An L.A. Vintage Car

It is quite possible that I will never get over missing Los Angeles. I have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for four years now.
There are a lot of things I like about San Francisco, but I hate the weather. I know - I'm being a baby - there's no snow, it's nothing like the East Coast or Canada or the Pacific Northwest or... Siberia. But compared to Southern California, where I spend the first twenty-something years of my life, SF is cold and bitter and damp and bone-chilling and gray.

Just a few days ago I was shopping and eating a salad at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California. (Without a sweater, a scarf, or tights. Just sunglasses.) DD and I saw this cool lavender car with violet flames on the sides and white walled tires. I don't know what kind of car it is, but it sure is beautiful!

Happy New Year's Eve!

The Asian Mannequin

I saw this Asian mannequin at a Victoria's Secret downtown today (downtown San Francisco, that is). I was surprised to see her; I don't know that I've ever seen an Asian mannequin at a VS before! Mannequins are rather scary; I'm not sure if I think that because they look so fake or because they look so real. In this case, it's more the gray pallor of her "skin" that creeps me out. I wonder how much cheap mannequins like this one at Victoria's Secret cost?

For a few thousand dollars, you can get a much more realistic Realdoll. They have a few Asian versions, too, for the Asian fetishists out there. They are named Mai, Kaori and Rui. That cracks me up. Another thing that cracks me up is that the website lists the features and benefits of the dolls and says, "Relaxing and Comforting - provides stress-free companionship". Well, dang.


Caution: this site has X-rated content (okay, maybe it's more like NC-17 content):

Realdolls

A fine art photographer named Elena Dorfman made a book called Still Lovers, documenting the lives of people and their Realdolls.
It's fascinating.

Elena Dorfman's Still Lovers

It would be hypocritical of me to say it's weird to buy and live with and love a Realdoll. For one thing, I try to reserve judgement about others' sexual practices, as long as they don't harm others, and I hardly think anyone is being nonconsentually hurt in these situations. Besides, I have a stuffed polar bear that I'm so attached to that I take him traveling with me!

Goodbye, Hello Kitty

For years (about thirty) I've loved Hello Kitty. It feels very strange to say this, but I think I'm officially over it. I don't dislike Hello Kitty now, and I still love some of the Hello Kitty things I have (my Tarina Tarantino necklaces, for example) but I've oversaturated myself with Hello Kitty and I just can't take it anymore. It's like sweets at Christmas... they're all around me at work, and I think if I eat one more thing with sugar in it, I will throw up. Any sweet tooth I had has officially been killed by the abundance of Christmas treats... and Hello Kitty shall follow.

I knew something was happening a few years ago when I suddenly started to avoid Hello Kitty items that were pink. Once upon a time, in the late 70's, Hello Kitty things were always red and white. At some point, pink took over, and now most Hello Kitty things are pink. I started to only buy things if they weren't pink. I like pink - just not Hello Kitty and pink together. For the past few months I've just felt sort of "blah" whenever I see Hello Kitty stuff. I passed the Sanrio store a few times lately with no desire to go inside and see what was new. I purged my stationery collection, plus I started getting into really nice cotton writing paper, and Sanrio stationery, while cute, is just not printed on very nice paper. It is strange to think that something I've liked for so long, and been associated with for so long (and people know I like Hello Kitty. They give me things, and tell me they saw this Hello Kitty thing and that Hello Kitty thing) is something I am leaving. I guess it's all part of growing up. When I asked my mom why her house was getting more traditional and less modern in style and decor, she just said, "Your tastes change." I guess I'm losing my taste for Hello Kitty.

Ain't No Carrie Fisher (Eragon, the Movie)

I really loved Eragon, the novel by Christopher Paolini, as well as its sequel, Eldest. I'm eagerly anticipating the third novel in the trilogy. I like science fiction and fantasy; the hard core fantasy people among us would consider me a mere dabbler, but I've read my share of Piers Anthony (the whole Xanth series), Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card and the like.

Naturally I saw this movie this past weekend. I was somewhat disappointed by it. The first photo is the character Arya, who in the novel was described as black-haired, green-eyed, a ferocious fighter, pointy-eared (she's an elf) and stunningly beautiful. I was expecting something more like Liv Tyler in Lord of the Rings. Or even Kira from The Dark Crystal. Every time DD and I are disappointed by a female fantasy character in a film, we always compare her to Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in Star Wars, and we say, "She ain't no Carrie Fisher."

Re-Gifting

Is re-gifting rude? 'Tis the season of Secret Santa office name-drawing and generic gift-giving. I don't think re-gifting is rude if you're giving something you don't need and won't use to someone who will enjoy it a lot more than you will. There's nothing wrong with that. As annoying as it all can be, I still think you should try to get a somewhat thoughtful gift for the person whose name you draw, even if it is your bitch of a boss. Well, I actually really like my boss (and feel lucky to have her as a boss), but you know what I mean. So far, this is what DD and I have given away in the Christmas (excuse me - "holiday") office giveaways:

1 book about mixing drinks (to someone who appears to be an alcoholic)
1 Elvis Presley Christmas tree ornament (DD bought and gave this. I shuddered when I saw it.)
1 Japanese calendar and 1 pack of multicolored wooden chopsticks (in a generic white elephant giveaway at my department holiday party)
2 Dagoba lavender blueberry chocolate bars and 2 bars of chocolate soap (to the receptionists at my work)
1 Pharmacopia lavender hand cream and bath salts + 1 Dagoba lavender blueberry chocolate bar to one receptionist at his work
1 Pharmacopia lavender shower gel and 1 body lotion + 1 Dagoba lavender blueberry chocolate bar to another receptionist at his work

(Yeah, I know. DD's receptionists got bigger gifts than mine... but... I'm on a tight budget. Plus, one of the receptionists at my work is also my friend outside of work, so I got her another gift, too.)

Okay, I re-gifted the Japanese calendar. My Dad got it for me. He gets me a beautiful Japanese calendar every year, which is cool, but now I don't even have my own workspace at work, I just float along to any empty desk with a laptop, so there was no place to hang the calendar. So I re-gifted it.

