And, inspired by the power of the thing, he drew this lovely portrait:

My camera was dead by Halloween, but TiFlo took this snappy picture of us with his cellphone. (Thank you, TiFlo!) Laurel’s Barbie. I’m a little white lie. Or maybe a collection of little white lies. It doesn’t exactly make sense, yeah? It does if you don’t think too hard. Like high-concept art.

what are u doing for halloween(firefox tells me its misspelt(fire fox tells me that’s not right either) but i dont(firefox also tells me that that is wrong but i know its because of the apostrophe(see i can spell complicated words!) and also firefox says firefox is spelt(lol spelt too! its(see firefox doesnt pick up on that because the apostrophe is syntactically motivated) actually spelled(now thats fine!) i think but I’m not gonna change it because i would have to rewrite my whole hilarious message) incorrectly so I think its just being sensitive) care)? thinking of going out.

Monday nights at Bug Jar. Flashback to 7th grade. Is that pearly pink Wet ‘N Wild lipstick Laurel’s wearing? Of course it is! And I’m fairly sure she’ll store it properly in a Kaboodle when she’s done with it.

I met Deborah at a coffeehouse in Long Beach today. We chatted a little and I met her dog Lucy. I hadn’t seen her in more than six years, since I was in high school. I met her at Underground Sounds on Magazine Street. I was a dorky little tomboy music nerd and she was a badass punk rock record store woman who agreed to carry my zine and book my band. Classic punk right, right? Totally.

I didn’t know she’d moved to California until a few months ago, nor did she know that I’d moved here after high school. So we’ve been unknowingly living only 16 miles away from one another. She’s converted her production company into a booking agency and now arranges tours for bands like Agnostic Front, the Queers, the Horrorpops, and Pulley. It was really awesome to see her again today. New Orleans people in California make me smile. And I love when life is circular.

Today is deviantART’s 7th birthday. 7th! And it’s August 7, 2007. Wow, so lucky! Congrats, dA people!

People who know me here also know the story, but deviantART is partially responsible for my winding up in Southern California (and, subsequently, at USC in Linguistics and, subsequently, Rochester Brain and Cognitive Science now). My first trip here was to attend a deviantART party (where I met Mikeh). I wouldn’t normally have gone to a party 6 hours away, but I was feeling inspired by something I’d just read.

The people I met that night at the dA party are the same people I had to say good-bye to earlier today. Matt and Angelo in particular, I’ll miss you guys. Matt’s known me longer than anyone else down here. (A full 6 hours longer! He drove me down to the party from San Francisco.)

Today is a bittersweet day for me. I ate some chocolate cake earlier with dA folks, and any day where you get chocolate cake can’t be totally bad. (Bittersweet… chocolate… almost punny.) I’m very excited about Rochacha. Sad to leave, sure, but I’ll be happy to arrive in a new place.

I stopped trying to predict how things would work out a while back, and I think it’s saving me some hurt right now. Good-byes hurt less when you’re not entirely convinced it’s really a good-bye. For once, my skepticism serves me well. We rock with it, roll with it. Juvenile is also a very smart man.

I need to pick a final move away date. It’ll be something like the 15th.

Actually, it’s 21, not one million. Also actually, most of these are from San Francisco, not Palo Alto. But since I was up there for the institute, I thought the title appropriate nonetheless. In a semi-random order.

I believe the party’s falling on Bastille Day was a happy accident, but yes. A great party. Thanks, Hal, Inbal and Lis! I’m very tardy in posting these, but you forgive me.

Jonathan. Being silly. In New Orleans. Two weeks ago. Fact: Jonathan and I carpooled to Benjamin Franklin from New Orleans East a million years ago. Fact: Jonathan has 18,000 siblings. Fact: Sometimes my facts aren’t quite right.

We ate Italian Pie that night. It was Italian Pie. Not that good, not that bad. I ate salad. Eric ate beer. Like normal.

Come to think of it, this blog entry is very Eric-like in nature. I’m just sort of rambling based on pictures. If you don’t already, you should read his blog. It’s genius. My favorite. Ever.

Cheers!

Kyle:	I have a stupid fantasy, did I ever tell you?
Celeste:	I don’t know. Tell me and I’ll tell you.
Kyle:	In this fantasy I have a job. Like a normal job. And I go to work from nine to five and I wear suits to the job.
Celeste:	Yeah?
Kyle:	And after work, me and four other guys, also in suits, go out to eat. And then we go to a bar, in our suits. We meet women and men and talk to them and they respect our suits and we’re in a Brooks Brothers commercial.
Celeste:	Wow.
Kyle:	Basically, it’s something from a Brooks Brothers commercial.
Celeste:	I have a fantasy where I sit at home all day and think of cute things to do with ribbon and pushpins and scraps of old socks.
Kyle	Hahahaha.
Celeste:	And I make speckled lemonade and serve it on a silver tray with Nilla Wafers. And I wear a house apron while I do it.
Kyle:	And we have a TV show called, “Celeste and Kyle: We love our culturally-defined gender roles”.
Celeste:	Mine’s not actually true. I just wanted to make you feel better.
Kyle:	Thanks.
Celeste:	I do love Nilla Wafers.
Kyle:	I know you do. And banana pudding.

Matt’s friend Devin has the most fun tattoo ever.