Category Archives: life

For when I get philosophical about my apartment, job, boyfriend, etc. Big picture stuff.

badness, goodness, life

Oh, Imaginary Thing, please protect me from this other Imaginary Thing

faith's all, CHILL, I GOT THIS

What I love (read: despise) about religion is that it claims to be the only cure for a problem it creates.  That’s like stealing everyone’s light bulbs, then “helpfully” selling them flashlights.

Leave it to the Flemish painters of the 16th century to illustrate this idea perfectly.  Check out this drawing by Maarten van Heemskerck, entitled “Man Protected By the Shield of Faith.”

As if the devil (whose penis is a forked tongue, and knees are capped with beast heads, because being the devil isn’t enough, apparently you really have to illustrate it with messed up genitalia and patellas) isn’t a fabrication of the very faith that claims to protect man from him.  Without religion, faith and the devil disappear, and this illustration becomes a drawing of a man playing a game of “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.”

But then, without  the talent of Flemish artists to freak us out, and religion to freak them out, we wouldn’t have paintings like this one by Joos van Cleve, where Jesus is totally ripped and wearing a Superman cape while squashing some poor fat putti (tiny pudgy angel kids).  I recall from my art history classes (which I loved) that Jesus is often depicted as physically fit when placed in a Last Judgement scene, which this is.  Still hilarious, though.  “He died for your sins, then went to Gold’s gym to pump iron and check out the ladies on the treadmills.”

meanwhile, everyone in the foreground is all, WTF WHY DID WE BRING OUR BED SHEETS TO THE APOCALYPSE FML

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goodness, humor, life, nerd

It is a silly place

magnificent

Diminutive Roommate had a medical scare recently, and was super stressed about it.  Teacher Roommate offered to do a puppet show to cheer her up, and she took the offer seriously.  I decided we should do a musical, and the first song that came to mind was “Knights of the Round Table” from Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail.

Teacher Roommate is quite the artist, so she was on sock puppet duty.  I learned the basic chords on the ukulele to play the song so we had some instrumental to sing along with.  The guy who got us into ukulele came to play with me, and another friend came to play the king puppet and one of the little knight puppets.  We needed a castle to use for Camelot, so Teacher Roommate got her postcard from Harry Potter World and propped it up in front of the pot we used for the bridge where people’s helmets get banged on with a wooden spoon.

It was… total chaos, but Diminutive Roommate was super pleased.  We had a blast, ate some strawberries, drank some beer, and humiliated ourselves to put on a ridiculous show for a friend.  Worth it.

the bureau made for a fine stage

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badness, life

The childhood fear in my backyard

he knows me by sight, and hunts without rest

I’m mostly pleased with my imagination; its power to entertain me when I’m bored could power a small yacht.  Like most kids, I had the occasional super horrifying nightmare.  One has stuck with me, popping into my head occasionally for no good reason.

I’m running away, but have run straight into a very narrow, dark alley.  It’s perfectly clean.  This is one of my very few black and white dreams.  I back against the back wall of the alley, and squat down against the floor, attempting to become as small as possible.  I shut my mouth so they won’t see my teeth, and I want to shut my eyes, but that way I won’t be able to see them coming.  At the open end of the alley, the population walks by purposefully, going to work, going home, running errands.  They are all identical (see picture).  One of them stops and its head snaps toward me, and the panic sets in.  He’s the one who’s been looking for me.  He’s after me in a second and I have nowhere to run.  I start to get up from my crouch, my hands touch the walls behind me, searching for an escape.  I only have seconds, and I know I’m trapped.  I wake up before he can reach me, feeling like a cornered animal.

Today I took La Cienega home, and reached a revelation.  There was construction that forced three lanes down to one, allowing (forcing) me to appreciate the view, and there they were: pumpjacks (oil pumps).

