Echo

Check out http://www.whitepeople.tv/

Click through to the video skits. Reggie plays a pimp.

Weekend Recap

Reggie and I went to see INXS at the Greek Theatre on Friday, spawned by my infatuation with Rockstar: INXS (or whatever that reality show was called). Actually, I never actually watched the show…just clips of the songs on msn’s homepage. But they were an internet worktime obsession for me, nonetheless. So JD Fortune, this arrogant but charismatic Canadian dude won the show, is now their arrogant but charismatic lead singer who is living his dream. I doubt he would have ever believed a few years ago that he would win a TV show and be the lead singer of INXS.

I was bummed I missed them the last time they were in LA when Marty, the runner up, was opening for them. I liked Marty and he seemed like a nice guy, but I have to admit that JD had some pretty ridiculous stage presence and the over-the-hill members of INXS must have had their ears ringing with the sounds of C-A-S-H from the way the (female) audience devoured him.

I was even more bummed to find that opening for them this time was… Scott Stapp. Of Creed. Who recently got caught with Kid Rock getting blowjobs from skanks on video. And he looked at the camera and said, “It’s good to be the king,” and all of a sudden, I didn’t know what was right in the world anymore.

We decided that we had to miss Scott’s act at all costs, so we went to the gym, came home, surfed the internet, took a leisurely drive around the city, found the Greek Theatre, figured out where to park, searched out a nice little dive-y restaurant, had dinner, chatted with the waitress, walked into the wrong-gendered bathrooms respectively…before heading over to the 7:30 show at 9pm.

I was disappointed to find out that INXS had already taken the stage, but as I said…we had to miss Scott Stapp’s set at all costs.

The Greek is a pretty awesome venue, second only to the Hollywood Bowl in terms of atmosphere. At night, it feels like a concert held in the middle of a forest a la Lake Tahoe, and in the summer, the temperature is just perfect. Our seats were in the lower intestinal end of butt f-ing Egypt, last row before the bleachers where overweight women in their 40’s were screaming for JD to take his shirt off as the men lethargically sipped from their beers. JD meanwhile, was most definitely high. Ecstasy was my guess. He’s quite a performer and has an amazing voice, but he couldn’t stop jumping, kicking, slinking and molesting anything and anyone within arm’s reach (he kinda looked like one of those long-armed balloon things that wave at you from car dealerships as you drive along the freeway, only slightly more fluid and slightly more ridiculous). I think half the crowd was there because they wanted to hear all of their favorite INXS songs, while the other half were barely-of-age girls who had seen him on the show. But even though he was technically this guy living his dream who had gotten a chance to play with his favorite band (as Reggie put it, it would be like me winning a contest to get to direct Steve Martin, or as I put it, Reggie getting a chance to sing with New Edition), it was clear that this was HIS show and the guys of INXS were just the back-up band. It got pretty obnoxious at times, especially when they all walked off stage to take a break before the encore, and he wouldn’t get off the stage, hamming it up and doing that whole, “You love me, you REALLY love me” bullshit. And plus the whole acting really high and stroking everything in erotic fashion was embarassing.

I called Michael when they played his favorite INXS song, “What You Need,” and I was relieved that we didn’t miss my favorite, “Never Tear Us Apart,” which they played in the encore. Love it when the sax comes in. Overall, it was an entertaining show but it felt like we were all there just to stroke one man’s massive ego.

Saturday night was Brian and my joint birthday party at Daddy’s. I discovered late that my breasts were quite willing to Tara Reid themselves out of my dress, so I had to wear tape on the inside in a feeble attempt to keep them reined in. The party was a blast, as always. I love it when my birthday comes around because it’s an excuse to plan something where I can see everyone and it’s such a warm and fuzzy thing to be reminded of what great people I have in my life. We took inappropriate pictures as usual including a paparazzi assault on some poor a-hole who thought he could sneak into the women’s room to hook up with some chick. I had 2 Irish Car Bombs, 2 Rasberry Stolis/Sprite, and I think Eric of Dos Spanish Flies gave me his gin and tonic, but I’m not sure because I was super fuzzy at that point and drinking anything anyone put in my hand, regardless of whether I was capable of getting the liquid from the glass to my mouth. I’m really surprised I handled that much alcohol that well. I remember at one point, I went to the bathroom and looked at my face and I honestly couldn’t understand why I couldn’t recognize my face as my own, yet I was able to remain on my feet the entire night.

