who am i?

i have found myself recently carrying around a notebook with me for blogging ideas and things that i want to rant about. I find this kind of sad, like i'm trying to pretend i'm a real writer when i'm really not. Also i usually go back and read my notes and don't have the same ferver i had when i first wrote them so i scrap the whole idea.

So anyways one of the notes i wrote to myself was that i should write about my move. I moved...i moved 4 houses down but it was a move nonetheless. moves suck balls. Especially when you are a single girl with lots of shit. I always hate asking people to help me so i only let my few really really close friends participate. I do this because moving other people's stuff sucks but also because when i ask random people to help me move i always get comments like "you have so much shit!" and "do you really need this many shoes." I don't need that kind of judgment! yes i need 9 pairs of boots!

So anyways all the big guys i know are out of town. In fact everyone i know is out of town so it was just me and Nishi left here to move all of my shit. Let me tell you why moving is especially hard for me. I have really short arms. I have really short everything but my short arms prevent me from being able to fully grasp boxes and makes gripping things really difficult. So anyways that was not the point of this post. I moved, it's done, onto move interesting topics.

I went to ikea this weekend. does everyone hate going to ikea as much as i do? I hate that people go there and think they are buying really classy, stylish furniture. It's ikea for fucks sake! If you have style you can make anything work from the most expensive to the cheapest store but if you have no style prefab swedish furniture isn't gonna suddenly give you good taste. we traversed the masses, i bought a red dresser (red, i decided, will be my new accent color against my green bed spread) and a red chair, my stomach started bothering me and i had to rush to the bathroom, we ate 50 cent hot dogs. all in all it was your typical trip to ikea. I have this theory that we are all given gifts, and that we can be good at a lot of things but we can only be great at a few things. I am GREAT at putting together ikea furniture. furniture in general but especially ikea furniture. it is like my gift. i will say now that i can put together any piece in 20 minutes or less. true story. so anyway i had this realization as i was trying to find an end table that i really hate paying for cheap things. Dont' get me wrong, i love paying under $10 for an awesome dress at forever 21 but paying over 100 dollars for something that is cheaply made and that i will have to replace in a couple of years really bugs me. I love love love buying expensive things for cheap but cheap things ugh. And that is exactly what i hate about ikea. Nonetheless, my current (and eternal) financial slump leaves me in the position where if i need furniture i have to go to ikea. this is my life.

I am using this as my computer chair only it has dark wooden legs
my dresser only it's a more bright red in person
I went to ikea with my gay and his fiance, eric. For some reason eric was like "what is your ideal wedding dress" mainly because they were talking about their wedding. I think what makes this funny is that eric is this huge black guy with dreadlocks so it sounds odd having someone like that ask you what your ideal wedding dress is. I'd never really thought about it so much mainly because i never thought that the cut of wedding dresses suited my figure. i don't look good in long dresses and it kind of annoys me that this is the norm. To be honest i had this idea of just fucking the whole wedding dress concept and buying a couture gown for the same price in some awesome color like gold or something. well he had an idea and we both added to it, so here it is. My ideal wedding dress: strapless, maybe raw silk, knee length (fuck the long dress), shoes we are not sure about but something manolo blahnik esque. and then to top it off have a really cute bun or something and have a short veil that hits at the nose, liek those old hats from the 40's. nice huh! now i just have to find the husband. but i figure i'll just have someone make this dress for me. I bet it will cost less than buying one.

So anyways onto my new place. where i was living before they had everythign so i really didin't have to buy anything. But now we all have been roomates and none of us own anything liek plates and shit liek that. so i've been shopping at teh salvation army and varoius consignment stores to try to built up our kitchen collection. I got a 20 piece pier 1 set of dinnerware for 20 bucks. I grew up in a world of pottery barn and z gallery and now i'm buying plates at teh salvation army. What would my mother say. That being said my mom's used to and still buys glasses from the 99 cent store so i guess that's where i got it from. I bought 2 nice frying pans at the macy's home sale for 50% off and a wustoff chefs knife. As my father and anthony bourdain always say, you really only need one good chefs knife, not that whole block of knives you will never use.

