Kaman Iwana Lei Ya...

Last night at The Tropicale...

The best cure for a cold, ever...

I was only going to be in San Francisco for four days, three nights. So I couldn't bear the thought of any more time wasted on being ill. I'd been taking the vitamins, drinking the tea, sipping the soup, even getting some rest (kinda). But I knew it was gonna take something just a little more drastic to finally kick the cobwebs outta my immune system, and fire up the recover just a bit quicker.

Naturally, I called my mom. She suggested a shot of tequila with Tabasco. So off to Sasha's bar I went.

She fixed me up real nice. And though I started sweating, I felt the need for one last shove into recovery. Sash suggested the hot tub at her dad's.

"It has jets," she said. And so I bid my hasty adieu and booked it straight up to her dad's (oh, by the way, he's on vacation) and fired up the tub with some Epsom salt.

I can't begin to tell you how magical this suggestion actually was. There's just something about being enveloped in a bath of warm water, something about the relaxing effect of the Epsom salt on muscles, the way the bubbles tingle the skin...

Okay, yeah... it was the jets. I am here to tell you that the hands-down, all-time, best cure for a cold, my friends, is a self-induced orgasm aided and abetted by the full-power water-vibrator known simply as the jacuzzi jet.

Hallelujah.

And everything was smooth-sailing for the rest of the weekend: clearing out and cleaning my old apartment with help from my pal Jeff, a romantic and sober overnighter with Thespian, a brief but lovely quality bar hangout time at Molotov in Lower Haight with Sasha, and the subsequent sad, but temporarily satiated, flight back to Palm Springs, where I would be giving news that I would not be staying but would, in fact, be giving up my fulltime, permanent position as a corporate newsroom features reporter, in lieu of returning to the city I love, the city of many afternoon delights. And so many more to, uh, come.

Moving on up...

The view from Sasha's dad's house in the Oakland Hills... yeah, that's San Francisco and the Bay Bridge over there...

TCB, baby...

I was so stressed out over the prospect of what I'd have to do in SF that I couldn't sleep, and I just kept feeling worse. And, of course, being sick wasn't gonna make anything easier. When I landed at SFO, the pain in my ears from all the congestion pressure was almost too much to bear. I saw the skyline of the city through a throbbing drum behind my watering eyes, and it wasn't the beat I wanted to dance to.

Regardless, I couldn't help but smile through the sniffles, riding BART downtown just in time to run up to the street and spit a thick wad of snot into the gutter outside of the Civic Center station.

It was a little after 8 a.m. by the time I climbed into bed at Sasha's house, and half-brain slept for about an hour before the mystery subletters started calling, wondering when I was gonna stop by. I rustled poor ol' late-night-working Sasha up and convinced her to drive the getaway car, Montclair, to my tragic flat in the Inner Sunset just to get the damn "meet and greet" out of the way and find out what the action plan was for these people--and me--to get all our shit out.

I was nervous to meet them. First, I didn't know what the Model might've said to defray any blame on himself, what he must've tried to pin on me, as he said in not-so-many words that it was all basically my fault for leaving it in his hands (although he insisted that was the only way he'd work). But more so, I was pissed that these three, and not TWO, fuckers were largely responsible for me losing my apartment ultimately, and that I'd had to take time off work to come up, with a fucking cold, and move my shit out, blah blah blah.

But when they opened the door--MY door--we all seemed to drop disappointments and judgments in a matter of seconds, and just got down to the task at hand. They were just "dudes," as Sasha noted--young, but seemingly good guys, which made it not as awful as it could've been. We came up with an agreeable plan for moving and cleaning, I (well, mostly burly Sasha) grabbed some boxes of my crap, and proceeded on over the Bay Bridge to Sasha's dad's deluxe bachelor mansion in Oakland Hills.

