Category: blog

Although I try to pay attention to current events, I’m not always up-to-date on my celebrity news. As a result, I could be face-to-face with someone famous and, unless somebody points it out to me, I would most likely have no idea. Knowing this, I decided to publish ‘celebrity’ spottings at Sundance Film Festival in a Gossip Girl/TMZ fashion.

 

Thanks to social media, I didn’t need a camera crew or sponsors, just a camera phone and an Instagram account. My first star sighting and Instagram post, ‘Spotted: Lassie.’ Second sighting and post, ‘Spotted: Buffalo Bill.’ “You should just keep spotting people, and animals, who look like dead celebrities,” YumYummy advised. “Good idea. I’ll need some help though because I recognize very few people,” I said and asked, “How about I just take pictures and you tell me who they look like?” “Done,” she replied.

 

The spottings and postings continued – we saw Billy Ray Cyrus, Baby Agassi, Bret McKenzie, The Kardassians, Lil’ Kim, Nicki Minaj, a Ninja, Drag Queens and paparazzi. Truth be told, we really only saw Bret McKenzie, Drag Queens and paparazzi. Thus, like all of those other well followed gossip rags, we spread trivial misinformation with a little bit of truth. At the same time, the hashtag, #imverypopularoninstagram, created by Tree and I finally became a reality with my Instagram followers more than doubling (growing from seven followers to 15) thanks to people’s interest in celebrities. Spotted: A new favorite pastime.

 

 

One thing YumYummy, Keller The Sweller and Leave It To Stever and I have in common is a flair for fashion. We decided to put that flair to work for our grand appearance at Sundance Film Festival.

 

Fortunately, the secondhand store was good to all for of us and we were able to find four great tops that were perfect for, as Sweller would say, “going owt and abowt.” Being that we were staying in Park City for the festival, we didn’t have all of our styling tools with us – specifically, scissors – so we used a pair of needle-nose pliers to give our tops the perfect finish. Sweller started by taking the sleeves off of his sweatshirt and then trimming the bottom. “I’m making a mullet shirt. I plan to wear it with my shorts and a vest,” he proudly told us then donned the mullet shirt and vest. Peaking out from the vest was the graphic of the eagle and the letters ‘E-R-I-C,’ the rest of the letters (which, all together, spelled ‘America’) were hidden by the vest. “What is it they say about a mullet?” Sweller asked while Leave It To Stever was needle-nosing the sleeves off of his faux cross-stitched reindeer sweatshirt. “Business in the front, party in the back,” Leave It To Stever replied. “In this case, I think it may be the other way around,” I quipped while observing the several inches of Sweller’s exposed belly.

 

Not wanting to be upstaged,  YumYummy ripped her sleeveless trout t-shirt around the bottom to give it a lovely fringed finish and complimented it with a lovely patterned vest. After needle-nosing the sleeves off my block pattern wool sweater, I decided to complete my outfit by donning a pilot’s cap and wearing the sweater sleeves as leg warmers. With all of these rippings and trimmings complete we were finally (camera) ready to go owt and abowt.

 

With Keller the Sweller, Leave it to Stever and YumYummy in the house there have been a lot of Canadian and American comparisons and questions.  Keller the Sweller seemed to be the most curious.

 

“What time is it?” he asked while looking at the analog (translation: not digital) clock. “Do they have different clocks in Canada?” I asked. He didn’t reply, just quizzically looked at the clock again. To be fair, people who really know me know that I don’t always respect Daylight Savings Time, thus, the time on the clock may be one hour ahead or one hour behind the actual time. Even with that variance, one usually has a general idea of what time it is – give or take an hour, eh.

 

Later in the day, Keller the Sweller wanted to watch television. People who really know me (which he didn’t, yet) know I am not tech savvy or a big watcher of television. As a result, my remote is the very basic/standard remote that comes with the television. “How does this remote work?” Keller the Sweller asked. “Do they have different remotes in Canada?” I asked. Instead of responding or trying to figure it out, he did what no American man ever wants to do – handed the remote to me. Guess some things are different here in the States.

With Sundance Film Festival just around the corner, YumYummy decided to make her big debut. Wanting her and her boys to feel extremely welcome, we decided to greet her at the airport. She knew we did such things and only had one request, that we had a sign which read, ‘Been there, done that.’

As we prepared the sign, we also prepared ourselves. Live Longer brought her bag of wigs and Sleepless, Live Longer and I picked the wigs that we felt were most appropriate for the occasion – Live Longer donned the infamous afro, Sleepless chose a platinum white with two ponytails and I opted for the vivid blue with pony tails. I then equipped the three of us with hooker boots (which also double as stylish boots depending on the outfit), sunglasses, and tight fitting coats that screamed, “Oh, oh, oh!” Just like in the movies.

