We're Really Doing It to Save Lives

What I Told Brian About Donating Platelets

"It's definitely not any more painful than donating blood. They even give you your blood back, so you won't even think you're missing anything."

"You get three free movie tickets! Three! And if we both donate we get six! We can go watch THREE movies together!"

"You just sit in this media center and watch movies or go online while you're donating. It's just like being in your living room. It's really fun. They have great movies."

"You get free cookies and juice at the end."

"And stickers."

What the Blood Center People Told Me

"I'm sorry, we're going to have to defer you. Your platelet count is too low."

What the Blood Center People Told Brian

"Come on in."

What I Told Brian at the Blood Center

"Well then can I take your keys? I'm going home to take a shower and maybe do my nails."

What Brian Told Me After Donating Platelets

"You didn't tell me that when they give you your blood back, it's COLD. And it hurts. I wish they had just kept the blood too."

"I got three movie tickets and you didn't get any. We can only go see one and a half movies."

"Media center??? What did you mean by media center?? Because all I got was a chair and a tv monitor. You made it sound futuristic, like a pod. And I watched 'Get Him to the Greek'. I only laughed once. I think it was at P. Diddy but I don't remember."

"I ate two cookies and drank three juices but I'm still thirsty."

"I got you a sticker that says 'Be Nice to Me, I Tried to Donate Blood Today'."

Things Brian's Doctor Told Him a Week Later When His 3 Day Fever Wouldn't Go Away

"Well, you don't have strep throat... but for some reason your platelet count is low."

If I'm This Scattered Writing a Blog Post You Can Imagine How My Final Papers are Going.

Where are you on a Thursday night? I hope you are out at a club trying to pick up a hot guy/girl or downing jagerbombs at a bar because I am sitting at Laycon's desk wearing Mango's monkey hat (see picture) and trying to do an essay about Romeo and Juliet while listening to music that kind of makes me want to kill myself.
Not me. I was too lazy to take a picture so I found one on Google. She looks a little too serious considering her get-up. Also I don't have the gloves but now I know what to get Mango for Christmas this year.

This is vaguely maddening not just for the obvious reasons but also because I thought I was done with high school. I'm so over 14 year olds thinking they are in love and dragging the whole fair city of Verona into their teenage drama. I mean if I can't tell at 21 whether or not I'm anywhere near love then how can a couple of tweens? Anyway, I'm not sure if I'm low on sleep or vegetables or some other integral lifestyle element (cupcakes?) but I'm so distracted today there's no way I can get myself to string 2478 words together in a cohesive manner. A few minutes ago Mango looked over from where he was studying on his bed to find me looking in the closet mirror and squeezing the monkey ears on my hat.

I think I need more animal clothing.

Anyway, I was trying to at least appear to be productive by doing my psych reading and highlighting in lieu of actually processing any words when I came across a sentence too alarming to be glanced over.

"Mortality rates from all causes of death are consistently higher among the unmarried than the married. Unmarried and more socially isolated people have also manifested higher rates of tuberculosis, accidents, and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia."

Oh my god you guys. I am at risk for tuberculosis. Isn't that what Nicole Kidman died from in Moulin Rouge? This is just all bad because I don't want to be a hooker or dead or Ewan McGregor's love interest. No I take that back. Ewan McGregor is fine but I don't want to be the love interest of that whiny poet he played in the movie. I mean I'm all for the destitute Parisian lifestyle of the bohemian author but when he THREW THE MONEY AT HER AT THE END? I WAS ENRAGED.

Okay well I guess technically I'm not "socially isolated" but I am unmarried and this paper makes that sound like some bad shiz. And I mean it's not like I have anything against marriage and I'm definitely way too young for that but I don't know anyone who I would even remotely want to spend forever with. Although it looks like I should be less nitpicky if I don't want to die an early death.

I can't believe how quickly this quarter is ending. It's just me getting closer to being homeless, jobless and out on the street so I guess it's pretty natural that I feel like time is flying. This week is basically over and then I'm only here for two days next week, and when I come back from Thanksgiving there's only two more weeks before I peace out of L.A. for practically a whole month. And then it's off to Korea and Taiwan and if I don't kill myself because I'm a size XXL there then I'll have lots of pictures and adventurous stories for you all when I return.

