avant-garde and kitsch

(shh) This is not a blog post

2008-09-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

Three years of radio silence. You'll have to deal with in medias res, since recounting one, two, three jobs, a six-month relocation to China, several major hair changes, a very long engagement and very recent marriage would scare me off the habit for good.

Dinner tonight at J's former manager + husband's new house in the sweet enclave of Redwood City. He's slaving over a hot stove making espresso coconut flan on my excellent suggestion; I'm doing what I can (i.e., not very much) to help a friend make a dent in his Sisyphean effort to run two full-time jobs simultaneously, as has been my custom every Saturday since June. It usually involves several pots of hot tea and tentative political arguments. Tentative because he was J's friend first, and thought we've known each other 4 years, it's been a hi-how-are-things-oh-they're-great-let's-order-dumplings sort of relationship. He's now taking a nap, which freed me up to do things like, oh, cheerily stalk people I used to know - oh, wow, three nieces now? Come on, I'm sure everybody checks up on their exes - ex-BF, ex-BFFs, ex-colleagues - it's good clean fun, requiring only an internet connection and some clever searching. Facebook does make things a lot easier...I hope there's no application for tracking who's looking at your profile when - I'd have a lot of splaining to do.

J is now sweet husband J. Like being engaged, except with more jewelry. The name change is the only thing that's a big change - I have to go to the DMV? For reals? I've put it off for almost a month, with plausible excuse - my passport needed to match the purchased-in-advance plane ticket - but it's time to switch to the more aerodynamic surname before people get confused.

What's the statute of limitations on a friendship, by the way?

Ad nauseum

2005-10-15T23:29:00.000-07:00

If updating this old thing is that important to my two faithful readers, I suppose I can comply. Just remember that most of what I'd like to say is between the lines if not elided altogether. My mother has the link and is not afraid to use it. I suppose I could just start a new one...contact me if you're interested.

Yawn

2005-08-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

Yawn, indeed. Having no weekend is officially old.

So I've been catching up with old high school guy friends lately: N, the blond, tan surfer guy in San Diego making a million bucks with mortgages who studied international business and spent a term at Cambridge (I visited him there in February 2003, very cold but very nice); and J, the only Asian guy at the private high school I attended (except for maybe his older brother and sister), who just started at Loma Linda, who double-majored in both business and pre-med to pacify his parents, who took a year off during undergrad to go to Africa to work in a low-income clinic. Both are going to former friend R's wedding and are willing to leave early so they can hang out with me that night - if I can get the day off. N now qualifies as my oldest friend - we used to ride the bus together for our 45 minute commute to school and survived hours of incessant country music and the occasional freeze-outs (idiot seniors running down the aisle and opening all the windows on a 32 degree winter morning to the shrieking but flirty protestations of all females aboard). Both of them came to visit me the summer I had the job from hell in the prettiest place on earth (and I'm on the right, second pic down, if you want to know what I look like when I was 17). Both of them were part of the massive posse that went stag to the junior/senior prom our senior year. Curiously, both are always dateless.

Oh. I have over $10,000 in sales for the month of August. :) My predecessor A would be proud.

That's Funny

2005-08-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

I once had a completely aristocratic sense of humor. When I had outgrown watching America's Funniest Home Videos with my family, anything short of a barrage of barbed witticisms, well-timed and impeccably delivered (see: Professor Henry Higgins), elicited nary a chuckle.

Somewhere in the year 2000, I watched 'Life is Beautiful' (La Vita E Bella for the sticklers). Something in me shifted just a bit...I actually laughed out loud at physical humor. Granted it was in a foreign language ("navel" sounds so much more classy in Italian), and I immediately felt stupid, but it was start.

In the year 2002, I was back living with my parents and going to community college. (If that makes me a loser, at least I'm a loser that has just graduated from Berkeley - as have most of the rest of my friends.) Since I had never really cultivated any relationships with the locals in my age group, I did what any other self-respecting loner would do; I watched television. Every weekday night, starting at 7PM, KMPH Fox 26 offered me deliverance - first Friends, then Frasier. (Years before the initiation of this nightly ritual, I had read an article explaining that when people watch a TV show enough, their subconscious begins registering the actors's faces as loved ones because the mind has created a vicarious relationship. That's why gushing fans go running up to Jennifer Aniston and feel like they know her. This article - and my mother's avid disapproval - scared me away from Friends for quite some time. So, except for the season finale, I've only seen the show in syndication. End of tangent.) First several weeks, I barely cracked a smile. Monica has a turkey on her head. Frasier and Niles are trying to get concert tickets without looking like they're getting concert tickets. Chandler really should start smoking again. But once I had clocked in a solid year or so, something shifted again. I'd see a red shirt in the Abercrombie window (hell no I never go in there) that reminded me of the red shirt belonging to Rachel's baby's daddy. And I'd laugh to myself. Turns out most people do this, too - I started paying attention and realized that most conversations I overheard during the day were a conglomeration of quotes from the Simpsons, Friends, and the latest action movie. That moment of clarity felt exactly like watching Casablanca for the first time - oh my god I GET it. All those references...oh my god I GET it.

So I shot my moral high horse. Not that I don't enjoy my musicals and highbrow jokes anymore. Let's just say that I actively decided that I needed to finally watch American Pie, since I missed out on it the first time around. Euro Trip was lame. I saw Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle the weekend it came out. Yesterday it was The 40 Year Old Virgin (which is highly recommended for everybody but my mother) and Robert Schimmel's "Unprotected" DVD. ("Take it out of the box first!" makes me and J fall on our asses - don't ask, just watch.)

And NOTHING makes me laugh harder than a good sex joke. My man whore ex-boyfriend would be proud.

E

2005-08-17T22:31:00.000-07:00

As in the old roommate, not the mood-enhancer...So she's kicking it in Oakland with two jobs now...she lives by the ghetto Pizza Hut that I passed all the time coming back from Sunnyvale/Santa Clara/South Bay in general. Though apparently the denizens are not ghetto. :) And it seems that AM/PM is better than 7-11 - and if E downgrades 7-11-the-most-magical-place-on-earth, it must be for a reason - maybe I should go. Do they have Slurpees? Icees? The equivalent? So I should go visit seeing how she doesn't have a car - maybe next week we can go get junk food and ignore bums, like old times. Whee!

Motivation

2005-08-15T04:14:00.000-07:00

If I am a very, very good girl, and my bank account has at least $5000 in it, and I haven't sold this gorgeous piece of artwork to somebody who can better afford it, this baby is going to be mine at the end of the year. Glory be.

3:30 AM

2005-08-15T03:53:00.000-07:00

Gracious. I'm an old woman, waking up naturally in the middle of the night and so not able to go back to sleep. Have a feeling this will adversely affect my week. Will redeem the time by blogging and going through my Pottery Barn catalog looking for an end table for J rather than staring at the dark and listening to the fan.

Now that we're not completely in the heat of the moment, I guess I'm at libery to discuss things that I previously left purposefully vague. Anyone who has been keeping score knows that: 1.) J is the most eligible bachelor of the decade, regardless of locale, ethnicity, and age group; 2.) I am damn lucky to be with him and therefore strive to keep my current privileged position; and 3.) we've been going out for over a year and are quite serious.

Apparently my parents missed all that. Maybe they stopped reading my blog after the "naked" photo several months back (since removed, don't waste your time looking - I thought my hair looked good, it seems the bare shoulders were too distracting); fine by me - that means I don't get shocked & dismayed phone calls about my wayward postings. Maybe I didn't adequately convey the depth of our relationship (I believe the exact words were "you never complain about him"). Maybe they were just in denial because J happens to be Asian (neither a mutable quality nor a character flaw), when they've always pictured me ending up with someone who happens to be white. Maybe they (meaning mostly my mom) assumed I am just going through a temporary rebellion-against-my-roots phase because J happens to non-religious. And by non-religious I mean non-evangelical Christian. (It'd still be a problem if he were Muslim or Buddhist - or even Catholic. You should have heard my mother's take on the Eastern Orthodox church service I took her to 4 years ago, geeze Louise.)

It's been a week now since J called up my dad for the maybe-too-traditional but undeniably very thoughtful "I've been dating your daughter for a long time now...I love her very much...we've been discussing our future together a lot and I believe we're ready to take our relationship to the next level...are there any questions or concerns you'd like to address before I propose to her?" conversation. (My dad actually said, "Can I get back to you on that?" J was a little on edge til he called back - while we were at The House of Prime Rib.)

Since then J and I have tried to field the issues with deference and grace. I am actually pretty pleased with myself for not crying or yelling or cursing or resorting to hostility - it's hard to have an even, positive reaction to things like "but what are you going to base your relationship ON?" Sex, mother. Lots and lots of crazy, sinful, animalistic sex; I hear it's the glue that holds a marriage together.

So Tuesday my father and younger brother D may stop by my neck of the woods on the way back from D's summer orientation at UC Davis. J will cut out of work for a two hour lunch so we can all see each other. Don't know if we are going to have a useful, serious discussion at that time (my mom won't like being left out, but then again, I don't quite understand why she doesn't make the trip, too - 3.5 hours is not as far as, say, Alaska), but we'll see. Later that evening J & I will do dinner at my paternal grandparents's house in Menlo Park. A full two minutes from my place of work. Unsurprisingly, they think J is great and treat him like a part of the family - I think they've actually exchanged more words with the man in two meetings than my mom has in a year. Hmm, guess that comment was bitchy. I'll blame it on the hour.

Never a Bridesmaid

2005-08-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

Heck, I'm never invited. Some of you may recall the drama earlier this year when I discovered that I didn't make the guest list of my best gal pal from high school. Both of my ex-boyfriends warranted one of those fancy embossed envelopes - I just got a mass invite to the local reception. Which included one of those cards telling you where you could buy the happy couple some useless household items. (Never liked Yankee candles before, but I'm not spending more than $50 if I didn't see the ceremony, thank you very much.) That actually got sorted out a bit later - though the potluck was mediocre, the reception was pleasant. She mentioned that she had not mailed me an invitation since I had said I'd be in the middle of midterms. Fair enough - my residual bitterness is fading, and it was good to see the girl before she moved up to the Canadian border for good.

ALSO at the reception in April (I brought J with me, he looked dashing - and particularly Asian, considering the crowd) was my bestbest friend from high school. With his blond fiance S that I had never met despite the fact they'd been going out almost 3 years - and I talked to R on a monthly basis. I was under the impression that all four of us had a good time that evening - went out for a decent dinner, had a few laughs, discussed the upcoming nuptials...and R was well aware how sore I had been about not getting invited to A's shindig and made a point of saying, "I'll make sure to send out TWO, just in case one gets lost in the mail."

A-hem. Said nuptials are slated for September 17th. (Day after the amazing, awesome, only-venue-in-California Markus Pierson museum tour show at Peabody's Los Gatos gallery - hell no I'm not missing that.) Since the fateful April reception, R has failed to return my phone calls. No "congratulations on graduating from Berkeley!" No "wow, awesome, tell me about your new job!" I think that S wears the pants in this relationship, and she said "no way are you inviting your hot ex-girlfriend to my wedding." Oddly, I suppose this makes me feel good about myself - I'm perceived as a threat. (My breasts ARE bigger. My legs ARE svelter.) Although there's more chance of a Popsicle in hell than there is a chance that I'd want to revisit or resume the mangled train wreck that was my romantic relationship with R. The guy kisses like a Bassett hound. (No offense to Bassett hounds.) He refused to sit closer than two armlengths whenever his mother was within a quarter mile radius. He neglected to call me for weeks on end "soooo busy with work", whatever. This went on for TEN whole months, because, in my addled mind, I was convinced that I had to marry him (because we had been best friends and all, he was Harry to my Sally, and this must be IT), so I put up with a whole lotta shit. And then still was heartbroken when R decided that we needed to break up. On my birthday. Right after my family had taken him out for a seafood dinner. Because he thought God was calling him to join the clergy and, frankly, I was not fit to be a pastor's wife.

Asshole. It's an objective fact. However, our friendship had survived, more due to my sheer determination than to any meaningful connection - I mean, he had been my longest running friendship. And you can't underestimate the value of a person who understands your Jesus issues, who doesn't need an explanation as to why you burst into tears when you hear a certain cliched Bible verse. But...time goes on. Things change. Asshole ex-boyfriends get new girlfriends who happen to look exactly like you. You still have conversations from time to time to see how the other is doing, mostly out of respect for the memory of a great high school friendship.

But the time has come. I will not put up with my phone calls being ignored. I will not wait patiently by the mailbox in the hopes that a cheesy invite might show up. Fuck him. Best of luck in his marriage - I hope they get divorced after five years instead of three. Just kidding. Sort of. :)

Fit to Print

2005-08-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had so much going on that it's easier to just focus on dumb things like, I don't know, my 5th sale (Matt Lively, Portal Keys - original oil on paper)? Ran into that all the time when I actually kept a pen & paper diary - sometimes it's nice to start where you are instead of attempting to go back and explain how you got there.

So. Tonight, over our boneless Shanghai wings and steak & portabello fajitas at Chili's (our customary after-workout protein fix), J and I decided my parents should definitely come up here to visit. Seeing how they haven't yet seen my place of work. Seeing how they have never visited J's place - or my & girl G's place either. Seeing how we four need to sit down and have a friendly chat about how we feel about J more or less asking for my hand over the weekend. Whee! But that's just me. Apparently marrying a "non-Christian" is Apocalypse Now. And that's all I'm at liberty to say.

Mary Poppins

2005-08-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

Every week, without fail, the lyrics to "A Spoonful of Sugar" come to my head. You know, the whole 'for every job there must be done, there is an element of fun' routine. I end up unconsciously humming it and convincing myself in my internal voice (which has a British accent, in case you're wondering) that watering the impatiens everyday or taking a brush to the toliet bowl is *snap* a game! At least everything is cleaner...

