why am i hearing ginuwine in my head

late mondays that end well are always good. met up with the babies at paulaner for a later dinner and drinks. little tang is engaged. like, whoa. she's ecstatic and i finally met eric, the fiance. they're incredible and so happy. i'm amazed at how life progresses, and so so happy for them. isn't life insane sometimes..! less than a year ago we didn't even know each other. now we feel like old buddies who've been down a long road, and only us few have survived... and now tang, my little party mami, is engaged. it's a trip. take it from this senior citizen.

had an sms battle with both kate and trevor on the way home in the taxi. ah, the purity in complete self-indulgence. yes, i know. i'm 29 years old and acting like i'm 12. it's the beauty of being an adult, really. you have the freedom to act like an imbecile or sleep in your halloween costume. sleep on in that synthetic, flame-retardant pink princess getup. go on and do it.

the realtor called today and i guess we'll start looking at places this weekend. ahhh! it's happening so fast. i wanted to try and target pre-sister arrival for moving, but now that i started the process, i feel all apprehensive. i want to take my little household with me! i want to continue on with my PIC and our baby, the 80-pound hamster-snuffler. but i also need a closet and a bed and probably eventually an office-y type space. argh. the conflict. i'll never have as harmonious a living situation as i do now. am i crazy?

ok, but one thing i know for sure - if/when i move, i'm buying my ass a mattress. i am not sleeping on this bullshit boxspring-disguised-as-a-bed business. it'll probably be expensive, but the back is just not going to be risked. i refuse. i jumped on to cyn's bed once and nearly knocked the wind out of myself. even the sheisty getup that i sleep on now is softer than her bed, which is just wrong.

in bed at 11:42 and counting. hope you had a happy monday! i did.

*muah*

sunday. the day of rest. the day of not going to pool parties with the rest of the free world and drinking mai tais whilst sitting in warm green water, watching the theatrics around you. that was yesterday.

sunday is 'gearing up for the week' day. sunday is cramming in as much 'restful (aka lazy) activities in as possible' day. sunday is... shit. none of that, really.

kate came over earlier and we had what could possibly be translated into a rochford winery celebration. girls talk, and girls laugh, and girls get sad, but they all do it over some bevvies. we all have our disparate dramas - heartbreaks, or potential heartbreaks, or something new and precarious on the horizon - and that's worth a good chat and at least a couple of glasses. being a 20-year old and being a 30-year old doesn't change that much on the subject of boys and how retarded and consistently retarded they are. fools. i still don't get why we put up with you.

bed soon. hope everyone had a lovely weekend.

kiss kiss.

sorpresas

not too verbose tonight - it's late and i'm exhausted and honestly not feeling too hot. but i just want to put out there that this city continues to shock me. maybe even daily. i don't know if i can honestly blame it on the city; if rather it's the people in the city, that create the pulse and the lifeblood and the general vibe. you feel a hand just below the small of your back - right where your butt starts to curve - in the middle of a crowded bar and you first look down at the hand to make sure it's not just an in-transit hand, then you look up at who the hand belongs to because it's still there, not a momentary fleeting thing, firmly planted and surprisingly confident, and even after one year and many bars and many attempts at that particular spot, you are still caught. off. guard. there is a chest bumping against your shoulder and a head ducked low to reach your ear - you are having a conversation, after all - and after the initial surprise wears off you just marvel at how predictable people are, especially when you don't see it coming.

sanctuary

i'd decided offhand that tonight might be the night. to have some bevvies, of course. but i came home first and my PIC is sleeping her ass off (again) and i don't have the heart to wake her. plus i said hello to my little friend, ambien, last night and was off my rocker in about 30 minutes (did my entry from last night even make it? i was typing and i swear the world was spinning), and 8 hours later my alarm went off. it felt so marvelous i might just do it again. i hit 3 pm this afternoon and i wasn't doing the nod. there are definitely benefits to sleeping and sleep-inducing drugs and the like.

spent a few minutes chatting with dinx today. nice work reprieve. we got onto the subject of the blog genre; mine, specifically. it's always interesting to hear what people have to say about your subject matter; i've gotten the range from 'you don't really say anything personal' to 'you say shit i don't even tell my best friends.' i guess i just say what i say because it's an expression of how i'm feeling that day or what interesting shit went down or whatev. it's my blog, i like to express what's on my mind... sorta. to be honest, i regulate certain areas with a massive filter. you don't ever hear shit about my personal life, do you? i mean outside of the drinking and falling and recovering and all that. i know there are exes and semi-pseudo exes and etc. that probably scan from time to time, but that doesn't bother me. if you don't want to know, don't bring your voyeuristic tendencies to this site, partner. and, as i mentioned before, i don't give the dirt on things that really matter to me, in that arena. that, rather ironically i suppose, is no one's beeswax but mine.

blogs are funny things. i'm at the mercy of google (my analytics give me about usually around 21 - 35 hits a day, anywhere from 8 to 23 unique viewers a day across 3 continents. i ain't that popular, there aren't that many folks out there that know and love me and read me daily. clearly there are search threads that are coughing up my shit (although only about 20% of my hits are through referral sites, and those are usually - not always - friends' blogs), but aside from keeping full names off-limits (unless i guess you're a celebrity or some shit) i don't try too hard to prevent unfettered access. it just doesn't matter that much - so few people know about this anyway, i'd rather the limited few get to read whatever crap i spew forth at their leisure then get all crazy-paranoid about regulating it. (i'm sure some of you are shaking your head... why waste so much energy spying on people, and then telling them the readouts? eh, probably because i just don't care.)

