The Grind

nothing hot or exciting has popped up in quite some time actually. it's been business as usual lately. had this temp thing for the past few weeks, so that's provided some stability. get into the office at 10am, leave whenever the work runs out or whenever i want to, it's so flexible. the good news is it pays great, more than any journalism job does. bad news is that it's proofreading, and after a few hours of sustained attention to 12-point times new roman black font on a white page, my ass hurts and my eyes are ready to bleed. and it's real proofreading, not even copy editing, as in checking two documents against each other to make sure they match. the job has no soul. i hate it, i hate it, i hate it.

but it pays, so i show up ruddy faced and eager each day, red pen in hand. the best thing about being a temp, though, is that you don't need to look busy or pretend to care. when there's downtime, which is often, i just grab the paper and spread it out on my desk, surf the web unashamedly, hop on the phone to socialize. and when my temporary supervisor walks in with more work, i look up, smile, drop my distractions, deliver the proofreading goods in a jiffy and then resume my downtime activities. it's so chill. but i think the assignment is nearing its end, which means maybe another week off before the agency places me somewhere new. it's not a bad scenario. i have no complaints, and no, still haven't heard from dream job yet.

for lack of that aforementioned unifying theme, i'm providing some news in short:

• i consolidated my loans recently, locked them in at a 2.85% interest rate, which is fabulous, and i managed to make the repayments begin early next year, so that's all golden.


• i was a bad girl and didn't fast for yom kippur like i had planned. in my defense, however, i ate very little and mostly drank coffee throughout the day. still, i kinda felt like an asshole, figuring i had enough sins to atone for this past year. i hope G-d's not too pissed with me. next year, i promise.


• i recently went back to USC for this recruiting event, which wasn't very interesting, but i did have a warm feeling as i visited the campus for the first time since i graduated in may. it really warmed the cockles of my heart, though i'm so glad i'm no longer a student. fuck that.


• yogaman/justin and i are still going strong (in case anyone's curious). we had a little weirdness a short while back but managed to overcome it. we were curled up in bed the other night when i realized that it's been close to six months that he and i have been dating -- SIX MONTHS! that tripped me out, more so because of the passage of time element than anything else, but shit, it's all been zooming by. it's all good, though, we're still all smoochie cutesy, poopsie whoopsie. and oh, did i mention he's been living with me since july?


• movie recommendation of the week is 'super-size me,' which i recently rented on DVD. it's about that guy who eats nothing but mcdonald's for a month straight. in that month, he puts on about 25 pounds and almost annihilates his liver. also enjoyable was the first season of the TV show '24.'


• got my ballot in the mail the other day. i vote in every election (ok, not often in the local ones), and i wear that silly 'i voted' sticker all day, proud of my civics contribution. voting for kerry this year. duh. found the presidential debate rather boring -- didn't hear anything i hadn't heard before elsewhere. hoping the next debate will be better.


• i love this cold weather coming in. i'm gonna try out new recipes and aim to make homemade soup weekly this winter. please email recipes to milla666@aol.com or post in comments.

ok, time for snoozing.

Back to Being Broke as a Big Fat Ugly Joke

boo-hoo. poor me, poor me.

alright, i got the requisite whining out and over with. i am bummed, however. i spent the past five weeks working at a place i really loved with people i really liked doing something that was really interesting. i wanted it to continue, got one extension, but alas, i was a measly vacation relief temp and they are once again fully staffed, so my presence wasn't necessary or justifiable. so i was sprung out again, with no promises on when/if i would be called back.

i think i might be called back, but the when part is the problem. and herein lies my dilemma: do i try to find temp stuff to float me in the here and now while i wait for that phone call from my dream job that may never come? or do i just suck it up and start hunting for full-time, permanent employment elsewhere?

obviously, when it comes to job and financial security, the known is better than the unknown. and this very successful media outlet i was temping for -- a place i've loved and respected for years -- is notorious for keeping temps in limbo for years before offering them permanent employment. they know there's a long line at the door; they know only the strong and hungry survive. and here i am with my foot (finally) in the door -- how can i walk away? it won't happen now for me, but maybe eventually. but maybe not. is it worth the gamble?

i'm really not sure, and this quandary has been consuming me for a good month now. it might not be so bad if i could find steady temp stuff that i could just slip away from whenever dream job wanted me back, though that would leave me at their beck and call. i would basically be their bitch. that might be okay with me in the short term, but again, the unreliability of it all, the thinning savings account, the fact that the first student loan bill arrives in november. yet on the other hand, the fact that it's my dream job, a place i've always wanted to work, a best-case scenario that can't be beat, provided things work out in my favor (which they generally don't).

advice?

