Howard Hughes' Heroine Haughty, However Handsome Henry Hits Home

A few years ago while visiting Williamsburg, I became enamored of Patrick Henry. And by Patrick Henry, I mean the man who was playing Patrick Henry. After his speech in the House of Delegates, I whispered to Schatze that I wanted to get a pic of him....We hung around until everyone was gone and I asked if I could get my picture made with him. My only regret is that I accidentally had black & white film in my camera and you can't see how my face flushed with his unexpected touch of my shoulder.



Around that same time (and during that same roll of film), I was at a conference for work where Jane Russell was in attendance. I also wanted a picture with her because I thought it would be cool to glue it in the cover of my book Bombshell Manual of Style. After all, she is mentioned in it. Well, as you can see, I got the photo, but only at the expense of a dream shattered by her rude attitude toward me.

Never Startle Me When I'm Asleep

My grandparents are coming in a couple of weeks for their third visit since I've lived here in D.C. The first time they came, Roxy hung out with us a lot and got to know my their idiosyncracies. I told her they were coming again and she asked how long they are staying. I said a week, to which she replied, "You will need: 3 blocks of cheese and 5 boxes of Little Debbies." The thing is, she is probably right.

Last year they drove here from TN with my aunt. They were going to pick me up and then the four of us would go on a loop up to Palmyra, Niagra Falls, Kirtland and then back here to drop me off. They pulled up in their mini-van crammed full of so much stuff, there was no room for me. My grandfather's first words to me were, "We brought too much stuff, I don't know why." I'll say! As we started sifting through all of their belongings to determine what they could leave at my house and then pick up on their way out, I discovered a very large fan. My grandmother explained to me, "You know how hot J.B. gets. He has to have that fan blowing on him when he gets out of the shower." In the end, we left the fan in my room so that I would be able to take a suitcase on our trip. We just had to put my suitcase on top of the cooler filled with Little Debbies. (Apparently he takes his fan even on flights. He has a suitcase for his clothes, and one for his fan.)

Currently, I'm in the process of finding a place for them to stay. This is trickier than you would think. Last year, I used Hotwire and got them a great room on the water in Old Town for about 1/5 of its normal price. While they were grateful I got them such a deal, in the end they revealed that they would have rather stayed in a motel. My grandfather wants to be able to drive right up to the door...it is "WAY too much trouble to have to go through a lobby with elevators and stuff." So not only do I need to find them a motel room in a safe area here in Washington, but it also needs to be the same price they would pay in Tennessee. Yeah, this puts them about 90 miles away in Richmond. Unfortunately, another motel they had stayed in before was all booked up...but they were really only sad because it is just a mile from the "Great American Country Buffet" (which although about a half hour from my house, is where I'm sure we'll have many meals during their stay.)

The final step I need to take before they arrive is to make sure all our smoke/carbon monoxide detectors are functioning properly. I would place a bet on the fact that the first thing my grandfather will do when he walks in is ask, "Are all your smoke detectors working, Missy?" And regardless of the fact that I tell him they are, he will roam around the house testing each one. He has done it here everytime, and in everyone else's house since I can remember as a child.

I do believe in being cautious and safe, but my grandparents can be a little over the top. I wish you could see the number of locks and alarms on their doors. And on our trip last year, my aunt and I would always joke about and bet on the number of times my grandfather would hit the lock button for the van on his keychain, causing it to honk loudly each time. Usually as we headed in the door of the motel, we would hear 2-3 honks, followed by an acutal door handle check, followed by one additional lock honk. At one point, we had unpacked and walked to a restaurant across the street. My aunt and I headed back to our room first and sat at the window watching because we knew he would stop at the van to check its lock status again. And he did. And he saw us watching and laughing. oops.

