busy week

Despite my deadlines, I've managed to get out and actually see and do things. Unfortunately, I haven't been very good about blogging about any of it.

This past Saturday Jim and I were on the LA Observed Night on The MONA Neon Cruise, the first one of the season. It was a first time for MONA and the cruise for both me and Jim, but I loved both and know I'll be back. There was a reception beforehand to help celebrate LA Observed's third anniversary. It was so nice to see Kevin and chat again. Eric Lynxwiler, who conducts the Neon Cruise, gave us a little museum tour. Eric said he was a little rusty, since he hadn't given a tour since last year, but he had no need for worry. I had such a good time on the tour and highly recommend it to Angelenos and tourists alike. I have to warn you though, Eric plays a little blue. At one point (I think it was when we were going past the TomKat Theatre in WeHo), Eric was reeling off a list of recent porn titles. Good times. I think my favorite part of the evening was when Eric was mid-spiel, and someone yelled out, "Trees!" Eric ducked, the trees brushed the tops of the open-air double-decker bus we were on, Eric popped back up and kept on talking without skipping a beat. Jim blogged about it and took a bunch of pictures, which I hope he puts up soon. I haven't had a chance to download mine from my camera, but soon, I promise. But make plans to take the tour this summer - they're every Saturday night and our tour was sold out.

Sunday was another loftmates and friends dinner at the penthouse. Unfortunately, I didn't hear my phone ringing during dinner and a crowd of guests were stranded below, unable to access the penthouse. I checked my phone after dinner, around 10pm and was horrified to hear Catherine's voicemail saying that everyone was downstairs wondering how to get up. Yikes. I called them back, apologizing profusely. Andy answered and was really cool about it all. They invited us over, they were screening Brokeback Mountain at Adam's penthouse at 11pm. Unfortunately, I was beat. The heat was really getting to me and I had a screenplay to rewrite, so we didn't make it.

Tuesday night, Jim and I were listening to Dr. Ross speak about "What's Wrong With Philanthropy in LA?" at the Central Library. At the reception afterwards, I ran into someone I hadn't seen in a long time, Marie Condron, one of the co-founders of NewDowntown. Marie and her then-boyfriend-now-husband Ian moved downtown into the Santa Fe Building after attending one of the infamous penthouse loft parties from back in the day (scroll down to the last three paragraphs) and we've fallen out of touch in the last few years. We caught up a little over free food and beer at the reception. It was a beautiful election night, so after the reception, Jim and I walked over to the Bonaventure Hotel to check out the action. We only got as far as two trays of beer samples at the Bonaventure Brewing Co. But it was a nice night and I like walking home late at night, you really feel like a part of the city.

Yesterday, I returned an overdue book and we picked up some produce from the farmer's market. Then last night, we returned to the Central Library for yet another lecture series, this one was Don Lutz reading from his book, Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America. I was thisclose to punking out and not attending, mainly because I wanted to go with my loftmate Lucas to the Greek (his assignment was to take pictures of Ashlee Simpson's new nose), but even that sounded like it would take too much effort. I did manage to get in a lot of work on the screenplay, so despite my slackerdom and because of my fear of it, we attended Don Lutz's reading and I'm so glad for it. See, I don't just party my way through downtown.

So I guess I'm not that much of a slacker. We walked home again and ran into Kitty and Jeremy getting their drunk on at Pete's Cafe. Jeremy was part of the group that didn't make it up to the penthouse for dinner on Sunday night, so I apologized profusely again. I gave Kitty a hard time about not finishing her novel, she said something about me pretending to be cultured, going to lectures at the library and shit, then we called each other whores, air-kissed and made up, then made plans to call each other to make plans for the weekend.

Today, I'm missing another Downtown Artwalk. I look outside the window and see all sorts of people gallery-hopping and I did want to check out the newly re-opened bank. But my cousins are in town from Hawaii, my godfather and aunt are in town from Guam, and we're all having dinner at my parent's house tonight. So tonight I also get to miss the Cross Cultural Film Festival at my favorite Filipino-owned and operated downtown cafe, Lost Souls, the wine tasting at my favorite Italian wine and coffee bar, Banquette, as well as the competing mini-grand opening at 626 Reserve (even though they actually opened a month ago.

Tomorrow, I knuckle down and really dig into this rewrite. Or I go to Disneyland with my cousins and Jim. I don't know yet. I'm on the fence.

Saturday, we're hitting the Franklin Avenue 100th Rate a Restaurant shindig at Cole's, maybe the annual Schmucklerfest, and hopefully MOCA's Night Vision so I can see Teka do her spoken word thing. If you haven't ever seen Teka, I urge you to do so (she's on at 9:30pm), she's very talented and entertaining. I met her a few years ago at a Poetry Soup in Carlye's house and I've been a fan ever since. Jim and I ran into her on the downtown artwalk last month, I was really surprised that she remembered me, but then again, she was surprised I remembered her.

I better get going if I'm going to be only a little bit late for dinner.