[readermail]Dear Pamie,
Why is your site always down? It brings me sadness.

Love,
Alison[/readermail]

Okay, so not only can some of you not see my site anymore, a lot of you are having problems emailing me. So, the server is moving again. I know. I know. Hopefully this will all be worked out by the end of the week.

Birthday week is kicking ass. My sister and her friend Robyn were here for the weekend. We never get to spend enough time together. So the weekend was in hyper mode: Look! The beach! Take a picture! It’s a view! Over there! That’s a thing we have here in Los Angeles!

And we ended up sleeping more than we thought we would, which is what happens when someone is on vacation and flew for over three hours to get somewhere. But I finally cooked something that all of the picky eaters liked, and we went to some of my favorite restaurants and I got a pile of perfect presents. What more could I want?

Friday night we had a birthday party. My friend Rebecca’s birthday is the day before mine, so we joined parties. We hadn’t done that since we turned 21 (and Jeff was sorely missed this time). We found a bowling alley and Karaoke bar. I never actually got to bowl a frame because the bar was way too much fun.

I met a girl who told me I looked like her old friend Patricia Arquette and then told me in great detail what it was like to date Crispin Glover. Then she bought me a drink and told me about her days as a stripper. Talk about a birthday present!

I didn’t pay for a drink all night. Vodka tonics were only $2.75, so every time I turned around someone put another one in my hand. Three of the drink-buyers were complete strangers. That’s when you know you had a good party.

The other way you know is when you have taken over the Karaoke bar, one of my favorite things to do with a group. The other people weren’t facing front, for some reason. Maybe so everyone couldn’t see them make the Official Karaoke Face when they sang:

Everyone has a nice alignment here, keeping themselves open towards the audience, but still angled enough to face the 9″ television screen just to their left. It’s very official. It’s Karaoke done the right way. The proper way. When they’re done singing, everyone applauds. People even dance when they sing. They cheer. This is called “singing Karaoke.”

Okay, now here’s Brently and me. You can see the contrast, right off the bat. We don’t even care if the words are correct. We don’t care if you can see us. We are lost in the moment of singing, so into ourselves that we forget that other people are around and can see us, really see us with their own eyes, becoming absolute assholes. Perfect strangers are judging us right now, and look how much we don’t care. People stare, but they don’t dance. If they start dancing, they can’t be prepared for when one of us flings a shoe towards the audience, or when one of us trips a man walking by. (By one of us in both of those cases, I mean me.) We don’t care so much that we will soon roll around on that floor, our hair mingling with old dried vomit from Missy’s Bachelorette Party from last week. We don’t care. We are singing. You are not.

Although my friend Tyson told me that a complete stranger walked up to him at the bar and asked him to move so she could see “the show” better.

And maybe not everyone was equally amused. Maybe some people absolutely had to shut their eyes and pretend they couldn’t see the musical carnage. Maybe it was all too much for them. Too much birthday fun.

I only remember shaking my groove thang perhaps a bit too much when I sang “Gloria.” It was a request from Hilary. What else was I supposed to do? When a Crazy Girl tells you to sing, you have to sing.

So, I sang.

Besides…

Jessica likes it.

She’s going to kill me for posting that, by the way.

So, post birthday we were a little hungover, and needed to take things just a bit easier than we normally would. This meant driving around, looking at the nice view, looking at the expensive houses and of course…

Stalking Ozzy’s house.

Birthday week has continued with more fun and fabulousness, and perfect presents. We went to a play last night and had a nice dinner.

This morning the Bikram Yoga people didn’t seem to care that it was my birthday week, unless their idea of “happy birthday” is making me almost hyperventilate during a backbend. I don’t know if it was a tougher class, or if I just overdid it because I was so proud of myself in my brand new yoga pants that make me feel like Madonna. I know part of the problem was using my brand new mat without washing it first. The hot mat fumes made me feel more than just a little woozy.

Okay, so I know all of you read this far just to find out if the Certain Dri worked. Well, I’ve been using it for three days now, and I think the big test came last night when we went out to dinner and the play. No sweat! Even when I was rushed out the door because it was a surprise and didn’t know we had to get to the playhouse before seven. I was rushed and crazy, but still managed to make it there without breaking a sweat. Go, Certain Dri! But I wonder if it contributed to my overheating in class this morning.

Anyway, having a wonderful birthday week. Wish you were able to email me. I’m fixing it. Maybe myrmid.net will get me a working website for my birthday, with email that works and ftp that won’t stop until the break-a, break-a dawn.

Currently reading

Pretending the Bed is a Raft. Well, now, why would this tiny paperback cost $19.00? That makes no sense. I got it at the wonderful Katy Budget Books, home of all my teenage page-turning, and one of my favorite places in the world.