Chinese Zodiac

So this year is the year of the Ox. The year in which I was born. But...it's not really the year of the Ox, I decided...it's the year of Sweetcheeks.
I never knew the term existed until I flew to Seattle for Thanksgiving and a more than slightly inebriated fellow sitting next to me called me that several times on the three hour flight. Made me a little uncomfy to be honest. He rides around on trick bikes....this great big 6'4" beach bum dude who soups up cars for a living and rides around on a trike. hilarious!
Anyway, so in the meantime, I have heard the term more often than I care to recall, and have had it directed at myself multiple times, and always at inopportune moments.
Therefore, since at the moment I am feeling a wee bit ungraceful and out of sorts, I dub this year not the year of the Ox, but the Year of the Sweetcheeks.
Bitter hearts, beware.

The [Pear] Story

All of these lines across my face/ tell you the story of who I am / so many stories of where I've been / and how I got to where I am...but these stories don't mean anything if you've got no on to tell them to / it's true. I was made for you!
- brandi carlisle

Here are three pears: from L-R, Pear 1, 2, and 3. This is their story:
Pear 1 is happy, calm, and confident; flies under the radar; is a little on the stocky side, and is the perfect ripeness.
Pear 2 is average in most respects, but has gorgeous coloring. Look at that smooth butter yellow next to the blush. Wow, what a knockout.
Pear 3 is on the athletic side, not quite ripe yet--you can see he's got some grainy issues just from his skin. But maybe he'll grow into a handsome looking/tasting peach someday. He's had a rough life: look at those battle scars from previous relationships.

Pear 2 likes Pear 1. See how she's leaning in, her stem curled a little in anticipation, the blush burning up her face? Look at her sticker. If stickers were mouths, Pear 1 better make up his mind right now about whether he's going to turn away or not! Shameless hussy!

Pear 3 likes Pear 2, and is trying to sidle up to her (! personal space issues, if I were Pear 2!) His poor little stem is hopelessly bent toward Pear 2, as if he's looking for any little hint or speck of a spark that might bring her to him. If he had feet he'd be shuffling them uncomfortably and looking at her constantly, but as soon as she looks in his direction, he pretends to be fascinated by some speck on the wall to his immediate right. Pear 3 is young and has been hurt a great many times before, leaving gash marks which have not, and never will heal. But he has not given up hope on the female pear population just yet. However, he's gotten the process a little out of order in his head and has moved close but has not turned to look at her (look at that sticker position! how will he ever get the girl doing that, I wonder?) to see if she is interested in reciprocating.

Pear 1 is not oblivious to Pear 2's overtures; however, he is not sure that he wants any part of being part of a pear pair. See how his stem is straight up? In his mind he's going straight forward, without regard for Pear 2 or any other beauty who might cross his path. But his head (literally) is being turned...look at that sticker. Tsk, tsk.

So, how did the story end? I can only tell you that all three ended up in my stomach, and that no matter how hard I tried to get Pear 2 to take a look at Pear 3, she would not do it. Her natural inclination is to lean toward Pear 1. Pear 1, did you cherish her? Hm...I wonder. Pear 2, stop being such a flirt! Pear 3, hope you made something happen in the interim between when the photo was taken and when y'all got eaten, because if not, you ended up sad and lonely.

All I want for Christmas is...

not my two front teeth. I mean, I'm grateful I have them and all, but since I already have a set, I don't need another. That would be....awkward.

So here's what I want. Rather, these are the things that I will not be getting for Christmas this year, but that I want anyway. These are not in the order I most want them, for privacy purposes. (HAHA. Since most of you reading this would know exactly how to rank them for me anyway.)

