Tuesday, August 15, 2006

International Male makes me want to laugh hysterically and barf all at the same time

because I had an abnormally productive couple of days this past weekend, I'd like to document them for you item by item; less as entertainment for you, and more as proof for myself that i can get things done occasionally.

because this is going to be really boring, i've decided to interspere pictures from the International Male catalog (internationalmale.com) in completely illogical intervals throughout.

Friday, 8/11

3pm: leave work. hurrah!

4pm: do some work at home and write a massive email to my manager. boo!

4:45pm: venture to zeitgeist, a bar with a huge outdoor patio and bbq with my friend cathy. hurrah!

5pm-9pm: drink many many many pitchers

9:30pm: shower

9:45pm: zzzz




















Saturday, 8/12

8:00am: yawn, stretch

8:05am: prepare laundry for exciting morning at el laundromat

8:15am: receive call from good friend aj, who proposes that we go have coffee instead.

8:45am-11am: chit chat drink coffee eat bagel yap yap yap with aj




















11am: errands in the catro. these include:
-going to walgreens. i bought woolite, pomade, animal crackers, and some chewing gum.
-going to the cleaners to pick up my pants that have been altered
-going back to walgreens because my animal crackers are suspiciously stale. the imprinted date just above the lion says 3/2/2006. i make a face and head back to walgreens to execute my first return of a product that costs less than $1.20

12:30pm: hop on the n-judah to go to the haight to get my eyes checked.

i love getting my eyes checked. i have terrible, horrible eyesight, and because i generally think things that i'm really bad at that aren't my fault are sort of interesting, i always interrogate the doctor and relearn basic physical laws of lenses and focal points every time i go.

the doctor is super cool; she looks young and hip and asian. i'm a little disappointed because she's very business-like and doesn't seem like she's very interested in giving me a personal lecture about what the cornea does. instead, i just sit there and try to answer her questions as accurately as possible without getting nervous since my intense fear of failure extends to even the lamest of exams.

E......T......K.......B.....................spot?
V......P........R......N..........fuzzy?
Q.......C......E........L......that looks like a tulip.

2
3
5
same
i have to choose one?
fine. 7.
er, 8.
those look the same.
i mean 9!
10!
9!
hate this.




















1:30pm: the streneous exam being over, i get the well-deserved award of hanging out with kathleen and jason, who help me pick out some glasses.

they have the most incredible memories EVER. i've been in city optix maybe 4 or 5 times in the past 2.5 years. every time i go in, kathleen remembers me, remembers that i have a pair of cat-eye oliver peoples, remembers my sister, remembers all of the swedish glasses she's purchased there, and remembers that she's moved to boston recently.

i think this is fascinating because i forget almost everything.

in any case, she helps me pick out these RAD sama glasses that are chesnut brown and have houndstooth laser cut into the top, in cream. they are bomb.









2:30pm: i get back on the n-judah and i am ravenously hungry.

3:00pm: grab the saturday paper and go to have some pho by myself. in a sheer act of indulgence, i decide to also order an iced tea and also some shrimp spring rolls.

4:00pm: go over to therapy boutique and browse around and get intimidated by the hipsters. find a magical pair of low heeled black boots that i can scrunch down and wear low. season-appropriate fall footwear is mine.

























5:15pm: go back home and sweep and mop for the first time in eons. enjoy this feeling of walking around barefoot and not having filthy feet afterwards

5:45pm: practice piano

6:45pm: start doing things for a v. important work project

workworkworkworkworkworkwork

9:45pm: get a call from my friend noah, who says he's at casanova. it was miraculous timing: i had just left my house to go to the corner store to get some tuna salad materials for dinner, but went for a beer instead.

10:45pm: back home. worked some more.

11:45pm: asleep.

let's have a closer look at those sandals, shall we?

























Sunday, 8/13

6:45am: realize that i accidentally set my work alarm for sunday. fuck!

7:00am: organize laundry

7:30am: head to star wash, get americano at the cafe next door

7:35am-10:00am: do work/laundry/lots of yawning

11:00am: get a call from aj and irvin to have coffee. we go and chit chat some more.

12pm-2pm: messing about. messmessmess

3pm-5pm: have piano lesson

5:30pm: head to dolores park and get pissy because i have missed out on what was an allegedly stupidfun barbeque that is just now winding down. it involved a giant slip n' slide and vegetable oil and all of my friends. rats.

