Going Green

From the time I got my drivers liscense to now, my favorite stress release has been a drive to the beach. I would drive with all the windows down, stereo blaring, talking to myself and God. Sometimes I wouldn't even get out of the car. Just being at the beach restores my soul and helps me get back to that place in my head where I am glad to be alive.

I went on a drive like that today. I wasn't stressed out for me, I was stressed out for the beach, the mountains, the earth in general! They may not be here much longer! I believe that global warming is a reality and WE ALL need to chip in and start doing something...ANYTHING...to stop this problem from getting worse!

I watched more hours of Live Earth last weekend that I thought possible but I am glad I did! It made me more aware of the enviornmental crisis than I was before! The situation was always in the back of my mind. I have had "Inconvienent Truth" saved on TiVo for months but God forbid I give up watching "E News" or "Access Hollywood" to educate myself! I think that I haven't done anything up to now because I have an "all or nothing" mentality. I do. If I can't do it all, why bother! I think many of us have that view of this crisis. We think that it's too overwhelming or that we are too deep into it for anything we do to make a difference. That isn't true!

The great thing about helping to stall the enviornmental crisis is that you don't have to do it all. You don't have to go out in your $30,000 Prius with your canvas bag to buy your $20 lightbulb and then come home and unplug your phone charger, while powering down your laptop and getting rid of all your bottled water! Well...........doing all that would be awesome but pick one or two and stick with it for awhile! I bet it will spur you on to do more! I bought the canvas bag at my Trader Joe's and I keep it in my car to use! I bought one for my roommate, too! I take my own mug to Starbucks. I am not ready to give up bottled water (I live in L.A., after all) but I reuse the one bottle for a week by filling it up from the Arrowhead dispenser at work (they don't care....already asked). Next payday, going to buy a couple of the lightbulbs. I figure if I use them in the lights we use themost, like the bedroom and the porchlights we leave on at night, it would save not only energy but money on the electric bill as well!

I have always felt incredibly blessed to live in Southern California and the main reason for that was the beauty of the outdoors! We have some of the most amazing mountains, beaches and deserts all within a couple hours drive of my house! To think that may all be gone in my lifetime, not my grandkids lifetime but mine, is incredibly sad! Isn't preserving that beauty worth a $8 lightbulb? I think I can sacrifice a couple of latte's and buy some lightbulbs to keep my stress releasing beach spot! Like this post? Please share it, bookmark it or leave a comment.

Pirate Karioke

They say if you face a fear you can make it disappear! It's true and in Catalina I proved it by doing something I am deathly afraid of: singing by myself in public! I know I can sing but have only sang in groups...large ones! I have auditioned solo and a cappella but needed a week to recover from the massive amounts of Xanax needed to do so! It's silly! The interesting irony about the fear is that I have this burning desire to do it all the while breaking out in a cold sweat just thinking about it! So I asked the pro singers I know how to get over myself! The resounding advice was Karioke. Just sing in front of people by yourself until it's not a big deal! What a better place to do this than on a island where you can leave the scene of the crime and all it's witnesses behind!

That is exactly what I did! I hung out in a bar with the frat boys dressed as pirates and looked fear straight in the eye! It wasn't going to stop me! Besides, if I sucked, I wasn't in a place where I knew anyone! Perfect! So, I fought the fear, stayed sober and in the two hours I had to wait (by myself by the way) I just visualized rocking the song! What did I sing? John Mayer's "Body Is A Wonderland"? Ha ha...no way! If I had the talent to do a Mayer tune, it wouldn't be that one! Bon Jovi's "Living On A Prayer"? Nope, frat boys took care of that one early in the night! I sang a great rendition of Bonnie Raitt's "Something To Talk About"! I know it was great because the DJ told me "Great Job" and the frat boy making goo goo eyes at me throughout the tune slipped me his phone # as I stepped down off the podium (he was way under this cougar's hardline rule of 30 being the bottom line...damn). Phone # was a bonus! The feeling I got after doing this was amazing! In that little bar I proved to myself that I can push fear to the side and do what I want to do! I can't wait to do this again! I am going to grab anyone crazy enough to do this and head out this weekend to sing in some other dive bar! Wahoo!

