Technical Difficulties

"Why.the.hell.isn't this working?" I growled. 

"Do you want me to look at your computer?" he sighed.

"No. I just want it to work. It should just work." Like cars. When you put the key in, they should start.

"I wonder if there's some kind of cash award for the person who has the most ridiculous computer problems," he said calmly without looking up from his keyboard.

I glared at him.

"Mom would win," said the 13 year old, which made everyone laugh, except me. 

Posted via web from Julie's posterous

Francine Twist Video Screening

Francine Twist, the renown model/mannequin/ actress from Twist Pop Media will be making her film debut this Tuesday night at Velvet in downtown Bend, Oregon. She'll be available in the lobby for pictures. She can't sign autographs, since she doesn't have hands, sorry.

The films are short (1-2 minutes each) and we'll show them throughout the night. Francine will be there!

Feel free to RSVP over on the Facebook Event page, or just show up! If you'd like to join the Twist Pop Fan Page, we'd love it!

@juliejulie's Bad Hair

Last week I took pictures of my hair every morning, and posted them on Twitter and Facebook.

Some people said I was brave.

Some people said I was crazy.

Turns out maybe I was smart.

Because I haven't seen Rachel Ebarb, my stylist over at Plethora Salon for quite a while, but she saw me on Facebook and told me to get myself and my bad hair over to her chair, stat.

When I got there, I looked like this:

When I left, I looked like this:

If you want Rachel to fix your hair, call her at (541) 788-6601

Yes, for the record, Rachel is one of my blog sponsors, you betcha!

My Dirty Laundry

"Wait! What day is it?" I blurted out in a panic.

"Tuesday," he said calmly, without rolling his eyes.

"There's something I'm supposed to do," I quickly pulled up the calendar on the computer.

"Laundry?" he said hopefully.

"No, no...ah, here it is! Belly dancing."

Bras Bras Bras

Here's the truth: I have too many bras. I'm embarrassed to tell you the exact number. There are so many that I can actually group them into little groups.

If I were the organized type, I'd have custom, labeled dividers in my dresser drawers for each group.

I wonder if Martha Stewart does.

Here are my bra categories, so far:

1. Jog bras (I wrote a post about them once)
2. Sweater bras
3. Professional bras (for work clothes, that's what I mean)
4. Cotton bras
5. Special occasion bras
6. Sex bras

20 years ago, I think I had 3 bras. I'm not quite sure what happened that led me to bra overload, but I'd like to blame a beautiful woman named Nicki, Victoria's Secret, my husband and TJ Maxx.

Nicki: I met her in my 20's when we were both single. She fixed me up with a friend of her boyfriend's, and we'd get ready for dates together at her apartment. I could not help but notice her lovely, fancy matching bras and panties. I'd never spent much money on that stuff. I was far too practical and frugal. "Do guys really care about it?" I asked. "Yes," she said. "I don't even know where to shop for it." "Victoria's Secret," she said.

Victoria's Secret: I went to the mall to check out the store, but couldn't bring myself to spend that much money on undergarments. Seriously, if you get a hot pink bra, you have to get a bunch of hot pink expensive underwear to match, to make it worth it, otherwise you have to wash your one matching pair every day, right? If you stick to reasonably priced black and beige at Macy's? Non issue. I was saving for a trip to Europe. I was not going to blow my savings at Victoria's Secret, especially since I didn't even have a serious boyfriend.

My husband: So I met him, we got married, and he quickly convinced me that money spent on lingerie was money well spent. I bought a few sex bras at Victoria's Secret. I also learned that he complained less about my shoe shopping habits if I bought high heeled boots, especially black leather ones. I was still careful though. I got an orange bra, and a few other colors, but just a few matching panties. Also, the longer you're married and the more children you have, the less the matching thing seems to matter. Not sure why.

TJ Maxx: Here's where the real trouble began. I discovered the bra section after the first kid was born, and I realized my size was going to keep changing for a while. That place has oodles and oodles of very cute bras, very cheap. $4.99 for black silk polka dots and $1.99 for the undies? Uh. Sure. That's cheaper than dinner and a movie.

