Something there is that doesn't love a wall

I just got back from a short repose taken against the back of our resident poet laureate. Quite comfortable, as I remembered, once you position yourself right. I sat for a bit with the headphones off, listening to the trees and soaking up every ounce of this atmosphere that I could. I could have fallen asleep if it hadn't been for the cold breeze. Also, when I got there, I saw a couple empty cans of Keystone, and as it didn't sit quite right with me I decided to remedy the problem. I moved the cans beside my own empty root beer bottle next to the rock I was sitting on, and as I was relaxing there I was in constant fear that the occasional passerby would see empty cans and a bottle on the ground next to some oddly-dressed girl sleeping on Robert Frost's back and I'd wake up to find myself in cuffs or something. I even ran through the procedure of proving my sobriety to any inquirers a couple of times in my head.

Afterwards I tried to do a rubbing of the line of the poem written on the statue, but since I didn't have chalk or charcoal I was forced to make an attempt using a rock and some dirt...needless to say it didn't really work. I managed to get "there is," but not much more.

To carry the garbage to the nearest trash can I needed to find a bag, since I didn't want to carry two muddy cans of beer down from the hill in broad daylight. Luckily one of my MacAddicts was still wrapped in plastic, so I emptied its contents and put the cans and bottle inside. Pulling trash out from between branches reminded me quite a bit of the afternoon I spent cleaning up a graveyard.

On the way back, I decided to go see if my professors were in Bartlett, so I made my way up to the third floor, only to find that the Toshoshitsu had been converted into a faculty office! Gah! That's so wrong! Wherever will underslept AMELL majors take post-kanji-quiz naps now? I made it to Dorsey's door and then I heard clicks from the door at the end of the hall (Ishida sensei) and freaked out because I knew I'd botch up if I had to speak to her so I tried to be as quiet as possible. Then after losing almost all of my nerve, I eked out three small knocks on the door before running away. (misa you are such an idiot for running from your best friend in the faculty at this school.) He wasn't in, so it's okay (it wasn't just my knock; I listened very quietly for life before I tapped), but still...shame on me.

Earlier today I sat on the hillside outside of Ripley and basked in the sun while doing a Su Doku puzzle in Dashboard (on cheat mode of course). I know i'm just feeding an idealized image by visiting in the early fall (and not having any classes or jobs to do), so it's easier for me to sit here and talk about how much I really do love this campus and wish I never had to leave, but still...it's so beautiful here right now, especially compared to smoggy suburbia with its evenly spaced trees lining the highly-trafficked streets. When I go back I have to buckle down and find employment, probably in another version of suburbia or even slightly citified. This week is my last breath of fresh air, total peace, before my "real world" begins. Sometimes I wish I never needed to sleep so I wouldn't waste a single moment.

I wish I had a car so I could go apple-picking and get roasted corn in Queechee and explore little dirt roads in Vermont. Sigh.

Ha Ha funny

On a whim I decided to check my old mailbox, and lo and behold, as I expected, they were still getting at least my Shape subscription. :( Probably MacAddict, too. I took the magazine (gasp! but is it illegal if it has my name on it?) and now I'll have to do a change of address...boo I want my mail to not go to somebody else. :(

I am

SO TIRED.

ugh.

ps--

Yay for coincidental career fairs and friends and open floors and crabs. Boo for misunderstandings and busted surprises and relationship strife (not mine) and short visits and ID cards that no longer get me into buildings.

Boo for legs that are going to fall off.

Yay for pbjs from the hop.

magic

tonight, flying over the four corners, I flew over a lightning storm.

