Halloween... and Dinnerware

Five years later, Dear Daniel is still thoughtful, sweet and funny. I have two Hello Kitty stuffed animals and I came home from work today to find their paws and heads wrapped in some toilet paper "mummy wrappings" for Halloween. I laughed out loud. Plus, I received some amazing chocolates!

There's a huge new shopping center in downtown San Francisco - it has a Bloomingdales department store. I went after work to get some chocolates for Dear Daniel for Halloween. My friend Meagan and I had fun looking at stuff. I showed her the black and white dishes I'd seen a few months ago and liked (bottom). They are Kate Spade dinnerware. Right - Kate Spade is not just for plain and overpriced fabric handbags anymore! Dinnerware, too!

We both liked the Missoni graphic black and white dishes that called to us across the whole geaming, sparkling crystal and china department (top). But mostly, we just enjoyed picking out the ugliest Baccarat crystal figurines for each other and saying, "You need that!" She picked out a black crystal Labrador retriever figurine for me, and I retaliated with a giant crystal Buddha.

I Hate Daylight Savings!

When I lived in Southern California, I could not have cared less about Falling Back or Springing Forward. The weather was pretty much always mild. Now that I live in Northern California, I get depressed every year at daylight savings time...

For the past six years, I've had jobs that start on the early side of things (I start work at 6:45am). I get out of work early, and unfortunately I have to go to bed early in order to be functional at work. Since I can't often enjoy the nightlife, I at least like to be outside after work. I like running in the hour before sunset - running is sometimes a bit of a mindf*ck - it's hard to get dressed and get started at times, but after going for a while, it feels good. When it's nice out and the air is getting cooler just as my body is getting warmer, sometimes I feel like I have wings instead of legs, and there's a period of running time when I feel like my lungs and heart are tireless and I could run forever.

This does not happen in winter. We turn back the clocks, and suddenly it's dark at 5:30pm, and it's cold in San Francisco, and I feel depressed, and start thinking about my cat Mei Li, who died two years ago after I'd had her for more than 10 years! This happened yesterday. On an ordinary Monday, Dear Daniel and I might put on our running clothes and go out for a run, and then shower and make dinner. The sun would set sometime around dinnertime and everything would be fine. But last night, I picked DD up after he finished work at 5:30. By the time we got home at 5:50 it was dark and cold. We live in a weird place - you can't just step outside and be on a city street or even a neighborhood street, with sidewalks and street lights - no! We live at the edge of the continent, where the forest meets the ocean. It's beautiful, but at night it's pitch black and friggin' creepy! Last year a woman was hit by a car in the early morning hours, jogging alone, and the driver didn't stop - the woman died alone on the side of the road. It was hours before someone came across her. Creepy people hang out at the beach after dark, too. I definitely won't run alone after dark here. The first thing I said when I saw DD was, "I am not running tonight. It's cold. I'm depressed. I miss Mei Li." I proceeded to start crying about Mei Li.

Dear Daniel says we just need to get me a warm running jacket and one of those blinking lights that clips onto your jacket or your butt so people can see you in the dark and I'll be good as new. I don't think so. I hate winter!

Mac Cosmetics Can Kiss My *&^%

Yesterday I spent many hours at an art studio getting tutored on Adobe InDesign. I skipped lunch and dehydrated myself because I was concentrating so hard. I'm writing and producing an employee newsletter for work and I don't want it to look like a janky piece of shit, so... InDesign it is.

Cranky and dry-eyed, I called Dear Daniel and offered to pick him up when he finished work. I told him how hard I'd been working and how cracked-out I felt. He suggested we go to the MAC cosmetics store on Union Street in San Francisco to get my new liquid eyeliner, adn then have a nice dinner. For a month, I've whined about how my Anna Sui liquid eyeliner is almost finished and how it's discontinued. He's had to hear this every morning Monday through Friday at 5:45 am. It's no wonder he offered to take me there and buy me the new eyeliner, and whatever else I want at MAC.

