Charlie’s Blog

I saw "Annie" last night! Jealous?? It was pretty damn good, too. The orphans were spot on and Grace was the bomb. It was obvious that the director worked with the little girls on enunciation because they pronounced things like "it’s a hard-ah knock-ah life-ah…" which was slightly obnoxious. Annie didn’t thrill me, but she was a good singer.

This past week I rediscovered my old Mandy Moore CD’s. Somebody told me that she publicly apologized to everyone who bought her albums, and that made me sad. I don’t really understand why she did that. Her songs are so good! I remember how my dad and I used to joke about her when "Candy" came out. Then one day, without my full consciousness, I found myself at The Wherehouse buying her first album. I don’t even know how or when I got her next two. I used to laugh as I listened to the cheesy songs, but then I started singing along, and now I listen to them over and over again. C’mon Mandy! Why aren’t you proud?

Tomorrow I’m going to Mammoth, a ski resort up north, to go mountain biking. What they do is take you and your bike to the top of the mountain on the ski lift, and you ride at lightning speeds down the slope. I told my mom, which really worried her. She left me a message today saying that she talked to a biking expert who said it’s very dangerous and pleading that I think carefully about it.

Woohoo! I just got back from my first trip to the weekly Farmer’s Market. It’s just a few blocks down the street which is really lucky considering the amount of produce I’ve been consuming lately. There were some fruits I’d never heard of like sapote and jujubee. I bought some jujubees which look kind of like unwrinkled/fresh dates. They actually kinda taste like the candy. I got a persimmon and a bag of purple basil, too. I think I might try to make some sort of purple pesto soup.

On my way home with my bags, a crazy person started yelling at me while we were passing each other. I hardly had glanced over in his direction, and he was all "what you looking at, fucking idiot?" He screamed that twice more, but I kept walking straight ahead. I noticed that my heart started beating faster and was angry that he was causing stress on my body. That kind of stress can take days off of your life! Then I wondered if he would scream at anyone else on that street.

We have new neighbors in my little apartment complex. It’s getting to be like Melrose Place the way everyone hangs out in the courtyard (no pool, though). It seems like they’re only hanging out when I am rushing to go somewhere, so I haven’t had a chance to sit down with them yet. The girls above me have such loud voices! And I don’t think they ever close their door. Sometimes they say personal things that they probably wouldn’t want a stranger like me to hear. One of them is right now talking on her cell phone. Apparently she moved here from New Orleans to escape from the disaster. Damn she is fucking L O U D. Maybe I’ll leave her a note: "Please shut your face!"

I just went to the video store. It’s actually a gay bookstore that also rents gay movies. The daytime clerk there is so cute. He never seems so excited to see me, but that’s just because he’s nervous.

I took out "Connie and Carla." I heard this movie sucks, but I don’t believe it. It looks so cute. Anyway, yesterday I rented "Camp" which I heard was good, but it sucked. It was like "Fame" but without interesting characters or good songs or drugs. Well, maybe there were a couple good songs, but that’s it.

Last night, I went to the theater with my ski club friends. It was a new gay play called "Valhalla" that is written by the writer of "In & Out" and "Jeffrey." It was pretty good, but I totally forgot that I don’t really like plays. There’s too much talking for my taste! It takes the story of the Bavarian King Ludwig who built the Sleeping Beauty castle and intertwines it with that of a gay guy in 1930’s Texas. There was brief full-frontal nudity. There was a Q&A session after, but I remembered that I find those very awkward so we left.

Tonight I’m going to the theater again. Even though I don’t really like plays, it’s fun to go out with a group. Plus tonight’s show is free because I’m going with the chorus. I wasn’t listening when they said what the show is so it’ll be a surprise!

After I watch this movie, I’m going to get my Thai food on. My new favorite thing is Thai green papaya salad, extra spicy! Try it, you’ll love it!

I sang Monday, Monday at karaoke last week, and it was not pretty. That one needs practice or needs to be left alone.

So I went to the murder house. The Realtor hardly mentioned the murder. He was like "blah, blah, after the tragedy, the Smiths bought the house, blah, blah" I really hope my friends buy it, though. It’s just around the corner and has a pool and everything. My friend Jay has a pool, but he lives in BFE. Oh, the guy who lives there now had a pair of black, Tod’s loafers laying out, and they were my size! I was thinking about stuffing them in my bag, but then I realized I didn’t bring a bag, and I couldn’t think of a way to get back into the house with a bag. I guess I already have two pairs of black loafers, and I hardly ever wear them even, so it’ll be okay without that pair.

