wait, what?

Mike and I went to Boston last weekend. We were there for his college reunion, but we spent very little time actually reunioning. We did catch up with a few Boston-area friends, including my best friend from law school and a friend of his from college who graduated a year or two after him. Oh, yeah, we also met up with my high school boyfriend and his wife (and infant daughter, who is adorable). It was the first time I'd seen him in 20 years. Whoa.

Anyway, that went pretty well. I'd been e-mailing with David for the last couple of years and we generally knew what was going on with each other. The funny thing was that we determined prior to the trip that Mike and his wife went to the same college 5 years apart and that therefore they would be at reunion events for her reunion as well (they live locally, so not as big of an endeavor for them). So when we met up, Mike and Shelley started talking about school. They figured out that they lived in all the same dorms/houses throughout their college experience. That was a bit random. But cool. 

I think that the meeting went well for all and there was only minimal awkwardness. It was good to see him again and I'm sure at least part of that is that I'm in a pretty happy place both relationship-wise and life-wise. It is good to see that he is as well.

I'm thankful

Just a partial list:

• Gretchen's condition continues to improve.  She seems to respond somewhat to us these days and she opens her eyes and will look right at you when you are talking to her.  Her improvement over the course of the last week has been really encouraging.  I'm hoping that she'll be "awake" when we get back from...
  
• Hawaii!  Mike and I head out for our practically free vacation tomorrow.  It has been a while since we've taken a real vacation together and I'm looking forward to 6 days without plans on a tropical island together.
• As always, I'm happy to have such a great guy in my life.  I would go on, but I fear that I may be schmoopy.
• Of course, I can't forget to mention my wonderful friends and family.  And the gift of good health.  And the New York Football Giants.  Alright, that last one has me a bit verklempt.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

knowing the things we cannot change

Today is a bit of a return to normalcy for me.   My friend Gretchen is in a coma and it is unlikely that her condition will change in the next couple of days.  I hold on to hope that she will get better.  Maybe some of it is irrational because I've been fortunate enough to have friends come through worse (though the hard thing about head injuries is that each person's recovery is so unpredictable).  Maybe some of it is because I am a glass half full person.  And definitely some of it is because I know that my friend is young and strong and healthy.  If I hadn't realized her strength before, spending the last day with her mom would have reinforced that for me.

So today I will spend a couple hours in the hospital and then I will come home and spend some time with my wonderful boyfriend before heading out to appreciate the company of some amazing friends.  It never ceases to surprise me how times of struggle can remind me how incredibly good my life is.  I don't want to ever take that for granted.

it was 20 years ago today...

July 29, 2008 is the 20th anniversary of my dad's death.  Last month I started to compose a post about him.  It turns out that there is a lot to say and before I knew what was happening, it started turning into a multi-part series.  Maybe at some point I'll be able to finish more of a life story about him.  He was a really intense and complicated person.  

But for today I will just say that I miss him still.  I think he would have liked the person that I have become.  And I've never found anyone who gives better hugs.  Love you, dad.

june gloom

I thought that we might avoid the June Gloom this year because we had a lot of May Grey. I thought wrong. I'm not complaining though. After three days in the 95+ heat in Dallas, I'm perfectly content with some low 70's and cloudy skies. How did I ever get used to that heat??

We had a great visit with friends, stayed up way too late and drank more than I'm used to. Yep, sounds like Dallas.

I'm just waiting on a friend

I had a moment tonight. One of those times when something struck me in just the right way and I had to get it down on paper. Or, uh, computer screen. Semantics.

Anyway, a friend of mine from design class brought in a beautiful, big, glossy book of illustrations by current illustrators (broken up into categories) tonight and I wrote down the names of a few that interested me to look up more of their work when I got home. Yes, I've become a total design nerd. I didn't notice it at the time, but one illustrator whose work I had seen before (on the cover of a recent edition of Print magazine, among other places) shares a name with a friend of mine. Stina.

