Monday, February 28, 2005

a rhetoric of lack

my words are a little reluctant to come out these days. i can translate, with relative ease, from middle english to modern, and recite the lines better than many--according to someone important to me. and this degree of importance is part of the stumbling block--my stumbling block--where i trip on my own words and find myself at times a pot calling her kettles black. are my words as alienating as i find others' to be? am i the object of my own subject?

things have flipped, or switched; i realized it this weekend when i was deep in the geek chorus, elbow to elbow with like-minded wordsmiths, debating the ethics of comfort-zone tutoring and the much-sought proof of writing center visit. this is my new milieu; my peers and i frequent ratemyprofessor-dot-com, strategize thesis panels, fret over tests yet to be taken, belabor lengthy papers, plan conferences, and work everyday to meet our ambitions. i never thought in a million years that there'd come a day when i'd be researching application information for phd programs, hoping that my 4.0, stellar letters of recommendation, and my writing talent would help get me a degree that would allow me to teach college, and influence others as much as i have been, and am, influenced daily. not me...

...but here i am, knee-deep in philological projects, narratives, and deadlines. and here i am, over a year too early to be having separation anxiety from my school, but already feeling the pangs. and here i am, able to talk constantly to myself, whether it be out of loneliness, frustration, or in or out of some challenge, but unable to piece together why i can't find words tell some of my oldest and dearest friends how i'm feeling. and it's partly because i can't quite figure out what it is i'm feeling, only i can't cover it up anymore with ice cream or sushi or the golden girls or free shipping from amazon.com. i just know that my words of late are pointed towards tuesday night, heavy with useless anticipation about the inevitable nothingness of what lies between me and the one unknowing person i've pegged to save me. it's utterly futile. it's my constant subtext. it's what i've invented to be the solution to my own case of 'missing.' it's what some people (seem to) have that i don't. it's making me noisy with silence. and, worse, its pronounced rhetoric of lack is undermining all the great things that have become my life.

and still, like so many other things, the words refuse to come.

|

Friday, February 25, 2005

in country-fied

fogs lift, storms break, and the sun comes out to play, even in an unusually harsh californian winter. i strapped back on my trusty flip-flops and shoved the novel i'd read for my "narratives of the vietnam war" seminar in my handbag, and headed off to campus where my gal-pals were waiting. sitting around the family-style table in the badly lit room we tossed around big names in literary theory, bad jokes, comments punctuated with rolled eyes, the teen-soap nature of the book at hand, and hovered ever-ready on the edge of giggly too-much-information sharing. at one point, my beloved second mother-esque professor, seated to my right, asked an older gentleman point-blank in her characteristic drawl: "why, haven't you even been stoned before? even i have!" and i nearly lost it then, but in the best possible way, because there's just something about being around people that bring out the best in you. it was a reminder to me about what life is really about; how tonight i'm going to hang out with said gal-pals to celebrate a birthday rather than fret about the stresses in my life. and that even though i have a chain of deadlines and obligations which, not only do i have to merely meet, but, i at which hold myself accountable for excelling, there's plenty of room for laughter and storytelling and the heart of why i do what i do in the first place. i'm not out of the woods yet, but with moments like last night, it's making this journey all the more worthwhile.

|

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

the snap

of course i'm running late; it's my curse of current days. and, oh, the curses i hurl at the harmless little bedside clock that nags me about the minutes slipping by. and then finally, in a blur of bags and books and boots for the rain, the blender is broken and so is my stride. and i curse now, so loud that i wake the sleeping angel with my expletives and slamming and--my god--i'm angry now, just raging at the air, a sort of shadow boxing routine with the refridgerator door.

i live these days on the brink of the snap, that notorious back-breaking straw is my fine line between a clenched jawed grin and tearing my hair out in frustrated clumps. it's the overwhelm. it's the unfinished business of the lightning without the thunder. and the rain. oh, god, it's the rain.

