New Addiction

Thanks to Wavy, not only is the song "Pop, Goes My Heart!" still stuck in my head, I'm also addicted to Pinkberry, the latest frozen yogurt craze here in LA. Supposedly, it's healthier at only 20 calories each and I AM eating it with fruit. The first time I had it, I hated it. It was too tart for my humongous sweet tooth. Now, I want it EVERYDAY. It's all part of my grand "diet." Hmmm, maybe the diet thing isn't so bad...

Pop!

Wavy is addicted to watching this fake music video from the movie Music and Lyrics. The song is actually quite catchy and now is stuck in my head. I haven't seen this movie yet but we're now on a mission to learn those awesome dance moves. God bless the 80's.

Nonscary Flowers

Tulips from SC Homey's house on V-Day. The camera flash didn't do these justice but they were gorgeous. One of the few kinds of flowers that don't freak me out.

V-Day

Got into a bit of a baking frenzy for V-Day. Chocolate cupcakes for my friends, and a bundt cake for the coworkers.



Icing cupcakes and adding the sprinkles is the best part. I had leftovers so I gave some of them to people I like at work. Ah, the joy of playing favorites... Guess who didn't get one?

Statute of Limitations

Some days I still grieve about the same things. Long after what most people would consider the normal grieving/obsessing period. Long after the period people still talk about it out loud. And even long after the period most people would still lament about them to their closest friends.

And because I know even I would be sick of me and my same old complaints and angst, I learn to keep it quiet after the socially accepted period. Smushing it down inside, or writing it down in the private journal, keeping busy so that I don't have to think or dwell, waiting it out until the bad moment passes by.

On that note, this is my all time favorite song. At times it sounds melancholy, other times uplifting and hopeful. Most of the time, it comforts me. And though I'm not particularly sad lately, I've been going back to this song a lot in the past few weeks.



The band once explained that after so many years together, they were on the verge of breaking up from creative differences. The creation of this song brought them back together, which also explains why it represents hope and sadness to me - perfectly encapsulating this strange mood and sensibility that's been accompanying me so far in 2007.

Status Quo, Or Lack Thereof

In the past month, I've heard from many old friends, most of them with the lead in line of "we have some news..." And of course, we know what that means.

Four different friends are pregnant, another one's engaged, and one of my younger brother's best friends? He and his wife just had a daughter.

I used to hate change, with the passion of a child who's lollipop was being taken away. I'm a teeny bit better with it now, but it still stresses me out. Of course, when I was chatting with my brother, lamenting that I felt old with all these huge life milestones surrounding me, he just wisely answered, "Bound to happen."

And We Are Live Once More...

Huzzah! We are with internet again! And when I say "we" I mean me and the cat because I know besides sleeping in my bed, she also surfs the web while I'm gone. I've been feeling like I live in the middle ages, but did manage to keep busy with all sorts of arts and culture while being disconnected from the world.

1) Last Friday, after a terrible day at work, I had a terrible time in traffic stumbling towards my alma mater to see Bloom, a series of modern dance performances set to Rufus Wainwright's music. A friend had comp tickets and since I'm all over the "free" I made my way out there, running up the steps and making it into the auditorium 15 minutes after the scheduled start time, just as the lights were dimming.

Some of the dances were beautiful but some were a bit too interpretive for my tastes. Like the one where they writhed on the floor for quite a while. Is it dancing if they don't get up on their feet?

2) On Tuesday night, after over a year of not drawing, I joined my polar opposite friend for a night of life drawing. I swear my pencils shuddered a little when I brought them into the light, having not been used since late 2005.

There were, however, a couple of strange things about this class.
- It runs from 10pm-2am
- It's in a dark sketchy looking industrial part of downtown LA, about a block away from the American Apparel factory
- It's not listed anywhere. Everyone heard about it from a friend of a friend of a friend...
- There is a bar
- There is a DJ
- There is a pool table in the corner
- People are smoking in there
- There's nearly 100 people in there. Half the people are sitting around the podium sketching and painting where the model(s) are posed but the other half are just milling about, socializing, smoking, and not drawing. That creeps me out.

I loved the music and unique ambiance, but I lasted only about an hour before the smell of cigarette and marijuana smoke nearly choked me to death. I'm not sure if and when I'm going back.