I slow to a stop and gawk.  My mouth hangs open as I stare out the open window of my tiny, shiny car at one of the worst nightmares from my childhood.  My eyes drag across the landscape.  There were more of them, dozens, peppered across the small dry hills I’d driven past hundreds (thousands?) of times.  My dad used to take this exact route to drive my mom to LAX for business trips, and sometimes Sister and I came along for the ride.  What else do children do but stare out the window?  The memory comes back to me with enough force to stop my breath.  I force myself to exhale and examine the rest of them.

we'll be overrun by sunset

They ignore me like they always have (I hope), and keep hard at work, bowing and saying, “Yes, very nice to meet you, thank you very much, yes indeed.”  But for once my imagination is silent, and they say nothing at all.  They are no longer amusing.  I am frozen in my seat when the blue and yellow taxi that’s been tailgating me lets out an unhealthy blast from its horn.  I let off the brake slowly, watching the machines at work, waiting for them to spring to life and finally catch me.

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badness, life

Then I almost beheaded my boyfriend in my sleep

what was I stressing about back then...?

I used to talk in my sleep all the time.  As a kid, I would get up, walk into my parents room and stand over my mother, breathing and staring, eyes wide open, dead asleep.  I once woke her up with an insistent, “MOM. MOM. MOM.”  When she awoke, she said, “What is it?”  I said, “…HI.”  She was creeped out and asked my dad to put me back to bed.

More recently, when I was working at Real Estate job (for two years), I wasn’t happy.  It was a boring job with a bad boss.  I didn’t even have anyone to relate to; it was just me and him in this little real estate consultation company.  I was desperately needed, quietly loathed, totally trapped, and very alone.  This is around the time when Boyfriend and I got together.  He would regale me with tales of my night-talks on a semi-daily basis.

After two years, I realized how unhappy I was and decided to leave.  I finally quit Real Estate Job and started working at Office Job where my coworkers are kind, the work is manageable, and my boss appreciates me and gives me clear instructions when I make a mistake.  I stopped talking in my sleep literally overnight.  Boyfriend and I have come to the realization that I talk in my sleep when I’m stressed out.

When I got too hot, I have always stripped off my pj’s until a comfortable temperature is reached (this happened again just two nights ago).  But talking in my sleep is something that seems to happen only when my mind has been particularly stimulated by a book, or movie, some fascinating conversation, or (most likely) stress.  Last Thursday, Boyfriend and I had a fight about a camera, of all things.  He told me when we first started dating that he would love to do a photo shoot with me.  I thought, “Wow, my handsome, film industry boyfriend wants to use me as a model in a photo shoot.  And it would be so fun to see him in action and create something with him.”  That’ll be a fun couples activity, I thought.  Almost four years later, and we still haven’t done it, regardless of my sporadic hint-dropping and semi-serious nagging.

the culprit

Then he bought a camera, and as we were driving home, he said, “Wanna take some photos with me?”  I said, “Sure, come back in four years, I’ll be happy to.”  This launched a fight about how I thought we were going to create something together, not break in a new toy, that I thought he wanted to take my photo because he loved me and thought I was pretty, not because he needed a warm body in front of a lens.  I could not have been more wrong, apparently.  After some bickering, he said he proposed the original photo shoot because, “…y’know, I knew you’d be… around.”  I said, “So, because I’m convenient.”  He said, “Essentially, yes.  The photos are for me.”

So that kinda broke my heart.  We spent the rest of the day avoiding each other, driving to a movie, fighting in the car, fighting more after the movie on the drive home, then fighting more at home.  I cried a bunch.

That night I did more than talk in my sleep; I almost assaulted him.

