i have an ann arbor reader. reveal yourself, my friend. If this person is not revealed within the next few days i may be forced to shut down this whole thing for fear of being discovered.

new york?

I wrote this on thursday night and i feel it is quite relevant given that i did not actually go to new york. in retrospect it's kind of funny given the complete and utter unfabulousness o fmy weekend which included a car wash, a trip to home depot, and a bowl of ramen. will discuss that later today.

guys i'm taking my first trip EVER to new york in a day. And who better to guide me on my first time than my main homosexxxxxxual, ivan. I think we shall romp and frollick and shop til we drop. Or we could just look at window displays and eat soft serve from mcdonalds. whatevs. So in honor of this trip i've been catching up on my fashion mags and making a list of "things to buy in NY." I was falling asleep in class yesterday and decided that i should draw my ideal outfits and write this list in various colors. It's the little things that make my life livable, really. so here it is!

- puffy vest - shameful but true. i have always wanted a puffy vest and yesterday as it was 50 degrees and not cold enough for a winter coat but not hot enough to not have some kind of wind resistance i thought "today would be an ideal puffy vest day."

- Black flat leather boots that go 3 inches below my knee - finding boots is always really hard because despite having my moments of feeling fat and what not the truth is proportionately i am normal to any person but size wise i am mini so things are not made for peopel of my stature. Boots tend to be too loose on my calves making my legs look like i'm swimming while walking, or they are way too tall. But i really think that in order to explore my new fall look of opaque tights and mini dresses and skirts i really need black flat boots.

- Mini denim skirt - i mean this is not a necessity but a nice dark wash one would be nice. I imagine wearing itwith black tights, black boots, and a white/cream colored turtle neck AND a tartan headband

- mini skirts either tweed, tartan, or knit. I was contemplating even knitting my own skirt in the next few days. I mean basically all you need is a hoop which i have. i shall look at patterns and consdier this option. what color should it be? grey??? Basically i want it like this only way more awesome.

- pleated formal shorts. guys, i know. who am i!! but seriously i have this magical outfit i've been dreaming up in my head of some wool pleated almost poofy cuffed formal mini shorts (shoot me please cathy) that i could wear with black tights and black boots and some kind of top and a flowy scarf and i think it would really kind of be ridiculous enough to be awesome. when i find a pic i will post it

- cream colored or grey knit hat like this
- also i need new urban tennis shoes. maybe i'l ljust bite the big one and finally purchase some all stars. i have so many issues with shoes that i used to pay 20 bucks for in junior high now costing 45 dollars. what the fuck. Well i saw some grey ones that i like and i might just say fuck itand

Dr. Jeffrey Thompson, I love you

So a few of us had dinner tonight and watched the office (heart!) and then beauty and the geek. I tell you, sometimes this show throws me. There were some questions that we didin't know! we are phd students for fuck's sake! example "what are the first 7 words (or some number) of the gettysburg address?" now clearly somehwere in my plethora of knowledge that info is stored up there with how to spell things and do math. But at the moment we all looked at each other and were liek "fuck what IS it!" And then i was liek "wait wait wait, forescore and seven years ago....thank GOD we know it!" And we all breathed a sigh of relief. But i find it a bit sad how our knowledge becomes so specialized and in order to store the new knowledge our brain but finds ways to shrink and push back the old knowledge. There is a cognitive term for this that i also know but can't think of right now so i'll just call it "the more degrees i have, the dumber i get."

So I'm pretty much broke because all of my money has gone toward my orthodontic bills to pay for my TMJ treatments. Now i have a plastic piece in my mouth that acts as a cast making my jaw sit in a different place from where it usually sits so as to relieve my tempo mandibular joint pressure. Yes, very awesome. Basically i have a plastic retainer on my lower teeth and i have to eat with it because eating and sleeping is when the most pressure is placed on the TMJ so blah blah. I look like a geek wiht food stuck in my retainer and it's kind of disgusting and i brush my teeth like 6 times a day. to top it off it also exacerbates my lisp. it's ok though, cuz i'm on hiatus.