Sareet emailed over her awesome pictures from the party on Sunday, which prompted me to hook up the photo printer Reggie had gotten me for Christmas (I know, I’m a jerk, but it took me a while to remember to buy an extra power strip). I tested it by printing out these pictures I took at a family dinner, only to find that 60 pictures in, the yellow ink cartridge ran out. How ironic. I guess we Asians really are yellow.

Speaking of colors, when we were up north, Reggie and Candice were talking about interracial relationships because her sister just had a baby with her black boyfriend. Michael was hovering, eavesdropping on the conversation and trying to find a way to jump in. At one point, Reggie says something about race and Michael interrupts saying, “Does Julia talk about your race? Because that would be rude…” Reggie and Candice vehemently assured him that he’s got the wrong idea, that they were talking about something else, but Michael continues, “Because it’s rude to talk about people’s race, whether they’re black…or peach….”

Yep.

Michael thinks we’re peach.

But I’ll be happy to let him know that according to my new HP printer, we’re clearly heavy on the yellow.

Today I had to go back to work. Nothing makes you hate work more than having too much fun on the weekend.

Starring Cloe from 24, it’s like an indie Romy & Michele’s…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlEGZmduSdE&search=grant%20lee%20phillips

Last Saturday I got a massage from a deaf and blind woman. To communicate with her, if you want her to massage deeper, you grab her hand and gently twist her wrist, and if you want her to go softer, you stroke the back of her hand. She was very good (I hear massage therapy is an intuitive art), and the whole time, I was thinking about how she experiences the world, since without your senses of hearing and sight, your universe is created almost entirely internally. And for someone born without these senses, this is the only universe from which to understand reality. I bet it’s rich, with shapes, dimensions and forms we could never imagine that would blow open entire potentials for science and perception of reality.

So something’s wrong with my knee again and I don’t know what. I didn’t suffer an acute injury, but in the last few weeks, I’ve been having these little explosions under the knee cap where it feels like a rubber band just snapped. I realized while bowling last week, that my left knee can’t support a full weight shift. Sometimes it just clicks really loudly and I’m limping around. I went to an orthopedic doctor and his nurse was asking me for my medical history. I realized I couldn’t remember how many times I’ve torn it up. 5 surgeries, 2 ACL tears, 4 meniscus tears and 1 removal. I’m pretty sure that’s what the medical records will say when they get here from my doctor up north. I know every time I hurt my knee, it’s awful, and I’m fully aware of how painful and grueling knee surgery and the subsequent recover is. But I just can’t stay off the court. I would do anything for a bionic knee.

This morning this guy in a Porsche rolled down his and nonchalantly threw out a handful of wrappers or some other form of crumpled paper matter. We were stuck in traffic and he did it like it was no big deal, or no one would notice. Knowing I had a few more minutes at the light, a part of me wanted to get out of the car, pick up his shit and throw it back into his car. But I’m kind of a coward. He did try to cut into my lane when the light turned green but I didn’t let him. The girl in the Honda behind me wouldn’t either, which makes me suspect that she saw his little litterbug act. People really don’t think enough outside of themselves sometimes.

Is it bad that I think this picture looks like Shawn Marion?

I love Shawn Marion. Go Suns.

If you like basketball and want to see players’ family pictures, check this out. It’s pretty…what’s the word…horrifying.

Today it took 4 hours for me to make lemonade because I fell into a k-hole.

In case anyone doesn’t want to be surprised before hand, Reggie’s cake on Thursday will be carrot. And it will be adorned with a frosting princess.

I’ve joined a women’s basketball league, which turned out to be a JEWISH women’s basketball league. It’s fine though, they’ve got some girls who have really good game, though some of them play in those really long black skirts so they can’t dribble between their legs. I’m not sure they all have the ability to dribble between their legs per se, but in any case, it’s a good excuse if you can’t.

