Category Archives: manfolk

humor, manfolk

Bonobos are not pants

i’m flexing, therefore my pants are pink IRONICALLY

I saw this ad for colorful pants the other day, and a little barking laugh escaped my lips.  Bonobo may be a brand of men’s blinding pants, but it was the name of a type of chimp first, a chimp known for its seemingly human sexual practices.

Bonobos are hilarious.  They have matriarchal societies where French kissing, oral sex, and homosexual sexual practices (among the males, and females) are common.  They seem to use sex to relax the group.  After a fight: sexytime.  When they get excited about a particularly plentiful patch of food: sexytime.  A new female wants to join the group: lesbian sexytime.  It’s pretty great.  I wonder what the discussion was like when deciding on the name of these very colorful pants for men.

“Let’s name these absurd-looking pants after a matriarchal, hyper-sexual chimpanzee.”
“…Sure, fine, whatever, I’m missing Diablo III.”

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goodness, humor, manfolk, nerd

“Yes! A thousand times, yes!”

The proper response: “Make it so.”  Obviously.  I hope Boyfriend does something like this if/when he proposes.  And he will, assuming he knows me at all.

only a filthy Ferengi says no to Picard

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badness, goodness, life, manfolk

My heart is fond enough, thank you very much

Yesterday was Sister’s graduation party, and today she graduated from law school.  We’re all so proud of her, and it’s pretty amazing she did so well considering that law school is hell, plus she hates reading and writing, and that’s all there is in law school.  The party was fun, lots of old family friends whom we haven’t seen in a long while.  They all came in just to congratulate our family on Sister’s success.  So sweet.

Boyfriend couldn’t make it (again); he left for a job in Spain, which will allow him to be around for my trip to Ireland and Scotland.  It was a pretty heart-wrenching parting.  I always cry a little when he leaves for a work trip, but this time was tough.  Recently we’ve been talking about how happy we are together.  Boyfriend said he’s more in love with me than ever.  We were sitting on the bed between his preparations for his trip, just chatting, and it struck me how lonely I’ll be without him.  My face must have crumpled like a piece of paper, and I couldn’t hold it in.  Boyfriend did what he always does: he said, “Don’t cry, girlfriend!  Soon we’ll be in Dublin together and everything’ll be great!”  He started listing all the fun stuff we’ll do abroad, but it didn’t seem to help.  I love him so much.  He’s my best friend.  I still look forward to seeing him every day, even after more than four years.  I’m proud of him for getting so much work recently, and excited that it’s allowing him to go abroad, but I miss him something fierce every time.

He said that if I cried, he would cry, and after a while, he did (a little).  At the very least it’s nice to know that he misses me as much as I miss him.

At the graduation party last night, I was sitting and chatting with my cousins, and I randomly thought about how nice it would be to see Boyfriend later that night.  Then I remembered that he was probably already on the plane, and I cried a little (again).  I can’t remember being so effected by one of his trips since the first one.  I should be excited to see him in Dublin, but I’m so lonely without him.

He said that we wouldn’t be apart very long, not even for as long as the trips he usually takes to visit his family on the east coast.  He said the distance didn’t matter.  I corrected him; it does matter, and he’s so far away.

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goodness, life, manfolk, work

The good kind of pressure

I haven’t had time to write recently.  Planning this trip to Ireland (and Scotland) has been eating up all my spare time.  I’m leaving May 31st, and returning June 13th.  I have to be ready for school (which starts on the 18th) by the time I get back, but I’m not sure if I’m eligible for the tuition breaks I thought I’d get when I applied for the graduate program.  I still need the reading materials, and I need to finish the online orientation.

I’ve been reading Rick Steve’s guidebooks about Ireland and Scotland, and I’m totally wiped out on research mode.  I’ll be spending five days in Dublin, three days in Edinburgh, three days on Oban, and one day in Ayr near Irvine with a friend I made during my time in Romania.  Then it’s one night near the Dublin airport somewhere so I can leave around 11am the next day.

Boyfriend will be in that part of the world on work, so he’ll be with me in Dublin and Edinburgh, then I’m on my own.  I’m excited to spend time in the Highlands.  I’m staying in a bed and breakfast in the little coastal town of Oban.  Apparently they make great whisky (one B&B I found offered a shot of whiskey every evening upon returning to retire).  I’ll day-trip out to the Isle of Mull, then to Iona.  I can’t wait to relax among some beautiful scenery.  Also, horseback riding!  I’m excited about doing this stuff on my own; taking it slow after spending the majority of the trip in cities (with Boyfriend).  I’m really looking forward to spending time abroad with Boyfriend.  We’re going to have so much fun.

