I Now Offer Services as a Personal Shopper

So I've gone shopping with my friend Marc Aaron a couple of times over the last month or so, because he recently got a full time job and very wisely decided that the best way to expend all that disposable income was on men's fashion.

The only problem is that prior to this his sense of style ran mostly toward oversized t-shirts and basketball shorts, and my area of expertise is in short skirts and see-through shirts. A compromise would have to be made.

Things That Were Said On Our Journey to Develop a New Style That Did Not Involve Oversized T-Shirts, Basketball Shorts, Short Skirts or See-Through Shirts

By Marc Aaron:

"I would never wear that. Come on."

"Elbow patches. I want something with elbow patches."

"I am not buying that leather jacket. I don't want to look like someone from the Fast and the Furious."

"I should be a model because if I were a model all the guys would come into the store and say, 'hey he looks like a regular guy, we should buy those clothes he's wearing.' With the real models they just say, 'what a douchebag, I would never dress like him.'"

"That vest has too many buttons."

"I should be the head of all men's fashion. I would be so good at it. People would bring me stuff and I would say 'no that's ugly we're not selling that' or 'that's pretty good, let's sell it' and I would make millions."

"This is not the men's section. What are we doing here?"

"That vest has too many pockets."

By me

"You should get some skinny jeans. I should get some skinny jeans. I want a pair in yellow."

"I need to buy a luggage and also a teapot."

"This is pretty cool. It's like playing dress up with a human-sized Ken doll. Except you're not blond and you don't take any of my suggestions."

"Oh my god it's a puppy store. Let's go look at puppies."

"What is that smell?"

"Puppies look a lot cuter than they smell."

"You should get that leather jacket, you'll look like one of the guys in the Fast and the Furious."

"I don't think this place has teapots."

A sign of my success: I helped him pick out a pair of mustard yellow pants. The next time I saw him I asked if he wore them yet.

Him: "Yes I did."

Me: "What did you pair it with?"

Him: "A dark blue polo."

Me: "Did anyone make a comment?"

Him: "Yes, my friend said I looked like a '70s astronaut."

Me: "Is that...good?"

Him: "Yes, I looked exactly like a '70s astronaut."

Unrelated, but I like when people find Lady Gaga attractive.

I am writing this in the hopes that it will keep me from falling into a deep, dark despair. It is Sunday evening. It has been raining for the past three days. I HAVE NO FOOD IN MY HOUSE. It's just all a little too much to handle.

Possibly the only thing keeping me from slitting my wrists out of sheer boredom is the knowledge that in four days, I'LL NEVER BE BORED AGAIN. Or, at the very least, that I will be mildly entertained for the next week and a half. This is my first winter without a school break. Which means while everyone is running around drinking for three weeks, I am going to bed before midnight so that I can drive through the pouring rain to sit in a cubicle for eight hours and then driving home in the pouring rain to rummage through my empty cabinets, debate braving the rain to go to the grocery store, looking for and not finding an umbrella, and then lying in bed listening to music from '90s boy bands until hunger and boredom lull me to sleep. But this will all end on THURSDAY. Also known as CHRISTMAS EVE.

That is the day that MY FAMILY COMES TO LOS ANGELES. I am excited about this for two reasons: 1. We are going to Vegas to spend Christmas, and 2. I relish the challenge of searching my wardrobe for something "mom-approved," aka necklines above the throat (oddly, short hemlines are okay -- my mother once told me I look better in short skirts because they make my legs look longer. Thanks, mom?)

But above all, Thursday marks my last day at work until the new year. That's right, a glorious WEEK AND A HALF off. And during those ten days, amazing things will happen.

Here's a breakdown of the fun:

Friday, 12/24 to Monday, 12/27: we go to Vegas for some bright lights, some gambling, and, if my sister has her way and we sneak away from the family -- some shameless drinking.

Monday, 12/27: we return from Vegas and make our way to our annual Secret Santa with high school friends. Sometimes when I think that I've been friends with some of these people for seven years, I get a headache and have to lie down. Perhaps this year my gift for my Secret Santa will be the gift of youth. I don't know if that falls within the $50 limit though. Maybe I'll just get him/her a keg of beer. Close enough.

Tuesday, 12/28 to Thursday, 12/30: we bum around Los Angeles and San Diego, showing the parents and family friends (we have an awesome family from Taiwan visiting us) the sights. I haven't decided where to take them during the LA leg of the trip though. I have a feeling my usual haunts of the taco truck and the Dollar Tree are not quite what my parents have in mind.

Friday 12/31 to Saturday, 1/1: WE GO TO BIG BEAR FOR NEW YEAR'S! I'm quite excited about this despite the fact that by overwhelming majority, we are going skiing instead of ziplining. Given the choice, I will almost always prefer zipping at the speed of the light over mountains and trees to falling in my face in the snow. But alas. I only hope I do not get frostbite on my nose. Because then it would fall off, and I wouldn't be able to smell, which means I wouldn't be able to taste. Although, I don't have food in my apartment anyway. Cue an 'Nsync ballad.

Circle of Life. But Without Any Animals.

Whenever I come home (like I am now for spring break), I usually feel two things:

1. guilt, for all the bad things I do at school that my darling mother has no inkling of, and

2. relief, for not being in high school anymore.

For the first part, it's not that bad. Like I'll be the first to admit that I make some questionable choices but for the most part I'm doing pretty well. Like my sins run more along the lines of ordering delivery five nights out of the week rather than selling myself for cocaine or something. I'm fairly certain that if you put a mountain of cocaine in front of me and then a styrofoam box of Enzo's wings, I'd be all over the latter. Unless I could convert the cocaine into cash with which I can buy wings. But I guess that would make me a drug dealer. And then I'd probably feel pretty guilty.

But my mother has got to be one of the best moms in the world. I mean we squabble now and then and she has this crazy idea that I have too many shoes, but for the most part she is the greatest (example: she was telling me she thinks I may have too many pairs of shoes today as she was buying me two new pairs). And this is an issue because she's always like "think about how much love and care your parents have invested in you, so don't throw yourself away on a boy who won't treat you as well as we do" and I'm like oh shoot. Like, I have enough trouble meeting a guy who doesn't drop a conversation the second he turns on his xbox, but to be actually treated with respect and affection? Let's not get crazy here.

Although I do want to add as a side note that when Mango puts his mind to it, he can be a pretty good best friend. Like, the other day I had an interview in downtown LA, which is a 1.5 hour bus ride from Westwood. It was also during Tuesday of finals week, and I was done on Monday but Mango had two more Thursday and Friday. Our conversation about the interview went something like this:

Me: I have an interview at City Hall on Tuesday.

