xtcian

sugar high sugar high sugar high

4/11/04

I've never quite understood Easter as a holiday. I know Jesus resurrected himself somehow, but as a kid, I always wondered why he waited two days. Lazarus was a "resurrection" in the good old-fashioned sense in that he once was dead, now he was alive. Jesus died, but when he "came back to life," let's face it: he wasn't exactly the same anymore. In Mormon iconography, he's always shown as floating around and generally looking creepy. And he didn't stay long, making me wonder what the point was.

The pagan Easter stuff is great, of course, and as I've shown in full color, we always have a good time. But Easter at the home of Walt Boyle? That's true bacchanalia. I've known Walt since I was a scared teenage freshman at Carolina, and since then, he has been the provider of more good times than the decades should allow. When you entered his house in the Hollywood Hills, he actually had an Easter Bunny topiary:

Fifty people showed up for this get-together, so it was a festive blast of margaritas and Marshmallow Peeps©. Elements from my history kept popping up – I've known Stasia Droze for fourteen years, and Dan Etheridge for twenty-one, and we all have running conversations that never end. These are the people with whom I'd like to play mah-jongg when we're all 97 and can't eat solids.

The sun set, and the view of nighttime Los Angeles revealed itself like a breathtaking carpet of creamy light. I put the camera on a "long exposure" setting and grabbed a few friends for a photo experiment that turned out to be pretty cool:

Anyway, Tessa and I wish you all a very happy Christ Ascending to Heaven Day and that your pagan Gods make you as fertile as you dare. Here's to your eggs!