how can i not have a picture of dinx and me where i don't look like an idiot? how is this possible? i have a ton of pictures of him looking lovely with and without me... esp in rio, where for some reason i had a running streak of the most unphotogenic shit ever goin on. way to go.

i'll settle for a super-idiotic one at a churrasquaria on ipanema. feb 2004, i think. i was like, reigning queen of stupid faces on that trip. but he looks pretty, no? i just like to show off how beautiful my peeps is.

sorry, stinky poop. i guess putting your name (ish) on here makes both you and your image findable. sorta.

how many times can i listen to this blakq audio track? how excited are we (back to my 22 other personalities and me) about their album dropping in less than 4 weeks?! august 14, babies.

on a nice note, my papa sent me an email that consisted of more than 2 lines AND did not contain anything regarding my personal finances. isn't that nice? he also asked if i was still blogging and what my url was. i was caught between laughing and being a little sad.

can'tfunction

"I am too fooles, I know,

For loving, and for saying so

In whining poetry;

But where's that wiseman, that would not be I,

If she would not deny?

Then as th' earths inward narrow crooked lanes

Do purge sea waters fretfull salt away,

I thought, if I could draw my paines,

Through Rimes vexation, I should them allay.

Griefe brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,

For, he tames it, that fetters it in verse."



-John Donne, The Triple Fool

sybil's rebirth

just to show you how quickly the pendulum swings in the other direction, tonight was 400% fun social yay happy night. i left the office at 6 today - i'm definitely trying that again. you can have a whole other day after work! it's like getting 2 days rolled into one.

the pseudo-singaporean informed me today that i looked really tired, 'like you haven't slept in many days.' he then recommended that i go home and rest. what?! he really knows how to talk to the ladies. i don't really take offense (at all, come to think of it) at what he says; i thought i looked alright. i totally stayed in last night, altho my sister did blow me up at midnight and we talked for a long time. but whatever. when i said we needed to schedule a day for competitor shopping, he was like, 'i'm not taking you anywhere this week. maybe next week when you have some rest.' excuse me? lol. i laughed and told him that i thought i looked fabulous. nerd.

my head is pounding. those mango shots gregor kept sending around are killing me. we had what seemed like a a who-can-eat-more-bar-food contest for dinner, fully equipped with nachos and jalapeno poppers, then of course i ordered pizza. not totally positive, but i'm thinking that cyn and i took that title, since jason and trevor technically had proper main courses, gregor had a sirloin, and kate and kielty also had relatively proper meals when they showed about 3 hours later than everyone else. ai ya. diametric opposite from the first half of my day... which consists of caffeine in many forms and maybe a yogurt thrown into the mix.

i need to find a pool.... kayi and i are more seriously considering this triathlon thing in november... i am a big blob of out of shape-ness... i'm sure there are nice pools in shanghai, but they cost like rmb 20k to join, and i'm pretty sure the rest of the pools are a nice 2007 vintage of snot boogers loogies bandaids.

argh. is it only tuesday?

situps on the rocks

wow, tough crowd. i haven't gotten any response for a few days. are you mad at me for putting that picture up with the X over it? i feel like i'm fucking with my karma in doing mean things like that. then i think about how irritating he is, and i feel justified. depends on the day.

i'm not trying to be flippant. just honest.

monday nights. sometimes it's a party, sometimes it's a party of one. we're tired. a little bit sad, maybe, but it could just be the pinot and the fact that we're watching the lakehouse. (what is this 'we' business? who am i, sybil?) probably more tired than anything, and feeling a little too much like i'm floating around in the universe without any purpose or intent. sorry, don't feel like expanding on that one.

night.

flashback sunday

so, thought of this while on the metro tonight. let's list out some vernacular we use or used in high school and beyond:


swoop: to pick up or be picked up (in a vehicle), or to get sheisted by another dude at a club concerning a female (aka, will's gonna come swoop in a minute; OR, that dude just swooped your girl)

through: not looking your best (eg: i be lookin hella through right now.)

tight: good, excellent, above average (eg: 'transformers' was hella tight.)

hella: very, a lot, one hell of (eg: she was hella vicious; that smells hella good.) variation: 'hellza.' not to be confused with 'hells yeah,' which expresses enthusiastic agreement.

fo' sho': definitely, of course, duh. variation: 'f'sho,' accent is always on 'sho.'

straight: very, significantly, in a specific state (eg: i was straight overjoyed and shit.)

salty: not happy, grumpy, upset (eg: i was straight salty the night my car got towed.)

scrill/ scrilla/ scratch/ bank/loot: money, expensive (eg: i was abouts to get these shoes, but they was hella bank, right? so my moms said no.)

