Things for me and you and everyone we know to do.

- ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW opens today at the Landmark in Midtown, and I was supposed to see it earlier this week. Instead, though, I saw Kacoon's baby. I think I got a better trade-off, but I still really want to see this movie, which has gotten mostly great reviews. Even Lupo liked it, and he's notoriously hard to please. The cast is full of unknowns, though performance artist Miranda July has received awards for writing, directing and starring in it from both the Sundance and Cannes film fests. Plus, Jim at the Landmark looked into booking the film after I told him about it, so I owe it to him to see it and to get everyone else I know to see it.
- I've been obsessively listening to "Illinois," this new CD from Sufjan Stevens, ever since I bought it earlier this week. It's a concept album, Stevens' second in a series on all 50 states, and it sounds like the cast recording of a particularly twisted, innovative, strange musical. References to Carl Sandburg, Mary Todd Lincoln and John Wayne Gacy are made throughout the album, and it works surprisingly well. I actually heard about this album during a Headline News segment one day while I was having lunch at the Bollywood Blimpie, and I'm really glad I took a chance on Sufjan Stevens.
- If you managed to finish HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE last weekend or, perhaps, during the week, then you probably need to use this week to catch up on your sleep. I was reading the last 200 pages of that book until 4 a.m. Wednesday morning, and it was worth it. That book - including its devastating ending - were completely thrilling. If anyone wants to talk plot twists, e-mail me.
- I'm a Ewan McGregor fan. I am distinctly not a fan of director Michael Bay. PEARL HARBOR, starring that ass-clown Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale, was one of the most egregiously horrible experiences of my life. So I'm not quite sure whether I'll be seeing Bay's clone sci-fi movie, THE ISLAND, which is his first movie not produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. The one review I've read wasn't kind, but it came from Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, which could mean anything.



- Am I the only one who thinks that the extra steps that Jude Law took after his affair with that nanny was uncovered in the tabloids showed uncommon openness and honesty from a celebrity? I mean, he took out an ad in the paper admitting that he'd cheated on his fiancee Sienna Miller and that he was sorry he'd subjected her to something so painful. Yeah, I know, if he were really a good guy, he wouldn't have cheated, but, still, he went to the papers about it. That shows guts. Besides that, look at just how damn beautiful the man is.
- HUSTLE & FLOW, which I saw last night, is a terrific movie, both gritty and a hell of a lot of fun. Terrence Howard is terrific as DJay, a Memphis pimp with a dream of recording a rap demo. The supporting cast is really strong. The movie has one of the best screenplays I've seen in a while, too. Though there are stereotypical characters, nothing turns out the way you'd expect, and the dialogue and soundtrack are excellent. The good reviews this has received are deserved. HUSTLE & FLOW is a great movie.
- I really want to see BAD NEWS BEARS, even though it's probably nowhere near as good as the original. I just really like Richard Linklater's work, usually. And anytime Billy Bob Thornton gets the opportunity to play a foul-mouthed, surly, drunken loser, it's hilarious. I don't have high hopes for this remake, but I just want something with a BAD SANTA vibe to it.
- Clean your apartment before your mother comes and does it for you.
- Take the baskets of laundry you did on Sunday out of your car.
- Check on last week's list.
- Anybody know of a really good toy that I can get Zoe? She's only been alive four days and doesn't have control over, you know, anything yet. She doesn't even know her name. But, still, I thought I should buy her something.
- Publishers of Michael Chabon's THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH have just re-released the book with a new cover, which I noticed earlier this week. If you've never read it, it's a very good coming-of-age novel in the vein of THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. Chabon won the Pulitzer for a later novel, THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY, but MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH was his remarkable debut work. The book works whether or not you're a gay man - and Chabon himself is not gay, but every gay man I've handed it to has adored it.
- OK, have you ever gotten a crush on an old movie star? Someone like Tab Hunter, Paul Newman, Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, William Holden, Rita Hayworth or somebody like that? This weekend, try to check out an old movie featuring somebody like that, then ask yourself just how hot they actually are. Seriously, a photo of Robert Redford from BAREFOOT IN THE PARK makes me melt.

Visiting Zoe.

I went to visit Baby Zoe in the hospital yesterday and proceeded to tell her the story of how her parents met and such.

"You're the baby that exists in spite of me ...," I started. Then, I went on to tell her about how I told Kacoon that she probably wasn't Mike's type when I found out that she had a huge crush on him.

"I don't know if it would work," I think I told her, after I let it leak that he'd just broken up with his girlfriend. "I'm not sure you and he would get along."

Four months after that, they were married. And that was four years ago. Their anniversary is next week, I think.

Midway through my long story to the baby, Mike looked at his daughter and saw her yawn. He looked at me and said, "Wow, you're the first person she's ever gotten tired of."

Later, I tried to sing Zoe her first unconventional lullaby. I ended up doing a rendition of Billy Idol's "White Wedding" for the girl. Then I moved on to The Beatles' "When I'm 64," which Kacoon liked better.

Introducing Zoe Rose.

KACOON AND MIKE'S BABY IS A GIRL!!!!!!

Zoe Rose Coon, 7 pounds and 13 ounces, was born about an hour and 20 minutes ago. Everything went smoothly. Kacoon's apparently resting, a bit shaky from the meds. Mike says he's shaking, too.

This is amazing.

Due date.

Kacoon's C-section is scheduled for this afternoon, but I can't head down to the hospital today because I can't find anyone to cover my shift at the bookstore. This annoys me slightly because, even though Kacoon's likely to be zonked out post-surgery, I still want to see the baby and hang out with the family.

Still, I'll have plenty of time to spend with the baby, so I guess I can live with having to work tonight.

Mob scenery.

On Saturday, my friend Will and I went to Downtown Rocks at Underground Atlanta for a free Weezer concert. It was crowded. Hella crowded. More crowded than any place I've been in the middle of in my entire life. While The Bravery played, I was backed against a building's wall for 20 minutes while everyone and their brother squeezed past me. There was such little room in front of me that I had to hold my arms over my head so that people could get past.

The music was really good. But I'm never doing that again.

By the time Weezer took the stage, Will and I were up in a nearby parking deck, watching the stage from a distance. Rivers Cuomo is still really cute, even from a distance.

Things to do when you're not reading HARRY POTTER.

- The book comes out at midnight. To assure that I'll get my copy, I've signed on for a late shift at the bookstore.(Earlier this week at the bookstore, I noticed that the boxes had all been locked away in the manager's office. No one has been allowed to even touch them.) Are you a fan? Where are you getting your copy? Beyond that, who do you think is the Half-Blood Prince?
- Dena suggested, among other things, that I try a new wine this weekend. She says she's been trying some glasses of Sauvignon Blanc, breaking away from her usual order of chardonnay. Sounded like a fun idea. Tonight, the High Museum's doing its Friday Night Jazz program, and, well, I won't be there because of the HARRY POTTER book. But it sounds like fun. And it's a good opportunity to do as Dena says.
- Last week, because that customer Jonathan recommended it, I picked up a copy of W. Somerset Maugham's THE RAZOR'S EDGE in the store. Though I didn't think I would get into it, I ended up reading 50 pages there. Then, I bought it, took it home and read up to page 130. It's a really good book about a WWI vet searching for meaning and God while all of his friends live the high life during the Roaring '20s. It's really good. And a couple characters in it, though readers probably were less inclined to notice this when it was first published, are really, really flaming.
- The Emmys suck. No nods for NIP/TUCK. No Julian McMahon. No Lauren Graham and Kelly Bishop for GILMORE GIRLS. No VERONICA MARS. No Kristen Bell. No Shohreh Aghdashloo for 24. I mean, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and LOST received lots of nominations, but I wish they'd spread the wealth.
- My film prof Neupert tells me he's been catching up on his Anime the past couple weeks. He recommends GUNSLINGER GIRL, which looks way violent. I've never been able to "get" Anime, as I've mentioned before, but I'm willing to try something if Neupert likes it.



- For its tenth anniversary, Amazon has been staging one special event after another. One of the things that the site's sponsored is celebrity hand deliveries. So, apparently, a couple days after a lucky customer ordered the INDIANA JONES box set, Harrison Ford showed up himself at the door with the package. If you look at some of these celebrities involved, like Clay Aiken or Tom Arnold, I don't know if I'd open the door to them. "Honey, Howie Mandel's at the door! Run for your life!"
- HAPPY ENDINGS, which I've seen and recommend, opens today at the Landmark. You should see it. Lisa Kudrow's good in it.