Here's some of the stuff we've received in the Secret Santa White Elephant Office Parties:

1 bottle of red wine
2 stemless Breast Cancer awareness Champagne glasses (they're pink)
2 battery-operated light-up desktop fountains (DD received these and loves them. Thank God he has decided to keep them at his workplace, where they belong)
1 company keychain (DD's company)
1 Timbuk2 brand messenger bag with company name on it (every single person at DD's company received one. All 1,500 of them. I joked that he should post a "missing bag" email and describe the bag. "black with a blue stripe... has the company logo on it... anyone seen my bag?")
1 margarita recipe book, 1 margarita glass
1 miniature lava lamp nightlight (I love it. It's plugged in in my bathroom. I stole someone's gift in the White elephant gift game. "I would never steal someone's gift," she told me. "Obviously, I would," I replied, cackling.)

It was reported that one person at my work was unhappy with the white elephant gift she received and loudly announced she would re-gift it. Even though I think re-gifting is fine, it's only fine if it's done delicately. Announcing to your coworkers that you were dissatisfied with your gift is just F-ing rude. Also f-ing rude - another co-worker opened her white elphant gift (exotic hot cocoa mix with chiles in it) and declared, "I got sick off this last year!" I really like that brand of hot cocoa; it's expensive and it's delicious. I kind of wanted to chastize her for being rude and then demand she hand the chocolate over to me. Another co-worker of mine was miffed at herself for giving away the really nice bamboo cutting board that she secretly (and not so secretly) wanted to keep. I've heard her mention this a few times. If it's making you sad enough that you have to mention it a few times, you should have never given it away in the first place! I hope she's learned her lesson. I know I've learned a few through this holiday season, but the biggest is: don't be an ungrateful bitch! Or maybe... don't do these forced gift giveaway things at work at all. They bring out the worst in all of us.

My Fountain Pen

I am the overjoyed owner of a new Conklin fountain pen! It has a custom-made italic nib (the flat type of nib that people associate with calligraphy) so that the person writing with it (me!) gets a thick and thin line variation in the writing. Pens like this improve anyone's handwriting. I tested many pens and this one was my favorite. It writes boldly, has a generous (even heavy) ink flow, and feels very comfortable in the hand. DD bought it for me as a Christmas gift, but my calligraphy teacher cleaned and filled the pen and said that it's good to use your fountain pen every day, or else the ink can get a little dry and clogged, so I received the gift early. Which is great, because I really, really wanted to start writing with it right away!

Knitting Gifts

I knit and crochet; mostly knit. I do this sporadically, increasing my knitting frequency in winter. Knitting lore says to never knit a sweater for your boyfriend or girlfriend because it will cause a breakup (much like the taboo against tattooing oneself with a lover's name). I've made a few knitted and crocheted gifts for friends; I don't do it often, because it's a lot of work and you're never really sure if that person's going to like and use the thing you made. If you buy someone something they don't use, does it really matter? Sure, you may have spent your hard-earned money on the gift, but did you have a hand in the creation of the gift? No!

Now a knitted gift - on the other hand - is intense. Every inch of that yarn has passed through the knitter's hands.

Which is why I thought it was so very, very strange that I saw my EX-very close friend on a street corner in Downtown San Francisco yesterday... with a big mauve ombre scarf I crocheted for her a few years ago (when we were still friends) wrapped around her neck! What a freak! I threw away every single thing she'd ever given me long ago, except for a Junko Mizuno book she gave me, which I couldn't bear to throw away, so instead I put it in a box and stacked it with her other unpacked moving boxes in her garage, where her grandchildren will probably find it in fifty years when she dies.

... More Bags

The two Harajuku Lovers camo bags DD gave me, along with Herbig...

Rhodia Paper

Rhodia notebooks are something of a cult classic. The covers are some kind of tough, coated paper, and the paper itself is incredibly smooth vellum. The pads come in a wide range of sizes, from tiny to a full 8.5" x 11". The classic pads are gridded with faint lavender lines. I'm realizing that I don't like that graph paper so much (both the pads I have are the graph paper type), but they also made the larger pads plain and ruled. The paper is really a pleasure to write on.

My New Tote

Part of my Luna-versary gift from DD is my new tote bag. It's so big we call it "Herbig." There's a show I've been renting on DVD called "Dead Like Me" and part of it takes place in a temp office called "Happy Time." For many reasons, I love office humor, like the British show "The Office" and the old movie "Office Space."
I don't watch TV (I don't have cable. I worked for Time-Warner Cable as a salesperson in college and had enough TV and cable information and marketing shoved down my throat and stuffed into my brain to last a lifetime!) but I rent films and the occasional out-of-date series sometimes. Anyhow, the office manager character on "Dead Like Me" is named Dolores Herbig. When Dolores tells anyone her name, she says, "Herbig, as in Her Big Brown Eyes?" and points to her eye. My new tote bag is named Herbig, as in Her Big Harajuku Lovers Tote Bag.

Tote bags are hit-or-miss: your things can get lost inside, and they have the potential to get ridiculously heavy and cumbersome, depending on how much stuff you stuff into them. I have my stuff in subdivided bags within the tote bag; there's a makeup bag, a pen case, a big, thick envelope for paperwork, receipts and mail, and a mini-purse with my wallet and keys inside, so if I want to leave work for an errand, I can just grab that mini-purse instead of the whole tote bag. The secret to making a Herbig tote bag functional is having smaller bags within the big bag, plus purging the contents of the bag at least every few days. Also, the Herbig cannot be too heavy, or it's bad for your shoulders and back.

The second photo shows the little dangling charm that comes attached to the bag. It's a little image of Gwen Stefani. I also added a Sanrio cell phone charm (the pink and blue hearts) to make it more interesting.

Luna-versary

DD and I are not married, and for now at least, we've committed to not getting married until everyone who loves each other and wants to get married in the United States can - meaning: We won't get married till lesbian and gay couples can. I'm not trying to preach or to say that this is the right stance for anyone else - it's just something that's important to us.

We've been partnered for five years, but every month we count our "Luna-versaries," rather than anniversaries. I mean, a year is long time to wait for a celebration, a nice dinner out, and a gift, isn't it?

