here we are, vegetarians again

so it's been a while! what you you been up to? i've been garbage heap hunting (oh sorry, i mean apartments) aka discovering the worst that shanghai has to offer. it's been real. i thought san francisco was expensive, but at least you get a relatively standard floorplan and the presence of squatters is conspicuously absent. and there's no overturned wheelbarrows full of old electronic devices on what would be your stove. but you know, i'm just a spoiled american.

ok ok, it hasn't been that bad. but i'm sort of boggled baffled quietly dismayed that apartments in em-effing chi-to-the-mothafuggin-ah are so pricey. i mean, jesus. i just spent an inordinate amount of money on a year's worth of yoga classes. you'd think i'd have some friggin buying power, or at least get to pretend that i do. nope.

what's been up... i stopped to think the other day (friday?) and realized that i'd had drinks or been relatively drunk every night for over a week... of course i realized this over drinks i think, but i stopped. tonight. oh wait, no, i didn't. but i'll stop tomorrow. wait, no i won't. i only had one tonight and it had more to do with the tomato juice than wanting the vodka. i think. maybe. anyhoo. tomorrow i have some free meal booked as a tradeoff for my writing skills so inevitably there will be some drinks involved, but wednesday is all me. me me me and no booze and yoga after work and all that good stuff.

we were sitting around that fake lake next to xintiandi on saturday night (sherry's badcat picnic by the lake) and there were all these fairly large bird-like items swooping around. i thought they were oversized insects because of their light, fluttery movements, but general consensus is that they were bats. so i turned to albert and asked if bats were lighter than birds. apparently this is a really random question because he immediately started laughing and couldn't stop. i find this to be a normal topic of conversation, but apparently it's not. people laugh at you. hysterically almost. it was like a conversation you have when you're stoned... except we were drinking beers and eating coppa with baguettes, not sparking one-hitter-quitter.

anyways.

the melatonin is kicking in and the past 9 days are catching up with me. i'm getting lectures about doing cardiovascular activity, registering my domain so that my china folkies can read my shit, and all with my eyelids falling. i had bolognese tonight. i'm so tired and i need to check airfares for hong kong.

so i'm thinking just damnnearnocturnal.com. what do you think?

i love my blog

so my real estate "agent" came and picked me up on thursday night to go and look at some apartments. i wasn't expecting much, but was more curious about what i was going to get shown and the whole process than thinking i was going to be struck by anything. the first thing that made me laugh was that my "agent' was about 15 years old and wearing what looked like was going to be her clubbing outfit later. what was less amusing was what she ended up showing me later - not even worth the keystrokes - at one point i squinted at her and asked if she'd actually read the email that i sent her colleague?

the amusing part is that two people have (separately) recommended this agency to me, outside of my finance colleague actually guanxi'ing the contact, so i'm pretty calmly deciding two things: there are effective agents (no quotation marks) in this agency who are actually of age, but i don't have one; and i will supplement with the local-agency approach, as well. must cross-source to ensure that i'm not missing anything or to try and minimize the foreigner-rent. steph actually went yesterday morning with this same agency and saw some pretty cool places, one of which she's insisting i should live in. the photos are pretty cool, so we'll be seeing. i'm going to request another agent tho. preferably one that's finished with high school.

neat-o

http://www.frogdesign.com/frogblog/author/trash-talk/

frog design seems to be doing a lot of cool things.

supreme sunday

11 hours of solid unconsciousness. hours spent last night jumping around on changle from the taiwanese hole in the wall to the japanese hole in the wall. beers and sake and round after round of grilled food item. i can't remember what we were eating, but there was a lot of it and the fact that we'd already eaten at the taiwanese place seemed to have no precedence. steph, sherry, albert, me. the place was teeny tiny and only housed about 5 other small tables, so the japanese businessmen types next to us and their prolific amounts of cigarette smoke (sherry was coveting the silk cuts that one of them had) were deeply inhaled by all. i was nearly (or basically) passing out at the table. exhaustion? recovery? still hirarious. i love my folk.

sherry went on to dress up either in drag or faux drag for the party at shanghai station... i would have loved to have gone with, but i proceeded home (after falling asleep in a cab and almost missing my turn) and crashed. oh heavenly sleep.