3) Last night, I once again trekked up to the alma mater to watch the Animation Show. I had planned on actually buying tickets, but one of the organizers sent me 20 comp tickets for the company. It was a big stress case to organize the group of coworkers and make sure they knew where to go, what to do... Basically doing my job outside of work. To the point where I wasn't enjoying myself as much as I should. I was so frazzled that I actually forgot my Polar Opposite Friend and left him behind at home. Something I've never done and something I felt so awful about, it plagued me for the rest of the night when he decided not to come to the show.

I liked over half the shorts but was exhausted by the end. Most of the people I invited showed up for dinner and the show but a few of them, the usual few, flaked. Though organizing large groups for these outings are stressful, I've also learned to let it go and not be too sad or disappointed when people bail at the last minute. Today, when one of those fools, aka The One, started in on his excuses of why he bailed, I just nodded, looked at him and said "You can't disappoint me anymore." I baffled him with my statement so elaborated a little more. "My expectations of you have been too lowered. There's not much you can do that will disappoint me now." It didn't play out as dramatic as it sounds - he kind of laughed it off and I gladly let him. But inside, knowing it was true, it felt great.

Paper Trail

It's been a rough couple of days at work and at home. My internet connection at home has lost its will to live since last Wednesday and because Time Warner sucks ass, they kept me on hold for two hours, until nearly midnight, before telling me they'd send someone Thursday to take a look.

"Oh tomorrow?" I asked hopefully.
"Oh, is it not Thursday yet for you? We meant next Thursday." the snide customer service rep replied.

So, I have lugged my beloved ibook to a cafe, subjected to the cafe's endless ABBA CD, to catch up on my personal emails, blog to my heart's content, and catch up on all my own blog reading. For the past few days, lost and bewildered on what to do without an internet connection at home, I've managed to:
1) clear out the 2 foot pile of statements on my kitchen table into their respective binders. My first step to organizing my finances for the year!
2) given up hope on sewing and thrown out all socks with holes in it
3) clean my apartment once again
4) shower at my neighbor's place - yeah that has nothing to do with the internet itself. However, in an effort of solidarity with the internet, the bathtub declined to drain too, and my landlord thought calling a plumber out late at night or the weekend didn't warrant the extra costs for my comfort
5) sorted and threw out a giant bag of receipts, some dating as far back as 1998.

Did I mention I'm a pack rat? And a nostalgic sappy fool? Everything reminds me of something. The reason I saved all my receipts is because back in the day, I once managed to balance my checkbook every month, and had high hopes to itemize every single thing I ever bought diligently.

Nearly ten years later, I have a paper trail of expenditures and memories - receipts from:
- Lake Tahoe in 1998, the first time I went snowboarding
- Coffee Bean, tons of them from 1998 - 2002 indicating the days when I could eat a muffin and an ice blended coffee for lunch several days of the week without batting an eye or worrying about weight
- Storyopolis, 2003 - a children's book store with artwork from famous illustrators, the time when I took the boy who broke my heart to share in one of my favorite places
- San Francisco, 2002 - a roadtrip with a dear friend from my childhood who for reasons unknown to me no longer reciprocates my friendship
- Beastie Boys concert 2004, when I took a random assortment of friends with me, including my favorite surly tattooed boy that no one would ever guess I'd date
- My sofa, "Oscar the Couch", and Ibook, "Christopher aka Ashton", from 2005, my first big purchases ever, items that weren't hand me downs from my parents
- Target, 2002-2003 - dozens and dozens of cans of cat and dog food from when my sweet geezer cats were still alive and the dog hadn't disappeared

I threw away a bag full of receipts, knowing that pieces of paper like these didn't mean anything to my memories. And boy did it feel freeing. (OK, I kept some. The ones where I might need for warranties and the ones that had REALLY significant memories tied to them. I'm not THAT strong.) I can't wait to rid my place of more junk. But I'm still pissed at Time Warner.

Something Light and Funny For A Change...

TOO funny! Just a straightforward homage to the gems that come out of her boyfriend's mouth. It actually reminds me of a couple different people, my brother included.

Bye Bye Love...

