The Long and Winding Road~Part II

They say, "You don't know what you've got til it's gone".  Well, I knew.  I knew what I had.  And I am now all too aware that it's gone.  Losing your best friend is not like anything you can imagine.  Especially when you need her.  "A friend in need is a friend indeed".  They say that too.

When you have a relationship with someone for twenty two years that consists of daily conversations about everything (and nothing), and then it is gone...well, there are no words.  To go through something as big as this without the person who helps you get through these things is damn near impossible.

The person who I want to talk to about my best friend's death is my best friend.  How do you get around that?  I know you have to take these things a day at a time, but I can't help but think of all of the days to come and how I'm going to need her and she's not going to be there.  It's a luxury, an absolute LUXURY to be able to pick up the phone at any time day or night to just run something by someone and have them immediately be on board with the situation.  What am I supposed to do now?

Your best friend is the person who "gets" you.  She's the person who knows you like nobody else.  She knows you when you don't know yourself.  And she is irreplaceable.  

So, this is what the rest of my life is going to look like.  Having to take those little moments when you want to shoot the shit and just let them literally go without saying.  Having those little heart breaks when she says just the right thing and going without those words of comfort.  Having to complain and bitch and moan about big things and little things and having to either just suck them back up or treat them like they don't exist.

It is a loneliness like nothing I have ever experienced.  And I've been lonely.  Who knew that that was nothing compared to this?  Nothing.

I know what other friendships can be like.  I have a lot of friends.  And they all have their place, but my relationship with my best friend was the number one most honest friendship that I had.  We argued like crazy and we hurt each other from time to time, but we never had to mince words.  It was a symbiosis.  It was like having a twin.  There were times when we'd be less than honest and we would know that the other person was on to us and we would also know that they knew that we knew...it went that deep.  There was no "getting away" with anything.  We weren't fooling anybody.  Even when we withheld the truth or fibbed, it was still honest because we could read each other's minds.

I know that all of my other relationships are censored.  I see it now more than ever because the person to whom I revealed all of those secrets, the stuff that was cut out of the other conversations, is gone.  My secrets end here and they no longer have an outlet.  Perhaps I will explode from the bloat of it.  She was a vessel it which I poured everything that I could not share with anyone else.

This is all on top of the facts of her passing.  They are hard to accept.  I will not go into it here.  Suffice it to say, I will never be able to feel settled with the fact that I wasn't there for her in her final days.  They were not easy for her.  The thought of her being scared and alone is too much to take, and yet what choice to I have?  I cannot undo it.  I have to take it.  Take it where?  Take it how?  I do not know.

And life goes on.  People are still careless with my feelings.  If I do not walk around with a sign on my face that says, "Please remember I lost my best friend and have never felt more alone" people do forget.  It is amazing how quickly it is expected of you to "move on".  You expect the world to stop.  You do.  You expect every day to be about her.  You expect everyone to know that everything you see, hear, taste, feel and do is in correspondence to your connection (or lackthereof) with this person.  People want you to be happy and they want to believe that you are over it when you pretend to be.

I'm not over it.

I thought my life was hard before.  I thought that being poor and single were so awful.  I had no idea that it could get worse.  Not like this.  I thought that my messed up relationships with other people were so devastating and important.  Psh.  That was nothing.

It's interesting because there were times that I wrote this relationship off.  Walked away because it got too hard.  There were times when we didn't speak for months.  I was fine.  I missed her.  I wanted her.  But, I wasn't depressed about it.  There were even times when I thought the friendship was completely over.  This is why it's interesting...I must have known deep down that that was not true and would never be true.  Because now that I KNOW that it's over...it's a whole different story.  I truly cannot imagine life without her.  And yet, I'm living it right now.  Right now she is gone and I'm still here.

Over the past few days I have really really really needed to talk to her.   And because I can't, I have become ill.  Lethargic.  Depressed.  Unable to function properly.  My muscles are weak.  The fetal position is the only one the feels comfortable.  Tears come easily and when I have to hold them back my stomach becomes sick.  It's super fun.

