their kids. I'll make somewhere around $75-$100 doing it, so not too shabby. It'll pay for some fun activities in Denver.

So, I think I'll spend the next hour or two playing Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 - since I just bought it this evening - and then I'll head to bed.

Excuse me while I toss my cookies

I am so incredibly sick of lies. I'm overwhelmed by the ego-massaging over-statements of presidential candidates. I just watched part of the Democratic Presidential Debate from New Mexico and finally it was making me so angry I had to change the channel. I was so frustrated I had to watch fluff, so I switched it to Oxygen and watched "Oprah After the Show". I was *that* mad.

Why? That debate was so full of lies and half-truths that I just couldn't stand it. I'll cover the few that my pain-ridden head can actually remember right now.

Howard Dean was actually silly enough to say that the government has done "absolutely nothing to protect us from Osama Bin Laden". Um, excuse me? Have we been attacked since September 11th, 2001? I cannot imagine how blind he must be to actually believe that, if he truly does. I've seen evidence of many terrorist plots that have been stopped. I'm aware of how many Al Qaeda agents have been arrested around the world, including many in this very country. And to top all of that off, I don't even watch the news that much, and I still know it! Still he says that we have done "nothing". That makes me so angry because it undermines so much effort by so many people. If Dean believes his own words, he needs to wake up. If he knows the truth and still says such things, then he is misleading so many people, creating so much unwarranted distrust of so many more branches of our government besides just President Bush and his administration. Yes, I know the Bush Administration is shady; yes, I know that a lot of Americans don't trust them. But to say that nothing has been done to protect us from Osama Bin Laden, that is a completely heartless and misleading lie. He has lost all credibility in my opinion.

Carol Moseley Braun said another thing regarding Osama Bin Laden that really upset me. She actually said, "We aren't even looking for Osama Bin Laden!" Does she really think the military and this country's intelligence agencies are so tiny that we can only focus on one target at a time? That's completely ignorant. Anyone with such a limited view of this country's military prowess has no right to be the Commander in Chief of the United States of America's military forces. I know personally that what she said is so far from the truth it's a direct opposite. One of my friends' own fathers is the head of anti-terrorism at an Air Force Base in this country. His sole purpose in his career is to lead just one team out of many that's hunting down Osama Bin Laden. Another of my friends used to work at the Pentagon as part of the upper echelon of Army intelligence and strategy for anti-terrorism, again primarily focused on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. And even still, she makes such a statement as "We aren't even looking for Osama Bin Laden." Either she lied or she doesn't know any better, either of which disqualify her from true candidacy; she is not prepared to be our President.

Dick Gephardt. He claims that because of him and Bill Clinton, 23 million jobs were created. He said that it was all because of some bill they tried to pass, it was all because of Bill Clinton's economic reforms. He vowed to recreate that if he were elected President. I don't see how he can. Why? A huge percentage of those 23 million jobs that were created were directly related to the tech boom of the 1990's. That was a phenomenan, a fluke, the result of the technological advances that were entirely separate from any bill, any economic reform that was passed within one to two years of the boom itself. The reason we only had 3% unemployment because a whole new industry was created.
And just like any new industry, there's an initial period of trial and error. A high percentage of companies in situations like that are bound to fail. Hence why a huge percentage of jobs were lost. And Dick Gephardt is trying to claim responsibility for this boom? How is he going to recreate it? What does he intend to do to create 23 million jobs again, now that the tech industry has plateaued? He thinks he can recreate the wheel, so to speak. Dick Gephardt is taking credit for something he had no overriding responsibility for creating. It's just as ludicrous as when Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet. Never mind the fact that he was in diapers when the internet itself was still an infant. Never mind the fact that the foundations for the internet had been in place long before he had ever even been conceived. It's the same case with Dick. And that's exactly what his statement amounts to.

