La la land, part two

Well, I thought I was beginning to recover but then I must've caught the cold my mother is just getting over. So much for my plan of writing the trip up once I felt better. But here it is - the riveting conclusion of my 48-hours-in-Los-Angeles saga!

Saturday morning found me a mighty unhappy camper, partly from time zone-induced confusion but mostly from being some unidentified variety of ill and the lack of sleep resulting therefrom. There, alas, went my glorious plan of stopping on the way to the reading to get a *gluten free dairy free* breakfast burrito. (Yes, Virginia, there is a GFDF breakfast burrito, but apparently only in L.A., and apparently not for me. *sigh*) Instead I stopped at a Trader Joe's that I happened to drive past on Santa Monica Boulevard and that turned out to be perhaps the only TJ's in existence with neither gluten free pretzels nor gluten free bread. Alas again! Rice cakes for me.

I managed to find my way to Beverly Hills High School - oh yes, 90210 - and bumbled my way to the auditorium. People began to convene, chairs and music stands were arranged, a group of 60th-reunion BHHS alums stopped by to say hello... we were definitely underway.

Here's the important bit: Everyone was super nice, everyone worked really hard, and all in all the day was great. It was so exciting to hear the music played by fantastic musicians and sung by a bunch of talented singers! I managed to not cry the first time the chorus came out with "It's fooouuur A.M. agaaaaiiiinnnn" in harmony, but it was close. I've always been that way when I first hear something I wrote realized by people aside from myself. It's like "ohmygod, that sounds so good!" and "wait, I had something to do with making that happen?" and "YES! THAT'S IT!" all wrapped up together with a load of je ne sais quois. In rehearsals, in the studio... I will never cease to love that moment.

As if that wasn't awesome enough, everyone said really nice things about the songs. I write songs that I want to hear, but my hope and my goal is that other people will want to hear them too. And if my songs excite them or move them or make them feel anything at all - JACKPOT! The feedback from both the singers and our small audience made me feel great about the songs I've written. Of course I've got my work cut out for me going forward. There will be lots of rewriting and new writing to do. I'm excited to do it. ...once I get over this cold.

The rest of the trip involved Vietnamese food at a restaurant called - wait for it - 9021Pho, another quiet evening at my friend's apartment, and a lot of flying eastward. I was in L.A. for almost exactly 48 hours - just enough time to feel the heat, see the palm trees, take hardly any photos, not sightsee at all, and read through one (1) brand new musical. I wonder when I'll get back there. I wonder what I'll do when I do. I don't think I've really formed an opinion of L.A. yet, though I can see why people feel so strongly about it in either direction.

Now, I was going to post photos here but apparently my camera doesn't want to play nice with Ubuntu, so it'll be another day or two while I get that figured out. Sorry. Since my father is a master of all things computer, it shouldn't take too long to sort it out.

Monday, Monday

The beauty of being unable to get off the sofa and do anything is that you have the opportunity to do a lot of reading, watching, and listening. I'm currently taking this chance to listen to Neil Gaiman read his own story: The Graveyard Book. It's crazy. It's kind of brilliant. It's totally bizarre. It makes me remember why I love stories. Read it - or, if you can, get a recording of the author reading it to you.

In other news...

Perhaps the strangest-sounding recipe I've ever encountered, but definitely one I plan to make again. And probably again and again. Possibly with modifications, possibly without. Give up? A chickpea chocolate cake. Not chickpea flour, chickpeas. That's right. I found it here http://bakecookeatmove.blogspot.com/2009/09/nearly-guilt-free-kinda-healthy.html and I totally recommend it.

I had to process the chickpeas and eggs half at a time, because the only food processor I have access to is my parents' Presto Minnie Max pint-sized one. But the recipe still worked fine. In fact, it's quite delicious. I'm curious what would happen with a little flour of some kind - maybe sweet rice or tapioca. If I find out, I'll let you know.

Baking took it out of me. I'm going back to lying on the sofa and listening to Neil Gaiman. Enjoy your Monday afternoon!

Hello, 2010! It's about time you got here!

Hello, Interwebs. It’s been a while, I know – sorry about that.

2009 was an interesting year, and by “interesting” I mean it involved at least 6 courses of antibiotics, the making of 4 or 5 short films (depending on how you count), the writing of 40 screenplay pages, the designing of a water slide… Yes, suffice it to say that 2009 was an interesting year, and that’s why I was in hiding for most of it.

But I’m back! In case there’s anyone out there reading. And there’s so much to say, about so many new adventures! (Don’t the exclamation points make those adventures sound fun and exciting?! See, like that!)

I’m supposed to be sleeping, but I’ll just give you a brief preview of some of the adventures of the moment. We have:
- the documentary film making adventure.
- the writing songs for a musical adventure.
- the gluten free diet adventure.
- the where-will-I-be-for-the-summer adventure.
- the learning to love Tennessee/the South/Middle America adventure.

As you can imagine, some of these adventures are more fun and exciting than others, but I think they all have potential. It all depends on how you look at them… and now that I’m no longer eating gluten or dairy, I mostly look at them from a very optimistic point of view. Except for bread. I’m having a hard time being optimistic about bread. But I’m trying.

Anyhow – more on bread, and all the rest of it, soon. No, really. I might even post some photos! (See? Exclamation points! Exciting!)

For the moment, I hope you’re all keeping warm, wherever you are. And if you’re in a place where keeping warm in January isn’t an issue… can I come visit?

Allergic to Tennessee

Who knew it was possible to be allergic to a state? or maybe a region - maybe I'm allergic to the entire South.

I don't mean to imply that I've never suffered seasonal allergies before. Last summer in Boston I spent many lovely days Claritin Clear...except not really, because Claritin doesn't actually fix my allergies. But something about this fall's allergy season has knocked me on my ass. Perhaps there are other explanations for it, but I suspect it might have something to do with the fact that the pollen count here is approximately twice what it is in Boston. Awesome.

This means that even though the weather became totally gorgeous over the weekend - the temperature and humidity both dropped, so it's been cool in the mornings and evenings and gloriously warm and sunny in the afternoons - I cannot open my windows. I tried opening my windows, and it made me amazingly happy as far as the soft autumn breeze blowing through my apartment but fairly miserable in terms of the itchy, sneezy, phlegmy, awfulness.

So I have given up and become one of Those People who, despite the beauteousness outdoors, sits in the house with the windows shut and the air conditioning on. I really, really hope that this is effective. At about 3:00 this morning a handful of aliens decided to try to rip my stomach out of my body, and I can't help but think it is somehow related to the allergies. This is the only reason I'm willing to shut out the beautiful weather. I REALLY hope the pollen goes away soon. I mean, how badly do we need the trees to reproduce, anyway?

I'm now going to finish my recovery day by watching a DVD that's come highly recommended from a few sources: Once, and I'll let you know if it's any good. I can definitely say with confidence that Netflix is the best thing ever.