A new post for the new year, as my blog struggles to survive another 365 days of my neglect and general apathy.

Remember in my last post when I talked about going skiing for New Year's eve? and not ziplining? well that, mofos, is what you call foreshadowing.

I think. I'm a little rusty on my literary tropes now that I spend the majority of my days feeling my eyeballs slowly dry out in a cubicle. But here's the whole sordid story, which I shall call "Carolyn goes Skiing and Not Ziplining which Very Nearly Resulted in her Death but through Perseverance she was able to Survive and even got a Burrito out of it at the End, although she did Lose her Lips and the Use of her Major Muscles for the Next Few Days."

Here's how it starts.

December 30th, 2010

8:00 AM: I have a cold. This actually started several days ago, but I don't want to recount my entire winter vacation.

7:00 PM: Isabel, Mike and I head over to Clayton's to hang out with him. We're actually there to pick him up for the snow trip, but we figured we might as well get some fun out of it so we went early enough to fit in a few games of Black Ops.

7:30 PM: We play those missions or whatever they're called. It's like a free-for-all but with special conditions. Like you only get one bullet or your gun changes every 45 seconds. I forget what they're called but they're really fun except for the part where I practically get a blister on my thumb from hitting x to respawn. Because I'm not so good at the video games. Mike is, though, and he has so much fun he says, "can we just do this instead of going to Big Bear?" Which is more foreshadowing.

7:45 PM: Isabel gets bored of not watching us play video games and borrows Clayton's computer to look at a naked picture of T.I.

7:50 PM: Isabel reports that T.I. "looks awkward" naked.

8:00 PM: We head to Brian's house because it's closer to Big Bear and we won't have to wake up as early the next morning. By which I mean 5:30 instead of 4:30. Yeah, AM. It was that kind of vacation.

9:00 PM: We get to Brian's house and his mom makes us red bean soup which is usually delicious but I can't taste anything because of the phlegm. From my cold, not the soup.

10:00 PM: Marc arrives and the whole party is there except for Rohit, who missed out on a night of all four boys sleeping on the floor of Brian's "bonus room," and, as Mike put it the next morning, "performing a symphony of snores."

New Year's Eve

6:00 AM: I wake up and put on my silly bands.

9:00 AM: We get to Big Bear and make our first stop at the ski rental place. At this point I was naively unaware that I was strapping myself into a torture device. Also I have to pee.

10:00 AM: We get to "Snow Summit" (a misnomer -- it should've been called "The Icy Gates of Hell") and luckily they have a bathroom or my day would have been even worse.

10:30 AM: Brian is the most experienced skier and tries to teach the rest of us on that little flat part of the slope where all the little kids are learning to snowboard. Everyone slides around uncontrollably except Marc, who is athletically inclined, and me and Isabel, who practice standing very still.

12:00 PM: We head for the actual slopes. The ones where you have to take the lift. Going into this day, I thought the lift would be my mortal enemy. When I was small it seemed really big and fast, and getting on and off was a tricky matter full of planning and coordination, neither of which little Carolyn was good at. My most ingrained memory of skiing in my youth is tripping off the lift at the dismount area, getting knocked on the head, and the operator stopping the whole thing while a dozen strangers watched me struggle to get up. Also I was wearing a snow jumpsuit. It was red.

12:20 PM: We get on the lift, which isn't nearly as fast or big as I remember. It was actually quite enjoyable. I didn't know at this point, but it would turn out to the best part of skiing because it doesn't involve moving or falling. Although, toward the end, falling off the lift would've been a sweet release.

12:30 PM: We go down the bunny slope. I discover there seems to be a problem with the brakes on my skis. Despite Brian's very helpful advice to "Wedge. Wedge, Carolyn. You're not wedging. Pretend your skis are pizzas," I find that the most reliable way of stopping is to fall onto the snow and then spread my body out to cover as much surface area as possible so that there is more dragging force and I can come to a quicker halt.