I've had bad experiences at each of the Bay Area MAC cosmetics Pro stores now. The Berkeley store is awful, with disgusting testers, artists who look like clowns and have acne, and they're always out of whatever colors you want. The one on Fillmore Street is narrow and one of the salespeople was very catty to my friend when we were there for one of their stupid special events. And now the Union Street store - there were five employees in there and two customers last night. The employees were frantically fluffing their displays and two told me apologetically, "I'll be with you in JUST a moment. I'm so sorry. I'll be right with you," with worried looks on their faces. I couldn't believe I was standing there with a list in my hand and a credit card wielding boyfriend in tow, while they wiped the tops of tester lipsticks. I'm definitely getting impatient and fearless in my old age - I snapped, "Oh, this is BULLSHIT," and stormed out. Their faces were a startled blur. I was so pissed. Dear Daniel was laughing. For some reason he enjoys my public tantrums. And thank God, because I have them regularly. If you want any decent help with MAC cosmetics in San Francisco, the only place is the counter at Nordstrom downtown. Their artists look awesome and they're nice, and attentive. And they always have everything in stock.

But I've about had it with MAC cosmetics altogether. There are so many other brands out there. I've succumbed to MAC default laziness syndrome over the past few years.
So I went to Sephora and tested several liquid eyeliners. The one I got is Bourjois Very Long-Lasting "Liner Pinceau" (in black, naturally). Also, I chose a Laura Mercier lipgloss item called Lip Kisses SPF 15. The color is "Berry Slush" and it goes on a natural rosy pink. It smells like vanilla and the tube is delightfully tiny. MAC cosmetics can kiss my *&#.

Being a Grownup Is, Like, Sooo Boring

Does work cramp your style?

The backstory behind the laptop bag is that there is not enough space at my work for everyone. Just not enough room to put any more workstations - they already shrank the breakroom twice to make an office for a new training manager and installed a phone on what used to be a lunchtable, for the two new trainers the training manager hired. The lunch table is now their desk.

So when my work said to me, "We want to hire a new X so you no longer have to do X, because we want you to write Y and Z," they decided that since there was nowhere to put me, they would order a laptop for me, and allow me the freedom to work from home when I want to. Sweet deal, right? My home is clean and comfortable and has windows and ocean breeze - my workplace is kinda cramped and old and there's a decrepit tree in the lobby and a view of one of the two most dangerous streets in San Francisco, what with all the semi and bobtail truck traffic rushing by. So I happily took the laptop and the work-from-home option.

The IT manager handed me the laptop in the cardboard box it came in and said, "You can order a case. Not Prada, but pretty much whatever you want."

Stuff like that freaks me out. What's the dollar limit? My boss wants us to use common sense but to spend company money on good-quality stuff. She's no-nonsense. When I was choosing a chair last year, she told me to just go to Relax the Back and pick one. She said, "I don't know... a thousand dollars, maybe, but if you find one you like that's more, that's okay, too." Holy shit, I came from teaching at an inner city public school that had NOTHING; literally. (They handed me ten reams of paper at the beginning of the year and that was to last me the whole year. With 220 students! I spend hundreds of dollars a month on stuff I needed to teach with - paper, pens, chalk, books.) So at this job, when faced with choosing my own chair, I chose a yoga ball chair that was a mere $120.

I was similarly puzzled when faced with having to choose a laptop bag.
I wanted one of these velour Juicy Couture laptop sleeves but somehow knew I should choose something a lot more sedate, boring and utilitarian. This is how I ended up with a plain black Manhattan Portage laptop bag instead of pink velour Juicy Couture! Oh well, the bag is sturdy and tidy, and it is company property, after all. I pat myself on the back for being such a sensible (zzzzzz) employee.

My Cute Ladybug Ring

My friend Meagan gave me this cute thing; a big ladybug ring.
My hands are dry and I need a manicure! But I couldn't wait to show the ring.

Sugar Skulls!

Yesterday I had chai and a crispy rice treat with a friend at a cafe on Valencia Street. This display near the entrance of one of the shops caught my eye. So colorful and beautiful! It was all sugar skulls...