When will it end?  Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe never.

I had a really good week last week.  I spent a lot of time with a lot of wonderful people.  I had fun.  I thought about her.  I didn't think about her.  It came.  It went.  It seemed like it was going to be doable.  And then I needed her and it all fell apart.  I imagine it's going to be a lot more of the same for quite some time.

It is almost impossible to think of her without thinking about her tragic death.  I know I should be focusing on the good times and her smile and her laugh, but instead I picture her being alone and afraid and dying.  I think about the good times too.  I do, but then I think about why I'm thinking about it...cause she's gone and then I'm forced to think about why that is.

I don't want words of comfort.  I don't want advice.

You know what I want.  You know that I can't have it.  So, for now, save it.  I just need to go through this.  I pray that you never have to.

"You left me standing here"~The Beatles

The Long and Winding Road~Part I

What does it mean to lose your best friend?  I don’t mean “get in a fight with and then never talk to again”.  I mean lose.  As in gone.  Forever.

Well, I never gave it much thought.  I shouldn’t have had to. 

Shoulda. 

Woulda. 

Coulda. 

Never have those three words meant more to me than they do now.  Because I’m beginning to learn what this means, this concept of losing your best friend. 

I lost mine.

Last week.

I wasn’t sure when I would get around to writing about it.  It’s not the first thing you think of when you are first in shock, then bewildered and confused, then angry and laying blame everywhere, including at your own feet, then into survival mode of ignoring the fact, and finally to the first glimpse of acceptance that you know is going to come and go like the tide to the shore…back…and forth…and back…and forth…and back.

What brings me here tonight is a thought that I had never had prior to last Wednesday, Septemeber 8^th, the night I learned the most devastating and life changing news of my thirty-six years of life, but now keeps recurring since death has shown me it’s haunting and barely distinguishable face (I do not yet see it clearly, it is completely unrecognizable to me).  This thought is the worst of the bunch, and there come many, you just wait and see, and it is this:  That everyone I know and love is going to also die and I am going to be left alone in  a world full of strangers.

Do not get me wrong.  I am aware that as I write this, I too am dying, and have been doing so since the moment I took my first breath.  That I get.  But the idea is that everyone that I know and love is going to die…now.  Today, or tomorrow, or next week. 

Soon. 

Very soon. 

Too soon.

Is this thought irrational?  Of course it is.

Is this scenario possible? 

You don’t want me to say it do you?

I’m sorry.

Yes.

And as unlikely as this scenario may be, it is, in fact, possible.  So…it is in my mourning pipe and I am indeed smoking it.

Welcome to life everybody.  If you weren’t awake before, may I suggest you do whatever it is that you need to do to open those eyes wider and sit up a bit straighter because whether you like it or not, this is going to happen to you someday, or to your best friend, depending on who decides to abandon who first, and you will not be prepared, cannot be prepared, how does one prepare?, for the loudest alarm clock, most heartburn inducing orange juice, most leaded cup of coffee of a wake-up call you will ever receive in your existence.  I’m just sayin’, you might want to be ready.

So far what it means to me to lose my best friend is that:

I have the irrational fear that everyone else will be following her into the great beyond and I will drift aimlessly through the rest of my life never being able to create any new deep and meaningful relationships.

I have the desire to connect with every person who knew and loved her and speak to at least one of them every single day.  Even if it’s an ex-boyfriend who I may or may not have insisted wasn’t good for her in life and persuaded her to leave time and time again.

I have more love and compassion for her family than I never knew was possible.

I still have my sense of humor, as evidenced by a few funny memories that I shared at her Memorial Service and several off color, and mostly inappropriate, jokes I have made since hearing of her passing.   I’m sick.  I can’t help it.  The only saving grace here is that I know she loved me for everything that I was including my off-beat humor, so there. 

