I laugh about everything for fear of crying.

Greetings, my wholesome (and not so wholesome) friends, from Sin City, where you can drink, smoke, and gamble 24 hours a day, or get a hooker to your hotel room for $39 in 15 minutes or less.  (I only know about that last one from the breasty flyers they’ve been leaving on our rental car.  Really.)

Truly, this week has been one of the worst experiences of my career.  The details are too dull to elaborate, but suffice it to say that if the moment hasn’t been ACTUALLY sucking, it was either just finished sucking, or about to start sucking.  I went in at 8am this morning and worked… HARD… until 11pm.  And now I’m all wired and worked up and can’t go to sleep, even though I have to be up in 6 hours to do it all over again.  The worst part is that we signed a 3-year contract for 2 shows a year.  *sob* 

This week’s hours have reminded me of my 8-month moonlighting stint with the Barnes & Noble Cafe.  Do you guys remember that?  How on earth did I do it?  Well, I was only 25 for one thing.  It hurts more now.  I used to work 8-5 and 6-midnight 3x/week.  Ugh.  Then I’d get home and be crazy awake (which birthed my VERY unscientific hypothesis that you can absorb caffeine through your skin) and end up with about 4 hours of sleep. 

So, a lot of you have been asking for pictures of my new haircut.  I’ve posted 2 pictures of my friend Marci and me, taken exactly a week apart.  It’s like a whole different person.  Hope you guys like it as much as I do.  Going to pressure sleep.  Love, J.

Soooo, I won the bet.  What?  You made a bet!  A bet’s a bet!  You bet on a bet and if you lose you lose the bet!!  I’m wearing the crown and Brian’s wearing the frown.  He was a trooper.  Got 2/3’s of it down in about 40 minutes, and then decided he was not ruining his lifelong love of milk for a mere $50, so he quietly exused himself to purge, and I did the obnoxious "I won" dance.  He came back a few minutes later with a bottle of wine. 

Today’s the day!  The day my friend Brian is going to give me $50.  I made him the great gallon of milk bet.  If we ever get off work, everyone is coming to my room tonight after work to eat pizza and watch Brian drink milk.  It’s going to be awesome.

The sorting hat says that I belong in Gryffindor!

Students of Gryffindor are typically brave, daring, and chivalrous.  Famous members include Harry, Ron, Hermione, Albus Dumbledore (head of Hogwarts), and Minerva McGonagall (head of Gryffindor).

Get Sorted Now!

I’m in Vegas now, and I’m pleased to say that it is neither as hot nor as dry as I feared.  It is, in fact, pouring right now, which made me want to get out of bed even less than normal.  This show is crazy.  It’s not only our first year on this contract, it’s the first year of this show, ever.  And on top of the learning curve, we are loading out 2 shows here in the same convention center while we’re loading this one in, and there’s a sister show across town, AND a Freeman (competitor) show in the next hall.  I spent all day yesterday up to my ears in freight paperwork.  It wasn’t pretty.  I’m exhausted, and we haven’t even opened yet.  I have another whole week to go.

This show I’m working on being social.  My first big show with everyone was in San Fran, and I didn’t go out very much, and I think I might have come across as a bit of a snob.  (Moi??  I know; you’re all shocked.)  But I’ve been hanging out every night this week and although it’s quite fun, it just reminds me why I don’t usually.  I’m frickin’ exhausted.  Tomorrow is opening day, and I will probably be here until 10pm, so tonight’s the night for straight home to my book and my bed.

Not much else new to report, I’m afraid.  I can’t wait for August.  I’m going to be home for 10 whole days, then NYC for my birthday, then to Louisiana, then to Texas (for work, but I feel certain I’ll sneak in some fun).

It’s lonely on the weekends when I’m working 14-hour days and no one is online to chat with.  *sigh*

~J.

OK, so, I cut off my hair.  Yeah.  OFF.  Like, 8 inches.  And although I specifically asked her to not give me a bob, she bobbed me.  I look like a freaking…  well, I don’t know, but I most definitely do NOT look like Jamie.

So, I’m at my mom’s church, sitting in the youth minister’s office on my laptop, trying to figure out how to tell her (when I go back in an hour for try #2) exactly how NOT to cut my hair.  I took pictures.  I, in fact, took EIGHT PICTURES of how I wanted my hair to look (from the good ole days; remember in 2001 when I had GREAT HAIR???) and she still bobbed me.  I think I’m going to cry.

