Pillowpants sez "Happy Birthday!"

The best-laid plans of mice and men... are pretty much fucked as soon as you make 'em, at least if the weather has anything to do with it. That, I shoulda known from the get-go. What I also should be learning, however, as I grow yet another year older and about a month wiser, is that that's not always a bad thing. Sometimes the unplanned occasions are just as much fun if not more. Like duh, grasshoppah.

The Plan was to celebrate my birthday by spending Saturday afternoon hanging out at Ye Olde Worlde Kicketh-Ass beer garden in Astoria. But all week the weather reports kept growing more dire, until finally on Saturday morning they were forecasting not only a 70% chance of thunderstorms but STRONG storms with a National Weather Service warning of dangerously high winds. OK, geez, talk about overkill. So the beer garden got pushed back to Sunday, even though that weather report was hardly ideal itself. Then I pouted and had a mini temper tantrum, since I'm pretty much the anti-matter version of Hannibal Smith: I hate it when a plan doesn't come together. And it was my birthday! Waaah! Neither L. nor I could think of anywhere else to go on Saturday instead, so in sheer desperation I decided we might as well see "Clerks II" and sent out an e-mail. Didn't really even expect anyone to join us. L. and I set out and to cheer me up he took me to Sarabeth's for brunch, which worked wonders. Carbs -- nature's mood elevators. (Wait, actually that's literally true.) And then D. and A. and ML and T. and U. and her man J. and his friend I. all showed up at the movie theater, and the movie turned out to be hilarious. Hilarious. In fact, if you don't understand the title of this post, get thee to the movie theater immediately, cuz I'm not gonna spoil it for you. And then afterwards U. awesomely invited us all back to her place, where we proceeded to sit around and drink all her wine while eating the cheese T. mysteriously produced and the cookies D. gave me as part of my b-day present. Thanks, U.! Can you believe she wound up hosting my impromptu birthday only two weeks after hosting her own? What a gal. We all went out to dinner around 10 o'clock but I don't really remember much since we were well-drunk by that point in the evening. But the whole thing was a blast, and the point is: I have the best friends. Sniff.

On Sunday the weekend o' birthday rolled on. The day started off less than promising, weather-wise, but by the time we were due to meet at the beer garden it had cleared up beautifully for us, with blue skies and little puffy white clouds. A whole 'nother bunch of folks were nice enough to change their plans and come on Sunday to celebrate (with a couple of repeats -- hi again, D.!), and we sat in the tree-shaded garden and ate yummy greasy kielbasa and I got to try a dark hefeweizen beer, which I had never had before -- less bitter than regular dark beer, I have to say. Somehow we wound up playing such a vigorous game of Fuck, Marry or Kill* that neighboring tables were eavesdropping on us in horror (I think the most difficult round was "Freddy Krueger, Jason, and Mike Myers"). And, lo, 'twas also a blast and so I wound up with two birthday parties and the weekend was way more fun than if it had proceeded as planned. Except of course for those people who couldn't make it to either one -- we missed you! Hope you had just as much fun doing whatever you wound up doing, and hopefully I'll see ya the next time a plan falls apart.

* When given three names, everyone has to say which one they would fuck, which one they would marry and which one they would kill. And why.

Summer Days and Aloe Nights

This has been our week to burn, baby, burn. Last Wednesday I was stir-frying and I tossed the meat in the wok on top of the hot oil like I always do. Never gotten more than a couple of pinprick spatters before, but this time for some reason a giant blob of boiling hot oil leapt enthusiastically out of the pan and landed on the inside of my right arm. Ow. L. came running at my girlie shriek and asked "But it's not bad, right?" and I was like, "Dude, it hurts like a bitch. I think it's bad." But I couldn't leave the stove, cause you know stir-fry cooks in like two minutes and I didn't want it to burn. So I was stir-frying with my left hand while leaning back every once in a while to hold my right arm under the cold running water in the sink. Amusing, no? Once dinner was ready I slapped some aloe on it (my arm, not the dinner) and it didn't take long for my marvelous burn pattern to emerge -- it's kind of a Morse code of pain, made up of two or three streaks, a couple of dots and two big blobs right in the inside crook of my elbow where they rub together whenever I bend my arm. Attractive! As the days go by and the red fades to a brown scab I'm beginning to look like I have the world's strangest birthmark. Either that or it's a coded message from our alien overlords. Translate my arm and win a free anal probe!

