Other Matters

• been beyond busy at work lately. it's like that promotion actually meant something, increasing my job duties tenfold. it's odd suddenly to have to earn each cent of my paycheck like this. i used to have more sit-on-my-ass downtime where i could internet surf, instant message and draft blog entries, which happened almost exclusively at work before. but now, on a sunday afternoon, when i should be sipping a mimosa over brunch somewheres, i'm finally drafting this long overdue post.



• not to mention the abundance of freelance work that's come my way. i had this one project keeping me occupied the past few weeks -- a proof of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. i've read the book three times now and it still makes me think of Fred Gwynne playing Herman Munster. except that in the book, the Frankenstein monster is kind of a bastard.



• not that freelance work is a bad thing. in fact i'd welcome more of it. (Dave, you reading this? employ me!) i must save some extra rubles because, next year, i intend to buy a domicile of my very own. yup, you heard it here first. i'm on a mission to become a homeowner. this has been on my mind for a while, and with timing being everything, the softening LA real estate market is looking more hospitable to first-timers like me. plus, i've discovered that by the standards of the city of los angeles in this great state of california, i'm considered low-income, meaning i qualify for all these cool incentives offered by the state and city (that aren't subprime) to help get me into the market.



• but where would i move to? excellent question. of course, affordability is paramount here, and after careful consideration, i've decided that i can only move "east." not east like arizona or the orient, just due east of hollywood. it's a real momentous occasion for me to admit that i've finally grown tired of hollywood. the lack of parking, the congestion, the scensters -- over it! i guess i really am in my thirties now. (plus, i can't afford shit around here.) of course, i could never move to the westside because that's where my parents live, and north means the dreadful SF valley, which feels podunk to me since i grew up there; and south is far too close to orange county, so by default i must move my landlocked self to the eastside, to a deluxe apartment in the sky! of course, this is all very TBD. i'm still about a year away from move day.



• my pops turned 60 last month! he's a young and strapping buck, i know. 60 is the new 50, and he still has all his hair. we went to a laker game at staples on his actual birthday. it was the last home game of the season, the game the lakers needed to win (against the sonics) to qualify for the playoffs. luckily, they won, and kobe scored 50 points that night. we had kick-ass seats, and kareem, who was also celebrating his 60th birthday, was in the crowd, prompting all of staples to stand and sing him happy birthday. i told my dad to imagine it was all for him, and i think he did, maybe just for a second.

Work Matters

been two years now that i’ve worked at the ole jobby. and as a happy reminder of that fact, my boss sat me down for my annual review, which was a lovely occasion that rivaled last year’s good-vibes review, with a few differences. i have a new boss now, my third in two years and most likely my favorite. i also had more reasons to smile this year as i was awarded a hefty raise and a promotion that adds the word “senior” before my job title. new boss kindly threw some pleasant adjectives my way to describe my work performance — though i’m still baffled by the idea that i’m “organized”— before topping it off with a performance of the other MC Hammer favorite: 2 Legit 2 Quit.

been busy lately at the old jobby, too. a few new projects have come my way after i completed a semi-sizable project where i was the spearhead. it was largely a positive experience, leading this project, giving me a nice confidence boost and a few kudos from my peers and superiors. and though i did it and was all “yay, me” once it ended, i couldn’t have been more disinterested in the topic: Expense Ratios.

it’s a constant struggle for me, working in an industry without a strong human factor. i prefer industries centered around people and their stories, not mutual funds and their underlying holdings. most days the content bores me until my eyes bleed. and unfortunately, this cancels out one of the reasons i decided to pursue a career as an editor — so i could learn more by reading all day. and while i have learned plenty about the wonderful world of finance, i’m not inspired by it. sure, i’ve become a more savvy investor, and certainly a greedier one, but i don’t jump out of bed enthusiastically when my alarm goes off to check data on mutual fund performance.

despite the material, i do like the environment in which i work. it’s cooperative, not competitive, and my coworkers are impressive, smart people who make my job much easier. true, i don’t ever care to see them outside of scheduled work hours, but that’s not because they suck — it’s because i’d rather spend that time seeing my friends and family instead. and the company i work for cannot be beat. it truly values its employees and rewards us constantly with everything from free food and concert tickets to incredible health care on the cheap.

it’s quite the quandary of dull work vs. great everything else. i’m not sure how much i would enjoy the flipside of engaging work in an unsupportive environment. i’ve worked for enough shitty bosses and crap companies to know i have it good at my job. the trick, i’m finally realizing, is to come to work every day with an eye on the good, do what i need to do (and do it well), collect my paycheck and go about enjoying my free time.

it might not be the rock star lifestyle i envisioned myself living, but it will have to do until a more appealing alternative comes along.