- HELLBENT, called the first "gay slasher movie," is being released in the fall. In it, a masked serial killer is going to stalk young, hot gay men through the streets of West Hollywood on Halloween night. True to the tradition of slasher movies, of course, most everyone will probably be half-naked when killed horribly. (Of course, I'll be in the theater, screaming, "Run, Mary, run!!!") I don't get how "equality" in culture is achieved through minorities receiving their own bad romance novels and slasher movies. Is this progress?
- Baby Coon Day is, apparently, Tuesday. That is the day that Baby Coon will arrive. (Incidentally, does anyone else notice how Baby Coon is timing his arrival for HARRY POTTER week? I think Baby Coon wants a J.K. Rowling-inspired name.)
- Check last week's list.
- Do your laundry.
- Wash your dishes.
- Improv in the Park occurs every Thursday night in July, and some of my friends say it's really, really funny. Dad's Garage, one of the theater troupes involved, is supposed to be fantastic.
- My favorite foreign movie, recommended by Neupert, is Agnes Varda's CLEO FROM 5 TO 7. It's about a pop singer who has two hours to shop for a nice hat in Paris before doctors give her the results of a cancer screening. It wavers between being fun and bleak, and I love it. What's your favorite foreign film? (British and American movies don't count. It should be mostly subtitled. For example, AMELIE counts, and DANCES WITH WOLVES, though it's subtitled, doesn't. If you don't watch movies with subtitles, that's just sad.)

Weird.

Scott called me. I mean, Snapshot. From, like, two years ago.

The last time I communicated with him, it was to send condolences when a mutual friend of ours died. (Wait, he did send me that e-mail updating his address book.)

Anyway, maybe he'll know where I can get a new mugshot taken since I can't find a photo booth anywhere.

Inappropriate dress and casual attire.

Jenipher had her review at work today, and, for some reason, they talked to her about the way she dressed, everything from her "revealing" tops to the fact that she wore white shoes before Memorial Day.

They did not, however, mention the way that she dresses her damn dog, the thing I commented on yesterday.

Here's another photo, for instance, of her dog Archie in that Buckeyes jersey. (This is the one that Jenipher says is cuter.)



Dena, in the meantime, told me that she would've preferred me showing a regular photo of her dog Wally to show that he's capable of "just being handsome."



I think, if I wasn't already gay, that women who dote over dogs would've turned me off toward their whole sex.

Anyway, in regard to Jenipher's attire, I told her that she might find another job somewhere. I suggested she might enjoy something where she gets to pose on the hood of a hotrod.

OK, seriously, I put Jenipher in touch with someone who works in HR because I think her boss is confusing "inappropriate dress" with a matter of taste. You can go to Jenipher's website and see what sort of clothes she usually wears. It's not like she's on the cover of MAXIM or anything.

This is cute. Consider yourself warned.

Occasionally, Dena and Jenipher like to test me. You see, they're both dog-lovers - and not just ordinary dog-lovers. They're both of the "Treat my dog like it's my child" school of dog ownership freakishness.

This means, on occasion, they'll send me photos like this one, featuring Dena's sweet, furry, whiskered, precious, lovable dog Wally wearing reindeer antlers. (He's the non-poodle.)



Or this one, featuring Jenipher's beloved Archie in a Buckeyes jersey.



They send me these photos in the hope that they will inspire in me, I guess, a sort of "Aww, that's so pwecious" form of dog appreciation. Instead, as they've found, my reaction is usually something along the lines of ... "If you collapsed in your kitchen and died, your dog would be perfectly justified in eating your face off." Or something more succinct like ... "Die."

Dena often accuses me of being nicer to other people's dogs than I am to hers or Jenipher's. (And I hope this post clarifies that I prefer no dogs over the delicious, furry, intelligent, pretty mini-mutts called Wally and Archie.)

Once I wrote a post praising Lupo's dog, Mr. Jones, on the site, and Dena accused me of unfair favortism. I told her that Lupo knew better than to put Jonesy in a sweater, snap a photo of him with Santa and send it to me as a Christmas card.

Dena's defense is usually that furry, woofy, sweet, wittle baby Wally's photos with Santa (who usually looks annoyed when he's holding him, frankly) are really, really cute. I suppose they are, if you're one of the sickos into that kind of thing.

If I've gone too far or said too much, forgive me, but dressing dogs like people is just wrong.

Dennis the non-menace.

Glad to know Doug and Black and every other person with the misfortune to live in Birmingham survived the hurricane.

Here we've just gotten a lot of thunderstorms.

One of my customers at the bookstore this weekend told me that God's mercy has spared Atlanta from horrible, disastrous storms, and I had to argue with him that I don't think God's particularly angry at areas that get the storms. (I didn't mention the fact that our city is, you know, landlocked.)

He asked me if I believed in Jesus Christ. I said, "Sometimes."

And he got all shocked, "SOMETIMES?!!!" (For some reason there didn't seem like a way to answer the question that wouldn't shock him, since he's the one who thinks God's giving Atlanta some powerful shield against storms and misfortune.)

I said, "I'm not the person to talk to about it."

Then, luckily, he left my section.

Somewhere beyond the C-section.

Kacoon's scheduled her baby's birth for Tuesday, which means that next week we will have a brand-spanking-new Baby Coon to talk about and play with. We still don't know what Baby Coon's sex is going to be since it decided to play the Crying Game with the ultrasound photos. (Though I know it's not genetically possible, I think the baby gets that from me.)

I've not seen Kacoon in a month. She was really, really pregnant when I last saw her, so now she's probably got her own ZIP Code. From what she's written about it, though, I see that she hasn't lost her sense of humor. She says her swollen hands have developed carpal tunnel since she's entered her last trimester.

I think they've chosen to ignore all my old suggestions for the name of Baby Coon, which means that it'll stand a better chance of surviving the playground.

I love Baby Coon. This is going to rule. I mean, it's better than a new Harry Potter book. This time next week, I'll get to drive to the hospital and see a new baby, which I'll eventually get to teach sarcasm and the joys of shopping.

Things to do if you're committed to Sparkle Motion.

- The director's cut of DONNIE DARKO is playing at midnight on Friday and Saturday at the Landmark. The film, which I once centered my entire birthday party around, is a work of twisted genius. It's so much fun. My DVD copy of it is signed by its director, Richard Kelly, who's really cool. It's the breakout Jake Gyllenhaal movie. It's got a terrific cast, including performances from Noah Wyle, Drew Barrymore, Jena Malone, Mary McDonnell, Katharine Ross, Patrick Swayze, Maggie Gyllenhaal and the scene-stealing, terrific Beth Grant, who really ought to work more than she does. This is one of my favorite quirky movies ever, and it's about what you should do if a giant, time-traveling, metal-faced bunny rabbit tells you that the world's going to end. If you haven't seen it, go to the theater. You'll be quoting it to friends and puzzling over what it all means for years.
- 99X is presenting DOWNTOWN ROCKS at Underground starting this weekend, which brings us a free concert from Cake and the Stereophonics. At different points, I've thought of their songs as "my theme song." What's your theme song?
- The new HARRY POTTER book comes out in a week. A week. So that means that next Friday night-Saturday morning, I"ll be working a shift at the register of the Barnes & Noble, fighting off dozens of people as they clamor to try and find out who the Half-Blood Prince is. (Half-blood could mean a mix of Muggle and Wizard lineage, but we've already heard that it's not Voldemort. And Hermione wouldn't exactly be a "prince?" What about Snape? I have no idea.)
- Since I was sick for the majority of last weekend, I'm just looking forward to spending some time working and being less congested.