Now I've known my fair share of Kristens, Christines and Christinas (and Chris, Chrissy, Tina, etc.) but before I met Stina I'd never known anyone who used that particular short form of the name. Some words I would use to describe my friend Stina: warm, funky, artsy, interesting, funny, vibrant, unique. And the work of Stina Persson, the artist whose name I finally learned tonight? Well, you be the judge...

I'd call it a perfect fit. Happy birthday week, Stina! For more of this, check out http://www.stinapersson.com/.

continuing madness

Today's post is brought to you by the letters UNC, KU, UCLA and M-E-M-P-H-I-S. We're heading down the Redondo for the day to hang out with LJ and Wes at their brand new house and watch some basketball. Wes went to UCLA, so at least one game will be important to someone in the crowd. I'll be somewhat quietly hoping for a Memphis win, because if Memphis wins it all, I'll win Mike's office pool. But mostly I just hope that the games are good and I don't drink too much wine this weekend.

...and I mean it from the bottom of my heart

In honor of Valentine's Day, I spent a fair amount of time this morning sending snarky some e card Valentines to those closest to me (with less snarky messages attached). But if I had been organized, I would like to think that I would have purchased the adorable cards pictured here (or others like them from twin ravens press - a wonderful letterpress that sells on etsy.com) and sent them out to friends and family.

I'm not a Valentine's Day sap. I refuse to go out to dinner and there's no need to buy me flowers. Mike and I will be celebrating at home, with some yummy take-out and maybe a bottle of champagne. I think my time spent working in the restaurant business cured me of any romanticism of so-called Hallmark holidays. But still, it is a nice opportunity to tell people who make my life a little bit happier that they are loved. Maybe I'll buy the cards anyway and just send them out when the mood strikes me.

The Weekend of Too Many Plans

Have you ever felt like every cool upcoming event in your life is trying to happen at the same time? September 14-16 is that time for me this year. For some reason, that is THE WEEKEND to do pretty much everything.

It started with the Giants-Packers game. You know I'm a bit of an NFL freak by now, I hope. My favorite team (Giants) plays Mike's favorite team (Packers) about once every three years and the last time they did so, we flew to Green Bay to see the game (I had a great time; the Giants won). When we saw the football schedule this year, we noticed the Big Game would be occurring at Giants Stadium this year on September 16. Immediately we started talking about a trip to New York.

Then we found out that the ACL music festival is in Austin that weekend. I love that festival and the line-up looks awesome, but we had to brush it off. Giants-Packers weekend!

However...

I have a good friend in Minneapolis who I've never visited and when I sent her possible dates, Giants-Packers weekend slipped my mind, so I included that weekend. She wrote back that her birthday is that weekend and it seemed like fate that I should visit then, so I booked my ticket to Minnesota. Giants-Packers weekend be damned! (I am on a bit of a "break" with the Giants this year because my Giants friends have determined that the best way to get Coughlin the hell out of town is to lose a lot of games this year. A year of hardship for the greater good, or whatever. I'm not 100% on board, but there will be many fewer planned Gaints-watching outings this year.)

As soon as I booked my trip, I started hearing about fun stuff in LA. A concert by a band that we like (and who is repped by our friend's label, so she could get us backstage, etc.). A festival we wanted to check out. A friend's birthday party. The perfect storm of cool and fun events all scheduled for that same crazy weekend. It turned into an inside joke every time someone mentioned anything about that weekend.

I'll admit that I haven't really had buyer's remorse about scheduling the trip, because I always have a great time with said Minneapolis friend and I haven't seen her for 6 months or so. But still. Why must everything be scheduled for September 14-16??

Three days ago it all turned around for me. I was on MySpace and I saw a bulletin from my favorite Dallas band - Calhoun - that they have added a tour stop in Minneapolis on the night of September 13. Not only do I love their music, but we're friends with the lead singer and Mike mixed/sound engineered their first album. And I haven't seen them play in years. (Though we saw Tim play with another band in LA a couple of months ago. Pretty good, but no Calhoun.)

So I've changed my flights and now I'm arriving in Minneapolis that Thursday. For once the convergence of every cool event in my life happening at the same exact time has paid off! Happy days.