High on High School

my high school was a funny place. it was this sort of experimental magnet school, grades 4th-12th, where "gifted" kids were mixed in with average retards in the hope that the former would somehow elevate the latter. though a lofty goal, kids were kept segregated in either remedial, normal or honors classes, so the mixing stayed minimal. well over half the student body was nonwhite and bussed in from all over los angeles. it was a public school -- never a fee to attend -- but the waiting list was long and admission was awarded through a lottery system. so we had a mini melting pot of races, socioeconomic backgrounds, IQ levels and ages. it probably sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it worked out well.

i began that school in the 6th grade, attended it seven years and graduated from it three times before finally leaving. when i left i had been there longer than most of the administrators. imagine my surprise when i began UCLA in fall 1994 and found myself as the little fish in big pond when i had been just the opposite for so long. in any case, high school wasn't that traumatic. i did all the stuff one is supposed to do -- cram for exams, play hooky, smoke pot, attend prom, lose my virginity (the week before prom!), sign yearbooks, pass notes in class and so forth. normal american stuff.

my graduating class must have been around 130 kids, and we all knew each other. there was a real sense of unity among us, the Eccentrics of 1994. they say college is the time when you make your friends for life, but i'm more tight with my high-school peeps. after all, we went through all our 'growing pains' together, saw each other through the awkward 'wonder years,' went through divorces, custody battles and pep rallies together. they are my true homies and the loyalty runs deep.

so with this in mind, i had been looking forward to my 10-year reunion. we had all kept tabs on each other somewhat through the years, so it was less a curiousity of what everyone was up to now and more about getting people together in the same room. in a nutshell: It was great, really great. that school spirit was palpable, with everyone seeming genuinely pleased to see one another, hug and catch up. what's interesting is that people looked damn good. all the girls must have gone on a reunion crash diet or something, cus they were looking hot. and the boys -- thinning hair and all -- looked beefier in a good way; all the skinny stragglers had finally hit puberty.

the food tasted yummy, the wine glasses seemed to refill themselves, and the party felt right. to see photos of smiling fools you don't know (unless you're my high-school homey), click here, click here! although we did plenty of mingling, parts of the evening felt cliquish -- just like high school. during dinner, there was a black table, latino table, russian table, honors kids table and an everyone else table. i'm only bummed more people didn't turn out. and i'm bummed i didn't get to stay longer. i found out the next day that someone had rented a hotel room nearby, where i'm sure people played seven minutes in heaven.

i bailed out at about 11pm to attend the birthday party of one juanito de la plancha. (happy birthday, juancho.) but yes, overall it was a blast, and i can't wait until the next one.

Family Matters

i attended this family get-together last weekend. it was a reunion of sorts with all kinds of relatives whom i hadn't seen in years. there were maybe 35 of us sitting down to eat crummy russian food at this restaurant with crazy slow service. i slipped into a dress, high heels; i even washed my hair. and then i braced myself to face the relatives, which have been known to be quite the critical bunch. luckily, i passed this time, as they all agreed i looked nice and healthy. i encountered a compliment each time i greeted one of my aunties and great-aunties (there are mostly women in my extended family). that, of course, was nice to hear because most of the time i get "plumped up, eh? you should lose some weight" or "you'd look better if you pulled your hair back" (this time, i came with my hair already pulled back).

