| Hopefully I won't do this in performance |
[Oct. 9th, 2008|10:29 pm] |
Tonight, we were rehearsing the voting scene in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." So, after we lined up, we were given cards with numbers on them.
As we stood there just looking at the cards, the director said, "You need to turn the cards to the audience, folks! Okay, now, who is number one?"
"You are Number Six," I said automatically. |
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| Is it trendy now? |
[Oct. 9th, 2008|01:39 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | gay rights | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Shania Twain - Still the One | ] |
At rehearsal last night, I was talking about Greg, calling him my husband and all that good stuff with other cast members. One of the teen-aged boys in the cast said, "I didn't know you were gay! That is so cool!"
Now, while I am happy I got that reaction instead of "You are abomination! [spit]" I've never thought of my sexual orientation being so cool. I've never heard anybody say, "You date women? You are totally rad!" Not even in the 80's.
I guess it's just a step along the road to when nobody will give a crap what your sexual orientation is. |
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| I don't have narcolepsy |
[Oct. 6th, 2008|01:30 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  disappointed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Carpenters - It's Going to Take Some Time | ] |
A few weeks ago, I had a sleep study done to see if my Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS) was due to narcolepsy. So I had all the electrodes stuck to my head with an odd kind of paste and then hooked up to a machine to take multiple readings of my brain wave activities. After that I was told to lie down and sleep. Sure, no prob.
I was woken up after twenty minutes, and then another nap was taken almost two hours later. This was repeated until they had had me take five naps total. I then was sent home (after they graciously allow me to shower the gunk out of my hair) and had to wait for the results.
While I do fall asleep rather quickly (much quicker than the average person), I don't hit REM state right away. None of the five naps I took had me entering REM state, so I don't appear to have narcolepsy.
So, they diagnosed me as having "idiopathic hypersomnia" for the moment. What this basically means is, "You have EDS and darned if we know why." They're giving me a stimulant to keep me awake during the day and I'm researching behavior modification therapies to see if there are ways of dealing with this.
*sigh* I was kind of hoping I had narcolepsy just so that I'd have a reason to put to the EDS. |
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| My, that was culturally sensitive of you |
[Oct. 2nd, 2008|09:44 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  groggy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Carpenters - Touch Me When We're Dancing | ] |
A few days ago I went to rehearsal and had arrived fairly early due to traffic not being as heavy as the traffic website seemed to indicate. So, with some time to kill, I took out my Nintendo DS and started playing "My Chinese Coach" starting with Lesson 7.
After doing some tone exercises and then some vocabulary, someone walked past me and asked, "Who's making cat noises?"
I looked up, waved at the speaker and said, "That'd be me. I'm practicing Mandarin Chinese." I tapped a button and had the program speak a sentence of Chinese.
"Sounds like she's strangling a cat," she said.
"Do you speak any foreign languages?" I asked.
"No," she said.
"I didn't think so." |
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| New keys for new languages |
[Sep. 19th, 2008|10:58 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | puns | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Starship - We Built This City | ] |
A writer of pop music was at a concert where one of his songs, currently a huge hit in the United States in English, was being performed by a singer from Madrid. She was singing it in her native tongue, but it sounded weird to him.
Finally, he turned to his agent and said, "She's singing it down a third, isn't she?"
The agent nodded and said, "Yeah, we couldn't prevent them from doing that." The agent looked at the songwriter, who looked stunned and a little shocked. "What? Is the change that bad?"
"No," the songwriter said. "I just wasn't expecting the Spanish transposition." |
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| Amazing what you find in your local QFC |
[Sep. 15th, 2008|11:30 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Gladys Knight & the Pips - Midnight Train to Georgia | ] |
I was doing the grocery shopping and was in the "ethnic foods" aisle when I spotted something that just made me stop and blink.
Spotted Dick.
In a can.
Who knew? |
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| Talk about Murphy's Law |
[Sep. 11th, 2008|09:46 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | disappointed | ] |
Tonight, I finally cracked open the sheet music for "Kodoku no Kakera" by Angela Aki (love that song) and played it through a couple of times on the piano. After that, I thought why not try it out on the guitar?
I hefted up my classical in its case, put it on the sofa and opened the lid.
The D-string was busted.
No problem! I whipped the string off (well, removed it carefully) and then went into the little cubbyhole in the case where the sets of extra strings were.
Two high E's, two B's, two G's, two A's and two low E's. No D's. Crap. |
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| I did this to myself |
[Sep. 8th, 2008|02:29 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  gobsmacked | ] |
| [ | music |
| | William Hung - She Bangs | ] |
I'm listening to internet radio right now. Specifically the AOL Radio channel, "The 111 Worst Songs Ever." Right now we're down to the top ten and they're playing "She Bangs" by Ricky Martin.
Unfortunately, William Hung is now in my head and all I can hear is him singing, "She bang! She bang! Oh baby when she moo! She moo!" |
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| The importance of a little squiggle |
[Sep. 8th, 2008|10:20 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | language | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | MC Hammer - U Can't Touch This | ] |
In English, diacritics are not that common and many times are even omitted entirely in loanwords. So, when writing in some foreign languages (especially when using a US keyboard configuration), folks on the internet tend to skip trying to add the diacritics. True, having to hit Alt+0241 is a bit of a pain in the butt, but sometimes the difference between n and ñ is very important.