Back to Howard Dean. The topic was granting citizenship to illegal immigrants, primarily in regard to illegal immigrants that cross over the Mexican borders. Howard Dean chose to attack the angle of profiling, claiming that no studies have ever shown this as an effective means of interrogation. I've even read such studies that he says don't exist. But that's not what made me mad.
What he said was, "Last time I checked, none of the 19 terrorists on September 11th were Latinos." That's totally missing the point, using an emotional ploy to back an opinion that is baseless according to his other claims. The reason authorities are wary of illegal immigrants that cross over the Mexican border isn't because we're afraid they'll jump on a plane and slam it into a building, killing thousands upon thousands of innocent people. As far as I know, it isn't a cultural norm in Mexico to hate Americans so much that they have national holidays parading their hatred.
Instead, what's most common across the Mexican border? Drug trafficking. Do we have substantial evidence to warrant the use of profiling to some extent? Yes. Where did I get such information? When I lived in Sierra Vista, which is only about half an hour from Nogales, Arizona, the majority of my friends were FBI agents at the local field office. The reason all of these agents were assigned to little ole' Sierra Vista was because of all the drugs that were being passed through the desert. Sometimes they went through Nogales, sometimes they would be sent across hundreds of miles of desert by illegal immigrants who had been coerced by drug lords to take drugs across the border into Mexico. Sometimes, these people weren't trying to immigrate at all - they'd go back and forth, taking drugs with them on repeated trips.
How extensive was this drug trafficking? I remember a time shortly before I moved when one of my best friends and one of the greatest men I have ever known had to leave his family for several weeks in a row to go on assignment to Nogales. There they found a home which was actually the front for a network of tunnels underneath the desert, underneath the US/Mexican border. Millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs had been passed through this tunnels. And what was worse, these drug traffickers had murdered dozens of Americans in the process. This poor man had to spend at least three weeks digging through bodies in the desert. Then, when he got home, he didn't know what to tell his three daughters when they asked him what he had to do. He couldn't tell them that he had to pull young American children out of shallow graves in the middle of nowhere.

And now Howard Dean says that we have no reason to question illegal immigrants, all because they don't hijack planes? He's completely missing the point. Illegal immigrants are just that, they are illegal. There are proper channels. Maybe those channels should be reformed, but that doesn't mean we abandon them. That doesn't mean that we accept anyone without question into this country when they don't even bother to try to do it legally.

I think it is sad when Mexicans die in the desert just trying to make it to America to lead a better life. I'm not saying that's right. But by accepting these people, but putting them on welfare, and giving them a life better than anything they could have expected, what are we telling everyone else back in Mexico who longs to live the American Dream? We're sending a pretty powerful message - come to America, come illegally, ignore law, and you will get a reward. We're encouraging it. We're setting precedents. Reform immigration laws, publicize how to make the American Dream possible legally - don't hand out freebies to those who try to cut corners and end up hurting themselves and others in the process.

And for heaven's sake, ask questions, investigate. Don't harm anyone, but don't harm anyone else by refusing to look for warning signs. It is a fact we have to face that drugs come across the US/Mexican borders. Trying to warm up to people and play nice isn't going to change that.

Finally, back to my old rant about Howard Dean's stance on trying to incorporate socialized medical care into this country. I had some hope that maybe another Democrat wouldn't support this - in my opinion - doomed idea. I don't have that hope anymore. Except for Joe Lieberman, all of them were explicitly clear that socialized medicine was exactly what they were going for, but none of them had the guts to call it by name. As for Lieberman, he simply skirted the question asked of him by addressing only one teensy aspect of his plan, so I'm not even sure what he believes, which is just as scary to me.
But as for the rest of them, if you support socialized medicine, say it. And not only that, get past the buzzwords. Get to the bottom line. They all kept saying how it wouldn't increase costs for the tax-payers. My bologna has a first name, and it's D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T. Look at what's happening in England. Every single person in that nation pays for socialized medical care, whether they use it or not. It means that tax dollars are used to cover medical expenses. Yes, everyone gets medical care in some form or another, but as I already addressed, it's certainly not medical care up to our standards.
Furthermore, say that you want private insurance, so you can get proper American medical care that actually meets your needs and keeps you from sitting in an emergency for days on end with a serious injury. What's going to happen? Not only are you going to pay excruciatingly high costs for private insurance, you're still going to be paying taxes for socialized care. Those taxes will not go away. Why do you think so many Europeans have such ridiculously high taxes? It's the exact same frustration my parents faced when they decided to home-school my brother and I - we didn't use up any government funds whatsoever for our education, but my parents still had to shell out exorbitant amounts of their money to support a public school system that had failed them. We gave money and got no benefit. True, that was by choice, but isn't it the same with socialized healthcare? You're choosing not to risk your life by settling for poor medical care, so you're going to pay the price. And that price is so much higher than any of those candidates even hinted at.