When Sasha went to work, I crashed out for a couple more hours, trying with all my might to regain any energy I could, so that I could dine with the Thespian later that night. Admittedly, I was a bit of a zombie girl but simply couldn't miss out on what would surely be an entertaining evening. Oh, and it was. Thespian took me to a swanky bistro in downtown Oakland called Levende East, which was all softly lit, low-hanging chandeliers, impressive oversized art, brick walls and dark wood tables, and a lovely mixed crowd of the young, urban and pretentious.

My head was getting fuzzier by the moment but I do recall something like scrumptious gorgonzola-stuffed figs (or was it roquefort-stuffed dates, hmm...) and Thespian downing tequila gimlets followed by a Schramsberg Rose he found appealing and then a pinot noir of some sort and I'm not sure but there might've been another tequila gimlet in there somewhere but this was not a good idea because I think Thespian possibly forgot that HE DOESN'T DRINK. And our polite dinner conversation turned into a comedic-for-me but apparently dramatic monologue about the plight of medical marijuana and the political downfall of law and the scandal of mainstream media and it was finally determined in all of this, at least according to Thespian, that "SOMEONE MUST DIE!!!"

And I don't think he meant it really, but diners had stopped dining, and had taken to leaning in closer to pick up any subtle nuances they might be missing out on, and although I was enjoying the intellectual spark, I understood that Thespian's tone and volume were perhaps distracting but it annoyed me to no end that nearby tables couldn't engage in their own interesting distractions. Still, I collected my dear dinner date and deposited him safe and soundly to his pad before I ambled back to Sasha's dad's, where I proceeded to crash out for the next day and a half.

Life is a cabaret, old chum...

So I was stressed out at work in Palm Springs, and I was stressed out about having to deal with the Sublet O' Hell in SF, and living at the parents' house had taken another disturbing turn.

They had sex. Loudly.

It's funny, you know, how you can wear ear plugs or headphones and still somehow you simply can't block out the sounds of carnal activity. It must be a primal thing. In any case, it was MY PARENTS. And it was Gee-ROSS.

The next morning I woke up with a monster head cold. Go figure. But I wasn't gonna let it stop me from attending the cabaret, darling. It was going to be at my new favorite hotel, The Viceroy, and it was the one thing I'd been looking forward to since I'd met the producers of Upright Cabaret the month before, and wrote a Desert Post Weekly cover story about it, which I'd love to link here but apparently you have to purchase the archived article. Whatever. Here's the abbreviated online version.

Um, so yeah... MAJOR crush on the producer dudes--they are FABULOUS! So charming, so handsome, so much style and class. Of course they're gay, my friends.

But you know who wasn't gay? The Viceroy's general manager, and object of yet another of my most famous major crushes. The man was the ultimate charmer, also handsome, so freakin' funny, with that awesome Australian accent, a sparkle in his blue eyes AND the man is a CHEF!! You know how I love the foodies. But yeah... he's married. Also, of course. Such is life in Palm fucking Springs.

So I took some crazy naturopathic meds that didn't do shit and bundled myself up in order to survive the frigid winter cold temps of the lo-desert--the cabaret was gonna be set up outdoors, poolside.

And the ambience was incredible. The guys did an awesome job of setting up a cozy, glamorous stage and intimate tables with individual outdoor heaters. They had reserved a table for me all to myself that was ideally situated up front and just off to the side. Then they started me off with this amazing spread of cheeses and roasted veggies and hummus and olives and... I did feel a little weird sitting at this VIP table all by myself, eating from this huge plate o' goods. But then Mr. Wonderful, the GM, came and sat with me, feeding and serving me like a queen from the next several plates of deliciousness, regaling me with tales of his fantastic fabulousness and just generally damn near charming the thermal underwear right off me.

His wife must be very nice.

But anyway, the show was great. There were five performers, most of whom had extensive Broadway backgrounds, and they were all very, very, skin-tingling good. There were some holiday songs, there was some wholesomely naughty banter, there was some crazy ridiculous raw talent. So I was really glad I went.

The next morning at 6 a.m. I hopped on a plane for San Francisco.

Getting back to what I've been doing the past couple weeks...