And so it began. Three kids, 17 years of marriage, and an undisclosed number of bras later, I need a label maker and a professional organizer for my undergarments.

I know this bra problem is also a sign of exuberant consumerism somehow gone awry, and I'd probably have more money in my IRA now if I had less lingerie. I get a sick feeling in my stomach sometimes when I see how much stuff I have and know there are people less fortunate than me and I feel spoiled.

But, here's the thing: a couple years ago, a friend sent me a link to Nicki's blog. I'd lost touch with her, and here she was, married with young children writing a touching diary chronicling her battle with breast cancer, from the horrible beginning and the choice to undergo a double mastectomy, to her triumphant victory back to health, including returning to running and completing her first Race for the Cure.

I read her blog from beginning to end and cried for days. "I remember her breasts," I said to my husband. "They were lovely, she was proud of them, and she had the best bras. I'm so glad she appreciated them while she could."

When I first heard that women were posting their bra color on Facebook, I thought it was silly, a bit voyeuristic, and too much information. Then I read Johanna Turner's article about it in the Washington Post and learned it was a Breast Cancer awareness project, I changed my mind. I posted "Red" that day.

I know my bra's real job is to hold up my boobs. I'm glad mine are healthy, and I'm happy I get to dress them up. So I'll be keeping all my bras, thank you very much, and there's a good chance I'll buy some more in the years ahead.

Pink lace.

Impractical? Yes. But still cheaper than dinner and a movie.

Being Weird

Ideas are pictures. They flash through my brain, in color, instantly.

Sometimes they're a single frame, and sometimes they're more like a quirky, saturated short film shot in Super 8.

A good idea makes me tingle. And then I have to talk about it so I can figure it out all the way.

Some ideas don't work on their own, or they're too early for their own good. But I keep them around anyway, because they worm their way right into another idea later.

I hang out with good listeners so I can bounce the pictures I see in my head up and down and sideways like a super ball in a small room with a hardwood floor. The ideas hit walls and lamps sometimes, but nothing ever breaks. Usually.

And then I just start trying stuff. If people say "how did you come up with this crazy idea?" I try to tell them the story of how 20 years ago I had this one idea that worked it's way into this other idea, and eventually this idea right here became an obvious next thing to try.

But they look at me with glazed eyes and half a smile and say "Oh." Which actually means "You're weird."

As if I didn't know.

Karaoke with The Mannequin

(Downtown Bend, OR) Bo Restobar, in association with A Fine Note Karaoke Too! and Twist Pop Media announces the guest appearance of renowned mannequin, actress, and chanteuse, Francine Twist at Bo Restobar on Saturday, January 9th at 8:00 p.m..

Francine will be performing some of her favorite karaoke songs, accompanied by Jackie Johnson of A Fine Note Karaoke Too!

According to Johnson, the culmination of this event is the result of a lot of research, legwork, begging, and more than a few glasses of wine.

“Francine and I have spoken at length about her love of karaoke and she has finally agreed to grace the popular night spot with her songs and anecdotes about her long and successful acting career.”

Julie Anderson, of Bend’s Twist Pop Media further added, “Francine and I will be at Bo Restobar on Saturday night at 8:00 p.m. for the purpose of filming for Bend’s Where To Eat Guide. We would love to include Bo’s audience in this segment which will be featured on the guide’s web site at www.theeatguide.com/CentralOregon/ and also at www.youtube.com/user/TwistPopMedia.”

Francine will pose with patrons and can even be persuaded to sing a duet or two if you twist her arm. The Where To Eat Guide will provide door prizes such as free Bend restaurant certificates. Admission is free and regular karaoke will follow.

*Follow us live Saturday evening on Twitter at @juliejulie or @FrancineTwist

Where: Bo Restobar (Downtown Bend) on Franklin Ave.

When: Saturday, January 9, 2010 @ 8:00 p.m.

*A Fine Note Karaoke Too!, Bo Restobar, Where to Eat Guide, and Julie Anderson can also be found on Facebook.