Luckily, my grandparents' paranoia has only rubbed off on me in a mild way. I do have fears that any ride I get on at a fair will break down and I will be thrown out or fall to my death. I've mentioned before that I can't sleep sometimes because I think the furnace is going to explode. But hey! that thing is gas and this house is old! Both my roommates left on business trips and I'm home alone for the weekend. The last time I was here by myself, I was talking to Camelio Estevez late on the phone and she freaked me out about being alone so much that I slept with a huge knife by my bed at her urging. I'm not afraid of being alone. Except sometimes when there are weird noises when I'm going to sleep. Especially the ones coming from the furnace vents.

But really, bad things do happen. I WAS almost kidnapped when I was four AT A MOTEL WITH MY GRANDPARENTS. And a couple of years ago, I was walking home from the bus and a man followed me and I had to run and then drop flat on the ground behind a 2-foot-tall fence in a neighbor's yard.

But I did just go to the gas station to fill up my tank at 10:30 tonight in case the prices go up again tomorrow. There is really no rhyme or reason to my fears. But at least I know where I get them from.

Anyway, I'm excited for their trip out here. It will be good to see them. I wonder if they will bring my motorcycle painting. I doubt it, they've got to leave room for the fan.

My Life in Numbers (BJD Style)

# of days have worked this week: 2

# of days have worn jeans to work this week: 2

# of days have worn flip flops to work this week: 1

# of times have wondered if boss thinks I'm taking advantage of the casual dress policy: 37

# of phonecalls received from boss today: 7 (I'm not kidding)

# of hours have been at work today: 2

# of "nanny" reality TV shows watched Monday night: 2

# of ridiculous outfits I wore on Sunday: 2

# of times (when asked) told roommate to change b/c her outfit didn't match at all: 1

# of outfits worn by roommate who had been told by me it didn't match at all: 1

# of minutes was late to church because of my ridiculous outfit #1: 20

# of fears conquered this weekend: 1

# of times tried to demonstrate the motion of a roller coaster while seated in a booth, resulting only in a shaking booth and flailing legs: 1

# of ward members assigned to our house for the ward activity Saturday night: 8

# of assigned members who showed up: 1

# of un-assigned members who showed up: 1

# of un-assigned members who showed up and drove everyone stark raving mad: 1

# of e-mails in my boss's inbox that need to be checked right now: 122

# of times have seen commercial for "House, M.D." which guest stars Robert Sean Leonard tonight and have thought I should let Christian F know: 7

# of times I ever want to watch "House, M.D.": 0 (yuck)

# of people in my office today: 1 (me)

# of times have done leg kicks and punches down the office hallway today: 3

# of Britney Spears' songs listened to today: 1 (in honor of her pregnancy: Hit Me Baby One More Time)

# of conversations with boss re: Paris Hilton in the last week: 4

# of minutes have thought about who I could give one of these to: 19

# of emails now in my boss's inbox that need to be checked: 128 (I better go.)

Name This Song

It's the 17th again...The first person to email me (see my profile page) with the artist and song title wins the prize. Good luck.

"Her arms are wicked, and her legs are long
When she moves my brain screams out this song"

Dance with me. Come on, Buddy

Shotzy sent this to me. Enjoy.

Girl with a Red Leather Jacket

You may recognize this:


a.) because it is (supposed to be) me

or

b.) because it is copied from a Virginia Slims magazine ad.

Yes, it's true, my grandmother (the artist) saw a cigarette ad in a magazine, ripped it out and decided it would be a perfect setting for a painting of me. Apparently she thinks I'm a biker babe. So she painted the ad, adding my face and omitting the cigarette in my hand and, voila, my own portrait.

My questions are as follows:

1. Why me and not my sister Jenny (who really does smoke)?
2. That background...Why?
3. Do you think someday this painting is going to be in my possession? And what will I do with it then?

Seriously, I am flattered that she would do a painting of me. I think it is sweet. But no one can say it's not funny.