First thing Monday morning (and coincidentally, the day after my weird QOTSA-spawned turning point), I get a letter from the lawyer of my San Francisco apartment's landlord. You see, I'd been subletting my flat to a friend (whom I've never actually met) of a friend from Maui for the past couple months while I determined whether or not I'd be staying in Palm Springs, only it turned out that my subletee--a male model from New York, no less--had his model pay liened by the government for unpaid taxes and therefore, couldn't pay his rent. Finding himself in a bind and not wanting to stress me out, the Model decided to rent out my apartment to THREE other people (he actually said it was two people, and didn't tell me until after the fact anyway), and then those three people decided to have a party and the neighbors called the landlord to complain and the landlord (who's Chinese, and doesn't speak a whole lot of English) showed up and the people there had no idea who I was. So, not wanting any "funny business," the landlord KICKED ME (and my "guests") OUT.

This, of course, was more than a little disturbing on so many levels but I promptly bought a ticket to SF and requested a couple days off from The Desert Sun in order to deal with the situation.

That whole week was a mess--at work, I was feeling frustrated by nonstop last-minute assignments that weren't exciting or interesting to me, and were piling up to astonishingly undoable proportions. And the Editor (the one who hired me and who I do like a great deal) was insistent that we "have a talk" and I got the impression that it was time to come to a decision about my stay there.

He had already done the career equivalent of the boyfriend who asks the girlfriend, "If I was going to ask you to marry me, would you?" Meaning, he'd already asked me a couple weeks prior that, if he was going to offer me the fulltime permanent position at the paper at this point, would I be interested? Then, I'd said it was too soon to tell and could I please have a couple weeks to think about it.

So here it was, a couple weeks later, and I would be going to SF to clear out my apartment. Some would take that as a pretty clear sign that the desert was where I should be. But clearly, that was not where my heart--or head--was at.

The Ghost of Christmas Past...

So yeah... the Queens of the Stone Age concert...

Man, what a fucking trip.

It was Dec. 9--on a fucking SUNDAY, OKAY??--and at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert. This tripped me out for a few reasons. First of all, when I was growing up in the desert, the McCallum was the beautiful, old but lovingly restored theater where acts like Wayne Newton and the Nutcracker would come perform every year. For you Maui folks, it's akin to the Castle Theater--only a bit more aged, I would say. At the Castle, we mostly had acts that our aging hippie parents would enjoy. At the McCallum, it was our aging hippie parents' conservative parents who'd don their mink stoles and venture out for the night.

Okay, so also when I was a young, nubile Palm Springs scenester in the late '80s/early '90s, the progenitor of QOTSA was a band called Kyuss who, along with the dudes from Fatso Jetson and Eagles of Death Metal (who opened for QOTSA's Dec. 9 show) and a multitude of other "stoner" or "desert"-hard rock bands, would perform nearly every weekend in the middle of the desert (when there was A LOT more desert to spread out in, of course) at an old abandoned nudist colony, powered by generators. And they played there because a lot of the musicians or their girlfriends and most of their friends were underage and had no venue, other than a weak all-ages dance club that was in existence for about 30 seconds. But also, there was no way any adult club or venue in the desert was gonna let a bunch of long-haired, leather-wearing, amp-blowing kids into their joint, much less on their stages.

And the other thing? Kyuss was not necessarily the best band of the bunch. I do distinctly remember making fun of them, in fact, because they took themselves SO seriously. Naturally, the joke ended up being on us eventually anyway, as that kind of rockstar-earnestness paid back the Sons of Kyuss--and ultimately, QOTSA--a cool few million-fold in record sales and recognition. And oh, I am definitely a fan--and it's not for sentimental reasons, they are just really fucking good.

