I'm at home at the moment, but right after I finish this post I'll be heading back over to West L.A., where I am once again housesitting for those friends of mine from the Shoah Foundation. Honestly, I've realized that I really don't like housesitting, but I guess the fact that it is more or less free money makes it hard to turn such a thing down. I mean, when you think about it, you get paid to do nothing more than sleep and feed whatever pets the people might have. These people have two cats that are quite vicious. Normally I like cats, but these two tend to irritate me with all their hissing and scratching and "don't-come-near-me" growls.

Once you housesit for a person sucessfully (i.e., you don't burn their house down or kill their pets) then you usually end up being their default housesitter. Erika understands this phenomenon all too well, as she always used to housesit for people. It seemed like every two months she would be housesitting somewhere. I guess if you don't burn a house down then you tend to get a reputation and when people need a housesitter then they are referred to you. As of yet, I've not been referred to anybody else. I keep waiting for an opportunity to somehow housesit for some people with a mansion in the Hollywood Hills or something, but for now I'll just have to settle for watching over their somewhat modest apartment. They are aspiring screenwriters, though, so maybe one day they will sell a script and make it big and then buy a house in the Hills and then ask me to stay there while they take a 7 month trip around the world or something.

Back in 1999, I used to housesit in Vista quite often for the mother of this girl, Robyn McElliot, whom I was sort of dating at the time. They had this really old dog with all kinds of gross sores and stuff and these really infected ears that needed to be medicated everyday. Further, this dog was notorious for not bothering to go outside, much less even stand up, when she had to pee. She was a really a nice dog, actually, but there comes a point when a dog really ought to just be put out of its misery. But, no...they kept her alive. I guess I didn't really mind. I mean, if there was no dog then there'd be no housesitting job, and no free money.

Speaking of keeping pets alive too long, Kim Price's family used to have this cat named Buster that was approximately 19 years old. Again, the cat was really nice but he was also quite...foul. It seemed like almost every day some part of him would be ready to fall off or something. Sometimes, we'd see him just lying there and we'd sneak up and gently poke him just to make certain that he hadn't passed.

He died on December 31, 1997, which was actually the same day that I had to have my cat, Cinder, put to sleep. It mind sound strange, but that was probably one of the saddest days of my life. I'd had that cat since I was ten years old...thirteen years. And then her kidneys gave out. It's sort of strange to know exactly when a virtual family member is going to die...to have an appointment to have them put to sleep. The last night with her was actually more sad than the day she died. She slept on my bed with me for one last time, all curled up beside me, not moving. It was kind of weird, but it seemed almost like she knew. I know...she probably didn't...but it sure seemed that way.

Anyway, now that I've succeeded in getting myself all choked up, I think I'll change the subject.

I had a headache for most of the day Sunday, and I'm still not feeling 100%. It was a self-induced headache, though...that is to say it was quite a massive hangover. On Saturday night, a friend of mine from the Shoah Foundation, John Antolos, had a birthday party at his house in Lawndale. Most of the old gang was there, as well as some other friends of his I'd never met before. All in all, it was a good time...so good that I didn't get back to the apartment I was staying at until about 5:30 Sunday morning. I woke up around one in the afternoon and managed to make my way across to the other side of the bed where the phone was so I could call Katie because we had made tentative plans, and I wanted to see if they were still on. She agreed to come out to West L.A. so that I could recover a bit longer.

When she arrived, we went over to a Cajun restaurant called Bourbon Street at the corner of Pico and Veteran. It's one of my favorite restaurants. In fact, once while I was eating there, they were filming an episode of Blind Date, and the camera crew got mad at my friends and I because we got in the way of one of their shots, so they had to do it over. Reality TV, indeed.

Anyway, after eating, we went over to Westside Pavilion because she wanted to do some Christmas shopping. I'm still trying to decide if I can afford to do any this year. I actually like buying people presents and last year I was not able to afford it. I'm thinking I might be able to do some this year.

After shopping, I made the drive over to go to church in Pasadena. Sitting through a church service with a hangover...there's an interesting double standard for you. But I won't go too much into that.

For dinner, I once again had cajun food. I don't think I've ever eated cajun twice in the same day. I joined Jamie Orellana, Christy Shay and this one guy named Fady El Deiry at a cajun restaurant in Monrovia. Afterwards I stopped by here and was planning on staying only briefly but got caught up in watching some programs on Tivo.

I've become quite...well...taken...by that miniseries Taken that is currently running on Sci Fi. I really hadn't planned on watching it, but I just happened to catch the first episode and was surprised at how good it was. I've heard talk of making it a regular series...personally, I think that'd be a mistake. Just because something makes a good miniseries does not mean it would make a good TV series...one need look no further than V to understand that.