- HEIGHTS, one of Jesse Bradford's two new movies, opens in Atlanta this weekend. It's playing at the Tara. Glenn Close is also in it as someone lucky enough to seduce Jesse Bradford. According to every review I've read, it's a pretty good movie - but Glenn Close is great in it.
- Last week, while ill on the Fourth of July, I started reading Tom Perrotta's LITTLE CHILDREN, and, thus far, it's pretty good, covering much the same suburban territory as DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, only the book features a sex offender who's just moved into the cul-de-sac.
- Oh my God, AVANTI, DA VINCI! was extended until July 10, and somebody forgot to tell me! I'm adding this update at the last minute. If you haven't seen it, run to the Center for Puppetry Arts!
- FANTASTIC FOUR has opened to some pretty dismal reviews, complete with one that called Chris Evans the "generic hottie male" and Jessica Alba the "generic hottie female." I don't know why I want to see it. Oh yeah, for that scene where Evans burns his own clothes off, even though it's PG-13.
- Do your laundry.
- Check over last week's list.
- Find out if you can still fill your prescriptions.
- Stop talking to yourself.
- Reading through the beginning of THE HISTORIAN, I was surprised to find that it's all written in first-person, and the main character is never given a first name. When this literary device works, the book can become REBECCA. When it doesn't work, it can read like a choose-your-own-adventure novel. Anybody remember those? I found a G.I. JOE one among my childhood books just recently, and I've not yet tried to read it. I'm not sure if I'd have the patience anymore to hold my page while reading through both choices to see which one gets you killed. Is that technically cheating?
- Jennifer Connelly was on the radio this morning to talk about DARK WATER. Um, I completely forgot this was coming out this weekend, so I probably won't see it.
- A movie critic told Lupo, while in an interview this week, that the best movie released in the last 10 years was ELEPHANT. Now, my initial reaction, in answering the question for myself, was to say THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, but I realized that's too old. It came out in 1991. What do you feel the best film released since 1995 has been? I'm toying with a dozen, off-the-beaten-path choices, from RUN LOLA RUN to THE TRUMAN SHOW, and I can't yet narrow it down. Oh wait, Lupo just reminded me of what my pick is: BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. What do you think is the best film of the last decade?

Word from Miss Gibson.

Thankfully, Miss Gibson was not in the London bus or tube system this morning when a series of bomb blasts killed 40 people and injured about 300 more.

I arrived at work to find e-mails from her and from Lupo asking if I'd heard from her.

Her e-mail said:

Hi guys. You've probably all heard about the tube/bus
bombs in London. Luckily I had the day off and was in
bed, and so far I know, most people I know weren't in
the wrong place at the wrong time. But it obviously
doesn't bode well for the city, especially with the
Olympics coming ... Hopefully this will be one-off
and they'll find the guys who did it. Of course, the
news is speculating it's possibly al-Qaida, but right
now it's too early to say. Guess we're officially on
the terrorist hit list though.

I don't know what to think of this. I just found out about it. I'm just happy that she's all right.

Oh cool ...

Emily Giffin, the author of the really fun chick-lit books SOMETHING BORROWED and SOMETHING BLUE, is coming to my store tonight to do a signing.

Anybody wanna meet me there? It's the Barnes & Noble Buckhead, and Emily's really nice.

I sold my soul to Oprah.

This weekend, among the things I did on my "Things to Do ..." list, I actually finished AS I LAY DYING, and, to my surprise, it was really good and had a nice twist at the end.

So now, thanks to Oprah or in spite of her interference, I'm someone who's read Faulkner. And, when I finished the book, it felt pretty cool, like I'd accomplished a goal.

My movie star crush.

Yesterday, even though I was sick, I went to an advance screening of HAPPY ENDINGS and met the actor Jesse Bradford, who was in SWIMFAN and BRING IT ON. And, um, pardon me for a second, but I have this huge, huge, huge ridiculous crush on him. (Look how cute he is, though.)

Don't worry, though. Despite what you read in the post below, I behaved myself and didn't go all SWIMFAN on Jesse Bradford, even though he talked to me. And stood right next to me. And autographed one of my videos. And, with the buttons of his shirt undone, crouched closer to me and told me a secret about his next movie, which I won't be able to share until it appears in the trades.

HAPPY ENDINGS is the new Don Roos movie. Don Roos is the guy who did THE OPPOSITE OF SEX, which had the brilliant Lisa Kudrow and Christina Ricci in it and totally rocked, and BOUNCE, which had Gwyneth Paltrow and that dumbass Ben Affleck in it and may be the only movie that left its key, central, pivotal, plot-changing scene on the cutting room floor.

Bradford is one of about a dozen stars who appear in the movie, which is one of those ensemble, everyone's-connected-in-some-weird way movies like NASHVILLE, MAGNOLIA or CRASH. The movie's pretty good, and Lisa Kudrow, Bradford and Maggie Gyllenhaal are really, really good in it. Oh, and it's got Christopher from GILMORE GIRLS in it (and he's playing gay!), but he doesn't ever get naked - so I didn't get to fulfill my WB wet dream.

Anyway, after the movie, Bradford (who I'm not calling "Jesse" ... it's not like I know him) came down the aisle past me, sat next to my friend Jim the theater manager (who got me in after I confessed my crush) and took part in a 20-minute Q&A. I asked the third question, I think, though my voice was severely jacked up from the head cold I've had all weekend. I told Bradford he was a great actor, mentioned Soderbergh's KING OF THE HILL to him (which he starred in when he was 13) and then asked him who he'd worked with that impressed him.

Bradford mentioned working twice with Adrien Brody. He also said he was impressed by Jason Ritter, who's John Ritter's son and also in HAPPY ENDINGS. And he said his favorite director to work with was James Ivory, who made A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER NEVER CRIES with him.

Someone asked him about Soderbergh and Spalding Gray, but he mentioned barely being able to remember KING OF THE HILL. Then, he said he was too young when he made that movie and that it was like watching old footage of yourself in Little League.

At that, of course, I held up my VHS copy that I'd brought with me - like a complete dork, and he saw it.

"There it is ... There it is ...," Jesse Bradford said to me. "Hold it up, and show it to the rest of the class."

So I held up my video, and the remaining audience turned toward me for a second.

Then, Bradford said with mild sarcasm into the microphone, "I have a feeling I'll be signing that in about 10 minutes ..."

"Sorry," I said out of habit.

"No, no, it's fine," he said. He was so completely cool. One guy in the next row asked me to hand over the video for a second so that he could see it.

Later, he talked about the other movie he's got coming out this summer, HEIGHTS, which opens at the Tara on Friday. In it, he apparently gets seduced by Glenn Close.

The Q&A ended - shortly after he admitted he had a girlfriend, incidentally - and I walked my video down to Bradford, who was walking toward me and the only other guy asking for an autograph.

"You really don't have to if you don't want ...," I said to him.

"No, it's completely cool," he said. "I want to sign it for you. What's your name?"

"Benjamin," I said.

"Um, mind if I put 'Ben?'" he asked.

"No," I said.

And, of course, my gel pen didn't immediately work against the video's glossy case. So he signed the other guy's notebook, then turned back toward me.

"It doesn't look like it's gonna work," he said.

"Sign it here," I said, pulling the video out of the box and showing him the white label tape underneath it.

So he signed it there, drawing a little peace sign on the video label next to his name.

Then, of course, he closed the box and then tried to sign the box again. So he gave me, like, three autographs. I felt like a schoolgirl.

In the meantime, of course, I asked him again about his next movie, which he couldn't tell the Q&A group because he said he didn't want to tell the whole group. He said he'd get into trouble. He only mentioned for them that it was a "war movie."

I asked him, when he was talking with me, if he'd gotten a part in Tarantino's long-planned WWII movie INGLORIOUS BASTARDS. When I mentioned the title, Bradford said he didn't even know what that was.

Then Bradford whispered to me and the other guy getting an autograph what his next movie, the "war movie" is. And it is big. Pretty damn big. And he has one of the leads.

So I told him, "Congratulations." And I said thank you. And I walked down the aisle toward Jim.

Jim asked me, "So, are you dying?"

I stood next to Jim and said, "Omigod, omigod, omigod ... he talked to me. He's so, so cute. And really nice."

Jim said, "Yeah, he's really nice. No ego at all."

And then I went home and went crazy, not about this, though.

Anyway, the video is wrapped in a newspaper in my car. I didn't want to endanger it by walking it to my apartment. It was raining, after all.

Why I bother.

What exactly happens to me when I have a panic attack - and I've had them since was a teen, at least - is hard to pinpoint and hard to describe. I've tried to reason it in and out of therapy a million times. It can't just be that I get the urge to call someone a dozen times too many. It can't just be that I'm trying to bother someone. It can't just be that I'm in the mood to be all dramatic and mess up my friendships.

Something usually happens that disrupts me. Like I'm feeling sick, or someone doesn't return a phone call. Or someone says something a certain way to me, like they say goodbye to me at the beginning of a 20-minute drive home, and it just sets me off to worry or wonder what's wrong or fret and talk about it or fret and sulk or fret and lash out or just fret and fret some more.