Okay. So now, here it is, nearly 20 years later... and the QOTSA (formerly wayward, hack-rock, generator-party playing Kyuss) is headlining a rock (and not just ROCK, but HEAVY, HARD, DEVILISHLY DELICIOUS rock) show at our grandmothers' venue, the McCallum Theatre. Yes, I know, I know--this should be a GOOD thing, right? Finally, the hometown validation, yeah? The Man, at long last, has succombed to what we've been trying to express all these many, angst-filled, desert-voided years, and our colleagues have made it bigtime. Fan-fucking-tastic, right??

This is where I am attacked by strange feelings of guilt and depression. Because when I show up for the concert, I see old people. Lots and lots of old people. Only, the thing is, they're my age.

And they're excited because most of them haven't gone out in nearly 20 years, and have kids now about the age they were when they were going to shows, and they've brought earplugs, and have maybe a little less hair but a few extra pounds, which sneaks out of the waistline of their jeans and dusty old leather jackets they uncovered at the bottom of their storage closets, next to their kids' dilapidated XBoxes and soccer uniforms.

Me? I was drunk, you see, because I knew subconsciously that this was gonna happen. So I downed a few whiskeys at the dive bar around the corner, and I slapped on some lipstick and zipped up my boots and slipped wide-eyed and tentatively into the Theatre. I immediately spotted a couple girls I went to high school with, and said hello as they looked me up and down and scurried away. I also turned and found myself face-to-face with an old boyfriend. Okay, I'll be honest--he was not so much a "boyfriend" as he was somebody I slept with on occasion, because he was a few years older and to me, more experienced and worldly. And it was strange because, in my mind, he was this larger-than-life character, somebody I'd always felt intimidated by because he was older and (I thought) infinitely cooler than dorky ol' me. And yet when I saw him again, 20 years later, when I was staring him straight in the bespectacled eye, he seemed rather small. And old.

And I think I might've said something to that effect to him. Awful, eh? He flinched.

"Well, you've aged well," he said, and slipped me his card. "Call me!"

Now I was feeling dizzy and sick so I decided to find my seat, which was box-side so I had a great view of the stage and the rest of the audience. Fatso Jetson, headed by the Lalli Brothers, were awesome, but I was dumbfounded by the experience of seeing them up on this particular stage and looking out at the crowd, all of whom were SITTING, mostly because they had to (again, think CASTLE THEATER) but also because they were OLD.

I was momentarily brought out of my addled reverie by the Eagles of Death Metal, fronted by Jesse Huges, who I don't really remember from back in the day but who I know was a part of the scene along with everybody else. And he RAWKED the stage; it was a really fun show. I actually got the sense that it was just as much of a trip for him to be there as it was for us to see him up there. And that was oddly comforting.

But then Josh Homme and QOTSA were on, and I was back to being disoriented and disturbed. He also put on a great show; the band was tight, the riffs were appropriately intense and wailing, his voice was on point--at once melodic, mournful, playful, sinister and full of swagger. It was just kinda weird. I mean, there was some disconnect there, like something missing. I think it sounds a bit contrite or cliche to say this but, it felt soul-less somehow.

When it was all over, I ran back to the dive bar for another whiskey cleanse but ran into someone else who I used to have a huge, big, gigantic crush on, who was also someone I let intimidate me (how was I so unbelievably shy??) and who, now, looks just, I dunno, human. I took great pleasure in saying hi to him, because it didn't matter anymore, and I would no longer agonize over him with my girlfriends or beat myself up at what I did or didn't say, and you know what? I think it was disappointing for him, too, to not see the fear and adulation in my eyes.

UGh. Weirdness.

Anyway... that was probably the most depressing--and yet, fun, too--night I've had by myself in the desert since I've been back, but also I think a turning point in how I feel about being here. If I could pull it off, in order to continue fulltime employment as a journalist at the Gannett daily newspaper. Sure, it could be good for my career, but I think after this night, and all the rest, I'm thinking it's time to head back to the city, where I left my heart, and where I could replenish my battered, old, dried-up desert spirit.

The surreality of it all...

And then the next weekend was the Queens of the Stone Age concert at the McCallum Theatre, along with Eagles of Death Metal and Fatso Jetson.