Here’s the IM from the next day:

Boyfriend: hewo
Me: ohai
Boyfriend: do u remember what weird thing u did while u were dreaming?
Me: ?
I did a weird thing?
Boyfriend: very.
u grabbed my head
and u thought it was one of your obstacle course blocks [the items I use to build games for the kids at the dojo]
and u told your class to go put it away
Me: um wtf?
that’s fucking creepy
Boyfriend: yes!
and i woke up and said, whaaa
huh?
Me: i’m going to need a demonstration
tonight
Boyfriend: for sure i will
it was kinda scary
Me: then what happened?
Boyfriend: i was vaguely hoping u wouldn’t like rip my head off
i think u said “no more playing, time to put it away”
or something like that
Me: wow
that’s just… fucked up.
Boyfriend: and then u let my head go, thank god.
i would’ve been jolted awake if i wasn’t so tired
the creepiest part is that u sat up
and then grabbed my head
which i was semi-conscious of
Me: yikes
so… sorry?
Boyfriend: haha
i guess it’s ok?
Me: I haven’t done something dynamic like that in my sleep in a while.
Boyfriend: yeah
Me: I think our fight stressed me out.
Boyfriend: i assumed that’s what happened

I haven’t acted out in my sleep like this in months, so for me to treat Boyfriend’s head like it’s filled with plastic stuffing of some kind the night following a particularly painful fight (for which he is 100% to blame, btw) was just too perfect.  We almost never fight, so when we do it’s usually because he’s being a weirdo (according to him, a model has no interest in the photographs she helps to create), or we had a miscommunication (like confusing convenience with love).  I was super stressed about it because we fight so rarely, so naturally, my sleeping-self had something to say.

We get over our fights in record time, though.  We hate being mad at each other, it feels so unnatural.  We spend so much time in direct physical contact (holding hands, curling up next to each other on a couch, a long spontaneous hug) that it feels weird to be apart.  We have whole short conversations while holding each other.  He touches my hands, I scratch his head.  He squeezes my legs, I pet his stomach.  We live so harmoniously the vast majority of the time that when we fight I find it pretty distressing.

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badness, life, work

No warrior, no war

It’s about a half-mile walk from my office at Office Job to my car at a parking structure a couple of blocks away.  Typically when I walk through any parking lot, I make it a point to keep my eyes up, and stop fussing with my phone, or stick my head in my purse, or otherwise distract myself from… whatever.

paranoid parrot knows what I'm talking about

I’ve come to realize that “whatever” really means imminent attack by some asshole who wants to steal my car/accost me, etc.  I’ve never been attacked by a sober person, so this would be a new experience for me.  Still, I can feel myself tense up a little when I step off the elevator to the third floor of the parking structure.  I’ve finally given in to reading The Hunger Games on my Kindle, but as the doors open, my eyes slip up from the screen, and I step forward, full of caution and confidence, ready for some hidden enemy to pounce.

There have been men working to replace all the lights in the structure every day this week, and yesterday was no exception.  As I walked away from them toward my car, I thought about how I could probably read my book right now instead of keeping an eye out since there are people around.

My mind goes to work.  I calculate how many times I would have to scream for them to realize what they’re hearing, and how long it would take them to arrive to help me.  At least one of them is overweight; he would never arrive in time, and probably wouldn’t be able to do anything useful, so I subtract him from the equation.  Then I calculate how likely these men would be to help a woman being attacked by a man a) with bare fists b) with a knife c) with a gun.  Anything worse than a pocket knife would probably scare them off.  On the other side of the equal sign I’m left with one not-overweight maintenance worker who wouldn’t jump in front of a knife to help me, which means I shouldn’t depend on him at all.  I decide I can probably trust them to ward off any attacker with merely their presence.  “I’m probably safe,” I think as I slip my Kindle in my bag and pull out my keys without breaking stride or dropping my gaze.   My eyes pan across the floor between cars for shadows and feet, then back across the windshields to see if anyone is lying in wait.  I’ve given myself permission to relax,  but I can’t stop preparing for… whatever.

Whenever I teach a women’s self-defense class, I try to calm them down: I say something like, “I just want to point out, and I don’t mean to sound callous or hurt anyone’s feelings, but you are not a special snowflake.  You will probably never get attacked.  I hate to break it to you, but you’re just not that special.  Relax.  You’re here to learn something potentially useful, not to safeguard against the inevitable.”