1:30 PM: We find Clayton, who has escaped to the baby bunny slopes. The ones that have the moving flat escalator thing instead of a ski lift. I am able to get down this without falling, but it is tiring because for every thirty second run down the slope there is a three minute wait on the moving escalator, and standing has become a chore of epic proportions.

2:00 PM: I can't feel my face. Or my fingers. I didn't eat lunch because a $5 hot dog would have been wasted on my frozen taste buds. I have approximately 30 bruises and still haven't learned how to stop. I'm pretty sure I was born without the muscles one uses in "wedging." On the plus side, I haven't mowed over any children or fallen off the side of the mountain. Incidentally, two of my biggest skiing fears.

3:30 PM: We get in line to go to the summit. The sign says the route is "the easiest." It literally says that on the sign. This little bit of false advertising would be my downfall. Also literally.

4:00 PM: We get to the top of the mountain. And I mean the top. We soared over all the other skiers and trees and small animals and landed at the peak. It was almost like ziplining except at the end you get abandoned and have to find your own way down.

4:00 PM -- 5:30 PM: For the next one and a half hours (yes, one and a half hours) I followed this time tested routine:

1. Ski fifty yards.

2. Start going too fast.

3. Freak out.

4. Fall down.

5. Stare at the sky, wishing I were dead, as small children zip past me on their skis.

6. Brian comes to a stop about six feet from me. While looking around pretending he doesn't know who I am, he says "come on, get up, we're almost there."

7. I continue to stare at the sky. "Go on without me," I say, "I can't make it."

8. "Well you have to," Brian says, "there's no other way down."

9. A concerned passerby stops and looks at me. "Is she okay?" he asks Brian, who reluctantly acknowledges my existence and says, "Yeah. Well, I think so."

10. I laboriously get up and look down the slope with trepidation. Brian and I stand there for up to five minutes before I can urge my body to once again hurtle itself down the side of a mountain.

Once in a while I would switch things up on steps #2-4 by falling on accident.

Later on, when I finally got off the slope and was feeling mildly human again, Marc told me that after he got down the mountain in "three minutes" (that SON OF A BITCH) he stood there "in the cold" waiting for me and Brian to come down. When we finally came within view, this is how he described it:

"Yeah, you would ski for like a few seconds, and then fall down. And Brian would ski over to you. And then you'd get up and you two would just stand there for like five minutes. What were you doing? During the one and a half hours I was waiting, I saw a couple of snowmobiles go by and I thought they were for you."

Needless to say I detest him.

7:00 PM: In a stroke of New Year's luck, across the street from our motel was a DELICIOUS Mexican food place that the nice owners kept open for us. I had a ground beef burrito.

8:00 PM: I call first shower and discover that the entire back half of my body is bruised. I have trouble stepping over the two inch ledge thing into the shower.

9:00 PM: We watch "Minute to Win It" Christmas edition. There is a task where the guy has to put a gingerbread man on his forehead and move it to his mouth using only his face muscles.

11:30 PM: Everyone wants to sleep but it seems like a waste to stay awake this long and not wait 'til midnight.

12:00 AM: We watch the ball drop for the third time that night and Isabel immediately turns off the light. We all knock out.

3:00 AM: Someone is snoring.

New Year's Day

9:00 AM: My lips are so chapped. Also I cannot walk.

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.

I am Mentally Incapable. It's Confirmed.

Oh man, I don't even know where to begin. Well actually I began by totally deleting the link to this blog off my facebook because that is just the kind of entry this is going to be.

So it all started with me wanting to go home for Chinese New Years. I'm pretty sure this was the catalyst because two things happen whenever I go home:

1. I get drunk the night before.

2. I have a lot of difficulty at the airport the next day.

I guess I don't learn lessons.

