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Tonight I talked with Parker Posey’s best friend!!! It was one of the more star-struck moments of my life (and gosh do I feel like a dork now).

Reverse time. Here’s the scene:

Several weeks ago: Amy and I sit down to figure out what movies to see at the film festival. “Oooh,” I say, “this one has Parker Posey in it! We must go!”

9:07 p.m. tonight: Amy and I leave the house for movie number 4 of the five we’re seeing this film fest. We take Spruce/South Streets into Center City, and spend the next 33 minutes looking for parking. Frantic, we go into the Holiday Inn Express parking lot off of Juniper and … um … two blocks south of Chestnut. Maybe Walnut.

9:44 p.m.: We dash into the sold-out Adam & Steve and head right to the front, knowing that the only seats that will be open are up there. Amazingly, we find 5 seats open in third row, and take them. Sitting next to us is a co-worker of mine and his partner (Hi Jeffrey!), and their friend, who just happens to be the writer/director’s assistant. Wave to Terry, dad of Lilly the dog, sitting a few rows behind us. Breathe for the first time in fifteen minutes, knowing that we won’t miss a thing.

9:50 p.m.: Craig Chester, the writer and director and main star of Adam & Steve, accepts an Artistic Achievement Award from the film festival. He is funny and makes us laugh.

9:55 p.m.: Movie starts. When Parker Posey’s name flashes in the opening credits, people clap. Hilarity ensues. I was laughing out loud for most of the movie. Apparently, it will be released in January to a larger audience (although I wasn’t sure if that meant in theaters or on DVD - I *hope* in theaters!) If you like slapstick humor and a good comedic farce, plus a few (too) brief moments of Robert-Smith-meets-Dee-Snyder surrealism, you’ll enjoy the film. Oh, and Parker Posey is in it. And she makes every film she’s in better.

11:45 p.m.: Film ends, lots of clapping, and Craig Chester gets back on-stage to answer questions. Peter Paige (from Queer as Folk, and from the movie we saw earlier in the day, “Say Uncle“) asks a question and gets a laugh from the audience. Craig confides that Parker is one of his best friends, and that many lines from the movie were lifted directly from conversations the two of them had. If I could have squealed out loud like a schoolgirl, I would have. Keep self quiet.

11:55 p.m.: Q&A ends, and people start to leave. As we walk out of the third row, Craig Chester is right there with my co-worker’s friend. CC looks at us and smiles, and I thank him for making such a fun movie. He smiles back, and asks if we’re together, and then says, “I love it when couples come to my movies!” Amy tells him that when we saw Parker Posey was in this, we had to come. And I tell him that we then found him too! Resist second urge to squeal out loud, and take our leave.

12:00 p.m.: Near the exit of the theater, Amy pipes up to the standing-there Peter Paige, telling him that she liked his movie earlier in the day. I ramble something incoherent as well, thanking him for making such a powerful film. He is kind and gracious, and has the most winning smile you’ve ever seen.

12:02 p.m.: Outside, we squeal like schoolgirls. We have talked with two actors who are actually well-known (in a certain community, anyway)! Then we begin the what-if game, and decide on the ride home that Parker will, indeed, know about us before the month is over, because her best friend will surely remember the two cute girls at the film who said goodbye to his assistant’s friend, with whom he will certainly talk tonight. And he will pass on our fandom to Parker, who will track us down and mail us some small press photo that she has signed, or something like that.

And that is how my Saturday night went. Parking karma early in the day, and Real Live Famous People later in the night. I couldn’t ask for more!

I picked up David Allen’s book Getting Things Done a couple of days ago, after hearing a lot about it at work and on various blogs I read.

So my first steps have been to start thinking about what I do and how I do it. And the second step? This is what I accomplished for the first time in ages today:

And empty work inbox! What a thing of glory!

This weekend the 11th annual Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival hit town. Last year I saw a couple of movies, but this year, Amy and I decided to splurge and see 5 films.

Saturday we joined friends Erin and Moya for Dyke Life - Shorts, a series of short films. Getting to Know You, Prom-toversy, and PRIIDE: People Really Interested in Dating Etiquette were my three favorites. Harigata, while it looked amusing on paper, was really weird, long, and, frankly, boring. Some Real Fangs was a rather cute vampire flick, although the dance numbers were strange. As soon as it finished, I leaned over to the people I was with and said, “That film felt Canadian.” Sure enough, it was!

Today we saw The D Word, a spoof on Showtime’s flick The L Word, as well as the short Straight Hike for the Butch Dyke. SH was cute - set in Wellington, New Zealand, four straight girly-girls try to soften up Libby, a soccer-playing, buzz-cut-sporting, rainbow-flag-displaying lesbian, with amusing results (one of the Femme 4 ends up being her date for the night, and the other three girls, while surprised, are delightfully supportive.) The D Word skewered the most annoying parts of The L Word with utter glee and abandon. Dot (or Bette) is a dominating, overbearing jerk. Drea (or Shane) is a sleazebag galore who has women alternately throwing themselves at her feet and throwing bags filled with dog waste at her head. But by far the best character was Dani (or Jenny), who I’d rather like to see REPLACE Jenny on the L Word. The actress who played her really deserves a role in the Showtime production, and then they can write out Jenny. Maybe Dani could be her long-lost twin sister who’s been living a parallel life in New York City……

Next weekend we’re going to see Say Uncle, Adam & Steve, and Chicken Tikka Masala. Should be fun!

Tab-tastic: Use 3M Post-its to mark how much to read on daily on a library book so you don’t have to return it late!

I wonder if this idea could somehow be applied to knitting…. Great lifehack!

Some days, I realize how soft I’ve gotten in libraryland.

No, I’m not talking about my body. Rather, I’m talking about my ability to relate to a segment of the library-patron world that just doesn’t come here all that often.

Today, I’m talking about the returning-to-school in-late-middle-age doesn’t-like-to-use-computers can’t-type will-you-do-it-for-me patron. In past library lives, working at medium-to-large public institutions, I regularly helped people in that category, and helped them help themselves. But working here, in the suburbs, at a primarily residential small private liberal arts college library with an overwhelming majority of traditionally-aged students, I’m just not used to those patrons anymore. Today was my lucky day.

The question? The patron, bless said patron’s soul, was looking for a smallish book of a particular color that s/he found at a different library (up the road where s/he’s taking classes) a while ago but when s/he went back to check it out, it was gone. And it might have been in one of three or five different Dewey classifications that s/he had scratched onto a piece of paper (we use LC). And it was maybe on a particular topic (but s/he didn’t have a title). Possibly. Maybe.

I’m soft. And weak. If I had to walk into a public library to make my living tomorrow, I’d be eaten alive. My library-flesh smells new all over again. Run!