That awkward moment when someone says oh you'll love my friend so andso he/she's really nice...

...and you realize

Um, no dude, he/she's nice to YOU because you're 

--a guy (so she flirting with you or he take your opinions seriously)

--gay (so you probably can talk about Real Housewives with her and there's no awkward friend-zoning tension)

--white (so she/he knows they gotta take you seriously or you gonna call the manager)

--blonde (so she look good next to you in Facebook pics and he think you have more fun)

--pretty (so she look good next to you in Facebook pics and he think you're hot)

--a really important person with a crazy high Klout score (social climbing ftw) 

The Curtailed Enjoyment of Sleep as a Hobby

Most 14-30 year olds put sleeping as one of their hobbies.  There are those annoying go-getter morning person types that hike mountains everyday at 6 in the morning, and then there are the mortals. I mean hiking at 6 in the morning does sound fun, but not everyday, and not under duress.

The Enjoyment of sleeping is ephemeral.  Because really, you're unconscious during the majority of the activity.  The only time you can acknowledge that sleeping is an enjoyable pastime is when you're just about to fall asleep safe and warm on the mattress, and when you wake up safe and warm in the sheets and fuzzy blanket and realize that you were sleeping, and you have about another hour to doze.

And  attaining the amount of sleep that signifies enjoyment is precarious.  You almost always never get enough sleep, hoping that 5 more minutes in the unconscious space will last forever, or you get too much and you feel like a lazy bum that has wasted the day away.  Because sleeping is no fun when you can do it whenever you want because you have nothing better to do.  It's no fun when you can sleep in on a weekday, all day everyday.  That's why sleeping in is never appreciated only during summer and winter breaks, only the anticipation is.


My favorite memory feeling sleeping is when I woke up in the morning earlier than I needed to go to school, to the sound of my dad getting ready for work.  It's still dark and warm in the room, and the only light is coming from the crack at the bottom of the closed bathroom door.

That was in elementary school, though.  From 6th grade on, I needed to wake up about an hour earlier than him.

I love water crackers

I love water crackers they're crunchy and nutty and the perfect base, heartier than a corn chip, and much less salty.

to mashed avocados
to smoked salmon
to caviar
to roasted garlic
to cheese
to spinach and artichoke dip

My Greatest Fear

I see a billion wannabe screenwriters, a billion wannabe actors, a billion wannabe singers, a billion wannabe painters.  Oh art, you fickle, fickle prey.

These people that are working towards their dream, supplementing it with waitress jobs, nannying jobs, door-to-door salesmen jobs.  Am I a pessimistic cynic for immediately assuming that they're never going to make it? A few years from now am I going to see them on David Letterman talking about how they used to work at a movie theater and how now the smell of stale popcorn makes them hyperventilate like it was just a distant, romanticized, character-building memory?

What if I'm one of those people that are never going to make it? Will it be because I didn't want it enough? Or could wanting it never be enough because I'm too delusional to see my own bad taste? That what's clear as day to everyone else becomes invisible through my rose-colored glasses?

Shit Kids Say

So most of these aren't as funny when transcribed.  Some of them probably aren't funny at all.  Which makes me feel like those moms that tells everyone the hilarious thing their kid said at dinner last night when you just want to be like okay...so you mean he said a sentence?

   You had to be there.  You had to see their innocent little faces, the sincerity in their voices.  What kills me is when even the most buttfaced little child has these moments of sincerity.  After all the screaming and rudeness and sass, they're still little babies.  They're not trying to be funny, they're just figuring their way around this little thing called Life. 

____

7 year old: well you said to tape every single part
Me: no I didn't.  I said just to tape it around the CD
7 year old: well I thought you said to tape every single part
5 year old: Samantha, you just wanted to do it your own way

5 year old playing teacher tries to read a book to her brother and me while we make silly faces: Kristy, you keep pushing it and pushing it and pushing it!
4 year old: (whispering) please keep pushing it

4 year old: Can I eat the slime ?
Me : No! Why would you want to eat it? It's part of our experiment! It'll taste bad!
5 minutes later
4 year old: Can I eat it ?
Me: Sure, go ahead
4 year old: Nooooooo. Wait... should I ?

6 year old: Guess what! I lost my tooth yesterday
Me: Ooh cool! Can I see? Did you get any money?
6 year old: Yeah, I got 40 dollars
Me: 40 dollars ?! you mean...40 cents? are you sure it wasn't like 5 dollars? 
6 year old: Well...I got two dollars under my pillow, and both of them said 20 on them
Me: your MOM gave you 40 dollars for your tooth?!
6 year old: Nooooooooooo.  The toothfairy did.
Me: Oh, sorry--the TOOTH FAIRY gave you 40 dollars for your tooth?!
6 year old: Uh huh. 

Me: oh my god... 
3 year old: why did you say "Alright, Bob?"

3 year old: hold on, I want to touch this balloon for a minute...ooh it's sooo soft

Dream Diary Post 4

So I finally figured out how to write a post straight from my phone.

This is a little weird. I'm writing it in a email. Will the formatting come out?

I had a dream I bought this baguette of goat cheese and celery and I thought it was the most delicious and fresh thing ever. It was held in a clear plastic tube bag. A little while later I went back to eat what was left which was a soggy end piece with tofu-like chunks instead of goat cheese. I thought, this wasn't what I remembered...

There was this giant cream colored tent, like a circus tent, not a camping tent, at a family party and all the kids were playing on a giant pillowy cushion underneath it.  Sunlight from the window it hung against set the whole tent aglow.  I saw them all jumping around and went towards it wondering why I wasn't there. A girl jumped to me and exclaimed to me "it's an island!" I saw the toddlers dressed up in Halloween costumes, one was a ladybug and another was Thomas the Tank Engine, both costumes were clearly hand-me-downs, pilled and matted and fuzzy with lint. I pulled back part of the tent to look out the window, and saw the green front lawn and cul-de-sac below, damp with drizzling rain.

Facebook Makes Everyone Seem Crazy

A conversation about Facebook that has been building for nearly 10 years has reached an all-time-high-pitched buzz. With smart phones making it easier than ever to be connected 24/7 to social media, and various channels cross-cutting each other, much of the modern world is fully entrenched in a narcissistic-masquerading-as-introspective stupor.

Those people that post very personal mopey statuses and are always laid back in real life.

