What character in a book can you connect with or relate to the most?
Submitted by Eating A Book.
I used to tell people that if they want to know me, then they should also get to know Esther Greenwood from Sylvia Plath's, The Bell Jar. I'm relieved to say that I'm not experiencing depression as deeply or frequently as I used to, but at my "height," it was awful. Very Esther Greenwood.
I read a book recently called The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. Setterfield's main character Margaret Lea was a young woman that I could identify with, although not fully like as a person. (Says a lot for me, huh?) Margaret is far more bookish than I am, and she lacks a general desire to be social or have any contact with living people at all. Bookishness is great but that doesn't mean that one should reject living people.
Status: Not dead. Yet.
Have spent past week in La Mirada/Cerritos in training for new job at Cingular. Will be spending next week/half of week after becoming more and more brainwashed.
Cingular = the new Scientology. Giving out special "kool-aid" upon graduation. Send reinforcements.
End transmission.
Today was a quirky day, to say the least. I was both completely humbled and grossly offended in one day.
First for the humility. I was walking back to work from a quick energy-drink run (long night for everyone at the bookstore) when I passed a four or five grungy looking young men. "Great," I thought, "I wonder what they're going to say to me when I walk past." Well, not only did they not make a pass at me, but I over heard one of them say to another, in a 'check-mate' kind of inflection, "well what's their GDP per capita, son?" I was floored. That is officially my quote of the day.
Onto less pleasant things. Today at work I was accused of having had plastic surgery done. A woman in her early forties (dressed like her late twenties) sidled up to me this evening and asked, in a very hushed tone, "where'd you get your lips done?" "Oh this?" I asked, "it's just Nars lip gloss, I do it myself." "No," she began again, "you know, done?" She borderline gave me a little wink to indicate that she meant collagen. Once again, floored. "Uhhhh, they've always been like this" I said, trying to hide my hurt-feelings and new-found self-consciousness. "In fact, when I was younger, people used to call me really awful names because I guess my lips looked too big for my face. I guess I haven't grown into them like I thought." I was totally deflated. "Oh no, I didn't mean that! I just meant that I liked them is all, and I wanted to know how you got them to look so good." By that point it was too late, I know what she meant. "Thanks for the complement, I appreciate it." Yeah, right. Way to pick out one of my few childhood insecurities. I'm sure she really didn't mean any harm, and it's not her fault that I used to get teased mercilessly about my lips. It still stings though. :(
You know, I'm really lucky. I mean, I could have it so much worse, and here I am complaining about how I used to get teased like ten years ago about something that doesn't even matter. What if I had scoliosis, or one leg was shorter than the other or something? I swear, the only reason I don't have something like that is because as a person I wouldn't be able to handle it; I'm just too vain. I really believe that you're only faced with problems you can handle, and maybe a part of the reason that I don't have any serious physical deformity is because I'm not a big enough person at this point in my life to handle it with grace.
So, in concentrate: I'm prejudiced and vain. But I'm aware of it and I'm trying to correct it.
Apropos of a recent discussion with Cate, the following is an overview of my preferred alcoholic beverages.
First of all let me state that I heart beer*. So much. In fact, recently at a beer 'n buffalo wings fiesta with my previously mentioned best friend, I made the all-too-true observation that "I wish I loved running as much as I love beer." I surprise myself with my unexpected honesty sometimes.
All that being said, here are (to my current knowledge) my favorite beers: Blue Moon (a Belgian wheat beer), Hefeweizen, Chocolate Stout, Negra Modelo, and on the lighter end, Corona. I am hardly ever not in the mood for beer. And no, I'm not a female belcher. That's just too much for me.
In the mixed-drink category, there are few competitors. I love a well-made traditional martini (Grey Goose, dirty and shaken) but if I'm in the mood for something less serious I like champagne cocktails like Bellinis and Mimosas. Once every couple of months I get a strong craving for a spicy Bloody Mary, and I can only be satiated by drinking one as soon as possible. Oh, and White Russians are necessary during any and all viewings of one of my favorite films, The Big Lebowski. ("The Dude abides...")