when you live adjacent to the snap you bite at nothing; the slightest provocation and suddenly it's road rage on carpeting and kitchen tile. it's the tears that refuse to flow. and maybe it's the static electricity that's stinging the charged air, because other people are snapping, and they clash, and there's the back pedal of "i'm sorry, i can explain..." and it helps, it's a salve on a deeper wound that for me is so deep that i can't name it. for a woman of words i'm fumbling on the phone to reconcile the snap. my snap is nameless, blameless. but just watch me parcel out the blame.

and i want to dig for what's at the root, but i'm a little afraid of what i might unearth. because what's there is what's pushing me beneath the surface. egging me on towards the snap. so instead i tap it out in a text message, an s.o.s. that rates a callback and the sage advice that i might not solve the problem, but i can surely manage it. and what tumbles out of me are the usual suspects and sources: i am ugly, i am lonely, i am not enough, or, worse, i am too much... fill in the blank, and i can muster up a measurement of lack or excess. and the questions parade on and on with no hope of answers.

but the management of my troubles is in their expression. so i'm asked: "how are you?" and i find the calm in vocalizing my truths. i'm not okay. i'm overwhelmed. i'm tired. i'm stressed out. i'm scared. i'm feeling un-dateable. i'm frustrated.

and i get hugs and praise ("i love you because you tell it like it is!") and nods of understanding. but most of all i get an inch of space between me and the snap. it's precarious, at best. but these days, that's a lot.

|

Monday, February 21, 2005

three days in seattle (one week late): photos and agenda

ashley and i burned out of portland pretty early on a friday morning. we got our internet on, tidied up kori's house for her, popped into a powell's branch on hawthorne to get a book i wanted but had forgotten to find the day before at big powell's, snagged some coffee (and a fuzzy scarf for me) at a local coffeehouse, and hit the road hard and as fast as the posted speed limit allowed. here's where we went each day, and some photos to go with them. in all honesty, i had such a great time that i fear neither my words nor my pictures can do the experience justice. seattle is an awesome city, and i'm glad we got to see, do, eat and explore so much.



stopped in olympia to check out the capital building, then headed for some coffee at cafe vita, then back on the road. got in to seattle and checked in to our hotel then headed to agua verde for a late (but oh-so-scrumptious) lunch. next stop, the world famous pike place market. everything there was like sensory overload; the fruit, vegetables, fish, and flowers were just dazzling under the lights. it was crowded, but manageable. there were tons of samples being offered, but we were full to the gills so we didn't taste a bite. over at the famous fish counter we found miss teen u.s.a. trying to catch a flying fish, and we ran in to a monkfish on ice that made a little boy cry. after all that roaming we chilled at the hotel, then strolled through downtown (all lit up and the windows gussied for valentine's day) and bought some makeshift swimming clothes (boxers and tank tops) on sale at old navy so we could wind down in the hotel jacuzzi.



the next morning we met some friends at voula's for a good old greasy spoon breakfast. then we wandered the shops and streets of fremont and then headed up queen anne hill to visit and old friend in a familiar place, followed by tea at the tea cup. we then went on to more photo ops in historic pioneer square. next we hit up the seattle center where we ogled the space needle, puzzled out the vertical poles, tried not to vomit in looking at the experience music project building, marveled at my new favorite landmark (the arches in the courtyard of what was the science building at the 1962 world's fair) and stared at the fountain in the old international plaza. though our feet were tired we wandered volunteer park just in time to see the sun go down in a blaze of glory. for dinner it was back to fremont for some blue c sushi and we grabbed some cake to go at simply desserts. back at the hotel we stuck a candle in ashley's cake, sang, snacked, soaked in the jacuzzi and called it a night.



