Avalon Theater

Fillmore, Utah

Meeting Someone Famous

Back in January, Brandon and I were really good this year and prepared for Sundance.  You know how you always want to go to Sundance movies, but then it’s suddenly already here and you try to just get standby tickets and then you’re just too lazy to wait in line for a couple hours, and then you just end up seeing NO movies??

Well, I found out that Ira Glass, host of This American Life, had helped produced a film based on Mike Birbiglia’s life.  Birbiglia is a frequent contributor to TAL, and he’s a pretty funny dude.  But, IRA GLASS, is like… the creator of one of my favorite things in life.  It’s like meeting the person who thought of ice cream or… Swiffers. I mean, don’t you have so many things to say to these people? THANK YOU YOU’RE A GENIUS MY FLOORS HAVE NEVER BEEN EASIER TO CLEAN.  RIGHT??

The movie is called Sleepwalk With Me, and it’s about how Mike B sleptwalk, yet refused to take care of it, paralleled with his love life and refusing to acknowledge the problems therein as well. We saw it at the Redstone movie theater in Park City, for its second showing at the festival, aka, the first showing to people other than directors and actors and the VIP hoopla.

I truly only went for the chance that Ira Glass would be there.

The showing was around 9:30, and I had been getting up early for class, commuting hours a day, and seeing late movies to try and pack as many in as I could.  I was tired.  I was leaning on Brandon before the show started, whining and nervous I wouldn’t be able to stay awake for the whole thing.

And then…

Ira Glass came into our movie theater.  HE WALKED IN.  TO OUR MOVIE THEATER.  Brandon let me know because I was falling asleep on his shoulder, and I shot up, totally awake and babbling like a crazy person. NO HE’S NOT. WHERE IS HE? SHOW ME.

Brandon was slightly offended because I was apparently more excited about Ira Glass than our engagement a couple months prior, but come on. That can’t be true.

Anyway, this is getting wordy, but I just wanted to remember it, and I have no other form of remembering things than my own terrible memory and this here blog.  So, during the whole film, I knew the Question and Answer was to follow. I had to think of a question and ASK IT. I WAS ABOUT TO TALK TO IRA GLASS.  The more I write this, the sillier I feel about being so starstruck.  Let me just say, I know. I’m embarrassed. On many levels.

But, I thought of a question anyway, and I prefaced it with a lengthy declaration of my loyalty and fandom.  Of course, due to all the groveling, I consequently had forgotten my question, and thankfully, people laughed, which gave me time to remember it.

It didn’t really matter what it was, I didn’t care about it at all anyway. I just wanted to talk to these people. And I did.

After the movie, Brandon and I went down to try and talk to him face-to-face.  Glass was in the middle of wasting his time with some pre-teen who was convinced that accepting tips at a coffee shop was “blood money” and Ira just smirked a little and said, “… Really?” He said he had to go, and even though there were probably six people in front of us, Brandon used his manly strength to get us right in front of him and ask him for a quick picture.

I was starstruck. I kept saying, “I think you’re so great. You’re really great. Thank you.” And nothing real was actually said. It was disappointing, but I realized later that there was no way I could have some meaningful exchange in two minutes. It just wasn’t going to happen.  I guess I just have to save it for the day we sit down with him at dinner.

So many things.

There are SO MANY THINGS to talk about. So many Paint drawings to make. So many stories to tell. But I don’t know where to start, and I don’t have time to do it.

I will say that life is wonderful, and sometime soon, I will write about stuff and post pictures.  Until then, enjoy this picture from Brandon’s and my recent wedding.

From our amazing photographer, Ashley Thalman (ashleythalmanphotography.com), who mostly does family portraits (which are amazing) but graciously did our wedding and I couldn’t be happier with the results.  Her kid portraits are to die for, so click on that link if you want to see her work or book a session!

Google Street View and Google Images of Street Art

Banksy on Main St & 4th St in Park City, Utah

Space Invader on Bedford Ave and 5th St in Brooklyn, NY

Shepard Fairey on Cooper Square in New York City

Banksy on Essex St in London

Shepard Fairey on Wooster St in New York City

“Art in the Streets”

This is for a photo project I’m doing for school. These are pictures from an exhibit at the MOCA in August 2011.

The exhibit was called “Art in the Streets”

 

La vie n’est qu’un passage.

“Si la vie n’est qu’un passage, sur ce passage au moins semons des fleurs.” – Michel de Montaigne.

Christmas with the Kaneyukis!

I got to spend Christmas and New Years with these cute boys! Elias and Ephraim.

Elias is cute when he eats.  This is the day we found out Michelle is HAVING ANOTHER BOY!! That will make 3 for the Kaneyukis.

These guys like Karate-Dancing.

On Christmas Eve, we somehow ended up at this bar-ish restaurant in Alexandria. Good wings.

Sometimes it scares me how much children like Christmas.

The day after Christmas, we found out my brother and his wife had their little baby.  Too bad they’re all the way in Fort Collins, CO. He is such a cutie though.  This was the first or second day I think.  His name is Ezekiel Jason Kim.

Elias was so excited about his new little cousin, he built him a house. …to be honest… I built that house.  Oops…

I had so much fun with this guy.  It’s fun to watch babies grow up into talking, thinking children.  This little one is so kind it melts my heart a little bit.

We visited the temple.

We went to the botanical gardens where they had a special display and all the national monuments, parts of the Smithsonian, and other buildings were constructed into miniature form with STICKS AND LEAVES!!! It was amazing.