Then, all my fears hit me, the reasonable and the unreasonable and the worst-case scenarios, and the loneliness surrounds me. And I want to talk to someone about it, feel safe about it, but I can't seem to reach anyone. Friends aren't available. The therapist's only got voicemail.

Even sometimes when I rationally *know* everything's fine, something *feels* wrong. If I reach someone, and they ask me what's wrong, I'll tell them, "Nothing, really." Which is true. And they'll wonder why I called. I called because, for a moment or for a day, I don't feel safe or I don't feel secure. And I know I should know better than to bug someone. The tiny, little slight that caused my freakout is tiny and little, but everything - for a minute or for longer - feels just doomed.

And I sit on my couch, and I've been sitting there for 20 minutes, not moving. Or I start to talk aloud to myself. Or I sit in my parked car for longer than I should, perplexed and unable to move forward at all. I list in my head all the people who I could talk to, and none of them are available or none of them want to hear my bullshit. Because it really all just is bullshit, I think. I *know* it's minor, even though it *feels* major, and I come off like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. I *know* it's minor, but I can't stop feeling the panic, anyway. That makes it even more frustrating.

I'm diagnosed as obsessive, which I wish meant that I kept a cleaner apartment. I don't obsess about germs. I obsess about people, where I stand with them or if I'm liked or how I seem. I have *safe* friendships, friendships that I feel secure in or friendships that I trust and don't worry about. These friendships don't usually cause me to make a dozen, panicked phone calls, which I am occasionally prone to do, but these friendships are the ones that I can turn to when I just need to calm down. I've not learned yet just to go to sleep when I have a panic attack or am unreasonably depressed about someone. If they happen in the early evening, I'm stubborn and don't want to sleep, thinking that maybe someone who can help me (and that changes, based upon situation) will just call. If they happen late, I think that I can figure out what's wrong and, to some degree, "solve it."

Usually, though, I just have to be by myself and relax a bit and wait out the paranoiac worry, wait for my brain to regain its reasoning. I always think it'd be easier if I could just hold someone's hand during it, but that's not the best course of action.

I've been off my pills, which don't stop the panic attacks but do stop me from being so antsy or edgy, for over four months. I don't like being on my pills. Last night, I thought I might need them again. I think I maybe do.

What caused the panic last night was that I feel I've lost a friendship. I feel almost certain that it's changed, that it's gone and that it's all my fault. There is no evidence to suggest that things have changed or ended, in fact there's evidence to the contrary, but I feel like I've tested too many boundaries or become entirely too unreasonable. Last night, the conflict in my head culminated with me intentionally having to lose some people's phone numbers so that I wouldn't call them too much ever again. Not that it should matter to me, even though it does, I don't think they want to hear from me, anyway.

In a panic, things happen suddenly. Moods change quickly. My manners go out the window. My tact disappears. I'm at the mercy of whomever I'm on the phone with or in front of or trying desperately to impress, and I don't have complete control over where my mind goes.

There are differences between what I *know* and how I *feel.* People who think I'm too smart to do the stupid things I occasionally do maybe don't fathom the level of disconnect that goes on between my reason and my emotions.

I worry. I worry and worry and worry. And I get frustrated. And I yell at people or yell at myself. (When I was much, much younger, I would freak out, cry and beat myself with my fists upside the head. One time, my mother had to hold me still because I was inconsolable, screaming about how I didn't trust "the future." I've gotten more disciplined and controlled since then. Trust that I'm much better nowadays.)

It's hard for me to understand the "drama," as people sometimes call it that. That makes it sound like I'm faking it or embellishing it. I basque, sometimes, in having a story to tell, and I know that. But when I've worked myself into some kind of unnecessary frenzy that I know is beyond reason, the "drama" is not fun for me. The feelings are real. The worry is real. I feel the tension in my shoulders or the pit in my stomach. Knowing I'm being completely ridiculous - yet not being able to completely quiet the fears in my head - is not fun.

The minor causes of my latest freakout have been mostly clarified. Things like that just happen. As I said, I rested on it, and things looked better in the morning. I've taken the necessary precautions to establish better boundaries between me and my friends, after worrying over it for a couple days and, worse, spending a rainy Fourth ill and in the company of my mother. And it would be better for me if I naturally knew just to *do* something, without narrating that I'm doing it. But I don't always work things out the way I should.

Once the panic's over and I'm done being embarrassed about it, that's when I usually can be better off by myself. Right now, it still kinda feels like I'm trying to explain myself or that I'm making dumb excuses for behaving like an ass.

It's odd. A couple weeks ago, the things that bugged me weren't even factors in my existence. A couple weeks from now, my panic attack will probably just strike me as really silly.

This is how it always happens.

Photo booth search.

Anybody know where I can find one of those old photo booths in and around Atlanta? You know, the kind you can sit in, pose and it'll spit out your photos in a couple minutes? (The kind where they actually use instant film, as well, would be preferable to the new, digital ones you can find at a mall.)

They had passport photo booths all around London. I can't find one in Atlanta.

They used to have one of those booths at Junkman's Daughter's Brother in Athens. I don't know if Junkman's Daughter in Five Points also has one.

Can someone please help me find one? I want photos like the one above, taken of my friend CK in London.

Fixing the glitch.

If this works, then my friend Hoppe over at Sky Corgan fixed the glitch.

Yay, he did it!!!! Yay!!!

For the new "Things to Do ...," just look down.

The glitch is ongoing.

Things to do while Morgan Freeman narrates.

- Apparently, we're deep within the Golden Age of Morgan Freeman at the movies this summer. Not only has he already appeared in two films since May, UNLEASHED and the superior BATMAN BEGINS, he's also providing voiceover narration for two more movies set to hit theaters, Steven Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS and the cute-looking, MILO & OTIS-ish MARCH OF THE PENGUINS. (Plus, he did the overarching narration and won an Oscar for MILLION DOLLAR BABY, which is coming out on DVD in a couple weeks. And let's not forget THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION ... ) Now, with movies, I'm of the mind that narration is usually a bad thing. A very bad thing. I mean, according to ADAPTATION, voiceover narration is a sign of sloppy storytelling. I like Morgan Freeman's voice and all - resonant and knowing as it seems, but does he have to narrate everything? I feel we're one step away from having Freeman hired to follow a guy around, telling the story of his life as the guy goes through it. (I told Lupo that, for a laugh, he should hire Freeman to come in and narrate my life while I'm on my deathbed. I think it would be funny.) Frankly, I prefer James Earl Jones, anyway.
- Meanwhile, Stephen and I saw WAR OF THE WORLDS yesterday, and I thought it was just terrible. Not as bad as THE VILLAGE, but damn close. Of course, Lupo saw it and liked parts of it - until its disastrous mistake of an ending. See HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE at the Tara instead. (This week's Plugola scandal is brought to you by me ...)
- Jenipher recommended this ridiculous MTV reality show to me called MY SUPER SWEET 16, and I went to the website for it and found it to be everything she described. "It's bad," Jenipher told me. "You want to kill these kids, but you can't stop watching." Cameras follow around a ridiculously rich, spoiled rotten teen as the kid plans the birthday party to end all birthday parties. I didn't think that the premise would be enough to carry an entire show, but then I read the summary of a recent episode, featuring some rapper named Cee-Lo's daughter. Get this: A diva like Sierra can't pass out invitations the normal way either. She has hired a group of people to dress all in white, drive around in a limo and hand-deliver each invite, complete with a miniature Louis Vuitton cake and a speech. Sierra instructs them to let everyone know that if they show up without a present or money, they won't be allowed into the party. Jenipher says the show is worse than the newest REAL WORLD. On a related note, I was so happy when, at 25, I became too old for MTV's target demographic.



