monkeys are good, not great, or: boring christmas eve much improved by friendly south africans

you'll noticed that i've taken the liberty of grossly abusing the concept of a 'subtitle' to mash together two completely separate thoughts. first, compliments: you are very observant! second, justification: i'm feeling nostalgic for college.

i'm in the himalayas this weekend. yesterday, i had some tiny adventures. here are the highlights:

• food out of a dixie cup: not so bad!
• monkeys: good, not great
• indian guys who get skittish when addressed directly
• cool south africans significantly improve christmas eve dinner

tiny adventure #1: food out of a dixie cup: not so bad!

i set out for a walk yesterday afternoon. about 20 minutes up the road, there's a decent strip of stores and coffee shops, interspersed with lookout points across the himalayas. there were tons of people running around, chattering loudly, taking pictures, and snacking. most people were snacking on one of three things: popcorn, ice cream, or tomato soup.

i must tell you about the magic of the tomato soup. all of the food kiosks here have that machine that usually houses the slurpee slush at 7Eleven. the one that has the clear plastic basin at the top with giant stirring arms, and a spout at the bottom for convenient dispensing.

instead of dispensing a half-gallon of cherry-flavored ice into a basin with a straw stuck in it and that requires two hands to hold, these dispense ultra hot and spicy water-based tomato soup. when you hand the guy 10 rupees ($0.25), he turns around, picks up a dixie cup, fills it from the 7Eleven machine, and drops some chives into it before he hands it to you. it's steamy and super salty and satisfying.

tiny adventure #2: monkeys: good, not great

all along the road, there are tons of monkeys. monkeys traveling alone, monkeys traveling with friends, monkeys that are big, monkeys that are small. some are breaking things apart and eating them, and some are galloping ahead. india is great because there are always some random animals hanging out. in delhi they're cows, in shimla they're monkeys.

how cute you are! i said to one in particular yesterday. you have fur all over your face! i see you quietly munching your fruit. you look lovable. i smiled at it, and gave it a friendly wave. the wave was the same wave i give to those i genuinely like, but have little to no interest in becoming close friends with. like this monkey.

then, crazy monkey lunged at me and i yelped and hopped back. he also got scared, squealed, and jumped back. we gave each other the 'what the fuck is wrong with you' look with the big eyes and half-scared, half-angry eyebrows. this won't work, we said to one another. i tossed my hair at him as i whipped around, and we went our separate ways. stupid monkey.

tiny adventure #3: indian guys who get skittish when addressed directly

later, i found my way to the institute of advanced studies, further down the road. it's a huge, gorgeous, gothic building and expansive grounds with lots of ledges where you can perch and see the himalayas. i scouted out a good spot and continued reading tess of the d'urbervilles, which i bought for $1.80 on the shopping strip. i read for a couple of hours.

around 1:30, three indian guys wandered to my ledge, leaned up on it, and started chattering and giggling. i heard one of them squeak, 'excuse me, ma'am?' because i don't believe in acknowledging people who don't have the balls to speak at appropriate volumes for catching people's attentions, i kept on reading. they chatted and giggled for a few minutes more, and then i heard it again. he said quietly, 'excuse me, ma'am?' again i ignored them, and they talked and laughed louder than before. finally, he won command of his voice and said loudly, 'excuse me! ma'am!'

i looked at him and said, 'yes?' they giggled. 'you are not from this country?' he asked. 'no,' i said. 'where are you coming from?' 'states,' i replied. more giggling. he didn't have anything more to say, so i went back to my book.

they started to get sort of loud, so i hopped down from the ledge, got my ipod and scrolled to the new indiefeed hip hop podcast i just discovered. it is so awesome! as i was putting in my headphones, i glanced at the boys. they were all staring directly at me. i stared back and said, 'what?' tittering. 'seriously. what do you want?' they averted they eyes, exchanged glances, and giggled coquettishly.

i sighed loudly, looked at them and said calmly, 'you guys are like a bunch of little girls. giggling all the time. you're irritating.'

they stopped laughing and left soon after. i put on my Ice Queen tiara and continued reading about tess in peace.

tiny adventure #4: cool south africans significantly improve christmas eve dinner

my stupid luxury hotel held a huge christmas eve buffet dinner last night that was mandatory for all guests. nothing like a giant gala dinner to highlight the fact that you're traveling alone and make you feel all awkward and squirmy about it when you were feeling fine before.