6:30pm: meet john and scott and justin out at the transfer and watch good-looking gay men get dates for the night

7:30pm-10pm: dinner at chow

10:00pm: dinner #2 at marcelo's

11:30pm: zzzzzzz



















but wait!!! there's more:














YESSSS!

perfect for when you want to leave several buttons undone!!

OR

wear ALONE, with SHORTS OR JEANS!!

mwaaaaaaahahahahahahhahahaa

kills me.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Moments of Defeat

there are several scenarios in which i have a much higher chance of feeling as though i have failed in life than i usually do in my normal life.

1. selling clothes to a hip secondhand store

the promise is so compelling. have clothes that you never wear anymore, occupying valuable cubic inches of real estate in your studio apartment? get rid of them! get paid for it, too!

this is such a crock. first of all, you have to go through the heartbreaking process of going through al of your shopping failures, relive this 'cute or ugly?' nonsense, and realize that you answered incorrectly many, many times.

second, you have to stuff all of this into some giant shopping bags that you had to fish out from under your sink, and sadly remember that this may not be the first time that this skirt has met this bag.












third, you have to truck all of this junk on the 22-Fillmore and go up to the Crossroads that actually pays you relatively well. and since the 22-Fillmore is always crowded on the weekends, you're probably standing in the middle of the bus, knocking your bags into people, and starting to sweat a tiny bit.

fourth, you have to stand there and watch asymmetrical-haircut-girl use as little surface area of her index fingers and thumbs as possible to pick up each article of clothing gingerly, judge it with a poker face, and quietly fold it over to the right hand side of the wrinkly pile that you start to recognize as your personal Forever 21 landfill. after it's all over, she pushes the new pile that's accumulated back towards you, rests her left hand on the tse cashmere sweater that you accidentally shrinked in the wash because you're an idiot and says, 'we'll take this. would you like $1.50 in store credit or $1.00 in cash?'

2. going to the dentist

see: hoo haw

3. trying on boots

i have huge calves. every time i see a pair of great boots i think, maybe! just maybe, this leather will be really really stretchy. maybe it is a new special hybrid polymer of leather and elastic. maybe.

it never is, and all my dreams of being in a fall j.crew catalog poof away.

4. selling back college textbooks

berkeley was filled with people who fancied themselves down-to-earth geniuses with hearts of gold for going to a public university. from my classes, you'd think that everyone had self-cultivated (forced or not) a desire for esoteric knowledge that you'd never use again. the more obscure, the better.

not a TRACE of this at the campus bookstore at the end of the semester. lugging your books to the bookstore is bad enough (see: selling clothes to a hip secondhand store), as is someone judging my wardrobe, but not my textbooks! my classes! my brain! my intellectual livelihood!

the muted yet complete disdain on the faces of the people who work the campus bookstores and the Crossroads on Fillmore is the same. the only noticeable difference between them is that the tattered cardigan of the campus bookstore girl is actually vintage and not from Anthropologie.

what do all of these scenarios have in common? perhaps it is that all of these scenarios are significant because success in them is indicative of an earlier victory that i've always wanted. these would be: having clothes that someone wants even after i've worn and decided to discard from my Elite Closet. possessing well-behaved teeth that are white and pristine, even when you peer inside of my mouth. having svelte and slim legs that slip easily into boots that complete a polished yet low-maintenance look, come autumn. studying a subject and materials that my peers also find intriguing and worthwhile.

i think what is much more likely is that all of these places have some grouchy mcgrouchersons who work for them who give me the judgmental eyeball once they've made an assessment of the situation, and then decide to apply it to me.

to all of you who i've encountered: screw you! i don't care if you don't want to buy back Dynamic physical chemistry;: A textbook of thermodynamics, equilibra, and kinetics. i didn't read it anyway. fuckers.

hoo haw

what is all of this sudden hoo haw about celebrities all about? lindsey lohan this, eva longoria that, hair, tits, new nose, clothing line, triple threat, blah blah. complete bullshit.

in an mostly silent and completely ignored personal act of defiance, i've decided to create my very own hoo haw about flossing.

sort of a disgusting ritual, if you think about it. remember that pot roast you ate earlier today? i'll bet you one of my oxen and a pound of sugar that 4% of that roast is stuck in between about 16 teeth. remember: the purpose of your teeth is to tear apart large pieces of dead animal into smaller bits so they can journey to your stomach with ease and joy. unfortunately, the very, very small bits get stuck.

please: take this piece of string. wrestle it in between the slots where two teeth are right close to each other. saw away at it, and you'll get that 4% out. you may also experience some discomfort in the gums. in turn, you get (allegedly) no cavities, and (definitely) a less-humiliating experience at the dentist should you have sinfully chosen to drink yourself into oblivion instead of floss like an upright citizen.

the act of flossing reminds me of how gross my teeth are, which isn't something that i really want relive each night before i go to bed.

ow
ow
ow
ow
oh there's the cavity that got filled my senior year
ow
ooh!
eesh
uck
ah. there's the one that they scraped away at for 45 minutes, declared that it was a near- root canal miss, and shook their heads disapprovingly at as if i had just been caught stealing lunch money
oof
ouch
eek
fuck. this is the tooth that starts bleeding if you blink at it.

flossing is, in general, not fun.

hoo haw: do it anyway.