Then on Saturday, like a dumbass, I decide I feel like doing something new and yet relaxing at the same time so L. and I decide to go to the beach. Orchard Beach, to be precise, which we've been meaning to check out ever since we moved to the Northern reaches of Manhattan and discovered that there is an express bus that shoots you there straight across the Bronx in 50 minutes flat from our apartment. You'd think that the fact that I already am the proud owner of a second-degree burn would warn me off that plan, but no. So we go. And Orchard Beach is actually quite nice, as public city beaches go. I had been thinking about inviting the Girls to a beach day there, cause it's so easy to get to (no Long Island Railroad to deal with) but I wanted to check it out with L. first in case it was gross. And it's not gross, so yay. It's not pristine either, but it's at least as clean as Coney and maybe a little bit better, so totally fine as long as you get there early before it gets really crowded. Also, it's in a beautiful park with trees, which is a little weird -- I'm not used to being on a beach surrounded by trees. L. and I decided it was actually a be-ark, a combination of beach and park. There are even picturesque little islands in the bay just off the beach with trees on them too. Of course, L. and I were possibly the only two white people there but hell, whatever beach I go to I'm always the whitest person there.

But here's the completely predictable kicker -- of course we got burned. And we were so careful too! We put spf30 on before we even left the house, and we only stayed at the beach for a total of 3 hours, and we went early (10am) and it was even cloudy! Man, we just can't win. By the time we got home, our backs were bright red. Since it's just our backs (and the backs of my thighs) I'm thinking we rubbed off the sunscreen on our clothes while sitting on the bus for almost an hour before we even got to the beach. (Next time, reapply as soon as we get there!) Out comes the aloe again, this time slathered on thickly enough to require wearing a t-shirt to bed lest one stick to the sheets. The next day, I was better, but L. was worse -- yes, for all of you who remember any of his previous beach adventures, it was The Return of Lobster-Boy! It's a limited and painful superpower, but certainly a dramatic one. Today he is still dark red (although it's patchy instead of solid) so I just ran out to buy more aloe. Aloe -- Lobster-Boy's Kryptonite. Same color, too.

Parties, parties, what's a girl to do?

Well I feel like quite the social butterfly lately. In addition to E.'s totally laid-back pool party on Monday, which was awesome and relaxing (well, except for the taxi driver not being able to find the house and the dispatcher who kept calling me insisting that he was there waiting for us when I was standing in the driveway and hello, no taxi here, I'm not blind, and eventually we missed our train and had to wait 45 minutes at the Metro-North station), U. threw her absolutely fabulous '60s themed 40th birthday party last night. Girl throws the best parties, I swear. First off, she looked amazing -- like Ava Gardner, or a Las Vegas gangster's moll (not that those are necessarily mutually exclusive). The updo, the eye makeup, the chic little vintage black cocktail dress that she bought off e-bay! How can you not have fun at a party when your hostess looks like she should be meeting the Rat Pack at Caesar's Palace after their show? And the '60s theme was perfect, since it allowed so many different options -- there's a wide variety in that decade, to state the obvious. Pucci prints, refugees from Andy Warhol's factory, flower children and other assorted hippies, greasers, mods, redshirted classic Trek crewmen and Buddy Holly were all represented. (Gee, I wonder who came dressed in the Star Trek uniform? Oh that's right, I live with him.) There was some argument over whether A.'s demure dress and pearls made her look more Jackie O or Tricia Nixon. Peace signs abounded. White eyeliner was borrowed. The music was perfect. A pack of cigarettes was rolled into the sleeve of a white t-shirt worn by a nonsmoker. Oh, and I finally got to try a Pimm's cup (complete with cucumber) after meaning to for forever and a day. Yummy (although I have no idea if it has anything to do with the '60s, but who cares).