CSI miami is fucking LAME.

ruff ruff ruff

i've began to appreciate the softer side of things. kleenex, first of all. i think that the kind we buy for the house is sandpaper grit 200. for sandpaper, nice and fine. for your face, not too comfy. we actually buy the nicer stuff, too, not the 0.7 ply bullshit. it's ok, tho. i try to just shoot everything out of the nose in proximity of said nose-blotting device, and minimize the actual wipeage. ouch ouch ouch.

i'm going to guess this is a little less than savory for most folk. let's move on.

when i was growing up, i used to insist that the best, most effective way to clear out a cold was to go swimming. outdoors. in the winter. i still stand by this assertion. you get out of the pool all refreshed and tired-out, park for a bit in the jacuzzi with all the old retired folk that frequent the tennis club, then shower and go home a totally new person. it drove my mother insane, but after years and years of her kid spending 3-8 hours a day in the water and never being the worse for it, you'd think she'd relent and admit that it has its health benefits.

if i'm feeling better by friday i might take trev up on the westin pool offer. my draggy-ass arms are likely going to be completely pathetic, but i'm curious to see how this'll go. also mildly curious about the ass-kicking portion of the program - he's obviously a boy and he works out a lot, and i'm just a girl that hasn't worked out in 3 weeks with significant levels of asthma, so logically, there's be no contest, right?

i... want... to... win...

ha ha ha.

i never said i was realistic.

back in bed

rolled in to work today wearing - gasp! - jeans both because it had been cooler yesterday (like, 92 with 64% humidity instead of 99 with 76% humidity) and because i didn't think i'd make it through the entire day. luckily advil cold & sinus sits in the kitchen cabinet, a double box i bought at costco during xmas (liquigels... the bomb). the only cold medication that doesn't crack me out and give me tunnel vision or make me sleep on my desk.

cyn and i went to stupid new heights for lunch - working on the bund is like, working on the champs elysees or 5th avenue. all well and good if you're a billionaire, but kinda lame if you're not. i paid 150 rmb (about $23) for a cheeseburger that arrived with a dollop of papaya puree on top (EW. that was scraped off immediately) and sneaky pineapple mustard on the bottom. extra gross. i did not ask for the extra-sweet cheeseburger. and a non-refillable iced tea. bastards.

we then went downstairs to hugo boss and i dropped a small fortune on shoes. hey! what can i say - i need work shoes and everything was 50% off. i'm a big believer in expensive footwear - cheap shoes suck ass. (you know... having run the gamut from target shoes to manolos, it's funny how you can start believing in wearing only couture shoes when you can afford the motherfuckers. i never said shit like that in college.) at any rate, my shoe options for work have been my extremely worn pairs of havaiana flip flops or my manolos. being extremely reluctant to ruin my wallet-achingly expensive handmade shoes, the flip flops tend to win a lot, and my shoes confuse my colleagues. flip flops in china are reserved for people who absolutely cannot afford anything else, or for house footwear. the majority of shanghainese women wear strappy high heel sandals, along with the ankle-stocking (and a skirt. we ABCs are baffled by this trend. do they think we don't see the cuff of the stocking cutting off their circulation at the ankle? the obvious shift in color and texture of stocking to skin?). even the migrant workers who crowd the public transportation with their refugee bags full of all their worldly belongings and their dusty-ass hair wear dress loafers and cheap suits to their construction jobs. the flip flop is a puzzling and overly casual assertion of western style.