So on Thursday to cap off a two week period of midterms/fundraisers/dipping stuff I'm not allowed to eat in chocolate for five hours in one sitting/essays I got really drunk. I'm not going to go into details about the depths of my inebriation, but suffice to say it is a good thing I made that rule about wearing pants (or at the very least leggings) to parties way back in freshman year because I'm pretty sure at some point in the night I was not in total control of my limbs.

But this isn't really about the impressive amounts of cheap vodka I consumed or how I lost in semis in the beer pong tournament despite my amazing explosion shot to win the previous game or how around 2 AM I decided to play DJ and Maaron yelled at me for trying to put on old P. Diddy songs.

This is about the dangers of the morning after. So listen carefully, kids. You'll want to avoid the mistakes I made.

First of all - I'm not going to mince words - I looked like shit Friday morning. I had gotten home at four AM and by the time I showered (I have to shower before I get into bed no matter how opposite of sober I am - yes I am the epitome of hygiene) and dragged my dizzy self into bed it was god knows what time. And since I had a flight to catch at 1:30 I had changed my work hours that day to 8-11 and if you know me at all you'll know what a rough morning I had by the fact that I WORE GLASSES. Yes. Out in public.

The whole day was actually really comical in that kind of hazy, hungover, oh-my-god-is-this-really-happening way.

Let's list them:

1. The glasses thing. Trust me, it was serious. On top of that I was late because have you ever tried to wake up at seven after two hours of sleep while hungover? Then you understand why I didn't have time to put on make up or consider what to wear because I ended up in a pair of shiny red pants (I actually like these pants, and I totally wronged them with the rest of my outfit), this completely non-matching cream top and my Prolit sweatshirt. And purple moccasins. I basically looked like the personification of a hangover. Before I left I looked in the full length mirror by my front door and could only shake my head.

2. I had to bring my luggage to work since I was leaving straight from the office. I also had to bring the crushgrams that my co-workers bought for me. And I am so sick of hearing about them from the fundraiser that I don't want to explain but basically it was a six pack of glass soda bottles. Which I precariously balanced on my rolling suitcase while walking the four blocks to work. In my glasses. It felt like some sort of strange and strenuous dream.

3. Luckily my work is awesome so everyone sympathized and gave me different bits of advice on how to not die but THEN. Oh my god. This is kind of complicated but basically what happened was that Tando came into the office for the first time since he stopped working there, and I don't want to get into details but I was SO MAD that the one day I come into work looking like shit he happens to have an errand up at the office. When he came in through the door I lifted my head from its resting place on the table and was like "Jesus, please tell me you are joking," but nope. And I'm not saying that I look gorgeous when I step into the office everyday but I definitely don't usually look like a TellyTubby got drunk and threw up and the puke put on glasses and became me. And it's not like I'm trying to impress anyone but seriously. Talk about adding insult to injury.

4. Did you know airports had terminals? Well me and my hangover didn't. I'd never taken any airline other than Southwest from LAX, and Southwest is at terminal 1 right next to the security. So since I was already checked in for my United flight I was like "oh I'll just get off at Southwest because I'll be closer to security." Uh WRONG. United is at terminal 7. I was so confused. I literally had to text Arrow because I was like WTF WHERE AM I? And because he is the best friend a hungover girl can ask for (and has a strangely comprehensive understanding of the LAX floorplan) he directed me to the right place. It's not interesting enough to go in depth into but let me just tell you a shuttle was involved. That was how far I was from my flight.

5. The shuttle went to the ARRIVALS section of terminal 7. And there was this one other middle aged guy on the shuttle who got on and off at the same stops as I did (which helped because I was like oh hey I'm not the only one who makes these mistakes, and this guy doesn't even look hungover so he soberly made this mistake) so I started following him and he KEPT LOOKING BACK worriedly at me. I mean I was looking a mess and probably had on a pretty grim expression because I was wondering if I would miss my flight and also mentally vowing to never drink again but still after the fifth time he looked back I was starting to feel like an old-person stalker. Which didn't really help.