Floating

Mike is sometimes a man of few words. And he's not one to throw around compliments willy nilly (though I do get "you look cute" from him quite often, it is only when I do, in fact, look cute*). So imagine my surprise when last night he turned to me and said, out of the blue, that I should write a book because I have a great writing style that is very engaging to the reader.

Better than a dozen roses. What a nice thing to say! I'm not sure I'm up to the challenge quite yet, but who knows what the future could hold?


*Which must be often. Hopefully I'm using the whole transitive property equation thing correctly, G.

Like Four Seasons in One Day

Saturday was LJ's wedding. It was a great weekend of girlie-bonding and champagne. Lots and lots of champagne. I think I had a marathon 12 hour champagne-drinking session on Saturday (impressive, right?). A thoroughly enjoyable 3 days with one of my favorite people in the universe.

I have used LJ's wedding as a placeholder in my mental calendar. As in "I'll do ________ after LJ's wedding" and "I'll think about ________ after LJ's wedding". So I guess it is d-day. I have a lot on my list. Most of it is self-improvement and lifestyle stuff that I've put off for years and I've finally decided should not be put off any longer. Figuring out my likes, my wants and my dreams and working towards something instead of just trying to get away from something.

Should be a piece of cake, I'm sure.

Maybe it's the Martini Talking, but...

My life is pretty good. For having a pretty rough beginning of 2007, I'm having a wonderful time. Perspective is an amazing thing.

I'm in Dallas tonight. Mike and I planned a trip here centered around a couple of client meetings that I set up in order to finagle a free trip to visit friends. In the interim, his appendix ruptured, which pretty much precluded his making the trip out this time. So I'm in Dallas alone. But I'm not alone at all.

Last night I sat down with Mike's ex-wife and talked. We talked about her life now, and the changes she made in order to get to where she is today and what she wants out of life. We talked about my life now, and my hopes and thoughts about the future. Then she met some of my friends and we regaled her with stories of our past stupidness and our plans for future stupidness. It was a fun night. Ok, there were some pretty awkward moments, but overall, it was one of the better things that has happened to me in the last 5 years.

And I did something similar with my sister in the last two weeks. We found some common ground and started moving forward with our relationship, despite the problems that have plagued us for years.

If you had asked me at any point in the last few years what weighs me down, I would have listed my guilt about my actions with respect to Jodie and my unhappiness with the state of my relationship with my sister. Suddenly, seemingly in a flash, both of those relationships are in the forefront once again, but this time not for negative reasons. Remarkable.

But I can do you one better. I have a friend in Dallas who was there for me during some tough times (see above, re: Mike's ex-wife) and we had a bit of a tumultuous relationship. Nothing earth-shattering or overly dramatic, but we had some misunderstandings and miscommunications. We've stayed in contact because her boyfriend is one of Mike's best friends, but for some time we were not that close as a result of the problems I listed above. Tonight I sat down with just her (something that most likely would not have happened if Mike could have made the trip) and we talked. Like old friends. And we reconnected while discussing how much commonality there was between her younger self and my younger self. Eerily similar stuff. And we had a great time and stayed up way too late (or the hotel just had last call way too early - I haven't decided which). And - note for 'stina - I had my first ever gin martini (Bombay Sapphire, and I didn't even ask for it dirty, although I'm generally a martini wuss). It was good.

The thing that is interesting to me at this moment is that, objectively speaking, I've had a hard year. My favorite person in the world through the course of my lifetime, my gramma, was very ill and finally died. I just sat through five hours of my best friend's surgery and helped him through a rather painful recovery. I'm not particularly fulfilled at work and I've felt some kind of awkward feelings with one (in particular) partner about the necessary time off I've had to take in order to deal with the not-so-great stuff that's been going on. Enough so that it sent me into tears while I was in Utah at Mike's hospital bedside. Oh, yeah, and I'm up for partner this year. And we aren't busy.

And yet... I am so happy right now. I feel unburdened and free. Oh, to savor this moment and remember it when life gets me down once again. Because this month has been serendipity.