I was reading a language forum where someone asked if the tilde was really that important to use, and someone responded: It can be critical sometimes. Take for example the sentence: Lleva un año muy ocupado. This means "He's having a very busy year." Remove the tilde and you get, "He has a very busy anus." So watch yourself, people. |
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| Our cat can smell cookies a mile away |
[Sep. 4th, 2008|01:29 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
Recently I purchased a box of vanilla wafers to make pudding with (you know the kind), and one evening, since no more pudding was on the horizon, I put a few wafers into one of my miso soup bowls and sat down on the couch next to Greg to watch some television.
A few seconds later, Onyx leapt up onto my lap and stuck her face into the bowl of vanilla wafers. Now, she's been known to lick crackers and a Golden Oreo once, but it's been a while since we've had anything like that in the house within cat-reach.
"She knows what you've got there," Greg told me as I moved the bowl out of reach. I watched Onyx's head follow the bowl around like she was tracking a bird. Kitty wants a wafer, apparently. I shooed her back to the arm of the sofa and brought the bowl back down to human level.
Of course, Onyx immediately leapt in and stuck her face in the bowl. Apparently, she was not going to be appeased with anything less than the real thing.
I took one wafer out, held the flat side out to the cat's face and let her lick gently at the thing for at least five minutes or so. She managed to scrape a decent indentation in the back of the wafer before she'd had enough and went back up to the arm of the sofa to lounge around in smug wafer-filled satisfaction.
"Goofy cat," I said. |
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| I didn't know that tonsils could do calculus |
[Sep. 2nd, 2008|09:29 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  okay | ] |
I had to go to the ENT today as my right tonsil was really bothering me. It felt like it was brushing the back of my tongue and I knew that couldn't be good.
He looked back there (as well as checking my nose and ears), and told me that my tonsil looked all right, but I had a large tonsil build-up back there, called a tonsil calculus. Grateful that it wasn't tonsilitis, I asked what I should do, and he gave me a couple of ideas on how to prevent it from coming back. He then said he'd scrape it out for me since it was kind of big as tonsil calculi goes.
The first thing he did was spray a topical anesthetic on my tonsil which possibly the most repulsive thing I have ever tasted. The delightful lilt of isoamyl acetate wafted up to my nostrils as I gagged.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I know it tastes awful. The company that makes it says that it's banana-flavored." Well, that would explain the isoamyl acetate.
After a few minutes of wait-time for the anesthetic to take hold (and some joyous up close and personal fun with a spit tray), he reached back and scraped that sucker out. From here I'm to garge with a solution of half hydrogen peroxide and half water to get some effervescent cleansing going on.
After about fifteen minutes, the anesthetic wore off and I could swallow easily again. Just in time for dinner! |
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| Thinking about people |
[Aug. 30th, 2008|09:50 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
For some reason, several folks from my past that I haven't seen in a very long time have been popping up in my head and I've gotten to wondering what they're doing now, how they're doing now.
The first person who came to mind was Phyllis Brown, the first woman who ever gave me a paying job. This was at a small mystery bookshop called "Grounds for Murder" in Old Town in San Diego and I was 16. I read a lot of books at that age and being able to get a discount on mysteries as well as talking up my favorite books to people was a dream come true. Granted, I got older and the dream faded but I still have fond memories of meeting people like Elizabeth Peters, Sue Grafton, P.D. James, Mary Higgins Clark, and a slew of lesser known writers, many of whom are still publishing today.
The last thing I heard about Phyllis was when "Grounds for Murder" closed for good. This was probably in the late 90's, but I can't remember. I haven't heard a peep from anyone in the mystery universe about her since. I did get a brief update from Sue Grafton when I saw her several months ago, but she just told me that Phyllis had a battle with fibromyalgia and didn't say anything much past that.
The others are a pair of twins I knew from college: Sean and Jamie. I know where Sean is: somewhere in Texas practicing obstetrics and gynecology. Jamie I haven't heard hide nor hair of since graduation, except that he was living in New York City at one point prior to the Trade Center attack. I found pictures of Sean on the practice's website, and some reviews of his technique on various insurance company sites (he is called "Dr. Sean" by his patients and they adore him to pieces). I remember staying up late with Sean the night before he took his MCAT's. I'm pretty sure he had me pegged as gay back then.
I briefly considered contacting the office directly, but considering that whenever someone called my father's office claiming to be a friend from college, it was usually someone attempting to sell him dubious stock brokerage services, so I didn't want to go that route. I may send a letter to his office instead.
Not sure what had me thinking of people from my past, but they've been occupying some mind space of late and I really do wonder about them. |
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| The latest political ad |
[Aug. 28th, 2008|11:10 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  goofy | ] |
[The scene opens in an office cubicle farm and two men in shirt and tie (no jacket) are standing and drinking coffee.]
