Echo

I think it’s ironic that my acupuncturist has prescribed me Chinese herbs that are to be taken with wine; I’m someone who, outside of specific occasions, hates drinking. Just a small amount of alcohol will make me lethargic and give me a headache (even more ironic, is that the only thing that doesn’t make me sick is good tequila straight-up). So while most people would be ecstatic if they were prescribed alcohol, I’m sitting here, glaring at my glass of wine.

I hit up Amoeba tonight to get the Muse (Absolution) album. I was listening to it on my computer up until July when our free Real Rhapsody subscription ran out, so I thought it was about time I bought it. It’s an awesome album. Great for writing at night. I picked up a Thievery Corporation album as well. Real mellow. Great for driving at night, thinking about writing.

I can’t stop thinking about how stir crazy I am. I think I’m just starved and lonely for genuine human interaction right now. If it keeps going on like this, I’m going to make demands to crawl back into the womb (speaking of, I once accidentally freaked out my brother when he was little, when I pointed to my mom’s stomach and said, “See that? That’s where we used to live.” Good times…)

I miss Rie. I miss Muskrat. I miss Ethan. Good people.

I zoned out for 4 whole hours today. While still managing to take over $2,000 worth of orders and negotiate and approve an upcoming ad campaign in a new industry. Like I went through the motions, but the “me” that makes up “me” was off somewhere, contemplating the spiritual auras of Denver and Portland and the next thing I knew, it was past quitting time. It’s starting to creep me out how much of my days are spent on autopilot, and how functional my empty shell appears to be. What if one day, I just disappear and that’s all that’s left of me? A robot under fluorescent lights? bionic knees. just give me some bionic knees

It’s almost Fall. My favorite season. Poetry season. Reflection season. Depression season. I can’t wait.

My back has gotten better except for this seperate ball of agony in my right butt cheek that showed up around the end of July. My left side killed me from last July on, and then it switches to my right. Queer. I also think it’s strange how the appearances of these pains in my ass have coincided with relationship break ups. I don’t want to sound kooky here, but I suspect that boys, on top of being somewhat idiots, really are pains in my ass.

In Vegas, my mom and I were walking around when she said, out of the blue, “I’ve noticed that black guys really seem to take to you.” She doesn’t know that while I appreciate the aesthetic beauty of black guys and tend to openly admire them, I’m too intimidated by them to date them. She followed that with, “Just be friends, okay? Don’t marry one.” So I asked her, “How about this. Would you prefer a black guy or a woman?” She said neither and I said CHOOSE and she said, “Only a white guy or an Asian guy.” And I’m like, what the hell?? (White guys are dorks!! [just kidding. But seriously]). Though this is a conversation we have just about every time we see each other. It doesn’t concern me what she thinks. I don’t think I’ve ever been stopped from doing something I feel strongly about because of someone’s irrational objection. But in truth, no one can really choose who they fall in love with; you’ll meet many soulmates during your lifetime who come in different packages from different backgrounds, and if you’re not open to who shows up, you may miss out on a soulmate connection that could turn into a very beneficial and comfortable life partnership. I’m just looking for that thing that feels RIGHT, whoever that may be with, and I’ll probably have to deal with my own preconceived notions if that person doesn’t fall under the type I had assumed. But that’s my own problem, and a challenge I look forward to dealing with.

And furthermore, I would like both my parents to stop putting homophobic notions in my brother’s head. They are so afraid of my brother being gay, that they tell him all kinds of crap to scare him straight. I spent the three weeks he was here setting him straight (no bad pun intended) that gay people are normal people and often amazing people and it doesn’t matter who they like. Asian people care way too much about reputation. They need to stop that or I’m going to commandeer my brother.

So I Married an Axe Murderer Quotes

(i love this movie…)

Stewart: (Charlie’s Dad): William! Move your head! Look at the size of that boy’s head!
Tony: Shhhh!
Stewart: I’m not kidding, that’s like an orange on a toothpick!
Tony: Shh! You’re going to give the kid a complex.
Stewart: Well, that’s a huge noggin! That’s a virtual planetoid! Has its own weather system! Head! Move!