The 2007 Slingshot Organizer

For the past three years I've used the Slingshot Collective's little organizer as my main calendar and address book. This year's cover is cute - it has a snow-covered mountain, clouds, and people skiing, hiking and scuba diving in the sky. I colored mine in and added the hearts... the orange one is for Dear Daniel and the green is a little gift for a co-worker of mine. The Slingshot contains lots of good information, such as how to examine your breasts and testicles, what your legal rights are when being arrested, and there's also a menstrual calendar. That's why I got it for my 18-year old college-freshman co-worker - she saw mine and was interested. Oddly, when I said you can use it to chart your periods and see when you ovulate, she said, "What's that?"
Supressing my shock I said, "Ovulation? When your ovaries release an egg..."
I think she's a virgin. I friggin' hope so, anyway.

If you get a Slingshot, keep in mind they get battered pretty quickly. I'm going to cover mine with a sheet of self-stick laminating paper this year. Last year I covered it with packing tape!

More about The Slingshot Organizer

Coconut Skin Trip

I love this stuff; Mountain Ocean's Coconut Skin Trip. The lotion is light and watery, and absorbs quickly, and the soap is rich and creamy, and they both smell subtly of coconut; like real coconut; not too sweet. (Most coconut-scented products smell like a plastic doll; like "Barbie goes on a tropical vacation".) About an hour after you apply the lotion, the scent fades almost all the way away, which is fine with me. I have a very sensitive nose, and most perfumes nauseate me. For this reason, I don't have a signature perfume... I don't even wear perfume. I WANT to be a proper femme and have a signature perfume, but... I haven't found one mild enough yet. I like citrusy scents and I like real lavender, and vanilla... I kind of like Clarins Eau Dynamisante and I used to like Annick Goutal Eau de Hadrien and Prescriptives' Calyx, but my sense of smell has gotten even more acute over the years. It is really strange. Oh, and the worst perfume on this earth is Clinique Happy! It smells like someone melted a Tupperware full of canned tuna (or cat food) in the microwave and then squeezed an orange on the scorched mix of tuna (or cat food) and mutated plastic! I don't understand women who can wear Clinique Happy. They should all be paired up with the kind of men who eat a lot of cheeseburgers and who fart all the time, because the woman who happily wears Clinique Happy probably would not be able to smell the farts.

You can get Mountain Ocean Coconut Skin Trip at health food stores. Whole Foods, if you must.

Pubic Hair Haircolor

A line of pubic hair dye is being sold by Nancy Jarecki, wife of Andrew Jarecki (he directed Capturing the Friedmans and started Moviefone and sold Moviefone to AOL Time Warner for something like 600 million dollars). Betty Beauty pubic hair color is $20 a box and comes in Brown Betty, Fun Betty, Blonde Betty, Auburn Betty and Black Betty. Fun Betty is hot pink! "Betty" is a euphemism for the vulva, I assume; the website refers to "the hair down there" - yet another euphemism!

(Jeez, I didn't even know anyone had any pubic hair anymore, what with all the "Brazilian" wax jobs that are so popular.)

The product is supposed to be safe - gynecologists and dermatologists were consulted in the formulation of it.

One of my hairstylists once told me he felt like it would be okay to color the pubic hair with regular haircolor as long as some kind of cream or jelly was applied to the inner labia to protect it from the chemicals; I never tried it, though. I've done some crazy things in the pursuit of beauty, but I like my clitoris too much to be putting anything caustic and burn-y and smelling like Clorox anywhere near it.

I figure if they make a blonde formula, the product must have bleach of some sort in it, which could be scary what with the delicate tissue of the inner labia and all. But then again, they are bleaching buttholes at certain salons, too, and that tissue is also really delicate. Well, this is all quite fascinating... I really wouldn't mind having hot pink hair "down there" - to deploy the delicate phrasing of Betty Beauty.

VULVA.

It's not a bad word, for chrissakes!

Check it out:
Betty Beauty

A Thank You Note... Will Wonders Never Cease?

Today my HR manager and I received a thank you note. A real thank you note, a handwritten note, a note stamped and mailed through the US Postal Service. It was from a woman we interviewed yesterday. YESTERDAY. The note arrived today, which means she did her interview, went somewhere, wrote a note WITH HER HAND AND A PEN and mailed the damned thing all in the same day. Her mother should be proud!

