supposed to head to a massage place with kayi for a tuesday night beddy-bye nightcap of sorts, but i had to move another massive load from the 'dong, and she went to grab some food and we ended up too tired. it's all good tho, being home is good enough. not struggling with cab drivers who are pissed that your boxes are getting their polyester, hole-filled seat covers dirty, not parked on someone else's sofa wishing it was yours and that your teeth were already flossed and brushed. you know what i'm saying. got home and my house was clean, having recovered from my three-boy weekend (not as nasty as it sounds) with some elbow grease donated by ayi.
sigh.
entourage season four is on. and i'm turning in. nighty night.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
draggin the wagon
it is only recently that halloween night has been equated to insane nights of partying your ass off. i thought it was about candy! yeah right. anyway, this year, sherilyn manson used her super-organizational skills and put together a pub crawl to be envied with party bus and pre-arranged venue happy hour pricing for us. insanity.
we girls were the kill bill entourage - elle, gogo, sophie, and o-ren ishii. some genius put the event up on facebook as an event, and we filled up a full-length bus instead of the 20-or so peeps that we thought we would be accommodating. i was a little "uh" about that part, but it turned out fine. after a vicious bout of food poisoning all friday night, i spent saturday with sherry and jason driving around looking for costumes, going to metro and loading up and cases of booze and mixers. trev and i were the only relatively sober ones on the bus, thanks to my unstable tummy.
trev brought down a couple peeps from his program. this is what SH does to a person:
shanghai later ate ted's viking hat and atm card, and he rolled back home at 7 am, having not remembered the previous 4 hours. wut..!
and, of course, my favorite pic of all time -
my second favorite photos of all time -
sherry's gettin down on a hot dog. they were pretty good.
now i'm off to sleep for about 10 hours. night!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
a love letter
from my sibling yesterday -
"OMG. O-M-G. your f$cking dumb ass cat got herself stuck on the roof last night. I didn't hear her until I woke up and heard all this meowing on the roof when I was calling her to come to the balcony/front porch to eat (trying this new thing where she eats out there). So I go outside and she is on the frickin' roof and can't get down. stupid ass. It is a little after 6 am, totally dark and I am in my pjs trying not to wake gma or the neighbors. I call dad to find out if I can remove their a/c unit from their bedroom window. Nope, so I have to haul out the ladder and set it up right next to the overhang over the side door. I climb all the way up and she refuses to come to me. She won't let me get her. So finally I grab her and drag her off the roof, she's got her claws all out and is trying to dig into the roof tiles. I grab her and then she sinks all her claws into some part of my clothing or body. She punctured me pretty bad behind my neck, it hella hurts, still stinging!! I think the entire length of the claw sunk into my skin. f*cking cat. I truly truly hate her. I used to like cats but now I don't ever want one."
my furry monster is quickly ensuring that her ass is going to be stuck at the SPCA if i don't come home and bring her with me to china.
in other news, my grandmother is leading a new fashion trend - she's taken to sporting only her upper undergarment (3-letter word, often decorated with lace) and a zip-up fleece jacket. my sister discovered this one night as was getting her ready for a shower. grandma apparently then told her, "so that's why i couldn't take my jacket off today!" apparently there's a heat wave in the bay area right now.
the g-woman (as my cousin calls her) has also come up with a new rule - she only needs to use toothpaste at night. i don't know how my sister is hurdling that one; if you put toothpaste on her toothbrush in advance to encourage its usage, she starts hiding her toothbrush (usually in the closet), then forgetting where she puts it, then accusing my sister of stealing it. apparently my sister is also fond of thieving her hairbrush, her glasses, my dad's glasses, and a diamond ring. i'm going to get an earful about ducking my duties as a grandchild when i go back for xmas.
at work, under a deadline. optimal time to be blogging! i couldn't help it, re-reading that email and giggling. not about the cat claw, of course, about the grandma. if i'm anything, i am indeed a procrastinator. 14 letters, one who delays.
off the paces... going to yoga soon, then home for more work and maybe some oatmeal. yes, i know, its ridiculous but i still haven't purchased any food for my house. not home enough. oatmeal is the shit, tho! why would you need anything else? ayi has brought me 3 quarts of milk - i must resemble a calf in some way - and about 3 dozen eggs. i can make custard, i suppose. i do have an oven.
i can't find my mailbox. the landloard said he installed one for me, and i even have the key, but i really can't find it. maybe trev will help me engage in a hunting expedition this weekend.