DD has great style, and is the kind of person who can carry fashion off very well. You know how some men look best a little understated, dressed in classic clothing? He's one of the lucky ones who look good dressed with a touch of flamboyance, and although that quality is not necessarily related to age and body type, he's young enough and slender enough to get away with rather a lot of flamboyance.
I love his sense of style, and I love that my partner is cool enough to wear these crazy limited edition half-shelltop "Cities" sneakers. They come in "LA", "New York City", "Kingston" and "San Juan". He wanted them: I got them for him for our Luna-versary.

Neighborhood Cat

There are two cats that are always hanging around outside, enjoying the breezes, the occasional rays of warm sun, and the twittering of wild birds. They seem more like little tiny wildcats than the domesticated kinds of housecats you pet and pull off your couch arms. There's this one and a tabby one that blends into the landscape better. I like this one a lot. He once sat still and watched a gopher hole for an hour! I was supposed to be working on something at my computer at home but kept looking out the window to see if he was still there.

Rocketworld Creature Hoodie

The
Rocketworld Creature Hoodies arrived! Dear Daniel likes being a bear...

After some thought, I decided not to get one for myself. I already have a new casual winter jacket; it's cream colored with a faux fur trim, and I got a new one last year, too. In that time, DD hasn't gotten one; he needed one more. Yes, we could have both gotten one, but as much as I think everyone would be a lot happier if we all had animal ears and paws on our clothes, I still have this THING about couples who wear the same things. It's kind of revoltingly sickeningly couple-y. So I am happy to see him in his new Creature hoodie!

The Pink-N-Purple Hula Hoop

Someone cleverly made this hula hoop out of some kind of plastic piping from the hardware store, and then wrapped it in pretty tape. It's make of four parts, and comes apart for storage. It's more weighty than your average toy store hula hoop, too, and thus more fun to hula hoop with. Being a sucker for such things, I bought it ($25) and have been having a great time hula hooping around the house ever since!

Holiday Family Dysfunction

Everyone thinks their family is the most dysfunctional family on the planet. But mine really is!
Today I get to see my sister. Back up - I have a sister. She is five. I didn't even know my dad was dating anyone (my parents are divorced and my mom is remarried) till one Father's Day about six years ago, he dropped the bomb on me that he was having a baby. He was just on the cusp of sixty, and I was more than old enough to be having my own baby, so it was weird.
"Are you partnered?" I asked, puzzled.
"No," he replied.
"Well, are you in love?" I asked.
"Uh, no," he replied.
"WELL WHO'S THE MOTHER?!" I yelled.
Turns out she is a friend, a friend with whom my dad had often complained that he has a contentious friendship with. It annoyed him that she always argued for the sake of arguing (well, hell, she's a trial attorney, what the hell did he expect?!), that she doesn't read books, only money magazines, and that's she's supremely disinterested in the arts and nature. My dad is a dreamer; cerebral to the point of being in outer space, leftist, a catch-release fly fisherman, and basically an aging hippie. They had a contentious friendship well before the baby was conceived. I'm still trying to figure out what happened and how, while trying to block out the anatomical details.

I haven't exactly been blocked from having a relationship with my sister, but let's just say my dad and Baby Mama haven't exactly fostered one. When the baby was born, no one called me, as I'd requested. I kept calling Baby Mama's parents' house and someone kept answering who spoke only Cantonese. When it was clear I didn't speak Cantonese, they hung up on me. After a few days and about thirty tries, I had to ask a Cantonese-speaking friend of mine to call for me. Then, when the baby was an infant, I was told I could not see her yet because in Chinese tradition, only FAMILY can see the baby for the first month. After that I didn't speak to my dad for about a year. I finally met the baby at a family reunion (my uncle's 70th birthday) where everyone was there so I kind of had to make nice.

It's all very strange, and I've had my feelings hurt enough times by my dad and Baby Mama that I've just had to let go of any expectations and rosy dreams of having a cute little baby sister. For one thing, they live in Los Angeles and I live in San Francisco. However, Baby Mama's parents and siblings live in San Francisco and they visit often. When they do, my dad usually wants to visit me and crash at my apartment because he's not comfortable at Baby's Grandparents' house. He says it's crowded, and "They only speak Chinese," he complains to me.
"Well, they're first-generation Chinese, Dad, what the hell do you expect?" I say. There is a world of difference between first generation Chinese and third generation Japanese American; they may as well be aliens from other planets trying to parent this child together.

I still don't get the relationship between my dad and Baby Mama, nor do I know what the relationship will ever be between my sister and me. But they're in town this weekend. Yes Baby Mama and the baby are staying at the Chinese grandparents' house, while my dad is staying with me and Dear Daniel a few blocks away (walking distance!). It is weird, it is dysfunctional, it is sad and confusing. But I am excited to see my sister again and give her the presents I have been collecting for her.

Here's to dysfunctional families!

Young Lovebirds

Over the past few months, I've seen this twenty-four year old guy I know fall in love for the first time. Well, I have't really SEEN it, I've just heard about it. He's an acquaintance through my work, and because he's the delivery person for one of the restaurants we sell to, I see him every day when he comes for his beets, carrots and chives. He's usually the first driver in each day, at least after I get there - they start coming at 3 am, but I'm not there till around 6:45. He comes at 7:00 or 7:05. We always say good morning and ask each other how our evenings were the night before. He's been to my house and to an art show my friend was doing - we're kind of friendly.
Well, he fell in love. He went from giving me a rather crass Too Much Info a few months ago: "GUESS WHAT?! I HAD SEX LAST NIGHT!" (punctuated with Butthead-like giggles - of Beavis and Butthead) to going home for the holidays with Free Sex Girl over Thanksgiving, to telling me today, "I think I sorta fell in love with her last weekend. She used to vounteer at this mental hospital, and we went there to visit, and all the nurses and patients were like saying her name and they all loved her, and she was so beautiful there. I don't know! I think I'm going to ask her if she wants to live with me!" This was followed by a rather wild-eyed, messy-haired dazed look. He looked at me somewhat shyly, as if expecting me to laugh at him or put down his idea.
He said they eat out a lot now and he looked forward to making food together. That touched me. At some point I thought, it's so cool; I am seeing a glimpse of a boy becoming a man.