Excerpt

2005-08-09T22:36:00.000-07:00

'The following Tuesday, I went to New York for a job interview at a magazine. I took the train up, had the interview, and on the way back, the train was very crowded. A woman who was about my age sat down in the seat beside me, and we started talking. It turned out that she had gone to Wheaton College - the one in Illinois, the Christian one - with my sister Meredith. It turned out her father was the pastor of the church my friend Angie goes to down in Atlanta. It turned out, in short, that she was an evangelical Christian, and due to a small accretion of details, she got the impression that I was much more of an evangelical Christian than I currently am. Now, when I find myself in such a situation these days, I do my best to honor my own experience of things, and I try not to get involved in an inordinate amount of hypocrisy and personal misrepresentation; at the very least, I try to avoid telling any outright lies. Which isn't easy. This time, the conversation degenerated into me making the usual complaints about evangelicals. How they're self-righteous. How they're close-minded and judgmental and legalistic. The lack of intellectual rigor, the fear of art and culture and ideas, the near total disconnect from any sense of Christianity's historical roots. The bad hair, the bad clothes, the ugly churches, the cloying singsong public prayer voice. And the smugness. Dear God, the smugness. "Forget all that," this woman said to me. "Forget Christians." And she put her hand on my forearm, and she got one of those painfully sincere looks on her face, and she had a southern accent (and I think this is one of those things you can really only say if you have a southern accent), "Are you in love with Jesus?" And that kind of took me aback. Partially because people don't say things like that to me anymore. Partially because it made me think. And the truth is, I'm not in love with Jesus at the moment. That's not quite the right word for it. I'm haunted by Jesus, but I'm not really in love with him.

'It would be wrong for me to suggest that I have lost my faith entirely, but I have lost a certain kind of faith, and I hope I haven't left you with the impression that losing it was anything less than a very big loss. I am left to deal with the remains of it all, to pick through it, to run from it, to rail against it, but I keep finding that even the remains of what I once had are powerful stuff. A certain sort of person would say this. A certain sort of person would say that what is really going on is that I'm running away from God. And you know what? That's exactly what it feels like. The truth is, my heart is restless, and I'd like some peace, and I'm starting to suspect that it is pride that keeps me where I am, but I can't seem to go back. Not yet anyway. Not just yet.'

The Big Love, Sarah Dunn. pp 199-201

House of Prime Rib

2005-08-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

J wanted to celebrate his 29th birthday with a big, fat steak. So I canceled my reservations at Gary Danko's and joined the House of Prime Rib bandwagon (J, his brother P, and P's friend K who I met once at P's birthday party a little bit ago, she's totally awesome because she laughs at my jokes and has great shoes).

"House of Prime Rib?"

"Yeah, the 49ers eat there every year."

"I'm hoping they have more than just prime rib?" (I am not a big fan.)

"Well, yeah, I'd assume so..."

Want to see the menu?

The City Cut $29.85

A smaller cut for the lighter appetite.

House of Prime Rib Cut $31.85

A hearty portion of juicy, tender beef.

The English Cut $31.85

Some feel that a thinner slice produces the better flavor.

King Henry VIII Cut $34.45

Extra-generous, thick cut of prime beef, for king-size appetites.

Children's Prime Rib Dinner $9.45

Complete with milk and ice cream.

(For children 10 and under.)

Dinner Accompaniments Included with Prime Rib Dinners:

The Salad Bowl

Mashed Potatoes or Baked Potato

Yorkshire Pudding

Fresh Creamed Spinach

Fresh Cream of Horseradish Sauce

A La Carte

Prime Rib A La Carte $27.85

Slices of succulent beef served with creamed spinach, choice of potato, and Yorkshire pudding.

Fresh Fish: Ask your server for today's special catch and price.

WOW, fish!

So J & I do valet at the front (1906 Van Ness) after missing on the first pass because some fools don't realize that they are in fact driving SUVs and not compact cars. P & K are on our heels, only they parked way far away because P's tripped-out green minivan is unmaneuverable unless you're in a chair. With wheels. Our 7PM reservation flies by because the place is just too darn popular and there's no place to put us. The thoughtful thoughtful people in charge thankfully left a big metal bowl of nasty party mix to tide us over - two words: dehydrated peas.

Ended up being a magnificent time. Had my second glass of port. More details about the evening to come but I'm not at liberty to say quite yet.

1, 2, 3, 4

2005-08-06T22:58:00.000-07:00

That's how many sales I've got so far.

An Ellenshaw "Rescuing Piglet" in a green frame to locals.

A Seuss "Cat Detective" that I'm splitting 50/50 with outgoing art consultant A...

A Thorpe "Great Journey" to a friendly chap in Great Britain.

A Seuss "Fooling Nobody" to a nice, nice woman who lives on a remote island in Canada.

I rock.

Weekend with the brothers

2005-08-01T12:58:00.000-07:00

Yes, all three. D (18) and A (almost 16) motored up here in D's full size van (white Ford Club Wagon, preferred vehicle of high school athletics departments, airport shuttle services, and undercover cops everywhere). J entertained them while I was at work by taking them to the electronics wonderland that is Fry's - Sunnyvale location, of course. Dinner was at Buca di Beppo in Palo Alto (there's also one in Honolulu, if you wanted to know) - reservation was for 7:30PM but um, the table you're supposed to be sitting at isn't leaving...so 8:15 all six of us get seated: me, J, D, A, and Grandma and Grandpa K. Grandparents haven't seen the male grandkids in a good 12 years - "which one are you?" (sure didn't help that D had grown a mustache for the occasion), but it all turned out very pleasantly. Just ordered a bit too much garlic bread. And Grandpa put parmesan cheese in his iced tea..."tastes ok to me!"

Sunday morning we nixed the idea of Great America and went to grab some authentic Shanghainese breakfast at Hunan Gourmet in Sunnyvale (my absolute favorite AM sustenance besides Hobee's); J busted out his mad language skills and ordered a tableful of food - the huge white boys trying to eat scallion pancakes with chopsticks amused the waiters to no end. Then it was time for movies - D's nursed a lifelong fascination with penguins so he caught March of the Penguins while the rest of us did "Sky High" (figured my mom would be mad if I took A to an R rated movie - and he'd already seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), which was very clever yet utterly forgettable (except for "SIDEKICK!"). We play a mean round of Munchkin (spoof of Dungeons and Dragons and one of my most favorite games), I emerged triumphant. At brother A's (UCSC, age 20) insistence, we took separate cars down to Santa Cruz to take part in his backyard barbeque: steak, mashed potatoes, and lots of Neapolitan ice cream. After dinner conversation revolved around dairy veterinarian horror stories to the great delight of A's friend Jake who's never been on a dairy in his life. "They have lakes of SHIT?!" The size of a football field, baby - and people drown in them every year.

On that happy note: one year anniversary for me & J last Saturday!

Allison Recommends

2005-07-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

Ewan McGregor movie in theaters: The Island.

Ewan McGregor movie in Blockbuster: Trainspotting.

TV show: Smallville. It's all about Lex.

stand-up comedian: Carlos Mencia, particularly his DVD 'Not for the Easily Offended.'

best blog to check at work: go fug yourself

driving music: elephunk, The Black Eyed Peas (track 7 'Latin Girls' & track 8 'Sexy')

trashy gym reading material: Us

not-so-mindless women's magazine: Glamour

wardrobe splurge: Kenneth Cole. If you're tall. And sporting graduation money.

bra: Victoria's Secret Ipex. Believe the commercials.

pricy restaurant: Fleur de Lys, San Francisco

cheap "restaurant": Baja Fresh. You want the black salsa, trust me.

Cold Stone flavor: germanchocolatekake

orange juice: Tropicana Pure Premium, Grovestand (high pulp + Vitamin D)

razor: Venus Divine. It's purple!

(part one of an occasional series)

23

2005-07-18T21:51:00.000-07:00

So I've been busy living it up - and getting a year older. Saturday night was the most amazing meal of my life - Fleur de Lys (beware, it will take over your speakers - and you must MUST look at the menu if only to be infuriated by the fact that you can't flip the pages...you'll see). In the city. Meaning San Francisco. Because San Jose is definitely not 'the city.' For those of you keeping score, my dinner companions were world's best boyfriend and chooser-of-restaurants (J), J's brother P, and J's best friend S who had flown in from Boston for the occasion. Sort of. Pinot grigio with my duck burger and foie gras baeckeoffe, sauvignon blanc with my sea bass/chorizo/mussels concoction, sirah with my pineapple venison, and PORT with the cheese course. Which is far better than any dessert except for maybe Cold Stone. We sat near the wine storage, each cabinet displaying its current temperature, apparently it is essential to keep some wines at 56 degrees and others at 57. Discussed the menu, the Monkey Island games, the fact that S is an expectant father (in time for Christmas), threesomes - it gets a little hazy near the 4th course. Catherine Zeta-Jones is my second. If Halle Berry is unavailable.

I am so mature now. I pay my own car insurance. And I'm on page 169 of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and if you tell me who dies I'll dropkick your head into the lava.

2005-07-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

mmm, tasty Asian short ribs...

Happy Fourth

2005-07-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

So J is wearing my old printmaking apron - the red and navy blue striped one that shielded my duds from ferric acid when I used to be proficient at intaglio back in the day. The man is making short ribs and so far they smell fantastic. My contribution was picking up the tab at Safeway - and making a quick trip to grab the soy sauce and can opener we forgot on the first round.

Because I've completely forgotten to mention it, I loooove my job. And it seems to love me back. My first two days were spent doing inventory, which is usually a two person job but I rock - found everything except for a framed limited edition of "Slot Puppy" by Matt Rinard. Not my favorite, not in a hurry to find it. Somehow I have morphed into a clean freak and spent a lot of time vacuuming Thursday, my coworkers cheered because they obviously avoid it whenever possible, one nasty job. "Art consultant' in the sense of my new career of sorts means I guide the willing toward a meaningful aesthetic purchase. Or three. And I'm supposed to gush even if I think their taste sucks monkey balls. But so far so good.

2005-06-27T14:52:00.000-07:00

By the way...

Archaeological Dig

2005-06-27T14:33:00.000-07:00

So J graduated from UC Davis back in 1999 and (to my knowledge) lived with his brother P until March of this year when he moved to his condo. Being a very low maintenance kind of guy, he has been living out of cardboard boxes for all this time. Back at P's place in Sunnyvale (he's now in his 2nd San Jose condo), J erected a literal cubicle in a corner, where he put his bed and his few life necessities. Suffice it to say, most of said cardboard boxes haven't been touched in years, their contents an utter mystery. I wondered if they harbored something incriminating - maybe a stash of anime porn? Because some people are into that - right, E? P got tired of having J's boxes cluttering his spare bedroom "move them to your place" so J has been hauling them one by one in his silver Jetta. Forgets to take them out til a week later when he actually needs the trunk or tries to haul passengers to the airport. So they've have been sitting squarely in his living room for a good 2-3 months now.

Until today. Damn it, I picked out nice furniture for a reason - no boyfriend of mine should be allowed to go on living a dorm existence. I've got the day off today, I've got a set of keys. Let's see what's in box #1. Set of Magic cards - 80 receipts from Hot Pot City from years 2000, 2001, 2002...Jesus Cristo. Arcade tokens. Prom picture? Old wallet. Dental insurance card. Photo from best friend's Hawaiian wedding. Big fat jade Buddha necklace. Unfortunately no cash. Box #s 2, 3, and 4 are light, stuffed full of clothes in the days before J hit the gym with a vengeance. "I'll probably just throw those away" The man I know has the Bruce Willis look down - jeans, tight t-shirts, that's it. Sorting through his sartorial past reveals that HE HAS BEEN HOLDING OUT ON ME. I do believe that is a Donna Karan dress shirt. Calvin Klein unmentionables. A tie?! Not one but two pairs of flashy black dress shoes. And...a wool button-down sweater vest. No one is perfect. Mandatory fashion show upon his return - if only for the hilarity of the waistline disparity.

(*disclaimer: I did indeed obtain permission for said invasion of privacy.)

The Mighty Kaweah

2005-06-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

Since last time...

2005-06-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

...my family (including my under-50 and rather adventurous parents) rafted down the upper Kaweah River, which due to the crazy weather this year had class IV and the occasional class V rapids with names like the Ostracizer and Suicide Run. My mom bounced out on the unnamed rapid right after the put-in to the guide's chagrin, the whole left side of the boat went flying much later when the right side went "high side!" a bit too slow on a big rock while navigating the Chair - D and I didn't go far since I had a death grip on the chicken wire but my dad started swimming for shore and had to be returned by the bearded kayaker.

... for Father's Day, my family hit the Wuksahki lodge in Sequoia National Park and spent most of the time playing a fabulous board game called Apples to Apples - from your hand of seven red cards, you play one that seems best described by the green one dealt by the rotating judge, it's ruthless. I thought that "Rough" was "Barbed Wire", "Earthy" meant "Alien Abductions", and "Touchy Feely" had to be "Helen Keller." We also went hiking to the Tokopah Falls, I got toasted and my shoulders are still red, J with his perfect-ageless-sunproof Asian skin just laughs - and tells me not to peel it, which of course is the only redeeming part of the burn. So I do it when he's not watching.

...Wonder Boys turned out to be marvelous, Rabbit, Run is interminable and will be returned to the library substantially unread.

...I had my first three days of work, spent them at the Los Gatos location with the main boss/salesperson who is absolutely hilarious and spends much of the time talking about her brand-new granddaughter - who came to the gallery one day and is in fact pretty darn cute. I developed an appreciation for Matt Lively and have decided that Mackenzie Thorpe is not a big deal after all, I am so over brightly colored cartoon children. So far I've sold a book - if you don't know Markus Pierson, check him out. Check them all out.

