Author Archives: Toph Beifong

goodness, life

Le Move

I might have to hide somewhere in here and jump out at Diminutive Roommate tonight

I have too much stuff.  I thought to myself, “Moving will be so cleansing!  What an excellent experience!  I can’t wait to start getting rid of all the junk I’ve been accumulating for the past three-plus years I’ve been living here!”  While all that’s good and true, packing the other 85% of my crap has been distinctively less rewarding.  All my free time for the past two weeks has been taken up with driving all over LA picking up cardboard boxes from people on craigslist, packing, spackling, painting, and discovering more crap that needs packing.  Yesterday we went through the kitchen (almost done!).  Highlight: We got rid of 90% of the liquor cabinet, and discovered that I still had one bottle of that wine I love so much!  A night of celebratory imbibing will certainly be in order once we settle in.

Today we’ll be dealing with Diminutive Roommate’s flatscreen tv.  The plan is to wrap it in moving blankets, then not break it.  The move has been exhausting but good.  I got to see which art books I want to keep (almost all), and which I should really take a look at instead of piling crap in front of them (Van Dyck is the man, y’all).  Diminutive Roommate’s cat (Calico) has found a new nook  to tuck into every day, which is adorable, and I’m starting to get excited about the new place.

I could go for a solid four hour nap, but I have to get packing again… After I finish this episode of Kaze no Stigma.

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goodness, nerd

Reasonably awesome

It’s frustrating being a nerdy female in large part because the majority of the stuff that fascinates me is geared to be sold to the male portion of our species, resulting it scantily clad female healer classes in (almost) every fantasy war story ever (Eowyn kinda rules).

Then something like this comes along, and I smile.  It’s Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor, and it’s a dream come true.  Awesome women in brutal armor without an inch of cleavage or chain-mail bikini in the bunch.  This is what I picture when I think of what I would be like as a Tolkien-esque fighter; probably a ranger of some kind, definitely hooded.

I was happy to see that Artesia made it onto that page.  Sure, she’s a witch/concubine/warrior, which is kinda the opposite of the point of this page, but she always wore the coolest armor.

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goodness, nerd

The Hobbit cometh

above: MAGIC

I just finished The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Aside from being totally epic, I was surprised that the writing was so palatable.  From what I was told, I thought it would be pages and pages of detailed elf lineage, and chapters full of unnecessary descriptions of the beauty of ladies in tall cities and the grand histories of long-dead kings.  What I found was a thoroughly engulfing universe I found my self longing to be a part of.  The writing is, frankly, poetic at times.  It’s easy to understand why people read these tomes over and over.  There’s so much to experience.

Of course, reading the trilogy got me all nostalgic for The Hobbit, which I read a couple of times growing up.  It has a shape-shifting druid in it!  And a dragon and trolls and treasure!  I was hooked.  I’d never read anything like it.  It took its time and then suddenly thrust you in the middle of something fantastic!  I lost the copy I had growing up, but eBay to the rescue!  I bought it from a nice lady in Aurora, Illinois for $4.  It just arrived at Office Job.  So excited 🙂

I hear there’s a movie or some such coming out… later.  If it’s done similarly to the LoTR, it should be good, but I really don’t give two shits about a movie when I can have the original experience of my childhood.  BOOKS, people.  BOOKS.

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badness, goodness, life

Nightmare on paper

There’s an artist named David Devries who takes children’s drawings of monsters and redraws them to look more realistic.  It’s a super cool idea, and I like the execution.  I almost feel like he’s too true to the kids’ drawings, though.  Kids draw ideas, representations of what they see in their minds.  They can’t draw exactly what they see, but when something is tall, they draw it thin and long, that kind of thing.  I think a little artistic license would be fun for this guy’s project.

I had a recurring nightmare growing up in which I would hide at the end of a narrow outdoor hallway.  There’s nowhere to hide though, so I just crouched down on the floor and made myself as small as possible while keeping my feet under me and my eyes up in case I needed to run (to where?  I was trapped).  I usually dreamed vividly, so the fact that this dream was always in black and white is probably why it stuck with me.  At the end of this hall/alleyway, is a street where people are walking by, going about their day.  But of course, they’re not really people.  They’re long, gangly, black figures with long snout-faces.  They were indistinguishable from each other.