Those people that share links to dozens of articles everyday under the pretense of informing when in actuality it is a less direct cry for attention.

The people who share dozens of link after link, declaration after declaration on a friend's wall, a public validation of their friendship... Does one imagine himself/herself in a bubble when (s)he shares these posts, or has all the world truly become a stage? Does one automatically fall into a mindset of presentation when they have a "public" conversation?

The people that post Instagram pics of every anticlimactic social event and paraphernalia purchase.  It's one thing to post it on Instagram, it's another to deliberately share it on Facebook as well.

The people that post selfie after selfie of contrived stoicism.

Those 45 year old women that check in every time they go to the local restaurant next to Shoprite.

And worst of all, the people that rant about how loser-ish and transparent others' Facebook activity is.

Should we let the id truly run free? Are we more truthful than ever, or more self-involved and dependent yet isolated than ever 

We are addicted to the approval of others, though only concerned about their well- being insomuch  as how they serve us

The past year has seen a host of feature articles defining The Millienials.  Like generation X, the time has finally come that enough of us have entered adulthood enough so that society may summarize our generation into a particular set of character traits.  We are narcissistic, we think we are special, we're all waiting for people to finally notice our true genius. 

There has been backlash, scorning our out of touch and bitter predecessors, as certain authors offer counterfactual evidence in an attempt to end the conversation with a determining note of finality.  Millienials are more caring than ever, our multitasking skills is what will save us all.

But as I live my own life and find myself scrolling through various feeds with zombie-like enthusiasm, an inner turmoil with the mild fervor of a closeted transcendentalist poet, it makes me wonder  certain that those writers who pitch and invest in these critiques the most are probably millenials themselves.  A classic self-loathing projected on others. We are lost in Me, and we know it.

The recent Birthday of Joan Didion had reinforced every millennial blogger's belief that every introspective thought on the path of self-discovery is intellectual and beneficial for all.  Struggle is being meta-idealized, as we fabricate our memories as we live them.  2013 'twas also the year of Introverts, and thus media comforted us that the idea that thinking too much and worrying too much and alone time with oneself is a thing to humble-brag about, like being a nerd during the era of Seth Cohen.  We've been constantly told to be ourselves, to find ourselves, and to find our way.  Social media has offered the perfect platform to brand our journey.  But not all thoughts are gold, not all contribute to the self-realization of civilization.  But should we all continue to think that one's thoughts are important, we shall continue aimlessly wandering in our own respective circles of spotlight, never looking up to realize that there are other circles too.

Romanticizing Domesticity

Reading Man Repeller's book Seeking Love, Finding Overalls  (pleasantly surprised by the sincerity and intelligence of the sentimentality in comparison to her adjective-heavy blog prose) and Watching Sex and the City from season 1 has me craving comfort and meaning in earthly objects versus to the dull emptiness I feel when staring into the bottomless galactic chasm that swallows us.

To feel a thrill from picking up a well-crafted (if perhaps impractical for the dog-shit/salt seasoned streets of New York) shoe from Bergdorf's or Miu Miu.  To have your mom inquire that you shop for clothes and make jewelry and read about jewelry and bake cakes like it's your job (because it kind of is). To create for fun, how awesome is that? It's like license to be a kid.

Dream Diary Post 3

I dreamed that I was in this airy restaurant Somewhere in Europe there was a spiraling wooden staircase and the interior wall of the front was this fresh green, throughout the restaurant were touches of ivy and other hints of botany (but no flowers).  I sat down to eat upstairs a plate of something or other (there were vegetables nd there was rice it was all bite-sized) on a square table with a white tablecloth and then I feel asleep.  And I woke up with my cheek to the mattress of a single-sized bed with dark mahogany headboard, the set up was not unlike a Dickensian dormitory or hospital.  I stood up, it was 10:00 in the morning, I walked down the stairs in the front and looked at the giant arched window above the door and the sunlight streaming in.  It was beautiful, but I felt out of place, alone and somewhere I wasn't supposed to be.  Like when I'm in a department store and notice a shelf of beautiful teapots and I want to marvel, but it's fleeting and tainted because the rest of the party is barreling ahead.

I am so clumsy

As a stocky five footer, I'm as clumsy as a gangly growing boy.  I regularly run into door jambs, trip and roll my ankle in flat-soled shoes and stub my toe on the side of the bed or couch or tub.

Just in the last couple days I:

Somehow swung a grocery bag holding a casserole squarely into the side of the car door, splitting the casserole dish in two with an impressive clang

slammed the front door on my finger nail

fell on the stairs in such a way that the my shins fell directly on the sharpest part of the  brick stairs

pulled a wastebasket towards me too quickly so that the bottom edge flew straight to my already bruised shin bones.

***

I think shortly after I typed this I slammed the front door on the nail of my index finger.

American Chinese Food

I have a serious craving. And with oily heartburn inducing delicacies that never actually appear at our dinner table (filled with Asian Chinese food) it's as escapist to me as any non-chinese cuisine.

Watching show after show romanticizing greasy chinese food as a comfort to a rainy day, a tired day, a heartbroken day.  Chopsticks fishing straight into the soggy paper boxes.  From sex and the city to big bang theory to Seinfeld.  I am so hungry.

Spring Rolls
Egg Drop Soup
Pork Fried Rice
Kunpao Chicken
fried dumplings
Lo Mein

Dream Diary Post 2

Just a sliver...

I dreamed I had laid out an apple cinnamon donut in the window of a storefront on top of a paper towel.  I was eating something else as well but I can't remember what it was.
The donut was actually pretty good, which surprises me everytime because my anticipation for apple-cinnamon flavored things is less than enthusiastic, but before finishing it I wanted to warm it in the microwave...

 My friend was holding some sort of a meeting in some sort of cafeteria...they were serving free Indian food, I was very excited, I had to pick up some papers, everyone else there was there for an important meeting, I don't know why I was there...I was trying to think of a reason, trying not to be annoyed that I wasted a subway swipe coming down to the cafeteria..thinking about the free food, hoping it would be redemption enough for the $2.50 I spent...