I'm sure you guys can gather from this little blog that my life is pretty boring so it probably won't come as a surprise when I tell you the most exciting thing that happened this week was when the cutest guy in my class told me he liked my backpack. I was very pleased because a) he has good taste and b) he was talking to me. Also c) I was dressed very cutely that day. And I especially loved the way he said it because he spoke very quietly and kind of shyly and made speical mention of the bows I'd glued to like every available surface. Later on when I shared the good news with the Y she suggested that maybe he was gay. I denied this possibility. And then today when I told Aarow he had the same reaction. I mean I guess they could be right but I have my doubts because of the way he dresses and how scruffy he looks.

It's not really about him though. It just reminds me that I adore shy guys that aren't groomed to within an inch of their lives and when they're all nice it makes my heart go bumpbump and makes me stutter and then I'm shy and then we never speak again because both of us are too mortified to approach the other. And this is why I'm going to get tuberculosis.

Good Luck to Those Who Plan on Reading This in its Entirety.

So I know I've been saying this a lot lately, which at some point might get worrisome, but please don't expect anything I write in this post to make sense. If you have to blame my incoherence on something, try this: I've just sung along to "Breathe" by Taylor Swift like thirty times on repeat (which has driven all my friends out of my immediate vicinity) but it's weird because I'm not really like empathizing with her lyrics or anything. I mean, it's a sad break-up song but I haven't gone through a terrible break-up in... a long time. Which I think might be it. I'm not saying I want some guy to waltz into my life and stomp on my heart until he makes heart-wine, but to be totally honest, I'm kind of bored out of my mind.

And when I get bored terrible things happen. There are really only two outcomes. One is that things continue this way until I throw a huge tantrum and freak everybody the eff out and people start putting me on suicide watch because I'm dressing in all black and muttering ominously about "fate's cruel games" and brandishing the knife a little too enthusiastically when I'm cooking. Okay, that might be kind of an exaggeration. I don't really like wearing black. Nor do I cook, for that matter. Anyway the more probable result is that I do something kinda big and drastic in the hopes that it will change my life, which it usually does not.

Example A would be my tattoos. So yeah, I have these tattoos. They're actually really tiny for the dual reasons that I'm poor and also that I freaked out when the tattoo artist was like "okay I can extend it but then it'll go across your ribs and that will hurt more" and I was like "whoa there buddy, I'm already letting you jackhammer your needle into my skin, let's not get carried away onto the bones" and he was like "you're the one who wanted them bigger" and I was like "that's what she said" and then it was awkward because I had to take my shirt off and lie in this strange position for thirty minutes while he inked me. Also, I bled. I had no idea blood was involved. Luckily that kind of stuff doesn't freak me out. Like, I'm cavalier about it to the point where I'm like "hmm I want to watch a movie this weekend. I should go donate some blood so I can get free movie tickets" and then I attempt to do that and fill out all the paperwork ("are you a male who went to Eastern Europe and had homosexual relations between the years of 1975 and 1985?") and then the doctor pricks my finger and tells me I don't have enough iron to qualify for life-saving because my body is retarded and then I have to pay for my movie ticket so no one wins. Except the movie theater I guess.

Anyway, I have tattoos because I was bored and I was turning 20 and I was like "jesus christ I'm going to be twenty years old and I haven't done anything with my life (this was before I went on my adventurous little trek through Europe)" and I figured I should do something like go to South America and hike through the rainforest but humidity makes my hair all frizzy so instead I took the bus to Venice beach and paid some guy to permanently alter my body. So that's one example.

The aforementioned Europe trip was another. I was in my second year in college and I was like "oh god I'm so bored with my life" so I signed up to go study abroad but I had to apply like a few months before the program began and in the interim I got bored again and that is why I ended up planning myself a three week trip through some of Europe's must-see cities.