Mango: That's in downtown? Like near the Staples Center?

Me: Yeah I think so.

Pause here as we both reflect back on the last time we took the bus to Staples Center (to go to the circus) and the show ended at 10 PM and we had to wait for an hour for the next (and last) bus and after strolling past closed stores for half an hour we made our way down two or three very dark city blocks to the bus stop, which turned out to be on a dimly lit corner next to an empty lot. I'm not kidding. Also we were the only two people on the bus until halfway through when a homeless person joined us. I was pretty glad to see Westwood that night.

Mango: I'll go with you.

Me: But you have finals! There's no way you'll be able to study on the bus.

Mango: There's no way I'll be able to study if I'm worried that you'll get raped in your interview clothes.

Me: I'm going in the daytime.

But yeah he ended up coming with me and it was actually pretty fun to hang out on the bus and walk a little around City Hall and to be perfectly honest I probably would've gotten lost if Mango hadn't been there.

So who needs nice boys when you have friends like this?

Anyway, it's not like I hated high school. I mean I didn't really thrive in it like some people do, but it wasn't like I knew any better. The summer before I left for college I was SO SCARED. I was like OMG MY LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN. And I didn't realize that was a good thing. Like, high school me didn't realize that life could be better than having a curfew, six classes a day, a pothead boyfriend and a wardrobe comprising mostly of clothing from Hollister.

But now that I think about it, after (almost) four years of college I sleep before midnight every day, spend as much as or more(!) time on homework than I did in high school, still have an interest in pothead boys, and ... well, no more Hollister clothing. So I guess that's something. What progress I've made.

What I'm Grateful for This Year.

1. Predictable Thanksgiving blog posts.

2. Tuesday nights.

3. Sparkly eye make up that makes me look like a fairy on crack.

4. A "feminist" sister who manages to turn all her school papers into dissertations on Perez Hilton.

5. Parents who still think of us as princesses.

6. Boys who don't get angry.

7. Fuzzy pink boots and metallic wristlets.

8. Having the ability to help the sweetest, cutest children in the world (or at the very least in Watts).

9. Only having to go through two quarters of the 33% fee increase before graduation (this one is also on my parents' list).

10. Pineapple guava juice and pineapple mango body butter.

11. Strange (and sometimes stupid) music.

12. Your face.

Happy holidays, fools. Be safe, drink a lot, and stay off the road.

I Totally Take Back What I Said About Pictures Being Easier to Blog.

Hello hello. So I realized that I'm going to have four papers due within a span of about seven days for a total of maybe forty pages? Of original thought. So that sucks. Anyway, I'm going to save all my words for schoolwork so here are some pictures courtesy of my iPhone and Microsoft Paint.
Not sure what this guy was doing on campus. Not giving out free samples, that's for sure. I checked.

So for Jenn's birthday we went to Medieval Times and it was awesome because I'm pretty sure that makes me a princess. A classy one, as you can tell from our napkin menu bill of fare.
That guy is our host/chancellor. He was tall and pretty good looking and there were a bunch of girls there who'd been patronizing the bar and they were flocking around him like crazy. I wasn't one of them. Just to clear that up. I did bring a flask though (not pictured).
They had these knights assigned to each section. Ours was yellow. He lost though.
Probably no explanation necessary.


On Jenn's actual birthday her boyfriend and sister and best friend brought over some ice cream cake. For some reason we let the Y put the candles on.



At the basketball game last week Mango pointed out how they seemed to have buffed up Joe Bruin over the summer. We think they just stuffed extra padding onto the original costume. Either that or steroids.

Oh my goshhh so when we entered Pauley at the start of the game they had these raffle slips for students to fill out, and there was one that if you were chosen you could try to make these shots during halftime to win prizes. AND THEY PICKED MANGO! And he totally refused to go up, even though they broadcast his name like thirty times and had it up on the big screen and everything. He's so going to regret this forever.

Aren't these cute? If anyone ever has to give me a perishable token of their affection I hope it comes in puppy form.

That's all. I hope you enjoyed this because it seriously took me forever to get these pictures to this level of awesome and then I kept accidentally deleting shiz and I was this close to just throwing my computer out the window but instead I powered through it like a real trooper. You're welcome.

U-C-STOPSCREAMINGOBSCENITIESINTOMYEARGUYBEHINDME-LLLLL-A!

Yesterday I went to my first UCLA men's basketball game ever. I've been to Pauley before, for a thousand different reasons: Mango's intramural basketball games, a UCLA women's gymnastics meet, a L.A. Sparks playoff game, the LMFAO concert. Random, I know. But this was the first time I've gone for men's basketball and wow, are sports fans unattractive.

Well, let me back up. I'm a sports fan, I guess. I would say my interest in sports is higher than that of the average female and lower than that of the average male. I'm like a sports fan hermaphrodite. It's really late, I don't know why I would say something like that. But what I'm trying to say is that every time I attend a sporting event I am reminded of how annoying most sports fans are. Myself excluded. Of course.

Mango says it's all part of the package, that trash talking and shrieking and senseless traditions are an inherent aspect of spectator sports. And I'm like, eh.

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time at the game. I might even have participated in an 8-clap or two. And UCLA won, which I'm pretty sure is a direct result of my efforts. In the spirit of the subject matter, here is a play by play of my night and a little insight into why I think many sports fans are idiots a tad overzealous.

7:00 PM: Mango and I join Robong and Dwang in the student section of the stands, which is like three rows back from courtside. When I'm trying to settle in I accidentally kick the girl in front of me, but I don't feel too bad because it doesn't seem like she noticed and also she did that thing with her Den shirt where she like cut the heck out of it so that it exposed as much shoulder and cleavage as possible. And then she tied it up at the back to bare some midriff and honestly, is it necessary to slut up for a sporting event? I'm probably not the right person to judge though, because I totally went in an (intact) Den shirt and a UCLA jacket and sweats. If it helps, they were girl sweats, so I didn't look too homeless. Just mildly homeless. Like I only recently lost my job and my house but I'm still trying to do laundry in the sink at the McDonalds on the corner to you know, keep up appearances.

8:00 PM: The game is under way and okay, there are a lot of weird traditions that college students do. Like the entire student section is standing right now. Is this going to stop anytime soon? Some of the traditions at least are funny or amusing but some are kind of mean and make me a little sad. Or is it mad? Anyway this one thing they do is when a member of the opposing team makes an air-ball, they chant "air-ball, air-ball" every single time he has his hands on the ball up until he makes a shot. This one guy on the Concordia team shot an air-ball in the first five minutes of the game and then didn't make a basket until the very end of the second half, so he had to put up with a lot of this chanting. I'm going to be honest, I felt bad for him. He was really hustling and plus their team is the underdog, and I always root for underdogs (hence my undying devotion to the Warriors), and so what happened was that I kept accidentally clapping for the other team.

