Tinsletown: The Unrated Version!

Helloooooooooo!

I know you're probably surprised to see me here on a Saturday, but frankly I haven't felt up to documenting my trip out west until now. I've been kind of time-zoned-out, if you know what I'm saying! Mala and I didn't adjust well this time; neither of us slept very well or very much the whole trip, and it hasn't improved much for me this week. It's highly unusual for me--I love my sleep!

We had a great time! The trip was filled with new experiences, and I do love those. I got patted-down not once but twice, for instance, once by the LAPD and once by the TSA. The airport agent was actually a pretty attractive Asian woman. Bow chicka wow wow!

Ha ha, I keed, I keed. Anyway, Mala wrote a hilarious recap on her blog, but I'll fill in the naughty bits that she was too polite to include. :D

If you read my post from the other day, you're already up to speed on our night out at a burlesque show with Maeghan and subsequent awful hangover.

The Cake Balls turned out to be outstanding.

Plus we met Tony Danza this guy. I don't know why, but I felt an instant connection with him!

The next day was a blur, but we did go have some amazing Thai food for lunch and then did a little light shopping.

Decisions, decisions....

Fist bump?

California is so cool. This store (with the awesome name) is located right next door in the strip mall to this shop:

Thai food, head/sex shop, and medical marijuana depositary: talk about a one-stop-shop!

Oh, and check out this Photoshop Disaster we spotted in a store window:

Take me to your leader

Then we walked back to our hotel via Hollywood Blvd's Walk of Fame.

The Dude abides

The next day we went on one of those cheesy Hollywood tours, and it turned out to be quite a good time! We met a nice Australian fellow and spent most of the day chatting with him. As you can see, he and Mala really hit it off:


Our tour guides took us way up close to the Hollywood sign and to an amazing scenic overlook. It was at that rest stop that I took what turned out to be the only usable "vlog" entry of the entire trip! Here it is -- make sure you wait for the surprise toward the end!



It was fun to see some local landmarks and learn more about the city of L.A. & Hollywood legends.

Rodeo Drive

Now, this is the story all about how My life got flipped-turned upside down And I'd like to take a minute Just sit right there I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air

The famed "Pink Palace"

90210, yo

Robert Smith, Robert Smith!

The hotel where Janis Joplin died.

Food porn at Bar Marmont. What we thought were the best marinated mushroom caps we'd ever tasted turned out to be artichoke caps! Weird... but delicious!

On Tuesday we went to Venice Beach, which was... an experience. Basically it's a lawless stretch of boardwalk next to an amazing beach that seems to be entirely ruled by homeless people, drug dealers, and homeless drug dealers.



I didn't know that before we went; I assumed it would be similar to the family-friendly Jersey shore boardwalk I'd frequented as a child. Ummm, no. So I wore my new souvenir t-shirt, which turned out to be a BIG mistake:

Note to self: next time you go to "the 'hood," don't wear a bright red shirt with words across the chest. It's like giving all skeevy passers-by a written invitation to cat-call and stare at the boobage! It got... a little embarrassing. Luckily, I don't embarrass all that easily. ;)

That night, Mala's friend, He Who Shall Not Be Named (he's a private guy) hooked us up BIG TIME. Voldemort toils as an under-appreciated writer/director in show business and knows some famous folks. He also happens to be writing a new TV series with this guy, who happened to be performing a magic act at the ultra-exclusive Magic Castle. Most plebes like us never get into that place; you have to either be a member or be invited by a member... or in our case, be invited by a friend of a friend who was performing there. And they didn't make us enter through the kitchen or anything! :)

After rushing around in awful traffic all afternoon to get Mala outfitted (THIS Cosmo girl never travels without her cocktail dress and painful heels, naturally), we were finally ready to walk (yes, walk... our hotel was close to everything!) to the Castle. I am not gonna lie to you guys, I was a nervous wreck.

You see, I love celebrities... but I really don't have too much desire to meet them. Plus, I didn't know what to expect at all, and somewhere in the back of my mind I worried that our invitation to this shee-shee place was some kind of evil Dinner For Schmucks prank.

