The real deal… Calpurnia Aurea

** UPDATE ** I recently discovered a plant called Senna Occidentalis, also known as the Stinking Weed, which I thought was the fabled “Calpurnia Plant.” I was all ready to accept my miserably named plant-namesake as one of my own, but luckily she is just an ugly relative. The actual Calpurnia Plant is different. There is a whole group of Calpurnia plants, which can be read about here (though why on Earth you would want to is beyond me...)
* So tonight my good girlfriends from Chicago are coming to stay with us. I can’t wait! I promise lots of pix of insane adventures! 

* Guess where I’m going today!!! Sunset Junction Streetfair!!! Yay! Okay, I think I’ve used today’s quota of exclamation points all up. Isaac Hayes will be singin in the streets, and Tata Vega (she sang “Sister” in “The Color Purple.") I’m gonna wear a tank top and dance the day away. I promise I’ll take pics, even though I look busted right now because I had a micropeel on Tuesday and it takes a few days to settle down, ha ha.
* All of this depends on me actually waking up, so we shall see.
** UPDATE ** I got up…
click for larger

* What’s new? I spent most of this week putting together a “reel” of some of my media interviews, along with some clips of my stage days and two photogalleries. The focus is on my public speaking ability… it’s not an attempt to capitalize on the tragic events, but to capitalize on my ability to deliver a positive message to people.  I am beginning a career in public speaking, starting in the fall or winter. I got an agent in NYC and will soon be booking engagements around the country. I plan to speak on hope, overcoming adversity, Military and DADT issues, and issues relevant to my community and social acceptance. The DVD reel is for my agent in NYC. I’m excited… the video turned out pretty nice.

* You’ll be glad to know my sunburn is now a gorgeous bronze tan… on the top half of my back. I have never really had a tan. I always avoided the sun, and in Nashville my stage billing was “The Porcelain Beauty.” I’ve noticed a gradual buildup of some golden color on my arms and shoulders (you can see it here) but this is the first time I’ve really seen my skin such a color. Looks nice, but I don’t plan on going all-over with it any time soon. I’ll just let it fade and get back to porcelain-ness…

* At first I was going to write, “Not much has happened recently...” and then I reviewed my week:
*Filmed a part in an indie movie
* Began prep for the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Leadership Awards
* Started gathering materials to launch my career as a professional public speaker
* Had about five “Hollywood style” meetings
* Cleaned up my room
* That last one was the hardest.
* And there have been the million incidental day to day business things as well, plus a tiny bit of a social life. Very tiny. So overall I would be wrong to say not much has happened in the last week or so. I guess I’m a bit of an “experience junkie,” getting numb to the routine things and needing new things to happen all the time. An odd trait for such a sleep-loving person to have… I guess in a perfect world, I would lay on a really comfortable bed with catered meals and have a carnival of new things parade by me all day. But that would be weird, wouldn’t it? Ha ha
* Speaking of weird, and our recent bee troubles, here is the story of a man who tried to get rid of a bee nest in the rafters by squirting it with a can of hairspray and a lighter. D’oh! 

* Well, today I got a bad sunburn on a private beach in Malibu while filming my small part in an upcoming indie film. I had to get up at 9:00am! Ugh! and jet down to the beach in my red convertible Aston-Martin (aka Chrysler Lebaron) with hair streaming and a rapidly disappearing king-size Snickers® candy bar in hand.
* Once there, I met a remarkable young man named Malcolm. He is studying to be a minister and had a similar upbringing to my own… except that his parents seemed to embrace the softer side of religious conviction, from what I understood. Malcolm is travelling cross-country and having conversations with various people about his inner journey as well as his outer, and I was his LA person. We sat and chatted over shrimp and oysters (on camera… I tried not to look too gruesome while eating) and then went to the gorgeous private beach to talk more while sitting on the rocks and walking in the surf with our jeans-legs rolled up.
* I always knew about the concept of “wealth” growing up… mainly because I did not have it. But the more I actually see wealth in places like NYC and LA and other places, the more I learn about what it means. Money isn’t just a big number in the bank account… for the people who lived on this private beach, money meant having the things that seem like things everyone should have, but in reality don’t. Like a big, comfortable house with a yard and a breathtaking view of the ocean - with the sand and sea right there in your yard. In real life here in LA, if you want some beach, you have to park your car along the road and elbow your way through scads of people and their sand-flea children… the whole time thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice if it was just a clear, clean beach like in the movies? With just me and my friend?” Well, these people have that.
* And the houses… in Nashville, some of these houses would be your general, everyday medium-large old farmhouse. Well kept but definitely old. Anybody who worked hard could have one. But because these houses were in LA, and right on the beach, they cost millions of dollars. I am not criticizing, or ranting about consumerism or greed or anything here. At the moment it just struck me how nice it would be to live in such a cozy, comfy, cool house right on a clean beach empty of people. I guess that is what “rich” is for me today. Tomorrow it will be someone disgusting like J. Lo buying gold toilet seats (true story), but today it is the image of being comfortable. 

* I finally figured out that if you click on the “Calendar” link to the left there, it shows everyone’s birthdays. Happy birthday, Hoochieboy!
* Hmm, things have been pretty slow here, news-wise. The car overheated over the weekend, and I had yet another repair adventure involving two Guatemalan boys chivalrously offering to help me fix it in the Autozone parking lot. I ended up riding with them to a Long Beach junkyard, chattering all the way about our lives, and then haggling a Mexican dealer out of the needed part. All in Spanish! Thank you Sra. Gibson! (my high-school Spanish teacher)
* Lots of work to do, though. I went out to breakfast, lunch and dinner with different entertainment people over the weekend and made some great new contacts. Updated the Deep Stealth site, took care of some work stuff…
* One new project that’s exciting to me is the audio version of Mark 947. I have started studio sessions recording myself reading my own life story, which is fun and interesting. Hopefully the Audio Book version will be ready to go in a few weeks. I’m keeping lots of hot green tea on hand for my throat.

* Yesterday a large hive of bees was discovered on the property. A man came out to “take care” of them. This care consisted of dousing them with poison… I am typically unsympathetic to insects and arachnids, but Andrea was quite philosophical about the pathos involved with the destruction of such an organized group of creatures. I have to agree that, among insects, I hold the bee in high regard. Right up there with ants. Social creatures that make things and work together toward a common goal… too bad bees come “armed.” Emily Dickinson had alot to say about bees… One good poem of many:

VI

IF you were coming in the fall,
I ’d brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly. 

If I could see you in a year,
I ’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls. 

If only centuries delayed,
I ’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s land. 

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I ’d toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity. 

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.