Pardon me while I enjoy tonight's Texas-sized thunderstorm. We don't have those in Los Angeles, you know.

A Wedding and a Funeral

I had a busy week last week. I had to fly up to Bloomington, Indiana for my gramma's funeral AND to Santa Fe for a friend's wedding. I feel a bit like Hugh Grant, except, well, that I am nothing like Hugh Grant. Or Andi McDowell for that matter.

The trip to Bloomington was generally fine. In a way it was a relief to know that gramma is finally free of her pain and suffering. By the end, things were pretty grim. She spent a couple of days willing herself to die and being disappointed every time she woke up from sleeping. It makes me wonder which is worse - diseases like cancer that allow the mind to stay sharp while the body deteriorates or diseases like Alzheimer's that have the opposite effect. Undeniably, both are terrible on the people around you, but it would seem that in most instances the person with the disease suffers less with the mind-destroying ailments.

I saw my sister and my nieces (along with my mom, of course). The last time I saw them, my oldest niece was 2 and my other niece was not yet born. Now they are 8 and 4. They are very sweet little girls and it was great to get to know them. I'll be seeing them again in April when Mike and I take a trip to see mom's new house in Utah. I'm looking forward to that.

My sister and I got along fine. But I've reverted back to my old ways of just keeping quiet about things that I don't agree with. I think that is okay at this point because our relationship is different now than it once was. We shall see, I guess.

It was really odd going through gramma's house and deciding who wanted what. I took a few things that remind me of growing up and gramma's house. And the two things that I'll treasure most - gramma's passport from 1965, when she travelled to Europe for a teaching program (I also have my dad's last passport), and an 8x10 photo of her teaching french class in the 60's. I also took the hand-marked trip diary that she wrote while she was in France and I intend to transcribe it and send it around to my family members. That trip to France was my gramma's "big adventure" in life and for some reason I sort of fixated on that. Maybe because we spent a lot of time when I was in college talking about France (I did an exchange program there and almost minored in French). Those things mean so much more to me than the "valuable" stuff that the rest of my family members seemed to fixate on. And maybe I'm wrong for saying or even thinking this, but I'm pretty happy with who I am as a result of realizing that distinction.

On to the happier part of my week...

Mike and I got back yesterday afternoon from a short trip to Santa Fe. One of our best friends from Dallas (who has relocated to New York) got married. When we lived in Dallas, Christine and I would lament the weird Texas dating scene (and politics). However she had great luck meeting guys in New York who shared her interests and found her to be the smart, funny attractive person that we knew she was. About a year after moving to New York (she left Dallas the same time we did), she met her now-husband. And I've never seen her happier.

After the wedding on Sunday evening, Mike and I stuck around New Mexico yesterday and drove up to Los Alamos, where Christine grew up (her dad is a physicist there). It is a really amazing part of the country and I'm so glad that we had a chance to drive around a bit, although our time there was too short. I love to see where my friends come from. It always gives me much more insight into how they grew up to be the people that I know.

I've never been happier to be home in my own bed than I was last night. I was also really happy to see the sun and feel the warm LA air yesterday afternoon. It will take me the next couple of days to thaw out.

She's Done All She Can

My gramma* is dying. I know that I'm lucky to still have a grandparent alive at this point in my life. But that knowledge doesn't make the thought of losing her any easier to bear right now. So I'd thought I would write a bit here about my amazing gramma.

My gramma is 93 years old. Her husband died in 1969, before I was born. She had a master's degree and taught high school french (and coached the women's golf team) even though she never needed the money because she and grandpa made a good amount of money off of the sale of a family business many years ago. After she retired from the school system when she started having health problems, she became an active member of the board of her local Meals on Wheels (now she is a recipient as well as a volunteer; all of the Meals on Wheels volunteers who bring her meals now know and respect her).

Gramma had heart attacks in 1979-80, which resulted in the installation of a pacemaker. She pretty much stopped traveling at that point because she didn't like being away from her doctors. About fifteen years ago she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Since then she has done course after course of radiation, chemotherapy and any other sort of treatment that might have some ability to slow down the progress of the disease. She's talked her doctors into letting her take part in experimental treatments even though she was out of the age range for the studies. She is very persuasive.

