A Good Thing About Coming Back to Life As I Know It:
I was definitely missed by my friends, especially my friends at work.  My work friends demonstrated their lunacy (and love for me) by taking my instructions to the most absurd degree—I had left a note on my computer monitor saying that, because I was away, please don’t leave anything urgent on my desk.  Thus began the deluge.  I arrived at work today to find my desk absolutely covered in boxes, packages and notes all labeled with witty notes about how URGENT they were.  Examples included “so urgent, it REEKS of urgency,” “you have NO IDEA how urgent this is” and “this is BURSTING with urgency.” I was told by several people that the urgent display of urgentness took on a life of its own while I was gone, growing exponentially every day.  It literally took me 20 minutes to disassemble the construct of urgency.

A Bad Thing About Coming Back to Life As I Know It:
While I was gone, apparently Bad Things™ happened, and two people are leaving my singing group.  When you have 9 people in the group, 2 people leaving is a sizable dent.  So we’re going to do one last show here in Los Angeles on Sunday, November 20, and then we’re taking the holidays off before the rest of us re-evaluate what we do next.  So if you have any desire to see me sing and perform, November 20th is your last chance for a while to do it.  More specific details about what time that day and where are coming soon.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my neighbors in the building next door are holding KaraokeFest ‘05 in their apartment with all the windows open, and I have to put a stop to the wretched rendition of 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up” that I’m currently being subjected to.

So.  I returned to an almost-full TiVo, an empty fridge and 900+ e-mails.  Really.  And after unpacking, tackling the e-mails, grocery shopping and beginning to clean out the TiVo, I’m feeling like I’m ready to pick up where I left off.  In some ways, I’m even a little eager to get back into the swing of things.

Before that, though, let’s give a short recap of the past week and a half, shall we?  I took a 10-day trip to Hawaii, the first three of which were spent based in Honolulu and exploring the island of Oahu.  From there, I hopped on a 7-day cruise around the rest of the islands.  Of course, while on Oahu, I did see Pearl Harbor.  It’s amazing to see the Arizona Memorial—it’s not like the ship is 50 feet down and you can’t see it, the ship is just below the surface.  And yes, oil still leaks to the surface from the ship… some of the people say it’s the ship “bleeding.” I took a tour of the whole island and saw the Buddhist temple on the east side of the island and the Dole plantation where they have a ton of pineapple—as well as the world’s largest maze as certified by Guinness, which I conquered in 34 minutes (there are 6 checkpoints). 

After Oahu, I jumped on the ship to see the rest of the islands.  Sadly, we couldn’t dock at Hilo on the big island because of weather, but we spent the day at sea.  The weather cleared later and we saw the lava fields of Mount Kilauea at night, which was stellar.  But we did spend two days on Maui, where I saw the beach that’s home to the windsurfing capital of the world and a valley used in Jurassic Park—I saw another filming location for Jurassic Park on Kauai.  Also on Maui, I went ziplining on Mount Haleakala, which was awesome.  We went back to the big island of Hawaii (this time to the Kona side) and I went snorkeling in Kealakekua Bay, which is where Captain James Cook first landed (and was subsequently killed) on Hawaii.  (Interesting side note:  The spot where Cook was killed was made into a monument and is the only British territory on U.S. soil… aside from their embassies, of course.) Snorkeling was cool—it was like swimming in an aquarium, and I saw mahi mahi!  I took a helicopter ride in Kauai to see the island from the air and saw Waimea Canyon (nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the Pacific); I also saw Bali Hai from South Pacific and Hanalei Bay, where the rock formations served as the inspiration for Puff the Magic Dragon (you can see the eyes in the hill behind me, but I still think Peter, Paul & Mary had to have been Puffing themselves to get a dragon out of the island topography).  Then we headed back to Honolulu, where I took this parting shot of the city.

And that’s the trip.  Tomorrow, I head back into the fray at work and face the torment from my co-workers about my stellar tan and my time off and my sweet new Hawaiian shirt—which actually does look cool, it’s not cheesy at all… really.

So!  I’m back.  Did you miss me?  Did you have any idea where I’ve been?

