Someone googled "relationships broken up because of crack cocaine poems" and landed here. My week is made.

Mark and I found a home! eeeee!

Goodbye my lovelies! I'll miss you and your smiling faces on my internet-box!

Food options within three blocks of my office, off the top of my head:

- Subway (2)
- McDonalds (2)
- Burrito Beach (2)
- Potbellys
- Jimmy Johns
- Giordanos
- Blackies (fancy burgers and beer)
- Thai
- Falafel places (2)
- Dylans (bar food and beer)
- Pizza place next to Dylans
- Rivers (nice sit down place)
- Chineese food
- Salad bar place
- Hotdog place
- Jamba Juice
- Arturo's (Italian)

And yet, we kvetch constantly about there being "no where to eat around here."

This is a strong indication that my mother's recent prediction that I will move back to Bingo within three years will probably not come true.

Gradzilla eats Tokyo! (May 30-June 2nd)

Now on to Julia's graduation. I know right off the bat that I am not going to be winning any popularity contests in my house--first I rip on my sister's boyfriend, now I'm ripping on my other sister's graduation. I don't mean to be catty, but I am trying to at least report things with a certain degree of objectivity. Even my dislike of Joey needed to be put as viscerally as possible in order to portray with greater accuracy the emotion my whole family felt during the RRID.

I will begin by saying, IN JULIA'S DEFENSE she did go to Hockaday for like, 12 years or something ridiculous. I only went for 6. Julia has attachment issues to her friends, and she was much more social than either Margaret or myself, who were more than ready to go on to something new. so IN JULIA'S DEFENSE I'm sure this was very traumatic for her. And since Julia also cares more about pomp and ceremony than anyone else, she would naturally have more invested in making graduation PERFECT.

It all started with the drama of Annika. Julia's friend from Germany and partner to the infamous American-German Sanibel Island War of 2006, Annika had planned on coming back to Dallas for Hockaday graduation. Julia, misunderstanding mom's concern that we wouldn't have enough room/time enough for guests, calls Annika 2 weeks before her departure and tells her she can't stay with us. Annika FREAKS out, tries to cancel her ticket and can't, and comes down to Dallas worried sick she's inconveniencing us. Considering Annika's family chauffeured and pampered Julia for 2 weeks in Germany, this is humiliating enough for my mother. On top of this, Julia realizes that her social life is going to have a crimp put in it by taking care of another person besides Annika, and immediately begins to resent the added responsibility.

Julia has many gifts, but one of those gifts is not prioritization. If Julia had to save a drowning child, go to the dry cleaners, and call back a friend, she would honestly not know which thing to do first. This is a problem when you are 1) leaving for Sicily in 2 weeks, 2) Moving to Provo in 2 months, and 3) Graduating in 2 days. Julia was constantly breaking down in crying, or getting abusively angry at everyone because she was SO stressed out and NO ONE was helping her and she had to do EVERYTHING herself. But it was difficult to drum up sympathy because Julia did not realize that buying Antoinette a graduation gift was not as important as getting her dress altered, for example.

The situation did not improve with Julia's attitude. She was gone every day doing parties and community service, working her Senior Class Internship job (one week only), attending Senior Prank Days and Senior luncheons. The few moments we did see her, she yelled at us if we commented on her absence, then demanded money, then yelled again at our lack of help, then cried because she was so sad, then stomped to her room if we criticized her lack of organization.

The nickname "Gradzilla" was coined when the list of things that HAD to happen was produced. The day of graduation, she HAD to get her nails done, she HAD to do her makeup, she HAD to have Paul to her hair, she HAD to get a special bustier for her dress, she HAD to go to Courtney's after-graduation changing party. She dragged around poor Annika to these events like a puppy, even disinviting her to others, and any time Annika suggested an activity SHE wanted to do, Julia would come to us and freak out about how demanding Annika was and why couldn't she just leave her alone and OH MY GOSH SHE WAS SO STRESSED OUT. I am putting all these things in caps so you can see the URGENCY that was in Julia's voice throughout all of this. Mom pointed out that if Julia ever got engaged, she better elope, because there was no way she was going to have this level of drama .