And the time before that I cut off all my hair so that it was the shortest it'd been in at least ten years.

And then I did a few things in between those things that are not really suitable to be made common knowledge but the point is all these temporary distractions are all good and well and sometimes even permanent but they don't actually change my life. Which is why I'm bored again, and trying to think of ways to distract myself. My default when I'm not feeling creative is usually just cutting my hair even shorter, but for some reason I've been getting a lot of compliments on my hair lately. This is puzzling to me because whenever I look in the mirror my immediate reaction is something like "oh my god why does my head look like a beach ball?" but who am I to argue with the public's opinion? Okay, so it's like three people but you know what, I am considerate of everyone's feelings. So instead of cutting it I'm thinking of dyeing it purple.

Or going to Vegas. That would be really awesome because I just watched The Hangover and now I really want to go back. This is weird, because I don't want to experience any of the things the guys in the movie did, but I really just enjoy visiting a city where "wasted" is an acceptable condition to be in while strolling through public. Actually, it might still be frowned upon (I remember stumbling with my friend through a shopping area of a hotel and passing by these little kids on vacation with their family and loudly whispering "we are setting a terrible example. KIDS DON'T BE LIKE US") but as far as I know I wasn't arrested so it's still better than most other cities.

Okay so it's one in the morning and I just wrote like thirty paragraphs about how freaking bored I am of my life so if anyone should be put on suicide watch it's probably you, since you got all the way down here. So I will do you a favor and end this by saying: black is not a good color on you.

You Were Warned.

So let me just say right now that if you value yourself at all you will not continue reading this. Because it's going to be long and rambling and, above all, angry. Because I am pissed. You can tell when my sentences get all fragmented that something else is going to get fragmented, and it'll probably be a bowl or someone's skull, if that someone were foolhardy enough to mess with me right now.

Yesterday I was taking a break from killing zombies and looking through my blog when Mango's roommate Maaron glanced over.

"What is that?" he asked.
"Uhm, my blog."
"I know that," he said, "but what's the point? Do people even read it?"

Now, if he had been a zombie asking that sort of impertinent question, I would have blown his head off with a trench gun. But since he has a soul (as far as I know) and his flesh isn't decaying off his body, I just gave him a dirty look.

"Uh, yes."
"Please," he continued, blithely unaware of the imminent danger he was in, "how many? Like five people?"
"EXCUSE ME," I replied, "MORE LIKE EIGHT."

But that's not the point (it's not why I'm mad now either). The point is that I don't know why I was all defending the readership of my blog. I mean clearly I think it's cool when people read what I write, but mostly I'm writing because I have this slightly neurotic fear that I'll forget everything if I don't write it down. Like I only have snapshots of memory from elementary school and that freaks me the eff out because come on, I'm 21 and I can't remember the third grade? Yeah. Thus my little self-prescribed mission to preserve my youth on blogspot. I hope this website has good technicians or whatever because if it ever crashes and wipes everything out there goes my entire past, and I don't think they'd want that on their hands. I'm like an android.

Jesus, where was I?

Anyway, what this post really is about is love. More specifically, about how love sucks and/or doesn't exist. Okay, I told you not to read this. If you're going to start crying you should really just leave now. I'm pretty sure it's all downhill from here.

When I was little I had this totally concrete idea about my perfect guy. In middle school I had it down to the color of his eyes (green; grey was also acceptable), his family background (he was an orphan or estranged from his parents), and of course, his personality. He was this total tough guy, kind of a thug actually. He would be sarcastic and a little mean and very in control. I think I read too many gang novels where, you know, that one nice girl could turn a gangster into a doting boyfriend and upstanding citizen. Anyway, now that I'm older I realize that my 'perfect guy' in middle school would, in real life, have with several warehouses full of baggage and probably be borderline abusive.

So that went out the window and I was kind of left to drift. I dated guys I would never have imagined myself with, mostly guys I couldn't see a future with. And I didn't really mind at all. I mean, if I had met that one guy with whom I could (god forbid) see children or wedding bells (hopefully not in that order), I probably would have driven the relationship straight into the ground using only the sheer force of my temper. It's kind of my specialty.