***
Guard: Hello everyone, I am a park ranger and I will be leading you on the tour. All of the park rangers here at Alcatraz were at one time guards, myself included. My name is John Johnson, but everyone here calls me Vicky.

***
Charlie: Harriet…marry me.
Harriet: No.
Charlie: ….Please??

***
Harriet : Do you actually like haggis?
Charlie: No, I think it’s repellent in every way. In fact, I think most Scottish cuisine is based on a dare.

If I Were to Move…

I’ve made a random list of criteria for an ideal place to live (numbered, but in random order of importance):

1. Has forests and decent rainfall, yet is close to bodies of water.
2. Has seasons (preferably mini-seasons such as in the Pacific Northwest where the summers/winters aren’t as harsh as on the East Coast).
3. West of the Mississippi
4. Very intelligent and open-minded population
5. Low poverty/unemployment level
6. Low crime
7. Strong and diverse culinary sampling
8. Diverse population
9. Community-, family-oriented atmosphere
10. Good venues for live music
11. Has an NBA basketball team
12. Good gyms
13. Good 90s music radio station
14. Good hip hop radio station
15. Minimal traffic/commute to work
16. Diverse religious background
17. Strong artistic community
18. Where my future life partner resides

If you guys have any recommendations, let me know. I have some free Southwest vouchers so I’m going to be checking out cities. I already know that I love Seattle.

This was important to me…that people be educated. Ignorance breeds small-mindedness and at the very least, I prefer that the people who make up the personality of a city be educated:

http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Ranking/2002/R02T160.htm

Of that list, places I’m willing to consider:

1. Seattle
2. Austin
3. Albuquerque
4. Portland
5. San Diego
6. Denver

But in honesty, I don’t think I have the guts to move. But in an ideal situation, I would love to rent out my place, quit my job and just live nomadically while I can since I’m still young and have limited responsibilities.

You know I’ve got a special rageful place for people who are predators of children.

This article is RIDICULOUS. Our justice system blows my mind.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/latimests/20040824/ts_latimes/escapesofasexpredator

Weekend Recap

There will be no weekend recap because I’m too tired to go through this weekend in overanalytical detail.

So I’ll just go through some random thoughts. I’ve been pretty random lately anyway.

First of all, I’m convinced that anyone can always get laid in Vegas. It’s a simple fact. But it’s such a vacuous experience that I don’t know what the point of it would be.

There are those who gamble for the social aspect of it, and those who gamble for the gambling/financial aspect of it. I am the former and am not compatible with the latter. In fact, I find serious tables to be a recipe for stress and losing a lot of money. I prefer tables where everyone is friendly and hoping that everyone else does well.

At whim, I bought some rolling papers on Saturday and rolled the pot that couple gave me into three huge joints. I bought a pack of cigarettes and threw out some cigs so I could fit the joints in the pack. Since pot-smoking was once a mainstay in the hippie tradition, I thought I would keep tradition alive by finding someone worthy to pass them on to. I forgot about them until Sunday, when my mom and I played blackjack between two guys from Wisconsin. They were really nice and fun. They invited me to hit up a club with them, and I wouldn’t have minded since they were really cool and non-threatening, but I wanted to call it in early that night. I thought I heard one of the guys asking the cocktail waitress for weed and I suddenly remembered my goodie box. So I asked the other guy, “Did he just ask her for weed?” The guy laughed and said, “I wish.” When my mom and I left the table, I told her to go on ahead and cash out our chips–that I was going to the bathroom. I doubled back and asked one of the guys if I could bum a cigarette. He reached for his pack and I said, no, let me borrow the whole pack. I had palmed the three joints in my hand, so I walked a few steps away, slid the joints in while closing the box in a single motion, then handed his pack back to him, telling him, “I changed my mind but left you guys a present.” I walked away, but turned around for a last look just in time to see him open the box, do a double take and close it quickly, his face lit up like Christmas. Now they have a story to take back to Wisconsin. And that makes my day.