I love mail, letters, 'zines, calligraphy, paper, and even postage stamps. I write thank you notes. AN EMAIL IS NOT THE SAME AS A THANK YOU NOTE. It's not real, it has no permanence, it has no energy. Call me crazy - I like what's tangible. As my calligraphy teachers say, real handwriting lives and breathes; Linnea says that it sings.

It is unbelievable how many people email me for my 'zine: "Please send me your ezine." They don't email their address. It's not an E 'zine, it's a REAL 'zine. Paper. And I need your f*cking mailing address!

I sent a handmade, funny birthday card to a friend in early April. And I wondered why she never mentioned it, because I thought it was a hilarious card. Well, she finally did mention it - she didn't check her mail till almost May! She never checks her mailbox, not even around her birthday. Oh my God!

Manners have gotten so lax that my friend's mother actually gives a self-addressed, stamped postcard to people when she gives them a gift. It's like her own form of delivery confirmation; since it's highly unlikely the recipients of her gift would write a thank you note of their own accord, she gives the postcard and hopes they'll drop it in the mail. Is this what we've come to?! Yes, it is.

Changing topics slightly - last weekend I fell in love - with a fountain pen. I tested around twenty pens at Atelier Gargoyle and fell in love with a chubby orange number; a
Conway Stewart pen. It wasn't the pen itself or the color - it never is. It was the nib (medium italic gold nib with an iridium tip), the ink flow (on the heavy side), the weight of the pen, and the way it made my handwriting just better. That's what a good pen will do; the right pen. I've seriously been pining for the thing since last Sunday. "I really can't buy it just now," I told my teacher. He set it aside for me anyway. I think he could tell I was in love.

Moxie Parlour

I like my new hairstylist a lot. Did I say I like her? Correction: I FRIGGIN' LOVE HER! She's gentle, precise, and I enjoyed watching her work. She gave me an awesome haircut. All the dried, colored parts of my hair were cut out and for the first time in years I'm wearing my natural, virgin haircolor. I'm getting color next week, though. One of my coworkers told me I looked hot, our chef said he loved my haircut, my boss said "snazzy" (who the hell talks like that? "Snazzy"?!) and one person said I look ten years older. Hello?! That's a statement you want to hear when you're TWELVE YEARS OLD, not __________ (my age). Oh well, my opinion is the only one that matters!

I also think it's interesting how women with long hair will often tell someone who also had long hair but just cut their hair all the reasons why she (woman with long hair) can't or won't ever change their length. I wonder what that's about.

Well, I owe my newfound happiness to Denise, who referred me to my new stylist.
Thanks, Denise!

{Oh, and also to Rosario Dawson, because I just saw photos of her in this month's Allure magazine and she had a bob (or a wig) and it looked really good, so I decided to do it.}
I really love Before and Afters, and makeovers and all that. But I never do them on myself, this is super fun...
Before Hair

Moxie Parlour

Halloween is Coming!

People are already decorating their houses!

Towels and SALES!

I've won the domestic lottery; I've encountered my Retail Score of the Year for 2006; nothing will top this! Eight 100% cotton supersoft Ralph Lauren bath towels (plus three washcloths) on sale at Macy's, totaling THIRTY TWO DOLLARS.