Now, if I'm simply in the mood to get drunk, the above preferences go right out the window and my attention is turned to shots. Personally, I strongly dislike taking shots so this section is almost unwarranted, but some nights require a quick fix, and for those nights I do still have some rules. I'm past the age that Cuervo counts as tequila, so if tequila is the name of the game then it simply must be Patron Silver with ample salt and lime. No matter what, the shots must be as cold as possible.
I'm going to avert the wine discussion entirely because that my friends is an entire post all on it's own. The little bit I will say is that my preference is always Red, but I'll drink a good White if it truly does complement my meal. Oh, and two-buck-chuck (available at Trader Joe's everywhere) isn't as bad as many of the higher-priced wines that I've had. Give it a shot!
On a slightly-related side-note, I would recommend never drinking and then sitting in a hot-tub for any length of time. I had a terrible experience in Samoa under those circumstances, and it's sufficent to say simply that I've never felt that ill in my life. Including when I had apendicitis. Alcohol and hot-tubs seem to go quite well together, but let me save you the misfortune of finding out on your own: Just Say No. (End Public Service Announcement.)
*N.B. In my opinion, American Beers a la Budwiser, Coors, Miller etc. aren't actually beer but golden-colored fizzy-water. That's sissy stuff (and that's coming from a twenty-three year old blonde girl).
What is your favorite scent?
Submitted by Erinen.
I'm a fragrance-oriented person and as such it would be impossible for me to pick just one all-around "favorite scent," so here are my favorite scents for different occasions/circumstances.
My Favorite Scent to Wear: Burberry Classic. It's a good fragrance for year-round use, and certainly my "signature fragrance." The makers of it say it much better than I do: This fresh, clean scent, spiked with crisp notes of green apple and peach, is the epitome of understated elegance. Sandalwood and vanilla round off the notes for a warm, sophisticated finish. You might catch me wearing Dior Addict on the rare evenings that I go dancing with my friends, because Addict is headier and more suited for evenings spent on a packed dance-floor.
My Favorite Scent on Men: Call me crazy but I love the smell of the Old Spice deodorantin the red bottle. I can smell that on a guy from fifteen feet away (you'd be surprised how many men wear it!). As far as fragrances go, I like Abercrombie & Fitch's Fierce and Georgio Armiani's Armani Code.
My Favorite Scent in the Kitchen: Garlic. I love love love the smell of something being sauteed in garlic and olive oil.
My Favorite Scents in Nature: (Most people I've talked to have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention this one. Just a warning.) I love the smell of the pier at the beach. It's not the ocean water or the seaweed, but the wood that the pier is made of. Some piers, I suspect, are made of different kinds of wood because not all of them smell as strong as my favorite pier back home. If you want to know what I'm talking about, visit North Beach in San Clemente California, and you'll smell the best pier of your life. :) It's sweet and salty and slightly burnished. I also love the smell of Star-Gazer Lillies, they're the white flowers with the deep-pink centers that they sometimes sell at the grocery store. Of course there's the traditional scents of Vanilla, Lavender, Bergamot, and Rosemary, but those go without mentioning.
My Favorite Scented Products: I love the smell of "A Perfect World" body cream by Origins, it's really light and refreshing. Also, Palmer's Cocoa Butter makes me salivate (which may not be a good thing considering that it's a body lotion). There's a soft-spot in my heart for Hawaiian Tropic sun tan lotion. I don't like it so much as it brings back strong (pleasant) memories of my childhood.
My Favorite Oddball Scent: Recycled air. I love the way the air smells when I'm being sent through the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. (They just renovated that ride, and I'll be very upset it the air doesn't smell a little dank like it used to.) Not just any recycled air, though. The air on airplanes is just gross and if I could manage to hold my breath the entire flight, I would. Air that's just coming out of the air conditioner smells a little different, and I like that.