Our first game two weeks ago, I led our team with 10 points, 14 rebounds, 2 steals and a block. I think I had an extra block in their but Reggie was keeping the tally and I guess he didn’t see it. It wasn’t a big one, just one of those subtle ones where I brushed it on the way up with my finger tips so it fell just short of the basket. Blocked shots make me happy. Unless I’m the shooter. Then I feel like an asshole.

Last week’s game was frustrating. I felt the burning desire to punch one of the girls on my team, who’s a selfish and non-team oriented player, who was hiding out in the post because she didn’t want to play perimeter defense which was where she was supposed to be, and then she kept bitching that I was out of position. I was out of position because she was hiding in mine. I blocked 4 shots and knocked people to the ground because I outweigh most of the girls by 20 to 30 lbs., can block out and play physical, and can grab backboard when I jump. That’s what qualifies me to be in the post. She didn’t want to chase their speedy point guard around. That’s what she appeared to think qualified her to play in the post and to yell at me to tighten up the middle. She also mistook a 2-2 zone defense, which I proposed and she agreed to before the game, for an offense. I mean, I don’t know what part of “2-2 zone DEFENSE” made her so vehemently argue that it was an OFFENSE…but I started to feel like Sean Young in Ace Ventura screaming, “LACES OUT!” as I was screaming, “THE 2-2 ZONE IS A DEFENSE” and I finally gave up. But the level with which I wanted to hit her and with which I still do has prompted me to call the hypnotherapist for a “chillout/anger management” session. But if I find her hiding in the post again next week, I’m going to knock her down.

I’ll tell you what I got for Reggie for his birthday. I got him the special edition DVD of King Kong, and tickets to an upcoming Angels/Red Sox game. And a nice case of syphilis. I’m just kidding. About the King Kong DVD.

I’m very tired today. I don’t know why it took 4 hours to make lemonade.

I Am a Drug Addict Klepto

So I went down to Irvine today to have lunch with Miranda, her husband, Gilbert, and their two kids.

We went to a little sushi restaurant and as Miranda is giving me a harsh 3rd degree about when I’m going to get married and how I need to take my biological clock more seriously, her 7 year-old son Austin is going through my wallet. He keeps pulling out my money and my cards and I keep pulling it away and telling him to stop it. So Miranda and I are in a heated conversation and Austin keeps going through my wallet and I keep taking it away, until suddenly, he holds up a little baggie, waves it around high above his head and goes, “WHAT’S THIS????? WHAT IS THIS????”

*Rewind two months*

Reggie and I had just had a massive blowout screen-door-bangin’-in-a-storm fight and I came home from work to find his car parked outside my building. I went over and didn’t see anyone in the car, so I went upstairs and there was no one home. Then I got into my usual paranoid frame of mind that maybe he was hiding somewhere ready to jump out and kill me a la Fatal Attraction and shit (yeah I know…I really need more faith in mankind). So then I search the house, scared out of my mind but there’s no one there so I look out the balcony and see that his car is now gone. I’m thoroughly creeped out so I call him and ask why he had been parked outside my house. He says that he’d run up to grab his coat which he’d left at my place before the fight and I was relieved to know he wasn’t stalking me. Then he asked me who I was taking to the game (meaning the Clippers game) which was starting in half an hour, and which I had completely forgotten about in my very angry state of mind. So I’m pretty blatant with my spite when I say that I was going to call around and see who was available to go, but then I realize that the game is in half an hour. Reggie says he’ll go with me and I’m angry at him but I still say fine. So he picks me up and we ride halfway to the Staple Center in angry silence and then have a loud he said/she said fight that takes us to the parking lot and then some. Finally, we wear ourselves out and apologize, but as with all post-fight periods, it’s ridiculously frosty and awkward.

So we’re walking towards the Staples Center, not really knowing what to say to each other, tension still on level high, when Reggie stoops down and picks up a little baggie of weed. Now, I’m someone who gets excited finding a heads-up penny on the ground, and a found quarter can make my day. But a dime bag of weed had to be the best random thing to pick up on the street, second only to the unlabeled video tapes that my roommates at that summer of USC picked up which turned out to be porn. So the little baggie breaks the ice between us because 1. We think it’s hilarious that we found drugs on the ground (albeit in downtown LA) and 2. It leads to a lighthearted discussion about who should carry it, with the obvious choice being me, since Reggie is a young black male and thus, would get 20 years or something ridiculous for carrying weed while I , being a non-young black male, would get off with a slap on the wrist. So for shits and giggles, I put the baggie in my wallet and completely forgot about it.