6. I made it to my gate in the nick of time. My flight was delayed. For two hours. My laptop and phone both ran out of batteries so I couldn't tell my dad when I was taking off. I had to pee but I couldn't because they loaded us onto the plane and THEN announced the delay. (I don't like airplane bathrooms.) I sat behind a crying baby.

Oh and on my way to the Flyaway shuttle I was telling Mango how I will never ever drink again and he gave me a baleful look and was like "you always say that. but you always do again" and I was like "oh this must be what it's like to be an alcoholic parent."

And that was my Friday. Happy Chinese New Year's everyone.

I Hate Everybody and Not Being Able to Stab.

Men are so unreliable. In the interest of not hating, I concede that there must be reliable men somewhere out there but I think they might be a myth because I CERTAINLY HAVE NEVER COME ACROSS ANY. Sorry, it's the whole anger thing again. And I'm not even PMSing so I'm considering going to a therapist or something for all these issues I seem to have.

Although I think I may be justified.
So yesterday I arrived back in Westwood via Southwest Airlines and the Flyaway shuttle, which stops like a mile away from my apartment. A mile filled with dark roads and a cemetery, just so you know. Anyway, my friend [name withheld for protection (my protection, not his, because if this person turns up in the area with mysterious eye wounds I will not be implicated)] was supposed to meet me at the shuttle stop but guess what? He didn't. And so I had to walk by the dark cemetery alone. It's a miracle I didn't get eaten by zombies. Here is a list of what I learned so that hopefully you will also be able to survive in a situation like this.

1. When your friend offers to meet you at the shuttle stop do not accept. Especially if other friends offer you a ride but your friend says "no, I'll get you because we can hang out and catch up after Thanksgiving break" so you say "okay, I'm dumb and will do that instead." And do not think you are being thoughtful by reminding him days in advance of the time you are arriving because this will not matter and he will leave you to the mercy of the zombies anyway.

2. If you pass by a fire station that has a sign proclaiming "SAFE HOUSE" don't get too hopeful because it just means that it's a place where children in danger can be dropped off and not that it's a haven from zombies. And if you stare too longingly at the fire engines that you're hoping are Transformers in disguise and will take you home then passersby will give you strange looks and walk a little more briskly.

3. If you scare all the passersby out of your immediate vicinity then no one will help you lift your fifty pound suitcase over a tall curb.

Eventually my friend got back to school and ran to find me which didn't really help with the anger but did help with the fatigue because he took all my luggage. And then he got all these pitying looks because he looked like a pack mule with all my luggage and all his while I strode briskly and angrily by him empty-handed.



So the moral of the story is that men cannot be trusted. It's actually kind of like a extended metaphor because I'm not too mad about this anymore but I am mad about something else that cannot be so easily explained away with zombies and blurry iPhone pictures. I don't even think I can stab my way out of it. So there is nothing to alleviate the anger and if you find me with my head completely exploded within the next week just rejoice for me because honestly that is probably the best-case scenario at this point.

Stop Asking What I'm Going to Do After Graduation, Please.

When I was in England last summer, I spent the first few weeks so homesick it was practically a physical illness. The strange thing was, I loved England. I still think about it all the time, even though it's been over a year since I came back. When I was with my friends out shopping and converting to pounds or eating pastries or strolling through the English greenery I was having an amazing time. I can still picture the funny little flowers that grew outside my dorm, and I can practically count the (four flights of) stairs from my room to the shower in the basement.

But still, I would get so homesick missing my family and friends and the California warmth that I would go three days without sleeping, because I was staying up all night to talk to them.

And the hardest part was that no one really seemed to get it. Everyone else in the program was having an amazing time getting wasted and hooking up with the English TAs or at least clubbing every other night. My family and friends went on with their daily routines and marveled at how lucky I was to be experiencing something so amazing. They sent me postcards and letters and I wrote back telling them about how wonderful my professor's accent was, or how I went to see the cafe where J.K. Rowling began Harry Potter. Even Mango was busy taking classes back at UCLA. He told me how strange it felt for him to be on campus without having me around, but always had to break off our conversation to go to class or dinner or bed. The only person who really seemed to if not empathize then at least sympathize with me was Stuffin. He'd stay up with me when I couldn't fall asleep and tease me about all the good food I couldn't get across the pond. And to just have one person understand made a lot of difference.