My blog has been defunct or "Forbidden" for the past four or five days, but now it’s up again. The last post I left didn’t stick so that is gone forever. It was mostly about a website I found called www.annieorphans.com  Any fan of Annie should check it out! There’s audio, video, articles, and more of the orphans in action from Broadway and National Tour productions. Did you know that these famous ladies got their start as orphans: SJP, Molly Ringwald, Alyssa Milano, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

This weekend, I went to Los Angeles with my roommate and his friends. There was a karaoke birthday party, the kind where you rent a big room with a video screen and tons of microphones. It was a fun party, but I was hoarse after. I heard someone call me a microphone hog, but it’s not my fault I knew all the songs. We went out to a dive bar in West Hollywood, against my will. I hate dive bars, and WeHo has such cool non-dive bars that it really didn’t make sense to me. It turned out to be kinda fun, though, and they played all my songs.

I went to a ballet class on Saturday. It was so great. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed ballet. Although I’m not very good at it, it is more fun for me even than gymnastics.

Yesterday I found out that there’s a mansion down the street where a double-homicide took place. There was even a TV movie about it called "Til Murder Do Us Part: The Betty Broderick Story" starring Meredith Baxter and the father from "Seventh Heaven." The house is for sale right now, and my friends from the ski club invited me to look at it with them today so I will. Apparently it’s California law to disclose that a murder took place in a house that is for sale, and I’m interested to see how the Realtor handles that.

There’s a motel down the street called the Welcome INN. Isn’t that awesome?? I’m going to tell my parents to stay there when they visit.

A lot of people ask me how I fill my days since I don’t have a job (yet) and school hasn’t started. Well, it varies, but the bulk of today and yesterday were spent poring over a website I rediscovered, www.annieorphans.com From a very young age, it has been my dream to be an orphan in Annie, and the closest I ever came was playing FDR in the Pinole Young Actors Production. I used to watch the movie over and over as a child, and later as a college student (with some prompting by Leia). My dad thought I’d have danced the role of the gardener well (We Got Annie!), but I always wanted to be Tessie or maybe Annie. Anyway, this website has all sorts of articles, bios, video and audio clips from the Broadway production, as well as National Tours. I found early pics and bios of former orphans Alyssa Milano, Molly Ringwald, and SJP. There’s even a video of Alyssa doing "You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile." The best is a video called something like "Growing Up On Broadway" in which former orphans talk about menstration. I learned that there was a line drawn on the wall, and once an orphan got as tall as the line, she was shuffled out and replaced. One former orphan is making a documentary called "Life After Tomorrow" which will show how being in the production shaped the lives of over 40 former orphans. I can’t wait!

I have to get dressed. My new friend, Ben, invited me to a gay, Jewish, singles happy hour event. Sounds like fun!

My roommate took me to the beach yesterday! Black’s Beach is the gay beach in San Diego. It’s right near the UC campus (a fifteen minute drive from my apt). It’s actually the nude beach, but there’s a gay part that is less than half nude. Getting there really sucks, though, because you have to climb down a serious cliff. I was wearing my heavy flip-flops which are difficult to walk in on the street let alone straight down a cliff. Also, the path gets close to the edge which triggered my fear of heights. I didn’t think I’d make it down without falling, but I did. I couldn’t imagine how all those guys manage that cliff, and then my roommate told me there’s a much easier path further away from the beach, but it requires more walking. Next time, I think I’d much rather opt for that or at least wear hiking shoes.

The beach was great, though. There were some cute guys, but most of them seemed like real assholes, laughing loudly and having loud, obnoxious conversations for the whole beach to hear. I heard one guy talk about how he can only read three pages of his book a night. I looked over, expecting to see a real dense classic, maybe in a different language, but no, it was the Bill Clinton autobiography that is over 900 pages of fluff! It’ll take him a year to finish that crap, and I doubt he’ll get much out of it! I figure, if the book you’re reading isn’t interesting enough to you to want to finish as quickly as possible, then you should get another book that is!

Speaking of books, I just finished the children’s book, "Harriet the Spy." I wish I could rent the movie with a young Michelle Trachtenberg, but I have to get my computer fixed first. That book taught me not to shit-talk people, at least in writing. It also taught me that if I do talk shit, I have to apologize and/or lie about it to make things right. I wish I’d read that when I was ten. There’s one part when Harriet gets all mean to her classmates and tells one girl that she doesn’t have a father. The girl is like, "yeah, I do!" Harriet goes, "well, he doesn’t love you!" The girl is like, "yeah, he does!" Then Harriet says, "why doesn’t he live with you, then?" Then the girl runs off, crying. That bitch deserved it, though. She spilled a bottle of ink all over Harriet.