our last day started with breakfast at paul's place in the u district. we hurried back downtown and to pioneer square, though, because we had tickets to the underground tour. now, i've got to say that this was the most phenomenal thing i've done on a trip, it was so darn cool and fun and neat that i've been telling anyone who'll listen about it. seattle was built too close to sea level at first, then a huge fire burned down the downtown in the 1890s, so when they rebuilt they did higher up, by building a 12 foot fall on either side of the streets and thereby making all the buildings' second floors their new first floors. what went underground is still there, and this tour takes you through it, and explains the history. it's so much fun and the pictures don't do it justice (those purple tiles in the sidewalk are what serve as skylights, filtering in a staggering amount of daylight as seen below). then, to top it off, i insisted we check out the new seattle central library designed by rem koolhaas, which is as curious an above-ground landmark as the underground is below. it's so bizarre with its 11 zig-zag ramping floors, the lime green escalator cutting through the middle, the spooky red hallways, the pillowed ceiling, the giant automated book sorter system, the 'mixing chamber' and the lumpy exterior. after that there was barely time to zoom past the fremont troll for a photo, then to get a coffee for the road, and down the i-5 to the pdx airport for my flight home.

what a trip! so much fun! i hope you enjoy seeing some of the 327 pictures i took that weekend, just as much as i enjoyed taking them.

|

Friday, February 18, 2005

oh, this week...

this week it finally rained, as threatened, and it's pouring down now in buckets, paired with the sound of sirens. lovely. this week found me unprepared for rain, as yesterday i tiptoed across campus in flip-flops whilst shielding my head with a soggy newspaper.

this week i had a molar extracted. therefore, this week, i embraced soft foods. and tylenol with codeine.

this week i fell more deeply in love with the following: my professors (mostly platonic, but you'll recall the one exception), my "americain stupide" t-shirt (from secret agent josephine's cafe press store, and forgive me, i'm too tired to put up a link), sushi (pre-soft foods), my glass rose ring, the 1962 world's fair in seattle, itunes, LAist.com, my goddamned build-a-bear (keaton), my dentist, amazon.com, and murphy brown. this week, i feel no elaboration is necessary.

this week, hundreds of people read my site as usual, but have had little or nothing to say. why is that?

this week, thankfully, is over.

|

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

no third date with the washington post

i spent some time a couple of weeks ago giving an interview to the washington post for an article on being fired for blogging. it was fun and exciting, i'll admit, and also interesting to re-visit that god-awful time in my life from an almost two-years out perspective. theraputic and all that.

of course, just like all those first dates and flirty calls that go nowhere in my love life, the article's author, amy joyce, has dumped me in favor of others; the article (subscription required) ran minus me.

sigh. i give up.

|

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

the margin in the bubble

it was sort of a relief that yesterday was spent indoors in rooms with little interference from the pesky outside world. while i hadn't opted to tackle the day like a hermit (mind you, hermits don't tackle much, do they?) between my work hours and my studying hours and my in-class hours, i'd barely been aware of the hearts-and-flowers-greeting card activities going on outside. of course, as the day wore on and my resistance faded with my energy, i slipped a little backwards into the realm of my own invention--the realm i'd sworn off repeatedly and from which i'd just taken my humble and graceful exit. it's the realm of the inappropriate crush.

in between taking very serious notes in the margins of my complex middle-english text, i let my mind drift a little to the status of my emotions. "i don't even have a crush on anyone!" i'd wailed the night before to my friend during the drive home from the airport. i'd explained the litmus test i'd stumbled upon last week in conversation with my crush--we'd encountered one of those moments in conversation when i'd revealed something as response, completely on topic and appropriate to the context, but to which his reply signalled that certain destinies were to be kept behind tightly closed doors. it was, as i've suggested, humbling. it was when i found myself in a place of great permission, because i'd suddenly become aware that little, if anything, was actually at stake; there were no impressions to make or fates to secure. it was freeing, granted, but also a sign that certain modes of thought had found themselves in need of abandonment.