8:15 PM: Hunh. So I guess we're not sitting down.

8:30 PM: Seriously, they will not stop with the "air-ball" chants. This bothers me on a number of levels. First of all, I'm not a fan of chanting. It's so cult-y and I'm also not a fan of cults. Second of all, it's so mean. I try to counter all the mean vibes by cheering positively ("maybe try again!" "don't listen to them, you're still a good player!" "welcome to Los Angeles!") but it's hard to be heard over the crowd and also Mango keeps trying to quiet me down to prevent us from being killed.

8:45 PM: Wow I did not know you were allowed to call a ref that without getting thrown out.

9:00 PM: Seriously? Standing for the duration of the entire game?

9:15 PM: Okay, guy behind me with a super loud annoying voice: stop telling the opposing team's players to go home. (Verbatim: "hey YOU! Number 33! Go HOME! YOU SUCK! GO HOME!") If they went home there wouldn't be a game to watch at all and then you'd have to be alone at home wondering why you have no friends and okay guess what it's because you're obnoxious there I solved the problem for you okay?!

9:20 PM: This thing is like two hours long. My feet are getting tired.

9:30 PM: Thank god it's over let me sit. UCLA WINS! The game ends with UCLA shooting a clutch 3 after our best player fouled out and winning by one with our first and only lead of the game. It's pretty cool and I'm all school-pridey and stuff but secretly I feel a little bad for Concordia because they played so hard and all their players were like a full foot shorter than ours. I feel like they should have gotten points for being scrappy but Mango says that is not a category in basketball scoring.

In conclusion, I hope next time our school plays a team who's really mean and maybe are known puppy-beaters or something because then I can cheer with a clear conscience. Although I don't hope that anyone hurts puppies. And if they did they should probably be in jail and not on the basketball court. Although Mango did tell me that one of the UCLA players was suspended for a while because he beat up his girlfriend. I definitely did not cheer for him. That's kind of an awkward note to end this on. Oh well.

You Know When TV Writers Don't Want to Write a Whole New Episode so Instead They Have a Lot of Flashbacks? This is Like That, Except With Links.

This isn't a real blog post so don't expect richly detailed prose about the intricacies of undergraduate life in Los Angeles. Well, who am I kidding. Don't expect an overshare of information about personal grooming or vague and possibly drunken rambling about obsolete television shows.

Anyway this is just a quick drive-by to say I'm probably going to be leaving this world soon and farewell, blog. You were good to me for the half year I had you and I hope that when I'm gone someone awesome hacks into you and pretends to write as me, as if I had never died, and it freaks out the people who read you (all eight of them), because they went to my funeral and I was in the casket damnit and so who is this proclaiming their love of bargain hunting on you?

But on the off chance I survive midterm season (this year featuring papers, massive reading, two presentations and two exams all crammed into two fun-filled consecutive days) and the fact that I haven't gone grocery shopping in over a week and am not above eating whatever is in the back of the fridge, don't be offended if you don't get an invitation to a funeral. Because I probably made it. Or whatever.

Anyway, my being on blogger at all is totally Meema's fault because I should be slaving over homework that makes me want to cry blood so that I can show my bloody-teardrop-stained-papers to my professors and say "LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE" but I can't control what my tears are made of, apparently, so I'm here instead because of a conversation I had with Meema:

[Meema]: a lot of work to do?
me: just kill me
[Meema]: but then who will write my favorite personal blog :/
me: you're just saying that
[Meema]: no I'm not
[Meema]: yours is the favorite of mine of people I actually know
[Meema]: and ones that are about their own lives in general
[Meema]: well it's between you and this graduate-school educated escort who writes about crying during yoga and the rich men she services

I think I've just been complimented, people.

If You Plan On Ever Going Anywhere, Just Don't Even Bother Befriending Me.

And now, for the next in my series of Things I Hate About Adulthood I present:

this exclusively adult idea of Impermanence and Mobility.

I hate it. When you were a kid your parents (if they were good ones, I guess, or if they at least read some child psychology books) tried to give you stability. Like, that's pretty basic. You went to bed at nine, you woke up at seven, you had to go sit in the corner if you were being too rowdy unless you were too rowdy while your dad was sleeping, then you had to go kneel in the backyard (this is where emotional issues and childhood knee scars come from). You saw your friends every day during the school year, you played with your neighbors over summer vacation and then you went back to school and caught up with your buddies like nothing had ever happened.

Adults cannot do this, apparently. Now, I know I'm being kind of hypocritical because whenever things get tough around here I threaten to move to Hawaii and pick up surfing and get an intense tan and marry a boy with killer abs who lives for making me fresh pineapple juice every morning. But I haven't done it yet. And it's not like I'm sitting in my room looking at one-way plane tickets online.

But apparently some people are. People I know. People who, if they left, would not only be leaving California, they would also be leaving me with severe abandonment issues. But do they consider that? Nooo.

"But," I point out. "if you leave, who am I going to hang out with on Tuesdays? We always hang out together on Tuesdays."
"Well," they inevitably reply, "first of all, that's not true. Second of all, I hate you and can't stand being in the same state as you. Even a state as big as California."
"Screw you," I say, "I hope the Atlantic Ocean swallows up Florida or wherever you're planning on going."

Alright, so that conversation is not completely accurate. More likely than not they give me some stupid response like "My girlfriend lives in Chicago and I want to be closer to her/I got offered a job in Minneapolis and it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity/I'm in love with New York and would be a thousand times happier there/My ailing mother's last wish is for me to move to our family estate in Savannah/I'm fulfilling my lifelong dream of being a shark hunter in North Carolina" or something like that.

And they're totally missing the big picture. Which is that if they leave, I'm going to have to make new friends, and I hate doing that almost as much as I hate dating. First of all, it's going to be impossible because I'll be dealing with all the insecurity issues I've acquired as a result of being abandoned in the first place, and who wants to befriend a weirdo who won't let her new friends out of her sight, even if it is to go to the bathroom?

So, to my friends who are moving away, think about it this way: you're not only leaving me a big issue-y mess and forcing me into social situations outside my comfort zone, but your actions are probably also going to get me arrested for being a stalker.

Is that what you want? Yeah, that's what I thought. Now go to the backyard and think about what you've (almost) done.

The Sickness Didn't Kill Me, but My Life Might.

Hello, world wide web. I haven't been blogging lately because life has been sucking hard and I try to preserve the naivete of my poor innocent blog by shielding it from the big bad world of collegiate stress as much as possible. But yesterday was the last straw.