I have never seen anything so breathtakingly beautiful in my entire life. I would have stayed there above the clouds forever...I can't even describe the magic of it, nor the overwhelming sense of pure, unbridled peace I experienced while I watched brilliant white crystals burst into life in the sky beneath me, only to fade back into the gaping darkness moments later, dying as quickly as they had been born.

my ipod was kind enough to supply an appropriate soundtrack for the spectacle, including Duvet by Boa, Two Beds and a Coffee Machine by Savage Garden, and El Pendulo from Varekai (Cirque du Soleil), the latter being the most powerful of them all...and no doubt contributed to the transcendent atmosphere (like reading Blankets while listening to When You Say You Love Me by Josh Groban). the visuals were other-worldly-- imagine the sidewalk from the "billie jean" video, the one with square panels that light up when he steps on them, except that instead of a sidewalk it's a cloudscape, but an invisible one, since your entire field of view consists only of pure blackness, save for a few points of light on the ground visible through a break in the clouds. Then, suddenly, god himself lays a giant toe upon a patch of cloud, and a million volts of pure energy light the cloud from within, revealing a bubbly translucent terrain. Moments later the silver glow fades back into oblivion, priming the sky for another illumination. absolutely stunning.

Now, Death Cab is gracing my ears with Tiny Vessels, and I feel...integrated. no doubt all this will sound terribly cheesy in a few hours, which is why I wrote it immediately, but I just had to set this out there to remind myself that I have seen magic.

whoosh.

Don't long for the past, long for what comes next

make me believe that all your good intentions
will offset all the wrong you've done...

I spent the past almost 24 hours hearing Kina play at the Knitting Factory (again) and playing with my sisters in Hermosa Beach, and these are the results:

1) For as long as I live, if I can help it, I will never again drive at night through downtown LA, or at least not through Hollywood when Pavarotti is doing his farewell tour at the Hollywood Bowl.

2) Kina sounds cool with a band, and looks cool when she plays standing up.

3) Kina looks cooler than Michael Jackson in Bad when she wears the $90 dollar jacket with the metal clips that she didn't buy at Re:Style.

4) Veda sounds much better when played very loud, but even then too much = headaches.

5) Emery sounds so nice until they start shrieking.

6) Spilling a full drink on the shop floor not moments after it's been handed to me is embarrassing, but nothing I can't handle, apparently.

7) Sometimes I am a great parallel parker, other times I fail miserably.

8) *ahem* The 22 year old brother of the 23 year old guitarist who played bass with Kina yesterday told Kina's best friend that he had fallen in love with [Kina] at first sight (and I'll bet the 23 year old is quite fond of her, too). I'm sure that felt great to hear, especially since she had to spend 4+ years feeling like her only guy friends were using her to get close to Kina. It's so good she has the best excuse in the world--a boyfriend--because otherwise she'd probably feel insanely guilty about having to explain to so many people why she's just not interested.

9) I bought tails (= a coat with tails), not because I'll ever find an opportunity to wear them, but because for $10 I just couldn't pass up something so cool.

10) It seems that when it comes to cities in LA, I either love it or I hate it. There's usually no in between.

...still I'll be screaming

Things:

I recently discovered this, which makes me happy.

---

Two month old Jack Russell puppies, baby bunnies, and Welsh Corgies are so cute I could die.

---

Huskies are so pretty I could die.

---

I decided to go out and buy IV so I could feel like a good supportive fan. Hooray for free bonus discs from Best Buy.

---

Today I bought Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. We'll see if it's any good (it should be, because it's Neil Gaiman, and he's awesome).

---

My mom gave me a ring for my birthday that belonged to my grandfather. It's completely not my style (I mean, RINGS aren't my style...I take them off and lose them), it has a big round stone on top and two little diamonds (CZ?) on the sizes. At least it's silver. The cool part is, though, that the stone is a Star Sapphire, and not only is sapphire my birthstone, but it's friggin' hypnotic to look at. I could sit and stare at the thing for hours. Very, very trippy the way it does that.