i have started a shawl trend in the office. my first days in the office i would marvel at how the girls waltz around all day in short sleeves with skirts or whatever in the freezing, air-conditioned office and without seeming to be bothered. i brought a pashmina my third day which i sling over the back of my desk chair when not in use. there are now 3-4 other chairs with shawls hanging on the back of them. were the girls secretly cold and reluctant to show it? now it's ok since the weirdo halfbreed no-mandarin speaking foreigner does it? i'm baffled and curious.

july-august also seems to be the month that everyone takes a trip back home. most of our staff is local, but some are not and they've all taken annual leave to go back to their home province and see the fams. i can't tell what the motivation is for that - there's no festival, no national holiday. maybe the fact that it's hot as hell? i have no clue.

my sister comes out end-september and i'm rubbing my hands together in anticipation of what i'll be asking her to bring. i'm shameless in this department. she better bring one of those super-sized ones to accomodate.

acidopholus
non-chinese toothpaste (colgate total whitening)
my chris rock 'bigger and blacker' dvd
two boxes of trident gum, original flavor
all-natural deodorant
allergy eyedrops
saline nasal spray with eucalyptus (so addicting)
glide dental floss
more havaianas in black and brown
benefit pressed powder in medium
couple boxes of optimum power breakfast cereal

i'll be keeping a running list.

you're a gravlax

think i have kate's cold. since i've been chintzy on the sleep i was hoping it was just a fatigue-thing, but we're getting full-fledged here. bummer.

i would kill for a bagel and lox. and capers. and red onion. my god. i'm not even hungry. walked in the door tonight and cyn had made pasta. talk about service! i keep telling everyone how much better at being a housewife she is than i ever was. i was the worst housewife ever! i suck in a supporting role, i know.

kodi eats romaine lettuce when she's hungry. she actually sat and begged when i was eating salad. what kind of vicious man-eating monster wants to eat lettuce? they're galloping around the house right now playing with the hot dog squeaky. am i making any sense here? i feel like i'm lacking linear progression.

i had the worst lunch today. crapity crap on top of crap with crap sauce. the things we eat when we're too lazy to plan ahead. i actually get depressed when my food sucks. chris went to the westin and got me a sammich, but it was 4:30 and i didn't feel like eating at that point.

head cold...

wakka wakka wakka. golden, the IT dude, likes to chat with me on msn despite the fact that he sits about 8 feet away. i think he's more confident in his written english than conversational. at about 6 tonight he sent me a chinese song, called white moon, and asked me if i lived with my family, then asked me to dinner. when i told him the song was cool, he agreed, but said also, 'not always cool. sometimes sadly.' awww. gotta love the golden.

the office folk are very curious about my life. i understand that they have a certain expectation - i'm the most full-fledged foreigner in the office - that i won't eat in the canteen, that i always take taxis, that i drink a lot of coffee. taking the metro and seeing me in the canteen is always cause for surprise, but i guess i act like a foreigner in lots of other ways, so i can't pretend like i fit in. it's ok. everyone's super nice, even if they do talk about me constantly... especially our ayi. she likes to have what seems like a running commentary on what i do... i am drinking hot water, i like the red tea, i'm washing my cup. she likes to fill me in on things, too. there's drinks in the fridge, don't buy them yourself! here's soap for the dishes. do i have a headache? here's where the medicine is.

i think HR has taken to posting helpful hints on our bulletin board. today it was the food pyramid (the old one). fats and sweets - use sparingly! last week there were some diagrams on desk stretches you can do. everything's in chinese, so i just look at pictures and pick out the characters i know and try to piece together a sentence (doesn't happen).

our ayi cuts fruit up for us in the afternoons, and slices lemons every morning so we can add to our tea. i know it's her job, but i can't help but feel like she's the absolute bomb when the honey jar is filled or i see a pile of sliced apples on a plate. she's even fearless about dealing with our exceptionally expensive, fully automated swiss-made espresso machine. i would be fucking terrified - that thing costed thousands of dollars, USD. juro is not cheap.