- I saw MYSTERIOUS SKIN at the Landmark with Brad this week, and it was fantastic, the best movie I've seen since OLDBOY. It was well-acted, well-directed and well-written, which is saying something if you've seen the other, horrid films of Gregg Araki. MYSTERIOUS SKIN, though, is also a completely unnerving and occasionally hard-to-take look at childhood sexual abuse, so it might be a little too much for some people. (Miss Gibson, fearing that it would evoke some memory of trauma in me, warned me about the movie, bless her. But, thankfully, I was fine during it.) Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a child actor I remember from the DARK SHADOWS remake who found more of a following in 3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN, gives a fantastic performance as a teen hustler named Neil, whose dark childhood has framed the way he addresses his entire life. Brad tells me that the book by Scott Heim is really good, too, which doesn't surprise me. Araki's usually no genius, but he made a genius movie. I'm thinking it's because of the source material.
- For the Fourth of July, watch your favorite patriotic movie. Maybe a Capra movie. Say the Pledge of Allegiance. Write a congressman.
- The new sci-fi novel THE TRAVELER came out this week, and it sounds interesting, though sci-fi isn't really my thing. The author is a guy named John Twelve Hawks or something, which for some reason strikes me as funny, even though he's probably just a Native American.
- Do the usual chores.
- Finish that damn book you're reading, and start a new one.
- Chris and Michael are running the Peachtree Road Race on Monday morning. Go to their blogs, and wish them luck.
- Write Oprah to tell her to get over herself and the whole Hermes thing, for, whether they should've let her shop in Paris or not, the store was technically closed when she came by. And, frankly, there are bigger things going on.
- See PEACHTREE BATTLE at the Ansley Park Playhouse. Everyone else in Atlanta already has. If there's any justice, AVANTI, DA VINCI! is sold out. But, if it's not, go see it.
- If the formatting on the screwed-up blog allows you to, check last week's list.
- "Catch My Disease," the fourth track on the new Ben Lee album, "Awake is the New Sleep," is so infectious happy that it makes me clap and sing in my car when I really ought to be driving. It reminds me of '80s New Wave and just makes me want to roller skate. There's even a line in it about loving someone "like fireworks." You should try it.
- So, did anyone see BEWITCHED or that dumb HERBIE movie yet? Yeah, me neither. If you ask me, it's no wonder that the box office for the year is in a slump, though THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST's success last year was particularly unmatchable this year. Most of the mainstream cinema this year just sucks. Mark my words, the slump isn't going to end for weeks.
- Finally, Terry McMillan's husband, the one who inspired her to write HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK, is gay, according to reports on their pending divorce. How very Carrie Fisher. Thus, if movies were real life (as hypothesized by the folks at The Black Saint), a guy who looks like Taye Diggs would also be gay. And that would be a good thing.
- I wanted to see the upcoming Keira Knightley movie DOMINO, where she stars as a fashion model-turned-bounty hunter, before the real-life Domino Harvey died in a bathtub this week. But now that the real Domino has died under odd circumstances, I must admit I'm dying to see the film. It comes out in November, though.

Still crazy after all these days. (See below.)

We're still working on the glitch, which Blogger has already sent me an apology over. I hope that some of you are still reading, in spite of the white space separating the title from the rest of the text.

I miss the discussions we've had on here lately, and I've missed the opportunity to gab endlessly about what books I'm reading and just what's wrong with my personal life.

Trust me. I have every inclination that this glitch is going to end soon, and then we can get back to the usual stuff.

Damn it. (See below.)

It's Sunday night, and the glitch isn't fixed. We're going to do something completely different instead.

I love my template, though. I hate this.

Nightmares of Henny Penny. (See below.)

The following exchange just occurred between me and Jenipher:

RILEY: Have you seen the preview for CHICKEN LITTLE, complete with the dance number, yet?
JENIPHER: No ... I heard there was a CHICKEN LITTLE movie coming out, though ... I’m scared of Chicken Little and Henny Penny ... I don’t think I’ll see it.
RILEY: The ad looks really really funny. And, um, why would Chicken Little and Henny Penny scare you?
JENIPHER: They scared me when I was little ... I used to have recurring nightmares about a giant Henny Penny coming in my room ... it was from a read-along record I had.
RILEY: Um, I'm sitting here at my desk, laughing at you.
JENIPHER: I know ... it’s totally stupid. I can’t believe I never told you about it ... I even mentioned it in my college entrance essay.
RILEY: How did you manage to work your recurring nightmare about a giant Henny Penny into your college admissions essay? No, wait, that question deserves its own film.
JENIPHER: The subject was childhood fears. And, excuse me, but I was accepted at every school I applied to. UGA was the only one I could afford.

Later ...

JENIPHER: Arrrrrgh! Look what I just found on Ebay. This is the exact record I had. WHY are they selling it for $9.99? That’s a rip-off! Anyway, Henny Penny wore this pink sweater when she would come in my room at night. And she was huge…like, I had to jump over her to get out of the room. Then I would hide in our pink bathroom (the one with the Sears & Roebuck catalog print wallpaper). Believe me or not, I’m telling you she was there.

Look down the page.

There are errors on the site coding we're trying to figure out. In the meantime, to read the latest post, look all the way past the sidebar on the blog. Thanks.

Things to do if you love (or hate) a parade.

- It's Pride weekend, and it's going to be hot. Damn hot. Beyond damn hot. Or, at least, it usually is. Even when it rains and gets so humid that you feel like you're going to die. If you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, bicurious, straight-but-not-narrow or intending to protest in the name of "saving the American family" while carrying around posters and the Bible, bring lots of sunscreen when you head toward Piedmont Park. Lots. (Just don't put any on your forehead, or it will get into your eyes when you sweat. And then all the people think you're either having a stroke or winking at them. And, except in the case of gym-bodied hotties with surprisingly large bank accounts, usually the attention you'll warrant from that is not the kind you'd like.) Bring earplugs for when you walk by Outwrite or Blake's, because, girl, the music is loud. And bring lots of money, for those bottles of water are expensive. And wear an ironic T-shirt, if you're going to wear a shirt at all, and comfortable shoes. And bring condoms from home, for the free ones they give you are usually flimsy and not the best lubricated. Try not to laugh at anyone wearing a visor. Or anyone sweating in black leather in the middle of June. Or at any of the bare-chested lesbians. If you're from out of town and/or really young, you'll probably enjoy Pride more than if you're local and, um, not new at this, and that's the way it's supposed to be, I think. Have as much fun as possible. Be safe. Be nice. Don't be too bitter. Go to the parade. Hold hands with a boy, if you've got one. (Or girl, if that applies.) Say hello to a friend of yours who's working a booth, for they're stuck there. Try not to get on too many mailing lists, for those people at the ACLU are relentless with their mailouts. And try to remember people's names if you see them naked.
- Lucas Miré is playing at Pride on Saturday. He's part of the QueerStock block on the QTV stage, and he goes on at 6 p.m. sharp. You should go see him perform. I like Lucas. He's nice.
- Write your senator to tell them that you vehemently oppose any flag-burning amendment, like the one that just passed through the House of Representatives. Mention the First Amendment. Quote Michael Douglas in THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT if you have to. (Or Thomas Jefferson, if you prefer actual history to Hollywood's Capraesque movies.) The flag is a symbol of our freedoms, but a symbol should not be more important that the freedoms it represents. Burning the flag remains a valid, legal way of showing you're unhappy with things. Though I clearly don't support jingoism masked as patriotism, I would not burn a flag myself because I respect what it represents. Still, I don't want to have the law mandate that no one can protest in such a manner.



