The Supernatural blah de blah

My foundation has sunscreen in it, but I only apply it to certain parts of my face, and very lightly, usually. I'm not the most religious about sunscreen, although I always aim to be. I try different ones constantly, looking for something that has a light texture, doesn't smell like sunscreen, and doesn't make my skin feel like it's been been daubed with a beignet.

I kind of like Neutrogena "Dry Touch" sunblock--it's got the light texture and a matte finish, but it really, REALLY smells like sunscreen (a sweet-ish, bug-spray, deodorant tampon sort of fragrance). Plus Neutrogena is just so... drugstore.

One of my co-workers (well, technically an ex-coworker. She left to go to college) let me try her Murad oil-free tinted sunscreen , and I was pretty close to buying that the other day. I even had it in my hand. But a salesperson or beauty expert or associate or whatever they are called at Sephora showed me Philosophy's the supernatural tinted SPF. It's oddly peach-colored, but the peachiness disappears almost as soon as you apply the cream. I'm extremely wary of "one tint fits all" cosmetic products, but I have seen peach work better than white in several instances, most notably this Bliss cuticle cream that I think Bliss discontinued. It was peachy-brown and made dry white cuticles disappear.

The Philosophy stuff is very light and non-smelly, and the very subtle tint disappeared on both DD and me. I'm going to try to get into the habit of wearing it on my face, chest and backs of my hands every day. My mom was a middle-school PE teacher for many years (now she's a science teacher). She worked outside, and we lived in the desert. She looks great now, except for her leathery, prematurely-aged skin. I can't let this happen to me!

Read about the peach sunscreen stuff...

Heelys - Not Just For Kids... Really.

One of the great athletic pleasures of my childhood (and adolescence, and heck, my adulthood) was skating. First there was rollerskating, at which I and every other kid my age was a whiz. The difference for me was that my mother (a PE teacher, volleyball and basketball coach, and killer on the tennis court) was never the "be careful, honey!" type. No, she was more like Bela Karolyi with a ball. Harder, faster, and more daring was her motto. I recall her on a ladder pounding volleyballs at me and bellowing "SACRIFICE YOUR BODY!" as I dove here and there to bump the ball. I still wake sweating on occasion thinking BUMP SET SPIKE! I think I was in fifth grade, being coached two years ahead of time to try out for seventh grade volleyball. Goaded by my mother's athletic ethic, which I feared more than falls and scraped knees, I rollerskated, rollerbladed, skateboarded and cycled like a fiend. Rollerskating and rollerblading were probably my favorite things, and I spent many a day ditching college classes and rollerblading from Will Rogers State Beach to Redondo, past the Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach somewhere in the middle. Oh, Southern California! Anyhow, I love skating of all types.

The reason people my age still skate and baby boomers don't is because when we were kids, skates were already pretty good, and when boomers were kids, they were rickety pieces o' crap which you had to, like, unlock with keys and whose wheels would barely turn. Bad sports equipment sets you up for failure. Kids these days won't stand for lesser ball bearings than ABEC 7s in their wheels.

There are two rather strange and futuristic-functional types of shoes I've been coveting for some time. One is a pair of expensive, hella-ugly walking shoes from Bliss Spa that are supposed to really shape your legs and butt up fast as you walk around in them. I want them, but it's hard to spend so much for something so ugly, when you're not really 100% sure they're any better than a regular good walking or running shoe.

The other, much more affordable shoe I've been wanting, and just got, are Heelys. Heelys have a little wheel in the heel of each shoes. I've enviously watched everyone's kids rolling and walking around in these things, and I finally got a pair for myself. Heelys are quite different from regular skates, so it takes some practice to understand how to use them. I got them yesterday and spend the greater part of last night rolling around on my hardwood floors. I'm sure my downstairs neighbor loved it (if she could hear it over her blaring TV). Then I spent the greater part of this morning rolling around the smooth floors at Ross Dress For Less, looking for discount shirts.

They make Heelys in adult sizes, and they're well under $100. I wish everyone could be on wheels, all the time!

Crystal Pave Skull Necklace

DD gave me this necklace for my recent birthday--it's a pave skull and crossbones, with Swarovski crystals. It's Tarina Tarantino. I've been pining for the thing for months. I love it so much that I've worn it practically every day since then.
The ultimate reaction to this accessory was my CEO's disapproving comment, "A jeweled skull?!" A fashion criticism coming from someone with an iron-gray bowl haircut and lots of fleece--I'll take that as a compliment.

Two things have gotten me really into red, white and blue (and neither of them is the American flag):

One is my Blackletter calligraphy teacher, Ward Dunham. From him, I learned that Blackletter calligraphy is always, well, black and white, unless an accent color is added, and that's always a beautiful vermillion red. If a second accent color is added, it's always ultramarine blue. I've looked at pages and pages of old Blackletter texts (reproductions) and all that black on white, with red and blue imprinted itself mightily on my brain, apparently, for I'm now crazy for red and white, blue and white, black and white, stripes, pirates, skulls, and, uh, espadrilles.