I have always had this fantasy of owning mix n match china patterned plates. The idea of just having one pattern (or china at all) seems very limiting but owning lots of different plates from various collections seems very cool indeed. Actually i never grew up with china so i don't know anything about it. So i found this antique/consignment/used store around the corner form me that sells awesome stuff called the treasure chest and i have begun to build up an awesome plate collection. if i hadn't lost my camera in puerto rico i'd take pictures, but alas.

my room: oh man. I always knew i loved ethnic art and bright colors but i never realized that i was basically venturing into the world of urban outfitter type home stylings. it's true, i am a hipster. evidence: on my red dresser i put a gold framed square mirror (salvation army 17 bucks), a teal blue lamp with a shade that has little birds on it (urban outfitters, hate myself),
a tree for hangingmy necklaces (also urban outfitters but also totally necessary), this in brass
an antique wooden tray (treasure chest $9), on top of tray are various glass canistars of different sizes holding all of my vitamins. Instead of putting the vitamin bottles up there i decided to put them in pretty glass containers to make them more aesthetically pleasing, and then a picture of me and my mom in the 80's. it kind of looks awesome but i also judge myself.

i also bought glass hooks for my purses and scarves that have the virgin mary and jesus on them and i have 2 shelves where i have pictures of my parents and my virgin mary candles and other wierd religious stuff. I also have a wall of crosses. these curtains. thye have red flowers and gold accents

judge me!! but we have an indian, a turk and a frenchman all living in one house so i really think it will just be brimming with ethnic flare all over the walls.

so that is about it for now. I think i'm gonna have an R. Kelly trapped in the closet party on thursday once my roomies movie in. i hope...

oh suggestions: so i want a cool shower curtain. If i could find one that had little birds like the lamp shade i'd buy it. know anywhere i can find a cool one? i also need an earing rack. and more art. I was thinking of framign these old posters my dad gave me that he had of pancho villa and che and zapata. they are sepia and black and white and also kind of awesome. thoughts?

barbra streisand

oh i forgot to mention that i went to jen's house before to help her warm up a dish for the bbq/pot luck (really peopel just brought beer so we were drunk sans food but still) and jen has this awesome record player with lots of old albums of jazz singers and such. being at her place is like being in a very loungey environment and i love it. very relaxing. So i told her taht my parents had all these old records that they never use and i would bring them back when i went to LA. So while i was home i went through all of their old albums and i felt like i got a glimpse of why i am the way i am, namely a homosexual man trapped in teh body of a woman. htere were lots of old spanish albums but there were also LOTS of carpenters and LOTS of barbra streisand and EVERY musical from the 70's like a chorus line and the sound of music and sergio mendez and lots of beatles and i realized that my parents might have been slightly cool. Anyways i brought the cool ones back that i thougth jen would like and it turned out she secretly also loved barbra streisand and the carpenters so she was glad to add these to her collection. So anyways while at her place we decided to listen to my mom's "the way we were" album. If you have nto seen this movie you need to go rent it right now and if you have not heard the album you need to email me right now and i will send it to you. Sure we all have heard "the way we were" but have you really HEARD "the way we were"??

Memories, may be beautiful and yet Whats too painful to remember We simply choose to forget So its the laughter We will remember Whenever we remember... The way we were...

seriously that is some goods shit. I also highly recommend "the best thing you've ever done" where she says.

Aren't you glad its finally over
Don't you feel a whole lot better
Isn't it a joy to lie alone at night
Aren't people more exciting
Doesn't music have more meaning
Don't you close your eyes
The moment you close the light
To be rid of all the feeling
How it cluttered up the morning
To be free of all the memories
Every one
Take a bow then take another
Isn't loneliness a winner
Wasn't leaving me
The best thing you've ever done

Now i know loving barbra is kind of comical but all my life it's been one of those secret things i keep on the sly and dont 'tell anyone because it's mildly shameful. but she is barbra for a reason, people!! and she's awesome! and so here i am saying out loud that i love barbra streisand! i loved her in the way we were, i loved her in funny girl and funny lady. i love her songs! i cannot help myself!

grad school prom

I went to a bbq tonight which was good times. I even got (am) a little drunk. But point being 2 very awesome things happened.