This guy is from Mt. Vernon.  The annual Christmas camel!

This may be procrastination…

But obviously I’m okay with that.  Lately I’m swamped with books about the Haitian Revolution because that is a huge chunk of my thesis.  When I finish this thing I will put it on the internet and make you all read it.  I am so excited to be done with school sometime.  The plan is to defend my thesis in February, and graduate in APRIL.  APRIL is so soon. I will be a Master. A Master of French Studies. Be confused and impressed.

Here are some pictures of stuff that has happened from many many months of not blogging.

Roomies trip to LA in August.  I had forgotten how great LA is. The beaches! The FOOD! It was so great.

This is by the opera downtown.

Went to the Street Art Exhibit.

I decided that street art is better in the streets.

Meagan took me horseback riding! It was so fun and so pretty with the fall leaves.  This is the day I found out I was extremely allergic to horses.

Did the DirtyDash with some fun friends.

Before and after.

And one I stole from the Flo-Foto website.

Remember when it was summertime and hot and you could ride your bike places? I miss that.

Dress-up season.  Target, Arrested Development party, and a true Modern Family (I’m Lily… get it?)

I cross-stitched a cat! Only took me a year!

We went to Jackson with Ellie and Jon.

It was so beautiful!

Brandon and I went to LA again for his nephew’s baby blessing. LOVE LA!!

Brandon showed me the Venice Canals. Beautiful and quiet along these canals! Go here.

Shortly after this trip, WE GOT ENGAGED! Yay! Wedding is March 23/24th.

I started making coasters out of bathroom tiles.  Here is my first batch.

Cool.

Brandon got a straight edge shave at a barber shop.

First time shaving in a year and a half!

And… I think that catches us up.  Separate post for DC. I’m really gonna do it, and not cram it in six months later.

Help me write my thesis. And teach my classes. And drive to/from Provo every day starting January 4th.  2012, I’m mad at how you start.

The Majestic : Alexandria, VA

Ok so I just went to the Majestic which according to Yelp and family members is a great great dining experience.  Good food, good location, good atmosphere.  Most of those things were true, but… the more I think about my dinner there the more I am so confused and weirded out by it.  So Michelle (sister) and I get there and the hostess just looks at us, we tell her a table for two, and mumbles something, not because she’s mad, just because she talks really quietly and doesn’t want to make eye contact.  Then, at least 4 groups of people leave over the course of the next 30 minutes, and we are still waiting to be seated.  I’m almost wondering if the hostess has forgotten about us, even though we’ve been standing right in front of her for the length of a normal television sitcom.  I mean, you don’t just forget it’s on, right?  But she would go do stuff like she had purpose, walk away from her stand thingy and go towards a table but she would come back like she didn’t know why she ever strayed from her diagram of tables in the first place.  I was convinced that she forgot about us because there were 4 empty, clean tables with no one occupying them, so I asked her how long the wait was.  She said, oh… I just have to set this table over here.  Michelle hushed me before a slightly snide comment (…I would have said it in a very nice tone).

So we sat down, and since we had had that half hour to stew over the menu, we knew what we wanted.  Michelle ordered the sea bass and I wanted the pork chop.  LITERALLY FIFTY MINUTES LATER, our food FINALLY CAME.  This extra time to wonder about where our food allowed us to wonder about everyone working in this restaurant, including the guy standing in the back with a blazer just WATCHING everything. Was he the owner? Did he do this every night?  What a terribly boring job.  He just stood there.  And looked at stuff. The whole time.  So when I excitedly cut open my pork chop I was a little surprised to find it TOTALLY RAW on the inside.  Completely totally raw.  Pork… has to be cooked all the way, right???  Michelle seemed to agree. So I called the waiter over, I told him it wasn’t cooked at all on the inside, HE SAID NOTHING.  ZERO WORDS.  Took my plate, and looked kinda pissed.  I didn’t know if he was mad at me, or mad at the chef because of some crazy mistake she keeps making.

Then that guy with the blazer (!) came up to me and, at this point, I had decided it was the chef’s fault, and that the powerful man with the blazer was going to offer my plate for free.  So when he came over to tell me that the meat was SUPPOSED to be like that, and “you know how chef’s are…”  and “pork, nowadays, can be eaten medium, medium-rare.”  WELL WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME THAT BEFORE?? WHY DID YOUR WAITER WALK AWAY WITH MY FOOD WITHOUT TELLING ME THAT’S WHAT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE???  Basically, everyone in that restaurant HATED me, and showed it to me by later giving me a very tough, dry chop of pork.

I mean, maybe my expectations are too high, but a SORRY would have been nice.  Y’know? Or the waiter TALKING TO ME about the problem.  (I feel like I’m talking like the waiter and I are in some sort of relationship and we’re really not… nor is this a weird metaphor for some other real life problem… I really was just mad about the waiter’s lack of communication skills.)  Anyway, I tried talking about it later with him and he had a hard time understanding my concern and it didn’t help a bit, so I just smiled and chewed on my pork.

In the end, Michelle’s sea bass was PHENOMENAL. And I bet, if I had eaten the pork the way the chef had originally cooked it, I would have enjoyed it more.  And while there were other places that we could have eaten, I kind of enjoyed this weird experience because Michelle and I ended up laughing a lot and dissecting the evening to try and figure everyone out.  Because… it was weird… amirite?