...J's brother and sister, who are 364 days apart, had a joint birthday party Saturday night - mostly P's friends since M had come all the way up from LA with her husband K, a sweet if slightly shy guy who works for Toyota and is a good 15 years older than me, we did a lot of eavesdropping together. Amazing wonderful people with amazing wonderful accents - like the French girl with her Australian boyfriend. Yummy. J planned dessert, was freaking out all week about the logistics of feeding 20 people and settled on a blueberry sorbet on a champagne gelee with cranberry poached pears. RAN them upstairs from the freezer two at a time, that sorbet had no will to live - few people said, "umm, how about a little later" sure, if you want soup. :)

...J's mahogany finish Kyoto platform bed, which was ordered two months ago, finally arrived and we spent the better part of yesterday assembling it - I love Allen wrenches.

Brother

2005-06-14T11:22:00.000-07:00

So now my brother A at UCSC lives so close that there's no excuse for me not visiting occasionally - his finals just ended, my first day on the job isn't for another week, we rendezvoused at his bachelorpad place. He and his housemates had a party Sunday night - I saw three different sizes of Bombay Sapphire - but except for the petri dish of a shower, it looked liveable. There's a cat, too - allegedly named Sir Reginald - one of those grateful animals from the SPCA who follows you from room to room. A had a Smashing Pumpkins video going, a long-ago obsession which seems to have rekindled. He built his own furniture - the bed is just high enough that his labeled Rubbermaid laundry bins fit underneath and Sir Reginald can't jump on top. Every book a textbook - I thought "What's Love Got to Do with It?" might be a novel, just a deconstruction of the American myth of altruism/private philanthropy. Lots of keys missing from the keyboard of the Powerbook - long time ago he painted all of them metallic silver to match the rest of the machine, the acrylic is gradually wearing down and the alphabet looks Cyrillic. He told me to bring my bike - I reminded him my big toe wasn't serviceable - he said this would be the best thing for it. While I've been sitting in machines to get my semblance of tone, A has been traversing the UCSC campus on his own power - I was lagging badly for the first half. Sit back on the seat and pedal with your toes in low gear when going uphill or else you'll weave and...do that. At least I fall with style - I twist like a cat to find the mossy bank instead of the rocky path, sometimes I land on my feet with the bike 5 feet away. Misery until we were squarely in upper campus, chugging along on virtual flatness through meadows and general gorgeousness. A wanted to show me his secret way and his old studying spot, we veered off the beaten path to follow a thread of dirt about 8 inches wide deep into the trees. Here's where I regretted wearing sunglasses. He was a good 500 feet ahead. I wobbly avoided being scraped off my mount by a low hanging branch, fixate on the ground so as not to hit a root. Then I was rapidly going downhill a la Man from Snowy River - can't remember the last time I feared so much for my bodily well-being. Brakes deployed, still racing along at 15 mph. Ok, maybe 5. My legs splayed to the side as I have no intention of using my pedals. Rinse, repeat. Then the long trek back - which started getting fun once we left the land of acute angles. We'll do it again sometime. I haven't been to Denny's since high school, we stopped by for Super Birds after catching the 4:45 of Crash, which could have been much better. Cold Stone makes a good dessert, an acquaintance of his mixed together his Coffee Lover's Only - I broke with my Germanchocolatekake tradition and tried Black Forest Dream, never again. We talked religion and family as we are wont to do, made a $50 bet on the longevity of a certain relationship. I think he's turning into a Buddhist, which suits him - he still won't eat pig, as it's unclean. More bacon for me.

Feel Sorry for Me

2005-06-10T09:56:00.000-07:00

Was moving some cardboard boxes across the floor. Apparently one didn't appreciate being jostled so early in the morning and promptly lifted off my entire big toenail.

And how am I supposed to wear shoes? Or socks?
Damn, flip-flops? I can't go tripping around waving a bloody stump at everybody!

whee!

2005-06-06T13:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I got my call-back - I have an interview with the owners on Wednesday. Yay me. Gives me time to find a few variations on my lone professional type outfit, sexy though it may be - I'll have to take y'all a picture.

Saturday J's mom took me to a jewelry/gift show near the Tech Museum of Innovation near San Jose so J and his dad could talk "business" - namely, the radio show in China that they're thinking of reviving. We had just worked out so I was all sweaty and in a sports bra while Mrs. C was looking polished as usual, I thought we were just dropping by to say 'hi'...but as long as I didn't catch a sidelong glance at my disgusting self in a window, it ended up being a pretty fun time. Considering she bought me everything - J laughed at my armful of goods. She's got a trick - she picks out one of the nicest things a vendor has, asks if I think it is nice, I say sure it's lovely, she starts bargaining as I go back to browsing, two minutes later she hands me a pair of jade earrings/an opal ring/lucky charm for my car. I caught on near the end when she was picking out some fortune bamboo and a vase and whipped out my cash before she did. And grabbed the bill later during dinner at Banana Leaf. Almost square.

By the Way

2005-06-06T09:15:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad my friends feel so comfortable in discussing their healthy sex lives.

With each other.

To the world.

;)

Trichloroethane - E

Arsenic Theory - G

Monday

2005-06-06T09:12:00.000-07:00

So Friday's aforementioned artsy interview went well - my interviewer (who I would be replacing) and I chatted for a full 90 minutes. Helps that she is also a Berkeley grad, helps that she also took Renaissance art from Dr. Partridge (who she affectionately calls Loren) - she would make a fabulous new friend except for the fact that she is winging off to New York to start the Ph.D. program in History of Art at Columbia. The lucky punk. She sent me off with promises to call me in the next three or four days. Meaning today or tomorrow. Must resist the urge to stare at my cell phone. The last round of interviews is later this week - by then I should figure out what my "salary expectations" are. Eleventy billion dollars.

Feeling a little socially isolated, being unemployed and all. But hey, my ranger is almost level 18.

You know those big no-name Furniture Discounters/Wholesalers/Liquidators type places? Yeah, well, J and I wandered into one near Montague and 101 and found a fabulous dining room set in about 30 seconds. The whole ewww factor wears off once you're out of the parking lot and looking at the cheap groovy stuff instead of the graffiti on the warehouse and the other customers and the weird stuffed animals all over the place.

June

2005-06-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

For Christmas, my brother A (who at the time was employed at the Naval Postgraduate School Monterey - a cushy government job with military rates for recreational equipment and such - while I was tossing Veggie Delites at the lovely Cafe Intermezzo for $8.50/hr + lousy tips) gave me 'What Color is your Parachute'. For those of you who haven't read it, it says the reason you don't have a job or don't like the job you're in is because you haven't had a "life-changing job hunt" - you know, where you sit and assess your true skills and interests and start pursuing employers regardless of whether their business/company has any known openings. Author dismisses the whole internet job search. But then again he doesn't know about craigslist. I fired off the 14th draft of my resume - lookie at the fabulous student with no real life experience! - at about 11AM to a opening I'd been eyeing, and got a call back in 4 hours. I probably sounded like a total idiot, I was so caught off guard "didn't think anyone would call back this soon" blah! Anywho, Friday morning will see me in Menlo Park interviewing for a gallery art consultant position - should be fun.

And I finally have a cell phone. Gone are the days when I was totally unavailable - ooh, and I have free internet and picture capabilities for a couple months, let's see if I forget to cancel it. ;) It's silver, it flips, I have a polar bear buddy that pops up with "entertaining animations!"

onward

2005-05-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

Now a new resident of San Jose - or, as a witty tattoed ex-co-worker of mine once called it, "the Ho". Have a second floor all to myself and roommate G - her old roommate is having his fashion show this Friday and I am "totally invited." I saw some black leather on the garment rack, it's gotta be good. Moved my furniture via friend B's big blue F150 - he asked to be reimbursed with food, beverages, and my wearing something skimpy. I managed a tank top. So I live 20 minutes from boyfriend J - no more 87 mile round trips (106 back when he lived in Sunnyvale); I memorized all the landmarks/exits down 880 and exactly how long it takes to each one - 15 minutes to the Coliseum, 20 minutes to the 580 exit, 40 minutes to 237. In case you wanted to know. Also, the ostrich at Los Altos Grill is excellent - but avoid the greens that come with it.

My brother D just graduated from high school on Thursday in his big blue smurf gown, complete with golden tassel and cord for being a CSF life and 100% member and whatnot. He was valedictorian like his big sis, although I will say his speech was much better than mine - he sounds like a televangelist, I sound like I'm apologizing. His girlfriend's decided to stay local and dance and attend community college while he wings off to Davis to be a civil engineer - according to the tall man who introduced him at the ceremony, he wants to work for Caltrans one day. Older younger bro A is working at a surf camp this summer. Whatever. I don't like water anyway. :) And youngest younger bro A is going to be a HS junior and is learning to drive. A full size van. But since he's going to be a NFL linebacker, I think it will suit him just fine.

Aw, my mom's birthday is tomorrow...

just a little OC

2005-05-20T02:40:00.000-07:00

Some people laugh at those nerds who get totally sucked into computer games - like those guys on the second floor of Spens who played Age of Empires II into the wee hours of the morning. Every morning. Or that other guy who never really talked to anybody - unless it was on the phone discussing how he was finessing his level 18 necromancer's vampiric gaze or whatnot. I know I laugh - in empathy. The reason I'm up at 2:3o in the morning is because I just had to take my level 9 Ranger/Elementalist rampaging through Old Ascalon tearing some Flesh Gargoyles and Crawls a new one - my pet Meleandru's Stalker especially likes taking out Carrion Devourers with a well-timed Feral Lunge - all in search of a bolt of silk so I can get a fancy new mask. J was my Guild buddy til he had to go to bed 3 hours ago - seeing how he has work and all. Come to think of it - I think I have another graduation tomorrow. Hmm.

2005-05-20T02:32:00.000-07:00

I love books. Cody's and Moe's on Telegraph are my personal Meccas, beckoning, seducing me with shiny new covers that promise a more fulfilling inner life. I can only go inside when I actually do have money to spare, because I can't leave without picking up a discounted hardcover copy of James and the Giant Peach or a pristinely neglected Harper Collins Study Bible or A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting. All of which I haven't managed to read. Also neglected on my shelves are A Confederacy of Dunces, Notes from a Small Island because I can't resist anything remotely British, and The Catcher in the Rye. Which D and E say I must read - and didn't I have to read it in high school? Nein, judging from the first page - "David Copperfield kind of crap" "whole goddam autobiography" I sure I didn't pass muster at the school board. I got to read O Pioneers instead - and illustrate four scenes from it. That's how my American Lit teacher kept us occupied. "Draw the apartment building described in The Glass Menagerie" - someday it'll occur to her to have her bored juniors design a Grapes of Wrath board game, complete with pewter jalopy game pieces. So night before last I felt the need to read something trashy - E's selection wasn't really up to snuff, so I sat down with D's copy of Angels & Demons, the da Vinci Code prequel of sorts, the sort of thing you shamelessly devour in one sitting, groaning because you're solving the mystery before the wanna-be Indiana Jones. And the female sidekick in tight shorts with glowing Mediterranean skin and a hint of an exotic accent? Right - and like she'd really want to jump an aging scholar 18 hours after her father's brutal murder and two hours after an attempted rape.

En garde

2005-05-17T15:44:00.000-07:00

Back, back, foul demons of incompetence and inexperience - I'm armed with my shiny, razorthin BA. Actually, it exists purely in my mind - the ritual roll that I'll receive at the art practice commencement is a fake. If I want a real diploma, I have to wait four months and pay $12 for it to be mailed for me. And then I need an ornate frame and a conspicuous wall space so I can obnoxiously flaunt my educational superiority in the faces of those who went to state universities - or Christian colleges. Fresno Pacific sounds like a brand of beer.

So my paternal grandparents made it to my convocation last week - survived the long uphill trek to the Greek Theater despite being in their 70s and chatted with my dad, who they haven't seen in more than a decade. Rift healed? I don't know - but a graduation was ideal for everyone to show up and make nice, because it's not a major holiday, it's on neutral turf, and all the attention is on me. Me! Spenger's Fresh Fish Grotto printed up a special paper menu that said "Happy Graduation", my mom took a copy and said I should take mine too.

E just cranked up the Jay and Silent Bob soundtrack. Nyoonch? She's making me and D feel like slackers, with her boxes and organized stacks of really random stuff. Also known as crap. Not like I don't have my fair share - and it's all gotta shuttle of here in two weeks. Then I take up residence in the humble 3-room abode of new roomie G. Not that G. This one is short, blond, and female. And Vietnamese. And way hotter than me. She's got a curious obsession with the new Star Wars and a bunch of Sacred Heart candles and will basically never be home to see how unproductive I am when unemployed because she's got two jobs.

glitch in the matrix

2005-05-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

Someone's clever art installation consisted of hundreds of primary-colored balloons strewn through the halls and classrooms of the third floor of Kroeber, impromptu soccer games and the heinous popping sounds ensued.

Later, in a completely unrelated incident, a guy in a motorized wheelchair whizzed past me on Bancroft with four dozen blue and gold balloons in his right hand.

2005-04-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

praecipe etiam ut tollant plaustra de terra Aegypti ad subvectionem parvulorum suorum et coniugum ac dicito tollite patrem vestrum et properate quantocius venientes twelve more hours of drawing nudes and that expensive piece of paper is mine to put on the wall, but I'm worried about Roman carts and the one professor I don't want to disappoint. See, I've been driving 87.4 miles a day since Easter to see my boyfriend. I've been sleeping nine hours. Sampled at least 30 different restaurants this year - still need to pay D back for Todai, come to think of it - Buca di Beppo in Palo Alto is my favorite. Sin City was fabulous, and so was that season and a half of Smallville. Sweated my way to 22.5% body fat instead of 30%. Bare academic minimum since March - and no extracurriculars to put on the resume - and now I've got the paper-that-didn't get written and looming unemployment to show for it.

Freedom so close I can taste it.
Is procrastination a transferable skill?

2005-04-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

Don't bother me. I'm stronger than you.

Bad Ex

2005-04-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

Maybe I didn't understand the rules when I started dating some seven years ago.