[Oh, I’m sorry was I supposed to share one of my sick and twisted ideas?  Fine.

There are many different styles of coping in life and when faced with the untimely death of your very best friend and soul mate at the UNripe age of thirty-six you ponder endlessly how you will survive the next thirty-six years without this person.  Knowing that nothing and no one can every replace this person you have to get creative.  This is what I came up with so far:

It crossed my mind that one way I could cope would be to cut out a life sized picture of my BFF’s friends face and then tape it to a stick and walk around with it in life.  You know, sit with it at a restaurant, take it with me to Europe, that sort of thing.  And I would call it “(my BFF’s name entered here) On A Stick”. 

Not laughing?  I didn’t think so.  It’s really not funny, but when you are sleep deprived, bereft, confused, heartbroken, and going slightly mad…it might make you laugh for a second.  Or not.]

What losing your best friend also means is that you have a whole new perception of life.  You know why?  Because you now have to envision a whole new world.  One that you never thought was possible.  Not because you thought it was IMpossible, but because you just never thought of it at all…why would you?  You have to perceive of a world where you WON’T be raising your children together.  You WON’T ever be her bridesmaid (or vice versa).  You WON’T be going on double dates or camping weekends with your new boyfriends/fiancés/husbands.  You WON’T be doing any of those things.  No.  Sorry.  You won’t be doing ANYTHING with her.  EVER.  NOT EVER.

Never ever again.

This is what it means.

This is what it means?



To be continued...

“Don’t leave me waiting here.  Lead me to your dooooor!”~The Beatles

Throw Momma From the Train

Oh. My. God.  Yes, I moved in with my mother.  What the fizznuck was I thinking?

Well, all I know is, I couldn't spend another day in Los Angeles, the Douchebag Capital of the World.  And I also couldn't spend another day waiting on people.  Not one.  So, here I am.  36, Single, Unemployed and living with my mother.  Queue music to "It's a Wonderful Life".

I guess if I hadn't gone to Europe I coulda saved to move somewhere else, but...Europe was amazing and I keep dreaming that I'm in Italy for some reason and each time I do this I am so so happy.  Maybe I should have moved to Italy.  I've never even been to Italy, but it is in my dreams never the less.

All signs pointed to GET OUT NOW anyway.  My two best friends decided I was the anti-Christ about a week before I left (another blog, another time...I have the draft, but I'm not ready to publish it yet).  Needless to say, it was just a huge sign that it was time to go.  Then, Christopher Robin made the most hideous and disgusting proposition to me.  Something having to do with him coming over and me not being able to speak while he was there.  Um...what?  There was more, but it's nothing I would ever repeat in the light of day.  GOOD RIDDANCE!  Ugh.

THEN two days before departure I am having my going away brunch and who do I bump into at the concierge desk?  The one and only real relationship I had the entire time I was living in Lala Land.  This was a person who I never in my whole life thought I would ever see ever ever ever again.  And poof!  Right before ever ever ever happens...there he is.  What are the odds?  Of all the restaurants, of all the days, of all of the occassions.  I mean...really.  Thank GOD I was wearing make up and a semi-cute outfit.  I was wearing my white lesbian shirt afterall.  Of course, no run-in with the ex is ever complete if it is not followed up by his 25 year old 5'9" 105 lb super model girlfriend coming in to "use the bathroom" aka, sneaking a peak at me.  Bitch was gorgeous.  And of course she was some Asian mix...all of the girls who replace me are.  She needed to eat at McDonalds for a month straight before she'd ever approach a healthy weight, but that's beside the point.  UGH! and DOUBLE UGH!  Why couldn't she be pasty, pudgy, and short?

After brunch I was standing in the street and I looked up at the sky and said out loud, "GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

And so that's what I did.

