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Two nights ago, I went to the theater to see Michael Jackson's This Is It. WOW! I LOVED it! I only kind of wished I would've saved it and seen it with Matt because he would've loved it too. That concert was on track to be amazing, and while Jackson was really only onscreen performing, we didn't get to see any of his non-professional side, it was very sad because it was obvious he was excited to share what he was doing with his fans. The movie portrays him not as an eccentric but as a passionate artist and as a perfectionist. I really wanted to be singing and dancing in the aisles of the movie theater.

I was taken aback when I noticed his lead guitarist, a women who is featured in the film playing a seriously bad ass solo in Black or White. Her name is Orianthi Panagaris and she was picked to be his lead guitarist at the age of 24!! She is South African and Australian. I was totally impressed.

Very cute parody of my favorite show, and once again demonstrative of my love of MUPPETS! I'm not sure how much kids actually take away from this, though...

Once in high school, my best friend Ann and I were rifling through old cassette tapes and we found one her mom had labled "Best of the Yip Yips." It was quite funny.

Since I'm pretty well traveled, a question that I get a lot is "What do you want to do next?" It's usually cause for some thought, because there are lots of things I want to do next. (Starting, now, with eating a sandwich.) If we're talking in the long-term, I'd like to eventually live on an island in the Caribbean. I'd like to go to Israel, and New Zealand. I'd like to go on a substantial biking trip. I'd like to skydive. I'd like to write a book.
If I had a significant amount of money and time, the trip I would plan tomorrow would be aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway. My friend Kirsty, in France from Scotland, alerted me to the possibility when her boyfriend and his friend did it one year and it seems like such an adventure, taken from a different time. I wanted it the same way I wanted India after I saw the Darjeeling Limited.

While the railway theoretically starts in St. Petersburg, Reannon told me she met people in India that had done it starting in London, took the train across Western Europe to Russia, and went all the way to Shanghai. The proper Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest railway in the world, built between 1861 and 1916 to connect Moscow to Vladivostok and thus unite the Russian countryside. There are three separate lines:

• Trans-Mongolian Railway: goes from Moscow to Beijing via Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia
• Trans-Manchurian Railway: goes to Beijing via Siberia and Chinese Mongolia
• Trans-Siberian Railway proper: from Moscow to Vladivostok

The entire journey to Beijing is about 6000 miles. I feel like this is a trip for someone who loves traveling just as much as getting there. This isn't always true for me, but the train is so romantic and I've always been happy with the quality of people I meet onboard. A traveler will be onboard the train for over a week.

I don't even have to begrudgingly admit that I'm a fan of Lady Gaga, because I just think she's sooooo funny. Plus I really like dancing to Love game, etc. Everytime she comes up with some new publicity stunt though, it cracks me up. This on the heels of me reading that she's going to be giving locks of her hair to anyone that purchases the deluxe set of her album the Fame. At the low price of $114.98, I hope Matt or Brad coughs it up for me for Christmas. No jk. No I'm not.

Anyway, I had the great idea of compiling my top 5 favorite Lady Gaga stunts.

#5 Kermit is her VMA date.
Maybe if you're a friend of mine, you know the impact of the muppets in my life. Any friend of Kermit is a friend of mine!! I ALMOST even liked Katy Perry when she wore this muppet dress:

And almost hated Gaga when she wore this dead Kermit dress:

But then I realized it was just a flattering homage...Kermit and Gaga went on a date!


4. The second Lady Gaga moment  I like the best is her singing Imagine at the HRC National Dinner. She did a really good job speaking at the march on Capital Hill earlier, and I thought that this was just really beautiful and fitting and showed that sometimes she can be serious about her art and what she stands for.

After she sang this, Yoko Ono sent her a tweet:


3. My third favorite moment was when she performed on SNL. First, she did this awesome medly with this weird orbit thing and played the shit out of that piano, which was really impressive:

Then, she did a really cute skit with Andy Samberg. She got a lot of attention for the skit she did with Madonna, but I didn't think that was funny, and also Madonna is old and needs to give it up. Lastly, I just really like this bubble dress.


2. This doesn't need much explanation. I watched the VMAs with my mom; she was appaled, I was laughing throughout the entire performance. During the ceremony, she changed her costume more than 5 times and thanked the gays when she was given her award. Here is the singing:


1. I don't know if this is appropriatly my FAVORITE Gaga moment, but it's definitely the most shocking. Is she transgender?!
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Happy early Halloween, btw!

