this is love

This is how I end my phone conversations with my sister: "I hate you , goodbye."

This is how I end conversations with the Boy Wonder: "You're such a jerk, bye."

This is how I end conversations with Jo or Di: "You're such a bitch. Bye."

When it's all over, I hope we're still standing. Side by side.

Be safe

I was going to send all of my friends who weren't in San Diego a condom or two in honor of today. I didn't. Mainly because I forgot.

Next year, buddies, for sure next year.

Residue

I don't think the smell of latex can ever bring up any memory but me holding little plastic jars of urine and waiting for three minutes to pass by to see if there's one line or two lines on that little white strip. I've been volunteering at a health clinic in my attempts to reach that job with the World Health Organization and so far my job's consisted of filing medical charts and making bags with condoms in it. Lately though, I've been in the lab room doing pregnancy tests and strictly that. Soon enough, I'll be the one giving results. I hear all the situations, the condom broke, I missed a pill, it was my first time, and so on and so on. But there's almost nothing striking as seeing the waiting room full of 6 middle schoolers with their backpacks and their uniforms. 3 asked for condoms. 1 asked for a pregnancy test. And then you make the judgement, "You're 14. I know because you're giggling with your friends over stickers that you've put on your face. Why are you even here?" I lead her to bathroom, explain what to do but I want to tell her to go home, be jaded, sing those pop songs, follow those pop idols, but forget about this sex stuff. I think the entire staff breathed a collective sigh when I told them it was a negative. And the 14 year old became a 14 year old girl when we told her the same news. She shrunk into her chair, fidgeted, and had the doe eye look.

It makes me sad. It makes me hate our biology. It makes me wish for change, the way any sociologist would, in structural and cultural barriers. (Though I will say that there is nothing in the world like reaching into a bin completely filled with condoms and pulling a handful out.)

Label me

If you had a radio show (and played stuff along the lines of Belle and Sebastian, The Faint, Blonde Redhead, Elliot Smith, Bright Eyes, Fugazi, and Neutral Milk Hotel) what would you call your show? If I were truly vindictive, I'd call mine: Panic! Can Suck it.

But really, what would you call yours?

and the boys who love you, they just come and go, don't they?

Persuasion

Reasons to go to all three days of Coachella this year:
Decemberists, Interpol, Arcade Fire, Travis, Fountains of Wayne, Bjork, !!!, Blonde Redhead, Tokyo Police Club, Jose Gonzales, Of Montreal, Peaches, Damien Rice, Tilly and the Wall, We are Scientist.

I wish they would shove all of those bands onto one day so that I can only pay 100 bucks and not triple that amount. But then I could check out what's the hype on the following bands: Placebo, The Arctic Monkeys, Andrew Bird, Sonic Youth, Hot Chip, The Good The Bad and The Queen, Jarvis Cocker, Kaiser Chiefs, Kings Of Leon, Willie Nelson (I know!!!!!! How odd!!), Tape 'n Tapes.

If only Smashing Pumpkins, Saosin, Mars Volta, Jets to Brazil, and Phantom Planet were added to that list. I would be sitting here, frozen in excitement that I might program my brain for shut down until April 27.

So come to Coachella with me, I'll be in the dance tent.

Bitch-slapped bank account

Somewhere in La Jolla, California, there is the sound of a crying wallet and a rumbling stomach. Meanwhile, Ben Sherman is laughing his Union Jack ass off. It's been nearly a month but I'm still recuperating from my New York trip, to think that three and a half days in one city could take such a financial chunk from me. I might as well have said, "Here, this is my right arm, it may not be as valuable as my left, but it's been good to me these last twenty-odd years." Then watch Manhattan take a cleaver to my body. So now I'm hungry and I want some gyros and perhaps a Greek salad but it's too cold for me to leave my apartment. (50 degrees? That's near hypothermia to me.) I'm also too lazy to drive. But it doesn't matter, because I've been telling myself that I shouldn't buy anything until I get Coachella squared out of the way. That's 300-400 dollars, wham bam, out of my hands and into Goldenvoice's. So no more off-campus food. The terrible thing is, I'm now left with only cafeteria food and I've come to loath that stuff. It doesn't count as food. It's stuff. Stuff you might find on the floor, or in between the couch cushions. I might as well resort to ramen for the next month in this insane attempt to save money for Coachella.

Starvation? Is it really key to my happiness? Perhaps, if it could afford me a PlayStation/wii, an external hard drive, noise-cancelling headphones, a DVD burner, a new camera, coachella tickets, and a box of See's Nuts and Chews thrown in for kicks. (What a tech geek's wet dream list.)