You Know You're Getting Old

You know you're getting old(er) when others' reactions to you start changing in strange ways: today I was at a grocery store looking for rice roll wrappers, when I spotted a young man wearing a shirt with a name badge dangling off the pocket. "Excuse me," I said, "Do you know where - "
"I DON'T WORK HERE!" he practically screamed in my face, glaring at me as he edged away from me. He seemed insulted that I was suggesting he worked in the grocery store. Upon closer inspection I saw that his name badge was from some auto parts store.
"Well, SORRY," I said, "But you're wearing that BADGE." I said BADGE in the same tone I would say TURD, like, "You're wearing a TURD."

So I made a mistake and someone yelled at me; no big deal, right? People ask me ALL THE TIME in stores if I work there. It's usually in department stores or Crate and Barrel that this happens. I don't know why that is. I think I just have Retail Face, or else I'm hustling around the store with so much purpose that it seems I work there and I'm actually working intstead of just bargain-hunting. I don't get upset, I usually just tell them I don't work there, but then I offer advice anyway as if I did work there.

The thing that upset me so is that a few years ago, even two years ago, a young, presumably heterosexual Asian American boy like Mr. Auto Parts would have HAPPILY pointed me to the rice wrappers, possibly even walked me there, while explaining regretfully that he did not work at the grocery store but maybe we could hang out sometime. Two years ago I had long hair and wore open-toed high heeled shoes every day, which I don't now, because I work at a vegetable warehouse, and because, well, it's San Francisco, it's winter, and my feet are cold and need socks. It's just a fact. I've lived here for four years and only in the past two years have I accepted and admitted that my feet need socks and shoes in the winter here. I froze my feet for a full two winters here. When I lived in Southern California, I barely even owned socks. Maybe a few pairs of running socks - that was it. Other than my shoes and my hair, which is now shorter but I think actually cuter, I think I look the same as I did before I was thirty. But I think youngsters can just SENSE that I'm over thirty, and that's why he treated me like I was an eighty-five year old wild woman who had just dropped her dentures on his shoe and grabbed his balls.

To make matters worse, when I discovered that the store didn't even carry the rice wrappers, the young man (who did really work there) who explained that to me said, "Sorry, ma'am." He called me ma'am! Dear Daniel is a full four years younger than I am. I'm an older woman. I'm an old woman. It's so unfair.

Hey. Pleasure Heals!!!

Last weekend, when I ventured to Sebastopol, California, I visited The Sensuality Shoppe. I'm always curious about sex toy stores, since I used to work for the mail order division of one. The Sensuality Shoppe is small and feminine and the three staff members who were there when MM and I visited were all very nice, soft-spoken and gentle. They all had on clothing made of silky and flowy fabrics. The sex toys and porn movies are housed in a little back room. There's a window in the wall of the toy/movie nook leading to the register area, and the window is covered with an amber bead curtain. When one of the soft, silky ladies wants to check on how you are doing back there, she parts the strands of beads gently, smiles, and says, "Are you doing okay?"

It was interesting... The store I once worked for was more like The Gap or the IKEA of sex toy stores: generic, apolitical, bright, overly-cheery, and guilty of the gag-inducing use of too many cutesy, saccharine puns in their web, catalog and ad copy. So by contrast, the overtly feminine, amber-patchouli-ness of the Sensuality Shoppe was fun to experience.
Pleasure Heals. And don't you forget it!

Tara Mc Pherson

Meagan Moonshine really loves Tara McPherson, so I'm featuring T McP here. She uses a cutout heart or an empty space in a character's chest in the shape of a heart often, and I wonder why and what this means to her. If I ever meet her, I will ask her. Or, perhaps this is discussed in her book Lonely Heart: The Art of Tara McPherson.

There is something disturbing about her images, to me. The characters are so still and expressionless; mannequin-like; they freak me out a little. The angel is one of my favorites, though. It reminds me of someone I know.
the website of Tara Mc Pherson

Camille Rose Garcia - Artist

Camille Rose Garcia, besides having a beautiful name, draws and paints things that are dark, gothic, blood-drippy, jeweled, glistening-shimmering sweet and cute, all at the same time. This piece is called "Aquamarine Refuge." I love her stuff.
She has a book I would like to have, called The Saddest Place on Earth: The Art of Camille Rose Garcia. She has a show called "Doomcave Daydreams," showing right now at the Merry Karnowsky gallery in Los Angeles, CA.

Visit Camille Rose Garcia's website..

Give Thanks for Mushrooms

Some people theorize that mushrooms are the descendants of interplanetary traveling spores from other galaxies, or something like that. All I know is that mushrooms are one of my five favorite foods. The other four are Champagne, chocolate, butter, goat cheese and crab. And coffee. Well, hell, that's seven. Plus duck. And heavy cream. And payaya with lime.

I invited no guests over for Thanksgiving this year. After a big Thanksgiving with a lot of guests last year, I promised myself and DD we'd have a quiet, relaxing one by ourselves this year. His work gives each employee a free-range turkey, and my work gives the employees an abundance of wonderful organic produce, so we are making a turkey dinner. I already roasted and carved the turkey and threw the weird bones into a pot for turkey soup, and made horseradish mashed potatoes with Yukon Gold potatoes. And we went running! Now we get to drink mimosas and get hungry, then comes mushroom gravy and vegetables. I feel happy that we're using nothing packaged and that my trip to the grocery store yesterday was only for Champagne, flowers, and ice cream! "Where are the CANS OF FRENCH FRIED ONIONS?" I overheard a woman asking a worker, with a note of hysteria creeping into her voice. Thank God I'm out of all that.