Oh in other news i have to make a confession. so i don't sleep very well. Part of me thinks it might be my stress but i guess it might also be this whole teeth clenching thing. but anyways i decided to say fuck it and just go buy one of those "serenity now" sleeping cd's. I went to the new age section at borders and there were so many options! i was like....hmm should i get ocean sounds or should i get "pure moods" the 5 cd box set. In the end i opted for some cd called "peaceful: music for sleep." but being a consumer whore, this is why i bought it. check out what the cover says.

Dr. Jeffrey Thompson's clinically proven musical system helps you fall sleep, stay asleep, and wake up feeling rested and refreshed. Meditative melodies, flutes, piano, guitar, and strings, embedded with Delta Wave Pulses irresistibly lull you to sleep

tell me you would not have bought that!! hello it sounds awesome. i dont' know what the fuck delta wave pulses are but i can imagine that they are useful and shit. so anyways i've been using it for the past week and i find it all very embarassing and this will definitely go into my folder of "shameful single behavior" that i will surely hide from my future significant other. But seriously i kind of love it!! Dr. Jeffrey Thompson has other ones too liek "ambient: music for sleep" and "serenity: music for sleep." I'm thinking i need to mix it up and maybe get a few of these cd's and just rotate them. If anyone would like a copy of my cd it's a 1 hour clip. i will send you that shit because i am a good person like that.

So i leave you with some poetry

But my heart, is a house
Will you come, and move in
Leave a space, for us to give
....
It's the sound, that I want
It's the low, belting cough
It's the size, of my heart,
It's the house, can we start.

No i didin't write it because i don't write poetry. but i like the song and the words are very, how you say....i don't know. I just like them.

How i am apparently a racist against my own people

So i was watching the Hills today (last night's episode) and there was this brilliant editting moment. Let me describe. So they justapose this scene of LC at Brody Jenner's birthday in Vegas chilling at the pool and drinking and being fabulous at Pure along with Heide and Spencer in LA eating at Don Antonio's. The reason this scene cracked me up was because sometimes i feel like i wish i was in a serious relationship and engaged or married or whatever shit like that. but then there are moments when my life is so fabulous, like LC in Vegas. And i think to myself "my life would not be this fabulous if i were married and had a house and non Ikea furniture and didn't have roommates." Instead my life might be like Heidi's, no friends eating second rate mexican food with my douchebag fiance. But my life isn't like that. My life does have it's moments of fabulosity. So what i'm saying is, there are pros and cons. clearly this is all subjective and someone else might have watched the show and thought "wow LC's life is lame. Heidi's life is awesome!" But for me heidi's life was my worst nightmare.

oh want to see something funny. This is some guy that came to our house party a few weeks ago and found it racist. What makes me laugh is like...hello we are in michigan. liek how mexican can a party be? if i could have made mole and hired a mariachi band and drank don julio tequila and done el grito at midnight i would have. but instead i had a pinata and mexicans flags and virgen mary candles because that is what i can get in Michigan.

a REAL update, the return of the photo option

so amidst all the parties and fabulousness it's been difficult maintaining this blog in any real way. So we had another little shindig at my place because Big O's girlfriend is moving to paris for a year. yes this is very sad, but sad occasions are also excuses to drink a lot and dance very late into the night to Sean Paul "i'm still in love." this and r. kelly's "Step in the name of love" are my house's official theme songs, and we like to play them when everyone but our key friends (who will eventually pass out on the couch) have left and we are drunkenly slow motion dancing in the living room. good times, indeed. so before making an appearance at my own party I had to make a little cameo and a homosssssexxxxual festivity.

this is me, a gay and a rrrresbian. Or maybe she's bisexual. She also reminds me a lot of janeane garaffalo in reality bites. we were trying to do Tyra's "deconstruction of the human body" pose. failed, me thinks.
this was another drunken attempt at the same pose
I think there isn't enough death in my body langauge. PS look at my new fabulous shoes. patent leather mary janes = awesome! "but why are you wearing glasses, xtina" you may ask. Well my backup plan was to go to this theme party called "the bang" where the theme was back to school. I was going as a sexy teacher and i was gonna have an apple in one hand and a ruler in the other. i ended up not going so as usual i just looked a little oddly dressed. To be honest though this is not very different from how i would normally dress on a weekend.