Food Matters

• Pinkberry: i had been curious about this much-hyped food spot ever since i read KT’s review of it on her Gastronomy 101 blog. so on a warm day, our taste buds piqued, Mo and i took a leisurely walk to this frozen yogurt-esque shop to sample what all the fuss was about. and it was, as KT noted, totally underwhelming. it tasted like a tart slushie that had sat in the freezer too long.
  
  and hullo, just two flavors? no sugary-cereal-as-toppings gimmick can mask the fact that variety is lacking here — and i need variety in my frozen treats. and i need yum flavor, also lacking. but hey, it’s popular with the kids; the ones who helped bring this fad to the forefront: generic college kids in their hoodies, the type who bring glowsticks to raves. they were in line all around us.



• Taco Truckin: Polly had a birthday party in Highland Park the other week, a fun party in a gorgeous craftsman house where i talked to a lot of strangers and drank red wine, Mo by my side. as nice as that was, the night’s highlight had to be the stop we made both before and after that party: to an unmarked taco truck we found on Fig, where we ate $1 tacos so profoundly impressive to my taste buds that their mere memory is making me salivate as i type this.
  
  cut to sunday night in bed: Mo and i retired for the evening, undressed, spent and still discussing these magical tacos. cut to three hours later: Mo at the bedside waking me from a deep sleep, saying, “i got up and got tacos from a truck on Santa Monica. want some?” cut to five minutes later: Mo and i eating tacos at 2 a.m. at the coffee table.



• crockpot sundays: also known as make-a-grip-of-food-so-you-have-leftovers-to-take-to-work-all-week day. i’ve made some good soups, stews, a jambalaya, some roasts and a whole hen that produced a crazy good stock as byproduct. next up: homemade fish stock, so Mo and i can perfect our bouillabaisse recipe.
  
  we tried the other week with lackluster, store-bought stock and spent a good hour scrubbing the mussels and clams with a scouring pad before throwing them aside in a bowl. and while they sat in this holding bowl — awaiting their death-by-steamer fate that would have them opening wide to expose their tender, yummy uvulas — they made noise. like snap, crackle, popping noises that caused them to shift in the bowl. i’ll confess that i haven’t cooked with much “living” food before, and this made me very uncomfortable.

Spring Fling

nothing helps cheer a girl up faster than a fabulous party, especially one populated by her dearest friends who rally in her home and raise a glass to nothing in particular. i think i will make this an annual tradition from now on: The Purposeless Party. no gifts, costumes or holiday greetings required. just people standing around drinking, which is, for all intents and purposes, the essence of all parties are anyway.

of course this could never replace the self-indulgent birthday bonanza extravaganza i host for myself each june. that’s still on the calendar for this june, when i will be turning the inconsequential age of 31. expect no melodramatic chronicles or lamentations. i might even make the party all about my pup Juice, who also has her birthday in june. she will be turning the all-important age of 5.

but back to real-time... here are a few party pix.


even purposeless panties parties need a name: Mo and i called our the Ides of March Flirt-Fest and Cocktail Giveaway. the flirty Care Bear panties appeared on the Evite, and inspired guests to be very “creative” when leaving their acceptance or declination response. great examples of this were juan’s “going commando!!” acceptance and dee’s philosophical musing “what if you have menses?”


stocked and artfully arranged: was the outdoor bar.


the welcoming committee: Juice on the lookout for people whose faces she can lick.


it was 9:30pm: Mo and i started to get nervous, all like “no one is coming. our party is a dud. cancel the strippers.” just kidding, there were no strippers, only clowns.


hijinks & hilarity: the clown’s name was Damien.


and the people came: and they drank and rejoiced and blew cigarette smoke at me and my camera.


always auditioning: my favorite coworker and token actor friend Phillip gives a headshot smile by the tree.


it got cold: so we hauled our asses inside.


c/o ’94: Ann, Raidis and Damien representing for our high school daze, as usual.


talk talks: Mo and Phillip debate the word “conversate.”


the alien hand? Frank’s hang loose might be the reincarnation of Dave’s alien hand, which was sadly not in attendance this time.


laugh laughs: Juice told the funniest joke to Raidis.


lick licks: then she planted a sloppy one on Ann, who had crumbs on her face.


kiss kisses: wendy the goddess, with her fiery plant halo, smooches juan the lucky bastard.

and you should have seen the orgy that followed. but those photos are not for public posting. just kidding! we only had clowns.