The second influence was the film Blood Tea and Red String. If you can find this charming, dark, disturbing and sweet handmade stop-motion animation fairy tale at your local independent video store or Netflix or whatever, you must watch it, and you'll see why. The colors are saturated, primary and beautiful, and there's a lot of red and white stripes, red spider silk, white porcelain tea cups filled with blood tea, and an unfortunate blue bird.

Smallest Coolest Starts 4/9!

Apartment Therapy's Smallest Coolest contest starts today.
YAY!
People who have cool living spaces 650 sq feet or smaller enter photos of their home style, decor, small-space solutions and overall design cleverness. The prizes are various furniture gift certificates. It's fun to look at the photos, but even more fun are all the bitchy comments from the peanut gallery-- everyone who follows the contest, looks at the photos daily, and viciously critiques the entrants. They also rip apart everyone else's comments. It's great fun and I enjoyed lurking around the 2006 Smallest Coolest Contest, although I never commented.

it's at Apartment Therapy.

The Itoya Paperskater

My latest pen of choice is the Paperskater by Itoya. It's a rollerball-y type pen, with super quick-drying ink. The ink just flows out very smoothly, and the line is fine and crisp. Even my left-handed Dear Daniel uses them, with no smudging problems so far.
There are some people who enjoy a pencil cup that's filled with several of the exact same pens (or pencils), and I am one of them! For some reason this makes me happy and calm, and I feel that things are orderly and abundant when all the pens in my pencil cup are of the same type. When I worked at the front desk at my work, I used to try to keep the pen cup there filled with matching pens. Customers would use the pens to sign their invoices. But the pens would always disappear, and worse--much worse--my coworkers would deposit different, unmatching pens and pencils and Sharpies and paperclips and gum wrappers into the customer pencil cup all the time. It was never going to be the way I wanted it, so I had to force myself to give up. I still get a pang every time I see that pencil cup (usually either empty or with two or three decrepit, unmatched pens in it).

Home is a different story altogether! Home is where one can have a pencil cup with seven or ten of the exact same pens, all of which write, none of which have been infected with the latest flu virus.

Whimsical Drawings by Hayes Roberts

I used this drawing of bees with their hive for my company newsletter, which I design and lay out. It's called the Bee, and each issue has a different bee on the title page. The artist is extremely friendly and easy to work with, his license fee is ridiculously reasonable, and he responds to queries right away. If you need whimsical drawings of insects, animals, forests, or dinosaurs, check out bluebison.net.

Black Paper, Gel Ink

I have about a hundred different Gelly Roll by Sakura pens; the Gelly Roll Metallic and Gelly Roll Moonlight show up beautifully on dark paper. I really like Strathmore Artagain recycled black-fiber paper for doodling with these pens. I like Gelly Roll's amazing range of colors, but Sanford Uniball Gel Impact Metallic pens have a broad, 1.0 mm tip and lay down a consistent, heavy flow of silver or gold ink. DD mentioned to me that the art department at his workplace uses them for signing posters and photographs, and last year's holiday cards, which were done on dark brown paper. Apparently they come (or used to come) in a range of metallic colors, but I've only been able to find silver and gold widely available. If you need silver or gold ink for whatever reason, Sanford Uniball Gel Impact are the best.

Wine and Cheese and Stinging Nettles

I didn't grow up with cheese, so I never learned about cheeses (I didn't grow up learning about wine, either. My mom likes Beringer's White Zinfandel; that should tell you all you need to know). Now that I'm an adult and I live in San Francisco (as much as I bitch about San Francisco, I know it's the luckiest place in the country for people who love artisanal food) I try new cheeses all the time.

My boss introduced me to Brillat-Savarin at our deparment holiday party. Brillat-Savarin is my favorite cheese, now. It can be described as something between cream and the best sex you've ever had. It's better than chocolate. It's better than massage. It's better than ecstacy, the drug. (Okay, I wouldn't go that far. I've only dropped e twice and both times were amazing experiences.)

My favorite farmer, whose name is Peter Martinelli, is a very charming and delightful person, and I had a good time interviewing him and writing about him in our company newsletter a few months ago. One of the things he told me was that in addition to growing crops, he does a lot of wildcrafting, or gathering wild medicinal plants, herbs and wild edible plants. One of the plants he gathers is stingling nettles, and Cowgirl Creamery uses them for their springtime-only cheese called St. Pat's. St. Pat's is a little round of mild, mellow, delicious cheese (not stinky) wrapped in nettles. The nettles give the cheese a slighly vegetal flavor, like asparagus or artichokes. Peter gave me a gift of St. Pat's the other day, and DD and I had bread and cheese and salad for dinner. The cheese is super-delicious, and I'll have to get more soon, because it's only available once a year!

Work. Death. Denial. Upper Middle Class?

I've never wanted to write about work, because for one thing, whenever people write about work it's boring, unless they're a teacher, a prostitute, or a farmer. Another thing--it seems awfully ungrateful to bitch about a company whose mission and values I admire, and the company has been good to me. Hell, they changed the word "minorities" to "people of color" on our website when I bitched about it, and they give me responsibility and training.