There is something really freeing about tapping into my inner Pat Benetar! It got me to thinking that since I have done what scares me the most, what else is there to conqure? Dating......yikes! I know for sure that the only way to make a fear disappear is to face it head on and deal with it! Dating can't be scarier than singing and shaking your money maker in a bar full of drunken frat boy pirates but I am hoping it can be more fun!
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CATALINA!!!

Wahooo! Tomorrow we are off to Catalina Island for the 4th! I can't wait! 4 days of nothing but bike riding, margaritas and lounging on the beach! I am going to write the intellegent and wildly funny novel that I will be publiclly appalled that is categorized as "chick lit" while I am secretly negotiating the movie rights with Nora Ephron so she can turn it to the next "Chick flick". (something about older woman falling for younger rock star..go figure!). Then I am going to read the last 3 weeks Us, Star , Entertainment Weekly and In Touch! After that, I'll take a spin around the island in a golf cart looking for that funny, intellegent, hot single musician who will love me for my wit and my mind, not my.....never mind! If he's a hot single musician who's interested in me, WHO CARES WHY!!!

There might be time for bonding w/my roommate who I have been just passing lately while we take turns in the bathroom. There might be time to take stock in how life has been treating me so far this year and where I want it to take me the next few months. There might be time to thank God for the blessings that happen in my life everyday and will continue to happen! There WILL be time to thank God and our troops for continuing to fight the good fight in the name of democracy and freedom! It's is 4th of July, after all!

Whew! I have a lot to do over the next 4 days! And it starts today with laundry, packing and going to work! Relaxation starts tomorrow! WAHOO!

Happy 4th everyone!
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The Hollywood Hills Are Alive!

I love....no, make that LOVE living in LA! There are so many things unique to this town I don't know where to start! One of my favorites happens every summer! It brings young and old, straight and gay, musically inclined and not together for one evening under the stars. I am talking about the "Sound of Music Sing A Long" at the Hollywood Bowl!

I pride myself on not only being a dyed in the wool rocker but a music lover in general. This is definately in the "general" category. It is too much fun to resist! The "Sound Of Music Sing A Long" is hard to describe but imagine taking Rocky Horror and placing it in the Swiss Alps. Replace Tim Curry with Julie Andrews. Take that whole thing and place it in a drive-in that holds 16,000 people and you kind of get the idea! The film is shown on a huge screen stretched across the Bowl stage and the musical numbers have subtitles so everyone sings along! There are props they give us, like edelweiss and no one is shy about using them! There is an air of "Mystery Science Theatre" as people shout out comments that are for the most part hysterical! Hissing at the baroness, sighing at cute little Gretel! My favorite though comes courtesy (this year) of my friend Terri. At the end of the movie before the captain sings "Edelweiss" a hush falls over the Bowl. It is then that she yells in her best hockey yelling voice "sing a song about flowers". I almost died laughing!

My fave moment came courtesy of the boys dressed as nuns. As I was walking back from the bathroom they came up and offered me forgiveness for the cleavage my top was showing! HEY! That dude on Oprah says always walk out of the house dressed like you are going to meet your dream man! So I did! I just didn't know he'd be a nun....or gay! Doesn't matter, i'll take the complement wherever I can get it since one of the nuns said if he left the convent and turned straight he'd do me! ROTFL!!!

This night is so fun! We are going to make it a tradition. Next year we are all going to enter the costume contest. Look out! Like this post? Please share it, bookmark it or leave a comment.

You Say Stalker...I Say Fan...Potato, Potahto

For the last two + years, I have been dabbling with unrequited love. It was the most enlightning, exciting, frustrating, crazy, excruciatingly painful learning experience I have ever been through! I learned more about me within that experience than I ever thought I could. And for that, I wouldn't change a thing about it. I am, however, glad it is over! While I am taking time to recover, reconnect and pull myself together, I find myself in familar territory! I have retreated to the comfort and safety of the celebrity musician crush!