What I Need

a vacation: i have been holed up in hell-lay for too long. a three-day weekend in SF happened four months ago, last November, and i haven't had cause to use my passport, which just expired, for the past four years. i'd be happy to spend another weekend in SF or maybe Mexico. hell, even Oxnard would work right now. calgon, take me away!

money: broke like a big, broke joke. credit card bills been coming, borne of christmastime indulgences; new C&B super chair also came, with a hefty oustanding balance; new printer/scanner/copier multifunctional ass-kicking, tree-killing machine for home office arrived from amazon, on sale but not free; and Costa Mesa tech class also came with costs. where is that tax refund?

zsa zsa gabor: i wouldn't mind if she called me again. it was kinda cool the other two times it happened.

sustained focus: motivation for the Secret Project has been waning and i've still got miles to go until completion. i could and should be doing more, but instead i pursue distractions that lead into more distractions until the day is drained. plus the purpose is murky, making the dedication hard to muster.

domestic bliss: Mo and i have been swimming in a beef stew lately. relationship flareups, bustups, bickerings, exasperation. no good reason behind it. no easy resolution to it. maybe we both need a vacation, one with romance.

conditioning hair treatment: the mop is getting sloppy, despite my religious use of overpriced Aveda products. be it age or overprocessing, the hair on my head keeps thinning, graying, frizzing -- ensuring more bad hair days than good.

time: there's plenty on the clock, i just need to get better at managing it. not sure why, but only about half the items on the to do list get done lately, and poorly. and then comes the scramble of finding extra time -- for myself, my relationships, the housework, the gym and all the other forsaken items and obligations that were avoided in the original to do list.

a brighter bright side: wtf is up with the moon, the tides, the ides of march? i'm all whines and woes, focusing only on the suckage. i'll come around, i'm sure. it's just tension passing through, as it tends to at times. it doesn't detract from all the goodness in existence; it only eclipses it momentarily. a sunrise is still scheduled for the morning. or something. whatever. i don't feel like writing anymore.

My First Meme

and likely my last. i’m a sucker for peer pressure and seeing that i have no new news to report and that other members of my Bloglomerate^TM have completed this meme on their blogs, i figured i’d be a sport and play along. so here goes the posting of Five Things You Might Not Know About Me. (note to Wade: tag.)

1. in high school, my house was make-out headquarters for my group of friends. my parents regularly spent long weekends in Las Vegas tending to the rental property they owned there, leaving me alone to tend to myself. sometimes, just hours after their departure, friends and wine coolers would fill the house for such exciting games as Truth or Dare and Seven Minutes in Heaven, which sometimes led to private make-out sessions in my older sister’s vacated bedroom, which sometimes led to lost virginities, rumors at school the following week and home pregnancy tests the following month.
   
   it was great, yet risky fun. one sunday, my parents returned home early to find the garden hose going full blast in the jacuzzi, which had nearly emptied the night before when six of my friends jumped in for a skinny dip. i felt my nerves race when they appeared suddenly at the door, my hand tightly fisted to conceal the cigarette butts and condom wrapper i had gathered from the floor a moment earlier. yet with a few excuses, i managed to escape discovery, ensuring that my house remained an epicenter of hot teenage sex, including my own when i was 17 -- with my older boyfriend, in the jacuzzi, done in two minutes. note to self for next life: avoid sex in water, especially for your first time. it doesn’t provide added lubrication like you think.



2. sadly, i’ve never been a big dreamer when i sleep. i’m sure i dream and just don’t remember, but even when i do remember my dreams they’re mostly lame nightmares where i’m being chased by a bear through a forest. but most nights, i get nothing. just a dark, uneventful stretch of time where my fantasy life should be. weak.



3. at 20, i found myself hanging out with all these theater types in california’s Inland Empire, where i lived for one very hot summer. that was the summer i also began smoking cigarettes since, you know, theater kids smoke to look cool and i’m bad with the peer pressure. so one thing led to another, and before i knew it, i was starring in a play at the local theater -- Christopher Durang’s Baby With the Bathwater.
   
   since it was a no-budget local theater troupe kind of performance, i played three different characters (all supporting roles), as did my fellow “actors.” the play’s opening scene had me singing “hush little baby” a capella. it was my first and last time performing on a stage in front of strangers, and i was very awful -- as a singer and an actress. i was all shaky voice and bad affectation, flubbing lines and missing cues. it was your basic bad local theater performance and while i’m grateful for the experience, etc., etc., i’d never do it again.



