montages!!

This part of the night is called montages, when we randomly for no reason started doing montages of things like building the champagne pyramid and stuff. sometimes you just need a montage! montaaage! I think at this point we had already celebrated 4 different new years from around the world, so that might explain the whole montage idea.

THE CHAMPAGNE PYRAMID
Initially the pyramid was not working because we couldn't figure out the right angle (obviously a pyrimid but you know) and the number of glasses needed. We tried many different ways and finally david sat down for a few minutes, thought it out, and figured out how to make the perfect champagne pyramid!
the last glass on the pyramid! aaaaaannnnndd...Ta la!!!
the goal was to be able to take champagne shotsthe only slight problem was that 2 bottles of champagne only really ended up filling like 8 glasses, which was highly unfortunate. so the pyramid just kind of ended up sitting there empty until the dancing started and we had to move it to another location. Another idea that was good in theory.

IVAN MEETING HERRO KITTY
and then for no apparent reason, ivan said "do a photo montage of me meeting herro kitty!!! do a photo montage!!"

"why, hello...kitty"
"oh you are so cute aren't you!! oooh!"
"i love you herrrrooo kitty!!!""mmmmm!!! kissses!!!"
"wait! you, WHAT!!! UGH!""HOW DARE YOU!!"
and that was the end of ivan's torrid affair with herro kitty.

IVAN DANCING TO SOS
at some point in the night, i think after celebrating chicago's new years (and 2 consecutive shots of grey goose) cathy put on rihanna SOS and ivan started screaming "isn't this the best song to do THISSSSS!!!"
here goes that damn peace sign again
he was spinning in circles yelling "WOOOO!"
drunk ivan really is the best

the next section after this is just going to be called "drunk" because, fuck, we were so drunk.

dinner

We started celebrating New Years at 4pm that day when pablo informed us that it was new years in "the continent." Apparenlyt that is what people in europe call europe, "the continent." they swear! like they are the only fucking contintent in the world. ugh. Anyways our first celebration went like this

Pablo: happy new years paris!
everyone: happy new years!!
Ivan: Paris is in Sydney!
Pablo (gives ivan look of judgement)

See the joke was that pablo was actually talking about paris the city on "the continent" and ivan was talking about the hilton. Anyways we decided to celebrate new years every hour on the hour and we stopped the music and we played "auld lang syne" and took shots of champagne and it was wonderous.

well i decided the only real way for me to tell the story of new years would be to tell it in segments, sobriety to drunk to crunk. The night began with a fantabulous dinner cooked by our most talented dan, with seux chef ivan. As you know, in our friend group the women don't cook, because we don't believe in it.

here is our cheese platter
classy is it not. do you like cahty's center piece of candles we found lying around.

Here is our table setting, sure we had to use paper plates and some cheesy decor but we are too young to own anything of value like nice plates, and we didn't want to wash dishes after AND it was chinet!! Need i say more?
then we proceeded to take prom style photos in front of the New Years sign
how bomb is this sign!! no seriously. it only cost 4.99!! eeemagine! Look at cathy's face. can you beleive this was like 1 hour into the party? just wait til you see the later pictures. This is a hat i made myself. It was a little mini top hat and i glued it to a black headband and it counted as my black tie outfit. Apparenlty some people who shall remain unnamed (cough cough ivan!) decided that black tie meant wearing jeans, even though i specifically said NO JEANS!! ugh whatevs.
couple shots!!
david and i think we look like a professor couple in their deans picture. i have a feeling that this whole mocking the azian peace sign thing is gonna turn into one of those things where we do it all the time and it becomes a really bad habit, to the point where people who dont' know us think we are serious.


and then we started drinking from our homemade pimp cups (also knowns as a bedazzled vase and pitcher) and it was all downhill from now
the caption behind this picture was "take a picture of our breasssssts!!! THEEEEEEESE ID'S!!"
anyways we dined on a beet soup (borch? spelling?) which was like way more awesome than one would imagine. like seriously it was the shit! we also had a really nice gazpachio, which i normally do'nt like but was really good. Then we had some parsnip and potatoe mash, chicken with pesto wrapped inside, a roast with a cilantro sauce. point being it was good.