Life Is a Bitch and Then You Die/Youth Is Wasted On the Young

When you're a kid you beg to stay awake and then when you grow up there's not enough hours in the day to stay curled up in your blanket

When yor're a kid they beg you to eat coaxing you with kid food and everything, even a chicken nugget or some ice cream, sushi, anything, and then you grow up and all of a sudden you do have an appetite but you're constantly being told stop...STOP

Getting clothes as a present used to be the worst thing ever, and then you grow up and realize how fucking awesome not paying for clothes is

 I used to never know what I wanted for my birthday or Christmas whenever adults would ask...and now I could list a billion of things I want but no one asks anymore

They should make

They should make a timer that starts ticking right after you've emailed a potential employer and anyone else that you need something from, counting down to the next time you can email them without sounding like a desperate prick.  For the first two emails the timer would start ticking down from 1 week.  But after that the clock jumps to 2 weeks, or 2.5 weeks, or 3 weeks (I haven't decided).  Long enough that they forget the last time you contacted them, so it doesn't feel like you JUST sent them an email, but short enough that they remember who you are.


Applying for jobs is a bitch.

Asking for a favor from someone who doesn't see any personal benefit from helping you ('cause who does shit out of the good of their heart anymore), is a bitch.

Dream Diary Post 1

I still don't know dream summary etiquette.  I know "I had the weirdest dream last night" is supposed to be a cue to stop listening.  But the thing is, everyone wants to share that weird dream, that unshakeable twisted feeling while you found a secret garden or talked to your dog in English while having breakfast with George Clooney.  But no one wants to hear it. Why?  1. They had to be there. 2. Dream recounts can often be an implicit boast of "check out my interesting brain, yo!"

And I think back to the times that I've listened to other people's dreams...ok so my eyes do glaze over when I hear about the fantastical stuff...tap dancing on a frog while jousting with your principal...save that for your drawings, I guess.  But the realistic stuff, having a dream that you were still in that horrid AP US history class and 4 journals of homework uncompleted, that you made up with that estranged friend and woke up and realized you didn't...the dreams that are obviously tied to conscious preoccupations...those I don't mind hearing about as much.

This wasn't the most interesting, but I dunno today was the day I decided to actually write them down

I had this dream where I had six unannounced guests in my house, my parents' house, rather.  I was practicing piano with someone I don't remember, feeling annoyed that one of the lines required me to reach my pinky octaves lower than the rest of the melody, and pop back up.  An acquaintance appeared sitting on the white couch and made some inappropriate lewd comment regarding a princess illustration on one of sheets of music (evidently the sheet music transformed to nursery tunes) and I walked out of the room.  Then my 6 guests arrived.  I felt a flash of panic and wondered how my mom would take it though she was standing not 20 feet from me.  I eyed the giant oriental rug on our family room floor imagining them side by side like pigs in a blanket thinking...well it's not so bad if they stayed there...not very obtrusive...I imagined them walking through the halls touching things they saw touching the things in my room and my stomach clenched...
all of a sudden I was waking up in the top bunk of a bunk bed, of two bunk beds in my room, I looked to the right and saw two recognizable curled bodies on the other bunk, confused for a moment because one of the boys was not there the evening before, and thinking, well of course he's here, he's always mooching off of other people...a couple people were already in the midst of leaving, going wherever they were going in the haze of the morning...
and then I was on the floor next to the bottom bunk of my bed and there's my friend, but with the body of a baby...with the chubby face and chubby hands and abbreviated chunky torso...and my other friend remarked matter-of-factly (with a tint of I-can't believe you didn't know this) everyone wakes up with the body of a baby...and then we grow throughout the day...and I thought, oh really, as I picked up my friend, holding her with my hands under her armpits dangling her in front of me...and when I looked up again all my other friends became mounds of sleeping babies...
We're on the floor of the foyer and there's two groups of kids getting ready to go upstairs for their science lessons.  I'm usually with one group but wander to the other because a lot of them have been absent...I look in my hands and there are giant plaster models of ears and noses...evidently we were going to stick fake earwax and boogers into the respective crevices to learn about germs.  This second group acts like I'm supposed to be there all along, and I see my group of kids walking up the stairs to the labs already...I feel like I'm getting left behind, being somewhere I'm not supposed to be...
I'm in the apartment of a fictional sister of my friend, I was staring at her under the pretense she was a stranger until she starts talking to me and recognition dawns instantly.  She had just graduated from college and was holding a diploma and wearing her robes...it was an amazing feat because she was around 32, even though her face was still oily and pockmarked with acne, and had an 8 year old daughter. She thanked me for reading to her daughter while she was away and I said it was no problem I do it all the time and started giving some advice about hard work vs being smart how being smart is only half the battle blah blah blah (this was the most lucid part of my dream where my conscious brain was contributing) and then I woke up.

Parenthood is my Guilty Pleasure

There are some people who angrily exclaim that there is no such thing as a guilty pleasure. If you like it, then there should be no reason to be ashamed, they cry.  There is no such thing as high brow, low brow, it's an idea invented by ignorant snobs.  I disagree. There are just some things that I enjoy that I just can't stand behind.

Parenthood is one of them.

It's melodramatic, the situations are contrived, they use the same old gimmicks of unexpected pregnancies, affairs, cancer. Besides basic personality traits, each season the characters respond differently from how you would expect them to the previous year, Jekyll and Hyde fashion.  Assholes become angels, and vice versa.

The revolving door of serious love interests for the unmarried mother daughter duo-- it's not the number of boyfriends that is the issue, but the feeling that the writers have a Taylor Swift-ian addiction to falling in love---but they don't know where to go after that.

Whenever the four siblings get together to discuss their parents, the camraderie and teasing and cross-talking feels forced, a too-obvious display of look-how-dysfunctional-we-are-but-we're-awesome.

What saves the show, however,  is how they react beautifully to their situations. once you get over the  the soap opera-y circumstances, you appreciate that dialogue is mostly honest and realistic.  The mother that would rather be working in the office than be present for every dance class and baseball practice.  The marriage that seems to be on rocky ground after several decades.  The father that doesn't love his new baby yet.  The daughter that feels overshadowed by her autistic brother.  Despite the sappy moments, it's the only dramedy that explores family life without veering into Afterschool special or Anti-Hero (A la Tony Soprano or Don Draper) territory.

I don't know anyone else who watches this show, and definitely not anyone my age.  Unless they knit.  or have 3 cats. Or listen to Contemporary Country Music.  Watching it makes me feel like some stay-at-home mom.  I don't watch it on TV and I never see it mentioned on websites, but somebody's gotta be watching it if it squeezed its way into a 4th season.

