Friday, March 31, 2006

faith

I've started praying to God every night. I need to know that someone is watching me and taking care that things will work out. I need to know that someone is giving me strength to deal with all of my emotions. I need to know that someone is making sure that I don't go crazy.

I used to pray in the silent part of the Amidah at school or at Camp. I made a point of going through my head and really thinking hard to come up with a Gimmee, Thanks, Oops, and Wow. I don't have that in my day anymore.

It's such a release to put your worries and your stresses into someone else's hands. It's hard to remember that sometimes you have to give up, you can't control everything. Remembering this is difficult but comforting. Hearing the words, "If it's meant to be, then it will be" is reassuring.

I'm not sure what is going on inside me right now. I can't really keep it together, and I can't explain what is bothering me. I can't think of anything that merits these hysterics. It's up and down and up and down every day, some days more than most, some hours more than others. I'm usually very sane and very happy, and I'm getting really scared by how my body has been feeling these past few weeks.

So for now I'm praying.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

browsing old emails...

Ketzel,
btw, for hannukah, I would love to receive:
movie tickets, book store gift certificates, CDs, cool socks, or something
towards a digi cam.


Damn. I had my heart set on getting you sailboat.

XOXO
Daddy

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

let down

You know when your favorite TV show is going to be on, and you've been thinking about it all day, looking forward to getting home from work or from school and taking off your shoes and putting on sweats and turning the heat up and curling up on your couch to watch? Because actually, you've been looking forward to this night for a whole week, ever since you saw the scenes-from-the-next and a smile broke out on your face because you can't wait to see what will happen, and you know whatever really does happen will be awesome because the show is JUST THAT GOOD?! You know that feeling when you are getting ready all day long long long long long, and then you arrive home and turn on the tube and find out instead there's a telethon?

Or..... how about when you are craving mint-chocolate-chip ice cream all afternoon and you decide you are going to go to the store to get some because you haven't had mint-chocolate-chip ice cream in AGES and it's your favorite flavor. For half an hour now you've been thinking about the cool mint taste and sucking out the chocolate chips and the minty ice-ness sliding down your throat. You put on some jeans and a top and you do your hair and slip on some nice shoes, and everything is all matchy-matchy, and you get your wallet and your phone and your keys and walk to the store. BUT THEY ARE OUT OF MINT-CHOCOLATE-CHIP.

Maybe you're the type that goes on a run every morning. You have your special running shoes, the comfy running outfits, specific stretches, your planned-out route. You need that morning run to feel normal and sane and happy and energetic. You need the run to think and plan and make decisions. You need your running time to be by yourself and listen to the sound of your footsteps and your breath heavy in the air. What happens one morning when you wake up and get ready for your run and you go outside and your car is being towed? You have to start the day dealing with tow trucks and retrieval and tickets and fines. You don't get your morning run.




This post is not really about TV or ice cream or running.

Snakes on a Plane!

"Am I the only one who doesn't get the hype around this movie? I heard the title, "Snakes on a Plane" and I thought "oh, that must be a metaphor of some type"...... wrong. It's literal. Its actually a movie about people caught on a plane with a bunch of snakes."


HELLO AWESOME!!!! Seriously, who DOESN'T want to watch a movie titled Snakes on a Plane!?!?! It totally doesn't even matter what the movie is about.



girlstalkinsmack has no idea.


And speaking of awesome movies, how about this one: "Walken plays Fang, an evil crime lord who is also a pingpong enthusiast." Obviously I will be there opening night.

babble, pt 2

Also, WEASON is a word.

Apparently.

Even though it cannot be found in the dictionary, Babble The Ultimate Word Game accepts it.

I'm not sure I'm OK with that.

babble

If you feel like you have too much time on your hands, head on over to Babble, The Ultimate Word Game. It will suck you in. It will make you feel smart and stupid at the same time. It will have you searching online dictionaries for six-letter words beginning with "eo" and coming after "eons" in the alphabet. I can't even tell you how many new words I've learned in the past three days while playing. Some of my favorites include: fozier, iwis, aeonic, aahed, and roni. I'm going to try to stick them into conversation in the next few days.