but nope, nothing but the good stuff this time around. ALTHOUGH, there was something qualitatively wrong in all the compliments. they were usually couched in the terms "you look so much better than the last time i saw you," which really made me wonder what kind of monster i looked like before. it must have been maybe 2-3 years ago that i saw them last, and that means maybe 10-15 pounds ago, but 10-15 pounds isn't 50 pounds. i was disturbed, especially when my 'high society' auntie asked me whether i had had plastic surgery. it was if, "damn, girl. you probably had to pay someone to lop the fat off your ass and brighten up your face, because you ain't no natural beauty."

and then there was the old standby: "When are you going to get married?" and this time around, it was confounded by the compliments, i.e.: "What's going on with you? You look so nice, why can't you find a man to marry you?" then the aunties would list off the various FOBs they knew (FOB= fresh of the boat, as in recent immigrant in search of a greencard). after a few glasses of wine, i felt brazen enough to respond to the "when you gonna get married" question with "never" (Nee-kug-da in Russian). to this, i would usually hear "but you HAVE to," though some oddball aunties did pull me aside and say "you know what? that's good, honey, you live for yourself. i wish i did."

*************

in other news, my current temp gig that i've been so in love with has been extended another two weeks, which means money (yay!) and getting up at 4:30am to get to work by 6am (boo!). it's been great, though. i feel super challenged by and engaged in my work; the early start actually makes the days zoom by, leaving me with plenty of daylight once i get done at 3pm; the pay's not bad; the people are nice; and i'm working for a brand and cause i believe in. so, in short, i'll never get a perm job there, because good stuff like that just doesn't happen to me. i'll take the crumbs, though.

otherwise, i've been a movie-going mama lately. seen so much in the theaters in the past few months: spidey 2, bourne supremacy, collateral, what the bleep do we know? and napoleon dynamite. only ones i'd truly recommend are 'napoleon dynamite' and 'bourne supremacy.' rest were subpar.

tonight should be very interesting, as i have my 10-year high-school reunion to attend.

My Furry Baby

i adore my dog -- like crazy, apeshit adore her. she's the sweetest thing in the world, everyone says so, and i know i'm being totally objective when i say she's also the cutest dog on the planet. so here's a little ode to my precious juice, who turned two years old this past june.


"look at me! how can you resist my face? now give me your burrito."


"i'll keep staring until you do."


"ah, fuck it, i give up. now i'll just take a little nap by your feet and hope some of that food falls from your plate and into my mouth."


"when all else fails, i'll just go give my mommy a kiss. i loves me my mommy."

It's Official

i'm overeducated, unemployed, in debt, disillusioned and directionless. where does one go from here?

i know i'm not alone. it seems a good percentage of my generation is also 'lost,' struggling with the quarter life crisis that seems to plague so many of us. we refuse to turn into our parents, live a life of stable mediocrity, but once we enter the dreaded real world and realize that, yes, the gold rush tech boom days that turned twentysomethings into millionaires overnight are really over (and we missed the boat) and that, yes, we'll need to stay stuck in creatively stifling day jobs for years to come because that's how rent gets paid, we get all kinds of depressed. we go on prozac. we lie awake wondering why the fuck we aren't already rich and famous when someone as talentless as jennifer love hewitt is. we sit around with our like-minded peers discussing how much smarter we are than our bosses and how menial our work tasks are. and when we finally, frighteningly realize that we are destined to be cogs in an immutable system, we have a meltdown, move back in with our parents and spend our days lounging around in our pajamas, eating cereal and watching MTV -- anything to take us back to a carefree youth we didn't value enough when it was around.

sound like anyone you know? i'll confess i possessed some elements of this crisis mentality after i finished my bachelor's and initially joined corporate America. i feared i would never find true happiness by assuming my new role (as cog) in my new environment. i figured i'd have to train myself to expect so little from the big world i once expected so much from. Reality Check 101 -- why was that class never offered in college?

this time around, it's very different. there are no pie-in-the-sky, stars-in-the-eyes dreams of being able to change the world with just the love in your heart, good will toward all. it's sad that some of that lofty idealism of youth is gone, but that shit just ain't realistic. the upbeat flipside to this is that while i've learned to expect less from the world, i've come to expect more from myself. there's no false sense of entitlement, no belief in 'meant to be' anymore. steady baby steps sometimes take you farther than long strides followed by inactivity.