Positive Reinforcement

my office at work has started granting ourselves extremely well-deserved and not at all outlandish awards for our outstanding work in a number of life arenas. over the past several weeks, we've awarded ourselves the following (accomplishment/award format/granted to/awarded by):

Ah, but before we get to that, i should first introduce our office. it's me, laura, bill, joan, and helen. cathy is my good friend that you met at zeitgeist previously (see Friday, 4:45pm), who is often in our office.

'Best Office Award'/ribbon/our office/Cathy

We think Cathy is bomb and she thinks we're cool too. Also, we have a window, which is nice to sit close to while you're taking a little break from work.

'Participant'/ribbon/our office/Bill

because we are here. we show up. pretty generally, we are around. and also because these were the only awards that bill claims he ever got in elementary school.

'Bravery'/medal + ribbon/?/Bill

i don't recall any of us doing particularly brave lately, so i have no idea how we earned this.

'Honesty'/medal + ribbon/me/Bill

the other day i got this errant email from some admin that gave me access to a spreadsheet filled with detailed performance reviews for other people in the company. i didn't open it. it is for this reason that bill awarded me the ribbon for Honesty.

'Shoes'/ribbon + graphic (think: leg lamp in Christmas Story)/me/Bill

i didn't really win this. i basically told bill to give me a shoe award, so he went up and drew it on the whiteboard.

'Best Beard'/statuette/Joan/Bill

because it is important to recognize everyone's strengths, and mine is shoes, i thought of what bill's may be. he has a spectacularly well-groomed beard, and went up to draw the award himself and then realized that it was stupid to be granting himself an award. so i made joan draw it, since she's an actual legit artist.

it's the best award so far. it's a statuette of a beard. a standalone beard. when i asked that a face be drawn, bill pointed out, 'it isn't the best face with a beard award. it's just the best beard award.'

award yourself something. it doesn't matter if it's less of a strength or talent, and more of a distinguishing character that is particular to you because it makes it a lot less likely that someone will beat you and earn the ribbon for themselves.

introducing: biff

i bought a plant several weeks ago. i went into the store and announced that i had always wanted a plant, desperately, and loudly commented that if they didn't recommend a plant that could withstand weeks of unintentional neglect and possble outright abuse (also not wholly intentional, as everyone runs out of tp at some point), i may very well never love again.

the friendly man at the store half-smiled and asked me, the retarded child, to use my index finger to point at a plant i thought was pretty and may want to own.

i pointed to a rather boisterous and friendly looking plant close to my feet, and declared eloquently that it 'looked nice.'

'aha!' he said, relieved. 'that one is particularly hearty.'

excellent! i thought to myself.

i proceeded to then interrogate the other nice man working at the store about everything that i needed to know. and because i know nothing, i asked him everything.

does it need soil?
what size pot should it be in?
how often should i water it?
what will happen if i don't water it?
will it hate me?
will it write me a poor review on rotten tomatoes?
does it need fertilizer?
why?
how is it like plant food? i mean, seriously. what's in this? vitamins or some shit?

i bought the recommended sized pot, a big bag of soil, and a small container of fertilizer with a dropper cap. i was very excited.

and then i walked home many blocks, and by the time i got home my arms were tired and i was no longer excited.

i potted the new arrival in the bathtub, next to my loofah and salon shampoo. he looked a little foolish, but studio apartments do not often come with a nice yard in which it is pleasant to pot new plants.

thus, the new plant being in a new home with lots of new soil, i placed him carefully on my cream lacquered coffee table on top of a swedish dishcloth i bought from ikea. he looked so happy i left him and gave him an affectionate pat on the highest leaf.

because i live in a moderately sketchy area and i am a short-ish asian girl who is not at all menacing unless you've eaten the rest of my lunch, i decided that i needed tough guy to protect me, should a rude intruder make his/her way into my second floor studio.

introducing: biff.