And then I'm going to whoop my parents' asses again in Scrabble.


ps: it's "eonian."

Saturday, March 25, 2006

grandpa

Today is my grandpa's birthday. He would have been really old. (Eighty-six?) He was a photographer. My brother Aaron looks a little bit like him, around the mouth and jaw. My grandma was the most colorful woman ever.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

I heart Kaiser

My pharmacy just closed which means all my perscriptions waiting inside to be refilled just died. In order to reget my medicine, I need to call all my doctors and have them issue new perscriptions, which means tracking down the allergy specialist who only works at the medical center (which is not my doctor's office) on Fridays and trekking to the shady part of Hollywood to renew my other pills. And then I have to wait for the incompetent UCLA pharmacy to handle it. Each one of these steps takes several days. Astelin the super duper nasal spray is practically empty.

This has not been the best year for me, medically speaking.
  • There were the many, many colds and sinus infections last spring as I finished up a nasty job.
  • Allergies suddenly appeared mid-May.
  • Allergies got worse and worse all summer and fall.
  • Several doctor visits and a zillion phone calls to find out that the only way to get an extra pack of birth control pills for my Peru trip was to order it three months in advance, for twice the (unsubsidized) cost of eighty-five dollars. Three visits to Planned Parenthood to get what I need.
  • The FIVE doctor appointments from October to January needed to get correct medicine for the worse allergies. Including the three week agonizing wait to see an allergy specialist, during which my not-so-working meds ran out.
  • I pulled a muscle in my side some time in December. It may have been in the bedroom; it may have been in Yoga Booty Ballet. We'll never know. It took three weeks to heal.
  • When there was a lot a lot a lot of bleeding where there shouldn't have been any.
  • Routine bloodwork yeilded extremely high cholesterol levels. At first my doctor freaked me out by telling me I was at risk for cardiovascular disease. And said that I had to go on a crash diet for a month to rid myself of cholesterol-rich foods. Which I don't eat. So then I met with a different doctor who said I'm fine because my good cholesterol is high. And I conferenced with a third doctor who said the same thing. Then the second doctor called back a few days later to tell me that actually she was concerned about my liver and I should come in for more tests. I ignored her.

What's great is that despite all these setbacks, I'm still healthy. And I haven't yet gotten lice.

Monday, March 20, 2006

shadoh!s

Boyfriend's foray into Flash photo displays has inspired me to create a Better! header than the candles I created last week, which I already hate. Look out for lots and lots of changes before I settle. I'm fickle that way.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

lucy's spleen emily? should be my NBF!

These are just a few of the reasons I am currently obsessed with Emily:

  • She made a beautiful vagina box for Valentines day! Just stunning! I want one!
  • She listens to Natacha Atlas!!! Adam's Lullaby!!! The best song I've ever heard in my life that I didn't understand at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nobody else in the world knows who Natacha Atlas is, except my old roommate who was a belly dancer and my mom's Islamic Studies professor colleague!
  • "I ended up taking pitcures of msyelf for a long time, long enough that I began wondering, "am I VAIN? Cause this makes me question whether or not I am VAIN, when I take all these pictures of myself and I want to keep taking them." But maybe it is not vanity, maybe it is a matter of trying to get the right picture, because none has revealed the true subtlety of your color job yet, and because it is hard taking pictures of yourself in the mirrow and because hey! I dont hate the way I look in thesefor once! Let's take a million of them! Do you know wut I mean? Is it vain or is it no? Is it drunken?"

Friday, March 17, 2006

C R B E L B S A

Tonight I had a lovely evening with my parents. I went over in the early afternoon, after a rebound case of Suckiness when I couldn't jiggle and card the Boy's front door open to retrieve my planner. I packed all my laundry in my car (except for a pair of unders I just found in my purse oops) and the beads for my mother's necklaces I promised to finish by her birthday (in February). As soon as I hugged my dad hello, the floodgates opened and he definitely took pity on me and made me a nice hot cup of peach tea. Today was a shitty day, even though I got to talk to three best friends on the phone. (THREE!!!!!) But everyone was kind of busy doing their own thing, with their families in Sacramento or Orange County or Toronto, and no one within driving distance could offer me a hug. And my dad gave me a hug AND tea. AND dinner. (Although he couldn't offer me the comfort of a carpeted room, which is what I crave right now.)