but last night, wrapped up in heady doctrine of centuries ago, and in ceaseless witty verbal banter, lost a little in yawns and tired sighs, i picked up the remnants of my not-so-old ways, and held on a little more tightly. and i wrote in my margin, "it's such a big part of my life," letting the words lie there in confession, without judgment or action. simple fact. these feelings shade and tint my creative thoughts, they highlight a dreary day's events, they send me to bed at night as cold comfort. with heads bent between friends, they become stories punctuated with winks and gestures, getting laughs and rolled eyes and shaking heads. a sort of trademark. not easy to part with.

and harder, still, when indulged intentionally (me) and inadvertently (he). the amped up back-and-forth teasing, with knowing looks and running gags and accusations of "were you voted girl most likely to laugh at anything in high school?" it exists in the cup of coffee i'd milked and sugared for him, when after the first sip a throaty "perfect!" was like a coronation. it thrives on elevator-to-parking-lot chatter where bonds of synchronicity form so powerfully that he, a little stunned, fumbled beyond murmurs of understanding for the next words.

and it cuts out in the cold night with the anti-climactic goodnight. this--this "big part of my life"--leaves me hollow. it leaves me where i stand, guilty for having given myself enough rope on which to hang myself. a little angry for having re-authorized the emotional field-trip. confused at my heart's and mind's inability to balance between the knowing, the hoping, the believing and the functioning. and i wonder where else my preoccupation might be allowed to rest, were it not for his delicious distraction? because yesterday i was in the comfortable bubble of my daily life--not for lack of trying to break out, to make connections to other people, other men--and i was right smack dab at square one, only just a little wiser from having made the trip there and back again so many times.

so where do i leave this big part of me? it's not so much that i create a world beyond my context, but there there is richness at its everyday heart. it's moreso that i want badly for something more legitimate to take it's place, so that my bubble of everyday life can accomodate a fellow journeyman who shares my context, rather than one who stumbles in its periphery. and though it is such a big part of my life, it seems so small to ask for.

|

Monday, February 14, 2005

some funny valentine

by the time i'd wrestled my suitcase off the luggage carousel in terminal 7 of the los angeles international airport i was about ready for a meltdown. i had hit a sort of sensory-overload wall; my legs were achy from a combination of too much walking followed by too much sitting in cramped spaces, the smells were unfriendly, the crowds more unfriendly. things were whirling around me at a dizzying pace and there was no car service driver holding up a paper sign with my name on it, as expected. it was late, and i was exhausted. i was home.

in the flood of over-stimulation and overwhelm (and the post-vacation underwhelm of having to get back in to the routine of things) i dropped a little of my resistance to the fact that valentine's day was on it's inevitable and hyperbolic way. a bouncy blonde waved a sign adorned in hearts that read "lover" to greet her boyfriend. travel-weary couples held each other up and sighed a collective sigh of arrival-relief. i craned my neck to see if, by now, my driver had arrived. i felt horribly, achingly, frustratingly alone. i had that dread of running in to an ex in the company of his new love--an event that seems to, and should by rights, happen only in the movies. i had that kind of associative flashback where you play the "one year ago today i was..." game, and remembered that last year on valentine's day i'd had what stands on record as the best first date ever. and then i thought about how my last couple of forays into the dating jungle had both ended with the exact same shallow promise of "i'll call you." i was feeling so solo that it seemed no coincidence that not even the man i'd hired to come meet me was holding up his end of the deal to come collect me. insult, meet injury. well!

after far too much foot tapping, and my realization that people in los angeles are just downright unpleasant in general (my "return to the surly urbanites", i named my experience, playing with the almighty assonance), i called up the car service, ready for some results. you see, last week, when i'd booked the car, an innocent business call had morphed into a rather steamy and interesting phone-flirtation. the owner of the company took a liking to me, and had seemed quite eager to please me. "just promise me you won't leave me stranded on sunday night," i cautioned him, amidst his repeated mentionings of sunday being grammy night. "oh, no, i'd never do that to you," he said, punctuating his reassurance with some innuendo.

