Tuesday March 30, 2010

There is not too much to report today… we slept in, ate breakfast and sat around by the pool almost all day. Holy cow! We ARE on vacation! It was a gorgeous sunny day and I have a very good start on my tan. Highlights of the afternoon were watching a bird brutally attack a caterpillar to death and then swallow it whole. I have video of said event but the internet in the middle of nowhere is not that fast and I can’t upload it to YouTube just yet. Maybe in the next city we hit. It was pretty cool…

Before dinner we walked up to a look out point to see the sunset and the moonrise.

For dinner we went to the Outback Pioneer Hotel. Ayers Rock is basically just one big resort and you have access to all of the hotels, shops, restaurants. It’s very small and everything is in walking distance. The actual town is called Yulara and according to one of our tour guides it is the 4th largest town in the Northern Territory.

Dinner was one of those grill your own meat places, which is right up my alley since I don’t actually like to cook it.

My brother and I ordered the kangaroo skewers and Ann Marie and 818 ordered the combo which was kangaroo as well as crocodile kebabs, beef sausage and emu sausage. I made the mistake of not seasoning my kangaroo (I generally like my steak plain with a little salt if I am cooking it myself) and I regret it now. Ann Marie put some olive oil on hers and it was moist and much tastier than mine. Kangaroo actually tastes a lot like venison… and since I undercooked mine and it was not seasoned, it was actually pretty gross. I put mine back on the grill and then of course, it was overcooked. Peter and I are bound and determined to find it while we are here as a steak in a formal restaurant where someone who knows what they are doing can prepare it for us. The winner of the night was the emu sausage… and the bread pudding

From left to right: crocodile skewer, beef sausage, emu sausage and kangaroo skewers.

Early bed time, we have a 5:00 am wake up call to catch the sunrise.

Monday March 29, 2010

We departed Sydney at 9:30 am, landed in Uluru/Ayers Rock at 11:40am.

The flight was about 3 hours and change and we are now in a half hour time zone!? Huh? Sydney was 18 hours ahead of PST and now we are 16.5 hours ahead. So strange. What’s the point of that? Oh, I also forgot to mention that I tried flipping a coin for dinner the other night… head=seafood, tails=steak. Who knew that Australia had 2 headed coins? Queen Elizabeth now takes precedence on the coin toss as “the head.”

We are staying at Sails in the Desert, a hotel within Ayers Rock Resort. There is literally nothing out here except some restaurants, hotels and the actual rock. There is a little mini village with some gift shops, a photo lab, hair salon and a market, but that is pretty much it. We hung out by the pool for a while and ordered a few beers/wine and tried the Asian marinated kangaroo wrap before we had to get ready for the Sounds of Silence champagne/dinner tour to watch the sunset in the desert. (as it turned out the 5 minutes of silence we were promised was interrupted by a very annoying and funny looking Italian woman and her pal. I will try to get a picture of her later in her wig, hairnet and ridiculous outfits. She is quite a site.)

I should sell this to them for their brochure.

I was so fixed on getting this fantastic shot of the didgeridoo player in front of the rock that I …

…completely missed the actual sun setting. Fail.

The cloud formation was amazing.

You can see it changing shape and color over the course of the hour and here it looks like a bird taking a nose dive into the ground.

They corral us down to the eating area…

…where we met some nice people from the UK and newlyweds from Tokyo.

From the bottom left: crocodile caesar salad, pumkpin feta salad, orange couscous salad (which almost made me vomit because it tasted just like those nasty orange jelly rings you had as a kid), overcooked kangaroo, jasmine rice with orange blossom (best part of the meal!), carrots and overcooked lamb. I guess I can’t expect everyone to eat their meat rare like I do. **sigh**

After dinner we had an astronomy expert come in and teach us a few things. Apparently there is no North Star visible in the Southern Hemisphere. Fascinating that there are different things to see. (He made no mention of the Big Dipper or Little Dipper.) Because of the near full moon I was able to capture these shots with no flash just using available light. Granted I had the camera set to the highest possible ISO, but it’s still pretty cool looking. They had a big ass telescope where we actually got to look at Saturn and saw the rings of it. Pretty amazing. Makes ya wanna run out and by a telescope.

And by the end of the evening, I had nothing left to photograph except this lonely little bug. I am not sure why, but I really like this picture.

Sunday March 28, 2010

First off I want to apologize for writing the last two posts at a second grade reading level. I was totally exhausted and could barely sift through the photos let alone say anything interesting or informative. Sorry! Although I was able to lure in another “reader” because of the primitive nature of the posts. (Yes, Rich is finally reading my blog. Let’s work on Chris now. He just does it to piss me off.)

