Wednesday night Aimee prepared a seder and invited me and Mo and Jeanne over to ask the four questions and then plot our strategy for raising money for the Breast Cancer 3-Day. We also finally agreed on a name for ourselves: the Bombshells. Jeanne came up with it based on a comment I had made once about being a ticking time bomb when it comes to breast cancer because both my mom and my grandma on my mom's side have had it. To defy that legacy (and to get conversations started) we are going to print something like "I am NOT a time bomb!" on the back of our t-shirts. We have also decided to use a sexy pin-up girl as our logo. What's not to love?

Due to the overwhelming amount of parties I was required to attend this weekend, I squeezed in my culture on Thursday night with a trip to the Cowell Theater to see Bob performed by the Magic Theatre in association with the SITI Company. It was a one-act one-man play featuring Will Bond as avant-garde artist and theater director Robert Wilson. Every word in the play was taken from interviews and conversations with Wilson, but it was Jocelyn Clark's brilliant arrangement of those words that gave the play its depth and layers of meaning. Bond gave himself completely over to his character as he waxed poetic about art and theater and American culture in ways that had me nodding my assent.

The fact is, I don't really understand my own stuff. Artists very seldom understand what they are doing. My work is a mystery to me, and I feel that words only confuse people about my work. I don't wish to mystify people. It's best not to say anything at all—it's best to remain silent.

I realized how deeply I myself had been drawn in at a moment late in the play when Bond stopped talking for a bit and simply moved back and forth across the stage as Moby's "God Moving over the Face of the Waters" reverberated through the theater. It recalled for me a part earlier in the play when a sound clip of the Apollo VIII astronauts reading from Genesis had been played. As the song reached its climax and its tone shifted from poignancy to revelation, something inside my chest broke free in a moment of total emotional release. I can think of a few people who might have appreciated that feeling as well.

In honor of Neal's birthday, he and Carrie invited us into their home Friday night to sit around in a warm and fuzzy environment and do all the things we normally do on E, except without any actual chemical stimulation. Yes, my friends are at a point in their careers where pretending to be on drugs is as much fun as actually doing the drugs. A highlight of the evening was when Vinopal chose to introduce me to an online acquaintance with "She used to sleep with HIM," and then pointing at Patrick. I came up with clever responses to that long after I'd left the party, of course.

Somehow Karen and JD and I made it up the next morning to hike up through Laurel Canyon to the top of Wildcat Peak in Tilden Regional Park. The weather was sunny and gorgeous where we were, though we could see San Francisco and the bay absolutely covered in an ocean of fog with only Sutro Tower poking out of the mist. Even better, at the end of the trail there was a small farm with baby black sheep bleating to their mothers and gumming blades of grass and bounding across the field on gangly legs. I have a weakness for black furry creatures.

I met Carrie and Neal for dinner that night at a new Cajun/Creole restaurant in Noe Valley, Alcatraces. Carrie started out with some prawns that she quickly peeled and devoured that were bathed in a delicious sauce we soaked up with our bread. My main course was a dish of crab ravioli swimming in a pool of sweet tomato, basil, and "jewels of fire" that gave the pasta a nice zing. Neal had a huge piece of beef encrusted with a peppery concoction that was also quite savory. I think the hands-down winner had to be Carrie's catfish, however, breaded with sweet potato on a bed of wilted spinach and surrounded by hot link gravy. I kept sneaking little bites off her plate.

Last but definitely not least, all my love to the happy and newly-wed couple Jon and Sheila, who celebrated their recent wedding with a kick-ass party in the Cellar at Johnny Foley's Saturday night. Red Meat had us dancing and clapping and laughing and dancing some more in between all the hugging and visiting with old friends. While the band took a break Sheila and Jon got onstage with Dan and Ted and played some tunes for us, including Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line" and the ever-appropriate "Johnny (Is the Boy for Me)" by Les Paul and Mary Ford.

Trick
Magic Theatre
Tilden Regional Park