As it is, though, no prince has ridden up waving an obscenely large emerald ring and promising to cook for me for the rest of our lives (never using onions, eggplant or raw tomatoes, of course), bring me wet cloths when I'm sick or tell me my singing is cute and not horrendous.

So thanks to his taking his sweet time, I'm left to fend for myself out in the dating world. And it sucks. First of all, I'm not a real big dater. I kind of hate it, actually. Dates bore me, and plus they're kind of awkward because you know it's a date, and it's so hard to get to know someone when you're alternately wondering if you are making a good impression and when you can go home and put on your sweats. It's much better when you like someone, and you know they like you, and then you do something silly together like make root beer floats and have an Arrested Development marathon. In your sweats.

Okay, so I'm a loser, but I'm a comfortable loser. So that's one reason I'm mad. Because I have the sneaking suspicion that I'm a grown-up now, and I'm eventually going to have to go on grown-up dates, and I hate that.

And you know what else I hate? And I'm not saying this applies to me personally right now or anything but GOD I HATE IT IT MAKES ME SO MAD. Sorry, it just came out. I hate it when you can't be with someone who you want to be with.

Like, if I were Rachel McAdams in The Notebook and my parents dragged me out of town and I didn't hear from Ryan Gosling for seven years I would have razed the town of Savannah or New York or wherever she was (actually, it was New York for college and then Savannah, where she was getting ready to be married. Have I mentioned it's my favorite movie?) Or if I were Nicole Kidman and I had to pretend I didn't love Ewan McGregor anymore because I had tuberculosis or "consumption" or whatever, I would've torn the windmill right off of the Moulin Rouge.

But sometimes it's not an obstacle as easily overcome as protective parents or a fatal illness. Sometimes it's more than that, or less than that, or (in what I'd imagine to be the worst cases) the other person. And there's nothing you can do about that. Because no matter how many major metropolitan cities you threaten to destroy, you can't make that person like you, or at least not enough to take you out for ice cream or watch Titanic with you on rainy nights, I'm pretty sure. To be honest, you'll probably just scare him/her off further with your displays of violence. You should really get your anger problems checked out. But enough about you. Back to me.

So yeah, I'm angry today. It's one of those days where it doesn't really feel like things work out for good people, or that no matter how compassionate, sympathetic, helpful, optimistic and well-dressed you try to be, life is going to kick you in the face with a muddy boot and then leave your doors open on its way out so that a fly gets in and you can't open the windows to let it escape because it's pouring outside (that's how the boot got muddy) but you're not fast enough to kill it, probably because you are still recovering from that attack on your face, which, by the way, is probably going to leave a scar that will have kids calling you "Harry Potter" for the rest of your life. Yeah, one of those days.

Screw You and Your Immune System.

I'm sick. No, I'm not bitching, I'm actually sick. Sick as in the Y was so concerned just by the weakened state of my voice that she took my temperature. I insisted that this was unnecessary, but I guess I was wrong because it came out to something a little over 102 degrees, which, according to the Y (resident expert in over-worrying about illnesses -- a little quirk for which I am now very grateful) is "hella high." Then she gave me some Nyquil, so I'm just typing fast now in a race against sweet medication-induced sleep.

Why am I writing instead of sleeping or mentally railing against my usually reliable immune system? Ah, college. I turned in at the early hour of 10:30 after watching a sneak preview of Zombieland, after which I felt so ache-y that I practically sprinted home and then stood in a scalding hot shower for thirty minutes solely because I couldn't find the energy to towel off. Then, at 12:15 AM, I was awoken by the sounds of drunken revelry outside my window. Thursday night on frat row. I tried to be understanding, I really really did. I tried really hard not to imagine the students outside as raucous zombies and me as Woody Harrelson with four pistols and two machine guns. I told myself that surely I've had nights like that, where I was just the right amount of drunk to enjoy walking and not notice the volume of my voice, and hey, it wasn't their fault I was sick, right? Then I hear from outside some drunken jerk slur, "that guy is a faggot-retarded faggot." Okay. I would never say that. A girl chimes in, "hey guys, I'm going to pop a squat in about five steps. Okay, I'm popping a squat!"