We woke up at the butt crack of dawn again to catch our Frontier Photographic Safari tour bus to the Blue Mountains. Sam, the landscape photographer driver was picking us up and 4 other people to go on a semi-private tour. You know I like to do things my way and when I inquired about a private tour it was too much money.  The woman I was corresponding with promised it would only be 8 of us so we went with them. Wrong. There were 11. Ok, I am not going to make a big deal out of this. No worries.

Our first stop was at Featherdale Wildlife Park where we could interact and touch kangaroos, wallabies and emus. Check out this baby wallaby (or maybe a relative of the wallaby…. I dunno 818 and I keep arguing about our marsupial viewing. He is probably right)

It was early enough in the day that they were still hungry and very friendly to us. We weren’t able to pick them up, but we could feed them and pet them.

For example, I thought this was a small kangaroo, but 818 says it’s a wallaby. How ridiculous that I come to this place and cannot even identify my animals…. anyone? back me up here.

Hilarious, he is doing self portraits with it.

And probably the single cutest photo I have taken in a long time…

I have this really cool wide angle video adaptor lens thingy and it looks like a true fish eye lens. The interesting part is that you have to get really really close to the subject, and kangaroos like to punch. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I was not punched in the face by a kangaroo, although that would have been the greatest story ever. There was a Nikon ad years ago with a black and white photo of a guy up close to a kangaroo who was punching him and his camera went flying: Nikon tip #47 when photographing nature, try a zoom lens. I desperately wanted that to come true for me.

I love this picture!

I mean seriously, is this not the funniest thing ever? Look at his little tongue! OMG Is that going to stop me from eating him tomorrow night? Absolutely not. There are 50 million of them in Australia, they can afford to lose a few to my belly.

We picked up another passenger at the wildlife park bringing out passenger count to 1/3 more people than I was promised. Ok, no worries.

We trekked on to the Blue Mountains and got out to take a brief 10 minute walk when we started approaching 2000 or 2500 feet.

Sam tried to get us to play his didgeridoo but no one was really interested in putting their mouth on his nasty wooden noisemaker after God knows how many others have done the same thing so we declined. One brave American woman played the thing. And it sounded nothing like it was supposed to.

After our mini hike we went to Mount Tomah for what was promised to be an amazing lunch with a beautiful view of the mountain range and then a quick walk around their botanical gardens. We all ordered the barramundi and we were all highly disappointed. The highlight of lunch was the cheap wine they served.

After lunch we went to see Govett’s Leap, the Australia version of the Grand Canyon, but much greener.

Then we went to the area where the famous Three Sisters are… We rode a tram down into the valley which was at a FIFTY TWO DEGREE ANGLE! holy shit it was steep! I was so frazzled on the way down I couldn’t even manage a clear picture.

After our sightseeing we had a long drive back to the city where Sam sang along with ancient Australian folk songs and made us listen to an Aboriginal tell stories. None of us were really that enthusiastic about any of that and I think about 75% of the bus was asleep within a half hour. So despite the fact that our itinerary said “Hotel pick-up and return” we were dumped off at the Sydney Olympic park and were told to find our way back to the city. I was like, ummm… dude sorry we didn’t play your fucking didgeridoo thingy, but aren’t you being a little lazy by not driving us back to the hotel? This tour was not something I would recommend. Especially since it was a “photographic” tour… he gave us about 10 minutes at each spot. Someone like me likes to take in the whole scene and might need a few more minutes to soak it in while shooting. Lame.

We had a beer at a outdoor cafe near Cockle Bay and then headed off to a 47th floor rotating restaurant called The Summit. Apparently the executive chef is named Michael Moore, not to be confused with the sensationalist director we love to hate. My brother was less than thrilled at not understanding the over priced 2 course menu for $79 and not knowing what his options were or what the menu items were. It’s all good, though, he’s learning how to live, too

I had the crudo and tartare appetizer: the salmon toro was kind of bland (the one on the left) but the other thing… was pretty tasty. It was thinly sliced salmon and had some roe on it and a bunch of little hot peppers that I had to pick off, of course.

For my entree I had the John Dory (my new favorite white fish and I order wherever I can. It’s very light and not fishy at all) It came with ravioli thingys stuffed with crab. (Slightly over salted but still good.)

And lastly, before we left Sydney I was bound and determined to get the Opera House from every possible angle in every possible lighting situation. Being that the place was rotating I was forced to crawl on the floor and set up the camera on a mini tripod on the base of the restaurant that was NOT rotating. It was quite a sight, but I have this gem to show for it.

On another note, I received a tweet from Jarin requesting some “facedowns” while I am on this trip. I am pretty sure I can make this happen and you know I love a good goofy photo-op!

