Separated At Birth?

Nah, try by about four years. I just had a really great week- my sister unexpectedly came back from Australia and spent the past seven days with me. Although I am her older brother, I feel like we're sisters in many ways: relatively same taste in men, food, and handbags.

I dropped her off at the airport this afternoon. She's moving back permanently in the States with her husband sometime in September, perhaps New York.

'Til then, I'll miss her so.

A Combination of Safety and Friendship.

Friday was a bad day. Bad. Bad and sad. I had to say goodbye to someone who was with me for eight years.

I was finishing up my normal morning routine (working out at the gym) when I walked over to my locker and completely forgot the combination to my lock that I've had for eight years. Eight years of the same old boring combination over and over, day in and out, when all of a sudden, the combination just fell out of my head. "32, 16, 12 wait. 32, 16, 8- or was it 6? 32, 12, 6 or Agggh! This is so freaky!"

I went to the front desk where they gave me a pair of giganti-normous pair of pliers to cut the lock off. Before I pulled the plug on this freindship, I tried other combinations but none of them worked.

Apparently it's a very common occurence, according to the front desk.

"Will" I Say Goodbye?

Since my sister is here for such a short amount of time, we thought we'd spend some quality time today together: we watched T.V. We planned to watch the series finale of Will & Grace. I couldn't do it- I wasn't ready to say goodbye! They were on for eight years, and I hardly missed an episode. Before they aired the final one, they did a one-hour recap of what it was like for all four actors to play their characters, and I got very, very sad.

If anyone knows me, I'm horrible at goodbyes. I always say things like "I'll talk to you later" or "I'll see you soon".

The Devil Wears Prada

And sets up a Prada store that isn't real. This thing still freaks me out- last year, two artists created this Prada store "artwork" and decided to plant it in the middle of Nowhere, Texas (near Marfa, hence it's "Prada Marfa" name). It's got real Prada shoes and purses inside, but it also has a non-functioning door. It's supposed to be a "project that symbolizes existing cultural icons and succinctly juxtaposing them to form a seductively uncomfortable personality clash".

Whatever. I think it's just plain mean to us label ho's.

Here's the official site. Weird. So very cruel.

How Do I Love Thee?

There are many things of this earth I love- a warm sunny day, a good Step class, cheesecake...but if there's anything I love even more is my sister Ellen, who spontaneously flew back to the USA from Australia Saturday! She took a halfway around the world, 24 hour flight and next thing you know, she's knocking at my door. She's only staying for a week, before she heads back to Australia one last time to pack up and travel around before permanently moving back to the US.

If you think you can crash this party, you can't. It's all about bonding time between the cute sibling (my sister) and the cuter sibling (me!)

The Dish on Deep Dish

Authentic Chicago deep dish pizza is worth every freakin' fat gram and every calorie. Authentic deep dish is not Pizza Hut, Pizzeria Unos, or Armand's in D.C. Authentic deep dish has a crust that's buttery, with cheese that runneth over, and is paired with a hearty zesty blend of tomatoes. Paul and I went to Giordano's yesterday, the mecca of Chicago deep dish pizza. The wait was an hour and fifteen minutes, but we waited. We were even able to place an advance order of our pizza so it was ready by the time we were seated . We loved every morsel of what we ate, we just couldn't finish it because the cheese was so filling.

Where's Ernie's Head?

It's in downtown Chicago. Tomorrow, Paul and I head off for the weekend in Chicago for a wedding. I have absolutely no idea who's getting married (she's a friend of Paul's who I met once). All I know is I have an agenda:

*a trip to Prada
*to visit Tod's
*stop by Paul Frank
*eat deep dish pizza
*have lunch at Cheesecake Factory's sister restaurant, Grand Lux Cafe
*indulge at a dessert restaurant
*steal a second serving of wedding cake

'Nuff said. More later.

"Poseidon" Floats My Boat.

I saw "Poseidon" tonight with Paul. I liked it, and in case you didn't know, THE BOAT SINKS. What I like is the fact that they didn't dally around with character development. The major problem (a "rogue wave" overturns the boat) happens 10 minutes into the movie. The rest of the movie is massive chaos, total carnage, and a handful of survivors getting chased by water while running for higher ground.

Two things made my dinghy sink: 1) it re-affirmed my fear of deep water, making me squirm in my seat most of the time 2) Josh Lucas. Stay out of the deep end and head back to "Sweet Home Alabama", because action movies just ain't your thang.

Flawed Credit Card Fraud

Signing the receipt for your purchases at a store is such a joke, 'cause the cashier never bothers to check the signature. In Australia, that's all they ever did. Sometimes in the grocery store in Sydney, I would have to sign twice because the first time didn't match the appearance to the one on the credit card.