My mother's reaction to Julia's drama tends to be fight or flight. Now that she's regaining her confidence, she no longer let's Julia's moods rule her, and has taken to digging her heels in. That meant at every important senior get together where parents were invited, there was heel-digging. Julia made a big deal about her senior banquet, so mom went and complained the whole time about how stupid it was, which caused julia to talk trash about mom to her friends, which caused mom to say something about Julia's stained dress, etc. On the actual day of graduation (Saturday June 2nd) this was no exception--Julia made a huge production about leaving, demanded yet more money for gas, yelled about how put upon she was for having to pick her friend up from the mall (where she had dropped Annika off to 'keep herself busy'), then left without saying goodbye. In response to this, mom unconsciously decided to punish Julia by taking her time getting ready so that we were nearly late for graduation, and got almost no pre-graduation pictures of Julia with her friends.

It was a nice send off to Hockaday graduations, this being our last one. We got really nice seats (for once), the kids were old enough to sit still, there were no financial crises looming overhead. My high school friends (Monica, Ib, and Bonnie) showed up for emotional support, and I brought my phone so I could text message the whole time. Cheers Bonnie, Mary South, for making the ceremony worthwhile.

Hockaday only has about 110 girls in each graduating class, but the ceremony is over 2 HOURS LONG. It consists of underclassman walking in white rows to their section, a flowerguard procession made up of siblings of the graduating class, a teacher's procession, then the long, solemn, flower strewn walk of the seniors in their white hats and dresses. Following the entrances, there's introductions, then a prayer, then a song sung by the underclassman, then a guest speaker (this year, our old headmistress Liza Lee). After Liza, there's more singing, then diplomas get handed out, then a student speaker, then the class sings the class song, then two more songs sung by both the underclassman and the seniors.

I won't sport with your intelligence by actually telling you what was said in the speeches. Liza Lee's was general, proper, reasonable, and wholly uninteresting. The student speaker was witty and sweet but would have been more effective if she had shaved off 10 minutes. She did win points though for giving a shout out to all the text messaging aficionados in the audience.

The song they sung was Bon Jovi's "It's My Life." It's a pretty awesome song, but they were off key, awkward, and sung with karaoke track accompaniment, which the parents despised it (in the past, the songs are always converted to sheet music and sung with a small string section, making awful songs like Vertical Horizon's "The Mountain Song" seem poignant to the untrained ear). I managed to snag some of it for you:




Afterwards, there was a bit of drama with the photos. We couldn't get everyone together, and Julia desperately wanted to JUST TAKE THE PICTURE ALREADY so she could go and say goodbye to her friends. As a result, we got these choice gems:

Click on them for a full size image.

Everyone looks totally thrilled to be there, huh?

That isn't to say there aren't nice pictures. You can look through the album and see them. I just found some of the outtakes so much more true to the moment.

Julia had to go to an after-graduation changing party at some rich kids house, so we went ahead to the restaurant where her graduation dinner reservations were made. She showed up 45 minutes late. Before she arrived, we were all talking and laughing about how sad it was to say goodbye to Hockaday and how disastrous our graduation had been, etc. Since Julia wasn't answering her phone, we ordered her manicotti, which she had been raving about for the last 6 months. When she arrived she informed us that she had wanted chicken Parmesan because the manicotti was no good--i repeat, no good here--and then complained about how she had rushed from the party to here and she just felt so stressed and why did we not appreciate how much she had done trying to do everything and please everyone. So mom dug in her heels and the two of them fought about Julia's irrationality and poor Annika is sitting there in the corner holding her head in her hands and looking quite miserable.

It's on how happy Julia looks in all these photos, isn't it?

Then there were more parties and teas and more complaints, but after a while it just starts to cycle back on itself. The point is, Annika left today after having a miserable week, my mother has vowed never to let julia get married, and we're all suffering for not letting Julia go to her after after graduation party tonight. And that, my children, is the end. You are all caught up.