This Halloween is a little sad, because it will be the first year I haven't dressed up since...maybe seriously ever. I love Halloween, and living in Athens for 5 years really helps you get in the spirit. While I'd like to go explore the city and watch the parade this weekend, I'm kind of rushing around trying to get stuff done so I feel ok going to Chicago on Sunday and Florida next week. The last two years I've gone out with Brad.

I got to be a little spirited in Athens when I went two weekends ago...we watched Hocus Pocus 1.5 times. I've really been in the mood for a Bette Midler movie marathon lately, and I guess this was the best I can do right now.
I hope this makes you as happy as it makes ME!

If I'm lucky while I'm traveling, I'll have a really good book which sets the spirit of the trip for me. This Summer in Guatemala, it was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. That book came along at a time in my life where I really needed to examine some of my values and decide what was important to me and where I was going. When I got home from that trip and moved to New York, I picked up the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert thinking that it was just a quick read. It was, but it also came at a time when I needed to think about how to get out of a funk and what things made me happy.

This trip, I picked up American Gods by Neil Gaiman at the book exchange in our hostel. I am a big fan of his, and I often finish his books thinking the worst thing about Neil Gaiman is that when I'm finished with one of his books, I'm so disappointed I don't have another one to pick up right away. I always feel surprised when I ask people if they know Neil Gaiman and they don't, although I remember when Matt Mossman was reading Stardust a few years ago I specifically asked him about the author and he really introduced him to me.

American Gods is about as perfect a saga as you can get. It focuses on an ex-con named Shadow hired by a mysterious man named Mr. Wednesday, who hires Shadow to run errands for him upon the death of his wife and his subsequent release from prison. The book is filled with slights of the hand, magic, unexpected characters and revelations. Shadow begins his life out of prison by embarking upon a road trip through the American Midwest, and Gaiman, an Englishman and thus only an observer of American interactions, captures the spirit of the places in the book so thoroughly it seems he has written a book that truely creates a new American genre of mythology, almost mirroring Greek and Roman legends.

While Reannon was probably frustrated at times that my nose was buried in the book during our entire trip (it's over 600 pages and I read it in 5 days), I think it added to my trip by allowing me to perceive my surroundings with the same sense of awe that Shadow had for the gods that are the book's namesake. Also, it helped me think about how I wanted to reach my intended destination and how I could take my time getting there.

Anyway, read it. If you feel it's too long, check out the Sandman graphic novel series, Stardust, the Graveyard Book, or Coraline, all by Neil Gaiman. Also he is dating Amanda Palmer from the Dresden Dolls and you can follow them both on twitter and I think they're soooo cute.

My best friend Matt over at the Fierce Life recently posted about how much he likes Sandra Lee. That skinny Southern woman should NOT have her own food network show in my opinion. If I'm food networking it, I'm watching the Barefoot Contessa. I love Ina Garten. All of her shows take place in East Hampton, where she must live and where her show started, which isn't REALLY that far from me. A few weeks ago, I was driving along behind a really nice black Mercedes with a vanity plate that said INA. Do you think? Could it have been?!

I love her husband Jeffrey and how he's never around so she can just throw fabulous parties with her gays. Also, I think I would enjoy cooking a lot more if I had my own theme song when I was dicing up vegetables.

Also, never trust a skinny chef!!

Just a little video of a drive to Villa de Leyva in the Colombian countryside! I know it's a little boring.
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Facebook is a barrel of laughs now that everyone's parents are plugging in. My parents haven't done anything too tragic, although I don't think my mom really understands what a "status" is.

(you might have to click on these to see them?! I don't understand why this always happens on livejournal.)

Anyway, my friend Katy's mom moonlights as a stand-up comedienne and I remember Katy lamenting in the early years of our friendship when she was included in the stand-up act. I'm sure a daughter is a wealth of things to make fun of, though. This was on Katy's wall last week:

The absolute best though was when Brad's mom commented on his status a few weeks ago.

Note to self: my mom checks facebook and will comment on ridiculous shit I post.

Tomorrow, Rea and I are flying into Bogotá at around 8:30 p.m., local time, which is an hour behind NY time. It's going to be a long day, she's getting on the red eye from San Fransisco to here in about an hour, I'm meeting her at JFK at 7:30 am, then we have to wait around all day and fly stand-by. Once we're there, we'll stay until next Tuesday.


I wanted to go to the beach, but this is a pretty exciting adventure. I pledge to NOT forget my camera on this trip.