But I thought that months of interminable silence and obvious avoidance was universally understood to mean "don't bother me."

Picking out Curtains

2005-04-14T11:50:00.000-07:00

So J's condo is 900 square feet of stunningness complete with a fireplace, simplehuman stainless steel trashcan, Aerobed, and a three year old copy of Maxim. With Jolene Blahnik on the front in a fuzzy white bikini, received as a gag gift, allegedly never read. The nesting bird who set up shop atop the fire extinguisher outside is gone, leaving a half-pecked Ritz cracker and a big mess of guano. The construction workers are everpresent, no neighbors yet. No curtains either - last weekend we hit JC Penney to chat up a lady named Carmen about woven wood shades, J says my vocabulary is too high for some 60% of the population - "flush" "plumb" "translucent"? In keeping with the "luxurious living" that is J's development, the windows are huge. As in pain to cover. Maybe a sheet will work just fine. I'm in charge of picking out furniture lest he languish in folding chair bachelordom - his only job was the TV. Heh. The Samsung 42" plasma EDTV whatever it is costs more than the bed (sans mattress) and dining set put together. But it's hot and wall-mountable. D approves of my choices, I am satisfied.

Service worker strike means no class for me today and protest for D. She's planning on getting arrested this weekend, hopefully she can get out of it before we do sushi for E's belated birthday. When you're 21, you're no fun babe...welcome to antiquity.

Blurbs

2005-03-30T10:54:00.000-08:00

The Stories of Eva Luna is opening tomorrow night in Room 7 of Zellerbach Hall at 8PM, tickets are on sale one hour prior for $5, seating is limited to approximately 80 - other showtimes include Friday and Saturday at 8PM and a 2PM Saturday matinee. Be there or be square - if you want to see my "gorgeous" light.

J the world's best boyfriend has the keys to his fabulous earthtoned Santa Clara condo complete with fireplace. Right now all it has in it is an Aerobed and box of Basic 4 and it's still the greatest place on earth. I get to pick out curtains.

Working out is better than a WonderBra, 34D baby.

The wedding I wasn't important enough to get invited to is over, though I can drop by the open house next month if I bring a gift. At least, that's what the "Registered at Macy's, Target, and Bed Bath and Beyond" insert in the reception notice seemed to say to me.

Settling

2005-03-16T10:50:00.000-08:00

I'm two months away from earning my degree at arguably the greatest (public) university in the world. My GPA is higher than Clinton's blood pressure. And my resume says I'm looking for an entry-level sales position...Live up to your potential use the gifts God gave you a mind is a terrible thing to waste make the most of your opportunities carpe diem - once I actually used carpe diem in earnest...in my National Merit scholarship essay. Screw it.

Is it really any wonder that I'm failing to shoot the moon?

I had ten years in private Christian education hearing about how nothing I do in life matters except loving God and loving everyone. Well, I don’t love God. And a lot of people are idiots. Also can’t shake the gender role paradigm where the females sacrifice their ambitions and become school teachers and nurses and housewives while the males become the doctors, lawyers, and professors – because the man is the head of woman as Christ is the head of the Church. Some might argue that this is balanced because Christ loves the Church and gives his life for her. A-hem…the Church worships Christ. Literally…

Start to convince myself that solving the obscure problems of late antique art is a worthy lifetime pursuit and worth sacrificing for and that I won't be mooching off my parents by preparing for/attending graduate school (which can take up 7 years).
Then my mom passes on the speech one of my old art teachers gave at the my brothers’ academic awards last night"...brains are a good thing, but they're not the most important thing. Do you think God is impressed by your brains?" If he isn’t, he should be. We’re not half bad. She asked about me...A is set to graduate from Berkeley, majoring in Art Practice, Mrs. S. smiled, shook her head and said, "Oh, I'm sorry!"

Rather like the idea of having a family - and don't want to be producing offspring past my prime.
But "Married with Children? You may not be a woman in academia"http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2005/03/10_gap.shtml

Going to graduate school makes me even more of a godless, selfish woman. Yay.

Erfolgsverdruss

2005-03-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

I have loved the word "Schadenfreude" since I spotted it in a Maureen Dowd column - way before I took German or Jon Stewart used it in a Rolling Stone interview (re: O'Reilly). While I don't necessary want certain people to fail, I'd rather not watch them excel, either...You know, when your ex-boyfriend makes good or your little brother really doesn't need your college advice or people who definitely aren't as smart or pretty or talented as you manage to get employed or engaged or snag a place in the honors studio. Hack. Thus "Erfolgsverdruss" - chagrin over someone's success.

The friendly circus contortionist came to figure drawing again today, I find nudity fascinating. It's a little game I play every Monday and Wednesday afternoon - guess the model's body type and general composition before they take off their robe. One time this pink, middle-aged man took off his polo shirt and jeans to reveal a totally ripped physique and you can imagine what else. Wow. Other times it's not so great - like the week we were focusing on the effects of gravity and drew from an obese model with breasts like sandbags who had no qualms about sitting around naked, even during breaks. Then the regal Morgan Freeman double...and the grandma who was afraid we'd take dirty pictures of her with our "camera phones"...I don't know their last names but I'm familiar with every mole and then some.

Angst

2005-03-03T14:51:00.000-08:00

In German, Angst isn't just overblown-anxiety-leading-to-depression a la the WB, but full-out fear. Like, I have Angst vor sharks, murky depths, and my life after May. My younger bro is a junior and allegedly makes enough to pay his own rent, I make enough to support my fueling needs and restaurant habit and the occasional clothing binge. At thrift shops. Complete and utter sleeping-on-an-air-mattress-and-eating-Campbell's-soup independence would be really good about now, seeing how I'm coming up on 23...if only I'd find a free newspaper on my doorstep every morning with suitable entry-level jobs with ample room for advancement that hire on the spot without an interview - yes, I'm enjoying my Sims expansion pack, thank you very much. I get to talk to one of the supposedly stellar career counselors next week - maybe I'll take one of those tests for the umpteenth time and be told "Allison, your interests are Art, Religion, and Travel!" Yes, and I prefer working alone in a somewhat-structured, organized environment with minimal supervision and maximum opportunity for creativity, doing things that I believe can make the world a better place while being intellectually stimulated and culturally enriched, splitting my time equally between a desk and the world outside. And?

If I want to do graduate school in History of Art (likely Late Antiquity/Early Medieval 300-800 CE), all I have to learn is:

German
Italian
Greek
Latin

Damn.

Oscars

2005-02-28T07:55:00.000-08:00

So last night D, E, J, and I camped out on the living room floor in front of the warm glow of the television while it poured outside to watch the better part of the Academy Awards, munching away at a crateful of Chinese take-out courtesy of J, the world's best boyfriend. Apparently he's never had rice to-go before, as that's counter to the culture, but mushu pork tastes better in the comfort of your own home. Light yellow was the prevalent choice for gowns, eww. Antonio Banderas can indeed sing, though he was looking greasy. And Chris Rock managed not to curse, which was almost disappointing.

Come see Three Sisters, opening night this Friday, the set is orange - there will be snow, a follow-spot, and same-gendered pecking. I'm kind of sick of it so I doubt I'll be there...I've seen the prologue about 20 times and the top of Act 2 about 30. My job is to sit with a legal pad to jot down anything lighting designer addresses to the air "that needs some backlight" (backlight for DS door), "that doesn't have a template yet?" (CH 141 needs GAP530) and then draw a blue highlighter over things as they are accomplished. Sometimes I get to run down to pull color (find the right size gels to put in light fixtures) from the traproom under the stage, I am definitely over my fear of the dark and tight places. Not only do I stride into pitch blackness, but I manuever over cables and under overhangs and dangle off the catwalk. Hurrah.

Morning Person

2005-02-24T10:45:00.000-08:00

I've never really been one, but

Tech for Three Sisters starts tonight so I have to be in the theater from 6-10/11 everyday for a week doing whatever it is that assistant lighting designers do

which means that my workouts in San Jose had to be moved from their 5:30 slot to somewhere else - 1:30 worked on Tuesday but then I realized that

I have to be in the Bancroft Library to look at the facsimile and (German, oy I have to bring my dictionary) commentary of the comically named Wiener (Vienna) Genesis, a sixth-century Christian illustrated manuscript and it's only open from 10-5 M-F

but I have class roughly 11-4 MWF so

Today I woke my ass up at 5:30.

I feel buff.

And ready for a nap.

Save the World: Eat a Vegan

2005-02-19T21:18:00.000-08:00

Go ahead and eschew the delights of dairy. Subsist on tofu and hummus instead of gnawing on a four-legged friend. However, you suburbanite poseur, do not complain to me about the lack of choices. Just because you turn up your snide nose at olive oil - and refuse the vinegarette because in your earth-loving preciousness you won't touch honey - does not mean that "*tsk, there are no vegan salad dressings!" Unless you walk barefoot to avoid crushing ants, weave your own clothes out of hemp, and beat tambourines with the Hare Krishas every week, I have zero sympathy for your illogically militant diet.

Do vegans breastfeed?

Catch-up

2005-02-18T12:29:00.000-08:00

Life lately:

Valentine's dinner cooked by J (I washed the vegetables and hand-dried the spinach because I have yet to invest in a saladspinner) and enjoyed by me and E while watching cartoons on Fox because he was running in and out of the tiny kitchen between courses. Never ended up getting to the poached pears and mango sorbet, so the latter is still in the freezer. Beckoning.

Nearly qualified for worker's comp not once but twice Monday night, my nasty work shoes have no grip, the bus-boy started mopping, I went flying, all the employees from next door heard it and came running. It's just my pride, really. Told the busboy that tengo nalgas muy gordas, son como almohadas.

Gearing up for interminable nights of tech over in Zellerbach Playhouse - I'm the assistant lighting designer for their production of Chechov's Three Sisters. Though instead of being in whatever-century Russia, the story's been updated, complete with a set furnished by Ikea and music brought to you by the likes of Modest Mouse. And Cyndi Lauper...I get to sit in fly-on-the-wall-like at the production meetings, rather hilarious listening to professors/lecturers mocking their students occasionally, the director wants to send all his female cast members to France so they can learn to walk in heels.

D came back from Switzerland and brought chocolate, I haven't seen the pictures yet but I hear there aren't too many...

Earlier this week E was sporting discoloration and disavows all knowledge. Anybody?

Roxy the axolotl tried to leave this cruel cruel world by jumping out of her feeding bucket. Happily jumped toward the tank rather than toward the floor, all is well.

I am sleeping in til 10 every morning, nothing gets accomplished, and I like it that way thank you.

Happy New Year!

2005-02-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

It is the Year of the Rooster, which may mean SARS is staging a comeback. J and I wandered around a Ranch 99 market looking for a suitable commercially packaged sticky rice cake - they come in coconut and taro and (sweetened) red bean flavor - so that we could eat something lucky today, we ended up having a hot pot dinner after all. For the uninitiated, you walk into a buffet style restaurant. You fish out raw meat and vegetables with metal tongs and place them on multiple plates to bring back to your table, where a bubbling pot of hot water waits. It sits atop a hot plate covered with foil, which serves as a sort of grill. You proceed to cook your own food - marinated beef, seaweed (which is tied into little green bows and is oh so cute), chewy mushrooms, and shrimp. Shrimp which still have their heads and legs - I got over it in about two seconds, tasty. For the record, shaved ice is better than ice cream and I love almond jelly.

Sitting here with my sketchbook trying to whip out 2 hours worth of drawings in about 45 minutes. Have realized that I have no native impulse to create, which is why I'll never be an artist - I work by externally imposed deadlines and the fear of failing grades rather than at a muse's call. Which may be why this poor little blog is getting so neglected - but the occasional narrowed glance from a certain deprived pink sweatshirted girl puts me back on the right track.

Redheaded D is leaving for die Schweiz. Today. For three days. Her dad made it something of a Christmas present - she bought ridiculously warm coordinated clothing so she can stand outside in the middle of the night during the annual Swiss block party of sorts. I'm sure it has a name. Hopefully she's bring back enough chocolate for the rest of the semester. ;)

Engagements

2005-02-07T10:44:00.000-08:00

So my old teddy bear-loving friend A from high school is marrying her college flame up in Washington next month. We knew that. But I happen to not be invited, which didn't bother me too much until I realized that R was. Rather informative telephone conversation, really - I had sworn to myself that I would never call him again because I seem to be the one doing all the work to stay in contact - plus there's the matter of him being an ex-boyfriend who has treated me shabbily then and since - but there's something narcotic about having an old friend who already knows and understands all your God issues. Good thing I called, since, by the way, he's thinking about proposing to his girlfriend of 2+ years this month, the blond one that I've never met who apparently has no outstanding features besides her psycho-fundamentalist parents, her niceness, and former employment at a store called Country Clutter. Jury's still out on my opinion, but hey, I'm invited. He thinks her parents don't like him because he's not Caucasian - despite him being the whitest person I've ever met, complete with a sweater vest - and because he has taken her away from the church/faith. Which is technically true. All that doesn't matter than much - I just wish he'd show some spark. If my boyfriend were talking about proposing in a tone of voice more appropriate for taxes, I'd prepare myself for a lifetime of passion-lite. Dodged a bullet train, yes, yes I have.

Happiness

2005-01-25T10:30:00.000-08:00

Contrary to popular belief, having no class before 11AM trumps a warm gun. I feel like a pre-incarcerated Martha Stewart, doing my laundry and dishes and taking out the trash and generally organizing my life as a start to my very relaxed day. Everybody was up early today - D and E disappeared while I was brushing my teeth, they went to work out of all things, no wonder I thought I'd been Left Behind. ;)

J has got me hooked on Smallville. I smirked and thought him such a girl for admitting a love for a WB teen drama-of-sorts but eleven episodes later I have the hots for Luthor. (But it's all right, he's got a thing for Lana Lang.) Bald white heads have moved up slighly in my list of "don't"s - it's totally working for Lex, Bruce Willis, and Chris Herren (in his wayward Fresno State days). Anyhow, you'd think that any tiny town that averages a death per episode would be evacuated - and that people would notice the big glowing green rocks in their garden - and that Lana's impeccable taste wouldn't allow for Whitney's atrocious haircut. But Pete's got muscles (there was a locker episode), and Superman has very white teeth...

