Monthly Archives: July 2013

Local Celebrity Profile: Xanadu Rocketship

xanadu-rocketshipXanadu Rocketship

Lives in: Mission Hills

Favorite Bars: El Dorado, Brass Rail

Favorite part of SD: Hilcrest

Worst experience had at: True North

lovekiller.net | Tumblr | Storeenvy

For my very first local celebrity profile interview, I’m featuring a very close friend and source of my inspiration, Xanadu Rocketship. She speaks intelligently about art in San Diego, last weekend’s Comic Con, and SD subcultures.  Listen and enjoy.

P.S. if you wish I had transcribed this, tell me in the comments.

FOMO NO MO’ (How to Cope with a Fear Of Missing Out)

So the strep and its zombie cousin stole 4 weeks of my summer.

I MISSED PRIDE.

I had some serious FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) anxiety that could only be staunched with coping strategies of questionable healthiness. Please benefit from my guide and learn how to conquer your FOMO.

FOMO Coping Strategy #1 — Disparage their fun!

pride-freebie-trash-rainbow-flagNope to the festival, I’m not going to pay to let people hock their merch at me, even if their merch has little plastic rainbow flags stuck in it. Last year I did get free stuff. Free TRASH stuff. The only thing I even wanted to see this year was the parade, but ew parking and ew getting up early and ew the sun.

Nightlife? Who wants to pay $20 for a block party that ends at 11?? And how much did Rich’s charge for cover? I heard Brass got up to $30.  You know what, people said it wasn’t as fun as last year (even though it only was the most historical year of Pride in my life as an adult so far…) But like three people said it wasn’t as fun.

FOMO Coping Strategy #2 — Your alternate plans are so much cooler/mature/subversive

wine-F-1-locations-if-you-see-kay-menage-a-trois-recordsYes, I had to stay in, and yes for my health I didn’t want to drink. But wine is just juice. I can have juice. I also invited over a couple of attractive people. Attractive people who recently went through antibiotic regimens like me! We covered the floor with records: Steely Dan, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, Undertones, Elvis Costello. Our tastes are so sophisticated. And we got all artistic with some body painting. And we went night swimming. (Because swimming in a pool at night when you are sniffling and coughing is sound decision-making. Thanks, wine juice.)

FOMO Coping Strategy #3 — Escapism

minecraft-custom-skin-princess-village-pigsI’m not into minecraft anymore; I’ve just played too much of it and you can only put so many low resolution cubes in your castle before… Oh, heyyyyy there, Minecraft. On a new server. With my brother.  You build the farm. I’m going to go chop some wood. Let’s put the mine shaft outside the main house instead of underneath it, this time. Holy what happened to 4 hours?

FOMO Coping Strategy #4 — That-fun-thing-you’re-missing actually would have killed you. Obviously.

chloraseptic-cough-drops-meds-sick-sinus-robitussinWe all know that the Zombie Strep is activated by heat and debauchery and I’m sooo glad not to spend a boatload of money to 1) get sunburned at the parade and 2) get drunk in a pit of attractive queer women who want to make out with me. Do you realize how many strains of new and exotic viruses are flying in from around the country, world even?  No thank you, spawn of swine flu.

FOMO Coping Strategy #5 — You are going to have way more fun! IN THE FUTURE. It will just blow away all the fun you used to think was so important, haha, silly you

pspride-palm-springs-pride-laptop-sunglassesOther cities have pride, and on weekends that don’t coincide with the nastiest string of sicknesses I’ve had since I was too fever-delusional to watch anything with more emotional intensity than South Park. Palm Springs Pride, woo here I come! Palm trees! Warm weather! Drinking! Everything I would have got in San Diego but not in San Diego……..Oh, heck yes, Palm Springs night…life…?

Anyway.

How are y’all nerds coping with your SD Comic Con FOMO? I’m using my family reunion as an excuse to dip town, as well as strident self-affirmations that I don’t care about Comic Con because I suck at geekitude anyway and it’s not like all my friends are going (all my friends are going).

Unrelated Life Update

lookin-sultry-in-the-sun-balboa-pink-sunglassesHey you. I’m going to do Novel November. Exciting! By the end of that month, I’ll crank out a swanky first draft of a book I’ve been prepping since last year. I’m sort of anti-procrastinating by doing some of the legwork right now. Feels like I’m breaking the rules. I love breaking rules.