'Course, there are always people at any workplace who are awful. There's one person I find particularly awful, and I try to avoid her as much as possible. She's so awful and weird that I have to break my code of silence to write about her. Her mother died yesterday and she said she needed to "get things done", that there wasn't a lot she could do for her family, and that she was coming in to work. I was horrified. Thankfully, I left before she arrived. But she came to work again today, wearing a red blouse, lipstick and with curled hair, for God's sake. She never wears lipstick and she never curls her shapeless, iron-gray-and-black hair. She smiled serenely through her day, got on the phone, made lunch reservations for the weekend, chatted with her two underlings, asked one of them whether she feels she gets enough positive feedback, and sat at her desk answering a bunch of e-mails.

My co-worker said that it's because she's a Scorpio, and they don't deal well with death. Is this true?

My mom wasn't even close to my grandma; in fact, she was disowned for about five years before my grandma died, and she still went to my grandma when she was dying; in fact, my grandmother fell on top on my mom at the last, and literally died on top of her. Then my mom handled all my grandma's legal stuff for her dysfunctional siblings and took in her coddled younger brother, who at age thirty-six is incapable of taking care of himself or of holding a job. I'm only using my mom as a counter example because she's the only person I know whose mother has died recently. I just don't get a person who would curl their hair, apply some garish lipstick, and come to work like nothing happened the day their mother died. Don't you have some siblings to support?! Some papers to sign? Some cousins to call? Some feelings to feel?! Some filial piety, sheesh. Or is filial piety only for us, because we're Chinese?

I'm sure this is horribly unfair of me, but whenever I truly just don't understand people, it's usually because they're a heterosexual upper middle class Christian white woman (yes, she is one). They're like the Stepford Wives. Donna Reed with a hatchet and a handful of prescription pills. Oddly cheap, for all their financial security. (This woman plans to make her daughter save money for Lasik eye surgery. "But why not pay for it?" I asked. "She inherited her terrible eyesight from you, and you and your husband can well afford it..." ) Prim and proper. Fake and phony and high-pitched and chipper. Evil inside and saccharine outside. Manipulative and passive-aggressive. She is all this and more, and I find her truly revolting. But it is just a cultural disconnect?

Skeepants

My favorite little rodent is almost 2 years old. Hamsters don't live much longer than 2 years, usually. Realizing this suddenly a few minutes ago, I woke him up, took him out of his little bed-nest, constructed a set with an Anthropologie gift box and a tube, fed him a few raisins, and took a picture of him.

I got a hamster because I had a few of them when I was a kid (in succession, not all at once. They're solitary and can only live alone, or else they fight), and I liked them. I had a few bad experiences with them (one of them was really bite-y, another gave birth to about ten babies a few days after we bought her and then she ate all her babies) but the last one I had I really loved. He was a mellow, fluffy thing, cream-colored, and I un-creatively named him "Creamie". I was around eleven, I think, and after that hamster died of old age, I was already a pre-teen and was no longer interested in such childish hobbies; keeping a hamster.

Suddenly, I wanted one again, so I got Skeepants. He was a baby when I got him; really small. He's the same color as the late Creamie, and also has long hair, like Creamie. I saw him for sale in a habitat with several siblings; they were all cute and fluffy and cream-colored, but they were all active and climbing all over Skeepants' head, and he looked like he was trying to fall asleep. When baby hamsters are really little, they don't mind being together, but once they reach a certain age, they really start to want to get away from each other, and he looked like he needed his own place right away; moreso than the others. I felt sorry for him, I wasn't sure if he was sick and dying or what. I bought him and took him home. I didn't tell Dear Daniel that I was going to do this and I was a little worried he wouldn't like the idea. Everyone loves a puppy: not everyone loves an animal that's closely related to a rat. DD stared at the hamster for a while and then said, "Can we call him Ski Pants?"
(This was because Skeepants waddles and his legs and butt are so furry that he looks like a chubby toddler in ski pants.)
That's how Skeepants got him name.

He's a very interesting and gentle little creature. He's extremely tame, and it's fun to feed him little treats and watch him do his little things, like cleaning himself, drinking water, gathering paper towels strips to line his nest, and cutest of all-- eating.
He's old now, but he could still live another six months, or even longer. I hope so!

Ranunculus

I bought these bright ranunculus at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market today. Spring flowers are back!

Another great thing about the Farmers Market and spring: Bodega Goat Cheese is back! Goat farmer and cheese-maker Javier Salmon disappears from the market each winter, because the baby goats need all the milk. This weekend Bodega Goat Cheese was finally back! Their goat cheese is mild, fresh, and delicious.

There are lots of great things to be had at Arch drafting supply in San Francisco, like small notebooks from Japan, Rhodia paper, pens, folios, ink, and art and design books. I was torn between buying a book of drawings by Yoshitomo Nara and this business card case designed by Rod Dyer and made by Acme Studios.
Because my business cards have just been shoved into my little wallet with some various dollar bills, and that's not a very nice or professional way to keep them and to exchange them with others', I got this case. I'd been eyeing it online at modern goods store Unica for some time, so when I saw it at Arch I thought I should get it. It was the only one they had and it was in a case, which somehow makes me feel (hope) I won't see too many other people with the same one. I love black and white, I love the shiny enamel and the clean, unfussy design.