4. i don’t eat chocolate. it makes my skin break out in all its adolescent glory so i avoid it. people sometimes get weird when they hear this, like it’s some crime to not enjoy chocolate. the truth is that i like chocolate, but i don’t love it, and i certainly don’t like it enough to endure a face full of pimples. call me crazy. and call me a liar because there is one brand of chocolate i will eat because it’s of such remarkable quality that it doesn’t cause breakouts. it’s a Belgian brand called Neuhaus that i sampled while on my european adventure a few summers back. thankfully, its availability is limited in the U.S., otherwise i might be eating these fattening, expensive, decadent and truly extraordinary chocolates too often. but yeah, in between bites of Neuhaus, i don’t eat chocolate.



5. in grade school i bullied a girl who rode my bus. she was a few years younger, and her older sister, who was in my grade, initiated the wild bullying sessions each afternoon on the ride home, calling younger sister “porky” repeatedly. this seemed an odd fit since “porky” wasn’t exactly a porker; she was of average build. still, older sister went ahead with the “porky” commentary and i joined in because, as noted above, i’m a sucker for peer pressure.
   
   eventually, older sister transferred to a new school, leaving “porky” and me riding the bus together. at that point, terrorizing “porky” had become habit so i continued with it. i think it killed her self-esteem. her mother even appeared at the bus stop one day to chastise me, but i still didn’t stop. i kept going with the name-calling until “porky” transferred to a new school, presumably because of my ridicule though i can never be sure.
   
   the following year, i got a bully of my own. we were seated near each other in homeroom, meaning that each new day of the 8th grade began with her torturing me. she was scrawny, and in retrospect i could have kicked her ass, but she was popular and blessed with magnificent skin. i, however, had some intense adolescent acne going on so logically she called me “pizza face.” i hated her and began doing her math homework each morning to minimize the ridicule.

Dorking Out

whooooo! new colors for the new year! ok, i’m a little late at the update as it’s february already, and i’m super overdue for a blog redesign, having kept the same template since this blog’s inception in 2003, but hopefully this color switcheroo will mark the start a new yearly trend. (does it look ok? not too bright nor dull?)

what inspired the change? glad you asked! let me tell you about this nifty class i took on web development, courtesy of Learning Tree International (and my employer’s dime). i spent last week in glorious Costa Mesa, shacked up in the (shit hole) Days Inn for four nights, with days spent at the nearby Radisson Hotel where i learned all about what it takes to build a web site from the ground up.

and holy shit, it’s complicated — like really, really complicated. i spent the week lost in a fog of acronyms and applications, hearing such terms as PHP, Perl, JSP, applet, ASP, SQL, XML and CSS. and to think i took the class to learn basic HTML, which we did only on the first day. i thought being a copy editor would up my aptitude for learning this stuff, as i’m already ridiculously detail-oriented, but this kicked my ass. apparently, it’s not as easy to spot errors in code as it is in copy.

i’m trying to learn it, though it is a new and foreign language. one time in class, it took me ten minutes to realize the instructor had switched topics to database management and SQL, which he kept pronouncing as “sequel,” causing me to scour course notes in search of the prequel to his sequel until the phonetics of it finally dawned on me. but i wasn’t entirely without my successes. i did learn much useful HTML, including:

• how to create buttons:


• how to make text bigger and smaller


• how to create checkboxes: <-- Check me!


• how to color text


• how to create text fields:


• how to create radio buttons: Love it! Hate it!



• how

  to

  create

  tables



• how to create horizontal rules:



---

check me out! it’s like that day i learned how to use the advanced formatting features in Word. so invigorating. in any case, i definitely intend to continue learning HTML and CSS through additional classes, books and programs. i got a long way to go before i’m fully dorked out and can truly develop a web site from the ground up, but the class has made for a lovely start.

