Nancy Paranzuela was the matriarch of the Paranzuela family. as such she was seldom seen, never around, cos she was always busy keeping the family afloat.
Ear Horn: oh but when she was around she was such a warm presence. i really like Nancy, she has that disarming smile that instantly puts you at ease. she is completely self-effacing and humble, modest, reticent and retiring.
Nancy Paranzuela: believe you me i WANT to be retried from all this.........to spend more time with my family...
Ear: you just want to give her a big hug every time you see her. she is the only woman in history who is able to pull off a mullet...
Eye Luggage: we bring this up only because.........TODAY you finished your semester!!! congrats, babe!!!
Ear: oh my goddess are you done with school?!!!
Laertus: not quite. but college students like me, you know how we are, we tend to WANDER for four years. you know it's a MIRACLE whenever ANYTHING gets completed: a semester, a final, an oral exam, a test, a lecture, a seminar, a webinar, a field trip alone with your professor, a journey, buying and selling books, buying a used sharpened pencil from a Berkeley bum on the streets. i can't tell you how LITTLE motivation i had to go to school after like the first two months of the first semester. it got old FAST.
Eye: besides, you don't need college anymore, you have ME.
Laertus: yeah.
Ear: oh you two hot-and-heavy lovebirds remind me of me and your father.........well, we USED to be like you...
Laertus: oh wow, this is some.........INTERESTING.........semester cake you got for me here, thanks. you know this cake really takes me back to a certain birthday of mine in 1985, the PERFECT BIRTHDAY. the memories of it are still so strong in me, because they're so hazy...
Angie Everhart: who wants the '90s to come back?...
Angie Everhart: raise your hand.........your other hand...
Sphinx pie: no it's not Illuminati, it's Neverending Story...
1520 Sedgwick Ave.: where it all began. the Big Bang of hip-hop. also, where the government started handing out cheese sandwiches in wax paper instead of watercress sandwiches in Reynolds Wrap...
Arnold Horshack: i was there...
Mother Teresa: so i need a gold tray...
Laertus's dad: son, if a stranger starts pencil-drawing you with Sonic the Hedgehog, it's time to delete your youtube-channel show...
Laertus: thanks, dad. how do you like my girlfriend?
Laertus's dad, gushing: I LOVE EYE LUGGAGE!!!
blind thrust: earthquakes, not sex.
skatole: we hate Pooph Spray!!!
Suzy Lu: i'm starting Bleach from Episode 1!!! LOOOOOOOOONG way to go. i'm LOVING THE THEME SONG, quite driving and danceable.
Kon: quite fetching.
Suzy Lu: yes, you are one fit teddy. you guys have never seen me dancing on here, aye? a new show means a new online internet community.........yeah, i like meeting new people.........i mean i'm gonna stay married to Kakashi but i like meeting new people...
Kakashi: ...
Mr. Maldark: why is everyone on Instagram a teacher?...
Hawaii: it would have been better if the hurricane had hit us DIRECTLY...
Luke Russert: i got the perfect misogi for us!!!
Tai: oh yeah?
Luke: oh yeah! or oh yeah?? we can do misogi at home!!! all i have to do is install a rainfall showerhead in our hostel.
Tai: hostel or hotel?
Luke: it'll be like we're at a Tokyo hotel!!! no more boring showers, from now one when we shower together we're in the jungle with giant tropical green palm fronds all around us encircling us, that is not green tile...
Tai: just not the Amazon Rainforest, that's gone.
Luke: eternally we shall be enveloped in the mood of the song "Evening Shower" from Boogiepop Phantom (2000), even if we shower during the day.
Tai: i like what you've done with the place. gunning for some Tai tail? but i need to make ONE LITTLE ADJUSTMENT.
Tai unscrews the rainfall showerhead on the sidewall with the gold grill in her teeth, blinks her eyes, and the rainfall showerhead is now above them on the ceiling.
Tai: see? our showers will truly be like falling rain on our heads.
Luke: see? this is why i like you, you're pure magic...
Mark Hapka: i misogi every evening at 11:11PM. before i evening-shower i put on my rubber-ducky slippers.
Tony Romo in slip-on Skechers: ...
Boris Becker: i was a necker...
Martin Yan: gimme some bar-none dim sum.
Leslie Sbrocco: Dragon's Beard, that was my nickname in college. this stuff is just REALLY THIN cotton candy, right?
Martin Yan: don't waste it by putting it on your lip!!! this is no time for fun!!! Dragon's Beard Cotton Candy is for the Emperor only, it takes 88 years to spool...
Elaine Benes: each week should have two things: Seinfeld and V A P O R W A V E...
John McEnroe: people love me as an announcer, you think i should be the new voice of Optimus Prime?