Spring Has Sprung

Warmer weather always brings out the shorts, the sickly pale legs, the camisole tops, and my personal favorite: the exposed ASS CRACK!

Someone once asked me how I manage to take pictures of people without their knowing I'm taking their picture. Oh, come on; it's so easy. I've done it in crowds, I've done it when their friends were looking right at me.
For this shot, I simply asked Dear Daniel to pose near the group of women who were sitting on the ground with their butt cracks peepin' out of their low-rise pants. "Smile!" I said cheerfully, as I pointed the camera not at DD, but at the stranger's butt. No one pays attention to anything.

I've also been asked whether I think I'm being unfair or cruel by taking photos of people without their knowledge or permission and posting them on my blog. The answer is no! They're always anonymous, and it's not like it's Britney Spears' genitals.

Everyone Needs A (Pink) Knife

Someone at work lost a knife last night. It's nice. I like knives a lot; my dad is a fisherman, and so I received ny first fishing knife as a gift not long after my first holy communion. The lost-and-found knife got Meagan and me talking about knives and how SEXY they can be and how sexy people can be with them. Everyone who likes knives has their list of dream knives that they would love to own, but this little pink number is very affordable not to mention very pink, and, well, CUTE! Do you like this one, Meagan?

Designed by Ken Onion. Kershaw knife.

Chocolate

I once made a list of chocolate beauty products that really smell like chocolate. I put the list in my 'zine. I'm making an updated version, since some things have changed.

First of all, a lot of chocolate beauty products don't really smell like chocolate. They smell like fake chocolate; like Tootsie Rolls or Necco Wafers compared to real, dark chocolate. I'm always on a quest to find the best chocolate beauty products.

Origins Cocoa Therapy so far is the best. It comes in bar soap, body wash, some shea-butterish stuff they call "Total Body Treat", lipbalm, a scrub, a little roll-on scented oil, and a rich body cream. The body cream is the best. It smells like real cocoa, with orange and some other scents that smell delicious and rich. I haven't tried the lipbalm, but all the other things are very good. The bar soap is soft and creamy and plush.

I also love Lush's Sonic Death Monkey shower gel shampoo, which smells like chocolate, coffee, stale cigarette, and lime. I know that sounds hideous, but it smells really good, smoky and yummy. DD smells really good after he washes with this.

My third favorite chocolate item is Giovanni Hot Chocolate Sugar Scrub. It's a handful of scrubby goo that smells like chocolate pudding, and it's a big jar for the twelve bucks. (The Origins cream is a bit of a splurge at $27 for the jar of body cream about the size of a small tub of whipped cream cheese.)

Those are the best chocolate beauty products out there. And I'd be happy to be be proven wrong.

Smells Like a Sexy Faun (or Satyr, Maybe)

I have sensitive hearing and a very sensitive (and fussy) sense of smell. The smell of Original Tide detergent is overpowering and frightening to me, and don't get me started on that most hideous perfume of all time: Clinique Happy. It should be called Clnique Horrified.

I like fragrances that are fresh and green, citrusy, peppery, gingery, and/or minty. (I also like chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, clove.) I tried Annick Goutal's Mandragore the other day and I love it. It's considered a unisex fragrance: they describe it as woody, with notes of black pepper, mint, and anise.

To give you an idea, it's along the lines of these other fragrances that I've liked at various times: Clinique Aromatics Elixir (kind of), Clarins' Eau Dynamisante, Annick Goutal Eau De Sud, 4711, and the Diptyque Fig candle. Not that these things smell alike, I just think that if you like any of them, you'll like Mandragore, too. Its fragrance makes you think of lying around smoking hash in a meadow at twilight while weird sexy woodland beasts play flutes and dance...

Crane Paper

I love Crane and Co. paper, because it's heavy, thick, 100% cotton, and feels great. The paper sucks up ink beautifully; it's fun to write on. Seriously; the difference between your average sheet of notebook paper or Post It paper and Crane and Co. paper is analogous to the difference between Sprite and Veuve Clicquot. On a trip to NYC, my mother bought me some correspondence cards by Crane and Co., very simple cream colored cardstock with a little black lipstick tube with pink lipstick in the lower right corner. They were feminine and fun without being too frilly. I loved those notecards, and at the time I didn't realize that was a limited edition design, or else I would have bought all the boxes of it they had.

Most of Crane's current designs are a little conservative for me, so I stick with either plain cream or their solid colored correspondence cards and notecards. I have white, cream, turquoise, hot pink and orange. They have soft colors like pink mist, bar harbor blue and wasabi green, but I'm not too keen on those. I like the notecards pictured here, but I think I'd get tired of them after a while.