that's what i hope, at least. i'm taking my first baby step tomorrow by starting temporary work at a place i wouldn't mind working permanently. (given that i must be there at 6am, i got up at an ungodly hour today, a sunday, to practice for my big 4:30am wakeup tomorrow.) i'm so ready to start working again. ready to be productive, to earn money, to feel good about myself and my place as a cog, to fill my days up with stimulating activity instead of wasting them away at home, where i've been for the past month, sitting around bored, deep in thought over self-absorbed matters that don't really matter much. yes, work will hit the spot right about now, and i won't turn up my nose to the menial tasks or be afraid to work hard or stay late. i'll expect nothing, but give it my all and maybe, just maybe, it'll lead me to the next step.

and if doesn't, there's always my parents' house, cereal and MTV.

Broke As a Bad Joke

seriously, though, if Bill Gates is reading this, can you please send me some money? i mean, you probably won't miss it at all given that you're a kazillionaire. and we're not talking THAT much, maybe 10K or 20K, which i can stretch out until i become gainfully employed. is that so unreasonable?

july has been a total wash workwise. no inputting of funds, only output. i've been trying to keep all expenditures at a minimum -- which is challenging, given my party lifestyle. the dorks in culver city i usually work with once a month suddenly had no july budget for me, so there went my greatest chunk of monthly cash. i would often supplement that with the odd copy-editing job found on craigslist, but nope, none of those seem to be working out either. so i've just been dipping into my pathetic little savings account, promising myself that i'll replenish it once the work starts flowing again.

but it makes me nervous. i hate being broke. i pinch pennies, complain about money, eyeball the price of everything. i feel like a punk. i'm not usually a tightwad, despite being jewish. so i've been busy trying to sell my useless shit on craigslist for a bit of extra cash. i sold the never-used doghouse that i was sure juice would love. she was terrified of the thing, never once stepped into it, even after i threw her blanket and countless biscuits into it. and i have someone buying up all the unopened alcohol that was left over from my bday party. i've also lined up an odd job teaching some lady QuarkXpress for a few hours. might have a few other odd jobs lined up for july, as i've gone on a few interviews.

but otherwise, nada, zip, zilch on the dough front. damn, i miss those monthly stipend checks USC used to send me. i would get $1,600 a month just for being a great student -- which, i was, kids: 3.75 GPA upon graduation. isn't there some kind of lifetime scholarship someone can win just for being a great human being? not that i would necessarily qualify, but still.

the good news is that august should hold nothing but work, work, work. i've got a temporary office job lined up for the first three weeks of the month, which is fabulous except for the hours: a ghastly 6am-3pm. and on some afternoons, i'll likely have to skedaddle to culver city to work with aforementioned dorks, who've said they'll need me again next month. ah, nothing like a 12-hour workday to remind you you're alive.

but in the meantime, i've had plenty of idle time to waste. my big purchase for july was an external hard-drive (80 gigs, baby!) for this here iBook, which was becoming ridiculously slow -- like, dial-up slow. so i shifted some stuff around and have been working on importing my 300 CDs into iTunes, which i will hook up to some phat speakers once i get the money to buy them. i've also been spending mornings at runyon canyon park, doing free yoga and going on hikes. afternoons usually hold a long, lazy shower; some homemade grub and coffee; and then lying down with a good book, often in the hammock justin (aka yogaman) kindly bought me for my birthday. evenings generally hold QT with justin on the cheap -- home-cooked dinners, a DVD rental and/or game of scrabble or rummikub. nighttime consists of...well, you can imagine...and then a relaxing sleep. all to be repeated at 9 am when my alarm goes off.

ok, so life's not so bad after all.

My 28th Birthday Party

choose your booze: the bar was fully stocked and provided many alcoholic leftovers.