Wherever I go in Vegas, I inevitably end up at Harrah’s, where the people are nice and fun (both the employees and the customers). And I love the Carnival Court, that outdoor pit, bar and stage with the crazy flare bartenders and the awesome cover bands. It’s like toned-down spring break there all the time, without as many stupid drunk hos and dumb frat boys. I spent most of Saturday there, going back twice. I was relieved to find one of the groups I loved to still be performing there. They played 70s funk/disco/rock, which was a nice mix. I watched them in the afternoon as my mom slept with her head on my shoulder. The band at night was an all white band that covered a range of things, from Justin Timberlake, Outkast and Tupac, to country/classic rock. I saw them and thought, I KNOW those guys are gonna be kind enough to play some Guns N’ Roses. And they freakin’ rocked it out with Sweet Child of Mine. I went with my mom again and we danced. She’s really shy, but she likes music and festive places. She really appreciates that I take her to places like this, which is sweet. It kills my game, yes, to have my mom in a bar or club with me, but honestly, I figure that when I’m older, I would love it if my kids would be willing to treat me like a friend and hang out with me. I’m not there yet, but I know it’s lonely getting old.

I think my dad was upset with me because I didn’t spend any time with him. And also because I got home at 5am and 8am on Friday and Saturday respectively, and he always thinks that when I get home really late while we’re staying at a casino, it’s because I’ve picked up a dealer and am off having sex with him, which is never true. I think I was severely irritated because he spent most of his time hanging out with my cousin and the boys on my cousin’s basketball team, which I think is so damn lame when those punks only look up to him because he buys them things, while meanwhile, he neglects his own son. There. I said it.

I think I’ve known this for a while, but just don’t want to face it yet — I want out of LA. People in LA are too neurotic. I don’t mean neurotic as in harmless quirkiness or eccentricity. I mean the dangerous kind of neuroses where people are internally damaged and play it out with their immediate environments and everyone in the vicinity. I want to go spend time in places where by sheer comparison, my quirkiness aside, I’m the craziest person in the room, and people basically have a solid, trustworthy core. Where you live should be a place where you want to live, not a place where you feel you have to cope with living in.

Neurotic people hide in cities. They are as much mentally overstimulated as they are existentially and/or emotionally conflicted so they search out an environment that is equally as chaotic or more so than their insides, so that the internal is balanced with the external and thus, their own private chaos and neediness is justified and supported. And while there isn’t a problem with neurosis itself, it can be expressed very detrimentally to the emotional welfare of others. I keep making a distinction between liking small town people versus city people (especially because I’m a small town girl myself), but I think what I really want is to surround myself with people who have inner integrity and emotional harmony. I’m sure detrimentally neurotic people can be found in small towns just as stable people can be found in big cities. But I want to be in an environment that promotes psychological wellbeing and truthfulness. I know that I’m eccentric and a free spirit, but I also know that I have a lot of inner harmony and integrity. Overall, I’m a stable, dependable person, and as much as people can deem me elusive, non-straightforward or mysterious, I doubt that anyone who has ever met me can question my sincerity and my goodwill towards fellow human beings.

I learn about life and the universe through observing people. My life purpose is about understanding people and the inner workings of life, and communicating what I observe, hopefully for the benefit of other people. But sometimes I feel that I let my romantic drive get in the way of my education of people, so that I get too close instead of remaining in the background and ensuring that I see things clearly and objectively. I have to learn to be more disciplined and not let my romantic, idealistic notions cloud what is really in front of me, creating an unTruthful idea of people and things. This has been a problem for as long as I remember. Don’t fucking touch the Muse, Shih…

I need to get a secondary business card to represent me as a writer. The card from my film company is quirkier and more targeted towards the film industry. I want another card that represents me as a more serious freelance writer putting together people-interest articles. Isn’t that such a gemini thing, having multiple business cards to represent different facets of my work? If I get another one for writing, that brings my total up to 4 different cards–one for my full-time job, one for directing/writing, one for business development and one for serious writing.