I'd like to say that I was put at ease the moment I walked in the door, but actually the opposite is true. As soon as I walked in the first person I saw happened to be a certain Oscar winner (hint: he won for playing a killer with a bowl cut), and immediately all of the blood drained from my face and I thought I might faint.

No, seriously.

Mala was concerned that I was having some sort of medical emergency! In a daze, I watched as someone muttered the secret word to make a bookcase swing open, revealing a dimly-lit bar filled with beautiful, beautiful people.

Ahoy, Polloi! I was shaking like a leaf. Mala lead me to the bar and I had a medicinal belt of Cabernet, and I finally got my head together! The place was like a who's who of B-listers; lots of soap stars that we recognized but whose names we didn't know. Lots of publicist-types. Lots of guys like this:
One guy who looked exactly like this:


Another guy playing poker who looked suspiciously like this:



It was seriously awesome. The magic shows were fun and entertaining, and I even got picked to be a part of one of the card tricks! I had to talk in front of all those people... and of course I dropped a suggestive joke... because I apparently can't help myself. *face palm*

The mansion itself was amazing -- it's the place Disney's Haunted Mansion was based on; the ride at Disney is designed after it. Inside it's a maze of stairways, rooms, a restaurant, and little theatres tucked away in corners. Oh, and bars... a bar outside of every theatre. I like the way these Hollywood types party!

We behaved ourselves, though, and didn't take a single pic (per their strict no cameras policy).

It. was. awesome!

And then it took 11 hours to get home. The End. ;)

Any questions?

My Heart Is On Fire For Elvira

Hiya, beautiful bouncing BOOBHs!  How goes it?  Sorry I didn't hop on yesterday to give you the Halloweenie recap post; I actually took the day off from my "real job" so that I could focus on writing the eBay book.  We've got our first big deadline coming up in two weeks, and lots to do before then.  I'm feeling good though!  I purchased my final item yesterday (finally!!) and the end of my first draft phase is in sight.  Then come the edits...  duhn duhn DUUUUUUHHHHNNNN.

Anyfloozy, I'm sure you're all dying to know if I managed to pull off being Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, last Saturday night, right?  Of course you are!

See for yourself:

 In a word, yes.
I think I did pull it off.  I may have been Elvira after having two kids and indulging in lots of beer and pizza for a few years, but I was Elvira, goddamn it!  Everyone seemed to really dig the costume, and I really enjoyed vamping it up.  In fact, we all stayed "in character" all night, and it was an absolute blast!  I was so psyched to see all of the cool, creative costumes at this party we went to.  People went all out!  As soon as we got there I vowed to take our pictures with as many interesting costumes as possible, and I definitely reached that goal.  The next day I realized we (other people used my camera too)  had taken 168 photos.

Holy crap!

Obviously I can't post them ALL here, and my Facebook friends are probably already sick of looking at them, but here are a few highlights from our night of EEEEVIL.

Enter... if you dare!

I think I'll just let the pictures do the talking.  They are worth 1,000 words, ya know.

BEFORE the wig, make-up, and generalized debauchery:

After, along with bitchin' bee Mala and ghostly gal Laurie:

Meg and Eric went as "Adam and Steve"

"Steve" took a page from the "Spinal Tap" book:

Who ya' gonna call?

Jim made a pretty hot Dracula, I've gotta say:

Pretty sure we don't want to know what they were talking about:

This pic is all blurry.  Can't imagine why.

Time for a little snack!  This was right before the cow squirted me from his udder... with what we hope was water:

Then some boogying:

Joe won 3rd Place in the costume competition for his EXCELLENT Billy the Exterminator get-up. Big UPS go to Mala, Costume Designer, Extraordinaire!

By the end of the night I had sweated off all of my make-up and my wig was making a getaway off the back of my head, but it didn't matter.  We all had a great time!

I actually have some other (even worse) pics but for some reason they didn't get uploaded last night.  Oops!  I know, I know -- that's the virtual equivalent of leaving my wallet in my other pants.  Sorry 'bout that.  I'll have to put up the picture of me pretending to fellate the priest another day.  Something to look forward to, that.

