A Woman's Mirth
I was talking to Jose about how pathetic I can be; how I will be by myself and then start laughing maniacally at the most mundane of jokes.
Jose0905: You should have seen me at the park talk to a bee, kill the bee, laugh at the dead be, and then pray for the bee.
Jose0905: I was insane!
MiccioKaren: hahahahaha
MiccioKaren: you have problems
Jose0905: That's what happens when you don't have people around you.
Jose0905: Just end up talking to inanimate objects.
MiccioKaren: Or praying for dead bees.
MiccioKaren: That is the funniest thing you've ever said
Jose0905: Look, I was really sad.
MiccioKaren: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to undermine its solemnity.
Jose0905: He was getting dangerously close to my tuna wrap, so I baited his ass, and then crushed him with my Lotus Notes manual.
Jose0905: And I said, "Don't fucking mess with me!"
Jose0905: And then it was shaking and then I was really sad and prayed (silently.)
Jose0905: It was also at this time that I pictured a huge huge bee -- the size of the Capital Grifters building -- to crush me with its butt.
We all have different ways to deal with being alone.
Best Story of the Day
Another contribution by Cirrus. A bagel hit Celeste in the head this morning at their Lawyering Skills breakfast. Where did it come from? Why were bagels flying through the air? We don't know if she was hurt or not; sometimes bagels can be very hard.
"Milk for my cereal, Coffee Mate for my coffee."
And that last part, you have to say with the right pauses and a little flourish. That was Coffee Mate's slogan sometime in the 90's. I am having a serious issue with coffee consumption. I don't know if it's the rainy weather, constantly being in coffee houses, or being convinced that the caffeine helps me study, but I have cup after cup of the addictively aromatic brew. I have either Starbuck's house blend or Colombia, always with turbinado sugar (or "in the raw"). And the finishing touch is with Coffee Mate or half-and-half -- nothing else will do -- and then I am in creamy coffee heaven.
Is Ming Tsai sure that he knows what he's doing? He combines shoestring potatoes with cilantro aiolis and panko chips. I mean, I'm so sure. And he seems to use aiolis in all of his dishes, in each episode he instructs its preparation in the exact same way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Ming, we know. Slowly drip the oil into the food processor. You don't want to go too fast, because it has to emulsify. Yeah, you said last time that if you heat it up too quickly it will break the aioli. You said it in last episode and the episode before that. Aiolis. Great.
I got called on twice this morning in Contracts and had no replies whatsoever for my professor's questions. Honestly, I should never have acknowledged my presence and perhaps there would have been a better result. It was like he called on a mannequin. Imagine that, looking into the rows of students and seeing a plastic Asian mannequin wearing Abercrombie & Fitch in the fourth row, staring blankly ahead with glossy painted black eyes, the light hitting my face (yellow No. 5) creating a slight glare, my synthetic black hair falling straight. The student beside me taps me to tell me Professor Kelly is calling on me, and my right hand falls off at the wrist, revealing only the metal peg that it was hooked on.
I think Jose could get a good laugh out of that -- he is the original "puppet."
Summertime in the SDC
Today's SHOUT-OUT is to Pamela of Jacques Michael Salon of Los Angeles, who is my stylist and colorist. The near arrival of summer means that my hair is lightening just the way I like it, thanks to her consultation and arrangement of the perfect balance of browns against blondes. And a big WAZZUP to Dave of Robert Cromean of Pacific Beach, for the cut that's growing out to something fun and manageable. PROPS, y'all.
People, hair is important.
I've been groovin' to Craig David all weekend. Boy, is his voice silky. My initial complaint was that he didn't have the range of a JC Chasez or even a Michael Bolton. But there is a singular, inimitable, uber-smoove quality to his voice that is the elemental spotlight feature. Hey, Craig, why don't you fill me in. Just kidding.
This week brings the revelation that I need to block certain bad people out of my life, even if it means that I am compromising how important it is to me to have healthy relationships with everybody. But how delusional is that? Some relationships cannot be functional by any stretch of the imagination, by any feat of manipulation. The lesson here is the old one about quality, not quantity. I'm glad that the people who were truly valuable did stick by me.
Springtime in the LBC
I was delighted today to find that Annie Lennox's "Waiting in Vain" is on my Medusa CD. How cool is that -- unearthing lost treasures that you've always had. It is now THE official cool-down song after 25 minutes of cardio on the treadmill.
"I'd pay full price for you anytime."
