Stuff and Things

so, another week of not much is coming to a close. things are much calmer this academic year. around this time last year, the whole chicken-with-its-head-cut-off adage would fit right about here. nowadays, i'm actually sleeping in most days and then enjoying long, lazy mornings sipping coffee and reading the online papers. all that will likely change in the coming weeks as i begin my pseudo internship, which is really the second part to my new TAship i mentioned in the last entry. i'll be working for a USC-sponsored agency that provides training to mid-career journos. unfortunately, it doesn't look like i'll be doing much journalism there, just assisting -- gofer stuff.

school is school. turned in two papers last week, have a midterm next week and must grade a bunch of papers this weekend. everything's pretty fucking boring on this end. well, there was one strange thing that happened last night. maybe it's worth mentioning.

i went to one of pablo's business school mixers last night (side note: these party animals seem to have about five a week, crazy business kids) and the most bizarre accident took place. pablo was standing around talking to some people when one of his classmates heard a joke that must have been pretty damn funny because he doubled over laughing and somehow smashed his head against pablo's wine glass. the glass shattered in pabs' hand and the guy's head started gushing blood. pabs comes outside to find me and he's covered in blood and red wine, which was a startling sight on its own. the ambulance shows up in a matter of minutes (rare in hollywood) and paramedics begin to bandage this guy's head. there were no hard feelings, and the guy didn't seem too pained or upset by the incident. it didn't really ruin our night either -- all us kids still kept getting soused and even made an unsuccessful fast food run at 2 a.m. when the bar closed. we woke up late this morning. pabs missed his class and morning meeting.

also, i'm supposed to be in spain right now and i really wish i were. my most favorite couple in the world, juan and kiana, are getting married right outside of madrid this weekend. pabs and i were going to attend, planned on it, but the demands of school and work made it an impossibility. i feel horrible about it, guilty, sad. but, of course, they were very understanding when we broke the news to them. i'm also pretty bummed that i'm missing the party, because knowing these guys, it's gonna be better than good. in their honor, here's a photo:

The Only Stupid Question Is the One Not Asked

it's amazing what you can get out of life just by asking for it. just the other week, i walked into the student services office at my school and asked to be hooked up with one of those super lucrative and highly coveted TA positions. well, none were available, already assigned for the semester and so forth. but a week later, one opened up and i got the call. half of the position has me TAing a class (not doing any actual teaching, though, just grading papers). the class is on entertainment PR, an area i know nothing about. the other half is working 10 hours a week at an organization for journalists. and this is one phat deal, too, as in all my tuition paid for this academic year and a monthly stipend. and all i had to do was ask (well, i sorta begged). if only everything were that easy.

i'll also still keep my once-a-month gig at CFQ. although they agreed to give me more hours, i was never actually needed more than once a month, so provided i have the time, i'll still be going in to copy edit their issues right before they're sent to the printer. this takes about a week, and often includes weekends. so nowadays i have plenty of work (school and other) to keep me occupied.

the bad news is that the chicky i wanted to chair my thesis committee can't make the time this year, so i'm on the hunt for another professor to suffer through it with me. i think i'm set on a topic, but i'll share it at a later date, once things with my committee are finalized.

and in other news, i've updated millatimes.com a bit more, but am far from finishing it. i just wish i knew flash and dreamweaver, photoshop, illustrator -- all that crap. it's just taking so fucking long to do anything because i don't know the software all that well. something that takes three simple keystrokes to do will take me 15 minutes of trial-and-error fiddling. the 'dreamweaver for dummies' book i have could help if i weren't too stubborn to use it. but i have all the photos from my trip all sized correctly and ready to go, i just need to organize them in a way that makes sense. i also have my map of europe done. it took me all friggin weekend to do. eventually, each city title will link to a photo slide show. eventually.

