birthday week

thursday, 7/22

party at punch with all my friends.  the bartender gives me a melon sour — a nice fruity drink.  the party is wicked fun, and i bring home lots of birthday cake. 

friday, 7/23

going away party for my friends eric and janet at the bar at the hudson hotel.  the two of them are driving cross-country to start a new life together in los angeles.  to celebrate, i have a caprihinia.

saturday, 7/24

joe and i house- and dog-sit for his friends danny and john on the upper west side.  that night, glen invites us to join him and a bunch of other boys at a place called slide.  i dance with a drag queen and have a malibu pineapple.

sunday, 7/25

after three nights of "drinking" (which is a lot for a light-weight who is prone to asian red-face), i wake up with a headache and a froggy throat.  not really a hangover, but not exactly a picture of health, either.  my alcohol binge for this year has ended. 

joe and i spend the day walking around the upper west side and go see the bourne supremacy.  matt damon is so cute, and i love julia stiles, for some inane reason.

monday, 7/26

i spend all day running around shopping for joe's birthday, which is the day after mine.  he comes by after work and we exchange gifts.  (it's like christmas in july!)  my favorite gift from him:  a new, slim, 11" x 17" light box.  my favorite gift to him:  a two-hour massage and mineral bath gift package at stone spa, gratuity included.

tuesday, 7/27

plans to go see shakespeare in the park get rained out, which is fine with me and joe.  after work, we go home and watch the latest episode of entourage.  i also let him watch queer as folk.  i hate that show, but it is his birthday...

wednesday, 7/28

our friends phil and ivan take us out to dinner and ice cream at a gorgeous place right underneath the brooklyn bridge (on the brooklyn side).  i get chicken and italian sausage with a white wine sauce, and i order a seltzer with lime for my drink.  for dessert, i have a scoop of homemade vanilla chocolate chunk ice cream.

thursday, 7/29

sue jean takes me to see much ado about nothing with kristen johnston, jimmy smits, and sam waterston.  she is able to score tickets because her classmate from tisch, laura kai chen, has been cast in the role of margaret.  afterwards, we meet laura at the stage door, where she gives me a hug and introduces me to sean patrick thomas, who shakes my hand.  i am mesmerized by his celebrity and beauty.

note:  sean patrick thomas, known for his roles in cruel intentions, save the last dance, barber shop, and barber shop 2 and not to be confused with robert sean leonard (dead poets society) or henry thomas, (e.t.:  the extra-terrestrial).  just so we're clear.  (see picture above for reference.)

friday, 7/30

going away party for j.p. juice at moe's in brooklyn.  i have a ginger ale and devour an incredibly rich cupcake, presumably from cake man raven's.  i run into danzy, whom i haven't seen in years (and whose latest book i have bought but not yet read).  carol and shanta report that they did, in fact, see an ex-boyfriend of mine (and, presumably, of many others) on the graham norton effect, and are duly horrified.  my no longer working at comedy central provides a certain amount of mental distance that is somewhat comforting. 

afterwards, i come home, elated to discover that sue's episode of the jury will air as the season (series?) finale next friday night.  my dvr is set!

not a bad way to start of my 30th year.  to those who came to my party and sent cards and gifts, thank you so much, and expect to receive thank-you notes soon!  next week, i will be on the jersey shore with my man, mr. joe.  see you in august!

party pics

college, high school, work friends, and me!

the comedy central lunch crew

the williams/amherst crowd (wesleyan sucks!)

the brooklyn/stanford crew

more pics from my party last week.  i will post them all eventually, plus a few from my friend brian.  glen says he'll have some for me soon, so...yay!  pictures!

happy birthday to me!

crotchety baby

crotchety old man

hm.  guess i haven't really changed all that much...

well, given that i'm prone to bias, i still think i was a pretty cute baby.  as i remember my 9th grade french teacher once saying, "qu'est-ce qui s'est passé?"

