Me and My ssssss's

so last night Cathy came and picked me up so that we could go shopping for a wedding dress. Cathy's getting married!!! haha no no J to the K. She is attending a wedding and needed a dress to wear. It's for some girl who lives in time square in new york and is hella rich and hella aZian. check out their website http://janeandleon.com/. It's kind of awesomely bad as all wedding websites are. My favorite part is the proposal section where leon talks about taking out the "teal blue box" how original, and feeling "pearls of joy in his soul" after Jane says yes. I've never been proposed to so i don't know if i too would feel pearls of joy but in the meantime i can only mock. I love it! Point being cathy somehow got invited to what is expected to be a very posh affair and she needed a fashion makeover, stat. If she were left to her devices she would show up in a cotton day dress and some Steve Madden kitten heal sandals. It would be truly tragic! These are Azian women! they dress well! I understood her plight because i too am short and find it difficult to find dresses with the right proportions. Anyways we found a black dress and a brown dress with a teal ribbon. I know, sounds wierd, but it works.

so on the way home Cathy started elongating her sssssss's and talking about my lisp and then she asked me why i never fixed my lisp. I then decided i felt it was necessary to tell the story of one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, the day i found out i had a lips. I was 18 and visiting knott's scary farm with my friends. There were a couple random friend of friends people there and one girl named Serena. I only knew serena from Religion class because that was my class where i got to socialize with the non honors students, the plebians. I hated that class. Anyways Serena was talking to me and was like "Cristina, you have a really cute lisp, you know that." In retrospect Serena was kind of butch, a volleyball player, and she might have been hitting on me. Anyways the rest of the convo went like this

Cri: "um....haha....what do you mean? I don't have a lisp."
Serena: "yeah you do. Well it's more like you elongate your sssss's but you definitely have it"
Cri: No i don't!!!! (turn to other friend who i have known since i was 3). Do I have a lisp???
Other friend: Yeah...
Cri: why didnt' you ever tell me!!!
Other friend: We thought you knew! You didn't know!!
Cri: No!!!

This sent me in a gigantic, whirlwind shame spiral. When i got home that night i asked my mom "did you know i had a lips, mom?" My mom responded "yes I did. We were going to take you to speech therapy when you were younger but the doctor said it wasn't bad enough to put you through that." I was in shock! shock! eeemainge you never knew you had a speech impedement and suddenly at age 18 you find out you did and everyone knew you did but you. so tramatic. when i read Harry Potter later in my life i started thinking that maybe my sss's are kind of like parsel tongue or something. so anyways ever since then i have tried to appre-ceeeee-ate the sss's in my life. Anyways i hope this helps to kind of explain my lingo where i write things like "ssssssexual" and "apreccccceeeate" and stuff like that. Maybe take some time today and try to appreeeecceeeeate the "s" in your life.

On another note my housing in Michigan has been finalized and i can move in next friday. yay!! Originally they weren't going to let me move in until the 1st so I was going to have to sleep in a hotel or something for a week. The other day when i road my bike to the mall i stopped at Macy's because i had this idea that i could buy a mattress here and pick it up at a store location there. how very narrow minded of me. I had totally forgotten that they don't even HAVE Macy's out there! Which begs the more important shopping question. What DO they have in Michigan??? What if their malls suck? what if the best store they have is like Kohl's! Orges, can we go shopping in chicago??

sing to me hilary duff!!

ok so i made a deal with Belton that if she watched the new season premier of Laguna i would watch it too. I thought i was too old for this shit, but damn this is gonna be a great season. I hate everyone! this is key to me truly enjoying these reality shows. If i liked everyone what would be the point. Anyways i was contemplating writing a minute by minute update on the episode but i thought...no...but the more i watch the more i realize i NEED to write an entry on this. so i will tivo it sometime tomorrow and recap for you all because it's pure genius.

Let the rain fall down!

I fucking love the theme song. hilary duff i love you!! Assley Simpson has nothing on you, NOTHING!!

SOAP II

did anyone watch the Daily Show last night. Samuel L Jackson was on! Mother fucking snakes on a plane!!!! I'm not gonna lie i was initially worried that wiki was lying and maybe he was not as excited as they were claiming he was, but no, he really IS that excited! he was even talking about a sequel! ok ok i am seeing this movie come hell or high water. apparently it was originally supposed to be some kind of crazy hong kong like movie but that director got fired thus the whole name changing fiasco but the new guy did Sam L. Jackson's favorite movie, "Final Destination 2." ??? I know wierd but whatever i'm willing to roll with it. I have loved Sam L. Jackson ever since i stalked the filming of Jackie Brown at the Del Amo Mall for a week straight. If you look really close during one scene at in the food court you can see my arm buying an Icee. Anyways I got his autograph and took a picture with him in his Kangol hat. Sadly i lost both of those items but it's seared into my memory forever!

SNAKES ON A MOTHER FUCKING PLANE!

me and my bike

i tell you that Raleigh sport bike is the best thing to ever happen to me! I biked to the mall today because i had to stop at joanne's fabrics to buy some piping to finish that baby blanket i've been meaning to line for a while now. Point being, i would like you to eeemagine the closest mall to your house. Now eemagine riding your bike to that mall...are you seeing it? No, because that would never happen!! you would never ride your bike to the mall because that is ludicrous and far! well i did it! It ws approximately 9 miles. 9 MILES!! I am totes getting in touch with my inner waif! Anyways as i was riding back home from the mall i was reminiscing. This was the route that i used to take on my way to school everday. I went to catholic school because all the public schools in my area where ghet-to. liek seriously, people got shot and stuff. So anyways i photographed some of the sites that i showed Cathy when we drove down Sepulveda on Saturday.

First I road by King's Hawaiian, the japanese/hawaiian themed restaurant i discussed a few days back. basically if you are hawaiian you eat here like at least once a week. not being a huge fan of the food or the people i tend to stay away but anyways we noticed this sign on saturday for "kahlua pork nachos" and we both kind of got grossed out.
Doesn't that kind of sound revolting like someone vomitting on your nachos? ugh. I could go off on a whole rant about how i hate nachos because they are gross and excessive and so very not mexican in any way, but i won't. Ok ok wait i take that back. I hate restaurant nachos that have like beans and sour cream and all kinds of crazy shit. i LOVE movie theater and carny nachos that have like the melted velveeta cheese smothered all over them.

Then i road on a little further by this little mini mall parking lot and i saw a used condom. eeewwwwww
My guess is that someone must have been boning in the lot last night and then thrown out the condom as they drove away. so gross. But if i were having sex in parking lots would i be doing the same thing? maybe, who knows.

Then i drove by this foursquare christian church. FYI i went to a foursquare christian middle school and can legitely say they are craaaazy. Protestants generally freak me out though. I found this sign to be quite deep.
It's true, Money does sometimes cost too much. This goes along with my mom's old saying "in everything you do you have to ask yourself, is the fucking i'm getting worth the fucking i'm getting." This can be applied to a job (money) or a relationship or friendship or even literal fucking. so ask yourself today, is the fucking i'm getting worth the fucking i'm getting? I ask myself all the time.

This was the Jack in the Crack where I used to sometimes stop on occasion for a yumbo yack on my way back to school for my AP History review sessions.
What we were really doing was watching historically relevant movies like "last of the mohicans" and "all the kings men" and "1776: the musical!" and other greats films. Actually the next year when i was a senior that AP history teacher got busted in an internet sex scandal. He was trying to arrage sex with a minor over AIM and it turned out the 13 year old girl was actually a cop. busted!! There were news crews all over our school and it was the most awesome week ever! It was also totally not surprising because he was so skeezy in class and all the girls knew it so they would wear their collared shirts to the lowest button so their breasts showed and they would roll up their skirts relaly high and sit with their legs wide open. my friend Christina with an H (we were known as "The Mexican C/h/ristina's") and I used to discuss how he put us in a corner in the back of the room because we refused to show him our cooters. We were all like women's lib and shit in our corner. Actually that story reminds me of another tale that relates. this girl let's call her stacy delaslut, used to roll her skirt up reeeeeeaaaly high and then she'd wear thong underwear and i guess one time she was sitting down and when she got up from the seat there were pubes on the seat. eeewww! so gross right? Well despite all of that we all passed the AP test so i guess he wasn't such a horrible teacher, he was just a pervert. Thank you Mr. Mcguinnes for helping me get into Stanford.