1. Super awesome recording equipment.
2. DSLR from Canon. The Rebel XSi looks pretty good to me.
3. Guitar with a plugin, with an amp to match.
4. Boyfriend. Might seem lame-o to actually put this on a Christmas list, but oh well. I've been known to do lame, potentially embarrassing things before. I've turned out okay anyway.
4. Nintendo DS Lite with Mario Bros. game and Brain Age.
5. No more accounting!
6. New job. Preferably in Utah or Seattle or San Francisco. Since this is a wish list, pay should be >$70K/year, 40 hrs/week, with 4+ weeks vacation. Unreal expectations, yes, I know...
7. Real furniture. None of this twin-bed-without-a-real-bedframe-put-on-risers-so-it's-three-feet-tall-and-wobbly garbage. Or the fakey "desk" I've got.
8. Someone to go to Italy and Britain with.
9. Vacation days enough to visit above countries.
10. For it to feel like Christmas in LA.

the waiting is the hardest part

Ah, Tom Petty...the link to this movie, which I had to watch 3 times to make sure it was really him singing it, is here. His voice is so funny...the part where his guitar goes through the paper makes me laugh, and simultaneously reminds me of those gargantuan rolls of the stuff that we used to make posters of back in public school. Thank goodness I am no longer in public school. I don't know which is more stressful...dealing with the possible threat of 2.5" long cockroaches scurrying about, or randomly appearing dead in corners that were clean just a few hours ago, OR going to school with the weird and popular kids alike who are so mean to each other and eating cafeteria food and dealing with lascivious teachers and dirt everywhere. Seriously, both just make me want to crawl into a freshly made bed where the sheets are still warm from the dryer and huddle for a good long while.
Anyway, back to the waiting: I find it rather hard to wait. I'm a pretty impatient person, it seems. I've learned to deal with traffic (mostly), and the printing queue at work (some people print 65 MB jobs, several in a row, without warning), and for everybody to go to the bathroom before we leave to go places (we meaning the immediate family). But I'm not patient on the big stuff, like finding jobs and men who will treat me well. It's a longstanding struggle. I can't live with myself, and I can't live without myself. Sometimes I'm just whistling in the car after moving ten inches in ten minutes, and sometimes I'm about ready to pull my hair out (guess it has to do with the time of day, how far I am from home, and how recent my last meal was....but still...) after a few taps on the brakes. I'm having a hard time accepting that my timing is not always perfect. And what I want is not always what I need. So. Waiting to see whether what I want is what I need, and whether I get my way or not, is very hard. Lots of times it's harder than actually going forward and moving on. That's why, as Tom Petty says, the waiting is the hardest part.

change is in the air

So. Lots of things are happening for me. In the mix, I'm trying to decide whether or not to: (a) move; (b) find a new job; (c) dedicate my entire being to an accounting course; (d) buy a new bed; (e) buy people christmas presents or make them presents, and (f) generally move on with my life. In the meantime, the sky is falling (literally! due to the fires, there is ash floating everywhere) and traffic gets worse.
I've got relationships to start and to get over, trips to plan and take, and life to start the living. Something is in the air here in SoCal. Something big is on the move - my weather-predicting scars in my back from when I had those pesky tumors removed a few years ago can sense it. I don't know what is going to change...all I know is that I hope I'm ready for it!
Thanks to you all for your love and support. I have to say that the thing about blogging that I don't like is that if you keep writing, people who weren't there 'at the beginning', per se, hardly ever go back and read the best posts (of which this is not one). This ambiguous person is not me! Something's gotta give! I'll let you know what it is when I find out. :)

Proposition 8

Much has been said on this topic. Much more will be said. However, I feel the need to express my thoughts on 'paper' about this measure.

First, by recognizing same-sex marriages, the law would be changing the inherent definition of what a marriage is. What one group of people is asking for would be null and void if they received what they were asking for, so even though they think they're getting what they're asking for, it's not exactly what they wanted, because the definition changed.

Second, I'm a bit disgruntled because the whole push of anti-Proposition 8 is about the right of two individuals of any sex to have a marriage legally recognized, but they're actually campaigning for a GROUP right, not an individual right. Campaign away, but on at least one political issue this election, let's call a horse a horse and a carrot a carrot.