and then....we drank more

songs that move me right now

reason number 50 bagillion why i miss san francisco...92.7 the beat of the bay radio station. it's all dance remix music. And i'm not talking techno, i'm talking really good dance music, like bordering on eurotrash music, and you know how much i love eurotrash music. so a couple songs i recommend you all download or try to listen to like now, that i have recently heard on the beat of the bay

nelly furtado - say it right
this song kind of reminds me of like an expose meets...i don't know, but some other awesome 80's female band. timberland really is a genius, like for reals

kaskade - steppin out
there are a bunch of different versions of this song and each one is really good. it kind of reminds me of that band phoenix. it's a super ssssssexy song.

cassie - me & u
another song that sounds like it should have come out in late 80's early 90's, and i really do mean that in the best way. maybe i love dance music because i love 80's music.

kaskade - be still
i always measure dance songs by how i can imagine dancing to them. And the songs that usually rank the highest on my list usually go along with this imaginary scenario: a very crowded gay club where men have their shirts off, hella drunk and sweaty, closing my eyes and lifting up my hands (like the scene with ryan philippe in "playing by heart"), and literally just letting the music and the crowd move me. If i can imagine dancing liek that to a song, even if it never happens, then i consider it a good dance song. sometimes i dance in my basement with my eyes closed like madonna "at night i lock the doors where no one else can see"....le sigh

daft punk & stardust - music sounds better with you
mmmm just...gay. i love it!! all of these songs you only hear in europe and gay clubs! damn the straight american world!

well new years was truly fantastic. lots of drinking, a full on champagne pyramid, a herrrrrroooo kitty meeting montage, vomitting on the roof (not me), passing out in ivan's room (not me). But alas the pictures are all in cathy's camera so i have to wait for her to email them to me to do a full on photo montage.

The next day we got together to watch the rosebowl in the hopes that finally my team would win and be awesome, but alas, they sucked alot. I think the key quote of the morning after was
bobby: "we were on the roof??? i don't remember being on the roof?"
me: "i have pictures of you!!"

anyways cathy and i like to freak bobby and ivan out by talking about fachings and and as they often do the boys acted out for us what they eeemagine exploring a faching would be like. I finally caught it on tape.

never having seen one ivan assumes there are lots of flaps and you have to use lynch pins to hold them down.

bobby on the other hand is much more interpretive in what he eeemagines it is like. the gays are so silly sometimes. the greatest part about all of this is that we were sitting in a sports bar in the marina (the most fratty place ever) having this conversation

A Treatise On Handbags

guys, it has come to my attention that i am a handbag addict. This comes about mainly because we are all (my aunts and i) going to south coast with my tia martha tomorrow so that she can purchase herself a louis vuitton bag. She wants us to drive in my mom's Beamer so that we can all roll up and swear like WHAT!! it's gonna be awesome. anyways i was thinking about how many purses I have and it's kind of a lot and i'm kind of disgusted with myself but not enough to actually stop. My mom alwyas says that i should enjoy wanting things while i'm young because when i'm old and actually have money i won't have wants, but now when i do'nt have money i do have wants so i should just enjoy my wants. does that make any sense? i feel liek i'm not expressing myself correctly So in honor of my addictions and wants as a way of paying my knowledge forward to you guys i decided that i should give you my little formal exposition on handbags, brands that matter, brands that swear, and brands that don't need to swear because they are just awesome.

BURBERRY (amount owned by me: 2. do i want more: yes)
- I confess, i have a weak spot for wearing what laurel used to call, old man plaid. I can't help myself. Somthing about that hot man in the ad and kate moss and how good she looks in a trench coat nad the gold and....mmm. I own one burberry purse and one wallet, which is a nice casual bag. The colors (khaki, black, and red) allow it to be usable with most denim and solid colored sweaters. I also enjoy their brown leather bags. but alas, no more burberry for me for a while.

