Yesterday, after Mom spent some time on the phone trying to wrest my prescription from my eye doctor without my going in to see him (my eyes haven't changed, I just want new frames!) we went to the frame shop.

I hate my frames, they look fine but they bite into my temples and make little scabs. I thought it was that they were too tight, but the lady at the frame store said that I was probably allergic to the metal and should have put clear nail polish on them. This would have saved $250, but still, I did want new frames anyway.

I really wanted cats-eye frames, either that or thick black frames like Enid's in Ghost World. Let me tell you, those frame designers only want people with teeny little orange-sized heads and faces to get cats-eye glasses, because whenever I tried a pair on, they looked like doll glasses, or maybe like those ones they put on six-month-old babies with sever vision problems. It's discrimination against the Irish, I tell you! Have a fat Irish skull and forget about the cute glasses--it's goggles only for you, missy.

I found three pair that I liked, a wire semi-cats-eye pair, a blue plastic pair, and a squarish Enid frame with cool clip-on sunglasses. Mom tried on the wire ones and said, "Hey, these look good on me! Therefor they are little-old-lady frames, you don't want them," and the blue ones I thought were a bit much with the hair, I looked like I should just give up and put a red nose on and take my rightful place in the circus, so I decided that the Enid frames were the ones.

I have always wanted little clip-on sunglasses, they are so cool, and the frames are pretty great. Can't wait until I get them next week!

After the glasses, we went to the big new Target in the Valley, which was much bigger than the one we regularly go to, but somehow managed to have fewer sock choices. No Big Bag O' Socks in any colour but white or tan, bleh, but they had some good other ones, and also a really great sweatsuit/pyjama set, like the one I traveled in, but in an acrylic blend that feels like cashmere, and pretty colours instead of brownish-grey.

On the other hand, with a lavender top and a green bottom, I am not likely to be traveling in them like the other pair, unless I decide that I really don't care what people think. Because I don't, but I do a little, enough not to want to wear candy-coloured jammies and a leather jacket on a 3000 mile trip.

Then we went home to meet Joan.

As I think I have mentioned, but I am working on a computer with no internet access so I cannot look it up myself, my Randy Newman group is making another fan cd, and I asked Joan, who accompanied me on "Feels Like Home" last time, to duet with me on "My Old Kentucky Home" and accompany me on "I Think It's Going to Rain Today", and she agreed, but got actual real-life singer-songwriter Roy Zimmerman to accompany and produce us, because he is a stronger guitar player that she is. And yesterday was our rehearsal.

I was nervous, because I hadn't really been working on "My Old Kentucky Home" much, though she sent me a tape of her performing it, and I had decided in the past couple of days that I hate the way I sing "Rain", I am completely bored with it and there is no emotion left. I was hoping that working with someone else would bring it back to life.

Joan picked me up, and I gave her the directions on the phone, telling her to take the fork in the road. When I hung up, Mom said that I should have told her to take the second right, because the first street sort of has a sign on it indicating erroneously that it is my street. "But that is not a fork, why would she take it when it is not the fork?" "Because everybody makes that mistake!" "O foo, don't be ridiculous."

Of course she called me, lost, because she had taken the first right, following the Street Sign of Lies, so Mom was right after all. Dammit. Like I'm ever going to hear the end of that.

Anyway, she found me eventually, and we drove to Santa Monica to the guitar shop where Roy does some teaching and I met him. He's totally cute and really sweet, and Joan warned me that she feared acting like an idiot around him because even though they have known each other for five years, she's still a Fan. But she did not, you would never have guessed at her roiling insides from her placid outsides. Still waters, you know. Deep, they run. What am I suddenly, Yoda?

Anyway, we rehearsed, and it was really great, because it wasn't like a Professional Musician helping out the Little People, the Shower Singers, it was like the three of us were working together, working out the songs. And I was right, because the second I started singing "Rain" with Roy on the guitar, all the emotion came back and it was stronger than it had ever been before. He also helped me with a tricky bit that goes all Vegas if you don't watch out.

You can really tell that Roy is a teacher, though, because he kept telling me that it sounded great even when it patently did nothing of the kind. It's like when I'm directing and I say, "That was wonderful, really great, but can you just try to do it a little faster and pick up your cues and face the audience and act like you like her, since you are professing your love? O, and if I could hear you, that would be magical. But other than that, really fine work."

So we rehearsed for like an hour or so, and then we were set! We record Sunday. I both dread and yearn for it. I hope I don't make a complete fool of myself, though since this is me we're talking about, it's not entirely unlikely.

Then, after my rehearsal was the ANA party.

You remember ANA, I've talked about it before, (and I typed that link from memory because Mom and I were arguing when Francis' 99th birthday party was), it was such a huge influence on my childhood and who I am today, I'm only just realizing how much.

When we got there, the show had started! But no it hadn't, it was the rehearsal. Of course, everyone was sitting around watching it, because Dorothy decided to start rehearsing too late, but what the hell, we can watch the kiddies twice. It's not as though I couldn't go up there and dance along with them for long stretches, they are so totally the same routines that I did 25 years ago.

Then was trying to find a table. Last time, we were annoyed because we couldn't sit with friends, but instead were seated at a table with that asshole guy spouting nonsense, this time it was open seating, which meant that there were no seats! They finally had to set up another table for us, because all of these parents brought their kids but not tickets, and then sat their asses down at the tables because nobody was checking.

Anyway, we finally sat down, and were able to sit with Hannah, the ballet teacher and mother of two girls from my era, and Guje and John Coyle, whom I have known since I was 2 1/2, because she was my very first teacher at Montessori. It was really great seeing them.

Before we left I said to Mom, "How boring is this going to be?" and she said, "Very! You know was Academy parties are like!" and of course it was deadly and the food was banal, and they did twelve scenes from plays at least 35 years old, mostly a good deal older (after the second five minute long one, I leaned over to John and whispered "Two down, ten to go!") before we saw the kids dance again, I still wouldn't have missed it.

I had a book to read, anyway, so that was helpful during the duller scenes, meaning the ones that didn't have Cathy in them. Cathy was a student when I was, and she has been teaching acting and dance there ever since she grew up. She is quite a good actress and a wonderful dancer, and I told her how good she was afterwards, but she seems to think that I think I'm so big because I live in New York. I do not, of course, think I'm so big because I live in New York, I think I'm so big because I have the Ego That Ate Manhattan, but I certainly don't think I'm better than she is. She thinks I think I do, though, I know she does.

Anyway, the kiddies finally came out and sang "Do-Re-Mi" and "I Won't Grow Up" and other chestnuts, then Hannah and Cathy and Cathy's mother all got certificates (I said to Hannah, "There's 50¢ worth of paper and cardboard, thanks for 25 years of your life!") and then we went home.

I want to have daughters and live in LA, I want to send them to the Academy and have Cathy to teach them to dance and act. When did I decide to want to give my children the same childhood that I had? I think I've gotten old enough to forget the bad things and have the good things infused with a rosy glow. God help me.

Today's horoscope:
Today you feel caught between emotional needs for warmth and excitement versus logical needs to face facts. Go for both.

One year ago today:
Unfortunately, if Katie Couric was wearing them on the Today Show, that probably means that they cost about $500 and I couldn't get them anyway.

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Last Updated Sun 23 December 23:18:09 2001