|
||||
|
March 29, 2005
Drag Queen Easter AKA Indulgence In The Park! While some people choose to spend their Easter Sunday in church or watching small kids scramble across the lawn looking for decorated eggs, I spent mine at Indulgence In The Park! at Dolores Park with pals, cute doggies and of course -- drag queens! The annual Easter Bonnet Parade and Hunky Jesus Look-a-Like Contest was in full swing and I was there in my bunny ears taking loads of photos. I'm not sure what I enjoyed most -- the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence judging the Easter Bonnet contest (they raised around $1,000 in donations), the various dogs dressed in equally cool bunny ears, the bizarre display of folks who thought they looked like Jesus, or the various men dressed as Mafia Bunny, Blue Bunny, Leather Bunny... and well, you get the idea. The Ethel Merman Experience, Trauma Flintstone, Kitten on the Keys and Polkacide entertained the crowd. A rather chunky than hunky Jesus won the contest and promptly gave his prize money right back to the Sisters as a donation (what a Savior!) and some girl in a corset won the bonnet contest, though I thought the fella dressed head to toe in various plushie rabbit toy parts should have taken the trophy and ran. All in all the celebration reminded me why I love living in San Francisco. Where else would you see nun drag queens on an Easter Sunday? In case you all want to attend more events like these in San Francisco, but have no idea where to start looking, I suggest you visit SFqueer.com for a few hints. Because pictures are way better than words... Here's Photos of Indulgence In The Park:
March 24, 2005 Hooray for Dictionaraoke!
Audio clips from online dictionaries sing the hits of yesterday and today.
Check out the entry for George Lucas - Episode IV: I also suggest listening to the following:
AC/DC "highway to hell"
March 18, 2005
Let Amy Sedaris Solve All Your Problems Today as I was catching up on the news posted on the Amy Sedaris fan site and I found out some very interesting news... Amy is going to be a regular advice columnist in The Believer Magazine! Finally, now I can have someone I relate to give me advice on home decor and dating. Read for yourself: The Believer Magazine is proud to announce that the lovely and talented Amy Sedaris has agreed to write an advice column for us. It's called "SEDARATIVES: Amy Sedaris Answers All Of Your Questions About Life, Love and Literature." As the title implies, Amy will be responding to your questions on every conceivable topic, particularly those in which she has absolutely no knowledge. We're currently looking for letters for the first installment of Amy's column, which will appear in our May issue. If you have a burning question that only Amy could feasibly answer, we welcome you to send your queries to ask_amy@believermag.com Please note that Amy will not be answering questions pertaining to her career, Strangers With Candy, or comedy in general. We are solely looking for questions dealing with (as the title makes very clear) life, love and literature. Oh, and cooking. She knows a thing or two about that. And don't forget home decor and bunnies. She has a lot to say on those subjects.
Thank you for your time, So of course I immediately sent her an email asking for relationship advice. If this doesn't help me in my search for the adorkable guy of my dreams, then I suppose I'll be getting an imaginary boyfriend of my own.
I mean we both have the same ideal man... Amen. That's my man... Damn, I sure do love her apartment!
March 17, 2005
Life Goes On People will always go in and out of your life. That's just how it works. You don't get to keep people like a prized PEZ collection. They have free will and they use it. I think the big problem I've always had is that I get too attached to people. I take friendships and relationships for granted. Or worse, I get panicky that they will leave and so I move the process along by being a needy freak. Regardless, we're all human. And I've learned quite a bit from everyone who passes through my life -- even if it's just for a short while. So for that I am thankful. Someone I used to be madly in love with got engaged this week. And even though I kinda feel like the worthless girl that no one sees as marryin' material right about now, I'm happy for him. He's made a big time commitment and that's not easy. So another chapter closes and maybe a different one will open for me. All I know is that I'm glad I got to spend some time in his world when I did, and if it weren't for that I would have never met a little dog named Sophie.
March 10, 2005 Ewan McGregor and Nike Valley If you're a Starwars.com Hyperspace member, you may want to check the sound files we put up of Ewan McGregor being interviewed about his work on Episode III Revenge of the Sith. Most entertaining is the quote I picked of him talking about the ILM lads and George and how they all wear flannel shirts, blue jeans, talk in a high tone and wear brand new white Nikes. It's damn funny. Here's the audio link of Ewan doing an impression and talking about White Nike Valley. (you need to be a paying Hyperspace member to hear it...)
March 7, 2005 My Car Causes Mass Spitting I don't usually post about my daily commute on the 101 over Golden Gate every day, but I have to tell you all about something bizarre that happened to me this morning. I crossed the bridge and was headed past the Lucky Drive exit in the usual fast left lane. I was humming along to The Shins, and I noticed up ahead that there was a midlife-crisis weekend-dad black sportscar clogging up traffic by going about 5 miles under the speed limit -- in the fast lane. I didn't think much of it since there was a huge white van between me and the black car, so I just zoomed along waiting for the guy to get into the right lane for us NASCAR kids to pass. Soon enough he got over and the white van sped passed him. I was about to also make my way passed, when the black car skidded back into place in front of me and then he flippin' slowed down. Not cool. Not cool at all. So I proceed to follow him, since there was no real way around him. I figured he must not of seen me. How wrong I was. Not only did he see me waiting for him to move over again, he rolled down his window and spat. Now at first I figured he was just one of those guys who salivates way too much. Like he has gallons of spit, and no comprehension of how to swallow. [insert bad sex joke here] And so I let it go. But then he did it three more times after he rolled up his window and put it down again each time. I was beginning to take his little hick hobby personally. And so as soon as I could I got three lanes over and put the foot to the floor and zoomed passed. Once I was one lane away from him, I looked over to see him yelling something and gesturing not-so-nicely at me as I passed. He was seriously pissed off. I'm not sure why since I wasn't the one who was tailgating him (remember your pal the white van) but I have wondered if driving a cutesy girly green VW Beetle that drives fast and speeds past muscle cars without a care in the world, gives some men a complex. Then I got in front of him and turned on my windshield wiper fluid. I know I probably made him even more furious, but you just don't spit on me and Miss Priscilla without some recourse. After about 3 minutes in the rinse cycle, I giggled madly as I left him in the dust...a little "cleaner" than he was before.
