Monday, October 29, 2007

this weekend i...

...checked out the 8th annual JRA Japanese Food Festival and ate a bunch of sushi and took a bunch of photos.

...accidentally wandered into an anti-war rally on my way to the subway station downtown and missed running into lqt and her main squeeze, as well as the very alluring mark ruffalo.

...got to check out the annual LACMA costume ball and drink tequila drinks, eat corn dogs, ogle wild and wacky costumes, see the dali exhibit, and fill my purse with dumdums.

...watched all the episodes of the restaurant marathon-style, and finally figured out why people make a kind of exasperated face when you say the name "rocco dispirito." i also realized that when this show came out in 2003-4 i was far too busy finishing my BA and glazing ceramics for a living to watch television, which is probably how i missed it completely.

...benefitted from the open bar at an event i didn't attend in a manner i will keep to myself.

...procrastinated in a controlled manner in regards to seeing to my students' work.

...wondered why no one at rhymes-with-horizon ever suggested to me that the simple act of cleaning the connections on my phone's battery might be the cure i needed for my previously mentioned phone woes. funny how after i did that my phone's been working just fine.

...did laundry! wooohoooo party time!

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Friday, October 26, 2007

technical difficulties

it's not that i've been busier, per se, but rather that what i've been busy with has been the source of multiple seemingly unending frustration. well, actually, one of the problems has been dealt with, while the other lingers ever on.

first, the car drama. i had to surrender my only child, lola, to the people at the local toyota body shop to get her little dinged up bumper fixed. here i am, thinking this little dealio would take a couple of days. no. it took eleven. eleven days apart from lola. during those eleven days i made do with rental cars. cars, you say, plural? yes, plural. because when you pull into a parking spot in your red kia sportage (why i had to take an suv is beyond me) at target and then try to remove the key from the ignition (yes it was in park, yes, i tried pushing it in, no there was no magic button to press, yes i looked at the manual and followed their pithy instructions to turn the steering wheel left to right to loosen it)with no success, but can turn it to start the car up again just fine, you have to take the car back to the rental place and get another one. and when they ask "what kind of a car do you regularly drive?" and you tell them "a prius" they seem to think giving you a ford escape hybrid suv is comparable. i couldn't wait to "escape" that bullshit hybrid, i'll tell you that much. but lola is home, she's had her ass lift or whatever it was, the insurance paid for it, and she got a bath to boot. like the ultimate dork that i am i cooed and uttered sweet nothings at her the whole drive home. were it not for the remnant odor of fresh paint and the ashy air quality i probably would have kissed her. i'm serious.

so the other techinical difficulty in my life is my mofo phone. randomly out of the blue on monday i got a text message. from myself. that said "THIS IS A WARNING" and "DO NOT RESEND MESSAGE." since it had been a few hours since i'd sent a message, i thought i'd call my provider (rhymes with "horizon") and ask them, "say, what is it exactly i'm warning myself about?" did they know? no, of course not. they tell me to dial into some on the phone updating situation, which i did, and then went on with my life. a bit later i noticed that my phone suddenly thought it would be super fun and cool to just stop getting service altogether. then one bar, no bar, one bar, two bar, no bar, one bar, no bar--okay, you get the idea. i was out in my neighborhood, and no service wherever i went. so i went home (still nothing) and called the provider. "are you calling from your cellphone?" they ask. uh,yeah. i'm calling you from a phone that gets no service, fuckwit. the lady put me on hold for about ten minutes, returned to declare she had no idea what was going on, but that she had someone in tech support on the line. "hold on while i transfer you!" and then... you guessed it: she disconnected me.

called back. got a tech dude. answered the logical query of "are you calling from your cellphone?" once again ("how would that even be possible?" i ask him). he tells me i should go to a rhymes with horizon location to get them to "upgrade my software" and then meanwhile he'll open a ticket and they'll look into it. but, you know, since most of california was burning, i was low-priority. neato! then, the following events transpired:

