The other day I was at James and Lauren’s place and I was brutally attacked by cuteness. Meet Gnarly. He’s loud, he snores, he drools and he loves to crawl right onto your lap on the couch.

What the hell!? Who is THAT big? wtf size is that? 48?

I stopped by the NA offices and they still have my blow up doll that I used to put at my desk when I was on vacation. She is disrobed now and basically lives in a 5 foot plant in someone’s office. It’s funny… we look nothing alike anymore!

I had the pleasure of meeting Tucker Max the other night at Borders in Mission Valley…luckily I saw on my Twitter feed that he was in town doing a signing for his new book “Assholes Finish First” and was able to make time in my busy schedule to go. I first heard about him a few years ago from my friend Tyson because he was a fan of his blog. His stories are basically about him getting fucked up in his 20s and the debaucherous things he did and the women he slept with. His first book “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” is hysterically funny and was made into a movie. (I heard the movie was not that good and I haven’t actually brought myself to watch it yet, though.) I can tell you that he is so true to his brand and is truly an asshole in real life. He did a Q&A in the beginning and this woman asked a question about his married friend in the book and he was like “Which married friend? I write about several of them.” She said something like “The one who blah blah blah” and he was like “I don’t know who you mean. Ok when you get your shit together we will come back to you. Next question!” He was just swearing and being himself right in the middle of Borders. It was awesome.

I stood in line for 2 hours to have him sign a few books and take a picture with him. (He wrote “Laura, I am still awesome. -Tucker Max.”) I was going to wear my “Everyone Loves a Drunk Girl” tshirt but opted for a classier shirt that showed some cleavage. I would totally sleep with Tucker Max. Unfortunately this girl in front of me cock blocked me because of her stupid porno name. Her name was Fonda Wood and Tucker went crazy over her name and said he wanted to sleep with her just because of it. So, by the time I got to him all he could say was “Are you friends with Fonda Fucking Wood?? What an awesome name!”       That bitch.

These immature college boys behind me in line were drunk and almost got into a fist fight with some other kids. Two of them had brought a six pack of beer for Tucker but drank it I think. I am not really sure what was going on except that I heard two kids yelling profanities at each other and threatening to kick each other’s pussy asses. Yes, in Borders bookstore at a Tucker Max signing. Classic.

Here I am drinking a pickle brine martini with a bacon swizzle stick from Quality Social… Bacon rules!

In other exciting news I would like to introduce you to my new food blog! I have high hopes for this and would love for you to subscribe to it… I might actually make some money at this blog or at the very least get some free food out of it!

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Saturday September 11, 2010

I met George for brunch at a cute little French place by the hotel called Comme Ca. They have some amazing looking cocktails but I was about to drive home and hit the 4:30 yoga class, so that would not have been smart. Next time for sure. The bartender was muddling up some yummy sno-cone looking drinks. I ordered the quiche which was a little too creamy for me. When I eat quiche I expect a light fluffy eggy pie. This was too custard-y in texture.

George’s hockey puck of a burger that he did not offer a bite of. Hmmmph.

Later when I got back to SD I got a text from my friend Mike from high school who lives out here in La Jolla. He moved here a few years ago and we have seen each other a few times, but hadn’t spoken in almost a year. So dumb…he’s a great guy and a lot of fun. We really need to hang out more. What needs to happen is he needs to set me up with some of his single hot successful friends.

We met at Dublin Square and immediately left when a party bus full of people in their late 40′s showed up. Eww. Then we went to Funky Garcia’s where I ordered the Funky Roll: a chicken burrito sushi thingy. It was the right idea in concept, but it wasn’t rolled tight enough and of course any amount of spice is too much for me.

This was entertaining. They passed me before I could get the camera on though.

I was shocked to see that the Gaslamp has it’s own directory like the mall. lol so funny to me.

Before heading to Star Bar to investigate a vicious rumor that they cleaned the place up and that they got rid of all the Asian hooker bartenders, we stopped at Quality Social for a pickleback. Or two. These guys were dancing up a storm. I sent out a tweet with the following photo that said:

“OMG Celebrity Party: Ziggy Marley, Jesus Christ and Jay from the Kevin Smith movies!”

