10 Years of The Milla Times

the original homepage

the first post, written 10 years today, read: “blah, blah, blah, testing, testing, testing.” i wrote it a few days before i traveled to London for an internship with radio newscaster the Voice of America. i was a student at USC Annenberg at the time, earning my master’s in journalism. the blog was meant to be part of a bigger website documenting my professional work (pictured above), with the name intending to be an ode to print journalism, not Miller Time. (the writing in all lowercase letters happened because i’m lazy.)

the blog also intended to fulfill a course requirement to document my experience working in London, where i would be staying for six weeks. i figured it would also be a good way to keep family and friends abreast of my time abroad as i planned to do some traveling through Europe with my then-boyfriend, Pablo, after the internship ended. we had been together about three-and-a-half years at that point.


standing on water in Amsterdam (2003)

this was in 2003, a time when blogs were spreading like STDs, as anyone who ever had a thought imagined it was a good idea to share that thought through the tubes of the internet. i was just another one of those people, though i never imagined the thought-sharing would continue for 10 years, or even one, figuring the blog would shut down soon after i returned home. but it kept propelling itself forward, driven by my enjoyment of writing and the egging on of several friends.

it probably would have ceased had it not been for some big news that was captured in my shortest blog entry ever in january 2004, titled The Big News in Six Words: “he cheated. i’m pissed. it’s over.” that kicked off an (arguably) more interesting life for me after the breakup with Pablo, which started with my graduation from USC; then chronicled my first experience with internet dating; my search for full-time employment; a short-lived relationship with my yoga instructor; getting my second dog, Pinko; falling in love with Mo; becoming a homeowner; breaking up with Mo; a big home remodel; getting published in the New York Times; my second experience with internet dating; and various vacations to destinations both domestic and abroad.

sprinkled throughout were posts detailing self-improvement, a few funerals, whining about work and money, annual posts on new year’s resolutions and my birthday, fabulous party pics and conversations with my family. all are searchable in the tags and archives in the right sidebar. to date, i’ve never deleted or rewritten a post, only corrected a few typos, though i’m sure i haven’t found them all. (if you catch a typo, email me about it. seriously.)


30th birthday (2006)

frankly, i’m stunned that i’m sitting here typing out post #476, but i wouldn’t have it any other way. i’m glad the blog happened and i have no intention of ever quitting this exercise in thought-sharing. it’s been one of the highlights of my life, precisely because it has captured so many highlights of my life. it’s better than just having a photo, as here i have not only photos but also internal snapshots of what i was thinking and feeling during those pivotal moments. being able to revisit those places has been a blessing (mostly).

it’s also been a curse, as there are too many posts that annoy the hell out of me. some i can’t read without eye rolls and hands covering my face. those are the ones in which i act like i have it all figured out, where my bravado is out of control and ego is in charge, posts that make me want to throttle myself, where i wonder, “who does this girl think she is?” i imagine i’ll be having the same thoughts in 10 years about posts i’m writing today. and that’s OK.


first photo ever taken on my deck (2008)

i sometimes get asked how i’ve become comfortable sharing so much of myself online. that’s odd for me, because i don’t think i share all that much. only about 10% of my life makes it onto this blog, with the remaining 90% lived privately. trust that there is plenty going on with me right now that i’m not telling you. and what does get shared must pass my standard test in which i ask myself, “would i share this in a room full of my friends?” affirmative answers get posted. (note that i didn’t write a room full of my closest friends, who get more information.)

of course, the internet is not known for being a friendly place, and i’ve been subject to plenty of nasty emails and comments over the years, because sharing your life online means opening yourself up to the judgment of others. that is also OK. i won’t be the type of person who goes on a reality show and then complains about how she was portrayed.

i put myself on display here. i write things that open the door for criticism. yet those same things keep me accountable to myself and others. they force me to think long and hard about them before i hit the Publish button to make sure i understand why i think the way i do. sure, i may change my mind later (and often do), with the blog post acting as a thorny reminder of how wrong i was, but that’s one of the purposes they serve. i need them to learn from, to remind me that i don’t have it all figured out, and to chronicle my evolution as a human being. 

the judgments of strangers are just the cost of doing business. nasty comments always say more about the nature of the internet and the writer than they do about me. they have no impact on my self-esteem because i’ve learned not to give them power. if you are a sensitive person, i recommend having a blog as immersion therapy. it will help you develop a thick skin quickly. the opinions of my close friends and family, however, do impact me. the handful of times i’ve disappointed anyone i care about with what i’ve written here, i’ve listened and tried to repair the damage.

