Detoxification

I've taken such a beating in the last month that I've decided to change up a few things. First off, I've stopped eating.

Well that's a lie because God made cows so we could enjoy juicy steaks, and who I am to argue with God? I've just decided not to eat for the next 5-10 days, depending how long I can subsist on lemonade.

That's right, I'm doing the lemonade fast. Just like every other person you know.

Why? Because my life is so horribly out of balance that all I do is spend my time screaming at people while my stomach screams at me.

In a related story, I had my stomach lining photographed on Friday. It was the best sleep I've ever had. Anesthesia is made from the best drugs on earth. And also, no ruptures in the lining, which is great and just means that all those awful stomach aches are stress-induced.

Lovely. My body hates me. It's time to take drastic action. Hence, nothing but spiked lemon water till next weekend. Clean out the system, regulate my psyche, blahblahblahnewageshit.

You're supposed to do this crazy thing for 10 days, but I figure if I can stick it out for 5, that's a good start. Plus, I'm doing this on Saturday, so I kind of want to be able to eat pretty soon afterwards.

Wish me luck. Today was Day 1 and while it wasn't horrible, I also didn't do much other than sit home, watch the foosball, and knit. Tomorrow I have to work, which means I have to stress.

We'll see how this goes.

***UPDATE @ 8:30 PM 10-1-07***

Well that lasted all of almost two days. It turns out that when you have stomach problems, citrus drinks aren't all that great. And when you need have a job that demands 110% of all your mental faculties, starving your system isn't the most fabulous of ideas. I don't know how people with real jobs like brain surgeons and trapeze artists would pull this off.

So at 6:35 pm, I had a Balance bar. It immediately made my tummy hurt, but then my headache disappeared and I commited to going back to solid food.

I'll save detox for when I'm on vacation and don't have to think, or command, or be "on."

Yeah.

Photoblogging Friday 9.28.07

Today is my favorite Muppet's birthday. He hates it when I call him that, but I don't think he's reading anyway, so we're okay!

Back to the current project. Continuing on with the creepy parking lot:

Through the tempered glass

Taken in the elevator and looking out onto the 4th floor of the lot.

You can almost smell the urine.

The Miracle of Childbirth

My boss is schedule to give up vessel duty for her twins this Friday. And it can't come soon enough.

I had 3 women in my office today comparing war stories. The endless labor, the complications, the missed window for drugs, the whole gross gambit. I cannot tell you how repulsed I was.

Nobody is doing anything to convince me having children is necessary.

Il S'appelle...

I've decided that the man's nickname is going to be Monsieur. C'est trés appropriate. Skooky isn't going to like it, but I assure you he's not French.

Just like I'm not French but we both have Frenchy names.

Et il est mon ami.

In a related story, Sunday night I was caught up in the middle of a rant about being a grammar nazi and ended up confessing about the existence of this blog to him. But I assured him that I don't really write about him.

Um...

Overheard in the Family #9

Sunday I met up with the boys for breakfast. And by boys, I mean three generations of family members: dad, baby brother, and baby brother's baby.

I had pancakes. 3B had formula. In a bottle. Because he's a baby, get it?

3B was wearing pants that his daddy referred to as Aladdin pants. So his new name, since Baby Werewolf wasn't really catching on, is Baby Aladdin. Because he's part Indian, get it?

After breakfast, we met up with the rest of our generation and his progeny to watch the foosball.

My two brothers had the following conversation while the older one rocked 3B to sleep:

Baby Brother: Man, Baby Aladdin's got the life. All he has to do is eat and shit. I wish that's all I had to do.

Big Fish: You did have that life. Right up until you were 18.

That exchange might not be funny to you, but the way my brothers clown on one another makes it fucking hysterical to me.

And that's all that matters.

TV Rots Your Brain

Today marks the beginning of the end for some. It's the kickoff of Premiere Week on most networks. But it's also Countdown to Cancellation for a lot of the new shows hitting the airwaves.

I like playing a deathpool type of game with this every year, betting on which shows will crash and burn in ratings hell. I usually call it pretty easily. Anyone remember that Ray Liotta disaster Smith? No? That's because it was only on for about 3 episodes (I had a friend who was a writer on the show. Unemployment came quickly for him). I didn't think Heroes would make it either, because the pilot bored me to tears. Now that it's back for it's increasingly popular 2nd season, I remain baffled but uninterested.

Back to the game: Metacritic has the entire primetime line-up for network tv. All you have to do is determine which won't make it to November sweeps. Or February. Or May. If you live in the upside down place and don't get American television, it's okay. Just toss it out there and see what sticks.

(That's kind of how network execs do it anyway.)