then i got back to my house and continued to spread the fabulousness around that house
my friend kristen was visiting town which was very exciting to everyone but the frenchman in the background, as you can see.
so i live with the guy in the front, big O, the sour frenchman Bert, who is actually really nice and seriously eats nothing but cheese, bread and pasta. like the stereotypes of european diets is no lie. And i also live with the indian girl, A. yes, we are so multicultural. All we need is a black person.

So at one point the girls got together for a Vagina picture and i had this brilliant idea that since Minayo was moving we should carry her across our arms. in my head this would make for a great picture. this is me coaxing her "come on, just the tip."
the result was a disaster. We dropped her. Fernando was taking pictures of the whole thing and he was cracking up because me and A are standing there cracking up not even trying to help her. Note my fabrrurous legs.

now here is an important topic for discussion. I am on hiatus and i'm never really the kind of person whose friends set them up with people because i think i am just a bit too particular or something. but anyways big O and minayo have this friend Mike and they think that i should date him. this is mike.
No, he's not the guy in the front. He's the goofy white guy in the back. The reason they think i should date him is because he is fun in a weird alternative way. what do you all think? i don't really find him all that attractive but he is a nice person. And jen said she ran into him at the library and he had fallen asleep on his highlighter and had highlighter all over his face and didin't know it. does this sound like my type??? there is a sort of napoleon dynamite quality to him. and he's not latino or a poet or a med student or an engineer so he has the potential to not tell LIES. i guess he does web design or something. i don't know. sounds like potential LIES to me.
oh speaking of computers, i reformatted mine and it keeps asking me to activate the finger print scanner. Trust me if i could have gotten the comp without it i would have but for some reason IBM insisted on this damn finger print scanner. So i ask the blogosphere, why would a normal person like me need a finger print scanner? i'm not sidney bristow. I do'nt have the mock list of spy names stored on my harddrive. what is it's purpose.

Fall is in full effect, falling leaves and all, but we've been having weird weather. bouts of hot and cold and rain and humid and all of it is making a mockery of this rat's nest atop my head. So i would like to thank whoever at garnier fructis finally decided to sell a line for curly hair. I mean their sleek and sheen line is decent but it also leaves build up which is not cute. but their new curly hair line is pretty decent. I've used lots of shampoos expensive and cheap and i gotta say Fructis is pretty good for the low low price of 2.99. coming from a family of beauticians i have have tried my fair share of saloon products in my life. Pureology and redken and frederik fekkai and bliss and shit but in the end i think i just have really good hair because it looks just as good when i use this stuff as when i use Fructis. I have always said that my favorite physical quality about myself is my hair, and i stick by that. Actually what i think it is is my new ionic blow dryer that my aunt got me which reinfuses moisture as it dries. ammaaaazing. And it has rhinestones on it. fancy!

so another week...blah.

halloween approaches

so halloween is coming up and me and my housemates are planning a HUGE party a la mexican independence day. So the question becomes what do i dress up as? people are expecting big things from me and i worry that i can't live up to it. So here is what i have in my head so far.

Harajuku teenage girl - a costume completely built and inspired by my herrrrooo kitty backpack. the only problem is people dont' seem to excited about this costume. hmm

Ziggy stardust - i have always wanted to do this but it would require lots of planning and my hair isn't short and red and stuff.

also i was considering doing like multiple costumes and having costumes changes throughout the night. i'm sure this is a much better idea in theory. but i was thinking if i did this they could all be of one theme liek for instance "britney throughout time" or something. i mean i'm not gonna be britney but you get the idea.

so what i'm saying is, you guys have to help me think of a costum eidea!! even though no one ever actually comments. but still HELP!

monday night shows

Sooooo after the drama that was last night I decided I would have to settle for watching shows online, which I guess when you think about it is not much worse than watchig on my 30 inch tv. But wahtevs!! Someday I will have an awesome tv. This will also be the day that I have an awesome life. This day is not today.