Red Rocket Invasion Dallas

Both the Red Rockets Invasion Dallas (RRID) and the Julia "Gradzilla" Jones's Hockaday Graduation (JHG) were so frought with family tension and fighting that to spend an entire post going through the ins and outs in detail would simply be too long and mentally strenuous. En plus, I am leaving for Italy Thursday, and I haven't done anything because I am paralyzed with some sort of bizarre ineptitude for completing chores. Someone call protron and get my tv back. mary south? can I pay you to call and get my tv back? what would i have to do...tell me and i'll do it.

The RRID was good, don't get me wrong, and my friends came down and supported it, and my uncle and his wife drove down from Kansas City, so there was a lot of love. My uncle is the greatest man in the world. He's like Paul freaking Bunyon--10 feet tall, eats whole cows for breakfast, only he has a motorcycle instead of an axe. He's one of my mom's brothers, so that means he's half indian and had blood in his bottles instead of milk.

The band was staying with Allie, 1) because we didn't have enough room with my uncle and aunt there, 2) because there was some rumor that Etha had contracted fleas while the band was in New Orleans. While everyone waited, Ethan and Joey rubbed the family the wrong way by inisisting on taking a 30min shower (each) before coming over to out house. The guys don't really like us because--my sister argues--we don't like them, but as the family of their bassist, our job is to only be civil, their job is to make the effort. And passive aggressive topics like inisisting for stopping for food and hour long showers don't do anything to win us over. I tried to play nice by telling him I had taken some pictures of him and that they had turned out really nicely. He told me cool. No apology, no thanks, no "hey awesome to see you again." It is at this precise moment that I failed to be objective about this man, and from here on out, all I could see were the things about him that drove me crazy. So yes, this post is going to be a bit biased, because I truly dislike this man, more perhaps than I have disliked anyone. Never have I met a ruder person with less enviromental justification for his attitude. My sister maintains that he is the sweetest person ever, and this rudeness is solely the result of my behavior towards him.

Joey and Ethan--Ethan especially--have a habit of taking the opposite opinion of whatever opinion a family member has. So since my mom and I are annoyed by the dog we house sit, they decided it was the best dog in the world and fawned loudly over it while we were having a conversation.

To avoid what happened in New York I asked Joey several times to please, please for the love of heaven tell me what time the show would start so I can call my friends and each time he told me he didn't know, that it started at whatever time the myspace page said it started at (8pm). So I called my friends and said I would be up there (Denton is at least 40 minutes for us, over an hour for my friends) and told them I was going to be up at the place at 8pm. At 7:30pm we told margaret that it was time to go, and Joey says to Margaret (not addressing me directly; he has stopped addressing me directly) "we don't have to go yet. We probably won't have to go on stage until 10pm."

Me: Why didn't you tell me? I asked you what time it started!

Joey: Well yeah, the thing is supposed to start at 8pm, but there are other bands, and we probably won't go on until 10pm

Me: But it's Thursday, and I have friends coming!

Mom: we have to go; we can't keep them waiting

Joey: I don't want to wait around. That's a long time

Mom: Well, we can't leave them there, joey. that's terribly inconsiderate

Me: You guys can hang around here if you want, but we told our friends we would be there at 8, so we're going to be there at 8

Joey: [angry] Fine. Come on Margaret, let's go [storms out]

Margaret and the band drive in a seperate car, because "Joey can't read the map" and navigate himself. I feel like a lot of the things Joey "can't" do--drive in cities, read maps, read directions, follow a subway map, talk politely--are all ways he manipulates my sister into taking care of him. Mom kvetched about the rudeness, and about Margaret's inability to stand up to him, all the way to Denton. My uncle expressed glee at meeting such a ridiculous person who would be so easy to mess with.

J and J's Pizza is located in old Denton. Downtown Denton still has the feel of a real Texas town, which I have to say, I'm beginning to miss. I honestly didn't think corperate capitalism would be as lame as it ended up being. I guess I figured the homogenization would be contained in urban areas, and local towns would maintain their individual cultures. Apparently, I was way off.

When I was in high school, there was absolutely nothing for The Kids to do. If you were an indie or a punk kid, you could see your concerts and get your tattoos in Deep Ellum, the old jazz part of downtown dallas. Otherwise, you were screwed: you had to hang out at Walmart and smoke at Denny's like everywhere else in suburban America. Sometime during the 7 years I was gone, the kids have moved out of Deep Ellum (which now looks like a ghost town) and moved on to Denton. Apparently there is some sort of legitimate scene there or somethign. I don't know. I effing hate Texas.