March 27, 2010

I have to admit I have been a little overwhelmed and haven’t concentrated on the culinary aspect of this trip. We just stumble upon something and if we are hungry or thirsty, we make it happen. Today we went to the Fish Market (a big fat fail, it was nothing like the one in Tokyo) and after a disappointing “no-raw-fish-for-breakfast” we went to The Rocks and found a little French cafe called  La Renaissance Patisserie, complete with angry bitchy French women running it. They are known for their cakes and we can just start our day right off the bat with a LTP award going to the Passion De Pierre! I never realized that I loved passion fruit so much… but today I learned that the yummy gooey stuff on the top of this dessert was in fact passion fruit sauce. The first time I ever had this in my mouth was in Dubai and the second time was back in November at the Food and Wine Festival where Chris and I were licking plates. Ironically I called the sauce from November a caramel pomegranate sauce and if I had to go back in time and make that same assessment again, it would be passion fruit. What an amazingly sophisticated palate I have, huh? oh well… please remember that I am learning how to live.

It was so adorable I almost didn’t want to eat it.

This is so creepy I don’t even know what to say.

Kanagaroo jerky, of course.

I lost count of how many pictures I have of the Opera House. I have every single inch of her covered, I almost feel like I am violating her. Just wait til Ayers Rock in a few days, though. Every single angle in every single lighting situation.

All morning we kept running into and trying to stay out of the way of these crazy people. They were in a relay race/scavenger hunt type thing called City Chase and were in a mad dash to complete a bunch of tasks. I wanted to ask them what they were doing but most of them were in a frantic hurry and I certainly didn’t want to be responsible for making them lose. Ann Marie and I keep talking about signing up for Amazing Race. I really need to check into that now that I have some free time.

After hitting up every open air market in the Greater Sydney area and Pete was bored to tears of shopping we headed over to Bondi Beach, the most famous beach in all of Sydney.

Dogs were running around playing and this one in particular looked almost identical to Pete and Ann Marie’s old dog Chelsea. I think they are very close to getting another one soon (Although they claim that I am close too. (I love dogs, but clearly a dog is not conducive to my lifestyle at this moment.)

For some odd reason there was a splotch of hot pink paint on this rock that 818 noticed. It’s almost as if the monkey took a shit on the rock.

This never gets old. I laugh every time I take one of these.

Umm nice hair, Laura.

and my favorite photo of the day…

And this is Peter Travis, inventor of the Speedo! He was so excited to talk to us and tell us about the Speedo and how he invented it… 83 years old and the guy is full of energy!

After sightseeing all day we went to Prime for a lovely steak dinner. No photos. I am tired. Good night.

March 26, 2010

I am so exhausted that I can barely keep my eyes open. We completely lost an entire day in travel and got only a few hours of sleep on the plane, so today’s entry will be very short commentary on a few good photos. The pink monkey has been to all of the continents and is in rough shape these days. When I return home he will be retired and put in a class case forever. He smells real bad. He has sat in penguin shit, been fondled by stinky kids at a Masai village, has had his face planted in the street in Manhattan, been burned by cigarettes and has been dragged around by many dogs mouths. He has had a good life. Follow along as we throw him around down under….

I wasn’t about to lose him in Sydney Harbor so I have the grip of death on him here.

Syndey Harbor Bridge

Of course the Sydney Opera House

818 looking hot with his scruff.

My brother Peter

Traffic jam in the harbor

If you look very closely you will see the monkey. This is like playing “Where’s Waldo” …

If you look closely here you can see my reflection in the mirror at the end of the hallway of this theater.

And finally, the view we enjoyed during our lousy dinner at an Italian place called Baia.

I gotta get to bed, we are getting up at 5:00 am to hit the fish market. ZZZZZZZ for now…

Monday March 22, 2010

Bikram yoga round 2. Kim decided to join me since she hadn’t been in 10 years also. We went to the 9:00 am class and I swear to you it’s hotter, stinkier and more crowded. I won’t be doing that again. Clearly the only way to get through this is first thing in the morning. Today’s instructor was a little stricter, but knowing it was only my second class, was still nice to me. I tried really hard to do all of the postures but there are a few that I just can’t get. Yet. Some are easier for me than others and I pushed myself harder today despite my legs being pretty sore. I swear when you are in there you just think you aren’t going to be able to make it and the last half hour goes by sooooo slowly and when it’s over you are in a state of high. So relaxed, so calm and you just kind of saunter to the car enjoying the cool air. Kim told me if I wasn’t there she might not have stayed through the whole class. I can’t wait to get back from my trip and do it three times a week. (maybe more?)

SCUBA round 2 @ 1:00pm. Night. And. Day! Michael was waiting for someone to come run the front of the dive shop so I had to wait in the pool area for about 30 minutes and I had nothing to do but stare at it.