And now our journey down Sepulveda Blvd ends here, at the seedy sex shop around hte corner from my house.
Secret Desires...sounds tempting no? It used to be a mattress store and then somehow in the time i left for college and came back it became a raunchy sex shop that sells lingerie, bikini's and toys. On Saturday Cathy and i were stopped at the light and we noticed a really short mustached white man a la Kip from Napolean Dynamite and a tall thin black call girl looking woman wearing a bikini top and mini skirt. They walked in holding hands i'm sure on their way to buying some really raunchy sex toys.

So our journey down memory lanes ends. Now you having proof, that yes, i do actually live ina really boring part of LA. my ass is sore but i shall ride on.

the goat and the devil

so you know how you have that aunt or grandma or whatever who always talks in sayings like "kill two birds with one stone." Well my mom is that person in our family. But she loves to bust out all of these random mexicanisms. So the other day she was talking about someone, i don't remember the context but out of nowhere she goes, "well you know what they say. Mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo." I was like...what are you talking about, ma? Translation:

The devil knows more because he's old not because he's the devil.

That shit was deep and sat with me. so i started thinking about all the wierd random isms that she has and how these isms may have affected the way i think, like culturally the way i view the world. And then i started thinkingn about the SAT and the GRE and their supposed objectivity but how i always suck at them. And then i realized....hello cultural bias! For instance

"La cabra siempre tira al monte" - the goat always seeks the hills - people don't change

Other kids were at home learning analogies and metaphors about tools and symphonies and instruments and art and stuff and here i am learning about farming and moutain goats. CULTURAL BIAS!!!

www.ramitsethi.com

to all my 5 readers, a convo i had with Ramit Sethi today.

RamitSethi (4:28:15 PM): i laughed my ass off reading your blog
Cristina (4:28:30 PM): really???
Cristina (4:28:32 PM): that is very exciting
RamitSethi (4:28:36 PM): yes
Cristina (4:28:37 PM): did you read about snakes on a plane
RamitSethi (4:28:37 PM): dear god
RamitSethi (4:29:29 PM): btw
RamitSethi (4:29:29 PM): http://snakeplay.pbwiki.com/
RamitSethi (4:29:36 PM): that is the OFFICIAL wiki for snakes on a plane!
RamitSethi (4:29:37 PM): on pbwiki!
RamitSethi (4:34:05 PM): your readership should see your shit
RamitSethi (4:34:07 PM): maybe i will link to you
RamitSethi (4:34:12 PM): but i think your blog is one huge inside joke
RamitSethi (4:34:16 PM): people who know you think its hilarious
hoochiebooty (4:34:31 PM): i know right
hoochiebooty (4:34:37 PM): what do you think it sounds like to people who don't know me??
RamitSethi (4:34:42 PM): probably illterate
RamitSethi (4:34:49 PM): little do they know you are stanford educated
RamitSethi (4:34:52 PM): and phd bound

I hope you all enjoy my stories as much as he does, and to all those who don't know me (are there any of you out there), i'm actually not retarded. I mean to sound like that. it's like, a style technique. And no, i don't use spellcheck. Anyways so if you want to start a wiki my friend has his own company called pbwiki. They may have my favorite slogan of all time. "Make a free, password-protected wiki as easily as a peanut butter sandwich!"

my encounter with a tranny

So i don't know what is up with blogger but for some reason it isn't publishing my last 4 post so they all might hit you in a few days and you'll be like "wow cristina, slow it down with the 50 bagillion posts in one day" but really it was over a 5 days period.

So today i woke up early to drop my mom off at work. This would not have been so awful had it not been for the fact that the korean teenager who lives next door to me was watching some crazy loud dvd until the wee hours of the night. I just heard all of this piano music coming from the window next to mine and it was so hot but i had to close the window but then i could STILL hear the damn piano music. it's been like this for the past few nights which is why i'm assuming she's watching a series. When i went to check it out i somehow got caught in my window treatments and and the curtain rod and curtains all came crashing down on me and i was soooo irate. And i don't know why i didn't just call them curtains, i hate when people call them "window treatments." They are curtains!! Actually my theory on what happened was that she fell asleep with a dvd of some show, i'm not sure which one, in the dvd player and the menu music was playing on repeat for 4 hours. it was this awful depressing, dawson's creekesque type piano music playing on repeat until 3 am. i wanted to cry and then die and then finally sleep. I also was driving myself crazy trying to name that tune for what show she was watching. i couldn't figure it out. So she finally turned off the tv sometime around 3:30 and i got to fall asleep only to wake up at 7 to drop off my mom. blahhh.

so anyways point of borrowing the car was that i wanted to go to the Museum of Contemporary Art so that i could be like cultural and shit. I felt awful driving around my parents monstrosity of a car. As much as i thought that i would never become all "save the earth" and shit, i can't help myself. living in SF has changed me. ugh I've changed! I care about the environment and i felt really guilty driving a Tahoe around LA.

so i went to the MOCA and they were having a Rauschenberg exhibit which i have to say was a bit excessive. He would do these collage paintings that incorporated paint and fabric and newspapers and like a sock and sometimes like a peice of wood and so because it was a painting but also had some aspects of sculpture they are known as "combines." to me it just looked like a collage but whatever. Now i do kind of like modern art although i think that some of it is art and some of it is bullshit. Anyways this guy kind of felt like bullshit. yeah yeah, but rauschenberg is a genius, whatever. so they would have combines like this and it would be called "untitled" and then the critics would be like "he's making a statement on our society and how we consume" and i was like....um really?? cuz to me it seemed like he just put shit together and called it untitled. Freshman year of college i used to make my own version of "combines." Actually there was no 3rd dementional aspect so they were just collages but i too would make statements on our society. Like one time i found this picture of Celine Dion baptizing her baby with her husband Rene and on her baby's head i posted a picture of Christina Aguilera. get it get it! it's like our society worships pop music. And then another time i had a picture of the pope holding his hand up and i glued a pic of a martini glass and a bottle of absolute vodka into his hands. Again i was making a statement on the excess in our society. I should be at a museum.

Well in my humble opinion Rauschenberg was nowhere near as cool as the duchamp "fountain" at the SF MOMA
where he was like "it's art cuz i say it's art! bam!" I respect that shit! He knew it was ridiculous and he was fucking with us. THAT is art! He was all like "oh it's in my own genre that i made up. i call it 'found art'." Here is an actually legit quote that he made, "I threw a bottle rack and urinal in their faces as a challenge and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty." See he made us see the art in the everyday! Mad respect for you, marcel, mad respect.

so anyways aside from that they had a pollack, a lichtenstein, and other shit. they didn't have as much stuff as the SFMOMA so i got through the museum in 45 minutes, a record for me i think. so that was kind of a disappointment so then i went to the galleria which was also a disappointment mostly because as i have said before, fashion this season upsets me, but more importantly because i don't have any money to buy anything. But as i told my mom "there was nothing cool enough to where i said, I would go into debt for that!" It was all just blah. so then i went to target, i mean basically i was trying ot go to as many places as i could while i had a car.

I went up to the PV library to return the Six Feet under DVD's i had finished and to rent the new ones that i needed. the problem was that i was up to disc 2 on season 2 and they had every disc after that except disc 3! ahh! i went to the front and i was surprised to find that the "woman" servicing me was a tranny, or at least i think she was. I'm pretty sure she was. Anyways i was like "um can you check on the status of disc 3 of this show because it was due on the 4th and it's still not in and i can't continue the saga without it! apparently whoever has disc 3 is holding it hostage and racking up some late fees. I was livid! possitively LIVID! I ended up having to go to hollywood video to get the disc. People don't realize the effect that we all have on each other's lives. that one person selfishly deciding to keep the disc really affected my life today.

Then i drove to another target, 2 targets in one day! nothing relaly eventful happened there except for the fact that on my way there i heard "kiss from a rose" by seal on the radio and was singing along, because it's a bomb song and and i was remembering the batman soundtrack it was on and how that soundtrack was the bomb because it also had Jewel "foolish games" on it which for some reason at age 11 defined my life. Also it was a time when saying something was "the bomb" was not wierd or outdated. Holy crap wait apparently foolish games was on the other Batman soundtrack. wow. Point being i was singing along then suddenly i realized that i had made one of the biggest lyrical faux poxs of my life! All these years i was singing

"now that your rose is in bloom, I like its to bloom on the grave!!"

