heads ablaze

sherry and i got ear candled at the spa on saturday.

stupid maya

So, yesterday included some random misadventures par for the course here in Shanghai. My friend Sherry that has been housing me for the past two weeks left for Seoul early yesterday morning and before doing so, ensured that I would be up to no good by signing T and I up for a photo shoot at a fancy restaurant, Maya. Lured by the promise of endless free drinks and fish tacos in exchange for some posing and smiling, I unwittingly sent out smses to my other nearest and dearest, encouraging them to stop by one of their favorite joints for drinks and food while watching me and T make utter fools of ourselves. And fools we were.

The amateur-hour theme of the photo shoot was not surprising. This is, after all, Shanghai, where every amateur is given his/her own fifteen minutes of fame and, if particularly enterprising, can extend it to a full hour. But three hours, five weak margaritas, and about two metric tons of chips and salsa (the “canapés” we were promised) later, we were starving, glassy-eyed with awkwardness and boredom, and ready to punch someone in the face. I had somehow gotten other friends dragged into it, friends who were in good faith just coming to Maya to hang out on one of my last days and wanted only some form of taco or chorizo or cheesy item to gnaw on while doing so. God. After the last shot (a long-table, romantically-lit banquet dinner where people apparently keep napkins folded on top of plates and eat only chips and guac), we were told that the kitchen was now closed and we could feel free to finish all the chips on the table.

What the fuck?! I don’t even get one stinking taco out of this mess? Eff all of you to hell. There are a lot of things that I will do for food, which apparently includes cajoling and berating my boyfriend into dressing in “smart casual” and accompanying me to Most Awkward Situation Ever née Most Irritating Experience I’ve Had For a While, then obligating my friends via Guise of Free Drink to participate as well, but to then be fed only small trough by small trough of tortilla chips accompanied by ridiculously shallow containers of salsa?? RUDE. Eff you again. Don’t tell me I’m getting canapés when I am in fact getting Shanghai versions of the jumbo Costco bag of Mi Tierra chips and Kool-aid versions of margaritas. I don’t want to see you again, particular in a dark alley while I just happen to be carrying those aforementioned items, which may or may not be jammed down your gullet while the words, “FEEL FREE TO FINISH THE CHIPS AT THE TABLE” are being screamed into your ear.

sfo to hk to sh to broke

omfg. i keep saying that. over and over. i am lit from within, and by that i mean raging. mad. angry. flummoxed. frustrated. ridiculous!

communication style in chinese families goes like this: (uncle to cousin-in-law to me) hey, i told your mom about the price of the plane ticket, so it's already booked, ok?

and i get the itinerary in my inbox and it's about 3x as much as i want to or can pay. !)!(@#$^%&%(#)#! WTF? wait, WHY? how does this happen? i call my mom and ask her if they talked to her about a plane ticket. she says, yeah, they mentioned something about 3000 HKD. wait, so why am i now booked on probably the most expensive ticket from hong kong to shanghai? it's a 2 hour flight! it's costing me nearly as much as my flight from san francisco to hong kong! how does this happen?

oh, if only the answer was simple. it has to do with my mom's birth positioning (oldest of seven), my language barrier, my black sheep uncle who does whatever the hell, my cousins' deference to him for whatever reason, and so on. for the love of friggin GOD. now i'm paying $456 USD for a 2-hour flight. and without any consent on my part. and without any money on my part. and if i complain, everyone will get offended. why do i do this to myself? i should know better. i'm just going to blame myself because there's no one else here. my mom told me on the phone, "well this is your situation so you deal with it. i'm hanging up now. bye" i had thanked her sarcastically for her help navigating her crazyass family and it didn't faze her a bit. "you're welcome. ok bye." THIS is why i never tell her anything. THIS is why i do things myself. THIS is why i moved halfway around the world. my people is crazy! crazy crazy crazy. and now i'm $456 in the hole. what the hell.

anyone want to hire me?

every day is a new day

every day is independent of the previous, at least those first few moments after waking. today, that little dwarf that pulls levers and pushes buttons in my brain decided that today was going to be deathly-fearful-that-i'm-not-getting-into-my-grad-school-program-day. why i am obsessing over this now is beyond me. i have work to do, i have things to write and deadlines to meet. i don't need to be distracted.

right now i'm listening to jaydiohead (courtesy of jevaun) which, concerning music to write to certainly rachets up the intensity but not necessarily the focus. but one can only listen to a mozart station on pandora so many days in the row.