i had been sitting at my table for a few minutes when a lovely girl came up to me and said, 'hallo. i noticed you were dining alone. would you like to join me and my mother?' i looked over at the table she had come from and saw a friendly looking woman waving at me, similar to the way i wave at monkeys and some people.

i said, 'why yes, i would. that would be lovely. thank you so much for the invitation.' it was as though i was accepting an invitation to dance at the netherfield ball.

after about 15 minutes of conversation, i was able to confirm that they were, indeed, really cool. monique (the mother) was a lawyer, and laura (the daughter) was currently in law school. laura races horses professionally, and monique used to. they also breed horses, and have about 23 right now. they say that you can tell when a horse is going to be great around the 6 year mark, and also that they eat too much. we drank wine, talked politics, and rated all of the desserts.

a pretty good day.

Ode to my Bag

Dear Bag,

when i first met you, i have to admit that i was underwhelmed. you looked so boring on the shelf: a rectangular work bag with poopy brown pebbled leather. you barely had any personality - the skinny straps and the barely noticeable pink stitching were the only remotely interesting things about you.

the things that attracted me to you were the fact that i desperately needed a new work bag, and you were priced at half of what your actual value was. to remove the extra verbage, i was desperate, and you were cheap.

that was a year and a half ago. since the day i bought you, i have used you almost every day. while i've dragged you to countless boring days at the office, we've had a lot of good times as well. remember when we went snowboarding? remember how much fun that was? i still laugh when i look at those pictures i took when i was on the ski lift and you were flying down the mountain in your red scarf, and you totallllllyyyyy wiped out. ha ha ha ha.

no, seriously though, i know i haven't always treated you well. i've inadvertently set you down in dirty puddles of water, taken you to bars where drunk retards have spilled their cheesy sex-on-the-beach-long-island-iced-tea-rocks-instead-of-brains drinks on you, and left you on the ground in Indian train stations for hours at a time, where you've no doubt picked up little tiny speckles of filth and feces that i try very hard not to think about.

you're such a survivor. i know your parents haven't treated you well. i've never seen you in any ad campaigns or on anyone else's arm, let alone for sale in a legitimate retail store. even though it's where i bought you, you're far above the outlet store in vacaville, conveniently located off of highway 80 on the way back from tahoe.

i've noticed that your parents tend to favor your siblings. they seem friendly, i guess, but are truly fugly. i have no idea why they would favor patchwork designs that includes brown suede, giant linked 'C' patterns in rainbow colors, and hot pink fur. i also have no idea why people purchase them. they look like they ate the ugliest fabric scraps they could find, pooped them out, threw up, mixed them together, swallowed the mix, and then turned themselves inside out. gross.

i admire what you do every day. whether it's carrying my dirty running shoes and nasty gym clothes, or standing up in defiance to that camel on the beach in dubai that almost spit on you, you do everything with integrity and principle. as i saw you come out of the security scan this morning at the delhi airport, i marveled at how amazing you still look - the same way you looked on the shelf that fateful day in vacaville.

thank you, bag. you're great. i would give you a big hug and a kiss to demonstrate my love and appreciation, but i won't. i don't want to get any diseases.

Love,

Me.

the bruce lee learning hour

today, i woke up hungover. naturally, i chose to sleep late, eat a big breakfast, and learn more about bruce lee.

it's something i've always been meaning to do, but have never gotten around to doing. although i have not yet watched clips on youtube along with my friends batool and the several-eyed monster, a la



















i have, however, started my preliminary research on wikipedia.

two of the more fascinating things i read were that:

• Lee could spring a 235lb (107kg) opponent 15 feet (4.6 metres) away with a 1 inch punch.
• Lee's combat movements were at times too fast to be captured on film at 24fps, so many scenes were shot in 32fps to put Lee in slow motion. Normally martial arts films are sped up.

wow! he sounds amazing, like a real-life video game. i think the 1-inch-punch thing is something that i made my blue-haired character do a few times in mortal kombat.

however, besides the physical feats, there are kernels of wisdom from him that are much more intriguing. specifically:

• "The more relaxed the muscles are, the more energy can flow through the body. Using muscular tensions to try to 'do' the punch or attempting to use brute force to knock someone over will only work to opposite effect."

i took ballet classes for years and years, and all my quality teachers talked about a related approach. in ballet, we subscribed to the theory that your muscles should be relaxed so that you can send energy in the right direction. when you throw your leg to the front, directing energy backward is stabilizing, and when you're balancing, you continuously direct energy out through all your limbs. gripping your muscles to try to hold a balance always ends in a toppling mess. ouch! and embarrassing.