Celebrity musician crushes are easy! No miserable first date! Instead of exploring each other while dolled up in ridcously high shoes at a restaraunt you wouldn't normally be caught dead in, engaging in less than intellegent conversation, you explore on your own in your jammies! Just you, your crush and Google! Google doesn't judge, care about your weight or lead you to wonder "I wonder what he thinks of me". There is comfort in it being one sided for the most part. The celeb "loves the fans" and you are free to explore that love unconditionally within the anonimity of him not knowing you from adam. That's fine because this way, you control the amount of love that goes out. You decide if the love goes out at all! If you aren't happy that the crush can't make up his mind about the Pop Tart he's with, not with, with, not with, you can roll your eyes in indignation without having to hear the lame defense of why the intellegent, talented musician is dating the "actress". It doesn't matter! You, in all your internet surfing, US magazine reading glory know for sure BOTH reasons why he's dating her! You can sit on your bed, laptop at the ready and laugh knowing that you are smart, funny and yours are REAL!! She maybe a celeb but you have those 4 things ALL OVER her! See...celeb crushes can be as catty as the real ones!

Celebrity musician crushes are pure fantasy and after being rejected face to face, the fantasy is a welcome diversion to my reality! In my fantasy, the guy is turned on by the fact that I am smart and funny, not because I worship him or have a huge rack! In my fantasy, the crush plays guitar just for me, not for every girl in the bar (or arena). In the fantasy, the crush is a communicator supreme who listens as well as he speaks. He doesn't call me to talk at me for hours on end, not letting me get a word in edgewise!

This latest celeb musician crush came at me from completely out of the blue! Totally unexpected but entirely welcome! It's new, exciting, fun! Just like the beginning of a real relationship! However, like a real relationship, this one hasn't disappointed me or broken my heart. I doubt it will.

I am not crazy single girl! I am just welcoming the reminder God has sent to remind me that life is fun, exciting, cool! I have 9 toes grounded in reality while I am dipping the one in the sublime fantasy world of the celeb musician crush. Don't worry! I am starting to look for the real thing! I haven't retreated that far deep. The cool thing is, thanks to the latest celeb musician crush, I will have an awesome soundtrack to play in the background of any romance, real or fantasy, that comes my way! Like this post? Please share it, bookmark it or leave a comment.

Random Thoughts While Waiting in Jail In Vegas

*I wish I got into John Mayer early enough to see him at Mandalay Bay. I wish I had the body to get his attention and the guts to kidnap him and take him to that bar where people hang half-naked from trapezes. You have your Vegas wish, I have mine. Mine doesn't involve millions of dollars unless John and I are rolling around naked in it! Thank God what happens in Vegas.....

*I am not a fan of change or am I? I am a fan of change the noun. Especially when it is pouring out of a slot machine into a metal tray, making that "ching ching ching" sound that hit you between the eyes when you walked into any casino! The change I am not a fan of is the verb. The change that results in taking away something cool like the "ching ching ching" sound and what causes it! Slot machines in Vegas now dispense paper slips that you take to a machine to cash in for paper money. No more buckets of coins so heavy you can't carry them to the cashier, no more trips to the cashier for that matter. No more grubby, yucky hands from scooping up all those quarters and putting them in the bucket. No more having two buckets full of quarters, swearing you would stop after you went through one and leaving w/only half. No more "ching ching ching". No more of one of the things that makes Vegas charming. Change sucks.

*Most of Vegas is about getting you into the casino to spend your money. Except the bathrooms. In the bathrooms, you can stand for hours waiting for the automatic toilet to flush, then wait forever for the automatic soap to dispense before waiting endlessly for the faucet to turn on. And just when you think you might get out of there before Steve Jobs develops the chip to implant in our brains to make cel phones obsolete, you wait forever for the automated paper towel to dispense. I swear, the random cactus in the parking lot was looking like a better bathroom option than this! I know it's probably more sanitary to have all the fixtures do our work for us, but this is ridiculous!