I know these lyrics make no sense but i didn't have internet at that time when the song came out and i just figured Seal was using some poetic license. Actual lyrics...

"Now that your rose is in bloom, A light hits the gloom on the grey"

That makes SOOO much more sense! I was always wondering why he was talking about a grave and i always assumed the muse of the song was dead and a rose was blooming at her grave. dude i was an IDIOT!! Then i heard "living on a prayer" and i pumped my fist some more for the blue collar, poverty stricken, underdogs of society! yeah fist pumping!!

SOAP!!!!

Ok ok guys very important news for you all to read. So david just called me to say "don't laugh at me, ok? I really want to see 'snakes on a plane'." 5 minutes later when i finally stopped laughing he told me about how he spent half an hour at the ucsf library wiki'ing the movie and apparently it's set to be a new cult classic. um....really? This was kind of what i thought until i read the genius wiki entry on the movie. GENIUS! here are some key excerpts.

While officially marketed as an action horror film, the film is speculated to be a dark, absurdist, or surreal comedy.

Really? what is an "absurdist" comedy?? i am intrigued! Here is a plot summary.

FBI agents Nelville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) and John Saunders (Mark Houghton) escort Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) to testify in a highly publicized case. In the course of a flight between Hawaii and California, an assassin pays airport security to sneak a time-release crate of over 500 snakes of various sizes on board in the hope of killing the witness.

<sup>ok this plot, much like the chili cheese stuffed corn dog at am/pm, has the potential to either be the best idea ever or the worst idea ever. My question is what kind of maniacal genius would think up such a fool proof plan??? Apparently samuel L. Jackson is really pumped about this movie and has been talking some mad shit around town. I guess they wanted to change te title of the movie to something a bit more sedated and, oh i don't know, less idiotic, but jackson in all his badassness wouldn't have it.

he said</sup> "We're totally changing that back. That's the only reason I took the job...What are you doing here? It's not Gone with the Wind. It's not On the Waterfront. It's Snakes on a Plane!"

oh my god oh my god ok i can't quote how awesome the rest of this wiki article is but all i have to say is samuel l. jackson is a fucking genius! read it pleeeeease!!

David went on to excitedly inform me of the next hip thing which is that when something goes wrong like "shit happens" you can say "well man, snakes on a plane." So like if i'm chatting online with cathy and she's bitching about something nonsensical then i can be like "dude cathy SOAP, you know. get over it." I mocked him at first, but guys, no lie, i kind of want to see it now. like i said, chili cheese corndog, best idea ever or worst idea ever.

i less than 3 LA

So today my parents picked me up from cathy's house (lame right?) and said "man cathy lives in a really mexican area!" Anyways every now and then my parents like to take long drives around LA and see the sights, visit their old haunts from when they were young, and generally act like tourists. One time they drove into down town, parked the car, and got on one of those 8 hour bus tours through the greater los angeles area because they said "we wanted to see what they put the tourists though." My parents are funny like that. My parents were also hardcore partiers in their day and basically kept it going until they hit 50 so there are always good stories to tell. First we hit up east la and my dad showed me Whittier Blvd which apparently all the messicans used to cruise down in their low riders. Reading the next convo you have to imagine my dad's thick accent yelling to me in the back seat while reliving his youth with alot of excitement and emotion.

ME: wait, so why did people cruise here?

PAPI: to have something to do. You know i used to cruise down here when i was younger! La weeettier boolevard.

ME: no way!

PAPI: yeah!! i was in a car club!! It was called "Latin Esex!" I made a t-shirt for myself!! I was the only member!!! I drove my 54 chevy! (pictured to the right)

ME : wait what? it was called "latin sex"

PAPI: yeah!! esex!!

ME: like sex?? What?? Did you say sex like s-e-x???

PAPI: no like e-s-e-x! it was short for "executives!"

ME: Papi, that makes no sense.

PAPI: ehh??? (This is spanish for what?)

ME: nevermind.

This is the same 54 chevy that my dad used to sleep in when he first came to this country. I tell you, having immigrant parents really makes life alot more interesting. They always talk about doing the craziest, most random shit. They then went on to muse on the fun they used to have when they'd go clubbing at the Paladium. Then we hit Cesar Chavez which apparently used to be called "brooklyn street." And then my mom brilliantly noted "ay there is nothing more mexican than la brookleene, remember ernie? We used to say, 'vamos a la brookleene y calle primor'." translation, let's meet at brooklyn and first. We drove around some more and found the first house my dad's family lived in when they came here which eerily enough was on rowan and michigan ave. wierd!! My dad could not get over the fact that there had to be some meaning behind him moving to america and living on michigan ave and me going to university of michigan for grad school. follow the signs in your life, people! They are all around you!

So then we drove up to this really famous tree on top of a hill in boyle heights where you have a view of all of los angeles and my dad says he used to go up there to dream about all of the things he wanted to attain in life. It felt all deep and i always get a little bit emotional when we take our family trips back to where we came from so we can see how far we've come and it always amazes me that i went to stanford and am going ot grad school because i feel like wiht our background i should be working as a checker at the safeway or something not writing a dissertation on minority identity. Anyways it always touches me to see that stuff.

We drove on to the hipper more trendier version of boyle heights, also known as silver lake. This used to be a ghetto, and still has ghetto parts but it also has another most bodacious view of los angeles and thus through many years of gentrification it has gone from poor ghetto to upscale rich white neighborhood. Ah yes, the joys of reverse white flight. Anyways in addition to being where the somewaht in the know upper class live it is also where the wannabe super cool hipsters live and walk around with their ipods listening to a band so they can say "i liked them before it was cool to like them." They even have an american apparel. at one point i saw this total skinny jean wearing hipster who was sitting in a cafe, listening to his ipod, reading "life of pi" and wearing havaiana sandals. And then i noticed that everyone around him in silver lake was wearing havaiana sandals. And i hated them with such a passion because damnit i have like 3 pairs of havaiana sandals and damnit they are really the best sandals i have ever owned! and damnit i read "life of pi" at one point in my life! And i wear skinny jeans some times! And damnit despite my apparently loathing i secretly really want to live in silver lake!!!! I am so very jealous of people who live in cool parts of LA because living in the suburbs in your parents house totally blows.

Anyways we saw all of the new lofts being built in downtown and i'm kind of excited to see how LA is going to be different when i get back because i have a feeling it will be. Also we went to the cathedral of our lady of the angels which is so beautiful! the old cathedral got ruined in the earthquake i believe so they built this new one that is modern and kind of austere and very duomoesque in it's gradeur yet emptiness. that sentence made no sense but whatever. the entrance has this really simple and elegant mary and the doors are all carved with different depictions of the mother mary. And instead of having mosaics or stained glass depictions of the saints they have these beautiful woven tapestries hung all over the church walls
At the gift shop i was really tempted to buy kitschy religious stuff because the mexican catholic in me can't help but love religious paraphenalia. I am currently amassing a collection of religous things like crosses from around the world and things of that nature so that someday i can have a wall of religious art in my house with a giant virgen de guadalupe in the center. It's gonna be very bohemian. eemagine my wall of crosses in my silver lake house over looking downtown la?!! ugh, self loathing kicking in.

Anyways if you are ever in LA i recommend you call up Grace and Ernie, and they will show you a great time in LA. They know all the cool hip unknown spots and to be honest they are way too cool for me. Hey should i make a shirt for myself that says "LATIN ESEX"?? i kind of think i should.

almost paradise!!!

oh what a weekend of what could have been and what actually was. so as i mentioned before the plan was for bobby to make a cameo this weekend and for us to show him all the glory and splender that is the los angeles "south bay" suburbs. I don't really know why but cathy and i were super excited to show him all the fun things that we never actually do living here in los angeles like going to the beach and riding bikes drunk on the pier. Anyways things went awry and bobby could not make it so all of our plans kind of went to shit and we lost all desire to be suburbans.

