Debauchery at its finest

I've been waiting a few years to be able to say it, but now my time has come. If someone were to ask me, "Hey, Cam, what are you doing this weekend?" I can finally say, and ever so nonchalantly, "Oh, Europe."

Sweet satisfaction.

Excited? Kinda, waiting for the plane to take off before I realized how real the trip is. I was more excited about finding a new brand of cigarettes today: Camel Crush. I keep a strange balance of priorities. But I'm going to quit (read: stop for a while) smoking after Europe. Okay, I take that back. After Halloween. I promise. Sort of.

Carne Asada is not a crime

Long live the taco trucks!

Just stand there and look pretty

Sarah Palin is dumber than a sack of quarters. There, I've said it. Ugh, I have such frustration aimed at her that I want to buy a plane ticket to Wasilla, Alaska and kick a moose in the nuts. But how insulting towards the moose, so maybe I'll just throw a pageant sash inscribed with "Go Home Beauty Queen" at her house. Because that's how she acted at the VP debate, if you can even call it that. Biden answered questions and presented positions he stood behind. Palin offered cliches. Mothereffing cliches. "Enough playing the blame game." "Maverick of reform." And what reforms did she speak about? Not any that I can recall. Nor can I recall her answering any questions, aside from gay marriages being a state thing. She never told us how different the McCain administration would be from Bush, despite simply saying that the administrations are different. No exit plan for Iraq was mentioned either, even though strategies have been talked about. What strategies? I scoff at the notion that McCain's a man who "knows how to win a war, he's been there." What war are we talking about? The Vietnam one that lasted about 75 years and lead to the evacuation of Saigon as US troops pulled out? Palin sounded as vapid as a high school football coach before the big game in that sense. Her notions of "we will win the war" strikes me as a Bush administration saying, as I wonder what are we trying to "win" in Iraq? Democracy in that country? Freedom? Prevention of a modern day Domino Effect? Keep Iraq from being a terrorist state and hopefully the nearby countries will do that same? Yes, because that idea worked so wonderfully well in Vietnam.

The pundits are saying that she held her own. I guess you can call being able to speak in complete sentences as holding your own, but if that's the case, give me a soapbox and I'll be the man with the megaphone. If anything, I adore Biden for telling the American public how Obama plans to change the current unsightly state of the US versus Palin who must have pulled a time wrap and slipped into her beauty pageant mood with her smiles and winks. So thanks, Sarah Palin, for pulling a Miss South Carolina but in a more eloquent way.

It's a Radiohead-OK Computer day

It's gloomy. And humid. Initial thoughts: Holy fuck, I'm in Asia. Followed up with a semi-deep longing for rainy days in Vietnam where I'm on the back of a motorbike on a dirt road, knowing that when I get off the bike, there will be splatters of mud on my leg like a rough draft of a Jackson Pollack painting. There were the walks for ice cream despite the slight drizzle. The sways on hammocks upon concrete miniature islands as we fished for our food. I'm feeling nostalgia at it's best right now and I'm looking forward to mad dashes on cobblestone roads in surprising rain.

I am a big fan of lists. Five Songs that Seem Too Close for Comfort to my Life Lyrically

1. Starry Configurations by Jets to Brazil
2. Been a Son by Nirvana
3. Nothing Gets Crossed Out by Bright Eyes
4. Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division
5. Lua* by Bright Eyes

*by Lua, I kinda mean the entire I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning album but I went for most accurate song.

8 Possible Election-Year 'October Surprises'

1. Sarah Palin wins debate using knowledge from Snapple Cap Facts.

2. Bill Clinton endorses Obama.

3. In an effort to appear younger and more hip, John McCain releases a sex ''talkie.''

4. Oak leaves suspend color-turning campaign until financial crisis is resolved. Urge maple leaves to do the same.

5. Sarah Palin turns out to have an embarrassing Ivy League-educated, immensely qualified sibling.

6. Lindsay Lohan goes back to dudes.

7. Osama bin Laden walks into Wasilla, Alaska police station to turn self in. Says, ''I would have been here sooner if you had a decent bridge.''

8. October admits it’s actually January. Election starts all over again.

(Taken from the Colbert Report, I'm in favor of number 5 and 1. Hi-lay-lay.)