the big three oh

had a great time at punch last night with a whole slew of friends, old and new.  pictures will be posted soon in the photos section.

in the meantime, only three more days 'til i actually leave my twenties behind.  eek!

whip-smart

i'm gonna tell my son to grow up
pretty as the grass is green and
whip-smart as the english
channel's wide

and i'm gonna tell my son to keep his
money in his mattress and his
watch on any hand be-
tween his thighs

and i'm gonna lock my son up in a
tower 'til i write my whole life
story on the back of his
big brown eyes

when they do the double dutch
that's them dancing

when they do the double dutch
that's them dancing

when they do the double dutch
that's them dancing

when they do the double dutch
that's them dancing

i'm gonna tell my son to join a
circus so that death is cheap and
games are just another
way of life

and i'm gonna tell my son to be a
prophet of mistakes because for
every truth there are half a
million lies.

and i'm gonna lock my son up in a
tower 'til he learns to let his
hair down far enough to
climb outside

when they do the double dutch
that's them dancing

when they do the double dutch
that's them dancing

when they do the double dutch
that's them dancing

when they do the double dutch
that's them dancing...

before sunset

now, i know i saw the original (prequel?) to this film when it came out ten years ago.  i can't say that i remember liking it all that much — i'm still only able to recall one very annoying conversation about reincarnation and the scene at the end where jesse is crying on the train, which, to my mind, seemed rather forced.  watching this installment made me realize that i hadn't really cared whether or not the two had had sex that first night in vienna and that i would have been perfectly happy never having seen or heard of these characters ever again.  bearing all this in mind, i have to say that, much to my surprise, i really enjoyed before sunset. 

for one thing, the movie, unlike its predecessor, does not try to cram or condense an entire day into the span of a ninety minute movie.  everything happens in real time:  the audience does not miss out on any of the conversation, nor are they left wondering what may or may not be happening off-screen, until the very end.  this time around, the dialogue actually kept my attention, since these two characters seem so much more world-weary now that they're older, and i could relate to a lot of what they discuss (especially considering that my own thirtieth birthday is only a week away). 

still, despite all the interesting bits of conversation that pass between these characters, my favorite moment in the movie was the extended stretch of silence the two share as they walk up three flights of stairs.  julie delpy's facial expressions and gestures in this scene tell me so much more about her character in thirty seconds than the hour or so of babbling leading up to it.  the movie ends shorly thereafter, and rather abruptly.

as the lights came up, while i sat there slurping the last few drops from my extra-large soda and brushing the stray popcorn kernals from the front of my shirt, i couldn't help but wonder:  why was joe shaking his head like that?

regrettably, the inherent danger in seeing this kind of movie, especially with a significant other is the nearly unavoidable temptation to compare the amazing chemistry of the lead couple to one's own relationship (or lack thereof).  this futile exercise is generally followed by a host of emotions — namely denial, anger, resentment, numbing, bargaining and despair.

joe's heavy sighs eventually ceased sometime after dinner; and when he finally took my hand, looked me in the eyes and shrugged, i knew that we were gonna be okay.

steve mcqueen

after watching the great escape last weekend, i decided that i like him.

mm-hmm!

grudge

do you have a grudge?

another adaptation of a japanese horror flick (think, the ring) and starring buffy!

i can't believe how excited i am for this movie already.  here's a hi-res trailer (19.0 MB), stolen from yahoo! movies.

beach day

took a trip jones beach with joe yesterday, where we met up with justin.  gorgeous day.

pics (only six of them) posted in the photos section.  enjoy!

riddick

i liked it better than spider-man 2.  much, much better...

spider-man 2

awful.  just dreadful.  and i'm not just saying this because our audience was particularly obnoxious (cellphones ringing — and answered; babies crying; and the kid sitting next to me crinkling his candy wrappers, talking to his mother, and hogging the armrest during the entire movie, the obnoxious little twerp).