i made some early mistakes about other people’s privacy here, especially when i broke up with Pablo. i was vengeful about his cheating and wrote some nasty things, which he called me on. i’ve learned from that experience and am now much more careful about what i disclose about the men in my life, for my sake and theirs.

oh, the men. no posts garner as much feedback both on and offline than the ones i’ve written about my love life. i am a pretty nosy person, too, so i understand the interest other people have about who’s getting into my pants. i’ve shared as much as i felt comfortable sharing, which is probably a lot less than the whole truth. a girl’s gotta have her secrets.

there have certainly been short-lived relationships and affairs left unchronicled, but they are not any more gripping than anyone else’s short-lived relationships and affairs. in my estimation, my walk through love has been (below?) average, with the typical assorted and sordid joys, heartaches, triumphs, foolishness, missteps, nonsense and unrequited crushes. if i’ve learned anything along the way, it’s that i don’t know anything. being single at 36 is evidence of this.


35th birthday (2011)

my own personal high/low lights of the past 10 years include:

• if there is anything i would urge all of you to read, either again or for the first time, it’s my posts on attending the Landmark Forum (read from the bottom up), an intensive, three-day, self-help seminar that i failed. i’m happy with the way i covered this experience and think the writing does a good job demonstrating my personality and writing style. the Landmark entries often come up in google searches and have generated the greatest amount of emails from strangers, who often share their own spooky experiences with me about their participation in the Forum. 

• i also receive a lot of emails about the post on Lan Vo, a psychic i once saw when i vacationed in Hawaii. similar to the Landmark emails, people share their own experiences with her. this one comes up a lot in Google hits as well.  

• the nastiest comment i ever received on a post, which was the only comment i’ve ever deleted, was on this post that discussed my grief over my ex-boyfriend’s murder. it read something to the effect of “i’m surprised you’re capable of feeling anything at all for another person, you selfish little bitch!” (related: i love the internet!) the post included his full name so it came up on google searches and it didn’t seem right for such a comment to appear alongside what was essentially my eulogy for him, as his friends were finding it. this same troll left nasty comments on other posts as well. i eventually blocked her IP address from replying to anything (only block i’ve ever made) and haven’t heard from her since.  

• about three years ago, i lost the comments from the first seven years of the blog. this happened when the comments provider (Haloscan) i used to rely on prior to enabling Blogger’s comments (which weren’t an option in 2003), went under, taking all its comments with it. if i regret anything in the past 10 years of blogging, it’s that i didn’t save those comments.

• when i first purchased my house, i submitted an essay about my decision to buy to a since-defunct LA Times real estate blog called LA Land. in short, it was a big disaster that included lots of nasty comments (since lost because of the Haloscan issue noted above). still, it was a great exercise in skin-thickening, and i’m pleased to get the last laugh as none of the commentators’ predictions that i would be in foreclosure have come to pass.

• my 10 favorite posts (in no particular order):
  
  • In Escrow, about the purchase of my house
  • Meet the Parents, about Mo’s first time at a family gathering
  • Of Fasts, Pasts and Funerals, about the legendary Kravitz sisters in my family
  • Out with a Whimper, first breakup with Mo which used to have the most comments of any post i’ve ever written (again lost in the Haloscan debacle)
  • You Might Want to Sit Down for This, about my dad’s heart surgery
  • Let’s Get Physical, about a “boyfriend” i had for a short while
  • Let Me Count the Ways, about my love of July
  • I Made It Through the Wilderness, about attending a Madonna concert
  • Me and Modern Love, about that New York Times thing i can’t stop talking about
  • Life’s Little Cruelties, wherein i complain about first-world problems

• i once had my biggest blog fan show up on my doorstep, which sounds way creepier than it actually ended up being. (hi, Juanus in Nebraska!) i think i looked at him as curiously as he looked at me, puzzled to why anyone who didn’t know me personally would read this thing. of course, i’m grateful that there are a few who do, though my web metrics show that most of you are my friends and family in California. yet i also see that i have a regular reader in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and one who works for Saba Software in Redwood City. just know that i’m watching you watching me. not creepy at all, Internet. 

finally, a million thanks to you, dear reader, whoever you be and wherever you are. i couldn’t do this without you. actually, i could but it’s funner because you’re a part of it. special shoutouts to my parents, who’ve allowed me to repost our conversations here at their expense; Mo the architect, who’s reading this in Seattle and was always supportive of my writing, sometimes at his expense; my friends on Facebook, where most of the comments in response to blog posts now appear, making it look like i have no readers whatsoever here; my Haiku Wednesdays family; blogger Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com, who’s been a great inspiration; and, of course, the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, which made this all possible.