All things considered

Random things on my mind as of late:
-Crack is truly the poor man's drug. My boss knows you can get it for about 2 dollars at Lafayette park. I would probably go the yuppie way and do cocaine.
-If I want to marry a man with good fashion sense, he'll probably have to be gay or a Japanese pop idol. I never thought I would use "refreshing" as a term to describe someone's fashion, but did when I saw a music video for my favorite J-pop boy band.
-Chile might not be working out for me after all as I might do a four year master's program in conjunction with the Peace Corps. Um, other yet to be known third world country, here I come?
-Oh yea, I should really start studying for the GREs and you know, apply to schools.
-I should be excited about my upcoming first European trip but I think I'll worry two night beforehand when my mom makes me pack for the trip. If not for her nagging, I would just pack the night before. Plus, my flight doesn't leave till 4pm, I've got all of the morning to do laundry and buy travel size toothpaste.
-I am two degrees of separation away from Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten. AMAZING! Oh, and I'm probably still seven degrees of separation away from Kevin Bacon.
-Ian Curtis is still the love of my life.
-Zack Morris is definitely in line at number two for that title.
-Eating corn on the cob leads to insomniac nights.

Political Smackdown

I'm so excited for the vice presidential debates that I think I'm giddy. Thrice Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee vs some person whose Fox News believe is qualified on foreign policy because her state is near Russia? Six term senator vs a governor whose barely completing her second year? I feel like the Republican team isn't even trying at this point with her nomination. Sarah Palin better have a major ace up her sleeve and it better not be the fact that she's a woman. I wonder if she's been cramming information for the debates like a college kid right before finals? This will be fun.

Also, has it come to the point where anyone can run for state governor and win? It doesn't even seem like a position of much status. California bit it in the ass when Arnold got elected, after Gary Coleman and some porn star tried for it. Jerry Springer attempted Ohio, and lovely Minnesota had the honor of Jesse Ventura.

We might as well throw all of our names into a giant top hat and pick from there. It'd the same outcome. And if you're lucky, you might even get picked by the Republican party to be VP, or maybe one of those unknown Secretaries, like Labor or Agriculture.

On second thought...

...my roommate from freshman year of college was a bit kooky. I mean, she never sexed me out because the idea of sex would have rendered her into saying fifty Hail Mary's or left her used underwear in my hamper because she was a bit of a neat-freak, but she was a bit...off. I don't know why I'm recollecting this memory but I am. So deal. I remember coming home one day to an empty room, and thought nothing of it until two hours later when I notice her computer monitor on the floor by her bed. Then came the sound of quiet keyboard typing. FROM UNDER HER BED.

No Joke.

So glad I didn't take a shower that day and decided to just toss my towel off when I returned to my room. So. Glad.

And is mouthwash supposed to burn so much after gargling or am I just dirty?

Vietnam is the new black

Apparently, Vietnam is the new Russia, in regards to the "mail order brides" aspect. Can it be considered a greater good thing, or incredibly high-priced, long term call girl scenario? For some Vietnamese women, they received their Pretty Woman ending, except sans the diamond necklace and more of the good bye rice paddies. But what a gamble to take, that I'm glad I haven't been promised off to some random son of some old friend of the family. Yet.

Danger Will Robinson!

Same patterns are starting to emerge, not good. I'm so ready to hop, skip, and be a long jump away from the proverbial pedestal. Hit the ground running, here I go.

On the drive home from an outing last night: "Holy fuck, it's daylight."

I don't remember ever saying those words except when pulling an all nighter and praying to every god possible that I'd get my term paper due by the a.m. deadline. I'm good with not repeating those words again. Unless JK Rowling decided to write a sequel to Harry Potter and I, naturally, read the book in one sitting.

Flight to Europe bought yesterday, the wallet sobbed when I pressed "Confirm" to buy the ticket. Is it October yet? Here's hoping Dublin, Prague, and Vienna don't hypnotize me to the point where I somehow "lose" my passport and am forced to spend the rest of my life in one of the aforementioned havens.

Love is a place

I like life and currently enjoy all the things that make my world go topsy-turvy. Friends, family, boy(s), and being a faghag. Instant realization of that last one today while making dinner. Final acceptance as well. Still, wonderment exist of which one I am: Grace to their Will or Karen to their Jack?

Could this good vibration be the result of the earthquake today, ala Ghost of the Future/Scrooge type of deal? Could be, but I still feel miserly and would probably hit anyone crossing my path in the knee with my cane.

Seriously, life is good.

EPIC!

If I were a gay icon, I'd so make "epic" the next "fierce." I think we should start a campaign on it. Why? Because it'd be so epic. Or how about: that dress is epic.

Amazing!