Time and time again she has come back from bad prognoses. Meanwhile she's lost all of her remaining siblings (she grew up on a farm in a family of 9 children), along with most of her friends who she socialized with during her retirement.

Now the cancer seems to have finally caught up with her. She is too weak for any more cancer treatments and we have to watch it "take its course". It is hard to see someone who is so strong and courageous taken down this way, but there don't seem to be any alternatives.

This week I went to Indiana to see gramma one more time. We've been saying each visit may be the last for 5 or 6 years at least, but unfortunately this time I think it really was.

Gramma was hospitalized late last week so that they could drain the fluid that built up in her lungs. She had been resisting hospitalization for several months, even though the fluid made it very hard for her to function, because she's been living at home and she's really adamant about not being hospitalized or put into a nursing home, even though it is harder and harder for her to take care of herself. Once she was admitted, the prognosis was not good. Her doctor thinks we are talking about weeks or months at the most.

Because of gramma's toughness and determination, my mom and uncle set about finding any way that gramma could live out her remaining time at home. It helps that my uncle lives a couple of blocks away, but he is already stretched to the limit with his daily visits to her and he can't take on primary caregiver and the round-the-clock sorts of obligations that are necessary at this point. Luckily Bloomington has what seems to be a great home hospice system and somehow my mom and uncle managed to get gramma's doctor on board with a combination of home hospice and hired caregiver treatment. After a long couple of days of working towards her release from the hospital, getting her house set up for this new system and hiring an overnight caregiver, gramma went home on Wednesday. We spent a lot of time talking to the hospice folks and I'm hopeful that this might work. The most important thing at this point is letting gramma live out her final days with as much dignity and comfort as possible.

I'm really going to miss her. But I'm thankful for all the bonus time we've had with her. She is such a fighter. But she should probably let it go now. As painful as it will be for those of us who love her.



*Not grandma, not grandmother, etc. She's always been gramma. And that name suits her perfectly. Tough as nails with everyone except for her three grand-daughters. She's always fawned over us.

What's The Worst Thing That Could Happen?

Mike and I have a friend who was just laid off from his in-house job. The timing of the thing is pretty unfortunate because he was only at the company for about 6 months, so current interviewers seem to have a hard time figuring out why he's moving now, and because he and his fiancee are currently planning their wedding for later this year (just a bit of stress and expense accompany that sort of thing). We went to lunch with them today and we didn't really know whether to bring anything up and what to say. It could have been pretty awkward, right?

The amazing thing is I left lunch feeling really happy and excited for him. It really brought the point home to me that life is what you make of it. Our friend is seriously considering using the new situation he's in to take an opportunity to hang a shingle. He (like me) never would have expected that would be something that might interest him (BigLaw resume, transactional guy), but he's taking a bit of stock and he's genuinely excited to be doing the research and figuring out what is feasible for him - whether it be getting office space or working from home, whether he should get some contract/overflow stuff or if things would come along through his connections, how he'll be able to manage his schedule and choose what jobs/projects he wants to do. Mike and I were able to talk about our friends who have done something similar* and brainstorm a bit with him, and you could tell by the way he talked about things that he was really happy to get feedback and ideas.

I really hope that this goes his way. He deserves it and I'm completely in awe of his attitude and determination.





*[one of those people who happens to stop by here from time to time should expect e-mails or IMs on the subject from me sometime soon]

Just Give It Away

I'm going to a George Strait concert in a couple of weeks. Until sometime this week, I had never (intentionally) listened to a George Strait song. But now I even have the chorus line from the first song on his new album firmly planted in my mind. Excellent earworm work, Mr. Strait.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with country music. Growing up, my mom listened to it every opportunity that she got (which, frankly, were not many, because my sister and I did our best to change her car radio immediately to something more pre-teen friendly). I teased her mercilessly about the subject matter of the songs she loved (always involving two-timing, alcohol and a truck). However something about the predictable nature of the music and the booming male voices was kind of soothing.