if this 'opposites' approach works for both ballet and bruce lee, there must be some validity to it. i wonder if it's possible to use this philosophy for other difficult things in life besides overpowering 1-inch-punches and arabesque balances in floofy tutus and under bright lights. let's try it out!

things i find consistently challenging in life:

• waiting ages for the city bus

to apply bruce's wise quote to this particular problem, i will revise it to: "The more relaxed the muscles are, the more bus-please-come-right-now energy can flow through the body. Using muscular tensions to try to 'demand' the bus to come faster or attempting to use brute force to knock the bus into your neighborhood faster will only work to opposite effect."

• cooking things that taste good and that i would feel more comfortable serving to friends than enemies

"The more relaxed the chef's muscles are, the more the olive oil, garlic, and deliciousness can flow through the vegetables. Using muscular tensions to try to 'yummify' the vegetables or attempting to use brute force to knock deliciousness into the vegetables will only work to opposite effect."

• figuring out how to configure my wireless home network

"The more relaxed the muscles are, the more hi-speed wireless energy can flow through the studio apartment. Using individual tensions to try to 'configure' the wireless or attempting to use brute force to knock wireless functionality in the studio will only work to opposite effect."

ok, i get it. being stressed about everything probably doesn't help. i just end up frustrated, defeated, and with a crumpled set of router instructions that have missed the trash can.

aha! i am beginning to appreciate his philosophies for both their truth and versatility. now, i shall visit youtube to watch some serious asswhoopin. i will get some tea before i start to enjoy the clips i'm able to find, and this is what i will look like when i am watching them:










thank you, bruce. you are very wise and have cured my hangover headache. now come over and fix my wireless. also...nice pecs.

annie vs wild

tonight, i was sitting around the house with my colleague tyler watching television, and as we passed the discovery channel he said, 'aw. dude. go back. this show is awesome.

aw wait. this is the discovery channel that's in hindi. i think the english one is somewhere in the 50s or 60s.'

as i flipped up, we saw that irritating bollywood star on like 4 channels advertising 4 different types of garbage. i shook my fist at the television, and tyler gave me an odd look.

it was this show called man vs. wild. the star of this show is stranded in a different remote location each episode to demonstrate localized survival techniques. for example, i hear that a popular song and dance for this guy is to purposely get himself neck deep into quicksand to show you how he gets out.

i watched the show with moderate interest while also checking the gossip blogs. moments during which i was raptly attentive included

• when he jumped 8 ft over a deep canyon
• when he cut off the tail of a scorpion and ate it for no apparent reason
• when he removed his shirt

which got me thinking. just how interesting would my version of this show be?

situation: annie vs grizzly bear
bear: rawr!
me: don't bother me. i'm busy playing scrabulous.

situation: annie vs deep ravine without provisions
ravine: if you fall in me, you will fall into the greatest depths of the earth, never to be found again. molten hot lava is in the middle of the earth, you know.
me: mmmm. cheeseburgers.

situation: annie vs army of tropical ants
ants: we are many. we are 6 times as many legs. we are incredibly frightening and powerful as a giant army, and our bodies look like very small turds if you put them under a moderately-priced microscope. you know, like ones you can get at wal-mart. they're only like 30 bucks.
me: yes, over here! yay, my turn. one makers and soda on the rocks, please. thank you.

situation: annie vs endless desert
desert: i am hot. so hot. there is no food or water for miles. and no, you can't eat that camel. besides. what are you going to kill it with? that gucci belt you're wearing? give me a friggin break. is that from fall06 or spring07?
me: fall06.

situation: annie vs tumultuous sea in tiny fishing boat
sea: rawhrharhahrcrashcrashcrashwaveswavesrawwrrr
me: this is getting ridiculous. no one watches the discovery channel anyway. i resign.
discovery channel: fine! be that way. i have no idea why we hired you anyway.
me: yea. me neither. this sucked.
discovery channel: don't be such a bitch. we're through. give me back my mix tapes.
me: thank god. get them out of my sight. oh, and ps - no one who isn't a christian seventh grader with a mild acne problem in the late 90s wearing an oversized sweater from the gap in rugby green with navy and ivory stripes has ever listened to pm dawn. so yea. take the mix tapes.
discovery channel: cold as ice.
me: ya hurd.