i raise my glass to the next 10 years. i hope you will remain a part of them.

original About Me section (click to enlarge)

First-World Problems

all the socializing i’ve been engaging in lately has made it hard to find time to blog. i know that you’re rooting for me in this not-at-all-difficult time and i thank you for your prayers and continued support as i carry on with my hectic schedule of dinners, parties, concerts, art openings, group hikes and meetups at bars.

regular blogging will probably resume never as i know roughly 10 people who were born in june (myself included) and will likely host more events i need to attend to commemorate their day of birth (myself also included).

so sorry, bloggy, for neglecting you. i’ve been thinking about you a lot and fully intend to finish those few entires you have been storing for me in draft form, some of which have been sitting dusty on your shelf for months.

i also want to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy birthday. you turned 7 years old yesterday, a lucky number that will hopefully translate into a very lucky year for your mama, who is turning 35 years old next month. may we both be guided from above as we navigate through our next year of life, which is sure to be full of suspense and intrigue (a.k.a. bills and alarm clocks).

speaking of bills, i need to hunt down some freelance work to pay for the major home remodel that is scheduled to start next month — as well as the endless socializing that is scheduled to continue into next month. so if you or anyone you know is in need of a stellar writer, editor, proofreader, fact-checker or QA tester, hit me up, yo. (references furnished upon request.)

and if anyone knows how to add more hours to the day so i may have enough time to work, socialize, blog and sleep, please make that happen. gotta run for now. kthxbye!

Bloggers Block

i know how terribly interesting this must be to read: a blog post about how i don’t feel like blogging lately. writing about writing is the very definition of uninspired writing — it’s interesting only to other writers but only barely since it’s not very interesting at all. far more interesting are well-written stories about a riveting, enviable life, which is why i’d understand if you stopped reading this entry immediately to search for a blog that characterized such a life.

nowadays, there isn’t too much going on with me, which is probably why i’ve been reluctant to sit down and commit some words to the screen. there’s simply nothing to commemorate. all that meditation mumbo jumbo has turned me into a stable bore. any flux that enters my life passes through like a gentle breeze. there are no tornadoes. i like my friends and my parents. my job is stable, my dogs are healthy, and my house is cozy.

perhaps that’s the news of the day: i’m happy. for the first time in a long time, i feel genuinely content, stable and optimistic. i like how things are and i like that i have a say in where they are going. no singular emotion is crowding me right now and putting me at its mercy. i’m not depressed, worried or anxious. i don’t feel so heartsick anymore. i wouldn’t say i’m overjoyed with every aspect of my life, as there is much to be desired and improved upon, but i’m not obsessing over those details right now.

that’s not to say i won’t obsess over them again (as i’m prone to), or that something won’t suddenly surface to thwart the good vibrations that have been reverberating for many weeks now. in fact, i’m sure that something will, which is why i’ll take comfort in this small victory — where i can sit contently and type out an otherwise boring blog entry while listening to my dogs snore nearby. somehow, today, that’s enough for me.

(but if i begin to sound too much like an LA asshole who spouts off daily affirmations, please kick my ass.)

Gone, Baby, Gone

all the comments from the first seven years of this blog have vanished. i’m trying to be all zen about it, but i’m royally pissed off. i’m mostly pissed at myself for ignoring the emails i got notifying me that my old comments service provider, Haloscan, was being taken over and dissolved, taking its database of comments with it.

i should have paid more attention to it, i realize, but i was busy breaking up with my boyfriend and trying to keep my head screwed on. i couldn’t be bothered. so now i’ve been bothering the customer service reps who work for Haloscan’s new owner, Echo, who keep telling me, “your comments are now GONE. didn’t you get our emails?” yes, yes, i got them but aren’t they tucked away somewhere safe? nothing ever really disappears from the internets, right?

ok, so no comments. i’m sure i’ve reread them more than anyone else did, and i will miss them more than anyone else will. it’s all very sad. RIP, my little friends. maybe i should throw them a funeral. or maybe you all should go back and leave some new comments on old posts. we can re-live 2005 together.

in other news, something else important has disappeared: my free time. these past few weeks have buried me under a pile of freelance work that i’m not even close to digging my way out of. august will be my busiest month of this year, with looming deadlines for a magazine i copy edit, a website i’m helping to launch and articles i’ve promised to write. this means blogging will be light this month, which sucks because i have news to share about my awesome new roommate, my visit to a psychic and even a new home improvement chronicle.

on the bright side, my wallet will be heavy, which is good because mama needs a new couch. i also need a massage, a facial, a vacation, a gardener and a cabana boy to peel me grapes. for now, though, i’ll settle for just a little more sleep. the past few weeks have been stressful and the next few will be even worse. but when they’re done, hopefully i can have some serious fun.

