In John’s house (which I generally refer to as “840”), there’s a small bookshelf above the television which contains nothing but the thirty or so books written by his father.
So when Chelsey and I were at the Holy Family Fair on Sunday with all our friends from Anything Goes, we bought a random hardcover book called Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart for twenty-five cents. We hid it from John all evening at the Fair, and then later when he was gone, we signed it: “To John and Carrie, Happy Bar Mitzvah! Mazel Tov! Love, David and Chelsey.”
Then we placed it on the shelf among John’s father’s books, and now we’ll wait to see how long it takes him to notice.
One of the best qualities of my apartment, or more specifically the neighborhood in which it’s located, is the aromatic pleasure of stepping outside.
Most of the time it smells like delicious home cooked meals, thanks to my neighbor Lupe. She prepares dinner for her family every day, and I’m treated to various scents that I love, including garlic, roast beef, fresh baked cookies, and a host of others.
Late nights are graced with the faint smoke from bonfires on the beach during the summer and the faint smoke from nearby chimneys during the winter. The latter scent reminds me of being at my family’s cabin in Lake Arrowhead when I was younger, and it makes this lonely apartment feel like home.
Right now the air outside is full of the scent of a nearby barbecue, which is especially reassuring because it means that someone out there is positive, despite the cool air and overcast sky, that it isn’t going to rain tonight.
I accidentally asked the girl at Nata’le Coffee for a “tall” toffee latte instead of a “single.” When I realized my error, I immediately corrected it and said, “I apologize for using Starbucks terminology.” And then I gave her a big tip. Hopefully she forgave me. Baristas are very sensitive to things like that.
I need you when I wake in the morning
And before I retire at night
I need you several times in-between
To satisfy my obsession
I need you inside me
You are long and smooth
And your shaft is hard yet flexible
I grasp you in my hand
And thrust you into my mouth
Over and over again
Full head or ultra-soft,
Battery-operated or manipulated by hand,
Fat-handled or with an easy grip,
Anyway I can get you,
I’ll use you and eventually throw you away.
I take you inside my eager mouth,
And you caress my tongue with your head
You stroke the inside of my cheek
And best of all, you rub against my teeth
I am obsessed with you, Oral B.
Around midnight, I headed toward Orange to attend the weekly party in progress at the house I’ll fondly refer to as 820. I can’t call it “Danny’s house” because it’s also “David’s house” and “Matt’s house” and “Colin’s house.” Also, I can’t call it “the boys’ house” because that’s the name of the house in Westminster where my friend Steve lives. And it can’t be “the Orange house” or “the such-and-such-street house” because John and Carrie’s house is on the same block. So I’ll just refer to it by its address number, 820.
I drove by the party first to see whether or not my ex-girlfriend’s car was there. I wanted to go to the party regardless of her presence, but I still wanted to know in advance whether I’d have to deal with that so I could make a more informed decision about what I’d be bringing, what I’d be drinking, how I’d be acting, etc.
Her car was there. Ugh. But whatever. She had been at the party two weeks ago, so I had stayed away. And she’d been at the party one week ago because I’d been out of town. So this week, goddammit, I wasn’t going to let her stop me from having a social life. She has a boyfriend, so if she wanted to, she could leave the party and go have sex. I, on the other hand, have no girlfriend and no social life, so I deserved a party way more than she did.
I wanted to bring some fun to the party so that people would associate “David Nestor” with “fun.” I wanted to get a piñata but neither Rite Aid nor Ralphs had one, and both Albertsons and Vons were closed. So instead I got a “pin the tail on the donkey” at Rite Aid, along with some Smirnoff Ice as my alcohol contribution (because I figured I’d be a dick if I didn’t bring alcohol when I’m one of the few people over twenty-one). Oh, and I also grabbed a Starbucks drink for myself.
When I got to the party, I learned that my ex-girlfriend had just left. Praise the Lord! That lifted a great weight out of my stomach.
On my way from my car to 820, I ran into some people I knew (Carrie, my choreographer, and Abbe, whom I did a show with in 1996) and some people I didn’t know (Caitlyn, who was apparently in Rocky at the Block, and Alex, who was friends with Abbe) on their way over to John and Carrie’s house (840) to watch a video that Abbe had made in film school at USC, which starred Carrie. The video was really… artsy.
Then we went back to the party at 820, and I found all the people I knew and said hello to them. There were a lot of people there, but I knew (or at least knew of) most of them, so I felt pretty comfortable.
I mingled a lot. I kept switching back and forth between hanging out with some old theatre friends (that girl Abbe and her sister Amanda), people from my show (Heather [Hope], Chelsey [Bonnie], and Elise [one of the “Angels”]), the guys who rent the house, and also people I didn’t know.