I really wanted to show this tweet to Jay, but he had gone home drunk. I found Ziggy and he laughed his ass off. I showed Jesus Christ and he didn’t even know what Twitter was.

oh and ps: The Star Bar is exactly the same. Phew.

Saturday August 14, 2010

I got a new tshirt in the mail from a Mommy blogger named Aunt Becky. Her site is pretty awesome. I follow her on Twitter and saw that she was selling these funny shirts so I bought one in fuschia and black.

Danny was in town so we called Shipyard Jeff up and went to eat downtown at my favorite sushi bar Taka. It bums me out that they use that fake crab shit in their rolls, but the uni and the toro are the best in town and the Special Battera roll is out of this world so I continue to go there.

I told myself that I was not going to go out at all this weekend but somehow we ended up at Quality Social doing shot after shot of Jameson chased with homemade pickle brine. Danny had read about it on my blog and since he loves Jameson, we decided to go in for “just one.” We stood in line for about 10 or 15 minutes (despite my attempt at getting in by name dropping lol. Congrats to my friends who own it!) when finally someone grabbed us along with a group of other people and led us into a doorway around the corner and in through the back storage closet. It was so weird!

Nice face, Jeff.

I have said this before, I don’t even like brown liquor (except Captain Morgan rum) but the pickle juice just neutralizes and cancels out any of the ickyness of the Jameson. You slam the shot of Jameson and then immediately you slam the decliously salty pickle juice. It is heaven on earth.

Jeff did not like it all but Danny and I had about 4 shots in 15 minutes.

The moral of the story is when you slam 4 shots of Jameson in that short of time, you black out. I don’t remember stopping off at the Chee Chee and I don’t remember eating that sandwich that was in my fridge. I thought the ghost that kept eating the tangerines and leaving the peels in my sink was back.

Thursday May 27, 2010

It took me close to 3 hours to blog about Alinea yesterday so I was stuck in my hotel room for the better part of the day after I woke up at 11:30 am! What a waste of a day! I went out for some coffee and then went upstairs to Howard’s room at the Hard Rock Hotel to see what kind of trouble the gays were getting into. I am here in Chicago for a number of reasons and one of them is to hang out with all of my gay porn star friends that are in town for a gay porn awards thingy. Anyways when things started getting weird (poor maintenance guy!) I went to my room to get ready for my dinner with an old high school friend named Kent who lives in the ‘burbs.

Most of my sightseeing this trip has been from the back of a taxi as you can see here.

We met at Old Town Social, the place that my friends Chris and Dex own. (The ones who own Quality Social in San Diego with the pickle back shots.) It’s a cool venue that coins itself a “luxury dive bar”… the down-to-earth elements of a dive bar but decorated nicely and without the pretentiousness of a nightclub. They also have a great menu and tons of good beer.

I hadn’t seen Kent since 1989 when I went to visit him in Claremont where he was attending Harvey Mudd College. He reminded me of how a story when I locked my keys in my car when I went to visit him, which of course I barely remember since I can’t remember what I wore yesterday. The things that I remember about that trip were that in the middle of night we went to a place called The Hat to eat chili cheese fries and that his dorm had a beer vending machine where sometimes you got a shit beer and other times you got real lucky. Neither of us remember anything else about that weekend.

We found each other on Facebook of course so we knew a little bit about the other but we had 21 years of catching up to do. A few months ago he put two and two together when the Tiger Woods nonsense happened and he recognized the Naughty America logo from a photo that he had seen on my Facebook page. After a few hours of researching (and presumably “researching” the Naughty America site) he realized that I worked in porn. We hadn’t really connected until I got an email from him in January asking me to find this real life doll thing at the AVN convention and take a photo of it. (Basically a robotic sex doll.) So here we are several months later catching up in person.

After Harvey Mudd he went to Cornell and got his PhD in physics and is now working as a rocket scientist or something. Well not really, but it’s funny to say that. He tried explaining what he does and he pretty much lost me once I heard “gamma rays” “anti-matter” and “E=mc2″ in the first 5 minutes.