Farewell my salad days

I'm looking for a certain truth, one that can confirm for me that there is forever. And if not forever, then at least an epic end worthy of its crash and burn demise. Not some slow fade. I don't know if it's because I'm a protege of the MTV generation or because I've been listening to way too much Nirvana and reading too many quotes by dead poets who remind me to burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars. Whatever it is that's prompting me, I am searching for that girl who will stand tall, whose voice won't waver, and who can walk away because it's time. I want to be her with the shaking knees and the numb fingers as the words scrap scratch claw her throat for release and the tears are silently waterfalling. In all her misery, she'll move forward. She'll remember to breath. She'll remember to take that first step. And the misery will only last for so long before she gets bored of it. So if you see this girl, let me know. I want to tell her thanks for being here and standing brightly by without holding my hand but still whispering all the right encouraging words.

Legitimate Vampire

I started learning how to draw blood this past Monday and by learning, I mean, actually drawing blood. It's as easy AND as hard as I thought it would be. Easy in the sense that the needle goes in the vein and out comes blood into the collection tube. It's harder than I thought because of all the smaller details you have to recall. So far, so good. I mean, nobody's passed out on me yet.

San Diego Pride is this weekend and I'm ridiculously excited about going and I'm not even sure why. It might have do with hanging out with some of my favorite people, some of whom I haven't seen in six months. It could be the fact that I'm just glad to see people because I don't have friends in LA anymore and have resorted to hanging out with myself the last couple of weeks. The third idea could be my excitement to wear a dress I bought last Friday. Oh, the blender of ideas and how it's all coming together. Everything's coming up Milhouse.

Wait, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

First page among others

My new found auntdom has brought me into uncharted territory that I don't care to ever map. My sister and her fiance can be the cartographers for this adventure. All my niece does is eat, sleep, and poo. Not a very hard life. It'll be one we'll all be accustomed to in half a century. So Jenna, meet the Internet. Internet, this is Jenna, aka Jenna Bean and Jen-jen.

As obvious, I must be an aunt in name only (see image to the right). But this aunt will sing you Weezer songs instead of lullabies and tell you Greek myths stories instead of fairy tales. I also do Asian folklore, if you're asking.

What amazes me, is how much I'll be able to tell her when she's older. Such as how her dad freaked out in the delivery room, how her grandma was a cross hair away from craziness during the pregnancy, how I suggested a colorful array of rejected names. These events have stemmed from only the last few months and this kid has years to grow and million more stories to relive. They say a woman becomes a mother when she's pregnant and a father realizes he's one when he hold his child for the first time. So what about me, Aunt Cam? That was my epiphany: becoming a ledger for her history that she can open at any time.

Nature of the Experiment

The following things have been bothering me as of late:

1. How does one measure self-worth? Or rather, how is it measured at all by anyone's account? Thoughts of "you deserve better" or "i don't deserve you" or even the "you're worth so much more than that" makes me wonder. It has me bothered, perturbed, disturbed. Most of all, I'm annoyed that some set of scales and balance has to be attributed to my own wants based on someone else opinion. It's ridiculous in some heartbreaking way.

2. Where will the next step in my life take me? Planes, trains, and an ocean away prompts the big picture. I'm still working on the smaller details but I'm afraid that I'll find some new place to call my own and then never look back. Because I wouldn't be surprised at all if I never came back to LA after tasting some foreign forbidden fruit. It's the idea of the leap from one skipping stone to the next that have frozen my jump mid-crouch like some ache in my leg that won't pass. How I wish I could just take that step without guilt or worry.

3. Ticketmaster can also suck the big one. It can also do a lot of things that could be described as "expletive" because I would just write a string of dirty things. I can't believe they now charge five dollars for an "order processing" fee in addition to the other inane fees. And that they can get away with it. If Ticketmaster had a human shape, I'd drop kick it in the face among other things.

And my things to do list that isn't a bother but still need to be crossed off:
-sign up for either a Portuguese, Spanish, or Japanese class
-check to see if any one of those languages are UN/WHO needed
-find someone to go the Faint concert with me
-make sure that person will not stand around with arms folded but will dance like a proper marionette to the music
-buy tickets to Prague/Berlin/Dublin/I still need to figure out which city I'm flying into
-buy new jeans
-figure out where I'm going to be for July 4th? SD or LA?
-suppress the urge to travel north to see my best friends and crawl into their beds and sleep for an eon until the smell of cupcakes wake up me and then we'll watch bad movies like the Covenant or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (but not Princess Diaries 2 because that would be the same as torture)

Preggo Eggo and other modern-day metaphors

So the last few months, my life has been like the movie Juno sans the cool soundtrack (but I don't think I would want Sonic Youth soundtracking my life because, honestly, their albums was just a bunch of noise). But the "witty" dialogue was there and so were the "characters." My mom went batshit crazy around the end of February and tried to convince my pregnant sister to go to Vietnam to have the baby so that no one in the community would know. When that fell through, she tried to convince me and my sister to rent a house for the two weeks before and after the due date. Basically, we were supposed to hide out. My dad went into overdrive paternal mode and built an additional wing to the house so that the construction would mask the disappointment. And by wing, I just mean another bedroom and joint bathroom. My youngest sister Winnie (the nonpregnant one) went into hyperdrive aunt mode and was ready to leap oceans for her new niece.