FENDI (amount owned by me: 0. do i want one: yes!)
- there is something about fendi that is so very austentatious and yet...i kidn of love it. if i were going to get a bag i would want the tiny baguetts that have like mirrors and fur and shit on the because they are kind of like art peices, and if you're gonna get a fendi bag GET A FENDI BAG. But i'm not there yet in life. I measure my status by what kind of purse i can buy. Fendi, i'm not there yet. but like if i were taking a cruise in sardinia i would take a bag like this
and if i were roaming the streets of madrid I might want a more indistrial bag like this
CHRISTIAN DIOR (amount owned by me: 0. do i want one: no)
- i really don't like their bags. They look plastic and like not in the good way. would you pay 1500 for this bag? i would not. And i will pay for ALOT of things, which i think speaks volumes.
FURLA (amount owned by me: 0. do i want one: yes!)
- you know, furla bags are really simple and elegant and not exorbitantly priced, and i kind of like them. But they are never so awesome that i actually go out and buy one. they are the kind of bag that i look at and say...oh i like that, but not enough to actually buy that. they are very good every day bags. Because there is a difference between evenings bags and day/jean bags. But i really do think they have nice designs and good leather and cool colors like this
and this
you know the more i look at them the more i'm like...i should get one. ok my next bag...a furla. done and done!

GUCCI (amount owned by me: 1. would i purchase another: yes!)
- i could act like i am above wanting designer things that scream trendy but...fuck it, i'm not! i love designer stuff! i love giant g's everywhere! I saw this bag in person and it's really quite stunning
to me gucci is glitz and european vacations and big sunglasses and hatssss and general excess. and brown really is a great color for a hand bag because it goes with everything! It's a traditional bag company and for a reason. rich people don't just buy crap forever year after year.

ISABELLA FIORE (amount owned by me: 1. would i purchase another: yes!)
- i love these bags! they are like going to a turkish bazarre. anyways they are realy pretty and the only real bags i like that use embroidery and shit. Ever since i found one mismarked in the sale basket at nordstrom and they had to honor their price i have loved them. It's a clutch with a yellow flower and a black and white checkered print in the background and it's a nice evening bag.
to me these bags remind me of what i'd wear if i was roaming the streets of mexico in huaraches

JUICY COUTURE (amount owned by me: 0. do i want one: hell no)
-HATE IT!! TRASHY san fernando valley, arizona, chic. ugh hate it hate it hate it. i hate vinyl that has no purpose and i hate terry cloth. seriously i also kind of hat epeople who buy pink for the sake of looking "cute."
it just reminds me of paris hilton and i am NOT ok with that.

KATE SPADE (amount owned by me: 0. do i want one: um...no not really)
- there have been a few occasions where i have seen some really nice kate spade leather bags like in bright green and pretty yellow but for the most part i think they are overpriced for what they are. not that the bags are bad but just you are not getting much.
i mean.....i guess???

HOGAN (amount owned by me: 0. do i want one: si, si)
- to me these bags are very british/danish and by that i mean very simple, sturdy, well made, and not at all gaudy. But ever since I saw our italian teacher in florence, ermelinda campani, wearing one i knew i needed ot have one. In fact, i think i try to base my fashion choices on "what would ermelinda do?" because this woman was ON POINT!! like we're talking LV luggage, hogan/gucci bags, chanel jackets, pink lipstick, short hair, gucci sunglasses, sssssnake skin boots!! she was fucking hot!! the gays and me, we referred to her as "erms." "what is erms wearing today." I imagine this would be the kind of bag that erms would wear.

MARC JACOBS (amount owned by me: 0. do i want one: i'm not sure yet)
- to me marc jacobs is a little to SF hipster. liek i like the bags, but i don't have any clothes to wear them with. get what i'm saying? Emily's style would accentuate a marc jacobs bag. on me it would just look cheap and not at all cool.