Today I went to Santana's looking for an Orange Bang, which for some reason I swore they had. But they didn't, despite me badgering the guy at the drive-thru window. "Are you sure? Orange Bang. Can I get an Orange Bang? You don't have it? Orange Bang. ORANGE BANG." So I just had water.
For posterity's sake I must mention that last week I met Lea Salonga and was hovering around Emeril Lagasse at a Waldenbooks' signing. His new book is, "There's a Chef in My Soup!" which I find neither amusing nor clever. His presence at the Fashion Valley Mall prompted me to blurt out "Bam!" every 5 minutes with the accompanying hand-splattering motion. As for Lea, that was trippy, she was a friend of Marcus', who is a friend of Stefan's. We were at Champps, a bar at the Irvine Spectrum. The main issue here is why Champps has 2 P's.
It's funny to be really obsessed with somebody for 9 years and then just play it cool for the only 20 minutes of your life that you will ever be in that person's proximity.
Waiting in Vain
I got into a fender bender today. I was belligerent with my rather kind and nonplussed victim/assailant, and it is not advisable at this early stage for me to venture an opinion as to which of those two roles he actually is. But a bitch I was, indeed.
I saw "Changing Lanes" tonight and it was a real pisser. I was sickened by how depraved people can get; and even if this was fiction, all of fiction is based on reality or Hollywood minds, and that thought in itself is disturbing.
The best part was Annie Lennox's closing song during the credits, which I was still humming as I left the theater.
I feel more at peace right now than I did 2 hours ago. Everything's not so bad, really. I just have to be able to pick up the phone and make the calls I need to, write that extra e-mail, put myself in touch with that one person who I've been ignoring. Do, do, do.
Scooby Snacks
Po Chhim deserves a lot of credit, for being the sassy, humorous, and charismatic girl that she is. Today she said that I receive compliments as if they're Scooby Snacks. I wasn't that receptive to being likened to a lanky, slobbering, bonehead Great Dane (Is that what Scooby is? Or is that Marmaduke?) but she was right on. I mean, read the previous entry. If you say something positive about me, I will pander to you.
It's marvelous thing that for the past months I've been able to say, "I'm happy" or "I love my life" at least once a day, or at least a few times a week. There have been off days, to be sure. There have been days when I've been miserable and depressed and lonely. But they are far outnumbered by the ones where I felt appreciated and fortunate and hopeful and alive. I am also glad that I have things to stress about, because it means I am pursuing something and that I have goals. I like that I am so happy it scares me; that my cowardice or complacency sometimes really only means I do not want to upset the lilting balance of a life that I like.
Do you want to go throw up yet? My positive attitude is sickening.
I took a fat-burner today before I went to the gym. I don't know what it was; it was a horse pill that smelled rancid and I believe one of its functions is to give me extra bursts of energy. Who knows what it's actually for, but it did make me run like a hamster on the treadmill. I could have sworn that later on while I was studying, everything seemed amazingly clear and I was reading twice as fast.
I was taking these about a year ago while I was still living in Los Angeles. I remember coming back from the gym chattering like Joan Rivers on the red carpet. Reyna and Jose said, "We are scared for you."
Style Not Substance
I am all about flourless chocolate cakes reheated in the oven for about 10 minutes, or a chocolate souffle a la mode. Decadent and sinfully rich.
I talked to my Lawyering Skills professor today and she gave me some brilliant comments, that reinstated my hope of being capable of applying myself in some way in law. She said that my oral argument was very "impressive" and that I had a "silver tongue," that some of the things I said absolutely mesmerized her and the teaching assistants. Professor Oster said it would be very effective in oral advocacy; that I was very smooth and fluid; that my volume level was just right, that my posture and distance from the podium were great, and that I showed no signs of nervousness.
I was so incredibly flattered, and in the minute or so that this was being said to me, I felt like I was in "Stand and Deliver."
And then Professor Oster proceeded to detail the various points where I evaded the question, skirted around the issue, or appeared on the edge of total ignorance. OK, so I'm style, not substance. Versace, not Chanel. Martinis, not champagne. I can live with this.
My dad gave me 2 things this weekend: a bread machine and fax machine. Fresh bread and faxes, woo hoo!
Eva la Mariposa
I've never known a knockout like Eve, who has every boy crying from the minute he lays eyes on her. "She had more curves than the Indianapolis 500 but was twice as dangerous." I'm literally reduced to being part of her entourage when we all go out, but it's a pleasure to serve. It's a rare occasion when her fiance is out of town and she has what she calls, "a hall pass."