So, in Chicago today, someboday robbed a bank through the pneumatic tube.  He just drove up, and sent in a note demanding money.  And got it!!  My co-worker Laura and I decided this would be our new career, although I guess one of us should get a car.  No one would ever suspect us of being bank-robbers, and we already have lot of black clothes.  So we’re going to get a couple of big burlap bags with dollar signs on them and go to town.  Seems like less work than what we’re doing now.

Aren’t bank tellers supposed to be behind bullet-proof glass?  With a little red panic button?  I wonder what the note said.  It was probably riddled prettily, maybe a haiku like this:

I want your money

Send it through the tube

If not we will shoot.

Just a thought.

*disclaimer: This post was meant to be sarcastic and is in no way meant to be taken as intention to rob a bank.  Any actual bank robberies that happen after the posting of this blog are completely coincidental and have nothing whatsoever to do with Laura or me.

Yes, I miss you guys.  But also, the TV show.  Several months ago, my friend Gen and I were discussing some of our favorite Friends moments (the one where the girls lost the apartment, when Chandler had to spend Thanksgiving in the box because he kissed Joey’s girlfriend, the entire season of "but they don’t know we know they know we know!"), and how it kind of tapered off at the end of the series.  But then we remembered this awesome Chandler-Joey scene from season 8, when he thought he had a crush on Rachel.  Gen located it on the web and e-mailed it to me, and I giggled like an idiot just reading it.  It’s probably not half as funny if you haven’t seen it, but the comedic interaction between these two actors is spot-on.

Joey: (entering) Hey, Chandler, you got a minute? I- I really need to talk to you.
Chandler: Oh! Uh, yeah! Is this a cold pizza talk or a leftover meatloaf talk?
Joey: Well, neither.
Chandler: Oh my God, what’s up?!
Joey: I don’t know. It’s- it’s just…lately, I’ve been feeling… Okay, here’s what it is… <Pause> You know what? I feel a lot better, thanks! (Starts to leave)
Chandler: Oh no-no-no, no you don’t, just come back.
Joey: All right. Okay. You and Monica, friends for a long time, and sure, there are rules, but then you went to London. Oh, no, but that’s different. I mean, there are rules there, too! You know what I mean?
Chandler: Do YOU?
Joey: <pause> It was different for you guys! I mean, I mean, you were both in the same place, right?
Chandler: In London?
Joey: Yeah.
Chandler: Yes. When Monica and I were in London, we were both in London.
Joey: You know what? This is a bad idea. Forget it. Forget it, and listen, do me a favor, this conversation was between you and me.
Chandler: If that.

It’s Amazon.com’s 10th anniversary.  Can you believe it?  I honestly can’t remember what my life was like before online purchasing.  Or e-mails, movie times, phone numbers, song lyrics, and so on and so forth.  Check out their website for video clips of the celebrity deliveries, like Chris Noth, Minnie Driver, and Jeff Bridges. 

OK, so, I know I complain about San Francisco a lot.  And I understand that I shouldn’t judge the city on my work trips, as it’s rougly the equivalent of asking a person to fall in love with Manhattan while they’re staying at 34th and 6th.  But the man that yelled outside my hotel window for an hour in the middle of the night really doesn’t do much to sway my opinion.  Or the homeless man that met me at the door of Starbuck’s yelling "BUY ME A CUP OF COFFEE!"  Or the smell of urine that permeates… well, everywhere.

I just saw War of the Worlds.  I’m sorry.  I know Tom is batsh*t crazy, but my man Spielberg knows his aliens.  I freaking loved it.  Yes, yes, it had plot holes as big as Texas, but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the movie, and isn’t that what movies are all about? 

OK, so, I smuggled a bottle of water into the movies.  I know, you’re not supposed to do that.  But I gave them $10.50 for my ticket and $4.29 for a small popcorn, so I didn’t feel that bad.  Especially once I saw the couple in front of me pull out CHIPOTLE BURRITOS.  I am really not joking.

Edited to add: I MISSED SIX FEET UNDER!!!!!!!!!!!!  Apparently it comes on an hour earlier on the west coast.  Grrrrr. 

Remember when we all had pirate names?  Long live our boat trip to Anarctica, with Whitey Squarepatch, the Guv’nah, the SeaDog Sisters, and the rest of the Pirate Crew. 

Go to my old blog for a "What Kind of Pirate am I?" quiz, courtesy of Brian, where you get to vote on how pirate-y your good friend Jamie (aka "Squinteye Higgins") is.  For some reason, I couldn’t get it to post here; I don’t know enough about HTML yet.

Arrrr!  Let’s go get some booty!!!