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.

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.

Shameful Confession # 55939393

There are moments in life where I feel completely ashamed to be me and these moments tend to happen quite frequently. One such event occurred on Monday night. Confession: I really love Disney original movies like “The Lizzie Maguire Movie” and “The Cheetah girls” parts 1 and 2 and “Gotta kick I up” a movie about a young group of Latina cheerleaders who learn the meaning of “si se puede.” I also love olsen twin movies but that would require a whole other entry to explain.

So I was really bummed out when I missed the showing of “high school musical: the movie" last year. Basically i was really off my game as far as television goes. I decided that I would use this flight back to Michigan as my opportunity to watch the movie so I planned on buying it from best buy on the way to the airport. Of course best buy was sold out, which made me want to see the movie even more. apparently all of those adolescent teenage girls had all got their copies and there i was, 25 and empty handed. tragic really. When I got home I decided to download it, but on the version I got the sound was not synched with the movie. It was 9:45 pm and I made a quick decision. I would jet out to target to see if I could make it before 10 so I could buy the movie. I was really determined to see the movie. I rolled into the lot at 9:55 and ran inside to grab what was the last copy. somewhere in ann arbor a 12 year old girl is crying.
(based on this cover doesn't it look like such good times! Guys, seriouslythought, it was awesome!! Everything I had imagined it would be! Zac Efron is hot! Sad confession number 2, this is not the first time I have lusted over zac since I used to watch him regularly on the show summerland. True story.

yummy. So this movie is like the Lizzie Maguire movie meets Grease (minus all the sexual innuendos). So the plot goes that this guy troy and a girl named Gabriella meet over winter break at a ski lodge where they are forced to sing karaoke together. They realize how much they love singing with each other but then lose contact. What thy don’t realize is that Gabriella has just transferred to Troy’s school! (are you seeing the grease similarities?). But come to find troy is a huge basketball star and Gabriella is a huge nerd. They both want to try out for the high school musical and find the magic they had while singing together. but in the rough world of high school you are relegated to your social circle. So the whole school breaks out into this song about how people should stick to the status quo and not rock the boat by trying to be what they are not. And a few kids gain the courage to confess their true passions. A black basketball player confesses that he also loves to bake. And a fat nerd confesses that she loves to dance hip hop music and seh starts to grind on top of the lunch tables and everyone is like "stick to the statu que!" And Ashley tisdale (suite life of zach and cody anyone?) has this ambiguously gay twin brother who is a drama geek and wears lots of hats and colorful t shirts. But in the end it’s like everyone learns that they can be whoever they want to be! And the star basketball player can also be good at singing! Aside from being suuuuper campy it also had a really nice message and I appreciated that. Seriously can’t wait for high school musical 2: summer break! It’s supposed to be about how they all get a job at a beach resort (a la 90210’s summer season and saved by the bell) and I’m going to hope that there is also singing involved.

"jesus camp"

well shagoodness, it has been ages. i have lots to say about puerto rico, but it is all still a big blur and i'm trying to process it in a succinct way. two words

lies and luxury!!

so anyways i just got back from sf. I flew a stunt kite which was awesome! ok but onto topics i want to discuss. Last night when i got home my mom had rented Jesus Camp and told me to watch it since it might have some relevance in my life. for those of you who don't know despite the fact that my mom is an athiest and my dad a bad catholic they decided to send me to what we now realize was a fundamentalist evangelical christian school. My mom just liked the fact that they taught the bible and had day care. So anyways I became relatively involved in the youth ministry as it was called and even did 1 or 2 week long "christian camps." this experience kind of fucked me up for a good part of my life for various reasons and i'm sure i am still recovering. Obviously i am no longer a fundamentalist evangelical christian but that is not the point. So anyways i had heard lots of terrible things about this movie. Not that the movie was terrible but rather that it depicted some really crazy, scary shit: children being raised to be literal "soldiers for christ" etc etc. The people who told me this had not been raised around such things so what they were describing sounded liek this awful satanic movie about evil people.

About 5 minutes into the film i started to become really disgusted but not for the reasons you would think. What disgusted me was how familiar the whole set up was. The christian flag flying high above the church, pledging allegiance to the bible, physical science books based on creationism, being taught how "logically" evolution cannot be right, people speaking in tongues (i never did and they made me feel bad like i was not close enough to god or some shit like that), the fucked up way that they teach about abortion and make you make "commitments to christ". that was my life!!! and i am totally freaking out!!!!!

what makes it even more strange is that i can see how from teh outside looking in this seems totally creepy and cult like, and i even find it a bit nauseating but at the same time i totally understand what they are saying. I had this flashback of our teachers telling us how despite the fact that darwin had thought up this whole evolution thing, on his deathbed he recanted and was believed to have said "i was wrong" and asked for god's forgiveness. ahh! does this give a little glimpse into why i am so crazy now!

but all of that aside i confess i watched these people and didn't think they were evil or crazy. They were really real to me and they just believed what they believed. They reminded me alot of my friends' parents growing up, and i feel like if you were to show a radical liberal family from berkeley raising their kids it would seem just as foreign as being taught that the bible is the truth. so what is scary is how can you change a persons ideas when they truly in their hearts believe that they are right? what if what i believe isn't right? it was just a truly uncomfortable experience all around for me. so if you all rent this movie, rent it with an open heart. all this stuff may seem weird but it's just as weird as you telling me that you weren't raised learning anything about god or knowing anything about bible stories and such.