I’m taking a free online course about Forensic Science through Barnesandnoble.com . I just ordered the course book and for fun, some books on child psycho-pathology and neurological disorders. Sometimes it trips me out how heavily into spirituality I am, and yet, how heavily into science I am. I think they’re just two different languages of explaining similar things; when they contradict each other, they’re natural contradictions, not contradictions that exclude the validity of one another. But I find it beneficial to learn about science so I can have a lan
guage in which to explain more abstract concepts to people who insist that they only believe in science. Like how I think the dynamics between conscious perspectives, through a phenomenon similar to triangulation, create reality (which is inherently subjective), and the more people are gathered on a frequency, the reality becomes exponentially more subjective, thus explaining some psychological phenomenons (and pathologies) that occur in urban areas. And all this can easily be symbolized through mathematics. Pretty simple mathematics. Unfortunately, I don’t have a background in math or computer science, so I need someone’s help to help me create a program that will follow a formula to graph out what I’m talking about. I tried doing it by hand once (the dynamics between 120 people gathered in one interactive plane) but it was grueling and nearly impossible to be accurate. Anyway, I digress. I need to meet more people with backgrounds in math and science, yet are openminded and can fathom the abstract.

Sometimes, I think I am a robot.

9/5 Recap

I went to the Shark Reef at the Mandalay Bay and ran into Andrew DeClerq , formerly of the Warriors and now of the Orlando Magic. He’s one of my favorite players because he’s got so much heart and hustle, and he always finds a way to make things happen on the court. And, he always seemed like a nice guy.

(Hey Andrew! If you stumble this far, it was very nice meeting you today. I’ll post the picture sometime this week, and if you ever want someone down to earth to hang out with when in LA, feel free to contact me! Good luck with everything!)

He was right in front of me in line and I was staring at his knee brace and feeling bad that this guy must have just had knee surgery, before I realized who he was. We started talking about his knee, and ended up walking through the exhibits at the same time. He was really nice and down-to-earth, pointing out things and helping me distinguish between the different sharks. And to tell me that sea turtles are “endangered,” not “dangerous.” (haha. I didn’t think that made sense. I somehow misheard the audio). He’s a really nice guy. Very intelligent as well, which was refreshing because two days in Vegas have left me craving intelligent conversation. He reminded me of the great people back in the midwest…just so down to earth. I miss people like that…LA is way too shallow and impersonal, and Vegas is like LA’s manic, slutty cousin.

I hope his knee heals up well. Orlando may have Francis now, but I still think it’s the scrappers who win games.

The Shark Reef is really cool. I love aquariums because it’s amazing how there’s an entire universe under the sea. And it’s amazing how different species adapted in their own unique way. And it’s interesting how we’re drawn to beautiful things that can very well hurt us. Like jellyfish. I was captivated by the jellyfish. I would do anything to be able to touch them and not get one of those legendarily painful stings. But it’s the same impulse that draws a moth towards light and drives our fascination with fire. Maybe it’s even a chicken/egg type of question. Is being drawn to something dangerous for us a distinct type of attraction? And when it comes to those things that are dangerous, are they really beautiful DESPITE being dangerous, or are they perceived as beautiful BECAUSE they’re dangerous?

By the way, I think the instincts that drive a moth towards a flame and fuel humans’ captivation by fire is a microcosmic example of our physical body’s inherent need for the sun. Just the way plants will turn towards the sun, I think people also are pulled towards the sun, their survivalistic instincts dictating that they must crave the sun’s energy. And then when we started artificially creating facsimiles of the sun (ie fire, lighting technology, etc.), our inherent desire for the sun can override the risks regarding the dangers of these things and thus, explain why moths get fried by camping lanterns and why arsonists are obsessively hypnotized by flames.

I’m totally stream of consciousness tonight. Just spending time with my family in the hotel, waiting for everyone to shower with time to kill.

You know, injuries suck. I was watching Andrew walking with his brace and a slight limp and I just felt so bummed for him, because I’ve had so many knee problems from sports and they’re some of the most painful injuries and grueling recoveries a person can have. It’s also frustrating when a person is a strongly focused and intense individual and knows that psychologically, he has the mental strength to do anything, but then his body doesn’t cooperate. Injuries are just so out of a person’s control, that it’s really insanely frustrating. I really wish they could hurry up with the technology for bionic parts. Man, if I had new knees, I’d tear down that rim.