Tree and Ice Cream Man opted for caps, scarves and moustaches. “I’m the director,” Tree advised. “Can you be the driver?” I asked Ice Cream Man whose cap was a mix between chauffeur and Captain Stubbing. “I can do that,” he replied causing half of his moustache to pop off.

We hopped in the car and headed to the airport. On the way there we discovered their plane had landed early, thus, we wouldn’t be able to be waiting for them at the baggage carousel. Not wanting to let this snafu get in our way, we decided we would just meet them at the baggage carousel, sign in hand.

Thus, approximately fifteen minutes after they arrived – or as they say in the industry, after their ‘premature ejaculation’ – we entered the scene, stage right, puffed and fluffed, and turned the baggage carousel into the Adult Entertainment Industry (AEI) red carpet. Ice Cream Man proudly held up the sign which read, ‘Vivid Video welcomes AEI stars YumYummy, Keller the Sweller and Up & Comer [um? sp?] Leave it to Stever! Been There, Done That!’ and we all descended on them like camera man hoping for a close-up of the money shot.

The welcome was like many endings, quite climatic, and, like so many other film celebrities, people were watching us and cameras were flashing. At least one camera, anyway, we brought ours along to capture every moment. Once we returned to the car Tree asked Live Longer, “Do your curtains match your carpet?” “Her curtains match my carpet,” I answered. “Gross,” he replied, then said, “We need to stop at the store to pick up limes. Do what I say, I’m the director.” And with that, we were off and running to do what most film stars do – live normal lives. Except, nothing is normal about our lives, which is no surprise considering #imverypopularoninstagram.

There is a guy in my building who regularly stops by my office and gives me candy. Usually, the candy is warm because it has been in his hand since leaving his office (approximately one minute away from mine). The whole exchange has a very pedophile at the park feel to it. I’m not sure what he drives, but I won’t be surprised if I roll up on a white kidnapper van at a light and find him driving.

 

In addition to leaving me sweaty sugar, he usually makes an interesting comment or two and then returns to his office. Today, he walked into my office and dropped two almonds on my desk. “Did you just drop two nuts on my desk?” I asked him. “He smirked and dropped another , except it was actually only a half of an almond. “Two and a half nuts. Really?” I said. He picked up the half and replaced it with a third full size almond. “Enjoy my nuts,” he said and left.

 

If you’re wondering whether or not I ate them, the answer is no. Nobody likes sweaty nuts.

 

Not wanting to let our $10 weekend rental package go to waist, Live Longer and I decided to brave the weather, again, and go snowshoeing. This time, however, we brought along a few ‘accessories’ – two other people, wigs and flasks. “They’re going to think we’re professionals since we went yesterday,” Live Longer commented. “One more thing to add to our ‘lessons’ sign,” I replied.

Live Longer and I wasted no time donning our wigs and rightly so – they were both stylish and warm. She chose a long electric blue wig and suggested I wear her mustard colored afro – absolutely perfect choices. The other ladies opted for a hot pink bouffant and a platinum blonde with two pony tails. The latter was originally put on sideways, which I preferred, but she opted to fix it because she didn’t want other outdoor enthusiasts to think she was an amateur.

 

With the temperature in the single digits, we were concerned we might get cold, but between our flasks and layers of clothing we stayed quite warm. The wigs also helped. In fact, they were so warm we were able to ditch a few layers and bask in the warmth of the wigloo.

 

Like the day before, we forged several of our own paths and took multiple photos. Unlike the day before, we left long before the sun was setting. Live Longer had other photo shoots to go to and, based on her half hour fist, we had to get going.

 

Live Longer and I decided to take advantage of the recent snow storm that hit our town and, being the outdoor enthusiasts we are – we can’t get enough of outdoor malls – we rented some snowshoes and hit the snow. Since neither of us had gone snowshoeing before, this was going to be quite the adventure.

 

It started out pretty good, that is, until Live Longer advised me I was strapping my snowshoe on backwards. Luckily, we were able to flip it around without incident and begin our outdoor adventure. “Should we forge our own path or take a path made by others?” she asked. “Let’s forge our own,” I replied. “Apparently these snowshoes are for trail running,” she advised me. “Running? Interesting. Sleepless and I once wore racing skis on the bunny hill,” I replied and added, “Avid outdoor enthusiasts.”