Last year our towels were green, kind of dark peacock green. The color looked good with our brown and white Marimekko shower curtain. A few months ago I decided that this year's towels would be orange, which also looks great with brown. Dear Daniel and I both love the color orange, and I love buying towels all at once, which for me (for two people) means buying eight bath towels. I don't like keeping around a bunch of threadbare, mismatched bath towels - it just annoys me. So when I buy eight new bath towels, I get rid of six of the old ones and relegate one old one to a spot under the sink for household cleanup emergencies, and one to the trunk of the car for car cleanup emergencies. Anyhow, the Towel Year is not up yet for a few more weeks. So I went to Macy's (for a new shower curtain liner, actually, not for towels) and saw the orange Ralph Lauren towels I've been wanting. I noticed there were no hand towels and only three washcloths, although there were plenty of bath towels.
"Is this color going to be discontinued?" I asked the Macy's salesperson.
"Well, they're all going to be... eventually," she said, nastily.
"Really? So, even WHITE gets discontinued?" I asked. I was very polite, but of course I was bitchily trying to make a point.
"Well, you're not asking about WHITE, you're asking about INDIAN PAINTBRUSH," she said witheringly, snatching the bitch crown right off my head and settling it firmly upon her own.
Well, color me corrected. I figured the lack of hand towels and washcloths meant bye bye to "Indian Paintbrush" orange, so I grabbed eight towels and the remaining washcloths, calculating the total in my head to be around $170. (Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, even if it's two weeks sooner than you had budgeted for it. Otherwise my whole color scheme for the upcoming Towel Year would be ruined. And I couldn't get any other brand because I'm trying to avoid buying things made in sweatshops, and of all the orange towels I found, only the Ralph Lauren ones were made in the USA. That doesn't ensure non-sweatshop, I know, but a three dollar towel made in Bangladesh almost certainly guarantees sweatshop labor in my mind.)
Since I only had $40 cash I handed her my Visa ATM card and she did her thing and I glanced at the thing before signing it; the total was $32.47, and that included the shower curtain liner! I thanked her (I guess she had a change of heart, because she tied the top of the bag into a little handle and said, "This will make it easier to carry,") and then I practically sprinted out of the store, fully expecting to be tackled by security guards on my way out. I drove away sweating slightly and feeling like I'd done something really bad. I didn't even look at the receipt till I got home a few minutes ago, and all the things I bought are on the receipt. I'm thinking maybe it was some computer error, because the bath towels show up at a lower price than the teeny tiny washcloths I bought. Gotta love it. Hooray for modern civilization's total reliance on the computer! Hooray for apathetic employees!

Hair Angst Part I

This is a photo of my Cousin Itt-like mop, which badly needs to be cut.

Hair has been much on my mind lately. (I know, I know: ridiculously shallow.) This is because I have an appointment for a haircut this upcoming Tuesday, and I am trying a new salon and a new stylist. I have so much to say, I think this is going to be a Blog Series.

Well, the fact of the matter is: I have nice hair. When properly groomed (this means gradually blow dried and brushed, rather than blasted with a few blasts of super hot blowdryer air on a frantic weekday morning) it's long, shiny, bouncy and dark. The longer it gets, the more people (men) look at me (not that I care). Most heterosexual men are suckers for long, healthy hair - my friend Patrick can attest to this. Until recently (he just got a short haircut), he had beautiful long, dark hair, and even though he also has a masculine body and jeans and a man's shirt on - men would always stare, double-take, hoot and holler, only to recoil in horror when faced with the front of Patrick, with his sideburns and little goatee! No surprise - most , okay MANY, not most (God, I'm generous) straight men are just stupid.
For a long time I thought the men liking long hair thing had something to do with healthy hair signalling youth and fertility, you know, some primal urge to reproduce. But the first time I ever bought a fall (a long fake ponytail), clipped it onto my real ponytail and walked through the Beverly Center in LA, two guys crashed into each other looking at me, and I realized it has nothing to do with the health or the authenticity of the actual, real hair, because that hair was actually kind of weirdly stiff and made of nylon! (Hey, it was a mere fifty-nine bucks.)

I've always thought I look better with shoulder-length or chin-length hair; the only reason it's so long lately is because I hate going to the hair salon. Yes, I hate going to the hair salon! When I lived in LA I went to a wonderful, tiny salon in West Hollywood called Varon. It was owned by an adorable guy named Carlos "Charlie" Sotomayor, and it had only three chairs. His boyfriend had one chair, he had one chair, and they rented out the third chair. There was an inexpensive parking lot nearby, and I would enjoy going to the salon and then browsing in the shops in WeHo. And Charlie was sweet and gentle, never running late, and a very, very good stylist and colorist. I had highlights that were all sorts of shades of dark brown and a little bit of honey brown, and it all looked very dimensional and believable, even though I'm Asian American. "I'll miss you," I told him, on my last visit. "You'll be back," he told me, "Everyone who moves to San Francisco comes back to LA." Did he curse me? I've never been happy with my hair since I left LA and Varon Salon.