Friday morning Cathy called me up at 7:30 am and forlornly informed me "this was supposed to be the best weekend of my liiiiiiiifffeeee!!!" no really it sounded like that. Never being ones to sulk we decided to make lemons from lemonade and have what ghetto people call a "double feature." Basically it's going to the local movie theater, paying for one ticket, and seeing more than one movie. warning, this only works at very large theaters in the middle of the day when they aren't checking tickets. also this is truly shameful but i can't lie to you guys so yes, i sneak into movies sometimes! don't judge me! I figure i see enough movies throughout the year to make up for the two movies i sneak into a year. damn the man! save the empire! Anyways also logistically speaking getting a smooth double feature afternoon is quite difficult because you have to look at movie times and plan it with such great precision It's not for the faint of heart.

Ok ok tangent, so we decided to have lunch first at the most fantastic adventure ever, the highly anticipated Lee's Sangwhiches. Apparently they are some massive vietnamese sangwhich chain throughout the southwest. the owner who's name is actually "le" had to change it so that the whiteman wouldn't think it was "le sandwhich" like a french bistro. It was ethnic so i was expecting the type of establishment that has like stray dogs in the back and a letter C for cleanliness, and where no one speaks english and you have to have a translator with you. But what we got was this!!
isn't is so clean!! isn't it so nice!! i know right!! lee's sangwhiches was a most splendid experience! You walked in and it was very inviting and well lit. On the left side they had ice cream and other vietnamese deserts. in the center the menu had pictures and good descriptions so that it was inviting to the average american consumer. and then they had random vietnamese snacks and these nice little vanilla tapioca cakes being cooked on the right side. And oddly enough all of the workers were Mexican. That's LA for you. so check out their website, read their story, lee's sangwhiches!! Actually some of it has really oddly constructed sentences and i think adds to the authenticity. Apparently they started as lunch truckers which they referred to as "catering trucks." guys my dad has a "catering truck" too so i had to throw out some support to the Le family. I less than 3 lee's sangwhiches! EEEEmagine a delicious french roll, some nice BBQ pork, a sprig of cilantro, a few sliced raw jalapenos, and some pickled carrots and jicama. mmmmmm!! Live it, love it, lee's sangwiches.

so after that most fantastic experience we headed to the movie theater to begin the movie marathon. First we saw "world trade center." ok stop, just stop before you say anything. This was kind of a filler movie because we needed a 3rd and didn't really feel like seeing "pulse." We weren't relaly expecting much from it and we didn't really get much. Poor showing, oliver stone! It was cheesy, it dragged on, nicholas cage is just...ugh. It was like the most gigantic piece of republican propaganda ever. at one point cathy and i laughed during one of the "dramatic scenes" because it was not at all dramatic but was more ridiculous than anything. Ok ok let me just give you a little SPOILER. They've been under the rubble for like a whole day now and it's all very sad, i was feeling it, but then that night as some random marine was searching the rubble he finds them and they are so happy and are like "please don't leave us!!! are you here to save us!!" and the marine is like "son, i'm a US Marine! it's my job to save you!" would you really say that to someone who has been trapped under rubbel for 14 hours? i mean do they really care that you are a marine? I know it's based on a true story and that's probably what he actually said but i would have cut that. That's all i'm saying. I will say this, when they showed the latina mother praying the rosary and weeping for her potentially lost son we both lost it and started fanning the tears from our eyes. Granted i cried on Terminator 2 when the terminator died, so it doesn't take much to make me cry. "i order you to say!! i order you to say!!" Oh edward furlong, your acting moved me!

So 3 hours later the movie finally ended and we ran to "Talladega nights" right as the previews were starting. Oh look a new Zach Braff movie! The Garden State II! yay!! Ok ok all jokes aside though i really want to see it. anyways talladega nights was AWESOME! obviously it was dumb but i rather enjoyed it. Will Ferrell is always a pleasure. There was this one scene where he's getting into a fight with a frenchy and the frenchy has him in an arm lock and tells him he has to do something and will doesn't wnat to do it because at this point it's america vs. france and his bff points at his red, white, and blue shirt and is like "Ricky bobby! these colors don't run!!" This cracked my shit up because david always says this in gest when he's pretending to be super republican and watching bill o'reilly. "These colors don't run cristina!! these colors don't run, they bleed!!!" And i laugh and laugh and laugh. Anyways it was a good time with the right person. Cathy and i were chortling up a storm in that theater.

All through talladega we were anticipating the highlight of our day...."step up!" Finally the time came and we went to the step up theater only to be stuck in a line full of 12 year olds who were dressed way better than us. bitches! apparently step up was going to be the highlight of a lot of people's days as the theater ws full. This group of like five 14 year olds sat next to us but there were only 3 seats so the all decided to share the 3 seats because apparently they couldn't sit apart from each other and they started throwing popcorn at each other and giggling and as the previews played the girls screamed and grabbed the guys arm during the "grudge II" trailer and i wnted to hurt them. also i'd like to let you know that Sarah Michelle Geller is making a come back in 2 scary movies this year! Go SMG! Anyways back ot the annoying teeanger, the 2 guys were totally trying to get on the girls so i can imagine that getting stuck sitting really close in a seat built for one was like the best thing ever to them. I just hate when girls act stupid to attract men. And the guys buy it! Fuck man being 14 was so not at all liek this for me. This might have been because i was friends with all of the ethnic rejects and my best friend was a big gay guy. High school was rough, let's leave it at that.

Step up was quite fantastic as teen dance dramas go. It was like "Center stage" meets "flashdance" meets "save the last dance" meets "girls just wanna have fun" meets "boyz in the hood" meets every movie ever made! really it was such a huge mixture of genres. And the girl was hot and made me remember how jealous i am of ballerinas because they can wear layer upon layer and still look thin and also because ballet clothes is so cool! god i wish i had been a ballerina and not a fat awkward teenager. this chick in the movie had some awesome ballet clothes.

Anyways the next day cathy picked me up and we drove around the unsavery neighborhoods near my house where cathy complained about bad asian drivers while she herself was being a bad asian driver. The irony was not lost on her. Then we went to king's hawaiin bakery to pick up a cake where she claims she encountered "the craziest japanese/hawaiins i have ever seen!" They were all stepping on cathy and pushing her because they were really excited to buy paradise cake, a most delicious medley of passion fruit, kiwi and mango cake flavors.

Then we headed back to the glorious city of downey and i realized that cathy lives deep in the heart of mexico. seroiusly all the signs were in spanish and all the corner makets were mercados and carnicerias and pupuserias and all kinds of crazy shit. The "super A Mercado" prononced soooper ah mercahdo, reminded me of the Calimax in tijuana. there was this one store called "el super" which really excited me because that's my nickname, "el super mercado." get it, super market, get it! Anyways here was a fly by shot of el super.
See realy small under the target sign is "el super"! Anyways point being downey was a bit unsavery and we kept lamenting that bobby was missing out on all this suburban ghettoness.

Then we got to her house, set up for the pool party/ Bring your own bowl Pho party. Well people showed up and no one BYOB'd or brough bathing suits, so in that respect the party failed. but in other respects it was quite enjoyable. we drank many of my special recipe margs. Cathy's sister Tranny tran tran tran tran tran tran tran nguyen pulled an MK in the grass and passed out on a pool chair 2 hours into the party. Sadly for the rest of us she passed out before actually making the pho so it became very evident that the whole pho aspect of the party was not gonna happen. When she finally came to 3 hours later she bitterly yelled to me "this would not have happened if bobby had been here! this was indeed unsavery!!!" Poor tranny tran tran tran tran tran tran. Anyways a few hours after that cathy's brother Long also passed out from the massive amounts of prescription pot he was smoking. two nguyens down, one to go. But cathy held it down for the family and rallied on. her cousin's brought there totally awesome karaoke machine and we did our world famous rendition of journey "don't stop believing." as we suspected it got the karaoke party started. A few drinks later we forced everyone to suffer through our rendition of "careless whisper." Backround story is that cathy listen to the "easy listening" station at work and they always play random george michael songs and sometimes she calls me and leaves messages on my phone serenading me with careless whispers and i feel touched and sometimes i do the same for her. Here is cathy feeling very eeeemotional about the whole exxxxxxperieeeenccccce.
"we could have been so good together! we could have made this last forever!! but noooooow who's gonna dance with me!! plleeeeeassse." The audience was stunned with silence. it was that good. Later that night i tried to create an interactive audience karaoke experience by singing "space oddity" and i had everyone close their eyes and eeeemagine they were floating in space alone. No one was really feeling it so i had to cut it short and decided to make up for it with "if i could turn back time." we also got very animated with full fist pumps during some old chicks rendition of "living on a prayer." I fucking love bon jovi!! (pumping fist)

Anyways some annoying chick named ashley decided that she wanted to turn the only table in the yard into a beirut table. goddamn people, why the fuck do you always have to turn a good party into a sigma chi event! beirut is very exclusive, does not allow anyone but the players to interact, and in general just kind of sucks! so much anger! why!! Granted this was one of the better beirut experiences of my life because i became this guy named "wooky"'s muse and he kept dedicating all of his shots to me. Granted he kept missing all of his shots but the point was that i was a muse damnit! Cahty and i were so drunk that i think were speaking in incomprehensible sentences bascially because cathy likes to kind of mock my lisp (at least that's what i think she's doing) so she elongates her ssssss's and i do it too and we just generally sound kind of retarded mixed with the copious amounts of liquor.