Nip and Tuck

unless you are reading this by braille, you may have noticed that i gave the ole bloggy a little facelift. i wasn’t planning to, but Blogger decided to discontinue its support of ftp publishing, which i had been using since this blog’s inception in 2003. that meant i had to switch a bunch of things, reconfigure a bunch of other things, beg my webmaster to write some javascript that would redirect links and endure the general pain in the ass that is a site overhaul.

bright side is i have a shiny new blog template to play in, one that has far more functionality than the last one. as the multitude of widgets in the right sidebar can attest to, i’m playing with it, maybe a little too much. if i’m gotten anything terribly wrong with this initial design, please tell me. i imagine i’ll continue to tweak the layout in the coming weeks, so bear with me.

biggest changes so far include the addition of a twitter feed on the right. yes, in my endless quest for self-promotion and brand status, i have joined twitter and begun tweeting. if you are so inclined, please follow me: @millatimes. with your help, i can be bigger than @shitmydadsays!

you may have also noticed that the URL of this website has changed and now contains a dreaded blogspot.com. you should still be arriving here with your old bookmarked URL, but i encourage you to update it to just millatimes.com, which will redirect you here for now and hopefully be the blog’s permanent URL after some more finagling on my end.

i’ve also added more links to my blogroll, a permalink to my Dish-Interested column, a picture of the moment section that will be updated whenever the mood strikes, a follower section, tag cloud and subscribe links. i’m still having trouble importing comments from my old haloscan account, but hope to clear that up soon.

beyond that, i hope you like the new design. if not, just lie and say you do.

The Blagh

you may have noticed that things have been shifting around here lately in an attempt to make this blog seem more, ummm, “current.” when i realized that 2008 had come and gone without me lifting a single unmanicured finger to make the updates to this blog i’ve talked about making for years, i hit the panic button, which looked a lot like an Update template now? button.

that button was preceded by a box WARNING me that any customization i had made to my blog’s original template would be wiped out by the update. i considered this warning for about two seconds before concluding that i hadn’t customized a thing. then i hit OK with a smile and waited for my new blog to appear on screen — which it did without its comments, analytics, ads and archives.

two months later, everything has been restored, with some new features added, like a flickr photostream, a drop-down menu of tags, an RSS feed that actually works and a blogroll of some of my heroes, all of which can be found on the right sidebar. i have BIG PLANS to add a few more cool features, which i won’t discuss now in case i never get around to adding them.

i also sorted through the archives, adding tags to every entry and fixing a bunch of broken links. a few entries from the first year of blogging were deleted altogether, most of which read something like, “sorry, too busy to blog now. will write tomorrow. bye!!!” i’m guessing they won’t be missed. i considered deleting some of the more embarrassing entries as well, but decided to keep them for the times when i need a little humbling.

rereading six years worth of old entries was a total mindfuck. i laughed, i cried, i died a little, rolling my eyes often and even once wondering aloud, “what the hell is wrong with this girl?” before realizing that this girl was me. then i barricaded myself in the closet for three days with a bottle of vodka, where i remained curled into the fetal position.

despite this, i am glad i have kept this thing going for so long, as it’s cool to have a running autobiography i can revisit to see my evolution as a human being. plus, it acts as a handy reference when i have questions like, did i buy my car in ’04 or ’05? though it’s not as handy when i happen upon photos of me from ’06 looking more thin and fabulous than i do today. still, i can’t imagine not having this blog, so i hope you can bear with me for the next six years or rest of my life as i unleash more of my bad writing into the webosphere.

i’m also going to make a special effort to be a little bit more open than i have been in recent years. i know my life is hardly as exciting since i stopped internet dating and having multiple boyfriends, but i’m sure there are some salacious goodies i can give away that won’t violate anyone else’s privacy or breach my own standards of decency. (yeah, yeah, what decency, right? you’re sooooo funny.)

the ads have been switched up as well and will probably continue to be tinkered with as i figure out how i can make some money with this thing. the ads i had before were generated by google, based on content, though most of the time they produced nonsensical banners like, “Did Obama steal the election?” and text ads that read, “1 step to flat abs!”