1. i met dental students who said that YES i do indeed have a bad case of tmd jaw issues and htat i need to get it fixed and most of my sinus issues are due to that. i mean i knew this but it was nice to get a free second opinion. I also got invited to a dental school frat party, whatever that means. i meant it sounds wicked fun.

2. it was decided among 3 of us (mainly me) that in order to help me deal wiht my issues of never being asked to prom we need to throw a grad student prom. chances are i won't get asked this time but i think i can elect myself prom planning committee chair which i'm sure will be equally awesome and we can wear pretty dresses and dance to songs i want to dance to and maybe just maybe this will help me progress beyond teh age of 18. you think?? what should oru theme be? "made for each other: famous couples throughout history"

malls gays and high school

Well I'm back in ann arbor after a world wind week in LA. Ok it wasn't really world wind but i relived my high school days and i had fun in the process. I came to realize that i think my post sickness blues may have actually been a real funk and in the end i really just needed to go shopping at a good quality mall and hang out with the gays. It's so amazing to me how gays have such regenerative powers. I have been months without them and it makes me feel like my goal this fall should be to wrangle up some awesome homosexxxxxuals from the incoming class of students. Seriously, it's most necessary for my livelihood. It also makes me wonder if the gays feel the same way about a good hag.

So Thursday Ivan and i went to the southcoast plaza, the bombest mall within a 60 mile radius of us. We ended up having to leave super late because his mom was using the car so he had no means of getting to me. High school moment 1. We discussed many things on the way to the mall, like how fire crotch isn't quite fire crotch but rather the "color of sunburnt leaves" and we listened to "big girls don't cry" etc etc. My goal at the mall was to find ankle boots. but after trying a few on i realized that my ankles are kind of skinny and this would not be an easy thing to do much like finding pants can be an epic journey to morgdoor.

So anyways some of the things i bought over a 2 day period.
- along cardigan from club monacco
- 2 pairs of tights, one wool, one very mall fish nets. I decidd this season i'm exploring the world of dresses and tights which is why i needed teh ankle boots
- a couple of sweaters from zara which has totally awesome stuff this season.
- this totally awesome belted black wool coat from zara that has all kinds of buttons and things and look very russian military. I cant' find a pic because zara's website sucks, as do all european clothing websites (read H&M)
- a knock off missoni dress from H&M. Knit, crazy shapes and colors = awesome
- and then i bought these boots! i am kind of excited about them. they are kidskin! but i'm also really insecure about them because i feel like they are a bit much for where i live. the part that folds over kind of cinches more so they look slouchy. Imagine them with dresses...can you? Would they look ok?? will i look ridiculous? make me feel better about my purchase, leave a comment
- i also bought new bras and my cup size shrank which is like yay i lost weight but also like..oh shit i have small tits.

We had to head home because i had to be home for dinner (high school moment 2). Then on Friday night Cathy decided we should go bowling since i never really got to go bowling in high school with cool people. I told her i had gone with my church youth group but she said that didn't count so we went bowling. I still suck at bowling. It was kind of retro but not on purpose type bowling alley with regular and women named lavern and a karaoke bar and a really mean racist bar tender and so after we lost we drive around teh corner to this place called the Bull Pen. wow that was a trip! we walked in and were literally the youngest people there by like 20 years!! It was all these 40 year old cougars getting wild on the dancefloor to this 60's cover band and i mean they were getting down! like slutty style dancing and everyone was trashed and i saw my freshman year religion teacher!! The one who taught my bff ryan that transubstantiation literally meant eating the body and drinking the blood of christ. literally! Anyways cathy and i were cracking up but the boys couldn't hang so then we decided to head to in n out to truly end our high school night. At about midnight all the kids started rustling out of in n out and we realized....curfew. Then we discussed high school experiences and how mine sucked and how i may never fully recover.