...and shit: common post-script following a description of emotion, one's mental state or appearance, for the purpose of emphasis (eg: i was hella happy and shit.)

tow up: very inebriated, or visually very poor in appearance (eg: that bitch is hella tow up - her shit's all grown out.) variation (in reference to appearance): 'tow up from the flo' up' (a particular favorite of carolyn's daddy. god knows where he learned that.)

shit: belonging, possession, physical attribute or personal characteristic (eg: did you see what she was wearing?! my shit always tight.)

anyways...: indicates moving on to another subject, a switch in topics. (eg: so we was hella fucked up that day. anyways.... how's your mom?) can also be used in response to an undesirable or preposterous inquiry, dismissive. accent is placed on 'any' (eg: 'so did you hook up last night or what?' 'ANYways...')

fiending: craving, frequently with reference to illegal or controlled substances (eg: we was hella fiending last night... but derek didn't call us back.) variation in pronunciation: fienin'

rollin': laughing uncontrollably, OR driving, OR manufacturing a handmade cigarette

mob / mash: to drive at a high speed, usually in an aggressive manner (eg: will and i were straight mashin' down skyline boulevard.)

wrap: to be involved in a serious car accident, usually involving an inanimate object that the vehicle 'wraps' around as a result of high speed driving (eg: drew and them almost wrapped last night when we were mashin' around the coliseum.)

dope: very good, excellent. also used to express agreement (eg: 'so i'll see you at eight then?' 'dope.')

pshhhh...: sound used to dismiss or otherwise express disdain or disagreement (eg: 'then she was saying that you was like, hella jealous of her.' 'pshhh.... girl, please.')

bitch, please: negative response, used to show disagreement and dismissiveness. tone and cadence ranges with the level of absurdity of the assertion. usually used in arguments or confrontations (eg: 'you stole my man!' 'bitch, please. he was all up on my shit first.') variation: girl, please. a milder form of the expression, reserved for friends or relatives.

saturday

sorry, picture quality's kinda booty, but they're the only ones we have from last night. from art scene for ava's goodbye party to a brief stint at eager beaver, and then at abbey road for the rest of the night.



drance! so cute. with jason in the background




another wedding photo - at abbey road this time. what's with the shit on my eye.

the morning after the morning after

just up and watching gladiator for the 50th time. such a good movie, amazing score. i love the battle scene in the opening... probably my favorite scene in a movie, ever. when cyn and i went to see it in the theater, way back when, we were standing up and cheering during the fight scenes. my sister thought we were sick; she was nearly nauseous from the goriness.

last night was interesting. as always, i set out with the intention of hanging out for a bit, then coming home before 1 and going to bed. as always, i get deterred. met up with steph and a random crew at constellation. that place is just amazing. i love it. i love that i can space out my drinks with big glasses of oolong on ice. they make proper drinks, and bring both shaker and chilled glass to the table to pour in front of you. i tried to order a stoli greyhound, but ended up with cranberry juice instead, which steph dubbed the 'UTI cocktail.' drew was there, a recently-arrived brit, duncan, was there, and gary from the lab. we waited and waited for albert and scott - still at work - to show up, but after a couple of hours, i was overdue at de la coast and needing a change of scenery. so off i went.

dan's second night of grown & sexy was quiet. typical, sherry says, of a weekly party. they take a while to ramp up. adam was there, plus his absolutely beautiful friend patience, and this guy duane that we met a while back at velvet, whose insistence on sherry and i 'checkin for the brothers' and placing his hand on the small of my back wears very very thin, very very quickly. i'm not a fan, and both sherry and i give me credit for not expressing myself very carolyn-style and telling him to get his sweaty fucking hands off of me. i do it for the sake of the social situation; he's friends with patience who is dear friends with adam, whom i think is a doll and of course is a good friend of sherry's. and so the molestation continues. there's something really unpleasant about A: a man who is continuously sweating, B: a man who is constantly checking out your ass, and C: a man who leaves copious amounts of saliva on your face when he kisses your cheek, which you didn't ask for in the first place. *shudder*

oh yes, and speaking of sherry:

http://www.smartshanghai.com/blog/756/My_Weekender_shanghai#more

go, mami!

gregor was also there with his 'assistant,' chi, a very beautiful girl that we are hoping he'll hook up with. what? she's hot.

they give you a bowl of peaches and cream when you show up at grown & sexy, which i think is a cute idea. roses, everywhere. it's hilarious.

and... trying to keep the food down

heroes status: disk 8
tummy status: recovering


this just goes to prove that i'm not lying about facebook; people from back in the day continue to find you. daily. but whatever, it's a voluntary thing and i can certainly voluntarily take myself off of it. sure. but it also proves that violence solves nothing. after many many years of punching this individual in the solar plexus for sharing with me a number of delights throughout junior high and high school and college - namely, the wet willie, sneaking up behind me and blowing in my ear (we were in college, mind you), and tickling me in undesirable places - he continues to do obnoxious things like FIND me on stupid facebook. i'm not your friend, dude. i've hated you since i was 12. i know i'm harboring bad feelings from a verrrry long time ago, but after a enduring years of wet willies, i'm entitled.

anyhoo. on to more important things.

talked to moms today. and my sister. i love that our convos are punctuated with my sister screaming at my cat, 'get OFF me, you fucking whore! i'm going to slap you into next week!' good looking out. sounds like my baby is getting the upbringing i always wanted for her. apparently she got locked out of the house overnight for galloping over to my sister and munching on her forefinger. i don't know what to say - i thought scarlett would outgrow that. apparently she hasn't. it's the love, tho. she follows my sister around everywhere, and shows her affection by mauling her ass. isn't that how everyone functions? wait, maybe that's just us.