I've done crazy things here in the USA to test whether they truly cared.. They absolutely don't. One day last week, at Giant, I signed it with three dots: ". . .". All I got back was "Thank you sir, have a nice day." Then at my next stop, Bed Bath and Beyond, I drew a straight line in place of my signature. Nothing else, and the cashier didn't flinch. My last stop was Office Depot. I signed "I hate Office Depot". The next day I returned to Office Depot for a return and I wrote "Staples is better." Nothing.

Today's The Day...

I start chemo. Starting tonight and every night for a year to 15 months (depending on how well I handle the side effects), I take two types of chemo. I'm dreading it, and I call it taking "poison" because one's supposed to make me throw up a lot, the other's supposed to make me tired all the time. I called it taking "poison," up until yesterday, when someone called me on my stuff and said "poison" was a poor and negative choice of words. He said a better word was "cure". Fine.

The effects of the "cure" is cumulative, the more "cure" I put in me, the more of the side effects I feel. All I know is that it all makes me sad.

The Fish Bowl

Whenever I'm in the hospital, I don't have time to rest. When you're in your room and as comfortable as you can possibly be amdist the cords and machine, and who's to say how much pain you're in, people stop by and visit saying hello, giving you no time to rest. Now. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like visitors. I like people dropping by and showering me with gifts and surprises. It's just I have too many. See, my entire family works at the hospital, and they drop in and hide out from their job. When I had gamma knife, one of them was there for 2 hours. At one point during my stay, I looked around the room, and counted 6 members of my family were there, all on the clock! Next time, I guess I'll have to put a "please no visitors" sign up so I can get some rest.

M:I 3lly watching "M:I 3"?

I saw "Alias: The Movie" starring Tom Cruise on Tuesday, and I loved it. Wait- I'm confused! I thought Tom was going to be in "M: I 3". Just a second. OK. I got it now: I saw "Mission: Alias".

If you are a diehard fan of Alias (which sadly lost its good ratings and reviews), you'll love M:I 3". Overall, I thought the film was great (and yes I liked Alias, but sadly got tired of its fast and frenetic pace). (Is that really possible? To get tired of TV that's interesting?) I normally take an accidental catnap during all movies, including action flicks, but I didn't here. No time to let your heartbeat slow down. Two thumbs up here in my camp. Tom woos.

Life After The Knife

I had Gamma Knife Radiation yesterday and was sent home today. It went okay- no major problems, just four perfectly lined and symmetrical drill marks in my head and an overnight stay. Gamma Knife, although tough to handle, is a by far a walk in the park compared to having a craniotomy.

What's on my head was the cage to de-mobilize it while operating on me. They knocked me out and bolted it onto my head- it weighed a ton of bricks! Then they needed me to be awake to perform the operation. I wasn't happy, but went ahead with the procedure.

I look like Robocop!

Movie Streak

I've seen a movie nearly every day this week (You're quite welcome, Hollywood Video.)

I've checked these off:
"Circuit"
"In Her Shoes"
"The Family Stone"
"Shop Girl"
"Fun With Dick and Jane"
"Last Holiday"

"Last Holiday" wasn't really my style, but I'm running out of choices. I should have rented "Elizabethtown".

THREE.R.

As of last night, I've got a threepeat visit to the E.R. I went in around 11PM, after severe headaches and throwing up for two days in a row. Whenever I get really bad headaches, I'm supposed to go to the E.R. as a safety precaution in case something's buggin' my noggin'.

They discharged me (that sounds gross.) around 4AM. The doctors said it's a result of having a spinal tap done on me a couple of days ago.

I still feel like crap today. Know how I can tell (besides my head throbbing)? I've barely ate anything. Turning down food is just plain weird for me.

Six Flags Sux.

(Sorry, I couldn't come up with anything clever for the title.)

Six Flags America in Washington D.C. has had the same attractions forever, and hasn't added a new ride in three years. Before that, they didn't add anything new since they practically opened. How do they intend to keep us coming back year after year?

I applaud Kings Dominion located in Richmond, Virginia for adding a new attraction every summer (this year it's "The Italian Job Turbo Coaster"). They haven't stopped adding on as long as I could remember!

I truly wonder whether executives at Six Flags America see lower numbers of park visitors year after year. Maybe their philosophy "If we had higher attendance, we could afford new rides" should change to "If you build it, they will come."

Six Flags took over and resurrected this former "Wild World" amusement park by making major improvements, but it still stands today as a mediocre place in my opinion.