no, this movie would have been a huge disappointment all on its own, even under ideal movie-watching conditions.  the fact is, i had high hopes for this one, particularly because the original was so good and all the people i'd talked to who had seen the sequel gave it great reviews.  "so much better than the first one!" they raved.  which movie were they watching, and why didn't i pay $10.50 to go see that one instead?

my biggest complaint would have to be the lame attempts at plot and characterization.  generally, i like my action movies to have...well, action.  i expected more fight sequences, more chase sequences, more anything involving cgi and wire work, in- and out-of-costume.  instead, i got a couple good stunts on a motorcycle, a couple of all-too-brief knock-down, drag-out fight scenes, and a whole lot of angst-ridden blah-blah about peter parker's inability to get the girl or speak coherent sentences.

that would be my next issue with this movie — where the hell was spider-man?  and i'm not referring to peter parker's whole "dilemma" in this movie, because we all know where that's going, really.  c'mon, the movie is called spider-man 2.  i mean, where was the funny, witty, banter-filled web-slinger, the one who had the gumption to rattle-off one-liners as he's dodging punches and sharp objects?  the spider-man i remember was more articulate than this movie's version.  if the writer and director are gonna spend so much time on "characterization," at least keep the character consistent with the one developed in the first movie (and, i would hope, the comic book).  i can see how a bumbling peter parker is easier to cast as an underdog than a truly confident and intelligent one, but i wish someone had at least been up for a challenge.

and what's up with mary jane watson completely dissing her hotter-than-hot astronaut fiancé?  isn't the significant other of a super-hero supposed to have more common decency than that?  can we not have a comic book movie where the characters interact in an intelligent and mature way?  or is hollywood's (and the public's at large) concept of comics so grounded in pulpy, adolescent melodrama?  (duh, i suppose.)

the one thing i will say for raimi is that he had enough of a sense of humor to refer to other classic films and genres.  the horror-movie sequence in the operating room, the butch cassidy and the sundance kid montage, and even the jesus christ superstar reference were all appreciated by the older folks in the audience.  even the shot of the spider-man suit in the trash can, taken directly from one of the more famous comic book covers from the series, was a nice homage.  unfortunately, that doesn't make up for the other 90% of the movie...

*sigh!*  well, here's hoping that the hellblazer-based constantine is a lot better.

independence day 2004

another weekend of fun, sun, relaxation, and pigging out up at peter and richard's place in yulan, ny.

hope everyone had a happy 4th!

wicked

went to see wicked last night.  kristen chenoweth is amazing as glinda the good witch, and i'm absolutely certain that idina menzel and joel grey are in top form for this production. 

unfortunately, i can only personally attest to ms. chenoweth's abilities, as both ms. menzel and mr. grey were on vacation.  their stand-ins — eden espinosa and sean mccourt — were fantastic, and, considering i got to see norbert leo butz again (the last time i saw him was in 1997, in rent), i was quite happy.  oh, and queer as folk's randy harrison played the munchkin, boq.  who knew the boy could sing?

although the show departs quite a bit from gregory maguire's novel, i still love the story.  the important themes from the book are there, but winnie holzman's script, along with some solid direction and character flourishes, add a lot of humor.  holzman, whom i love for having co-created and written my favorite episodes of the television series my so-called life, really succeeds in conveying the strength and complexity of the relationship of the two leads — their mutual feelings of love and loathing combine to form an extraordinary bond.

the play also has a good deal of social commentary — how history is written by the victors and is often revisionist, and how society is quick to exclude and destroy elements that it cannot assimilate.  the portrayal of elphaba as a terrorist, and the manipulation of the public's baseless fear of her, is also quite relevant to current events — quite a feat, considering that the work is derived from l. frank baum's 100 year old story about a kansas farm girl.

i'm still happy that avenue q won the tony, but i'm now a little sad that wicked couldn't have shared the prize somehow.  see both, if you can.