'it's my party': and i'll get as drunk as i want to.


the dynamic duo: Zee and Nick


lip service: Raidis puckers up porno style.


yogaman unveiled: Me with my (ahem) new boyfriend Justin.


dig my yard! Saba, Chris, Raidis, Justin.


ex's can get along: Juancho with his soon-to-be ex-wife Kiana.


the girl at the end of the alphabet: Zee and her beautiful bedroom eyes.


the furry chaperone: Juice had a good time, too.


hey, ladies: Chris is single.


whereas... Justin is not (and neither am I).


she calls me 'chinadoll': thanks for the wine glasses, Alsy.


my fellow M.A.s in journalism: Melissa (aka Gonzo) and Grace.


dig my living room! we move the ruckus indoors.


few are funnier: than Stevie (pictured with me) after a few cocktails.


fedoras and coronas: Nick parties in style.


burnt by the sun: Kiana's been incredibly tan lately.


my cream dream: ain't he cute?


the coolest gift ever: thanks to Garron for the Aztec thingy here.

When Worlds Collide

ok, thought of a story to share with y'all, one that i wasn't going to put up here initially, but what the hell? it's kind of amusing in a pathetic way.

i ran into the ex the other day at a starbucks in hollywood. yogaman and i were just hanging out, getting some midday coffee. he walks out to find a table outdoors where we can sit, sip and smoke. i'm just a few paces behind him, and i then i freeze, instantly recognizing pablo's meaty neck and bald spot. i look to his right and see his new girlfriend -- this crazy chick who lived in our old building. her dog is there, too, a huge mastiff named bella. he's with his new family and i look like hell -- wearing sweats, hair pulled back, no makeup. i stop to catch my breath. i had imagined this moment countless times before, played out various scenarios of maybe me mad-dogging her, perhaps smacking him with some biting and pithy statement.

and here it is, the golden opportunity laid before me, and all i can do is panic. it was a serious panic, as if i were in the midst of a terrorist attack. this crazy dread washes over me, making me want to both throw up and pass out. fight or flight. i feel my hand shake and grip my coffee tighter. why am i reacting so strongly? i'm at a loss, at a complete standstill just two feet away from the door, watching yogaman unknowingly get situated at the table directly in front of where my ex-boyfriend is sitting with his new girlfriend and her fucking dog.

i make my move. i dart out the door and grab yogaman's hand, pulling him onto the sidewalk and away from the starbucks. "we have to go. we can't stay," i must have said in rapidfire about three or four times while trying not to hyperventilate. i turn my head and lock eyes with pablo. he offers up an awkward smile and takes a drag off his cigarette. i don't look at her, but give her dog a once over.

the whole exchange must have lasted five seconds, but it played out in slow motion. five minutes later, yogaman and i are sitting at a coffee shop down the street. i explain what happened, probably very poorly, and then i get very, very quiet. he stares at me intently, tries to tell a story, change the subject, but i'm consumed by it for a good half hour. finally, he asks, "you still hung up on your ex?"

truthfully, i'm not hung up on him, i'm hung up on it -- the betrayal, the wasted time, the feeling that i spent four years with a stranger, deluding myself. i want out and over it, i really do. i don't want to be that girl with issues. those were the kinds of girls i would ridicule for being less self-possessed, but here i am with my very own set of hang-ups. they'll dissipate with time, won't they? i can't have them roaming around so freely in my brain, weighing me down, causing me to second-guess myself. i must purge them. i WILL purge them, damnit. i simply have no other choice.

(No Subject)

ack, i've been so miserable at blogging lately, but intend to kick it into high gear -- which i've said before and never delivered, but no, really. problem is that i just don't have much to say. i don't want to fill this space with mundane details of my lame-O existence or deposit random ramblings that have (what i hope to be) undertones of profundity. that's a great word, huh? PRO-FUN-DI-TY. sounds like it could be a carnvial ride or something. Puffy should have changed his name to P. Fundity.

anyhow, i'd rather use this space for stories -- good ones, mine and yours -- but given that i'm super short on cash and have been nesting with yogaman lately, i haven't been out and about getting into trouble like i used to. there is a photo essay on my birthday party from last weekend forthcoming. and hopefully there'll be good news from the job front to share.

but for now, it's time for my midday cup of coffee and then a shower.