sparkling conversation

the international terminal of the dubai airport has lots of nice shit in it. a full chanel makeup counter, lacoste shirts in every single color in the wasp rainbow (read: pink. pale pink. carnation pink. coral pink.), and really large, tacky gucci handbags, a la

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

even with all my experience with luxury shopping and all my experience with airport food, i was still stunned by the disparity between the grade of the available retail goods and the grade of my dinner salad. so much so that, after several minutes of eating and waiting for satisfaction, i actually looked down at the food impaled on my fork and said to it, out loud, 'wow. you are so tasteless.'

then, it occurred to me that this isn't a rare interaction. that is: the interaction between me and an object that has no hope of ever being able to respond coherently.

while being driven around dubai today by an acquaintance in a creamy white 2008 lexus sc luxury coupe, i had a fleeting moment of feeling completely and utterly poor. i stopped listening to my driver talk and said to dubai, 'esh. you are so expensive.'

now, this isn't something that i by any means premeditate. as in, 'hmm. i think i'll stop right here and make a generic comment.' it just happens, and it's over before i know it. i don't waltz around cosmopolitan cities pretending like i'm in my own privately narrated, publicly irritating version of sex in the city.

other fascinating comments along these same lines include

• 'i hate you so hard' to a train that was 5 hours late last week. 5. hours. so! mad!
• 'i don't understand you; you are talking nonsense' to a physical chemistry textbook in college
  
• 'i love you. you are the best thing that ever happened to me' to beer
  

i think the reason i do this so much is because it enables me to tell something what i really think of it, which is a luxury i don't have with actual living people. i guess the filter between my brain and mouth likes to have a nice break every once in a while, and it's wise to take it while i'm expressing my opinion on things that can't be shocked and offended.

ah well. better the salad than the dweeb in front of me in line at security.

the best things in life are really, really expensive.

i'm in dubai for the weekend and have a hotel room all to myself. as i was reserving the room for two nights at the hyatt regency a few days ago, i cringed and thought, god, this sucks. i wish i had someone to share the cost with.

oh HO. no more. over the course of the past few hours, i've learned that having a baller ass hotel room all to yourself is pretty much the best thing that could ever happen to you.

nice hotel rooms are truly magical. the way i feel about luxury hotel rooms is the same way that other people feel about trekking through thailand, or the miracle of birth.

grumpy after long hours of travel, i was in a cab on the way to the hotel thinking, 'bleh,' when a 20-story mirage of concrete tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, 'annie. i've been waiting for you. i have a decandent king sized bed, a view of the people playing cricket in the park across the way, a well-stocked mini-fridge, a samsung television from the late 90s, and endless boxes of turkish delight. come with me.'

after we rolled up the hotel drive past a few mercedes suvs, i casually tossed a handful of bills over my shoulder to take of the fare and waltzed into the lobby. the floor was sparkling, the exotic flowers waved hello, and a handsome man at the concierge smiled as i walked up. a touring subset of the vienna choir boys quickly assembled and sang a madrigal as i checked in.

the dense oak door of my room opened up to a marbled bathroom to my right. the perfect ratio of marble to glass, spherical shower, and well-architected sink and faucet were just barely enough to overcome the weirdness of having all the choir boys follow me up to the room and try to come in and sing while i flipped through the room service menu. after some gown ruffling and a lot of cussing, i was able to shove them out the door, turn around, straighten my shirt, and get back to enjoying My Luxury Hotel Room.

ooh! there's the samsung from the early 90s, i noted. just as the concrete fairy had foretold. moving from the tv, i noticed the beautiful blonde woodwork, light-blocking drapes, bad corporate hanging art, and - ah! the king sized bed. there it was: so expansive, so white, so soft. i hurled myself onto it and basked in its lushness.

you know, i thought, the only thing that could possibly make this better is if i were on this bed rolling around on top of a thick layer of $100 bills. so i poured a bunch of benjamins over the top sheet and did that.

at this point i fell into a deep slumber and dreamt that i was frolicking in a meadow with a giant safe that contained 1000 gold bars.

aw man! pretending you're rich the best.

what's a country?

an obscenely inflated self-assessment of my disposable income has brought me where i am at this moment: sitting in the bahrain airport, enjoying a two-hour layover on my way to dubai for the weekend.

i am the laziest traveler you've ever met. i never research where i'm going before i get there, and could just barely point out the general vicinity of my destination city on a map. thus, i have no idea where i am right now.