I went to Rain in the Palms last night. Danced with my boyfriend. He’s a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous black man with the smoothest, creamiest skin. I’m not even gonna pretend I didn’t spend the whole time wishing he’d rip off his shirt.

Nerd Alert!

Yes, I can’t live without being close to a computer. I was already feeling withdrawal last night, but this morning, my mom pulled out her laptop and I immediately commandeered it.

Hey, you remember that scene in So I Married an Axe Murderer?

Tony Giardino: Excuse me sir, I’m with the San Francisco police department, this is official police business. I would like to commandeer this vehicle!
Commandeered Driver: No.
Tony Giardino: What do you mean, “no”?
Commandeered Driver: I happen to know for a fact that you have no right to commandeer my vehicle.
Tony Giardino: Please, can I commandeer this vehicle?
Commandeered Driver: No.
Tony Giardino: You’re just not going to bend on this commandeering thing are you? Commandeered Driver: No.

I love this movie! One of my favorites. (Nerd Alert #2-I can’t help saying, “Excuse me, I thought you ordered the Large…” whenever I see anyone holding one of those big supersized horse tubs of sodas.)

Anyway, I digress. Here’s my Vegas update, written in my notebook at 5:20am this morning:

Vegas: Day One

So I’m scrawling this from the bathroom floor of our suite in the Venetian tonight. This room is bigger than my apartment! It’s pretty out of control.

Flying in, I started getting a heavy feeling of dread that only intensified upon landing. Walking around with my brother, I was feeling introspective and moody, remembering things from my time here years ago that I haven’t thought about in a long time. I think if you spend too much time in this town, it brings out the worst in you.

But I did remember some things from my research time here. Like, did you know that casino managers are superstitious and they purposely hire female Asian dealers because they’re killers? Never play cards against an Asian woman. They have some sort of lucky pull for bringing in money for the man.

Anyway, my parents got in a few hours after us so as soon as they came in, I handed over Michael and took off. My cousin Parkson was here, too, but I didn’t want to hang out with him and his basketball team (they’re all here for a tournament). They’re THOSE guys. The stupid frat boys with lame pickup lines who make a dramatic point out of sniffing up every hot girl’s skirt. He tried to get me to hang out with him (they were going to a Gentleman’s Club. Yeah. Sounds like a good time for me), but every time I do, I get really annoyed with them.

So I hit the tables to find people to chat with. I met some cheesy guy named Vince from Orange County at the craps table. He was standing next to me and I was shooting really well (shot for over half an hour. If I’m around, always put money on 9). He kept touching me every time I made him some money. And he was a “High Five!” guy. The worst kind of cheese. I decided to leave to go check out the hip hop club upstairs. I was hoping to do some quality people watching, but he followed me away from the table and wanted to come with me. I gave him bad directions, but he still found me. So being the way-too-polite person that I am, I let him drink with me, though I told him that I was attached so I wasn’t going to do anything with him. We had a few shots of Patron and danced. He kept kissing my neck and I was getting annoyed so I told him I was gay and that nothing was going to happen. I was being stubborn because I didn’t want to have to leave the club just because this guy wouldn’t take no for an answer. He STILL kept trying to talk me into being interested in him, so I got really irritated and told him firmly and repeatedly that he didn’t have any kind of chance with me. He got really pissed and stormed off.

Seeing that it was 4 in the morning, I headed back to my room, but thought I would grab some food first so that I wouldn’t have a wicked morning when I woke up. There was this couple in line in front of me, and the guy jokingly asked if I was interested in fooling around with his wife. I laughed and said that she was a very attractive woman but I wasn’t into that sort of thing. We all started chatting and it turned out that we were all from LA. We ended up eating together. Very nice people. He asked me if I smoked herb. I said, on occasion, and he said that he had half an 8th that they wouldn’t be able to take with them on the plane when they left tomorrow, so I could have it if I wanted it. I said sure, so we went back to their room and got it. They smoked out of a homemade apple bong as they told me about their two young children, which I thought was really ghetto but funny. I declined a hit, because I think I wanted the weed more as a tradeable commodity (you never know what happens in this town) than to smoke, and because I thought it was funny that some random strangers were giving me dirt weed. We all chatted for a bit and he asked me again if I was sure I wasn’t interested in his wife. I said no, but I told him that if they were interested in that kind of stuff, my coworker and his wife are swingers and there’s a club in LA that really caters to it. I gave them the link to the website and left.