Laundry was yummy because it was free. Dinner was yummy because it was cooked by my dad. We discussed the dead rat under my living room floor (no, it will never get old) and then we discussed cockroaches, which are maybe the next grossest thing to find in your house. I have this memory that once our cleaning lady Mirna saw a cockroach scurrying around in a closet, and she dropped a wooden building block on it and stepped on the block, and then the cockroach let out a high-pitched squeal as it was cruched dead. Neither of my parents remembered such an occurance, but I couldn't make this shit up.

And then -- here comes the best part -- after dinner, we played Scrabble, which is kind of a family tradition, and I BEAT MY PARENTS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!! My parents are both super good at Scrabble. They both have their M.A.s and PhDs which means they were in college for eleven straight years, and they continue to read and write and publish, and they both have huge vocabularies, and they always always win in Scrabble and Boggle and Upwards and Balderdash and all those other awesome word games and I BEAT THEM!!! I didn't just beat them by a few points, oh no sir, I won by twenty freaking points. While we were cleaning up, my mother let out a sly, "I let you win" AS IF.

There is a new Scrabble champion on Hi Point Street, and she is getting her planner back tomorrow!

landlords

My landlord, the same worthless ass who I got into a yelling match with about not calling an exterminator when we had a dead rat underneath our living room floor, that same guy just called me up at home to ask me to turn off the neighbor's water heater because it is leaking all over and she is too weak to do it herself. I've seen said neighbor, and she is not too weak to flip the switch, but maybe she is too short, and if she had asked me herself to help her out I would have said no problem, but for the fucking landlord to call me to turn it off for her?!?? What does he think his job is? Collecting rent and thinking of ways to not spend money on his building? When you buy a building and let it out to tenants, you automatically become ON CALL. That means SOLVING PROBLEMS.

It does not mean that when there is a smelly dead rat and your tenants are clearly put out and upset you are allowed to yell back at them and threaten to not renew their lease and then the next day call them up and request that they don knee-high water-proof boots to wade through the laundry room and turn off their neighbor's water. No, it absolutely does not.

I'm just trying to imagine it if last weekend he called up the weak neighbor lady and asked her to take a walk around the apartment, on the lookout for dead and smelly animals. Or maybe she is too weak for that, in which case he would have asked our strapping male neighbor upstairs, Noah, could you maybe take a peek through the grating that leads to the crawlspace under the building, there is a mysterious odor and the girls in number three are too scared to go themselves, could you just?

This is the man I will have to charm and flirt and please to get a new lease this summer.

one of those mornings

This morning was one of those mornings.

I didn't sleep well last night and kept turning over and over and over and waiting for my body to fall into unconsciousness and for his arm to come around me, but it didn't happen until nearly dawn. And when I finally woke up in the morning, I had a sore throat, the kind that feels like a marble when you swallow, and my neck was tight and achy. So I rushed around real quick, getting dressed and brushing my teeth, and I hurried out to my car and got almost to Wilshire, but that's when I remembered that I left my planner on the dining room table. And in the planner was the room number of the debt-management session I am required to attend before receiving my loan. I raced back two blocks and speed-parked in the driveway, but my key wouldn't open the bottom lock, the kind that you open or close by turning the little thing on the doorknob from inside. The key wouldn't turn. Fine, I said to myself, when I get to the Law School I'll just ask reception where the meeting is. But by the time I got to my parking neighborhood, it was already five 'till and there was no way I could make it up six blocks plus part of campus by eleven. And the lady in the finaid office said they absolutely don't let you in if you are late. So I checked my lucky last-minute parking spots right next to campus, but turns out I am not having a lucky morning.

Here I am at home, feeling sorry for myself.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Super Duper Astelin

Astelin the super nasal spray is, in fact, even more awesome than previously assumed. Not only does it clear out the sinuses and make them itch free with startling speed, it also is long lasting! Long, long lasting! If you forget to take a dose, or even four doses, because maybe you forgot your meds when you slept over at your boyfriend's house because you were busy thinking about the dead rat under your living room floor, no worries! That dose you took two days ago is still working! Because it is Super! Super Duper!