trying to keep the faith

home all day. sick and disgusting. actually ended up going to finestre with kayi for dinner... we've been planning it and i really wanted to go. the food was surprisingly good (better than jean georges, actually. wha...?) and i should have expected it, but a full meal doesn't go down nicely when your stomach is up in arms (get it? haha)

people be finding me on facebook. people from a while back, and waaaay back. a tad frightening sometimes. finding out so-and-so (whom you barely spoke to in high school anyway) is married with three kids? three? damn. and then there are those that aren't as historical, but could've just left well enough alone. me, that is. leave me alone.

anyway. nothing interesting tonight. a whole lotta blabber blabber from us girls. life... argh. so complicated. maybe it'd be easier if i was an autobot and got told what to do. or, shit, i don't know. i love my freedoms and i love my friends, but occasionally life suffers from being under the microscope. the scrutiny shuts down the purpose. aka, look too hard, and something's bound to displease you. just try to go with the flow, hang out, enjoy things, don't think too hard. thinking and overthinking are society's current downfall when it comes to social interaction.

what the hell am i spouting off about now?

i kinda doubt i'm going i tomorrow - not fit for public interaction - but when the alarm goes off, we'll see. have a happy friday, everyone.

small pieces

...and covered in glass.

today i sat all day in the office and worked. god knows how i used to dive headfirst into spreadsheets and emerge hours later, not even knowing what time it was. i nearly went insane around 3 pm when i finished my only meeting of the day and realized that i couldn't go somewhere else. boo.

jen is in town overnight, so she stopped by on her way from the airport and kicked it. dinner, heroes season 1, and rochford pinot. can't complain. i scrouged up a random dinner for myself because just noodles wasn't cutting it for me today. in the canteen/cafeteria, i tend to starve rather than eat unidentifiable meats, so lunch consists of random oily vegetable and some rice and a yogurt. i couldn't do just starch for another meal so i made eggs and ate about a pound of olives. jen observed astutely that my theme was oval-shaped foods.

i try to eat the employee lunch because i want to act like an employee, but i think i reached my limit today. one can only be served chicken neck so often. bund brewery is around the corner and i've cajoled jason into consenting to eat with me on occasion. i figure with christine every so often, maybe jason once every couple weeks, and maybe, just maybe if kayi can get off her ass and get to work around noon one day a month, i might even have company. and we are excited about this.

lunch used to be such a social thing. it's ok, tho. i actually don't mind sort of bolting food down and going back to work. i don't lose momentum that way. i eat later than pretty much the entire office, so i get about 30 minutes of quiet when the clock strikes 12:00:01 and everyone jams downstairs. it's all worth it. i just miss my good embarcadero lunch places. the ferry building. hog island oysters. mijita. tlaloc. lightening. the ghetto pizza joint. boudin's. taylor's refresher. slanted door. miette for a macaroon. ciao bella for peach sorbet. peet's for a post-lunch pick-me-up. and the incredibly overpriced organic farmers' market on tuesdays and thursdays where the grassfed beef burger guy and the vegetarian tamale lady always are. and i really miss globe in all of its deafening wonder.

we do miss our food.

at one point jen, cyn, and i were all sitting around the dining table with our various forms of entertainment - jen and her laptop, me and my non-peeling hardboiled egg, cyn with her... wine, i guess. i lay my head down on the table (avoiding shells and my salt pile) and watched us. like pulling out of yourself and watching the whole scene. this is all going to change so soon; we best enjoy every second now. you should try it for a second, just do a freeze frame and look around you and fucking appreciate what's going on. even if you're doing what i was last night and running around xin tian di, trying not to assault people (how so un-yogi of me); one day i think i'll look back and remember scanning wildly around the gray brick buildings, hot as hell, wearing half a yoga outfit, talking to sherry on the phone, nearly in tears of frustration because of the day i was having. even that counts.

intimidator transformer

at one point during the night, jason turned to me mid-story and was like, 'you know you're really scary, right? like, one of the most intimidating people on this planet.'

uh, no, actually. i thought i left that all behind in my callow and misspent youth. that was kind of sad for me to hear - i make an effort (okay, sometimes) to appear non-scary and friendly and all that shit, but i think people see through my act. the bluntness, the directness, the inability (and disinterest) in bullshitting. i invest time in meeting a person and getting to know them and i want depth. like, immediately. if you're going to bullshit me or smalltalk me, depending on how i feel about you in general, i'll either tune you out completely and you cease to exist, or i get the tunnel vision of feeling pressured in a social situation and start to do erratic and odd things. like completely lose my personality and warp into this oatmeal-mush-super-lame person. ugh. how we want to avoid that.

so i'm in bed at 11:23 and i take that to be a good sign. kayi and i hit up our cantonese mothership, hengshan cafe, and had a wonderful, soulful meal that our moms didn't make but could've. okay, maybe not that good, but it was decent enough. having canto food rights the world, sets it back on its feet, restores me. i got dinged at my attempt to attend a yoga class again for reasons i refuse to disclose but ended up lecturing the reception about for approximately 4.2 minutes. plus my stupid membership expired today so now i have to figure out where the hell i'm going to be living soon so i can decide what to do. back pain dictates yoga and not a gym, but now there are a ton of options once i'm free of living in the burbs. decisions, decisions.