Here's the short list (asterisks next to the ones I might actually watch):

Sundays
- Viva Laughlin! (It's like Vegas, but not)
- Online Nation
- CW Now
- Life is Wild

Mondays
- Samantha Who? (never even heard of it)
- The Big Bang Theory
- Aliens In America
- K-Ville (can anyone explain why a show in New Orleans is called K-Ville? Does it have something to do with Katrina?)
- Journeyman

Tuesdays
- Cavemen*
- Carpoolers
- Cane*
- Reapers (like Dead Like Me, but not?)
- Chuck

Wednesdays
- Pushing Daisies
- Private Practice
- Dirty Sexy Money*
- Kid Nation
- Gossip Girl
- Back to You
- Kitchen Nightmares
- Bionic Woman
- Life

Thursdays
- Big Shots*

Fridays
- Women's Murder Club
- Moonlight (like Angel, without David Boreanz?)
- American Band
- Nashville (like American Idol, for talentless country twangers?)

Winners like me will get to watch football and then basketball from now until next June. Yay!

Photoblogging Friday 9.21.07

The other day I went crazy taking pictures in a downtown parking lot. It's dark and creepy as all hell, but I have to park there to see my chiropractor. Not good for a single woman, but visually great for a photographer.

I like the way the light comes in through the dirty stairwell:

Enter...

What's really misleading is that the outside of this building is a gorgeous Art Deco façade. It's currently surrounded by scaffolding as it's being restored. But the inside? Ick.

Expect to see more from this session in the coming weeks.

10 Points When Lit

Today I felt like a pinball. It was just meeting after meeting after meeting. I didn't sit in my office for more than 30 minutes at any point during the day.

There was the 8 am at the office, a 9:30 in the Historic Core, noon on the westside, 2 pm back downtown, and then a 4:30 at the LA Athletic Club. It was a grand total of something like 35 miles driven to meetings alone.

At one point, I actually ran into the bookcase in my office. Me = human pinball.

At another point I found a Blackberry sitting on my desk. It's not a sexy one. It looks like a brick. And it isn't forwarding my emails so it's just as worthless as one right now too.

But at no point during the day did I have to pay for a meal. Including that steak for lunch, lobster for dinner, and creme brule for dessert.

It's really great to having friends in catering.

Not so great being too important to take a fucking break. But what can you do?

Overheard in Los Feliz

La Ria and I work in the same industry. So when one of the industry trades threw a party, off we went.

We had one drink and then left to Eat. On Sunset.

It was a very Hollywood night. Right down to our conversation, which somehow centered around Scientology:

La Ria: And that actress Erica Christensen was there. She's been in...

GPG: Yeah, I know who she is. I get her confused with Julia Stiles sometimes.

La Ria: That's random.

GPG: I know. But Julia has straight hair and Erica has curly hair, so I can usually tell them apart.

La Ria: Good thing.

GPG: Yeah. I like to keep my curlies straight.

And then we laughed at my unintentional pun. I'm funny on Tuesday nights.

Growing Up is Hard to Do

This post is unfinished. I can tell you that right from the outset.

It's because my thoughts are seriously jumbled. I should be at the gym. I should be working out my exhaustion. Instead, I'm sitting in front of my computer trying to make sense of my life.

(And waiting for my toes to dry. I have a party to go to tomorrow night. I'll be wearing open-toed shoes. I need pretty toes.)

I've accomplished a lot more than I thought I would by now. It shouldn't surprise me, but just last summer I was unemployed and feeling worthless. And now tomorrow marks one full year at my current job, where I quickly rose up to manage the day-to-day operations of an entire department.

Talk about coming full circle. When did that all happen?

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Probably because I'm not completely comfortable with where I'm at in life. Either professionally or personally.

And that's about all the introspection I'm going to allow myself tonight.

Two Things

1. The Raiders were robbed.

2. Ironing a shirt with a ruffle is really hard.

Photoblogging Friday 9.14.07

I must confess that these photo posts are growing increasingly difficult to make. Not for lack of content, but I started doing them in order to force myself to shoot more pictures. And I haven't been doing that. In fact, it's become a pain in the ass to find something to post because I'm tired of looking at the same old shit.

Regardless, we soldier on. I need to validate the moniker I've given myself, after all. This is from a headshot session in 2004. We were out on a residential street, the corner of which was functioning as a repository for recently discarded bathroom fixtures. I couldn't resist taking a shot of the debris:

Abandoned Sink

And then it was over and we went back to shooting the client. And this is still my favorite picture out of all of them.

I was always better at the still life than people life. Mainly because objects don't move. Or get crabby. Or argue with me about what the shot should look like.

That's the least fun part of shooting people. But at the end of the day, I do own their souls.

There's always an upside.