They were lucky I was having difficulty even getting myself to sit up, much less be in any position to pour burning oil out my window.

The thing I hate most about being sick -- more than the feeling that my head is wrapped in really hot cotton, more than the whole freezing-without-blankets-burning-up-with dilemma-- is that I become a huge brat. I mean, more than usual, if you can imagine. I'm kidding. I'm usually very good, if I do say so myself. I mean, I'll occasionally throw a minor tantrum, but it's nothing compared to what I'm like when I'm sick.

Take, for example, Jamerz and Teenie and I in line for Zombieland. "You don't have swine flu," Teenie insists. "you don't even have a fever." (Oh, how wrong she was proved to be). "I'M DYING," I wail, causing multiple heads to turn and the strangers nearest to me to back away. "I'M GOING TO BE DEAD IN A FEW HOURS AND THE LAST THING I DID WAS STAND IN A REALLY LONG LINE." James chuckled. "You're funny when you're sick," he said. What I think he really meant was "thank god my girlfriend doesn't get like this."

I'm fairly certain that my mystery sickness escalated in severity solely because no one (with the later exception of the Y) sympathized. When I walked to class with Mango in the morning, his idea of being comforting was something along the lines of: "No, you're not dying. Yes, you can make it up those stairs. What do you mean you can't, it's only twelve flights. No, you're not going to throw up." And this was before he started imitating me ("Oh, I'm soo sick. Oh I'm going to die. Oh my head feels like it's going to implode.") Cruel? Certainly. Unusual? Unfortunately not. It turned out to not be a departure from anyone else's reactions throughout the day.

In my class today the only person I knew didn't even attend lecture, so I had no one who could even pretend to care. Talk about inconsiderate.

At work Arrow did not evince much concern for my state (apparently snacking on Funyons and Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies is not a symptom of illness-- excuse me for missing lunch), but he did offer me a Tylenol. This is probably what sedated me for when Tando messaged me, saying "you're not dying" -- this in reference to my facebook status ("I'm dying I'm dying D: someone medicate me"). It was not exactly the kind of comfort a girl would like to receive on her deathbed.

Okay, I'm going to stop typing because my fingers are getting so warm I can't feel them anymore (sad? yes, welcome to the life of an invalid). I'll set this post to automatically publish tomorrow night so that if I die you'll all have something to remember me by. Oh, and try not to dance on my grave. But if you must -- absolutely no square dancing. I mean it.

Chinese Love

So in the three weeks I spent at home I started watching this Taiwanese drama with my mom. I really got inadvertently sucked into it. I would be sitting in my kitchen, on my computer and snacking or something, and something loud and humorous would happen on the television screen, and I'll look over and watch for a few minutes and if there's one part (perhaps the crux of the scene?) that I don't understand, I ask one short innocent question and my mom will answer, and then elaborate upon her answer until I know basically the entire background of the character in question as well as an in-depth analysis of her immediate family members and a short synopsis of their adventures so far and basically I would receive so much information that I figured I might as well just watch the damn show since I've already invested so much time and listening power into it. Kinda like you just did with this sentence.

And I've got to say this particular show is funny and interesting enough for me to withstand the one slightly uncomfortable scene where a 20-something guy is basically telling his girlfriend of five years that he's been really very patient and come on, can I just get some? (Side note: a guy who's willing to stick around for half a decade without ever seeing his girlfriend naked even once? Where's true love like this for me? Although come to think of it, I don't think a boyfriend going five years without even seeming to want to get it on would make me particularly happy)

The funny thing about this drama is that I totally see where my mom gets some of her mannerisms from. And it's a little country (yes CHINA, it is a country) known as Taiwan.

There's this one scene where a mother is berating her high school age daughter about receiving an anonymous love letter in the mail. "Who is this from? It better not be from a boy! I told you, NO BOYFRIENDS BEFORE COLLEGE."