More Art for @juliejulie

I'm not a big New Year's Resolution type. Big promises to myself are easily broken. I'd rather take a series of small steps to make big changes in the long run.

I used to make art, and I want to start making it again. It stirs up little threads of happy inside me, which weave their way into everything else I do.

In fact, when my kids were little, I had an art studio set up in the basement along with a potter's wheel and a small kiln. I taught kid's classes 3 days a week and hosted Thursday night wine and clay nights for moms. Joy.

I also painted dots on vintage suitcases and sold them to sophisticated ladies who had style and good taste. Julia Roberts bought the first one I made, so I got instant cred. and galleries and stores around the country took them in on consignment, and I did custom orders.

Life got busy, I gave away my wheel and kiln when we moved, I stopped dabbling in colors and textures, and jumped into words for a while. Now I have a garage full of blank suitcases that aren't sure what their purpose is. They are lonely and unadorned. It's sad for them.

I'm ready to start playing with art again. I want to explore more mixed media, so I called my friend Sondra Holtzman, a local artist who teaches and travels around in her fun, vintage trailer, which we named "Artstream" so she can take her art classes on the road.

Sondra and I are partnering up to help each other. I'll write about her Traveling Studio, and show her how to use digital media (including Twitter, where she's @ArtSondra) to push her business, and she'll teach me how to get the images that swirl around in my head onto surfaces.

Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

My Best Kiss Ever

Let's talk about the fine art of kissing. You know, a good, old fashioned lip lock.

Wikipedia: A kiss is the touching of one's lips to another person or object, used to express love, passion, affection, respect, greeting, and good luck. The word comes from Old English cyssan "to kiss", in turn from coss "a kiss". The act of kissing has become a common expression of affection among people, but, until modern times, however, kissing was unknown to certain cultures, such as aborigines, Tahitians, and many tribes in Africa.

No kissing in Tahiti? Even with those beautiful beaches, glorious sunsets and fruity drinks with the little umbrellas? How sad for them.

Ok, here's the best romantic kiss I ever had (you know, before I met my husband, who's the love of my life and a great kisser etc. etc.) and it involves a stranger.

I don't remember the guy's last name, and I can't remember exactly what he looked like, but I'm pretty sure I looked like the lady in this picture, except I was not naked. And he wasn't either. And also, we weren't sitting on a rock, and he didn't actually kiss me on the lips, but I'd like to think I looked like this lady. I'm sure I felt the way she looks, does that count?

So anyway. I was 24. I was on a solo trip through Europe with my backpack and Rick Steve's Europe Through the Back Door book. I had some lovely moments during that trip, including a near religious experience with the colors pink and gold which I wrote about here before, but the truth is, I was lonely.

I would arrive in a new town, find the youth hostel, bravely look around for a friendly face, then start seeing the sites, either with some new friends if I was lucky enough to meet some, or alone. When my bravery wore out, I would sit somewhere and write in my journal, pretending I was in a movie I was writing about myself.

Somehow, somewhere, maybe in Denmark, I met a nice young woman who said I should visit her home town in Bruge, Beligum. So a few weeks later, I did. I called her when I got there, right after I met some American college kids in the hostel.

My friend said I could meet her at her parents house in town for "lunchments" (hey, her English was way better than my dutch!) which was very generous, and it would have been a fantastic opportunity to get to know some locals, just like Rick Steves said I should do.

But after breifly hemming and hawing, I said no thanks, because two of the college kids were male, and both of them were cute, and they had just met another girl in the lobby while we were all checking in, and they wanted me to ride bikes down to the seaside with them. So of course I did.

One thing I did learn on this 3 month solo journey was if you're traveling in and out of new cities and new friendships every day, you have to make split decisions that you might regret later, but you can't waste too much time worrying about them, or you'll miss all the fun.

And I had what I felt was an instant connection with the regular looking red-headed boy in the lobby, so I was going to pursue it, lunchments or no lunchments.

The tall dark and handsome boy should have been a natural choice, especially since he was paying attention to me. But my split second radar knew Handsome was a boring dud, and Red was the one for me. Unfortunately, the other girl liked Red too, which really steamed me. Obviously, her radar was just as good as mine.

