Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Friday, May. 09, 2003 - 2:56 p.m.

Wa-hoo! I have just created my very first graphic from scratch. See that little purple button over there <--- *? The one that says "Sign my Guestbook"? The one most 5 year olds can probably construct in their sleep, because all 5 year olds grew up with the internet and know how to do this stuff by osmosis by the time they come sliding out of the womb? Yeah, that one. But you know, it's my very first one, and I made it almost all by myself (TB had to show me how to do the border, because it was also the first time I have ever used Macromedia Fireworks), so I don't care that it is the web graphic equivalent of a turkey drawn from the outline of a hand on construction paper, it is all mine, buddy-boy, and I am a button-making hound, now, baby, taste it.

Okay, so that's a bit over the top. Bygones.

* The first button has been replaced with the ever more stylish button now residing in the column to your left; however, so that you can see how far I have evolved in the last few days, this is what the first button looked like:

We went to Genghis Cohen for dinner tonight, to celebrate the honeymoon of some friends of The Boyfriend. I had never been before, and while I find the place somewhat pretentious in a way only casual LA dining establishments can be, the food was pretty darn good. Especially whatever those two orange shrimp dishes were. Orange as in color, not taste. I've no idea why either of them were orange, because they didn't taste it at all. One of them had a lot of cilantro and some kind of dark green pepper which I thought was something else, so I ate it, only to discover, no, it was really pepper - and really spicy - and me without a drink to wash it down with. So it was a little dicey for a minute or two, but then the rice helped and I was okay. The other dish had broccoli in it, which I am not fond of in a general manner, unless it's raw or only slightly steamed, but it was really good in the dish, and the shrimp was great. I liked the cilantro dish better, should you find yourself in Genghis Cohen and reading the menu trying to decide what to have. I, myself, ordered the ginger chicken, which was good, though not as good as it had been cracked up to be. The shrimp was great, though. And so were the chicken pot stickers, which I would also recommend.

It was kinda odd when we got there, because the male of the newlywedded couple grabbed me in this huge hug and said "hi, sweetie, good to see you again," while pounding me on the back exuberantly. I was slighly plussed by this, as I have absolutely zero memory of having met either of them before, so I thought he was goofing around and asked his wife if I had met them before. Imagine my embarrassment when she said yes, and then The Boyfriend informed me they had actually been over (briefly) about 2 years ago. Which at the time I had no recollection of at all, but now I am starting to vaguely recall the incident...oops. They were very nice, though, and forgave my faux pas. Or seemed to.

They also had two friends in tow, one of whom was really nice and I liked a lot, and the other who was having a birthday tonight, who was also nice, but didn't seem to really like me all that well, which is too bad for her, because she got stuck next to me and had to make idle chatter with me the entire evening. She didn't seem to *dis*like me, she just didn't seem to find anything especially delightful about me. But that's okay. I can handle it.

(WHY? WHY didn't she like me? What's WRONG with me? WHY DIDN'T SHE THINK I WAS FABULOUS AND CHARMING AND A DELIGHTFUL DINNER COMPANION, WHYWHYWHY???????)

Okay. I'm over it now. Thank you.

Aside from that and the fact that I have recently revisited my horrible Mah Jongg addiction, I am okay and life is kind of boring. I should be studying plant stuff, but frankly, I just don't have the energy. The males of you will be happy to know the current spate of PMS is almost over. And I saw Resident Evil on cable, and it didn't suck. Or maybe I was just painfully bored and Scooby Doo was the last cable movie I had seen, so it seemed much better than it really was. I do not know. I did notice, however, that every movie Milla Javovich (sp?) has done since adulthood, the director manages at least once to stick her in something exceedingly skimpy which just barely covers her breasts and lower parts. And in fact, in this particular movie, there was some exposure. Why is that? She's a pretty enough girl, but she's not all that and a piece of cheesecake, so it seems a little odd to me, especially when the outfits in question are the basic equivalent of two longish dinner napkins linked together with some sort of cord-and-clip rigging. But anyway.

My next movie furlough will be May 15, when Matrix Reloaded or whatever the second Matrix movie is called comes out. I would really rather go see X2 again, but the gang is signed up for Matrix 2, so I will suck it up and have fun anyway, even though the name of the city everyone is trying to save is called Zion, which really bugs me in a transparent agenda kind of way. It occurred to me while sitting in X2 last week that the movie is actually an allegory for the current state of things in the US. Just make the mutants Muslims and people opposed to the current regime and make the humans the Bushies and fundamentalist everything else. One has to wonder what the message inherent in The Matrix will be. Speaking of, I found two very interesting pages visiting Michael Heraghty's diary today. I *think* Michael is his first name. I am writing from memory. Mike's a pretty interesting guy. You should go read.

Heraghty, I'm too lazy to go look up your first name right now, so if it's not Michael, bygones.

Anyway, the links are on simulacra, which I was unaware was any kind of construct at all, let alone one that got its own term, but there you have it. They're pretty interesting and explain a lot about people and how and why politics in this country - and probably most other places - has gotten so perverted and out of whack. I need to look up more about Jean Baudrillard and his book(s?). That guy has it down. What I actually found most chilling is the 2nd link, about the Disney construct of a town in Florida, called Celebration. My old production company did a story 2 or 3 years ago on Celebration, and the place is totally Stepford. Seriously, if Disney remade The Stepford Wives, they'd film it in Celebration. The place is fraught with very stringent rules about what you can and can not do there, and the people they interviewed for our show ("Pioneers", all of 'em) were all pretty rabidly vehement about what a great town in was, mainly on account of its homogenization. I would lay you any odds that at least 98% of the people who choose to move there are Republicans. There aren't a lot of freethinkers in that bunch, but whatever. Not that Republicans can't be freethinkers, but the group of people that term calls to mind are NOT the kind of people who decide to move to a town like Celebration. But anyway. Here are the links:

simulacra and simulation

and the Disney link, which the first links to at the end:

Celebration

Very interesting reading. And explains a lot about Americans.

And I have to go try to sleep now. My sleep is all out of whack. I've been managing to fall asleep around 6 or 6:30 every morning, and that, my friends, sucks.

Peace out,
Katie

May 9, 2003, Addendum to the Above Statement Regarding Republicans: Upon rereading the above, I would like to say that I'm sure many Republicans are freethinkers, and that there are also Democrats living in Celebration. I would, however, think that the population of the place is mostly Republicans, as it has been my experience that Republicans tend to find comfort in a very structured environment with clearly set-out rules and expectations, so I would imagine a town such as Disney has constructed out there in Florida would have a great appeal to more conservative people than liberal. Which has still probably annoyed and insulted many of my readership, which I really do not mean to do. Bygones. kd

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In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
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In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
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