spent the first 5-ish hours of my day at the studio in a meeting. yes, singular. they do quite the marathon meeting, my company folk. then in the car on the way to the office, i apparently decided that the world had enough of me and treated christine to an unconscious version of me. she was probably glad for the quiet, as i'd been babbling about program names and brand identity and consistency all damn morning. maybe she roofie'd me to get me to shut up. whatever. at any rate, i woke up and briefly panicked about having been asleep, then rolled my head the other direction and slept until we pulled up on the bund. sometimes i do thank god for traffic.

and now we sleep.

rip dat shit

hilarity always ensues when you get home on a monday night and kate's at the dinner table, cyn's made a big batch of pasta, and jason's on the way. at one point jason and i were talking and i looked behind him into the kitchen to see my roommate - who's belting out a rendition of purple rain as i type - freaking the dog. full-on flippin-the-griddle spanking kodi. too funny.

i was a little sad earlier because my meeting kept right on through, all up in my yoga time and everything, but coming home made it all better.

what the fuck are we going to do when the band breaks up? i'm moving soon, cyn's prolly moving at some point. so sad.

here's a pic from saturday with part of the dude armada. do cyn and i not look like we're newlyweds and shit? it's our wedding photo.

doing the nod

sometimes things are just ok. like, maybe your day didn't go extraordinarily well, but something about how you felt about everything made it just fine. i'm having one of those moments, where i think part of my day could be fairly assessed as having sucked (not the evening, thank you), but i'm for some reason totally fine. like, content.

had a birthday dinner tonight at jean georges, which was nice. my first foray into the SH location - the space is beautiful, but my socks were still on after the meal. still, fine. whatever. not every joint can be aqua or globe or even in 'n out. decided to head out and meet sherry with company at sasha's for a quick drink. i could've easily gone home to fall on my face, but sometimes you need to space things out, give yourself time to digest and evaluate., see your good friends and have a giggle.

honestly, right now as i try to keep my eyes open, i'm wishing i was asleep already as this weekend was really not the most restful, but things just happen as they happen and i refuse to turn into the corporate monster i used to be. if it means i'm lame and exhausted tomorrow, fine. but at least i'm not aggro crazy person sweating shit all the time. i'm ok with it right now, tired as hell, more than a little confused about life and where we should end up, but surprisingly okay about the present state of my random little life.

did your grandma ever make sun tea?

ridiculous tired

when i was in college, i remember just being so busy all of the time. studying, working, sports, family, friends, parties. i didn't do a lot of the stereotypical slacker gen-x shit, i guess because there just wasn't time. at one point i went to the doctor for this fucked-up permacough, and i mentioned frequent blackouts or grayouts, sometime while standing, sometimes while getting up. i was house-sitting once and studying on the sofa and got up to do something, then woke up i think when my head hit the hardwood floor. i remember thinking, what the hell just hit me on the head? my doctor just said, 'i think it's just that you're burning the candle at both ends. try to take it easy.'

that's cool. thanks, doc.

so i decided it was time to quit my job last year when i blacked out briefly on an escalator and nearly took the entire BART commuter crowd with me. at least i think that's what happened. falling out of your shoes and waking up with your face on a grater-like escalator step is a good indicator that you need a break. this time, i listened, and it was lovely. just great.

why, though? there are tons of people who work much harder and longer and i dare say don't do the same, rather embarrassing, potentially dangerous, dramatic tumbles to the ground. it's a weakness.

so, with the new jay-oh-bee, one of the ends of the candle will eventually need to be extinguished. seeing the sun rise and then having to think coherently a few hours later do not mix. the first couple of days, fine. but it's been around 2 weeks and i'm starting to feel the mental awning start to draw over my 360 degree world. (although i will venture to say that falling down an escalator in china might actually be a better experience than in the states - there's no sense of space here, so the people are pretty packed in and will probably make for a nice, squishy landing. but i'm not planning on doing that again, so i suppose my theory will go untested.)

this ain't a buffet, kit

all day at the studio today. i kind of love how randomly i can work, for i am pretty random. after training at the store this morning i headed over to the studio for a meeting which went way long, then laris came in and kinda sat in on our meeting and weighed in on our branding strategy. i spent the rest of the day parked at some random workstation, finishing things and revising things and using the hell out of thesaurus.com.

getting a taxi didn't quite work out so i didn't get home till late, and i missed out on dinner with steph and albert and crew, as well as wharton people (second option). i got home super grumpy and starving and tired, altho i have to say i rallied nicely. you have to - dan's party was tonight, opening night, gotta show the love, right? so i thought i would swing by volar first to see steph and albert, which turned out to be a marathon stay because cyn was already there, jason was there, and kate showed up, and chris is in town from seoul-slash-philly, and it was all over. i didn't make it to de la coast until after sherry'd left and dan was hanging by a thread. bad girl. i was supposed to head into the office tomorrow for some stuff, but when i got home i got cancelled on and yes we were overjoyed.

so now i'm free to post-club procrastinate. one of my favorite things in the world.



i know i have to chill with the fly fishing pics, but allen just sent his over and i can't stop laughing. we look like humpty dumpties.

keep losing consciousness so will go to sleep now.

okay....

worked till late then headed to kate's for the 'grand opening' of a nice red that she's been saving, which we drank while i ate a random dinner from her fridge as we waited for cyn to arrive. kate lives in some back alley that's ridiculous to find, but her little place is comfy and we watched her friend's cat gallop around the joint in between eating, drinking, and exclaiming.

