You Can Do Magic

I got an invite for thursday night. In keeping with my recent scheduling abilities, it was one of two that I agreed to, so I canceled the last minute dinner the the boy and went to see a magic show. There's a funky place in Hollywood called the Magic Castle and the sister of a friend knows a magician who got us in. I found out at noon on thursday that proper dress is a "cocktail dress" which it turns out I don't have. So I went with extra high heels, showing off the tattoo and a flirty skirt and it was no problemo. We had dinner, served by the magician's uncle, then saw one of the shows. The place is also a magic school so the MC advertises heavily during the show.

It ranged from pretty good to awesome, and Joseph the magician did a lot of old school tricks that really rocked - pulling birds out of handkerchiefs and in the end, "turning" the birds into the biggest rabbit I've ever seen. They also have a room with a "player" piano, said to be played by Irma. You stuff money in the invisible bird's birdcage and chat and they play something. Which would have been better if the flock of gay boys didn't keep requesting horrible sappy songs. I mentioned the Andrew Sisters and got a snippet of "Bei Mir Bist Do Shoen".

What was kind of weird was that the sister with the invite totally gave me the evil eye all night and I have no idea why. My friend seemed oblivious to it, so maybe that sis is just the angry baby of the family, or I was oversensitive (somehow I don't think so). It was a little odd, I thought, that my friend was the one to invite the 4th for girls night out, but I wasn't in charge of the list. I got along fine with my friend, her older sister, and the magician. I did appreciate the invite to have a very California/LA experience so I tried to be on my best behavior. We'll see how the little sis shakes out in time, but until then I might avoid eating at the restaurant she serves at. Just in cases.

I'm back to trying to focus on happy, positive things. It really does help in the maintenance of a positive outlook when, even when I'm not feeling the love, I try to see some good in things. I know a few people who can tease evil out of the slightest thing and I'm finding that more and more tiresome, but also more ignorable. It's like they aren't happy if they can't complain. And once I've figured out their position, it's a lot easier to not be sucked into their manufactured negativity. While I'm sorry a little about the negativity in my recent posts, it's also not good to ignore real negativity and hope that it goes away.

The Good Stuff:

• New baby news this week: J&S had baby Zoe. She's a little early and a skosh under 5 pounds, but she shows the family enthusiasm for food and is gaining weight. A friend of my brother's also had a 2nd child a couple weeks ago and the family ran into my mom at the post office yesterday.
• Went for a nice walk with the boy through a private golf course that seemed to be uphill both ways, which was good for exercise even though we had to take a detour for a little while.
• I've been re-reading Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" (that man can keep me awake nights with his compelling writing) and Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (that man puts me lights out in 10 pages, even with the fascinating topics). I have all sorts of ideas for blogs fermenting in the brainpan as a result of this, but I only seem compelled to do something about it at 3am, at which point I write a note on a piece of paper and go back to bed. So I might go waxing philosophical soon, but at least I've derailed the rage a bit.

LA Festival of Books is this weekend and I'm headed down tomorrow to go hang with my friend and see David Brin, a long time favorite author who I first met in 8th grade at the alternate Space Camp thing I went to.