At karaoke on Monday night, we waited around for an extra half hour for Danny’s last song to come up. He sang “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from Les Miserables.

The second time he sang the title lyric, we all got up and left.

With the slogan “Hell froze over” emblazoned on their home page, Apple finally released iTunes for Windows. Now I can organize my music collection (close to five thousand songs or fifteen gigabytes or eight days) like all the other cool people in the world (who use actual Macs), and now I can download songs legally from the iTunes Music Store if I want to.

Tuesday night Heather went to her musical theatre workshop class in Torrance. Apparently some girl sang a song called “Old Friend” from the 1978 off-Broadway musical I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road, and Heather called me after class to tell me that the song reminded her of “our relationship.”

Here are the lyrics, and here is a live recording from KUOW Public Radio in Seattle.

Incidentally, I found out that the main character’s name is Heather, which Heather didn’t even know until I told her. I thought that was kind of cool. And the song kind of reminds me of Joni Mitchell or something. It’s very 1978.

As for its relation to our relationship, I’m not sure how I feel about that.

By the time we started walking around the park and going in mazes, most of the “monsters” (the best part of the Haunt, in my opinion) had apparently given up and gone home. What a let-down.

When I got home tonight, I finally realized that I don’t want the show to be over.

I always want shows to end by the time they end, and even today I said that I was glad it was over. But our adventures tonight reminded me how much I’ve fallen in love with this cast (and its groupies), and now I’m actually sad that the show is over.

It’s true that I’ll get to see most of these people again: quite often, in fact, if I can help it. But from this point on it’ll require effort. People will eventually start other projects and cease to be available, and the group will slowly but surely drift apart. That feels tragic to me.

I feel very lucky right now. I’m so lucky to have done this show, and to have met all of these people, and to have found a huge, wonderful group of theatre people whom I care about and who care about me too. It’s been years since that’s happened, and I am truly grateful.

Last night I talked to Krysta about movies. Her favorite actress is Audrey Hepburn (which makes sense because Krysta kind of resembles her), and she mentioned that I should see Funny Face. I told her I’d add it to my list (and I did), and she said that her “list” is simply the AFI Top 100. After consulting the list (and deciding that I can’t count movies I’ve only partially seen or that I saw when I was too young to understand), I realized that I’ve seen thirty-five:

6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
7. THE GRADUATE (1967)
10. SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952)
11. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)
14. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)
15. STAR WARS (1977)
17. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)
21. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)
22. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)
23. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)
25. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)
26. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964)
30. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)
31. ANNIE HALL (1977)
34. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)
36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)
40. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)
41. WEST SIDE STORY (1961)
42. REAR WINDOW (1954)
43. KING KONG (1933)
49. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)
53. AMADEUS (1984)
55. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
57. THE THIRD MAN (1949)
58. FANTASIA (1940)
59. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)
60. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
62. TOOTSIE (1982)
68. AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)
71. FORREST GUMP (1994)
75. DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990)
77. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973)
87. FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
91. MY FAIR LADY (1964)
95. PULP FICTION (1994)

She’s only seen twenty-something. How many have you seen?

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.