But while I was in town, I had so many conversations with people who love L.A., so many connections and re-connections, and so many "only in L.A.!" experiences, that I may be starting to come around again. I'm reconnecting with my inner Angeleno.

I won't lie: it's slightly frightening.

I drove down on the 101 for a change; the first time I've ever made the trip on that particular highway, and probably the last. What with traffic and all, the trip took me more than seven hours. (Usually, it takes me five hours, almost to the minute.) It was nifty to approach the Valley from that side, though-- Kanan Road and the West Valley and all that-- I hadn't driven that way in quite a while, it seemed.

I did notice my eyes starting to burn as soon as I was in familiar territory. I thought maybe it was some deep stirring emotion, but it was smog. I grew up in the Valley--for the first 25 years of my life, smog was a persistent, annoying constant. But I'm no longer used to it at all, that hot summer smog. Is it crazy that I found myself almost wistful for it?

Anyway, I got to town at ten or so (yes, I left late) and drove straight down the 405 into the heart of Los Angeles to visit my sister at work. (They've been shooting into the wee hours lately.) I have to tell you that visiting her at Paramount was, although exciting, not an overwhelming experience. The Paramount lot consists of bunkers and soundstages. Yawn.

But now she works at Fox, and let me tell you, that is a cool looking studio. There's a big tree-lined boulevard, and lots of fake buildings everywhere. I drove down New York Street (the all-purpose street that's built to look like NYC) to get to her building. And it was all deserted, so driving past all the different sets (from films such as Minority Report and, uh, lots of other stuff) was eerie and thrilling.

She was impressively busy when I got there, fielding calls from the first unit shooting on location and so on and so forth, dealing with crises like how many feet of film the second unit had on hand, and all this professional sort of stuff. Eventually she and her fellow industry person took me to the Firefly soundstage.

I didn't take any pictures on this trip. This is my sister when she came to visit me for Pride.

Lucky for me they were filming on a different set, so I was able to walk all over the set of the ship itself. (Firefly is set on a spaceship.) I got to push the buttons on the bridge, and hang out in the cargo hold, and open the fancy doors, and make the engine go, and duck behind sandbags, and talk into important-looking spacey devices.

To sum up: the set is cooooooool, and wandering around it in the half-dark made it even cooler.

Then we headed down to the set they were actually filming on. Doug Savant (best known for his stint on Melrose Place) was doing a guest spot, Tim Minear (who was very nice to me when I went to visit the Angel set) was directing, and Alan Tudyk and Adam Baldwin were hanging around. Everyone was friendly. And have I dropped enough names in one paragraph? Believe me, wandering around there was a trip. "Oh, Marti said this, and Joss really liked that, and blah blah." Very exciting.

On the drive down, I had called my friend Dan (who I used to call Max in this journal, but he has a web presence so he gets to be Dan from now on) to see what was going on, and he invited me to go see the Rainbow Carnage midnight show. They put on a Rocky Horror-esque version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch which is one of my favorite movies, so of course I wanted to go.

What I missed in Dan's initial explanation was that he is actually IN the stage show; he plays Sgt. Luther Robinson, and he's damn funny. I showed up at the theater vaguely looking for Dan, only to have one of the cast members tell me that yes, Dan's in the show, didn't I know that? I sat way up at the front (right behind Jane Weidlin) and got to hold up part of a sign. (I know. Small things excite me.)

I can't even tell you how much fun it was; all you Hedwig fans need to try and make it to Los Angeles so you can see it. The girl playing Yitzak I thought was especially good; I made sure to put my donation in her bucket after the show so that I could tell her how fabulous she was.

After that we went to Canter's for some late-night food. (Dan and I both had hummus. Yummus!) (Sorry.) I saw some guy there who I vaguely recognized, and finally realized he was the Movie Geek from Beat the Geeks. Cool celebrity sighting! I later found a reference to him on the Rainbow Carnage site, so I am starting to think it wasn't a coincidence.