I think Elise from my show has the hots for me. She makes a lot of eye contact with me at all times, and she goes out of her way to interact with me at rehearsals too. She behaved the same way at the party, and she was one of the few other sober people too.
I went to the party with the intention of hanging out with Heather, but she’s hard to hang out with. She has issues. And when she drinks, she’s all over everyone in a kind of not-so-sexy, but rather a “please-carry-my-emotional-baggage-for-me” way.
I’m pretty sure my Smirnoff Ices were split equally between Heather and Chelsey. It’s kind of funny, since I guess Heather really didn’t have anything to drink until I showed up with something she liked. So it’s actually my fault that she got really tipsy.
I think most of the night I actually hung out with Chelsey. For a long time we’d been saying we should hang out, because our personalities make us obvious shoe-ins for friendship, but it never really happened until last night.
Chelsey was the one who was actually excited about the “pin the tail on the donkey” right off the bat. Other people joined in later, and I’m proud to say that my tail was totally the closest to the donkey’s ass. I didn’t peek or anything, and I even had Chelsey spin me around three times. I guess I’m just cool like that.
Meanwhile, I finally felt welcome by the roommate Matt, around whom I’d previously been uncomfortable. He totally welcomed me to the party and talked to me about “chicks” and confided in me with secrets such as, “That chick wants to lick my nuts,” or, “Dude, I think my left nut hangs lower… is that normal?” Basically he talks about testicles a lot. But other than that, he’s actually a fun guy to hang out with because it’s always good to have at least one chauvenist at a party. I admire him for having the balls to be that guy, even if one does hang lower than the other.
At some point Chelsey and I decided we wanted to make mischief, so I started coming up with ideas. We obtained a screwdriver and tried to switch the “2” from “820” with the “4” from “840” (because it would take them a long time to notice, and even if the mail went to the wrong house, it wouldn’t matter because they’re all friends). But the damn address numbers were nailed into the houses instead of being screwed in, so we were unsuccessful at that. Instead we just took a huge, heavy garden fixture of a dog from 820 and moved it onto the front porch of 840. That satisfied us, especially when the guys from 820 came outside onto the front lawn and didn’t even notice that it was gone.
A guy named Scott was walking around in Heather’s schoolgirl skirt (after Heather changed into jeans to be more comfortable) and nothing else. It was somewhat entertaining.
The party was cooling off a little around 3am (most of the people still there were planning to spend the night, and they’d all changed into pajamas), and Chelsey and I decided to take my car to go get food. We brought Caitlyn (from Rocky) and Scott (who was back in normal mens clothing by then) with us. A bunch of people wanted us to pick up stuff for them at Carl’s, but no one told us where Carl’s was. So we had a driving adventure looking for Carl’s, and eventually we gave up and went to Del Taco because that’s what the people in the car actually wanted to eat anyway. We got a nice tour of Orange in the meantime, though, including a few rotations around the traffic circle.
Some people still wanted Carl’s, so I went on another trip, this time in the roommate David’s car, along with his girlfriend Lindsay and another roommate, Danny. We actually tried McDonald’s first (because it was closer), but it was almost 4am and they were only serving breakfast. Apparently they can’t get make a stupid cheeseburger past 3am. Only breakfast. That pissed off David and Danny, who really wanted cheeseburgers, so we left McDonalds and David drove us to Carl’s Jr. There was no way in hell that I would have found the Carl’s without knowing where it was, so I suddenly didn’t feel so guilty about going to Del Taco.
When I got back from the trip to Carl’s, Elise sought comfort in me to protect her from some guy who wanted to hook up with her. It was really cute. She curled up next to me on the couch in her little boxers and t-shirt. So adorable. I wasn’t in a mood to hook up or anything, so I didn’t try and put the moves on her, but it was nice knowing that someone cute was seeking comfort in me.
The last half-hour of the party was basically spent in Danny’s room with the few remaining awake people. I don’t remember what we talked about, but some Jewish girl whose name I can’t recall was trying to bond with me because we were both Jewish. She was cute, but I was pretty sure the roommate Colin was already trying to put the moves on her, and I didn’t want to get in his game, so I didn’t allow much bonding.
I could have slept over like everyone else, but at 5am, when the remaining awake people were finally turning in, I was still good to drive, so I decided to just go home instead. I said goodbye to the hosts of the party, David and Danny, and I left.
All in all, I had an innocent, fun time at the party. I wasn’t there to try and hook up with anyone, so instead I hung out with a bunch of different people. I really want to be friends with all of the people who were there, so hopefully I made some kind of good impression on everyone with whom I came in contact. Or at least not a bad impression.