"OMG. O-M-G. your f$cking dumb ass cat got herself stuck on the roof last night. I didn't hear her until I woke up and heard all this meowing on the roof when I was calling her to come to the balcony/front porch to eat (trying this new thing where she eats out there). So I go outside and she is on the frickin' roof and can't get down. stupid ass. It is a little after 6 am, totally dark and I am in my pjs trying not to wake gma or the neighbors. I call dad to find out if I can remove their a/c unit from their bedroom window. Nope, so I have to haul out the ladder and set it up right next to the overhang over the side door. I climb all the way up and she refuses to come to me. She won't let me get her. So finally I grab her and drag her off the roof, she's got her claws all out and is trying to dig into the roof tiles. I grab her and then she sinks all her claws into some part of my clothing or body. She punctured me pretty bad behind my neck, it hella hurts, still stinging!! I think the entire length of the claw sunk into my skin. f*cking cat. I truly truly hate her. I used to like cats but now I don't ever want one."
my furry monster is quickly ensuring that her ass is going to be stuck at the SPCA if i don't come home and bring her with me to china.
in other news, my grandmother is leading a new fashion trend - she's taken to sporting only her upper undergarment (3-letter word, often decorated with lace) and a zip-up fleece jacket. my sister discovered this one night as was getting her ready for a shower. grandma apparently then told her, "so that's why i couldn't take my jacket off today!" apparently there's a heat wave in the bay area right now.
the g-woman (as my cousin calls her) has also come up with a new rule - she only needs to use toothpaste at night. i don't know how my sister is hurdling that one; if you put toothpaste on her toothbrush in advance to encourage its usage, she starts hiding her toothbrush (usually in the closet), then forgetting where she puts it, then accusing my sister of stealing it. apparently my sister is also fond of thieving her hairbrush, her glasses, my dad's glasses, and a diamond ring. i'm going to get an earful about ducking my duties as a grandchild when i go back for xmas.
at work, under a deadline. optimal time to be blogging! i couldn't help it, re-reading that email and giggling. not about the cat claw, of course, about the grandma. if i'm anything, i am indeed a procrastinator. 14 letters, one who delays.
off the paces... going to yoga soon, then home for more work and maybe some oatmeal. yes, i know, its ridiculous but i still haven't purchased any food for my house. not home enough. oatmeal is the shit, tho! why would you need anything else? ayi has brought me 3 quarts of milk - i must resemble a calf in some way - and about 3 dozen eggs. i can make custard, i suppose. i do have an oven.
i can't find my mailbox. the landloard said he installed one for me, and i even have the key, but i really can't find it. maybe trev will help me engage in a hunting expedition this weekend.
Friday, October 19, 2007
eyeliner is a good thing
idly watching 'v for vendetta,' which is a weird fucking movie, but i have to say that natalie portman is a remarkable actress. she's so talented.
getting ready now to meet up with the girls and blow off some steam.
getting ready now to meet up with the girls and blow off some steam.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
the ayi phenomenon
you have to read this blurb from kiran desai's second novel, the inheritance of loss. if you live in china (or india, apparently), you know absolutely what she's talking about:
"biju smelled again, the distinctive smell of a floor being disinfected with phenyl by a sweeper woman both destitute and with a talent for being exceedingly irritating. eyes lowered and swatting bare feet with a filthy rag, she introduced some visitors for the first time to that potent mixture of intense sympathy and intense annoyance." pp 325
i read that and almost stood up and cheered. i've felt, all this time, unable to articulate how i feel about the ayis of china because i hold a huge amount of middle-class guilt for thinking bad things about a person who lives off of what i spent on dinner... but why the fuck can't she stop taking me out with her fucking filthy-ass mop?!?! wtf. damn. there's always about 40 square feet of floor that's completely unoccupied... and yet she keeps knocking my ass over with her infection-on-a-stick. the only difference i can identify with this passage regarding the calcutta airport and china is... at least fools be using disinfectant in india! shit... here ayis will wipe down your goddamned toilet and use the same rag to clean your dishes. i have a theory (yes, i have many, and i may have even mentioned this here before) that ayis are leverage for the lower socioeconomic classes, evening the score by ensuring that you're eating traces of feces and urine and polishing your shoes with your ralph lauren towels. take THAT!