Anyone who still takes pen to paper and enjoys it, or anyone who still actually writes a thank you note when someone has been thoughtful enough to give them a gift should get themselves some nice paper. And if you don't write thank you notes, then you don't deserve the nice paper. (Maybe you don't even deserve the gift.)

The Orchid Thief

One night per month, or shall I say every twenty eight days, I have insomnia that's not related to stress or work or exciting ideas; instead it's related to my uterus. "Something weird is in the air," I complained to DD.
"Like what?" he asked, sleepily. "An earthquake?"
"Never mind," I said. "I'll get up and read."

I'm currently reading The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean. It's been around some seven years or so. it's kind of like one long super-interesting feature article about the history of the development of Florida, the fantastic animal and plant life of the Fakahatchee, the histories of European and US American orchid collectors, orchid cultivation, and John Laroche, the real-life orchid thief who stole a bunch of orchids from protected wetlands.

I've loved orchids all my life; my maternal grandfather had a collection of cymbidiums and oncidiums in his homemade greenhouse, and I loved to assist in the process of repotting and splitting the orchids, playing with the bark chips and dusting a few stray ants off the long stems when the orchids were in bloom. My grandfather had a beautiful garden that surrounded the house; the house was on a corner and the yard went all the way around; you could run around and around the house, and the path took you past the greenhouse, across the brick patio which was overhung with wisteria (I loved the long, velvety-green seedpods), over pebbles and under a bamboo grove, past the earthy damp shaded parts where moss grew on the stepping stones, to the front of the house and the rose garden. There were slopes covered with ivy, which grandpa and my mom later dug up and built terraced planters for. There were orange and red nasturtiums trailing along and up the fence grandpa had built, and I would examine the vines for dried blooms, because each one had a seed inside. The seeds were as big as garbanzo beans and very easy to germinate. I liked to do that, and had my own little seedling nursery at my grandparents' house. Grandpa was always working outside, planting and weeding and building, but the yard always did have a wild feel to it; I could always find pretty and unexpected and weird things like a fallen birds' egg, perfect spider webs, lizards, and a tarnished silver cross that may have been dropped by a raccoon.

My grandpa was always offering me orchid plants but I never accepted them for fear I'd kill them. Since he died I've had a few but I've never had success getting them to bloom. Reading The Orchid Thief, I think I understand them better, and feel I was too hard on myself when it came to my orchids. It seems they're tough and stubborn plants; they'll only bloom under the right circumstances, and they're not at all native to San Francisco, so the right circumstances have to be carefully created in a place like this. My grandparent's house was in Southern California; in comparison, San Francisco seems cold, damp and salty. I've seen orchids growing and blooming here, but I don't blame mine for not wanting to.

Bobbi Brown On "Asian Beauty"

I'm involved in my company's latest project: project website update. I'm the point person, contact person, touch-base person or whatever-other-business-type jargon person for our graphic designer/brand builder/web genius woman. As a result of my working with her and of listening to and taking notes while everyone on the web committee picks apart our site (and other sites, for comparison and contrast), I look at websites in an entirely new way. I scrutinize. I wonder about code. I hate their flash animation or love their flash animation. I want to barf when I read their copy.

I've long toyed with the idea of blogging all things related to being an Asian American woman, especially since I'm insulted, assaulted and annoyed on a daily basis by all the ways Asian American women are stereotyped, maligned, advertised to, belittled and just generally fucked with in the media - and heck, I don't even watch TV. But usually I think it's just not something I want to devote myself to - it's an exercise in frustration, and not a very pleasant pursuit.

In my insomniac listless web surfing and online shopping fest, I clicked my way over to makeup slinger Bobbi Brown's website; I purchased two cream blushes from this company several months ago and also heard about some kind of magical tinted moisturizing balm I wanted to read about. Behold: Bobbi Brown's photo! Hey, I knew she was into "natural" ... but I didn't know she was this natural. I'd really rather buy makeup from someone who looks like a drag queen (regardless of sex and gender). It's just more fun.

The Bobbi Brown website also has a drop-down menu for special looks, or special "problems" to overcome with makeup.
"Ageless" is a category, you know, to combat the problem of aging. She tells you what to use to look "ageless".
Oh, and Hispanic is a category, you know, to combat the problem of, uh, being Hispanic, I guess. "HISPANIC WOMEN HAVE AMAZING SKIN AND HAIR COLOR" reads the blurb, and yes, this rather patronizing and meaningless sentence is written all in capital letters. Never mind that "Hispanic" is a controversial and political term, but would we expect a big cosmetics corporation to know anything about the history of "Hispanic", "Latina", "Chicana" and "Xicana"? Well, no.

The statement on "ASIAN BEAUTY" reads as though someone wrote it after a few gin martinis. All I can say about Bobbi Brown and her strong beliefs about my yellow skin is I think she should mind her own business, talk about color and features without grouping them by race and ethnicity, and, uh, try not to sound like an ignorant whitey.

And I wish Kevyn Aucoin were still alive and working.