Scents That Should Meet Their End: (I'm expecting to offend people here, and I pre-apologize. This is not meant as an attack, but rather, an intervention.) Any and all* scented products by Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret need to go. Now. Cucumber Melon smells like my locker room when I was in P.E. in the seventh grade, and Love Spell/ Endless Love/ Secret Crush make me want to vomit. It was acceptable (encouraged, even) to smell like like cheap candyflowercrap in high school, but if you're on the verge of graduating college it's high time you adopted a fragrance that doesn't smell like a one-night-stand. Men don't know this, but they're programmed to treat the girls that smell cheap, cheap. On that note, ladies, quit it with the upside-down hair re-fluffing, it screams "do me and never return my phone calls." That's an entirely different topic, which I'll most likely explore later tonight.
I know that I've left out a ton of scents that I love, but if I were to include everything the list would be unbearably long. Scent (to me) is a subtle way of sending a message; if you're a scent person, I recommend you find one or two signatures and not fuss with all of the scented lotions and body-splashes that seem to be everywhere.
I spent my 2006 Halloween in rehearsal with Arroyo Grade, and I'm really sad that it's over. Despite my rant earlier about how kids today don't understand what work is, I still really like them and I'm going to miss working with them. Working with them was something that I generally look forward to every week, and I'm really sad that I have to cut the time that I spend there short. (In case you're wondering why I have to leave Arroyo Grande: I recently accepted a job with Cingular Wireless and I have to attend three weeks of training in Cerritos beginning on the fifth of November, which means that I'll miss our championship competition.) I feel awful for not being able to be there for them for the rest of the season; I was really looking forward to seeing their finished product and getting to watch them realize their full potential.
On a positive note, tonight my best friend and I got to spend some quality-time together for the first time in awhile (which is sad considering that we're house-mates). We shared a few bottles of Blue Moon (my favorite beer) and some home-made cheesy-bread while watching our favorite show, Scrubs. Originally we were simply going to watch Scrubs, but I asked him, "do you have any medicine that will knock me out?" (I've been having problems sleeping. Just check my posting times.) His response was, "Blue Moon," and I ran with it.
My best friend and I lived together last year, except that when we moved out in June we thought that that would be the last time that we would ever live together. Little did we know that I would return from the island of Samoa so soon, and even more unexpectedly, move into his house! I'm so glad that it worked out the way it has; I don't know what I would do if I didn't have such a strong friend with me through all of the junk that has plagued me recently. No, he isn't your typical "you're perfect, everything will be great, let's talk about our feelings" type of friend, and that's exactly why I love him so much. We straight up say things like, "nobody likes you" to each other, and I just smile. We laugh for days about stuff that probably only he and I find remotely entertaining, and I love that. And to top it off, he is super-intelligent and a creative-genius. No, that's not an exaggeration. I love that we can riff off of each other the way we do when it comes to talking about anything design-related; we are kind of the same person sometimes, which is scary. Needless to say, I'm totally stoked that we got to spend even just a little bit of time together tonight, and I can't wait until we get some more in the future.
At some point on Saturday Darien and I had a discussion that has stuck in my mind since then. It was one of those times where I started talking and ended up making more sense than I had originally intended, and ended up making points that I had never actually considered before they came out of my mouth. It was pretty 'stream-of-consciousness' and I actually learned something from listening to myself. Anyway, the jist of it was that we (those of us under the age of thirty) seem to spend considerably more time thinking about our goals and our lives up until age thirty than we do after. What I mean is that it seems that we approach things as if 'productive-life' ends at our early thirties and that after our mid/late thirties, life can no longer be as fulfilling or productive as the time spent between our early twenties and early thirties. Like I said earlier, I didn't know that I knew that until I said it, so after I said it I caught myself reflecting on it a bit.