anyways.
i've been meaning to write a piece on ayis for sherry's bad cat blog, but i want to accompany it by a ayi photo with said mop, which i haven't taken yet. so here we are, 6 months later, piece unwritten.
so i went to an nba game last night. wha? yes, you read me right. cavaliers vs. orlando, some pre-season game series in china. sherry got tix and we went with adam (and his driver, god bless him) and sherry's friend, maury, aka prince charming. square jaw, wavy hair, cleft chin, the works. i don't know why i went with the anticipation that they would be selling hot dogs there. what a dope. there was element fresh and a single macdonald's outlet, which was mobbed and didn't even serve fries. fuck that. we drank beers instead. jet li and his family were there, and - get this - kenny g. when you think life can't get any more random, kenny m-f'ing g shows up at an nba exhibition game in the middle of china. i told my bosses today during my performance review that i was at the game last night and saw kenny g, and they told me that they were not only there, also, but sitting next to jet li AND saw kenny g walking on the bund the other day. lol. if anything, life in shanghai keeps your ass entertained.
i can't wait for the weekend to start. i haven't yet spent a weekend in my apartment, plus i am in serious need of some sleep, having been rolling into work especially late this week for unknown reasons, and i need to run about 500 errands for the house. need to hit up ikea and muji and the electronics market and carrefour. all the top-crowd-gathering spots in one friggin weekend. looking forward to losing it and beating someone who hits me for the umpteenth time with a shopping cart!
not really. more like just seriously considering it and remembering that prison in china is no walk in the park, and shaking it off.
sherry and i went to ben jia tonight in gubei and had a korean food feast. i immediately had to hit the shower as soon as i walked in the door - they have this rather neato ventilation system, but you still walk out of there smelling like you're wearing your dinner, and i can't sleep with dirty, food-smelling hair. as sherry says, i'm one of those.
here's a photo from bali - not the beach-bound blue ocean scenes you'd expect. this is ubud, known to be the cultural hub of modern balinese art (and a whole lotta tourists), and the most famous suckling pig restaurant on the island. we spent our first day here, walking around, looking into shops. my sister wanted to buy a painting, but ended up buying some expensive soap. i went expecting to see a lot of galleries and bought... lunch. we also spent the later part of the afternoon at bodyworks, getting beaten to a pulp by the balinese wielders of torture, aka massage therapists. we had to recover the next day (on the dive boat, baby) from our massages.
i want to do a live aboard some day. have you done? i hear they're expensive, but you get to do night dives and cool shit like that. one day i'm going back to krabi and diving the caves there. you WILL be mine...
either this chamomile is really working or i'm tired like a motha... night night.
"biju smelled again, the distinctive smell of a floor being disinfected with phenyl by a sweeper woman both destitute and with a talent for being exceedingly irritating. eyes lowered and swatting bare feet with a filthy rag, she introduced some visitors for the first time to that potent mixture of intense sympathy and intense annoyance." pp 325
i read that and almost stood up and cheered. i've felt, all this time, unable to articulate how i feel about the ayis of china because i hold a huge amount of middle-class guilt for thinking bad things about a person who lives off of what i spent on dinner... but why the fuck can't she stop taking me out with her fucking filthy-ass mop?!?! wtf. damn. there's always about 40 square feet of floor that's completely unoccupied... and yet she keeps knocking my ass over with her infection-on-a-stick. the only difference i can identify with this passage regarding the calcutta airport and china is... at least fools be using disinfectant in india! shit... here ayis will wipe down your goddamned toilet and use the same rag to clean your dishes. i have a theory (yes, i have many, and i may have even mentioned this here before) that ayis are leverage for the lower socioeconomic classes, evening the score by ensuring that you're eating traces of feces and urine and polishing your shoes with your ralph lauren towels. take THAT!
anyways.
i've been meaning to write a piece on ayis for sherry's bad cat blog, but i want to accompany it by a ayi photo with said mop, which i haven't taken yet. so here we are, 6 months later, piece unwritten.