Megatron: get Chuck Woolery's job first...
to live on Lahaina is a blessing.........island of love, isle of iridescence.........the stars will shine bright here again...
Montana McGlynn: if you break up and move back to Boston with no kids, you've given up. you've given up on life. i actually WAS from Montana, that was the joke. my crazy ex-boyfriend was named Vaj and nobody said anything about that, those were innocent times back then...
Mardith at the club: picture a world where all S&M is done in leatherette...
Shakespeare: i did well in my short life with what i had, but you know, all i ever wanted to do was be a bit player in a play on that Cabrillo College stage...
Grace Hurt: i hurt with all of Maui. i was not named after the song...
Trent Reznor: Aloha spirit...
John Lydon: the PiL song "Hawaii".........Nora Forster never forgot me...
Ear Horn: no highfalutin newfangled microwave ovens for me, dearie, they're all full of spicy pillows. they will explode in your face if you let them. like problem daughters. not you, Eye, i was talking about me.
Iga Swiatek: why do i wear tape over my mouth? so i don't do to my coach what Jeffrey Tambor did to Jessica Walter...
Jason DeMarco: it's not a spiral curse, it's a thumbprint...
royal bastard: nothing to do with the Tudors, simply a person who is really irritating and annoying...
Luke Russert: do your grocery shopping for the week like me, only get 3 items a day...
Rod Serling: The Outer Limits (1995), if The Twilight Zone and Red Shoe Diaries had a space baby...
Zalman King: through sex...
Melbourne: Automobilia, not a Spanish word...
Mario in goth makeup: don't eat the mushrooms...
John Denver: i was MAJORLY German...
Laertus: i remember that birthday day in 1985 as if it were yesterday. picture Gilmore Street now but back then and in a BROWN HAZE. like you're swimming in someone's imagination, someone's COTTONY THOUGHT of what happened that is happening now. the memory is the real, you're living it right now. i wake out of my Transformers bed. it's the day, there's a chill of excitement tin the air. mom lets me make a few early morning phone calls to only the bestest of my friends, waking them up and annoying them.
Laertus's mom: MCI, reach out and touch someone, collect calls to Europe are free.
Laertus: dad lets me walk alone the length of the sidewalk to Roy Paranzuela's house.
Roy Paranzuela: of course I'M invited to your birthday party, i'm the only person who doesn't go to your school.
Laertus's dad: i remember that day. after your visit i pack you and Roy into the wood-panel station wagon from the Pink Floyd "High Hopes" music video and we roam the streets in that jeep van till we hit Ventura Blvd.
Laertus: everything, all the images, are watery, watery with a feeling of warmth beneath them.
Laertus's dad: we reach the tiny parking lot of Baskin Robbins. Nancy works there.
Nancy Paranzuela: i remember your smiling face, Laertus. the innocent face of a child on his birthday. ancient joy. i'm behind the glass counter but you can still see my apron and i don't care. i have no modesty at all, i don't care who's looking at me, i don't care that you can see my hairnet and sticky cakey fingers EARLY on a Saturday morning. baking your birthday cake is a PLEASURE for me to do. i slide the LONG sheet cake up to the glass so you can press your nose up against it.
Laertus: chocolate. it was light chocolate and dark chocolate.
Nancy: i make sure to take my icing bag, flute the tip, and write your name on the cake CORRECTLY. which isn't easy to do, your fricking name is Laertus. it's not the Carvel Cookie Puss but what IS in the '80s?!!! i do this out of love, i do this while smiling because you're a special boy and you're my neighbor boy.
Laertus: Nancy. thank you. yeah, Nancy's cake early that Saturday morning. i'll never forget it. i still feel the cold of that morning. the fog, the mist, the rain everywhere.
Ear Horn: that was quite the day, remember?
Laertus: yes. by lunchtime everyone in my class had arrived at Chuck E. Cheese for noon pizza. there's nothing like noon pizza with robots. the class bully kicked over the Pac-Man arcade cabinet and stole all the quarters, the school nurse let him go cos he said he had a fever...
class bully: i am a machine...
Laertus's dad: i remember i had to pick you up from the mall or something?...
Laertus: and then in the evening it was waterslides at the YMCA pool. nightswimming with 3rd graders is a horror show.
Eye Luggage: what was your birthday gift that day, honey?
Laertus: brand new Raleigh black bike. a week later i broke my arm riding said bike in the cul-de-sac. that was a CURVE, both meanings. that arm cast of mine smelled like my great-grandmother's butthole. but hey, Christmas 1985 was just nine short months away and the rest was history: Nintendo, my new gospel. 1985 HUMMED for me, you know? all was fearless beneficence.
Nancy Paranzuela: i cannot be found. except in your memory.
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