We go into J and J's, and we sit and order drinks. And the wait begins. Fran and Allie (high school friends of margaret and me) arrived at almost the same time as Bonnie and Monica; Margaret also ran into her friend Mick from high school. So there we are, 8:30, all sitting and waiting. On a Thursday night. When people have work tomorrow. And because my friends are so amazing, they stayed; they hit a bar down the street for a while, then came back and chilled out at J and J's for a while.

Waiting. And Waiting.

Fran Badgett is a charmer. She has an unbelievable amount of charisma, and had the ability in high school to get away with uniform violations, sleeping in the hall, skipping class, and all manner of infractions just by being so adorable. Fran's power comes from her ability to create intimacy and give the right amount of attention in the first 15 minutes of an acquaintance; when she shines in your direction, it's impossible not to open up like a sunflower. Fran is also the decil's advocate; hearing all the stories we were telling about Joey (Joey and Ethan sat at a seperate table and didn't introduce themselves and/or talk to any of the guests, thus were out of hearing range) she was determined to like Joey. And when she makes up her mind to like someone, it is impossible not to fall in love with her. She gets up, clutching her beer, sits down with Joey and Ethan, talks for ten minutes, then gets up and comes back to our table. "That guy's an asshole." She said.

It's difficult to express how shocked we all were by the fact that Joey was rude to Fran. She was a tattooed, punk looking lesbian; she's well-read, intelligent, and charming; she's brash and sarcastic and genuine. But even Fran, it seems, can't get along with The Sweetest Guy in The World Who Is Just Mean to People Who Don't Like And/Or Understand Him.

He was also pouting because Margaret's old crush Mick happened to be at the pizza joint, and she was over chatting with him. He'd make up excuses to walk by and scowl, and pull her aside to "tell her something." Luckily, Margaret was having none of it, and continued to talk to him.

In a shocking case of Deja Vu, we ask Joey when they're playing and they say first. Around 10:30, the bands start setting up. We ask again, because Bonnie has to get up at 6am for work. He says "Well, there's another band in front of us." I ask if there's any possible way they can ask the band to switch places, because my friends won't be able to see them if they don't switch places. And he shrugs. Mothereffer shrugs. And walks away. So I have to walk over to my friends and say--with a huge amount of humiliation and anger--that Joey won't switch, and my sister won't make him switch, and they have driven an hour and waited around for 2 more hours for nothing. And bless their hearts Bonnie and Monica were so sweet and so gracious, said they were happy just to see everyone and catch up, and headed home.

Fran and Allie stayed around until 1130, when the Red Rockets finally came on. They got a big kick out of the mosh pit me and my parents tried to start. There's a video of it on Youtube. Afterwards, my sister proudly said, "My family ladies and gentlemen." Hipsters were looking at us like we were covered in lobsters. Joey didn't thank us for coming, or mention anything about us. I'm sure it's because he was so overwhelmed with gratitude he couldn't think of the right words to say.

Here are the videos. The one my sister co-wrote is here.

This is one is the one she wrote.

Clearly my sister is wicked talented. I wish she wasn't wasting it on helping some lame guy achieve his pet dream. I wish she would take her life in her hands and write her own songs, in her own band, a band where she doesn't have to beg and plead to have a song (the best song on the record mind you) on the set list.

Afterwards, we bought some merch and talked to margaret outside. Joey comes up, whispers something to margaret about a compliment he got from another band, then walks away. I was literally dumbstruck with the rudeness. I mean, come ON! No thanks for coming guys, no sorry for the wait, no, say, acknowledging there are other people around by talking to Margaret in a loud voice? We started to say something because it was so blatently egregious but Margaret cut us off by saying, "Look, I don't want to talk about it."