Let me tell you a little about the weeks leading up to this moment. Ever since class started, my life has been steadily spiraling downwards to the point where, when I fill my Eeyore thermos with mineral water every morning, I wistfully eye the half handle of Svedka in the fridge. But it hasn't quite gotten to the point of alcoholism (yet).

Instead, I've decided to fill my days with other worthwhile ambitions, like flyering for Prolit ("do you want to help children?" -- this was quickly shortened to "help children!" while I desperately shove the flyer into the passerby's hand; this strategy is alarming enough that it works up to 20% of the time), pretending I understand other English majors (how can one relate Curb Your Enthusiasm to Aristotle's Poetics to Soviet and Japanese productions of King Lear? Come to my senior seminar to find out!), to attending mandatory training sessions for volunteers working with minors (Powerpoint presentation: "try to limit your physical contact with children to high fives. No hugs! If absolutely necessary, side hugs only." Have you ever tried to high five a seven year old while she is sprinting toward you for a hug? I foresee this information causing more trouble than good), and desperately ransacking my apartment for food. It was the fruitlessness of this last endeavor that led me to a midnight rendezvous at Ralphs with Roro, Laycon and Mango. And that was where my weary spirit was dealt its last, crushing blow.




Now goodbye, cruel world.

For Teenie.

I'm taking an honors class right now on "Stress and Coping." I just had the class for the first time today, so I've only learned two things so far:

1. The class is in the exact same classroom as an honors class I had last quarter that I dropped after a week because there were only like twelve people in the class, sitting in a circle around the teacher, and I had already fallen asleep three times in the first hour. I figured it would be all downhill from there. I'm crossing my fingers that this quarter will be better.

2. Compared to what I learned about every single other student in the class during those awkward self-intro speeches, I am really behind on life. Like there was a girl who was interning for the Conan O'Brien show (this coming on the heels of her internship with the Make-A-Wish Foundation), and a guy who spent part of his summer in Haiti volunteering in hospitals. Over half the class had taken either the MCAT, the LSAT or the GRE. A typical 'what I did over summer' speech would go like this: "I spent this summer putting in over 40 hours a week at my internship with a sports agent representing dozens of professional athletes. In my spare time, I studied for the LSAT and did some volunteer legal work on the side. I took the test last week and now I'm working on a few dozen applications for law schools across the country." And then there was me: "This summer I worked until I saved up enough money to go to Hawaii. And then I did and it was awesome."

After that whole thing, the professor went through some of the logistics of the class. It was all very basic, but one question she asked stuck with me. It might just be because it's the topic of a quarter-long assignment and I like to do my worrying in advance, but this is the question: "how do you deal with stress?"

It sounds simple, right? No. Sucker. At least not for me. I thought it was obvious at first. "Oh," I thought to myself, "well, that's easy. When I'm stressed I snack a lot. Ugh weight gain. Maybe I should start going to the gym. But I have no time and I hate being sweaty and moving around. Maybe I should just stop buying snacks." But then I realized that this isn't always necessarily true. Sometimes when I'm stressed I stop eating. Like there would be stretches of time where I'd be too busy to cook or grocery shop and I'd subsist on whatever non-perishables I have left in the back of the pantry. Unfortunately, if you're thinking "oh at least that helps her weight balance back out" this does not seem to be true. Apparently my body is in a kind of lose-lose situation -- or should I say gain-gain?-- where if I don't eat it goes on survival mode and manages to wrangle 300 calories out of a single stalk of celery. And then when I do eat it rejoices by safely tucking all these incoming calories in little pockets of fat known as my appendages.

So my point is I was trying to figure out how I personally cope with stress. And I was drawing a blank until just now, when I was having a conversation with Teenie about how confusing and annoying feelings are, and basically just bitching about life in general to the point where she had to calm me down by quoting Red Hot Chili Peppers and telling me that I'm pretty. I'm not saying I'm superficial, but just fyi: telling me I'm pretty often has a calming effect on me. It's like what a tranquilizer dart does to a charging bear. Song lyrics are optional.

Anyway, we started talking about this ongoing fantasy I have where I uproot my life and move to somewhere exotic and romantic and then do something charmingly destitute like be a waitress in a small cafe by the ocean. And then I realized: this is my coping mechanism. Like when I'm in my beautiful apartment in Westwood, which at the moment might not seem so beautiful because there is nothing in the refrigerator and I have a pile of unfinished assignments and hundreds of pages to read and nothing more exciting than Shakespeare on my horizon, I think "well you know what? in a year I'll have graduated and I can do whatever I want and if what I want to do is buy a one way ticket to France and spend my life savings on a small apartment over a bookshop and work in a bakery selling cupcakes, then what's stopping me?" Or sometimes it's Bath, an apartment over a shoe store, working at the spa; Hong Kong, in a high-rise penthouse, something with banking and investments where I get to wear killer heels and flattering suits. My fantasies about the future aren't always so far-fetched, however. Once in a while I'll be feeling tame and domestic, and it'll be something more along the lines of a Victorian house in San Francisco, where I sell antiques; a cottage in Maine where I lead tour groups through historic landmarks; an apartment overlooking the cityscape in Seattle where I, of course, work in a coffee shop.

That's the thing about being an English major, I think. On one hand, I have little to no prospects. On the other, I could be anywhere, doing anything.

And if nothing else, that makes me appreciate my sunny little apartment with its french doors, soft carpets and familiar, friendly residents for the short time that I have it.

Do Not Entrust Me With Your Children.

Hello, hello. I'm like a neglectful parent to my blog; right when I get it I fawn over it and coo about how adorable it is and update it every day and then I begin to ignore it because it's so needy and needs to be burped all the time but then I start feeling guilty about my terrible attitude and renew my promise to write something every day and then I go to Hawaii on vacation and totally forget I even had a baby and then I come back and child services is knocking on the door and now I'm only limited to thirty minute visitations before my full blogger rights are restored to me. Well that last part isn't completely accurate but I had to work out a way to say that there is only approximately fifty minutes of battery life left on my computer and the charger is way the heck in the living room and I love my blog but frankly there are limits to my dedication.

So.. yeah. I'm back from Hawaii! In fact I'm not even in Fremont Union City anymore, I'm in the City of Angels and happy as a clam. Or more like happy as an otter holding a clam that I'm about to crack open and eat. I'm sorry, it's really, really late.

Anyway, Hawaii was as amazing as you'd expect an island paradise to be and I have a lot to say about it, I think, (well actually I have a terrible memory, which is why I am a little obsessed with making itineraries and scrapbooks and virtual photo albums and -- oh yeah, blog posts) but I'm waiting until all the pictures are uploaded (you know who you are -- and if you don't, you are Teenie, Jamerz and Mango) before I begin on what will be the most epic blog post ever attempted completed in a timely and coherent manner.