Being a Communist state or whatever, everyone had to conform.  I was clearly not conforming, because I wasn’t a Snout-Face, which is why I had to hide.  Naturally one of them spotted me and came after me.  And he brought friends.  They came marching down the alley with a swift, chilling grace that made panic set fire to my insides, and woke me up.

There really is no way to describe how purely fear is felt in a nightmare.  It’s just terrifying.  Luckily, we’ve all had that experience, so we don’t need to find the words to explain it.

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goodness, humor

Is this NSFW or what?

Before you ask, yeah, I’m a little drunk.  I’m a total light weight.  There is no such thing as “Sure, I’ll have a beer,” for me.  It’s more like “Sure, I have time to get drunk then sober up before I have to drive home.”  Tonight I had one beer with dinner, so YES, I am drunk.

mmmmm, boobies...

I don’t like falling asleep drunk.  Rather, it’s hard for me to fall asleep drunk because I’m so dizzy.  Then, because being supine results in equal distribution of blood to all parts of the body, my head gets all blood-swollen and I get dizzier.  Also hot.  Because of the beer’s exothermic reaction with my fabulous body.

So instead of going to bed, I hop on my compy and cruise around looking at online comics I neglected to read at work (what a slacker).  Picture, if you will, a damn beautiful tipsy brunette (I get pretty when drunk cus my face softens up and I’m usually out with friends so I put a little makeup on and put some effort into my clothes, plus my standards probably drop a little once I start drinking, etc.) reading one of her favorite online comics (SMBC) when she comes across THIS (see picture).

Yes, it’s a woman fondling herself.  Why?  Because Verizon made her crazy with their horrendously terrible customer service, and she’s become one of those lunatics that touch themselves in public.  And what more public place to experience your own body than the interwebz.

Later they show us that they intentionally photoshopped out a perfectly good laptop, which she is cradling against her breast for what can surely be no good fucking reason.  Is it her love child with Steve (as of today) Jobless?  Did Verizon create a human cyborg that can love machines and people equally?  Being less than sober, I thought, “Maybe this is normal, and my blood alcohol level is altering my perception to make me think this is weird.”  Public self-groping is weird, though, right?  Right?

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goodness

This should be permanent

Improv Everywhere is one of my favorite things.  I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned them before!  They get a bunch of strangers together and get them to do something simple and often hilarious.  They are basically the original flashmob organizers.  The best one they did was when they invited people to wear khakis and a royal blue polo shirt, and wander into a Best Buy, pretending to work there and help people with any questions they had.  Naturally, they got kicked out after a while, but that brand of harmless fun is just so appealing.  Gotta participate one day.

Recently, they put up a podium in the heart of New York city with an attached megaphone with a sign that said “SAY SOMETHING NICE.”  And people did, proving that given the right prompt, people can commit random acts of goodness just about anywhere for no reason at all.  The number of people who said “I love you” was particularly surprising.

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badness, life

Not my best month ever

This has not been my best month ever.

me vs. universe. guess which one is me.

We lost a great roommate (High School Friend) to graduate school in another state, and attempted to fill her spot.  Without friends available to do so, we searched on Craigslist with semi-disastrous results (Treacherous Wench backed out the day before she was supposed to move in).  So we gambled and assumed that Diminutive Roommate’s old college roomie would be able to live with us if we could find a place that suited our needs (i.e. a bigger room for her).  Luckily she has decided to live with us (yay!).  Two Saturdays in a row we hunted for apartments all day long, driving around the Westside in my little Fiat, hoping to find an owner or manager desperate enough to offer us a place on the spot because, let’s face it, it was the 20th, and we were running out of time.

We found a place we all loved, they even put in new carpets!  But it took us a while to get our paperwork in.  Finally, with everything properly submitted, a couple nail-biting days passed before we heard that my parents will have to cosign the least to make up for my apparently questionable, previously immaculate credit.

