Kvell Time

The SJG  with my bro'/frequent commenter John Starr and boyfriend Tim Ford

Carla Malden at her Barnes & Noble book signing for "AfterImage"

The other night, the SJG trekked to Santa Monica.  That's right, you heard me.  I got out of the Valley and it felt good.  Only took me 45 minutes to enjoy an ocean breeze.  On the way, I passed my old house, my old apartment, my old Junior High, my old High School.  The operative word here is old, which is what I felt passing these Westside landmarks that reminded me I was young once, and carefree.  Oh wait, I was never carefree.  But I was young.  I arrived at my brother John's house around 5ish.  His dog Lucky immediately jumped on my new black pants and tried to mount me from behind.  I went with it.  I'm a total ho' when it comes to dogs. 

I believe my words went something like this:  "Who's a good boy!  Gimme some love."  And he did.  John and Tim (aka:  the Timmy) and I then went to the 3rd St. Promenade, and John pointed out all the outfits in store windows he thought I should have worn for Carla's book signing. Most of them involved sparkly tops, bikini tops and scandalously low, draw-string pants.  I fired him as my fashion consultant.  I know what works on me.  We ate Greek food and laughed about many things and went two doors down to Barnes & Noble.  Carla was right there in the window.  Her book and photo.  She was upstairs, looking lovely.  Seeing her poster was just the first of many kvell-worthy moments that evening.  Many people showed up.  Many people kvelled and sobbed as she read passages from her amazing book "AfterImage."  It was a wonderful, memorable event, one I'll treasure forever.  We are so proud of Carla (not to mention her daughter Cami, who took the glam shots I've included here) that we could have screamed non-stop.  But we are too classy to call attention to ourselves like that.  So instead we applauded, we wept openly, we blew our noses, we did a lot of hugging.  We hugged people we know.  We hugged people we don't know.  We're huggers.  It's what we do.  I'll hug you if you're not careful.  And then we went home.  In my case, back to Sherman Oaks, a place devoid of ocean breezes, but a nice place, nonetheless.