So if my life were a tv show and you just missed the last few episodes because you are not a very loyal viewer (honestly, did you even notice that I hadn't updated in a week? I bet no one even sent any search parties out to Hawaii, like I expressly asked you to, did you? And I don't care that I had a post since my return, it could very well have been pre-scheduled and for all you know I'm now lying in a pit of lava in the middle of the Pacific) then the recap at the beginning of the newest episode would go something like this:

1. It was very recently the birthdays of three of my good friends: Teenie, Kenny and Stuffin (collectively known as the September babies). Their birthdays are in three days in a row in the middle of September, and usually at the end of our summer break we throw a huge joint birthday party. The only thing was that this year I had exactly one day between my return from Hawaii and my departure from Northern California. What followed was a very busy pre-party morning full of humorous hijinks and laughable setbacks that would be very entertaining if it had not happened to me, but it did, so we are not going to talk about it.

2. My family and I made the road trip down to Southern California, and I think it really says a lot about the three years I've spent here that when we became stuck for about an hour in blistering hot Los Angeles traffic, all I could think of was how happy I was to be back. Also we borrowed this cargo truck from a family friend to haul the furniture for my new apartment, and I am not kidding when I say cargo truck. We had to go through weigh stations. Yes, it was thrilling, and yes, I did feel like I should be wearing a cap. It also brought me way back to when my family was dirt-poor and my dad would have to make weekly (weekly!) drives up and down the coast of California hauling cargo, and sometimes he'd take me or my sister along and we'd sit on a little stool in the back with the boxes while my dad and another worker sat in the only two seats in the cab. And it was awesome, if a little bumpy.

3. On Tuesday Tando brought over half the stuff he's let me store at his place over summer. He tells me he only brought half of it because "it got too dark and [he] couldn't see anymore." This statement was mildly confusing but I assume he meant he couldn't see between his front door and his car and didn't want to lug a bunch of stuff in the dark. When the Y asks why he didn't bring all my things I tell her what he said, and her take on it is that maybe he's scared of being outside in the dark because the gangsters will get him (Tando does not live in the best part of Los Angeles).

4. On Thursday Tando was supposed to bring the rest of my stuff but he couldn't because the car he was going to use wasn't available.

5. On Friday Tando and his cousin were supposed to hang out with me and the Y (and, I assume, bring the rest of my things) but they cancel. I begin to suspect that Tando's pet bunny has eaten all my clothes and my trash can and my mini-fridge and he is stalling for time before he can work up the courage to tell me this.

6. Tando calls and explains the reason he had to cancel was because he needed to wait for the electricity guy to come and turn his power back on. I recall that Tando had his power shut off ages ago for forgetting to pay the bill. "They turned it off again?!" I ask increduously.
"No," he said, "they never turned it back on."
"How long have you been living without electricity?!"
"Like a week. I thought you knew this."
"No, you didn't mention it again."
"Well, why did you think I couldn't bring all your stuff last time? I couldn't see where everything was in my apartment after the sun went down!"

I am slightly ashamed to say that at this point I burst out laughing, which Tando did not appreciate. I tried to lighten the mood by saying, "oh... the Y thought you were just scared of gangsters." For some reason this did not help either. But luckily everything worked out because today the guy finally came and turned his power back on and I got all my stuff back and now I have my scarves and shoes and belts and Tando has electricity. And my battery has two minutes left on it.

Good night, see you again soon. Really. Well, maybe.

My Hope is That While I'm on Vacation the Aliens Will Reveal Themselves.

Hello friends. So I'm going to Hawaii tomorrow. Iz and I already went earlier this year with my parents, and it was so fun we decided to do it again, only this time without our parents. Taking their place will be Teenie and Jamerz, and it's pretty much going to be epic. So you might not hear from me for a while.

We're going to Oahu, which is the home-island of my good friend Laycon. Oh, you will hear much more about Laycon in the coming year. He is quirky in ways that make me look like ... someone really normal. But he is awesome and I love him. Anyway, earlier in the summer Mango and I were discussing the trip (he'll be going too, but on a separate flight and slightly different days, and he's staying with Laycon instead of a hotel like the rest of us -- outcast), and we were getting really enthusiastic about it and started googling tourist attractions and sending them to Laycon as ideas for where he could take us.

Side note: Laycon is from Hawaii and has lived there all his life, but ever since I met him he has made a very clear distinction between what he is (a Cantonese person living in Hawaii) and what a native Hawaiian person is (a native Hawaiian person living in Hawaii). Also when we ask him what it's like living in Hawaii, he says "hot." And when we ask what he does when he's at home he says "play a lot of Pokemon."

So anyway we were noticing that there was this really long lag time between when we would send Laycon a suggestion and when he would provide feedback. I mean, Hawaii's far, but not too far for the internet.

Me: Laycon, are we overwhelming you? You're okay with taking us around, right?
Laycon: Yeah, yeah. Totally okay.
Me: Okay, cus you seem hesitant..
Laycon: I'm not, I'm just trying to google all these places.

So this trip should prove to be very interesting and adventurous, and if you don't hear from me in a week please search all the hidden caves and waterfalls on Oahu.

Speaking of potential death, I was researching Hawaii because I am not ready to die want to help Laycon out with the whole tour guide thing, and I stumbled across this interesting tidbit:

There's supposedly this Hawaiian goddess Pele whose wrath you incur if you take a piece of Hawaiian rock or whatever from a certain national park home with you. Like you take the rock home and things just start going all sorts of wrong for you until you send it back to its native soil. So I guess this is just a word of warning for my fellow travelers. Because if you upset me I will totally sneak a rock into your backpack and when all the light bulbs in your homes become nesting places for mosquitos you will be sorry for whatever you did to anger me. So yeah. Maybe I do want the aisle seat on the plane. And the first plate of shrimp at the shrimp shack. And shotgun on our two hour car ride. How thoughtful of you all.

So since this is going to be an extra long post (to make up for what might potentially be a week of silence, the longest I've been away from my blog since we first began this beautiful relationship, tear), we might as well switch topics so I can ask: who's reading this? Because I know once in a while a friend will tweet or comment or IM me and allude to something I wrote here, but my blogtracker thing has kinda high numbers, like more than the people I know are reading this. So unless they are clicking onto it from like a dozen different computers? Also the tracker is totally telling me that people from New Zealand and the United Kingdom are coming onto here, and also "other," which I guess means aliens read this?, and that would be cool if it were true but I'm also suspicious that my blogtracker is playing a practical joke on me. Like it's thinking "oh this poor girl, no one reads her nonsense, let me just pad her statistics a little" and now I'm like oh cool, people read my words except it's just pity points, really.