Things you should know about moving in with your mother:

1)  The television is always going to be too loud.  Buy lots of ear plugs...or prepare to go deaf with her.
2)  Remember how she was always nagging you to rinse your plate before you put it in the dishwasher?  Well, now it's your turn...she's tired of rinsing.
3)  Just because your door is closed does not mean that you would like privacy or quiet or that you might be working on something important/concentrating, it just makes bugging you that much more fun cause your mom gets to knock on the door first.  It's like a game of "peek-a-boo".  Super fun.
4)  Old people talk to themselves.  A lot.  Get used to listening to not only your own thoughts, but all of the thoughts of the other person in the house.
5)  Announcements of every activity in your mom's life will commence on the hour.  Keep a notebook handy.

There's more...oh yes, there is more...but my mother actually reads this blog, so I'm gonna play nice...for now.

All in all, it's a swell thing she's doing letting her Old Maid of a daughter move back in to finish out her life knitting, reading poetry, and ruminating over the one's who got away.

In all seriousness...It's occurring to me that I might have wanted to plan this whole thing out better.  I have only a vague notion of what Plan B is supposed to look like.  If you can't visualize it...you probably can't make it happen.  So far I have 3 private yoga clients and I assume I will get more, but the bigger question is...what city do I want to live in next?   And how do I get there?  I thought that the city where my mother lives might have been an option, but it's clear to me after only two weeks that this is not even close to being the final destination...unless I really do want to die an Old Maid that is...

I cruised Match.com in this town just to see what was out there and it was bleak my friends...bleak.

It has been much too long since the last blog, I feel I have so much to cover...for now, this will have to suffice.  Until then, I will continue to feed my mother the salted peanuts...

"The unsalted one's make me choke!"~Momma (Throw Mama From the Train)

And The Award Goes To...

I was made aware last week that a friend of mine won a Daytime Emmy Award.  I am ridiculously proud of him.  But..there's a part of me that can't help but wonder what my life would become if I  had won a Daytime Emmy Award.  If you think that was out of my reach...you are wrong.  Even I didn't know how close I was to such a thing.  My dear friend who won this prestigious Hollywood award won for doing the same exact job that I spent a good part of last year doing.  And it was a job that he said I was better at than he was, so...yeah...potentially I could've had one.


That's an interesting bit of knowledge to sit with.  As most actors have done in the past, or possibly do before they go to bed every single night, I have spent some time talking into a toothbrush in front of the mirror accepting my Grammy, Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe.  I have also rehearsed my answers for James Lipton's famous "Inside the Actors Studio" interview, and of course I've done the celebrity questionarre at the end of each Vanity Fair that comes to my mail box.  Sometimes the answers change, most have been the same for years.  I guess I'm dying to share those answers with the world some day.  The point is, ever since I was a little girl I've fantasized that I was on Star Search, Kids Incorporated, You Can't Do That On Televion, MTV, SNL, Curb Your Enthusiasm, any Woody Allen picture, or even an Almodavar...you name it, I've wanted to be a part of it.  But...have I REALLY wanted to be a part of it?


This is the question on the table today.


"Do not have a fallback career...or you will fall back on it"~ Rosie O'donnell
"I slept on the kitchen floor of a woman's apartment when I first moved to New York"~Jennifer Gardner
"You have to want it like you will DIE if you don't get it"~Jennifer Lopez


Jeez, I could go on with those all day long.  There are crazy stories from tons of successful Hollywood types of not having enough money for food, hitchhiking to auditions, crashing auditions, sleeping their way to the top (Pam Anderson), you name it...a lot of major Hollywood players have done it.


I've never considered sleeping on someone's kitchen floor so that I can afford acting classes.  And yes, this is what people have to do...those classes are $250 a month...add all of the other ridiculous expenses of pursuing your 15 minutes and that could leave anyone homeless.