The whole idea that 'productive-life' ends in our early thirties is just silly. I know that it's not true, but I can't help that I've planned my life as if I need to do all of my traveling and career-advancing before I turn thirty-three. It really only just dawned on me that there is life after my mid-thirties. I can still go to Europe when I'm forty, I can still become a better writer when I'm forty and I can still become a better cook when I'm forty (fifty, sixty, seventy...). In fact, I think all of those endeavors will be greatly enhanced by my age. Why have I never considered this before? I blame it partially on our all-too-fast-paced, youth-centered culture.
I'm sure all of you reading this didn't have the same age-hurdle that I've encountered. I think the reason that I've chosen to write it all out is because I've felt so pressured and rushed recently, both because of my own impatience. It sounds a little like this: "You're twenty-three. Twenty-fricking-three. You have no degree, no "career" job and no assets to your name. You still wash some of your whites with your colors. You brush your teeth in the shower. You have no maternal instincts whatsoever and even less desire to procreate. Your familiarity with the word Blanche ends with the infamous Golden Girl. You sometimes wear hoodies out in public. You were recently championed the grandmaster of Beer Pong. When, sister, are you going to decide to grow the frick up?"
Now, I know that I'm only twenty-three, and I still have perhaps another solid year of Beer Pong left in me, but that means nothing to me; I feel so unaccomplished. My whole "life-doesn't-end-at-thirty-three, idiot" epiphany has really helped to push me in a healthier direction. For the first time in my life I'm thinking excitedly about life after my early thirties and I'm really looking forward to everything those years have in store.
Conversely, I find myself dragging my heels with all of this aging business. I don't ever want to be too old to wear hoodies and flip-flops when I want to, and I don't ever want to be too old to quote Scrubs (for other people that might be Family Guy) whenever the hell I feel like it. I like that I can wear kicky eyeliner and say things like "Peter Gallagher is totally hot for an older guy." I don't have many of those years left in me, and realizing that has made me resolute in making sure I make the best of every last one of them.
Darien left back to Los Gatos today at around 6:00 PM, and curiously, about the same time, I began to notice the distinct feeling that something was missing. How very odd, indeed.
Our weekend was the best that we've had in quite some time. Upon his arrival on Saturday we promptly took a nap together; he got up super-early to drive down to see me, and I feel asleep far too late on account of the events that occurred on Friday evening. (That makes it sound far more interesting than it actually is, but maybe I'll recount Friday evening in more detail later.)
Post-nap Darien and I went to Shin's Sushi Bar and gorged ourselves with cheap sushi and even cheaper Korean beer (October marks Shin's two-year anniversary, so there are a great many things on special). After dinner we went to see Scorsese's latest film, The Departed. Yes, it is as violent as you've heard. Despite that, I really liked it. There were only two things smacked of foreshadowing to me, which is a much lower number than most films. I like it when a film can surprise me instead of blatantly showing me something that will be very important later in the film. It was pretty late when the film ended so we headed straight back to the hotel and that's where my detail of the evening will stop.
The next day Darien and I went to Avila Valley Barn, which is part out-door produce market, part farm, part animal-habitat. This time of year they have a large pumpkin patch for the choosing, roasted corn for sale and really tasty apple cider.
After all of the pumpking and animal craziness, Darien got us some roasted corn-on-the-cob and some fresh apple cider. It was delicious! It's an understatement to say that we had a good time. I really enjoy our trips to Avila Valley Barn.
After the barn we checked into a different hotel; it was much nicer and pretty cheap because we got a Sunday night rate. We took (another) nap and then headed out to russle up some dinner. We ended up just ordering our dinner to-go from a restaurant that we both like and then taking it back to our hotel room. There is nothing in this world that compares to supping in your 'birthday suit' with your love while drinking wine and watching the History Channel. Are we odd? I certainly don't think so. Darien was super-sweet and ordered two deserts since they had both of my favorites: creme brulee and real cheesecake. He said that he wanted both, but I know for a fact that he only got both because he knew I wanted them but I would never say it. He knows me too too well. Anyway, the night was just lovely and I wouldn't change a thing.