Saturday my parents decided they wanted to plant trees in the yard. They are on this tree kick like they swear we live in the middle of nowhere where you can plant tons of trees. Liek hello! we live in the suburbs of la!! But anyways they kept making up excuses to plant trees liek "oh this is to commemorate your health, and oh this is to commemorate your graduation from college" which ps was 3 years ago. so anyways we bought some awesome trees. Something called a silver dollar and a palo alto tree (get it!) and something called a hong kong orchid tree. As we were digging the hole for the hong kong orchid my dad found an old bone that my childhood dog must have buried. It got me a bit eeemotional missing good old Q-tip Hernandez and so i decided to throw the bone back in for good measure and that tree would be in honor of Q-Tip. Then i went to a family party which was fun. the babies are walking! so crazy. And then a 13 year old girl asked what grade i was in...in high school!! yes, she thought i was 15. Refer to bra size change above. My aunt wanted to make these cupcakes from a famous bakery called sprinkles here in LA but she ran out of time. But she had been talking up these cupcakes so much that i was like, oh hell no, we are definitely making these cupcakes. So somehow i ended up making cupcakes. Adn i gotta say, i have not baked in like 10 years. I'm not bad! they were pretty good. Light, fluffy, airy, derrricious.

Sunday Cathy took Ivan and I to try some korean delicacies at an all you can eat korean bbq. so many ssssspiced meatsssssssss. so many pickled things. It was quite good i must say. We sat in the corner and talked about all sorts of things over stinky meats and bim bom bi bop sauce. How i won't have a threesome but everyone else will, how i must be horrible in bed because of all my rules. People think that my strange mannerisms in real life will somehow carry over to the bedroom and i just wanted to tell them that i am quite normal if not awesome in other areas of life! i am not josie grossie anymore!! And just because i dont' like you touchign me wiht your feet doesn't mean i won't let a lover caress me. uughhh.

So then we went to the mall and then the movies. Seriously being in la is liek being in the high school that i never actualy got to experience. The mall and a movie, typical. We saw "becoming jane" which i knw was not going to be the greatest thing since "sense and sensibility" but i knew it would be informative and perhaps make me feel better about my fear that i'm going to end up an old spinster, cast away by her lovers for being too smart and not having enough money. And indeed it was just that. Before the movie even started the previews were those kind that get you relaly eeeemotional with the right kind of music and the plot that just kills you and so we were all crying. One preview that really got to me was for "the jane austen book club." It's all these women who get together to read jane austen and they can relate to various characters like "i'm an emma!!" etc etc. So anyways there is this one character who i think is the emma who falls in love with a high school kid and her husband is yelling at her "high school is over!" and she says back in a really pathetic way "high school is never over..." and it was that moment. Ivan and i looked at each other and we were liek....holy shit that was deep! because i seriously feel like high school isn't over and i knwo that's a really lame thing to say but i have so many unresolved issues from high school. It scarred me and i feel like deep down in side the fat girl wiht braces just wants to be asked to prom!! the prom of life!! and then i started thinking about how this stuntedness could lead me to end up like this character, having an affair with a super hot boy in high school who makes me feel like i never felt when i was younger. How wretched. S

Then we went to pinkberry afterwards because i had seen that they opened one in long beach. Basically it's hip froyo for a very high cost. The store itself had all kind of crazy stuff liek rock carpet, and hanging lights, and lime green everywhere and orange plastic designer chairs and all kinds of harajuku music playing and toppings like black berries or captain crunch. It was utterly ridiculous but pretty tasty. Although cathy claims we still have to try TCBY which i am all about sampling one of these days. Also cathy noted that this over priced froyo was identical to a water based vietnamese soft serve. interesting.

And then we took pictures and ivan and i decided that we are going to continue our brangelinaesque W spread of us in various locations looking unhappy (puerto rico, 2nd street corner, bowling alley, pinkberry) and we will compile all of these pictures and turn it into a calendar that we will send all of our friends. awesome!? i think so!

And thus ended my week in Los Angeles, good times as always. Now i'm back and i have to serioulsy jump into my work week. seriously! but this weekend i'm going to chicago to fly kites and go to the zoo with orges and it will be awestacular.

To quote Angela Chase, this is how I feel.