- My friend Stephen at the Tara really, really wants you to go see Miyazaki's new film HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE, and every one of my friends who's seen it tells me that it's excellent and easier to understand than other Miyazaki films. I intend to see HOWL myself this weekend. I don't want to be the only one. Meet me at the Tara on Sunday night, if you want, or go to the Tara some other time this weekend and catch it. It's animated. Disney brought it over from Japan. People like it. See it. See it. See it.
- If you're looking for a goofy, light read, Lupo recommends the new Nancy Drew tell-all CONFESSIONS OF A TEEN SLEUTH, which contains shocking secrets about her extramarital affair with one of the Hardy Boys and lots of dish about the Bobbsey Twins and such. Apparently, Carolyn Keene, the writer of the original NANCY DREW books, was the real Nancy's pudgy, jealous roommate at Bryn Mawr, and her versions of Nancy's real stories got a lot wrong. The new book clarifies things.
- Ex-Klansman Edgar Ray Killen was just given 60 years for murdering three civil rights workers in 1964. To learn more about the case, watch MISSISSIPPI BURNING.
- As I've mentioned before, the Center for Puppetry Arts is continuing its hit show AVANTI, DA VINCI! for a couple weeks, and you can get your tickets on their website. (Hey, Sydney, I mentioned your site again. Isn't it fun how I manage to always mention it? I'm not the least bit subtle about it, either. Isn't that great? AVANTI, DA VINCI! was really great, by the way. Thanks again.)
- MY SUMMER OF LOVE, which looks like a lesbian romance-turned-psycho thriller, is playing at the Landmark. Since it's Pride weekend, go see it. Pssst, some lesbian couples I know are totally like this. They're all in love and moving in together one minute. Then, the next minute, someone's slept with someone else or stolen somebody's money or flirted with someone new on the Internet or one of the cats dies, and it's like FATAL ATTRACTION starring Anne Heche. Yikes ... (My friend Beth, who's sane, nice, smart and beautiful, probably wouldn't like that I just wrote that, considering that I can be just as psycho crazy, but it's Pride weekend - so I reserve the right to tell mean, horrible lesbian jokes.) If you're not into lesbians or Aishwarya Rai, you could go see MYSTERIOUS SKIN at the Landmark, too.
- Jeffrey Deaver, who writes the Lincoln Rhyme books - like THE BONE COLLECTOR, will be doing a signing at the Margaret Mitchell House on June 28. His new book is THE TWELFTH CARD.
- Flirt with someone. Shamelessly. For an example, see below.
- Do your chores.
- Fixate on some issue until you sound atypically politically minded and angry.
- Finish all that stuff from last week's list.
- I got the Pride photo from this guy Brandon's website. I don't know who he is, but I think he's cute. I found the Pride photo through a random Google search, and he's got a good portfolio. Maybe he won't get mad at me for using the photo if I link to his site. For the heck of it, let's all go to his website, then see if he notices. I'm probably violating copyright, but maybe he's a good sport. Who knows? I e-mailed him for permission. He's cool with it. And he's in town this weekend.
- The American Film Institute just released its "100 Years ... 100 Movie Quotes" list, and GONE WITH THE WIND's "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" is at the top of it. What's your favorite movie quote? Post it in the comments below, citing the movie. My favorite, underrated movie quote comes from Hannibal Lecter in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, when he's talking about his patient Benjamin Raspell's murder: "Best thing for him, really. His therapy was going nowhere."
- Meanwhile, has anyone ever actually read GONE WITH THE WIND?
- Finally, instead of watching a good movie you've never seen before (like last week), go all MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 on a really, really awful movie, like SHOWGIRLS, CROSSROADS, THE TRANSPORTER , ANYTHING ELSE or anything else. If you're watching SHOWGIRLS, please memorize the exact, acrobatic movements of Elizabeth Berkeley during the whiplash pool sex scene, then go into a restaurant and recreate them yourself. People will think that you're either imitating a dolphin on crack or that you're having a seizure.

Mental note. See below.

Save your dramatic tone in phone calls to friends for emergencies other than "Oh my God, my blog's screwed up." Because there's something wrong with that.

Hey Leonardo.

So Edmondson and I just left the opening night of AVANTI, DA VINCI! at the Center for Puppetry Arts, and, I will admit it, I didn't know what to expect from the show. It was well-reviewed by better critics than me last year, so I figured it would be fun. But everything I've seen at the Center since Puppetgate has been experimental and a little off-the-wall.

Frankly, I didn't know if I'd see a show that reminded me of the puppet shows of my youth ever again. You know, something like THE MUPPET SHOW. Or, hell, something where the puppeteers remained completely out-of-sight.

I was telling Edmondson earlier that I probably first went to the Center when I was in elementary school. He'd never been before tonight. That's what happens when you spend your childhood out of Atlanta. You miss out on the best field trips. Like Zoo Atlanta when Willie B. was alive ... and you didn't notice the smell. Or the Alliance Theatre when Tom Key starred in everything. Or the narrated constellation exhibit at the old Fernbank, before they got dinosaurs and martinis. Or the Human Body exhibit at the High Museum, complete with the ear that you could ride. Or the laser show at Stone Mountain, when they played "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." Or the Cyclorama before you were old enough to notice that the turntable seats weren't the coolest thing on Earth and that the figurines weren't creepy.

Damn it, Edmondson just said that, at his elementary school on the U.S. military base in Germany, they went on a field trip to Vienna. Oh, and then there was that time he was a hostage in that Tehran hotel when he was, like, 4. So his field trips, I guess, beat the crap out of the Cyclorama.

Anyway, so we saw AVANTI, DA VINCI!, and it was hilarious. And there were five different stages all at once. And it was like THE DA VINCI CODE meets the cheesy, Joel Schumacher take on BATMAN (except it was cool). And there was sex. Lots and lots of kinky puppet sex. Incestuous sex. Wicked bondage sex. Sex with animals. Sex with a giant snake.

So now we're sitting at a Buckhead sidewalk cafe, discussing the show while people discuss other things all around us on their cell phones. (One Mexican man is picking up some random woman on Lavalife, methinks, wooing her with talk of three-ways with his wife. And another guy is talking about how BATMAN BEGINS is about George W. Bush. Seriously. I wish I was at a Parisian café instead. That way, if the conversation were still stupid, I wouldn't be able to understand it. My French isn't good.)

Edmondson just said he doesn't want to be quoted. So instead, I'll just say that he laughed a lot during the show. And, at one point, the show's blacklight made Edmondson's shirt glow blue during one of the dungeon scenes.

Anyway, so the plot of AVANTI, DA VINCI! lets for the show to be informative, creative and ridiculous, all at the same time.

During his life, the show supposes, artist-scientist-artisan-playwright Leonardo da Vinci also took time off from studying and writing everything down to save Florence from the forces of evil as masked super-hero Renaissance Man!

Da Vinci's primary foes are the Borgia family in Rome, including the slutty Lucretia Borgia, her brother Cesare, and her father, the Pope. Leonardo has to save his favorite actress, Mona Lisa, from perpetual kidnappers and the dungeon in the Vatican.

The music is good. The story is mostly lively. Even though there are some slow parts, the show never feels bogged down. And there's always something new or interesting to see.

Fighting evil allows Da Vinci to fly, drive the DaVinciMobile, take out enemy ships, and perform BMX stunts.

Da Vinci's actual blueprints and inventions make for some excellent puppet models, which allow the show to be both beautiful and really, really funny at the same time.

But the best part of AVANTI, DA VINCI! to me was that it creates its own world, a world with an entirely different set of rules, and it brings its audience into that world. You get lost in it enough to eventually forget that it's a puppet show. You see only characters. The puppeteers remain out of sight. The show's focus is its story. And, because of that, it just becomes fun, entirely convincing theater.

For me, it was like when Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy were alive, not just felt designed by really brilliant artists.

It's a puppet show that made me feel like a little kid - while, at the same time, it kept me alert with tons of dirty jokes.

AVANTI, DA VINCI!, aside from being visually amazing and incredibly clever, just wants to entertain. And that's a great thing.

Oh wait, there was just a car accident on Peachtree in front of us. God, I wish I was in Paris.

______

Edmondson helped me by posting this from his house after we left the scene of the accident. Thanks to Sydney for the tickets to the show, and thanks to Edmondson for being Statler to my Waldorf.

Experiments in butter creme.

These are (admittedly dark) photos of the fantastic black forest layer cake that David Marshall made for me for my birthday.

It was anointed with 29 miniature sparklers, rather than candles, so it almost exploded. But, dear God, it was beautiful. And delicious.

It had chocolate, butter-creme icing. In between each layer was more icing and cherries, and the edge of the cake had more icing and a chocolate candy shell.

Help wanted.

I'm seeing AVANTI, DA VINCI! tonight, and I've got a spare ticket.

I wanted to do another back-and-forth blog entry about it, like I did with THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, but Brad's unavailable.

So sorry for the short notice, but anyone wanna be Statler to my Waldorf?

My Blimpie Bollywood birthday.

Mom and I went to lunch at a Cajun restaurant. Then, afterward, she wanted to break a $20 bill, so we walked down to Blimpie.

Now, Riyaz owns Blimpie, and he and his wife Feroza know me. I eat there practically everyday, which my mom knows. So she tells them, while she's ordering two brownies so that we can break the $20, that it's my birthday.

So Riyaz insists that the brownies should be free. And then, because he didn't know we'd just eaten, he offered me a free sandwich. And so, of course, I said, "No need. She needs to break the $20." But Riyaz starts bagging up the desserts, saying that it would be his pleasure because I eat there all the time and they love me.

Meanwhile, Feroza asks my mom how old I am. And my mother tells her 29, then says there will be black balloons and such next year.