I never thought it would happen, but I've fallen out of love. It took me awhile to understand why this last visit felt different but then I realized I'm no longer infatuated with the city of San Francisco.

It was a long affair that lasted over a decade. From the time I was 19, I've migrated up north at least once a year, always visiting friends and trying to see something new in the city every time. I had pipe dreams of uprooting myself to live in the city and work for Pixar or ILM. My closest friends from nearly every stage of life lived up there and I would take turns staying with different ones on each visit.

I've helped various friends move up there in a UHaul, helped them move back years later, taken a certain redheaded boy up there for the first time and walked across the Golden Gate Bridge together, realized months later none of it meant a thing, watched the seals at Pier 39 half a dozen times, got dressed up to go dancing with friends, cried in Marin County when a friend scolded me, snapped foggy panoramic pictures of the whole city from Alcatraz (still taped together on my wall today), screamed in the city streets when Turtle finally waved her engagement ring in my face, went to a spa for the first time with girl friends, enjoyed Napa Valley many times, met many friends' boyfriends, only half of which became their future husbands, and finally endured each friend, one by one, moving out of the city and into the suburbs as they got married, bought homes, had kids and said goodbye to the past.

San Francisco makes me sad now, like watching Peter Pan trying to coax a maturing Wendy back to Neverland. I guess I missed the boat in living up there in my twenties. I can't go back to those fun days - it's actually an endeavor to drive into the city from any of their homes - and I feel childish and resentful that I'm too old to play and enjoy the city like I used to. Yet, I feel too young to settle down like everyone else. So instead, I blame the city for my anguish and associate the hazy nostalgic memories with a place. I've lost the never ending urge to see and be with the city and wonder how long I'll manage the avoidance. Good bye San Francisco, at least for now. We had some great times and I sure will miss you. But until I make peace with myself, it's definitely not you, it's me.

Vegas, Baby, Vegas

This is the only picture I took in Vegas this weekend, sunset outside the Primm outlet mall, as the cars from Los Angeles crossed the Nevada border.

It was a low key, yet interesting trip to visit a couple friend of mine. The husband was a trusted work friend, my daily coffee buddy and work confidante. His wife was a cool girl friend I could watch chick flicks with. We barely had anything in common with completely opposite upbringings and personalities, but we complemented each other and shared the same sense of loyalty and stubborn dislike of injustices, being Libras and all. She was the one that would try to get me drunk every time, but also the one that would always keep an eye on me, keep me safe, ward off any strange men, and make sure I had a good time without getting too sick by the time they dropped me off at home.

They lived a block away and often invited me over for dinner and a movie. He called me his stunt double when I'd go out with his wife to attend all the free ballets she scored from work. It was almost what you'd call a perfect relationship amongst the three of us. So when they broke the news to me last year that they were moving to Vegas for her job, she asked "Are you mad at us? Will you ever talk to us again?"

The first thing they hit me with after flying in Friday night was "we have something to tell you." For the past few years whenever anyone says that to me, my first response is always "You're engaged." or "You're pregnant." Because really, what other big news in our age group warrants such an anticipatory announcement? But then she threw me off and stood up, as if she were going to walk off and fetch something to show me. So I said nothing. Then she unbuttoned her jeans and showed me her flat little tummy. Still I said nothing. (Trust me, you don't want to err on these assumptions.)

I looked back at her, thinking "well, my unpregnant stomach looks a hell of a lot bigger than her allegedly pregnant one. This sucks." I looked at the smiling couple again and said "No. No way." They kept beaming. And I was floored. Only a few months ago, she had confided that she was fairly confident they weren't going to have kids. And she responded "well, it was always going to be zero or two."

After luxuriously sleeping in till 11 the next morning (though waking up in the middle of the night anyway), we hit the outlet mall to buy her some new clothes. How surreal is it to help your friend buy tops that could work as regular tops and maternity wear? Especially when you're wearing those same types of tops because they're in style AND they hide that extra ice cream sundae or burger you've been eating. Another humbling moment.

Shopping wiped us out. And the way the desert that is Las Vegas saps every ounce of moisture from your body is unnerving. We were constantly drinking water and going to the bathroom every hour. We managed to see a very Vegas like musical comedy show Saturday night - Gordy Brown at the Venetian hotel. (Yay, it was free!) And we squeezed in the movie Pan's Labyrinth this afternoon. (What a beautiful, unique, creepy, and sad movie all in one! A must see.)