Where did this hyper-cautious impulse come from?  Did my training make me crave an attack so I can test my skills?  I could’ve sworn I had grown out of that phase.  Or do I worry about an attack because I know all the ways a person can cause injury to another with their bare hands?  Did the two fights I’ve been in make me like this?  They turned out well, what am I worrying about?  I’m no warrior, and there is no war going on.  Why am I like this?  What am I doing?  It feels like such a huge waste of time to be this tense every day… then again, if the alternative is getting blindsided by some asshole in a ski mask, I’d rather miss twenty seconds of whatever novel I’m reading to make it to the car sans violent encounter.

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badness, goodness, life

Erin go braugh

i want to go to there

I’ve wanted to visit Ireland for about as long as I can remember.  The green hills, the pubs, the castles, the cold, I want to experience it all.  But it’s more than that.  I feel like if I went there, I wouldn’t want to leave.  It seems like the emerald isle could be the home I’ve never seen.  Ireland has been calling to me.

Diminutive Roommate and I were chatting at the breakfast table a few weeks ago about vacations, and how long it’s been since I took one (London with the family in May, 2009).  I said I would love to go to Ireland.  She said, “Let’s go!”  The show she’s on will be ending a bit before I start school, so I’m planning on leaving Karate Job a few weeks before classes start to take a trip with her.

It was a pretty flawless plan, but like most plans, it had, in fact, a flaw.  I IM’d Diminutive Roommate a week after our convo: “I’m getting excited about Ireland,” and got a response: I don’t think I can go with you.  Teacher Roommate had reminded Diminutive Roommate that she had promised to go with her to Ireland years ago.   My heart sank.  I wasn’t even angry, just horribly disappointed.  A couple of weeks passed while we ignored the topic, and I finally sat down while Boyfriend and Diminutive Roommate’s ex-boyfriend and a good friend of mine from college (let’s call him Boardgame Friend since he’s super into boardgames, and even taught a class on table-top gaming for actual credits at an actual school once) played a zombie game on the floor nearby.  I said, “Ok, what’s going on with Ireland?  Tell me what’s on your mind.”  Turns out she won’t be able to keep her promise to Teacher Roommate since her schedule will preclude her from traveling with her while TR is available to travel (August), while DR and I can travel in late May/early June.  This was all truth as of last week.

Yesterday afternoon I was chatting with Teacher Roommate about Diminutive Roommate’s schedule, and she said, “Sounds like they’re pushing the show back, too.”  I thought, No.  No way.  there’s no way Diminutive Roommate wouldn’t tell me that her schedule had changed, thus potentially changing my plans to travel abroad for the first time in three years.  Surely… surely she would tell me.

I texted her asking when her show would be done.  No answer.  When she got home, she broke the news that the show might be ending later than planned, but she wouldn’t know for another week.

Well.  Fine.

note to self: table flipping looks super gratifying. must try.

Now I’m placed in the position of deciding where I should really just consider where I want to travel alone.  Should I do another archaeology expedition instead?  I had such a blast in Belize, but I was surrounded by people my own age there, too.  Should I join a tour so I can experience the country in a group?  Wandering around alone definitely has its appeal, but it does sound a bit… lonely.  Sharing new experiences with someone you love is so fun.  Sure would be nice to have Diminutive Roommate there with me.

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family, goodness, humor, life, manfolk, nerd

The one percent

I was looking through my iPhone photos this morning, and a random thought occurred to me: what would my life look like if I could only see every hundredth photo?  I recently cleaned out my phone of extraneous contacts, photos, emails, apps, etc., and the aftermath is just over a thousand photos of the past year and a half.  Here’s what one percent of my life looks like:

#1
I have to include number one; it’s a good starting point.  My mom gave me her iPhone 3g when she got a Blackberry from work, so I inherited some of her photos, and haven’t had the heart to delete them.  She travels for work (too much), and took this shot at a waterfall.  It was nice to turn on my “new” iPhone for the first time, and see that my mom has a good eye.