things

i'm watchign this movie "nine lives." it's pretty good. it's these 9 vignette's about 9 different women whose lives are a little fucked up and who fuck up their lives a little bit. And in the end, as with all movies that are written by latinos, they are all interconnected in some strange, unexpected way because aren't all all interconnected? anyways it got me thinking sometimes how life is just really sad. And sometimes it's directly sad and sometimes it's indirectly sad when we witness the sadness of others. And even if we are happy, seeing someone else's sadness can bring us down but also make us really appreciative of our happiness. One time orges told me "i found this book called the prophet while in prague! it's so amazing." and i said that i knew it and had read it because my mom read it to me. Anyways he quoted it to me

you're joy is your sorrow unmasked

this movie got me thinking about that. you can't have one without the other because they mutually constitute each other. Sometimes life is really awesome, and we are reminded of how wonderful it is because of the bad times we've had. And sometimes life is shit, and the shittiness becomes apparent when we compare it to the good times.

you're joy is your sorrow unmasked

...

love's a bitch

** so i was having some formatting issues (spacings and fonts) so i went back and fixed)

So I’m watching “before sunset” which is such a FUCKING GOOD movie. Premise: years in the future you run into someone that you had a very deep love relationship with. But not the kind of relationship that lasts for years and years and was tainted by reality. No, I’m talking about the kind of relationship where you knew the person for a week, or a night or a few hours, but they left you wondering “what if” because they were never tainted by reality, and the fantasy of them can live on in you forever as the constant “what if” in your life, and even though you are with someone and love them you can still say that making out or kissing or holding hands or whatever with this other person for only one night was the hottest thing that has ever happened in your life, again, because it is not tainted by reality. Now make a movie from that feeling, that moment, etc and you’d have “before sunset.”

Who hasn’t had that fantasy where you run into someone you were with long ago, and you look fabulous, and in paris of all places. Damn you paris! I feel like I’ve always had this really intensely confused relationship with paris, being that I know I should love it but my time I spent there was a cold thanksgiving weekend where I stayed in my friend’s host sister’s bed and we both nearly got blown off the Eiffel tower because it was so crazy windy. David said that although he traveled through Europe on a vespa he never went to paris because he felt that paris had to be reserved for love and romance and therefore he would only go there with a woman. Perhaps that was my problem with my Paris experience, I was missing home and it was cold rainy and my boyfriend at the time was being a jackass. This all does not equate to love. My fondest memories of paris: smoking (ah Europe and my smoking days), eating really bad food, having a massive “I might die, just talk to me about nothing” panic attack on the underground, and most importantly my old college roommate, Miami, vomiting on that very same underground train a few days later. I guess in the end we were both even, her for the vomit and me for the panic attack.

Anyways in this movie these 2 people met when they were like 22 on a train going to, I believe, Vienna. So they have this torrid one night thing and when the guy gets back on his train the next morning they promise to meet in 6 months. The movie ends with you either believing they meet or believing they don’t depending if you are the romantic or the cynic. Well “Before Sunset” takes place years later when the guy has written a book about the whole experience. You find out that they never actually met up 6 months later because of some conflict but now he is on a book tour in paris and she shows up at the store where he is giving a book signing. Like HELLO THIS IS EVERY WOMAN’S FANTASY! Or maybe this is just my fantasy…Anyways what is amazing is that I have imagined moments like this in my life, but it’s more like I am at an open mic night in SF and some red haired tall quiet man goes on stage and says “I’m gonna sing a song that always reminds me of a girl. What we had was short but I always remember her when I sing this song” and then he starts to sing some awesome version of Mr. Big “to be with you” or cardigans “love fool.” And in this fantasy I look totally awesome and fantastically fit. I also have really good shoes and possibly glasses (even though I have perfect vision, damnit). The truth is that knowing myself and my luck I would run into an ex flame while looking shitty in my studying clothes after not having showered for 4 days. Yes, this is my luck. But I mean who knows, perhaps love and romanticism can prevail. Perhaps someday I will have my revenge and look fabulous. I mean who really knows.

There is this scene where they are catching up in a coffee shop and this convo goes down. The amazing part about it is that I feel like this could be any woman’s inner monologue, and I love that she just says it to him.

Celine: “how do I look? Do I look different now?”
Jesse: “you look…thinner. You look thinner.”
Celine: “so was I fat? Oh my god I was fat! I was a fatty! You wrote a book about a French fat girl!”
…
Celine: “I had this um, funny, well, horrible dream the other day. I was having this awful nightmare that I was 32, and then I woke up and I was 23…so relieved. And then I woke up for real, and I was 32. yeah”

I love her because she’s just a little bit crazy, just a bit. And most of the movie is her talking and the whole time kind of doubting myself like “am I saying to much” and him listening and looking at her with such affection thinking “fuck, I could spend the rest of my life on this park bench with this woman, but alas fate is cruel.”

And there is this part where she talks about how sometimes when you have those torrid kind of love affair things and they don’t work out, as they never do, you are traumatized and stunted forever because nothing can ever compare. So if that didn’t work out how will you ever find something that will. Like hello! Speak the words of my fucking soul! But like I said, this can really only happen with non relationships, the kind that are really short lived and leave you thinking, “wait so when I count the number of boyfriends I’ve had should I list that? I mean it doesn’t really count because it wasn’t a real relationship, but it was something…else.” Does anyone know what I am talking about? It's like really passionate, unnaturally so. I do'nt think that real love and real relationships should be that passionate, because if they were they would burn out quickly. Which is what makes the whole unforgettableness of it all even worse because you know it would have never worked out but you spend the rest of your life trying to get that feeling back because it just feels so fucking good. Has anyone has the fantasy come true of running into this person again and being fabulous, or are we too young still for these kinds of moments? I usually like to have parting thoughts, but really, I don’t know because I wrote this post last night but was too tired to tidy it up.

Cathy and I saw bridge to terabithia tonight which was seriously, about as traumatic as My Girl, only way more awesome. Weeping! We were literally weeping! So many eeeemotions