I would like to think that the yoga class calmed my nerves so much that I was able to completely relax and not freak out in the water. I brought my underwater camera so that if I felt the panic creeping in I could play with it and focus on that instead of my fears. It worked! Michael grabbed the camera and although my intention was not to have photos of myself today, I will share them with you. It appears as though I am having a panic attack here but I really wasn’t.

And here I am imitating a T-Rex.

All in all it was a day of learning to control my breathing. I feel pretty confident about diving in the open waters of the Great Barrier Reef now and 818 swears that he would not allow me to flip out and chicken out on this.

Check out my new tshirt!

Rich, Kim and I went to Sigrid and Tyson’s for dinner so I could say goodbye before I left. I hadn’t seen Tyson in forever so it was nice to catch up. We pigged out, drank some wine and they all made fun of me for not knowing a damn thing about reality TV. I keep trying to talk Sigrid into starting a blog about reality TV shows so people like me could just read it and catch up without having to watch them or The Soup. It seemed like every third “celebrity” they spoke of was someone I had never heard of. I have been living in my little porn bubble for a long time, but honestly, do I really give a shit who is on Dancing with the Stars? No.

Funny story: Tyson and Sigrid’s baby only says “Dada” so far and doesn’t quite have “Mama” yet. After her bath Tyson was reading her a book. I thought it might be a book about animals or a puppy or a kitty or whatever… I heard him talking quietly in her ear “My Daddy loves me and I love him so much. I love it when he tickles me. Blah blah my Daddy this my Daddy that.” I was like “SIGRID, no wonder she only says ‘Dada’! Listen to him brainwashing her!! What the hell!?”

As it turns out the title of the book is “Why I love My Daddy.” (ooops)

Rewind back to Sunday night, I went to Moe’s house because his parents were in town. It was supposed to be a bonfire/cook-out at Fiesta Island but apparently it was too cold so they moved it inside. His dogs are freaking adorable.

This is Grizzly the Cocker Spaniel:

And Staley the Golden Retriever he rescued about 2 years ago, who looks like he is in trouble, but it completely exhausted:

So cute! **sigh** I miss having a dog

Saturday March 20, 2010

I got up early and had breakfast with Yesenia, another producer/director who worked for me at Naughty America for years. She started as a makeup artist, moved to production manager of the entire LA operation and about a year and a half ago started producing/directing for the company as an independent contractor. She is a ball of energy and we have been good friends for years. Plus she is a die-hard U2 fanatic like I am! We went to Basix Cafe in West Hollywood after attempting to try The Griddle and seeing about 872 people in line at 9am! Aren’t you people supposed to be sleeping in? It’s Saturday! Everyone always rants and raves about The Griddle so I guess next time I better wake up at 7am or go on a weekday. Sheesh. It was good to catch up with her. As it turns out her parents are moving back to Guatemala in the fall and I do believe if I can get past this pesky little SCUBA problem I am having, I will be inviting myself to go with her. Belize is very close to Guatemala and is the second largest coral reef system behind the Great Barrier Reef. I have never been to Central America and I would love to be able to check that off my list. After this trip to Australia, continent #7, I need to make up a new to-do list and fill in the gaps. (as I type this I just tried to give you 3 or 4 of the places that are at the top of the list and I can’t even do it! I can’t even narrow it down to the top 4)

The train ride home is always so relaxing. I love taking the train to and from LA but then it sucks when you have no vehicle while you are there. (But then again driving in Los Angeles is probably my least favorite thing to do. I would rather do housework than drive in LA traffic.) The train back to San Diego allows you to stare out the window and gaze at this for about an hour. Put some headphones on and ignore that small annoying child you hear.

I had an extra ticket to Cirque du Soleil because Rich was being a jackoff and decided to hit the bars all day instead of going with Chris and I to the 4:00pm show in Del Mar. I told him if I didn’t find someone to go that he had to come with me or give me the money for the ticket anyways. He threatened that he would be a hot mess and be wearing board shorts. The last thing I want to do today is have that drunk ass in my car and sitting next to me during a quiet dark show. I called my friend Erin and she was happy to join us… so what if she only saw one inning of her kid’s baseball game before ditching him. lol

I have been to a lot of the Cirque du Soleil shows… In Las Vegas: Ka, O, Mystere, Zumanity, two traveling shows called Dralion and Varekai, and there was one focused on music called Alegria. I have yet to see the Criss Angel, Elvis or Beatles shows in Vegas.

Kooza is their latest traveling show. If you are in San Diego and have ANY free time this week you need to check it out! Well worth the $70. It ends on March 28th though so hurry!

Of course you are not allowed to take photos in there so I found some clips of my 3 favorite acts.
The contortionists girls were incredible! I think like 3 or 4 more Bikram yoga sessions and I should be good to go for a new career.