I've been going to the same salon in San Francisco since I landed here till about a year ago. That's about three years. My stylist was a really cool guy, and I think he did nice cuts, but sometimes my highlights were really bright and kind of brassy, and sometimes my hair looked like a wig after he was done styling it. I started packing barrettes each time I would see him, to stick in my hair afterward. Then he moved out of his salon and started cutting hair at his home, which was a great home, it's just that his sink thing really hurt my neck. So I stopped seeing him.

Just about the time I was looking like Cousin Itt, I took a coworker's recommendation and went to Hairplay salon in SF.
I liked the stylist's work. My hair looked really good. But there's no parking except at the Safeway across the street, and they are hardcore in San Francisco about ticketing and towing. I had to buy something at Safeway and display the bag prominently on the front seat. The whole time I was at the salon (which was a really long time) I was worried my car would be towed.
Also, the salon had vases of flowers in which the water was yellowish brown and smelled like swamp. And, while my hair was being washed, all the stylists except mine were talking about how the maple syrup, lemon and water fast makes them lose weight, but they shit a lot. Nice.

So Tuesday, I'm going to a place called Moxie Parlour on the recommendation of a friend. My friend has really cute hair.
I'm optimistic! Oh yeah, and I'm going to get a bob!

Blood Tea and Red String

Man, I want to see this movie SO BADLY. My pal Meagan sent me the info about it; of course, she forwarded it from the New York Times. It's not playing in San Francisco, damned second-rate mini-city that SF is. It's playing in NYC and in Los Angeles, OF COURSE. Sure, I can buy it on DVD, but I want to see it on a BIG SCREEN. I grew up going to see movies at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood; I'm theater-spoiled! I can't just see this film on a meager television set.

Here's some text from the website:

BLOOD TEA AND RED STRING is a handmade stop-motion fairy tale for adults.

Thirteen years in the making, Christiane Cegavske’s dialogue free film tells the tale of the struggle between the aristocratic White Mice and the rustic Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak over the doll of their heart’s desire.

The Mice commission the Oak Dwellers to create a beautiful doll for them. When she is complete, the Creatures fall in love with her and refuse to give her up. Resorting to thievery the Mice abscond with her in the middle of the night.

Meet fantastical creatures and view dazzling scenery as the Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak journey through this mystical land to reclaim their love. See the mice descend into debauchery as they become drunk on blood tea! See what happens when the Oak Dwellers eat the yellow fruit!

-----------
Doesn't that sound awesome?!

Artist and filmmaker Christiane Cegavske's site.

Oh yeah, it's Friday the 13th today!

The Tree Murders

If I haven't said this before - I live in a national park which is also an ex-military base. Owned by the feds, of course. Our apartment used to be military housing. Before the military moved in, the land was sand dunes, which are very beautiful and which have a very delicate ecology - and the military (God love 'em!) ruined the sand dunes and the cypress trees because of course they had to put some bunkers under the sand and erect military housing and put some missiles under the ground and other great stuff like that. They also planted a bunch of non-native invasive plants and even a whole non-native FOREST that is now dying and shall have to be removed soon. Brilliant, right? Little by little they are restoring the sand dunes by planting little baby native plants. The apartments we live in are slated to be demolished... eventually. They've already demolished some near the edges; we live near the center. (Hope I can save a down payment for a house before demolition time.)

Once, two days ago, there were some very nice trees that blocked the street noise and blocked the view of the street, while allowing us a view of the bigger cypress trees and the beach beyond. I liked them a lot.

WELL, THEY GOT CHOPPED DOWN!

I came home and they had all been chopped down; I freaked! When the trees near your home suddenly get chopped down, it's shocking. It's like if your partner came home from work one day just kind of casually missing A LEG. Of course, in two days no one has bothered to remove the murdered trees; the corpses are still lying there.
They are dead, we can see and hear the street, and I am sad. I asked one of the maintenance guys what happened. He told me the People Who Make Decisions decided to remove the trees because they were non-native species and they spread seeds.
Then the guy (his name is Carlos, but I think of him as "Feather" because he has a nasty gull feather sticking out of his hat) showed me some little baby cypress trees growing out of a crack in the asphalt parking lot. "They want me to take these out," he said, "But I cannot do it. They are like children! I cannot!" (Okay, his English is poor and my Spanish is poor, but roughly, that's what he said.) Then he told me that when the gophers ate the baby native plants he planted, The People Who Make Decisions wouldn't give him any replacements to plant. Idiots. They want him to remove the cypress trees, which are native, and won't give him any native plants to plant in the native plant restoration area.