Gelly Roll Pens

I've amassed a pretty big number of Gelly Roll pens (the maker is Sakura)in a short amount of time, and because a lot of colors look the same in the pen, for example black, dark green, dark blue and purple all look like black inside the frosted barrel of the pen, I labeled all the look-alikes with P touch labels. Dear Daniel, who exhibits signs of obsessive compulsive disorder at times, made all the labels for me. Some of the colors are ones that he picked out, and those are labeled in such a way as to be read when the pen is being held by a left-handed person, since he's left handed.

I don't actually covet ALL the Gelly Roll pens Sakura offers. I like the bold point ones because the inks flow so freely, and I like the medium point ones that are metallic, because they write on dark paper, and because the metallics don't come in bold.

You can do a lot of fun things with them. I like to doodle and draw little flourishes when I'm trying not to think in any one direction but to let ideas come to me instead.

Scratchboard Illustrations - Michael Halbert

Enamored of illustrator Michael Halbert's incredible scratchboard images, I imagined them adorning this homespun little newsletter I put together at my work. It's call Produce Notes, and it gives information to our customers, who are mostly markets and restaurants, about what's in season this week, what's ending, what's coming next week, etc. Our Produce Notes has a long history, and has been done by various creators over the years, each person making their own changes to the design, the writing style, etc. It's fun looking at the big binders which hold all the old copies. I've done exactly one issue of the Notes so far. I intend for my contributions to include wonderful paper in a palette that makes sense, a layout that's pretty, clean and super readable, and beautiful, legally-acquired art. In pursuit of the beautiful, legally-acquired art, I telephoned Michael Halbert. And hey, if you call him, he answers the phone!

He's out of our league, and I quickly learned that the cost of the license to use one of his drawings is beyond my budget, but you can't blame a budding graphic designer for trying, now can you?

(Umm... image of peach and raspberries by Michael Halbert, obviously. Go to his site and see the rest!)

Josef Frank

... some of the crazy-cool, modern things designed by architect/designer Josef Frank, who said, "The home does not have to be planned out in detail, just put
together by pieces its inhabitants love." It is true, isn't it? I'm super happy in my apartment, which is decorated with a combination of midcentury modern art that was done by my photographer grandfather's artist friends, a white 1960's style sofa and chair, inexpensive mirrors, framed pieces of paper that I like for the moment (I may tire of them in a few days), Marimekko fabric wall hangings that remind me of my early childhood in the '70's, and a dining table that's more French country looking than modern. I don't think you can decorate or dress all in one style or time period; it's too confining. A person should go for what she/he loves and trust that it'll all look great together.

Orfeo Quagliata

These beautiful, space-age objects are handmade glass rings made by designer Orfeo Quagliata, who was raised in a San Francisco art commune and now works in Mexico City. They're amazing, and amazingly, they come in sizes; my ring size is 5 1/2, so whenever I see pretty, fun things like this, like big plastic rings, the Dior lipgloss rings, etc., they nearly always come in only one size, and are too large for any of my fingers. While one of Quagliata's banded glass vases will set you back $600, these modern baubles are so affordable (some of these are under $30, others are around $65) you could buy a shimmering, light-catching double-handful of them! They're candy for grown ups.

Sigg Swiss-made Water Bottles

I try to drink a lot of water, for the simple reason that a massage therapist who used to come 'round my workplace (my previous workplace, not my current one) gasped in horror when she felt my back, claimed I had the second-tightest muscles of anyone in the company, and warned me that I needed to regularly stretch, r-e-l-a-x, get set up more ergonomically at my desk, and drink more water. It kind of scared me, since I figure she feels a lot of back muscles, and if mine shocked her, it must be bad. I try to drink a lot of water now. (I still work on a laptop at work at a desk that doesn't adjust, and I'm not particularly relaxed, but...)

I recently upgraded from a plastic water bottle (I had one of those special ones that say they don't leach plastic into your water) to one of these Sigg Swiss water bottles. They're made of aluminum and supposedly don't absorb any taste or odor, even if you have juice or tea in the bottle. They're nearly unbreakable. The bottles come in a lot of fun colors, sizes and designs. There are really sweet ones for kids. The one I got is this black one with white lace and a stag on it - the design is called "Swiss Tradition." Our part time receptionist at work really liked mine, and she drinks water out of a really huge glass bottle that she likes, so I went back today and bought her this white Sigg bottle with a modern-arty purple and lavender design on it; the style is called "Delight".

More Big Eyes: Fawn Gehweiler

While we're on the subject, I also like the ultrabright palette, gothic creepiness, and yodel-y, dark cuteness of Fawn Gehweiler's drawings and paintings.... Check them out - they are fun.

Artist Scott Musgrove

Check out the surreal, playful creatures by artist Scott Musgrove. I'm fascinated with big eye art, both from the 1960's and modern!

Blood Orange Brownies

My three favorite sweet things are creme brulée, gingery things like gingerbread, gingersnaps, etc., and brownies. And last night I tasted the best brownie I've ever tasted in my life. DD and I and another couple went to this Slow Food event, where vendors in the Ferry Building were serving tiny tastes of the various foods they make and sell. Stonehouse Olive Oil featured a Blood Orange Brownie made with their blood orange olive oil. It was so delicious; chewy, not-too-sweet, and slightly blood orangey. My friend surprised me with a bottle of the blood orange olive oil, and Stonehouse gave out the recipe, which looks surprisingly easy.