---

Recently I've thought a lot about the ways in which a relationship can be tested far, far down the road. Things no one can predict, but that nonetheless create (potentially huge) hurdles that hold the power to destroy a weak marriage. For example, my mom snores like no other (and stays up late doing projects for my sister), and my dad is a terribly light sleeper. Hence, my mom spends at least half her nights sleeping on a couch or on the guest bed. When I see couples that sleep in separate beds (or rooms for that matter), my heart breaks and I weep for those who have suffered the slow, numbing death of love. However, I never quite made the connection to my own family situation. The motivation behind it is different, but it gave me something to think about. Then there was my mom getting sick, and that whole hurdle, and now my dad and she both have to live with that inevitable truth, and now there's my dad's back threatening his mobility, and fighting the clock to hire a second doctor so he can take time off to get surgery before it's too late. Then there's my uncle, who unexpectedly lost most of his hearing to a virus a few years back, and after years of therapy and failed solutions he now has a cochlear implant but communicating with him is still very difficult (and my aunt is really feeling it). Then there's my great uncle who was reduced from a healthy old man who exercised every day to a hobbling, limp senior citizen with a walker by a stroke last year. They had to sell their house since his wife couldn't keep it up by herself, and now she and my grandmother have become his nursemaids. These are things that happen every day to people everywhere, but I had never really thought of them in terms of a relationship before. They're not just individuals, though...they're fathers, mothers, husbands, wives... Nobody knew it was coming, but everybody had to be prepared for it somewhere in their heart (though they willed it away with every ounce of their strength). In most cases it's not so much a dangerous threat to a bond, but more of an opportunity to demonstrate the depths of your commitment to and love for the other, but I can't imagine the amount of strength it must take, not only to see yourself through those times that seem hopeless, but to watch your other suffer as well. And what happens to the hearts of those whose others fall into a coma? Or what if they develop Alzheimer's and forget who you and your children are? Or what if they contract a terminal illness and you have to know how much longer they have? Or what if you have to watch them die? What happens if you lose a child? Sometimes even strong marriages can't survive that loss. I'm upsetting myself here, and I think I'm going a little crazy/getting a little carried away, so I'll stop. But still. It could happen to you, too, and it really scares me.

!!!

Guess what today is?!?!?!?!?!?

THE SEASON PREMIERE OF ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT!!!

8pm on Fox. (That's channel 11 for me.)

!!!

Now, considering the insane way they sort of tied up all their loose ends at the end of season 2, I'm not really sure how they're going to deal with this episode or if it's going to be at all successful, but we'll see. Also, I bet George Michael's gonna look even more grown up now.

Yay!

ps--Monday?!? They're trying to kill it, for sure.
pps--My mom gave me a ton of work clothes. I think she's trying to tell me something.

Anecdote

During our swim workout, my dad reminded me of this story (most of the details of which I'd mostly forgotten):
When we first moved into our old neighborhood there was a wealthy family who lived at the end of the cul-de-sac (and thus had a huge lot) and had a badminton court in their backyard. Every summer they had a fourth of July party for the street, and it fostered a great sense of community. I've never known my neighbors like I knew those, and it felt nice. Anyway, the first or second summer we were there, I was six or seven, and my dad and I played as partners in the badminton tournament versus the owner of the house and his friend (who were in their sixties at the time). My dad used to play competitively (but not on any large scale)--a fact I was not aware of until today--so his ability to hit it hard and place the birdie where he wanted to combined with my valiant effort to return lobs plus their retiree-style slo-mo game equalled us winning. Years before he had apparently had a trophy made for the event, and his family had held the title ever since. So when the two of us won, he was fairly hurt, and extremely reluctant to turn it over. I think he eventually did, because I remember seeing it somewhere around the house (though we probably gave it back at some point). After that, the fourth of July parties kind of died out, and I'm not sure if it was because of the badminton or because they were just tired of having the whole street over every year. Aheh. Perhaps I give myself (or my dad) too much credit. :)

What if I was someone different in your only history?

Sometimes I remember (or, most of the time I forget) that I've actually been in a car accident. Then I feel guilty for never writing that check I said I'd write. Now it would qualify as a late wedding present, but...I should really do that, since it was because of me that we were driving from the airport through that blizzard. Huh. It's weird how we can forget such significant events. Maybe I forget it because it was included within the packaging of a block of my life that I've now put behind me, so in moving beyond all of that stuff I inadvertently put the accident away, too. Then again, it would make more sense to say that accidents are by nature traumatic events, and we have a knack for filing away such events in the deep dark recesses of our memories so we don't have to keep being reminded of them. I think both explanations apply here, really.