I had another snapping moment the next day. I met Monica, Ib, and Bonnie at the Galleria where I went searching for ther perfect summer dress. Margaret was supposed to meet me there after she took Joey to the Book Depository downtown. And Joey tags along. For what reason I don't know. He hates shopping, and my friends, but he also had no wish to hang out with Ethan who was still in Allie's apartment and you know, go find something to do. He spent the whole time sitting outside stores, getting Margaret to sit outside with him, complaining about how much everything cost, etc. The absolute WORST thing he did though was this passive agressive attention whore move. When Margaret doesn't take her medicine she becomes jumpy and aggressive, jumping on people's back and challenging strangers to arm wrestling matches and punching people in the arm. Joey will sometimes do the same thing to her to show her how annoying it can be. Want to know what's even more annoying? Having you or your friends trying to talk to your sister, while some 30-year-old guy is jumping on her back, punching her, saying her name 5 times, touching her, and distracting you. At some point we were trying to make plans for the evening, and he was jumping on her back so hard he was joking her, and she kept telling him to stop and he wouldn't, so I just snapped and said, "Margaret, I'm going to go. Enjoy spending the rest of your afternoon with children." And stormed off. It's not like it was a real burner or anything, but it was rude. So help me, I can't stand this guy. He raises my bloodpressure to unholy levels. WHY IS MY SISTER WITH THIS DICK?

That's all. Sorry to rant, but seriously, i have never felt like this about another person before. Thanks for letting me vent.

I think this photo sums up my sister's graduation in a way that words will not.

More self-promotion! I am really proud of the cover story I wrote for the mag's June issue. You can download a PDF of it here. Working on this reminded me of all the things that are wonderful about my job and about being a journalist.

Self-promotion time! I uploaded two new songs to my myspace. The Blender is one of my oldest songs -- started writing it in 2003. The lyrics are terrible. And awesome. I wrote Every Monday about a year ago. Anyway, I'd appreciate it if you'd check 'em out.

Laura's visit to NYC

We're about halfway through the "Mad dash to catch up with Mary's life before she leaves the country again" posts. After the week of Laura (May 10th-15th, thereabouts) we have Red Rockets Invade Dallas, and The Graduation of Julia Jones (which hasn't actually occured yet, but it is slated for tomorrow).

The week with Laura doesn't need to be as detailed as some of my other posts for the simple reason that Laura deeply values her privacy, and doesn't like the idea of being easily found on the internet. Nor does she like going onto the internet and discovering things other people have written about her. So i'll try and do things in bullet form. I feel like that is factual enough to avoid controversy.

Thursday:
* Sell Laura's comic book to loval vendors in NYC
* Lunch at crowded cafe on UES
* Walk through the Met, spending large amounts of time reading graphic novels purchased at comic book store (me) and sketching fertility statues (Laura) in the African wing

(detail from one of the Tibetean Miniature Paintings in the Met)

*Explore various art and paper shops near St. Mark's place
*Finally manage to visit the Automat (recommended by Brian)and get a corn dog. Brian was right. Delicious.
*Go to Laura's friend's performance art show.
*Jewelbox indian food: more twinkly lights than I have ever seen.

(The entire restaurant was so bright that from the outside all you could see was red and gold--you couldn't even see people)

Friday:

(We walked across the Brooklyn bridge to get to Junior's)

*Juniors cheesecake in Brooklyn

(In the restaurant was a scale model of the restaurant made out of food! Gosh these sort of things excite me!)

*Walk through Prospect Park: Cute Jewish families! Horseback Riding! Together again!
* Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

(laura in her tree)

*Laura used to come here when she was in college to climb an old willow tree with all sorts of names and initials carved into it. It was The Perfect Tree.
Afterwards the two of us watch some children dancing under the cherry blossoms. Just mentioning it sounds wildly pretentious. We woke up with petals in our hair just in time to see black clouds gathering on the horizon.



*Went home, relaxed. Around 8pm, travel downtown to see Slipper Room Burlesque

Saturday:
*Brunch; me with relief society girls (who all canceled), Laura with old Pratt friends
*EMT party in Queens.