Also once Iz told me she liked to read my blog to find out what I'm up to, and I'm like "you live with me" and she's like "yeah, but you don't tell me everything" and I'm like "but I want people to read my blog because it's charming and quirky, much like its blogger, not because they are nosy and want to know what kind of drama is going down in my life" and Iz shrugged and was all, "well too bad, that's not why they're reading it" and I was like "goddamnit." So you can see why I got all excited when I thought people from other countries were reading this. Because they probably don't know me, and so I must be kind of interesting or else why bother, right? Not that I'm not glad my friends read this. Especially when I get in one of my futile moods and I'm like "I'm never writing again" and then someone tells me I made them laugh and I'm like "awesome, I take that not writing thing back."

Anyway, that is my beginning-of-school-year wish, to know if people I don't actually know in real life are reading this. I think it would be awesome and totally not creepy, because even if you were a creeper you don't know where I live so you can't kidnap my sister, and if you really read this blog you wouldn't want to anyway. So we all win. I'm not sure where I'm really going with this.

Oh, right. Hawaii. Peace out, suckas. Pele and I will be thinking of you.

Reason #2384971 Not to Have Children.

So I hung out with kids today, which is nice, and also marks the first time I set foot into my treefort. And if I learned anything from this experience, it is that maybe the FCC or whoever controls radio censorship might possibly have a point. This is inspired by a game that the kids we hung out with (Joshua, age 13, and Jevons, age 9) like to play -- whenever the next song comes on the radio, they race to see who can name the title first. And you have not felt a chill down your spine until you're frantically trying to change the radio station when you hear the first strains of a particular song but you know you're too late when you hear a tiny fifth grader pipe up from the backseat: "BIRTHDAY SEX!"

So yeah. Let's crack down on that censorship. Because the next time I hang out with these lovelies I could do without hearing a prepubescent rendition of "Lovegame" ("I wanna take a ride on your disco stick"-- NO YOU DON'T JEVONS. YOU'RE JUST A CHILD).

This is slightly related to what happened the other day, when I had dinner with my mom alone because Iz was too lazy (and hungover-- she's a wild animal) to go to the evening yoga class with us. This ended well for nobody, because Iz had to eat cold noodles for dinner and my mom focused all her interrogation skills on me. She asked me about my love life! This is a big no-no for me. It is only okay if you are a very close friend or maybe my boyfriend.

Anyway she started asking about past boyfriends or whatnot, and after I'd revealed a minimal yet satisfying amount of information (the only way to reveal information to parents) she came to the worried conclusion that "maybe you've set your standards too high?" Now, first of all, this is not true, as most of you probably know. Really, I have like two requirements for boys: 1) I like you, and 2) I'm attracted to you. This actually kinda helps a lot because within those two things there are a lot of inherent requirements, like showering regularly or not being a sex offender or having a sense of humor -- hm. Well I'm pretty sure I have the average level of standards. But the ironic thing about my mom saying that is any semblance of standards I have in regards to men is totally from her. I mean I have spent years with "if a guy doesn't put food on your plate before he gets food for himself, that's not love" and "date around as much as you can when you're young -- or you'll end up like me" getting pounded into my head, so is it any wonder I have intimacy issues?

So this is kinda related to my child buddies because I've known them their whole lives, back when they were a family of five (they have another brother, who was sick today and couldn't hang out), before their dad up and left their mom. And today I'm thinking, how can you leave behind three gorgeous children like this? So maybe there's a 3) don't have children with me and then leave us YOU ENORMOUS DOUCHEBAG.

Sorry. Unresolved anger on behalf of struggling single mothers and also of myself, because if men like that didn't exist I wouldn't have had to listen to this kind of disheartening, repetitive lecturing for the past ten years. So think about what you've done, men. Yeah. Ten years.

Wuh PAH. Brain Ninja Style.

The other day Iz and I were chilling in the den when she suddenly bursts into laughter and forwards me the following:

Instant Messaging conversation between Iz and Poops (who, for the record, are currently 500 miles apart)

Poops: So can I dota?
Poops: Wait
Poops: Why Am I asking permission
Poops: Psh
Poops: But seriously babe
Poops: Are you fine with it?

And that was when I decided a post about whipped boyfriends was in order. Oh, and just before we start, Iz would like to insert a little disclaimer:

Iz: he's not whipped :(
Iz: he whips himself :(
Me: he bought you an iphone
Iz: it was out of love though

And with that cleared up, I present..

Carolyn's Hall of Whipped Boyfriends, none of whom actually belong to her because she is apparently not as baller as these whip-wielding girlfriends out there

It turns out that when I decided to ask for people's most whipped moments, I opened a can of little whipped worms because boy are there a lot of whipped boys in my immediate circle of friends. Some stories are kind of sad and complex, like Jamerz', and some are really short and funny, like Tando's, and then there are just a million in between, because my guy friends have no backbone. Just kidding, guys! Your ladies are lucky to have you.

#1. Jamerz' Story

jam3rz (10:25:19 PM): for whatever reason, [his ex best friend slash girlfriend] had a strong dislike for [teenie]

jam3rz (10:25:37 PM): and she thought that because i was her best friend

jam3rz (10:25:45 PM): it reflected poorly on her that i was friends with teenie

jam3rz (10:25:53 PM): something about how how her best friend shouldn't be friends with her enemy

jam3rz (10:26:10 PM): how i should be on her side of the dispute

jam3rz (10:26:11 PM): so she told me that she wasn't okay with me being friends with teenie

jam3rz (10:26:41 PM): at first, i was like "that's ridiculous, i'll be friends with who i want"

jam3rz (10:26:59 PM): but over time, she subtly convinced me that she was right

jam3rz (10:27:02 PM): brain-ninja style

jam3rz (10:27:23 PM): and so, one day i was talking to teenie, and i friend-broke-up with her

jam3rz (10:27:40 PM): i dont remember what i said or how i justified it

jam3rz (10:27:42 PM): but in the days following that event, i felt terrible about it

jam3rz (10:28:05 PM): my soul was unsettled by my actions

jam3rz (10:28:14 PM): so, naturally, i called up [a good hs friend]

jam3rz (10:28:28 PM): went over to his house, and drank alcohol for the first time in my life

jam3rz (10:28:35 PM): and drunk dialed teenie and apologized

me (10:28:38 PM): that's so sweet!!

jam3rz (10:28:42 PM): HAHA

jam3rz (10:28:48 PM): not the reaction i was expecting

#2. Tando's Story

Some girl I liked offered me a ride home once so I accepted. After she dropped me off, I began the long trek back to my work at 1 am to pick up my car. Does that count?