Some funny videoclips to get you guys through the weekend:

http://www.ifilm.com/viralvideo?ifilmid=2648319 (Judo Idiot)

http://www.ifilm.com/viralvideo?ifilmid=960775 (Some pissed off guy in a cubicle)

http://www.milkandcookies.com/stuff/triumphvsw.asx(Triumph the Insult Dog Does Star Wars Fans)

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2421060 (Project Redlight, the spoof off of Project Greenlight, featuring Corey Feldman. The suffering wife was the main actress in my short).

Enjoy!

Hey Melo…the name of the game is SHUT THE FUCK UP.

http://msn.foxsports.com/story/2919428

Debbie Downer

This is the infamous SNL skit where the cast lost it. Rachel Dratch plays Debbie Downer, who says the most depressing things at the most inappropriate times.

http://www.liquidgeneration.com/blog/video/snl_downer.mov

(link may take some time to open. The link automatically begins the download. Patience, young grasshoppers!!)

9/3 Midcap

I’m off to Vegas in a few hours. It’s my first time there in over a year and two years since I dropped my Vegas project. I’m there with my family so that means I’ll either spend all of my time in the arcade with Michael, at the table with my dad as he glares at me because I flirt with everyone, or at the table with my mom, cockblocking her by telling the young guys who hit on her that she’s a lesbian. I kind of want to break the routine though. When I was working on the Vegas project, I was there a lot getting the feel for the casino floor and buddying up with dealers (sometimes a little too much so). I want to not gamble, and not be so aware of that shrill siren of desperation and mania in people’s energy that’s ubiquitous out there…just see the place from the eyes of a tourist who really thinks this is Disneyland for adults. By the way, I hate that term…Disneyland for adults. That’s what my coworker calls orgy-catering swingers clubs.

My coworker’s wife just had a baby this morning! A Virgo named Guy. We gave him a hard time about him choosing the name Guy. Like, why don’t you just give him the middle name Big Dick if you want to overstate his masculinity. I don’t think you should test God that way; he’s got a wicked sense of humor. I think choosing the name Guy for your first born son nearly insures that he’s gonna be born with a vagina. But I guess for this kid, all the parts were where they should be. Darn.

If It Isn’t Bad Enough When Someone Keeps Sticking Things In You…

I went to my acupuncturist last night sans Michael since he had a “playdate” with Jake… (they went to Subway). Even though Michael usually just sits there and giggles gleefully at me lying on the table in my underwear and getting stuck with pins, it’s comforting to know that he’s in the room.

The doctor and I were smalltalking in Chinese, which was somewhat difficult because she has a strong mainland accent and I have a 6th grade vocabulary. She asked me if I had a boyfriend, why not, etc. I said I date when I’m bored, but for real connections, I’m looking for someone in particular and I don’t know who, but I figure I’ll know when I find that person. But it has to be someone brilliant, gentle, open-minded and kind, and who can keep up with me.

She asked if I like Chinese guys and guys in their 30s, and started telling me about this one guy she knows. She was rattling off in Chinese and I got really lost from my lack of decent vocabulary. But I didn’t want to be rude because she was speaking so enthusiastically, so I just kept saying, “Uh huh…Uh huh…oh really…” But then she asked me, “What do you think?” I had no idea what she had been telling me or what she was asking me, so I said, “Wow.” And then the conversation ended.

I hope that I didn’t just give her the redlight to set me up or something. The last time I had an older Chinese woman talk to me about a guy while I smiled and nodded due to lack of comprehension, it was my cousin’s grandmother, and it turned out that she was pitching reasons why I should date my cousin. (We’re cousins by marriage. But STILL.)

And now, your moment of zen …

Quote of the Day:

I love it when Michael recites both sides of a conversation that never happened.

-Brian

Last Day of the Retrograde!!!