The tightrope guys were amazing…. It is unreal how these people make their bodies do things that look humanly impossible. Strength, balance, concentration and an incredible amount of trust in their partners. First of all, when is the last time you jumped rope?? Let alone on a tightrope 50 feet in the air with no net below you! What you don’t see in this clip is the bicycles they ride across the tightrope and then the chair that goes on top of that and the guy who stands on the chair. Crazy!

and my favorite act (probably of ALL of the shows I have ever seen) is this one… The Wheel of Death: (again with the jumping rope around 4:45 )

These videos don’t even do it justice… they are dark and being there is an entirely different experience. Other highlights of the show were watching the 6 year old boy in the front row freak out when the big giant dog pees on the audience.

An actual burst of liquid comes out and hits the front row. Then the dog turns around and pretends that he is kicking and covering the mess. This little kid wigged out and ran to the other side of the stage and then everytime one of the clowns would approach the stage he would bolt. It was hilarious. It looked like he was with his Grandmother and Erin and I were cracking up that this kid would be scarred for life and never want to go with his Nana ever again. Of course they call volunteers up to the stage at various parts of the show and I always wonder if they are planted in the audience or just chosen when they arrive. I am sure they have to sign some sort of release and the crew probably tells them what to do to make the show more interesting. They always seem to roll with the punches just right. It made me think of the time I was at Sea World and I literally fell for that trick with the “volunteer” girl falling into the pool during one of their dolphin or whale acts. My nieces were dying laughing at me because I legitimately panicked and thought the girl fell in. I would bet that Sea World has probably cut that act out of their shows recently.

After the show we went to dinner at Pamplemousse which is one of my favorite restaurants in San Diego. (along with Addison and Phil’s BBQ.) I started off with the Pamplemousse Martini (pamplemousse is the French word for grapefruit btw) Absolut Ruby Red (my flavored vodka of choice these days) Cointreau, fresh grapefruit juice and lemon juice, served with a sugared rim. Dee-lish!

Chris and I love to order a bunch of appetizers when we come here because they are all pretty awesome.

Abalone with lump king crab:

Clockwise from top left: shrimp with an amazing soy ginger sauce, fried oyster, lobster ravioli in a peppercorn sauce, crab served on a bed of greens with a carmelized red onion and in the middle was tuna tartare. The peppercorn and ginger sauces were definitely LTP worthy (for those of you just joining us, LTP is the “Lick The Plate” award) but for some reason have not had the courage to lick plates in public lately.  Maybe I was not drunk enough.

Truffled white asparagus soup which looks as bland as it tasted. I didn’t really taste any truffles.

This was a smoked fish platter which was so over powering I actually had to push it to the other side of the table. I am very weird about fish sometimes. I like cooked salmon. I like smoked raw salmon on a bagel. I do not like cooked smoked salmon and I don’t particularly like raw salmon unless it is smoked. It’s weird.

And the mother of all dishes at Pamplemousse THE WHITE TRUFFLE LOBSTER GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH. Ladies and gentlemen, this sandwich is fifty bucks. We actually told ourselves when we arrived that we weren’t going to get it because we have had it so many times before. And then we caved. Because of the smoked platter that I recoiled at I was able to barter and get 2 slices of this.

Dinner was amazing and I went home and crawled into bed at 10:30. I love sleep. But then at 2am I woke up puking and shitting. Not too fun. I am just happy that I was not able to identify what food it was that made me sick. I would hate to have to hate something from that restaurant. Everything is too yummy.

The benefit to vomiting is losing weight. I am down to 141 from 148 last week. I know, it’s disgusting.

March 19, 2010

In 2003 I went to an adult industry tradeshow on the island of Curacao. (pics here) It’s about 40 miles north of Venezuela and is a beautiful quaint island with a strong Dutch influence. Interestingly enough (I forgot to mention this yesterday) that was the one and only time that I had ever attempted to SCUBA. One of the big sponsoring companies was offering a day trip full of activities which included feeding sea turtles and sharks and swimming with dolphins and manta rays. Swimming with dolphins was amazing! It was a really neat experience and I highly recommend it if you ever have a chance to do it. The water is shallow enough, they are not aggressive at all and they love to swim beside you. (obvi) They looped around the pool over and over and nudged us to keep swimming. If you got tired you moved to the edge of the pool and they go nudge someone else.  It was peaceful and made you feel like Jacque fucking Cousteau. However, the rest our days activities included a stinky wetsuit, breathing apparatus, tanks, fins, mask and a basket full of dead fish. I was hungover, wasn’t paying attention to the instructor during the 20 minute SCUBA lesson and once we got into the water I realized the sea turtles were trying to bite my damn fingers off if I put them near the top of the chain link fence separating us. Coupled with the instructor warning me to be careful and not step on the surface of the ocean because of the fish that like to bite and the giant grouper heading towards me the size of Moby Dick… well… needless to say….  I didn’t last very long out there. 2 other girls flipped out and we all frantically swam back to the shore.