I am in favor of Proposition 8. !!!! I truly believe that marriage is meant for one man and one woman. I am not hateful or angry toward people who do not share my beliefs, or who don't adopt my preferred lifestyle. I just have a belief, and I'm going to act on it on election day.

just saying...

that if the highlight of your day is squishing a 2.5" cockroach at work, then you are either under ten years old and your employer is breaking child labor laws, or your day has just been sad, sad, sad.

City of Angels

I think I wrote awhile back about the terrible, rotten, no good, very bad car accident I got into about fifteen months ago. The one that involved me and a garbage truck, which ended with my car angelically parking its battered, soon-t0-be-junkyard-self perfectly, three inches away from the sidewalk, just as if I'd meant for my car to be there, fully stopped, regardless of any impact with trash-collecting vehicles. Anyway, after that accident, I knew there really were angels in the City of Angels, and seriously thought that when I leave this place, the angels will go with me.
So. Angels have not deserted me!
Saturday night I was getting ready to play in front of people for the first time in a long time.
I'd had my friend Kim come over and help me pick out what to wear...silly, I know, but I needed the moral support. I ended up in a regular black shirt and jeans, but I added a cool spidey scarf in honor of it being Rocktoberfest. I had even written a song (see two posts below) especially for the occasion, and been practicing it day and night, sleep and wake, in car and out. Now it was 8 on Saturday night and I'd gotten gussied up (haha, what a funny expression) and was ready to go. I grabbed my gear and drove up to Westwood. I got out of the car and opened the rear door to grab my guitar and go....but it wasn't there. I blinked, turned around, and checked again. Still not there. I started to panic. Here I was, about to play for real, and I go an lose my guitar. Wait, had I really lost it? Had I really brought it down the stairs with me? Was it still in my apartment? I suddenly had this horrible image in my head of this time when I was in eighth grade and Casey Getzelman had gotten a brand new cool guitar while we were waiting for our jazz band carpool parents to come pick us up, he'd put it on the ground where we were waiting, and then some stupid ninth grader without a license...his name was Paul, and he rather reminded me of Kay in Disney's Sword and the Stone...had driven along and promptly run over it. Had that happened to my baby, my sweet little roommate-fingernail-gouged Seagull? I raced back as fast as hitting every red light possible allowed me to...and get this: it wasn't until I was three blocks away that I even contemplated the fact that someone could have stolen it. I rounded the corner, and coasted by the spot where my car had been parked, and there was no guitar. None at all. Not even shreds of gator guitar case. I got out and peered all around, even squatting to look under the cars on the side of the road. I started to panic even more because I realized that I had put my phone in my guitar case, and my camera as well, and so half my life was missing. I went back to my apartment, thinking I might have left it by the table in the front room, but even as I raced up the stairs, in my heart I knew it wasn't there, because I distinctly remember having the grandiose feeling of walking along, guitar in hand, being a guitar girl for all the world to see. I trudged down the stairs, defeated, not knowing what to do. I sent up shreds of prayers from my heart - I couldn't even form cohesive sentences. As I exited the building, I overheard some lady talking on the call-in phone about how she had a guitar, and some girl was supposed to be playing in a concert that night...and I turned and looked at her, and said, you have my guitar!?! That's MY guitar! You have it? And she said, "nevermind, I found her" and promptly hung the phone up and came and hugged me and said, "we have your guitar." I was seriously about ready to cry from relief. Anyway, the angels, Peggy and Dan, and their dogs, who are nameless to me, but who I see every morning on their walk, had my guitar safely ensconced in their condo. Apparently Peggy had been ready to take the dog out and he started barking and barking and they didn't know if the guitar case was a bomb or not, and then there was my syringe inside for making sure my guitar is hydrated, and they thought it might be drugs...let's just say that in the end, the angels were there for me, and I got my guitar back.
So I found another parking spot, and made it to Rocktoberfest, where I managed to completely bungle the chorus of TMBG's New York City twice, but managed to keep playing anyway...seriously, my ego was at an all time low. I thought, can I even manage to play this next song? This song I put a lot of effort into? Help! It went fine, even though it was so noisy that I wasn't sure anybody could hear me. But I got a few compliments later, which was nice, even if the guy who was my crush of the week last week totally made it obvious that he isn't even the slightest bit interested after I, bolstered in my courage by my successful singer/songwriter debut, made a slight overture. Seriously, being rejected is just no fun. Although it's a lot better than being strung along and THEN rejected, so I guess it's all part of the learning.
Just wanted to say that there are angels. I know, because even though I haven't seen one with wings, they stop & direct wayward traffic and help small lost girls in LA find their baby guitars.