when i was little, i used to watch carmen sandiego after school every day, which was this kid's game show based on a computer game where you had to chase this detective all around the world. the very last challenge of the game involved the last player standing and a gigantic country map on the ground. when the round started, the host would start screaming the name of a country that i had vaguely thought had been dissolved, absorbed, or sublimated in a recent political conflict, and the player would grab a giant pole with a red siren on top and flail wildly around the map and stamp it down in a few different places until the siren started wailing, which meant that they had put the pole down on the right country on the map.

i always rolled my eyes when the kids couldn't figure out where the countries were, not because i thought they were stupid, since i'd thought that the name of the country that had been bellowed was actually the name of a city, but more because the host would continue to scream the country name while the kid ran in desperate circles of panic, clearly without a fucking clue as to where it was.

i hate that. everyone does that in pictionary, too. they draw a house, a family, a flower bed, a sun, and a sprinkler system, and you're shouting, 'FAMILY! NEIGHBORHOOD! CENSUS UNIT! SUBURBAN DEPRESSION!' and they're all, 'argh,' and then they draw 5 circles what they've already drawn, and point at it with the marker aggressively.

listen. i've been watching what you've been drawing. i've been guessing enthuastically. i have no idea what it is, and all those circles and large gestures are really doing are pointing out which part of the paper you've chosen to create your drawing in. hey, news flash - i saw it. take some art classes already.

then the little sand timer runs out, and they say 'uggggggggggh! it was personal landscaping. landscaping!!' and in my head i think, 'i'm not picking up your next phone call.'

anyway. yeah. being here reminds me of carmen sandiego. and pictionary.

cooking cheetahs

in my new temporary housing situation, there's a tv in my room. at home, i specifically chose not to get a television because i LOVE television and would never leave the house if i had one.

i now spend a lot of my time with the television on, which means that i've watched a lot of shows over the past four weeks. during this time, i've found that i only like two types of shows with consistency:

Cooking shows

i love cooking shows! i used to watch them in middle school while eating chicken flavored ramen. i would flail home from school around 3:30, toss my backpack in my room, cook my msg salt brick, hurtle myself onto the sofa, and watch the hour block of cooking shows on the discovery channel from 4:00-5:00. they were perfect. no frills, no audiences, no irritating ex-wives of salman rushdie with great boobs and no charisma. just a narrator with a pleasant voice and two perfectly structured half hour episodes that reserved 10 minutes for an appetizer, 10 minutes for an entree, and 10 for a dessert, which usually highlighted some sort sumptuous chocolate ganache being poured on top of a multi-layered cake.

cooking shows are awesome for so many reasons.

• fancy cookware. nothing is more satisfying than seeing a perfectly aligned row of small, shiny silver metal dishes that contain lots of different stuff. cilantro, quartered lemons, minced red onion, saffron, sugar, salt. one by one, in they go!

• whisking. i love watching a mess of crap get whisked together. i think it's a combination of the nice metal cookware, the cheery clatter, and seeing a mess of crap get transformed into a smooth, homogeneous pool of unrecognizability.

• reliability of plot. cooking shows evade the banality of lame plot lines and the pain of half-assed writing by having the same goddamn plot every episode. it goes something like this:

Exposition
Setting: Kitchen. Character: Chef. Problem: No cooked food.

Rising Action
Unfolding story: I think I'll make a rack of lamb.

Complications arise:
Crap. Rack of lamb is hard to make.

Suspense builds:
Oh god. Can I make it?!

Climax
Turning point: Yes. Yes! I can!

Falling Action
Story dies down/events fall into place: Oh. Here's the fucking recipe. Nice of you to show up late. Dick.

Resolution
All falls into place: Now, all we have to do it wait for it to finish baking in the oven until I get bored and decide to pull the one that's already done out of my secret second oven.

Cheetah chasing shows

i would like to point out that i did not say 'nature shows.' i explicitly said 'cheetah chasing shows.'

i do not find scores of water birds paddling around a pool and quacking in south america interesting. i'm not sure who does. maybe ex-wives of salman rushdie.

cheetah chasing shows share some of the same great traits as cooking shows. namely, a dependable and always entertaining plot line. to illustrate with this example,

Exposition: Desert. Cheetah. Bored/hungry.

Rising Action: Hey look. A gnu.

Complications arise: Aw, fucker. It saw me.

Suspense builds: It's running fast.

Climax: I gotcha!

Falling Action: Why is your skin so tough?

Resolution: You were delicious.

if i could just get two channels for the rest of my life, one being a good food channel and the other being a cheetah chasing channel, i would be in a pretty good spot.