I think I'd miss it when it ends.

I love the Yeezus Album Cover

Yeezus Album cover,  I love it.  I have a soft spot for any usage of minimal red as a focal point.  But it's so on point (pun wasn't intended, but now is), so in tune (pun wasn't intended, but now is) with what Kanye West wants to offer on the album musically . Bareness. Spareness. Yet Riveting.  The simple piece of red tape applied not perfectly on the edge of the horizon line.  That contrasts beautifully with the filmy silvery iridescence of the disc.  He made us appreciate the beauty of the blank CD itself, a fascination usually reserved for babies and the Amish.

  Instead of brainstorming the most complicated, unusual design to plaster on the cover, West walked in the opposite direction and presents something just as visually impacting, if not more so.  He spoke softly, but carries a big stick.

The Type of People who Volunteer/Do Community Service

1. Do gooders that want to help others
2. Confused people who are trying to make sense of their own life
3. Overcompensators that want to show the world how they're gooder than everyone, the ones that ham it up for the foster kids and homeless and senior citizens but turn a stoic face to "the normals"
4. People being punished

I volunteered at the Bingo night at a nursing home yesterday. Being there reminded me of those times we visited during Girl Scouts projects and with the cobbled together kid's chorus group made up of our neighborhood's Taiwanese Christians. And me.  There was this constant inner conundrum of wanting to be accommodating yet not condescending.  The excruciating wait watching some of the Bingo players with their knitted hats and long triangular fingernails gingerly locate and cover the called number. Some of them wore homemade beaded bracelets, with the same kinds of chunky glass and base metal beads that were in my beading kit I got for Christmas in 5th grade. I wonder if some kid gave it to them or they made it in the Arts and Crafts room.  A man wore a beaded necklace.  It was stupid, but it made me happy that they still treasured pretty things, pretty and intrinsically worthless things, just like the rest of us.  That if it was a kid that gave it to them, it wasn't just a polite exchange made more in an attempt to make the giver feel important, but it was special to both parties.

There was a male senior who shook my hand and spoke only German.  Or Russian. I forget.  And soon after he shook my hand they said they needed a male volunteer to stand next to him instead because apparently he liked to touch people in places that would still be covered by a bathing suit.

I wanted to yell at the middle-aged men that were excessively superficially hammy with the seniors, you're not better than them, you're just not There yet.

Thoughts/Tweets that will probably never make it Part 3

1. random sentence I wrote in summer 2010
the warming gel pack lay limp in the basin, like a dead fish waiting to be poached for supper

2. random sentence I wrote in january 2010

All my professors were/are nice, but it doesn't stop me from observing them as if I were on a safari and they were in their natural habitats.

3. These random sentence compilations  are in part an urge to clean out my drafts folder filled with barely attempted posts

4. random sentence from August 2010

I hate sleeping in new places. There's always the aching awareness that I am not at home.  Home being where I have/am accustomed to laying my head for the past week.

5. I hate that I keep having the compulsion to post something vulnerable and truthful (to be real, man) and then have the urge to "revert post back to draft" when I reread it not a week later. Because sometimes when I see other people pour their hearts out in a face book status I admire/appreciate their abiilty to put themselves out there. But other times it's like, oh my god, cut the sap.  The hope that someone out there you know is reading, the fear that they are. 

6. I just came back from microwaving leftover pudding from my banana cream pie endeavor.  Except now that I'm back I don't know what impelled me to walk over to the refrigerator at that moment. Hunger, obviously, but I had been lazy enough to ignore that all morning.  What electrical current sped over my synapses so that I decided to stand up and walk away mid-thought?

7. Funny how I hated writing in 5th grade and on when we had to keep "lifebooks" and we did all those exercises like zoom in/zoom out and just writing writing writing raw raw raw anything and everything.  And I realize, sometimes you just need to write every single thought and detail in your mind to exercise the path from thought to word.  It would be lovely and ego-stroking if there was someone there to actually read each and every one of these asinine thoughts, but it's more about the flow flow flow and maybe someday when you go back and reread you will find some rocks that could be worthy of polishing.

8.  I'm willing to suffer for my art, she said, as she slowly cut each finger off, knuckle by knuckle. 

I don't like painted pumpkins

If I were Larry David or Seinfeld, it would be funny that I'm griping about such asinine things.  But I'm not, so it's not.


I hate painted pumpkins.  They annoy me so much.  Call me narrow-minded, but I feel that pumpkins are strictly to be carved if they are to be made into decorations.  At least that way it utilizes and showcases the hollow nature of the gourd, especially when a glowing candle is placed inside. When you paint it, it just feels like such a waste, a superficial film of illustration while its insides of pulp and seeds lay rotting.  When you could've made bland roasted pumpkin seeds.  You might as well just paint a solid rock.  Those were never alive.


side note: In elementary school they never let me eat pumpkin seeds because they were afraid I was allergic to them, nut allergy-afflicted child that I was. 

10:30 PM at Kinko's

Standing in Kinko's waiting for their "print and go" app to load at a tortuously slow pace, not even the free wifi is helping, already feeling violated having spent $4.32 on the pay .30/min rental computer only to print out a singe resume after debating whether or not to spend $18.60 on color printing 18 pages of single-sided line sheets and deciding no, there's got to be a better way...while employee #1 with the thick rectangular black frame glasses and energetic black hair vacuums and cheerfully chastises himself for "missing that corner again" spitting out sparse raucous laughter while muzak plays faintly in the background and the employee #2 with the blonde Brillo pad hair and wire-rimmed glasses responds in the high-pitched voice that yes, backstabbing in Call of Duty is indeed a clever strategic maneuver... or maybe he said never really played it...I don't remember...

Never have I felt more like Walter White or Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Looper or any other violent but artsy thriller/crime/drama at that point in the plot where it's the calm before the storm or the calm right after the storm where they're sitting in a empty diner swirling their barely-touched coffee or buying snacks at a dusty gas station when they are just about to kill some people and abandon their partners in crime and loved ones or right after they did.

The app finally did load but my document didn't so I left defeated with 5 minutes left until closing.


My heart still pains from spending 5 dollars to print a single sheet of paper.