It was basically verbatim any lecture I received all throughout my high school career. I mean minus the love letter part. Because I guess I was less pimp than a girl wearing a knee length skirt and sporting a bowl cut. God that's depressing. Where was I?

Oh right. But despite all the intricacies and deeply embedded warnings in the typical Taiwanese attitude toward love, there exists a concurrent idealism that the silly not-so-pretty girl will end up with a tall handsome gorgeous boy who worships the ground she walks on and finds her idiosyncrasies adorable instead of maddening. Or sometimes both. And I guess that's why girls with upbringings like mine continue to at least half-heartedly believe that the perfect guy will sweep us off our feet while telling the boys in front of us, "you want me to do what?! god no, do you know what my mother would say if she found out?"

Men: They're Either Taking Your Lunch or Boinking Your Best Friend.

So remember how I said I was totally going to lose weight when I came home this summer, under the theory that I will be so bored I'll actually go to the gym?
Well apparently no amount of boredom has that power. Instead what I end up doing is plowing determinedly through my list of "movies I've wanted to seen since forever but never got around to until now" like it was free cheesecake. Wait, so I guess this post has two parts.

Part 1 is about how my dad keeps my diet on track without either of us meaning for it to happen. As far as I know. Dad?
Part 2 is about the movie I saw yesterday and how I might have rage issues.

Just clearing that up for you.

So the other day I went to the dentist and when the appointment was over I was glad because going to the dentist sucks and also because my dad had said that we were going to get pho at Kim Long, which is only the best pho place I've ever been to in my life.

When we got there I ordered the same thing I always order (#3 regular) and my dad ordered a #2 regular, which was odd because he usually orders a large. Oh it became clear real soon though.
"I ordered a regular because I'm taking some of your noodles," he said, sounding very satisfied with himself. "You won't be able to finish anyway."

I haven't had trouble finishing a regular since elementary school, but I was stuck in the trap of being a girl and totally had to pretend like I had a dainty appetite and could survive on bean sprouts and lemon juice. So when our bowls came my dad started shoveling my noodles into his bowl until there were literally no noodles left. "Oops," he said, laughing. "Almost took all of it." He maneuvered a few strands back into my bowl. "There you go," he said cheerfully.

Oh you think I'm exaggerating. I'm so not. There was seriously like 1/5 of the original amount left. And I was starving again an hour later. Except I was at home by then, and I'd almost rather die of starvation than get out of my chair and actually make something, so voila. Daddy: instant diet.

The day before I went to the dentist I watched The Duchess because I love Keira Knightley and have no life. I'm ambivalent about the movie but if I were Lady Georgiana oh my history would have been so different. Well maybe not because I'm all talk, but seriously if I had gone through all that she had to go through, I would've packed my kids off with a good nanny on a long vacation and then shanked my sorry excuse for a husband before setting his wig on fire and locking him in the dungeon. I'm getting mad just thinking about it.

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.

A Hot Mango is an Angry Mango.

Mango's mad at me. Maybe not mad. He's rarely mad at me. But he is annoyed, peeved, ticked. It may be because it is a hundred degrees in our sweltering little apartment (ridiculous considering that is has cooled down to a comfortable 70 outside), or it could be that I spent the last half an hour mulling over a series of quickly discarded pen names for a spanking new blog. He finds that I'm not paying enough attention to him, not ignoring the heat to move close to his shoulder or popping in the DVD of Moulin Rouge that I'd promised/threatened we'd watch.

Mango has retreated to the other, less comfortable couch, and satisfies himself by occasionally tossing baleful looks by way. Poor Mango. How do I explain to him that, contrary to what it must seem like to him, I'm not wasting our second to last Thursday night together? If I tell him I'm starting a blog, he'll ask me what I plan to write about, and how would I reply?

The not-quite-existent love life of a 21 year old, the excitement of my 8 to 5 days in an office job, the squabbles of an ordinary family, the everyday intricacies of boy friends and girlfriends?

Mango is sighing and murmuring about being unloved.

I'll be back.