so i went to an nba game last night. wha? yes, you read me right. cavaliers vs. orlando, some pre-season game series in china. sherry got tix and we went with adam (and his driver, god bless him) and sherry's friend, maury, aka prince charming. square jaw, wavy hair, cleft chin, the works. i don't know why i went with the anticipation that they would be selling hot dogs there. what a dope. there was element fresh and a single macdonald's outlet, which was mobbed and didn't even serve fries. fuck that. we drank beers instead. jet li and his family were there, and - get this - kenny g. when you think life can't get any more random, kenny m-f'ing g shows up at an nba exhibition game in the middle of china. i told my bosses today during my performance review that i was at the game last night and saw kenny g, and they told me that they were not only there, also, but sitting next to jet li AND saw kenny g walking on the bund the other day. lol. if anything, life in shanghai keeps your ass entertained.
i can't wait for the weekend to start. i haven't yet spent a weekend in my apartment, plus i am in serious need of some sleep, having been rolling into work especially late this week for unknown reasons, and i need to run about 500 errands for the house. need to hit up ikea and muji and the electronics market and carrefour. all the top-crowd-gathering spots in one friggin weekend. looking forward to losing it and beating someone who hits me for the umpteenth time with a shopping cart!
not really. more like just seriously considering it and remembering that prison in china is no walk in the park, and shaking it off.
sherry and i went to ben jia tonight in gubei and had a korean food feast. i immediately had to hit the shower as soon as i walked in the door - they have this rather neato ventilation system, but you still walk out of there smelling like you're wearing your dinner, and i can't sleep with dirty, food-smelling hair. as sherry says, i'm one of those.
here's a photo from bali - not the beach-bound blue ocean scenes you'd expect. this is ubud, known to be the cultural hub of modern balinese art (and a whole lotta tourists), and the most famous suckling pig restaurant on the island. we spent our first day here, walking around, looking into shops. my sister wanted to buy a painting, but ended up buying some expensive soap. i went expecting to see a lot of galleries and bought... lunch. we also spent the later part of the afternoon at bodyworks, getting beaten to a pulp by the balinese wielders of torture, aka massage therapists. we had to recover the next day (on the dive boat, baby) from our massages. i want to do a live aboard some day. have you done? i hear they're expensive, but you get to do night dives and cool shit like that. one day i'm going back to krabi and diving the caves there. you WILL be mine...
either this chamomile is really working or i'm tired like a motha... night night.
Monday, October 15, 2007
herro!
So sorry. And I guess in apologizing I’m really not speaking to anyone but myself, but after my sister getting here and diving in Bali for 5 days and spending time in Singapore and then spending more time with my sister in the SH (when it ISN’T fucking typhoon-like weather) and then moving into my apartment and then shooting off to Beijing for the weekend, it’s been a bit hectic. I’ve missed you, though. Now I’m blogging from the safety of my own living room with the chug of my washing machine in the background and enjoying every minute of it. Not that my year in Pudong wasn't one for the books - oh, it was - but it's also nice to be just around the corner from a bus that takes me to work and being able to walk to the hut to see dan spin on thursdays and be an 8-minute cab ride from sherry's place, blabbity blab...
the internet connection at the new pad is somewhat suspect... i'd post photos from bali, but A: i haven't uploaded them yet, and B: i'm afraid that in the time it would take to upload, the connection would be lost and i'd waste yet another evening trying to get on blogger. sigh.
bali was the shit, for anyone who hasn't gone yet. went diving around nusa penida, and on my first dive saw 4-5 manta rays, each spanning at least 7 feet across. those mothas are HUGE. they also flap their odd, wing-like fins to swim, not unlike a large, fleshy, underwater bat. we also saw a school of dolphins and a garden eel. i didn't get to dive tulamben due to a LAME dive shop misunderstanding, so no giant clams this time around, but i'm going back soon.
haven't quite kicked the cold that's lasted 11-ish days... altho much better than i have been. hacking and feeling like i'm choking was faded nicely into only the occasional uncontrollable hacking fit. i'm all about the cough suppressant lozenge. i favor robitussin honey lemon.
what's new with everyone. did the china-bound enjoy their holiday? did the US peeps do anything cool? my sister brought me a suitcase-load of various costco and trader joe treasures - bags of almonds and melatonin and acidopholus and the blaqk audio cd, which i listen to obsessively. we did the SH rounds and had dinner at 1221 and had coats made at the fabric market and strolled around taikang lu and had a really impressive meal at franck's. good stuff. i can't wait to go back for xmas.
alright, the browser is sending ominous signals threatening to close down. send a girl some love.
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