Cri: Cathy put down those chicken wingsssss! If they see the thousands of chicken wings....they'll know we've been smoking the pot!!!"
snicker snicker
Cri: okok no ssseriously cathy, that is some really unsssavvery behavior.
Cathy: Crissstina i'm not really apreccccciating your judgement.
Cri: Cathy, are you gonna have sssssssexual relationsssss tonight????
snicker snicker
Cathy, i'm only posting this picture as a warning to you of what comes of the chicken wing effect. put down the fork!! No seriously though, they were some bomb chicken wings.

then we busted out the paradise cake, 3 flavors of delicousness, at which point cathy proceeded to sing "almost paradise" for the rest of the night. "hey guys want some paradise cake!! almost paradise!!! hey do you think the stoners want some paradise cake! want some paradise cake, stoners!!! almost paradise!!!" that was kind of how the rest of the night was. "mom!! where's the MEATLOAF!!! ma!!!" no serioulsy, very unsssavery indeed. again i reiterate that this would not have happened had bobby been present. Bobby kind of forces cathy to act with a certain sense of decorum.

FYI the rest of the lyrics to the song, which we could not figure out at the time were

Woah, almost paradise
We're knocking on heaven's door
Almost paradise
How could we ask for more?
I swear that I could see forever in your eyes,
Paradise

So anyways i attemped to pass out on the couch but was woken up every hour for the rest of the night by the above mentioned stoners and other nepharious characters that were also passed out throughout cathy's house. all and all it was a good time. But bobby, we missed you like what!!

guys it's the end of an era. remember those college days of yore (more yore for some of us) when you'd sit in the room of the only person in your dorm with a TV and cable (usually me) and you'd drink or smoke pot or just drink water from your oh so excessively large nalgene water bottle and you'd watch elimidate. And the big question was always....where do these people come from! Well sad news to deliver. elimidate has been cancelled along with blind date. It's true, we are officially old. I mean granted i haven't actually watched elimidate since i was a senior but just knowing that it was out there was enough for me.

Let's just have a moment of silence for all of the random hook ups that will never happen because elimidate has ended. thanks for the tip ramit.

target meets asia

Ok i just road my bike down to target for no apparent reason other than boredom. Oh and i wanted to check out the SWEET bike accessories that they have so that i can pimp my bike up like the baller that i am. but v. strange, target is apparently doing a whole asian motif thing since they have chinese terra cotta soldiers you can buy to put in your garden like the kind they have at pf chang or let's say china. Anyways v. strange and then i walk in and they have clothes for dogs and one outfit was this chinese themed outfit that had a very "dericate rittle frower" thing going on. Anyways i mean really target, fake terra cotta soldiers? Anyways they also had this awesome foldable floor rocking chair that i really wanted since i sit on the floor alot to watch tv and read. I was thinking that i could totes just throw it on my back and ride home like that but ha, that would have been really stupid, so i'll just get cathy to take me tomorrow to get it when she picks me up. I hope they still have them.

a day in the life

so i just wanted to give you guys a little glimpse into a day in my life and cathy's life. i include cathy mainly because she is at work really bored and i am at home really bored so we talk online all day. And sometimes we get into fights because i want to leave the house but she doesnt' want me to leave her on the internet alone and i argue with her that it's different when she who is at a desk getting paid spends 8 hours a day online, vs me who is not getting paid but is just wasting my days off spends all day on the internet with her. are you seeing my point of view?

Anyways the fabulous bobby was supposed to come and visit us this weekend but is disposed and will nto be making it. truly tragic since we had made a really intensely planned itinerary which included partying with unemployed losers in the afternoon on hermosa beach, going to a matinee to see "step up," eating vietnamese sangwiches (apparently these are different from normal sangwhiches) and basically doing all the things that people do who live in the suburbs of LA. We even had costumes that were purchased at pac sunwear. so sad.

Anyways cathy and i were just having this really deep discussion that i'd like to propose to you all. Ok so i cant' really go into detail about how this topic came up but basically we were discussing how we can't understand how ugly people mate. I kind of think that there is an objective attractive and an objective ugly, therefore how can somoene who is objectively ugly get it up for someone who is also objectively ugly. Or in some cases how can someone who is objectively attractive get it up for someone who is objectively ugly. cathy's response

cathy: (10:37:55 AM): cuz ugly is ugly
cathy: (10:37:59 AM): it don't matter who thinks so
cathy: (10:38:04 AM): let's go to vegas

I have no real idea where that last part came from but it's true, ugly is ugly. but it happens as i found out this morning from an old friend so i guess love really does find a way.

Anyways another topic we were discussing was paris hilton and how much i hate her and how much cathy idolizes her. Cathy claims that if she were young and fabulous and ridiculously wealthy she too would just spend all her time partying and drinking and throwing events and going to vegas and traveling the world in her private jet. So basically she thinks that she can understand paris hilton's POV. I kind of agree but i also just kind of hate how the media is obsessed with her because i thnk she's kind of just a giant wste of space and should not be famous just for the sake of being famous. And it just goes to show how americans love to reward mediocrity which is what i've learned from reading about celebrity gossip and watching enough american idol. And it's just really annoying. but maybe i'm just jealous because i can't go to st. tropez and party with puff daddy. And then cathy said "i mean she is cutting a record" which then brought me back to the reality that i still really hate paris and even though that song is kind of catchy i refuse to listen to it or buy it on itunes because it SOUNDS JUST LIKE "THE TIDE IS HIGH" MIXED WITH GWEN STEFANI "UNDERNEATH IT ALL"!! does anyone else see that too or is it just me! ugh just, i'm done with you paris. I guess the point is that while i do appreciate her lifestyle i do not aprecccccccciate her. are you seeing my POV?

so anyways the plan for the weekend since big b is out is that tomorrow we are going to do what we have been trying to plan all summer: staying home and watching as many movies with dance off end sequences as we can. I LOVE dance off end sequences! can they win! can they go to nationals! can they make it as regulars on D TV!! but actually the real quesiton is, can they find love????

So i leave you with this imagine. hey it's paris and my BFF pauly shore!!

LA by bike

my readers I must share with you the most spiritually cleansing twin peaks experience i have ever had in my life. I went to drop off my car so that it could be shipped to michigan. I didn't have anyone to drive me home since everyone is at work so i was planning on getting in touch with my fellow angelinos by taking the bus. I know right! the bus in la! anyways turns out no bus would get me from this place to my house so i had this brilliant idea to ride my bike. I mean let's forget the fact that oh i don't know, i am really out of shape, i can barely run for 2 minutes straight before i have to start walking. And let's just ignore the fact that i haven't ridden a bike since like freshman year of college. To me this was more of a challenge than anything. could i do it? i figured the ride was about 5 miles give or take. I didn't really know how long it would take me but i knew that i would just keep riding until i hit my house no matter what it took. Holy fuck it was the most intense experience of my life! it was 5.6 miles of biking through the ghetto of carson into the harbor gateway. There were pot holes, dirt roads, poorly paved roads, i had to ride over the 110 freeway at one point. I definitely thought i was going to die more than once. I even got caught in a net of some sort. It was....yeah. Cathy said that riding my bike through LA meant "You officially earned your badge as a Mexican. Like you probably got a shade or two darker." and i agree since the only other people riding their bikes right now were my fellow mechicanos on their way to some job i'm sure. I think i definitely felt an endorphin kick in there. I even had to put air in my tires cuz all the backroading i was doing flattened my back tire. it was that INTENSE!!! also i'd like to send some positive energy to the am/pm gas attendant who didn't make me pay for air even though "by law you have to buy gas in order to get air." i was like "um...i'm on a bike so i don't really need gas." Thank you my friend. I shall pay it forward someday.