Gag Me With a Toothbrush

Following is a list of disgusting things that one should not ever have to see in a shared employee (not public) bathroom. All of these are things I have seen and often see in my work's shared employee bathroom. The bathroom is unisex and has two stalls. We all know each other, and every day I look at my coworkers and think: which ones of you are so disgusting?! Monsters!

- Long hairs in the sink. Long hairs anywhere besides attached to someone's head.
- Splatters of tooth plaque on the mirror from people flossing
- poop in the toilet
- splatters of menstrual blood on the floor or on the toilet
- public hairs on the toilet
- soaked bloody menstrual pad face up in the open trash can
- boogers with nose hairs in them in the sink


The end.

Newman's Own GingerMints

They're the organic alternative to Altoids. My friend ordered a case of them and gave me a tin to try. These are less chalky than ginger Altoids; softer. They have less gingery bite to them, too, but they're still good.

The background is a note my calligraphy teacher sent me. That is her insanely gorgeous handwriting. I suppose that's her "casual" handwriting (written on rich, fine paper with a custom-shaped italic nib fountain pen!) - she also does beautiful Blackletter calligraphy in addition to many others types. She studied with Hermann Zapf and worked as a professional typeface designer. Her name is Linnea Lundquist, and she's simply awesome!

Pink and Purple Cuteness

Someone really needs to buy these two things and wear them together. (That someone will not be me, as I cannot spend any major money on myself till after the holidays! Besides, I need another purse like I need a hole in the head. I'm currently lugging a laptop around in a free, ugly tote bag from my work; I need a laptop bag more than another purse.)

The bag is an inexpensive ripstop nylon LeSportsac, and the necklace is Tarina Tarantino.

A Digression

I think most people who have a blog or an online diary put a site meter or counter on their blog so they can see how many hits they get per day. These things also show you IP addresses and how many pages a person has visited. The one I use, which is Tracksy, shows me what people did a google search for or a yahoo search or whatever search engine search that led the person to my blog.

And guess what search terms brings the most traffic to my blog?

That's right: bukkake.

Hiromi Sato

I don't know anything about this artist; her website is in Japanese. (I sort of, uh, dropped out of Japanese class when the going got tough.) Her name is Hiromi Sato, and the artwork seems to be a combination of watercolor or gouache with real fabric, yarn, thread and buttons. Whimsical and kawaii. This mermaid is my favorite of all the gallery images at Sato's site; white-eggs.com.

Creature Hoodie from Rocketworld

I mentioned Rocketworld in my last post. I met the creator of Rocketworld last year when DearDaniel and I went to an awesome art show at the Rocketworld gallery. Patrick Ma is smart, talented and has style for miles. It was actually kind of unreal how awesome his gallery looked, how uniformly hot all the people tending bar and serving snacks were, and how great the artwork...Rocketworld does vinyl toys, tee shirts and more... Check out this INSANELY CUTE hooded jacket! It's called the Creature Hoodie and has a bear face and ears on the hood, and PAWS that flap over your hands. It's unisex (don't bears come in all genders?) and would be equally great for a guy or a gal. It's super-functional as well as adorable; it was designed as a piece of rugged outdoor cold-weather gear, which makes sense - the creator does live in San Francisco, after all.
They're not even available yet, but you can pre-order, which I seriously NEED TO DO!

TokiDoki

Tokidoki is the latest cute Japanese-girly thing to hit the USA. But wait - Tokidoki is not Japanese. This brand, based in Los Angeles, is the creation of Italian designer Simone Legno, who is a self-professed Japanophile. (Yes, that appears to be the colors of the Italian flag on the butt of the girl in the fourth image above.) He's teamed up with LeSportsac to make a line of handbags, much like Gwen Stefani did when she was launching L.A.M.B.

I admit that the bags, decorated with Legno's cartoon critters are cute. But cute critters have been done and done better by any number of artists and toy makers - Takashi Murakami, Martin Cendreda, and Patrick Ma of Rocketworld, among many others.