Something must be done with my old monitor. It's the size of a sleeping Great Dane and weighs about as much. Leaving it by the axolotl tank is - in the luminous words of D - kind of white trash - but when it's in my room, it takes what little floor space is left after adding a bed, a desk, a chair, a laundry basket, and a bike. Who takes 5-year old Dell CRT monitors? Other than the dump.

Pictures ok?

2005-01-22T00:28:00.000-08:00

Peace out from D and J-rod.

2005-01-22T00:27:00.000-08:00

Birthday boy P in yellow ribbons, A and J-rod schmoozing, E enjoying her Pringles by the can.

2005-01-22T00:25:00.000-08:00

Immer mag ich meinen Freund kussen.

2005-01-22T00:21:00.000-08:00

D wanted a "ghetto" pose - and didn't give me time to finish my sign!

2005-01-22T00:19:00.000-08:00

Dressed to kill for J's company holiday party.

26 hours to go

2005-01-17T08:56:00.000-08:00

Last semester ahoy!

E's back. She wandered out of bed today draped in her big navy blue blanket and looking like one of the Nazgul and then fell asleep on the couch. Her hair is short and tres cute and now its natural color - I had been expecting purple. :( Though it's definitely a change. D's still structuring her anit-war mix - so far includes Eminem's Mosh which I have heard about eleventy billion times and some Alice in Chains. My newest driving CD is Audioslave - which replaced Franz Ferdinand which replaced OK Computer. Person I know with the best musical taste is a co-worker who plugs his iPod into the restaurant stereo system, I'm always so excited when he's working the register - otherwise it's mariachi from the kitchen and commercials front of house - never knew there was more than one type of reggae.

Paedo's gills are growing back! And Roxy's a guy. So I guess they're not going to mate. But Paedo's sexually mature now, which means there's more for D and E to clean up. Ew.

By this time next week, J's an official homeowner. Hot. I got to pick the carpet - turns out 80% of the condos also picked Pinenut, so guess he'll be in good company. Kitchen counters are black granite and very sexy. His parents came by right when he was talking with the preferred lender man, his dad invests in properties regularly and so got to chatting with the people and found out the Central Valley is a good bet in the next 1o years. Heh. There was a big orange billboard on 101 or 80 a few months ago in the city that said "Don't resort to Fresno" - but hey. We live in four bedroom places instead of condos so there. :)

About that time again.

2005-01-14T08:39:00.000-08:00

Martin Luther King, Jr. is about to gift me with my annual day off - still, just prolonging the inevitable. Thirteen units this time around, instead of my usual 18 - I'm sure I'll find something to fill up all the empty space on Tues/Thurs afternoons and every morning before 11AM. Though - as D so depressingly pointed out - I should enjoy my utterly free time because after that I'm somebody's employee or wife or mom and can't linger over my breakfast cereal.

If D were up, she could massage my neck. Alas. I'm rolling my head round and round because that was part of the fitness regimen in fourth grade and has to be good for something. Last night was my...fifth or sixth session at J's gym in San Jose, J's the special favorite/protege of uber-enthusiastic and gorgeous trainer M who is now kicking my butt, too. Between sets she asks about how our relationship is going - "how long has it been now?..."do you guys ever fight?"..."he's so easy to get along with!"..."there's no such thing as too nice". My initial is-she-trying-to-steal-my-man paranoia has worn off - she's know J for almost a year and a half and there was plenty of time for her to take him before I skipped onto the scene. ;) And if she had bad intentions for me, there's no way she'd be making me work hard enough to look good in a bikini by June - right? Walking to the water fountain was a wobbly experiment. Haven't felt my knees buckle since the Riverdale basketball tournament what, some five years ago? I had turned into one of those soft, indoorsy life-of-the-mind people who has a hard time opening a department store door, for shame. M says I'm losing body fat because I'm shivering. I know I'm losing body fat because my breasts are disappearing. Damn!

News

2005-01-10T13:53:00.000-08:00

Saturday was spent with J as he put the down payment on his condo and as we drove down down down to cow country to have dinner with my family (+D's girlfriend C and -brother A who goes to UCSC). The first time I was in Santa Clara was back in the summer of 1999 for a basketball camp (coached by Caren Horstmeyer, who is now *oddly* in charge of the women's program here at Cal) at SCU with my Immanuel High school team. I remember the drive in the school van took forever, our point guard read aloud articles from Cosmopolitan, and I got the world's worst sunburn at Great America. Second time was the beginning of August I think, when J and I braved the sushi boats and I couldn't use chopsticks to save my life and we sat in the front row of the Bourne Supremacy and got motion sickness, lovely third date. It now appears that I will be spending a lot more time there, seeing how J's new place (and I mean new, he gets to pick the carpet and paint and whatever else) is just off of 101. I never knew that a man writing a check could be so hot. ;) Anyhow, my family was eating enchiladas and playing Dance Dance Revolution which I love and adore though I am less than completely proficient because I tend to jump too high and can't keep on pace. My 300-pound 15 year old bro A is the DDR master and has very fancy feet. Also turns out that he can sing - he and D are trying out for roles in the high school's production of 'Once Upon a Mattress' so I guess I'm going back down in February to watch them. Since all beds were occupied and the floral sleeper sofa got canned in favor of the chocolate leather loveseat, J - the perpetual good sport - got the floor of my mom's sewing room. And a sleeping bag. And I gave him my pillow. ;)

My old friend A - the girl from high school who likes pink and collected teddy bears and was going to university in Canada and is now a nurse and has an interfering mother and a boyfriend who looks exactly like one of my exes - is getting married March 19th in Washington. I don't think I'm getting an invitation to anything but the later California reception - and I definitely haven't been asked to be in it, which surprised my mom. Something tells me I'll never be a bridesmaid - but that's fewer shiny dresses in my closet.

Hello?

2005-01-06T08:40:00.000-08:00

Hey...I'm back. If you noticed I was missing.

Between work, Christmas, boyfriend, and hot new black computer (complete with the Sims 2, Pirates, and Roller Coaster Tycoon 3), updating my blog was low on the priority list, seeing how my self-esteem was running high. But at the moment I don't have a salad to toss, my arms hurt from Tuesday's work out in San Jose (with J's groovy personal trainer who spends the whole time telling me how great he is "girls would kill for those legs" etc.), I'm in my Get Fuzzy sweatshirt and know that I need to hike over to University to pay my fees...ew I'm unmotivated.

D's been having a veritable West Wing orgy the last week ("I hate this song - you can't hum it because of the deedeedee in the background - Josh is hot, isn't he hot?"), I tried very very hard to be intrigued by fictional politics but didn't even make it through an episode. E hasn't been around to entertain me, probably sipping mai tais with a white-smiled Cuban and partying with Dr. Troy on weekends when she's not getting screwed in her tire. ;)

Going home this weekend and taking J, should be fun - last time he met the parents we'd been going out a couple weeks, five months now. We're bringing the waffle iron for Sunday brunch, my mom insists on making dinner Saturday night even though I can already hear her stressing about it - he's not a full-fledged chef quite yet. Though the white chocolate Valencia truffles are to die for. Which is why I'm at the gym!

2004-12-17T14:40:00.000-08:00

I could lie here all day. Break rocks my world.

2004-12-17T14:39:00.000-08:00

The face of total satisfaction.

grrrrrrr

2004-12-16T01:28:00.000-08:00

I'm tired and in a bad mood and if I get one more IM from the empty-headed guy who never came to section - or class, it seems - about "can I use the Giorgione St. Augustine painting for my essay" when it's a painting by Carpaccio not Giogione, on canvas not panel, in a confraternity and therefore in no way fits in any of the given genres "well couldn't it be domestic with mythological subject?" religious subject matter, dude, that's why the man has "St." in his name. Sitting here with my index cards learning dates by rote memorization and growing increasingly peeved with growing fatigue and girl-boys who gossip instead of entertaining. Taking comfort in the fact that finals will all be over in 21 hours. Have "La llorona" stuck in my head and ate way too many Starbursts, treasure from our outing to 7-11 which takes credit cards for purchases as insignificant as $6 or 85 cents, unlike the mean-spirited waiter at Tako Sushi who is on E's list of unsavories. I have an unsavory category on my AIM buddy list, oh the cleverness of me, but since I've blocked them all, I get no satisfaction from seeing their little names by the appropriate designation. Sigh. I feel like breaking things. Like maybe my printer which has ridiculously ill-proportioned ink cartridges that invariably run dry when a major paper is coming due. My mom tells me my man-whore ex-boyfriend came by this week looking for me, he still remembers where I live what does he want leave me alone broken up means no I don't want to hang out and no you're not my friend so bite me I'm not really sure why this is bothering me quite honestly.

End in Sight

2004-12-10T12:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I plopped down on the blue couch with a pint of Ben & Jerry's (would have preferred New York Super Fudge Chunk but Vanilla Caramel Fudge had to do), threw off my shoes, and stretched my toes before devouring Life of Pi, which was so much more fun than my homework. I motivate myself with rewards - a novel is proportional to a research paper completed, especially if that research paper is on Mesopotamian cylinder seals - a subject that interests me less now that when I picked it at random from a list of potential topics.

So now the real fun begins - tonight are the only performances of Recommendations, the student dance show in tiny Room 7 (I lit half of it, my instructor deemed my pieces "lovely"), Wednesday and Thursday are my three finals. I'll probably waste most of the interim clicking through e-bay for Christmas presents, but the delayed gratification means it will never beat blogging for sheer addictiveness. I wish I had something more interesting than the expiration of the semester to report - J's taking me and D out tomorrow to "one of the top five restaurants in San Francisco", I believe it will be French. E unfortunately can't come since she's hanging out with her dad. Who is a professor in Florida. She calls him by his first name.

Desperately need a haircut. My tresses have taken on the look and texture of a mane. Ponytail preferable to the blond fro.

Once Upon a Time

2004-12-03T01:13:00.000-08:00

Long long ago, about five blocks away, there lived three beautiful girls and a boy who often held up the elevator and had late night chats in the hall and all squashed on one bed to watch episodes of Nip/Tuck. The mood lighting was soothing and stunning, and the candy drawer was always full of everything a swipe could buy. Not yet banished, the butter stick reigned supreme and scratched many a back and belly and even caressed a thigh or two. Homework took a long time to accomplish in the presence of such fine company, as conversation inevitably turned to bashing the less impressive denizens of the second floor in new and creative fashions that reduced all to sputtering, gasping, laughing heaps on the unvacuumed floor. The brunette had a thing about people touching her sheets, the redhead let anybody drape themselves on her mammoth stack of pillows. The blonde popped in whenever things got dull - which was often - and the boy whenever he felt like arguing. Meals were enjoyed together around sterile plastic tables, each week offering less palatable fare than the last - as the redhead knew well, from her terrible toil over the warmers several hours a week. The brunette showed off her mating call and popsicle-sucking abilities, the redhead sensuously licked her dessert spoon. The boy always ate ground beef soft tacos, the blonde kept the existential angst at full steam. For a short while, all was right in the world - standoffish and needy and creepy and non-existent significant others couldn't begin to live up.

2004-12-03T00:39:00.000-08:00

Could it be? Yes, it's E.

Broken?

2004-12-03T00:03:00.000-08:00

I have been informed that my blog is broken - I assumed he meant metaphorically and braced myself for a critique of my inconsequential last posts. But it is not so. Let's try republishing...

The Graham Effect

2004-12-01T01:22:00.000-08:00

The sticky red schedule book goes back under the counter after I write next week's shifts on a napkin, the only scratch paper to be had. Cast a cursory glance to make sure the place is reasonably clean, and I'm sliding out the back with my caked hiking boots on the freshly mopped floor. Telegraph at midnight is only different from Telegraph at 6PM for the lack of pedestrians - trash and abandoned clothes pepper the sidewalk and the street lights hum. I tromp home, plastic bags full of day-old bread swinging at my sides, and I spot one of the so-called authentic homeless, the deserving poor, scratching on his guitar. I magnanimously slow to look him in the eye and proffer my baked goods, an easy and non-judgmental smile on my lips. He asks if I have anything with meat in it. Well, no. I stoop down to make a little care package, an assortment of focaccia rounds, slices of honey wheat bread, and a scone that I had fully intended on eating in the morning. Drawing deep on the reserves of human kindness, I introduce myself with the apparently lonely W, who stares and occasionally winks his watery blue eyes and has very grimy hands. Maybe the radio was on too loud all day, because I'm dropping every other word and realizing that he has asked me a question and is waiting for the answer. I smile stupidly and half-nod, which pleases him. See this guitar, it says Georgia; I was in the band for 30 years, never was commercial, I'm no ho - if you paid me $10,000 for all night long, I'd say no. My weight shifts to my left foot, I've fulfilled my quota of how'd-you-do and wonder how rude it would be to start leaving. He's calling me sister and telling me that he's a child of God and that Jesus Christ loves him. I hate being called sister but smile indulgently. He points at a bumper sticker on his guitar case - not the Wild 94.9 but the one that says "Pure." Suddenly it occurs to me that I am about to have a Meaningful Moment with this modern leper. I wait expectantly for prophetic insight, an apropos recitation of a psalm, any string of words that make this man more than an unemployed, unshowered senile musician, and a bad one at that. Now he's saying he was brought up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I move to depart, he begins to growl - I made him so happy that he just had to purr, a sentiment he yells after me until I at last turn the corner, peeved. It's cold, I'm tired. The largesse wasn't mine to give, only my boyfriend enjoys my small talk, my random act of kindness sucked monkey balls and I don't even get the satisfaction of pretending it didn't. The Graham Effect - snuffing every glimmer of human altruism. Arsenic indeed.