So my recommendation to you, people, ride a bike someday to some destination you'd normally drive to. Perhaps it will change your view on life too. i guess i'll be doing a few more of these bike rides since i am without car for the next couple of weeks. It will be like high school again only in high school i had a car. so basically it will suck. Maybe i can ask my friends to drop me off at parties and the mall and the local amc 20 and stuff.

Quinceneras and other topics on my mind

so i'm talking to cathy right now and it's really tragic because she only has the intRanet at work, or like some really toned down version of the internet where she can can only use aim express and gmail but no perez or anything. tre tragique! she can't even google chat. it's really bad. aaaaaanyways...

so last night my mom and i drove out to irvine to see the much talked about independent film "quincenera." this is not to be confused with the really horribly cheesy 90's movie "quince." Anyways we always are up for supporting our latino peeps in the movie industry and this movie was actually pretty cute and REALLY quite realistic. All the kids really looked like they would be messican kids from echo park. it was real deep. FYI Quinces are big gigantic coming out parties that latin people throw when a girl turns 15 because this symbolizes her ascent into womanhood. There is all this shit that goes along with it like she has to pick anywhere from 1 to 15 men and women to be in court and they are called damas and chambelanes and then they all choreograph this really cheesy waltz which we pronouce "valz" and there is mariachi and cheesy pink roses and a big ugly white dress and it's all kind of a mess if done the wrong way. Anyways i didn't do a formal quince i just had a big 15th birthday and got a car. honestly though it would have cost as much as a car. the way that people offset the cost is by getting random people in the family to sponsor something and they are called the padrino of this and that so you have the padrino of the limo and the padrino of the cake and the padrino of the banquet hall and it's all a big community event only growing up i had no mexican community so the whole padrino thing wouldn't have really worked for me. Anyway this is kind of what it ends up looking like...
Anyways this is in no way what i was planning on talking about today since i had something else pressing on my mind, namely how i noticed that i talk in wierd code that i started using as a joke but now i can't really remember what the real worlds were. like how i call sandwhiches "sangwhiches." And yesterday i was out and i saw a place that sold "sandwhiches" and i thought "that's wierd they spelled it wrong. don't they mean they sell sangwhiches?" and then i was reminiscing about being in vegas and how i always refer to the burberry coast which is actually called the "barbary coast" and the thing is that when i think about what it's really called i have to really think hard because i can't remember because the only think that goes through my head when i think about it is "burberry coast." Anyways there are lots of other things like craycray, and totes, and ridic, and eemagine that i won't go into detail about but i'd just liek to apologize for not always making sense.

viva las vegas etc etc and so forth

So i just spent the last hour attempting to revamp my my space layout. I really have no idea why i waste so much time on this goddamn website. i absolutely loath it but part of me wants something spunky and reflective of my personality as my background. What says cool yet apathetic? I too can't find anything. Not to mention the fact that all of these editors i tried were not working out the way i had hoped. Anyways if anyone has a suggestion for how to get a cool background image while still having my typed stuff be visible please comment and let me know.
Otherwise onto possibly less intersting but more pressing matters...Namely vegas. Oh vegas. Vegas is like that disease infested whore who keeps calling my name and everytime i go i say i will never go again and yet she traps me in her chlamydic grasp and i just can't control myself. so anyways here was a breakdown of my weekend

Friday
So anyways after a pseudo blow out with my parents regarding my independence, i lost the battle and ended up flying to vegas on an all expense Papi paid trip. The flight there was kind of scary because 30 minutes before we were supposed to land the plane started dropping altitude really quickly and suddenly started getting all shaky and turning in crazy direction and at one point i looked out the window and could see the moon (even though it was still light out) and i thought "is this going to be the last thing i see before i die? Flying does this to me. Ever since i was set to fly out of DC on sept 11th 2001 i have been a wreck on flights. Anyways we landed 5 minute later in a flurry a whole 20 minutes before scheduled. I still think something was really fishy because the attendants were frantically running to their seats liek they didn't think we were gonna make it. Anyways i made it there safe and alive and headed to the strip on a shuttle. of course no one was going to caesar's but everyone was going ot the gross part of the strip: ie excalibur, luxor, mgm grant, etc. Here was a notes that i wrote to myself.

"saw the moon during my landing, scary, lots of unsavery people headed to the golden nugget. not a surprise."
"loud southern woman behind sounds like weeza (sp?) from "steel magnolias." Staying at Flaming O. Sounds like Paula Deen. she is asking her husband what hotel has a pyramid as we are parked in front of the luxor. Apparently she does not notice the GIANT pyramid shaped hotel that we are in front of. "

So i made it to the hotel and the weekend of couply vegas began. vegas was not as ridic as usual but i was still drunk 95% of the time and i ate alot. What was lacking though was the vomitting, the strippers, the steaks, the gambling at 3 am, the listening to "purple rain" on repeat for 3 hours while lying in our underwear, the DS's, my captain's hat, "i salute you". Anyways i was expecting caesar's to be classy, you know some nice tile and maybe a little bit of gold inlay. I mean it is roman so i expected some gold. what we got were mirrors everywhere, a giant hot tub in the center, yes center, of our room. A ceiling mirror with spotlights so that you can see all of your imperfections. All in all though i think Mariah Carey would have termed it "demure." Who am i kidding, it was built to be a den of sin.

David headed out that night to hang with his friends for bachelor related things and i stayed in glad to see that nick at night was running a full house marathon. I gotta say i was shocked to see that i actually found the girls to be kind of, dare i say, cute...i can definitely see how people were enchanted by the olsen twins. good stuff! Even Jodie Sweaten was cute! Uncle joey was still really gross and i never noticed how hot uncle jesse was because i was pre adolescent but that whole "have mercy" bit made a lot more sense now. Anyways i woke up a few hours after passing out to find david stumbling in drunk, talking nonsense and "whispering" but in reality yelling sweet nothings into my ear. He was down 100.

Saturday
We were abruptly woken at 9:30 by the maid knocking on the door. Ok beef, what the fuck is up wiht vegas maids knocking on your door at 9:30 am! this is vegas! It's known for it's nightlife! this made no sense to me! Anyways we got up soon after and headed to paris for some early morning gambling and cocktails. this was the beginning of a theme for this trip: me trying to convince david that it took 30 minute to cross a street in vegas and david trying ot convince me that actually everything was really close. I still stand by my theory that since everything is huge in vegas you don't realize that one block is actually half a mile. Cathy and I found this out the hard way once when we left the boys at a gay club and headed to a hotel that was 3 hotels away. 2 miles later in heels we made it to the burberry coast for 3.99 eggs, bacon, toast, and hashbrowns. sustenance vegas style!

Anyways i digress...I was a little uneasy about drinking at 10:00 am but then after 3 drinks i realized that time doesn't matter in vegas. the morning vegas crows is mainly old asian women, ie cathy in 30 years. It was real interesting. David had made some money so we headed to bellagio for a nice romantic buffet. I was please to see that david is actually a really intense buffeter. Nothing worse then taking somoene to a buffet and seeing that they have no strategy whatsoever and fill up before they can even do a second and third round. poor form, poor form. David on the other hand had to take a 5 minute bathroom break to really think out his "game plan" as he put it. It was the most intense buffetting that i've seen since mr. bob deharo.

many hours later we decided to walk off our excess calories and headed into the forum shops. We talked about all the things that we could nto afford because he is a lowly med student and i am a soon to be lowly grad student. But david decided that when he becomes a world renowned rheumatologist and when i become a world renowned social educational psychologist/professor/consultant/whatever i become he is only dressing in hermes, ferragamo, and zegna, and i am draping myself in louis vuitton, burberry, and st. john. done and done.