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

free

I feel like a weight of eighty pounds has been lifted from my shoulders. What happened in reality was that a dead rat was removed from underneath our floorboards (*gag*) and the nice people at Stafford Loans decided to throw several thousand dollars my way.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

goodbye Lawrence Alma Tadema, hello fire

MY HALF BIRTHDAY IS RAPIDLY APPROACHING.

I am getting ready several months in advance.

we're so romantic, I know

HIM:
thanks for the shot our on s and g.
you spelled emanate wrong
love you

ME:
thanks for pointing that out.
you spelled shout and out wrong.
love you back

HIM:
You didnt capitalize Thanks or You or Love.
Hugs and kisses.

ME:
Your second sentence lacks a subject.
xoxox

HIM:
'xoxox' is not English.

ME:
You're the best.

HIM:
Perfect.

when my current car dies...

Last night I had a dream that I was going home after a hard day's work at school. I walked into the parking garage just as it started to drizzle, and mounted my mechanical giraffe. My mechanical giraffe was ten feet tall, and I had to hold on tight as it swayed to and fro down La Cienega. I waved to the kids waiting in line for their carpools. They waved back with glee. When I got home, I parked my ride and dismounted. My mechanical giraffe turned into a fat, old man wearing overalls.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Eau De Toillette Dead Rat

Last week a faint odor started emanating from somewhere in our hallway. It smelled of waste, the kind that is supposed to go in the toilet. We searched and cleaned around the bathroom and hallway, but didn't find anything. The next day the smell disappeared.

Saturday, the smell came back with a vengence. At first we thought maybe it was a dead animal caught between the walls. I'm not claiming to be a dead animal odor expert, but I thought it smelled more like sewage. By Saturday the smell had gotten more pungent and was spreading to the living room. I sprayed room freshener like a maniac and closed all the doors to isolate the smell.

UNSUCCSESSFUL. When I came home Sunday evening, the poop-rot odor was absolutely overpowering. It did not stay contained in the hallway, as I had hoped, but was lingering in the living room and dining room. It was poopy and rotty and vomitus. Lighting yummy candles did not do a damn thing. Luckily, the kitchen and our bedrooms did not smell.

I had a hard night last night because the heat would not turn off, and it blasted into my sealed-off room so much so that I slept totally naked with not a single blanket. And even then it got too hot, so I tried opening the windows, but the light kept waking me up. When I ventured out this morning, the sewage smell knocked me over. I called the landlord and he suggested I pour bleach down the drains. I let on that that would not be enough since the aroma was strong enough to quarantine us in our bedrooms. He promised to come over by noon, which he didn't, and then Abbey called this afternoon and left a message, and then I called this evening and he said he would come over after synogogue. I'm not sure what I am going to do if he comes over and pretends not to smell anything or does not immediately summon a plumber and/or exterminator.

A dead rat would be almost preferable to a leaky pipe, because then don't you just get a dead rat expert to access the crawlspace and get the dead rat out? And then it's all done? Or at least it's done until another rat tries to copy the first rat, it's all, "Ooh, that rat was so cool, so heroic, I wanna be just like him," and tries to crawl up there like he's invincible, but he gets stuck too, and then you have a second rat martyr that you have to get out of your walls. On another note, they should obviously be making Eau De Toillette Dead Rat or Leux Sewage Lotion Pour De Chaps. Those would be killer hits in the fragrance industry.

A really handsome, smart, and funny (triple threat!) fellow did some research on the subject. This is his take on the smelly smell smell:

The whole Rat Inside Walls phenomenon started, if you must know, during the last years of WWII. Houses were being built at such an alarming clip that this suburban sprawl had rats frightened something mighty. See, rats are used to wide open spaces. They pine for the days when they could spend days roaming the sewagey streets and sleep in the trash and bathe in the gutters. Now, with all news houses popping up in every neighborhood from Azusa to Yorba Linda, they felt incredibly trapped, they felt desperate.