Here's a blog with pictures, but none of me because I'm still too chicken for that (but working up to it)

I hesitated a little about writing this post because any allusion to beds always leads some minds to the gutter, and because I’m a little afraid of what Google searches might lead to this post entirely devoted to beds. However, today I saw that someone got to my blog by doing a search for “Stacie’s Nude Website,” so I figure….hey, the creeps are getting here regardless…So here goes:

The History of Carly and Me (or How to Spend as Much Time in the Bed as Possible)

One thing Carly and I have in common is a love for the life of leisure. I found this out long before we ever lived together. One weekend, all of my roommates were out of town, so Carly stayed over. She slept in my roommate Karen’s bed, and we didn’t get out of our beds all weekend, except for occasional trips to the kitchen to grab some cookies to bring back to our beds or to use the restroom.

After we did move in together, we shared a TINY room with such a low ceiling that I had to hoist myself up onto our white, metal-framed bunk beds at a 45 degree angle to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling.



Carly and I were perfect bunk bed mates: she loved the bottom bunk, and I loved the top. However, when we first moved in, we were both too nice to say what we wanted. I assumed she would want the top because it was the best, and she assumed I would want the bottom. Neither of us said a word and we both sacrificed the bunk we wanted, unknowingly causing the other person also to give up the bunk of her choice. Eventually the truth came out, and we switched.

Some highlights of our time in these bunk beds included:

-We stayed in bed so late the first morning we were in our apartment that our other roommate assumed we were gone. She and one of the girls upstairs walked around talking about us and calling us rambunctious and we heard every word.

-At first I thought it was funny that every time Carly would come home (from school or work or anywhere really), she would walk straight from the front door to the bedroom, drop her bag, get in the bed and often wrap her blanket Rehar around her head. But it was only a matter of time before I was doing it, too (sans Rehar). And let me tell you, it was a lot easier to carry on a conversation when we were both right there together, instead of talking from two different rooms.



-For some reason, we felt we had to begin the video we shot for an Italian class project, Le Notizie Secondo Glorie (The News According to the Glorias), by waking up and getting out of our beds and end it by crawling into the beds and going to sleep.

-On the wall beside our beds hung colored, paper eggs we made when we co-wrote our workbook, “Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket: A Girl’s Guide to College Dating.” Carly also had a picture on the wall of Mat (from her “Plat for Mat” days) and I had a picture of Steven Tyler next to me.

-Carly’s pants were ALWAYS on my bed. I don’t know if she threw them there subconsciously whenever she changed, but she always denied it, “I have no idea how they got there.” She still stands by this.

-Every night, our ritual went as follows: Carly would get in her bed while I did a dance to “Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes” by K.D. Lang---which was really funny, not creepy like it sounds. Then I would get in my bed and hang my arm down while Carly reached over to the bedside table for our bottle of TUMS (we ate them like candy) and put two in my hand.

Needless to say, we spent a lot of time in those bunk beds. So on the day we moved out, when the lady came for the cleaning check and to collect our keys, it was only natural that we were both crying and hugging our beds goodbye. Nothing could console us but some fast food and a trip to Lagoon.

Fast forward 6 months to when I flew back to Utah for Carly’s wedding. The night before her wedding, we were both staying in the guest room at her parents’ house being silly and just having a lot of girl talk---you know the usual night-before-wedding girl stuff. Carly told me that Mike thought it was weird that we were going to sleep in the same bed, which we thought was ridiculous…. I think guys just think about that kind of thing differently…Anyway, the next morning Mike showed up and there we were both sound asleep in the guest bed. Georgia tried unsuccessfully to stop him, and the next thing we knew there he was standing in the doorway looking at us. Quickwitted Carly hopped to her feet (standing on the bed, that is), looked down at me and said, “Well, I’m glad I came in for this quick morning chat.” She made everyone laugh, and the moment that shouldn’t have been awkward but was, disappeared.