Actually, that’s not true. I remember it’s there from time to time and I keep thinking that I should really take it out because I have a nagging feeling that leaving it in there will lead to one of those situations that I’ll later regret and wonder why I didn’t take it out in the first place, but which doesn’t deter me from wanting to tempt fate and let some hilarious, awful wackiness-ensues-and-you’re-really-up-shit-creek situation happen. Like knowing I shouldn’t carry a fake ID in my wallet day-to-day while I was in college, but being too lazy to take it out, then having my wallet stolen, then recovered by a campus cop who called me and had me come into the station to reclaim it, then told me that he noticed I had two IDs in there and thought it would be a nice warning for me if he just destroyed it since it was probably just a “bizarre mistake” this time, but next time I would get to spend some more time at the station…

Anyway, so I know it’s in there and I always think I should take it out. But I never did. Maybe it was part lazy, maybe it was part masochism. Maybe it was a challenge to the universe to see what kind of hilarious but shitty situation it could put me in.

So fast forward to this afternoon, as Austin waves this baggie of weed around in a crowded restaurant as my conservative cousin and her husband gape at it, and I have to tackle him to get it back…then I have to go through the story of how it ended up in my wallet which of course, no one believes.

But you all believe me…..

And of course, the moral of this story is, don’t pick up weed that you find on the street. Unless it’s yours, in which case you gotta pick that shit up quick cuz you know that weed ain’t cheap.

Suns Win!!!!

You can read the recap of the game at NBA.com.

The big story of the night was Kobe’s disappearance in this game.

The bigger story of the night, is the writer’s choice of words in the following excerpt:

“When Bryant decided to stop shooting, the Suns decided to run the Lakers off the court. A pair of free throws by Marion with 4:31 remaining in the third quarter gave Phoenix an 80-56 bulge. Phoenix held a 90-65 bulge entering the final period. “

By bulge, we’re talking about penises, right? Because a 90-65 bulge definitely sounds impressive.

FREE RAJA!!!!

This story makes me so angry.

Colorado cops are assholes:

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/9063737/detail.html

The Politics of the Office Shit

There are three ladies’ rooms in our office building (one on each floor), and each is distinct in its own way.

The one of the first floor sits across from the dentist’s office and apparently shares their air circulation system, because it always smells like a dentist’s office. This one, unlike the others, has no decoration (if you call a framed piece of advertising for the management company decoration). Despite the slightly unpleasant olfactory connection, this one is my favorite because it’s always clean, and it’s always empty because outside of the two dentist’s assistants on that floor, the offices are predominantly male.

The one on the second floor is never too cold and by far smells the best. We used to work on the second floor before we moved to a larger space on the third, and while this bathroom had more traffic, it always smelled like apples and cinnamon. Maybe someone on the floor had a thing for Apple Jacks and it reflected in her pee, but this bathroom has a homey feel like you’re in a little old lady’s house, albeit a little old lady who has a deep appreciation for an industrial flush.

The one on our floor sucks. The good thing about it is that it’s the only one that has a full length mirror so you can thoroughly check to make sure you aren’t leaving the bathroom with your skirt tucked into your underwear. But on the other hand, it always has this awful chemical smell that comes through the vents, making me think about chemical warfare and what that would smell and feel like. Also, this is apparently the building’s designated Shitting Bathroom.

Now most people (women at least…I’ve noticed that my male coworkers actually seem proud when they fold a magazine under their arm and proclaim that they’re taking the Browns to the Super Bowl…in fact, once my boss actually told me that he was going to the bathroom, then seconds later, called me to discuss different accounts as his words echoed on the tile around him), most people do everything possible not to do their business at work. The office bathroom is a shared space and to hot box a shared space with mcnasty is just embarassing and will quickly have your co-tenants hating you. Yet for some reason, our bathroom always smells like the most unkind hotbox.