The best part of the weekend was knowing that these two are the only people who will give me no pressure to wake up by a certain time on the weekend nor stick to a strict schedule. We lounged, they cooked delicious meals for me like the good old days, and we sipped lattes from their fancy schmancy espresso machine that puts Starbucks and Coffee Bean to shame.

The bad part? Seeing how I was bigger than the pregnant woman, hungering every two hours like the pregnant woman, running to the bathroom and waking up during the night as much as the pregnant woman and often tired in between going out like the pregnant woman. Sympathy symptoms?

This trip will always be exciting and fun - going to Vegas and not spending the whole time on the strip for the first time, being one of the first few friends to know their secret and having to keep quiet to our mutual friends about it for another 6-8 weeks. BUT it's also the trip that marks the beginning of my first ever diet. A sad resignation to age and slowing metabolism, cutting back on my great love of SUGAR.

To put it into perspective of how difficult this is going to be, as a child, a relative once told me (incorrectly) that if I kept eating so much sugary things, I'd get diabetes and never be able to eat sugar again. And I stubbornly responded "I will die without sugar. I guess I'll just have to die then." Ironically, the fear isn't so much of death. It's the fear of being alive but constantly unhappy with myself that's going to drive me.

The Trouble With Dreams

Annoying buggers, they wake me up at night like a bad neighbor practicing the drums or saxophone. At least once a night, usually twice. I can't remember the last time I slept 8 hours straight. Everyday I wake up tired.

Most of the time, the dreams evaporate as quickly as I wake up and fall back asleep. Other times I remember the culprits that wake me up.

Last week, I dreamt I was driving, just about to rear-end the car in front of me. At the sound of the nerve wracking crunch of impact, I woke up to the sound of my neighbor slamming her front door, coming home at 3 in the morning. Freaky.

A couple of hours later, I woke up again - after a rousing and ineffectual game of tennis, with a large loofah sponge as a racket. The realization of using the completely wrong tool for the game (duh!) woke me up. Puzzling.

The worst kinds of dream? The ones that leave me feeling sad or upset, lingering for the rest of the day like a bad perfume. Like the one earlier this week when I dreamt that Mr. DD was dating someone new. I didn't even think it would bother me as much in real life as it did in the dream life. Frustrating.

I miss a good night's sleep and wonder when it will come back to me. For now, I continue playing the part of Zombie Whatchamacalit. Yawn.....

It's Like Crack...

First it was The Wire. Then it was Foster's. Now, I can't stop watching Heroes. Since Sunday to now, I've managed to watch all 13 episodes, with everything else falling to the way side. Sleep, work, TV. Sleep work TV. SleepworkTV. I need help.

Things To Watch

At the beginning of the new year, a friend lent me season 1 of The Wire, a look at the lives of Baltimore drug dealers from every level, and the cops that bust them. It's not my usual fare of choice, but by episode 3, I was hooked. When I only had 4 episodes left for the season, I only slept 4 hours because I NEEDED to finish it. I have season 2 in my hands but I need to recuperate before diving in again. I was also worried that I'd start swearing a lot more from the bad influence of this show.

On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, thanks to UBBF, my fellow coworkers and the new upgraded (legit) cable, I'm addicted to watching EVERY episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. I laugh out loud watching this. Craig McCracken is a genius. (He also created Powerpuff Girls!) Eduardo and Coco are my favorites.














I also finally managed to watch Children of Men with SLY last night. It was a chilly night in Westwood, but SLY and I got out of work early enough to find free parking, smuggle in a sandwich, soup, and some tea for dinner, and made it into the theater barely before the movie started, munching silently in the dark. The movie was bleak but an intriguing concept of the future. If mankind became infertile, I agree that humanity would cave in on itself and most of us would shed our morals. The movie just kind of ends with tons of unanswered questions, but we just decided to make up our own back story for the hell of it.

I realize that I loved watching all of these because there is nothing in them that I can really relate to - nothing that makes me angst or reminds me of anyone or any time way back when. Just pure escapist entertainment.