yet here i was, valentine's eve, stranded in a hostile environment. really, this was not going as planned.

but thank god for good friends, and a reminder that not all angelenos are wretched. some, like dear bunny, will come down to l.a.x. to get you, and hint that there's a valentine waiting in your mailbox. meanwhile, i told the car dispatcher to forget it, and he promised me the owner was sorry and would call me tomorrow. we'll see what sort of valentine my let-down phone-romancer can muster up for me. because at this point, single or not, i am home amongst my friends, and, ultimately, i have a lot of love around me. isn't that what valentine's day should be about?

|

Friday, February 11, 2005

stomping through stumptown



i was out of the house and on the plane before the sun had even come up thursday morning. we took off from lax just after 6:30, winging into the sunlight towards the beautiful pacific northwest. the pilot came on the sound system and told us it was foggy and cold in portland--30 degrees cold, to be exact--and i was glad i'd opted to take my winter jacket and leave my usual flip-flops at home. when i landed, ashley was there to meet me, and in seconds i had my suitcase in hand and we were on our way off on day one of the great 2005 portland/seattle honorary twin sister adventure. the giggling had begun!

first stop was breakfast at a favorite spot near where we were staying, at a friend's house, in the southeast part of town. after a little bit of regrouping and gift-exchanging we were off for my favorite place: powell's books. powell's is staggering; three floors of endless shelves in categoried color-coded rooms, packed with used and new books galore. it's overwhelming, even for an ardent bibliophile such as myself. the drawback of course is, where do you begin, and how much can you fit in your suitcase? so i began in the most self-serving way possible: i went to see if they carried the sex diaries book that i am featured in. i'd looked around l.a. for a copy, but hadn't seen it yet. lo and behold, in the erotica section (right next to nautical, suggesting to me that at the very least, the two activities implied by those sections require a keen sense of direction) i found the book, in a nice front-facing stack in all its pink and red hued glory. i tore ashley from the sign-language section and we posed with the book for a series of ridiculous pictures. she snatched a copy to buy, adding one more to the sales tally (my publisher should be pleased!).

next stop was hawthorne street, for a little eclectic-boutique shopping and enormous ice cream sundaes that gave us stomach aches and cut our appetites until late at night. we ogled all sorts of goodies, from greeting cards, knick-knacks, t-shirts, shoes, jewelry, posters, novelties and more, stopping at the bead store to jokingly create the most insignificant and least-relevant charm bracelet ever (we didn't actually buy the charms, just collected them, took the picture, and then put them back, like a couple of goofball kids). we had some much needed downtime back at the house, and then finally ventured back out for some thai food in the northeast. we drove a bit back and forth on all the bridges, trying to get some photos, but with little success. considering we'd both been up early and on little sleep, it was early to bed...and early to rise for the next day's adventures: off to seattle!

|

Thursday, February 10, 2005

see you in sea-wa!



i'm off to seattle (via portland) for a long weekend of giggling, greasy-spoon breakfasts, shopping, girl-talking, picture-taking and general celebrating with my beloved ashley. little ibook annie goes where i go, and the gorgeous suite in seattle has internet, so you bet your boots, between the work i have to lug with me and the incurable addiction i have to the web, i'll be gone...but not absent.

|

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

functional on the backburner

i'm not entirely sure how i got here this morning, only that i managed to contend with stop-and-go traffic with my face in my breakfast smoothie and one hand on the click wheel of my ipod. when the mellow indie folk-rock in the mix gave way to dr.dre and 2pac's bouncy "california" i went with the flow and rolled the party on in to the parking lot. thank god for my staff parking permit.