Dig My New Blog

endless thanks go to germy, who kindly archived my blog for me and helped move everything over to this new format. finally, an archive! sorry for the dial-upers who had to wait eons until the page loaded, i know it took a while. this main page will hold the 10 last entries and will now include titles.

of course, i've done no other work on my website, but the weekend was more full than i thought. i finally got a much-needed haircut and dye-job saturday and spent much of the afternoon installing shelves in the hall closet. they're pretty precariously done -- a real amateur job, like a strong wind will just topple the whole thing. but at least i have a place to store my bedding, towels and maxi-pads.

this morning i interviewed two candidates running in the recall race for governor of the great state of california. (no, i couldn't get billboard hag angelyne after all. she turned out to be a typical LA flake. bitch.) these guys are proprietors of ButtMonkey Beer, and intend to use their candidacies for shameless promotion of their product. it was ridiculous, just like everything else surrounding this whole recall business, which is why i wanted to interview them.

in other news, my dog's boyfriend max has been staying with us all weekend. see 6/02/03 entry. it's not too bad having two dogs around, the adjustment has been minimal. and they can be so cute together, cuddling at night on their doggy blanket and slurping from the same water dish during the day. yesterday i caught them snoozing on the floor, juice's head resting on max's neck. makes me wanna have another furry baby.

Stuff and Things

• i saw "daredevil" last night and it was soooo bad -- i almost couldn't finish it. has ben affleck made a good movie since "good will hunting"? i also saw "frida," which i really liked. i was very impressed with ms. salamander hayek and the direction of the film, both of which were top notch. tonight we're seeing "gangs of new york," provided pablo finishes his memo-writing assignment and drags himself and me away from the computer.


• speaking of my pabs, he did some weird sleepwalking the other night. i awoke at about 5 am to find him pulling his shirts out of the closet. when i jokingly asked him whether he was leaving me, he mumbled something unintelligible before doing his tony soprano "fuggetaboutit" (complete with hand animation) and hopping back into bed.


• i had dinner last week with a group of 10 other chicks from my program. we went to this restaurant, where we were the loudest, largest and most obnoxious group there. if i saw us, i would have hated us. but being part of us wasn't too bad. it was nice to catch up on our summers, gripe about professors and exchange beauty secrets.


• pablo is super duper excited about school, like, really very excited. i haven't seen him this excited since he met me. it's great and i'm happy for him and all that shit, but now he's assuming the role of absentee boyfriend, which leaves me as the neglected girlfriend tugging at his sleeve for a morsel of attention. our roles were reversed last year. funny how you morph into each other in this relationship business.


• i'm going to try and update millatimes.com this week, including adding a photo gallery of this summer's trip to europe. i hope to get it up and running in about a week.

hello to my two readers, my cousins Gitella and Roman Himmer. well, gitella is my cousin, though she's more like a sister, and roman is her husband, though he's more like a cousin. but yes, hello to the only two people who have responded that they're still reading this shit. and i just want to say that "gitella" is a great name, i've always thought so. i don't believe any one else on the planet has that name. if i remember the story correctly, i think my aunt bella was stuck between the names "gita" and "ella" for her baby girl and just decided to merge them into one super name. hence, we have the superhuman gitella, who really is super in many ways. i may complain about the demands of my putrid little existence, but my supercousin is a devoted mom, wife, student and employee all at the same time, and i've never heard a whiny peep come out of her adorable, freckled face. i often wonder how she remains so kind, gentle and grounded, instead of turning into a prozac-popping neurotic soccer mom like so many others in her position, but then again she is the lone redhead martian in the family and i think that's equipped her with superpowers.

that's about all, really. not much going on with me lately. still trying to nail down my work situation, which currently does not provide me with enough hours or money to pay my rent. i'm trying to hustle now to find an incredibly lucrative, low-effort position. preferably one that i can do from home with eyes half shut and mind elsewhere. no luck yet.

school is school, and if my first week is any indication, this year will be a hell of lot easier than the last. it certainly couldn't be much harder. i was put through the academic ringer last year, so i'm looking forward to taking it easy, being able to sleep in some mornings. for my interview-a-candidate-running-for-governor assignment, i'm trying to get LA billboard queen angelyne, whose campaign motto is something like "we've had brown and gray. now it's time for pink!" enough said.