I started timing when I go to the bathroom based on the traffic that I see out the window coming in and out of the bathroom. If I see someone going in there and they don’t come out within 3 minutes, I’m not going in there for at least 10. I don’t care if they were just doing their make-up, my fragile psyche can’t chance it. If I walk in and there’s someone already in one of the stalls and they suddenly go silent and stop moving, I assume they’re waiting for me to leave so they can continue taking a shit, so I jam out of there as quickly as possible. I notice that when I walk in and there’s someone already in there, I’ll get going with the peeing as quickly as possible as if to say, “Don’t worry! I’m just peeing! You can take your time in front of that mirror!”

The worst thing is when you walk in and someone has already laid a stink bomb. Now you have to think…well, now that I’m here, the next person who walks in is gonna assume I did this. And depending on the level of stink, sometimes I walk right back out. I can’t hold my breath for that long anyway.

Sometimes when you walk in, you discover that someone hasn’t fully flushed. My first reaction is always to jump out of the stall to get as far away from the offending toilet as possible, and then run all the back to my office. But the bigger, more mature voice in my head will convince me I can always use the other stall. Here’s the thing though…if you discover someone left something nasty for everyone else, it’s in your best interest to flush it. Because let’s just say that you use the other stall, but as you’re leaving, someone else walks in. They have no way of knowing that you used the other stall. For all they know, you left the monster in the toilet. So you have to flush it, even if it’s none of your business, even if it means you get sprayed by tiny microscopic shit particles as the industrial toilet whooshes the offense away.

So in conclusion, please don’t shit at the office. Shit in the alley out back or in the corner of the parking garage where your boss always parks, but please don’t shit at the office. And if you have to, make sure you use one on another floor, so if you manage a perfect covert getaway, it will never be linked to you.

Today was a day without meaning. Like a sentence without fragments. I found that a part of me really liked the echoes.

Signs that the book Helter Skelter is scaring the shit out of me:

1. I find myself constantly checking the back seat and the floor of the passenger seat of my car through the window to make sure there’s no one there before I get in.

2. I check for people lurking around my building and inside the garage before I pull in.

3. I was leaving work on Monday and shared the elevator with another woman. Sometime in the middle of the ride, she dropped a full plastic bottle of water and it hit the floor with a bang. I leap away from the sound in sheer panic, slamming into the side of the elevator. Unfortunately, this woman was one of the psychiatrists who shares an office on our floor. Fortunately, her attention had been focused on picking up the bottle and she hadn’t witnessed my extreme reaction nor my look of pure terror.

4. Later that night, I was in the garage of my building walking to my car on the way to the gym. My neighbor must have gotten home not too long ago because his engine, as it cooled down, suddenly made a loud pop. I dove out of the way ala duck and cover, then frantically inspected the area of his car to check for persons hiding inside or around the car. There was nobody.

5. After spending 4 hours at a bookstore reading the book, I went home to watch the pilot of Lost. I had the lights turned out and I was in bed, when Reggie walked in close to midnight. Even though he had called no more than half an hour before to say he was on the way, I was nonetheless so terrified to see a dark figure suddenly enter my room that I screamed and catapulted the remote control that had been loosely cradled in my hand into a wall across the room.

I plan to marathon the rest of the book right after work while there’s still light out, just to have it finished so I can rectify its damage to my psyche with children’s videos, images of petting zoos and happy, happy thoughts.

Last night, the phone rang and the caller ID popped up as Kristi Lang* (name slightly changed). I picked it up and the person hung up.

Then, sometime around 3AM, yes, I repeat, 3AM, the phone rings again. Now, I’m the type who gets really jumpy when the phone rings in the middle of the night, because you never get good news when the phone rings in the middle of the night. I look at the caller ID and it says Private Caller, which gets me more scared because that’s how my parents’ number comes up. So I pick it up in a mild panic, and this chick goes (none too politely), “Is Richard there?” I’m uber-irritated because I don’t know who the fuck Richard is, but he sure as hell isn’t at my house at 3am so I tell her she has the wrong number. She quickly hangs up. About 5 minutes later, the phone wakes me up again and this time, the ID says, “Kristi Lang.” I answer the phone and she says, “Is Richard there?” I yell, “You called me last night! There isn’t a Richard here.” She asks me if this is a new number and I say no, and then she hangs up.

