Okay, so there was really only one jazz club and one art show Saturday night, but who cares?  It was the first time I’ve been out to an adult function past “night-night time” in two years without diapers in my purse.  (Thank you, Mom!)

The art show was fab, as I knew it would be.  It was held at the Grand Star Jazz Club in Chinatown, a great little venue.

I hope it wasn’t too obvious I hadn’t been let out in a while, but damn I had a good time!  The vibe was wonderful!  All smurpy love, positive energy and synergy, great art, bumpin’ music, lots of baggy knit caps, and some crazy fun dancers.  And yes, I did have that third drink.  Yum!  (But it wasn’t like I was out of control.  I did make some adult-like decisions, like deciding against that sidewalk hot dog.  Yay for restraint!  They were bacon-wrapped even.  Iron Will, they call me.)

My brother’s paintings turned out awesome!  His style is so distinct and funky, I and all my friends recognized his stuff from the door.

This one’s my favorite of the three.  You can see the rest of them here at his blog.  And feel free to pester my bro to start making prints available…the lazy scuff!

Jon also collaborated with his costume designer girlfriend Amanda Ellison on the design of some funky monster character hand puppets, which she constructed.  They were so cute!  I’m surprised she didn’t sell them all.  I can’t wait to see what else she makes.  Sounds like there’s a few more monsters queued up.

I even bought my first piece of original art!  I’m so excited!  I can’t wait until it arrives.  I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of it.  I actually didn’t take any pictures once I went inside.  I got caught up in the fun and completely forgot!  But I’ll share a pic once I get it up on the wall.

The cherry on top of the art show was seeing my cousin Italix tear it up on stage.  He opened up with an a cappella piece — that’s balls — and pulled it off beautifully.  Then he just did his thing.  Great set!  His passion was infectious, and people were calling for an encore and lining up afterward to get a copy of his EP.  Me, too.  🙂

The tiny diamond fairy sprinkles on top of the cherry was going to Little Tokyo afterward (at 1:00 a.m.!) and having noodle bowls, fried gyoza, and spicy tuna rolls at Daikokuya.  Hold me!  I hadn’t been to this place since I quit working in L.A. three and a half years ago, and oh, man, how I’ve missed their noodles.

And who would think that we would run into friends from high school there, but we did…and we all got to do the, “Oh, my God!  How are you!” which I love.  And then they reminded us our 20-year high school reunion is coming up this summer.  Egad!  I hope I’ll be in town for that though.

Anyway, fun night!  Got back to Mom and Dad’s at 4:00 in the morning — it was a long, long drive — pulled out the futon and my laptop and tried to figure out what story to write.  Yes, that’s right.  I hadn’t yet written my story submission for my writer’s meeting due the next morning.  Ugh.  So I poked around some story idea files and fell asleep when I accidentally blinked.

A little while later, Mom came in holding a very sad little toddler, who was then greatly relieved to see her mama.  This was the first time she had to go to bed without me in like her whole entire life!  Very dramatic.  But at that point, all I wanted to do was take her back to bed and curl up around her…which I did.

So the next morning, punctual as always, my friend and fellow Third Ninja Omniscient came round to collect me for the writer’s meeting.  I wrote most of a flash fiction piece on the way to the meeting and finished it up on our friend’s kitchen counter.  She was nice enough to print enough copies for everyone.  Horrible, I know.

It crossed my mind repeatedly to forfeit this month.  We each get one “free pass” on submissions, and I was tempted to use mine.  But then I thought about the post on confidence I wrote the other day and wondered if any of them had read it…and if they had, how I had better not show up empty-handed.

I liked the story though.  It’s nice to write a short piece every once in a while.  And although it was completely undeserved, my dear, wonderful, and new favorite friend 😉 said one of the lines I wrote in my story reminded her of Neil.  I welled up, I swear I did.  True, I was eye-vibratingly tired and a little carsick from composing fiction at 65 miles an hour looking down, but that’s one of the best compliments I’ve ever received on my writing and I really had to squelch the waterworks.

Whew!  Anyway, as you can imagine, the tot and I slept in late and spent all day hanging out at home.  I did a lot of catching-up-type activities, and she did a lot of making-a-mess-type activities.  Then we took a great big bubble bath and declared ourselves recovered.

It was a great weekend, but today was a Good Day.