Memories

When I was about five or six...back in the days when it was fun to ride in the 'way back' of the '90 Dodge minivan, we were on the way back from an excursion to the City library. My sister and I were harking back to the gunslinging days, using our index fingers to as gun barrels and making shooting noises as we 'shot 'em dead' ('em' being all the drivers of the cars unlucky enough to travel in our wake). There was a guy in an old Ford Ranger behind us who looked eerilyl like Gordon Lightfoot...the version of Gord on the Gord's Gold LP. He followed us for a long time, all the way down Capitol Hill and Victory Road, and we shot him enough times that by all rights he should have expired several imaginary bullets ago. But he was still alive, and perhaps was getting annoyed, as later, we both swore that he pulled something black and shiny from the dashboard and pointed it at us. We huddled behind our 'cover' (aka, below the window) and did not come out to peek at the competition for a very, very long time.

I used to stare at the Simon & Garfunkel Greatest Hits album cover for hours. I wonder how exactly Garfunkel's hair got that texture, and wondered if Simon was really holding a golden egg in his hand. I'd listen to the songs and really feel the mournfulness of the boxer, and the despair of Mrs. Robinson, even though I had absolutely no idea what the song was about at the time, and wonder what the devil difference it made between being a hammer or a nail, as both came with pound-a-trucks which were to be guarded jealously against the stealings of younger siblings.

I remember the first time I went to the subpar Robintino's grill on Highway 89. I had been elected Student of the Month, and my fellow cohort, Paul, and the principal went along. We had pizza which I had heard rave reviews of, but which I remember thinking looked and tasted exactly like the pizza cafeterias used to serve before Ambassador Pizza got the contract to provide the little people with greasy carbs....that is, it didn't taste appetizing at all. Remember, how it was cut in squares, and had canned mushrooms on it, and dripped grease everywhere? (No wonder I brought my lunch from home so often!) Later, Paul gave me a small beanie-baby (yes, this dates me) lamb for Christmas, which I named, but I cannot remember its name to call my little sheep home. Help! what was its name? He (Paul) delivered it to my neighbor's house on Christmas morning, and it had snowed, so I put on my boots and trudged in my pajamas (no coat, as it was bright and not too cold) to the neighbors...the pristine snow glinting. I was so surprised...it was the first time a boy had ever given me a Christmas present, and I was totally overcome with happiness that someone had been so thoughtful...and it was so unexpected! What a great surprise!

My favorite baseball players are Derek Jeter, John Smoltz (what a great last name...I think if I chose a last name, that would be it), Orel Hershiser (I nicknamed him Oreo Hershey), Chipper Jones, Mariano Rivera, Greg Maddox, and Kenny Lofton. I saw Lofton, Jeter, and Rivera in action four summers ago at a game at Camden Yards. (Bet you can't guess who I was rooting for...) When Jeter got up for his second at-bat, I silently willed him to hit a home run with all my little heart...and on the third pitch, that's exactly what he did. I jumped up and down, shouting, shaking my roommate and shouting, "He did it for me! That one's for me!" So all you people, the homer he hit on June 24, 2004 is all mine.

HMPM and I used to eat 'cheezits' from the side yard. Cheezits come from weeds. Yes, I ate the 'fruit' of a weed. The plants usually grow to be about a foot high, but can sometimes be higher, and the leaves are wrapped tightly around a very tiny pumpkin-shaped green fruit. We ate them, and actually thought they were good.

I told Shanelle in my 2nd grade class that her crayons were toxic, because they weren't Crayola and didn't have 'non-toxic' written on them. She had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, and after I explained that she would be poisoned and die from using her crayons, she started to cry. I don't know if I was being malicious or just trying to show off that I knew what 'toxic' meant. I don't think I want to know, either.

