Okay, I wrote yesterday's entry at work, emailed it to myself, and yet it did not arrive. So there is a gap, but it'll be up tomorrow. I cannot bear the thought of going all the way back to my office just to get that entry, no matter how scintillating it might be.

Which is pretty damn scintillating, believe you me.

Okay, more Saturday stuff.

I think I ended the entry talking about my panel, and if I didn't, well by the time I upload the entry I will have, and after that was lunch. Or before that was lunch, but I'm pretty certain that it was after.

We went to a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown (no, seriously!) which was a $20 cab ride away from the hotel. I think there were four cabs full of us, 16 people I think. I will give myself a prize if I can remember who all were there, because we were split into two tables, but I will try.

There was Doogie, Plum, Jette, Cindy Cindy Two, Josh, Claire, The Kissing Bandit, Ken, Ivee, Jeff, Jen, Kerry, Heather, Ann...and me...That could be right. Most of them I know for sure were there, a couple I am kind of guessing at, a little.

Anyway, we were there for dim sum. Now, anyone who knows me or has heard of me or has walked by me knows how I have an extremely limited palate and I never try anything new (mostly they know because I never shut the hell up about it), and I certainly didn't know what dim sum was when it was at home.

And nobody could tell me, either, nobody could make sense about it. But once they started bringing things to the table, I understood. So if anyone asks you what dim sum is, you can say, "It's a bunch of stuff." I really loved the plain chicken and the pot stickers. It was an excellent lunch. Even if it was something different!

We went back to the hotel via the El, which was fun, if we did crowd around the card machines as though we were foreign tourists who neither spoke English nor had ever seen American money before. Or machinery. And were from Mars.

We got back to the hotel and then Molly Zero and I had our panel, described in yesterday's entry that isn't up yet. But there is a most interesting description of the panel sitting on my hard-drive at work, I swear!

After our panel was Rob and Dana's panel about readers, which was very interesting, and then were more readings. Many many many readings. Mostly people read funny things, which was rather a relief, because the sad entries (like Josh's) were so sad that it would have taken too much out of us having too many.

Anyway, lots and lots of very funny readings, but so many of them that there actually was time for every single one but one. Which was mine. I was bumped! But I understood, because we had to be gone by 7p, and I would rather not have had to rush through mine.

Kate read this entry because I made her, and it went over well, and then we rushed out before the last reading because we had to meet up with Melissa and Athena and Elizabeth at the tattoo parlor! You see, Elizabeth really wanted a tattoo, so we all went along for moral support. And maybe to get tattoos ourselves, but the moral support was the real point.

The other three had gone on ahead, because they weren't into the reading thing, but Kate said that Elizabeth said that it was only four blocks away, but after only half a block we could tell that it would be more like twenty blocks. In the pouring rain. But did we get a cab? That we did not, we are not made of sugar and afraid to melt! We walked the whole way, and it was a fun adventure, and left us with much to complain about at the end, and what more could you ask for? Not much, baby.

We got there, dripping and complaining, and Elizabeth said, "I didn't say two blocks, I said two miles!" She was in the middle of getting her back ritually scarred, in a most beautiful pattern. Kate wanted a tiny blue star on her foot like Dorothy Parker had on her arm, and I was vaguely looking at sunflowers, because I've been thinking of getting one for a long time.

All of the ones they had were so ugly, though, and expensive, and I talked to the artist about getting it on the small of my back, and she told me just how big it would have to be and how expensive it would be, and I didn't like any of the sunflowers anyway, but then I found a larger tattoo, like an armband, with a really nice sunflower in the middle, and I suddenly thought that what I really wanted was to have it at the nape of my neck.

So I did! And it is sooooo beautiful! The only thing was that the most painful thing in a tattoo is the outline, and the outline just never seemed to stop! "How many fucking petals does this thing have?!" I cried at one point. But it finally ended, and there it was. Right in a place where I can never see it. Ah well, it's still beautiful, even if I do have to use two mirrors to see it.

Kate got her star, and a free t-shirt, because her artist thought she was hot. So not fair! She paid half of what Elizabeth and I did, where were our t-shirts? Ah well, she, of course, is hot, and deserves having presents thrown at her feet.

The funniest thing that happened there, though, was while Esther was doing my tattoo, the owner was wandering around, making up new bumper stickers.

OWNER
How about 'Can I lick your tattoo?' No, this is better, 'Can I lick your fresh tattoo?'

ESTHER
Yuck!

OWNER
Well she (meaning me) laughed!

ME
I don't think that everyone has my blood fetish.

(pause)

ELIZABETH
Blood fetish?

MELISSA
O, you know...like Coriolanus!

Afterwards, it was back in another taxi in the pouring rain to get some dinner.

I had tried to talk everyone into going to the House of Pancakes (not IHOP!) that Kate and I had walked past, but was completely shot down. My friends love me, but not enough to eat at the House of Pancakes. Fair enough.

Instead we went to the Spanish restaurant where everyone else was, for tapas. After spending a good long while trying to remember the name of said restaurant. With the help of the phone book and the staff at the Tattoo Factory, we finally figured it out--it was Cafe Ba Ba Reeba!

Now, two new foods in one day is unheard of for me, but I went along with the tapas crowd, and tapas turned out to be the same thing as dim sum! A bunch of stuff, only Spanish. And it was completely amazing and delicious, especially this beef tenderloin with blue cheese that I could basically worship. When I was down to my last bite, I practically started to cry.

And then we almost didn't have dessert! I don't know what people were thinking, but they were all like, "No, nothing else," until I said, "Wait! I want flan!" and then everyone ordered dessert. I'd say I was a bad influence, except for the fact that the desserts were as delicious as the tenderloin, and everyone was very grateful to me for insisting on dessert.

I ended up not having flan, but instead the Spanish version of creme brulee, and everyone else had yummy things, too and started trading bites. "Kymm, do you want some of ours?" "Um, yeah, but I don't want to share mine!" "That's okay!!"

Can you believe that? I'm so selfish and so rude, but it was really true, there were four of them, and only four bites left, and I couldn't bear the thought of not having those four bites! So I had bites of everyone else's, except for Melissa's, which was bananas, and said exactly what everyone else had, "O my God. That sentence was the only one heard at the table for quite some time! Until the dishes were scraped clean, at any rate.

Today's horoscope:
You feel pulled between the domestic front and the outer world today. Divide your time and energy as best you can.

One year ago today:
It's about two people finding themselves through finding each other.

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Last Updated Tues 23 October 10:10:09 2001