naturally, i was curious. i mean, what girl doesn’t want flat abs? so i did a little innocent clicking, checking up on the flat abs in addition to the free government grants i could qualify for, the dog obedience school in my area, all of which are things that interest me anyway. it was just a few clicks here and there, no more than five a day. maybe seven, but no more than ten.

then came the tersely worded email from google: my ads were being disabled because of UNAUTHORIZED CLICKING ACTIVITY. the email even said that i posed “a significant risk” to google’s advertisers! a significant risk? come on, google! i wasn’t clicking 300 times a day, or even 30, just a few clicks. totally innocent clicks, too. but still, google canceled my account, forfeited all money earned and erased the ads — along with my chances for a flat stomach. not helping matters was how Mo fell over laughing when i told him how i had been victimized. whatever.

so i went ad shopping and discovered the wonderful and amazing Amazon ads you see plastered all over this web page. i urge you all to click over there via THIS SPECIAL LINK and do some shopping. in fact, buy A LOT of stuff, maybe a computer or TV, ok? because when you buy, i get a teeny tiny percentage of your total sale funneled my way, which i would never use for a sushi dinner, i assure you. it would only be used for donations to charity (tax writeoff, cha-ching!)

and don’t worry, it won’t cost you a penny. the fee comes out of amazon’s profit as a thank you to me for referring you to a site i’m sure you’ve never heard of before. only thing is that you have to make a purchase within 24 hours of clicking over to them. the SPECIAL LINK is also perpetually available in the right sidebar, under the Evil Ads heading, in the sentence that reads: Shop Amazon via MillaTimes.com! It’ll earn me a nickel and make rainbows appear at your house!

beneath that is a link to my super fantastic Canon Powershot G10 camera that i highly recommend. under that is more crap you can buy. so please, buy it! this concludes the shamelessly self-promoting, thoroughly disgusting whoring of Amazon.com part of this blog post. thanks for playing.

finally, i wanted to extend a big thank you to anyone who bothers to read this thing on a regular basis. you know who you are and i think i know who you are too. mostly, you’re my superstar friends and family, the keepers of the sunshine in my life, who let me blather on about my dumb stories, allowing me to recount them in my spastic way, before saying, “yeah, i read that on your blog already.”

you guys are the best!

One-Hit Wonders: December 2008

remember the new feature alert that appeared last month, the one where i listed a bunch of internet search terms that pulled up my blog, sometimes inexplicably, courtesy of the google analytics i installed, the ones that let me know that you’re reading this while sitting at work procrastinating instead of doing the job your boss is paying you for, you lazy fuck. yeah, those. i’ve decided that those terms really need to be broken out into their own monthly post. so without further adieu, i present to you this month’s One-Hit Wonders:

• milla jovovich breathing in your sleep español


• milla is gay


• free pictures of madly drinking lactating milky breasts


• hypnotic voodoo mistress


• what does mispucha mean?


• pinko skeletal animals


• squirther.com


• im swollen and throbbing right above my big toe


• my coworkers belittle my appearance

The Ads

i’d like to apologize to my six readers — zee, germy, wade, courtney, gitella and mo — for the annoying ads i’ve placed on my website. (notice how my mom no longer reads this.) feel free to either ignore them or click them 1,000 times so i can make a nickel.

i put the ads on the site precisely to make some nickels. i’ve been meaning to make BIG CHANGES to this site for a long while, and after swearing to myself that they would happen this year, i woke up and realized that october was nigh and i hadn’t done a thing. the ads are the first in many changes that should be rolling out here. (yeah right, hahahaha.)

i also added google analytics to this site’s back-end earlier in the year to see where readers were coming from. don’t worry, i can’t see your name, email address, home phone number or bank account login, but i do see that most readers reside in california (duh), with oregon coming in second (hi, cousins!!!), and that most regular readers have the site either bookmarked or enter the URL manually into their browsers.

for those who do happen to find the site via googling, search terms often involve my namesake, the lovely Milla Jovovich, whom i sadly look nothing like. to the folks looking for her, the new ads are for you. if i could control the content of the ads — which are generated by google, based on keywords — i would make every single ad read Milla Jovovich XXX Pix HERE!

the other most popular keyword search (of course) involves the famed psychic in hawaii, Lan Vo, whom i had my own encounter with in 2003. but the most interesting thing about these analytics are the seemingly random searches that will pull up my blog, like “38dd tit videos” or my personal favorite, “my boss is causing me to lose sleep and shake uncontrolably,” which pulled up this page.