Well, does this give you any idea?  Or maybe this or this?  More details and some stories when I’ve had a full night’s sleep in my own bed and I’ve sifted through the 800+ e-mails that I found upon my return.

People have often shook their heads in mild amusement and/or disinterest when I tell them that I’m really not scared of traveling at all.  Even tales from my co-worker whose husband works for the FAA aren’t enough to deter me from getting on a plane with a steady stomach and a mind clear of fear… Actually, that’s not entirely true.  My real fear of traveling is that the airline will lose my luggage.  I have reverse travel anxiety:  My stomach tightens when the plane’s wheels touch down and continue while I’m in the terminal until that familiar-looking bag comes around the carousel.

I leave my fully-programmed TiVo in the less-than-capable hands of Adelphia, the same cable company who claimed they were having outages as a result of the fires.  Now that it’s raining hard across Southern California, drenching any potential flareups in the area, guess what?  My cable’s out again.  Oh, it gets better—Adelphia even called me tonight to thank me for my patronage, and when they asked me if I had any questions about their service so I promptly asked why the hell my cable keeps going out, the person on the other end of the line said, “I don’t know… but I’m showing that it’s out again right now.” So now I’ve missed this week’s editions of Commander-in-Chief and My Name is Earl.  I’m about ready to unleash the fury on those dumbasses.

Either way, I’m leaving in the morning.  Peace out, homeslices.  See you in a few.

There’s been a decent amount going on behind the scenes lately that hasn’t completely sat well with me.  Struck out three times in the past two weeks on Love Field—swing, miss; swing, miss; swing, miss.  Not spiritually satisfied with the religious events of this past week, which is a feeling that I haven’t felt in a very long time and makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.  Apprehensive that events set in motion over a year ago may not be coming to the finale that I had hoped, and therefore hedging my bets—and I don’t like betting.

Just so’s y’all know… I’m leaving Wednesday for my first vacation in two years.  I’ll be back at the end of the month.  Right now, I need to get away about as much as I need air.

A change of pace could really do some good...
Buckcherry - “For the Movies”
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So, I made it.  And I did a full 24 hours without eating or drinking anything this year, unlike last year, where I broke the fast around sundown at 6pm, so it wasn’t a full day.  I think the “no drinking” was harder—I put away about 5 glasses of water at dinner and then another half-gallon when I got home last night.  And yes, the term is “I drank water,” not “I hydrated.” “Hydrate” a verb for chemists, not for people.

I went to a different service this year than I usually go to, and at first glance, I didn’t like it.  The rabbi started things off on a touchy-feely note, asking everyone to say hi and introduce themselves to the people sitting around them.  Not exactly the kind of thing I appreciate on what’s supposed to be the most solemn and holy day of the year on the Jewish calendar, especially when I’m awake early and haven’t had breakfast.  Throughout the course of the service, the rabbi also sidetracked a lot, telling stories about stuff she’s recently heard about the traditions of prayer, and she also used a lot of the alternate passages in the prayerbook.  One time that really got to me was when we skipped the actual “asking for forgiveness” passage where we list off a whole bunch of things in English that we’ve probably done over the year and, well, ask for forgiveness—stuff like “Lord, please forgive me for having lied and hurtful to others and having been vain”—in favor of an alternate passage that included (and I’m not kidding here) “Lord, please forgive me for not paying enough attention to and protesting the threat of nuclear arms.” What? On top of all that, the rabbi also had an annoying tendency to chant the English passages using the same sing-song melodies we use to chant the Hebrew… which really annoyed me when she started a line in Hebrew and did the second half in English, chanting the whole thing.  Okay, no—you start in Hebrew, you finish in Hebrew.

All in all, I walked out of services yesterday feeling unfulfilled, like I didn’t get as much out of the experience as I wanted to—as a friend put it, “The gas tank of sin wasn’t fully empty.” (To which I replied, “Yeah, I think I need to drive it around a little more before I return it on E to the rental car place.") And that says a lot for someone who barely keeps to the practices of Judaism… hell, I ate a bacon cheeseburger last weekend to prove a point to someone.  Then I read writersbloc’s entry on the topic this morning, and it’s actually helping me feel better about things.  I realize that in my own way, I made the effort to at least go to services and keep to the traditions and fast all day long.  And in the end, it really is about me and how I feel about myself and what I do and trying to be a good person overall, rather than whether or not I’ve met some Supreme Being’s standards to keep from being smote.