During the last days of WWII, Japanese airmen, also feeling desperate, would hurl their planes into American ships and towards troops on land. These Kamikaze fighters would sacrifice themselves for the good of the Empire, though their valiant (or crazy) attempt to stave off the inevitable was ultimately fruitless. They lost the war.

First generation Japanese rats who made it over here on sea-faring, war-time vessels began to impart their wisdom on the desperate rats of suburbia.

Soon, the phenomenon of Kamikaze Rats began plaguing homes all across America. Rats, in a desperate attempt to slow the sprawl, began crawling in the walls of homes, living out their last hours with the peace of mind that their small sacrifice would lead to the greater good. (They would also get 100 virgin rats in rat heaven, in the ol' sewage in the sky). It was their hope that the stench emanating from their rigor mortis would drive folks from their home. The memory of the smell, as the valorous rats hoped, would haunt the inhabitants out of the house so much they would never return.

However, the rats never accounted for the ingenuity of the human spirit. When a problem arises, we find a solution. Japanese Kamikazes hurling themselves in a fiery ball of suicide towards the USS Destiny? We'll nuke your ass. Rats in walls? We'll poison your ass out, and invent long metallic arms capable of pulling your tiny, heroic body out of your coffin and our wall.

Though some rats still lodge themselves in our homes' inner workings, fear not, for they know they are fighting a losing battle. I ask, though, that if you do find yourself saying, "What is that horrible, yet heroic scent?" you take a moment to recognize their sacrifice. Though you might not agree with their reasons or their tactics, their means are nothing short of incredible.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

chapter eleventy in the saga of perfectionism

I have found my personal Odessey: Discover the perfect alarm clock.

Updates forthcoming. Tonight I may purchase trial number three.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

auto flush

I wish I had written this arguement. So relevant, so convincing, so obvious. I had one of these experiences the other day at UCLA, where the toilet flushed three times while I was sitting down, and then refused to flush when I stood up. And then I couldn't wash my hands. When I finally found a faucet that worked, the water came out with Niagra force, wetting the entire bottom of my shirt.

The Crappiest Invention of All Time: Why the auto-flushing toilet must die.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

blarg

I really need to vent and yell and complain and just repeat how annoyed and overwhelmed and frustrated I am, but the sad fact is that I gave out this address to perhaps those same people who bother me. This website started as my own secret space, my own place to vent. But then along the while, I decided also that I liked my friends to read what I wrote. And then I let them find me.

Granted, there are only three people I know who check this, which is not like a grand audience by any means, but what if I want to write about one of those three people? Or what if one person is compounding the problems created by the second person? What if the person you most want to vent to is unreachable, and that makes you want to complain even more, but the second in line has a three-hour time difference and is therefor asleep?

This time it's not the hormones that are raging through me. It must be the tired-from-school, or the possible dead phone battery (this is what I tell myself), or the nonstop chat-chat-chat-chat-chat, or the upcoming roommate search stress, or the not feeling his touch or kiss all weekend, or the lack of money, or the absence of free time, or the neurosis that comes from having to depend on other people. And people are unpredictable.

Blarg. I have that feeling that I might break and cry, but only when the next disappointment arrives.

Why can't I fucking suck it up?

Saturday, March 04, 2006

not that desperate

Interesting post found while perusing the craigslist apartment wanted section:

"hello ladies...i am looking to live with a Dominant, Demanding, Bossy, Bitchy Female as her roomate/footslave......NO sex....just foot massages and foot worship....i will pay up to $1000 per month rent for a room of any size, even your walk in shoe closet, any space is fine...all i want is to have my face under your feet, use my face as your footrest/footstool....i will clean, run your errands, food shop for us....please have great feet....i am a swm, 40, safe, clean, fun, handsome, obedient and reliable....please send your pics and a note if interested, and i will return my pics and number.....thank you"

Thursday, March 02, 2006

thoughts

Assorted thoughts running through my head during my first dinner with the boyfriend's family:

  • Shit. Dogs.
  • oh! Thank God he's not a toilet paper waster!
  • Why am I so lucky?
  • How was he not fat as a child?
  • Oh finally, the Olympics are over.
  • Poor Mitch.