So I’m really irritated because I’m just not the type of person who likes being woken up, especially by really bitchy strangers looking for their mensfolk. But then I’ve also been reading Helter Skelter which is all about the Charlie Manson cult and the brutal Tate murders, which has had me sleeping with the light on when I’m home alone because it scares the hell out of me. So now a part of me is irritated for getting woken up, and another part of me is scared that the call was someone who was checking to make sure I was at home in preparation of breaking in and killing me. I decided the best defense would be to curl up in a fetal position and go back to sleep, but I have to say, when I woke up this morning, I was really tired and cranky and irritated with that caller.

So I did a reverse search on her phone number and came up with her address. I’m thinking if I were evil, I could probably do something with it, like send her weird mindfuck things in the mail like cut out pictures of farm animals or disposable kitchen utensils at random intervals. Or if I were just mildly evil, I could call her at 3am tomorrow night and ask her if Richard was there.

Mostly, I think I’m just irritated that she woke me up at 3am twice, but wasn’t even polite enough to apologize.

Richard…your chick is rude.

Since Reggie has been working so hard all week, when he left Brian and I in the elevator to run back to the car to grab videos, we thought we would treat him to an improvised tableaux upon his return…

Why You Never Use The Men’s Room No Matter How Empty the Building Looks

So this happened a few weeks ago but I’ve finally had the chance to talk about it.

It was about 7:30pm and I had to run back to the office to pick-up a book I’d forgotten. I’d been at the Starbuck’s down the street doing some writing, and as you all know, coffee has a filling effect on your bladder. So I go to the office, wait the 10 minutes it takes for our elevator to decide to do its only salaried task, and get to the 3rd floor when I realize: 1. I really have to pee badly; 2. Standing in front of the elevator, I’m exactly at the halfway point between my office and the bathrooms; 3. To use the ladies’ room, I will have to go to my office, figure out which unlabeled key on my keychain is the key to the office, unlock the door and grab the bathroom key before heading all the way to the exact opposite end of the building to get to the ladies’ room; 4. I can minimize the amount of walking distance, time and probability that I will wet my pants if I just go to the men’s room which remains unlocked at all times (the building is not as afraid of liability from a man getting raped in an office bathroom).

So being the lazy, lacking-in-bladder-control, always-waiting-until-the-last-moment person I am, I decide that since it’s 7:30 at night and there’s clearly no one else in the building except for the cleaning guys who are on the first floor, I’ll just use the men’s room. I’ll be in and out in 1 minute, no sweat.

As expected, the door is unlocked and the room is empty. There are two urinals along the wall on the right as you enter, and a single stall tucked in around the corner to the left. Since I have not yet mastered the art of peeing standing up the way some men have mastered the art of peeing sitting down, I use the stall. I do my business very quickly and everything is fine, but just as I’ve finished putting on my belt, I hear someone come in. I freeze, clearly realizing my demise of being trapped in a bathroom. I hear the man walk around the corner and then curse under his breath. I presume that he had probably entered the bathroom planning to take a dump, but then was irritated by the fact that someone was already inside the lone stall.

I figured that if I didn’t come out and he really had to go, he would probably head downstairs to one of the bathrooms on the other floors. I make a lot of noise playing with the toilet paper dispenser like I’m in no hurry to come out, and finally I hear the door open and close. I wait for a few seconds. Blissful silence.

Jubilated, I come rushing out of the stall, only to turn the corner and find that–not only has that man not left, but there are now TWO men standing in front of the urinals right next to the door to freedom, spread-eagled, weiners in hand, getting ready to take simultaneous pisses. I freeze, calculating my chances of getting out of here without a mess of embarassment, and realize that their backs are to me and they are busy trying not to acknowledge each other, so I still could conceivably slip out the door as long as both of their heads were staring straight ahead at the tiled wall.

So I quietly and stealthily move towards the door and even get as far as having my hand on the handle, but as soon as I turn it, the damn thing squeaks and the man closest to the door turns around and looks at me.

