Yesterday was not so good

I woke up because two cars made a huge noise crashing right outside my window.

It was earthquake weather which makes me as freaked out as any wild animal.

Day before yesterday I tried putting wheat back into my elimination diet and confirmed what the bloodwork already said which is that I'm allergic to fucking wheat at this point. So my skin got all red and irritated and I felt really headachey and feverish the day before yesterday. Which means I got to start yesterday having missed sending some paperwork to my lawyer and having missed an ad deadline and having missed scheduling a shoot, those being the main things on my to-do list for the day.

So I was jittery from car wreck and earthquake and having eaten food I'm allergic to and was kicking myself for not being able to work when totally ill.

So I go down my friends list and I swear almost every post was a "in summary my life is a failure" or "hopefully the new meds will make this bearable" or "hellish detail of divorce" type of thing.

I went to post something supportive in a journal belonging to someone I've known for many years and came across a flurry of posts from someone who totally betrayed my friendship. And who, last time I saw them, told me that they totally didn't give a damn about the person whose journal they were posting in yesterday, that the guy was a loser who would never have what it took to live in Los Angeles and couldn't even get hard for some anal sex. Managed to restrain myself from clicking over to their journal. More because I knew how boring it would be than that I lacked morbid curiousity. But it still irritated me because I had managed to not think of them at all in quite a while and seeing their ugly icon made me think all over again about whether I should have told them what they did wrong instead of just hoping they would change in a positive way and the bad things they did could be water under the bridge. Plus I hate the thing where people talk really brutal smack behind someone's back and then act like they are a supportive friend to their face.

Sorry I was a little cranky, Xtian. I strongly prefer that people not ask me about picture stuff that way in this venue, but I was feeling sucky and behind the eightball already and I absolutely feel the way I said, but I don't feel that way at quite the Spinal Tap eleven I expressed it at yesterday.

Then some stranger in LJ was making comments about Szandora being too popular. Yeah, whatever that means.

Then I had to spend a few hours dealing with a business banking problem too complex and boring to detail, but suffice it to say that is was stressful and irritating.

Then I had a beverage fortified with a lot of vitamin C and had intense kidney and general abdominal pain. I knew I couldn't take the pills any more and I've had this reaction before, but never so severe and only to the pills, not to just a drink.

Eating is my favorite thing and I am so tired of having to be so careful about it. Just the stress of not knowing what fucked new chemical sensitivity my body will come up with makes mealtime less fun.

This morning I started the day waking up dehydrated from being so sick last night. Then I got an email that there might be a problem with my New Year's reservations in Vegas for the Blue Blood crew. Hopefully I ironed that out already. I'm going to drink water, attempt to eat something, and hopefully go back to sleep soon.

Stuff

So yesterday I went over to a photographer's house. Someone I first met in 1995 when Blue Blood exhibited at the big comics show there. Realized he lives four blocks from me now. We talked about art and the exhorbitant price of California real estate vs. how awesome it is to live here. Really nice to hang out with someone talented who is not weirdly competitive. Very refreshing and enjoyable.



Just posted a new feature on Andy Laplegua of Combichrist and frontman of Icon of Coil at http://www.blueblood.net/bb_132.html with an interview by Kellie, in case you thought she was solely a hottie, she does a fine interview as well. Photography by myself and ForrestBlack. He was a fabulous photographic subject. Very creative and moved well in front of the camera. All rock guys should be so excellent.

:-)

Today is a good day. Feeling much better and cranking on getting things done this week. Think I might actually be sort of caught up soon. Whoo-hoo!

Going to go buy myself some organic goodness now. Think I will make a doctor's appointment on Monday and see if I can start being more active and maybe try some yoga classes with Alex.

Now if I could just get on a sleep schedule vaguely related to my time zone . . .

Reality Check

Soooooo . . . there is this promoter who has an event coming up. I first met this promoter years ago when I still lived on the east coast and was just visiting Cali when a zinester friend took me to said promoter's club night. The promoter was doing a really cool night then and he was still super effusive about how jazzed he was to have me and Forrest there etc. I liked the guy. We even supported some of his events after his stock took a downturn and they were not really the ideal ones to be supporting, but we felt that he was doing it from the right place.

He finally put a bigger event together but was always sort of weird about inviting me and Forrest to participate each year he did it. This year, he is doing the event within sight of my roof and one of my favorite Blue Blood girls wanted to perform at the event. She kind of did a freebie at it last year and was hoping to get booked properly this year. She says her performance drew more onlookers than most of the booked talent. So the promoter and I were talking about having her perform and doing some promo and all, but nothing was finalized. He wanted to not pay my girl. She was not into that. I asked him if he could offer something to help defray her expenses.