All Aboard

woosh, there went january — and i’m happy to see it go. what a miserable month it was. i’ve read that deaths during the winter months, particularly the holiday weeks, increase by 5% over the norm. and it makes sense how someone with maybe six months left in them would just throw in the towel early, when it’s cold outside and lonely inside.

but this year, it’s especially foul in its incessancy: week after week, various coworkers would need a day or two off to attend funerals. my officemate lost her grandmother, then other coworkers lost their aunts, friends, even a father. then came my own great-aunt just last week, with her funeral on a rainy L.A. day, which made for an exceedingly gloomy and muddy burial. i wasn’t close to her, but seeing my extended family grieving saddened me. yet what saddened me the most was hearing that my landlord’s boyfriend had brain cancer. plus, i’ve been reading depressing books lately, with themes on death and sadness, loss and transition. damn joan didion.

on the bright side, i’ve finally emerged from the personal funk that i blogged about below. i tried dismissing it as boredom or another episode of restlessness when in fact it was a mini-depression borne of indirection. the not-so-secret crux of the matter, i’ve realized, is that i need a goal to work toward — something long-term and bigger than the regular baby goals of exercising more and paying off my debts.

the last big goal of mine involved applying to, surviving and finally finishing graduate school. that occupied a good two-and-a-half years of my life when i never felt the gnawing restlessness of indirection. surely, that was a stressful time that didn’t allow much room for superfluous feelings, with its spin cycle of assignments and deadlines.

but i do recall that the time leading up to my decision to apply felt very much like these current times, when i would loiter endlessly in my head, kicking tin cans around, supervising the committee meetings of the mind, with everyone yelling at one another, the chorus of disagreements, all terrorizing me into deciding: what’s next?

and while it would seem that psychotropic medicine should be next, i have decided to embark on a Secret Project that i cannot yet publicly discuss lest all my good intentions fail to materialize into anything worthy (again), causing me severe personal and public embarrassment (again). i have realized that too much of my focus was wasted on thinking about the things i’d like to do and how i’m not doing them, when my real focus should have been on doing the things i’m thinking of doing, instead of the other way around. duh. clarity is so divine.

rest assured that Secret Project does not involve more schooling nor is it an attempt to write the Great American Novel that i’ll get around to one day. it’s more lifestyle related, long-term and exciting and new, we’re expecting you. just planting the new-idea seed in my head has done much to evaporate the funk fog i had been lost in these past few months — replacing defeatist thoughts with constructive aims. yet it’s still months away from sprouting so bear with me.

and all the death and sadness of january have served as great motivators, helping me realize that the now counts more than anything else, so i better get started on making my dream life happen.

Giving to Love

Happy Blue Year

i’ve resolved not to make any new year’s resolutions anymore, at least not publicly. instead i’m subscribing to my buddy Jeremy’s assertion that it’s better to talk about results instead of goals, otherwise “it’s like telling the universe what you expect to happen, then trying to sit back and watch.”

reading over last year’s list of the things i didn’t do (enough of) is yet another indication that achievement doesn’t always follow on the heels of good intentions. i tend to start strong and finish weak. i tend to fantasize about perfect outcomes, a magical dream life where my potential is limitless, dedication enduring. unfortunately, the hard work required for my fantasy outcomes never actually appears in my daily reality, where inertia is king.

i’d like to say that this year will finally be different, but i need to be realistic about my own track record, which weighs heavily on the hot air side, slim on the achievements. plus, i’m not discussing resolutions publicly. instead, i’ll turn them over in my head, trying to reconcile what i want to do with what will likely happen. it’s a big divide, and it’s been making me blue.

i had the week between christmas and new year’s off. Mo was in houston visiting his bro, and my other peoples were scattered around the country visiting family of their own. that week off was very relaxing, very bourgeois, as i spent the days shopping the after christmas sales alone, getting a facial, massage, all the while thinking, thinking, trying to answer the age-old question of what i want to be when i grow up.

in my office at work, i have a smaller version of this poster printed and tacked onto the wall. my old officemate and i rallied our coworkers into signing the individual fries with their names. people always jump at the chance to sign it, as if being part of the small fry club were some great honor. and as they stand for a moment choosing the perfect fry for their names, i wonder how OK they are with it, how i can be more OK with it.

new years tend to drive it all home — the realization that time is no longer on my side, that things change less over the years, that i must conform to adulthood without complaint. and then come the counter-thoughts right on the heels — quit your whining, your life isn’t bad, accept your potential as a function of your limitations.

i keep thinking, hoping, waiting for the time when my restlessness will transform into resolve and make my dream life happen, make the entropy assume its next form. maybe this year. maybe not.