PRADA (amount owned by me: 0. do i want one: not really)
- i really don't like their bags mainly because i do'nt really like nylon bags. if i'm gonna spend like 400 bucks it better not be on nylon. anyways their leather bags don't relaly interest me that much either

COACH (amount owned by me: 6ish. do i want more: yeah i'd buy more)
- i'm not really sure how it happened that i ended up being the owner of so many coach bags but there it is. to me they are kind of like nine west shoes, they are pretty good quality, pretty cheap, and good everyday bags. I mean honestly the leather is decent and i always get complemented on them so why not, and i'm not gonna use my louis or gucci bags everyday. that being said there are good coach bags to buy and then there are bad coach bags to buy. like really really bad. for instance, tote bags = good. I have this bag in blue only it's a tote (i cant' find a pic online and i left it in michigan). it's kind of a cool denimish looking bag and i must say i get a lot of compliments from people who normally don't even like coach.
I also have this bag which is an awesome bag, many compliments.
i have a few others but my absolute favorite is this one i bought a few years back. this bag, literally, people will stop me on the street and be like 'I LOVE THAT BAG!!" becaues it's orange and fucking awesome. it goes really well with denim and cream colored tops.
that being said there are a lot of people with bad taste out there who buy coach and tote that C around and while i love the C because it represents my name and maybe that's why i'm drawn to it i never just buy bags for the sake of the name. I have to really like the bag. I mean hell i even bought a dooney and bourke bag once because teh color was cute enough, despite the fact that those bags are kind of crap.

CHANEL (amount owned by me: 0. do i want one: hell yeah!)
- love!! ok so they are not super interesting but it's fucking chanel!! if i bought this bag it would be purely to say that i own a chanel bag, and i admit that. Also i would not buy a chanel bag until i was 50 so i could look AWESOME AND CLASSY AND OLD. My mom is going ot buy one next year. yay!! she cant' this year because this year her resolution is to not be too into thingsssssss. so she's not going ot buy anything.

LOUIS VUITTON (amount owned by me: 2. do i want more: fuck yeah)
- ever since i read the story of the LV empire in W magazine i have been facinated. these are alot liek coach where they can go terribly awry liek in the case of the LV backpack and the rainbow LV. why would you do that!! why????? but i must say that owning one (the tube) i can honestly say that the brown really does go with everything! liek it's a really good neutral color.
I used to be the kind of person who said i hated them, but the truth is that was because i was jealous and couldn't afford one. But then my dad randomly bought me a wallet for my graduation and i was liek "i love it!!" And my mom and i would go to the fancy mall and we were like "you know they really do look good on people." it's like tiffany jewlery. I think it's kind of crap but that's just cuz i don't own any of it. If i owned it i'd probably brag about how awesom eit is. and i'm not gonna lie i love their ads! like serioulsy if i was trapped in the desert with nothing but a gold bathing suit and my acrilic platforms i would sure hope that i had my louis vuitton trunk on hand. this i also love. my tia lupe has one in cream color and it's tre cute
I saw this limited edition one from their new collecting and i was soooo close to buying it. i told the man "i have to step outside for a second so i can consolidate my assets." in the end i could not rustle up 1300 dollars. why!!! it's leather and preforated
i also almost bought a clutch in this color or yellow but alas
but seriously this is the perfect example as with all handbags, if you step away from the traditional LV print or Coach emblem or any designer for htat matter you will see that some handbag designers actually do make excellent bags with great style and durability. So i guess what i'm saying is...in the end you get what you pay for, and that's a fact. Some people pay for the name, some people pay for the quality, and some for both. I think i am of the latter, but i would never purchase just to say i owned it. And i will tell you, honest to god, i get compliments quite frequnetly on the things that i do own, whether it be my most expensive bag, or the gold clutch i bought for $1 at the goodwill. So to you i impart this take home message, the words of my late abuelita Ester, the rich girl from the poor village, "it's not what you wear, but how you wear it. And if you wear it like it cost you a million bucks, people will assume it did."

PALABRA!!

"i'll be tasty tasty!"

wow the other night was HELLA good times, proving once again that if you put me, ivan, and cathy (and obvi bobby, but he was not present) in the middle of nowhere we will have good times. A while back we were trying to think of places to go and cathy and i thought it would be funny if we went to the south like to colonial williamsburg or something just to prove that we can in fact have a good time. The reason i mentioned colonial williamsburg was that in that movie "shag" the girls don't want ot go there, they want to go to the beach to meet boys and dance the shag. this leads me to believe that it must be a pretty dullsville location

aaaaaanyways point being, we had fun. we went to dave and busters. for those not in the know this is grown up chucky cheese with a bar. I personaly don't care that much for video games because i'm not good at them and stuff, but when i heard half off all drinks after 10 i was like...yes, i will drink with you. so i will list off to you in bullet points highlights of the night.