Before having the Internet at home was common, my siblings and I all had Juno accounts because you could access email without actually having an Internet connection...you just dialed up, and it made the little fax machine noise, and then a bar would appear and it would jump forward in lime-green increments. If it went straight from 0-100%, chances were really good that you had no mail waiting for you; however, if the bar took even a few seconds to load, you almost certainly had mail. I played the old game Lemmings on this computer, too. The graphics and layout of the Juno page stick in my mind...wish I had a printscreen of them to show you.

We used to get Mario and Luigi points for reading back in elementary school. We had a schoolwide reading contest and my older sis was mad because third graders had to read 20 minutes to get a Mario head on the classroom poster chart, whereas first graders only had to read 10. Therefore, I racked up a lot more points than she did, and due to my overzealous competitive edge and my love of reading, our grade managed to win. Mario and Luigi. My kids (if I ever have any) probably won't even know what dot-matrix printers, record players, modems, typewriters, or land lines are. Sad. Most of me wishes I could go back to not being so 'connected.' Seriously, do I have to be looking at a screen ALL THE TIME??????????? I realize that was shouting. I meant it to be.

Ah, a trip down memory lane always takes too long to type. Gotta go to bed now or I won't be able to get up to take my trooper of a car into the stinky dealership to get my headlamp and oil changed. Timeconsuming and tiresome, but necessary, nevertheless.

Music & Lyrics

Clarification: not the movie. Although I have to say that the film, starring the terribly terrible Hugh Grant, and the somewhat dopey Drew Barrymore (not to be confused with Drew Carey...had a really hard time with that one for awhile, just because their names sound so similar), is HILARIOUS because of the music video in the opening credits, which may be viewed here. Seriously, hilarious.

Anyway, so recently I wrote a song. A rather simple song, but decent. The lyrics go like this:

My heart was shuttered and I walked along the street, head down

I was trying to decide whether to try to fly or stay on the ground

To stay safe on the curbside or to give myself a new start

And then I stumbled off the sidewalk and fell into the path of my heart

Where are you? I've been searching for you

Where are you? I've been looking for you

Where are you? I've been waiting for so long

to find you so I can belong with you

My path to you is set like a story in a fairy-tale book

I want a love to fill my whole heart, not just the breakfast nook

My eyes and heart are open and I'm starting to see color

Life was dull and grey before but now I know I want you and no other

chorus

Sometimes I wonder if I'll know you when I first see your face

Or if I'll bump into you one day showing off my lack of grace

Until the day I find you I will daydream of your smile

Hope you're also searching for me or I'll be in this sad state for awhile

I'm going to perform at Rocktoberfest tomorrow night. There will be video of the performance forthcoming.

"Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair"

As the 60s song goes, I went to San Francisco. No flowers were present, but millions of sea lions, ubiquitous seasickness, and one girl with a bright-red-sunburnt face were.

Saturday in San Francisco: Whalewatching in S's
seasickness: what I experienced all day. I would receive an A if seasickness were a class and our boat trip was the final exam.
sunburn: the result of being a redhead out on the water for eight hours, one of which was fully sunny. Note to self: hats, sunglasses, and sunscreen application do not matter: you will be lobster-faced the next day regardless, so come prepared with aloe and lotion!
sea lions: a gajillion of them. First in the bay, following the boat, then in the ocean, on the buoy, then on Pier 39, barking away. Sea lions, not to be confused with seals, have an 'elbow' joint and very small ears.
shivering: what I did on the boat. Layers on the Bay are good...the more, the merrier. Undershirt, then shirt, then jacket, then coat, then blanket, are all good. More is better. Further note: shivering consciously is a good way to distract your body from being nauseated.
swatter: what I wished I had for the millions of flies which descended on our boat at the Farallon islands.
small islands: the Farallons. okay, so I cheated. Give me a break; one cannot be perfect at alliteration. Commonly known as the Devil's Teeth among sailors along the SF coast, the