We (and by “we” I mean “I”) ordered the charcuterie and cheese board… chef’s selection of a bunch of different items.

Sausage and waffles! You know how I love Roscoe’s!

Mini hot dogs…Chicago style. The manager came over and asked if I was Laura and said that Dex told him to come find me. He comped our entire bill! What a nice thing to do! Thanks Dex

The music started getting so loud that we couldn’t even hear ourselves so we went to an Irish pub down the street. We talked about past relationships, his parents, where he has lived, travel stories and I soon learned that he has a thing for Asian women. It was great to see him and I do hope we stay in touch.

Would you please look at his fucking phone. It looks like one of those walkie talkie things you put in a baby’s crib for Christ’s sakes. Come on Kent get with the program. I am surprised it evens allows you to text message.

After we said our goodbyes I headed over to a gay club called Hydrate. (I didn’t think I should bring Kent into that part of my world just yet.) My monkey, however, can handle anything. Oh hello Brandon Lewis! What a nice Southern boy.

The one and only Chi Chi LaRue!

And one of my very favorite gays…Brandon Baker!

I had a few too many lemon drop shots with Jason Sechrest…

… so I decided to call it a night and took my car home.

Tuesday May 25, 2010

I got my ass out of bed at 5:45 am to go to Bikram yoga again. I know I will feel good after I’m done but it’s still hard to get up out of bed at that hour to get in the car to go to a place where I will be knowingly tortured. My instructor today was a real big militant prick that Lauren hates. She hates him. He hates her. She avoids his class like the plague and now I know why. I started having a little anxiety today during the class about my appointment with the cardiologist this afternoon. I was tripping out that maybe this was bad for my heart because I felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest and across the floor. I was super dizzy and it felt hotter in there today than ever before. People were dropping like flies. In Bikram yoga you do each posture two times. I laid still for an entire posture and when I was laying still for the next one to get ahold of myself he said “Miss please do the second one” to me. Fine. I got up and did it. The very next one was too much and I walked out of the room. This is our conversation…

Dickhead: “Are you OK?”

Me: (gentle nod yes as I walk towards the door)

Dickhead: “If you are OK then why are you leaving?”

Me: “Well obviously I am not OK.”

I mean come on dude, what does OK mean? Am I going to die? No. Am I feeling like I need to get up and get some cool air? YES THAT’S WHY I AM LEAVING THE FUCKING ROOM. The strange part was that there were other people that go there all the time who are clearly better than me sitting postures out and walking out the door. What was his beef with me today? I swear to you, it does not make me want to get out of bed to continue this horseshit. Isn’t being mean and getting me upset the OPPOSITE of what yoga is all about? I called Lauren after class and she said that he is super rude and runs his classes like a goddamn drill sergeant. She also told me that the Old Town studio prides itself on being hotter and stricter than the other studios. wtf grrrr. I guess one way to look at it is if I can make it through their classes it won’t be any harder anywhere else I might try.

OK onto my appointment with the cardiologist. He said I was totally fine and that I can continue eating whatever I wanted and I should definitely drink more and maybe do some cocaine. Alright, alright … that’s not what he said. I need to do a blood test for cholesterol, kidneys and also thyroid. My blood pressure was fucking sky high (150/90) and I need to buy a cuff and test at home during normal activities and moods, try to cut out more salt and of course keep excercising and lose that last 10 pounds. He wants to see me in a month after I monitor my own blood pressure at home and then we will discuss putting me on meds if it’s not down. He didn’t seem too worried about me dying this week nor needing a valve replacement anytime soon so that is good news. I will be going in to do the blood work next week when I get back from my trip to Chicago.