Now, I gave my pursuit of the acting thing up quite a few years ago.  It didn't seem worth it to me.  Nothing ever does if you don't really believe you can ever achieve it, but I think it's more than that.  As we've seen from the music industry, if you want to have anyones attention for more than five minutes, you have to get naked and sell your artistic soul to the devil.  Don't let Lady Gaga fool you...she's making compromises.  I'm sure of it.  P-p-p-p-Pokerface p-p-p-Poker face.  Really?  THAT'S the message you've been longing to share with the world?  I don't think so.  That woman has to put the good songs in the "I can sing them to myself in the shower cause the world has ADD and the record companies won't support me if I put quality out there...I'm a PERFORMER...not a songwriter...for now" file.  And don't get me wrong, she's able to do A LOT, I'm just saying...she's only putting the stuff out there that will make a record company money.  She's got other songs and other messages.  And if she doesn't...then that only goes to prove my point further.


Now about that Emmy...That job didn't seem worth it either.  It was a production/director job and I liked the actual WORK, but I didn't like the atmosphere or the energy of the workplace and I knew that there was no way I would ever be happy losing sleep to make television.  If I had known I could potentially win an Emmy...I might have re-thought that, but...I made my decision and I have to live with it.  If they called me tomorrow...I wouldn't show up, so...I guess I don't really want an Emmy that badly after all.  But I guess I will always wonder what it would've been like to have one.


The fact of the matter is, I don't fit in to the Hollywood lifestyle.  I've tried various ways to do so and they've never worked out.  As much as I've THOUGHT I've wanted certain things, whenever it's come down to it...I've never gone above and beyond to achieve them.  Until now...


Thank goodness for Yoga.  I will be starting my second stretch of training and I've been studying Yoga philosophy and some other Yoga related materials since I've been out of training.  I dove right in to teaching and it felt very natural.  I like the idea of being my own boss and of not being in a field where I am going to be judged according to some arbitrary standard that has no rhyme or reason.  I'm going to be out there helping people and growing as an individual.  What higher Honor need one receive than to know that they are a part of the solution?


"Am I part of the cure, or am I part of the disease?"~Coldplay


I think all I've ever really wanted out of life since I graduated from high school was to know what I wanted to do for the rest of it.  It has taken me a VERY VERY VERY long time to figure this out.  Unfortunately our society doesn't see fit to give anyone that much time to figure out something so important, so as a result of such a slow process, I've spent a lot of time hating myself simply for trying to figure out who that SELF is and who she wants to be.  Shame on society for setting it up that way.  And shame on me for not telling society to go FUCK ITSELF!  


I have only one regret in life at this point and that is that I didn't believe that I could have the things that I wanted.  I'm going to be spending a lot of time working on forgiving myself for that, and for accepting those things that may have passed me by.


Now all I really want is to be free of the "rules" and "standards" that come from nowhere and are upheld by faceless nobodies.  I will be the only judge of my life's work.  I don't think that I need an Emmy or any other award to tell me that I'm good at something.  I already knew I was good at it.  I chose to not follow that path.  It's hard to reconcile 36 years of mental and emotional programming, but that IS all that it is...programming.  And I have control over all of that now.  I am the master of my mind and my emotions and it is freeing, but it does take work.  For the first time...it doesn't FEEL like work.  That's when they say you've found your true calling...when you can take something you feel passionate about that you enjoy doing and you can make a living at.


Thank freakin' God.  It took me long enough, but I think I'm here.  And the good news is, I don't have to sleep on anyone's kitchen floor, I don't have to fall back on anything else (nor do I have to fall ONTO--or under anyone else), and I most certainly don't feel like I'm going to die if I don't get it.  I've already got it.


And the winner is:


Me:)

If At First You Don't Succeed...

Day 12

Not proud of it from a Yoga stance, but had to get drunk in order to make my last night in London happen.  Clearly not too drunk to type this blog, but just drunk enough to GO without grabbing onto the first hot guys leg that I see and hold on with all of my might screaming, “Don’t leeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaveee meeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!”.

Tonight was amazing.  Went to see “Hair”.  My brother knows the star and another guy who is working on a production here in London and so we ended up having dinner with some of the original Broadway cast.  What did YOU do tonight? 