On Monday we spent the morning together and then he had a couple of job interviews in the afternoon. After his interviews we got dinner and he walked me to work before he left. Fast-forward through work and here I am, in the wee hours of the morning, thinking of how much I look forward to January. In January Darien returns from his co-op to his final quarter at Cal Poly. Not only will we be done with all of this weekend-visitation business, but we'll be living together so we'll get as much naked-History-Channel as we want. :) I can't wait!
Not considering that Darien's gone back to Los Gatos, I'm glad to be back. I really do like vox better than blogger I've decided, but I don't have the heart to ask all of my friends to update their links, so I figure that I'll just copy/paste my vox entries into my blogger. Have you guys read about the Vox World Tour Promotion? If not, you need to click that link and check it out! I was referred to Vox by The Fug Girls, so I wonder if in the off-chance that I won this contest, Jessica and Heather would win a trip as well? That would be great!
I realize that my flow is off and my content spotty, but I'm tired and I wanted to jot down my weekend before the trappings of age begin to erase the details away slowly. I hope you all are doing well, and I look forward to another fun week!
P.S. Any clever ideas for what I should do for Darien for our four-year anniversary on the 18th?
The one thing that I don't like about wearing my hair short is that in order to maintain its style, I've got to get it trimmed every 4-6 weeks. Well, It's been 8-10 weeks since my last trim, and I think I'm starting to get a she-mullet. No bueno.
This whole thing wouldn't be a problem if I weren't totally broke. [Good] short hair cuts cost almost twice as much as longer length hair because a stylist has to have a heck of a lot of training to 1) cut short lengths properly, and 2) keep it looking feminine and not send off that whole lesbian-vibe. So, for a trim I'm looking at $40.00 minimum, plus tip, so roughly $50.00 every 4-6 weeks. Once again, no bueno. I've averted the problem so far by styling it well, but there is no good way to hide a she-mullet. I must get it trimmed, and I must get it trimmed today.
Aside from the necessary trim, I've also got to (apropos of Cate's recent post) purchase a pair of pants for work. I'm starting a new job soon and I've got to dress much more professionally than I do at the bookstore. I'm probably going to go for the old-stand-by of Express Editor pants. They always fit nicely and if I buy them in long, the length is great for either flats or heels.
Other plans for the weekend? My boyfriend is visiting! Until Monday! With all of life's recent craziness I can't wait to just sit and spend time with him. It's so grounding to have that stability back, like he takes me back to square one, before I got so stressed and upset and all of that. Not to mention that I can't laugh with anyone the way I laugh with him, and we all know how valuable a friend that you can laugh with is. And we can stay up late eating junk-food and watching (quoting) Scrubs! I can't wait!
So, as you may have guessed, you won't be hearing much from me over the coming days. I'm not going to lie to myself and say that this will be the last time I log-in here today (yeah, right!), but for the weekend anyway, I'll be outie.
I hope you all have a fabulous weekend and can't wait to hear of your exploits and adventures upon my return!
Books, movies, music; what's in your top 5 right now?
I'm sure you all understand how hard it is to pick a top 5 of anything, so with that in mind, here's my best shot (lists aren't in any particular order, just five favorites):
Music:
- The Foo Fighters, The Colour and The Shape
- Fiona Apple, When The Pawn...
- Death Cab For Cutie, Transatlanticism
- The Postal Service, Give Up
- Yo-Yo Ma, Bach: Cello Suites Nos. 1, 5 & 6
Films:
- Cruel Intentions
- Sleeping Beauty
- Ocean's 12
- Gone With the Wind
- Amelie
Books:
- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
- Crosby Bonsall, Piggle
- Edward Gorey, The Gashlycrumb Tinies
- Pierre-Ambrois-Francois Choderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter
