Oh hai.

I had a really fantastic weekend. I got to spend Thursday evening and Friday afternoon with my friend Candice and her daughter Audrey. I used to call her Baby Audrey, but she’s a full year old now — I hadn’t seen her in about 5 months — and she’s now officially Toddler Audrey. She’s like a real person now, but smaller. She toddles around and points and waves and laughs. We took her to the aquarium on Friday. Aquariums are WAY more fun when you have a toddler with you, because you get to see everything through their eyes. I just love that little girl so, so much, and she’s an absolute joy to be around. It was also heart-warming to catch up with Candice, who lives in California now, and I miss her so much, and I forget how much I miss her until I see her again, and then I remember.

Friday night my friend Emily was visiting from Arizona, so I drove all the way across the bridge to Bellevue for the first time in probably six months (seriously it’s like a 10-minute drive but there’s never any reason to do it), and hung out with Emily and her old high-school friends in the dive-iest bar in one of the wealthiest parts of the Pacific Northwest. I ate dive bar dinner, too. It was awesome.

On Saturday, I hung out with Trish and Jesse and some of their friends at a club downtown, where they were hosting New Orleans-style bands. (Trish and Jesse lived in New Orleans for a couple years before moving to Seattle.) Trish ordered a King Cake for the occasion, and I don’t have the words to describe how much I love a good King Cake. I probably ate 5000 calories worth of King Cake that night.

The remainder of the weekend was basically just trouble. After the show with Trish, I met up with my friend Chelsia, and we went and we found trouble, because that is what we do. Sunday was also trouble. And I wish I could tell you guys more, but it turns out that some people in this world still care about their privacy, so I’ll do them the favor of not putting details on the Internet. But this pic sums it up:

Suffice it to say that I had a LOT of fun, and it’s nice to start the week in a happy mood for once.

Tonight my friend Will and I went to see our friend Jesse’s band play at the High Dive, a fun little bar in Fremont that always has live bands. Jesse had given me their CDs a couple weeks ago, so I had some time to get familiar with the music. (You can check out their band, Look Closer, on MySpace.) The show was fantastic, and my neighbors showed up to hang out too, so it was just an all-around good night. I swear I never used to go watch local bands when I was living in Los Angeles, but it’s just such a huge part of the culture in Seattle, and I constantly find myself at these very loud shows that I never would have bothered to attend when I was, like, 21 in LA, because how was anyone going to properly hit on me with the music blasting like that?

As we were walking out, Will — who’s just a couple years older than I am — was like, “I don’t mean to sound like a grumpy old man, but don’t you think that if you went to shows like this all the time you’d do permanent damage to your eardrums?” I almost fell over laughing. It was 11 pm and we were both sleepy. I like being a grown-up, though. I’ve embraced it. I don’t like looking older, but I do like being older. Thank God for plastic surgery. I plan to get lots and lots and lots. Anyway. Tonight was a great night — I feel like I was smiling or laughing the whole time. I absolutely adore the people I have in my life today.

I’ve found that after this last bout with craziness, I’m suddenly open to looking at a lot of issues that I was unwilling to look at before. Things that I’d blocked out and been entirely unwilling and unable to face, I’m all of a sudden like, “Let’s talk about this constantly with everyone who will listen. Let’s get it sorted out. Let’s go through it bit by bit, let’s look at all the shit that happened that I was never willing to think about or talk about or treat as the truth; let’s talk about it and face it and let’s try to get past it so I can get out of this holding pattern.”

It’s funny — people are always like, “Isn’t it weird having your whole life out there on the Internet?” It isn’t, really. It isn’t weird because it isn’t my whole life. It’s not even close. I keep a lot about my life private, strangely enough. There’s a lot of shit about my life today that I don’t talk about on the Internet — anyone who’s close to me can vouch for that — and there’s a lot of shit that probably defined me and continues to define me that I don’t talk about with anyone. I refuse to look at my certain aspects of my past as consequential. I just want it all to be gone and done and over. But I’m learning that that’s not the way things work, and that I probably have to sit there and sift through all that shit, to look it in the eye, to actually talk to people about these things and be like, “Yeah, this happened, and I can’t continue to ignore that it happened, and I can’t just mention it offhand and be like ‘OK now I talked about it and I’m done’ and expect it to really be done, so let’s fucking discuss it further.” I have to take the initiative to say to people “I need to talk about this and I need your help sorting through it.” That part has been extremely difficult for me, but, once I started asking, people started lining up to help in the most loving ways. Just really reaching out and coming up with ideas and making time for me. I have so many people who love me so dearly, and who want nothing more than for me to be healthy and happy. I’m not looking forward to this process, and I wish I didn’t have to do it at all, but I’m not especially scared, either; I’m suddenly really really willing to do it, whereas before I absolutely refused. So, ya know, fingers crossed for emotional growth! Hooray!

I am bummed about the results of today’s Massachusetts election, but, ya know, I like our whole democracy thing and so I will respect its results. But my former writer Wendie pointed out that this newly elected Scott Brown — the guy that destroyed the dem’s super-majority in the Senate and possibly derailed Obama’s plans for the rest of his term — is the father of one Ayla Brown, a former American Idol contestant.

Months after she was booted from Idol, Ayla released an album, and a single from that album came to my attention. I wrote this piece about it, just generally mocking the whole damn endeavor. Back then, Evil Beet was a relatively small blog. I can’t remember our exact numbers, but I’d guess it was somewhere around … oh … 500 readers a day?

Her father sent me an email. I didn’t reprint it back then, and I don’t remember why. This is what he said:

From: ”Brown, Scott \(SEN\)” <Scott.P.Brown@state.ma.us>
To: <theevilt@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2006 16:37:42 -0500
Subject: Ayla

Evil:  Read your review of Ayla’s CD.  It would be nice to listen to the whole thing before making a judgment.  It has been getting great reviews.  The sales have been low, but distribution with the 15000 that Walmart purchased got delayed.  The I-tunes sales and indy sales have been very positive.  We were very pleased with the results, especially because she did it in 6 days.  That’s all.  This is Ayla’s dad.  Privileged?  My wife wife and I have 4 jobs.  We call it hard work.  Scott Brown

So, you know, whatever. He wasn’t especially rude, nor was he especially helpful. He was just emailing the first two-bit blogger who so much as mentioned his daughter’s name.

I emailed a lawyer friend of mine, like, “Do I need to be nice to this douchebag since he holds political office?” My friend was like, “Nah, dude, he’s a state senator, that’s like a joke position.”

And now. And now ….

The world, it changes, in strange and beautiful and tragical ways. I love that about the world.

It has been a wonderful weekend with my laptop and my puppy. I hung out with my neighbors on Saturday night, but other than that it’s been a very calm, non-partying weekend, which is nice. I’ll be delighted when football season is over and I can have friends on Sundays again.

I’ve also had the pleasure of watching God’s handiwork in my life over the past couple of days. They have been stressful days, but it’s nothing short of miraculous how people — people you’d loved and thought you’d lost forever — pop back into your life exactly when you need them to. The phone rings, and you can’t believe the number on the screen — you laugh first, then answer — and there’s no earthly reason why he should call now, today, after all these years — now, today, to say these things that were exactly what you needed to hear now, today, and perhaps this is the only person and these are the only words that could deliver you safely and peacefully into tomorrow. He will disappear into your long-ago history once again, soon, you know that, but he walked on stage now, today, to read his lines from the script of your life, to say his small bit before he heads back behind the curtain. I needed that phone call today, and for that, I am grateful.

And now: a dog and an orangutan become friends for life.

Watch more National Geographic Channel videos on AOL Video

You guys!!! My laptop is back!!! And it’s safe and it works!!! And I guess the super-nice guy at Apple decided to politely overlook the fact that I’d spilled water all over it, and my repair was FREE. Totally covered. Zero dollars. I was blown away. I was all mentally prepared to spend over $600 on it, and it cost me nothing.

The downside? My car got towed this morning, after I SWORE I’d parked it in a safe spot. I’d double-checked and everything, but I guess I was wrong. All my neighbors were at work, so I did something I’ve never really done in my life: I took the bus. And it wasn’t even that bad! It only costs $2 for a full day of riding and I can text my little heart out without worrying about crashing, because someone else is driving. I’m going to take the bus more often! It got me right to the tow lot … which cost $175. And that’s not even counting the ticket I still have to pay. All in all, though, today was less expensive than I thought it would be, AND I have my laptop back.

Mostly right now I’m exhausted. I feel like this week has been all about getting my life in Seattle put back together, getting back into the swing of things. I’m hoping to spend a lot of time sleeping this weekend and to feel a little bit like my normal self by next week.

I’m sorry you’re sick
I feel like a prick
I think you were killed
By that water I spilled
As I rode home on the plane
You will never be the same
The guy at the Genius Bar
Says you need a new AirPort card
Which will have to be ordered
And costs six-hundred dollars
You survived all these years
In a living room of your worst fears
The dog never peed on you
The cats, I think, loved you too
You persisted through Seattle rain
NYC subways were a frightening pain
Your Ctrl key has been gone since 2008
You ingested half the chocolate I ever ate
I covered you in stickers
And Hershey bars and Snickers
You didn’t mind, you plugged along
And now to think of you being gone
Just breaks my heart
Oh please survive
Oh Apple Genius Bar
Keep my baby alive!