How was YOUR Halloween?  Got any good stories to tell?  Let's hear 'em!!

Rock Stars Wear Spanx Too, Right?

HI! Fancy meeting you here! Good to see you again.

First of all, thank you for all of your fabulous birthday wishes last week! Seriously, each one made my day a little bit brighter, and I feel gratitude from the bottom of my boogity-boogity shoes. *MWAH* to all of my darling FOOBHS!!

I am back today after having pretty much unplugged myself from the Matrix since last Wednesday, and I confess that I'm still not fully into the swing of things yet. I came into work today to find the usual piles of random paperwork and unintelligible post-it notes from my crazy-cat-lady-coworker, but after I sifted through the rubble I found that I really hadn't missed much during my 3 days off last week. Hurray!

And no, I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.

My birthday party went off without a hitch on Saturday night! It was pretty epic, and I do believe that everyone had a really, really good time. Of course there are lots of pictures but sadly I don't have many today. For a change I didn't have my trusty Nikon attached to my wrist all night so I didn't get that many pics, however my friends Mark and Laurie spoiled me and set up a whole "red carpet" photo area complete with fancy lighting and a gorgeous custom-made background poster, so once they send me those pics we'll have lots to look at!

Wardrobe malfunctions galore.

Last week I bought a sparkly rock star dress that I love, but the material is very thin - like t-shirt thin. Since I am not a skinny minnie I was critically eying every lump and bump under the thin blue fabric, so I did what all of us ladies do in such a situation - I went to the lingerie department and bought myself a scuba suit foundation garment. Once I wriggled into it, which is NOT easy, by the way, I liked how smooth things looked under the dress, so I bought it and decided I just wouldn't go to the bathroom all night since getting the thing up and down was such a chore.

Sounds like a great plan, right?

What nobody tells you about these modern-day torture devices is that they never stay where they're supposed to stay. Once the garment begins its steady retreat towards your waist (as they ALL do) the flab that they're repressing migrates so you end up with unsightly bulges in the most bizarre places imaginable.

Therefore it came to be that my muffin top ended up somewhere just south of my bra strap all night long, so any photo of me from behind includes a stunning view of my seemingly-deformed torso. Needless to say, at some point in the evening my friend Jill and I both discarded our painful fat-compressors. Jim found mine the next morning in the back yard. Oops.

Then there was the little matter of the top half of the dress. When I purchased it I had no idea that whatever bra I wore was destined to become part of the outfit; I went with basic black, which is good because in just about every picture you can see my bra under my arms. Sigh.

My (real & spectacular) cleavage, however, looked fantastic. Everybody said so.

Thanks to our MALE photographer Mark, there are LOTS of boob-centric pics, so you're welcome in advance. Especially you, Mike129, since I know you only come here for the pics. *grin*

I'm now a gimp.

As soon as everyone arrived the men went outside and did dog-knows what and the ladies gathered in the kitchen to sample my newly-created signature cocktail, the Bevtini. It's purple and tastes like black cherry and has lots and lots of delicious vodka in it, and we all had quite a few of them. Once we were sufficiently limbered up we went out to the back yard and started the karaoke machine that Mala had rented for us as a gift, because she ROCKS.

People were singing, drinking, taking pictures in front of the "red carpet" background, and generally frolicking. I was chatting away when I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Laurie grinning at me. She informed me that they were doing keg stands, and after I stopped laughing and told her that there was no fucking chance of getting me to do one, she asked me to come hold the tap into her mouth as they lifted her up.



I obliged, and no sooner had they gotten her into the air than the entire nearly-full keg and the wheelbarrow in which it sat tipped over and landed on my right foot/ankle.

Wait -- a wheelbarrow, which as we all know rests on THREE points, not four, wasn't stable?! GO FIGURE!

We wuz wicked smaht, yo.

So yeah, my ankle hurt like a mofo despite all the "anesthesia" coarsing through my veins. I immediately grabbed a chunk of ice and iced it, but it was already swelling and turning all kinds of colors. Thankfully this is when Emily brought out a tray of (purely medicinal) Tequila shots, so I don't remember it hurting much after that point.