Songs That Make Me Laugh

Heard this one on KROQ quite a while ago. It doesn't quite get as much air play anymore but every time I hear it, I cackle in delight at this band's eloquent words.

Hate is a strong word
But I really really really don't like you



This other song makes me laugh purely because it's so melodramatic. I actually really like James Blunt's first song, You're Beautiful, overplayed as much as it was. It reminds me of when I was in Scandinavia and it played on the music stations every night. His second single however, begs to be sung at the top of your lungs preferably to a friend who finds it equally humorous, like Wavy.

Firsts' of the Year

Last night, I went to my first concert of the year and it was a good one. After some good ole chicken pot pie from Marie Callendar's to warm us up, SLY and I hit the Troubadour again to see Rhett Miller. I'd never heard his music but boy was I pleasantly surprised.

The pretty boy can sing. And he has the charm of Elvis with his hip swinging, knee shaking, circular guitar strumming nonstop energy. He played for 2 hours and came back for three encores. My favorites included "Four Eyed Girl" and his band Old 97's song “Rollerskate Skinny,” where he sings “I believe in love, but it don't believe in me.” I'm definitely a fan now and plan to attend more of his shows! I loved every song and couldn't stop smiling!

Here's SLY's favorite.


His opening band Western States Motel, wasn't bad either. Plus they had the charm of looking like engineers as their day jobs.

Today, I finally dragged my slow, lazy self to the courts to play tennis with my old tennis buddy from work. That was not pretty. I haven't run or really exerted myself since early December and it shows. Though the cold air didn't help, my chest was screaming in pain after running around the court and missing several shots. Apparently getting a new racket doesn't miraculously improve your game. Or enable you to hustle after the ball faster.

On a better note, I did finish reading my first book of the year. A librarian friend introduced me to graphic novels. Not the comic book superhero anime type stuff, but well crafted stories using artwork to convey some of the emotions or serious subjects, like war, loneliness, family, dual cultures... I highly recommend both "Persepolis 2" and "Goodbye Chunky Rice."

Well, it's mid January already so we'll how much more will be accomplished by the end of the month...

Conversations With My Brother

Bro: Why is he a "Lord?"
Me: You mean Voldemort?
Bro: Yeah, why is he "Lord Voldemort?" He wasn't born a Lord.
Me: Um. I don't know. Maybe because if you're mean and powerful enough, you can demand people to call you anything you want.
Bro: Well then I want to be King.
Me: You can't be King. You have to be King of some country. You'd have better luck buying a title like "Duke."
Bro: I don't want to be a Duke. I want to be King. I'm going to make people call me King.
Me: Whatever dude.

Some days, I feel like our roles have reversed as we've gotten older. He's become the older sibling that I can go to for practical advice, the person who may not know everything about me now, but will always know the true me that will never change. Freckles and all.

And then there are conversations like this, reminding me he's still my silly younger brother who used to annoyingly follow me everywhere, whom I adore till the end of the world.

Of course if I ever told him that, he would just say "You're a big dork."

Where To Go... Where To Go...

Last week, I reminded my boss once again "I'm taking a vacation in spring!" No less than 3 weeks. It's the minimum to feel like you really shook off the work dust. Of course last time I traveled for 3 weeks, I gave a year's notice and reminded him every month - he still gave me flack about it when I got back.

Anyway, two different travel opportunities have been presented to me and I am torn where I want to go. One of them is a 9 day hike to Machu Pichu, leaving early April. The link is a sample itinerary but I'm guessing it approximates the amount of hiking and roughing it this trip will entail. Though you spend half the time in nice hotels and the other half in "full service camping" type haciendas, my idea of a vacation usually does not involve "5-6 hours of daily strenuous hiking." This trip would be with some friends from my running group (very appropriate) and the idea of possibly losing weight on such an active vacation is somewhat enticing. On the same masochistic level of running. Did I mention we might get a discount from a friend of a friend?

On the other hand, my Bourgeoisy friend is planning a Caribbean cruise for May. This would be the polar opposite of the Machu Pichu trek. 9 days of wining and dining, sleeping and relaxing, reading, writing, shuffleboarding, gambling, snorkeling, and whatever other hedonistic things cruise goers do on the giant ship. Normally all of this would sound pretty nice but I'm wondering if I'll get bored. And claustrophobic. And above all, very very fat. But did I mention there is also a family and friend's discount on this one too?