Tonight really made me sick. So sick and so upset with their lack of integrity that I promise I will not vote for any of them. I didn't even scratch the surface of the injustices that came spewing out of their mouths. If nothing else, if they have a platform, I want them to stick to it, shout it out, and be proud of it. Dean supposedly has passion, but obviously not enough to spell everything out. Neither do the others, from what I saw tonight.

So who will I vote for? I honestly don't know. At this point, I think I'm going to write my own name in. That will at least make me feel a little better, cause I still don't think Donald Duck would be a very good President either.

And now, thankfully, the perkaset I just took is finally kicking in. My eyes are getting that light feeling, my joints feel funny, my stomach kind of disappeared somewhere, and my massive headache is finally going away. Thank goodness for that. I'm going to bed now. Feel free to publish your opinions in the comments section, even if they get as long-winded as my blog did tonight. I welcome opposing opinions, just so long as you back them up. I'm tired of buzzwords, so drop all of those and give me the straight facts. Thanks. Sorry if I offended anybody with this, I know I was probably a bit more ranty than necessary, but hey, I'm mad as heck and I'm not going to take it anymore! :)

Good night.

Insomniacs Unite!

I so cannot sleep. Which is shocking, since I barely slept at all last night. I kept waking up, but whenever I did manage to sleep I had the craziest dreams. The first one was short and rather stupid - my brother Kevin and I were for some strange reason trapped in Mexico. What's the first thing you do when you're stuck in a foreign country and have no way to get back home? Why, you sample the local cuisine of course! We got all excited cause we saw a Filiberto's restaurant and immediately started chowing down on as many chimichangas as we could eat. Needless to say, I woke up with a huge craving for Mexican food.

After my quick trip to Mexico, my dreams lept ahead several years and this particular one kept recurring, no matter how many times I woke up and went back to sleep. The dream involved me, several years from now; I was married, and I had two kids. There was a daughter around 12-years-old or so, and then an incredibly cute 8-year-old boy with hair that was just the perfect shade of auburn. We were all going on a roadtrip when we run into a major storm and we're right in the middle of some forest (no clue how that could happen, since after my Mom's famous Petrified Forest Trip through Arizona, I'm never forcing my kids to go through "nature" vacations like that). Of course, we're in the family's black BMW 330i, which honestly is the only slightly realistic detail of this story. :) (Well, apart from the premise that I'm married and have kids. I like to think that's possible.)

Anyway, back to the crazy dream. So my husband - who's driving (again, completely improbable!) - decides to stop at this huge B&B hidden in a clearing in this dense forest. We park in a gravel-coated car-park then trudge up to the house through mud, pine needles, and sheets of rain. And, naturally, the house is very large, victorian in style, and looks eerie enough as it is. You'd think we'd be smart enough to stay away, what with the lightning and how nasty the house looked. But noooOooo.

The next several hours of the dream are like some kind of bad sci-fi horror movie. Basically, this little demon keeps showing up who's trying to kill my 8-year-old son. The catch is, of course, that no one else can see this demon thingie except for the 8-year-old boy. In several rooms throughout the house, the boy's attacked. Sometimes there are other people present in the room, but he's always hurt when no one's looking. The B&B owners are constantly accusing me and my husband of putting the boy up to harming himself so we can sue them, trying to claim the place is unsafe. Somehow, that always distracts us from keeping eyes on the boy at all times, so he keeps getting hurt. Just small stuff at first - minor scrapes, bruises - all because he'll shout out whenever he gets hurt, we jump around, and the villain disappears somehow. The boy always says, "He's gone under there!" or "He jumped behind that thing!" But no matter how many times we look, it's just darkness.

There's only one thing that's constant throughout all of these scenes that I didn't even notice until the ending. Whenever we were in a room where my son got hurt, there was always this small, 4x6 picture on the wall in a simple, roughly-painted wooden frame. It was red, but the paint was peeling back, so there were only slight hints of it. The picture itself was some kind of pencil and ink sketch. There was a kind of circular shape in the upper left-hand corner, with very strange little dots inside of it. Off to the right and underneath this circle, there were lines and various other odd shapes. It's kind of hard to describe, but I'm crap at drawing, so there's no point in trying that. Suffice it to say, it was Edward Gorey-style in the sense of the harsh, solid, jagged lines, all of which just formed this odd image of a circle and some random lines to the side of it.