i really want it to be july 3 right about now. argh.

conclusions

we said goodbye to one of my grandmas last week. she is already terribly missed.

chicaaaaaago!

i'm back from the windy city. oh, so windy. but also, oh so neat. and, at the risk of sounding like some bumpkin that rode in on a haystack, it's huge. there is space for countless parks of varying enormity, and "neighborhoods" extend far enough to encompass entire towns. we walked the lincoln park area for hours and stayed within its bounds.

i ate enough meat - red and otherwise - to feed a small nation for a month. wow. those were definitely my nutritional choices and no one force-fed me, but damn. i could use some vegetables and fish now, thank you.

the main purpose of the trip was to see trevor off to china for the summer, where he is interning, but also to meet the future in-laws and have them meet me. i must say that i really lucked out - his family is nice. really nice. it was interesting to live within the bounds of another family which isn't yours. it's like living in a reality show. i see now why trev is such a gentle person. his parents speak to each other nicely. they don't scold and boss and yell, like some families (ahem). i've heard a multitude of nightmare mother-in-law stories and i'm pretty sure i won't be part of that. i got back and spent the day doing grandma-related stuff with my parents and it was like, jesus. my mom's a screamer and has exceptional anxiety when driving or riding in a vehicle, resulting in constant loud and abrasive verbal guidance while operating a car with her in it. at one point i told her that she needed to stop jumping and grabbing onto the oh-shit handle each time a car in our vicinity changed lanes or pulled out onto our street. my dad (in the back seat), was like, "yeah!"

anyways, here are some photos:



water tower, one of three buildings that survived the 1871 fire, resulting in chicago's status as the first planned city in the u.s.



my "before" picture, lunch at manny's deli, an obama favorite



my "after." see why my body hates me? but it was too good to stop.



trev with his "girls," haley (left) and shelby. did you know there were american and british labs? british labs are thicker in the body, like our girl shelby, whom trevor refers to as "the walrus." american labs are leaner, taller, more athletic.



the new modern wing in the art institute, designed by renzo piano. beautiful space.



trev's parents took us on an architectural tour by boat. so awesome and highly recommended. we boarded right under the wrigley building.



view down the chicago river



john hancock building



navy pier. it's like pier 39 on super juice.

super eyes

36 hours after my surgery and i'm seeing really well. typing with my eyes closed, though. i shouldn't be straining my eyes with computer screen, reading, or watching tv just yet. mentally noting that there are damn few things you can do without your eyes.

what do the visually impaired do when they're feeling antsy?

what happened to the simple things

no more pure enjoyment of twitter for its random thoughts and artful observations. it's sad, but it's typical. you can't be part of something as successful as twitter without it turning into a useful marketing tool for shit like the diet-fucking-evaluation-council-dot-fucking-org who is following me because i mentioned how much water i drank today. so fucking american.

#disgusted

um, so

i've got a million-dollar observation.

when things seem bleak in your own life, when you are too tired or too sad to even think about moving forward, don't watch that show on A & E, Intervention.

i mean, jesus christ. i am watching a family that was torn apart by a daughter's abduction, rape, and murder, which resulted in, amongst other things, another child's severe drug addiction. add to that the mother's decades of grief and enabling, and it's just the most depressing shit ever.

i guess on one hand you can be grateful that you aren't the one heading down to the crack house to sell yourself for sixty bucks. driven by your fiance.

that elusive silver lining!

ugh. i feel like i need a shower just watching what people do to themselves.

hearts

photo credit

so, i was talking to a good friend of mine recently. this buddy happens to be in a tricky relationship situation, one that you listen to and try to find something wise and original and helpful to say in response, and basically come up with, "oh.... damn. that sounds shitty, dude."

i think i can safely say that 75% of us (and by us i am assuming those who read this are 20 or 30-somethings that don't live in the remote wilderness and have exactly zero dead bodies stored in the deep freeze) have been in a long-term relationship that has been painful and drawn-out and made you deeply unsure about what love means and where you stand and what fate ultimately has in store for you.