But I'll have to get more into this tomorrow... it's late and I'm tired...

Palm Springs is a nice place to visit...

Oh, this is from the Walk of the Inns I did around this time, as well. This was one of my favorite inns, the Korakia Pensione--a Moroccan/Mediterranean-style villa where apparently Winston Churchill used to hole up in a room and paint, but is now the sometime backdrop for fashion shoots. These photos are of the poolside lounge area out back--it's kind of hard to tell, but there are three streams of water flowing from the wall, and a wraparound couch around a sort of rootless campfire. It's really freaking awesome, actually...

Holy Cornhusk!

I went to the world's largest tamale festival in Indio--I believe it was the first weekend in December. The event was enormous, spanning several blocks. There were hundreds of different kinds of tamales, from the traditional to the ridiculously gourmet and just plain odd. I think I ate about 12 tamales that day, including a guava and cheese, a grilled chicken and mango with ginger and habanero BBQ sauce, and a turkey with sweet potato and cranberry. But my favorite, of course, was the Belgian chocolate with fresh raspberries and carmelized walnuts--tamale.

Oh, and also, there was a trained monkey.

Ooohh, somebody needs a spanking...

And I do mean literally, not figuratively. Of course, you would like that, wouldn't you? I know I would. Aw hey, wait--I'm totally getting off track here. Sorry, it must be all the AquaNet and Chanel No. 5 in the air...

I think I'm just trying to apologize for the nearly two week lapse in blogsville. Fortunately, I've come equipped with photos for ya, as I do a quick recap.

Here we go...

The Hollywood Revue of 1929...

I'd had a hard day.

So it was absolutely necessary to check in with my girl, Krista, on Oahu, who midway through our conversation, had to put me on hold for another call--during which, I got my period.

It was time for some whiskey.

After checking in with the parents (yes, I am actually doing this), I mumbled something about having to do some errands and then (well, I did return something at Macy's) headed straight to the Red Barn in Palm Desert.

The Red Barn, as you can imagine, is a bit of a dive bar here in the desert. There are only a couple dive bars I have found, really, but this one seems to be the most varied. Apparently, they host live music on the weekends, which range from surf rock to jazz and blues and odd-spontaneous jukeboxed Maroon 5 sing-a-longs. I'm still in flux about calling it mine...

But for tonight, it would do.

I've been getting into the habit of dressing like a city beat reporter on the prowl--all pencil skirts and high heels, silk shirts, crisp leather belts, an ever-ready reporter's notebook and a sardonic smile... the riding crop attached to my hip helps, too--kidding, but it's in my eyes...

Anyway, I might've stirred up some cobwebs when I walked into the joint, which was packed with the usual diverse and unclassifiable riff-raff. Quickly and casually surveying the place, I copped a seat on the corner, between a quiet-looking dude in glasses and an empty stool. Two seconds after I got my whiskey and coke, some other dude in glasses planted himself next to me and stared. I looked at my drink.

It took about 10 minutes of him staring and me ignoring him before he broke the silence.

"All my friends here said I liked ya so I thought I'd better come say hi," he said, in a thick Scottish accent. "My name's Jerry. That's my girlfriend over there, we live together. You know what you remind me of? You know how in Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton movies you always know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are? Yeah, you look like one of the girls in a Buster Keaton movie."

And so it was.

The quiet dude on my left began talking to me after Jerry inadvertently broke a glass on his arm. It turned out that the quiet dude was a prominent artist in the area, and we got into a lengthy discussion about the balance of art and commerce--which, coincidentally, had been weighing on my mind quite heavily in the past few days.

"I imagine your journalistic writing is a lot like my commissioned art," he said. "And that you struggle to keep your voice in it, while applying your skill to the task at hand."

I sighed, and asked for my second whiskey and coke. Please, and thank you.