there's been a lot of that this week, exclaiming. the ladies have been schlumping around, miserable balls of shit for the most part. not a good collective week for us. i've been a relative ball of shit, probably not too miserable but definitely pretty exhausted (go to sleep why don't you) and not having time to eat proper meals and such. i swear one of these days, i'm going to get a schedule. i've been doing a lot of yogurt because it's fast and comes in a bottle and i can chug whilst moving about, and i feel like the danone brand here is ok and not chock full of antifreeze or whatever. tonight i picked at some food that kate's ayi made for her and had about 4 glasses of wine, a beer in the cab, and a cranberry vodka. liquor does not a meal make. i can already hear the little mom that sits on my right shoulder complaining about my habits. seriously, i'll get a schedule, i swear. and i'll stuff some food in it somewhere.

went to the lingerie & me 'fashion show' at mao... why are fashion shows here never really fashion shows? tonight the girls would pose one at a time in this giant birdcage, which we couldn't see from the mezzanine thing where cyn's cousin's wharton friends had booked a table. i mean, i'm no voyeur, but it is nice to see a well-executed fashion show.

okay, really now. going to sleep.

peaches

pick peaches lick peaches sick peaches georgia peaches peach fuzz peaches and cream, baby. peaches and herb, don't you know.

i'm listening to peaches in case you haven't caught on. that girl is nasty. how the hell is she from canada. i had to go get that khia song just because... that's my fuggin club track. anybody who drops that during a night gets the thumbs up from yours truly.

ding!

planning mi viaje a bali con mi hermana.... we're thinking of staying at nusa dua, not kuta. i don't need to get my club on when on vacay since i live in like, the clubbing capital. i'm not trying to get blown to pieces. alvin sent me the most hirarious email with recommendations for areas and hotels... and pork.

"if u'd like to stay on the mountain area, go to UBUD
it's about 1 1/2 hour drive from kuta and nusa dua
they have nice hotels and villas, but i'v never stayed there

the most important thing:
no matter what u do, no matter where u stay, u have to, u MUST go to
BABI GULING IBU OKA in UBUD
babi guling in indonesian means suckling pig, ibu means mother, oka is
the name of the person who owns the place
i'm not kidding, the best pork u'll ever taste in your life
it's greasy, it's fatty, the skin is crunchy, the meat is tender .. oh
my my .. i'm drooling now .. sorry ...
forget paulaner's pork knuckle, forget german's nurnberger sausages,
forget those filthy bacons..."

lmao. gotta love alvin. he has his priorities.

i had the big booty mean-ass yoga teacher again tonight. i think it's her schtick, she kinda goes there, like unnecessarily rude to people, but whatevs. she's a good instructor - good corrections. i always learn something new in her class, that's good. she can fuggin scream at people all she wants. you sweat like a mother in her class, tho.

slippery sailors.

is it wednesday already? thursday, technically. the week's flying.

nighty night.

all hyper

waiting for the melatonin to kick in.

cindy's auntie betty and uncle ron were in town, so we met up with them and about 7 of their closest friends at ye shanghai. a nice little surprise (i thought we were 'stopping by') since it turned into dinner and not just drinks and chat. always nice to see the family. we're just about related anyhow.

then back to the bund for the soft opening (allegedly) of the new brewery. looks really nice inside and out. we had a giggle with kate and now i'm home, waiting to sleep.

i think when i shut my eyes, it'll be fine. usually is. i like to pretend blogging winds me down, but it's just an indulgence, really.

today was long. long long long. pouring-ass rain for a while, thankfully i was at the studio and not running around in it. the studio environment is so nice; i think i could get used to being there, altho i need some quieter shoes. the wooden floors both at the studio and the office echo with the slightest noise, so i try to shuffle around on my tip toes instead of constantly announcing my presence. everyone's so nice, they sit around and have lunch together and chit chat. it's so gracious and normal. the head designer-guy (sooo cool) even rocked the flip flops with his dressy clothes for the photo. my white havaianas got the up-and-down from the pseudo singaporean today and he made some comment about me wearing 'comfortable slippers.' every day, a comment from that one. one-man peanut gallery.

may need to shoot to hk on a weekend for some shoe shopping and family-visiting?

whirlwinds

met the ladies out for din din, which was nice. a little monday celebration that included pizza and asparagus and prosciutto. can't beat that with a bat.

jason was at cotton's with some friends, so we cabbed over, had a fairly brief and uneventful drink, and came home.

and now my eyelids are falling.

tomorrow is full of meetings and bouncing between the studio and the office and the store. please please don't rain... we're also taking photos (?) tomorrow so i have to scare something up to wear. crappity jesus.

nighty night.

look what will just sent -

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/06/largest.loo.ap/index.html

fill it to the rim

happy days are here again...

not really. not too much has changed in the 5 or so hours it's been since i last posted my most recent self-involved dribble.

yogs was good. i almost died from hangover-ness, but that's what i friggin get. serves me right.

i want the new cormac mccarthy book. and did you know that william gibson was here in june, presenting the intro for a photo exhibit? of course i completely forgot the photographer's name, but i am quite the sad girl for missing mr. gibson in person.