Philadelphia

2004-11-29T13:45:00.000-08:00

Makes my third jaunt through the state of Pennsylvania, second time within spitting distance of the Liberty Bell, and first time in a sauna. J's Finnish best friend S and his jolly family reconnect with the old country by stripping down to white towels and alternating between sitting in a wooden room sweating and standing under a showerhead chattering. You can toss a ladleful of water on the hot rocks and choke on the humidity plus the 180degreesFahrenheit - apparently turning blotchy red cleanses body and spirit. Much of the time was spent watching Sex and the City with S's sisters (one's doing an architecture degree at Yale "New Haven sucks" and the other is an undergrad at UCSB), admiring S's new M3 (a lovely black BMW, I want to be a yuppie when I grow up), eating Mrs. K's plum cookies, and laughing while Tikru-the-cat played fetch. Oh - and playing a game called Attack which is a mite more complicated than Risk, apparently I'm pretty good at it because my red army had all of Europe at one point - and that's darn hard to hold onto with the stupid Mediterranean sea in the middle of everything. :)

I gotta type like a banshee to finish a paper. Won't bore you with the end-of-the-semester gripes, I'll just finish it so I can do something worth writing about.

I Want a Cheese Steak

2004-11-24T13:29:00.000-08:00

And a pecan Cinnabon from the airport. I love travel. Wolfing down my reconstituted dehydrated barley soup that E got from her Florida friend N and gave to me because she thought it looked disgusting - it has been sitting in its plastic bag in my cupboard since, oh, June? but I was hungry and didn't feel like peanut butter or zucchini. So. It's like a grown-up version of cup of noodles, complete with the nasty dried carrots and peas that I usually scrape off the top straight into the garbage. ;)

J and I are leaving for Philadelphia tomorrow morning and should be touching down just in time for the food. I think this makes my third Thanksgiving not-at-home - once I was in frostbitten Michigan out on a farm, once I was in Illinois with a missionary family and two sailors on leave and saw my first green bean casserole. This time I'm with Finnish people. I'm guessing their turkey doesn't weigh 12 pounds. Planning on bringing art supplies on the plane and I sincerely hope the powers that be do not confiscate my metal fountain pen nib.

Wow I'm spectacularly boring today. I blame the homework.

Bonfire

2004-11-19T23:24:00.000-08:00

So J-Rod, E, and I stood on a grassy slope craning our necks and trying to keep our balance while taking in the pyrotechnic spectacle at the Greek Theater that was the Big Game Rally. Unintelligible speakers. Sloppy templated spotlights splashing onstage. But "fresh, more wood" and a 50 foot pillar of fire made up for it. You know it, you tell the story, you tell the whole damn world this is Bear territory. The MicGirl is my idol. On our way out of there, we met up with the entire chanting and percussioning Cal marching band and kept pace with them all the way down Piedmont to Bancroft to Telegraph, traffic had to wait. A stodgy fraternity across from Boalt Hall must have been having an alumni dinner as the old folks in suits on the other side of the big windows didn't even realize we were thumping past till we were almost gone - looked like they were having a hard time getting out of their chairs. :) While Berkeley slaughters Stanford tomorrow, I'll be making salads and sandwiches with my trademark flair and perfect quadrants of garbanze&kidney beans and sprouts and hoping that the few folks in the pub next door will yell loud enough that I can guess at the score. Season ticket has mostly gone to waste - I guess I have a $50 free t-shirt. ;)

D went to Georgia to protest at the School of Americas and forgot to tell me. I mean, the girl was getting ready to walk out the door yesterday morning and gave me a hug and "be back Monday" and I think oh she's going to ride her horse, not oh she's going across the country to chill with Susan Sarandon.

The Teach for America interview day yesterday went fine - my five minute sample teaching lesson was for 10th grade world history, introducing the concept of ethnocentrism and how it affects the interpretation of historical events. As long as I don't get assigned to, say, bilingual sixth grade social studies in Las Vegas, I'll definitely take any offer they give me. Ideal would be 10th grade world history in San Jose, but I'd take high school art in New Orleans, too. :)

Paedo the axolotl looks like death, covered in white leprosy and bobbing in the corner at the mercy of the filter. E's been poking him with a spoon ever so often to make sure that he's still kicking - apparently amphibians have "a will to live" because I would have given up by now. Poor guy indeed.

Well, J is getting a part-time contractor position back at his old work place because he's tired of pauperdom. Which means I will get to hear a lot more about IT - which, if our dinner with two of old co-workers was any indication, is a field that can make my eyes glaze over (all except for the story about the Al-Qaeda ale) - and see a lot less of him, but hey. Whatever makes you happy.

Still November

2004-11-12T23:52:00.000-08:00

Acabo de ducharme so my soaking temporarily-dark hair hangs like dozens of little whips. I'm one of those people who absentmindedly plays with my split-ends - or in this case, squeegies excess water with my thumb and forefinger off the last three inches so it can drip onto the carpet. Also have a bad habit of picking at scabs. Fell down the stairs outside the Zellerbach Playhouse last week, tearing a jagged hole in my one nice pair of pants and in my left knee. Having no Band-Aids, I've been developing this little after-shower ritual of removing lint from the soggy cracks of my healing skin with tweezers and surgical precision. Once upon a time I learned all about blood clotting and Christmas Tree factor, in the context of Michael Behe's book on intelligent design re: irreducible complexity. Once I found it quite fascinating -the creation/evoluation debate used to be a top priority in my fevered mind, and being a doctor sounded glamorous. Now I'm more likely to go to the library to pick up the next installment in A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I am determined to read before Jim Carrey can spoil it for me. (Unless, of course, he is in Truman Show/Eternal Sunshine mode, in which case he is one talented hot man in his forties.)

Last night I dragged a coughing J to see the last (and therefore free!) dress rehearsal of Tooth and Nail (about South African apartheid) in Durham in the back of Dwinelle - my friend Y from my lighting class last semester is one of the female leads, she's phenomenal and made me cry and maintained her accent the whole time despite it being her First Play Ever. If for no other reason, go see it for the anatomically correct puppet.

Career for Allison

2004-11-03T22:16:00.000-08:00

Yeah, it's getting to be that time - fifth-year senior who's neither pre-med nor pre-law nor intent on business school, with a non-engineering major...can only putter around in drawing classes for so long before I gotta find a way to fund my extracurriculars. For those keeping track: I've got a follow-up interview tomorrow with representatives of the man to see what they have to say about putting the intelligence back into intelligence and whether or not Washington, D.C. has a bearable climate; Teach for America granted me a full-day (9AM-5PM) interview in a few weeks from now that will involve a sample teaching lesson - yay, I'll get to skip class; and for good measure I'll throw out applications to the history of art departments at Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, and Cambridge. If by some miracle I'm accepted, I'll see if I can defer to go teach underprivileged kids. I mean, they've got to respect that - the only thing more noble would be to deworm orphans in Somalia.

Funny, J's going through all the same stuff with resumes, we commiserate and badmouth the people who don't call back - so far (for his culinary externship) the Ritz in San Francisco invited him for an interview; knowing his charming self, he'll get an offer, though he's still interested in going to Hawaii or Boston. Huh, his dad just flew in from Beijing last night, news to me - I'm glad I convinced J that I had too much homework for him to come over today, bad first impression to appear so clingy that I don't allow him to be present for his father's homecoming. Since J's parents started later than mine on the whole process of procreation (and because he's the youngest of his fam and six years older than me), Mr. Chang is in his sixties. Considering the sort of conversations I have with my grandfather...what are we going to talk about?

Oh yes. It was cold, damp, and bitter today. The wind blew my umbrella inside-out. I wore black. All black. D cried. E's ashamed of Florida's 'extension of the south'ness.

Police

2004-11-01T12:23:00.000-08:00

Intersection of two one-way streets, cars are two blocks away, I shuttle across like I usually do because I don't see him. How much? Less than a traffic violation. And how much is that? About $300. (blink blink) But there's an 8 week backlog on input at the Berkeley Traffic Court. Yes. So...how am I supposed to pay this? You'll receive a notice in the mail. Thanks - I feel...safer.

Does Berkeley's finest really have nothing better to do?

Fuck that.

Magic

2004-10-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

"So this mystery event, it's theater?"
"No. It's in a theater, but it's not theater."
"Not a play?"
"No - it is a performance."
"Does it have music?"
"Yup."
"Not a musical?"
"Nope."
"Give me a hint."
"Well, you'll figure it out as soon as we get near the event...it is world-famous."
"In Cupertino?"
"Yup, you've heard of it."
"It's not like a book reading or anything?"
"No! You'll like it. Oh - it does have the title of a book though. One that you once said you didn't like much. But it has nothing to do with the book."
"...babe?"
"What?"
"Your hints officially suck."

So J took me out Monday night - to see David Copperfield appear out of nowhere on a motorcycle, vanish 13 people, make jokes about pickles, and transport a guy to a sandy beach in Phuket, Thailand (he had the Polaroid to prove it). I was in the eighth row - saw everything and nothing and developed a little crush and am more comfortable than ever with the unexplainable. Beforehand we met his mom for dinner - it was her non-lunar calendar birthday so it was festive. She translated the framed calligraphy for me and gave me the history of every dish we ordered "this is a Chinese hamburger" "this is breakfast food in Taiwan". Moon cakes originally had small marching orders tucked inside them for soldiers to find so they'd know when to show up to fight the Huns. Yup.

Congratulations Me

2004-10-24T02:06:00.000-07:00

Let it be forever known that I, yes, I, started the fateful bloggy plague. I want the credit.

There's the original - me.
Then there was mutual guy friend G. Who dresses exclusively in olive and black and didn't move to Georgia and felt my work needed sexing up and set out to show me how at the similarly named but ideologically divergent (and rather literary) avantgardewithsex.
Three's company, so avid reader and clever mad scientist roommate E overcame initial bashfulness and writer's block to fill an entirely different, Seinfeldesque niche with regular doses of trichloroethane, which is a chemical...(?) and, if you're paying attention, is often a running game of one-up-manship.
To the shock and occasional glee of all, another former second floor denizen M began regular Cal-colored but not Cal-sanctioned lectures online. Guess who's the recent recipient of G's 39 decidedly-nontender lashes.
Dozens of catty and occasionally deleted comments later, we've got a fat readership and plenty of wanna-bes. Rock on with my bad self.

2004-10-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

Empress Theodora looks like me.

Picturing the Divine

2004-10-23T14:50:00.000-07:00

Services can be skipped, sermons ignored, proverbs forgotten, philosophies unraveled. But, with these images burned on my retinas, forgetting the Christian God is impossible - the pageantry is unmatched. Deity descends to wallow in humanity, presumably leaving someone else in charge of heaven. He coos in perpetual babyhood on the lap of his mother or hangs gaunt and disappointed in candlelit caverns of stone, glass, and gold. Sometimes the battered corpse resuscitates to bless, more often to stare. Shining saints march and chant, dragging their heavy robes and exposed entrails, eating his flesh and drinking his blood while the rest of us choke on the clouds of incense from the altar - or the smoke belching from the smoldering pit of hell. How does the militant avenger of plagues and manna coexist with the sighing carpenter of parables and mini-miracles? When did the sensitive martyr preaching non-violence and holy poverty grow a beard and become ruler of all, terrible judge and ultimate jury? And some people think Ganesh is bizarre.

2004-10-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

Seventh.

2004-10-23T13:45:00.001-07:00

Sixth.

2004-10-23T13:45:00.000-07:00

Fifth.

2004-10-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

Fourth.

2004-10-23T13:43:00.001-07:00

Third.

2004-10-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

Second.

2004-10-23T13:42:00.000-07:00

Follow me?

Happiness is Ciabatta

2004-10-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

Semifreddi's is a local bakery who puts its products in Andronico's and (more relevantly) Safeway - they make a marvelous loaf of "classic Italian countryside bread", I routinely ignore the "about 8" servings on the Nutrition Facts and munch the entire thing in 60 hours or so. J in his infinite patience attempts to understand my compulsive comsumption of carbohydrates while stirring his vanilla flavored protein shakes. All in case you wanted to know what's in the bag on my lap. E is partial to baguettes.

Currently suffering from extreme writer's block in my Teach for America application - my Document1 is a collection of jagged phrases like "clear dichotomy between public and private/parochial schools in my county", I'd rather be playing a computer game: it's easier to level up than to alleviate educational inequity. Still debating the appropriateness of including "my best friend from junior high had a kid at 16" as an example of the sort of thing I'd like to see end - since world history isn't exactly effective birth control, and she was a upper-middle class pastor's kid, not an underprivileged minority student.

Contemplating all things God of late - how I enjoy the Christian religion intellectually and aesthetically but am no longer particularly keen on the actual practice. My friend R, who took a class called 'psychology of religion' at the illustrious Fresno Pacific University, says it's because certain key phases in my spiritual life were ill-timed. Apparently his notes were not detailed enough to provide me with specific examples, but I found the notion curious nonetheless. Should you be intrigued by the unfolding and dissection of my likes and gripes, I'll make a post of it. Later.

Salads

2004-10-22T00:25:00.000-07:00

Lettuce. I've decided that I smell like rotting lettuce - and maybe sprouts, too. The treads of my fairly new sportschuhe are caked in who knows what and I just jogged back to the apartment holding my keys in my fist like a pair of brass knuckles while glancing about nervously. But hey, this job is marvelous, evening hours good music cute co-workers free food (can take back homemade honey wheat bread at the end of the night, plus meals during shifts) tips and all the shiny happy Berkeley people who want vegan sandwiches make it go fast. Though we confirmed that mayonnaise absolutely disgusts me and that I am selectively deaf when it comes to "for here" or "to go." Most the guys in the kitchen (who I rarely see) sing along to 'radio romantica' and give me grins when I show up to grab bowls of chili, we should so totally chat.