 

Within about five minutes of trekking we had taken at least fifteen photos – enough to make it look like we’d been out all day. Instead of calling it a day, we opted to trek on because we figured additional photo opportunities awaited us. “We should really think about making a ‘how to snowshoe’ video,” I told Live Longer. “You could include this in your travel show,” she replied. “That is a great idea! Speaking of travel, when do you think we should start heading back?” I asked. “Well, I learned that your fist is one hour, so you put your fist under the sun to see how many hours of sunlight are left. Looks like we’ve got one hour left – plenty of time,” she told me while holding her fist toward the sun.

 

We took our time making our way back to the car, stopping only to write our names in the snow and pose for more photos (Live Longer couldn’t get enough pictures of the frozen snow hanging off the ass of my pants). The sun, however, did not take it’s time setting and was clearly about to set approximately thirty minutes ahead of Live Longer’s prediction. “Looks like I have a half hour fist,” she quipped.

We’ve had a lot of snow lately. So much, it took me three hours to shovel my driveway and sidewalks this morning. Granted, I get distracted along the way, taking pictures of miniature gnomes, making snow angels and taking coffee breaks – pretty sure the latter is required by the federal government.

 

While I was taking my legally required coffee break, my neighbor/lesbian girlfriend was shoveling her drive. I invited her to come over for a cup and she told me she needed to finish and get to work. “They won’t know if you’re shoveling or drinking coffee,” I advised her. Next thing I knew, he and I were sitting on my porch sipping coffee, breaking. Or is it broke? The English language is so difficult.

 

She only stayed for a few minutes and then returned to her task at hand. I was about to do the same when I saw a man taking his daughter to school, by pulling her daughter in a sled. I asked them to stop for a photo, they did, and then I asked him if he could take me to work in a few.

 

I eventually made it to work, sans a sled ride, and worked until half past five (seems like ‘half passed five’ makes more sense – another reason to take some English as a First Language classes). I then headed to the airport to retrieve Skiwi who was returning from a work trip. He greeted me with an in-flight barf bag full of cookies, peanuts and a pen from the hotel at which he stayed. “Thanks for the ride. The bag is just a small token of appreciation. I owe you. I’ll snowblow your walks in return,” he said. This was a good offer considering the time it takes me to shovel.

 

Before taking him home, we stopped at my house so I could retrieve a wig for a later event, and he shoveled my walks. We then attempted to make it up the hill to his house. Dirk is a good car. Unfortunately, he is like a fair weather friend. Just as I turned up the snow-packed hill he gave up and there was no getting up the hill. Skiwi hopped out and attempted to push me out, but all I did was burn rubber – and not in a racing way. Fortunately, the guy in the car behind us also helped push. Once I got moving Skiwi shouted, “Keep going, don’t stop for me.” I did so, Skiwi ran alongside the car, eventually opened the passenger door, and, while I kept driving, jumped into the moving vehicle. When push comes to shove(l), we do what we have to do weather a storm.

As I sat in a meeting with three male coworkers this morning I noticed all three of them were wearing the same dress shirt. When I pointed this out, one of them said, “Love it – love shopping for clothes at Costco. When I write my autobiography it will be called ‘All of My Clothes Come from Costco.'” “Oh mine isn’t from Costco,” another quickly provided clarification, “Mine is from Banana Republic.” “Oh you Banana Republicans,” the Costco fan replied and then said, “Well the two of us got ours at Costco.” “No, mine is very upscale, mine is from Dillard’s,” the third interjected.

 

They started comparing seams and patterns when the Costco fan contemplated taking his sweater off to show them his stitching, “Can’t do it. I just remembered I only ironed the collar and cuffs. Which reminds me, if you have a size 16 collar you are in business at Costco. If you’re a size 17 1/2, you have to get there early, before all of the other fatties show up and take all of the fashion goodness.”

 

Prior to leaving the meeting, I reminded them of their photo shoot on Monday, “You might want to make sure you wear different shirts.” “No worries, I’ve got plenty of Costco shirts  to choose from. Remember my autobiography?”

Ever since I returned from France I’ve been waking up earlier than usual. I’m not entirely sure this is jet lag, rather, just something that happens to me the first of every new year. Luckily, this phase passes quickly. Also lucky for me is the fact that one of my coworkers wakes up extremely early all of the time and likes to instant message.

 

As we chatted about different things he asked about That’s Not Chinese. I brought him up to date on her life and mentioned Unfazed.

 

“WAIT GF, That’s Not Chinese now has a GF? I thought she jumped the fence back to the straight side,” he messaged me.

 

“She is always jumping the fence but she tends to stay on the side with the garden instead of the one with the tree,” I replied.

 

“OH, I’m a big fat tree hugger, who likes big fat trees. Oh well.”