One of the most important steps to successful novel-ing is developing your “Elevator Speech,” which starts with an intro/summary that you can say in one breath. To some schmuck in an elevator. Who you found out is a publisher/agent/millionaire/popular-kid. And you need them to like you. And you have 1 minute of juicy trapped-together-in-elevator time. Go.

Through conversations with her father, a daughter discovers the ghost of her dead brother inside her childhood alter ego as an alien princess.

Maybe sort of interesting, ya? Let me clarify. I’m writing a book that is a true story. Nonfiction. About me.

Through conversations with my father, I discover the ghost of my dead brother inside my childhood alter ego as an alien princess.

So, it is really important that I get honest reactions to these scripts. Please respond privately in the box below, or with your real face on the facebooks.

Your reaction can be one word. Even if you just type “WTF?” into the box, it will give me some idea of how the world feels about my story.  Be as critical as you want. I haven’t even started writing the book yet. Maybe I’ll write a book about belly button lint instead. Anything can happen at this point.

Thank y’all <3

Sick of Partying, Pt. 2

The z-pack should be called the zzz-pack. I can barely stay awake, and when I do manage, I’m confused and vaguely nauseous. (Or, currently, really nauseous.) I’m back on antibiotics, and the strong stuff, because I seem to have relapsed. The strep is back from the dead. Zombie strep.

Zombie strep is re-animated by heat and debauchery. I have the sun/rugburns to prove it.

Naturally, after two weeks of staying in and minding my health, I poured a little liquor on my wilting party monster. It scrapped up and bared a smile of disorganized, razor teeth. More? We drank Jameson that wasn’t Jameson (I’m a little concerned no one would tell me what it was in that bottle), lost a game of darts, avoided the hot tub (!), lost our white rabbit ears… Party monster started to feel alive again.

party-monster-on-leash-bunny-earsThen, after 1 hour of sleep, on Sunday, I co-hosted The World’s Worst Yard Sale. When the other host switched from Saturday, I knew we’d miss out on all of the churchgoer traffic. Since I dislike most churchgoers, I thought we might get a more interesting crowd. True, when we did have ‘customers’ they were ‘interesting.’ A woman who said she just got out of a 20-year coma grabbed a chair between us and told a slew of cow jokes:

What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef.
What do you call a cow with one leg? Steak.
What do you call a cow with two legs? Lean beef.
What do you call a cow with three legs? Tri-tip.
What do you call a cow who just gave birth? Decaffeinated.

There were more, but, as if she wanted to make up for a quarter-of-a-lifetime of silence, she spoke too quickly for me to catch them all. Her brother bought an Masaru Emoto book and they left.

Then we mostly sat, drank beer, and overheated. Beer helped. Beer helped a lot, but it did not make me invulnerable to the rage of the sun. No one, by the way, ever tells you to put sunscreen on your feet. They started burning first, and as the sun crept under the shade of the garage door, my sleep-deprived effort to slap on sunscreen revealed itself in red patches on the inside of my upper arms, weird lines on my thighs, and the tops of my knees. I crawled off with my 5 bucks (I think we made $20 all together) and slept in feverish discomfort. Literally feverish, probably, but I didn’t know to suck on a thermometer at this point.

When I woke up Monday morning with a sore throat, I opted to work from home. By 2:30 I signed off. (I started work at 11. I didn’t make it 4 hours.) I tried to ignore my building fear. I peered down my nose at the numbers growing on the digital display. First reading: 100.9. No. Not. This. Again.

Look guys, weathered wood. This could be an Etsy listing.

Look guys, weathered wood. This could be an Etsy listing.

Desperate, I allowed a doctor’s appointment at 8:30am the next day even though that is an hour I meet only in the stupidest of circumstances, like a yard sale on a Sunday morning. Because I fear known enemies more than novel experiences, my inner hypochondriac started to bargain for something more exotic than strep. What if it’s Toxic Shock Syndrome? My sunburns became rashes, my next temperature reading confirmed I’d be up to a deadly fever in a few hours. 911, I need an ambulance, I’ll be in the pool trying to lower my temperature… It’s not like I really wanted this, but my fever brain likes to trip on weird scenarios to keep itself entertained.

temperature-thermometer-101-degrees

I eventually maxed out at 101.5 but by then had given up on taking pictures.

But it’s the strep. It’s the goddamned strep all over again. I guess debauchery has its consequences.