Somehow I feel like I already ate a whole turkey, because I've been smelling it and dealing with it all morning. Even with just the two of us, cooking the turkey seems to be about how many times I can mess up the kitchen and then clean it again...I dropped meat on the floor, I spilled hot turkey grease... last year I used a disposable aluminum pan - the wing pierced the flimsy aluminum and the juices dripped into the oven... it was dramatic. My mom laughed at me, told me the same thing happened to her once upon a time, and then she bought me a nice roasting pan for Christmas. A really nice roasting pan. It only took a few moments to clean!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are some things I'm grateful for:

1. I'm really, really healthy and able
2. I have a peaceful and happy living situation and there's a tree outside my living room window
3. I have a job where there are a lot of nice people, working for a company that doesn't do harm
4. I'm grateful for Dear Daniel
5. I still have both my parents and they're both healthy
6. I have pretty hair!

...and more...what are you grateful for?

Blue Sky "Real Sugar" Cola

Around two years ago, I had my last Coca Cola; I used to drink Diet Coke or Cola Cola Zero once in a while. When I was really young, we were poor and hardly had any groceries period, but as I got older my mom started drinking Diet Coke, and it was always around. When I was a kid and a teenager, she told me not to drink it, saying it would stunt my growth. Of course, I drank it anyway. Till two years ago, I used to drink one bottle a day (not a liter bottle - a 2-serving bottle, maybe 20 ounces). Then I read some article about how Coca Cola sets up shop in other countries and pollutes them, how they kidnapped and tortured union leaders in Colombia, and more. (see www.killercoke.org)

After I stopped drinking Diet Coke, I lost my taste for it and for any and all aspartame-type sweeteners. I'm not so much of a sugar addict, but if I'm going to have something sweet, it has to be sweetened with real sugars. I have a friend who is trying to wean her husband off Coke, so we split a case of Blue Sky Real Sugar Cola. Blue Sky also makes a cola sweetened with corn syrup, and a ginseng cola, but we got the real sugar one because we thought it would be the easiest one for Husband to adjust to. Plus, cola of any kind is a real treat for DD and me - for the most part, we try to drink water. We drink water, sparkling water, coconut water, and unsweetened iced tea, mostly. We both agree that Blue Sky "Real Sugar" Cola is like liquid crack!!! It's so sweet, so bubbly, and so BROWN. The more water and less soda you drink, the more shocking it is when you actually do have a real soda...

Hello Kitty "Tokyo"

Much to my own shock, I'm beginning to lose interest in Hello Kitty. I still love her, but I'm starting to get a lot more selective about what I like - for example, I now reject anything Hello Kitty that is pink, because so much HK stuff is pink, and I'm tired of the pinkness; it's a little too sweet and cloying for me lately.

This happened to me last year with leopard print. I've loved leopard print since I was a little girl. I remember asking for a leopard print sweater when I was around eight and my mom was buying some holiday clothes for me. The sweater was a little cardigan with fake pearl buttons. "Eeew," my mom said, and that ended that.
When I was old enough to choose my own things, I began amassing leopard print clothing and accessories, peaking a few years ago when my whole bed was leopard, and about half my purses and clothing! Of course, a lot of people love leopard, and it was never just "my" thing, but I became good friends with a woman who also loves leopard, and she's a few decades older than me, so she's had more time to amass leopard stuff. Her whole house is leopard, including toothbrush handles, the handles of her cutlery, her drinking glasses, towels, bedding, and half her shoes, purses and clothes. At my work, I met another woman who loves leopard and wears it often. So from knowing the two of them, I get enough leopard around me without craving it as much myself. I still buy pretty much all the leopard underwear and shoes I can, but other than that, my taste for it has declined a lot. And I feel the same thing beginning to happen with Hello Kitty.

This is a new tee shirt, though. I like it because it's blue (not pink!), and I like it for the way it makes a funny and ironic play with my ethnicity and nationality. I've never been to Tokyo (I want to go), and I don't speak Japanese; for chrissakes, I'm 4th generation - "Yonsei". Even living in multi-cultural San Francisco, a lot of people (white people) like to speak Japanese to me. I understand a little and can say, in Japanese, "I don't speak Japanese," which is what I always reply. But that's another whole rant for another day. Anyhow, I'm Japanese American (Chinese American, too). I'm not sure that everyone gets the joke or the irony if the tee shirt, but it still tickles me. Plus, it fits well. The shoulder seams line up just right on my shoulders, which is kind of rare when you're petite like me, but not skinny. I'm a bit more on the "solid" side... A small juniors tee shirt is usually too tight, and a medium, too big in the shoulders. This one is just right!

Jane Janey's Dream House

Speaking of outdoor showers reminds me of Jane Janey's house. I don't have photos of Jane Janey's house, so I will just have to describe it from memory.

Well, Jane's last name is not Janey, but everyone calls her Jane Janey. She is this very warm, generous, kind woman Dear Daniel and I met via some other friends a few years ago. Somehow we ended up visiting her house in Ojai, California, when we still lived in L.A. I can't remember why we went there, really. Jane was renting this house. She was some kind of semi-retired semi-wealthy semi-older person. By semi-older I mean older than me. Maybe in her late 40's or early 50's. She's masculine and kind of sexy in that gruff Daddy way. I think she was some kind of computer person who was part of the Northern California dotcom phenomenon, but I was never really sure. Anyway, she was taking a break from the hustle and bustle and renting this house in Ojai.
The house was modest from the outside, built on a hillside. The inside of the house wasn't huge or palatial, but it was beautiful and everything was the best - beautiful Corian countertops in the state-of-the-art kitchen, pot lighting in the ceilings, a gorgeous bathroom, a warm tile floor (I think it was heated), a nice guest bedroom with a soft bed and awesome sheets and towels. She was a great host...


The house was sort of U-shaped, with a center portion and two wings, and an incredible back area; a wood deck, huge - a hot tub, outdoor shower, native plants, an incredible mature oak tree. There was a steep drop off down to a canyon out back. She had a homemade wood-and-rope swing tied to a branch of the tree, and if you swung, you swung over a cliff and out above the canyon; nothing below you but a thousand feet of air. It was hella scary, but I went swinging anyway. Jane Janey and Dear Daniel were drinking beer and talking on the deck and the sun went down. I was swinging in the darkness and the sky looked deep purple and dark blue and coyotes were howling out there somewhere, and the air smelled like sage and woodsmoke and grasses. After swinging for a long time, I went into the kitchen and cooked some salmon Jane Janey had, and we ate it for dinner, outside on this thick plank table she had out there. Later, Jane Janey took off her clothes and got into the hot tub. Dear Daniel isn't one to get naked in front of people very easily, but we took off our clothes and got in the hot tub too. Jane Janey laughed about how young DD and I were; she said my skin reminded her of butterscotch, of a lover she had once. (She had a way of giving a woman a compliment that made you feel sexy and admired without feeling uncomfortable. There aren't many people who have that ability.) It was amazing sitting in the hot water out there in the wild. I felt like I was in some kind of Western film. Or some movie about California that's nothing like anyone's real life. But I guess it is some people's real life!

