once in a blue moon

Nothing specific to say today, except I slept until 11:30 for the second Saturday in a row. That seems to be the day I am able to get the most sleep for whatever reason. And there was that strecth in late June early July when I got up early every Saturday. First it was the long trip to IKEA, then the trip to Maine for the 4th, and there was something else which I am apprently blocking out.

I woke up to the online news that Nicolas Cage married his 19 year old waitress girlfriend. Well, good for him! What 40 year old doesn't want to marry someone who is 19? Like they say in BEAUTIFUL GIRLS, as long as they can cut their own meat, they're fair game.

Hey, do you remember when Nic Cage was cool? Before he started wearing the crazy leather jackets and dying his hair that truly hideous black? You're not fooling us, Nic, we know you have thin gray hair! I think he was in a movie I might have even liked once. Face Off? Um, no. That one on the airplane full of criminals? Eh, that wasn't it. Well... I'll keep thinking about it.

Tonight is a blue moon. The second full moon in a month, it's rare. Second full moon of my birthday month. I will never see July 2004 again. As of that blue moon, it's done. It's so strange how time is so final. Man, what a stoner kind of thought, huh?

Think I will go see these girls and their brother today. Next week I leave on vacation for 10 days and when I come back August will be half over. Where does it all go? Guess we just have to hang on, and enjoy the ride.

Whooosh!

No place like home

Pamie mentioned today that she has moved something like 25 times, and I wondered how many places I have lived and if I could list them all. Which means another list! Contain your joy.

• The Small White House in East Middlebury Vermont. My parents lived here before I was born and I think we were there until I was about 1 and a 1/2. I know I turned 1 year old here. The

• Fort, South Burlington, VT. I am not sure exactly what made us live here b/c I don't think my dad was still actively in the army. I think he was going to UVM at this point, and my mom worked at the hospital, but I am not sure. I was only 2 years old, so it's kind of a blur.

• Main Street apartment above the photo store, Middlebury, VT. When my parents seperated, my mom and I moved here. It was a small place and my first memories of life are here. I remember the goldfish in my room and how I used to take them out of the bowl and look at them and then put them back in the water. Again and again. My mom says "no wonder they never lived long". I think I just wanted to see them, and figure them out. Also, this apartment looked out over the river and falls that run through Middlebury. The fire escape consisted of a rope which was bolted to the radiator. My mom says she still wonders what she would have done in a fire with her three year old daughter clinging to her back, as she swung out over the falls.

• North Pleasant Street House, Middlebury, VT. We moved in with Jim and Brenda, old friends of my parents. I turned 5 in this house and there is a lot I remember about it. The garden there, Jim pushing me around in the wheelbarrow, the cardboard playhouse I had in my room, ants in the honey pot, the carpet in the living room. The whole layout of the house. While we lived with them, Jim and Brenda also had their first child, Mariah. I remember making her tiny baby hats in day care and playing with her like a living doll. It was my first long term interaction with a baby. That baby turns 24 in a couple months.

• The "shack" on Exchange Street, Middlebury, VT. I am losing track of the time lines of how long we lived where, but I know I turned 7 years old in this house. I also could have turned 6 but I don't remember that birthday at all. This house had the swing on the side, which I spent a lot of time on. Until my mom sat on it once and the rotted T beam fell down on her shoulders. My gramma called it a "shack" and we still laugh about that.

• House on Court Street, Middlebury, VT. This was a nice house. Big and white and airy. We had the back half and one side, and an older couple lived in the front. I remember the big tree in the back yard and the long porch. I used to play with my mom's jewlery here and I lost her engagement ring, which was later found in the flower bed. My friend Leah and I put on many "shows" in the living room, which mostly consisted of us arguing about "the routine".

• Apartment building, Salem, MA. We moved to Salem from Vermont and I hated it. I did not like that apartment at all and it still makes me sad to think about it. The best parts of that time where my babysitter Lauren and her boyfriend, London. He had a golden retriever who's name I can't rememebr. I remember them bringing me outside to their car on my 9th birthday and giving me a Cabbage Patch kid. I still have it. My mom told me later that they both did a lot of coke, but I never knew that. And, hey, it was the 80's.

• House in Glocester, MA. This was a lovely house on the ocean, big and pink. There were like 5 bedrooms and I used to change rooms fairly often. I remember sleeping in two different ones particularly. It was a winter rental so we were only there for 1/2 a year.

• House in Lainsville, MA. This was a glorified beach house, with horrible plumbing. I slept in what I decided was a loft above my room. Really it was more like a crawl space/attic and it was incredibly hot and stuffy. I can conjure up the smell of dust (and possibly asbestos) by just thinking about it.

• Apartment above the travel agency in Shelburne, VT. We went back to Vermont and lived in this place for 2 or 3 years. I was 11 when we first moved there. The first things I think of I are the cats we got when we lived here. Abby and her daughter, Miss Elvis. They lived to be 13 and 14. Abby just died last year.

• House in Charlotte, VT. This was a very old farm house that we moved into for the winter. It was drafty like a barn and heated with oil. But it had a nice back patio that looked over the mountains. Another house with a lot of bedrooms. I traded back and forth between two. In my Huge Main Bedroom (I really AM a princess) I could have sleepovers with five friends, everyone laying on the floor like sardines.

• Condo in Hinesburg, VT. When I was 16 my mom was able to buy a two bedroom condo in Hinesburg, right by my high school. And that is where she is still living some 12 years later. I have moved four (or five?) times since then. I'll save that for later, along with the other houses where I lived with my dad.

I'm a Girl on the Go!

Things that freak me right out

Last night I was having a lot of trouble going to sleep - as also noted on the Boston Metblog (http://boston.metblogs.com/). I was thinking of things that freak me out and I couldn't stop.