Man 1: I just don't know about this election.
Man 2: Oh, I know. I've been doing all kinds of research and stuff and I just can't figure out who to vote for.
Man 1: Well, I think I'm going to vote for that guy.
Man 2: Which guy?
[A chicken pops his head above the edge of the closest cubicle.]
Chicken: BARACK! |
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| The disappointments of website designers |
[Aug. 26th, 2008|11:19 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | puns | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | okay | ] |
"I don't get it," a website admin was saying to another. "I had this great web application archive file that I was just giving away to folks for free on this website, but nobody has visited the site in months!"
The second admin said, "Ah, so you gave a .WAR and nobody came?" |
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| Nothing says "scary" better than two-month-old candy |
[Aug. 25th, 2008|01:39 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sick | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Piña Colada Song) | ] |
Yesterday, I was at my local QFC (a local grocery store chain for you non-locals) doing the regular weekly shopping when I got to the "seasonal items" section of the store and nearly fell flat on my butt in shock.
Gone was the back-to-school goodness and the Halloween stuff was out. Granted, not all of it was there, just decorations and candy. Bags and bags and bags of candy. Fun-size fun for everyone!
The fall is not quite here yet, but it is certainly starting to feel like it. |
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| Wherein the lady of the house makes her dissatisfaction known |
[Aug. 22nd, 2008|08:36 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Michael Bublé - Everything | ] |
For those of you who are not local, last weekend, the 15th and 16th of August, were excessively warm for this area. For those of us who live here, it becomes quite oppressive and we try to do anything to escape the heat.
That particular Saturday I needed to take a nap in the late morning, so I disrobed, crawled into bed and pulled only the top sheet over me, coming just up to my waistline. I strapped on my CPAP and drifted off until Onyx woke me by jumping up on the bed and then hopping up onto my leg. She walked up my body until she hit bare skin, which she tested tentatively with one paw.
For some reason, Onyx will not touch or walk on exposed human skin. I've never known a cat to be that picky about walking surfaces, but then again, Onyx has proven to be abnormal in her behaviors in other areas.
After a couple of more tentative swipes with the paw, she hopped off and since I was only half-awake, I thought I'd just drift back to sleep.
"REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRR!" Onyx yowled right into my ear. Loudly. Very loudly.
Guess she was pissed. |
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| The dark pasts of stage and film composers |
[Aug. 20th, 2008|03:46 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Piña Colada Song) | ] |
Last night I had rehearsal for "Drood" which opens in October. The musical director was getting started early on some of the music so we could have some time to learn it before rehearsals started in earnest.
As we finished up, I said, "Who knew Rupert Holmes had this in him."
The musical director said, "Oh, I know. This is great stuff. But he's also done film scores and other shows!"
"But," I said, nodding, "considering what he's most well-known for, it's kind of funny."
"What's that?" the musical director said.
"You know...." I said. I cleared my throat. "The song 'Escape'?" After another blank look from the musical director I started singing, "If you like piña coladas / and gettin' caught in the rain..."
"You're kidding, right?"
I shook my head. "Sorry, no."
I felt like a bringer of disillusionment. |
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| Today's interesting yet useless factoid of the day |
[Aug. 18th, 2008|03:26 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  creative | ] |
A normal 42cm x 42cm (approx 15"x15") handerchief is just big enough to do the nihon bin tsutsumi (two bottle wrap) technique with two soda cans. |
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| Best wedding moment ever |
[Aug. 17th, 2008|10:28 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
Today my friends Steve and Ernesto had their commitment ceremony. It was a very sweet ceremony and the reception afterwards was low-key, the food was delicious and the toasts were pretty amusing. If only it were a legally binding marriage like my frinds Chris and Dan who were married today in San Diego. Couldn't have happened to two nicer guys.
During the toasts, however, Steve's daughter said that she was going to do something she'd always wanted to do: releasing doves at a wedding. Her father insisted on no birds, however. But she ignored him, made a flourish and said, "Release the doves!" and hurled two fistfuls of foil-wrapped chocolates at the groom and groom.
Puns and chocolate wrapped up in one. A woman after my own heart. |
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| I gave my mother STD's |
[Aug. 11th, 2008|01:50 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Glenn Miller - Perfidia | ] |
While I was at ComiCon, I stopped by a booth selling Giant Microbes stuffed toys. Now, if you've never seen these things, they are plush versions of various microscopic organisms or cells. Need a plush erythrocyte? You can get one there.
I started picking up the various buggies and reading their tags to see what they were. When I got to chlamydia I started laughing and crooned, "To youuuuuu, my heart cries out chlamydia..." at which point the older gentlemen at the booth gave me a very sour look. The younger guy just blinked at me.
After perusing both chlamydia and The Clap, the older guy told me they were running a special where I could get seven STD's plus penicillin for one price and I thought, "Oooh, my mother would get such a kick out of these!"
So I bought the whole set. I gave them to my mother. She got a huge kick out of them.
So now I can say I gave my mother seven different STD's and she thought they were just darling. |
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