Afterward, I showered under Jane Janey's outdoor shower. It was one of those wide shower heads that looks about as big as a dinner plate, and the water rains down on you. The floor was the wood of the deck - wood feels really good compared to shower tile or cheap porcelain bathtub, let me tell you. The air was kind of cold outside, it was hot under the water, and I used Jane Janey's Dr Bronner's liquid peppermint soap to wash with, which delivers quite a tingle. Just that one day and night at Jane Janey's house was the best, most restful vacation I've ever had. When I imagine owning a house one day, I always imagine living in a house like that; simple, with a lot of glass, no clutter, the best of everything but not too much of anything, in the middle of nature, with an outdoor shower and a swing that lets you swing into the sky.

The Outdoor Bathing Room...

Yesterday my pal Meagan and I went on a day trip to Sebastopol, California, which is in Sonoma County. One of our coworkers lives there, and she was exhibiting and selling some of her jams, pickles and photography at a friend's home there. Several women were putting on a craft fair party, benefiting some charity that helps at-risk young women. Sebastopol is about an hour from San Francisco by car (on a no-traffic day). Unfortunately for us, there were three multi-car accidents along the way, so it took us much longer to get there, (plus, we got lost) but we made it. The weather was incredibly mild and lovely yesterday, and the artisans were set up both inside and outside the house, so it was nice.

As Meagan and I got further and further from San Francisco, the landscape got more and more green and more and more "country". Meagan was driving my car - she loves to drive, and I was pretty tired from working a sixth day at work (I'd worked from 5 - 9:30am in our warehouse at work) so I was happy to be the passenger. At some point I began to see cows on the hillsides, and when we were actually in Sebastopol, driving along a country road dotted with adorable houses and the occasional restaurant or shop, I saw a little herd of miniature goats. (Herd of goats? Flock? Pack of goats?) I interrupted Meagan's story she was telling me to say, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just saw a whole bunch of cute goats! I love the country!"
"But why would anyone want to live here?" Meagan of the City wondered.
"Because it's beautiful and clean, and because you can have GOATS here, Paris Hilton," I replied.

Next we got lost.
"Can you turn there?" I asked, pointing ahead at what looked like a road.
"Uh, that's not a road, it's the entrance to a Flea Market," Meagan said. Finally, we had to stop at a gas station, where Meagan/Paris proceeded to accidentally hit the horn, loudly blasting some Country (Sebastopol) Lady with Mall/Country Hair who was waiting in a plastic chair for her car to get serviced. Jeez.
I asked some nice white man (okay, EVERYONE was white there; it was really kind of weird and shocking to me) where "Hessel Road" was, and he kindly gave me directions. "You'll see an Indian motorcycle shop, you'll see a lot of old Indian rugs and totem poley type stuff, and right beyond there, you turn right," he said.

Yes, he said TOTEM POLEY type stuff...

The craft fair was great fun. I bought hand-dipped beeswax candles, pickles, fig jam, raspberry jam, and a handmade hoola hoop. The Hoola Hoop lady was also selling something she called, "Ma's Moonshine", which contained apple, pear, spices and brandy, among other things. That shit was so strong, I felt drunk after just two samples and was pretty sure I could breathe fire if someone lit a match near my mouth. Meagan bought two bottles of this home made Ma's Moonshine, and she kept trying to get me to taste more and more of it. I think I'm going to call her "Moonshine" from now on.

The people who own this fantastic country house built an outdoor, open-air bathing house. It has an elevated redwood deck, matching deep antique bathtubs, full plumbing, a wood wall covered with passion flower vines, and an outdoor shower made of galvanized steel. It is so fucking cool. There are few things in life I love as much as taking an outdoor shower... much less an outdoor bath! I hope I own a house one day. It would not have to be huge or fancy, but I would definitely build an outdoor bath room!

Sonoma County is just about the most perfect place in California, and probably the whole lower 48 states. But I could never live in a place with that little ethnic diversity. I was the only person of color I saw the entire day there.

Emzymion Skin Cream

Lush is a weird phenomenon: it's this line of fresh, handmade skin products that have a cult following. It started in either Canada or England (I know, I know, they are two very different places, but I know it began in one of them) and spread to all the English speaking countries, and then some. Apparently they are the originators of the round fizzy bath bomb and everyone else who makes one copied Lush.

I avoided Lush for a long time because the shops are so fragrant you can smell them down the street. But taken individually, the stuff smells amazing, works amazingly well, and is so fresh it expires. The combination of these two products, "Enzymion" skin lotion, which has papaya enzymes, and is designed for oily skin, and "Enchanted Eye Cream", which I dab around my eyes and onto my eyelids, has turned out to work really well for me. I rarely even apply foundation any more, because my skin look so freaking good. I used to get a little oily by midday and now I don't. Also, my makeup lasts longer and I reapply blush and powder less often. I'm like some preserved wax museum creature now. My skin is all even and smooth, I don't have dark circles under my eyes, and my makeup doesn't disappear.

My favorite Lush stuff (other than the aforementioned):
Honey Bee bath ballistic, Honey I Washed the Kids soap, Snowcake soap (smells like almond extract), Sonic Death Monkey shower gel (smells like chocolate, coffee and tobacco. Weird, but great), Butterball bath ballistic, Twinkle bath ballistic, and Skin Sin body lotion.