Since I'm the writer here, I'm tempted to say the other girl was an irritating floozy with sawdust for brains who lured young men in with her Sorority Girl charm and good looks, then dumped them by the side of the road on the way home from the sea, after she got her fill of attention and free drinks.

But I can't say that. Because that'd be lying. Because actually she was smart and funny she was nice to me. And I knew my lonely self needed to hang out with her just as much as I needed to flirt with the boys.

So we got on our bikes and rode to the sea.

It took 45 minutes to get there, and Sorority Girl and Red were much faster than Handsome and me, so they were way ahead the whole time, chatting and giggling. I was hot and sweaty and irritated, and not in the mood to make small talk with Handsome, who didn't have much to say anyway.

I don't remember much of the sea in Belgium, except that it looked like all the other beaches I'd seen in Northern Europe. Sorority girl and Red were clearly flirting with each other, I was hungry, and the restaurant food was expensive, and I thought "Damn. I should have gone to the local's house for the lunchments."

We decided to ride back to the Hostel in time for happy hour which featured cheap food and cheap beer. 45 minutes later I was still tired and hungry, but now were all sitting together at a table, so I thought I had a chance with Red, since I'm good at talking to a captive audience.

Alas, Sorority girl continued to match my wit and charm long into the night. She had a better story than I did. She was a computer science girl and just finished her MBA. She was going back home to Colorado (of course, Colorado, she was cute, althletic, outdoorsy, and she's probably a tech start up millionaire by now) leaving her boyfriend in France after spending the summer with him. She needed to figure out her life. She wasn't sure she wanted to stay with him. She missed America.

Poor.little.thing.

I was from Oregon, with degrees in Fine Arts and English, had just finished a two year stint as a nanny, and was going back to Palo Alto to teach drama at a private school. I know, I know. Not much to work with.

Handsome was an engineer, just starting out somewhere. Of course. He probably works for Sorority girl now, at Google, after she sold her first 3 startups during the tech bubble years.

Red? Well, he had finished grad school on the east coast and this trip was his graduation present from his parents. There was something about history and economics thrown in. He's probably a senator now. Too bad I can't remember his last name. I might be tempted to ask him if he'd like to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail.

I was trying to flirt and made some lame joke about history, but he didn't really get it. Or he did and it wasn't funny. And then their was an awkward silence. His radar must have confirmed that I liked him (duh!) but so did she, and she was so much smoother than me, in many, many ways.

And then he tried to be nice to me, as charity, which made it worse. Because I knew I'd lost.

We all went to our bunkbeds at the same time in the co-ed dorms, so I knew no one slept together, which I hadn't really expected, since we were all just nice kids traveling around, not really looking to hook up, but still. Lonely girls do hope for things, sometimes. Things that might turn into good scenes in the movies in their journals.

Sorority Girl and Red realized they were both leaving for the same ferry early in the morning (or sure, of course she would be on the same ferry...) so they set an alarm so they'd get up at the crack of dawn.

I heard their alarm go off and listened to them rustle around and hurry in the early morning light.

"We're late!" she gasped, as she grabbed her pack off her bunk, "We'll have to run!"

"Go!" he whispered from the bed below me as he threw things in his bag and quickly put on his shoes, "I'll catch up." And so she did.

I sat up then, to watch her go. I wanted to say goodbye, but it was too late.

He stood up then and faced me, as my feet dangled off the edge of the top bunk, nearly kicking him. The top bunks were low, he was tall, and my knees landed near his stomach.

He stood still, as I looked at him, and he looked at me. He didn't say a word, and neither did I, but he reached up, and put his arms around my neck. I put my hands on his shoulders, without really thinking.

And then he leaned in slowly and deliberately, and kissed my neck. Twice. Right in that spot below my chin and to the right, that makes me melt. As if he knew me. He looked at me again, all the way, and touched my cheek with his finger. And I realized I had stopped breathing.

And then he quickly picked up his bag, and ran out the door to catch the ferry. And I never regretted missing the lunchments again.

“Since the invention of the kiss, there have only been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.”