Sunday:
*Church. Laura leaves early to spend time with old friends in Brooklyn
*I go to the park with Patricia where we eat lemon cake slices, lie in the grass, and call our mothers for Mother's Day
*Patricia and I head over to Battersea Park for an after-church rooftop lausagna party with a bunch of girls from the ward.
*Meet Laura back at home, talk about books, cut up magazines

Monday:
*walk through Chelsea to search for Moonstruck Diner
*walk up to UES to buy mom her belated Mother's Day present (a box of chocolates from Debauve et Gallais)
*cut up magazines
*Laura leaves

What things can I go into detail about? The performance art piece was interesting. The friend we had gone to see produced a very meta piece about the relationship between actor and audience, which was interesting; in fact most of the pieces were interesting, but only one was actually moving. The last piece was a two person piece, and opened with a woman sitting on a large yoga ball covered with yarn, knitting. As she was knitting, several different vocal recordings were played: interviews with alzheimers patients, scientific studies about memories and the mental health of the aged. As the voices began to interweave, the young woman on the ball began to slip off it. A kind-faced young man would then pick her up and place her back on the ball. The falling became more frequent, and finally, the young man had to pick her up and place her in a wheel chair, where he put a sheet around her neck so she looked like a giant white ball. The vocal recordings then faded into one lone, shaky voice who told a story of the last thing she could remember--her first dance, when she was a young girl. The woman stood up in the wheelchair so that the white sheet draped around her waist like a ball gown. Then the young man came out and danced with her. The wheelchair was mechanical and steered by the director by remote, so the woman seemed to float around the stage, the actress's face full of a dreamy sweetness. Then suddenly he lets her go, the chair stops, and the recording goes silent. She slides out of the chair slowly, as if she were liquid: down through the hole in the sheet, out at the bottom in a heap. She sees a hammock that has been placed at the opposite end of the stage. She crawls to it, but doesn't have the full strength to climb in it. The young man helps her with supreme tenderness, and then the lights change, and the hammock is lit up to look like a boat. The young man pushes a stick as if he were punting her across a river, and the actress sits up, stretching her body taut as she looks ahead of her and the lights fade. I almost cried. It was gorgeous.

Debauve et Gallais were Marie Antoinette's chocolateurs. Shopping there was one of the most ostentatious and decadent experiences of my life. It was so rich and so posh that they didn't need to be condesending to me; the chocolate hostess was very helpful, fashioning a chocolate collection based on the guidlines I had given her, being respectful of my budget, deferring to any preference I had. It was one of the best experiences I've ever had, though a ludicriously expensive one. And yes, it was worth nearly every penny. The box alone is nicer than any jewelry box I've ever seen.

The EMT party in queens was rather interesting. Laura's old friend from Pratt works as an EMT ambulance driver, and one of her friends was throwing a party, so the invitation was extended to Laura and me. The hostess was Columbian, so all the food was Columbian; it being my first time with the cuisine, i was impressed. It was a lighter, more delicate version of Haitian food, with more than a little hint of Indian for some reason. One of the guys in the crew kept ripping on Mormons and how they were all crazy; normally I would have been all up in arms about the things he was saying, but seeing as i was a friend of a friend of a friend of the hostess, it was completely not my place to say such things at the party. So I smiled and had to change the subject, which really annoyed me.

The interesting thing about going to a burlesque show was the fact that my great aunt used to go to them back in the 40's--it was like completing a family tradition. I ahd to do research online to see how much raunch was present and if there would be nudity. Turns out, not much of either--maybe it's all burlesque, or maybe it was just the slipper room, but the show was supposed to be funny and silly, and the final outfits were just strapless bras or very large pasties, so I didn't really see much of anything. The overall point wasn't to seduce or to turn people on, but to make people laugh. The costumes were french clown, angry housewife, or sexy lobster (complete with own lemon wedge that rained down gold glitter). The performers were male and female, so neither gender was objectified. Every body size and breast size were represented--the sexiest ones were shaped like Beth Ditto, interestingly enough. The host brought me onstage to ask me questions about how "my first time" was, and was dismayed when he saw how tall I was, so I had to bend my knees for the duration of the interview so we'd be eye level.

Laura was an excellent houseguest--very deferring, very clean. She made me a ham and vegetable frittata for breakfast Sunday morning which was to die for, and gave me several copies of her comic books, which I adore. She even painted me a picture. My apartment is now full of her art. It fits perfectly.

Because your Friday will be better with a breakdancing baby