Then I went back to the house for a brief few hours of sleep. The next day was Ash's birthday party and we all had to wake up early when her family got there. Suck!

Me and Ash at the Dyke March. I am saying "Amen, lesbian sisters!" or something.

I know nobody will feel sorry for me for the whole "lack of sleep" thing when I tell you that I basically spent the entire day in the swimming pool. What a flashback to my childhood, when we used to spend every summer day until sunset swimming in that pool. We played all our old silly games, did headstands and somersaults, floated and swam and goofed around, and it was great.

When the sun finally went down, Tim showed up on his new motorcycle (it's blue and shiny) and we went to go see Renfield. You might remember them as my favorite live band ever of all time. I love my CDs, but Renfield is an experience, and therefore nothing can duplicate seeing them in person. It had been far, far too long since I'd been able to go a show.

Funny backstory. Tim and I have been Renfield groupies for years now, showing up for all the shows together, but Marz (the lead singer) always remembered Tim and not me. "Oh, hi, Tim! Good to see you!" [turns to me] "And you are...?"

I always introduced myself as Mo, hoping the name was catchy enough to remember. But he and Tim knew each other from anti-Scientology circles, and Tim went to a bunch of shows without me, and the "Mo" thing never caught on, and by then I figured it was hopeless anyway.

But recently, Marz went and found THIS VERY SITE (oh, the drama) by searching for Renfield online, and he finally remembers who I am! He introduced me around, and was happy to see me, and quoted my last entry and everything. (I bet he's reading this right now...) Anyway, it's very nice to be on the Marz-radar at last. He's such an incredible performer and a cool guy to boot.

You'll buy the whole seat, but only need the edge.

So after all of that buildup, it almost goes without saying that the show was amazing. They lost their saxophone player, who I really liked, but the band was great even without her. Lighting problems notwithstanding. Frightening clown emcee notwithstanding. And they had some people outside playing with fire (in artistic ways, of course) that was also nifty as hell.

After that, Tim and I went to Dan's birthday party. I didn't know anyone, so I just began randomly introducing myself to anyone I could find. Tim left a couple of hours later, but I was having a good time by then, so I stayed. I met lots of interesting people-- there was the guy who read my palm, the guy in the purple lace dress, the drunk guy who said I was mad sexy... I didn't get to talk to Dan all that much (well, he was busy being the birthday boy and all) but I had a good time anyway.

And at least I now have Dan's journal to content me. Definitely go read it; he's an indescribable guy. And who knew he was such a talented photographer? So he's hot, talented, cool, and unafraid to wear a dress from time to time. No wonder he intimidates me.

I didn't get home until well into the morning, and then I crashed again. I got up a few hours later (missing the chance to have brunch with Bruce) and went out to lunch with Abby and Ash. We had an interesting discussion about Abby's therapy (how she's the "identified patient" who represents all the problems in our family) and such stuff.

I stopped by Charlotte and Bruno's after that to say a quick hello. I would have liked to hang out with Charlotte for longer, but by then it was time for me to start heading back. (I did have plenty of time to whine at her for not visiting me. This was our city for years and years, I can't believe I've been living here for two years without her. Waah waah.) But I was glad to see Charlotte at all-- I didn't get to see most of my friends, including Katie, Eric, Matthew, Bruce... even Lucy, who is busy working on T3. I didn't even get to pet my cat; she was in hiding the whole time.

Me and my kitty Moca, last time I was in L.A.

I drove home on the 5, which was far less exciting than the whole "Pacific Coast at sunset" thing, but I got home in, yes, five hours flat. In retrospect, I was really fortunate, since today the brakes went out on my car, and it's really lucky that didn't happen when I was 400 miles from home.

But anyway, that's a whole 'nother entry, and for now, I need to get some sleep, since I still haven't caught up. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

"It seemed to be taking forever-- and as it turned out, my blood was clotting quickly and I didn't end up donating the full amount. My body was like,'"You're trying to take what?!? Well fuck you!' I love my body."