Games, anyone?

Hats off to Joey Miller! He is the LOTR king. I have never known anyone else who is just as fascinated with LOTR as he. I guess I should've started out by saying "Hats off to my friend Beth Miller, for she has managed to survive her husband's devotion to LOTR" hahahahah.

Seriously. The Millers had their housewarming party last night at their beautiful new apartment in Emeryville. After watching "Who's Line is it Anyway?" we decided to play a game. To no one's surprise, we had amongst all of our game choices, LOTR Trivial Pursuit.

So, we broke down into teams and played. It was great fun. Not to get into toooo many details, but there was a "one ring" as well as a ringwraith who chased down the team with the one ring.

Why do I bring all of this up? Because I am proud to say that our team (Cousin Hillary and myself) kicked some serious arse. We worked well together, reasoned things out and, a lot of the time, came up with the correct answers. We tied for the win with Joey and Annelies. Yeah!

Gruppo d'Italiano

ah! I mercoledi, vado in classe d'italiano con il mio professore, Brioni (dal Conservatorio), e altre otto/nove persone. Tutte le altre persone hanno fra 40 e 60 anni, e parlano l'italiano solo per la gioia di parlare un'altra lingua. Mi piace molto questo corso. Ci incontriamo a North Beach, in una casa sulla colina Telegraph. E' bellissssssima!

Parliamo del mondo, bevimao, mangiamo e leggiamo le novelle di Gofreddo Parise.

Ieri sera, abbiamo parlato di Berlusconi (il premio ministro d'Italia), la politica, e il popolo italiano. Questi sono soggetti con cui io non ho troppo esperienza. (Sono stata in Italia solo una volta, a Venezia, e non parlavo ne capivo l'italiano). Ma, insomma, la classe era molto interessante. Il mio ragazzo e' venuto con me (ha abitato in Italia per tre anni). Lui e' molto intelligente e ha avuto le cose interresanti a dire in classe. Va be'.

Dopo la classe, tutte e due sono andati al torre di coit per vedere la vista della citta di san francisco. Non ci sono stata io per un'anno! E' magnifica, questa vista. Tutti voi ci dovete andare!

Era una bella sera. Alla prossima!!

NB: Ho imparato qualche parole (parolacce) novelle! "Sei scemo/a??" "Porca miseria"

Vive la France

POUR quelque raison, j'ai besoin d'ecrire en francais ce soir. Je trouve qu'il me donne de plasir, d'ecrire comme ca. (Sauf qu'il n'existe pas encore des accents....helas!)

Je voudrais rentrer en France. J'y voudrais vivre. Et, j'y serai un jour, je le sais. C'est un de mes reves, un desir (pas secret, hein, mais pas toutes ouvertes au public). On verra qu'est-ce qui se passe.....

bon, c tout pour moi ce soir. je suis ttttrroooppppppppp fatiguee. Bonne nuit a tous!!

Pass the salt, part two

So, it's been two weeks since the original "Pass the Salt" entry. And what a whirlwind two weeks it has been.

I had acting class tonight, and (yet again) I sang the aria I sang those two weeks ago. And what a difference. I was not curled into a ball, jacket hugged tightly around me, with my hands shoved as far down into my pockets as was humanly possible.

No, instead, I was walking around free and tall and not wearing my big pea coat.

I sang the aria, just sitting down on a chair. Just singing from 'where I am' at the moment, and letting 'whatever comes up' to just flow through me. It's harder than you would think, to not 'add' anything, but to just 'let' something be. I did it tonight, and it was great fun. It was EASY and powerful, too. Easy to sing, man. Easier to just open up and be. Now, I am still going to be working on all of this stuff, but I am making progress.

The salt no longer stings.

Eats, shoots and leaves

Have you read the aforementioned book?? It's amazing. It's about laziness in spelling and grammar usage.

All this to say, that as I was reading over past blog entries, I have noticed small little typos. Maybe one every couple of entries. IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!!! ACK!! These type of little errors really bug the crap out of me, but I'm too tired to go back and fix them and have to republish them. Maybe one day, when it's not so late and I have the patience to fix everything.

Random

A few random items:

1. I know I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again: I have excellent friends. I am soooo blessed to have people in my life that care about me, and whom I care about. While I was sick this week, not one, not two, but three friends of mine all helped me out, by providing me with soup. It was really kind, and I am just blown away by such a simple gesture of goodwill. Wow. Thanks, God, for these people!!!

2. If you have never played the game "Taboo," stop reading my blog and go play. It is SUCH a fun game. And tonight was no exception. All I have to say is "stop peeking my duck." Good times (thanks to Pablo and his crazy Puns).

3. Cary Elwes is greatly under-rated as an actor. After watching him in Saw yesterday (really disturbing, by the way), my interest was tweaked. It was fascinating to watch him descend into madness over the course of the film -- rather akin, but not equal to, (do I dare?) watching Jack Nicholson go crazy in The Shining. After this crazy movie, I had to watch The Princess Bride to just get over the disturbing-ness of the earlier film. And, once again, I was fascinated by Mr. Elwes. He could do it all: swordfighting, comedy, romance, swashbuckling, etc etc. I mean, what happened to this guy. The only other movie I can think of that he was in even remotely recently is Liar Liar ("are you afraid of the claw?).

4. I want to take a train ride. Doesn't that sound like fun? I also want to go stomp on grapes and make wine. And go pick olives to make olive oil. And while we're at it, can we add throwing whipped cream pies at people? That would ROCK!!!!!!!!

SMU redux

THREE and a half years was far too long to stay off of Texas soil. I know that sounds crazy, but really it was. To spend four years in one place and then not visit it for almost four years is really difficult (I experienced the same thing with France in May). I guess it's not so much the place as the memories and the people with which Dallas and SMU are associated. I had three days full of laughter, nostalgic story telling, catching-up and hanging out. What a wonderful little vacation. While I won't give a play-by-play, I will list some of the highlights:

-Being loosed on Dallas with cohorts Annelies and Sandra
-Having real Tex-Mex (read: not CHEVY'S) at the Blue Goose with Michelle
-reuniting with Cedric, by far the coolest jazz man I know
-walking into Meadows and realizing that it still smells the same
-seeing little kids go berzerk over the dum dum's and bazooka joe that was being thrown at them during the Parade
-crunching those little chestnut acorn things that cover the SMU campus
-watching SMU beat Tulsa in our football game
-wondering why the male cheerleaders looked so bored
-buying a fun new SMU t-shirt and hat
-seeing Jennifer, Buz, Janie, Cathy, Bethie, Johnny and Ginny at Buca di Beppo
-ordering food and wine for 13 people, and then having the bill come out just right
-Eatzi's brownies (for dad)
-napping/talking on Sunday afternoon with AZ and Sandra. Basically, just doing nothing, but having a lot of fun doing it
-getting phone calls from my 'just-out-of-the-box' boyfriend
-bluegrass band (Alabama Bottle Boys) at Club Dada
-Karaoke at the Gay Country Bar (Best lookin' Cowboys in town)
-Complimenting a drag queen on his/her earrings
-Mary lou's amazing cooking and hospitality
-Mary lou's tour of Dallas, and getting to eat popsicles and corn stuff (dang, I already forgot the name!!)
-wild about harry's
-dinner with matt, AZ and SV
-Sam Moon
-The Incredibles!!
-SMU luggage tag