also notice that i put a link to my flickr account at the right, which was recently upgraded and made public after years of being private. all shots are organized into sets and feature photos that you’ve likely seen here in blog posts, though there are some never-before-seen ones too. if you’re on flickr and wanna be photo contacts, hit me up.

beyond that, i have hired (bribed?) a web designer friend of mine to help with the redecorating of the rest of this space. i would try to do it myself with my limited HTML and CSS skills, but i’d rather that it not suck so i’ve asked a professional. i am also going to make a real effort to post more often, even if the posts are shorter and just feature my dumb observations or snippets of conversations i’ve had or heard. if you have ideas on what kind of content you’d like to see more of, please let me know.

i know you’re probably wondering why i’m bothering with all this when only six people read my drivel on a regular basis. basically, it’s because my day job is boring. it’s a good job and all, one that i plan to keep for the foreseeable future, but it’s not very creative or stimulating. for me, maintaining this blog is creative and stimulating. it’s fun, and i want to invest more time into making it funner — for me, for you and for those who stumble upon it accidentally while searching for naked pictures of milla jovovich.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

last week, May 14, marked the 5th birthday of The Milla Times Journal. crazy, eh? five whole years of melodramatic ramblings and embarrassing gut spillage posted all over the interwebs!! and to think it all started with a post that read: “blah, blah, blah. testing, testing, testing.”

like many things in life, this blog started out as something very different than it ended up. five years ago, this website’s sole purpose was to satisfy a course requirement to maintain a dairy while i worked as a journalist in London. i had gone over for a six-week internship with Voice of America, courtesy of a work-abroad program sponsored by USC, where i was getting my master’s in journalism. the blog also served as a way to keep family and friends abreast of my happenings while i was overseas — first working that journalism job, then during a month-long hop on the Eurail that took me all over Europe.

i figured the blog would stop soon after i landed back in LA, but it just kept going and going, chronicling my last year in grad school, the graduation, a big breakup, three months of internet dating, the harem, finding a job, falling in love, then another big breakup, losing a friend, getting a puppy, and now owning my first home. mixed with that were recurring tales of drunkenness, depression, frustration and lamentation — sprinkled with some mighty bad photos of myself. in short, five years of self-obsessed drivel.

but why blog? why put your shit-stained laundry on the clothesline for all the world to see? i get asked this often, and while i won’t pretend to speak for all the bloggers in the universe, i think for a lot of us who keep a personal blog, its existence is as much for ourselves as it is for the readers. foremost, it’s a journal in the traditional sense so it’s fun for me to review older entries and see my evolution as a human. truthfully, i’ll read things i wrote five years ago, even one year ago, and want to barf. five years from now i’m sure i’ll be reviewing things i write today and feel the same thing. and that’s ok by me.

i’ve thought of removing some of the racier posts or deleting those with the most atrocious writing or even correcting the typos that burn my eyes and chip away at my skull, but i tend to leave them alone. i need them to learn from. i need them to keep me honest, to keep me comfortable with my imperfections. i need them to remind me that the world won’t end if i publish something against my better judgment. after all, this is only a blog on the internet. big whoop.

the public side of it is another matter. i understand that people will judge. they could find me to be a certifiable shithead, just as i could find those same people to be pathetic trolls whose only concept of love is rubbing peanut butter all over their bodies for their dogs to lick off while they eat their TV dinners and blast bloggers for having a viewpoint. see, i’m people. i will judge, too.

with that in mind, now seems like the perfect time to let y’all know that i plan to post some ads here, probably sometime this year. they’ll likely start as simple google ads and will hopefully not grow into those annoying ads that taunt you to catch a monkey for $20. i don’t anticipate making boatloads of money from these ads, but now that mama has a mortgage to pay, every little bit helps. i’d also like to give this blog the makeover i’ve been talking about giving it for ages. hopefully also this year.

i’ve begun to tag entries with a subject, a process that will take some time to complete as i’m rummaging through the archives so that every post gets at least one tag. so far, i’ve created 17 different tags that range from birthdays to holidays to music. to date, the tag with the most entries is dating, which has 19 posts to its credit, followed by whining with 13, and then breakups with 10. i know — how totally poetic. i expect the travel tag to pick up the most entries once i get around to tagging those early posts of my adventures in Europe. of course my favorite tags include the photos of the cuties, labeled with dogliness (seven entries), and Mo’s love notes (nine).

other blog oddities in case anyone cares:

• this post is number 255.


