Wow. I never saw grease land on a squeaky wheel so fast! The powers that be at the film festival happened to hear my blog plea & waved their magic wand... I suddenly have a ticket to the Chinese restaurant film! How nice! I wasn't even thinking it could happen like that... I mean heck, I was just kvetching, like I do... Indigo the kvetch-o-matic... (If you know me, you know how true that is.) Anyway, it all gives me a case of the cozy-community warm fuzzies. Awww :)

I was already in a good mood anyway because I spent the evening at a really fun baby shower where we all stuffed ourselves with awesome African food (too bad I don't eat goat because the carnivores at the party swore it was delectable), plus bakery treats from the Bovine Bakery in Pt. Reyes. Yum! I'm so full now....

Oh, I am so bummed! The Chinese restaurant movie was the second film to sell out at the SF International Asian American Film Festival! I went to buy tickets yesterday & they said they had sold out the day before! Doh!

The first film to sell out was the opening night gala feature, so I guess I should take this as a good sign that people are so madly interested in Chinese restaurants. But still, I can't believe I'm gonna have to stand in the hope line, praying that I get in. Don't you think that I, of all people, need to see this film? I mean, normally I don't go around thinking of myself as somehow more special than other people, but in this case I hope you'll agree I've been paying my dues. Haven't I? Or is all this grant proposal writing warping my perspective? (Probably.)

It just keeps getting better... now wonderful folks from all over the country are sending bouquets to queers waiting in line to get married. When have you ever seen such positive news? This article made me cry... especially since I have such a weak spot for flowers in the first place.

Can Chinese take-out be far behind? You get hungry waiting in that long line....

The menu senders are enthusiastic! Today's mail brought a batch from New Zealand & Australia. One from NZ features "Chop Suey Patty" in their Fish & Chips section. What on earth could a chop suey patty be?! No, wait, don't answer that.

Thanks to the wide-traveling, food-obsessed Barry Popik for locating Don Lee in Panama (I think). Check out the Chop Suey page!

Okay. It's gonna be a while now before I say anything bad about Gavin Newsom. "Extraordinary mettle," indeed! Go Gavin! (Really I never thought I'd say that.) Oh, & hey, nicely written editorial.

In Chinese restaurant news, a truly unique menu arrived in the mail: it's the first one sent to me by the restaurant owner herself!!! (Well, that I know of anyway.) It's the oldest Chinese restaurant in Mississippi, owned by one family since 1968! How cool is that? Right when I'm plotting & planning my trip to Mississippi! Quite auspicious, don't you think? & very endearing, how they abbreviate Egg Foo Young as EFY. I don't think I've seen that before. Also: fried catfish filet appears on both the main Chinese menu and the little "American Dishes" section. I am so into this!

On the Official Website of the State of Alabama practically the first thing you see is a very user-friendly list titled "I want to:" Now try guessing what four things are on the list before you peek. Think about what people might need most often when they go to their state website. Hint: "Open a Chinese restaurant" isn't one of them. Tells you a lot about the place. Either that, or their website content needs tweaking.

This little nutrition experiment is ten years old, but still totally fascinating... I wish they'd included crab rangoon as one of their test items! I love how they give you advice on how to make the dishes more healthy: add rice to lo mein?!! Pick the breading off sweet & sour pork?!! I'm sorry, I can't help laughing my snide little laugh. It would be so easy to say some really mean things at this point... well, to tell the truth, it's taking everything I've got not to. Can we leave it at "you reap what you sow"?

Not sure what exactly makes some folks think I'm a man... in all the miscellaneous links, blurbs & blog postings that other people have written about this project (& about my work in general), I'd say about 15% of the time they refer to me as male. Could it be the -o ending in Indigo? That would at least explain it for people who speak Spanish or Italian. (On the other hand, I do remember someone in Mexico calling me Indigito once, which makes perfect sense to me. Indigita would be kind of a stretch for the name Indigo, wouldn't it? Which is stronger, language or gender? Oh, it's too much to go there! Let's not.)

I guess the male -o convention bleeds over into English fairly strongly, or strongly enough anyway. Although some female names do end in -o. Almost all the other Indigos I've met or heard of have been female. Not that there's so many -- maybe 2 males & a handful of females. I dunno; when I look at my work or read my statement I think it's quite obvious I'm a chick, but not everybody seems to agree. Whatever... it's just something I've noticed....

Or, of course, I could go ahead & be suspicious about it: what, you don't think a woman would have the audacity to ask for every last Chinese takeout menu in the whole dang country?