When I start posting 3x/day it means I really have too much time on my hands.

(Updating my facebook profile several times a week is also a bad sign.)

Give 'em the story they want you to

The problem with unemployment (I hate to call it that--rather refer to it as "taking a break" after college, but it's the truth, after all) is that I sit here every day, without a car, with nothing to do but wake up late, read blogs, play DDR, get in trouble for not doing housework, and eventually tutor my sister in math. Then at night I watch 24 with my parents, and then I sleep. It's a stifling existence, really. Thus far I've always had something to do, whether it be the website, some sort of project for someone, cleaning my room...and technically I actually have stuff to be doing right now (finishing the designs for my uncle's business cards, updating my resumé, actually applying for jobs, updating my dad's site, etc) but I seem to have lost my motivation, and...

I finally feel that lassitude that so typifies the fabled existence of the college grad who moves back in with the folks. For a while I was riding the top of the wave and didn't believe I'd ever have a hard time getting off my feet, but finally the board has slipped down the backside of the crest and I'm gradually slowing to a halt, staring at ambition and initiative roll on towards the shore. Life has become dangerously stale. I sense now that it would be ridiculously easy for me to become completely stagnant and settle into an empty routine. My parents would never allow that to happen, of course (I received an email from my mother last night, for example, which chided me for not pulling my own weight...which felt odd, to say the least, since she was sitting just downstairs from me at the time), so if nothing else they'll be the ones to force me into action. Also, as lazy as I have been known to get I do have a limit after which point I get disgusted with myself and get moving, so I really don't have too much to worry about, it's just a little disconcerting to feel this state of nothingness settle onto me. Granted, a large part of my (un)motivation to get a jump start on my job search in earnest has been that I don't want to get any interview offers when I could potentially be in Hanover. I'd prefer to be home for good when I start really digging my heels in. Also, it has been nice to take it easy, since this is really the buffer between my academic life and my working life. However, the novelty has begun to fade (probably because I have zero social life--all my friends are either in a different state or far enough away that I can't get there with my nonexistent car, and I'm not about to buy one when gas prices are this high, I have no income, and I have no idea if I'll even need one where I end up working), and the accumulating domestic responsibilities are reminding me of how much I enjoyed my pseudo-independence.

I think I'll enjoy having my own place. I already have dreams of eating lots of somen 素麺 and having my own netflix account. :) I just can't figure out where on earth that might be--LA and San Diego are both 1-2% more expensive to live in than OC, San Francisco is *gulp* 40% more expensive (no joke, cost of living is that high), Seattle is significantly higher, which leaves the east coast on my list of potential workplaces (and Boston and New York are no cheaper than the west coast spots, plus I was kind of hoping to avoid snow for a little bit--though I will admit I miss the seasons already). Basically, I either have to get a really nice-paying job or work in the midwest, which is not really a possibility. I don't want to stay here, really...I wouldn't mind, but it's so much nicer a little farther south (or some places north, for that matter). I wonder if it's any cheaper in other parts of the bay area--palo alto, for example. Hmm. Someplace still reachable by BART. We'll see. Number one on the list is still a job, and everything else shall follow accordingly.

Also, today, I accidentally started thinking about old things again, and it made me decently upset, which was unfortunate. If I had some way to pass the time I wouldn't have so many chances to wander through the storage spaces of my mind...sigh.