1. went to phone store
2. on way to phone store notice phone works again. is it because i'm in a new city?
3. get to phone store, am told the red dot on my battery means my phone has been exposed to moisture and if they plug it in to update it i might lose everything and if my phone is working, why mess with a good thing. okay.
4. leave phone store, attempt to go to target. (see "key stuck in ignition" above)
5. phone works all this time, including when i'm at the rental car place, back closer to my house.
6. get home, phone works all night. call mom to tell her i'm not burning, she asks "what are you talking about?"
7. in the morning, phone doesn't work again. one bar, no bar, one bar, no bar.
8. on the way to work phone works. is it because i'm out of my neighborhood?
9. phone works on campus. call, hang up, still have service. sweet!
10. phone works at home, too! oh happy day! call, text, talk, smile.
11. darling boy arrives next morning for... oh, oops, that's not about my phone! :)
12. miss an incoming call and it goes to voicemail. once call ends, service drops.
13. discover if i turn the phone all the way off then on again i get service back.
14. discover that i can make or receive one call, but once it's over, i lose service and have to turn it off then on again. fun! fun! so much fucking fun!
15. discover phone does this even in another neighboring neighborhood. hmmm...
16. phone works on campus. reverts to one call then nothing back at home. wtf?
17. phone seems okay, then i miss a call from rhymes with horizon. when call is done, service disappears. this time i can't turn my phone on again after turning it off, except when it's plugged in.
18. wonder: should i just say FUCK IT and get a new phone? this little pink razr bastard is less than one year old!
19. begin to take photos of all my txt msgs because they are so ridiculously precious to me.
20. dial into voicemail, and when i hang up, i still have service. okay, so no new phone?

this is where you came in. i don't know what to do. i just know that i'm annoyed at all these small pesky inconveniences. and that i'm glad that my life is great and everyone is healthy and happy and not homeless thanks to fires or other tragedies, but for the love of god, i wish my phone situation would just figure itself out. is it me? the phone? the service in my area? a curse or hex? this is my only phone and it's my lifeline to some very important people. i guess i'll just have to wait and see. meanwhile, um, if you need to reach me, might i suggest email?

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

why i love the darling boy, reason #116

because the other day, when i told him that i'd been rear-ended while driving on the 134 freeway* he didn't ask me how my car was, but rather how lola** was.

*oh, hi, yeah, well. i stopped because all the cars in front of me had stopped, but the people behind me didn't stop in time. actually, the person behind the person behind me didn't stop in time, so he hit the person behind me who then hit me. not too hard. no airbags or anything (thank the baby jesus), no major damage, just some dings in my bumper which my insurance will cover. it was really a crazy situation, though, because neither of the hitting dudes spoke english, and they worked together for this shady boss character whom they called to the scene and then who tried to make it seem like it was my fault ("why did you stop?" he asked. "uh, because all the cars in front of me stopped," i answered.) under the guise of "translating." then the stories got all convoluted and i think he wanted to push the blame on me (gender politics?) and then insisted on calling the highway patrol. (what's spanish for "we don't want to get in trouble so let's blame this chick"?) the nice freeway service guy who'd been helping us wrangle insurance documents and such said "i'll call from my truck!" with a strange amount of glee; he returned to tell me in confidence that the guy who hit me had no license and would most likely be getting his car towed (he did) and that it seems like the guy who hit him has no insurance (not sure yet). bottom of the story: i got rear ended, it was so not my fault, i'm not hurt, i made it to oktoberfest a little later than planned, my insurance company is waiving my deductible and lola will get a new bumper this week.

**lola is my car's name, obvs.

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Friday, October 05, 2007

meanwhile, back in my little life...

sometimes the thoughts running through my head are on a less than global scale of proportion, like when i grin like a goofball and bury my face in the pillow thinking about how happy i am that law & order: svu has new episodes on the air these days. i'm happy about lazy sunday footsie playing, new shoes, pre-dawn text message sessions, and the drive-thru starbucks. mostly i have my head full of new names that go with new faces that occupy the twenty-eight seats in each of my three new classes, and that means my bag is full of homework to mark and lesson plans to craft, which means that i doubt i'll be getting much personal reading or writing done until sometime around christmas. of course, that doesn't stop me from buying new books or thinking about things i'd like to post but probably won't. every now and then something fun comes along to dizzy up my fairly quiet life, like getting last minute tix to see my "secret boyfriend" josh rouse last week, or the news that a friend i haven't seen since i was probably fourteen (at most!) is coming into town this week and is crashing a night chez moi. there's been sunflowers, purply-white dahlias, and lilies to brighten things up, and i even tried my hand with much success at cooking with some unexpectedly hand-delivered squash blossoms. so i think local, and act local. i sleep in when i can, i'll meet you for lunch, and i'll imagine stacy london and clinton kelly are going to take me shopping (uh, but not on tv). or you can find me on facebook.

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