Five hours ago, my sister gave birth. And new life has appeared. My first words to the baby? "Holy shit, you're real." My next few words? "You are so small, and the world is so large but everything will be okay." My mom's reaction was a mix of cyncism and confusion: "What are you talking about? The baby isn't small, she's 8 pounds." And things will be okay, they always turn up fine in the end after the chaos, unexpected twists, and overbearing hills are passed.

Goodbye, frightful anticipation for what unknown outcome will appear and, hello, eager anxiety for all the great things that will arise.

Oh, and that girl is going to be a heartbreaker. She's only five or six hours old, but I can feel it in my bones already.

Holy crap, I'm an aunt.

A relapse into US History

If you were not the first ten presidents of the United States or the last ten, I don't see a point in remembering who you are. I'm currently at work and with no patients to scamper after, I decided to take a quiz. So the following people can suck it:

James Madison, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson.

But I was able to name 27 out of 42 presidents. That's pretty good, right? RIGHT? (Also, screw you Joanne.)

Stuck in the rabbit's hole

Loneliness comes in such a revolting form. The Boy has moved two hours away and the best buddy might move many hours north. And I sit here in constant wait for what I plan to do next but time has me on standstill, saying that there is more ticking of the hour before I can stop forward. Tick tock indeed. I know that I can easily throw myself into work for financial preparation, but for what? What meaning am I trying to derive from this back break? What satisfaction am I trying to achieve? I say "Public Health" and I'm really hoping that I'm spewing honesty and not some sacrificial lamb crap to appease strangers and their judgmental glares.

And oh my, nothing else could have been done
She made her life a lie so
She might never have to know anyone
Made her life the lie, you know

You know, you know, oh, how you know. Oh, Elliott, how you still ring true in my ears after so many years. And you're still waiting for happiness for me and you, aren't you? I'm striving for that change in me that will bring about the change in all because Gandhi wasn't just a dreamer, he was living inspiration. So let's circle back to my original thought: Loneliness comes in such a revolting form because I'm kept company by words of the great late dead.

What I used to be will pass away and then you'll see
That all I want now is happiness
For you and me

...of Old Men and Movies

My list of the week is as followed (and I know it can't really be considered a list "of the week" considering that I don't post weekly enough but let's just roll with the euphemism here):

Bands that I've rediscovered how much I miss and love within the last 24 hours
1. Iron & Wine
2. Rilo Kiley
3. Elliott Smith (just the song Georgia, Georgia)

I spent some time at my mom's shop today and had to entertain George, the old dude who stops by the shop when waiting for his wife next door at the hair salon. I can't gauge how old he really is but he has grandchildren my age, so I'm just going to assume that "old" is a good number. After talking to him for 15 minutes or rather, me just nodding and affirming his ideas for 15 minutes, he has reinforced my opinion in how cool old people are. George speaks 7 languages, which he was happy to rattle off in, was drafted to Japan for a war, married his high school sweetheart, and is your typical geezer who would hit on any dame that crossed his path. And yet, I find all of that interesting. I really hope that when I'm his age, I can hit on young boys, talk about my experiences overseas and god knows what. Seriously, a lifetime of tales is what I aim for.

I just finished watching the first Narnia film and all I can really say about that film is: Jesus reference! That and how much would it suck to rule a country for 10 odd years and then return to your teenage body? I would be a little piss because who wants to go through puberty twice. And the reason why I rented Narnia was to be able to understand what happens in Prince Caspian, which I plan to see because there was a girl wielding a bow and arrow. Woman with weapons? SOLD! This is the summer of movies for me. It began with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, continued with Iron Man and Speed Racer. I was going to write up mini-reviews for those movies but never got around to it so here are hopefully non-spoilers ones.
A) The flashbacks and mini-sequences were funnier than the plot.
B) Drunken superheroes seem to be the rage this summer so let's start off the season with a billionaire, genius, womanizer drunkard. In his spare time, he builds weapons in caves.
C) Eye-candy galore! Complete with cars, fight sequences, and hot chicks. Oddly enough, it walked away with a PG rating.

I'll write more blurbs with the movies to come, which will be Prince Caspian, Indy 4, Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, Get Smart, Pineapple Express among other titles that most people will cringe at but I will wholeheartedly throw a ten dollar bill at. Ugh, when did movies become so expensive?