Keith’s house isn’t exactly a bar, but this was brilliant, it was banter and we were all huddled around the kitchen island, surrounded by whiskey bottles, gin and tonic in a can and a damn fine spread of gourmet food.

“They’re trying to figure out what’s causing the salmonella . . . ” I said.

The chef replied, “Rabid salmon.”

I’ve decided to create a new category entitled “Brilliant Bar Side Banter” dedicated to that brilliant drunken banter that sometimes occurs during a night out on the town. Here’s the first . . .

* * * * * * * * * * *

He’s legal - barely, sexy and knows it. A bit haughty, but not snotty. He purred, “I like my women with strong jawlines.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I understand. Sometimes I like my boys a little metro.”

“I like to wear lacey panties!” he fired back instantaneously.

1. Take a nap. For as long as I want. This may take a couple of days.

2. Take a nice long bath. If I can find a bathtub. Except for one fleeting moment, I’ve had only shower access for months. Strange.

3. Pamper my feet. This article explains how chipped nail polish is all in vogue. Apparently chipped toe polish is still faux pas. Here I go again, forging new trends without even knowing it.

4. Read an entire book. One whole book.

5. Find a rain storm to stand in the middle of.

6. Write.

7. Go on a serious bender.

8. Detox.

9. Light something on fire.

10. Abide.

I’m in gypsy mode until October, this I know for sure. I am VERY happy about this. I’ve had offers to hang out on two different farms in two completely different climes. A friend has already cleared out a spare room in her Chicago brownstone and calls me weekly, insisting I move in. One of my dearest friends just finished his house in the Sacred Valley of Peru and said to me last fall, “Anna, you know one of the extra bedrooms was built just for you.” Another friend has volunteered his place as a Northern California launchpad, should I want to follow the hankering to acquire a little cabin in the Redwood Forest. It’s nice to have options. And great friends and family.

My stuff is still spread across three states - bungalow in Venice, art studio in Mar Vista, a storage unit in ABQ with all my personal effects and art projects that I want to work on for this year. And my car is parked at a lot near the ABQ airport - where it will stay most likely til the beginning of August.

I’m most likely heading to Nashville in a couple of weeks. Going to go watch some lightning bugs do their dance out in the middle of nowhere. That sounds just about perfect. I’m still traveling with my cat, and thankfully, he’s less reluctant now than when we first began our adventure together in February. I’m keeping it simple for the few weeks after I finally jet out of South Carolina (and, really who knows when that will be) - I’m going to try to make it all around Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and possibly Missouri without having to rent a car.

I’m also kicking around the radical idea of skipping that thing in the desert this year. Shocking! I really love BRC and it saddens me to think that I may not be sniffing playa dust this Labor Day. The theme is “The American Dream.” And serendipitously, my American Dream is within grasp and could be very well catapulted forward if I can just stay put this summer (within reason, of course) and find a spot without distractions and get to the doing.

‘Cause these books are already written, if you know what I’m saying. I just have to sit down and write them.

Eh, fuck it, possibly against my better judgement . . . I’m putting it out there anyway . . .

Drew Barrymore, you and I should totally go roller skating. Because I’m a cool-ass chick. And you’re a cool-ass chick. We both, in fact, kick ass. And we’d have lots of adventure stories to swap. And we’re both smokin’ hot.

I’m a crazy quad-rollin’ artist adventurer who has been cruising the Venice Beach boardwalk for years. I’ve taken wheel to South Carolina, Chicago and Albuquerque parking lots, streets and sidewalks. I’ve skated into Polish pubs in Chicago, pigtails flaring. I’ve busted ass on the woodsy trails in Columbia. I’ve spun my wheels in ‘Burque hotel parking lots. My skating outfit features slight camel toe and I am not afraid to show it.

Through a very strange course of events, I just happen to be traveling the open road with only a suitcase, my skates and my cat. So, Drew Barrymore, this is an open invitation. Some of my dearest friends just went on location to work on your roller derby movie. I was really tempted to take a job in their accounting department . . . but, I just really need a summer hiatus from motion picture accounting. You know . . . so I can roller skate more. I’ll be traveling in that general direction within days or weeks anyway for my own personal business. So, if you wanna roller skate with me, by all means, let me know.

And if not, that’s cool, I’m gonna keep on rolling along wherever it is I go. . . But if this proposal piques your interest in any way, I’ll be there in hours . . . I just replaced the trucks on my skates. My jingle-bell pom’s pom’s are ready to go.

On a film production, the office space is always in some dirty, janky hole. The wiring and computers are never quite ergonomically set-up, there are always some kind of little annoying hoops to jump through and we all just kind of deal with it because the nature of our jobs are reactionary and very temporary. I’ve battled sandstorms, critters, paint fumes, lack of windows and insane property owners in the past . . . here’s the list of annoyances and funny details about this particular place.