So Feroza says, rejoicing like an Indian grandmother, "Oh, next year, he should be married! It's time for him to settle down!!! Next year, he'll have a wife!!!"

My mom's eyes got huge, and her face turned red. She confessed to me later that she held herself back from asking Feroza if I'd marry a man or a woman.

Riyaz insisted that the brownies be free, but he broke my mom's $20 anyway.

Then, as we got into the car, my mom just cracked up, then she went on about how nice Riyaz and Feroza are.

"So they don't know you're gay," she asserted. "That's really sweet."

"Well, there's never been an opportunity to tell them," I said. "Usually I just order a sandwich. You'd think they'd know, though. Every day, I go there. They change the channel on the TV, and they let me watch DAYS OF OUR LIVES."

It was like a Bollywood spectacle at the Blimpie. Riyaz and Feroza are fantastic.

And there ain't no nothing we can't love each other through.

So it's my birthday, and it's been eventful. And it's only going to get busier. And busy is something I'm happy to be today.

Yesterday, when my friend Kim asked me how old I was going to be, I told her 29. Then, she asked me if it was my first time turning 29. I confirmed that it was.

My friend Marianne from writing class has e-mailed me to tell me that life only gets better, that your worth only grows and that the thing to do is to have fun with your time.

Lindsay, of course, was the first birthday e-mail that I received this morning, and it was terrific to hear from her. I also received birthday notes from Lupo, Christina, Marley and others. (Sorry if I don't name you. Writing this is like writing an Oscar speech for Hilary Swank.)

Miss Gibson and I waxed philosophical about approaching 30, and that led me to tell her that you can't find enlightenment while you're seeking it. It's something that's achieved probably while you're doing something else with your time.

Meanwhile, E! Online wrote me to tell me that an array of celebrities, including Gay Matt from MELROSE PLACE, Prince William and Juliette Lewis, share my birthday.

Then, they also let it be known that both Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter turn 58 today. So Mom and Dad Keaton from FAMILY TIES were born on the exact same day, which is just creepy. I thought it was just because they were acid-dropping former hippies living in Columbus, Ohio, but, no, this birthday twist is mystically weird. No wonder Mallory came off as so retarded, while Jennifer seemed like the "quiet girl" most likely to slaughter campers in their sleep. At least Alex made Republicans seem attractive. No, wait, that's even creepier. There was something wrong with that family.

Repeat after me, it was just a TV show. It was just a TV show.

Lacking Pride.

I'm not going to the parade this year. Or to the park. I'm going to do my best to avoid the bars, too. (It was cool on Saturday. I went into three gay bars this weekend with the general idea that I wouldn't stick around any of them if I didn't run into anybody I knew. I didn't see anybody I knew, so I didn't end up drinking alone, like that time at Christmas Eve. I got done with the whole barhopping trek in an hour, and I headed home, worked on my resume and read Faulkner. It was spectacularly efficient.)

I'm scheduled to work at the bookstore during a lot of next weekend's rainbow-colored madness, and I don't think I'll be missing much. I think the Indigo Girls are playing. Oh well.

Is anyone actually "into" Pride anymore?

Smiles of a summer night.

It takes work for me to be happy. And I want to be happy. So I'm going to have to work.

Saturday was a good night for me. I wrote a two-page resume that included everything I wanted to include, but it's two pages.

And I talked to a nice man, someone browsing in my store who asked me for THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, which is the quickest way to my heart.

Things to do if you're into redneck people-watching.

- Apparently, some days during the week, you can head down to the Alliance Theater and attend tapings of Jeff Foxworthy's BLUE COLLAR TV. I was tempted to take Brad with me to criticize the show existential-puppet-style, but I'm scared that, if I ask him, I'll sound like I've actually seen an episode or that I want to actually see this. I just thought it would be fun to do. You know, break out the overalls, borrow somebody's pickup truck and enjoy good Waffle House humor. (My friend Dena admits she goes to tractor pulls and monster-truck shows. But she says she goes for the people-watching. I figure attending a BLUE COLLAR TV taping is like that.)
- BATMAN BEGINS, which is really excellent, is playing at the Mall of Georgia on IMAX, and it's completely worth a trip down. The experience is amazing. Whenever the tank-style Batmobile rolls on the screen, the seats in the theater shake. Oh, and Christian Bale is gorgeous. The cast features two Oscar winners, three other Oscar nominees, Gary Oldman and Cillian Murphy. And, years from now, you'll want to remember this film as the one that promising actress Katie Holmes did right before her entire life was hit with a publicity-stunt disaster that ruined everything.
- My 29th birthday's on Tuesday. My friends are going to spend some time with me for that, which will be fun. Of course, I've been really, really moody and mean this week, so I don't know how that will turn out. It's probably better if I don't think about it. It's bummed me out far more than I thought it would. (I'm never actually going to lie about my age, by the way. I just thought things would be different by now.) On the bright side, this is not a big deal.
- I should watch CITIZEN KANE again. It's something you should do once every two years, at least, and it's a good movie to help you re-examine priorities.
- Last week's HONEYMOONERS diatribe is nothing compared to the movie I have to bitch about this week. This week, Hollywood sees fit to give us THE PERFECT MAN, where an idealistic, sunny woman who looks like Heather Locklear can't find a good man to date. Um, you know what my complaint is, probably, without me even having to say it. But, if someone who looks like Heather Locklear can't find a date, what on Earth does this say about the rest of us? (I realize the movie argues that she can't find a good man, but it's still a movie where Heather Locklear can't find a date. That's worse than the time Hollywood tried to tell us that Rachael Leigh Cook was ugly.) Beyond that, the movie has Hilary Duff in it. Box office numbers are reportedly down for the year. With films like this, I'm surprised audiences don't burst from the doors of the theater, screaming in fear.
- In celebration of the Michael Jackson verdict, read Tom Perrotta's LITTLE CHILDREN, or take a trip to Chuck E. Cheese. Skee-ball still rocks.
- Janet Evanovich's new Stephanie Plum book, ELEVEN ON TOP, comes out on Tuesday. So, if you've hypothetically screamed at your mother this week about how unhappy you are at your job or something, you may want to get it for her because that series always makes her laugh out loud.
- Speaking of the puppets, the Center for Puppetry Arts is opening up a second run of one of its most popular shows beginning Tuesday. It's called AVANTI, DA VINCI!, and the reviews from the original run were really, really good. The show's supposed to be hilarious, and I'm seeing it next week. It's got Leonardo DaVinci as a Batman-style superhero, fighting for "truth, justice and the Italian way."
- Pride is coming next week. Brace yourself.
- Do the usual chores.
- Check last week's list.
- The weather's been really nice lately. Go outside. Go swimming.
- ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW is the closing night film for the Atlanta Film Festival on Saturday, and reviews for it have been really, really good.
- Listen to a CD from a favorite band that you discovered in college, like Soul Coughing. Former lead singer Mike Doughty's new solo album is fun, anyway.
- Finally, watch a movie that you should've seen before now, but, for whatever reason, you've never watched it. I've never seen SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. My friend Edmondson's never seen THE GODFATHER. Everybody has a movie like that. Watch one of them this week.

The complicated way of doing nothing.

I regret that I've been mean and pissy to anyone who tried to help me with job suggestions or with questions about how I might narrow my job search. My resume, for five years, has existed somewhere between "weak" and "hypothetical." I have tremendous skepticism that I'll find any work that actually resembles anything that I'd actually want to do. (I asked a guy for advice on how to find a job today, and he told me that it required insider friends and luck and then said, "Oh yeah, I'd be lucky to work there myself.")

Everyone agrees with me that it's time for me to move on. Larry said "Headhunters." Someone else asked me, "What do you want to do with your life?" I treated that question with unnecessary derision.

I've spent the last five years asking people for minor information, sitting in a cube on the phone or looking at the Internet. I feel trapped, like there's no way out.

"Apply for a job you would really like. Do something."

I don't know if such work exists.

Bat anyway.

BATMAN BEGINS is supposed to be completely awesome. I totally want to see it. I even e-mailed Hennessy about it because Batman is, like, his thing.

And Christian Bale is hot.

What I want.