Meanwhile, my room is a disaster area, I’m nervous about starting school again (plus the online aspect of it), I haven’t traveled in a long time so I’m worried about keeping my itinerary straight… frankly I’m a little overwhelmed.  I just keep reminding myself that everything loading me down is stuff I’m also excited about.  I guess that’s a sign that I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone.  I wonder if this is what progress feels like.

It kinda sucks.  hahaha

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goodness, manfolk

Lemon tree

Boyfriend has a lemon tree in his backyard which produces like crazy.  There are always lemons weighing down its branches.  Now and then we go out and pick as many as we can; today we got about thirty off the tree, and we didn’t even make a dent considering how many lemons still have to grow and mature.

We used his grandfather’s old electric juicer and got 2.5 liters out of just those thirty lemons.  So awesome!  They’re so flavorful and delicious.  I added some sugar water to some of it to make it a little more palatable.  Boyfriend demanded that we leave the majority of it as it was to use on salad (we make our own dressing with lemon juice, olive oil and salt).  And look how pretty they are:

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goodness, life, manfolk

Way too cute

Boyfriend is visiting his family on the east coast until next Wednesday.  He sent me these texts when he left.  So cute.

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goodness, humor, life, manfolk

Death by snuggle

This happens… almost every night I spend at Boyfriend’s place.  He’s an affectionate guy, which I love, but sleepy time is time to sleep, not time to invade Girlfriend’s space until she’s so annoyed that she has to get up and go to another bed in the house to sleep.  Most of the time I just grumble and give him some little nudges and push him back over to his side of the bed, which he takes good-naturedly, and if he’s awake enough, I hear a few muffled, “sowwy, sowwy gurlfwend, sowwy.”  It’s pretty cute, when it’s not infuriating.

truth

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goodness, life, manfolk

Disneyland!

I was so scared of her and her crow

Boyfriend and I went to Disneyland last week for our 4-year anniversary.  It was totally exhausting but super fun.  He had never been on the teacups!  I got video of him turning the wheel and getting dizzy.  I got to sit in the driver’s seat at the Indiana Jones ride (which broke down on us the first time).  The Haunted Mansion broke down on us, too; there was a hitch-hiking ghost sitting right between us on the way out.  We ate a turkey leg and a pineapple soft-serve ice cream and gumbo and a churro, walked through the princess castle, rode Pirates twice, shot lasers on the Buzz Lightyear ride (I got a way higher score than Boyfriend!), and saw no fewer than 34 little girls dressed up as princesses.

Boyfriend and I have discussed how Sleeping Beauty is probably our favorite of the old Disney cartoons.  The thorns, the green flames, the sparkly sword, the giant black dragon!  It’s just the best.

Mom asked if he and I had a “big talk” since we’ve been together so long.  I said, “No.  Our plan remains the same: Stay together as long as we’re happy.”  She didn’t seem satisfied, but Sister got a text from some boy she’s smitten about and distracted us by grinning stupidly 🙂

Boyfriend has been really busy with work recently.  He did a 9-day shoot in K-town, then we did Disneyland, then he left for San Francisco for a few days.  He got back last night, and left again this morning for a shoot someplace else for a few days.  I’m not super jazzed about it.  We slept apart last night.  I can’t get all attached if he’s just going to leave again.

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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, manfolk

This was a terrible plan

OMG RUN HARRY POTTER

Boyfriend is leaving for a job in London tomorrow 😦  He’ll be gone for about ten days, and we’ve been meaning to see The Woman in Black, so we decided to cram it in before he left.

What a terrible idea.

I read the book recently, and it’s a good old-fashioned ghost story.  The movie is… similar, but more of a Hollywood-style, evil-thing-jumps-out-of-a-dark-corner, heart-stopping, crap-your-pants type of scary (in that order).  The short version is: I was not prepared for the level of scary this movie had in store for me, and now Boyfriend is LEAVING ME ALL ALONE HOW COULD HE.

Having said that, if they were going to make it that scary, it had to end the way it did, with some good fortune (if you can call it that) for this poor man.  But right after that, the very last shot, a close-up of the woman, and then she looks at you and AAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!  So fucking scary!

I was curled up against boyfriend, cutting of circulation to his left arm the whole movie.  A couple of times, when the woman got really mad, I had to close my eyes.  Once, I turned to Boyfriend and declared, “Ok, all done now, I want to go home.”  He laughed and shushed me; I was only half kidding.

It’s not that I’m so easily frightened; it’s the combination of the empirical scariness of the movie, combined with how totally unprepared I apparently was, and what an unwelcome surprise my lack of preparedness was.  Here’s the breakdown I made.

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