• the posts that have generated the greatest amount of comments, 36 total, are this one and this one.


• the post that’s generated the greatest amount of emails was the one about my visit to the psychic in hawaii. i average roughly one email a month on that one. most just ask for her contact info — which is listed twice in the comments — but sometimes people share their own experiences of seeing her, which are usually interesting.


• the posts i cannot bear to read are those that deal with Angela’s death, labeled with the death tag. always a buzz kill.


• although i’ve broken this rule on occasion, i’ve vowed to never discuss details of my political beliefs or events that occur at my day job. the whys of this should be pretty self-evident.


• to date, there have been two sorta stalkers, more like fans, who have emerged from this blogging experience. the first, of course, started out as commentator “Chris Knight,” who turned out to be my arch nemesis from high school, Marlin (aka Mo), now my spectacular boyfriend. the other (plexi, you still out there?) was a former coworker who sent me a sweet birthday e-card one year and asked me out for a drink. (never happened.)

*******

last week i finally moved into my new house. it even looks new after all the work that’s gone into it. (photos to come in a few weeks once all the boxes are emptied). with the new house in tow, the blog turning five, my love of Mo growing by the day and a new position at my work that i’ll reveal more about later, i sense that this is the beginning of the next big chapter of my life. i know how absolutely cheesy that sounds and i wish i had better poetry to express it, but it’s a valid truth for me right now.

lately, i’ve been experiencing an intense blend of excitement, optimism, anxiety, tearfulness and wonderment — which means that i’m feeling like my usual self. i’m generally not a fan of big life transitions and emotional upheaval, but this one has been tolerable, even enjoyable as it’s engaged all my senses and propelled me into my future, which seems saturated with possibility. i feel alive, alert and so stupidly weepy that i could look at a flower now and cry.

the past five years have been sometimes terrific, sometimes terrible, and spilling their contents on this space has been greatly rewarding for me. plus, it’s cheaper than therapy. i can’t wait to see what the next five bring and only hope that you’ll continue to play along — leave some comments, click some ads, roll your eyes at my absurdity and maybe chuckle at my bad jokes.

thanks for reading.

On Blahging

it's been quite the effort to blog lately. probably because everything else this side of life has been relatively effortless and i'm prone to using this space for soppy lamentations on life and love. though now that i've actually said that aloud by posting it on the internets, i'm sure Mo and i will break up and i'll be laid off and then struck by lightning. all of this will happen on the same day. then i'll rush home to blog about it.

but really, it's just standard bloggers' block, i suppose, happens to all us hacks. school kids get a summer vacation and even TV shows take a summer hiatus. i felt entitled to a break, having grown tired of crafting my life's sitcom for this blog. it began to feel like a chore, akin to clipping my toenails. so instead, i decided to roll out summer programming full of reruns, photos, flashbacks and punchy lists predicated on hindsight. it was partially therapeutic, but mostly lazy (though i like the idea of ongoing series, so perhaps more of those will appear).

fear not, as the break from the break is nigh, motherfuckers! my battery is buzzing again, however slight its din. weekly blogging will resume in september, i hope, and this season's lineup will feature fabulous storylines and special guest stars and new and improved photo essays. it'll rate off the charts!

or maybe not. we'll see.

To Write

i've been battling a strange case of bloggers block for the past few days. haven't been motivated to post or, rather, haven't been motivated to spend adequate time constructing a post. judging by the end product, it's probably surprising to hear how much time i waste building these damn entries, but it can take hours, sometimes up to day to finish one. i'll write shit, leave it, read it, reread it, rewrite it, give it a rest and then come back to it. and even after all that, i'll still reread old posts and come up with better ways to phrase things. i know, it's such a great greek tragedy -- what a cross us bloggers bear. sometimes i think we write more for ourselves than our audiences, but if that were true then i wouldn't give as much a shit about how this thing read.

when i was in school, my english teachers would always tell me, "milla, you have such a fluid writing style." i couldn't appreciate that then as much as i do now. i think that's because my connotations of "fluid" were dumbly associated with things like bodily fluids, things like piss. that was before i discovered the joys of such fluids as wine, coffee and vodka. in any case, i think my writing style today is still pretty fluid, though (hopefully) less flowery. reading over my oldest ramblings can induce nausea. even reading over my more recent ramblings can do the same: "[the moon rises] big and yellow over the horizon like the eye of g-d." who the hell am i kidding?