I don't particularly like Simone Legno's images of Japanese women, or Japanese women characters, either. They're just a little too annoying, with their "Asian" eyes represented with just a slanted line (Are they open? Are they closed? Do Asian women have, um, actual eyeballs, complete with pupils and irises? I know I do). I'm getting quite f*ing sick of seeing Asian women represented in such boring, predictable ways - the endless geisha imagery, the young/slender/shallow/fashion-crazed stereotype, or the "Me So Horny", sexually available prostitute thing... yawn... it's tired. I'm much more interested in the ways that actual Asian women artists and designers imagine and envision Asian women. Call me crazy.

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The designer himself is coming to Nordstrom, San Francisco in just a few weeks. Perhaps I could go, and plant my leather pride flag on HIS butt.

Wearing Vegetables

In addition to all the comics and 'zines I got last weekend at the APAture 2006 Comix, 'zines, and Design Expo, I bought this funny handmade top from an up-and-coming designer/seamstress named Thuy Tran. The fabric has vegetables all over it, and since I work at an organic produce distributor, I thought it would be cute to wear to work.

Dungaree Dolly

This is one of two purses (handbag, pocketbook, whatever you call it) I have that I got from Dungaree Dolly. They are made by hand by a designer named Beth, aka Dolly. Most of the fabrics are retro, vintage-y, rockabilly looking; what my best friend calls "The Cherry Hegemony", which always makes me laugh! But you know, the girls with the perfect Bettie Page bangs, beautiful tattoos, dramatic eye makeup, cuffed up jeans, black dresses, polka dots, nautical imagery... like the ones who often work at places like the MAC cosmetics pro store and the Betsey Johnson boutique. I really appreciate this aesthetic and sometimes wish I could work it. But I look best with a kind of healthy California-girl style, so, no jet-black Bettie Page bangs for me.

The bags - I can do these! Dungaree Dolly's bags are the most comfortable bags I've ever carried, all balanced and padded and sized just right. At less than $60 each, her "Perfect Purse" really is perfect. And it's cool to support a talented entrepreneur who sews her own stuff!

Downstairs Neighbor Chapter II

It is INSANE how much my NEW downstairs neighbor resembles my OLD downstairs neighbor.

Picture of Old Neighbor

But this gal - "Number 00" - she's the new, improved version. She's Downstairs Neighbor 2.0!

Old Neighbors (v. 1.0):

1. They were a couple, and while I never heard them having sex (THANK GOD), I always heard them chasing each other through the apartment and running into the walls, wrestling and giggling like the beginnings of a bad porno movie. Once, a frame fell off my wall and broke during their sumo wrestling session.
2. They had three televisions and all three were always on at top volume. Our floor/their ceiling is as soundproofed as a cardboard box. I hated hearing their TV! I don't even have TV.
3. They had a little dog that barked and barked and cried when they left it alone, which was often.
4. They had a huge-ass SUV Chevrolet thing and their parking spot was next to mine. They hit my (brand new, shiny, till-then still flawless) car door with their door while trying to get their bodies and their big Costco cases of food out of the huge SUV.

New, Improved Neighbor (v. 2.0):


1. She's single. She apparently sits on the couch or lies in bed more, because I hear her walking a hell of a lot less.
2. Her TV, while always on like theirs was, is set at a moderate volume. I do hear it, but it's more like lots of people talking and laughing faintly, instead of sounding like gunshots and high speed chases.
3. She doesn't have a yappy dog. In fact, she doesn't have any dog. And she won't be getting one, because they've changed the pet policy around here and we can't have dogs any more!
4. She has a mid-sized car instead of an SUV. On it, she has sorority license plates and two random big decals of Wallace and Gromit.

When you compare, New Neighbor is MUCH BETTER than Old Neighbors! Sure, I had to go downstairs and scream at her once already, but that's because she was moving in at midnight with an enormous moving truck, about ten movers, her dad, and two friends, all yelling, banging around, slamming furniture and boxes and slamming cabinets. I chewed her out and she apologized and blamed it on the movers being late, so that was good. At first I was scared because her daddy and mummy pulled up in a Lexus SUV and mummy had a small dog in her arms, but - now I think I'm gonna love her!