So first thoughts on shows

Heroes – was good but I think I’m getting too old (in tv years meaning I am a more “mature” tv watcher so I don’t get easily tricked by gimmicks) for these cliffhanger mystery shows. I mean obvi I’m gonna stick with it but my heart wasn’t there. Maybe I need to rewatch the first season

The bachelor - didn’t’ get to watch it, and am really bummed about this. I will figure out a way and definitely watch next week.

Dancing with the stars – again, did not get to watch, and again am super bummed. I will watch the recap on Wednesday.

the hills - it's the same thing every week but it's still good.

How I met your mother – kind of a lame season opener but I still love the characters so I’m sticking with it. And I always love when mandy moore guest appears on stuff. I don’t know why, I just do

Chuck – so I feel like chuck is one of those shows like alias where the plot is kind of secondary and what you really care about is the character development, and I love shows like this. Sometimes I don’t want the plot to make sense. Like seriously, rambaldi and all that crap. But I didn’t mind because I was drawn into the story of Sydney and Vaughn. So basically what I’m saying is the character of chuck is who you'd get if you combined sydney bristow and marshall and created a main character based on this. I also really love when movie or television characters go to Stanford. For some reason it just makes me really giddy inside that Stanford is like this strange pop culture symbol that you say “ok I want them ot have gone to a good college but not stuffy. Ok Stanford, done.” It makes me feel like I’m part of something. But I hate when Hollywood misrepresents Stanford like in the movie “orange county.” Gross misrepresentation.

so tomorrow i will discuss gossip girl and why i want to explore tights and mini knit dresses. I will also discuss my new patent leather mary jane heels.

A Mo Named Valentino...why i hate comcast

guys. seriously i just suffered a minor nervous breakdown of uncontrollable tears, and i will tell you why and hope that you will all understand and not judge me or think i am crazier than you know i am. so you know how you have those weeks where nothing goes right. where you are like "seriously is life ever going to get better?" these are my feelings as of late and i was so excited about the premiers tonight and i had put all my hope into this one 5 hours session of telelviosn watching. Tv is what calms me . i get lost in teh shows and i forget what sucks in my own life and i was so looking forward to that today.

7:50 - start warming up my dinner and getting excited. put on pijamas. find a comfortable spot on couch

7:56 - cable goes out. i try to remain calm adn fiddle with cables. switch to aux tivo channel and realize it's all the cable not just the cable to our tv. internet also goes out. i begin to get stressed

8:03 - finally get a hold of a comcast rep, realize that i'm missing 3 minutes of dancing wtih teh stars and chuck. start to feel lots of eeeemotions.

8:05 - tell the gay operator, valentino that i really need him to fix this for me because i serioulsy might cry and i cannot have this not work. he tells me "oh honey i will try."

8:35 - after much fiddling he breaks it to me that the cable is out and i will have to wait until wednesday to get a worker to come and fix it. i begin to tear up on the real. the ridiuclousness of htis moment (me being comforted by a queen named valentino because i'm missing teh bachelor) is not lost on me.

i quickly rush out of teh house so as not to let my housemates see me cry over tv because seriously no one will understand. do you all undersatnd? i drive to my friends house and it's liek the flood gates open and everything i have been feeling of late is let out and i just can't stop crying and i am saying to myself "why are you crying??" i get to her house and she is watchign dancing with teh stars but after 10 minutes i realize i am in such a bad mood that even if i were to stay and watch heroes my heart wouldn' be in it. To dvr and tivo owners, you shoudl be able to understand that the though of having to watch live tv at a time when you dont' want to watch it is nausea inducing. i concur that i am a drama queen but i also cannot stop crying. so i get in my car and drive home. i get home and my roommates are all around teh kitchen in silence and they say "sorry tina." i don't watn them to see me cry so i just tell them that i cant' talk to anyone right now and i go into my room, grab my comp, and head to teh coffee shop where i cry and type in front of complete strangers. Seriously what is wrong with me!!

so my point is that...i don't know what my point is. i'm really upset and frustrated. yes i can watch most of these shows online but this is not teh point. i just needed it to not suck today. as i told orges, i'm sure that on thursday when i am drunk i will retell this story about how i cried to a fag named valentino on the phone. and it will go in my repertoir of stories entitled "how my life is like a sitcom."

fall season!!

tonight is the official beginning of fall TV watching season and i am so excited!! i'm convelling!!! seriously for all of my life i have always gotten tingles with the beginning of fall season. Is this what it feels like for sports fans?

so here is my monday night schedule which i will watch both in live time and on tivo time.