Anyway. So no one else had seen this demon that was after the kid. The only clue we had was that the 12-year-old girl had heard it once, when they were sitting in the breakfast nook and the demon came up and stabbed the boy in the thigh with a fork (this dream got very violent). Finally, at the big climactic ending, my husband and I are arguing once again with the B&B owners downstairs in the lobby, and we're trying to just get our money back and just leave. Suddenly, I can hear my son screaming from upstairs. I race up to the room, where I'm standing in the doorway and I see him propped up on a bed on the opposite side of the room, his shirt all soaked with blood. He's pointing at one of those old horrific gun cabinets that's far too huge and has a dozen or so too many rifles inside. The thing is absolutely massive. It also just happens to be along the same wall as where I'm standing in the doorway. My eyes dart to my left, looking into the darkness between the wall and the cabinet, and I see two little glints stare back up at me. I run into the room, grab my son, and try to get back out, but the creature steps out from behind the cabinet and blocks the door.

Remarkably, the demon thing just looked like some shrunken man. (Charming, isn't it?) No aliens, no weird-colored eyes, no fangs, just this nasty little man. Somehow, he used this freakish little sticks to attack the boy repeatedly. No clue what that was about. At first I kind of thought he was just a midget or a dwarf, but he wasn't proportioned that way. He literally just looked like a teeny man.

So a fight ensued, my husband shows up on the landing, holding onto the 12-year-old (he hadn't followed me upstairs immediately because he wanted to make sure where the girl was). So the demon guy is surrounded. That's when my eyes look up and I see, just above the doorway, that same picture frame. I recognize it immediately, and so does my son, who apparently noticed the exact same thing at the exact same time (convenient, eh?) My eyes look back down and I realize my husband's not standing in the doorway anymore, but the 12-year-old girl is, who's just smiling at me. The demon's still in the middle, his eyes staring hungrily at the 8-year-old boy. He whispers something across the room at him, but I honestly can't remember what it was exactly. Something to do with some old mythological rivalry, yadda yadda. You know, that cheesy stuff they add to movies like this.

All of a sudden, my husband appears quietly in the doorway again, and he's smiling in the same manner as my daughter. He holds up his right hand, which is holding a recently loaded pistol he had grabbed from a smaller gun case out on the landing. He had disappeared to grab it, throw in some bullets, etc. He tossed it across the room at me, and of course I catch it perfectly, prep it (I know what the proper term is, I'm just not going to say it, for fear of the search queries I'll get), and ready, aim, fire! I blast the creepy sketch to smithereens. In a scene worthy of Industrial Light & Magic, the demon melts, but not before whispering something else to the boy that no one else hears but him.

That's when I pick up the boy, run out of the room, and the whole family runs down the stairs, heading straight for the door. We rush past the B&B owners, who are standing very still and just staring blankly at us. They never say a word, they're just still in that creepy, melodramatic sort of way. We run out into the rain, me still holding the boy, and we race out into the car-park. We find the BMW, turn on the engine, and race away. At the very end, when we're in the car, I turn around and ask the boy what that demon guy whispered to him. He said he wasn't allowed to tell.

And that's when I wake up. I like movie dreams and all, but I really don't like the creepy ones. Sure, it was stupidly creepy, but I didn't like the suspense involved. Until the ending, all I could feel was the fear of having my child attacked constantly. I felt like a Mommy, and I didn't like that bit of having everything hurt just as much for me as it did for my kid, you know? I mean, I'm sure I'll appreciate it and not mind it at all when I actually have my own kid, but come on, I'm 18, I'm just trying to sleep! I don't need that kind of stress right now. :) And great, now every time I turn around I'm afraid to see those two stupid glinty eyes... ergh. I'm too old to sleep with the lights on, people. Hehe, just kidding.