- driving to The Block in cathy's kia sssssssspectra drunk and belig (not cathy, but the rest of us) singing fergalicioussssss. Ivan kept singing in falsetto "i'll be tassssty tasssssty" on repeat

- cathy continually telling us all night "this is my life! suburban LA! this is my life"

- realizing that while teh block used to be kind of cool it's now super ghetto.

- everyone talking with lisssssps all night long until finally i was liek "do you guys know that when you elongate your ssssss's you are mocking me." some people didn't know. It was like the etimology of the lisssssssssp. then cathy alluded to the story of when i first found out that i had a lisp. senior year, knott's scary farm. I girl i didn't really know from my clas said "you know, you have a really cute lisp." she may or may not have been a lessssbian hitting on me. Well i was like "i don't have a lisp??? ryan do i have a lisp? margaret do i have a lisp?" everyone was liek "yeah we thought you knew." People i had known like all my life! and then i asked my mom and she said she was going to send me to speech therapy but the doctor said it wasn't that bad. eeemagine!! learning all of this at the age of 18!! needless to say i have never quite recovered.

- yelling beligerantly at our waitor gustavo. "where the HELL is guuuustavo!! i need my gimlet! gustavo!" gustavo was actually right behind me and i felt really bad so i left hiim an extra dollar.

- attempting to take pictures of ivan only to prove the point once again that ivan is the most unphotogenic person ever. i tried different angles but alas. he kept yelling "you knwo i hate my profile!!!"
GAY!!!

- paloma continuing to my chagrin to use that damn aZian peace sign. Paloma! you are not in china right now! you are mexican! please stop!
i proceeded to tell paloma the story of how the azian peace sign came to be. I cant' remember who told me this but it was a realiable source, and i may have written about this before so just bare with me. so back in the late 80's early 90's all of hhhhhapan and asian was obsessed wit hello kitty. And so girls would do the 2 fingers on both cheeks to represent kitty whiskers. Well this got shorted to one hang holding up 2 fingers to represent whiskers. now everyone thinks it's a peace sign or "v for victory" when in fact it might all just be about the love of hello kitty.
herrro kitty!!


- heckling a group of white kids at the trivia game and then kicking their asses and forcing them to leave. this game was awesome! it had a big trivia board and a wheel o topics, all automated. And had like 6 seats whch 3 buttons on them (a,b,c) and when the question was asked whoever hit the right answer first got points. so you got points for correct answers but also for speed. the top winner got up to 190 tickets, while 2nd and 3rd place got like 60 tickets. this was a really good game for winning tickets. Anyways we heckled these people, made them lose, took all the tickets, and they walked away. team mejjjico and indochin lives long!

- noticing a girl walking around with a hello kitty backpack and thinking..."um really a hello kitty backpack?"

- realizing she had won the backpack and dave and busters and at that moment deciding that i had to win that backpack so that next year my halloween costume can be a harajuku love child. eeemagine!

- returning to the trivia game to find it full of asians and one black couple. it was at that moment that cathy and i realized....this was racial survivor. the light skinnded asians vs. the messicans and dark skinned asians. it was ON!!!
right next to us was Hai, some kid that paloma knew from u penn. He too was vietnamese. we had an alliance with him. brown power!! I believe the question we are trying ot answer was a sports question. the sports ones were our waterloo, and those damn white asians were sooo good at them!! i feel bad cuz the black team didn't win at all. the only answer they got was one about outkast. v. sad. at one point i was liek "cathy they are from uc irvine!! come on cathy! we went to private school!" so since hai had also gone to private school we were fighting for all of our kind. turned out they went to ucla...not so big difference. anyways we fought like warriors but in the end we really only made it up to like 2nd place and they kept mocking us. I had to plea to them "guys! can you just let us win! All we want is to get enough tickets to buy a hello kitty backpack!" then they were like "where did you guys go" and i yelled "stanford bitch!!" and he was liek "we kicked your asses at football. to which cathy responded. "football! football! who gives a shit about football! we win in the game of LIFE!!" oh snap!! Finally in my moment of true glory the subject was tv and films, the question was "who plays peyton on the show 'one tree hill.'" I COULD DO THIS!!! i totally knew the answer because, yes, i watch one tree hill!! finally my love of bad tv was paying off!! i was the only person to get that answer and in the end it won us the game. Racial survivor!!! Mexicans/vietnamese reign supreme (for one round at least)!