Oh Tando. Yes.

#3. Jchaq's Story
In high school my good friend Jchaq was dating a girl and head over heels for her. She once made one of those girl-comments, joking about how the front passenger seat in his car was "hers." Apparently he took it completely to heart, because from that day on no one else was allowed in shotgun. It got to the point where, if we had to take a group excursion, it took some convincing for him to concede that his car could take four passengers, not just three. The first time we actually found out about his special rule was when one of our friends, who had a broken arm, was getting into the front seat so she wouldn't have to be jostled with the rest of us in the back.

"Uhm," Jchaq had said. "you can't sit there. It's reserved."

"What?" someone said. "For your imaginary friend?"

It got so ridiculous that the teasing he suffered eventually made its rounds back to his girlfriend, who was appalled and incensed that he had taken her seriously and in doing so inadvertently created the general impression that she was insane. Talk about a whipped intention gone horribly wrong.

So originally I was going to include an Excel chart in this post listing ridiculously extravagant gifts purchased in the name of love, but I think I'll make that a part two. Meaning I still need to get off my lazy butt (or on it, as the case may be) and finish that thing so you may or may not see it in the future.

Why My Diet is Not Working

Exhibit A
carolyn (10:47:37 PM): have you seen
carolyn (10:47:40 PM): thisiswhyyourefat.com
carolyn (10:48:23 PM): I think I have probelms
carolyn (10:48:30 PM): cus a lot of it just looks yummy to me
jam3rz (10:50:23 PM): dude, i was saying the EXACT SAME THING
carolyn (10:50:26 PM): whew
jam3rz (10:50:30 PM): like just a day or two ago
carolyn (10:50:35 PM): thank goodness
jam3rz (10:50:44 PM): mm...fat bitch sandwich

10 Things I Learned in Vegas (Mostly About the Properties of Rum)

1. Rum will fuck you up. Bad. Seriously, you will be drunk for seven hours and then black out for like a day and a half and wake up back in your own room feeling weak and having trouble typing when you try to update your blog.

2. This is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, you had a great time in Vegas. If only you could remember it. Did you even go? Whatever. Someone had a great time. It was probably you.

3. When you go to a Vons in Vegas on an alcohol-buying expedition (because waiting for a cocktail waitress to bring you one vodka tonic at a time is too time consuming, even if it is free) and type in your rewards number and the check-out guy asks how you pronounce your last name and you say "Wang," he'll snicker but you can't do anything about it because he's probably part of the Vegas mob, like those guys who beat up that cute guy in the movie 21.

4. In the rare moments that you are sober you and all the friends you are with will think that there needs to be some excuse to drink excessively, so you will all drive around in the 100 degree Vegas heat looking for a sports store to buy ping pong balls for beer pong, and after two hours you'll finally find a Wal-Mart and get them, and then you'll go back to the hotel room and start taking straight shots of rum and suddenly no one can find the ping pong balls, much less have enough coordination to rearrange any furniture.

5. And you will all be so messed up you forget the ping pong balls in the hotel room the next day, and on the ride home you'll wonder if you're in a stoner movie.

6. If you work in an office that also happens to contract out a nice older gentleman who doesn't mind hanging out with a bunch of drunk kids, then you will get to hang out in his Four Seasons hotel suite, which is apparently at the top of the Mandalay Bay hotel, and you will be so impressed by the view that you start drinking until you can't see it anymore.

7. Also Four Seasons hotel suites have a total of three (count 'em, three!) sinks, and if you fill these along with the ice bucket full of ice, then you will have enough cold space to store a bottle of rum and 32 cans of beer.

8. And between the four of you, you will finish 21 cans of beer in an hour and a half, although that's not really a fair way to break it down because you only had four, and one guy had like fifteen, but that might not really be his fault because according to sources the next day you kept opening beer bottles because you liked the sound when it popped, and you'd drink like two sips and pass them to him.

9. Apparently public drunkeness is not a crime in Nevada. And neither is walking around with uncovered alcohol. And this is good because you've found out that when you're drunk you totally don't need food and can get by on one real meal and roughly 300 shots of rum. It's practically like you made money by going to Vegas.

10. You love Vegas.

Presenting: My Talents as a Life Coach.

Mango has gone off to Oregon and Canada and other northern places and it is very sad. I knew it would be sad, which is why I decided to be awesome and proactive and formulate a plan of attack on these unfortunate circumstances. These are the steps I took in the order I took them:

Step 1. Mope around while contemplating my hungry and lonely fate upon Mango's departure. Suggest to Mango that he should stay.

Step 2. Reluctantly reassure Mango that he should go and that I would try to eat dinner every day, or at least heat up my leftovers from lunch, or at least have lunch.

Step 3. Frantically make as many plans as possible because honestly, if I am here by myself who will I sacrifice to the murderer while I make my escape?

Step 4. Have a dinner/sleepover with Meema. Just kidding about the murderer, Meema.

Step 5. Watch The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Across the Universe.

Step 6. Sleep soundly knowing that another potential victim a good friend is sleeping in the same apartment.


The plan went as well as could be expected. I have created a table of what worked and what didn't as a useful reference to anyone looking to adapt the plan for their personal use.

What Successfully Cheered Me Up
1. Meema's roommate is this little white girl who spends all day playing games like Counterstrike online, and while I was there I was lucky enough to witness her yelling at the screen about flashbombs and moving in on the enemy. It was awesome, after the initial startlement when I first heard her shriek, "I'M BLINDED. I'M BLINDED. COVER ME."

2. When Meema and I went to get donuts after dinner the man in front of us in line was buying in bulk and left us $3 to use as a thank you for waiting. This paid for my pink Homer donut.

3. The male lead in Across the Universe is really good looking in that artistic, brooding, way-too-good-for-Evan-Rachel-Wood way. This made the movie enjoyable. Also the music was good.

4. Meema has like 30 colors of nail polish and enough patience to do my nails for me. This has the dual effect of making her a good friend and my nails beautiful.

What Failed at Cheering Me Up
1. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly? Not a feel-good movie. Who would've thought that a movie about a once-successful editor who had a stroke at age 42 and became locked-in, able to use only his remaining functional body part (left eyelid) to dictate a book through blinks and then dying days after it's published could be depressing? Now you know. You're welcome.