As bad as my retail shopping experiences are at places like Macy's and the MAC cosmetics pro store, they are inversely great at the LUSH store on Union Street in San Francisco. The store is staffed by zany women who talk really slowly (I think they get high from all the stuff they're smelling all day) and who are very sensual. "Feeeelllll this...." they purr, offering a wooden posicle stick that's been coated in some kind of lush goo. "Smellllll this.... mmmm..." they moan, proffering some open bottle or a bath bomb. It's like walking into some kind of soft core porn movie. It's really fun!

PS The background is the Wonders of America commemortive postage stamp sheet, available at your local US Post Office.
They're one of the few stamps I really like right now.

The 2007 Stamps Suck

When I was a child my dad would take me to the big Post Office in downtown Los Angeles, right by Olvera Street and Union Station. I would look at all the commemorative postage stamps they had to offer, and choose a pane. They were even more exciting than stickers! The Georgia O'Keefe ones were beautiful (well, I wasn't a kid when those came out) and there were usually some amazing flowers and animals stamps to choose from. I still like commemorative stamps, but they're getting suckier and suckier every year. There are fewer and fewer good ones.

Something that really bugs me is the glorification of corporations in US postage stamps! Remember when the LOVE stamps just said LOVE and had heart images? For 2007, the LOVE stamp has a Hershey's corporation brand kiss on it. As if there isn't enough Disney-down-your-throat in all other aspects of American life, there were Disney stamps in 2006 and there will be more in 2007. Hell why not just drop all pretense and have Halliburton stamps? Mc Donald's? Verizon? Time-Warner?

The only ones I'm excited about for 2007 are the animals and plants of the tundra stamps, and the "Pollination" ones which show four different pollinating bugs and birds with four different flowering plants. The Ella Fitzgerald ones are cool, too. But that's all. No wonder everyone has stopped sending real mail...

Gimme Brains 'Zine Distro!

You can find my 'zines (and many others!) at Gimme Brains Distro, run by zombie queen Mae Undead, right out of NorCal.

I can't even fathom how much organizational skill it takes to run a 'zine distro, and it's a labor of love; most distros barely break even on costs. They do it to give others access to rare and underground publications. Distro owners are just awesome! So swing by Mae's distro - you are sure to find some 'zines that will interest you.

GIMME BRAINS 'ZINE DISTRO!








image from Gimme Brains Distro, Mae Undead

Fountain Pens and True Love

Each year, San Francisco artists participate in "Open Studios" - where they all open their studios to the public. My calligraphy teachers, Ward Dunham and Linnea Lundqust, opened their studio, Atelier Gargoyle, and I went there and tested all of Ward's special fountain pens, which each have a hand-ground italic nib so you get that wonderful thick and thin line variation while you are writing. I fell in love with a pen that day; an orange marbled Conway Stewart number. I never would have guessed just by looking at it that it was the pen for me, but once I held it and wrote with it, I knew it was The One! Well, sometimes love is unpredictable like that. I haven't consummated this burning passion yet, by the way. It goes against my plan of not spending money on myself before the holidays.

Do you like writing with fountain pens, or want to find out if you do? My pal Meagan recently introduced me to the Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pen. It's inexpensive, but smooth-writing, comfortable, and just really nice. The ink flows extremely reliably and generously (it's advertised as "fine point" but compared to many fine fountain pens I've tried, I feel it's closer to what's described as medium point) and it's a fountain pen you don't have to worry about losing. Writing with it is a simple pleasure! Try it out and in the meantime, you can spend a little more time looking for the fountain pen of your dreams. Don't settle!

The Golden Compass

I just finished reading this book: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. It's technically a piece of young adult literature, but it's incredibly rich and complex, and not exactly light fare. I loved it so much that when I was down to the last thirty pages, I had to go out and get the next book in the trilogy (The Subtle Knife) so I wouldn't have to agonize about what happens next.

It's got a brave young female hero who travels from London to the North Pole wearing furs and eating raw seal kidneys, armored polar bears, magical animal daemons which are part of each human being, sharing their feelings and thoughts and able to change their animal shapes, the aurora borealis, a hot air balloonist from Texas, and more. A grand quest, good versus evil, and coming of age, all between the pages of this book! As much as I love the ever-popular Harry Potter series, I daresay The Golden Compass is better, more imaginative, more creative and otherwordly. It has a cult following, but is nowhere near as popular or well-known as Harry Potter. Perhaps because the protagonist is a girl and not a boy? Hmm.

Flowering Tea

I'm currently into flowering tea - the tea leaves are sewn into a tight, dry ball. When you steep the ball, it blooms into a beautiful tea-flower that looks like a sea anenome. First it blooms, and then begins to infuse the water and turn into tea. It's extremely fun to watch. You can do it in a glass teapot, like mine, or even in a jar or French press. I'm looking for a clear travel mug so that I can drink flowering tea at work.

Numi tea sells little glass teapots like mine, and several types of flowering tea. They have a mixed box with nine different types of flowering tea in it; it's called Numi's Bouquet. It comes with a paper inside describing each type; kind of like a box of chocolates, only it's tea!
My co-worker Sue has a tea hook-up, though (her sister is a tea-dealer), so I purchased twenty dried tea balls from her for $1 apiece.

Numi Flowering Tea...

Voting at The Log Cabin

Today was the first time I voted at The Log Cabin location in San Francisco's Presidio. I've always seen this building while walking or running and wondered what it is and what people use it for. It has some big white letters on the outside saying simply "LOG CABIN". Inside, it literally had walls made of logs, and a yellowed, faded, flattened carpet that might have been installed in 1977. The air smelled like hamster pee. There were only three poll workers - two extremely young-looking teenage boys and an old man. They were very capable, though. They checked off my name (I was on the roster. I'd brought my ID and bills with my address just in case I was purged from the rosters. I was already rehearsing how I would demand a provisional ballot... I kept having this paranoia that I was going to be disenfranchised today...) handed me a ballot packet and waved me toward one of the empty plastic booths. (I suddenly remembered going to the polls with my mom when I was little. The booths then were made of wood and were much bigger than they are now. I asked my mom who she voted for and she told me it was none of my business! it was 1980, and Reagan won. I know she didn't vote for Reagan. I was dying to discuss politics with her, but she acted as though I was asking her about something totally personal.)