Which brings me to my next topic! I am leaving in the morning for Chi-town for the weekend and I am about to burst at the seams because I am eating at none other than Alinea, L20 and Moto. If you know anything about molecular gastronomy you have definitely heard of Alinea and Moto. L20 was recommended to me by Dex who owns Quality Social in San Diego and Old Town Social in Chicago. Apparently L20 is Esquire magazines #1 restaurant of the year. Here’s the thing. I was on the wait list for Alinea for Wednesday night but it was not looking promising so Dex put me in at L20 on his hookup for Wednesday BUT Alinea called me to tell me they had a cancellation! I was in a meeting (yes an actual business meeting that I can’t exactly talk about yet) when they called and when I called them back they were not answering because they are not open on Tuesdays for dinner and their offices were closed with the time change. I mean Christ they gave me 15 minutes to call back before they closed. I swear to you if I end up losing both of these reservations because of my juggling act I will flip my lid. If I end up eating at some shithole while I am a culinary heaven like Chicago I might just jump off the Sears Tower. If I make it to all of these places I can assure you that I will be doing all of their tasting menus and then “Laura On a Budget” will come back in full force next week. Like I said, I pick and choose this budget thing. Did I mention that I actually used a coupon last week? lol

Someone on Twitter sent me this blog today about a new food show called Future Food. Looks pretty fun!

Check out this video from Moto…

I went over to Sigrid’s to hang out with her and the baby and Kim and we ate dinner had a glass of wine and watched the first part of the Bachelorette before I got annoyed and left. I have a super early flight out tomorrow…

Saturday May 8, 2010

Chelsea Handler was supposed to be signing books at a bookstore in La Jolla at 3pm and I was pretty excited to go meet her and tell her that we were soul mates. When I looked online to get directions they had switched the time to 5pm and I couldn’t go because I had dinner plans at 5:30 pm with some friends who were going to her show downtown at the Civic Theater. I was debating about going to the theater around the time the show would end to be first in line but figured I would bring the book out with me and make a game time decision.

Dinner was at Oceanaire with Chris, Rich, Dusty, Michelle, Sully and Erin. The main reason I was going was to order the caviar and they were out of it tonight. Apparently a huge party ordered all of it last night. I was pretty annoyed.  I settled on the crab cake appetizer which is one of their signature dishes and totally amazing with huge chunks of crabmeat…It’s served with an aoili sauce which was pretty bland, but the crab cakes were great on their own.

I opted for the prix fixe menu for $29 bucks (Laura on a budget changes from day to day, food item to food item!) New England clam chowder with tons of bacon in it: (here I have been trying to avoid bacon after my brother’s heart attack and they put in there without me even knowing!)

The others had ordered a bunch of oysters and the one I ate was utterly disgusting. It was way too fishy and left the worst after taste in my mouth. I don’t know what it was called, it was small and nasty.

I had the arctic char (I don’t even want to admit this but I had a brain fart and thought I was ordering a white fish and was shocked when salmon showed up. What an idiot!) Their fries need some truffle oil in my opinion. But then again I think everything needs truffle oil.

For dessert I had the blueberry cheesecake. Nothing special.

After dinner they all had to race off to the show and I met a very drunk and belligerent Mike from Tivoli at Red Pearl Kitchen with none other than the mom of Chloe the French Bulldog! No pics, they were a hot mess after an all day pubcrawl. I walked over to Quality Social to meet up with Danielle who was supposed to be working tonight. To my surprise she was sitting on the other side of the bar and had the night off! (Yes we had “pickle backs” and they were delicious) Danielle used to work at Naughty America but quit a few years back and we had drifted apart. It’s good to have her back in my life. As I get older and now that I have some free time I feel the need to connect with certain people. I was so busy for so long that I lost touch with a lot of special people in my life. I don’t want to get into the personal details of her life, I will just say that she had an experience about a year ago that made her reconnect with her Mom and it really made me happy to hear about it on the eve of Mother’s Day. Life is too short. If you don’t have a relationship with your parents, look inside of yourself and figure out why. See if you can’t be the bigger person and change that because they won’t always be around. Don’t put yourself in that position of regret and guilt.  

We walked over to the Local to meet up with the crew after Chelsea Handler’s show. It was more important for me to hang out with Danielle then to stand in line to meet Chelsea and I don’t regret it at all. All of my friends in the other circle call her Goldie Hawn

Chris and Dusty looking silly.

