Saturday, April 14, 2007

Friday the 13th...

Not all Friday the 13th's are bad. I didn't get affected by the giant power outage across LA and it's the eve of my big trip! After an exhausting week of work, prepping for my trip, and endless errands, I managed to deliver two projects this week, finish almost all my packing, and even had time for a massage and hanging with Wavy today when she visited my work for our bi-monthly friends and family lunch.

Of course, physically I am a mess. Exhausted from stress and lack of sleep, pale and unhealthy, and scatter-brained. This must be the worst I've ever been in terms of not returning calls and emails. If you don't hear from me for awhile, hopefully it's not because I've been gored by a rhino. I'm leaving Sat evening for Africa and France. Not sure how the internet will be out on safari or whether I'll have time to blog here, but hopefully I will be reading all three of my books, writing in my journal and seeing lots of amazing things. Till Cinco de Mayo...

Monday, April 09, 2007

On Cutting Your Losses or Being a Quitter

My Polar Opposite Friend, being the polar opposite of me that he is, rejoined the online dating world after things didn't work out with his last girlfriend he met on Match. I applauded him for jumping in again so quickly, especially since I still stubbornly refuse to dip my toe in that community. Like many others, he seems to approach it as a numbers game - the more people you meet, the better chance you have of finding the right one.

He met a few of these women on casual dates but no one seemed to be jumping out at him. Until he met a certain lawyer chick from the south bay - someone who was mellow and intelligent, with a lovely voice and pretty face. And then he didn't care about meeting anyone else. He just wanted to see her again. He couldn't wait more than two days to call her and accidentally woke her up one night. He called again the next night and left a message, waiting to hear back. She didn't call back that night or the next night or the night after that. He emailed her and she didn't reply. So that was that. Time to suck it up and move on. No harm, no foul.

"But she's a lawyer. Maybe she's been buried under paperwork and had deadlines," I told him after the first night. "Maybe she's out of town. Or never got your voicemail. Technology isn't so reliable," I kept saying.

Then I realized that Polar Opposite didn't need to hear this from me. He's already over it and moving on. Not much you can do when someone you're interested in doesn't share the same feeling. My shabby attempts at comfort are things I would tell myself or want to hear so I can keep up the delusions of hope. This is how I hold on for a year too long, pining and hoping, making excuses until I'm up against a wall, facing the cold harsh truth.

Since internet dating is something that Polar Opposite masterfully navigates, easily brushing off setbacks, I'm going to go out on a limb here and figure it's something that I will suck at. With each bad connection and unrequited interest (even at an emailing level), it'll just render me more jaded and untrusting, more disappointed in guys. OR, I could just stop caring and become a cold cynical ho who starts sleeping around. Both outcomes - not so good.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Hedonism

Ah the single girl life with nary a care in the world. SC Homey has been trying to help me get my finances in order, more in line with what an independent gal of her thirties should be like, and all she does is shake her head at me. I have money saved but it's probably not doing much. I could also be saving more but I like buying things. And eating out.

For the first time in my life, I've been able to make enough to not live paycheck to paycheck, to actually splurge on things that make me happy without stressing about it for a month. In the last couple of years, I've gotten more massages, gone on more trips, bought more shoes, put more in a 401K, bestowed more gifts for loved ones, and eaten more expensive meals without choking on my drink when I see the bill. And I'm really enjoying it.

I take every married friend's advice to be selfish and enjoy buying things without having to worry about consulting someone else or using too much of the home improvement money. I visit with my friends who are new parents and relish in being able to stay up till two watching bad movies, sleep in till noon, and go on trips during the off season without dipping into my kid's future college fund.

According to SC Homey, the next step after I finally organize some of my finances is to start thinking of some goals. It could be big goals like owning a house. Or small goals like... um, I don't know. And then I realized, I HAVE NO GOALS. I don't want to be tied down by a mortgage and not be able to eat out or travel whenever I have the vacation days. I have no grand plans of starting my own charitable organization nor adopting third world orphans. I can't even think farther ahead than a month or two at a time. And that's only because work forces me to. Ah, the life of a single girl who refuses to be a grown-up...