After I marked my ballot, I carried the sheets (in a blue "privacy folder") over to one of the young boys, who was babysitting an ancient-looking machine that looked like a prototype ATM and made little chirpy electronic beeps like R2D2. I fed the ballot sheets into the machine and it sucked them right in, beeping happily. The guy gave me my "I voted" sticker and that was it.
It's always kind of anticlimactic, voting, isn't it?

Attack of the Crocs!

Everyone in San Francisco is wearing these colorful, non-leather shoe things that look like gardening shoes or muppet foot coverings, or the blobs that a kindergartener might draw in an attempt to draw shoes. They are called Crocs. I've seen them on people of all ages and styles. I've been seeing them for a while (a few years, I think) but they've only become ubiquitous in the past year or so. They look cute on some people (mostly people under the age of six years). In this man's case, I like the way his red Crocs give a shot of color to his otherwise drab, colorless, and typically Bay Area outfit. I hear they are wildly comfortable. I tried on my coworker's pair, and they did seem wildly comfortable, in the way that my fuzzy bedroom slippers are comfortable, or that my boyfriend's gray sweatshirt, several sizes too big for me is comfortable, but you don't see me wearing bedroom slippers and my boyfriend's sweatshirt out in public, now do you?!

Okay, being completely honest here - I think they are totally hideous and look like clown shoes, and any man who can't be bothered to tie SHOELACES cannot walk alongside me!

Crocs cost less than $40 and are sold at many places, including Nordstrom. So if you MUST get a pair... they are easy to find.

Crocs

My Family - Trashier Than Footballers Wives

My mother wrote me an email, or I thought she wrote me an email - turns out it was only an email my aunt had written to my mom, which my mom then forwarded to me.
My mom has five siblings. I am an only child. So I think she likes to fill me in on the trials and tribulations of my aunts and uncles because I don't have any sibling drama of my own to deal with.

Anyhow, my Uncle was married and had three children, very nice children. My cousins are now something like ages 22, 20 and 18. He and his First Wife (very nice wife; she was great) divorced some ten years ago and she went on to marry a Much Better Guy - good for her. My uncle then impregnated and married a woman who was in her mid-twenties when he was in his early forties. She already had one child of her own, who was around seven or eight. Yeah, you do the math on that! Fine... all fine. I might have raised my eyebrows at not exactly the age difference, but the fact that when I tried to make conversation with his new wife, she proved to be incredibly dull, but I didn't think much of it.

They had a baby. A year later, they had another baby. A year after that, they had yet another baby. Meanwhile, the 2nd Wife's First Child did not even live in their house - she continued to live with 2nd Wife's parents. Why 2nd Wife continued to make new babies when she wasn't caring for her First Child, I don't know.

Next, Second Wife had an affair on Uncle and got pregnant with Other Guy's baby.
She had a meltdown, admitted that the baby she was carrying (her fifth child, at age thirty-one) was not Uncle's, and she quit her job, left the house and the three babies, ages one, two and three. Uncle continued to work, and care for the babies.

The latest email forwarded on to me from my mom states that Second Wife is back living with Uncle and still seeing Other Man. She gave birth to Other Man's Baby and Uncle cares for all FOUR babies now. Second Wife is severely depressed and watches TV all day.

This is not, I repeat, this is NOT something I saw on TV - an old rerun of a Jerry Springer episode. This is my friggin' family. It's depressing. I'm far enough from them to just watch with a kind of sickened horror, and yet... they're related to me.

Uncle owns two pieces of art that I want - they are part of a four-piece series and I have the other two pieces. They belonged to my grandparents and I'm really not sure how he got them - I think they were given to him when I was just a kid and he was decorating his first apartment or something like that. Maybe I will offer to trade him some condoms for the two pieces of art. Seems like he needs something like that...

Banana Slugs

It stopped raining, although it was still very damp. We went for a walk. The air smelled pretty good; like eucalyptus... at first I thought I was looking at a fallen eucalyptus leaf, in fact, and then realized it was a banana slug. The path we were walking on was shaded and cool, and the slugs were making their way across it. We saw several of them. They look kind of gross to me, but I know they're beneficial creatures; they eat the fallen leaves and animal poop and turn it all into soil. Supposedly, they live all along the Pacific Northwest, in the coastal forests, and they're one of the largest slugs in the world. I've seen them in Santa Cruz before, where they were yellow and spotted, and fatter than the greenish ones I saw today. As the sun dropped lower and lower, their slimy trails gleamed...

Acacia, Olive Oil and Herbs...

Lately, I love acacia wood - I have some oval appetizer trays and several little dipping bowls. I would like to get salad plates or salad bowls made of this wood. It's rich and smooth and variegated, and feels so warm compared to stoneware or glass. In here I put olive oil, halved cloves of garlic to infuse into the oil (not to chew!), thyme, marjoram, rosemary sea salt and a little puddle of balsamic vinegar. It's delicious when you dip a little crusty bread into it!

Straus Creamery Eggnog

It's the first rainy, gray day of the season here in San Francisco. (Well, it's often
foggy-gray, but this is the first rain.) Halloween is over, and at my workplace, we're all anticipating the arrival of the literal TONS of Thanksgiving food that comes in and has to be dealt with; received, moved, stacked, counted, dated, sold and then moved, palletized, and trucked. Fifty pound bales of potatoes, sweet potatoes... carrots... Thanksgiving is the biggest time of the year for all people in the produce industry, and because it's all fresh (ours is organic and mostly local, so it's super-fresh) there's no way to space out the workload. It all happens in the span of four or five exhausting days. Everyone pitches in to do the physical labor here at this time of year, from our CEO to our receptionists. It's all kind of fun, but exhausting.

But before Thanksgiving... here comes Christmas! We also sell Straus dairy products, and today the first eggnog arrived. "There's no water in it," my coworker Mary, who orders the dairy stuff told me, "Egg yolk, whole milk, cream and nutmeg; want some?"

Heart attack in a cup!!! I told her, "Yes, But just an inch!"

So delicious!
(Even better with the rum, though, probably.)

Straus Creamery.

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.