2. I was really enjoying Across the Universe up until the part where they got into that psychedelic bus and then I felt like I was tripping out on acid for the rest of the movie. I guess that was the effect the moviemakers wanted, and also it was like 2 AM so my brain was too tired to combat their manipulations. Plus I don't like Evan Rachel Wood because I do not find her attractive and she stole Marilyn Manson from Dita Von Teese which is probably actually doing Dita Von Teese a favor but still it's the principle of the matter. This made the movie not enjoyable.

I hope the results of my painstaking research will be of help to you in the future. If you would like to thank me please come guard my apartment against murderers.

Ross is a Legal Religion, Right?

So last Saturday Mango and I went to the mall because we are poor and occasionally like to be in air-conditioned places where everything is clean and no bugs fly though open windows to buzz around your head for hours on end while you watch your third consecutive episode of "Suite Life on Deck."

On our way back from the mall we decided to walk because we didn't have enough change for the bus (you see now that I am not joking when I say we are poor) and we just happened to pass by a Ross. Completely unplanned. Wink wink.

Let me explain that I love Ross. I know a lot of people don't share my passion for bargain hunting, and I'll admit that the messy aisles can be disheartening. Not to mention that weird smell on your fingers after you've touched the clothing. Wait, let me start over.

I love Ross because they sell brand name things for way below what it would cost at some cooler store at the mall. Case in point:

Mango's Adidas cleats.

Well, they're not really his, in that he didn't purchase them. But if possession could be won by a person longingly lingering in an aisle for the better part of an hour, turning the shoes over in his hands and coming up with increasingly far-fetched reasons why he would need cleats, then they are definitely his.

After efficiently speed-browsing through the "juniors" aisle (and trying to suppress the realization that I am way too old to be wearing this stuff -- no way am I ready for Women's World) and coming up with nothing, I realized that I had lost Mango. I backtracked to find him standing in front of the same pair of black Adidas cleats he had been staring at for a while now.

"Look," he finally said reverently. "Adidas cleats."
"Yeah?" They didn't look special to me. "So?"
"They're only $16."
"Told you Ross was cheap." I felt proud. I had converted another.
"$16 for Adidas cleats!" Mango said fervently. "Do you know how much this regularly costs?"
"So what?" I said. "You don't need cleats. What would you use them for?"
"Like.. running," he replied finally. "on grass."
"When do you ever run on grass?"
"I could," he said defensively.

This went on for some time before I was able to gently extract him from the allure that is Ross: Dress for Less.

I thought it was over. Then on Wednesday, while driving to dinner with our friend RoRo, we passed by a GIANT ROSS. It was like the mother of all Rosses. It was the size of a Walmart. This prompted Mango to tell RoRo the story of his cleats.

"Isn't it cheap??" Mango concluded.
"Yeah.." RoRo said dubiously. "I guess so. I mean I don't really know the market value of cleats."
"It's CHEAP." Mango insistented.
"Okay," RoRo said, slightly annoyed. "why didn't you buy it then?"
"Apparently I don't need it." Mango replied sulkily.

I don't know why they say girls are crazy shoppers. I have never had the urge to buy cleats. So in conclusion: Ross rocks.

Imposter Alert. Sort of.

I recently gave a friend the link to this blog. Like literally copied and pasted the link into her chat window. Somehow this happened:

Friend: Weird.
Friend: I clicked on the thing you typed
Friend: and it brought me to a blog named
Friend: seven
Friend: instead
Me: What?
Friend: and it's only post is
Friend: TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2001
I roll wit catz wit iced-out headbandz wit loose bracketz.That'z how I got KNOW-LEDGE.
droppin Jewelz

I was vaguely alarmed at this mysterious blog intercepting my traffic. I went to see it for myself and what I saw only slightly cleared things up. The blog was entitled "SEVEN CIPHER: Freestyle Rhymez and Poetry."

So not only does this seven cipher guy get direct access through my link, but he gets to roll with cats with iced-out headbands with loose brackets. Life is so unfair.

Brazilian Wax, Korean BBQ and Chinese Karaoke-- how much more multicultural can you get?

Yesterday night was the last Friday all our friends would be in town for a while, so we decided to paint it red.

After work Teenerz and I had an appointment at a small studio for Brazilians. It was her first and my third, and when the lady found out she assumed I had gotten my previous two done at her place, and thanked me for the referral. It was awkward to deny her gratitude, and also I was secretly hoping for a thank-you discount, so I kind of just glossed over that moment. At least this supported my assurance to Teenerz that the wax wouldn't be embarassing or awkward because the lady "probably saw like a thousand of it a day and she's not going to remember yours." This belief was confirmed when I semi-disrobed and she didn't yell out "aha! I've never seen that before-- you didn't refer a friend at all!"
While lying on the table in a position very few people in the world have seen me in, I wondered what possessed me to go through this incredible painful ritual over and over. I mean, a waxed body feels nice in a streamlined, clean kind of way, but it wasn't something I couldn't live without --and I certainly had better ways to spend the $27. But even when my entire body convulsed off the table in a spasm of pain, I realized I'd probably be back. Maybe it's a mental disorder.

Next on the itinerary in this night of fun was the Korean BBQ buffet. Only one out of 9 of us there spoke Korean, and as he was sitting at the other table, Teenerz, Jamerz, Tony, Mango and I were left to fend for ourselves. The futility of our attempts at communication became clear when we asked for this:


Steamed egg that is simple but that I am in love with and tried to recreate with some success in my apartment using a wok as a steamer and four chopsticks as a makeshift steam rack. I was afraid the chopsticks would melt and create a poisonous fume but Mango pointed out that they were wooden. Also the fifth time I asked for a refill of this the waitress started laughing in a scornful manner, probably because she thought we were fools for filling up on egg and not meat. You'd think she'd be grateful.
It's empty because of its deliciousness.

and received this:



Some weird cabbage thing that we didn't even eat the first serving of before she gave us the second (larger) dish.


Also everytime we asked for garlic she brought us more meat.


The last thing about this restaurant -- I found out just today that their $2 "valet parking" is just a few rotating waiters illegally parking the cars streetside and running to move them when parking enforcement appears. How can you not love this place?

P.S. Thank you, Mango, for buying me dinner. I have yet to pay for a meal at this place and in my opinion that's the best way to eat.

Finally, we went to karaoke. It was an Asian karaoke bar, so none of the music videos were actual videos featuring the artist. Instead there would be random touristy shots of things like San Francisco, boats, a woman fixing a roof and swans. These are all real examples. The best video was for R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly," which featured a young black boy alternately playing with a toy airplane in his room and flapping his arms in a flying motion on a grassy field.

After karaoke we squeezed seven of us into Jamerz' compact car -- I sat in the front seat with Teenerz crouching on the floor, and the four guys sat in the back -- and slowly chugged home. It was a good night.