Yeah, didn’t think so. 

In addition, we jumped onto the stage for the finale of “Let The Sun Shine In” and subsequently marked one of the best nights of this entire trip, if not one of the more poignant moments of my life.

Put that in your pipe…you know what to do with it.

Now for the lame (and typical of me) part of today…

So, we are leaving Victoria Station to go to Buckingham Palace when we spy a hot guy with an Adonis bod walking a few feet ahead of us…sans shirt.  Um…hello!  So, we start to joke about how I should go up to him and tell him how I want to have ten thousand of his babies when he just stops…stops right there in front of us in the street.  So…like any hot-blooded American Woman who happens to be eating an apple in the middle of Victoria Station I say, “Heeello!” (you know, like I think I’m May West)…and he says (with an embarrassed laugh—cause he’s topless), “Too hot, too hot”.  Now keep in mind, this is “Too hot” with an English accent.  I meeeaaaaaaaan.  I laughed and kept on walking and muttered, “Yes, it is…”.  Well, my brother and I get a few steps away and start to deduce what the hell is going on here.  Why did he just stop in the street?  Why is he still staring at us every time we turn back?  Should I go say hi?  I already said “Hi”, what else can I say?  Should I go talk to him?  Is this my chance to score on vacation?  Is he a hooker?  Why isn’t he wearing a shirt?  This IS London after all, it’s not freakin Nice for crying out loud!  Oh my God, he’s still looking!  Should we stop walking?  Should we turn back?  Would YOU go up to him? I ask my brother.  Probably not, but that’s probably why I’m single, YOU should totally go talk to him.  But what would I say?  Go say “hi””.  I ALREADY said “hi”.  Go ask him for directions.  But shouldn’t HE be thinking of a way to approach ME?  I don’t know, it’s different in the Gay world. 

Ugh. 

So, my brother walks away and pretends to go look into this pub while I finish eating my apple without being cock-blocked for the zillionth time on this vacation and Hot Topless Guy continues to stare at me from down the block.  I contemplate what to say and what to do (after all, I’m leaving in the morning, where could this go? What would be the point?---why can’t I see that this DOESN’T MATTER!!!! Until after the fact?), but I’ve been too brain washed by “The Rules” to make a move and after about five minutes HTG decides the jig is up and turns down the street and disappears. 

I pout for the next two hours while hopelessly scanning every crowd of tourists that he won’t ever in a million years be a part of.

Before that two hours is up, we decide to grab a hot dog from a stand in the park near Buckingham Palace.  Here we spy the cute French Hot Dog Guy.  Now, normally, I wouldn’t pay any mind to a dude who works in a park at the Hot Dog Stand, but…I’m on vacation, and he’s pretty, so all bets are off.  Freshly rejected and dejected and mad at myself after what happened with HTG, I decide to not repeat the same mistake twice.  So, while FHDG is grilling my bun (no pun intended) the girls he’s working with start to pester him about who he’s “in love” with.  He gets flustered and embarrassed, so as I go to put mustard on my dog I ask one of the girls:  “Who’s he in love with?”  I don’t know what the F was going on back there, but she claims to not know who he’s in love with although I think he was talking about ME in French.  I then relay this whole episode to my brother who has not been within earshot of this whole scene and he tells me that while this is an improvement from playing too hard to get with HTG, that I should have straight up asked the Hot Dog guy and not one of his co-workers what was going on.

I guess I have to just chalk it all up to a learning experience and know that next time, I just have to be more direct.  F$%^ “The Rules” once and for all.  They suck…and they don’t work…At least not on this side of the planet.

One thing is for sure…the only straight dude we had dinner with from the cast of “Hair” was into me, and although I didn’t do anything about it…

Well, for tonight anyway…

After all, tomorrow is another day!

See you on the other side of the pond!