And when Garth Brooks hit... Well, let's just say that it is impossible for me to hear Friends In Low Places and not get a bit nostalgic. Post-college I even broadened my horizons a bit and learned to love Hank Williams Jr. and that song (I don't know who sings it) about calling a wino to decorate our home (so you'll feel more at ease here, and you won't have to roam). I mean really. Genius.

Still, there is country music that I flat out hate. Alan Jackson, Toby Keith and the other flag thumpers can shove it. And that song about Earl by the Dixie Chicks? Awful. Though some of their other stuff is fairly catchy.

So how does it come to be that I am travelling to another state on my birthday weekend in order to see the show of some country singer that I've never even listened to before? Well, it helps that the destination is Las Vegas. And that I'll be going with some of my favorite people in the whole world.

Mike is a country music fan. I'd say that he is a closet country music fan, but he's been more open and honest about it lately. (It is for some reason something that people outside of Texas are ashamed to admit.)

And my friend LJ, who works for one of the last remaining big record labels and can get us tickets to most shows worth seeing, is oddly obsessed with the new George Strait album. She heard it at work and, though she insists that she is not a country music fan, hurried to investigate where his tour stops will be. I guess that LA is not a hotbed for country music fans, because he is not coming here. So LJ planned this trip to go see a country music guy and when we heard it would be in Vegas, baby, AND that it would be on Super Bowl weekend, we thought we should go along for the ride.

I also intend to meet a balloon entertainer to the stars (!!!) on this trip. And to spend some time in "rehab" with Alice, another one of my most favorite people ever. Oh, glorious booze-laden rehab!!

Gift Ideas

I am really struggling with what to buy for Mike for Christmas (or, as we celebrate it, generic winter gift-giving holiday) this year. We are both people who typically just buy whatever we want for ourselves at the time we decide that we want it, and he gets a better discount for the technological/music-oriented stuff that he wants, so I'm drawing a big old blank.

I think he wants to start doing more cooking at home (he just brought home a huge soup cookbook last week), so I was thinking about getting a food processor, but, seriously, how boring is that? I need to get him something fun and inventive. I'm usually better at this sort of thing, but I've totally blanked.

Any suggestions? So far all that I've come up with are personalized expensive golf balls that he wanted (he gave me that selection) and some Harry and David food stuff that he won't enjoy as much as I will (I get that stuff for us every year when I'm sending in the order for my other family members). Help!!

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

Mike is now 40. The party and the weekend generally were huge hits. I'm really happy to have the stressful parts over, but I'm also a bit sad that I won't be able to gather that many of my close friends and family in one place again probably ever. We did our best to spend some quality time with everyone who flew into town. I hope they are all glad that they came. I think I'll just summarize the highs and lows here for now...

The Good:

• 5 full days of hanging out with J and Ken, including 3 separate "Thursdays" (our excuse for overdoing both Tuesday and Wednesday nights).
• Seeing Mike's reaction on Friday night after his family and his college rommates showed up at the bar to surprise him. Mike is nothing if not understated, but he was really surprised. My favorite line was when he turned to me after CHad and Marc (roommates) appeared and said "you've been busy." Yes, yes I have.
• The event on Saturday night. The vibe of the party location coupled with the experience of catching up with so many great people in one place. Amazing.
• Mike's family. Their visit could have been somewhat difficult to manage, because the group included all 4 of his siblings, plus mom, plus a couple of spouses, plus a niece. They were wonderful about taking care of themselves and understanding the limitations on our time. I really appreciated that. And I know if meant a lot to Mike that they all showed up to see him.
• Spending time with Casey and Tosha. Casey is a music friend of Mike's who we were just starting to do things with when we left Dallas. Now we see him whenever we go back, but I didn't really know him and his fiancee very well. They stayed with us over the weekend and I really got in some good bonding time with them. They are really good people. And showing Tosha Venice Beach yesterday was indescribably fun. It was her first time in LA.