As Dave and I continued with artistic discussion, Jerry took it upon himself to attempt matchmaking--this time, instead of himself, he encouraged the poor bloke down the bar to tempt his fate with the likes of me. The new guy was about 20 years younger than Jerry and Dave, and probably pretty good-looking for a bartender from Ocean Beach, but way too awkward and uncertain of himself to hold my gaze, and consequently, my interest, for too long. Plus, that wasn't what I was there for. That night, anyway.

I could feel the tides turning and felt that it was time to make my hasty exit so I bid adieu to my new friends and left.

When I got home, the parents were reading in the living room and invited me to have a glass of wine. I was grateful for their literary distractions, as it gave me quiet time to reflect upon the evening, and the day's challenges.

Before I went into work that morning, I knew it would be a demanding day. I had at least six stories due before I would leave at 5 p.m., and a couple more I knew I could postpone until Monday, although that would make the start of my week as tough as the end of this one. Still, it was all about survival. And the fucked-up thing was, it wasn't Pulitzer Prize winning shit I'd be turning in.

Among which was the post-event, narrative piece on the "Walk of the Inns" tour I took the night before, where the historical boutique inns of downtown Palm Springs had an open house--which was actually very cool, architecturally, interior decoratedly and just a sweet nighttime block party. And then there was the piece previewing the book-signing of a Hollywood costume designer--actually the very cool wife of director John Landis, who among other things, designed Indiana Jones' sexy hat and archeo-garb for Raiders of the Lost Ark. And lastly, with about an hour deadline, I was to cover the Palm Springs Walk of Stars "Starfair" at the Convention Center, where old-time celebrities would be on hand to sign autographs on photo stills for movies you'd never be able to recognize them from anymore.

But actually, there were some greats... and even the lesser known stars I recognized as part of my burgeoning cultural awareness of film, television and stage culture.

I saw Lou Ferrigno from the Incredible Hulk. That giant guy with the creepy silver teeth in the James Bond films, Doc from the Love Boat... and there were really so many stars that I saw and knew from the screen but... it was a bit disconcerting to walk past as they sat there at their little booth donning photos and DVDs and books, watching me walk past and smiling blankly, I just couldn't seem to say anything at all to any of them.

And that included the celebrities I eventually interviewed. I saw and was excited to say hi to Della Reese, to tell her that I'd recently seen Harlem Nights (1989) again and was blown away by her sass and comedic bravado. It was genius! I loved her! But all I could get out was, "Hi. I work for the local daily newspaper, The Desert Sun..."

To which she said, "Well, I won't hold it against you--we all gotta work at something, I guess."

And then I moved on to Robert Culp. Robert Culp! I used to watch reruns of I, Spy (1965-68) and hi, Bob & Ted & Carol & Alice (1969)? Genius! But then what did I actually say to him?

"So how is this first day of Starfair going for you?"

"Well, it's always better with tomorrows," he said. "Today? Never mind."

Awesome.

I even got up the nerve to say what's up to Ms. Jane "rocket bra" Russell. Jane Russell! Although she was flanked on both sides by her assistants who clearly weren't going to let her speak unsupervised.

But still, who I really wanted to see, who I really wanted to give appreciation to was Olivia Hussey. She wasn't yet there, but was scheduled to be. And I can only hope that if she was there, that I would've finally pulled myself together enough to say to her, "Ms. Hussey, I just want you to know that... when I was much younger--and more beautiful, ironically--I felt so awkward. But one day, one of my mom's friends told me I looked 'like Olivia Hussey in Romeo and Juliet. (1968)' And I just thought you were so beautiful in that film, and so full of life, that if I even reminded someone of your immense fire, I might be special, too."

Thankfully, she wasn't there for that blargh.

But the point is, perhaps all that I perceived as hell initially... well, it wasn't, really...

[IT WAS THEN--BACK AT HOME, AS I WAS SILENTLY PONTIFICATING--THAT MY MOTHER ERUPTED WITH A MEDIUM-TO-LOUD-RANGE FART.]

From the kitchen, I could hear my mom and step-dad stifling a collective giggle.

I paused.