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#100
I work at Karate Job in Redondo Beach three times a week now, and there’s a pretty strong jalopy following down there.  I used to see at least one every few weeks.  This one was particularly shiny and handsome.  The owners are always  happy to let me snap a quick shot.  It’s like a car version of really good cosplay; they put a ton of work into it, and are happy to share their enthusiasm with others.

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#200
I’m your average nerd in a lot of ways: table top/online/video gamer, cosplayer, renaissance attendee (with costume), BSG fan, anime fan, manga reader, etc.  When I bought some go-karting tickets for Boyfriend for his birthday, we decided to go with a group of friends, who promptly decided it would be fun to dress up like Mario Kart characters.  Some of us bought our costumes, others made theirs from whatever they had lying around.  I did a combination: I painted an old helmet like an 8-bit piranha plant, bought a green spandex body suit, and voila!  A costume I could wear on the track without using any of the public equipment.  This is the helmet in-progress.  It turned out really well.

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#300
My friends are (of course), nerds too, bless their little hearts, and for a while, Wrath of Ashardalon was our game.  We couldn’t get enough.  I even drew my own character art, and wrote a dozen spells specifically for him.  This is one of those games where you pick your final boss at random.  Our first game, we pulled the game’s namesake: the main boss, Ashardalon, a giant fire-breathing death lizard.  His character dwarfed ours.  We were honestly a little scared.  It was a close one, but we pulled it off!  A very exciting game, and one that I felt the need to document.  As you can see, one of us has already died, while another has just rolled horribly.  Note the cave-in in the adjacent room.  That was a fun series of disasters.

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#400
I love the Renaissance Faire.  It’s so harmless and fun.  Women dress like tarts and men dress like warriors, and no felony sexual assault results.  People walk around fully armed with many very sharp swords and daggers, and no one fights.  Everyone is friendly, even to that one guy who dresses as a ninja, or that other dude who came as Captain Kirk that one time.  Everyone is so wrapped up in admiring costumes, eating turkey legs, playing games, and going to hilarious shows that a sense of good will permeates the fair grounds, and one feels out of place without a smile.
Boyfriend couldn’t make it to last year’s fair, so I took this photo to remind him of how pretty I look wearing girly stuff.

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#500
Diminutive Roommate has been on the hunt for a house for the past year or so, and most of the houses within her price range are in the valley.  I like to go with her whenever I can go give her a second set of eyes, and just to hang out.  Of course, it’s sweltering hot in the valley half the year, so on our way back from visiting one of her prospects this past summer, she blurted out, “Let’s get a watermelon!”  I said, “You’re a genius.  You’re my favorite person right now.”  We pulled over at a Trader Joe’s, grabbed this little guy and strapped him into the back seat.  I’m still pretty protective of my new Fiat, and Diminutive Roommate was eating raspberries or something in the front seat, and had her hands full.  So I improvised.

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#600
I can’t believe it took six hundred photos to randomly fall on one of Calico, Diminutive Roommate’s adorable cat.  She’s like a dog trapped in a feline’s body.  She flops over to have her tummy rubbed.  She loves smelly feet.  She begs when we eat delicious meats.  She’ll cry until we feed her, or if she just wants some company in the morning.  She tackles our legs with all the force her little body can muster, and sometimes it’s really scary.  She’s very sweet, and super cute.  She loves her tennis ball, and she occasionally chirp/meows at the birds outside.  She had just gotten trimmed before this photo, so she looks tiny.  She’s usually pretty poofy.

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#700
My room needs some overhead lighting, so when Dad and I went to Ikea to pick up some cabinets for the apartment we’re fixing up, we decided to see if they had any cool light fixtures.  In order to get to the lighting section, you have to pass through the entire store, so like most people in Ikea, we went a little crazy.  Dad has a great sense of humor, so when he saw these stuffed sharks, this is the first thing he did.  I made him freeze so I could snap a quick photo.  Y’know, for posterity. (note the Lanikai Canoe Club hat 🙂 )

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#800
My family has had a rough time this past year and a half, but this Christmas was really nice.  Mom asked Sister and me to spend the night Xmas eve, and sleep in our old beds, just like when we were little.  She coerced us with a promise of pancakes and bacon in the morning.  It’s a commonly-known fact that my mom’s pancakes are the best pancakes.  You didn’t know?  Yeah, they’re the best.

