~

SO, I kinda forgot to mention one interesting bit from pride.

I did mention the guy with the perfect pecs that was talking to me about the scissor sisters. I saw him at the park and he was handing these little pink flyers for his gym. the second time I walked by him again he gave me another one and he said "don't throw that one away" - so I stuffed it in my pocket.

Ran into him again at the Cuff just as I decided I had had enough and it was probably going to rain soon and tony was offering me a ride to my car which was parked in Guam. Anyway, I run into him and he says "hey, Scissor man - did you read my note"? I didn't so i dug through my pocket and found it and he had indeed scribbled on the back of the pink gym flyer. "call me scissor man - brett" & phone number. I was a little shocked, ok really shocked, but I gave him my number and promised to call him the next night.

I didn't get around to calling him until tuesday night. I don't know if it was the fact that i wasn't feeling well ( this a about an hour before barf-o-rama started ) but we basically sat on the phone for an hour and argued. about everything conceiveable.

he's 34, divorced, supports Bush because he thinks it's necessary to support the governement during a war because otherwise troop morale would suffer. hates move-on.org because they "poisoned the political landscape." hates the clintons. hates anyone that uses any kind of drug - prescription included. hates the gay "scene", wishes more guys were like his straight friends.
and of course, how I should join his gym so he could make me "a better man". I asked for a guarantee that i would end up looking like him. the only thing we had in common was some good taste in music : Scissor Sisters, Siouxsie, Goldfrapp, the Smiths , Old Rem. When I asked him what his favorite Siouxsie tracks were he listed a bunch of b-sides. HUGE bonus points there.

Of course, if you know me and the Uber opinionated bitch that i am - I argued right back at every turn - just to see how he would take it. On one hand, he's a jack-ass - but on the other, he's rather intelligent and funny. and did i mention HOT? after an hour I told him I had to go - I wasn't feeling well and his ranting had given me a headache. He told me to call him this weekend as he had enjoyed giving me a headache.

I don't know. I'll probably call him, something about him and our conversation was quite stimulating.

Yesterday at lunch, my boss told us a story about how his son called him a "Barf Brain".

Last night around 6:30 my stomach was killing me. by 10:30 I was "evacuating" which continued throughout the night. It had to be food poisoning. Any of you lucky enough to have never had it should count your blessings. Can't sleep, can't get comfortable, barf barf barf - ACCKKKK.

Although, re-reading that kind of sums up my life all the time, doesn't it?

01. Orange haired Rock Star Draggie.
02. Cute Guy recruiting Football players.
03. Green Grapes Draggie. Cool, but her real boobs were Frightening.
04. Indian dance troop.
05. Another Draggie. With a giant mouth.

.........

Sunday was pre-parade cocktailing at La COccina ( perfect view!) parade at 11, walk around the park, beer bust at the Cuff with with C list "divae" cc peniston, Ruth Pointer ( I guess they couldn't afford all three sisters?) and Robin S.

I always go because I end up seeing friends I never get to see- and I always meet a lot of people. At the parade, park thing, block party I wore my black and silver Scissor Sisters shirt and I'd say about 10 different people came up to me to chat about them. Including one really HOT guy with the most beautiful and perfect pecs I have ever witnessed and another that jumped off a float to run up and thank me for "representing" the Scissor Sisters.

it was mostly fun. The canadians were there with Steve - I was very glad to have my closest friend there with me - he has skipped the last few years. We have been friends for so long that people will see me out alone and ask "where's your husband"?

I try not to over analyze it ( Pride, the parade, etc. ). There's good, bad and embarassing.

It is what it is, right?

I was home by 7pm.

01. A Jedi Penis fighting Darth Maul aka Syphilis
02. Miss Gay Washington. Yawn. This state isn’t big on decent Draggies.
03. Silver guy with a heavy Helmet.
04. The Goths. Why are the Goths in our parade? There should be a Goth-n-Bondage day parade too!
05. These guys all had “BUSH TERRORIST” masks on.

Last summer Steve, Consuelo and I saw Margaret Cho ina small theater here and it sucked. This is a commedienne I have enjoyed for about a decade so it was very disturbing. Last summer she was either sick, stoned, drunk or whatever. I had seen her before live and it was great. All the dvds I've seen were great. Obviously, it was very sad and disappointing.

SO, when she was here last friday night, I was a little weary - but went with Mike & Kevin and am pleased to say that it was awesome, hysterical, incredible.

she is easily one of the funniest human beings. ( See the link to her very good blog to your right in my "other sources of enlightenment" section )


SO, that was friday night of pride. Started at Manray and walked down to margaret. tried to go back to manray but it was too packed and the streets were packed with drunkies. Steve made friends with some canadians and went off with them. I was home in bed by 12:30 - until UM came home at 2am and decided to clean the house.

This weekend was lots of rushing around, hurry up and wait and drive all over hell and back. thee Wedding went pretty smoothly and it was very nice.

It's Tuesday and I'm in Iowa. Back to mpls and then back to SEA tomorrow afternoon. Have double and quadrupple checked my itinerary.