1. The Asbestos! There are notices pasted on the walls cautioning that any dust created here could release asbestos. Great! (I think you’re OK if you don’t lick the windowsills, but I’ve taped everything to my walls in lieu of thumb-tacking.)

2. Hot Water Heater and Cardboard box holding pen = same tiny closet. That’s smart.

3. The front door handle mysteriously broke yesterday. Great, one more thing. You can get inside, but you just can’t leave.

4. The lamp lights flicker (only in my windowless room) in tandem with the copy machine. Every day I have a seizure right around noon.

5. A family of hawks live on top of the building.

6. The upside down bathtub in the parking lot has been here for at least two years - left behind by a different film company.

7. Betty White is tired of your shit! It’s true. The sign in the women’s restroom says so.

8. The Indian sari that hangs on my office wall is a portal to another dimension. (Just checkin’ to see if you are paying attention.)

9. The carpet smells kinda funny from when the place had homeless squatters living here.

10. We have an infestation of palmetto bugs . . . in the water fountain.

My friend FoodRockzMan left a DIY blog tag option on his website recently. So I’ve tagged myself. Here are the questions and my answers.

What was I doing ten years ago?
Gulp and Ha-ha! I was in film school and it was also the year I got married. (If you know me now, it’s hard to believe that whole married part, right?)

What are five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today?
1. Get clean towels from hotel attendant.
2. Read at least one chapter of Joan Didion’s “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”
3. roller skate the mall parking lot.
4. Upload some new pix to this website
5. Start on/finish the “Where’s The Toilet” guest blog article

Five snacks I enjoy:
1. hummus
2. red wine
3. almonds
4. anything with pesto
5. chocolate

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Pay off my parent’s house
2. Acquire numerous little getaway places for myself, friends and family
3. Get the best medical help available for my step-mother
4. Check out of society for awhile - get some folks together and galavant back-pack style around the world
5. Give alot of money away

Places I’ve lived (an incomplete list):
1. Village in Illinois
2. Bungalow in Venice, CA
3. Tambo in the rainforest of Peru
4. Brownstone in Chicago, IL
5. Hotel in Washington, DC

Jobs I’ve had:
1. waitress
2. traveling sex toy saleslady
3. Naturalist working with inner city kids
4. Motion Picture Accountant
5. Corn Detassler

So, I like the fact that I got to ‘Tag’ myself. I’d like to see if this can perpetuate. If you’d like to tag yourself, then leave a comment on this page linking to your own site and get to it already!

Ok, so here I am this morning. Drinking black coffee. Headphones in. It must be working, because no one is fucking with me and I’m powering through work. I have not been motivated for a few weeks. Because every single day, it’s like, “Oh shit, what kind of BS will go down today?” The waiting game is over. We’re all going home. This nightmare has ended. The ennui has lifted because the uncertainty has dried up.

And even though all the crew has descended upon our office and are frantically wrapping out all their gear and paperwork, NO ONE has bothered me. And that’s good. I’m all jumpy and jittery. And cranking it out.

It occurred to me this morning that one must know what one wants in order to make what they want to happen actually come about. And what I want is to wrap this thing up and move on. Head ‘em up, move ‘em out.

I’m kicking around the idea of futzing around my family farm for the summer. Anybody wanna help me build a structure there . . . ? As in a permanent structure? There’s nothing there but cricks and trees and rabbits and hawks and deer and snakes and a well and maybe a usable foundation for a house. And potential. And plenty of room . . .

I’ve been absent from the blog world for a week now. It’s that pesky ennui that’s raised it’s ugly head once again - this time a dichotomous cocktail combo of equal parts fuckitol, bliss and adrenaline - served up over copious amounts of cold beer.

I don’t really want to get into the details of the show I’m working on, mostly because I’m still working on it. But suffice to say we are a major motion picture with big name stars and the ’studio’ we’re working with is consistently famous for not delivering their part of the bargain - the money - on time. And I work in accounting. So one could see the conflict of interest were I to divulge lots of sensitive info.

We’ve been shut down six times. SIX! Making a movie is like building a small city, starting from absolutely nothing but thin air and cranking out an infrastructure for a medium-sized metropolis in a matter of about five weeks. And to build it takes lots of human effort, resources, time and M-O-N-E-Y. Big money. Tracking the money required to make a movie is like being timed by the final countdown of a rocketship outside your bedroom window while juggling and trying to shove millions of dollars through a leaky pipeline the circumference of a garden hose all at the same time - and that’s just on a movie with no problems.