We did alot more casual drinking, gambling, shot some craps and lost miserably. I stand by my theory that i am the worst person to gamble with because i have a perpetual auro of bad monetary luck surrounding me. case in point vegas 2006, Cathy lost $600 in 5 minutes with my egging on. It was the most tragic display of addiction mixed with my aforementioned bad luck that has been seen. It was bad. David's losses weren't as bad but they were relatively speaking equally painful. Anyways we went to margaritaville and i was remembering how with my friends we were so drunk we couldn't find margaritaville even though there is a giant sign that says "margaritaville." Anyways we met up with the Belt-one who happened to be in vegas too and attempted to do some clubbing but failed miserably as david and i quickly realized that we are kind of over clubbing. What can i say, i'm not paris hilton. So after a couple "i'm going to the bathroom, cristina"'s which relaly meant "i'm gonna sneak off and play some roulette" we called it a night.

sunday
we went to lunch at a really nice restaurant in the venetian and i decided that although it's not bellagio, the venetian is my favorite hotel. Hell i think it's even better than the real venice, no birds and all. Then we headed to the wedding. here are some key things i have to say about that.

the song the bride walked down the isle to was "wind beneath my wings." Also the wedding was not in a catholic church and i have always felt since childhood that weddings not in catholic churches always seem to be missing something. no lasso to bind the couple for life, no communion to symbolize the sacrament of marriage. it's all very strange to me and david agreed there was something missing. She had a beautiful dress but her shoulder tattoo was showing. guests were wearing cotton skirts and flats...cotton and flats! at a wedding! my abuelita would have rolled over in her grave! during the ceremony i started thinking about what i was going to say to the groom as i danced the dollar dance with him. then the ceremony was over and we headed to the dancehall for food and stuff. they did the first dance and then the father daughter dance and then we ate and something was missing. i discussed it with david and we realized that white peopel don't do the dollar dance. Only people from 3rd world countries do the dollar dance. Other things that white people don't do: take shots of tequila, have mariachi's, have their drunk uncle (usually my father) stand up and sing with said mariachi, have old ladies who dance merengue. It was all and all a big culture shock for the both of us and we decided that blacks and mexicans really make a wedding. I mean have you ever BEEN to a mexican wedding. We rock that shit until like 2am non stop like what! what they did have was a fully stocked open bar, and they played lots of good country music (i know, what?). I of course after a couple of cocktails was immediately drawn to the gay groomsman and the bitter chubby bridesmaid. I really felt bad for her so to make her feel better i played the part of patrick swayze and let her be Baby when they played "i've had the time of my life." she kept yelling "no one puts baby in the corner" and i was reiterating for her sake "no one!!" it was kind of tragic. But i have to say all pride and gloating aside, i looked objectively really good. i mean serioulsy we both looked really good. if david ever downloads the pics from his camera i will post them but serioulsy, best hair day of my life, great dress, great shoes, i sizzled like the "spicy latina" that david claims that i am.

well the wedding ended at about 7 and we headed to the airport to talk over our weekend and relive the good parts. Like how caesar's palace kept playing paula cole "where have all the cowboys gone" and i kept being swept back to being 15 with braces wondering really where HAD all the cowboys gone. Also we decided that after being forced to watch the celine dion "a new day" concert commercial on repeat in the hotel room we would definitely have to see her someday soon. There was all this dancing and costume changes and "my heart will go on" and honestly i think i know more celine music than i care to let on and i didn't even realize i was a fan until i felt this urge in me to tell david how he was my strength when i was weak and my voice when i couldnt' speak. I mean really how can you not be moved by celine. She's not quite a songsmith, but she's up there as far as cheese and awesomeness goes. anyways future goal, pay as much as i have to to see celine before she leaves vegas.

So like i said, this trip was alot more tamed although equally fun, just in a different way.

misty water colored memories...of the way we were

So i was having a big le sigh moment as i was organize all of my pictures of the last 4 years. Le Sigh indeed. I decided to share some of my favorite pictures with all of you.

Graduation 2004, or as i call it "the first time around." Some of my peeps decided to dress up in chicken suits and ride around on a tandem bike. Sadly the tandem bike fantasy was shattered when they were informed at the gate of the stadium that no bikes were aloud. sadness...
Anyways i came across this pic and thought, GENIUS! seriously though they were so hot inside of those suits because it was i think 100 that day and we sat in the sun as sandra day oconnor waxed lyrical on civil services or something.

My next memory involved Christmas 2004. Look closely and you can see the gigantic drink in one hand and a magic mic in the other. for those not in the know the magic mic is this totally awesome filipino microphone that you plug into your tv and it's a karaoke machine. Anyways at some point my cousin went to the filipines with her husband and they bought one and it has been a christmas tradition ever since.
Here my cousin Brett and I are doing our annual rendition of "a whole new world." I think i was bending my head because i was about to belt out "every moment red letter!!" As you can see alix is in the background texting away. Apparently we were not so entertaining as our one audience member is distracted. Oh i love the magic mic so much.

Another graduation memory only this time it was my master's graduation. we got these awesome hoods but we didnt' actually get to wear them so they just hung on our backs. Well i was like, fuck that and with my cousin nathan's nudging we figured since i was a master of psychology i should do the whole master jedi pose thing.
this was the result. sometimes i hate myself...

My view from my old SF apartment. Isn't it ridic!! Can you believe i lived with this as my background. Ugh the things i miss that i did not appreciate. such is life.

Another great SF "view." So note the run down building across the street from us that says "delicatessen: famous beef jerkey." Well the entire year that i lived there the iron gates in front of this so called "market" were eternally locked. sometimes ivan and i would be walking by and we'd see an old chinese lady at the check out counter counting what looked like dollar bills. Also the first day we moved there we went to get something that we needed and the market was empty and had like a few coke cans and rolls of toilet paper sparsely thrown about. it was really creepy. to make it even more shady sometimes we'd see people ring the doorbell in front of the gate, get let in, and then disappear. We decided that they were doing illegal people trading. Chinatown is a shady place.

I never really got to see pictures that david took of us in Arizona mainly because he didn't download them until last week. Note that we took this trip in april.
the glee in my face is due to the fact that i was really amazed that the cactus looked just like they do in cartoons. it was really wierd. saguaro cacti are some freaky shit. they are also gigantic. apparently it's illegal to shoot a saguaro cactus in the state of arizona. why this is a law i do not know. David explained that in arizona people like to get drunk and shoot things. Oh arizona, such a wierd place.

And i end with my favorite picture probably of life. The background story is that Cathy and Paloma had arrived in vegas the night before we did. Instead of resting up for our arrival Cathy decided that it was only appropriate to stay up all night drinking and gambling. apparently she passed out in the hallway of her hotel and someone called the paramedics because they thought she was dead. she woke up and informed them that she was merely passed out. If you've ever been to vegas with Cathy you know that this type of unsavery behavior is pretty standard. Anyways by the time we arrived she was a hot mess, still in her clubbing clothes from the night before. She passed out in the lobby of the tuscany suites hotel. the only problem was that we needed her signatur to check in and the woman would not budge. So we all had to hold her up on the couch as Ivan put a pen in her hand and forged her signature. A little boy walked by with his mother and said "mommy what is wrong with that lady?" People, I have said it before and I will say it again, this is why you don't take children to vegas!!
Anyways we then carried her to our room after the lady finally gave us our room key and threw her on the bed. she started throwing 5$ gambling chips all over us, $100 worth i think. we collected teh chips, took her cell phone and told her to stay put. she proceeded to pass out once more at which point we felt appropro to memorex the moment. Why i was wearing chanel sunglasses and a burberry scarf, i do not know. I would like to point out that these are the very same Chanel sungless of which Ramit Sethi will discuss in his upcoming book "i will teach you to be rich" in which I make my debut as "my friend who doesn't know how to budget within her means." Shout out to www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com, one of my 3 readers. holler! But in conclusion, this photo embodies vegas to me in a nutshell.