yesterday i was sent home from work. not in a punitive way, but in a "you're sick, go home and go to bed!" way. and when someone tells me i'd be better off in bed, i listen. someone said something along of the lines of my being only a shell of my usual self; i liked the dramatic overtones of that thought so much so that i worked that line into an email to my professor, asking to be excused from my class that evening. i then spent the better part of the afternoon pondering the extremeties of my nasal condition (flowing copiously or stubbornly stopped) and wondering why hallmark doesn't make a card that reads: "thank you for giving me your cold, i'm so happy to have to miss out on my daily life because of your germs." i wouldn't really send the person that gave me their cold the card, but when you're feeling like you've borrowed somebody else's head and your limbs won't comply, well...there's no room for reason. about all i had room for was a series of naps, anything in the food grouping of soup, little hard candies to suck on, and some episodes of ER season 2 on dvd. but really, i need to do whatever is in my power to conquer this cold; thursday morning at 6:30 my ass is on a plane to portland to see my beloved ashley for a long weekend in p-town and seattle. not a time to be weary and bed-bound.

of course, i couldn't play greta garbo again today, so i launched my morning routine and found my way to campus. i think this is where you came in. now i'll be spending the rest of the day answering: "are you feeling better?"

yes, thanks. a little.

|

Monday, February 07, 2005

mugshots not included



friday night would have ended in a big sigh and an even bigger "ho-hum" had it not been for one housemate, one houseguest, and one naughty bottle of mango flavored rum. i arrived home earlier than i'd anticipated, my date having walked me to my door, given me the obligatory brief kiss and a promise to call to plan another rendez-vous. since i've heard that line before i took myself on up the stairs solo, figuring there wasn't much more left to do with my night than maybe watch war movies or write bad poetry. but i arrived home to find housemate l.q.t. entertaining her friend sasha, who'd witnessed the kiss-off first hand by way of leaning over the balcony and spying. they were hungry for details. they were a few drinks ahead of me.

what proceeded to unfold was a night that went to the wee hours, but that made up brilliantly for the disappointing date. the girls and i shared stories peppered with punchlines and the occasional outburst of singing "i get ideas" in the style of ricky ricardo. we had a running joke about a brothel, a long rumination on the trials and triumphs of skiing the bunny slope. a probing insight into the world of showbiz dogs, a reminiscence of all things i love lucy and a bizarre photoshoot for mugshots, where the "say cheese" phrase was "i shot 'em dead." (considering our state at the time, mugshots are not included.) when things wound down sasha bedded down in the recently redecorated living room, l.q.t. sent herself to bed, and i crawled under my freshly washed covers, in my freshly made bed, in my freshly cleaned room, content in my freshly scrubbed and smell-good skin, all by myself...but certainly not lonely.

also noteworthy...

...is that this page looks lousy in internet explorer. but, i mean, really, internet explorer is crap to begin with. you're all invited to my house, where we can pull up my page on safari on the ibook and ooh and aah appropriately.

also: my first LAist post is up! check it out!

|

Sunday, February 06, 2005

ch-ch-ch-changes (or, what i did on sunday instead of an annotated bibliography)

well, i was just sick of the pink.

photos pages are offline for now; email me if you're really interested in seeing my photos of los angeles and new york.

about section is also down. my butt hurts from sitting here and i can't get things outside the main page to set up on my new rigged template. so, for now, we'll all just have to deal with it.

links page seems functional.

archives are still there, but you'll get the pink page for now.

i really need a pro to do this.

|

Thursday, February 03, 2005

slideshow mania: vancouver



over the christmas holidays i did something i had never done before: i went in to vancouver to explore the city, on my own. i rode the bus in from the 'burbs, i mapped out my day's points of interest, and i loaded up my trusty digital camera with over one hundred photos of my travels. i also lost feeling in my legs from all the walking, and had to recuperate in a bubble bath when i got back, but that's another story.