Yes, I’ll probably sin a lot this year.  I’ll swear, I’ll drink too much, I’ll blaspheme (oh, boy, will I blaspheme), I’ll insult people—and I’ll probably accomplish all that before the end of just today, let alone an entire year—but all in all, I’ve got to do what’s right by me, even if that means going a little crazy every now and then.

Seal - “Crazy” (William Orbit Mix)
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Gone prayin’ and atonin’.  Will return when I’ve been forgiven for my sins for this past year—and when I can eat and drink again.

So, for those of you who don’t know, I work pretty closely with another guy in my office to put out a Daily Show-style newsletter that goes out, well, daily.  You know, snark and sarcasm and sheer stupidity abounds—we’re both East Coasters and we’re both pretty easily amused, so it works out really well.  We even kind of think alike, which is scary. 

But I digress.  My point is this:  Things must be going well, because more and more conversations between us recently have been starting with one of us saying something along the lines of “So how many people do you think I’d offend if I wrote...” or “Is it too sacrilegious for me to say...”

Okay, let’s tally the list, shall we?  Two hurricanes, one of which pretty much destroyed New Orleans… huge-ass earthquake in Pakistan/India… torrential rains causing flooding all along the Eastern Seaboard… yeah, I think it’s official:  God is pissed at us. 

Right now, I think the only “mandate” Dubya could have is dinner and a movie with Dick… Cheney, of course.

I have never lived more than 10 miles from an ocean, either Atlantic or Pacific, as the crow flies.  My apartment right now is the closest I’ve ever lived to an ocean—this one clocks in at only 2.9 miles away from the Pacific.  So it’s not entirely odd for me to pack up the iPod and walk down to the beach.  Yesterday, I had some errands to run on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, so I just went the extra 3 blocks to the ocean.  And I’m incredibly glad that I did, because I got there just as the sun was beginning to sink below the horizon, so the first time ever, I literally watched the entire sunset.  To see it dip below the Pacific was an added bonus—just water as far as the eye could see.  What I didn’t expect were the emotions that washed over me afterwards.  And I can basically sum it up by saying I’m suffering from Garden State Syndrome.

There’s a part in the movie where Zach Braff is telling Natalie Portman about how the house you grew up in at some point no longer is your home, and how you can become homesick for a place that doesn’t exist anymore until you start your own home with your own family.  And I have been feeling that in spades, for some unknown reason.  For me, the house that I grew up in isn’t even a place I can go inside anymore—my parents sold it three years ago and I moved them to Tucson.  I went back over a year ago… sat outside in a car and saw this house that I spent 14 years in but can’t even go on its driveway now, and the outside has even been changed so the property looks alien to me. 

As hard as it may seem to believe (because it is for me), I’ve been living in Los Angeles for almost 4 years now.  Yes, I’ve managed to build a life for myself here and it’s a pretty good one, but L.A. is not home.  That old house on a cul-de-sac in Connecticut is not home.  Boston, where I lived for 8 years, is not home.  So here I am, approaching 30 years old… and I’m homeless.  My roots have been torn up, my past is someone else’s property now.  I don’t even have the same coastline anymore.

Everclear - “Santa Monica”
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Well, I was planning on recapping tonight’s episode of Alias… but my goddamned cable company fucked up again, and all of my network and movie channels are out.  So I missed tonight’s Alias in addition to last week’s Lost.  This is getting to be a fairly big annoyance, given my minor addiction to pop culture and television.

And now, the reasons why I’m going to be stubborn and not switch from Stupid Fucking Adelphia™ to DirecTV or Dish Network:

1. I don’t have a landline in my apartment.  Therefore, I can’t get DSL, I need a cable modem for high-speed Internet, and I think the satellite receivers need the phone lines to download stuff from the mothership computers.  Additionally, it’s cheaper for me to bundle the cable modem with my cable service rather than order it on its own in addition to satellite.