ps-the dictionary says both "toward" and "towards" are acceptable, though the first is the standard. Phew!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Today I indulged my inner 13 year old by driving up to USC to see Hanson give a semi-exclusive talk (and screen their new documentary about starting up their own record label) to a bunch of music industry majors. Really I just wanted to relive my screaming fan-girl youth. For those of you who don't know (actually, that would be everybody unless I've explicitly told you, since no one reading this knew me before college), I was (and still am) a huge Hanson groupie. I have a foot-tall stack of paraphernalia in my closet. I have almost every teenybopper magazine they ever appeared in, even though I never read the articles because I hated those publications. I considered myself a "cool" fan because unlike those stupid girls who screamed and cried and fainted over them I just silently reveled in their glorious sound. I even started to write a "Dear Taylor, I'm sure you hear this from every girl who writes to you, but I'm _different_, and I mean it: I think you are amazing, and if you only had a chance to meet me, I'm positive you'd realize that we were meant to be..." letter to him but thought better of it (ha! I thought that was original, too!). I actually drafted one like that to David Duchovny, too, but I was too chicken to flesh it out and send it. (phew.) So when given the opportunity to go see them from twenty feet away (they did it at a café on campus), of course I jumped at it. Kina knows a girl who's been friends with them since childhood, which is totally unfair but that's beside the point, so she got an invite even though she's not in the major, and I was invited to come with. First they screened their new documentary, and towards the end I looked in the back and saw Taylor and Zac and gave kina a charlie horse pointing them out. (see above image) Afterwards they did a Q&A about the music industry, while I looked on happily. Poor Isaac kept making bad jokes about things that were completely unrelated, like coffee
enemas, so I felt bad for him. (I was always a supporter of Ike, even though nobody ever liked him. I suppose I felt a bond to his first-child-ness.)

At the end we all got a free copy of their new CD and the chance to go see them at the Jimmy Kimmel show (grr), and since I didn't want to be one of the girls saying "can I take a picture with you?" and making them go "uh, ok, real quick" because they obviously wanted to get out the door, I instead did the next best thing and took those pictures for those girls with their own cameras. Sigh. At least I got my cd signed by Taylor. Then kina was a giant idiot and didn't go talk to them when her friend told her to come with to do so. Oh well.

Here's the (tiny) photoset.

Next on the agenda was lunch, and the universe certainly wanted to make sure I didn't get too lucky today, so it made sure that it evened the score.

I couldn't find on-campus parking when I got there, so I parked in the lot of a shopping center across the street from campus. When I got back...MY CAR WAS MISSING! What a horrible feeling that is. I can't quite articulate it now because the shock has worn off, but believe me, it was something. I had been in the lot for just over three hours (3 is the limit), so I thought it had probably been yoinked by the city. We had just been joking about that on the way over, too, so...heh. I gathered up all my courage and *called* (gasp!) the number on the sign, and the lady told me that since I "crossed the street" I broke the rules of the lot and had been towed. Even though I had come back there to eat with Kina, it didn't matter, because apparently you're not allowed to leave the boundaries of the lot once you park there. Hrm. Oh well. I'd rather have my car towed than stolen. Kina gave me a ride (after doing a few errands--I had a good time sitting in the sun on a concrete bench next to a big, silent, wall-like fountain, listening to Nyana Indoors and Dishwalla and feeling peaceful) and 2.5 hours and $130 later, I have my car back and I'm back in Orange County. Good times.

ps--pc techies: what is different about how Windows IE reads Javascript that makes it say "error on page" when I try to open the videos in the mediaplayer on kina's website?

puppyburrito.JPG

puppyburrito.JPG
Originally uploaded by Beepifier.

...

Kina decided to name her baby albino corn snake that she got from her boyfriend for her birthday Hubert Cumberdale.

Sweeeet.

(And no, nobody's tasted him, so we can't verify That.)

mac lust

I'm surprised I haven't been kicked out of any apple retail stores yet for fondling the computers (namely the 30" displays). Really, it verges on obscene. (Few things can make me feel as if my heart is aching with joy as it overflows with everything good in the world, and apple stores are one of them. my dog is another. It's like being high or something, I'd imagine. I think I scare the employees because I just walk in circles around the store, petting things with a silly grin on my face, for way longer than is normal. In Ginza, Japan I showed up several days in a row to bask in its five stories of glory, ride in their pretty glass elevator--like charlie! except we didn't go into space--and steal their free internet from their bar of computers on the 4th floor, and by the end of it I was getting some pretty concerned looks.)

