nerd cred

me: I think I just earned major nerd cred. I had a saucy dream about Ira Glass last night.

Kate: Welcome to the dork side, young Giddywalker.

TAL pals

I don't want to brag or anything, but I think we set a new world's record for appetizer consumption last night. I'm just sayin'.

We went to see This American Life Live! which was fantastic. We jokingly admitted later that we are such suckers that we paid to watch a 2 hour commercial for the upcoming season of TAL on Showtime. But it was still worth it. There was a clip from an episode about young kids doing stand-up comedy, which was really funny and also extremely heart-wrenching. These kids had all come by comedy as a means to feel better about themselves. They weren't the classically "popular" or "athletic" kids and so they took comedy classes to give themselves an edge. I had tears in my eyes the whole time, especially when they talked about their tough days at school and being picked on. And how regardless of how funny they are, they'd give it up in a heartbeat if it meant that they could be a popular kid. SO. At the end of the presentation, there was live Q&A and one of the kids from the segment showed up to ask a question. Ira Glass was very excited and asked "Had you seen that segment before tonight?" and just then the satellite feed cuts out. We're staring at a paused screen and then the giant movie screen goes to the Dish Network menu. Everyone starts groaning and yelling to "fix it" and finally one person gets up to alert the theater staff to the problem and everyone else pulls their pitchforks out of their recycled Trader Joes tote bags and starts the lynching call of "I'm getting a REFUND for this!"

After a minute or so and realizing that the show wasn't going to resume, everyone started rushing out of the theater (refund! refund!). We decided that we were all perfectly satisfied with the two hours and twenty minutes of the show we'd gotten and we had fun and laughed and cried a bit, so we didn't need to be those people and add to the clambor. Especially when we saw the crush of people massed in front of the customer service counter. Hell hath no fury like an NPR-listening Orange County liberal democrat scorned. YES they are dripping in diamonds and YES they valet parked their $60,000 car and YES they had a soy-mocha-latte-no-foam on the way in, but they need a refund because they only got 2 hours and 20 minutes of the show and they deserve more than that!

While the Volvo People were foaming at the mouth about being short-changed, we ducked over to the Cheesecake Factory. The menu is daunting for a few reasons, including the fact that there are TOO MANY OPTIONS and also because next to the page of fried appetizers is a full-color ad for cosmetic surgery and liposuction. Undeterred, we ordered one of everything. And then also some lettuce wraps. And then also some cheesecake. Of course we ended up staying well past closing time talk-talk-talking. It's always such a good time when cool people get together (and let me tag along). Which is why: slumber party tonight.

The plan is to do Biore strips and paint toe nails and do facials and build stuff with Legos and play with the He-Man action figures and dress up in costumes. We're going to eat cheese poofs and cherry bombs and popsicles. We're going to trade ghost stories and braid each others hair. Suck it 3rd graders - we've hijacked your Ultimate Slumber Party.