The reason I'm thinking of all this is because I don't get homesick at school anymore. I definitely think about home (especially of all the food there, I'm starving) but I don't yearn to go back. In fact, often when I do visit northern California I wish wholeheartedly (and guiltily) that I were back in L.A. The shift is strange but I suppose inevitable; after four years most of my life has been built up here. And I'm lucky in that it's not a lonely life.

Take tonight, for example. I get home around midnight and my apartment is empty. And I realized that I don't mind. I have Mango to walk me home when it's dark and check my empty room for monsters before he leaves; in the mornings I have Jenn to chat with while we eat brunch. At some point tomorrow the Y will stumble in all raspy voiced from having just woken up, and then over the weekend I get to hang out with my Watts kids at a museum before catching up with my roommates at night.

And then I wonder how I'm considering leaving all this behind.

I don't have a post-graduation plan. I do, however, have a backup graduation plan (in case I don't magically get offered the job of my dreams right after receiving my diploma)(hm, I guess that's my post-graduation plan). I figure that to avoid moving back home (for my own sanity -- I'll explain next time) I could always flee the state. I love my parents, it's no reflection on them. It's all me, and I have this strange desire for change and excitement when England has already proved that I should really only be taking such things in small doses. A part of me wants to just move to a brand new city and start all over and maybe end up having the kind of life I was meant to have, but the (small, but) rational part of me is saying: whoa, hold on there, cowgirl.

Say I move to Seattle or Connecticut or Washington D.C. Okay, what then? I won't know a single person there. I won't have a job. I won't know what neighborhood to live in, where to find decent Chinese food, or which bus line to take. I'll end up huddled up in front of my computer all day, bemoaning the time difference between me and California and wondering what all my friends are up to back home. And I might, god forbid, be lonely.

I'm a pretty independent person (Jesus, how did that happen? I have no idea either), but at times like this it would be really handy to have a boyfriend. I'm still young enough to think that there would be nothing more romantic than moving to a strange city with the love of my life and setting up a little loft somewhere filled with post-its and secondhand furniture and colorful bedsheets. We'd slowly but surely accumulate a circle of quirky but loveable friends. We'd have a bar we go to every Thursday night and a cafe we go to on Sunday mornings.

The thing about this fantasy is that it thrives on youth. What happens in ten years, or twenty years? Will we still be living off caffeine and poetry, or making plans to backpack through Australia? I have no idea what I want that far into the future, but I don't think it's that. I suppose the thing would be to find a boy who could make the transition with you from pseudo-starving artist to respectable suburbanite.

And that's no easy feat. But until then I still have ten months left on the lease to a Westwood apartment and (hopefully) enough savings to keep me afloat and out of Union City for a few months after graduation. And who knows? Maybe even enough to make that move.

I Don't Think I'll Ever Have to Kill Myself, Someone Will Probably Do It For Me.

So I've been listening to music a lot lately. It's because it's midterm season, and I'm sitting in front of my computer or a book all day long and it's either play something catchy or go buy a handgun and blow my brains out. No, I'm sorry. I realize I've been using a lot of suicide imagery lately and I agree with you that it's in very bad taste. Rest assured, my head is completely intact. You can refer to that picture on the right there to replace your mental image of a skull cracked open like a watermelon. Jesus, I'm doing it again.

Okay, let's start over.

So I've been listening to music a lot lately. And my top two choices today are "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z or "Get U Home" by Shwayze (hey, I never claimed to have a good taste in music. Unless you like these songs too. In that case, high five!).