did anyone go to live earth yestiddy? kayi and i had designs on checking out the shanghai concert - which allegedly took place at the base of pearl tower, even tho the ticket promoters said it would be in the stadium - but instead we did stupid drinkfest 2007. ugh. what a waste. the performers - with the exception of sarah brightman or some shit - were all chinese artists, none of which i actually know unless jay chou was there, but we were feelin the sentiment. i very much wish i could have seen the new york show... newly (sorta) reunited smashers were there plus of course AFI. they who make my world go 'round. (photo above, used without permission. lo siento.) bloc party and keane and the chili peppers were in london, that would have been super duper, as well. too bad.

speaking of music, has anyone been listening to cool stuff lately? recent obsessions include sunny day real estate and old UB40, plus aventura that i mentioned a while back. but i need some new stuff. am anxiously waiting the black audio debut album dropping aug 14. my sister WILL be bringing me an album, hot off the presses, when she comes to see me. and prolly some gear, too. i'm hoping they're going to have a local show when i'm home in december, but prolly unlikely as it'll be damn close to xmas around then. shucks.

kayi was excited to find out that mark farina's going to be in shanghai, but i'm over it. my friend cyndi used to drag me to his shows - usually at snowdrift - and that fool like rarely actually showed up. that's poor form.

grown & sexy

okay, i'm borrowing the title of this post from dan's new party (starting at de la coast this coming friday, july 13... holla...), which i think is the coolest name ever, but my point is really this: i am 29 years old, gainfully employed (again), and - to quote chris rock - a grown-ass woman. i find it nice to once in a while hang out with the jiao da kids - either my own indonesian / guatemalan sector, or sherry's german / british / french group for some post-college energy rejuvenation, but i really do not need to engage in RMB 99 all-you-can-eat-and-drink fests that consist of questionable food and even more questionable drink.

because then you find yourself on the bathroom floor, using the bathmat as a pillow, hearing vague snatches of conversation between cyn and jason about the positive and negative design aspects of your watch, which sits on the dining table. you're completely soaked through from hanging your head out of the taxi while driving over the nanpu bridge during a torrential rainstorm. i'm sorry, but i am too motherfucking old to still be doing this shit.

let's back up. one of the things that i think cyn wanted to help me do when i moved here was to decompress. between us, that speaks volumes, because i think that we both feel that i skipped over the fun part of my youth and went straight to an adult phase, hyperfixated on the progress of my career, my finances, and carrying a mortgage at 26. we all partied in college, sure, but we were also very cautious about who we spoke to, who bought us drinks, what kind of clubs to go to. there wasn't a random freedom - it was more like a carefully planned assault on the bay area nightlife. life these days here in stinky 'old SH is much looser, much more random, and i don't disagree that it's probably just what i needed before i turned 45 on my 28th birthday, if you understand where i'm comin from.

so, decompress i have. i'm pretty inflated these days. but i've decided that i need to establish some guidelines for myself. the first rule is something like, avoid all-you-can-drink alcohol buffets. the liquor is bullshit and makes you sick and doesn't help with the tendency one might have of not realizing she needs to slow it down. one likes to pretend one has the liver of a 300-pound trucker, but one likes to fool oneself. rule two will run along the lines of, if the sake you've been knocking back tastes like nail polish remover or paint thinner, don't drink it. duh. and rule three is, if your friend, let's call her sherry, is screaming about how she wants to get everyone drunk and make them barf, temper this a little bit. it's ok to say no. duh again.

jesus.

i'm not blaming this on anyone except for me. sorry if i sound like i am. i just don't understand why i don't have the capacity, once the drinks start flowing, to realize that i'm about 4 sakes bottles deep and i need to chill a bit, not bounce blithely to the next venue. i'm a grown woman. i need to know these things.

i'm covered in frosting

...and it's caked in my left ear and smeared around my neck. don't ask.

weekends open up such a plethora of options! i need to buy shoes.

con permiso

per request:

http://www.smartshanghai.com/blog/731/Dance_Studios_in_Shanghai_shanghai#more

i will collapse tomorrow. i will. i hope. alvin's heading to muse tomorrow night and i vow to be far far away from him when he calls.

get to go to the design studio tomorrow and see our new product line, yay! will also meet the design team and see our other location, which is rumored to be really nice, with a garden. i have to say, as much as i used to butt heads with our creative team in the past, i really do prefer to work in a more creative-firm environment. things are more fluid - the sense of time, the fashion. people appreciate the efforts you put into your earrings. there's one guy at work that compliments me daily about some aspect of my outfit - today it was my shoes - but it's in this really odd, formal (singaporean?) manner that just functions to make me uncomfortable and i'm convinced is to throw me off so he can steal my pens. i used to work in an office filled with gay men who had pink dress shirt day and would notice every aspect of your outfit, or if you got more layers cut into your hair. i guess i have to adjust to not being around that, but it'll be the first time in 7 years, really.

just got home. so tired, but with a hyper undercurrent that i'm trying to quell. i know as soon as i sit for a bit i'll be fine and will be able to sleep. slamming myself into a work schedule has basically meant that i'm fighting back with espressos. we have this fully automated, ultra nice espresso machine in the kitchen that makes me lovely little beverages in about 45 seconds with just the push of a button. the wonders of modern inventions. and how oh so bad they are for me.

my mind is going into a warp because i'm so used to my vaio and its interface and functionality, and just the layout of the keyboard. i'm being corrupted by the stupid work thinkpad and so i find myself bending space, time, and spoons trying to figure out where the holy hell the correct keys are for each. my brain does not toggle via alt + tab.