Farallons are basically small mountains of pure bird droppings about 20 miles west of San Francisco. Millions of birds roost on the islands. No non Ph.D people are allowed.
Shark, great white: what we did not see at the Farallons. :( Their breeding ground is very close, and the captain saw one earlier in the week, but our luck was not with us.
species, new fly, discovered: The flies on the islands are very odd - they're football shaped. That is, most flies are paper-airplane shaped, but these flies folded their wings over each other, instead of side-by-side. Apparently bird leavings are excellent for fostering exotic fly species. Who knew? They also flew different. I'm no physicist so I'll leave the velocity stuff to others.
smelly: what I was at the end of the day. Nothing beats being on the ocean, seasick (praise be fore boat railings to lean over), and an all-you-can-eat-cook-it-yourself-Korean barbeque.

So here are some pictures of the trip
1. Passing Alcatraz
2. Sea lions on a buoy (if I were a sea lion, I'd be one of the ones on the buoy, not one of the ten or so hovering around waiting for one to get off to have a turn)
3. Going under the golden gate bridge

What's in a Name?

So, taking a page out of my sister's book, I decided to make a post. each picture represents a name of mine, or a nickname i've been called at one time or another. I just googled the names, and here they are! Got some quite interesting results. Just have one thing to say: about the picture of the man and the woman, I hope I look more like the man (he's got a soft, contented look about him) than the woman in fifty years!!!

The Secret of Life

is enjoying the passage of time...
right. So James Taylor is not really my favorite, and I think that song is kind of lame, but there is something to being able to enjoy the moment. Lately I've had a few 'moments.'

Events: Saturday, I went to my first MLS game ever. I used to play the glorious game a bit when I was a kid - never got really good at it though. Something about aiming while moving was just too difficult to master...:D to those of you familiar enough with me to know that that's how it's always been for me, and it's not gonna change anytime soon. It was at the Home Depot stadium...Galaxy vs. Real Salt Lake. Beckham wasn't there though. World cup qualifier, shmollifier, is what I have to say. Let me see a cute man who's ace at what he does run around in shorts and look attractive while doing it! (He is one of only a few people I would actually encourage to wear shorts.) In the end, it was a lackluster tie. It was interesting to note that the better team (Salt Lake) had control of the ball almost the whole time, and yet they didn't win. Weird how those team sports work! Also, I thought it was weird how many of them had long hair. I've played soccer with long hair, and trust me, it is no fun. So why these people who get paid tons more than I do would run around all day after a ball sweating in their super long hair when they could conventionally wear it super short makes absolutely no sense to me (the hair part, and the salary part).

Complaints: Today, I'm tired. My throat feels like it got scrubbed with acid, I didn't perform super well at work, and I slept oddly - woke up knowing I had slimy, unnatural dreams. Ick. Made me want to take a shower. Usually I don't even remember a thing about my dreams, but this time, i just remembered the feeling. My room is a mess, and my resume won't tweak properly, and I found a rather large flying bug in my shower. further, there is no decent food in the fridge OR in the pantry.

Plans: Saturday, I'm going on my first-ever (and, depending on how well my stomach performs, the last-ever) whale watching cruise with my brother. Whee! I'm so excited. He's going to be my personal documentary narrator, and I'm going to bring the blanket and the snacks, and we're going to drink lots of fizzy ginger ale and have a general old good jolly time. I'm seriously praying that we get to see a blue whale. Of course, it would be nice to see anything at all, but I would really love to see a blue...they're so big and awkward, but so rare and unique. Kind of like me, only downsized about a hundred feet and about a hundred thousand pounds. Imagine this: blue whales are 23-27' long when they're born. They gain an average of 8 lbs per hour for the first few months of their lives!

Things I would like to be, professionally, theoretically speaking:
1. a photographer
2. a gardener
3. a writer
4. an organizer
5. a professor
6. a mom
7. a storyteller
8. a listener
9. a singer
10. a sleeper

Which do you think I'm most likely to actually break loose from the banking noose and do?