They keep paging a passenger named “Dexter.” Everytime they page him, I think they’re talking to me because it sounds like they’re saying “Nestor” with a cold.
“Attention in the terminal. Would the passenger who left a red shirt at the security checkpoint please return to pick it up.”
You would think they’d have an easy time finding the one topless passenger in the terminal and returning his or her shirt.
I just watched a twenty-something girl almost eat shit. It was very entertaining.
She was standing on a tile walkway here at the airport, leaning up against a glass case on the wall. Her little sister was tugging at her hand, and she gave a really hard tug, and the girl (who was wearing flip-flops) slipped on the tile, and her back slid down the glass, but then at the last second she caught herself with her other hand on the railing.
It would have been really funny if she’d fallen on her ass, but I guess it’s better not to wish that kind of thing on other people. Especially strangers. It’s okay to wish it on friends, I suppose.
I wanted to carry on my luggage because that’s more convenient than checking it (because you don’t have to wait in line and you don’t have to wait at the baggage claim). However, because it’s a four-night trip, I have a lot of stuff and had to use my flight-attendant bag.
Now, I really don’t like it when people fill the overhead bins with flight-attendant bags on a really full flight, so I decided to call Southwest to find out how full the flight would be.
“How full is flight 389 tonight?”
The guy at Southwest didn’t understand what I was asking at first, until I explained exactly why I was asking. He informed me that the flight would be about two-thirds full. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. I asked him whether he thought I should check my bag or not. He told me not to check it. “I never check my bag, even on a completely full flight,” he said.
So yeah, if the employees won’t even check their luggage, I guess it’s a good idea for me not to check it either.
Maile and I dined at the Olive Garden in Cypress last night. For some reason, both the host and the waitress really loved us. The host stayed and talked to us for five minutes or so after he seated us, and he and Maile bonded over the turmoils of being a host. The waitress loved us too, and she said we were “nice ‘n easy” (like the hair dye). We decided that Maile is “nice” and I’m “easy.”
Last night after the American Idol concert, Nicki and her friends Gary and Kelli were bored and looking for something to do. They called me for ideas, so I read them my entire list of “Things To Do When There’s Nothing To Do.” Well, they liked number twenty, “Scavenger Hunt,” so they challenged me to come up with a list while they were on their way over to my apartment.
Here’s the “List of Things to Get” that I came up with:
1. A moose
2. The Queen of England
3. An American flag
4. A postage stamp
5. A striped sock
6. Your mom
7. The autograph of a famous person
8. V.D.
9. Another moose
10. The Anaheim Angels
11. A smurf
12. Something old
13. Something new
14. Something borrowed
15. Something blue (besides a smurf)
16. A Christmas ornament
17. A Christmas tree
18. Gravy
19. Jesus
20. Gum
Since there were only four of us, we decided to go together to get the things on the list instead of splitting up into teams. In that respect, it wasn’t truly a Scavenger Hunt. That’ll have to happen some other time when I’m hanging out with more people. Also, we decided to make it a Pictorial Scavenger Hunt, meaning that instead of obtaining the actual objects, we’d just have to get photos of the objects. Thank goodness, because live moose are quite heavy and surprisingly expensive these days. You can imagine the horror of having to cart around two of them in Nicki’s Civic.
Anyway, our first stop was obviously a twenty-four hour Sav-On. Almost every item was either there at Sav-On or already in possession of one of the other three people (including “Your Mom,” because Nicki had a picture of her mom with her). So after spending an hour or so in Sav-On, and then visiting some other nearby locations in Newport Beach, all we had left was item number two, “The Queen of England.”
Now, I was hoping we could just find some Canadian currency somewhere, because that has pictures of the Queen on it. But we couldn’t think of anyplace where we could get Canadian currency at one o’clock in the morning. We called some friends, but they didn’t have any.
Next we tried going to Fashion Island, thinking that although the Barnes & Noble would be closed, we might still be able to find a book of British Royalty in the window or something. That didn’t happen. We couldn’t even get near the bookstore because large parts of the parking lot were blocked off. So we gave up on Fashion Island.
Nicki suggested downloading a picture of the Queen off the internet, but Kelli and I informed her that using the internet would definitely be considered cheating in a Pictorial Scavenger Hunt.
After that we drove to Laguna Beach to look at the closed art galleries, in the hope that one would have British crap in it. None did.
We also tried several different newspapers and tabloids at a Shell station, but there was apparently no news about the Royals this week.