The Bad (less good?):

• Leaving the camera at the hotel. Pretty bad move on my part (I have not recovered it yet; it is most likely gone). The slightly good news is that I had already downloaded the Friday night photos and I didn't have many Saturday night photos on it because the battery died after an hour or so, so I walked around for most of the evening with a friend's camera (and I managed to get that one back to him). Still it sucks a bit to have to rely on others to get back pictures of the big party.
• One of Mike's college roommates had a bad health incident at the Friday night event. He was standing in line for the bathroom and he fainted. He went down hard and broke his cheek bone on one side of his face. Luckily another of the college roommates happens to be a doctor, so when Chris came to, he asked for Marc. Marc checked on him, rounded up Chris's wife and got him out of there quickly. Chris was taken straight to Cedars Sinai and we hear he is having heart arrhythmia and he'll be in the hospital a bit longer. Scary stuff.
• Dealing with a local friend or two who didn't hold their liquor well. I know this sort of thing should come as no surprise to me at events where alcohol is being served, but the Saturday night event wasn't really billed as a boozefest and it was a bit embarrassing/annoying to me that people who flew here for the party were having to deal with getting other guests home safely, etc. It was partially my bad. I should have taken more control and gotten the over-imbibers out of there and into a taxi home so that they didn't bother others. Lesson learned.

All in all, I'm really glad that it worked out so well. Now I just would like a bit of sleep...

The Co-Conspirators

The first of the out-of-town guests have trickled into town. So now I have accomplices in the planning. Ken and J arrived yesterday from Dallas. Mike was told that they are in town for business (plausible, since Ken makes it into town every couple of months on business), so now it is up to the 3 of us not to blow their cover. I'm trying to figure out whether we are now more or less likely to spill than I was when I was in this on my own. Clearly the attempts to keep the story straight could be hampered by several evenings of boozing it up. I think we made the story a bit too complex, but no fixing that at this point.

I'm really happy to have them in town though, I must say. Ken is one of Mike's best friends. He runs a post house in Dallas, so he comes into town for commercial finishing with one of his editors fairly often. J (aka Jeff, aka Hot Jeff) is a close friend of mine. He also happens to work for Ken. Actually J and I are responsible for Mike and Ken meeting up, so we get to take credit for their friendship now, or whatever.

This is J's first trip to LA to see us (he was here before at some point, but that was a long time ago) and I got to take him out to boy's town last night. The Abbey was the destination and it did not disappoint. Of course it helped that it was unseasonably warm yesterday, so even at night the temperature was in the upper 60's. J is a person who constantly makes me laugh. We have a great time being silly together. I don't have that connection with very many people, so I treasure it with people like J. We made it through a good portion of our highlight reel - the stories we have to tell every time we get together - last night, including:

• the time we pretended that we were a pairs professional figure skating duo (career cut short due to injury) and even made up a routine to perform in a bar in Oak Lawn - we had some stupid drunk person convinced until we started our "performance"
• the time we went on vacation together to Mexico and had a day or two out of the week that are too fuzzy to recall (though the photos turned out great)
• the time we were in New York and I was totally nauseous from some combination of hangover and pain pills and I ended up throwing up on Broadway into a trashcan in Chinatown/Little Italy while Mike stood by and watched, while chowing on a slice of pizza
• too many nights up late playing X Box games in J's apartment when we lived in the same building and Mike's contention that we all had too much practice for him to be able to compete

Good friends are so precious and hard to come by. I am lucky to have J in my life and I'm so happy he's in California this week. I'm sure I'll tell him all of this at some point later tonight after one- or two-too-many cocktails. We have a highlight reel to add to here...

A Pain in the Neck

A couple of my close friends have been suffering through spinal/nerve problems for the last year or two. One of them is going under the knife this morning to have a type of fusion surgery and the other one has had that surgery already and now has surgery scheduled for Monday to try to fix the next problem that emerged for her after the first surgery. Spine problems are so debilitating and seemingly hard to fix correctly. Good thoughts to both of them that they can get their problems solved and get back to the good things in life.