Had lunch with Paul downtown at Eddington's - was nice to catch up. We were walking back to the aefa building and the sky turned black and it was eerily quiet and creepy. Then the wind picked up and it started to pour. It was freaky. It looked like it was 9 at night at 1:45. See photo.

ran around with Mark! today and had some good americanized chinese buffet. "Hunan's" didn't even have chopsticks. it was good though.

spent some quailty time with the P's and my grandmother. Good home cookin' and northwestern steakhouse last night. I'm a total steak SNOB and that was some good shite!

tonight my niece Leah was here and we snuck out to my grandma's farm. it's extremely sad to go there because no one lives there anymore. my grandma had to be put into a home after my uncle committed suicide. he was taking care of her after she broke her hip.

anyway, gran ( eedie ) is much better off in the old folks home, it's in mason city and my mom spends hours with her almost everyday. she turns 99 in august and she's sharp as a needle. still, old people homes depress the fuck out of me and visiting her house with no one living there was very sad.
i found a few old treasures like "professor frog" and my mother urged me to take them home. SO I did. she needs to sew some eyes on professor frog, his are gone. I wanderered around the farm and chatted with the 7 wild cats (cuties!) and fended off swarms of mosquitoes. disgusting.

took lots of pictures.Was generally saddened by the whole scene. I guess you can never go back.

Going out for some cheap Iowa beer with Mark, Sean and the crazy beetch Brigeeete this evening. Very tired.

it was all important work, of course - but I am too old for this. I think this whole trip has made me feel old. Discussed "OLD" with Karie and jeremy and tony. Made mental notes about life and what needs to change, etc.

But I've been gone too much lately, want to get back to my life.

can't wait to see TanQbaby.

and THAT...is all.

Let me tell you all that missing a flight is a bad thing.

Somehow i thought my flight was wed at 1am, when it was actually tues at 1am. 2 hours of talking to people in Turkmenistan and 400 bucks later - I ended up flying standby on the flight I THOUGHT I was suppossed to be on.

ha ha - how endlessly ammusing.

on the flight I bonded with a mid 50's off-broadway actress living in NYC but originally from seattle. She was as tall as me and rail thin with a cloud of fake red hair and a raspy voice. She was great. she does 2 shows a night (Cinderella and Cat on a hot tin roof) Wed-Sun. We did vanilla stoli shots with ginger ale chasers and read gossip magazines. it was an uncomfortable flight ( screw northwest!) but the company was nice.

this evening i was bitten by a mosquito. Rude.

If you have not seen "Team America" - I suggest you do so ASAP. At least Rent it and make sure it's the unrated director's cut. I promise you will find yourself singing Kim Jong Li's Ballad "I'm so ronrey, so ronrey, so ronrey and sadry arone" - i sang it walking down the street this morning.

I've been feeling different since my trip. Not Health-wise, but a sort of Mental clarity. Things that used to confound or drive me nuts make perfect sense now and last week I was solving distressed co-worker's problems with ease.

Everything in my own life that needs fixing is being scrutinized and my evil plans are starting to take shape. I just don't like much about my life now and haven't for quite some time. Enough whining. I'll keep you posted.

Off to Mpls tonight for my Sister's wedding. WiIll be nice to see family and friends, although it will be quite brief.

Really not looking forward to flying, either. It's funny how on my OZ trip, it was the domestic flights that I hated, not the 12+ hr overseas flights. I've become a travel snob.

That is all.

01. The Huge pooping Kangaroo
02. Scary Huge Beautiful Tiger.
03. 14 fucking foot 1400 lb Shark
04. the Bridge Steve climbed
05. cute Stoned Koala

I had an amazing time. It was very liberating.
I need to get out more.

The international flights weren't too bad ( Qantas takes care of you _ and somehow the single empty seat on both flights was next to me ) although they were 14 and 12 hours respectivley. Alaska airlines did their best to screw everything up in LA both ways. Bastards.

Was struck by how NICE everyone was and the weather was gorgeous. Not a moment wasted as there was so much to do. and that Australian accent....HOT. Plus, SO many HOT men. So, picture HOT Aussie men with HOT accents who are super friendly.

Darling Harbour is where we stayed. The Sydney Entertainment Centre, where we were to see Kylie - was directly across the street from our hotel. That Damn Opera house was not so impressive up close, I tell you. It took hours to get to and of course you have to pay 35 bucks to get in and walk around.

Confronting my Fear of Sharks with was very humbling. The shark tank was full of 'em. like 50 or more of various shapes, breeds and sizes and a few other things like these giant Rays - which have the coolest faces underneath. Ok, so the huge one in the picture is just a Mere Gray Nurse Shark - but the Bitch was 16 feet long and 1400 pounds. Still seriously scary.

There were no cages between people and the kargaroos. I half expected to get my Ass kicked by that huge one, he kept opening one eye to look at me. And then he pooped himself and went back to sleep. Some silly kids were going up to them and petting them. I've seen too many america's funniest home videos where the kangaroos kick the shit out of people. No thanks.


Koalas's are some cute shit. We learned that they are totally stoned all the time from the Eucalyptus leaves. Sweet! They don't move very fast because they are stoned and we learned that they don't really have a rib cage and are easily killed. it's illegal to touch a Koala in New South Wales ( the "state" that Sydney is in ) unless you are aided by a zoo official. strange?

Lions and Tigers and Bears - Oh My! Saw them all. Was kind of struck with how absolutely beautiful the tigers were. Of course, the one above was fantasizing about eating me.

01. Ferry Ride to the Toronga Zoo.
02. Friday Harbour ("HahBuh")
03. Confronting my fear of Sharks at the Aquarium Shark Tank.
04. That Damn Opera House.
05. Friday Harbour again.


I put them ALL up at SNAPFISH and I can't figure out how to directly link them - so I have to invite people. you have to quickly join but it takes like 10 seconds.

Drop Me a quick note to TWALSHSEA@yahoo.com and I'll invite ye.

and then comment or question me here.

I'm Back. It was Flippin' Fabulous

will make some sort of blog with pictures this weekend

JET LAG

seriously