Half of my work day on this particular circus is spent quite literally chasing my tail . . . can’t track what’s not paid, can’t pay without money, can’t deliver estimates and reports when everything is starting, stopping and then lurching forward again - only to be cut off again because no one is getting paid. And let’s face it . . . all of us who’ve joined up with the circus that is filmmaking love it . . . but at the end of the bloody, sweaty, tear-filled day . . . we want our goddamned paychecks.

I’m just fried. My brain is kaput. I cannot even speak in coherent sentences these days. I even managed to forget that the summer solstice was June 20. It’s eat, work, work, work, beer, jager bombs, sleep (fitfully), coffee and how did I manage to turn all three fucking alarms off and not remember - again?

Not that I haven’t been party to many interesting episodes of hilarity, debauchery and good ole fashioned trouble, because with me, that’s an absolute given. Details forthcoming somehow . . . oh don’t ya’ll worry. I’m having a good time here, despite the grueling work schedule. I’m happy and laughing, making new friends and moving through life at warp speed.

But all of these high-highs and low-lows are causing my brain to process at the speed of X plus 2 = lettuce. Maybe it’s the seven days of work in a row. Maybe it’s angst inside me welling up because after this clusterf*ck ends, I’m not really sure where I’m going to live next. Yet somehow I feel extraordinarily free, like my arms are wide open and I’m standing in the middle of a field with a gentle breeze blowing and I’m breathing deep, deep breaths.

At the end of the day, I probably wouldn’t change any of this miracle that I’ve created for myself - it’s just that sometimes, the ability to speak/think escapes me.

I woke up this morning and found a chicken foot in my purse.

Perhaps I should explain myself. Last night, being Friday the 13th and all, we decided it would be a good idea to dress up like zombies. I mean, why not?

First, remember that I am in Columbia, South Carolina. I have found some cool kats here to hang with, but this is a fairly small, conservative southern city. The longer I’m here, the more interesting individuals I find, but for the most part, this is a very traditional place where the general public doesn’t understand the burning need to act goofy.

The plan: get dressed up like zombies, go to a rock show at The Whig - the local hipster-ish bar, which is located underneath the ABC newsroom across from the Capitol building - get drunk, get drunker, get rowdy . . . and eat some brains.

And of course, one cannot just be a zombie. Zombie-ness of it’s own accord is so blasé. Everyone had to be a different kind of zombie. Our party of five included fairy tale zombie, hippie mama zombie voodoo madame zombie, Yankee’s fan zombie (a sure way to be the world’s most hated zombie), military private-zombie first class, and then there was me - the zombie hooker.

I left the hotel dressed in completely inappropriate clothing, including a very short dress with a clear vinyl window in the chest, snagged garter belt stockings and platform boots. Perfect! The funniest part about the whole outfit is that I didn’t even have to go shopping for any portion of it. Remember, I flew into SC one month ago with only one rolling duffle bag - with a tent and sleeping bag crammed inside, leaving room for very few items of clothing - and one box of work stuff. I’d packed the dress and hose because of Flipside, so I figured I should maximize the usage of all the items I’d lugged out here with me - thus, the zombie hooker was born.

There was an email floating around from the band that encouraged costumes, but I had no idea what to expect. I’d gotten off work a bit late, so by the time I got to Michelle’s place to apply the zombie make-up, it was late. I didn’t have time to apply any rotting flesh to my face, but by the time I was done smearing on the acrylic paint, adding some black lipstick and some blood, I was satisfied with the look.

I’ve noticed every time I go to The Whig, I get the stranger stare-down. I think this is because everybody there knows everybody else. By the time we arrived to The Whig, the band was already playing. I was the first to walk in the door. I flung it open and tromped right on in with gusto. My South Carolina Zombie Posse poured in behind me with a flurry of flashbulbs, feathers, hollow eyes . . . and a thirst for brains.

No one else in the entire place was dressed up - except for us and the band. I mean one guitar player was wearing a dress and the trumpet player wore a sparkly cape, so really, does that even count? We proceeded to execute our plan anyway. The band was awesome, performing completely improvised music and songs for several hours and they sounded great. This is not easy to do and I’m impressed with the quality of these musicians.

We indeed got drunk and drunker, danced and created much merriment and generated lots of gawks from Friday night revelers. After awhile I pseudo-forgot I was in zombie hooker attire and became comfortable stepping into the role of watching people watch me. This proved to be an interesting people study. I find that you can be in a dark bar in a conservative small town, show up dressed in a manner that some may find offensive, act with complete confidence anyway and people kind of accept it after the first 20 minutes when the shock wears off.

Some people asked “Why are ya’ll dressed like that?”

We answered, “Br-r-rai-i-ins!” and just kept dancing.