He didn't get back to me, but he did have people spam the hell out of the Blue Blood boards. One guy alone did four or five threads about the event and not in the announcements forum either. I kind of think this promoter is trying to use my talent and my web site to further his event, but does not want to even put up a link to BlueBlood.net on his.

Should I just tell my girl to go perform for free again? I feel like she should be valued and I know they do have talent they are paying and she says they are promoting with her image from last year.

Should I be annoyed by this? Not sure how to handle the situation. I don't want to end up with bad blood, but I don't want to be a chump either. The promoter might just be busy too and I don't want to overreact to nothing.

Dead Letter Office

When you mail somebody something twice, do you assume that they really got the thing both times and are looking for a third freebie or do you assume there is a problem at their post office or a problem at your post office?

Before I ran an internationally distributed magazine, I always thought there was no such thing as lost in the mail i.e. the check is in your mouth, I won't come in the mail. Doing mailings of thousands of magazines, I realized that there is an infinite number of things the USPS can do to screw up. When we were based in Atlanta, we paid for an address correction service which was supposed to give us change of address info, but the Atlanta postal people thought we were evil and decided not to give us the data we paid for. Now that is evil.

Atlanta had a 24 hour Post Office. Which sounds great, except for the part where the counter people would get pissy if you made them mail more than 12 items and they would often just throw out whatever you mailed more than 12. Fortunately we learned this before losing too much, but still.

When I first got my space in Hollywood, there was some disagreement on which area it was zoned for as the building rested on sort of the line. The two post offices disagreed on which one should pick up and deliver the mail. Later on someone here (not me) slapped a postal carrier. So, to make a long story short, I don't put things out for the postman here; I go to the Post Office.

So what are you likely to believe if someone says they did not receive something you sent them?

MoneyBookers

Okay, I'm leaning towards going with Money Bookers as my paypal alternative. I know some people who have used it and had positive experiences and I don't think I know anyone who has had a horrible one yet. Anyone have any experiences with it they'd like to share with me before I walk the plank? Thanks.

Old Skool

It took me a while to transition both me and Blue Blood to the web. Forrest pretty much had to drag me kicking and screaming and I still do more magazine work than most anyone else in my position would. The modes of communication are different and the place for fashion and music is different and the money is different. I'm an old school zinester and some of those values are tough to hold in a world where my most serious business competitor could be a fifty-year-old multinational corporation in sheep's clothing.

Lately I've been thinking about the fact that thing really have turned out about 80% how I planned and how I wanted and that is probably not a bad score given how high I was aiming.

One of the things I wish had gone better as I achieved so many of my dreams is I feel like there are a few relationships I wish I had been able to take better care of. Given how many people I have met with my varied interests and all the places I have lived, the percentage of people I wish I had not missed a certain connection with is verrrrrrrrrrrrry low. I've been trying to come up with sort of a list of people who really know me. And know me from before I had the ability to put people on magazine covers. Sure, I want my friends to be pleased for my accomplishments, but sometimes I forget what an amazing distance I've traversed because it was a tough journey to stay in touch during. Both literally and metaphorically. Lately I've been able to patch up a couple of relationships and just appreciate the ones I have so much better and I'm awfully pleased about it. Spent part of this evening deciding whether or not to send an email to someone on that list of people I wish I had been able to maintain a relationship with and then realized that I (a) had the wrong email address and (b) the person didn't have internet access. Doh!

I suppose no one here has a contact email for Elisabeth Bjerregaard-Pederson?

YowCow

Anyone here try YowCow as an alternative to the freaking awful PayPal? Good experiences? Bad ones?

Courtesy of Crfh

Thanks Ed!

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Wow Kapow

Apparently this assault weapon ban being lifted is a hot issue. The Blue Blood community boards thread on the issue already has 130 replies and counting. An armed society is a polite society and Blue Blood does have some of the politest boards on the net. Now the good manners all make sense.

Nutritionist?

I injured my ankle and tore a tendon in April and I was not able to work out or really even get around much for a few months, so I packed on some pounds sitting in front of the computer. Not much for a webmaster, but more than I'm thrilled with.

I don't want to go the Beverly Hills doctor diet pill route, but I'd like to have a professional paying attention to what I do and looking at me from time to time. Thinking that both a nutritionsit and an allergist would be helpful.

Really, I just saw the episode of CSI with the vampire nutritionist and I'm hoping to get mauled by a dog while jogging. Okay, I did just see that episode, but I really am looking for help on this.

Ow

I have really really bad cramps. Forrest is the coolest. That will be all.

I am soooooooooo tuckered out, but it rules to be me

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I'm back from Vegas! Szandora rocks!

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