Live time 8:00 pm - Chuck - i'm kind of excited about this show and i'm not really sure why but it seems shrouded in mystery.

How i met your mother - despite trying to convince a few of my friends to watch this show no one has tried yet which makes me really sad cuz i and many other tv bloggers agree that it is kind of awesome.

Heroes - no words, but i'm not watching it tonight. cathy and i are watching via satellite (gchat) tomorrow night. the fact that cathy has a dvr i think will alter the nature of our relationship and take us to a whole new level.

dancing with the stars - oh holy balls yes!!! dude jenny garth is gonna be on it! i just want to watch one season where the whole cast of 90210 competes against each other. that is all i want in life. i am also really excited about scary spice because HOLA!! how awesome is that.

the bachelor - after many years of watching alone with no one to share my pain with i gave it up last year. Lo and behold it's the year that everyone starts watching. so fuck that! i'm picking it up again this year for more awesomeness and hatred of my gender.

so i think that is all for tonight. i will write more (hopefully daily?) to discuss my thoughts....and my what ever else i want to watch on any particular given day. i'm so excited i've been having mini anxiety attacks and heart burn. i'm gonna take a zantac and put on my sweats. smell ya later homies!!

quick updates....more to come later

so i'm hella tired since i was already tired to begin with and hugo decided it woudl be a good idea to make green curry and start a sci fi channel mini series called "the lost room." 6 hours later we all agreed that this was perhaps not the best of ideas. But anyways here are some notes i wrote to myself during cultural psych class. i will expand on them at a later date, hopefully friday or something.


- my assumption that the catholic church was where i would find all the eligible latino grad student men was severely incorrect. Realization, latin men are liars, much like poets only more intentional. one word, LIES!!

- if latin men are liars, poets are liars, med students are crazy, psychologists are crazy, and engineers are crazy then really who can i date? blue collar men perhaps?

-the party was awesome. will try to find pics somewhere.

- unvieling of my birthday party theme for next year. BEST PROM EVER!! i might even rent out a hall! will expand on this vision later.

- beaner's coffee, a real coffee chain in ann arbor (i know! only in the midwest) is changing their names in their attempt to expand beyond the midwestern states. idiots.

- why do i feel stigmatized by my white professor? why do i kind of have inappropriate throughts for my japanese professor? that is the quesssssstion.

-taking non education related psych courses makes me realize that i'm not actually dumb, i just don't know much about educational psych. But in my social and cultural classes my questions always get chosen as the "thought provoking questions of teh week." this makes me feel a little less inept than i usually fee.

- today hugo said to wendy, fern, and I "if someoen gave you 2 million dollars (this all related to the show we were watching) would you quit grad school." Before he even finished teh sentence we all said "yes!!" i think this is very telling and kind of sad. and then he said "well waht woudl you do if you didin't have to worry about money" and i actually said "be a preschool teacher." this was rather an odd realization for me. I will have to think about this more.

things that i love that i never realized i loved:
1. honey! i love good honey! who knew! i bought some honey from this very shady man who had jacked nails at the farmer's market a month ago and i've been eating it with Fage and it's pretty good

2. I also really love heirloom tomatoes. Jen and I have been feeling very bored with ann arbor, probably because she's been here for like 10 years or something. so we have all these plans for things we want to do. one of our projects is we're gonna start doing crafts, screen printing, painting and such. another thing is that we are gonna go to the farmer's market on saturday mornings and buy things that we have never cooked with or eaten. so last week we did heirloom tomatoes and we bought some fresh mozarella and fresh basil and i am here to say, there is a thing called an hierloom tomatoe and it's awesome. somethign to do wiht natural cross pollination or something