The one nice thing about that dream is I had a seriously cute family. My husband was tall, dark, and handsome - supportive, good with the kids, and obviously making enough money to buy us a top-of-the-line, decked-out 330i (my man!); my 12-year-old daughter was still kind of in that awkward stage, but she was still very beautiful, inherited my curves (although, obviously, not all the way yet) - she also inherited my husband's dark hair, while getting a slight wave from my hair genes; the boy was small and springy, still very short, but had my hair color and strange green eyes. We were just so dang cute. I think I might have even been slightly pregnant, since my belly had that cute little rounded effect that pregnant women get during the first few stages of pregnancy. I also, for some reason, was sporting a short, straight hair-do. Go figure. What happened to the curls?

You know, my dreams are *way* too detailed. At least it makes things interesting, right? Well, for me anyway, ya'll are probably dead bored by now. But I don't care. It's four in the morning, there's nobody online to talk to, and I'm bored. So I'm sitting here in my PJs, downloading songs by Seal (which takes *forever* on dial-up), listening to the Wallflowers, and blogging.

You know, I really do want that chimichanga. It was so good in my dream, I could actually taste it. I also vaguely remember ordering a fantastic steak from Filiberto's, which again doesn't make sense, but I don't care, I got to eat a steak!

Okay, about five paragraphs ago I swallowed a sleeping pill, so maybe that will help. I don't feel tired at all, which is very bad. I think I even have to wake up at a semi-decent hour tomorrow and actually do stuff. Unlike today, when I got to hang out in my PJs and watch stupid movies cause I felt all miserable.

To end on a happy note, I'm proud to say that I have been very good over the past three weeks. I have been exercising a lot every day, trying to trim down my thighs and hips. And, I'm even more proud to say that it's working! I actually had to go buy new unmentionables today because I've slimmed down so much the old unmentionables didn't fit. I'm so proud of myself. I only did exercises that didn't hurt too much because I've been having problems with my joints popping repeatedly, which is very bad, can lead to scar tissue developing around new muscle, etc. So instead I'm back to my old routine of about 200 leg-lifts on each side while watching television, and trying to ride my exercise bike for at least an hour a day. Completely low stress, no popping joints, and fast results. I'm happy. Of course, it does hurt, I can feel the burn and when doing sets of 50 leg-lifts at a time, it can really become painful. But it's worth it.

I think it's time to go lay down now. Alas, I have run out of things to blog about. Good night! Or rather, good morning!

Presenting my Dissertation

I presented my class on Musical Appreciation tonight... to two people. :) Oh well. I was warned that it could be a crowd of two or twenty, so I wasn't really that bothered by it. In fact, I was relieved, because the class didn't go as well as I had hoped. Why? Well I'll tell you...

The class was for a women's group that's a part of my church's social interaction kinda deal. Once a month or so, a bunch of women get together to socialize and learn something. This month it was all about literacy, hence why my topic was musical literacy and appreciation. But, to kick off the night, we all sat down in the same room and ate cake. What better way to start a class, right? I hadn't eaten much today, was very hungry, and I've been a good little girl for the past few weeks, cutting back on sweets. So I ate lots o' cake. There was just so much to choose from!

Unfortunately, I think I was allergic to something in one of the cakes. It's impossible to tell what it was because, um, as I said, I ate lots o' cake. :) But the allergic reaction didn't really kick in until halfway through my class. My whole face, neck, and upper chest turned bright screaming red. It became kind of difficult to talk just because *everything* itched and I was so uncomfortable. My Mom was part of the group (the uncounted third class member - she's my Mom, that doesn't count) and as soon as I finished my spiel she said, "Are you okay? You're all red!" She rushed to find me some benadryl, and thankfully one of the dutiful mommies in one of the other rooms had some on hand. I'm back to being my usual pale, ghostly-white self, but I still itch like mad. Ugh. I'm one Kathy Bates short of misery!

Other than having an allergy attack, the class went pretty well. My biggest fear was boring people, honestly. I'm still not sure if I did or not, but oh well. At least the ladies said they enjoyed it. I'll probably end up posting my lesson on the blog because, well, it took me a ridiculously long time to research and prepare, and I ended up being crunched for time so I skipped half of it. Plus, only two people! So I'm going to post it here once I edit it down a bit - it was, after all, part of a religious class. I'll edit it a bit and keep it to the science and history.

Anyway. Afterwards my Mom said it was practically a dissertation and I should save it if I'm ever required to write an essay on early 20th century music and the development of modern American culture. I'm pretty proud of it, I think I did a pretty decent job of summing up the influence of jazz and blues on the world today. I also had pretty little pictures of all the artists I focused on, but wouldn't you know it, I was so distracted by the itching that I forgot to use them. Whoops. I felt pretty stupid about that afterwards.