“Uh………………sorry?” is all I manage to mumble as I streak out the door and run the whole way across the building and into my office. I wait there for about 20 minutes, trying to figure out what would be the “right” time to come out in which I would be able to not run into these guys again and even worse, get stuck riding the elevator down with them. I’ve worked late on many occasions and I’ve never seen anyone else on my floor at that hour, and I’ve never used the men’s room no matter how badly I’ve had to go when our office restroom key goes missing, and of all nights, I get caught by not one, but TWO men in the men’s room.

So finally I venture out, sneaking down the stairwell to the floor below, call the elevator and hide behind a pillar until the elevator comes and I can ensure that it’s empty, then take it down and run out of the building.

While this, unfortunately, isn’t the first time I’ve (accidentally) walked into a populated men’s room, usually I walk in through the entrance, realize my mistake and quickly hurry back out. It just seemed more embarassing this time because these guys (especially the first guy) had obviously been in there for a while, and all of a sudden, I come out from INSIDE the bathroom, while they’ve basically got their manhoods exposed. I wonder if it feels like as much of a violation as it would if a girl were say, sitting in a stall with her pants down and a guy came bursting in.

Regardless, I hope those guys can’t tell Asian girls apart and won’t recognize me. There’s another Asian girl who works in the building. Maybe I’m lucky and they think it’s her.

You know you’ve neglected your blog for too long, when you can’t remember your sign-on information…

I’ve been trapped in the world of reality, where I want to focus on work and career and “building a solid future.” I have not been able to focus on such paramount tasks as comparing astrological natal charts of celebrities, surfing the net for gay NBA player rumors, browsing the online dating sites to see if there’s anyone I know or pondering if Elton Brand is proportionate in ALL ways. Which means it’s about time I get back to those things.

The hardest thing has been starting blog entries but not being able to finish them. This mostly has to do with, again, my employer’s annoying insistence that I work during work hours rather than, you know, not working. It’s ridiculously unreasonable. I do, however, enjoy surfing porn sites at other people’s work stations during after hours, when I’m the only one left in the office to do those evil little deeds I do. Bob in accounting likes farmhouse threesomes? Wow, I would have never known….

(I’m just kidding)

I don’t really have anything to say about the Oscars, since the only movie I saw was Crash (and I missed the first 5 minutes), so I really don’t have any kind of educated opinion. I do like Jon Stewart as the host and think that man should run for president. I would rather have a hilarious presidency than an idiotically criminal one. My favorite joke? “Bjork Couldn’t Be Here Tonight. She Was Trying On Her Dress And Dick Cheney Shot Her…” Did anyone see Jennifer Garner almost fall? THAT’S what you get for shacking up with Ben Affleck. Loser.

I am very proud of Ang Lee though. And Salma Hayek’s right boob which looked like a watermelon.

Our lemonade thing which went from a joke to a hobby to a little business is doing really well. We’re currently in 6 stores/cafes and on the set of CSI, and we’re in negotiations with a few more. The owner of the Houston’s chain just bought a case and we’re waiting to see where they go with it. Brian still regards it as a joke, but the thing has a life of it’s own. We’re selling out in all of our locations and Reggie’s being stopped by people who recognize him as “the lemonade guy” from the label. Personally, I don’t think he’s as cute as the Snapple Lady, but you know me and my love for sassy overweight East Coast mamas.

I’m taking an online contemporary business class and have an accounting class starting this week. Considering I don’t know how to balance my checkbook and failed statistics twice, it’s going to get ugly with accounting.

Mostly, I’m pretty tired all the time.

I think T-Mac’s gay. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

2/6/06 Updates, Observations and One Exclamation About Another Woman’s Boobs

I watched the Super Bowl yesterday at AD’s fresh new digs in Culver City with a fully stocked bar, pool table, and dunkable basketball hoop in the backyard-turned-obstacle course when you’re trying to keep the ball from rolling too close to a monstrous pile of poop. I had bet $40 on Seattle, which incidentally was the money I bet online in the preseason last year that the Suns would win the Pacific Division. Needless to say, I lost it all, thanks to some shoddy calls by the refs. Honestly, I’m really upset about the supposedly touchdown by Big Ben. It was a great block, in my opinion. But what do I know about football. I drafted 4 quarterbacks and 3 kickers on my very first fantasy team this year.