Sooooo, prior to me leaving on that trip, boss-man made me promise to do one Bikram yoga class. (If you are unaware of this type of yoga and are too lazy to click that link, I will tell you that it’s conducted in a room heated to 120 degrees and consists of 26 poses that are repeated twice. They look pretty simple, but I can assure you that the human body doesn’t do most of that naturally and without a lot of practice. Oh, and people who do Bikram regularly are like cultists.) I went to the school in Old Town and had a very mean and very strict lady as my teacher. She even went so far as to follow this one dude out to the bathroom when he ran out to vomit. I could hear her talking through her microphone in the studio while she was calling out to him in the men’s bathroom to come back to the class and stick it out. There was another guy who was recovering from knee surgery and she was riding his ass about a pose that he was doing wrong. It was an awkward experience and I never went back.

It’s funny that 7 years later I am attempting to conquer both of these “fears” (for lack of a better word.) I am ready to take on new challenges in life and ready to get past the mental obstacles stopping me from whatever it is that intimidates me. I can no longer use the excuse that I don’t have time to do Bikram.

I attended the 6:30 am class and the teacher was very nice and helpful and of course singled me out so that she could assist me with any confusion I might have about proper posture or posing. She even warned me in the first pose not to strain too hard. This woman was great and I had a great experience. I didn’t even think about wearing my contact lenses and my glasses got hot and were steamed up pretty quickly. I actually had to take them off for many of the poses and as you know, I am fucking blind. I never really got the nauseas feeling that I had last time, perhaps because I was in the first class of the day and maybe the room isn’t quite as hot as a 4:30 pm class mid-summer. It’s quiet, stinky and you can hear the sweat droplets hitting the mat of the people next to you. It is an intense workout for not moving very much and one that burns approximately 1000 calories for someone of my weight. 90 minutes of pure hell, but goddamn it 1000 calories is a long time at the gym doing tedious cardio that I hate.  Even though I have never gone through labor I like to describe Bikram as if it’s like those women who scream in pain and curse their husbands and boyfriends and swear up and down they will never go through anything like that ever again… and then miraculously, when the baby comes out and it’s all over, they say that they will do it again in a heartbeat. Bikram heated yoga is the same thing to me. I wanted to die. My head was throbbing and I felt like I couldn’t go on another minute without fainting and yet, when it was done… I felt amazing and wanted to do it again 4 hours late. (As I write this the next day my leg and neck muscles are getting more sore and tighter by the minute. Ouch.)

I took the train to LA and met my friend Ben for lunch at a French place called Church and State. The food was fucking amazing and several times we caught ourselves saying “That was the best ______ that I have ever had.” The steak tartare was great. I actually added a little bit of salt to mine, but it was pretty damn good on it’s own.

Ben had the sea-bass (Loup de Mer a la Grenobloise) with small cauliflower bits. I made the waiter ask the chef what was in it so I could share it with you all: butter, lemon, capers, parsley, chicken stock and the secret twist was reconstituted raisins in a muscat. I would totally have licked the plate but it wasn’t mine and I didn’t want to freak Ben or the waiter out too bad.

I had the roasted chicken (Poulet Roti) with Brussel Sprouts, small diced ham chunks in a red wine sauce. It was delicious, but did not compare to the sauce of the sea-bass dish.

The cappuccino was out of this world also. Go check this place out for sure. It is super loud if you go during the lunch rush, so if you are looking to do some chitchatting I would hit it after 2:30 pm. It was good to catch up with Ben. He is an amazing photographer who has been working in adult for years but is recently taking the time to work on some cool fine art projects to further his mainstream career. He does weddings, fashion and is working on a project now called Project1site.com where he forces himself to create at least one fine art image every single day for a year. He started on January 1^st and will end on December 31^st. Some days are tough… when you want to curl up in a ball and go to bed because you worked 12 hours and have a head cold, you still have to make that shot. I admire his determination.  I hope that someday we can work together again professionally, whatever that may be.