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#900
Diminutive Roommate and I used to go grocery shopping together all the time, and we always had a blast.  It was like going to a theme park.  Every isle held something fun and stupid to laugh about.  It was a golden era; we were both dating nice guys named John, we shared a room in a pretty gated community in Culver City, we were still in school, and everything was as it should be.  This talent to find fun in ordinary places is one she and I have retained, but when we found a hat in the shape of a giraffe at Joanne’s while hunting for fabric to cover my couch, the pieces sort of fell into place on their own.  I think it really suits her.

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#1000
I just took this photo last night!  Diminutive Roommate’s coworker came over a couple weeks ago to play poker, and mentioned that he had taken up playing the ukulele.  He’s the outdoorsy type, and wanted an instrument he could take with him on backpacking trips and the like.  I said I had always wanted to learn to play the uke, and he offered to teach me.  Diminutive Roommate said she wanted to learn too.  My Lanikai uke just arrived yesterday; hers is arriving tomorrow.  I can’t wait to jam with her and her friend.

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A quick summary of the first thousand photos on my phone:
Mom has quite the artist’s eye on her travels.
Jalopy’s are fun and remind me of Archie.
Go-karting is a perfect venue to show off your love for Mario Kart.
My friends and I love our table-top games.
The Renn Faire is the only place I feel comfortable dressing like a lady.
Watermelons are the ultimate summer snack.
Calico is as adorable as she is deadly.
Dad allows himself to be mauled by a shark to keep us sane at Ikea.
Mom makes a delicious Xmas morning breakfast.
Diminutive Roommate does her part to maintain tradition of being weird and fun.
I love my new uke.

I’m pleased with the turnout here: family, hobbies, friends.  It’s a happy collection, but I’m disappointed at the locality of them.  New goal for the next thousand: exotic locations, new experiences.

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goodness, life, school

Ding!

I got into grad school 🙂

I had a day off yesterday, and I did nothing.  It was a gift.  To me.  For getting into grad school.

And I bought a laptop!  So exciting!  I’ve never had one before.  It’s a Lenovo, which is apparently a really good brand, though I’ve never heard of it before.

My folks and I made a deal back in the day stating that, if I went to a school where they wouldn’t have to pay tuition, they would pay for my grad school.  If that’s the case, I’ll probably quit Karate Job to make time for school so I’m not working my fingers to the bone for the next couple of years with two jobs, plus school.  The folks will help me out a lot less than they do for Sister (she’s more of a spender, I’m a saver), which will reinforce that sense of smugness I associate with our respective financial tendencies.  I realize this is childish and… bad.  I’m too excited about getting into grad school to care.

Now everybody dance!

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goodness, life

The allure of tradition

I kinda love this.  I think it’s the bon odori, for a good harvest, and blessings for old warriors.

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I wish I had some traditions to latch onto.  Sure would be nice to have some roots.

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goodness, life, manfolk, school

Good shit

Tonight, I arrived at home to discover that everyone in my apartment has had an excellent 24 hours.

a work in progress

Teacher Roommate met the owner of Mendocino Farms (our new favorite place), and he gave her a free sandwich (she’s painting a jelly fish right now– see picture at right).  Diminutive Roommate exchanged the Xbox her coworkers bought her for her birthday for a Wii (she’s hooking it up right now!).  Boyfriend just discovered that he landed a job that will take him to London for a week.  And of course, I applied to graduate school yesterday; I even got a phone call from someone in the program congratulating me on completing (and submitting) my application in full.

And Calico just got her dinner.  So everyone is having a stellar day.

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