talking to my friend, of course, brought up my own time and a lot of those questions and doubts from back in the day. (thank god it was back in the day.) i am thankful for a few things in life, and i'll count them quickly now - being in my thirties, having someone awesome that i appreciate (don't laugh, i give a lot of beef but i do recognize), and having gone through the drama and craziness so i know what i want, what doesn't work, and how to spot a bastard. during my most miserable, soul-searching shit, i remember looking out of the window at the wall of ivy covering the building next door, watching the fog roll through against that backdrop. there was one small window in that building that i could see clearly enough to determine that it was a bathroom window, and i used to sit there, all tragic, and wonder if the people in that apartment were happy. if they could sense my world of misery, if they were living what i was living. whew. (i told you. when it comes to misery i'm a pro.) as shitty as times were, i am grateful for that lesson, that i know what it feels like, what took me there, and how to go in a completely opposite direction if i can sense the fringes of that coming my direction.

ok. now that My World has been established, let's move on. what's the right thing to do? will i regret it for the rest of my life? maybe being in love is different for me than it is for others. i will never be able to forget that he said that to me. well, friends, no one really has the answers for you. it's something that you and your person work out, however messily, for however long it takes. it works out in the end, and when you get to that right place, you'll know it. you'll feel it throughout your mind and body. your internal chaos will be silent, those torn fibers will knit and become whole. something inside just tells you. but you've got to fuck up a whole hell of a lot to get there. at least i did.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

waaaaaaaaaay too funny. the cuchini! solves those pesky camel toe problems. you must see the celebrity photo gallery and WATCH THE VID. trust me. it's way too worth it.

so i was standing in line one day...

photo credit


wow, feels funny and great to be using blogger again. i'm beginning to HATE my other web publishing service. hate hate hate. anyhoo.

i had a funny experience yesterday. funny as in laugh-out-loud, funny ha ha. i was standing in line at the kaiser pharmacy, which happened to be my second successive day to be both at kaiser and in line at this particular pharmacy, and was minding my own business, hum dee dum, checking out the assortment of supplements and tummy aides and whatnot. la la la. so i get up to the front of the line and wait for the next available cashier, and happen to get the same guy that rang me up the previous day. i notice these things, but not everyone does, so i make it a practice, dexter-like, to not let my somewhat creepy observational skills out of the jar, lest someone take it offensively, or worse, flatteringly. so the cashier looks at me and says, "oh, you're stuck with me again today."

"oh, haha, yeah, i guess. i like to hang out at kaiser every day." (me, beginning to suspect that this guy didn't notice me because of his hyper observational skills.)

"yeah, i thought that was you in line, but i wasn't sure. i was going to tell you to just come up to me and not wait."

"oh, that's nice, but i don't mind waiting." (me, now certain that this guy rifling through my bag of prescriptions thinks i'm cute.)

and THEN, my new friend pulls out the three-month supply of birth control in my bag and whispers confidentially, "hey, do you need this right away?"

"um, huh? uh, i guess not." (what the fuck in hell? i am too confused to get indignant.)

"well," (still whispering), "i can save you $10 if you fill it through the mail instead of taking it home today."

"oh, cool. yeah let's do that." (kind of relieved - he's just trying to hook a girl up - and kind of knowing on another level that most people would find this invasive and i'm not those people but probably should be.)

"alright i gotta cancel this order and re-enter it..." blah blah the rest fades from memory. but you catch my drift. i thought it hilarious (trevor didn't seem to agree) that some dude was totally commandeering my prescriptions and getting all intimate with my shit. i mean, i guess he IS the cashier at the pharmacy, but it's not like he works the door at a club i want to get in to. you should - for the benefit of people not like me - maintain this facade of pharmaceutical professionalism even if you're handling someone's wart cream or whatever the hell, pretend like you don't know what it's for even though you do, pretend that you don't see it or don't care. i was just happy to have saved $10 and have a friend with questionable lines of professional conduct at the pharmacy, but that's just me. and we all know about me.

[side note: i know better than to jump in line in oakland. you would get called out by everyone from the seven year old in a cast to old grandma ethel waiting for her precor refill. you either have to have an invisible cloak or just had a huge pair of cojones and a thick hide to get away with it, and i have neither.]

catching up

what have you been up to?

my life of late has been a study in elder care. i am becoming intimately knowledgeable about the differences between a board-and-care, an assisted living home, and a skilled nursing home. i know what a dementia ward is, and what services it offers as opposed to a board-and-care. i know what different forms of bed and wheelchair alarms there are in existence, and why severely demented grandmas will never be able to sleep in a bed without fall pads and full bed rails. i've resorted to bribery with cheese puffs. it's a whole other world out there.