Danielle and I walked to La Puerta for one quick drink because she was supposed to meet up with some cute boy but since he wasn’t there we took off. I was asleep on the couch by 11:40 in the first segment of Betty White on Saturday Night Live. oops

Tuesday April 13, 2010

I had to deal with my stupid laptop today so I went to Best Buy in hopes that they had my warranty on file and that they would take care of my white wine mess. Of course the warranty expired a year ago and I forgot to renew it. Don’t they send notices for that kind of stuff?? I went to the Geek Squad area to see if they could recover the data I had on there and of course since the thing wouldn’t power on I had to buy a new laptop and a hard drive to leave with them so they could take all the crap off the old one. Thank God I am so paranoid and ridiculous about my images that I have them still on my memory cards and I didn’t lose anything. After I got my new gear I got back in the Geek Squad line. This one dude was busy helping someone and I could clearly hear 2 other employees standing nearby chatting about a recent Vegas weekend. I asked the guy who was busy if the other guy could help me.

Me: “Excuse me I know you are busy but does he (pointing) work in the Geek Squad department?”

Clerk: “Oh yes he can help you but he is talking to that guy about work stuff and he will be with you as soon as he is done.”

CLEARLY A LIE! I was getting so pissed off standing there. Like my blood was boiling. WORK STUFF? What the hell is work stuff? Bottle service in Vegas? The slot machines? You know… coming back from such an awesome trip you would think I would be just calm and cool and not let this bother me, but goddamn I was getting ticked off. So homeboy chatting to someone (who was not dressed like a Mormon who was probably not qualified as “geek” status) ended his conversation and then started breaking down boxes. He disappears for a minute and I was about a second and a half from yelling at the busy guy when luckily another guy came out and asked if I had been helped yet. Honestly, I had to catch my breath and put myself in their shoes. If I worked at Best Buy I might act like a total little asshole, too.

I stopped by the office to give away some souvenirs: Dallas got kangaroo nipple warmers (naturally), Lauren got body scrub from the mud bath place in New Zealand, a bunch of people got those little koala clip-on thingys from the 80′s, and Tommy and Michelle got the genuine kangaroo paw items. (bottle opener and keychain respectively) Neither of them would actually even touch the damn things. They are pretty creepy and gross. lol

Tommy and I went to a new place in town called Quality Social. There is a funny story about the guys who own this place… I met Chris #1 a few years ago at a function at the Ivy and then ran into him a few months later at a wine and food festival. We exchanged texts and he told me he wanted to meet with me for a business meeting with his partner, also named Chris. (called Dex from here on out.) Basically they needed funding for this place and somehow thought that me being in the porn biz qualified me as a millionaire/investor. HA!  At the time it was in the middle of the economic crisis and they struggled with financing but finally got the thing opened just a few weeks ago. (I haven’t talked to either of them since the fall of ’08 so you can imagine how shocked I was when I got a call from Chris #1 the day I was leaving for Australia.) It’s marketed as a downtown “luxury dive bar” and has the feel of a classy place but without the cheesy pretentiousness of a downtown nightclub. They have a full menu that is pretty impressive and involves an entire pig being brought in once a month! The kitchen stays open til 2am I think every night of the week and they have some killer cocktails. I had the “h” cocktail: square one cucumber vodka, st. germain, lime, club soda, cucumber and black pepper. Tommy had the “dirty old man”: old overholt rye whiskey, benedictine, lemon, and peach bitters and then moved to “white whiskey rusty nail”: death’s door white whiskey and drambuie. I ordered the charcuterie plate (an assortment of 5 different items from the pig) and of course Tommy ate none of it because it wasn’t Jack in the Box. We asked Dex what his favorite drink on the menu was and he recommended the “pickle back” : a shot of Jameson with a chaser shot of pickle brine. I am usually unable to stomach any brown liquor unless it’s Malibu (is that even brown?) or Captain Morgan so I was a little nervous about losing my cool in front of Dex. It was remarkably good! I might have to start carrying a flask of pickle juice around.

After we had caught up on about 50% of our gossip we moved over to Bareback where Joe met us for a drink also. It’s good to be back and catch up with everyone.