We have now lived far apart for many years, but when we do have the chance to see each other, things haven’t changed too much. In December, we spent a lot of time eating truffles on my bed. And when I was in Utah recently, I sat on the bed watching NASCAR and giving a running dialogue to Carly, who was in and out of consciousness. But I still feel a little bad for telling Mike, who was exhausted, that he was going to have to wait a few more minutes to go to bed because I needed to lie on the memory foam a little longer.

My Favorite Things

You know, I thought by addressing Kacy directly in the first paragraph of my last post, I could force her into commenting. But obviously that didn't work. I mean, after over a month long absence of her comments on my blog, my blego is plummeting. and fast.

Luckily, Cameron made my day this weekend by emailing me the mp3 for "Let Your Love Flow," which I have probably already listened to 20 times in the last 48 hours. That's my style. When I like something, I really like to overdo it until I need a break from it.

In honor of my roommate Shotzy who, every night, asks us what our favorite part of the day was, I will list my favorite parts of the last few days:

Friday: Having practiced basketball 'til after 10 the night before where I hurt myself, came home late and didn't even shower before going to bed for a restless night of sleep because of a throbbing foot, I woke up late, watched 24 and then took a nap. Around noon, I was about to shower when I got a call from Katie Blue inviting me to lunch and did I go? Of course I did. I threw on some mascara and clothes and just apologized when I got there for my appearance and smell.

Saturday: Only losing in our championship game (where not even 1 foul was called) to the team with 2 former college players on it by 20 points, instead of 50 like the first time we played them.

Sunday: A delish HUGE dinner on the grill after a long Fast Sunday, during which we were visited by Miriam who laughed so hard she cried.

Monday: So it is only lunch time (which will probably soon take over as my favorite part of the day) but so far I haven't done any work because I have spent the entire morning trying to help my boss figure out how to get his driver's license back after having surrendured it to a police officer on Saturday.

Racial Love Stories: It Doesn't Matter if You're Black or White (or Hispanic)

Today as I was walking back from lunch wearing my bottle green skirt (as Roxy likes to call it) with my legs out in all their white glory, I passed an older black gentleman who stopped, looked me up and down, and then said, "Green. MMMMMM." Surprisingly, I wasn't as uncomfortable as you might think, but instead, laughed out loud at his choice of words...or should I say sounds. But, it reminded me of a time when I did feel uncomfortable as a 20-year-old at work in the RB. I was on the phone, probably taking a tennis reservation, when I was passed a note by a creepy professor (Kacy & Carly, I think you know who I'm talking about) that simply said, "Nice Skirt, M." Yuck.

My experience today also reminded me that I am generally loved by black men. I am pretty certain that this has to do with my, shall I say, non-stick-thin appearance. In high school, I had a friend named Chris. We had a "top secret notebook" where we used to write notes and then leave it in each other's lockers. I don't really know what the point of it was except that we were kids, and it was secret and fun. He did have a girlfriend named Teresa and word got around to me that she was going to wait for me after my Art class to beat me up. Does this really sound like me? It even feels foreign to write it. Not that she ever did wait for me or beat me up....but it's just funny to be involved in a conversation like that. I don't know what I had done that made her so mad, both she and Chris seem to have their fair share of "really good friends" of the opposite sex and all I was doing was writing dumb notes in a notebook under the alias "Aeon." Anyway, I bring it up because he (as well as another black man who was a customer of mine when I was a carhop at Sonic in high school) told me that "I had a nice A$$ for a white girl."

I could go on with a lot of stories about Chris, but will move on to tell you about a different man named Chrys who works at the carry-out window in the restaurant on the first floor of the building I work in. Chrys recognizes my voice when I call, has "my usual" memorized and always winks and tells me he gave me some extra corn muffins when I pick up my order. Now you may think that this has more to do with the frequency of my ordering food from there than anything else, and you may be right...but all of that pales in comparison to the fact that what I really want to tell you about Chrys is: once I saw on a printout at the restaurant that his real name is Chrysanthemum.