Artist's rendering of me around 1 AM:

By 2 AM I found myself wedged onto the couch with my foot elevated with a bag of frozen vegetables draped over it.

Nothing's broken, it's just bruised as hell and swollen. And painful. Oh well!

Speaking of painful, yesterday morning was no picnic. I woke up feelin' like P. Diddy... complete with a false eyelash stuck to my forehead.



It was the stone groove, m' man. Good effing times with good effing friends! I only wish you ALL could have been there.

Hopefully tomorrow there will be more photographic proof of our idiocy good time.

Weekend Recapalooza

Happy Monday Tuesday morning! Is everyone all relaxed from their long weekend? I know I am; in fact if I were any more relaxed you'd have to check for a pulse!

The weekend was lovely. We had warm weather and blue skies, cold beer, and lots of swim-time. Here's the Cliff Notes version of what went down.

Friday night I met my Girl Posse for margs and apps, then we went to see Eclipse. I have to admit that I haven't loved either of the first two Twilight movies, in fact, I think they heartily sucked the big one. My expectations were therefore sufficiently low this time around, and I was pleasantly surprised. It was good!

I'm the only girl in the P-Posse who wore heels. Shorties.

After the movie we all headed downtown to a dive bar to meet up with some other friends and sing some karaoke. Unfortunately, on the way there the Southwestern Steak Egg Rolls (with a side of bacteria) Mala had for dinner kicked in and she got sick. I got to the bar but was worried about her. We were kind of freaking out, so I bid the girls farewell and booked it back to where she was camped out at the Circle K to make sure she wasn't, you know, dying of a stroke or something. :(

Within minutes Mala's rescue crew arrived. Her husband (with sleepy pj'ed kids in tow), mother, and step-dad showed up to drive her and her car home, and by then she was feeling better. Once she was bundled into her car and I was sure that she wasn't heading to the ER, I was able to relax again. I headed back to the bar and had some fun, though the whole ordeal was so sobering that it wasn't the wild night I'd anticipated.

Still, we had some cocktails and laughs, and before too long we were up there singing karaoke. This is when Meg and I made the most embarrassing song choice EVER. Worse than the time my friend Stacie and I sang about how we were born to be "Ramblin' Men." Worse than the Divinyl incident. Worse than other song I've ever selected to sing in public in my entire life.

For some reason, we saw the song "Gold-Digger" by Kanye West and thought it would be fun to sing. ***SMACKING FOREHEAD***

It was NOT fun to sing.

In fact, it was mortifying.

Apparently, we didn't know the song as well as we thought we did.
Apparently, we'd only heard the radio version.
Apparently, we had no idea what word Kanye says in the chorus, over and over again.

It's a word I've never said in my entire life, and I wasn't about to start then.

Hint: it rhymes with "digger."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Megan tried to salvage it, but about 30 seconds in I just stood there wishing that the floor would open up and swallow me. We eventually stumbled our way through it singing the clean radio version, "broke, broke," but it was humiliating, and I wasn't nearly drunk enough to just go with it!





Later, Laurie and I redeemed ourselves by kicking some ass on "Just Dance" by our girl Gaga, but still... ouch.

Those tequila shots were purely medicinal!

On Saturday Mala and I shot a bunch of funny video at her house, but then I got home and discovered that my camcorder won't talk to my laptop, and neither one of them wants anything to do with the Pinnacle editing software, either. FML! So today I'm off to Best Buy to try to spend my way out of this pickle. Hopefully we'll have something fun for you guys at some point.

Sunday we spent the day at the lake in Vermont with my mom and some extended family, and I'll spare you the details of that day with one exception. This photo was taken right after D splashed us right in the face, so please forgive the 'do and the bizarre expression on my face. What is more funny is the Photobomber behind us, yes?

Yup, I thought so too!

On Monday I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be, and more.

So that's my weekend in a nutshell (Help! I'm in a nutshell!). How was yours? Sing any embarrassing karaoke? Have any potential medical emergencies? Have a Shamu sighting? No? Just me then?

Figures.