After lunch we went to Little Tokyo and walked around for a bit before 818 picked me up. Ben and I said our goodbyes and I promised to be in touch as soon as I got back from Australia. 818 and I headed back to his place and I made a reservation for dinner at a placed I had been wanting to try called Lucques on Melrose. I took a quick nap before we were supposed to meet up with Puma Swede and Keiran Lee. At approximately 8:22 as we were walking out the door to meet them for an 8:30 dinner reservation the door slammed shut and 818 realized that he had locked his keys in the apartment. AND his roommate was all the way in Torrance on her way to San Diego for the weekend. Oh that is just awesome. (sound of record scratching) Call the restaurant and cancel the table, Puma and Keiran pick me up while he waits for roommate to come back. We then drive to Katsu-ya to put our name in at 9:10 for a 45 minute to one hour wait. No biggie, that is another place in LA I wanted to try. I kept hearing how it’s the best sushi in the Valley. So we go over to Fox and Hounds for a beer and then head back to the sushi bar in about 45 minutes. ANOTHER FORTY FIVE MINUTES LATER we finally get seated. The food was decent but was definitely not worth an hour and a half wait. The only interesting looking thing we ordered was this soft shell crab thingy with a creamy spicy sauce and it was still pretty average.

Puma was very well behaved and didn’t try to grope me or molest me at all. Now I am beginning to think that it is all Nikki Benz. Hmmmm. Or she read my blog from last time and saw how annoyed I was.

They are such a loving couple.

HA! They are actually both certifiably insane. But I love ‘em!

We thought we would play switcheroo tonight and maybe mix things up a bit. Umm, just kidding.

On a side note, while 818 and I were sitting in the lobby of his building waiting for the key debacle to be resolved I asked him if he cared to know the itinerary for our trip next week. He said “Nah.” I love that he is just going with the flow and trusting me. The only thing he knows is that we are flying to Sydney first and ending in Auckland NZ and driving around in a motorhome for 4 days. We are both a little bit of control freaks so I am amazed that he is not even concerned about this. It is teaching me a valuable lesson in letting go.

Friday March 18, 2010

I realized a few weeks ago that I wasn’t going to be able to be fully SCUBA certified in time unless I took the private 40 hour class for the low-low price of $1200. No thank you, I will dive with an instructor tethered to me. To be honest, I was relieved at the idea of having assistance while diving and being able to concentrate on shooting pictures rather than not drowning. Upon the advice of 818, who has been certified for years, I made an appointment to get comfortable in the water with the gear and practice the whole act of diving/breathing underwater. I went to Dive California and had Michael training me on this lovely Friday morning. He reminded me that I spent 9 months breathing underwater and that this was actually a very normal thing, I just needed to retrain myself how to do it. Well shit, if you put it that way…. how can I chicken out??

I was fine at first. I wanted to cheat and put the mask on but Michael wouldn’t let me, that prick. He wanted me to practice going under and breathing with the regulator and not letting water get into my nose. Pretty basic concept, but much easier when something is actually blocking the nostrils. I did it over and over and finally got the hang of it. I really don’t know when the multiple panic attacks started and stopped, they were just happening a lot. I would go in and out of feeling comfortable and freaking out at various times. It was weird because I would be doing fine and then just WIG OUT about something and dart to the surface, rip the mask off and rip the regulator out of my mouth for no reason. My fin might get caught on the bottom of the pool sending me into a state of panic. It was not a fun experience for the first hour in the water. At one point I was actually crying and telling him that I was most likely going to call it a day and just snorkel in Australia. He then informed me that snorkeling was even tougher and that it would be even more irregular and difficult. He asked if I really wanted to go all that way and miss out on so many photographic opportunities when I had already been breathing underwater just fine only 10 minutes ago?

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

FINE! I had to pee and maybe that was distracting me. I got out of the pool and schlepped my ass in my wetsuit to the bathroom and I swear to God I considered just taking it off and putting my clothes on and leaving through the front door but I realized my glasses were in the pool area. Ok I am kidding… it didn’t really get that far at that moment. I mean, I did consider calling it a day several times but managed to calm my nerves down each time. When I went to the restroom I looked in the mirror and called myself a bunch of names (I mostly said “Stop being a fucking pussy!”) and went back to the pool.

Michael was an amazing instructor, very patient and after 3 hours in that pool, I was done with all of the exercises we had to complete to finish the Discover SCUBA training. But then it happened again, when I was sent out to the deep end to do all of the exercises again on my own while he watched from a distance …I freaked out. By this time I was hungry, getting frustrated with my own anxieties, a cramp was forming in my leg and I had realized how long we were in the pool and was feeling bad about it. I asked if I he had time to see me again on Monday so we have an appointment to try this all over again. I am sure it will be easier this next time. As I was driving my car home I thought how difficult it was when I first took the wheel  and thinking how scary it was to be operating a motor vehicle. And how now I can eat, text, have conversations, fiddle with the radio all while driving. It just has to become a habit.

I kept reminding myself about the womb. I spent 9 months doing this, it will be fine. Just be calm. Remember the amazing things you are going to see. Remember that 818 will make fun of you and never let you live this down. Remember that you have jumped out of airplanes before. Remember that you did not trek all over the fucking world hitting every single continent to chicken out and not dive the Great Barrier Reef when you got to #7. You can do this Laura, you can do this.