*I am not cool! Oh, I try to be! I listen to cool music, watch all the cool TV, read up on what's trendy. How cool I truly I am became glaringly apparent this weekend in Vegas when I got excited over two things: seeing Donny Osmond and the fact that the Star Wars slot machines are about the coolest thing ever invented! Sure, I could have seen sweating, grinding pretty boys from Austrailia strip while putting $$ in their g-strings. I could have attended any number of Cirque Du Solei shows. No......Terri and I almost spontaneously combust over seeing that Donny is town. In my defense, it was cool to like Donny....when I was 7! In his defense, he put on a great show! Not sure it should cost more to see him in a Vegas lounge than it does to see John Mayer at the Hollywood Bowl but it is what it is. And what it is is a good time! I will say I may have been a tad bit embarassed to "stage door stalk" him but it did make me feel young as at my advanced age, I was easily among the youngest there. It was made worthwhile when Donny wished me happy birthday and asked with a wink if it was the 29th! And they do call it Puppy Love!

*The Star Wars slot machines rocked my world. They play the music, R2 talks to you and when you get three characters in a row, an appropriate film clip plays on the bar line! When you get the bonus, the Death Star spins and it's the coolest! Laugh all you non-believers but I trusted the Force and turned my $5 into $40!

*There are no more $5 buffets in Vegas. There are, however, $5.95 lattes and 24 hour Starbucks right out the door of the elevator in the hotel. A even trade-off if you ask me!

*Johnny Reznick was playing in the car everytime we got into it this weekend. Not literally but that would have been a wish equal to the one involving Mr. Mayer. Nope...this was on the radio. Wish LA radio was like this!

For these reasons and many more, I LOVE Vegas! Can't wait to go back in August....to see Donny....*sigh*! I am learning to embrace my inner geek! :) Like this post? Please share it, bookmark it or leave a comment.

Could I Possibly Have A New Fave Guitarist?!?

Could I have a new fave guitarist! Move over, Sambora! It is possible that after 21 years I have a new favorite! He's funny, he's smart, he's sensitive, he's wickedly and amazingly talented! AND HE LOVES DOGS! Forget guitarist, could he possibly be the perfect guy?

Shan calls me two days before the John Mayer show at the Bowl and says "I just got a call! We are invited to the meet and greet". I must admit, I was excited as it was going to be a cool experience but not excited in a "OMG...I LOVE John Mayer" kind of way!

That certainly changed AFTER the fact! This was by far and away one of the COOLEST things that have happened to me! 5 people and their plus one got the call and they were all nice people! John was a sweetheart! Looking back I kind of feel bad because it seems like we were the only two talking but once someone asked him about his dog it was on! He seemed fine with chatting while signing so we talked about how he did in Vegas, the upcoming Police show and our dogs. He said he was happy to have the kinda of dog that "doesn't eat raw metal" (Golden Retriever) and I got a plug in for the misunderstood Rottweiler! I won't bore you with every syllable that was spoken but you can believe I remember them. He signed for everyone, took pictures and was amazingly nice!

Then he went out and put on one of the most amazing shows I have seen! Since all I have heard from him is basically the (overplayed) singles, I had no idea what an amazing guitar player he is! And that ability was on full force at the Bowl! Mayer plays with such emotion and feeling that you wonder, at 30, where he is drawing it from! The place was filled with blues loving wine sippers who love John's work with BB King as well as the soda drinking female squealers who only wanted John to tell them how their bodies are a wonderland. That might be John's biggest strength: that he can produce music that appeals to both of those factions!

From the meet and greet, to the awesome seats, to the glorious atmosphere that is a summer show at the Bowl, to the amazing music it was a WONDERFUL night! Thanks a million to my friend Shan who made it happen! You ROCK Like this post? Please share it, bookmark it or leave a comment.