All of a sudden J's talking about going back to IT after his internship. Stay tuned.

Truly dreadful tunes throbbing through my floor due to the musically challenged neighbors below us. Ballsy E turned on some thumping Sublime, which shut them up for about two minutes but alas. Actually I'm hearing two different songs, maybe there's a war for the air waves raging downstairs, hopefully there will be casualties?

Team America

2004-10-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

Friday night meant E, D, D's brother and his girlfriend, D's friend J from the city, and I ate some very tasty yet volatile Naan'n'Curry and went down to Shattuck to watch some wild marionette action onscreen - the sex scene is worth the price of admission for those of you keeping score. I marveled at all the little tiny details - miniature hookahs and carpets and roosters and turbans, somebody must have had a lot of time and paint on their hands.

So my dad and two brothers whose names start with "A" (the 290 pound high school sophomore football player and the one who goes to UCSC) are coming up for Cal's Homecoming today against UCLA. Last year we went to all the festivities: the alumni tents over by the Campanile, the BBQ buffet and whatnot...but now we know better. I do have spirit - I just manifest it in the form of bagging on other schools, not watching former classes parade with their goofy felt banners.

An extremely absent-minded beret-wearing supposed PhD greybeard with a stained button-up shirt runs the almond butter processing plant I believe I mentioned. Looked like there had been a robbery in the office, papers everywhere, stacks knocked over. He couldn't keep any of my resume details straight "oh you picked fruit" "Packed fruit" "you're from Illinois?" "just attended school there for a while" "you're a second year?" "no, I'm graduating in May" and then proceeded to ask some very irrelevant questions about my more personal life "so now what epoch of art history are you interested in?" "Late antique - from the time of Constantine to Charlemagne" "Oh oh oh, I see, we used to call that the Dark Ages. Why choose such an obscure and esoteric period?" "...The developments of early Christianity and Islam are fascinating and I strongly respond to the Byzantine aesthetic" "Oh oh oh, I see. Why not the Baroque, the eighteenth or nineteenth century, the Romantics or the Impressionists? Who wouldn't want to study the Romantics?" Gag. "I actually lose interest after the Renaissance" "Oh oh oh, I see" And then while my parking meter ran out he went off for another ten minutes about how he loves hiking in Sequoia National Park and pressed me for details on how to get to Mineral King. And then shook my hand and "I'll need to meditate on everything we've discussed" and wandered off. Fruitbat.

The woman in charge of hiring at the sandwich place on Telegraph wears long crimped black hair with short straight bangs across her high forehead, red lipstick, and a greenish-black tattoo around the diameter of her neck. She says not to wear tank tops "since arm pits aren't appetizing" and if any of my tattoos ooze "wear something to cover it up" and "lots of lonely Berkeley students walk through here so give them a smile and act like a surrogate friend." A dog with a leash dragging on the floor started nosing some poor Indian woman attempting to eat her tossed salad so my interviewer got up "hey whose dog is this? Hang on to it, ok?" and some lumpy braless woman with a t-shirt emblazoned with 'some people have kids, I have dogs' (or something to that effect) got all annoyed but collected her errant mutt. Week from today I'll go in early for some training and have my first shift that night. The place is three blocks away, I get food 50% off, $8.50/hr plus tips if there are any, believe I have landed in paradise. Bite me, almond butter.

J found the tickets for our trip to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving - we're going to be staying with his best friend S's parents' while S and his wife and sister will be in town, apparently they're all tall and Finnish so I'll get to eat weird food and feel right at home being big and blonde. Completely shocked my dad approved this trip but will not argue. Go with it, go with it. :)

Gladiolas

2004-10-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

There's a whole vase of red ones on my desk (plus lilies and some fluffy yellow flowers I can't identify) because yesterday was the farmers' market at Civic Center and J thought I needed flowers. Perceptive. :) I think the man is going for all-time greatest boyfriend seeing how he brought flowers, midterm munchies (Pringles, goldfish crackers, Twix, Milano cookies, must be telepathic) and souvenir Washington D.C. t-shirts for the whole apartment, and waited in the Free Speech Movement Cafe a solid 90 minutes in order to walk me back from an evening review session all within less than 24 hours. Yikes, I have class.

Feel the Burn

2004-10-12T20:10:00.000-07:00

Picture a terminal cross between a stair-stepper and a NordicTrack and that, my friends, is a elliptical, a Precor. Your feet stand on these abbreviated skis/snowshoes and each stride forward circles back so it kind of looks like you're riding a bicycle standing up. Cal's Recreational Sport Facility has about twenty of them lined in a row facing televisions glaring interviews with Hilary Duff on MTV(U), thankfully you need to tune your radio to a certain station to hear it so I was spared. My fitness level - used-to-play-high-school-sports-but-then-I-went-to-seed-but-I-try-to-eat-healthy-and-I-walk-to-class-does-that-count? - is about par for the course, no gleaming supermodel types to worry about. Asians, many Asians. I soar, I tower, I'm sure I intimidate. When I'm feeling extra perky I even run back to the apartment - which is kind of cheating, considering that it's slightly downhill the whole way. And I try very hard not to look at my reflection in car windows as I pass (a long-standing, very vain and very bad habit) because then I just embarrass myself. Because when I run, my elbows start bending, my wrists get limp, my strides are short, and breasts, breasts everywhere. If men sprouted breasts, they'd find a affordable way to reduce them - or, at the very least, engineer some fabric that does more than lightly compress. I want a cotton girdle that breathes, darn it.

If your art history professor ever actually comes out and says "this would have to be my favorite piece", that means that slide will pop up on the midterm. I was too busy drawing the lovely gold ewer during lecture to bother to listen to what she said about it . Woe is me.

Productivity: High

2004-10-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

J's in Washington, D.C. attending his sister-in-law's wedding this weekend (he called me from SFO, Dallas/Ft. Worth, and the hotel to sigh about the delays and to be entertained by my effervescent self), which means I have no distractions and no excuses and have gotten oh so much accomplished. Meeting with my drawing instructor tomorrow morning to discuss my scroll project - I'm envisioning six feet of woodcut-esque drawings of hands making gestures that suggest each of the seven deadly sins, and I've got some really cool marbly red/orange paper for fire plus silver and gold ink to make it all illuminated manuscript-like. Lust is the most difficult when using only one propless hand, E's suggestions were marvelous but unfortunately I don't have animating capabilities. Cough. Oh so ready to take on the Assyrians in mortal midterm combat on Tuesday - cuboidal hair-do? Ashurbanipal, baby. And I applied for a job and got a same-day callback - to handmake organic (living food) almond butter or at least be a customer service representative for a company that does. Clinchers in my resume? I've worked in a fruit packing shed and lived without electricity for a summer. No idea what they pay, but it's gotta be better than $4.25. Or nothing, which is what I'm currently pulling.

So the people in the apartment above us had, shall we say, toilet problems. Which meant we had torrents of suspicious liquid gushing out from the bathroom light fixture and getting some impressive splatter considering the ceiling's nine feet tall. Towels towels everywhere, where the heck is the manager, let's use Paedo's bucket DUDE this is so ghetto do we have more towels I think the wood floor is dry now will it never end? Apparently they resolved the problem because the deluge let up, though I took my shower very cautiously. If, by chance, I am charged with murder, it's because the sky started falling while I was brushing my teeth.

37%

2004-10-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

Though the available supply is supposedly dwindling to dire and deadly levels, the Red Cross rejected my magnanimous gesture this afternoon. I was so excited, too - good deed ahoy, I'm A negative ("relatively rare!") and since I donated back in August, I whipped through the questionnaire ("have you had sex with anyone from Chad, Cameroon, Ghana" "have you ever been injected with bovine growth hormone" or something like that), and they already had all my vitals. A nice Latina did the fingertip pinprick (the contraptions are springloaded and hurt worse than donating), pipetted off a great deal, and then plunked the contents into a vial of blue liquid. Where it proceeded to bob up up up and hang suspended before slowly drifting to the bottom - instead of sinking like a stone. So she pipetted some more and put it in a centrifuge. Checked the results. And thanked me for coming by but my hematocrit was a percentage point shy of the minimum requirement - "eat more red meat - or spinach, like Popeye." So now perhaps the whole Pauley Ballroom thinks I have something awful and contagious that they don't want in the national blood supply.

So one of D's friends was over last night to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Another classic (along with Seinfeld) that I managed to completely miss, Xander and Owen are extremely cool names and how come nobody in my high school looked like that? We're slowly working our way through a big round Tupperware of Now and Laters, jawbreakers, lollipops, and Dubble Bubble that D got for the little students in her section. (The Tootsie Rolls and Smarties are ancient history.) And apparently E likes pistachio ice cream. And Commander Data. Eww. His skin tone matches his uniform, girl - and, for the record, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Alan Rickman.

Muted

2004-10-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

Reigning theory is that I have mono or Ebola, why else would I leave my lazy body in bed for eleven hours? Blah. There is only so much that I feel like talking about when I know without even cracking the miniblinds that outside the sky is white, the air is cold, and I have to leave my flannel rag quilt at home for my walk to class. I think we gave autumn a miss. D is studying for a midterm on the couch under her stripy alpaca blanket that her dad brought her from Chile "that she wears when it's CHIL-ly nyah nyah nyah." E just ducked back in to grab "something important", she's always so wonderfully vague.

Saturday meant meeting J's tiny Chinese mother as she got off a twelve hour flight from Beijing still pressed and perfect and wearing lipstick. Felt very much like the gangly American girlfriend but she was so sweet (gave me a hug) that I forgot to feel awkward. The Happy Cafe in San Mateo was our lunch spot, had some marvelous fried dough and soy milk and dumplings and noodles and she too is trying to make me fat. I was trying to be all suave and professional in my forkless eating habits but messed up twice and ended up wearing some of my lunch to the guffawing amusement of the table across from us. Didn't believe Mama/Mrs. Chang for a minute "oh they want to know how long you have used chopsticks - they say you are very good!" I really need to learn Mandarin - cha is tea, shi is fortune...Fish. Vegetable. Water. Little. Big. Dragon. Door. Thank you. Turns out she's an artist, wonderful watercolor and ink painter plus accomplished calligrapher who has done a major exhibit in Taiwan and had the book to prove it. She opened up the cupboard with her Buddhist statues as she started unpacking and I think she was burning incense.

Highly recommend Nola (a New Orleans type restaurant) in Palo Alto, could have eaten the fried calimari all night long baby - plus they were playing Manu Chao.

Useless Information

2004-09-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

There are black hairs on my head which are exciting to find.

'Gladiator' is the soundtrack for working against a paper deadline, I like 'Elysium' to be playing as I print it out.

Likely flying to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving - will be my third visit.

My lighting instructor got so into his lecture today that he spilled his coffee and we all laughed.

Blister on my left heel from wearing the size-too-small shoes I bought in Britain last year which I have since gifted to D.

I've memorized J's phone number.

Pushed the record button for D so the Daily Show would tape while she was out.

Planning on watching the presidential debates to see if Kerry really sweats.

My keyboard is absolutely disgusting, I'm curious as to what's growing under the space bar.

The kitchen now has a new light.

And last night I bought a carton of soy milk! Still tastes like walnuts to me.

Whinge

2004-09-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

"Whinge" is a verb used frequently on a British posting board that I used to visit and I imagine that it means much the same thing as "whine" but I could be wrong. Loathe detest despise writing analytical art historical papers that require zero research. Do the figures seem dynamic or static? Aloof or engaging? In what direction do they gaze? Look, pal, I could orally explain the crux of this assignment in about 20 seconds, why oh why must it drag on in 12 point Times New Roman...

So D's birthday was low-key and quite tasty - hit the Blue Nile on Telegraph for a platter of spicy Ethiopian food (with very pancakey injera or however you spell it) and a carafe of honey wine, grabbed a bag of ice at the neighborhood 7-11 (E has a very special relationship with the cashier due to all the Double Gulps purchased last year) in order to make good use of our jug of margarita mix, J brought a chocolatey flourless cake with a ribbon tied around it, and we all cuddled on the couches and such to watch the pilot of Smallville and the Kents drive my brother A's 1970something Ford F100 (which we know simply as Big Red - he won it from my grandfather in a bet and motors it around Santa Cruz, recently some fool rear-ended him on Mission so the bumper's hanging off rather loosely at the moment). The Pixies were older and fatter than they were when they were big (the bass player looks a lot like a soccer mom and was wearing brown corduroy pants) but the Greek Theater was still completely sold out and a guy sloshed beer all over my silk purse from China and Andrew and I rocked out til I got a headache. Also saw the socialist politische philosophie guy from over the summer on my mission to find a drinking fountain, he still has a mohawk and beard and looks right through me, likely because I am capitalist filth. Sunday drove my bro back to the Cruz so he wouldn't have to ride a train for three hours, we stopped on the way through San Jose to meet up with J for lunch (hollandaise sauce most definitely belongs on omelettes) and get those little pearl teas and then we all went to A's secret beach to watch the surfers. I put my polished toes in and found it too cold and got sand in my nails for my efforts, which is my main grievance about beaches. A's other roommate (besides the one with three names, one of which is a girl's name - which one you get to use all depends on your relationship to him) had finally shown up, he's a short slightly twitchy white guy who seems friendly enough. At least I think he's short, I was sitting down as A threatened to make me watch Tool videos again, they give me nightmares because I am a big baby and don't like evil legless claymation critters.

Cold snap, we've had one and now I wander around wearing a big purplish/orchid Angora sweater with things that don't quite match. Like bright red tank tops and turquoise bras. But at least I'm not cold. And I dyed my socks pink again because that t-shirt still has dye in it and I'm so bummed somebody stole my Cal sweatshirt because it went with everything so I'll have to get a new one.

2004-09-25T17:24:00.000-07:00

Look how cute, don't tell the manager.