Blood Orange Brownies

1/4 cup butter
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1/4 cup Stonehouse Blood Orange Olive Oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt

Melt butter and chocolate together in a large saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients.

Pour into and 8 inch square pan greased with olive oil. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 25 to 30 minutes. Cool and cut into squares.

I've Never Wanted a Bowl So Badly

I have a lot of fruits and vegetables, and this is a beautiful bowl. I WANT IT!

"Node Bowl" by CAKE, at designpublic.com

Barbie by Tarina Tarantino, Barbie Loves MAC

Several months ago, costume jewelry designer Tarina Tarantino launches her retro-Barbie line. I'm not a big fan of Barbie; I had several Barbie dolls when I was a little girl, all in various stages of undress and dirtiness, most of them with cropped hair. A game I particularly enjoyed was bending Barbie's leg to an odd angle, pretending she had a compund fracture, wrapping the leg in toilet paper and Scotch tape, and building a wheelchair chaise for her out of my Legos. Sometimes I had a whole lineup of my broken legged Barbie patients lined up beside me in their Lego wheelchairs while I watched afternoon TV shows.

But Barbie is back. She's been around, but she's really back - she's aimed at people my age this time. At $200 + a necklace, Tarina Tarantino's baubles are not priced for children. Further, I received a Barbie Loves MAC (cosmetics) promo packet in the mail today - shaped like a black MAC powder compact bearing a pink Barbie silhouette, much like the second necklace. MAC has a whole line of Barbie cosmetics coming out any day now. One lipstick is called Real Doll: I rolled my eyes.
The theme is playful, sexy, naughty. Sexy little girl... Lolita... blah blah. Women are dolls, dolls are women, blow up dolls, Realdoll, porn, Barbie... you get the idea and the associations.

Tarina Tarantino's Barbie collection is a bit more interesting in that she uses Barbie images from several eras. The seventies-looking Barbie is my favorite. I like Tarina Tarantino's stuff a lot - but none of the Barbie items are on my wishlist.

Chinese New Year Is Coming and Dammit, I AM CHINESE

My co-worker asked me how long I'm going to continue working on Sundays. Till March, I told her, but I have Chinese New Year off.
"Why do you have Chinese New Year off?" she asked. "You're not Chinese."

"I AM Chinese," I corrected her.

"'Yamamoto' is NOT Chinese," she informed me. (Because I don't know that my own last name is Japanese?)

"Okay," I replied patiently, "Well, I have a MOTHER, and she happens to be Chinese."

For God's sake, people! This is the United States, and here people of different ethnicities do occasionally have sex and make mixed-ethnicity babies. I happen to be one. My sister happens to be another. We're Chinese AND Japanese and we're not putting up with anyone's bullshit anymore! Besides, aren't white people in America always on and on about "I'm one-eighth Irish, one eighth English and one-sixteenth French and one thirty-second Cherokee"? Well?

Paloma Picasso's Sugar Stacks

Nothing induces my gag reflex faster than a preppy milquetoast bore sporting a "Return to Tiffany" sterling silver necklace. (Okay, I had one, too, and I grew tired of it seven years ago.) I'm not interested in sterling silver.

I am HIGHLY INTERESTED in these Paloma Picasso-designed Tiffany Sugar Stacks, as they're called. I like the name; it's fun and playful instead of uptight. I like that the stones are semi-precious - amethyst, citrine, quartz and chalcedony, and I LOVE the smooth square cabochon type cut and polish. You can buy these rings individually, and they're meant to be worn as a stack.
There are two orange ones (orange chalcedony and citrine) and a yellow (lemon quartz) that would be awesome together!
If you can afford them, you should get them. :)

So, The Queen Mary 2 Sailed By...

I've been working six days a week at work. Five days a week I do my regular job, and on Sundays I function as a salesperson, keying in produce orders as restaurants and markets read off what they want. I've been doing this since mid-December and it's going to continue till mid-March. It sounded like a good idea at the time: my boss (she's very nice and I like her a lot) was going in for brain surgery, yes, BRAIN SURGERY, and needed Sunday coverage, and plus I figured I could use the extra money; maybe actually not live paycheck to paycheck, maybe actually save a little bit of a money cushion. Now I just wish it would stop... I see why people don't work six days... it's crazy-making.

DD came to pick me up, and then traffic started getting crazy as we got within about a mile of our home. And then traffic just STOPPED completely. What the hell? I wondered. DD informed me that the Queen Mary 2 was passing underneath the Golden Gate Bridge with four inches of clearance. He said this in all seriousness. I was barely even skeptical; I asked what happens if the water level is a little high? "That's why they're doing it at 3:30," DD told me. "It's low tide."
"Are that many people interested in watching the Queen Mary go by?" I asked. "Why is traffic dead stopped? Maybe Gavin Newsom is trying to jump off the bridge. Are you sure it's not four FEET of clearance?"