818 had sent me a text saying “Have fun in the water” and then the girl at the register asked me if I had fun when I was walking out the door. Hey guys, I wouldn’t exactly call panic attacks and tears a “fun morning” but thanks for asking.

On another note, here is a kitty sunning himself in Ocean Beach. It appears as though his day is much less stressful then mine.

Wednesday March 17, 2010

One of my oldest dearest friends met me to kick off an Irish Pub Crawl today! I have known Scotty Leo for about 13 or 14 years now… He used to come into The Tivoli as the Camel cigarette guy and I was in there all time visiting my friend Karen who bartended. Scotty was good friends with another bartender named Kim (yes, my beloved Kim) and even though Kim and Karen never really got along, I fell right in with their crew and have been BFFs with many of them for a loooong time. Oftentimes we refer to our circle of friends (and actually tons of other people in SoCal) as “Six Degrees of Mike Jenkins.” Kim and Mike dated forever, Mike knew Renee and Sigrid from a job, they were all in the DJ scene, Chris opened up a 18+ nightclub, yadda yadda. I could go on for days about how I know everyone and their connections. Long story short, from here on out when it is a Mike Jenkins connection I will say “6degreesofMJ”

We started at The Field, probably the most authentic Irish pub in all of San Diego, simply  because of the fact that every single part of the bar was shipped here from Ireland. Every bar stool, every bit of decoration, every knick-knack, probably even a few dust bunnies.

I guess I am not the only one who shops at Busted Tees.

What Scotty and I couldn’t figure out is how all of these people have today off? Are they all unemployed like me? Are they just on their lunch break? Are they all Irish and take the day off? Do people in Ireland even celebrate St. Patty’s Day?

I ordered the Irish Sampler, and it was not very good. I should have gone with my gut and eaten at Dublin Square, but I was waiting on Moe and Claw who claimed they would be at the Field for BREAKFAST and finally showed up at 2:30. Talk about tweeker time, Jesus!

After waiting around for too long at the Field, Scotty and I started walking towards Patrick’s but got distracted by the live music at Henry’s Pub.

Watch this band absolutely massacre a U2 classic.

Cute bartender… be patient while I test out my camera all day…

Scotty forgot that you were supposed to wear green today (he doesn’t get out much) so I stuck this on his head. Dork.

This clown was actually pretty entertaining.

Here I did the work for you. I can’t tell if they are a local company or not though.

Scotty had to take off so Moe, Claw and I headed over to Dublin Square which was fucking mobbed but I was able to get a great shot of a trainwreck of a girl. I know for a fact I have been that intoxicated in public and now that I have seen this vision of loveliness I might consider heading home before I am in that condition in the future. Wow. And it’s still daylight. I love how she is holding herself up with the door handle. (look her for her on my friend Joey’s site.)

I asked the boys to act casual and pretend I wasn’t there. Ok thanks guys.

The girls from the Tilted Kilt were cruising around dressed like sluts trying to get people to go all the way down to the ballpark area … most people forget that place is even there. Kind of a brilliant move… I’m pretty sure it was the dimples on the one girl’s back that pushed us over the edge.

On the way to Titled Kilt we stopped at The Tiv, of course. I bet you can guess where all four of these guys were born and raised. If you don’t know then I guess you should probably stop reading this blog because you are dumb and I just don’t need dumb people following me. But if you aren’t from the United States, then you are allowed to continue reading. Just google “wicked retahded.”

I didn’t take many photos at the Tilted Kilt because I was too busy betting Claw and losing.  I thought that the bar was only open 7 days a week during baseball season. He claimed that the place was open year round 7 days a week. It is huge and I was convinced that there would be no possible way that they could fill it and make enough money to stay open down there in the desolate East Village. I was wrong and I lost ten bucks. I only make bets that I am 99.9% sure to win. I suck.

All day we had been making fun of businesses in the downtown area that have gone under and by what thought process did they ever think that they would survive in the current economic crisis. Take this giant 5,000 square foot location for hand woven carpets.

Or a place called:  Wings, Pizza and Things. (no pic sorry.) I thought I would open up a shop called “Bicycle Locks, Gerbils and Tanning Salon” and see how well it did. Ridiculous.

Like I said, be patient while I play with the new Nikon D300.

Our last stop of the day was at Basic where the two of them GRILLED me about who this character was that I was going to Australia with. I couldn’t take it anymore and I had to get up early and attempt SCUBA diving in a pool which is sure to be a full blown anxiety attack. I needed some sleep and I needed to be certain I didn’t smell like booze in the morning. I was asleep at 8:30 and it was awesome.

Before we left Basic a random 80’s song came on that I cannot get out of my head. Do you remember this song?? I love it! Godley and Creme.