London Calling

Day 11

“As long as I gaze at Waterloo Sunset, I am in Paradise”~The Kinks

Well, nothing could have prepared me for London.  I am truly, madly, deeply in love.  That isn’t to say that Paris isn’t incredible, but something about London is speaking to me.  Maybe it’s that I can speak the language, maybe it’s those beautiful accents, maybe it’s the street fashion on the kids, maybe it’s the crowds of people spilling out into the street from each pub, or maybe it’s that “Disneyland for adults” feeling.  Whatever it is, I am not going to be satisfied with two days.  In addition to my vacation coming to an end, I will be broken hearted about leaving this place especially.

I am so tired as I write this that I almost passed out in the tube coming “home”.  I slept in the airport leaving Barcelona, and slept off and on on the plane ride here.  If London wanted to know I was in love with it, it wouldn’t be able to tell from my demeanor.  But, I assure you LDN, you are my new flame.

We are staying in North Afton which is a 10 minute tube ride from Central London (and from what I can see is a pretty crappy part of town, but I haven’t really seen it, so I can’t say for sure).  We decided to check out Covent Garden at the suggestion of our concierge as night was falling upon us and we wanted to catch the flavor of the night life.  Before we hopped back on the tube, we made a stop at Tesco for a snack.  I hate to say it, but my first London meal came out of three packages: 1) Egg Salad Sandwich, 2) Sun Chips, 3) Apple Juice.  It was 6pm and I had only had an apple and a banana, so…I was desperate.

The energy in Covent Garden is amazing.  There are crowds of people everywhere, you almost have to walk in the street because the sidewalks are so crowded.  I love that.  In LA there’s no one on the sidewalk…except the bums.  The street performers are hilarious, the buildings each have a unique character of there own, and the people are full of life.  I’ve noticed that on the whole trip.  The people.  I’m getting emotional even typing that.  I wish I could stay long enough to get to know them.  I will be back.

We started to search out an Indian estaurant and ended up in the Theatre District in the West End.  So…we popped in and saw Avenue Q.  It was soooooo good.  Two thumbs up.  It was so spontaneous and exciting to go into this amazing old theatre (Wyndhams Theatre--something you would see in a period piece), and watch a hit show just on the fly.  We got an amazing deal (25 pounds each), and great seats because the show was starting in 7 minutes.  Ha!

After the show, we had dinner in (Starts with an L---sorry, so tired) Square and then walked through Soho (The Gay Part) and then came back to the hotel.  And here I am.  Waking up tomorrow will be like waking up on Christmas morning. 

I can’t wait to unwrap my gifts.  


P.S.  Long live the Queen.

Melessa Christopher Barcelona

Day 10 (Primero)

Today will be our second, and last, day in Barcelona.  We had to set an alarm for this morning because otherwise we won't have enough time to do everything.  There is so much do see and do!!!

I'm not sure what we were doing wrong last night, but everyone kept telling me that Barcelona gets started late (dinner starts at 11pm) and that it's known for it's Tapas and Sangria, etc.  Well we apparently couldn't find the neighborhood where that was happening last night and ended up eating at a so/so place somewhere off of "The Ramblas".  We had tapas and sangria, but the vibe wasn't at all what I was hoping for and they closed at 1am.  I know the restaurant that is living in my imagination is out there somewhere, we just need to know how to find it.  I had asked this random concierge at a random hotel to point us to an authentic, non-touristy place and he sent us to the most dead place in all of Barcelona that felt like a borderline Cheesecake Factory.  Um...gracias senor.  Needless to say, we didn't eat there.

We keep getting lucky on this trip in that we keep stumbling on the cities as they have something neato happening.  For instance, when we were in Nice, they had this huge music festival on Monday night.  Now I don't know if they have it every Monday, or if it was just that Monday, but either way, we were only there for two nights and we got to experience this awesome event of live bands, drum lines.  And now, last night was the celebration of "San Juan".  I don't know he he was, or what he did, but he causes people to light fireworks all night long throughout the city on the shortest night of the year, which was last night.  Kinda cool, also kinda scary...it sounded like Bagdad circa 2003.

