Last night's was the worst: I dreamt that it was time for the reading, but I looked crappy. I forgot to wash my hair, I forgot my Muppet hat, I forgot to invite anyone, I forgot my camera. I also forgot to put pants on.

In the dream, I stood up at the podium and put on my pants, saying, "Well, now that you've seen me in my underwear, I guess there's nothing more for me to fear..." or something. And everyone chuckled and applauded. It's nice to know that if I do forget my pants, I will be able to handle it with grace and aplomb. That's quite comforting.

(Mental note: do not, under any circumstances, forget pants.)

Laurie was trying to reassure me that things would go well. But I was having none of it. See, here's the thing. I don't just want to get up there in my pants and read my poetry and sit down again. I want to kick ass. I want to blow people away. I want to rock the hizzy.

And yet, at the moment, I'm too frightened even to practice.

I keep joking about it, but I am dead serious about getting drunk before I do the reading. The way I feel about it right now, I want to start drinking now, and remain pleasantly inebriated for the next two days.

The reading is going to be in the theater. I keep trying to flash back to Joey's reading and the open mike, when I read a couple of poems in that theater. It went well and I wasn't all that nervous. But when I try to transport myself back, I imagine myself standing at the podium, staring out at the crowd, and not wearing any pants.

Whimper.

Hold me.

I should just make a separate Sims section, really. But I'm not going to. So here now are some random scenes from the last few days in Sim City.

I created two new families. Now I have the Pie-Winslets, the Famous family, the Peeps and Morepeeps families, the Journalers, the Poets and the Olympus family. That's a whole lot of Sim going on.

Here's Jim Morrison's birthday party at the Olympus house. Too bad he's wearing his PJs and not his neon blue leather jacket.

The cake is laced with acid.

Clockwise, this photo includes: Melissa Morepeeps, Abby, Greyson, krystyn, Kim, Dora Peeps, Gluegirl, Marilyn Monroe and Emily.

This birthday party thing is great to gather all your Sims in one place. Also a hot tip for all you House Party players: the recycled pay phone will allow you to "throw party" and have a bunch of random Sims come over to your house, which is cool. Otherwise you have to invite them one at a time.

The Random (French) Mime from Hell came over again to try and entertain at Jim's party. Here's Abby, booing him. When she asked him to leave, he said, "Non, non, NON!" and refused to go. I laughed for like, five minutes straight.

You suuaaaacck! You suck.

Kate Pie-Winslet and Gluegirl Olympus, in fetching matching bathing suits, fall in love. The Pie-Winslet House of Sluttery strikes again.

It's just like loving myself.

Later on, Kate would start putting the moves on John Ritter. This made Mo Pie cry, and Kate had to hug her and give her gifts before Mo Pie would kiss her again. Then they went and had make up sex in the vibrating heart shaped bed. And then Mo slapped Kate. "Don't do anything like this again, you wanton slut!" said the pot to the kettle.

Here, Drew Carey randomly shows up at a party thrown by the Poets. The girl with the pink hair is a random party crasher, who would later fall asleep on the Poets' pink inflatable couch. The girl in the pink is sari. The black thing in the thought bubbles is Drew's limo.

Hey, Sims! Watch my show on ABC!

The Poets have a hot tub in the middle of their disco dance floor. Cool, huh? That dainty, demure, modest girl flashing her goodies is J. Lo, of course.

Check out my outfit for the Blockbuster Awards:
a bikini wax and a smile.

Here, Tinkerbell plays the Sim rendition of "On Top of Spaghetti" (not making this up) while Kate, Mickey, Laura Innes, Melissa, Tim, Dora and Toker all listen.

Shall we do Kumbaya next?

Emily (one of the two tie winners of the mopie "Be A Sim" contest) plays with the pinball machine the genie gave her.

She's a pinball wizard.

Gluegirl (the other tie winner) scratches her ass. How genteel!

Man, this toga is riding up.

Sari and Eleanor dance in the kitchen.

You're pretty. No, you're pretty!

Attack of the lower case letters: krystyn hits on stee, who rebuffs her. Of course he does.

Hey! I'm a one man kind of guy.

"Okay, all flipness aside, it's going to be really, really hard to give up my little car. My first college essay was called "ode to the Geo Pet" and it was all about my love for my car."