Finally I got the idea of going to the Five Crowns Restaurant in Corona Del Mar. It’s the only British restaurant I’ve ever seen, and although it would obviously be closed at two o’clock in the morning, I was hoping it might have a picture of the Queen outside or in one of the windows.
This is when our evening became… creepy.
The Five Crowns looks like an old tudor mansion, sort of like the kind that they visit on “Haunted Hotels” on the Travel Channel. It has stone lions guarding the entrance, an old-fashioned British phone booth out in front, and ivy growing all over the building. Narrow paths lead from the front entrance around to the sides of the house. All of the windows contain lace curtains that you can just barely see through.
There was no one around on PCH at that time of night, and although the building was mostly dark, there were a couple of rooms that were still lit by chandeliers, although very dimly.
We saw two photographs near the entrance, but one was a picture of a guard and the other was a picture of an old manor house.
Gary decided to check out the phone booth. Inside was a phone book, and for some reason he thought that the Queen of England would be listed. There was some kind of dried, red liquid on the cover of the phone book, though, and we weren’t really sure what it was. It kind of resembled… blood. But we laughed it off and continued with our search.
While Gary was at the phone booth, Kelli and Nicki decided to walk all the way around the side of the building to a room with its lights on. This room was some kind of wine cellar, and they took one look in the window and decided to give up and move on. The Queen of England obviously wasn’t in there.
Then Kelli, Nicki, and I came upon the corner room.
The lights in the corner room were very dimly lit, and the lace curtains were almost completely shut, leaving only a crack to peer through. Kelli and Nicki climbed through the bushes to get as close to the window as possible, while I went around to the other side of the room to try and look through the other window.
Sure enough, on the walls of this room, there were old etchings and drawings of past members of the Royal Family.
As I leaned in to get a closer look (and to try and figure out how I would shoot a photograph of the far side of the room through the window and the lace curtains), Kelli screamed, “Nicki!.”
It sounded to me like a scream of “A figure just walked into the room and is heading toward the window.”
I ran back around to the side where Nicki and Kelli had been standing, and I quickly realized that the scream had actually occurred because Kelli had spotted a very large black widow spider, which was quickly descending toward Nicki’s head as she stood in the bushes by the window. Nicki screamed also and hopped back onto the path. Gary came out of the phone booth to find out what was going on. At that point they stood back and noticed the huge spider web which was covering the entire window, and which Nicki had almost destroyed with her hands and face as she had leaned in.
We took a moment to recover from the discovery of the giant spider and its web. Everything was quiet, and then we were shocked by a sudden, loud, hissing noise that came from right behind Gary. Kelli screamed and reached over to grab Nicki’s arm, but she accidentally grabbed Nicki’s boob instead, and Nicki also screamed. The hissing sound was just the sprinklers starting, but it had scared us pretty well.
Kelli and I decided we couldn’t get close enough to the spider web window to take a decent picture of the etchings, so instead we had to take one through the side window (the one which I had been investigating). Gary and Nicki stood watching the spider and made some more attempts to take pictures with their cameraphones through the front window, while Kelli and I walked back around to the side.
When we walked back to the side window, we noticed that a single dinner fork had been placed on the window sill. Its presence there was completely unexplained, and it put us even more on edge than before.
Both Kelli and I had digital cameras, so we tried to take pictures through the window of the Queen of England’s head, which was in the middle of a very large etching on the wall. We took them with and without flashes and at different angles, but it was very difficult to get the far wall illuminated without getting a glare from either the glass or the lace curtains (which were mostly in the way). Finally Kelli got a shot in which she could see “something,” and then her battery died. Then I tried one more time to line up a shot through the separation in the curtains, using the flash, and I finally took a picture in which I could faintly make out the Queen’s head.
“I got it!” I yelled out, and we ran back around to the front of the building, grabbed Gary (whose cameraphone had just died) and Nicki (who couldn’t get any of the photos to come out on her cameraphone), and booked it to the car. As we approached the car, we heard a whirring sound start inside the Five Crowns. We got into the car as quickly as we could, and as the sound grew louder, we sped away.
We went to Denny’s. I looked at my picture of the Queen, and sure enough, if I zoomed in enough, I could see her there on the wall, albeit very faintly. Kelli realized she suddenly had enough power left in her battery to look at the pictures we’d taken, and in the picture she’d taken just before her battery had mysteriously “died,” we could make out some kind of ghostly image on the wall… but it wasn’t the Queen. It was just… something.
Needless to say, I want to return to the Five Crowns sometime and maybe even have dinner there. And if possible, I’d like to sit in the corner room. The one that’s always dimly lit, even when the rest of the place is dark. The one with pictures of past members of the Royal Family on the walls. The one with the fork.