my grandma is very very lucky that she has one unemployed grandchild and a retired daughter-in-law. she doesn't remember it, but she gets daily visits, lots of snacks, tucked into bed and chatted with, cajoled to eat her meals, hot tea, and strolls around the premises. it's heartbreaking to only provide those creature comforts for the two or three hours you are there, but truthfully it's much more family contact than the average dementia ward resident receives.

you learn things. the staff at both of the two facilities she has occupied in the past month have been surprisingly attentive and observant, and i have learned to be more than grateful for the down 'n dirty CNAs that check on her every 30 minutes, sing songs with her, clean up after her, bathe and feed her. it's like caring for a very stubborn, dexterous, capable, oversized 2-year old.

you also learn that with senility comes suspicion. as a frequent visitor, some residents have routinely found me untrustworthy, others have only shooed me away or flapped at me with sheets on occasion. my old person is the same - anyone she doesn't recognize is instantly suspicious and receives a scowl. we thought it was just her and felt embarrassed about her anti-social ways, but after her roommate, mary, looked me very calmly in the eyes and told me she was waiting for me to leave, i decided this is normal. this is par for the course. don't worry about what it should be and get with what it is.

quads of steel!

photo by neeta lind

...are what i'm going to have! ok, maybe not, but this week marks the first time i've biked in the bay area since i was a kid with a pink and orange sunset-themed bike with tassels. my quads are hideously weak, so each day during the ride to the hospital and back (a mere 4.2 miles), i pant my way through a quadriceps visualization a little less grotesque than this guy's. actually, that's a lie. i am usually visualizing what i'm going to eat for lunch, but having vaguely sore quads every day makes me feel a little optimistic.

not excited

well i'm all moved back and unpacked with the bed made and toiletries laid out on the sink. it's tuesday morning and the sun is shining and there's peet's coffee at my side and i am supposed to be looking for work.

i.

can't.

bring.

myself.

todoit.

ugh. yesterday was spent at the hospital, for the most part, since one of the grandmas took a tumble and broke her hip. it was a lot more complicated than that, but i'll spare you the details. i usually like the calm that comes after the drama, but today it's not working for me.

last week trev and i drove back from denver in two days, battling 50 mph winds in wyoming and consuming boredom in nevada. utah sort of went by in a blur. i like the salt flats landscape and the red dirt hills there, at least. we saw two major accidents on the road and some weirdo carrying a gas can and a ladies purse tried to con his way into the car in a casino parking lot in elko. i drank a lot of mcdonalds coffee and ate french fries for several meals in a row. that's a road trip for you. we got back to beautiful bay area weather and both got raccoon eyes from sitting outside and staring up at the sun. and now i'm home and trying to figure out what going about as normal should be.

carolyn's ark

hello from rainy-ass oakland. i've been here since saturday and it's been raining since sunday. as much shit as i talk about denver, it doesn't rain there much. snow doesn't bother me as much as rain, especially that dry, champagne powder they get in that area.

last i heard, water reservoirs were at less than 30% of capacity, so this week of rain is much-needed. but the sogginess! try explaining to your very senile grandma why we can't go out for "coffee and a nibble" every five minutes. rain + old lady = bad. my grandmother has some pavlovian response to her grandchildren that includes coffee outings or lunch. she never suggests going out for a movie or some shopping. these days she's all about the food.

so i've been working on a new website, one for the more professional side of me. i've been quietly obsessing over it for a few weeks now, and even though i'll never be able to shut the demons in my head off completely, i guess i'll roll it out officially: www.addandsubtract.net. it's basically a vehicle for my writing portfolio as well as a blog that i try to update daily. i am working on freelancing more and stressing over full-time work less, but the funny thing about freelancing is that you have to market yourself. a lot. and for people who tend to be on the quieter side when it comes to their work... well, it's an awkward thing for me. i decided that a blog was something that would keep the website fresh, and do a fair amount of speaking for me and my work.

blogs are funny things. i never reference this blog on any websites or self-promotional tools like linkedin or facebook because it covers such intensely personal subjects and discloses personal photos. it's also a free space for me to not think about seeming professional or cool or having to consider whether my subject matter is good or appropriate. i prefer to let the few people who find it or know it read it, but i do not proactively put all my shit out there to air. as soon as i decided to start blogging on addandsubtract, it became a very anxious thing. i put a lot of work / research / consideration into each post, and i even interviewed an artist and will try and continue to mine cool, under-the-radar things. it's weird, it's working... but it's unpaid. you can't curse. the subject matter should be interesting, but focused. i can't talk about food one minute, then my cat, then trev, then me, then my grandma. food blogs are food blogs, design blogs are about design, news blogs about news. trying to be a general-interest blog with a bit of everything actually means you have to carefully curate the content. it's not really a little of everything, it's little bits of very pre-meditated subjects.