So anyway, "Empire State of Mind' kind of makes me think about stuff. Well, the other song does too, but it's about exactly what it sounds like it's about (sample lyric: "make love to me up against somebody's car") and as much as I'm sure you guys want all the dirty details of my sex life, I'm not going to be writing about that. At least not until the next time I get wasted and decide it would be a REALLY! GOOD! IDEA! TO! BLOG! I'm an excited drunk.

So "Empire State of Mind" is about New York City, if you haven't already guessed/heard the song. Which made me think about New York City. I know, my brain is a mystery. I've been to the east coast before, to Washington D.C. (which I loved.. it was so bustling and bureaucratic, plus I once read a love story about a girl who ran a book store in Boston and was swept off her feet by a dashing lawyer, and I'm like OH MY GOSH I COULD RUN A BOOK STORE! and I realize that Boston is not Washington D.C. but for some reason I feel they are similar; also there are like museums every five steps and hot dog vendors every three and that is like combining two of my great loves), but I've never been to New York. Which I guess is weird, because I've been to San Francisco and Los Angeles of course and Beijing and Shanghai and Taipei and Tokyo and Paris and London and Rome and Venice and if I list any more cities I'm going to sound like some sort of travel braggart, but my point is you'd think I would've gone to the Big Apple by now. Or at least my family would have, since we are so big on traveling.

But we haven't, and I think there are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, it's very expensive. Like have you seen those emails or whatever, where they say what a certain amount of money a night could get you in different parts of the world? You could buy a villa in Thailand with the kind of money it'd take for you to rent out a dirty bathroom in some drug dealer's apartment in New York.

Wow, I'm sorry. I don't know why I have such a negative image of NYC. I have nothing against it, I swear. And I know a lot of people love it. I guess I just feel like it's very cold and dirty and everyone's skinny and wears black, and that is like a cocktail mix of everything that is anti my ideal living environment. Like, I would love living somewhere where it's sunny and clean and everyone's round and colorful. Oh my god I want to be a Teletubby.

Well I don't know how I can possibly recover from that, so I'm just going to end this right now.

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.

Laundry Day.

Hello, Monday.

I spent the weekend in San Diego and Irvine and I don't know really what to say about it, except that it was one of those weekends where you feel like you need to wash all your clothes afterwards.

So since I've been so busy lately doing laundry with school that I never get a chance to write here, I came up with the best idea I've had since that time I ordered Enzos at ten P.M. because obesity has been a goal of mine since childhood I was studying late into the night and needed nourishment.

So, consider this the grand unveiling of Pictures in Lieu of Words Because I Fail as an English Major and Captions are Much Easier and Faster to Write (PLWBIFEMCMEFW).

A hamburger-cake.

A close up of the hamburger-cake. This is how awesome it was. I love cake, I love hamburgers; one day I dream of eating a hamburger that tastes like cake.

Okay, so this picture is way back from the end of summer (this doesn't explain the expression on Iz's face, but then again, what can?) when our family drove one tiny car down to southern California with most of my and Iz's belongings. The car was crammed so full that stuff took up most of the backseat, and Iz and I were squished so closely she thought she was in heaven (this only makes sense to people who have experienced the clinginess that is my sister). So I guess maybe that expression is just a demonstration of her excitement at the thought of a six hour ride in close quarters.


OH MY GOD. My favorite souvenir from this weekend. Iz's friend ("Shaftsies" -- three guesses who came up with that nickname? Hint: not me) gave it to me as a "thank you" gift for going to my own sister's birthday dinner. If all family events were similarly rewarded, I would avoid my family a lot less. Then again, maybe not, some people would have a field day with my chocolate-enhanced figure.

Now I have to go collect my laundry from my bedroom floor. Our dryer apparently is confused as to what appliance it is and sucks like a vacuum cleaner so none of my clothes are dry and everything is spread out on sheets on my floor like I'm having some sort of strange underwear swap meet. I would put a picture of it here but I'm pretty sure it's a slippery slope from pictures of drying underwear to adult films or something like that.

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.

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.