i've been dipping into this fabulous new book of poetry i bought recently -- Teen Angst: A Celebration of Really Bad Poetry. as you might have guessed, this is a compilation of teenage "poetry." this book has reduced me to tears and nearly a self-wetting, it's made me laugh so hard. inspired, i dug up my old "poetry" and was horrified at the doozies i could have added to this. if there is a volume 2, i am so submitting.

poetry is just mostly bad in general. even old-school poems from the great cannonized masters could be considered bad by today's standards. lots of them seem so treacly to me now. not that i hate poetry by any means. i have my faves, certainly. but it's so subjective and, unlike "good" writing which can appeal to a lowest common denominator, "good" poetry and poets must carve out their own fanbase, similar to musical acts. it's just not that universal unless, of course, we're talking about The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock or The Hollow Men. ah, t.s. eliot.

but when we're talking about less universal stuff like This is Just to Say, which i love, but i know my fellow blogger and buddy KT doesn't, then no one really wins. it becomes too "arguable." and although any type of art should arguably be one way or another, when we're talking about taste and preference and style, no objective, sound conclusions can be drawn -- or should be drawn. (but when we're talking about country music, we can uniformly conclude that it sucks. no arguments needed. though we can appreciate it for its comedic value.)

so i don't write poetry (anymore) because i don't think i could ever truly gauge my own "poetry's" worth. this probably sounds like a crummy reason, and probably is a crummy reason, but i can't get past it. truthfully, it's probably because writing good poetry is too hard and i'm too lazy to try. i can take a hard look at the prose i've written and see what's worked and what hasn't and reach some conclusions that work for me, but poetry is a wild animal. you can think it's been tamed and trained and you have it all under control, then one day it'll turn on you and drag you offstage by your neck, like it did that guy from the vegas tiger show. and then you're fucked and lying in the hospital almost paralyzed with a doozy to submit to the Teen Angst book.

wait, i'm mixing metaphors. seems i don't have this prose thing tamed and trained either. so let me just fall back on some platitudes: writing is a process, it's a journey, just like life. but that's bullshit, too, because writing is more about an end product, whereas life's end product is death. so nevermind.

where was i going with this again? oh, yeah. poetry is weird. the end.

Nothing in Particular

not sure where i'm going with this one, not that i have anywhere i need to go with any of them. just procrastinating really. i should be working on my website instead, as i have the evening free to do so, but the thought of firing up dreamweaver always makes me uneasy cus i know it will frustrate me somehow. it's not really a hard program, not nearly as bad as photoshop, but it'll still get me somehow. just when i think i've semi-mastered the fucker, it suddenly won't let me add a return or resize a box -- something lame will trip me up.

anyhow, writing in this blog is also good preparation for writing the captions that will accompany the summer's photos. it always helps lube my brain, writing here. after an entry, i can sometimes just fart out my assignments with ease. it helps turn off that internal editor. but with each sip of this boozy wine, it looks less likely that i'll be doing anything that requires too much brain tonight. i might just slide instead into movie-watching mode. or perhaps music-listening mode.

i rented the matrix reloaded the other night and just didn't dig it much. i heard it was horrible and i expected to hate it fully, but it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either. just like watching a video game -- way too much CGI. and keanu reeves is just a terrible actor. he has no range. neither does drew barrymore. i can't handle seeing either one of them in a movie -- they always play the same character. i also rented the entire second season of the osbournes on dvd and that was fabulous. they crack me up, that family. they kinda remind me of my family, minus all that money and cursing. actually, if you cross the osbournes with a woody allen movie, you may have something resembling my family: slightly dim dad who needs things constantly repeated and re-explained, a busybody Jewish mother who's quick to give out praise, insults and guilt trips. then there's my sister and i -- we don't really bicker too much nowadays, but we used to. my family is also pretty loud. it's really shocking how much noise three people can make, but get my sister, my mom and i together in a room and it's nonstop yap and kvetch, kvetch and yap.

yeah, there's no way i'm working on that website tonight. i wonder if i should have joined pablo and his b-school peeps in their post-finals bash. (his school is actually on a quarter system, so he just finished exams and will begin another term monday.) but i figured they would need to commiserate and celebrate amongst themselves.

i'm also still trying to nail down my master's thesis topic. but before that, i need to find an advisor. i've gone through two faculty members already, both of whom seem too busy to help me out, so i'm onto a third, whom i will ask next week to give me a hand with this thing. i have three ideas in mind -- focus on either high-schoolers, immigrants or porn stars. hmm... which do you think i'll choose?

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.

blah, blah, blah.
testing, testing, testing.