oddgirl’s blog

I got to have one fuzzy day at work before I had to recover from vacation lag and get back into the swing. But yesterday was all about getting it together and getting back to it – probably the first day since I started on Spore that i felt stressed out at all.

But now I’m relaxing and the smell of chicken stock is filling my apartment. Prepping for matzo ball soup for 16 people at tonight’s sedar. Missed the beginning of passover in favor of tortillas and beer but still getting a moment of the holiday tonight.

Off to E3 in a couple weeks. LA for a few days… new hardware galore. New Xbox, new PS3, hopefully previews of more PSP games. Should be a good one this year.

oop. gotta attend my soup….

back from Puerto Vallarta and it’s raining here in San Francisco. i thought that rainy stuff was over.

some moments from my trip –

best – on my birthday, sinking into a chair at the beach for the first time with Big Daddy on one side and the Engineer on the other. And a bucket of Corona in the middle. about 85 degrees, the ocean about 15 steps away and the prosect of 6 or 7 more days ahead of me of exactly the same thing. stellar moment.

best meal – who knew that Puerto Vallarta was a such a foodie town? we ate many, many great meals from traditional mexico at the Frida Kahlo place to the fancy, schmancy Cafe Des Artistes.

‘massages are good…” – I had a couple massages and should have had more. the full day at the spa was awesome. salt rub, hour and a half long massage, manicure, pedicure, facial… very nice.

i-can’t-fucking-believe-it moment – getting to the beach on tuesday, finding a couple chairs for me and my mates and looking over and seeing an ex-girlfriend and her new girlfriend about three chairs away. since i started the job in emeryville i knew it was only a matter of time before i ran into her since her office is only two blocks away from mine. i just had no idea it would be on a beach in another country. while it didn’t ruin the trip for me in any way, it did add a bizarre, unexpected twist.

great gay b&b – I loved the Casa Cupula, where I stayed the second half the week My room was the warm luxury kinda room that I can’t seem to get enough of as I get older. Great staff, wonderful amenities, an amazing shower (rivaling the shower at the Oppegard house for those that were on that Tahoe trip). And two beautiful Golden Retrievers – Lola and Mila. If I ever get around to opening a B&B I’ll have some dogs around – it added a warmth to the place that instantly made me feel at home.

Gotta head off back to work… will post pictures and some more comments later.

Tomorrow morning I hop on a flight to Puerto Vallarta to enjoy the birthdayness of the season. I do believe this is the first vacation or trip I’ve taken since Tahiti in 1998 where I will not have computer and regular email/internet access…

There will be some electronic devices accompanying me – digital camera, PSP for the flight and most likely my cell phone. Look over to the right – yeah, over there – see that little photo? I’ll try to take at least one picture a day and post it to the moblog; today’s photo being the first – some flowers i got at work today with my computer and calendar and some documentation in the background. Also got this crazy yummy ginger candy that i’m completely addicted to. 4 bags of it… must. not. eat. it. all. at. once. my co-workers are awesome – had a great day at work today. almost didn’t want to leave on vacation… but I found a way.

Last night was dinner club and we went to a super yummy Chinese place up in Chinatown. It’s a fixed price place where they just keep bringing you little plates of food. lotus root, a parsley/pine nutty thing, abalone, the super hot and amazingly delicious beefy dish and about 30 other tastes of things… soooo good.

it’s the week of many plans leading up to leaving for PV a week from today. yay!

If you don’t watch the L Word, you can skip this entry…

I ended up ordering Showtime at the end of the last season of the L Word. I had caught a couple of episodes of Season 1 and wanted to see more.

Now towards the end of the second season I may have seen enough. As with most of the HBO knockoffs that Showtime produces, it is almost a good show. Almost. And the second season just seems to be trying too hard… The fashion is sometimes frighteningly bad (Alice, who is the cute, kinda spunky, everyone’s best friend character), in particular seems to be burdened with some of the scariest clothing I’ve ever seen. The storylines are getting more absurd (what’s with Mark and the hidden cameras all over the house? what’s with Mark and his crush on Shane? I swear if they sleep together I’m turning in my lesbian membership card. Why must they burden us with more of Jenny’s horrible, horrible writing cutscenes???).

Alice and Dana getting together was a good move – that Tonya girl got on my nerves – and Alice and Dana have some pretty hot sex scenes together. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly they fall into a cliche’d lesbian couple story line – quick! order the UHaul! ohnoooo… lesbian bed death sets in! which one will cheat first?

When I was coming out the lesbian soap opera/political commentary I turned to was a comic strip called Dykes to Watch Out For. You could figure out which one you were (in those days I was Lois – tho we have taken divergent paths as we’ve grown up). With The L Word we’ve got a soap opera with zero political commentary. And maybe I’m just beyond the demographic, but I don’t see myself reflected in any of the women on the show. Tho Bette (Jennifer Beals) is about my age IRL, and on the show is professionally successful and recently single after a long relationship that she fucked up (hmmm… sounds familiar… i should be relating to this….) on the show she is rebounding by getting out hitting the bars and picking up hot (and might young looking) girls. nope. me picking up hot, young girls in bars? not so much…

Still I watch. And they do get some stuff right. I love seeing Betty on the show, both performing and just showing up in scenes. There is some pretty hot sex. Carmen is super hot (and looks fucking great in jeans and tshirt – please, please don’t start putting her in that spangly shit!). Shane is fun to watch, tho if she becomes an addict and they build a storyline around her sobriety, I’m going to claw my eyes out.

In the end, I’m glad to see the show on TV – the very fact that there is a show about lesbians, made by some lesbians (Guin Turner is one of the writers, Ilene Chaiken is the Exec Producer & Creator) is great. And the fact that I’m used to it enough that I can write commentary on it is evidence that even tho politically it’s not breaking new ground, culturally, lesbian chic is now really a part of pop culture.

Tonight I left work early for me which is what most of the rest of you just call on-time. With daylight savings time it was still bright and sunny and beautiful as I headed over the bridget towards San Francisco.

And it looks like it’ll be this way for at least a few months. I’m going to have a pretty normal summer and it should be a pretty good thing. I’m going to go to some baseball games, hang out with some friends and try and get outta town at least once a month. I’m set for April, May and July. If you have any quick trip ideas for June and August – let me know. Preferably somewhere I can drive to…

Maybe a long spa/wine weekend in Sonoma? Maybe Catalina? Maybe home to visit the folks and check out the new Wynn hotel? Maybe a camping trip somewhere???

Let’s hope they get all the rememberance news broadcasts done by tip-off.

I wish I had written this – but at least I get to post it…

Farewell, My Pope

By Linda Simpson

No hope
For the Pope
A downward slope
At the end of his rope
Silent is the stethoscope
Oh, the scope, the scope!
How will we cope?
The faithful will mope
And mope and mope
Me, I’ll skip rope
Read my horoscope
Watch my soap
Eat some cantaloupe
And daydream of the day I elope
But I won’t mope for the Pope
Nope, nope, nope
I’m gay and I’m proud
And he was a dope