And there ends my trip down memory lane. i suggest you all go through your old pics and relive the memories. and if you find any pics with me in them please email them to me. Also if anyone has pictures from my birthday party this year, "Hot Professors and Slutty Students," please forward them on to me.

forgotten memories

do you ever have one of those moments where you are in it and you are saying to yourself "god i have to remember to tell my friends about this" and hten you get out of the moment and you forget to tell anybody and then suddenly weeks later (or 1 week later as is in my case) you see something that reminds you of the moment and you realize you didnt' tell anyone and you are like "shit i totes forgot to talk about that awesome moment!" anyways i'm havign that moment right now.

first off i can't believe europe was but a week ago, cuz it feels like months. this is just generally how my life is though. now onto the point, i am watching tv because the second episode of seasons V of cathy's bootleg vietnamese sopranos dvd's isn't t working so i am stuck and can't move forward with the series and consequently am looking for things to entertain me for the next 30 minutes as i contemplate a shower.

anyways tv guide channel, i see a commercial for that movie "8 below" with paul walker and it took me back to when i was on the plane on the way back from europe and i'm not gonna lie when this movie was out i kind of secretly wanted to go see it because i have a penchance for realllllly bad movies. well anyways on the way to europe i noticed that the movie schedule showed 8 below and "take the lead" (antonio banderas, mad hot ballroom with teenagers) as playing on my flight back and i'm not gonna lie this knowledge is kind of what kept me going because i reeeeally wanted to see these movies but couldn't rationalize actually renting them and having people know that i wanted to see them. so the flight back i was kind of stoked. actually i'm remembering now what happened was on teh way there 8 below ws supposed to be playing but the tape wasn't working so the channel was blank and i'm not gonna lie, i was a little disappointed.

so anyways dreams came true and i got to watch 8 below on my flight from zurich to dulles and it was AWESOME!! paul walker is a guide in antarctica and some scientists goes to the USA station in antarctica and wants to hire paul walker to take him to the top of some arctic peak to get a meteor peice of mars that has landed (this is all based on a true story! i know right!) and anyways paul walker takes his trusty 8 wolves and they have one of those sleds and it's all very white fang, another great movie. (SPOILER ALERT!!) The dogs are so cool and save lives and shit but in the end there is a big storm and all the humans have to fly out of the station but they don't have room for the 8 dogs and so they have to leave and promise to come back but they can't cuz winter in the arctic is a bitch and so they can't fly and paul walker is muy muy triste for like a year and decides to go back finally after getting funding and what do you know the dogs are alive!!! and the whole movie is partially paul walkers depressed life after leaving the dogs and the dogs surviving in the wilderness, a la "milo and otis" and it's so heartwarming.

I must explain though that i love wolves because my dog growing up was an american eskimo and so was part wolf and these animals touch me cuz my dog Q-tip Hernandez would not have let anyone hurt me ever and she was the best dog. and the whole story of how a little mexican girl at 7 ended up with pure bread American Eskimo for a dog is one for another day. it involved my dad's ghetto family stealing 2 pure breeds, mating them, and having lots of babies that they gave out to our huge mexican family. Yes, mexicans are sometimes ghetto. Anyways i'm not gonna lie, as i was watchign this movie and the dogs were all sad because paul walker left them i shed some tears. who are we kidding, i cried buckets! thank god the lights were off cuz i could hide them but it was too much for me.

i can't say the same for the emotions that "take the lead" evoked in me, which were none. it was basically sister act 2, with dancing instead of singing, and Yaya from ANTM was NO lauryn hill. But seriously, part of the problem was that the tape they were using was bad and the sound kept cutting out every 10 seconds so i missed part of the dialogue and this may be why i didn't really feel for the characters. I mean, also ever since antonio married melanie griffith i haven't really been able to take him seriously because melanie is so gross and old and nasty. ok sorry for that rant but i just want to say if you like animal movies and are home alone one night and want to give into your secret desires, rent "8 below."

fashion...why

a couple of comments on fashion and things that generally upset me. i understand that fashion is ciruclar and so it all repeats itself at some point or another but like look at these choose. i mean...really? i was reading vogue the other day and these are apparently the new it shoes of the season. is this the shoe that i should be purchasing for the fall season! i think not. they are...clunky and horrendous and a flashback to things that i might thave purchased in junior high at wet seal. and they look like a bad version of something my gradma would have worn when she was a flapper in the 20's if my grandma had lived in america or been a flapper or been born in the 20's for that matter.

this next shoe is like...well just look at it yourself.is this a shoe? it's like a loafer meets and heel meats a sandal? no, just...no. and then there is my all time favorite shoe, the clog. why god why! who said the clog was a good fashion choice. actually for that matter who said birkenstocks and teva's were fashionable and could be worn with skirts. but another digression for another time. i leave youwith this image for you to ponder.

Brit Brit...le sigh

ok ok seriously watch this please

http://www.thesuperficial.com/2006/08/04/britney_spears_is_very_truly_o.html

dear god britney why!! ok ok i would just like to state for the record that although i did like "hit me baby one more time" "sometimes" and "email my heart" when i was 16 i have never considred britney to be either attractive, interesting, or talented for that matter. and yet i am drawn to her southern drawl like a moth to a flame!

so tell me, do you think she's high or just stupid?

got yourself a gun

so I am 30 minutes away from finishing the 4th season of the sopranos. and it's only noon!! i started it last night. one whole season of a show in less than 24 hours. this might be a record for me. actually now that i think about this it's not that great an accomplishment since there are only like 13 episodes per each season. psssh this is nothing compared to the time i watched 27 hours straight of season 2 Alias. THAT was an accomlishment. but what can i say, michael vartan does crazy things to my will power. so you might be wondering, "why is she writing this? isn't she supposed to be somewhere in barstow on her way to vegas by now?" yes i am, but due to some changes of plan which include a broken air conditioner and my father's crazy over protectiveness i am now flying this evening. yes that's right, flying. Oh ernie, you slay me sometimes.

Vegas, $9.99 steaks and buffets here i come!

So tomorrow i'm driving to Vegas to meet up with David for one of his friend's weddings. I preface this with the fact that this wedding is being organized and held by Caesar's Palace, which we all know is pure class, so it's not a ghetto vegas wedding. Well being the broke as bitch that I am (too much amber and murano glass) i decided to recycle an old black strapless dress i had lying around. yes, i'm wearing black. Don't worry i already ran it by Bobby, my etiquette consultant from Napa and we decided that were this to be a wedding in nantucket this would be way inappropro, but this is vegas and therefore only risky, and i am willing to take that risk to save myself $300. Anyways i decided to kind of dress down my dress i was going ot try to buy like a bolero of some kind to wear over my shoulders for during the ceremony. yes yes i know boleros are very much last season and i never actually bought into the whole bolero thing even when it was in style but i'm willing to risk that. anyways i went to the del amo mall and the galleria which i gotta say both really really suck. i mean their nordstrom has like the 1% of the reject stuff that most nordstroms hide in the back. so annoying. and don't even get me started on del amo, which all of us Angelinos know sucks a fatty. So needless to say i did not find a bolero at either of these fine establishments so i headed to every girl's not so secret shameful backup store, forever 21. Forever 21 is that place you go when you need say a wierd piece of jewelry, a mesh tank top for your Gwen Stefani outfit, or a black lace bodice for a Britney Spears get up, or in this case, a pseudo cute decorative bolero/shrug sweater. Anyways i saw your typical Forever 21 shoppers: super skinny asian girls, super skinny white girls with fantastic bodies but woof faces, fat girls that definitely do not fit into any of the riduculously small clothing that Forever 21 sells. sad sad. I wanted to tell them "go to torrid across the way! this place will only make you depressed!" but i digress. anyway point being i found no bolero so i will have to just make do with what i have.

So anyways vegas! i've never done Vegas without my peeps so we'll see how this goes. on the agenda is definitely the bellagio buffet, so good. maybe we can fit a 9.99 steak dinner in there somewhere. one can only dream. the only problem is that tomorrow night onto saturday morning david's going ot be doing the whole bachelor party thing so i will be left to my own vices. part of me wants to walk around, gamble, drink alone, i don't know. but there is another part of me that wants to sit in the room that i'm paying a lot of money for, lay down on the nice sheets and continue watching the saga that is the sopranos on my computer. would you judge me if i did? would you? have you ever watched the sopranos? it's so good! i'm on season 4. anyways toodles.