2. Have I mentioned the pop-culture addiction?  This means I need every channel known to man, and the satellite TV services simply don’t carry all the movie channels I can get on cable.  Yes, I know, Dish and DirecTV say they have 8 HBO channels.  Well, I’ve got 12… when they actually are receivable.  You satellite folks don’t get HBO Comedy or HBO Zone or Showtime Next or Showtime Beyond or @Max or 5StarMax or OuterMax or ThrillerMax—and lemme tell you… woo hoo!  You just don’t know what you’re missing. 

3. There’s a chance I may have separation issues.  I’ve had cable for so long… I just don’t know if I can cut the cord.  [sob]

I’m not going to comment on this Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes debacle except to say this:  While that child is the spawn of an unholy alliance, the true sign of the impending apocalypse is the fact that Donald Trump™ and Regis Philbin are dueting on “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” a copy of which can be found on Regis’ new Christmas album.  Mr. The Donald, sir, just because you are filthy rich doesn’t mean the world is your playground—there’s a bunch of us who have to live here and be subjected to your antics and hair wrap.

The only problem with using a standard skin from Expression Engine (even if it was, however, designed by a member of BlogMoxie) is that someone else might be using it too.  And after a 14-hour day at work, it may take a moment for the thought to process through your brain that the person’s website you’re looking at is not actually your own despite how much it may look like yours, so you can stop wondering why the hell it bounced you back to your site and how the hell it knew which site was yours.

By the way, that accident Lindsay Lohan was in?  Happened in front of New Line Cinemas, and a friend over there told me that Lindsay had been careening down the street at around 60mph, dodging cars before finally crashing into one so hard, her trunk popped open.  (Okay, it’s past midnight, which means Sexual Harassment Tuesday is over and you can’t take that statement in a sick and depraved manner.) The reported “dozens” of paparazzi following her from the Ivy may have been overestimated in the news stories.

When I first moved to California, I felt like I couldn’t get out here fast enough.  After eight years, Boston was stifling me, and I was either going to leave the area or I was going to snap and run screaming down Comm Ave shooting people with a SuperSoaker filled with red paint.  I finally got out to Los Angeles, and a strange thing happened—I began to miss the East Coast.  I missed the changing of the seasons, I missed the public transportation, I missed the idiosyncrasies and I missed the personality of Boston.  Of course, my trip back in May 2004 was like seeing an ex-girlfriend—at first, I was overjoyed to see the city again and saw the places I used to hang out at and live; then, I slowly started to remember the things I didn’t like about Boston and why I wanted to leave.

But there are times when I’d give almost anything to be back there again… and this time is no different.  My beloved Boston Red Sox are about to battle their way through the ALDS, and I’m sure that once again, the city is uniting behind its team.  It’s been four years since I’ve set foot in Fenway Park, but my heart still swells with pride to see the Green Monster and the Cask & Flagon on TV.  And while I thankfully have my own little cadre of Red Sox Nation members out here in Los Angeles, it’s still not the same.  There’s just nothing like sitting in the stands at Fenway with a Fenway Frank and a beer and the Sox on the field, surrounding by thousands of screaming fans. 

Do us all proud, boys.

Boston, you are the only only only
Don’t blame us if we ever doubt you
You know we couldn’t live without you
Red Sox, you are the only only only...
-- Dropkick Murphys - “Tessie”
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Last night, a bunch of the usual suspects gathered for the first time in months to celebrate Skits‘ birthday.  I also got to meet a couple folks I hadn’t met before.  There was laughter, there was hugging, there was a decent amount of alcohol consumed.  Eve was hit on by some drunk dude who offered to duet on “Summer Nights” from Grease with her.  Skits gave a candle a quickie hummer.  Wait, was I not supposed to tell anyone about that?

Changing gears, I approach the impending Jewish High Holidays with a mixture of cautious optimism, doubt and apprehension.  While I believe that especially over the past year, I have continued to become more comfortable with who I am and my role in my personal and professional groups, I wonder what the new year will hold—and I hope that one of the things it holds is change.  In a few ways, I feel like I’m spinning my wheels without getting anywhere, and while I that this year will bring traction for me to launch myself out of the place and state of mind I’m in right now, I fear the chance exists that it may not.  On the other hand, who knows?  The future is an unwritten book.  So on this, the eve of a new year for the Jews, I offer my best wishes for a good year for all involved.