I don't like The Script

What? The last post I wrote was nearly twenty days ago? I honestly do have a lot of ideas to scribble down but lose momentum by the time I remember how to log in.  Seriously, the hardest part about keeping up with a blog is logging in.  I think there's an app that makes it simple to just stream a thought straight to the blog without coming to blogger but I'm too lazy too look right now.  Plus, sometimes I need pictures.


Anyways, I don't like The Script.  I find their melodies boring and depressing because they're boring in an easy listening Adult Contemporary kind of way. Just thinking about it puts me in the waiting room of the dentist's office.  Like if you listen to The Script you probably like The Bee Gees and Shania Twain.

Except these days I'm loathe to declare I hate something not because it's juvenile but because it always results in the impulse of exploring said loathed object until I love it (see: olives, coconuts, onions, kanye west).

Other People's Jewelry: Miansai

Jewelry for boys, by a boy. Loved by all.  It makes me a little sad that for all the beautiful delicate jewelry a lot of female designers make--dainty champion Catbird is the prime example--boys have an uncanny ability to make universal hardy pieces. Pieces that are inspired by hardware and industrial parts without being directly derivative.  Pieces with enough heft and the proper proportions so that the average man that isn't Liberace or Johnny Depp would actually want to wear it, and that women love to steal.  Pieces that can easily adorn a thicker wrist and endure the rough-and-tumble of manual labor and general careless bumping around. Because menswear automatically translates to unisex.  Womenswear tends to be relegated to the pink side of the pond--unless you're Kanye West.


I want this,

The Naomi Cuff

And this.

The Reeve Cuff

That is all.

(find them on miansai.com)

Outfits from January 2010

outfits

1. flowery liberty blouse with brown jumper (inspired by the homely outfits the women wear in Lars and the Real Girl)

2. 60s shift with white shirt and blue tights (Audrey Hepburn meets kindergarten)

3. sheer blue with white skirt (ballerina)

4. sheer black with white skirt ( dark ballerina)

5. pink dress with white tights and ferragamos (inspired by Wendy from Peter Pan the Disney animated version)

6. sweater dress with white shirt and magenta tights (all girls school uniform)

20 (I only made it to 8)

Sitting in my drafts folder since 2010

I wrote a list of 18 things when I turned 18 so there's a lot of pressure to make this more sophisticated and whatnot (am I older, wiser?) but the truth is it's just not going to come out that way.  I'm just making different, not wiser revelations.  Happy golden 20th anyways.

Truths

1. Sometimes I avoid the things I love/anticipate the most because I know it's going to be too much and I'm gonna want to absorb it too fast and I'm not ready yet.  So I just pretend it doesn't exist yet.
**and the thought that a million people are out there loving it is too.much. (hello new harry potter books, vampire weekend records, kanye west records, regina spektor records, daft punk records)

2. I like all things lemon and lime related.

3.  Shopping is fun but it should not be considered a hobby.

4. I think it would be a lot easier to be a human if people were just to sit for a moment and delineate between what they want to want to do (think about that for a moment)  and what they really want to do during their lives.  Being a doctor is all well and noble but sometimes you just want to be a freelance writer. Follow your passion, it'll save you a lot of circling back 10, 20 years from now.

5. Unless your aspiration is to be a dog whisperer or play techno-calypso music--in that case nevermind--take that job on Wall Street. Eating is nice.

6.  I find lots of cliches to be true and useful (well duh, they became cliches somehow).  But it takes arriving at that particular milestone in your life to wholly imbibe the meaning and meaningfulness of said cliches.

7.  I can see that at age 20, I have not matured beyond using the very eloquent word of "duh."

8.  I like simple pleasures, the little things.  A stick of gum, a cancelled appointment, nice weather, the relieved feeling after...relieving yourself #urine.

Jewelry Vows

I will not make letter jewelry unless I come up with some really original execution concept

I will not make number jewelry unless I come up with some some really original execution concept

I will not simply pluck designs and objects from my surroundings without reinterpreting them (e.g., punctuation, sharpened pencils, animals)

I will not directly cast found objects unless I come up with some some really original execution concept

I will not make personalized name jewelry unless I come up with some some really original execution concept

I will adorn my metal pieces in settings other than pavé

I will not make rings by just sticking some design on a plain band I will always think of my designs from all angles

I will never make traditional jewelry that someone can just pick up from Zales or the jewelry district. Sure it would be nice to make money from a customer that wants plain gold hoops, diamond studs, or a solitaire ring, but there's no point to spend the labor and time and money to make something that is unremarkable and unrecognizable as my work.

I will never reproduce antique jewelry, unless I really, really want to.  And I will never call them my own designs.





Shit.  But I might have to make gold star pieces.  I just have to.  It's a childhood thing, obviously.

On Miley Cyrus and the 2013 VMAs

I didn't watch the VMAs,  they're a bunch of bullshit.  But I did finally watch a clip of Robin and Miley's performance.

Just commenting on it makes me feel like I'm falling into some sort of media-engineered trap. There is no real controversy, just some orchestrated shootout to increase site traffic on blogs. That is, if people aren't really outraged, let's tell them they should be outraged so that we can hate on a young woman doing nothing different than all the other idiotic young women so that we can pat ourselves on the back for not displaying our asinine behavior in such a public manner. As if we will ever have the chance to.  Let's pretend to be enraged and conservative so that the liberals and 3rd wave feminists come out to play and tell us how a woman has the right to do whatever she wants with her body. So that we can have this bullshit superficial tired dialogue about whether Miley was in the right or in the wrong.  Was she progressive or a fool? Never mind Robin Thicke was standing and breathing right next her at nearly twice her age.

 Shut up world, you love that she seems to fuck up, you really, really do.


The only part of the performance we should be talking about is how she is using (much more full-bodied) black women as props to her story just as Gwen Stefani used her Harajuku girls.  Yo white ladies, these are real legacies real culture that real people subscribe to, not just some stylistic choice.  Sure Miley you must think twerking is exotic and badass as hell, but would you actually be willing to ride with these women to their homes outside of Manhattan or Williamsburg or Park Slope? No one's saying you can't be inspired by other cultures, it's just that after centuries of oppression it would be real nice if you didn't make a farce out of other practices.  Not that twerking is freaking ceremonial or anything, but there was a time when women didn't become strippers and coke snorters by choice.