Buenos Dias!

Later...

Day 10 (Segundo)

Whoever says money can't buy you happiness is an imbecile.  And here's why:  If you have lots of money and you are on vacation and see something cool that you want to by for someone else, you can totally buy it, no problemo.  When you buy people shit, they love you more, that's all there is to it.  So there.

I have seen soooooo many things that I want to buy for people, it's not even funny.  No matter where you are there is always going to be something that reminds you of someone, or something that you think someone you love will get a kick out of or appreciate.  It's a bummer to not be able to fulfill the "idea that counts".

Today we took a bus up to the Parque Guell which is the home of a bunch of amazing Gaudi stuff.  There are a slew of super talented musicians and some cool street performers, as well as some vendors up there selling souvenirs.  I finally had a guy pay attention to me!!!!  But then I had to pay him.  He was a mime.  He picked an imaginary flower for me and then my brother threw some change in his hat.  Great.

Let me tell you something...those people make BANK!  At least a couple hundred, if not thousand, folks must pass through there each day and everyone is buying stuff and tipping the performers.  It's great.  It was inspiring to see people making a living doing their art, their way, in such a beautiful setting too.  There was this one band up there playing World Music/Reggae.  They were REALLY good and I don't know what it was about them, but I cried through their entire performance.  It wasn't melancholy or anything, it was actually very upbeat, but it was just the whole thing:  Being in Barcelona, in this beautiful place that was created by one of the most genius artists who ever lived, watching these hippies enjoy themselves doing the best job in the world (performing their music), and I guess I was just overwhelmed with what a great moment it was, and it was one of those glimpses into joy...and these people doing their best to spread their little piece of that.  I dunno, it just really moved me.

After that we headed down to check out this house that Gaudi built.  There's nothing else like it in all the world.  I'm not going to describe it, you would have to see it for yourself.  Amazing!

It's funny, we almost didn't do either of those things today.  The Parque was a last minute idea I had because I thought it might have been featured in the movie "Vicki Christina Barcelona" (arguably one of the best movies EVER!).  I 'm still not sure if it was or not, but it did give me the FEEL that I had been looking for of something exotic and "Spanish".  Then we went by that house that Gaudi built and they wanted 20 Euros to get in.  We were kinda like, "They straight trippin!", but then we decided, "Hey, if they are charging more than the Palace of Versailles, then this shiz MUST be good!".  Thank goodness we took a chance on it.  It was worth every penny.  Today was one of my favorite days on the trip so far...

...Except the part where I went to the ATM to get another 20 Euros out to last me tonight and tomorrow morning (when we get to London tomorrow we have to switch to Pounds), and then 15 minutes later we went to buy a smoothie and I couldn't find my money.  Either my bag ate it, or I didn't take the stinking bill out of the ATM machine.  So lame.  

That's 20 Euros I could have used to buy some love from some people.  Doh!

For dinner we stumbled on this cute little Mexican place near the Modern Art Museum (closed on Holidays dang it!) where we had dinner.  This place REALLY reminded me of the Cha Cha Cha on Haight Street in San Francisco.  It was really bright and colorful and even had the same table cloths.  It was definitely the Hipster Mecca of Barcelona.  I'm not the biggest fan of hipsters, but it was nice to finally see some peeps in that town who had some style (these people are TAAAACKY--especially when you've just flown in from Paris).  But everyone in this place was really cute and very very very stylish.  I've seen a lot of brave haircuts here on women and the men wear their hair long, but not gross Michael Bolton long (Thank God).  More like...jeez, I don't even know...just loose curly messy.  It's beautiful.

Have to sign off now.  Getting up at 7 to run to Fed Ex to ship my extraneous crap back to the US so I don't have to cart it all over London for the next 3 days.

Buenos Noches!!!