- we combined our tickets and realized that we had 5000 tickets. eeemagine!! it was at that moment in the gift shop where it hit us. We coudl buy not one, but TWO hello kitty backpacks! in the end amanda wanted some lame speakers for her birthday but i did get a hello kitty backpakc in the ultimate moment or irony.

ivan and i posing with our hello kitty backpackssssss. i know you're jealoussss
"why hello babar!" "why hello zebra!" ivan ended up getting the stupid babar elephant. "why helooooooooo!!"
ivan amongst the stuffed amminals
"dah!"
heeeeeey! we also got a gay care bare! yay rainbow homo bear stare!!! as we walked by the asian guys who had kicked our asses cathy started yelling "i know you're jealousssss of my hello kitty backpack!!!" I love vince's face in this picture. He truly looks like a harajuku.

then we drove to cathy's friend, amanda's house and on the way there we had this awesome convo that went like this
vince: "i have to pee!!!"
cathy: "just go!"
me: "vince just go!
cathy: "just go"
me: "fergie did it! it's ok"
ivan: "i'll be tasty taaaassssty!!"
all of us "haha you are stupid!! haha!"

then at amanda's house she wooed us with her lessssssbian vagina whaling strummy la la music.
paloma sang us "wiiiilld horsssses, couldn't drag me away" and we had a lesssbian orgie. juuuuust kidding! no but it was all hot. especially as that mexi melt was coming back up in the form of heartburn. overall a great night. truly good times to be remembered.

in other news david called me a few days ago with his usual greeting
"i have good news and badnews"
my response is always "bad news first"
the bad news was, that he had gone to the scottsdale mall to check out all the stores that i frequent and he concluded "you have REALLY expensive taste!" He went into burberry and thought he'd get me a scarf only to realize how much they cost. Then he said he went into louis vuitton which he thought would be cheaper. nope in fact it was more expensive. In the end who knows what he got me, but after discussing it with grace we realized that we are not very good at manipulatin gour men to get us things that we want. i do'nt do the whole "let's go shopping os i can show you things that i like and hint to you htat i want them so that you can buy them for me later and then manipulate you and then you can 'surprise' me with something i told you i wanted." fuck that! i usually see what i like...weigh the cost and in the end say i'll just buy it for myself. this is also why i don't really like shopping wiht peope. i don't like them ot see how much money i spend on my thingsssss. perhap sthis is why men have never given me good gifts. to me a good gift is something that someone never knew they wanted or needed but once they get it, they are ever grateful. best gift ever, when jorge gave me a tivo. hands down! hands down!!

so on that note i got david what i think are awesome gifts. A 6 month subscription to the economist because everytime we go to a bookstore he likes ot read it but says it's too expensive for him ot purchase himself. I also got him the equivalent of "now that's music" in spanish because he's always asking me about spanish songs he hears on the radio and i do'nt have spanish radio so i don't know and his spanish is realy bad so i can't understand him. so hopefully this CD has all the songs he likes. and then i'm thinking i might get him a little something else, not sure what. In the end i'm pretty sure my gift will be better than his to me, but i admit, i'm really hard to shop for so it's not for a lack of his trying. and he does nice things for me all the time liek taking me out to nice restaurants and listening ot me when i'm upset and stressed (sometimes) and so in the end some stupid gift one day a year does not equate to all the nice stuff he does for me throughout the year.