"Hey mom," I said. "How do you spell the sound of a fart?"

"What?" she asked.

My step-dad simulated the noise, then thought hard.

"With a 'B' followed by a bunch of 'R's,'" he said, with all seriousness. "And maybe a 'Ph' somewhere in there. Or maybe start with a 'Ph' followed by the 'R's' and a 'B.'"

"This is some serious intellectual conversation we're having here," said Mom.

"Hey, I've always wanted to know this," I said. "It's important stuff."

Naked and Famous... For Real

We, uh... spent a lot of time in bed that weekend, making bets on the thread count and reading the daily delivered LA Times. We'd split sections up wordlessly and share them, occasionally calling out something we'd read or wondered if the other knew anything about. I perused a great article about misogynist literary great Norman Mailer, who'd recently passed away, and Thespian asked if I'd read any of his books. I said no, but now I really wanted to check out his nonfiction, since I'd just learned that it was he who transformed journalism by incorporating elements of novel-writing and utilizing the voice of his larger-than-life persona. He founded the alternative press and, in fact, helped establish the Village Voice.

Anyway, this somehow led to a discussion of Arthur Miller. Thespian, when he taught drama to freshman college kids, was shocked to learn that they'd never read any of Miller's plays in high school. We shared our grief for the new generation... in bed.

Thespian is an Italian-American with dual citizenship, as he was born in India, while his father was on some sort of diplomat status, designing their train stations. He mostly grew up on the East Coast, and has that raspy crazy D.C. accent I so adore in men. He lived in L.A. for a while, doing bit parts on TV shows--usually playing the bad guy they suspect "did it" but really didn't--and graduated with honors from the American Conservatory Theater in SF, mainly by doing a lot of bit parts--"Rodrigo, your sword!"--in Shakespearean plays.

I found out a lot about Thespian that weekend, as we plodded around the boutique inn in our bathrobes, luxuriated at the spa with couples massages, melted into the jacuzzi late night under the stars, and sipped fancy cocktails, poolside, during the day. That was when we'd peer out at the beautiful people surrounding the pool, as they peered back out at us over their Chanel and Vuitton shades, and we'd guess who was a Hollywood heavy hitter, who was an aging rockstar, who'd had work done, and most importantly, who was driving the Bentley parked out front.

"But do you think anyone else here makes their money selling pot?" he asked, with a sheepish but proud grin.

I just giggled.

Oh yeah, Thespian also happens to help run a medical marijuana dispensary.

What?

Like royalty...

So last weekend... ahhh.

The Thespian came down, on a much-needed reprieve from his overworked and chilly life in Oakland. We'd really only been on about three dates in the Bay Area so I was initially nervous about spending the weekend with him. And there was no way in hell I was gonna subject him to the 'rents, despite their insistent inquisitions about my impending whereabouts. But I was happy--as I'm sure they were, too--to get out of the house and live like royalty for the last couple of warm, sun-soaked days of the season in Palm Springs.

Any anxieties I might've felt were instantly quelled as soon as he got into my car at the airport. He's tall and lanky, the Thespian, with spiky salt-and-pepper hair and--oh, you know I love this--black rimmed glasses. He also has impressive muttonchops and his eyes are bright, with brows that're kind of cocked in this frequently wild, surprised look that works well for him. But he's real laidback, completely easy to be with.

Yeah, he's sexy and cool. I'm totally hot for him.

It was my job to find the right place for our desert rendezvous, since I'm temporarily residing here. So I picked The Viceroy, located conveniently downtown in the vicinity of the restaurants in which we'd be dining (also my job to locate) and the casino in which he'd be playing blackjack, when the unfortunate happenstance of me going back to work would prevail on Monday.

When we checked in, he was already pleased. The Viceroy definitely has style--a glamorous, modern, quirky, sparse Euro-hip kind of style that apparently attracts all the big players of L.A. And their hot daughters. I could tell the front desk and lingering guests at the bar lounge were trying to ascertain just who Thespian and I must be...