D's B-day

2004-09-24T16:42:00.000-07:00

See D had her birthday on Monday, which is a bad day of the week to be celebrating in the middle of semester because most of the people who said "oh yeah we'll go out and buy you a drink" ended up flaking due to homework and other obligations so she's had a few make-up sessions (like last night's aborted attempt to go to the city, think she just ended up at Blake's which is about six blocks from here) but hopefully tonight will be more a birthday proper. Her great friend J from the city will be coming over after he gets off work in a few hours hopefully, my J is coming up too and bringing a cake that D can hopefully stomach, we'll try to wean E off her endocrinology for at least part of the evening and blah, only problem with Fridays is all I want to do is sleep. But a good time will be had by all. Hopefully I won't forget to pick up my brother A from UCSC at the Berkeley train station tomorrow morning because we're going to hang out and then rock out to the Pixies. Actually I've only heard two of their songs but hey, I'm excited.

Concerning Hobbits

2004-09-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

Well, not exactly. But the bride and groom were indeed round and jolly and there was a horse and buggy involved. Whole party took place in this grassy historic park and had a Celtic bent to it - one of the first songs (sung by a red-headed lady with a guitar) during the reception was 'Danny Boy' (as in 'the pipes the pipes are calling'), the husband/wife tag team doing the ceremony was outfitted in huge flowing marbly blue robes to complement their flowing hair and the vows were recited "in the presence of this candle and the circle of these witnesses" and we called on the ancestors and earth and air and fire and water and ate white cake with buttercream frosting that kind of froze because the sun eventually went down and I couldn't feel my toes anymore and I think J regretted lending me his suit jacket but he put on a brave face. We got put on table 14 with one of his former co-workers and his sweet Japanese girlfriend and giggled for most of the evening following a slew of rather fascinating tales told us by a less than sober stranger who looked like a rural curlier-haired version of Barbara Boxer and who happened to have been the cashier/bookkeeper/bouncer for a brothel once upon a time. Best story (about a regular) involved a doctor who always arrived in a taxi and would plunk down $18,500 for an hour of . . . I now know why brothel doors only lock from the outside.

Also went to the city before my afternoon class yesterday for a custom guided tour of J's culinary school, there must have been hundreds of people in white chef's gear, I stuck out like a bloody bandaid on a hamburger. The pastry class continually puts out the day's goods on trays on a buffet table so I had more puffy cheesy rolls than necessary but yum. The elevators are reserved for the actual chefs (who wear the big tall hats as opposed to the skull cap thingys) and for the wheeled carts and such so we climbed a lot of stairs but found Principles of Asian Cuisine and Garde Manger (which I still can't pronounce) and ended up in this huge balconied dining room where I heard this girl my age talking about how she loves working in restaurants but hates people. And an Ian Thorpe look-alike was deeply engrossed into his Professional Cooking book. And the black and white checkered pants are absolutely everywhere within a five block radius, with a special preponderance in Little Saigon.

My brother A-at-UCSC had a birthday last Monday and now he's 20 and needs a copy of a game called Fable now that he's done commuting to Monterey (my family/we finally saw where he worked all summer, I was picturing more shiny metal and big lasers instead of empty aquariums but hey). Roomie D had a birthday this Monday and now she's 21 and hopefully likes her marzipanic soap from GILT the best bath store ever and we'll all go clubbing on Friday I think.

Should you ever have the opportunity to visit a superior brunch place in the South Bay known as Hobee's, make sure your omelette with the blueberry coffeecake.

And we've finally got to the good stuff in my art history classes - bronze door bands from Balawat (near Nimrud and Nineveh) with reliefs of impaled corpses and stumbling enemy chariots and larger-than-lifesize wall paintings of eunuchs from the queen's chambers in Shalmaneser's palace and creepy stone-canopied Gothic tombs with effigies of sleeping doges and a wreath surrounding an infant Salvador Mundi flanked by two terminal crosses between a naked human female and a hippocampus.

Self-Improvement

2004-09-15T01:19:00.000-07:00

There was this conversation over lunch once, about whether or not I was a good person. I argued somewhat unconvincingly that general goodwill and absence of bad qualified me, only to be shamed with my obvious dearth of genuinely altruistic deeds. Do I bandage the rotting limbs of lepers? Do I sponsor a kid in Honduras? Do I give homeless people sandwiches? Do I even hold the elevator open for people? Somewhere along the line I suppose I got tired. I mean, when you're walking along Telegraph and approximately nine people ask for your spare change from Durant to Dwight you can't cast meaningful glances and silver drachmas at them all. The round woman with the Maori chin tattoo who sits outside Hot Topic and the punk rocker who carries his leashed black kitten on his shoulder and the "spare any change" lady with the puckered face on the route to 7-11 don't need my money or anything else I might have so I started to ignore them. Them and pretty much any other people I pass during the course of my day unless they bump into me or are in some way visually remarkable - I'm light years removed from the girl who just wanted to please everybody to the point of tolerating complete negation of self. So I'd like to find the ground between being a human doormat and a callous self-centered prick, the happy medium between raving fanatic and cynical unglaubig anti-Christ and become a genuinely thoughtful human being.

So I was telling J that I used to be a better person, that my parents used to be prouder and I felt more like an asset to the planet. And when was that? When I felt I was actively helping people. Doing what? Oh I don't know, volunteering at the children's hospital, playing piano for old people, making cards for my grandmother, sending off money to World Relief. Why did you stop? Maybe I just forgot. Why don't you do those things again? Good point. So I talked to the eager people of Teach for America, somehow affiliated with AmeriCorps, about teaching for two years in an underperforming school (like in seedy EPA - East Palo Alto) while earning a credential. (You don't have to have a credential if it's an emergency-type situation under the 'No Child Left Behind' Act of 2001.) And if there's one thing I know and do well, it's school. And I could find out if I like teaching while being paid - as opposed to Peace Corps or GSIing. Today it seems like a good idea. It'll be like Boston Public. Only with Hispanic students. And I won't be screwing the other teachers.

*slump

2004-09-14T01:52:00.000-07:00

Tired but hey I have a better resume since I got armed with suggestions from J. "Taught floor staff how to clean the popcorn popper" becomes "employee training", "in charge of scheduling breaks" becomes "human research management", and (this is my own idea!) "counted stock nightly" becomes "extensive inventory evaluation". I feel like a corporate whore already - I think I'll buy my black widow business outfits at Victoria's Secret.

Job Fair

2004-09-14T00:05:00.001-07:00

The slide show of Palladio's churches numbed me this afternoon because "confidently articulated" trabeated and arcuated naked white interiors with domical vaults make my eyes glaze over after glittering Byzantine excess, bite me stupid anti-aesthetic Reformation. And the thought of reading more neo-Marxist articles on neo-Assyrian wall reliefs and staring at poorly photocopied archaeological diagrams makes me scowl. Yeah so I have senioritis and PMS and miss my early syncretic/iconoclastic Christian art and would rather be climbing up to the grid in the theater and now I'm wondering if graduate school appeals mostly because it's a natural extension of studenthood and all I know and safe and respectable and I wouldn't have to get a job for several more years. (All bad reasons to waste my parents' money.) A Ph.D. won't buy me a safari or even a food processor and it'd be like four to eight years before I could be gainfully employed and even that's sketchy because people who can talk at length about obscure saints are usually priests and I'm not qualified. And that...makes...me...feel...lame. Like a grade A suckubus drain on the economy who's not earning my oxygen. Dozens of companies are shopping for entry-level drones in the Pauley Ballroom on campus this week and I think I'm going to go with resumes in hand because it'll be educational to see what a humanities major can possibly hope to do with just a B.A. besides wander over to Gap. 'Practice of Art' is even more useless than sociology since at least a handful of companies are looking for huggable human resource personnel, I'm limited to looking at the 'any major' openings that people from Chico and Fresno State will try to take from me. ;)

A-hem. I'm a whiny baby.

My friend A from high school, the one in passionate G-rated love with a blue-eyed boy with a biblical name, has gotten engaged. I've decided that I feel some pride, crankiness, and jealousy. So glad she didn't end with Wigglybooth, so hope that she moves away from her mother, so bummed she didn't meet someone more exciting, so not expecting to be in the wedding party, so aware that my life isn't as set.

Every Bad Thing I've Done (up to leaving Kohn)

2004-09-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

On brother Andrew’s first birthday I took his yellow plastic ride-on duck and wouldn’t give it back.
I hit Andrew on the head with a baseball bat and he still has a scar.
The first night Spike the kitten came to our house I pretended to go to bed and then spent all night playing with him.
When that kid Benjamin came over to play that one time, I hogged the swings.
I once held Daniel in my lap and his leg was tucked under funny and he was screaming and I didn’t care.
I pretended to talk Spanish everyday with the non-English speaking girl in my kindergarten class, likely giving her a major complex, in order to impress my friends.
When my crush David Perales fell off the monkey bars and split his chin open during recess, I ran off instead of helping.
One afternoon I started a cartwheel contest, promising a kiss to the boy who did the best one but never delivered.
Anne Marie Vaughn wasn’t really that good of a friend but she had a Barbie mansion and a castle in the backyard and I’d pressure her to slide down the stairs on pillows til her mom yelled.
Lettie Smith was cool because her mom was British but I made fun of her behind her back for wearing sweatpants and headbands everyday.
Nicole Smith who was my best friend once had a project where she was supposed to list five things that she was thankful for that began with the letter “S.” One of her picks was “shoes” and I told her that was stupid.
Also Nicole had a book about sex that her mom had given her and we sat and giggled over the diagrams for about two hours until her mom caught us and got mad and took the book away since my parents might not want me informed.
Whenever we had birthday piñatas I would grab the candy really greedily and the littlest kids wouldn’t get any.
I once stole my brothers’ chocolate eggs out of their Easter baskets because my mom kept them on top of the fridge and I found out I could reach them with a chair.
I played strip poker with my cousins.
I made fun of Michael Tamariz for being fat and hated him when he guessed that the small Halloween pumpkin would have more seeds that the big one.
Once I lied to my first grade friends and told them that my father wasn’t my real dad, they believed me for a few hours.
I occasionally called my Uncle Mike "Uncle Booby" against his wishes.
Once I was flashing an “I love you” sign at my boyfriend Jimmy Malloy but it was intercepted by the thick-lipped Jason instead and he thought I liked him but I told him there was no way because his freckles were ugly and his teeth were crooked.
I helped my crush Jimmy Crook cheat on one of those scholastic aptitude tests in third grade, but only because he was crying because it was too hard.
Also that year I was in a weird mood and told Brandon that I thought Jimmy Malloy was a jerk and that’s why we haven’t spoken since.
I led Stephen Mendoza on in fourth grade but ended up dumping him because I didn’t want spending time with him to distract from volleyball during recess.
When Mrs. French led P.E. one day I joined in with the other kids in making fun of her for saying the word “sex” as in “don’t discriminate on the basis of sex” and hurt her feelings because I was one of her favorites.
Also Jimmy Crook fell off the monkey bars when we were hanging out after school and broke his wrist and I never talked to him again after that.
I wrote scary anonymous letters to Candice’s older sister when Halloween was coming in order to scare her and left them in her front yard, it really worked.
Also Candice was trying to get rid of this guy who had a crush on her so I dictated a scathingly mean letter on the bus ride home, I think he cried.
In fifth grade there was this guy named Alvin who thought I was terrific but he was too short so I once pushed my chair back from my desk really too hard and too quickly and made him cry because I pinned him.
Also that year I lied and said I had telekinetic powers like Matilda.
I forgot to use my milk tickets almost every day and wasted a lot of money.
I didn’t like eating cheese sandwiches so I generally threw them away.
When Tiffany Bustamante made her speech for class president I made faces the whole time in the hopes that she’d mess up.
When I got in front of the entire student body to read my anti-drugs story out loud, I used the word “damn” because I was quoting even though I was advised not to.
Whenever we’d play this basketball game (with a name I’ve forgotten) I would cheat and occasionally give myself extra points.
My friend Michaela and I would make fun of her twin sister Nicole until she’d cry and say she’d never talk to us again and slammed the door.

Drawing a Dragon

2004-09-11T00:53:00.000-07:00

Origami paper, in addition to being ideal for folding lilies and such, makes a silky smooth drawing surface and comes in colors reminiscent of European currency. I stupidly signed up for a Monday individual meeting with my drawing instructor (the one who had a stroke and motors around on a red scooter and is beyond cool), giving myself much too little time to make significant headway on the design-four-bills-of-currency project which I'm supposed to bring with me. Which is why I'm not hanging out with J this evening and am instead covering myself in graphite while listening to the Cavalia CD on repeat. Which keeps skipping up for some reason, like D and her Beastie Boys yesterday. It's an epidemic. Switching to Finding Nemo.

I can't believe I just IMd E. Walk twelve steps when you can type? Ha, technology is fantastic, time for another three way with G. Can't remember the last time we were all actually in the same room. What ever happened to the butter stick?

Spent this afternoon in the basement of Zellerbach, right underneath the playhouse stage where the crew was dragging and flying wrecked cars through the air with steel cables and stacking them on top of each other in preparation for this show called 'the Disaster Series - the Continuation' by Joe Goode. Far from the action, I just got to hear the ruckus while thoughtfully loosening and retightening screws to fix the wire contacts (darn green ones) in about a dozen Source 4-26" and -36" theater lights for two hours with my lab group. Big jolly black guy named T admitted to enjoying the stylings of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Disney movies and immediately followed with "but I'm straight."

E set up her new bright pink desk and hangy blue IKEA thing and it looks very graphic. Apparently the brief hammering of a nail into the ceiling to hang said blue thing upset the fragile constitution of the polo shirted dude in the apartment upstairs who came down all self-righteous at 11PM on a school night and to knock and do the Office Space 'that'd be great' routine while D and I blinked at him in disbelief. E hammered some more for effect.

J's coming over tomorrow to make sushi for we three babes and another British vet student who's crashing with us for the evening before his flight back. Sashimi!