apparently everyone in the office was really excited when they heard about my half-breededness. that fact, more than anything about me, spread like wildfire. even the store staff asked if i speak korean. they all want to learn korean and were hoping i'd teach them. i asked angela, finally, why everyone in the office gives a flying shit about me being half-half. apparently korean everything is super trendy right now - the dramas, the fashion, the music. i guess japanese culture is on the way out..? i wonder if the boys that wear their hair all fucked-up and spiky/fried/crazy realize where that trend originated. wasn't korea, kids...

guess WHAT?! it's not even 10 and i'm heading to bed. drugged myself and stepping into never never land. night, babies.

absolving

happy sunday night. met trevor out during the day, farting around on nanjing, then kielty showed up and we made our merry way to manifesto to meet cyn for drinks. it started pouring those jawbreaker-sized raindrops, so we ducked into zara and killed time looking at boldly patterned, overbright clothing until cyn pulled up in the da zhong and got us.

dan and chris were at manifesto when we got there, dripping wet and on their way out. despite the rain, we sat outside under the awning, and it turned into one of those times when everyone comes through and everyone's in a good mood and it's so great. we ordered apps, rounds of drinks, food, more rounds of drinks, and kate and kids came through, then sherry and steph showed up later. too much fun. we left around 10-ish, when i was starting to get loud after a last couple of martinis and made this obnoxious and inaccurate metaphor about abstaining from casual sex and cock rings. wha? i'll shaddup now. four of us headed to heng shan cafe and ate dinner #2.

it's interesting to me how certain people drive a specific dynamic in you. like, you know how you act a certain way with certain people? why is that? we pick up on the type of person they are and a sort of mirroring, or mimicry occurs? it's strange. i mean, completely natural and i think most people do it (i postulate that some do it more than others), but it's a strange phenomenon, if you think about it. you start acting like the person you're interacting with. i think i do it a lot. i think my sister does it a lot, too. i catch myself acting out and it gives me pause.

off to bed. it's so late. i know i've been pretty boring lately, just tired and whatever. i'm sorry... social calendar has been intentionally packed, keeping my mind occupied. it's helped tremendously and i'm feeling so much better. more balance. but yes, tired as all hell. i'll get better.... i promise.

radioactive

hammerhead, or tapedeck, or soundtrack. had the girls over for thai delivery and a movie night. how cosy! cyn is obsessed with shia lebouf, the kid from transformers, so we watched disturbia and chris rock's movie, i think i love my wife. i miss the chris rock of old, the 'bigger and blacker' days talking about pump fat and hilary clinton. good oles, those.

what else... last night met folks for drinks, then ended up eating dinner with sherry (yes, you know where now), and then adam came to hang out, kate and party showed, then cyn and party showed. after essentially 15 hours, we meandered down to dlc for dan's party... where i was presented with a trophy, no less. it's awesome. i've got perfect attendance at 'grown & sexy' so dan and chris presented me with an award. it's amazing. i'll put up a photo when i'm not falling asleep typing.

kate, jk, and trevor came by dlc late night after sherry took off claiming jetlag (i was salty because i was doing the roger rabbit to entice her to stay a bit longer, but she just bounced) and everyone was wasted. not me, but all others. time for sleep now.

oh boy

bar food is becoming a habit. again. so is TBB. we started off as a group, but dwindled down to sherry and carolyn and pretty soon gregor sending drinks 'round again. and now i go to sleep.

big plans for the weekend? shawn's back in cali, willie's going to cape cod, my sister's in DC. i'm not going anywhere but sherry was telling me about galleries and museums she saw in london and i was salivating. i want to leave.

night night.

save crave knave pave rave cave

i crave sleep. and so i am saying hi and diving into neverland. inexplicably, shawn calls me tinkerbell; it works for this analogy because tinks is going with the pixie dust and saying bye bye.

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.