Do you ever get stuck? You are telling yourself "think of something HAPPY!" and then the freakiest part of The Sixth Sense (you know, where the woman in the robe is walking down the hall? And then he goes to find her in the kitchen? And she turns around and she's DEAD and ALL BLOODY!?! And AHHH! and EEEWW!) pops in your head and you can't make it get out. Or, you're afraid to get up and go to the bathroom b/c the freaky monster from The Twilight Zone (the Shadow Man Who Lives Under the Bed) might reach out and grab your ankles and pull you under? Or you finally DO get up and go to the bathroom and when you are coming out you see a weird light pattern which makes you sure it is Scary McRapist coming to kill and murder you!?! Eh, it's the worst.

Currently freaking me out is the preview for The Village (thanks, M. Night Shamalan! You currently freak me out in many fabulous ways!) and I am not sure why. Maybe it is William Hurts freaky modulated voice in the preview ("we have always had an uneasy truce with the creatures who live in the woods". Man, spooky.) or the way Joaquin Phoenix runs around all antsy with the blind daughter of Ron Howard. Also, Adrian Brody? Why is your hair that weird fugly red? Please dye it back. Thank you. Love, Emily.

I guess it is the classic scary thing where you are most afraid of The Things You Don't See. Mr. Shamalan is particularly good at that, his movies aren't generally gory (although I didn't see that alien one b/c of my extreme aversion to the Gibson, so I have no idea if that was a fan of the gore) it is all implied scariness and then your imagination starts going and fuggitaboutit. The creepiest part of Unbreakable is when Bruce Willis is seeing into the darker areas of people and that extremely freaky dude asks the man at the door (in a majorly skeevy high voice which makes my skin crawl) "Can I come in? I like your house." Man. Yikes. I guess because there is an element of REAL terror and spookiness (see above re: Scary McRapist) - it just irks me right out.

So, last night I am lying in bed thinking about Scary McRapist, and the creatures in the woods, and all of the sudden I start hearing The Very Loud Banging. Something like thunder crossed with fireworks plus a dash of gunfire thrown in for good measure. Bump. Bam bam BAM! Then I heard footsteps RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW. Slow and modulated (Mr. Hurt?) and then, nothing. Did he stop outside my window? Is it my turn to dance with the Shadow Man? I don't wanna! I know I said I want a boyfriend but not the Shadow Man! The way the windows are in my house, I have to crawl UP on my bed to see out of them - and that is the last thing you want to do when scared. Stand on your bed, as if to say "here I am, evil killer! Over here! No, RIGHT HERE!" Eeek. Finally I jumped up and slammed the window closed and then fell back down onto my bed to pull the covers over my head. Finally, The Very Loud Banging seemed further away (and maybe it was just terrorists, visiting for the DNC) and I fell asleep. When I woke up this morning, I could hardly remember what I was so worked up over. Sometimes, it all seems worse in the dark.

Mr. Hurt?

K is for Krayzee

My longest love relationship has been going on 17 years now. We have been together through good and bad. The high points of his career. When he was working with some great young people. The time his latest project was on the Must See lists That time he played a vampire.

And the lows, the broken engagement to a certain starlet. The barfights. The cowboy movie. Kiefer and I got together when I was only 11. Sure, I was young, but I knew true love when I saw it. He was going through a Bad Boy phase, terrorizing poor little Wil Wheaton and knocking over mailboxes, but I saw the good in him. Under the mop of weirdly dyed hair, I saw something in those crazy eyes and it called to me.

I even saw that movie where he rode around on his motorcycle with a mannequin. THAT is true love, people.

Around the time I was 14, he was hitting his Fame Stride with the Young Gun films. And he wasn't the star like that wacky Estevez kid, but he had the solid role, the role with Heart. He fell in love the quiet Asian "China Doll" character, and you didn't quite know why. He was Kiefer, he should have someone Wild. Like a 14 year old.

I had the posters on my wall, but my love was already waning towards some other guys on the block and some dude who could really Dirty Dance. I'm not proud of what I did to Kiefer, but we all have our fickle periods.

Soon, Kiefer was moving on too, and trying his hand at being a real Cowboy. He was a roping champion, while I was a vegetarian. I heard about him from time to time, through mutual friends.

Hearing our song on the radio always made me wonder about him, what starlet was he breaking up with now? Where was he getting drunk tonight?

You know, the boy can drink. He puts 'em away like there is no tomorrow. I heard stories from AA meetings in Los Angeles, drunken tales and what not. That time he called me at 3 AM talking about the bar fight, where he got a piece of glass stuck in his elbow. What could I do? I cared about him, but I had to do my homework.

A few years later, he was back in the public eye again. This time, getting his own TV show and getting divorced.

Again.

I looked at him anew and realized I had never stopped loving him, and he was still the slightly squirmy but oh so velvety voiced Kiefer I had always known. Sure, there were still the bar fights, still the random interviews where he probably said too much, but wasn't that what I had liked about him in the first place? He wouldn't conform. He would be his own independent Child Of Celebrity he had always been.

But he still worries me.

Last week, there he was on Access Hollywood, doing a strip tease in a Norwegian bar. It was the part where he laid on the ground that cried out to me. Sure, he spun his shirt over his head while twirling his hips, all White Boy Fantastic. But then, THEN, he laid on the ground and put his foot over his head. I think he was trying to get his shoe off. He started to untie it, but gave up (obviously too drunk to deal with a double knot) and stumbled to his feet again. Starting to shimmy off his pants, when a large bouncer finally made his way to the stage and ushered a laughing, disoriented, Kiefer away. Goodbye, Kiefer. I'll always love you.

You are cool with a K, but you are also kind of krazy.