The final story I would like to share is not about me, but I was a first hand witness to it, and it is much more interesting than any of the above stories about myself. Let me first give you a little bit of background about where I live. The street I live on is a dead end, but attracts a lot of traffic of foreign laborers because they can walk to the end of the street, through a grassy area and under the underpass of the freeway. On the other side of the freeway, there is a corner where these laborers gather and wait for people who have work that needs to be done to drive up honk, say how many workers they need, and then they hop in the van and go with them. It is pretty fascinating, in a scary Elizabeth-Smart-type way.

Anyway, one Saturday Roxy and I were going out for a little run (and by run we meant walk), and I was upstairs getting ready. Roxy decided to sit down on the front porch and wait for me, when a man, who I'm sure was headed for the underpass and had quite a bit of an alcoholic stench, stopped to talk to her. Roxy, being the extremely nice girl that she is, was carrying on a small conversation with him and getting a little antsy for me to hurry it up. In the meantime, I came down the stairs, looked through the glass door and saw Roxy sitting on the front porch with a man named Omar (he even spelled it out for her). I saw them, walked into the kitchen and said to Shotzy, "Who is Roxy talking to out there?" I could only see the back of him and didn't want to interrupt anything, even though Roxy was praying I would. Shotzy didn't know what I was talking about, so we headed through the doorway just in time to see Omar go in for a kiss. Roxy jumped to her feet, threw her hand out and yelled "NO!" in the way you are taught in a self-defense class, and then said "I have to be going in now." She came in to our shocked faces, and was a little annoyed, I'm sure, that we hadn't intervened before it got to that point. I'm glad that a few years later, the horror of it all has worn off enough that she can laugh about it with us, as hard as we laughed at that moment.

Let the Good Times Roll

Saturday after watching conference and sitting in Chipotle with Shotzy's brother for 2 hours of fascinating conversation regarding the Papal succession, killing a turkey by stirring its brains and why you should only buy a rabbit with the ears still on it in a meat market...and other delightsome topics, Shotzy, Wayne and I were looking for something fun to do. We decided everyone would say something right then and we all had to go and do all three things. I wanted to get some frozen custard, Wayne wanted to go to the Iwo Jima Memorial and Shotzy wanted to do some sort of scavenger hunt. We decided to head to Target---we each drew one of the other's names and had 20 minutes to find a specialized gift for $5 or less for that person and meet back at the door.

Wayne gave me an iTunes giftcard. You have no idea how excited I was, even though I own neither an iPod nor a computer. She got it for me so I could download "Let Your Love Flow" by the Bellamy Brothers, because I had heard it in the car on the way home from the movies Friday night and I got excited. Then Saturday, it came on the radio again on a completely different radio station. I mean, what are the chances?

We traded gifts, got some custard and then headed over to Iwo Jima in the rain. I happened to be wearing a jacket, formerly owned by Carly's father, that said England on it. After unsuccessfully taking a few pictures of ourselves, in my best British accent, I asked a nearby girl if she would take our picture. I don't know if the fact that she didn't understand me and just stared blankly and said, "What?" means I did a good or bad accent. I tried to repeat myself but by that point I was laughing a little and Wayne and Shotzy had already walked away (with the cameras) to hide their laughter.

She took our picture and we headed home to take more pictures and download iTunes. The saddest moment was when we realized that "Let Your Love Flow" was not available on iTunes---unless you wanted the Joan Baez version, which I did not. After the three of us sat around until about 2:30 a.m. (3:30 daylight time) previewing hundreds of songs...we finally made our first and only selection of the night for purchase: "Black or White" by Michael Jackson. After hours of listening and pondering, the only song we bought was in support of a child molester. But really, you may have forgotten just how good that song was. I know I had. I also learned that I have been singing 75% of the lyrics to it incorrectly for years.

AND, believe it or nor, I heard "Let Your Love Flow" AGAIN on the radio yesterday.