One more day! And we’re out. This one has been a particularly bad one. Major servers and websites went down, computers were wiped out by viruses (mine included) and it seemed like half the places I went, their credit card machines were malfunctioning. Not to mention the arguments over miscommunications and all of the Olympic screw-ups (holding the Olympics during nearly the exact length of the retrograde was as bad as holding the 2000 election on a retrograde. Look at the crazy thing that happened then. HE’S NOT EVEN THE ONE WE ELECTED!!) The retrograde usually hits Geminis and Virgos the hardest–here at Club Manic, we have 3 Geminis sharing one abode (Brian, Peyote and I) . Peyote has been spastic lately. But I had a deep heart to heart with him last night and he seems to feel better. But I can never tell. He just stares at me with those beady little eyes.

Funny…my computer just crashed as I was writing this.

I quit.

Warning for Those Who Work/Live in Santa Monica

B just told me that a coworker found out that someone took $1000 out of her checking account ($500 at two 7-11’s). She went to the bank to work it out, and there were a lot of other people there who had the exact same thing happen. An officer from SMPD was there and he said that someone was making fake ATM cards and had the pins.

Apparently, the common denominator was that everyone who got ripped off got gas at the Arco Station at Olympic and Cloverfield in Santa Monica and used an ATM to pay.

So if you’ve been to that gas station and paid with your ATM, check your bank statement.

For a Good Time, Sue Your Friends

I spent most of today in a five-hour mediation session that went nowhere. The goal was to come to some sort of settlement, but now it looks like this lawsuit is going to trial in March, which really, really sucks.

For those of you who don’t know, all the units in my building are suing the builders because when the units were sold, they were represented as 2700 sq. ft. But we found out two years later, that they’re actually 2250, which is a difference of as much as an entire bedroom. I was very close to the builder and his family from the time when we met and his wife was dying of cancer (the whole story is somewhere on this blog, but I’m too tired to find the post), so you can imagine this whole ordeal has been really upsetting. I had even called him when the other units were preparing to sue and I said I wouldn’t join because of my relationship with the family. I ended up calling him and asking him straight up if our units were only 2250, and he said no, that it was a mistake with the county, so to find out all this was really disappointing. But given all of the evidence to the contrary, and the fact that when it comes time for me to sell this place, I will have to represent it as a 2250-sized unit, I went ahead with the suit. I hate being played for a fool and this all comes down to principle.

This was the first time we all sat down face-to-face with our lawyers present. First of all, I like semantical arguments so I liked listening to the cases, presentations and rebuttals. It’s an intellectual sport, really. I’m good at analogies and my lawyer kept making bad ones, so I would jump in and help out (ie. The square foot issue is like paying for a minivan that seats 8, and getting a sports car that seats 2. It doesn’t matter that the sports car is a great car, too. It’s about a consumer’s right to receive exactly what it was that they were told they were paying for. Either you add on the other 6 seats, which obviously, isn’t possible, or you have to find some way to compensate for the difference).

At one point, when the builder looked me in the eye and said, “I didn’t lie to you. I would never lie to you. [My son] would never lie to you,” I didn’t feel good. I have hoped all along that maybe, somehow, this has all been an honest mistake, but from a business standpoint, this is about a balance of value, business ethics, consumer rights and getting what one pays for. If they just do what’s fair and balance this whole thing out, I walk away and easily put this nasty business behind us.

I obviously can’t talk much about this situation since we’re going to trial and their lawyers can easily find this website. But this whole thing sucks. Never, ever do business with friends.

The funny thing was that during the break, I looked at my cell phone and saw that I had 12 missed calls. They were all from Michael. I guess he was worried that I hadn’t been on Instant Messenger all day, so he WALKED to my office, saw that I wasn’t there, and then was walking around LA looking for me. Luckily, I was about 3 blocks away from my office. I told him I couldn’t come down and see him, but asked if it would make him feel better if I directed him to where I was so he could wave at me. So I was on the phone with him, directing him to a spot across the street where I could see him (from the 21st floor) and he waved up to the building. It was really cute. After I got off the phone, my lawyer said, “I didn’t know you had a child.”

I thought that was funny. But it’s true. I’ve always felt like a second mother to Michael.