I think I forgot to mention on my blog that I went to China over Christmas. It was great and I highly recommend hiking the Great Wall which is both wondrous, mind-blowing, and a great workout for the calves, thighs and buns. Michael almost got beaten up by an angry Chinese mob then thrown into a Communist prison…I think it will take me a very long time to be able to talk about that incident, and I suspect that whole thing is why I haven’t found the will to blog about the trip. But overall, it was great…the squat toilets are absolutely disgusting, the food is cheap and good, the meat is mysterious, the sites are beautiful and interesting, and Shanghai is a Space City. Oh. And beer is 33 cents a can.

We have basically finished filming the short film for better or for worse…the pickup shoot was on January 21st, and it went incredibly well despite the 20 degree weather and shooting from 11am until 4am outdoors. We needed/wanted about 53 shots to give us the coverage needed to edit everything, and we got 38. As they say, we didn’t get everything we wanted, but we got what we needed to put together a film. Now it’s a race against the clock to finish post, since our sound designer is leaving the country for months at the end of February, so we have to get that all settled. Which reminds me, I have to find a composer ASAP. This whole movie has been really stressful, as indie productions are when you don’t have the manpower to cover all the individual duties and very few people have to wear too many hats. I had been having intense stomach and chest pains last month during the preparation for the shoot that miraculously disappeared after the shoot. Which was unfortunate because it took me about a month to get in to see my doctor, so when I finally got an appointment 5 days after the shoot, I was feeling fine and couldn’t convince him that anything was wrong with me. No pain equals no drugs and by that I mean, no case for medical marijuana.

Reggie and I went through a rough spot that had a lot to do with the fact that we work together on so many projects and spend almost all of our time outside of our respective jobs together because of them. Mix that in with my commitment reluctance, his fear of abandonment and the fact that he’s a couple person and I’m a lone wolf, and we were all kinds of unhappy-with-each-other-all-up-in-here. We went on a break that did or did not allow me to hit on certain people depending on how you interpreted the break (he wasn’t interested), and now we’re working on boundaries that will hopefully help out.

Now we’re concentrating on the lemonade (we’re in 3 more stores and on the set of CSI) and the business plan for the restaurant. I’m taking a class in restaurant operations and have 3 classes starting up next week (web design, accounting, corporations). And I hope as soon as I get a handle on the workload, I can get a job at Starbucks to experience their training program and get an inside look at their operations and corporate structure.

I’m starting to wonder how my full-time job is going to work around this, both in terms of time and desire. At work, I feel like that wife who’s been punched too many times in the head…I just walk around dazed and scared of leaving the kitchen (aka breakroom). Actually, I’m usually holed up in my office, sometimes with the lights off, just trying to motor through stuff, hoping it’ll make the days pass faster. But I think at some point, there’s not going to be enough time or energy in the day to do everything, and I’m going to have to make a decision. And I’m going to have to face the fact that I’m a whore for a skimpy paycheck, and decide if I have the guts to go without a net.

In the meantime, I’m back in the universe of 24 obsession. Jack Bauer has to be the baddest-ass ever to hit the screen. “The only reason you’re still conscious is because I don’t want to carry you.” That’s what I tell my coworkers now whenever they piss me off.

Which leads me to…did anyone see that episode where Jack asks his girlfriend to come pick up her son who he’d kidnapped in a helicopter when he caught the kid spying on him? You know when they first show up in that parking lot and he goes, there’s your mom, and they show her standing outside her car? Her assets are unignorably massive. I said to Reggie, “Oh my god, her boobs are huge!” They were the equivalent of that rack of ribs that tips over Fred Flinstone’s car. Anyway, I read the Television Without Pity recap of the episode today, and sure enough, I wasn’t the only one who noticed it because the recapper wrote:

He and Derek have arrived at the parking lot, Kiefer pulls into a spot and says, “There’s your mom.” He somehow manages not to say, “There’s your mom’s boobs.” I’m not much of a breast man, but those things are visible from space right now.