I want to have enough money to not worry about it. I don't want to work seven days a week. I want to have vacation time and be able to take it without fear about how it will affect my "scorecard" or my "overall quality rating" or my "meets expectations" notation. I want to be able to shop for something about $50 without having to worry if I'm going to break the bank. I want to save money. I want to fix the brakes on my car before I get into an accident or just get a new car. I want to be able to renew my license and my tag on the same paycheck without worry. If someone asks me about exercise or a gym membership, I don't want to say either "I don't have the money" or "I don't have the time" and seriously mean it. I want American Express to stop calling me. I want to be able to get a phone line at my apartment so that I can use the Internet. I want to go back to London someday, and I don't want my mom to pay for it. I want to be able to travel to Ohio for my family reunion and be able to pay for it. I want to visit Jenipher and be able to pay for it. I want to visit Marley and be able to pay for it. I want to pay Larry back the money I owe him. I want to pay Black back the money I owe him. I want a refrigerator that doesn't freeze milk, or I want to be able to call the super and know that he's going to replace it, rather than just put me off with another useless service visit that doesn't fix the problem. I want my mom to stop asking me about whether I had the refrigerator fixed, for only Ash knows that I called them five times about it during our three-month relationship. I want to go to Phipps and do more than just browse. I want to stop deferring payments on my student loan. I want to stop working until 6 p.m. when I'm only supposed to work until 5:15, yet I still can't manage to get ahead. I want to work at a job that I enjoy, where I'm seen as a creative, equal, intelligent contributor.

That's what I want, and I don't think any of that is particularly unreasonable, except maybe the shopping at Phipps.

It's more than just putting my resume out there. (Put it on Monster, I've been told, and they'll beat down your goddamn door to try and get you a job. I don't think it's quite like that.)

Working at my job for the last five years has left me uniquely qualified to do nothing, I feel like. Nothing. Maybe data entry. Some other $25K job. Oh, and it's not supposed to be about the money. I have big ideas. Of course, at the same time, I'm in perpetual debt, and I feel like I work all the damn time.

I haven't had a job since my work at the college newspaper that I've completely enjoyed. I've felt like every job was this exercise in slow, painful soul-killing. I worked as an obit editor, and that wasn't my worst job. I worked in a highly competitive, divisive environment where I was regularly written up for inappropriate behavior because I did things like "seemed to enjoy a backrub given by a co-worker." Every new job just feels like another exercise in how to slowly, painfully, efficiently kill myself, and I'm sorry if I look at it like that. It makes writing all the enthusiasm into that killer resume really, really hard.

I'm sure it's all me. God, I feel like I'm having a fucking breakdown. Again. And it's the same old shit that I'm complaining about.

It's like I've come up with a really elaborate trick that helps me keep spinning my wheels.

Now, my mom wants to help me find a job. My mom.

I'm turning 29. I'm working at the same jobs I started at five years ago.

During both of those interviews, they asked me where I saw myself five years from then.

They probably wouldn't have hired me if I'd said, "Oh, I see myself here. Right here. The same goddamn place."

I'm not in a good mood today.

The one before I start lying about my age.

My 29th birthday's in less than a week, some gifts have already started arriving, and I'm not sure what I want to do for it. A couple months ago, Lupo suggested that, if I wanted an excuse to wear a tux, I should throw my own formal for my birthday. While everyone since has conceded that a formal would be a lot of fun, I don't really have the funding or the time to throw that kind of event together.

It'd be fun to rent out a movie theater for some kind of private screening of a favorite film or something new, but I don't know how much that would cost or how much arrangement that would involve.

I want no strip clubs. No gay bars. No amount of scoping guys. No desperation cruising.

I would like to get me and my friends all dressed up, then go out to a really nice dinner, at least, but I don't know if we'd be able to arrange it. (And I don't know if it makes me look pathetic to arrange something like that myself.)

My birthday, in the meantime, collides with several other events for some people, for it always falls on Pride week and near Father's Day.

What I would like for my 29th birthday is, I don't know, something different.

Things to do if you don't have Music Midtown tickets.

- So Music Midtown and the new VIBE MusicFest hit the city this weekend, so there's an embarrassment of riches regarding things to do this week in Atlanta. Of course, Chris knows way more about Music Midtown than I do, and you can read his knowledge of it here. I don't have tickets, but, for those of you going, enjoy that fantastic lineup. All I know is that traffic will be really, really bad all over the city and that my friends who live near the Music Midtown stages have fled for less congested pastures.
- The Atlanta Film Festival actually occurs this week, too, and my friend from the Landmark clued me in to some good movies that are supposed to be playing as part of it. The film I'm most looking forward to is called THE DYING GAUL, which has the fantastic Peter Sarsgaard, Patricia Clarkson and Campbell Scott in it. (I've got this ridiculous schoolboy crush on Campbell Scott, and I've had one ever since I saw DYING YOUNG when I was a kid. Cool, from DYING YOUNG to DYING GAUL.) I've never been much of a fan of the Atlanta Film Fest before, even when they screened my college friend's locally-made vampire movie with Faye Dunaway. But I'm willing to participate if Campbell Scott's involved. Even the salt-and-pepper hair hasn't hurt him.
- Aimee Mann and Rufus Wainwright are playing at the Botanical Gardens later this week. Find someone who has tickets to either show, and sleep with them so they'll take you along to the concerts. Or you could just buy tickets. But my way gets you laid.
- HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE is opening at the Tara, which would excite the Diana Wynne Jones fan in Jenipher. But she lives in Chicago. Earlier this week, I admitted to a new friend that I don't "get" the films of Miyazaki, including SPIRITED AWAY (even though I tried to like it). He has yet to write me back, and I think that's probably why.
- THE HONEYMOONERS remake also opens in theaters this weekend, but I can't get past that casting. And, exactly, why in the hell would they remake something that classic and put Cedric the Entertainer in the Jackie Gleason role? And Mike Epps is no Art Carney. It's like making a movie of THE JEFFERSONS with Ashton Kutcher as Lionel. What's with this race reversal trend, anyway? I kinda understand it with GUESS WHO since they took the story from an entirely different angle, but why mess with THE HONEYMOONERS, which had nothing to do with race in the first place? This strikes me as a worse remake idea than that horrible-looking BEWITCHED movie.



- Dude, Doug's coming to town on Saturday, and we're going to see MR. AND MRS. SMITH. The plot's probably crap, but, you know what, I completely don't care. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie look fucking amazing, and I'm on this movie like it's crack dipped in chocolate. I can't even use complete sentences in regard to it, I'm so excited. Love love love love me some Angelina. And Brad's in boxer shorts. Can't wait.
- The Tonys were on Sunday, and they were mostly boring. Hugh Jackman wore a tux and danced and all, but, other than that, you didn't miss much. Still, the shows were good. DOUBT won best play. The music of THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA won a prize, and the songwriter was cute. Oh, and MONTY PYTHON'S SPAMALOT won best musical. It's more fun to actually read the play or hear the music from the show than it is to watch the Tonys - aside from all the same-sex kissing that goes on there.
- Do more laundry.
- Check last week's list.
- Clean your damn kitchen.
- Take out the damn garbage already.
- Clean out your car. Passersby think you live out of it.
- Anne Bancroft died, so I should probably get around to watching THE MIRACLE WORKER sometime.
- They've added 10 percent to my store discount this week, so I can finally get the new Coldplay album.
- Also, THE HISTORIAN, which I mentioned before as "DRACULA meets THE DAVINCI CODE," comes out on Tuesday. I think it's the next book that "everybody" is going to read. Be a trendsetter. Buy it first. Also available are Alexander McCall Smith's 44 SCOTLAND STREET, which is the mystery writer's take on the TALES OF THE CITY format, and the new Nick Hornby book, A LONG WAY DOWN.
- Finally, find a movie where some movie star plays a character who has the same job you do. Watch the movie, then compare and contrast how your job is portrayed and how well the movie star does your job with what your job is really like and how well you do it. Using myself as an example, I found that the Barnes & Noble bookseller that Kate Winslet plays in ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND is allowed to openly violate the corporate dress code and change her hair constantly. Beyond that, she really doesn't know how to properly hold that handheld computer monitor, the PDT, and she's kinda rude to customers. Plus, how's Kate able to afford memory-erasing procedures? Some booksellers I know barely make enough to buy candy bars. I'd get written up if I did my job her way. Kate, of course, got an Oscar nomination for it. Seriously, do a comparison. No self-respecting copy editor would behave at all the way Drew Barrymore does in NEVER BEEN KISSED. Trust me, I know.