Other People's Jewelry: Daniela Villegas Jewelry

Many jewelry artists are afraid to praise other jewelry artists for fear of 1. denigrating their own work (your own pieces must not be very good if you are admiring the work of others) and 2. being accused of copying if evidence or seeming evidence of similarities are to be found.  However, I think that if you are secure enough in your own point of view and aesthetic, there is no reason to feel inferior nor guilty of plagiarism.  There are so many different ways to execute ideas, even WHEN people have the same sources of inspiration, you make a butterfly and I make a butterfly and it still doesn't have to come out the same. Just because we work in the same media does not mean we are substitute goods for each other.  A painter can praise another painter, a director can praise another director, a jewelry designer can praise another jewelry designer.  It makes the world of creativity a richer and more inspirational space if we openly recognize good work, even when it's not our own.  If you're worried about copying, then don't copy.  

So today I am here to admire Daniela Villegas jewelry.  I love her interpretations that are both selectively literal yet poetic, she takes the core elements of her inspirations (scarabs, porcupines, and more)  and mirrors their beauty in the most lovely materials--delicious opal or real porcupine quills in a manner that is definitely not minimal but never overwhelmingly ornate nor kitschy.  She's found the space between scientifically accurate and elegantly lyrical--such a rare combination.

 So many bug-inspired jewelry pieces dive straight into pave-ing entire expanses of the surface in same colored stones creating such a glittery onslaught on the eyes  making a $20,000 piece indistinguishable from a $20 piece sold on a table in union square. The somewhat unusual color combination of stones manages to be most harmonious.  And the iridescent wings, how often do designers make the effort to truly mimic that quality? How often do they even think that it's possible?

centipedes are always left out of the cute bug game until Daniela came along.  She is loyal to the true form of the icky critter while creating a luxurious ring

Again, the cute but not cutesy.  And it's the perfect blend between realistic and cartoon-y. I don't remember the last time I saw a porcupine piece, never mind a porcupine piecesthat had the quills in accurate stylized disarray. They're always too neat.  And the incorporation of actual porcupine quills lends texture without an excessively rustic feel. 

Things I'm going to Try to Try in Berlin

Things I'm going to try to try in Berlin

Food:

1. Beer
2. Wurst and Sauerkraut
3. Japanese Food
4. From a Food Cart
5. Whitefish
6. Middle Eastern food
7. Pudding
8. Some sort of apple dessert


Places:

1. Holocaust Museum
2. Berlin Wall
3. Tiergarten
3. Graffiti (Perhaps one of the following)
--Circleculture Gallery (Gipsstrasse 11; 49-30-275-817-80; www.circleculture-gallery.com), on a charming side street in Mitte’s gallery district, shows international graffiti and street artists.

The back of the East Side Gallery in Friedrichshain (www.eastsidegallery.com ), the longest remaining piece of the Berlin Wall (about 0.8 mile), offers fine examples of local graffiti styles. Take the S-Bahn to Warschauer Strasse.

The east end of the Friedrichstrasse S-Bahn platform offers views of Kripoe’s giant fists, which rise from the boarded-up windows of an abandoned building.

A lot at Falckensteinstrasse and Schlesische Strasse in Kreuzberg offers a variety of styles from locals like Inka to the building-size murals of the Italian artist Blu and the French artist JR. The nearest U-Bahn stop is Schlesisches Tor.

4. Mitte In general

5. Bauhaus

Things I'm going to Try to Try in Paris

While I try to remember to fervently guard my purse
Food:

1. Croissant
2. Macaron
3. Chocolate Eclair
4. Mille Feuille
5. Pomme Frites (with mussels or steak, if price allows)
6. A Brasserie and a traditional Brasserie dish
7. A Bistro and a traditional Bistro dish
8. McDonalds
9. a plate of fruit, cheese, meat and bread


Sightseeing:
It is highly unlikely that I will hit all of these as I am trying to just do one a day

1. Eiffel Tower
2. Champ Elysee
3. Montmartre
4. Invalides
5. Marais
6. Opera
7. Le Louvre
8. Orsay
9. Beaubourg


Shopping:
1.Lafayette
2. Printemps
3. Bd Haussman

Romantic Comedies

There's so few of them that are actually good I needed to document this endangered species

1. When Harry Met Sally
2. Sleepless in Seattle
3. You've got Mail
4. Bridget Jones Diary
5. Love, Actually
6. 10 Things I Hate About You



Honorable Mention:
1. Just like Heaven
2. Kate and Leopold
3. Notting Hill
4. The Proposal
5. The Notebook


Not really typical romantic comedy (other morals take precedence), but has romantic comedy in it:
1. As Good as it Gets
2. Juno
3. About a Boy
4. The Wedding Banquet
5. Eat Drink Man Woman
6. Silver Linings Playbook
7. Friends with Kids
8. Amelie
9. My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Not super happy, but still romantic:
1. Before Sunrise
2. Before Sunset
3. You are the Apple of My Eye
4. (500) Days of Summer

Period Romance:
1. Breakfast at Tiffany's
2. Roman Holiday
3. Pretty in Pink
4. Pride & Prejudice
5. The Princess Bride
6. The Shop Around the Corner

Period Romance that is not really typical romantic comedy (other morals take precedence), but has romantic comedy in it
1. The Breakfast Club
2. Sixteen Candles
3. It's a Wonderful Life
4. Singin' in the Rain
5. My Fair Lady
6. Sound of Music

Not super fond of, but other people like them:
1. My Best Friend's Wedding
2. Pretty Woman
3. One Fine Day
4. The Wedding Singer
5. Green Card
6. Groundhog's Day
7. Clueless

On Paula Deen (and her N word fiasco)

Paula Deen has found herself in a (deep-fried) pickle again.  Unlike the diabetes, Novo Nordisk controversy, her missteps this time have found her facing far more observable public disapproval and financial (read: business partnerships) consequences.  Long story short: a former manager (Lisa Jackson) accuses Deen of creating a hostile environment, including racial slurs and viewing of pornography by her brother during work hours while employed at Deen and brother's restaurant some 20 or 30 years ago. During questioning, when asked if she had ever used the N word, she responded, "of course."  She details a story of being robbed at gunpoint by a black person and referring to him as the "n****r" when recounting the story to a family member. When asked whether race jokes are appropriate, she dodged the shot transparently-- "I can't, myself, determine, what offends another person."