We went to Zao Sushi in La Jolla, San Diego's answer to Miyagi's, and then Bollicine, which was more like, I don't know, Cafe Maurice. There were lots of Euros floating around and unsurprisingly, all of them took an immense liking to Eve. Po rattled off in French and after her third glass of red wine, seemed to be enjoying herself a lot. My new drink of choice is a Malibu rum and pineapple which, according to Stefan, deludes me into thinking there is no alcohol in it because the Malibu aspect makes it seem like a pina colada.
I needed to use an accent and tilde in the previous paragraphs but am unfamiliar with how to effect international characters in HTML. All suggestions welcome.
I am not feeling as conflicted today.
I Can See Clearly Now
It is a breezy and sunny San Diego day.
In the cartoon that is my life, the bad guy lives in a dark and cluttered room and constantly takes apart old mechanisms and puts them back together in new permutations. He is part inventor, part handyman, part garbage collector. However, as he is the token bad guy and must have immense resources from which to sustain his evil exploits, he actually owns a bunch of shiny, new, technologically advanced gadgets. He rarely uses them though; they are mainly for show. The bad guy has a kind face but you would never know it because it is perpetually, if not permanently, scrunched up into this "What do you want?" kind of facial expression. On his bad guy uniform there is a big "D" on the center of his chest.
I access
www.dictionary.com daily to learn something new.
Tick Tick Tick
Law school always feels like a time bomb waiting to explode. The countdown now is 1 month.
Yesterday I spent some time studying with Stefan and it was a good time. He was writing a paper on Singapore Airlines' success strategy and I was reading Property shit on easements. I hate that stuff. I wish people's properties were always properly partitioned and roads were built in unobstructed, neutral territories. Why can't we all get along? You realize too in Anglo-American law that our culture is practically obsessed with privacy and a paramount right to quiet, exclusive enjoyment of their possessions.
Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall
You know how you go out on first dates and then harbor all these evil thoughts, like, "I can't believe this guy just said this to me." Or, "Wow, that was too much information." Or, "Hey, buddy, way to kill a first date." Like they'll tell you disturbing reasons why old relationships died or things they didn't like about their former lovers' bodies, etc., things that they say either as icebreakers or amusing conversational topics but really just make you alarmed and awkward. Red flags that tell you, this is not my life partner. Or is this just me, who is always entertaining a caustic inner monologue?
Well, today, I was looking in the mirror doing little fix-its, like plucking my eyebrows, assessing my imperfections, and the thought crossed my mind that I must surely be a victim of my own crime. How many times have I said random, jarring, unnerving things, shared too much about my life or flung out indiscriminate opinions and generalizations. There must definitely be a catalogue of guys who have done the "Oooookay" thing in their head as I rambled off about Michelle Kwan or Italy. And how about my utter frankness in talking about ex-relationships. There's always cause there for a person to swear that it is the first and last date.
I'm going to go think about this more carefully in my Civil Procedure class.
One Year Ago, Today
If you're reading this now, it's because I trust you and want to include you in my life. Thank you. I appreciate our friendship.
Vicky and I posted about 50 items on Amazon.com's marketplace. So far, we have sold some of my old Cliffs Notes, Bette Midler and Linda Eder CDs (both to men), and a Babyface CD to a woman in Chicago. I think on the 5 or so things sold, we have made about $4.
It's hard finding the perfect business.
It's really nice when somebody has been thinking of you and calls you to let you know it. I become flushed with pleasure and the somebody gets, according to Jose's scale, 10 points. I miss the days when I would play lilting Spanish slow jams and dream about an Italian beau, or wonder about true love or imagine what shapes and colors fulfilment would take on. Each minute was heavy with promise. The best thing was falling asleep at night simply because my thoughts would take me to a nice place, and springing up every morning expecting to see it. Do you know what I mean? Because I'm not sure I do, anymore.
Porque eres tu, mi sol.
La fe con que vivo,
La potencia de mi voz,
Los pies con que camino.
Eres tu, amor,
Mis ganas de reir,
El dios que no sabre decir
Porque nunca podre sin ti.
- Shakira Mekbara
Accepting Applications for 2002
You find out on E! True Hollywood Story "Growing Pains" that Kirk Cameron was actually an overly pious, manipulative, and self-righteous insurgent on the set. He wanted storylines changed, cast members fired, and constantly challenged the producers' decisions. This all happened after he became a born again Christian. He decided that the storylines were too racy. Yeah, I remember just how scandalous that show was.
It's been 7 months since I played any kind of baseball.