Just goes to show how totally ditzy we both can be. I called the police dispatch when I got home (oh, we parked our car and walked about 1/2 mile home past all the angry, pissed off people in their cars) and they told me that indeed, everyone was looking at the Queen Mary 2.

I looked it up online and found that there's actually 233 feet of clearance between the ship and the bridge, not, FOUR INCHES, or four feet.
Even as I write this, I can see traffic crawling by. I was thinking about pouring beer into little tiny cups and selling it to the drivers for $5 a mini-cup. Hell, five dollars a SIP. I also told DD I should cook a frozen pizza, cut it into twenty tiny slices and sell each one for twenty dollars.... it's 5:15 and I am sure people are hungry!

Dark Chocolate Dipped Altoids

DD and I went for a rather long exercise walk today; maybe 4 miles. I was a bit cranky toward the last 1/4 of the walk because I was getting cold. We stopped at a drugstore for a bottle of drinking water, and saw the Dark Chocolate Dipped Altoids. I'd never tried them before today, and I love the chocolate brown packaging, the light brown paper inside, and the mints are yummy. They're like teeny tiny Junior Mints. They have that same weird shiny coating. DD doesn't eat any beef or pork (or things derived from them) and Altoids contain gelatin so ha ha, they're all mine. I got chocolate peppermint and would like to try the chocolate ginger ones when I see them.

The Swopper Chair

Maybe I should have gotten the Swopper ergonomic work stool or chair instead of the yoga ball chair.

Yoga Ball Chair

When I first started working at my current workplace I inherited a broken chair. I told my boss the chair was broken and she told me I could go over to Relax the Back and pick out any chair. She gave me a rough guideline of $1,000, but said it was okay to go over if the most comfortable chair was more expensive. The generosity of this offer pretty much blew my mind. I like expensive things, but I'm pretty careful when other people are paying, so I chose this $100 yoga ball chair from Gaiam. It's basically just a yoga ball sitting in a plastic frame. Although it has a back, you're not meant to lean against the back. The whole point is you use your own body (your muscles) to hold yourself nice and straight on the ball. The fact that it's round and bouncy makes your body adjust itself slightly constantly, which keeps you feeling fresh and alive, instead of stiff, sore and fatigued.
I liked sitting on the ball chair, but I didn't like the cheapie wheels, or casters, or the cheapie frame. The chair doesn't roll very well, and also, if you're wearing certain fabrics, the texture of the ball will kind of grab the seat of your pants and pull them up your ass. I would love to see someone design a better yoga ball chair frame.
The ball chair is a great conversation piece. Everyone who visits our office wants to talk about it, ask about it, and sit on it.
Everyone either loves it or hates it. To me, it's better than a regular office chair, even the fancy Herman Miller ones. But the things I dislike about it, I REALLY dislike about it.

Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot? Newsom, Rippey-Tourk, Tourk?

One more thing - if Newsom and Guinevere, I mean Ruby Rippey-Tourk had just confessed their desire to have sex with each other to Alex Tourk they might have all ended up in a California King-sized bed together, like King Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot! And honesty and adult communication would rule the land of San Francisco.

The End...

Minor Scandal in San Francisco...

Top: San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom
Middle: Ruby Rippey-Tourk, substance abusing wife (in recovery) of Newsom's re-election campaign manager. Former appointments secretary to Newsom.
Bottom: EX-re-election campaign manager Alex Tourk, who resigned after wife told him she and Newsom shagged each other a year and a half ago. He stepped down yesterday, and Newsom made his heartfelt apologies to Tourk and to the "people of San Francisco" today.

That's it!

Does anyone care about Gavin Newsom's peckerheaded affair? I don't. It's a big snore; it's a pale, cheap imitation of Bill - Monica - Hillary. When the little mayoral race in San Francisco happened, everyone who was green, anti-war and progressive voted for candidate Matt Gonzalez anyway. The only time I ever think about Newsom is when my friend Heather declares that he's so hot she can't stand it. At those times, I stare at photos of him and try very hard to understand her taste in men. Since I so rarely see her, that's not very often. But today I was standing outside waiting for my teacher to come downstairs to let me into her building, by a couple of newspaper dispensers, and there he was, splashed all over the cover of the SF Chronicle as if it were a tabloid - which it is.

The part that disturbs me is his laziness and lack of creativity in finding a sex partner. It's downright disappointing.
I might think he looks as exciting as Wonder Bread, but there are any number of women in SF who not only would do him - they'd be quiet about it if he asked them to. Hey, Heather is one of them. (Okay, so she'd only tell fifty close friends.)
He could have smart women, successful women, super hot women, super hot guys, and any combination thereof.
But, no! He goes for literally the nearest person he possibly could. They chose each other by proximity. Like turning and shaking hands with your neighbor in mass! Peace be with you!

As for her - she's an addict, so we'll let her off the hook. She needs to wean off the drugs and the boring politicians.
Creative types are so much sexier!!! I just feel sorry for her. AND for her poor, overtweezed eyebrows.

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