March 6, 2005
Dark Lord of the Seth Read my story with Adam Brody, *ahem* I mean Seth Cohen here: Dark Lord of the Seth: May "The O.C." Be With You . It's more about the fact that "The O.C." characters tend to quote Star Wars quite a bit, and the main character -- Seth -- is also an uber fanboy on the show. So that makes sense we'd be debuting the trailer to Revenge of the Sith this Thursday during their show. The interview was with Seth in character (thanks to the show's creator and Star Wars fan Josh Schwartz). I had no idea that Captain Oats had such a Yoda quality to him. ;-)
March 3, 2005 There's No Crying in Tae Kwon Do! When I first started taking Tae Kwon Do classes from a coworker many months ago, I went into it thinking it would be a great way to work out, become more limber, and maybe even learn a thing or two about self defense. I didn't think much about it as a competitive sport, since I'm not really into that scene at all. In fact, I hate standing in front of a group of judges or being the center of attention in a room full of strangers who all happen to be black belts. But as I was learning my white belt form -- the Songahm 1 -- as well as what are called my One Steps, it was all starting to flow well. In fact, I had been practicing every day, including my hour long classes twice a week, and I was starting to get more and more confident that maybe I was ready to test for my first belt. My instructor was patient and encouraging, and before I knew it I was standing in front of him, his instructor -- Mr. Good, and one of his other peers (another black belt instructor). Of course, even though I had been practicing for months and thought I could successfully execute every move in my sleep, I hadn't counted on the endles butterflies swarming in my stomach and the slight dizziness I was suffering from stress. I want to make one thing clear here. I wasn't nervous that I would screw up and simply look like some dorky girl trying to impress a bunch of black belts. I was worried about messing up and making my dedicated instructor look bad in front of his peers and instructor. I make a fool of myself daily, so that's nothing to fear. But what I don't like to do is let people who believe in me down. And for that I was terrified. The oral exam was easy:
What does Tae Kwon Do mean?
What does Songahm mean?
How many moves are in your form?
How many Kihaps in your form?
Where was Tae Kwon Do developed? Then it was time to show my instructior, his instructor -- Mr. Good, and another black belt instructor my Songahm 1 form. It was all a blur. I knew I was rushing through it from nerves, and not really concentrating on every move so it would pop and look solid. All I could think was "don't mess up! don't mess up!" And then I was done. I realized I had done some sort of Hong Kong Fooey "Hiiiiyah" instead of the traditional "Kihap" at the end of one of my sidekicks, but I don't know if they noticed, or counted off points for it. Up next was my One Steps. These are meant to simulate sparring but since I'm a white belt, most students don't spar at that level. This shows that I have the technique down so when I do get to spar, I won't look like a spaz. I did the first two without a hitch. And then the third one came and I forgot a crucial front kick. Not just on the first or second try, but also on the third attempt when my instructor came up to pose as my sparring partner. This is a ROOKIE mistake. Little kids know this move. Heck, I knew this move for months, but I spaced it and felt horrible. That's when it hit. Complete embarassment rushed over me. I looked at my instructor's face and I could see that he was empathetic. But I felt miserable. I let him down in front of everyone on such an easy task. And of course, the stress, the realization that I didn't impress them all like I invisioned and the mere fact that I screwed up such a basic move hit me, and tears started to roll down my cheek. I didn't make any whimpering cry sounds or expressions, but I could feel hot tears streaming out of the corners of my eyes -- especially when Mr. Good was talking about how every black belt has been in my shoes when they were beginners and so on. I wiped my forehead like I was trying to prevent sweat drops from getting into my eyes, and in turn also wiped away any tears. Not only was I showing that with all my months of one-on-one training that I couldn't perform under pressure something so simple as a white belt test, but I was doing the one thing a girl shouldn't do in a male-dominated sport -- cry! So I pretended to be really, really sweaty, and kept wiping my face with my hand until the judges said I was done. My instructor wanted to show Mr. Good that I knew some self-defense moves, and so I showed him how to get out of a headlock. He seemed impressed and got up to show me a few more moves. He said that the hardest thing to learn in self defense is how to be violent back. He also pointed out the vulnerable places I could hit my attacker: eyes, nose, throat, groin, top of the foot, shins and so on. So it was good to think of something else besides the test I just botched. I stayed for the rest of the class to watch and observe the sparring. I figured I should stay to show I was serious in learning more, and not just there for the night to test. I paid my testing fees, signed some forms, and then left when the rest of the students and instructors left. I'm not sure if I passed the test or not. I was so upset I didn't think to ask. But it made me realize that I better get over my nerves if I want to keep doing a martial art, or there's no sense in wasting my instructor's time.This morning my back is killing me, my nerves are shot and I'm tired as hell. But I'm glad my test is over and I can concentrate on getting better for the next phase.
UPDATE: Even though there's supposed to be a "Week of Patience," my instructor went ahead and told me I passed! Yipee!!!! He said I was being way to hard on myself and that he was really proud of me. He also said forgetting one move or having to start over is no big deal at all. I guess I didnÍt hear Mr. Good last night when he said I only had to know 2 out of the 3 one steps so technically I did fine. Apparently it will get easier and easier as I get more comfortable. I can't believe I passed! Whew!
|
|
|||