So today, I woke up and decided to attend a raw food potluck that was going on in the park near my neighborhood. I busted out my un-cookbook and was drawn to a recipe for raw Pad Thai. When it was finished, it tasted more like julienned vegetables in a curry guacamole than any kind of Pad Thai, but my friend assured me that it didn’t taste nasty so I brought it. The potluck was a whole lot bigger than the ones I went to in New York which isn’t really a good thing. Sure there’s more food, but it’s more difficult to mingle in a large group. To be honest, most of the food people brought wasn’t very good at all. One guy brought fresh Durian, an Asian fatty fruit that has a very strong smell, and I tried it for the first time. It was good and tasted to me like a Chinese stir-fry sauce. Apparently its taste becomes sweeter the more one consumes. A lot of bums live in the park, and the organizer invited one of them to make himself a plate. He seemed seriously hungry the way he piled the food on his plate. It was kinda gross because he would take a bite of something and use the same fork to stab more food from the serving dishes, but I guess he was hungry. Thankfully I hit the buffet before him so I didn’t have to eat from those dishes after him. Anyway, he didn’t get to try my Pad Thai because it was gone by then…and I’d brought a lot! Musta been good!

I’ve got the sniffles which suck so much more than they should. It all started when I ate these suspicious spicy crackers from the health food store the other day. I think they triggered some sort of allergy, and it’s so annoying. I went out last night and had to keep escaping to the bathroom to blow my nose (and there’s just no way to look cute doing that). My friend, Brian, is coming to visit tonight from LA, and I hope they go away before he comes. I want to take a nap, but everytime I try, I have to get up and blow my nose! I’m a tired bitch!

I’m suddenly ecstatic because I just found out that R. Kelly’s new album comes with a DVD of the entire "Trapped In The Closet" video! I’m so going to get that as soon as my computer gets fixed! Oh, this will change my life! Thanks, R!

Friendster wouldn’t let me get to the update blog page yesterday…and I had so much to write. I think I always have a lot to write, though, so I’ll be okay today.

I discovered a cool website called www.43things.com where people list up to 43 things they want to do. My screenname is hotchachie. It’s really interesting. Some people leave comments on their progress towards their goals, and you can cheer others on, too. There are some things that other people want to do that I’ve already done and find it hard to understand why they don’t just do it. It makes me wonder if people are prevented from doing even the simplest act until they are completely ready in a spiritual sense.

I had a dream that I was walking in New York with my friend and former co-worker, Cheryl. I went into a market that sold fruit and vegetables, but all of the fruit was in a plastic case that was sealed off for the night. I really wanted the fruit, but I couldn’t have it. Then I left my sunglasses at the store and had to go back to get them. Actually, last night I left my wallet at the health food store and had to go back (it was there, still overflowing with cash!).

Last night, I ate something from the health food store that triggered some kind of allergic reaction. My nose has been running like FloJo ever since. I went to a bar last night and was afraid that everyone would think I was a coke addict the way I kept wiping my nose.

So I walked to this bar that was holding a karaoke night. I found a really easy way to get there by walking down a street that goes through the park and ends up right there. Well, either the streets changed or I made a wrong turn, but I ended up walking on the side of Interstate 163! Balboa Park is a huge, dark maze with ravines all around. I only had to walk a short distance on the interstate before I came upon an off-ramp that was under construction. That led right to the bar. I was scared, though, because there are all kinds of homeless people who sleep in the park. One guy actually appeared out of the bushes at one point, and he said "oh! I thought you were someone else!" I wonder who he was expecting in the bushes! I decided to walk around the park on the way back.

I got back to San Diego yesterday from my weekend in Hercules. It was a fun weekend. I got to see my Paris roommate, Suri, and his boo, a bunch of friends from high school, and a couple of Chicago people.

My one cat, Blossom, used to be the sweetest cat ever, but now she is such a nasty bitch. She kept hissing and swinging at me, and once she head-butted me just for giving her a little kiss. My mom says she’s upset because they got other cats, but I think she needs to get over it.

I went to the Kelly Clarkson concert with Angela. It was really fun, and Kelly was awesome. She was having vocal problems and kept apologizing to the audience about it. I was slightly pissed that she didn’t sing "A Moment Like This" and a few other favorite songs of mine from her first album, but truthfully I don’t think she would have been able to belt them out very well that night. Kelly seems so cool and nice, though. I don’t think I’d mind being one of her hangers-on.

So yesterday on the way to the airport, my mom crashed the car. Everyone was okay, but she was shaken up because it was a rental car (her car is in the shop because she crashed it a few weeks ago). I ended up having to walk to the BART station take the train and bus to the airport. I barely made the flight, but I made it so that was fine.

I was on a mission to buy a bike lock yesterday so that I could ride my bike to Target to buy sheets. I went to the drug store and grocery store with no luck, so I asked the lady at the tennis shop. She told me where there was a bike shop and added that the shop keeps very long hours. She went on for a while about how they open very early and close very late and how they must have high rent so they have to work hard. She said that they were always open both on her way to work and on her way home. I was like, whatever, and went over there. It was 6:30, and they were closed! Isn’t that ironic? Don’t you think?

So then I decided to get on the bus and go to Target to get sheets and a bike lock. I ended up with not just a bike lock and sheets, but also a surfing wetsuit, bike helmet, bell, light, sunglasses, undershirts and a belt. Now I don’t think I’ll need to go shopping for anything but food for a long while.

What’s on the agenda today? Getting a job! Woohoo!