i head back to the D tomorrow and i'm pretty excited to see the sun again. living in denver has at least taught me one thing (no, not that i'm exotic, i already knew that): sunshine really makes me twinkle. i wake up and the sun is shining and that is such a great mood lifter. i sound like a sesame street skit, but it's so true. it's been raining here and writing has been like drawing blood, no. that's too easy. like harvesting eggs or pulling fingernails.

currently enjoying...

i'm one of those idiot friends that, on vacation, will order coconut juice at touristy restaurants and then will carry the coconut around with us as we walk the streets, ensuring us as targets for pick pockets. but it's just so refreshing, i can't resist. looking like an idiot means nothing next to a delicious coconut!

i always thought of coconuts as bad for you, but apparently it's now a darling of the health foodies. something about it containing lots of electrolytes, and its saturated fat content identified as zero trans fats. does that make it healthy? either way, it means i can now find coconut juice in cans at my hippie dippy market. how convenient.

driving home tonight, i had my face jammed so far into the can to shake all of the pieces of pulp down into my mouth that i could barely see where i was going. so maybe opt for the pulp-free version while driving if you're anything like me.

voodoo / vodun

this weekend was supposed to be fun in the snow and lots of brisk crunching around in champagne powder on a newly waxed board. however, we managed, amongst the three of us, to squeeze in:


mild food poisoning
one sprained ankle
hard drive meltdown combined with a law school paper deadline
one killer flu victim
cat locked in living room for 3 days who consequently used the couch as her toilet
dead car battery


lucky me, i escaped with only a dead car battery and the couch toilet. my sister mentioned that her friend went to see a witch doctor to change her luck (or get rid of a hex) and she had to rub an egg (uncooked) over her boyfriend's back and then sleep with the egg under her bed over night. i think i need to look one up over here. i have some sage moldering in the veggie bin, maybe i should nuke it then burn it and cleanse the area. seriously. i'm beginning to think someone has it out for us.

i did have quite a nice time on my snowboard, though. i felt slightly guilty flying down runs while my sister clutched her tummy and trevor cursed his ankle, but i figured i'm not making anyone better by not snowboarding. right?

misery is the name of a pig

laying down a dirty and effective guilt trip on my boyfriend while drinking his craft beers makes me feel slightly better.

warm weather days

ugh, sorry i left you staring at that nasty creation for so long. i was having personal problems, one aspect of which is my cat, who keeps projectile vomiting everywhere. she suddenly decided well into adult cathood to start being allergic to most foods, and, well, last week we were testing her on new food that obviously didn't go well. my sister has already dropped upwards of $400 on her for various tests and fancy foods that haven't shed any light on the situation. web searches have yielded about 15o different causes. right now she has her pet bowl elevated to chest level on a folgers coffee container draped in an old washcloth in case she has acid reflux. acid reflux? for fuck's sake. what happened to the cats of the old days who were fine off a lifetime of friskies and would spend their days outdoors doing cat stuff? i swear my cat gets her damn nails done and sips veuve in her free time, which is all the time.

the bitch about pet ownership is that you love your pet, but you sho' wish they would just eat crap you buy at the grocery store and shut the fuck up. there's a limit to your pet love, and it has a lot to do with how much they cost you. now with scarlett acting like a stomach diva, i have to haul my ass to the pet store and plunk down about $40 every two weeks just to keep her fed. it's retarded. i don't even think i spend that much on myself every two weeks.

i'm feeling cheerful after a dim few days. trev and i went on a beautiful hike on thursday near boulder, and then visited its little downtown area for beers (trevor) and burgers (me). ok, just a single burger. so gratifying to have a little fat blast after a couple of strenuous hours of scrambling up rocks. trev was swooning over the stouts on tap at this brewery, so we had a nice little swoon-filled break and drove home with a lovely splurgey cup of coffee. we relish these days where the weather has been gorgeous and we have enough time in our adult lives to go hiking on a weekday. after trev's graduation we're both pretty sure days like that are going to be rare luxuries.