I didn't even end up really using the CD I burned. I think I was way over-prepared. It seems I'm horrible at judging how to project how long something will be. Silly me, I stuck to the old stickler of the screenwriting industry, one minute per page. I completely forgot that, duh, that minute per page rule also includes loads of direction that's going on at the exact same time as the dialogue.

To answer Renee's posted question about what was on the CD I burned for the class, here's the playlist:
Louis Armstrong - La Vie En Rose
Billie Holiday - Solitude
Glenn Miller & Johnny Desmond - Long Ago and Far Away
Charlie Parker - Cool Blues
Antonio Carlos Jobim - Luiza (one of the absolute most romantic songs I have *ever* heard)
Bing Crosby & Grace Kelly - True Love (another heart-melting number)
Sammy Davis, Jr - Yes, I Can
Dean Martin - Return to Me
Frank Sinatra - One For My Baby
Frank, Dean, and Bing - Style

It might seem from the CD that I focused on the Rat Pack a lot. They weren't as prominant in the lesson as it may seem, I was just trying to condense it a bit. And, I've been appalled lately by how many people under the age of thirty know absolutely *nothing* about the classic crooners. It's completely unfathomable to me that someone could go through life not having a clue who Frank Sinatra is. Actually, I knew a 28-year-old once who had never heard of Fred Astaire. That's preposterous to me. Frank, Fred, all those guys, they're the foundation of American entertainment. They're world icons now, for goodness sake! So I focused on them in the lesson, since I was told I'd most likely be teaching this class to a bunch of 20-somethings.

The rest of the lesson focused on lots of other people, including Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, etc. Actually, I was lucky enough to combine Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington on the CD since I happened to have an Mp3 of her singing 'Solitude' - one of my favorite Duke Ellington numbers.

The best part about the lesson, that really made me feel like I accomplished something, came from the first segment where I explained the uncontrollable physical responses to music. I quickly summed up how it alters our heartrate, brainwaves, respitatory rate, and even how profoundly music affects our emotional state. The funniest bit was when I asked, "Would you eat this?" and held up a really hideous picture of mold-encrusted strawberries. Then, "Would you drink this?", to which I showed a picture of a cup of coffee that was so moldy it had what looked like a gigantic iceberg covering the surface of the liquid. Then I said, "Then why would you let this into your mind?" and I showed a picture of Christina Aguilera in a particularly disgusting, trampy Vesace ad. It's no big secret that I loathe Christina, Britney, and the like. They're obviously talentless who pride themselves in being whore-iffic "role models" for young girls. Even if you don't agree with me that they're immoral or nasty, science has already shown that such influences on preteenagers is so profound that it's altering their body clocks, pushing them into early puberty and messing with their hormonal balances. If you have any doubt, I have a pretty disturbing article from Time Magazine that I can show you that illustrates my point perfectly. I used this in my lesson to simply ask the question, "Why?" Why, when we have so many good, talented musicians in this world, do we give our attention to such talentless attention-seekers? Honestly, I think it's just laziness. (Sorry, my soapbox keeps getting bigger and bigger, doesn't it? But I don't feel like quitting yet, I want a good rant...) People eat up what publicists tell them to eat up; people support the likes of Christina Aguilera not because her music is really good, but because they're told she's "hip", she's "cool", she's - that dirtiest of all advertising dirty words - "edgy". Grow up. She's none of these things, she's a crack whore whose voice is digitally altered so she'll at least sound decent. Britney Spears has prided herself on being a pedophile's dream, doing stripteases before she was even legal. If you want good music, look for it. If you won't eat moldy food, why listen to moldy music? It's going to have the same ill effect on your body, you just may not notice it right away.

So, I got through just the straight science of what music can do to your body, then moved on to the basic modern foundations of today's music - the jazz explosion of the early 20th century. After all of that, when the class was finally over, this blonde woman in the class looked down on the floor and said sheepishly, "I need to get rid of my rap. I won't even let my children listen to that, why should I?" She went on to explain how she could feel the difference it made in her body, how angry it made her, how stressed out she felt. But she never really recognized how it affected her heart rate, and that she could feel the difference in how her brain functioned. It was remarkable - all it took was explaining to her what was going on with her heart to convince her that hey, maybe rough music has a rough effect on you. And maybe that's not so good to surround yourself with constantly.

