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.

The Difference Between Getting Tied Up and Being Tied Down.

Remember how I like music that may not be of the highest artistic integrity? Well, I find "Tie Me Down" by the New Boyz to be really really catchy. It's a terrible song, let me just get that out there right away. They're just some teenage kids bragging about what pimps they are and how all women are hos. But it's so freaking listen-to-able and usually I just try to switch all the pronouns in my head so that it's from a girl's point of view (he ain't gon' tie me down!)

But even though I know the song is chauvinistic and stupid, part of me kind of believes that's really how guys think. I know that totally makes me sound like a hater, and there are definitely exceptions to the rule out there (like all my roommates' boyfriends and my guy friends like Stuffin and Laycon and Mango and Jchaq), but come on. Kind of, right?

Okay, like this part:

Know we been together for a minute,
But uhhh, its kinda been forever since we been in
The kinda situation not involving other women

I totally chuckled when I heard that for the first time. And I know guys aren't the only ones who can wander in a relationship. I'm totally not the right person to talk to about relationships, by the way, because I am so weird about them. Like for some reason I still believe in True Love and Happily Ever After (blame Disney, that heartless but enchanting corporation) so I end up doing the stupidest things in relationships before I realize that maybe this guy I've been dating for three months isn't the Love of My Life and I should stop believing him when he says he hasn't called because he lost his phone for the third time in two days and that hey, he'd really like to come see me this weekend but unfortunately his car broke down and there are no buses between my house and his and not a single one of his friends will give him a ride and hey, come on, he would ride a horse to come see me if that's what it'd take, baby, but I know he's allergic to horse dander and I wouldn't want him to die, would I?

So it's like years of this type of guy that's turned me into a strange hybrid between hopeless romantic and really angry fork-stealer.

But I digress. My favorite part of the song:

But I'm surprised that you're still standing there
As you know I'm a man and I have no feelings

Okay, okay, I know boys have feelings. But sometimes it seriously feels like they don't. And I just want to stab them in the eye and say "Feel THIS?" but that would probably be frowned upon in a court of law and honestly I wouldn't last a day in prison (too pretty) (just kidding) (not vain).

To sum up I would just like to say if I ever meet a tall boy who likes how fluffy my hair gets after I shower and only buys me flowers in whimsical shapes and enjoys explaining football plays to me then I hope he never reads this because he's going to mistakenly think I may have mild violent tendencies and a worrisome obsession with forks. Not to mention questionable taste in music.

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.

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.

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.

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.