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Books

Recently, my brother cleaned out some of his bookshelves and gave me two shopping bags full of books. When I first asked him if he had any books he could donate, he said "NO, I LIKE my books." Typical response from my brother. When I explained that it was for my librarian friend who worked in a juvenile detention center, where kids await trial as adults for very bad unspeakable crimes they committed, where they have no library and hardback books are forbidden in case they're used as weapons, where reading is sometimes the only thing that keeps them stimulated and encouraged, he reconsidered.

One afternoon, he disappeared for a couple of hours, and came back with all the books. He had been quietly sorting all the books that he could part with, and rereading some of his favorites. I looked through all of them too and had a flashback to when we were kids. I used to buy him books all the time, hoping that I could singlehandedly shape him to be a reader like me, to enjoy the same types of books I did. Every time I went to the mall with my friends, I always remembered to bring him back a book I thought he might enjoy. When my fourth grade teacher read James Howes' Bunnicula to the class, I started buying my five year old brother all the vampire bunny books the next couple of years. When I fell in love with Roald Dahl's The Twits in sixth grade, I started him on a collection of Roald Dahl books.

To this day, I still like buying him books, though he often favors books about business, finances, and self-improvement mumbo jumbo. Sometimes he'll surprise me by raving about popular novels like Da Vinci Code and convince me to read them, or he'll whimsically decide to jump on the trend of reading Harry Potter years after I blubbered on and on about the books to him.

When I looked in the bags at all those books I bought him, I got a little sad. (I also took back one of the books to keep, something I had read at least twenty times. One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith.) Then my brother confessed "that was hard. I had to reread a lot of them one last time. I'm also keeping all the Roald Dahl books." After that I felt better. And ready to pass the books onto a new generation of readers.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Juvenile Humor

I've accomplished nothing this weekend nor the past week in terms of prepping for my trip. So now I'm having stress dreams about packing and prepping. Sigh. Instead, I watched plenty of silly movies this weekend, hung out with friends, had dinner, and played the Wii.

On Friday night, I joined Jigaho, Polar Opposite, and Wavy to see Blades of Glory, a silly Will Ferrell movie spoofing the ice skating world. Not my usual cuppa tea but something about it made me laugh. Though it briefly crossed my mind that "Wow, I just spent 11 bucks to see this silly movie," it was worth it to hang out with my friends.

Twelve hours later, I headed for a free screening of Meet the Robinsons with a coworker friend. I never read the book and haven't been super impressed with the Mouse-eared company's latest films. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised by the story, the characters and the look of the film, even tearing up at the end. It's kind of like a quirkier, kiddie version of Back to the Future. I loved it so much, I can't wait to buy the film. It has replaced Flushed Away as my new favorite animated film.

Today, I attended another free screening with Polar Opposite. TMNT. Yup, that's right. Turtles. Of the Teenage Mutant Ninja sort. I never liked the cartoon as a kid nor read the graphic novels but something about this CG film appealed to me. Again, I was pleasantly surprised by this film. It wasn't heartwarming or beautifully rendered like Meet the Robinsons, but it was definitely an entertaining action film that kept me engaged the whole time. I would see it again. Maybe even pick up the graphic novel just to check it out and learn more of the back story.

To cap off the weekend, I met up with an old friend, his wife and their 4 month old baby daughter for sushi. We tenuously set out to a local sushi joint, praying that the baby would just fall asleep or sit very very still and stay very very quiet. No such luck. And she demonstrates her hate for me but screaming so loudly, I can see her tonsils, whenever I try to hold her for more than two seconds. She in fact scrunches up her face, opens her mouth and screams silently for about two seconds herself before the volume catches up to her and she bellows as I quickly pass her back to her parents like a game of hot potato. At least the restaurant staff was nice about it and gave us mochi ice cream for dessert on the house.

So three movies - all entertaining and I only paid for one. Screaming baby - but great sushi and free dessert. I'd say it was a winning weekend overall.