Okay, soapbox speech done. I'm out of the closet - I hate the Blonde Bimbo Brigade. So be it. :) If you have a problem with that, tough nookies.

In happier news, guess who called me today? Mr. Producer-Man, Dean Love!! He called me just after I woke up, which was very convenient (and somewhat spooky...) He repeated how much he loves the Count idea, and we talked about what we could do with it. He went off on this little spree about how cool it would be to cover the real history of Dracula and Romania, and really open the country up, then went on and on about how much fun we could have with the show, all of the cute little situations we could find ourselves in while filming. He sounded really excited about it. And, to top it all off, we only have one month to wrap up the idea to have it ready to be pitched at some big meeting in Cannes, but despite this serious time crunch, Dean still really wants to work on it. That's very reassuring to me, shows he has real faith in it. I trust him enough that if he has faith in it, I know it'll be successful.

So the next step is to talk to the Count himself. I emailed his assistant today to try and arrange for an interpreter so I can call the Count and pitch the idea to him. I can't imagine he'd say no - it's a great investment that requires absolutely no money on his part at all. I don't see how there's a downside for him. He even seems like just the personality type that would eat this kind of thing right up. If I don't hear back from the email soon, I may just go ahead and call since I already have his number. Trouble is, he only speaks German, and I only speak English. Know anybody in the Washington, DC area who can speak both languages and wants to be oh so very kind and help me out? I'd be most appreciative, yup, that I would.

I'm miserable. I've got a headache, I want to stop itching, and I'm bored. And I'd better wrap this blog up, cause it's already waaaaay too long. Plus, I think I'll get in trouble on some search engines for saying those words about Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears... oh well. :) Had to be said, I'm tired of not saying it, dang it. I've had to see one too many pictures of that kiss between Britney and Madonna and I just can't take it anymore! Pop culture stinks.

Strange, but it fits...

Take the test, by Emily.

Done

Gee, do you think I procrastinated just a little bit? That music appreciation class that I'm teaching is goin' down tomorrow evening. And I just now finished the lesson. Egads, I waited far far far too long to tackle it. I swore to myself I wouldn't wait until the last minute, but this week's been rough. So I don't feel too guilty about procrastinating, I'm just really tired.

Despite delaying it till the last minute, I think I organized a pretty good lesson. My only fear is that I'll be boring, but I always worry about that before I have to stand up in front of a class and teach them something. I wish Dave Gorman were around, he could teach practically anything and it'd be hilarious.

Thankfully I get to sleep in ridiculously late tomorrow without being disturbed because my Mom realized I'd be up this late, and told me that she wouldn't bother me. I need my sleep. Which is also why I didn't wait to finish this until tomorrow. I'd much rather get a good night's sleep now, knowing that I'm alllllll done, rather than worry like mad that I won't be able to sleep in AND get it all done before I have to give the actual lesson.

There's actually one more thing left to do tomorrow. I need to burn a CD. That's it, then I'm done-done. But I can't do that tonight, so it doesn't count.

Anyway, I'm going to bed. I can't even see straight (literally), so I apologize if there are loads of typos. I'm kinda typing blind here. Pleasant dreams to all, good night!

Whoopsies!

Sorry, I completely forgot about Geocities' crap bandwidth. Here are the photos, uploaded - as they should have been - to my own server:
One
Two
Three

Why didn't I upload them there in the first place? Honestly, I have no clue how much space I have left on dear Alastair's server, and I'm trying to cut back on how much silly stuff I upload onto it. Oh well. Three little pictures won't kill it, right? I do have 50MB there, so I suppose I shouldn't be too worried. I guess once I get access to Guan's server again I'll transfer them back there, just to be on the safe side. I love my friends, they're so sweet, giving me webspace... :)

I'm cutting this short now because I'm really really tired. That's okay, though, because I didn't really do much today. Went to church, played with babies, calmed some other babies down, had a pretty good time, then came home and did nothing. I had dinner with Kevin, Jen, and Max, played cards, tried to watch Star Wars, downloaded way too many fonts, and now here I am. Ta da! That's my day in an incredibly small nutshell. Now it's off to bed with me!