3. jenny Lewis. her music is really good. She is also the daughter from troop beverly hills which just makes me think she is even more awesome.

well i thought i had more things to list but i cant' think of them right now. so anyways i will tell you about friday and how i'm throwing a mexican independence day party. i figured i'd light the whole house with catholic candles and such and maybe make some food, but here is the best part. instead of just dressing normal i am opting for a costume. shock of all shockers. but for serious it's gonna be awesome. I am going for a modern variation on emiliano zapata
ok so here is the plan, from head to toe. my brown frye boots, black legging pants, white long sleeve shirt or white wife beater. not sure yet. hipster vest, buttoned or unbuttoned again, not sure. brown thick belt around waste, and then a bullet belt around my shoulder. a red bandana tied around my neck and a giant sombrero which shall be called the "fiesta sombrero" and which will be passed around all night. sreiously i saw it at the store and was unsure if i shoudl buy it because it si so fucking huge. but fuck it, i need to just do it. And then a mustache that the costume store listed as "chinese." costume stores in the midwest crack me up. for instance they sell a hitler mustache among the chinese mustaches. also they have a "mexican" costume which is a sarape, hat, and a cactus to lean on. you think i'm joking, i am not.

so all in all it shoudl be an awesome party. i'll make sure to have someone take pics. i'm hoping for some new facebook pics to put up.

speaking of mexicans, i decided a while ago to start going to spanish mass as a way of getting in touch with the latino community that i want to do research on someday. well as it were i am not only becoming a bilingual catechist but somehow i got offered the position of "hispanic ministry-coordinator." i know!! so this will be my second part time job on top of my studies. this is how i roll. when i dont' have every minute of my day booked i tend to waste it doing stupid shit. but if i fill it up somehow it helps me schedule better.

wow this entry is really boring. i'm tempted to erase it. but then it won't make sense later when i put up pics of me as a mexican revolutionary. sorry guys

oh britney, that was just...sad. she truly did look like the saddest girl to ever hold a martini

so what's been going on lately? Well classes started today. oh AND I'M GOING TO THAILAND!! but more on that later. I decided to take some social and cultural psych classes this semester since thye are offered and count and i'm real happy cuz i'ts like my undergrad days when i didn't detest my classes. Also my german professor hates me...i think. he thinks i'm real critical and condescending. he doesn't realize though that i just hate his class. really all this class stuff is totally uninteresting

so my friends finally moved in. good times all around. I mean i've been working or sleeping most of it but i can feel the good times coming. We might have a mexican independence day party next week. "que viva!" But i forgot what i't slike living with people. LIke you have to deal with couple PDA, on the real, or how everyone in the world cooks with garlic and stinks up the house making me want to vomit. But these are things that come with the territory. Seriously what is it about garlic. I personally can't stand the taste or smell but i think it's cause my dad used to hate it and so he passed on this phobia to me that if i ever ate it no man would want me. I feel kind of bad for the people who date me cuz my one big rule is always "no garlic." thye are all probably bathing in garlic now in celebration. So anyways my room smells liek garlic and the other day my hands smelled liek ti for no reason. nasty.

so yeah...we're going to thailand!!!!!!!!! so bomb! we had been talking about it for a while but i never thought we would actually do it but Ivan agreed and we are tagging along with another group of friends, leaving on christmas day and spending new years there. to be honest i know nothing about thailand. But i know this is my first trip to asia and so that will knock out a continent. 3 down...4 more to go. can you imagine me and ivan frolicking under the stars at a moon party!! my only fear is that i will meet some shady hot australians, have a one night stand, they will slip something in my bag and i will end up like claire danes in brokedown palace, trapped in some thai jail.


thailand!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who am i?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

barbra streisand

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

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

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

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

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

grad school prom

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

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

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

malls gays and high school

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To quote Angela Chase, this is how I feel.

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

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

more musings

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

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

Say Anything and Angus

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

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

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

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