Let's get the real world reasons for the hoopla out of the way first. It's money, it's all about money.  It is important to remember that Paula Deen isn't being shunned by business partners because she may or may not be racist.  First of all, the lawsuit has been brought about with accusations of a hostile work environment  that happen to include elements of racism and sexism (if it matters, the plantiff is white). Second of all, large companies like Walmart, Target, Smithfield Farms, etc. couldn't give a rat's ass whether or not Deen is actually racist--even if there was such a thing as a Racist-O-Meter and the arrow confidently swung to NOT RACIST, it would be far too late.  The accusation is in the air.  Her brand persona has now been tainted and is no longer monetarily viable.  Just the allegations are enough to bring a personality brand down.

Commenters of the fall from grace fall into these categories

Pro Paula: The media is bored: overblowing a minor PAST error in ways to fill minutes of air time and pages of blogs. She said it once! It was a different time! They're trying to paint this darling of an old woman as an ignorant hick and burn her at stake.  They're blowing it up because she's a woman (which I do wonder about myself).  A few black people have declared their race (because it's hard to see on the internet) and proclaimed, I've seen racist, and she's no racist, she didn't mean no harm.  She's like your grandmother who is out of touch with current social propriety, but she makes pies to die for so let's all turn the other way.


Anti-Paula: She said an awful awful thing, she is an awful awful person.  She's racist, sniveling, calculative, greedy. Never liked her, here's just the final reason why.  I TOLD YOU.


Paula may be a good person, but she's got three strikes and needs to be out:  Paula Deen isn't evil, but she's a little dishonest.  She's sorry because she's like a 5 year old fibbing about stealing a cookie from the cookie jar and tearful because she got caught in her lie.  She was able to hop around the diabetes landmine, dusting her hands off on her apron just as it exploded behind her.  But her clumsiness finally caught up to her.  She may be a business woman but she's just not very smart in some ways.  She's racist. And she might never know that she is, and the people that support her might never know she is, regardless of race.  From what I've seen, to your face, it doesn't matter if you're white black yellow red purple, she'll be polite.  She'll probably be gracious.  She might lend you a cup of sugar.  But that says nothing about what she thinks about you when you turn your back. She might think you were adorable, but people think dogs are adorable. She might help you, but in the way you help a child, (they're so helpless a few minutes of my time will mean the world to them, and cost me almost nothing).  And as the robber story shows, she'll turn on you and blame it on your race (not because you're a bad person) the minute you aren't grateful for "all that has been given to you."

I hope people can see.  IT'S NOT ABOUT THE N WORD.  It's about her nonchalance about it.  She didn't blame her character for her transgressions, she blamed it on the time period.  She simply said she hasn't said it in a long time, as if she  hasn't said it because she knows it's not proper now, rather than because she knows it's a horrible thing to say.  Paula Deen just doesn't get it.

During the racism interrogation, Deen explains the accusation that she suggested a plantation wedding for her brother:

... I remember telling them about a restaurant that my husband and I had recently visited. And I'm wanting to think it was in Tennessee or North Carolina or somewhere, and it was impressive. The whole entire wait staff was middle-aged black men, and they had on beautiful white jackets with a black bow tie. I mean it was, it was really impressive.And I remember saying I would love to have servers like that, I said, but I would be afraid that somebody would misinterpret.Q. If you would have had servers like that, why would that have made it a really Southern plantation wedding?A. Well, it — to me, of course, I'm old but I ain't that old, I didn't live back in those days but I've seen pictures, and the pictures that I've seen, that restaurant represented a certain era in America ... after the Civil War, during the Civil War, before the Civil War.Q. Back in an era where there were middle-aged black men waiting on white people.A. Well, it was not only black men it was black women. ... I would say that they are slaves. But I did not mean anything derogatory by saying I loved their look and their professionalism.

Paula Deen is completely clueless.  Openly chatting with the attorney about how "impressive" it was to have an entire waitstaff of "middle-aged black men" that wore "beautiful white jackets with a black bow tie." She doesn't even blink, she doesn't even know she is romanticizing and fetishizing an era that was so painful, so dehumanizing for a good portion of her fellow humans. She wanted a plantation wedding like that, but was afraid it would be "misinterpreted."  Misinterpreted as what? for what it actually is--an unsavory reminder of errors past?  When the attorney dryly notes that Deen's definition of a "true plantation wedding" harked back to a past where black men waited on white people, Deen completely misses his pointedness as she clarifies, "well it was not only black men it was black women...I would say that they are slaves." Ay, there's the rub. She knows exactly what these black men waiting are reminiscent of, and she sees nothing wrong with this tidbit.  As she reassures, "she did not mean anything derogatory," she simply loved "their look and their professionalism," as if praising a well-behaved dog.

I hope Paula knows she isn't being persecuted for saying the N word. She's being sacrificed because she's the public figural representation of a whole bevy of white Southerners that just. don't. get. that it's wrong. In the game of survival of the fittest people like her have got to  evolve or face extinction.  Hit me with your protestations that The South is unfairly portrayed as backwards, that they've moved on since then.  Well, I've met too many people that haven't. too many that are my age.  Too many that still whisper "black people" in conversations. Too many people that unabashedly proclaim, my parents are racist, but don't worry, they like Asians because they're hardworking.

I hope Paula Deen changes.  I hope she doesn't feel like a martyr.  I hope she doesn't kill herself.  Here's your chance to stop trying to talk the talk and actually walk the walk.

Thoughts/Random Facts

From Freshman Year...

In the cafeteria This girl who is my ex-room mate's frenemy looked at me and looked away.  This is after I saw that she wrote on my room mate's facebook wall,

your presence is missed :( saw your roommate when I was swiping into Hayden... she still looks clueless as ever ahahha

I hate that it bothers me, that it feels more like high school than college (we're all supposed to be adults!)  I feel like I'm making such a big deal out of I don't know I'll regret if people read this and if it will make me feel vulnerable and small but oh well I think everyone has been stabbed in the back before by people they know they shouldn't give a shit about. 

I saw this girl who I think I saw on youtube.  I stared at her for a moment and she looked back at me until I was conscious of the recognition that was obvious in my face so I quickly looked at the other people in the room as if I was eavesdropping on everything.  Man I really need to work on not being an obvious might-as-well-be-wearing-a-bright-red-bodysuit dork

1.  I feel bad for feeling bad when I see someone eating alone because having eaten alone (and I still do), I know he/she is not lonely and in actuality it's rather peaceful.