last night was unofficially declared tech and progress night at my house, when housemate l.q.t. said she was going out to fry's to buy a new mouse for her old computer, and i said "i'll come with you!" and i brought home a wireless routing setup for my cable internet. we also brought home some treats from vendome liquor store (where, by the way, they have several wine tasting events a week, who knew?) and, after setting up the wireless router (um, it was so easy it was laughable) i devoted myself to learning layers in photoshop and animation in imageready. of course, this so-called 'easy' thing was not laughable--in fact, by eleven at night housemate l.q.t. stopped in my room and said "you're still up?" and i grumbled some this-and-that about not being able to animate in imageready, the help doesn't help... well, if you're ever in a pinch, as i surely was, i only hope you have a secret agent on your side. thank god for mine. secret agent josephine saved me with how-to instructions, emails, instant messages, and, this morning, a phone call to walk me through it. (my new mantra: "eyeball off, eyeball on.") and...voila! slideshow number one of my day tromping about the beautiful; and glorious city of vancouver b.c. so thanks, jo! i'm going to get the rest of my slides up soon, and it won't kill me!*



*45 minutes later and i've added slideshow #2. look out...i'm on fire!

|

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

questions of time

i'm so easily distracted in the morning. from the moment i wake up and negotiate a deal between myself, reality, and the comfort of my bed, i'm fighting urges left and right to indulge in distractions that will take me off course. typing this, for example, is a direct case-in-point. i should, by now, be applying eye shadow and matching shoes to handbag. i should be flossing. we all should be flossing, but that's another discussion entirely. i've already derailed the discussion of getting derailed. more coffee, please.

i went to bed not long after nine last night. so completely un-hip that it feels like a confession. it wasn't so much that i went to bed, but that i could not stay awake. it doesn't help that my cable provider has done something with the cable signal which has caused me to lose all the free channels i was skimming from my cable internet signal, and has forced me to break my new nightly date with candice bergen as murphy brown, and is now forcing me to call them up and order cable in an above the boards fashion. shudder to think. all this being shelled out for entertainment and i crash out hard with the eight year olds at 9:25 p.m. of course, eight year olds leave school at 3:00 or so, as planned, unless they're naughty and land detention, whereas i plan on leaving campus promptly at 4:20 and get sucked in until 6:00 p.m. then i get stuck in traffic. then i pick up some dinner (lo-carb, "healthy" chinese, no-rice-please! the lady totally gave me a knowing look, too, when i said "no-rice-please" and i was too tired to tell her that, okay, yes, she was right, i'm avoiding carbs, but, actually, i don't like rice to begin with). then i pass out shortly after 9:00.

now it's morning and i've just done a bit of my morning routine: fire up the laptop and scour a variety of websites, make coffee, pack lunch, send pertinent emails, enjoy coffee, decide if it's glasses or contacts today (glasses, methinks). i've had to steer myself away from the glossy pages of a hold everything catalog that just arrived in the mailbox thanks to some cursed list the fine folks at pottery barn put me on. i've had to eschew less-than-pertinent email sending. i'm feeling relief that the climate and lack of dress code allows me to wear flip flops to work on a regularly basis. now i'm just left with applying my eyeshadow and deciding what handbag goes with my flip flops.

let's just hope i'm not late.

*edited to add: i went with contacts. they seemed to suit my messy-ponytail look. and i didn't budget time for "deal-with-troublesome-toilet-plumbing" which is throwing me farther off this morning. it's nice to know, though, that i know for a fact i don't have a 9 a.m. appointment because i cancelled it yesterday. and, let the record show that, when i say "late" i mean "late to work." the biggest irony about being published in a book as a 'sex blogger' is that...well, i'll let you figure that out.

|

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

hip, suddenly

through entirely my own doing (and this may lead you to raise your eyebrows, shake your head and say, "are you crazy?) i'm soon to make my debut as a contributor and photoblogger at LAist (sibling to big bro--or mac daddy--gothamist), making me a part of what this month's los angeles magazine calls an "ongoing look at L.A. as seen from the inside of a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf" for "closet hipsters." i guess this is my coming out party. mom, dad, friends, family...i'm hip!

|




Site Meter

-->