I, of course, had my beeauuutiful seafoam green satin floor-length dress with pink flowers embroidered on the front that was one of ML's castoffs, so I had no choice but to come as the prom queen of 1966 (I joked to all of the hippie chicks that they were just a few years ahead of me). Spray-on tan. Hair poofed up and pulled back into a bow, with the ends curled and flipped up instead of under. Very pale pink irridescent lipstick (remember, foundation on the lips first to make them paler) and nail polish. White heels on loan from the obliging A. (by the way, the bottoms of my feet are still green -- should I be worried?). The eyes gave me some trouble, but T., the goddess of eye makeup, kindly stood in the bathroom and poked me in the eye with the butt end of an eyeliner until the glue dried and the false eyelashes finally stuck. And today I realized that, quite by accident, I've finally discovered the perfect method for achieving the ultimate sexy eye. Sure, it's long and labor-intensive, but beauty requires effort, as the women's magazines are always saying, so before I get scooped by Cosmo I'll provide the step-by-step instructions:
1. Spend afternoon experimenting with unfamiliar liquid eyeliner on upper eyelids. Take off and reapply at least three times, being unable to get the line smooth. Notice that all these efforts have created a fine black line of pigment down between the roots of the lashes which scrubbing with eye makeup remover will not remove.
2. When evening rolls around, go to patient friend's apartment and take over her bathroom.
3. Apply false eyelashes, swear, call for patient friend #2, allow her to apply false eyelashes.
3. Notice black line at base of false eyelashes looks pretty much like eyeliner, say fuck it since the party is already under way at this point, and do not bother applying eyeliner on upper eye.
4. Apply black kohl along bottom lash line, screaming metallic green shadow on entire eyelid up to the crease, and pale pastel green on the brow bone. Use a heavy hand with all three.
5. Attend rockin' party.
6. Arrive home at 2am, peel false lashes off and make two or three halfhearted swipes with eye makeup remover pads.
7. Sleep for six hours.
8. Wake up, consume aspirin and coffee, and notice that your eye makeup looks fantastic! (The kohl will have smudged underneath your eyes, and the fine black line rimming the upper lash line is now additionally defined by a smudged line of sparkly metallic green shadow that didn't come off last night.)

So between the residual sexy eye makeup and my pomaded, curled, hairsprayed and then thoroughly slept on hair, I look like... well, remember in Dirty Dancing when Mr. Kellerman explained to Lennie Briscoe about the "bungalow bunnies" who were there all week while their husbands only came up on the weekends? And there was the one bungalow bunny in the white dress who was all over Johnny Castle, but he dumped her for Baby so she slept with the asshole waiter instead, the one who was reading The Fountainhead and had notes in the margins? Yeah, I look like her today. I spent Sunday afternoon doing my laundry as a Catskills slut. Cool!

Thwack! Zap! Pow! Touché!

We had an epic time at A.'s epic Tolkien-inspired opera premiere last night, just sitting back and letting the oceans of epic wash over us. (Did I mention it was epic?) His melodies are gorgeous, especially the choral stuff in the background. I was quite impressed -- and somewhat dumbfounded to discover that there are werewolves and vampires in Tolkien. Who knew? (The werewolves made their appearance last night while the vampires are promised for part two, when Luthien the elf princess apparently makes her grand entrance as a giant bat. Can't wait!) Personally, I could have done with more duets, trios and/or quartets rather than the classic Wagnerian "you sing for a while, then I'll sing for a while" set-up, but maybe that's just me. Also, he needs to turn down the volume on his many synthesizers next time -- poor ML was hollering narration filled with unpronounceable elvish names at the top of her lungs, only to be drowned out half the time. But overall, quite the triumph. D. bravely attended his very first opera ever and managed to follow the plot using both the narration and the one-page synopsis in the program. He was impressed, as was I, with how well A. & T.'s voices blend together. They really bring out the best in each other, vocally -- it's quite romantic.

Afterwards ML and I got on what we thought was the 1 train on the local track at 86th Street, only to discover when it took us to Central Park North that it was the 3 train incognito. Consequently we showed up to the cast party at Henry's 30 minutes after everybody else. Sigh. Sometimes I think this city has it in for me, and what annoys me isn't the malice per se but the pettyness of it, like, can't you come up with anything better than that?

Here's the link to my new favorite site, a collection of all the onomatopoeic title cards displayed during the three seasons of the live-action Adam West Batman. This particular site was apparently put together by fans who saw the show dubbed into Spanish, which accounts for the occasional odd "-eth" suffix (Zap-eth! Crunch-eth! Whap-eth!) and adds that extra layer of internet randomness that we love so much. The two links at the top of the page lead to touchingly exhaustive lists of exactly how many times each onomatopoeia was used, and in which episode number. Pick your favorite and post the graphic on your own blog! As for me, as much as I love the "touché", complete with correct accent, I think I have to pass due to its lack of an exclamation point and go with something snappier...