I think something must be wrong with me. (The nano media event video made me teary-eyed, of course...sigh. just stop talking to me right now, seriously.)

They had the nanos today, and I'm in love. My theory is that the black nano is a test to see how the public reacts to black, and if it's good, maybe we'll see a black ibook or something one day. that would rock my socks off. Also, I'd never played with an iPod photo before, and honestly I didn't see the appeal, but I played with the function on the nano and realized that it's actually pretty darn cool. I'm also really, really impressed with their continued ability to make everything intuitive--the navigational controls for the photos work exactly as you think they should, and the pictures, albeit small, look great. The thing can fly through the images when you scroll, too. yay.

Hmm.

Phi Tau has apparently decided to start a garden, and in said garden they will be planting onions and garlic. : \ But I guess there won't be enough of them to make it that smelly, right? (Have you ever walked past a field of onions?)

There's something about...

I think that Steve Wozniak is awesome. Steve Jobs is also pretty cool, and I've got a lot of respect for him, even though he is a freaky pescetarian slightly crazy peacenik who wears a lot of black mock turtles and took over the company in a coup d'etat. (Not that I have a problem with mock turtles.) Plus he can make me cry watching keynotes. Not to mention the fact that he happens to also head up my other favorite company, Pixar. The fact that apple was founded by two guys named steve is cool to me like my grandparents both having the same birthday is cool to me.

However, if I had to choose one person at Apple to build a shrine to, it would probably have to be Jonathan Ive. Sorry, Woz.

(interesting tidbit from wikipedia: "Jobs worked at Apple for several years with an annual salary of $1, and this earned him a listing in Guinness World Records as the "Lowest Paid Chief Executive Officer". At the 2001 keynote speech of Macworld Expo in San Francisco, the company dropped the "interim" from his title. His current salary at Apple officially remains $1 per year, although he has traditionally been the recipient of a number of lucrative "executive gifts" from the board, including a $90 million jet in 1999, and just under 30 million shares of restricted stock in 2000-2002.")

me and my conservatism.

This is the most l337sp33k (to spell it lazily) I've ever seen in one place (and it is nearly illegible...ow my eyes):

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(from /.)

Also, Cosmo says "If you tie the knot at an early age, the odds are stacked against you: there's a greater risk you'll grow apart--you change so much during your 20s, so when you wait til your late 20s you've faced those growing pains, and they don't burden your marriage; you don't know what you want in a partner--it's often through having an active dating life that you come to know the type of person who brings out the best in you. as a result, by your late 20s, you have a better sense of what you'll compromise on in a mate and what you won't; you can't be as selfish about your career, and you've had your share of playing the field already, so you can leave it and not look back," and I pretty much agree, even though cosmo isn't the greatest source of advice (question in same issue: "after how long is it okay to ask if we're exclusive?"). It's just something I've always thought made sense. But I guess you can't really choose when you fall in love.

Also, there are these things, which I also agree with:

Marriage Myth 2: Having children typically brings a married couple closer together and increases marital happiness.

Fact: Many studies have shown that the arrival of the first baby commonly has the effect of pushing the mother and father farther apart, and bringing stress to the marriage. However, couples with children have a slightly lower rate of divorce than childless couples. (gotta factor in "staying together for the kids," though)

Marriage Myth 5: Couples who live together before marriage, and are thus able to test how well suited they are for each other, have more satisfying and longer-lasting marriages than couples who do not.

Fact: Many studies have found that those who live together before marriage have less satisfying marriages and a considerably higher chance of eventually breaking up. One reason is that people who cohabit may be more skittish of commitment and more likely to call it quits when problems arise. But in addition, the very act of living together may lead to attitudes that make happy marriages more difficult. The findings of one recent study, for example, suggest "there may be less motivation for cohabiting partners to develop their conflict resolution and support skills." (One important exception: Cohabiting couples who are already planning to marry each other in the near future have just as good a chance at staying together as couples who don't live together before marriage).

Why all the marriage talk? no clue. bored, I guess.