Furious at this blatantly false accusation, I rushed home from Karate Job to check my credit score.  Three days ago, it dropped 55 points.  Fifty-five points.  In one day.  HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN.  Apparently when you get a new car and put in two applications for apartments, your credit gets checked all the fucking time.  I also paid one bill late last week (through no fault of my own THANKS FOR NOTHING, GAP).  Five hard inquiries within a month later, my credit score could not stand the constant verification, and collapsed under the weight of the absurd credit rating system to which it is a tiny, starved, brainless slave.

Now, at age 27, I have to call up my folks and ask them to vouch for me financially, after I just bought the first brand new car my family has ever owned, impressing everyone with my financial prowess.  It’s infuriating, and frankly humiliating.

Now begins the moving process, when I spend all my free time attempting to fit my life into too few boxes in too little time.  Which means… no more World of Warcraft until after the move.  DAMMIT, UNIVERSE, I NEED MY FIX.

Not my best month ever.

P.S. Amidst all this, I’m happy about something: moving is a cleansing process which, while difficult, is always good.  It’s an exercise that needed to happen.  I have too much stuff.  I need to shed all that extra fur and let my summer coat come out.  You should see my summer coat.  Gorgeous.

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goodness

Nature, you crazy

Diminutive Roommate and I went apartment hunting over the weekend, and in our travels encountered a small row of the largest sunflowers either of us has ever seen.  Being who we are (random adventure lovers!), we had to pull over and snap a few photos.

it's almost like the flower is smelling her hand. CREEPERS! Back to the car!

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badness, life

Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

I got some bad news this morning.  The girl who was planning on moving in with Diminutive Roommate and me bailed on us.  Yesterday.  Via Facebook.  The day before she was going to move in.  It’s been a stressful morning.  I got a message from Diminutive Roommate (who had just read the Facebook message about how Traitorous Wench was basically dumping us for someone else).

hey look, it's me.

I called her back as I parked for work at Office Job, and spent a good half hour ranting with her about how screwed we would be if we weren’t financially responsible, hard-working people.  We’re both just shocked at how selfish Traitorous Wench has been.  Diminutive Roommate suggested taking her to small claims court.  I said we should wait a week or two and see if our sakki* had subsided by then.

Faced with annoying, stressful (but not horrible) crap, I regress into imaginationland, or find something to laugh at.  I decided to have a look at the most popular searches that have brought my blog to the attention of the world.  The results are pretty great.

dýně– Czech for pumpkin.  I get lots of hits for pumpkins.  No surprise there.  Pumpkins are the best.
фацепалм– Russian for facepalm.  I might have some friends in Russia if this is what they’re searching for.
юри хэнтай– Russian, something relating to hentai.  I just lost some friends in Russia if this is what they’re searching for.
требушет– Russian for trebuchet.  Heads up, Japan.  They’re doing their research.
goat in karate outfit– This is my favorite search so far.  I’ve written about martial arts, I’ve posted about goats standing on stuff.  The two were unrelated, until now.
гай фокс– Russian for Guy Fawkes (I think).  The most popular search term for my blog is Guy Fawkes.  Random.
what is hentai?– Among all the other explicitly hentai sex-driven searches my blog experiences, the innocence of this search is heartbreaking.  Imagine what this brought up.  My posts mentioning hentai are nerf-town compared to what’s out there.
the beavers over under sideways down– Wow!  Someone actually searched for this super obscure Japanese 1960’s band!  Sweet!
sexy orochimaru– What?!  No no no.
جاى فوكس– This translates roughly to “gay fox vagina.”  Wow.  Way to go, UAE.
фильм сомбреро– Russian for Sombrero!  Ole!
scary basking shark pictures– Is there any other kind?  Seriously, basking sharks are horrifying to behold.

Ironically, I played a game called Betrayal at House on Haunted Hill last night at Treehouse friend’s place, during which I became the “traitor,” and went around the house attacking and eventually subduing the rest of the participants.  It’s like art reflecting life.  Traitorous Wench!

*Sakki is a Japanese term describing a sense of bloodlust, or killing intent, directed at another person.  High-level practitioners of martial energy work (Aikido, Samurai, etc.) can sense this.  Even those with no energy or martial arts training can sense this enough to become intimidated or frightened.  This concept is mentioned in Lone Wolf and Cub, Naruto, Inuyasha, and many other manga and anime in which combat is common.  See here and here.

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