2.  My hair is so icky lately...like for the last 3 months.  Usually it's all soft and light after I wash it, but lately it's been so dry and the shampoo (I've been using Pantene pretty much since the age I wasn't bald anymore) hasn't been jiving with my hair--it leaves the roots in a matted tangled mess, forcing me to condition right next to the scalp in order to get it out.  I'm almost hoping it's the winter weather/heating that's drying it up and not something annoying like having to eat healthy in order to remedy it.

3.  I keep hearing this buzzing noise.  Sounds like my cellphone but it seems like it's coming from another direction.  Maybe I have supersonic hearing and it's from next door.

***

nope it's my cellphone.  I need to get my ears checked.

4. Watching Mary Tyler Moore.  Man she is skinny.  I'm almost scared for her until I realize this show is 40 years old.  And why do they keep saying Rhoda's fat?  Are they all Twiggy wannabes?  Love the clothes, but the premise is too caught between trying to be edgy and homey.  Honey Mooners is better.

5. I love Anthropologie's aesthetic but the general quality of their clothes and jewelry seem really poor for their prices (free people and urban outfitters are the same).  Honestly I don't know why they make the lack of quality so obvious, sometimes it's like Forever 21 clothing and jewelry for J Crew prices.  I'm really surprised that they're so successful when most of the reviews for their items are negative.  I guess they really suck you in (myself included) with the irresistible styles.

6. I hate when super supercilious people go like, " I have a PHD in psychology went to Yale and have an IQ of 170 and I think Family Guy is hilarious" as if their academic intelligence asserts that there's some hidden, underlying genius to these butt-head shows. Um, no, all it means is that you're secretly a 12 year old boy, and have the same humor as the middle aged college dropouts that our living in their parents' basement.  Get over it.

7. I can't help but think that it's impossible to be super made up and intelligent at the same time.  Naturally beautiful, that's a different story.  I dunno, it  just seems like if you can devote hours to tanning and layering eyeliner on, it's hard to imagine that you truly have a passion for learning.  'Cause if you did, wouldn't you rather spend your time reading/writing theorems/saving the world than on your appearance? 

best movies in the history of the universe

1. shawshank redemption
2. pan's labyrinth
3. guess who's coming to dinner
4. 12 angry men
5. Battle of Algiers

Tweets that will probably never make it Part 2

before twitter these were just thoughts. Now my brain automatically molds them into 140 character (give or take) boxes.

1. I had a dream I was typing my passcode on a telephone keypad I kept getting distracted all I needed to type was BOOK and I kept messing up at the first O. Was so frustrating I woke up.

2. If you sleep sitting up I'm going to call you a vampire

3. I wish I had established a more sardonic and biting persona so that when I unleash bitter and self-indulgent truths people would think it was comically grumpy.

4. Stop being so self-pitying u remind me of myself

5. I went back and reread my old tweets.  What a bore.  The first ones were promotional for my etsy shop, fine.  But the other ones, whiny and humble-braggy and confessional in the most uninteresting ways.

6.  I went back and reread old blog posts too.  I hate that I'm one of those people with an out of date blog, nearly whole years between some posts.  So different, so young and then not.

Other people's jewelry: BVLGARI SERPENTI Bracelet

So while waiting for someone, I tried this on.  It was love. Bold jewelry like this usually isn't my thing, but it was smaller (still bold) than I expected. The geometric snake abstraction and buttery 18K gold with diamonds and onyx did me in.   It instinctively hugged my wrist like a high class version of those vinyl slap bracelets. Obviously the craftsmanship was flawless.  You get what you pay for--so shell out $52,000, please. I will probably, never, ever, own this in my life.  The price of a year of tuition at a prestigious college! A luxury car! I can't even imagine buying this unless I made millions of millions of dollars.  Imagine losing it! Gold digging makes much more sense to me now.  Seriously, I need to dig me up some gold.

A Cartier LOVE bracelet just seems downright puny now.

Tweets that never make it (some might make it maybe, maybe not)

half finished thoughts that are either a little too real or feel awkwardly pretentious and maudlin or aren't coherent in a 140 character setting:

1.  Hipster girls and their gay boyfriends

2. 95% of the time people respond to your sarcasm earnestly it means they're really gullible but also that they think you're really stupid.

3.  Those annoying instances when you run into someone on a day you don't normally run into them the day before you normally run into them and now you have to wear different clothes tomorrow

4. I feel like we could achieve world peace if everyone became a nudist.  How are you supposed to incide terror if you dont have a pocket to put your grenade in.

5. How to resist the temptation of eating a hot dog inadvertently catch yourself in the reverse camera function of your iPhone

6. A punk without The Man (to rebel against) is just a hobo

7.  I thought my mood chooses the music but really the music chooses my mood

8. I admire people who genuinely like raisins and granola bars and hard pretzels and celery sticks-really, you wouldn't prefer cheese fries?

9.  How to make sure people will never, ever read your blog: keep commenting on everyone else's blog and always paste the url to your blog underneath your comment

10.  Hell hath no fury like when a woman's texts are ignored but I see you post a new facebook status you asshole

Random Thoughts

Wow I had a million post ideas and now I've forgotten them all.

Random thoughts:

1. I love eavesdropping on strangers in the elevator, at a restaurant, outside a classroom and trying to guess whether they are good friends or acquaintances trying to make small talk, and whether both parties are into the conversation or not.


2. movies that I've watched that I sometimes wonder how many people my age have watched them


--Copycat
--Jackal
--Hilary and Jackie
--Species II
--The Deep end of the ocean
--The Edge
--Young Catherine

and movies I think I'll never find again because they weren't that good.

There was that movie where a daughter is really excited and preparing for some sort of party and then an intruder comes in and starts rudely upending everything while she's screaming until he drops some glass/ice sculpture over her.

There was this Chinese movie with a man and two women and from my memory he was nice to one
and mean to the other, so mean that he threw her down the stairs and then dumped her in the tub and seemed to make a soup out of her but that might be my imagination

There was this other Chinese movie where this old senile grandpa would make a sandwich out of two slices of bread and what looked like a thick slab of cream cheese/ tofu.  One day he was really losing it and he used a thick slab of bar soap instead.