Sometimes it seems like we're all living in some kind of prison. And the crime is how much we hate ourselves. It's good to get really dressed up once in a while. And admit the truth: that when you really look closely? People are so strange and so complicated that they're actually... beautiful. Possibly even me

And for this reason Ivan has decided it is most important for us to go to a place where we can gather our thoughts and regain our strength! The South Coast Plaza to see the Bloomingdale's fall collection. What kind of damage will i do!!

more musings

my mom just made chicken soup for me!! liek real homestyle mexican chicken soup!! I don't really know if White people or black people or asians make chicken soup the same way (asians definitely don't. they make rice pourage) but it was made by a mexican woman from a recipe originating in mexico so i'm just going to assume it's mexican. and man it was bomb!! truth, i have not eaten my mothers cooking in 5 years. She made a stern decision when i left that she was not going to do that anymore and i forgot how good my mom's food is. And it's not because i'ts all tasty and buttery or anything. My mom's food is really clean and has no grease or fat and it's just delicious natural flavors. And now i'm at the part of say anything when he holds the boom box out side of her window and i hate diane court! She is so not worthy, but she has a lisp too so i guess i should feel a sense of solidarity or something.

so anyways there is this scene that is so awesome in the movie when lloyd's friend Cory is asking him if they had sex and she's like " Lloyd, listen to me. EVERYTHING has changed. You've had sex. No matter what you might think, nothing will ever be the same between you two. You might be sixty. You might be walking down the street, and you'll talk to her about something, whatever. But what you'll really be thinking is 'We had sex'." And this just cracked me up because it's so true. ok, just wanted to share.

Say Anything and Angus

so at the behest of cathy I am watching Say Anything at home in LA. yes I am in LA. I am home recooperating from whatever it is i have. I came home and i said "mom can you make me soup?" and seh said in true Grace fashion, "I can show you how to make soup." My mom has also fired our cleaning lady and taken up cleaning the house so she said "here is your room. clean huh? Do you think you can keep it this way when you leave?" I was like "mom i came to relax ahhhhhh" and then i threw myself on the bed. This is my mom.

So anyways back to say anything. I've seen this movie like a bagillion times and every time i see it, like with all 80's movies, it takes on a new meaning depending on my age. Cathy asked if thsi was like my high school life and in so many ways it was not but i remember wanting it to be. I wanted to be the smart girl that a weird, emo kid would fall in love with and stand outside of my window holding up a boom box blasting peter gabriel. And then graduation day came and i was like...well i guess that whole plan was a bust. It might partially have had to do with the fact that i, unlike diane court did not have the "body of a game show host." I had been chubs most of my life and by the time i lost the weight (and the braces) it was too late. The damage had been done. And now i am 25 and according to a male friend i have really low self confidence and am too self deprecating. REALLY!! I HAD NO IDEA!!

speaking of chubs, i was at this wedding this weekend. I kind of crashed it but not really because i just got invited for the party/reception part of it and i only drank like 4 free vodka crans so really all in all i cost them like 30 bucks which i made up for by bringing the p-a-r-t-y. So anywyas i met this kid who had been introduce to me as "angus" but for some reason peopel were also calling "james." I was liek "dude, what is your name again!" and he goes "james but my nickname is angus." so i ask now, readers, does anyone remember this movie?
because i do and it was AWESOME and i noticed that this kid totally looked like the main character Angus so i took a shot in the dark and said
me: "did you get that nickname cuz you look like that kid from the movie angus????!"
him: "YES!! YOU SAW THAT MOVIE!"
me: "dude yes!! i was fat as a kid! i loved that movie. were you fat!"
him: "yes!!!"
me: "it's sticks with you for life!!!"
him: "yeah but people always said i had a good personality!"
me: "dude my friend ryan and i used to say that because we were so booty looking growing up we had to really develop other aspects of ourselves thus leading us to be waht we considered AWESOME PEOPLE!!"

and then there wa sa mutual high five and a screaming "YEAH!!!" So as usual i don't really know what i'm saying here but Say anything is a really good movie, and Angus is also a really good movie and the latter was more like my life than the former.