we were talking tonight about how much we miss costco. my dad goes for the sole purpose of grazing on food samples. i like to hit up the electronics, the books, the dvds, and the pre-made party dip aisle. also, the clothes are always a fun adventure because you never know what kind of high-rise, super tapered mid-tone denim you'll find there. or oversized ralph lauren towels that the cat decides is her bed. so entertaining, costco. i think all of my mom's clothes and shoes that don't come from talbot are costco purchases. and you wonder why she has 3 forest green button-down fleeces to spare? and more sneakers than you can shake a stick at? and about 40,000 q-tips?

ugh, i have so many blisters and open wounds on my feet. i need a new set.

champagne cocktails

falling asleep on the toilet? i've never done that. i did fall asleep in the bathtub a couple of times, but not for more than a few minutes at a time. not like my friend chad who passed out drunk in his parents' bathtub all night (filled with water), resulting in scaring the hell out of his dad the next morning who thought his firstborn had drowned.

today is proof that i can work, go to yoga, and still go out at night. tomorrow will be proof that i cannot.

jen's in town, so we had drinks (and dinner, sort of) with her and jason. jason is getting lots of love from our female friends these days thinking he's cute. since some of us have known him for anywhere from one to three years, this simply indicates to me that sometimes your number is just UP. i saw again the same thai trannies from the other night, sitting outside of starbucks again. again! this time they didn't appear to be fishing, but i got so excited that i jumped up and down and pointed them out to jason rather loudly. oops. they didn't seem offended, and he wasn't fazed.

stephanie mentioned that she would bet that work at DR would be slow enough that i would be updating my blog at work. i am not getting that same indication. my first week - arguably the slowest week of one's tenure - has been pretty damn fast. lots of meetings and already i am sensing shall we say, challenge from certain colleagues (whom i found out this morning will be reporting to me in a couple of months... do not think they will be happy about that given the attitude i sensed today at our touch base). said colleague followed up his laundry list of personal beef with openly admiring my watch (which is think is kinda gay for a straight dude) and asking where i go clubbing. wha? things sho' do run differently in china.

i need to buy some work clothes.

have already decided that i will be pushing the envelope on lunchtime stringency. one cannot go to a venue and order and consume a lunch in 30 minutes, especially in the restaurant wasteland where i work. i am going to be a foreigner and act like one on this subject. gregor is just up the street, and jason works up the street, and i demand the flexibility to meet lunch buddies when the need arises.

well, i'll think about it anyway.

night night. kiss kiss from your favorite, semi-tipsy blogger.

and... we're back to work

whew. ok. now i remember why i used to come home and faceplant on the sofa. i also remember the air conditioning phenomenon - 95 degrees outside with 82% humidity and i'm pacing around the office, wishing i had a sweatshirt. i'm packing a pashmina tomorrow, as ridiculous as that sounds.

back home, i used to have a pretty decent commute - my house was 10 minutes from the train, and my office was about 15 minutes on the other end. my team was pretty much all late birds like me - roll in an hour later than everyone else (well, ok, i was always the latest except for kat over on the other side), and i'd usually be able to sniff out someone else burning the midnight oil to walk to the train with at night. you never know what kind of walls you can break down in those 15 minutes at the end of the day. i always thought walking to the train was a pain in the ass, but in retrospect i think that little bit of space between office and home was a good thing. sometimes a lot of space, like 3 hours and 9 glasses of wine and the bleary realization that your new boss is hitting on you, but most times just some walking time helps. i think i connected with people more during those walks than any other time during those five years.

today i stepped out of the office into the warm, humid air and realized i was doing it all over again. things are different, of course; i'm a bit steadier and i have significantly fewer obligations, i'm walking by myself, not flanked by colleagues, not to mention the whole different country thing - a man helping his toddler son urinate in a planter as i walked by was reminder enough - but things are essentially falling back into the same rhythm.

i remember my first day at w-s; the guy i was dating at the time was unable to contain his excitement about the fact that i - his significantly younger girlfriend - was buckling down and finally entering a more tame period in her life. i was becoming a more viable candidate, i suppose. he sent a pretty fucking amazing bouquet from rayon vert and the card read, 'and the next chapter begins.' that sentence embodied so much at the time - apropos but rife with his condescending approval for an oh-so-young carolyn stepping out in her platform shoes. and, oddly enough, i still haven't forgotten it, despite the many many things that have happened since then. i went from loving rayon vert to adoring rose & radish, then on to pinon design. funny how many florists you can love in a lifetime.

i'm so tired

and emotionally drained. i thought i left this heaviness behind.

at this age, we all know who we are (my folks do, anyway) and what works for us. i think i keep a tight rein on optimism, allowing just enough to let the days be happy, but always with a wary eye on breaks in the pattern. you just never know.

and some days you go into a situation knowing you're going to be pulling walls down, and hoping inside that people have the strength and the clarity to show you you're wrong. every single time, you leave with this dubious honor, this questionable victory. and all you can think about when you walk along the streets is that for once, it would be so very nice to be absolutely wrong, to have all of your doubts thrown out and stomped on and set on fire.

i have work tomorrow. it's the first time i've said that in nearly a year. 25 days short. and tomorrow i will go in, and shake hands, and smile, and talk about business stuff. and on this plank i will proceed.