Machu Pichu was one of the places on my list of places to go. But my idea of a vacation is still a mix of relaxing and eating while also walking around a city and exploring all day. I'm still keen on Spain and Portugal, dropping by Paris again. Or braving it to South Africa before the friends I met from there years ago forget me and I feel too inconsiderate to ask to stay with them.

Both trips are only 9 days long which means I have 12 extra days to go somewhere else before or after those trips, or split up the vacation days to go on a separate trip in the fall. My dilemma also lies in going on trips that aren't my first choices but with companions. Or going to places I really want to go and when I want to go but by myself. I haven't traveled with anyone in years. I miss having people to share those experiences with but wonder if I've gotten too independent. Either way, I'll have to decide soon!

My Favorite San Francisco Day

As much as I love my attentive friend in SF, my favorite time during the holiday visit was the morning they left me to wander the city alone for a few hours. Nothing feels more like a vacation than wandering around a city center, visiting museums and snapping pictures. They dropped me off at the San Francisco Shopping Center (above picture) before heading to church. I walked through the Yerba Buena Gardens where I saw this funny sculpture of a downed boat.


With the hour and a half I had before meeting up with another friend for lunch, I hit the MOMA the way I always do. I took the elevator to the top floor, starting with the feature exhibit of Anselm Kiefer and, and slowly made my way down. I passed through the Edward Weston and Tina Modotti photography exhibit, finishing down in the modern collections from the early 1900's. Sprinklings of Picasso, Matisse, Pollack and others I haven't heard of wrapped up the 2nd floor.


My only complaint - blank canvases passing as contemporary art. I may not understand all contemporary art, but I'd like to think I'm more openminded than most. I often get bored at art films in museums, but I understand what the artists aspire to convey. However, when an artist just paints a canvas all white, all blue, all whatever color they choose, that's just plain lazy. Anything that requires paragraphs of explanation and interpretation from the curator is trying too hard. I've seen various blank canvases in contemporary museums around the world and every time, I think "they've gotten so lazy or egotistical they think 'yup, this is enough.'" At least paint a circle in the middle of it. Or add some stripes. Anything.

This is the entrance to Macy's. To me, this is a cooler piece of art than any blank canvas.

Parallel Dimension

My sleeping schedule is all messed up. Yesterday, I didn't get out of my PJs till 7pm and finally went out at 10 to pick up my friend from the airport and get some dessert. With the whole cable service merger, I temporarily have oodles of movie channels and on demand, which means I watched countless movies, such as The Man In The Moon, a movie that I've wanted to see since it came out in 1991. It's the sweet film debut for Reese Witherspoon and let's just say, it makes me glad not to have a sister.

I stayed up late again but unfortunately had to wake up early to drive across town for my goddaughter's birthday party. They have these warehouses filled with jump houses, slides, various other activities, and a food room for kids parties, booked by the hour. The one we went to, Hullabaloo's Playhouse was far away, filled with 25 of my goddaughter's closest kiddie friends, all under 6, most of them around 3.

Other than my godson's elderly nanny, I was the only childless/unmarried person there. It felt like a parallel dimension where I didn't belong. Other than the 2 other friends I knew there, none of the parents talked to me. To be fair, I was still groggy and delirious for most of the party, stupefied that I was even there.

For most of my life, up to my mid-twenties, I was so good with kids. I'd be the one on the floor playing with all the children and pets while the rest of the adults talked. They trusted me, followed me around, and saw that I was still a child like them. It's what inspired me to go into children's book writing.

Somehow, a few years back, I started losing that ability to relate. Of course, the inspiration to write children's stories evaporated soon after. Now, I look at kids and I see exhaustion. I see more than 6 kids and I think how did I ever manage to teach a class of them for a summer? I love my godchildren but worry I won't be able to relate or do enough for them. Every time I spend more than 2 hours with them, I want to nap.

The ironic thing is my friends chose me to be the godmother of their kids years ago because I was the youngest one amongst our friends, the most childish one, the one who loved my goddaughter the most, and the one likeliest to not have my own kids. Someone who could continue to love their kids the most.