Mental Preparation

On my desk is a copy of Chungking Express, Snakes on a Plane, and the Devil Wears Prada. I've been able to watch the last two movies without any hesitation--well, a bit on the Prada one--because they're mindless movies to me. I sat through them with little expectations because they seemed like acceptable B-movies to me. But Chungking Express? I fear even touching the DVD cover because I have no idea what the movie has in store for me and I don't know if I will be able to walk away from that movie feeling complete. I've read reviews and critiques, so it's all mental preparation to accept what might be a wonderfully bittersweet movie. This will be a week of Wong Kar-Wai films (In the Mood for Love, 2046) and I'm actually praying that my psyche will be intact come next Monday.

Tony Leung, this movie is riding on you and your pineapple eating skills. You are also the only Asian man I'm willing to pounce (aside from Eiji Wentz and Jun Matsumoto, but that's a whole different fan girl story.) Chungking Express, please don't break my heart.

86 the 06

Goodbye 2006, how I will always recall the solstice party, end of the world party, venturing into the world of monogamy dating, saying goodbye to dear roommates of male and female genders, trip around the US, and the endless sleep deprived nights spent contemplating my future amongst many other wonderful moments. May more arise in the coming year.

I have no resolutions for the year because I don't need any. Instead, I will leave you with a cover of Wonderwall by Cat Powers and a chirpy Age of Consent by New Order. And yes, that is the song played over the Marie Antoinette trailer.

fit for an emo song

They've built apartment buildings on my youth. Where the Bay State movie theater use to stand, there are now apartment buildings and I was just crushed to no longer see the parking lot I used to hang out in with my friends following a good movie. Senior year of high school, where did you go?

This is a city of dead memories. Where's Chris Carraba when you need him to write an emo song? I'll even throw in a long haired girl in a summer dress with the wind blowing her hat away if it'll make the song more picturesque. I'm just not sure where I'll find said girl. I guess I'm just growing up and out of this fish bowl city but am too chicken shit to make that leap out. Le sigh indeed.

fragile and thin

I almost wished he would say I've been eating for you but that would make us more attached and dependent than ever. More than I want, more than I want to handle. For a week, I walked around the arctic east and each day, I sorely missed some boy on the sunny west coast that my heart ached. It ached not for him, but because of him. I don't want someone else to complete me, I don't want to believe that I'm not whole unless I'm with him. So for a week, I mourned what I was while entranced by big city lights. I have become dependent on him because I want someone to understand the inane trials I put myself through. Now I'm starving for affection and utterly angry that I don't know how to be whole on my own accords. But I'm working on that eating thing, so I'm not falling apart in all areas.

Now and then

NYC is gorgeous the way a Jackson Pollock painting is, full of color and chaos. And when I left, I realized how enamored I was by that city and can't wait to go back. But now I find myself back home in a place all too familiar yet foreign. It's always that same feeling when I come back that I can't pinpoint but it's as if I'm viewing everything through blurred lens. I recognize the outlines of the same buildings and peoples from before but they're all changed. But so it goes, and here I am to spend the next two and half week reverting back to a complete geek stage where I'll be reading comics, watching all the movies I haven't seen in theaters the past year and gaming my little heart out. Final Fantasy, how I have missed you.

Hello free time

All is done. Fall quarter ended about 24 hours ago for me and it's painful to watch everyone still struggle about because at this point, you kind of see resignation in their eyes. Some determination, but more so, that want for finals to just end. So I suppose it doesn't help that the moment I was done, I pranced. I freaking pranced and danced and twirled to show how happy I was.

But now I don't know what to do with my free time? Oh woe is me. How I am fortune's fool. Perhaps I'll catch a sunbeam or two before being whisked away to the arctic east. Temptations abound to just do nothing, but I now remember one temptation these past days as I sat huddled by my desk looking over obscure facts on German medicine and Prussian wars: how nice it would be to just chain smoke the hours away.

Instead I crocheted and did crossword puzzles to make me feel smart. Free time shouldn't exist. It should only happen when we're pressed for time because that's when all the fun starts.

And beyond?

Apparently, the UN is hiring a librarian for their Beirut sector, among other positions like secretarial jobs in Zimbabwe where knowledge of Portuguese is an advantage. That and they actually have a position entitled "Scientist." How ridiculously mindblowing is that?

But so it goes, I say. Which I've been saying a lot recently...in my head. People are leaving, people are staying, people are coming. My office boss is trying to convince me to stay for another year at UCSD. Here, I'll have a job, school to keep me busy, and housing to keep me sheltered. But come June, I'll make like a tree and getting the fuck out of here. I'm "over" the school thing, "over" the current job, and am looking forward to newer, scarier things where not all is so clearly set in stone.

But hey, so it goes.

Tonight I write, tomorrow I dance.

Randomosity

I would rather be fighting a giant scorpion with a shell of titanium with only a rusty spoon and a hairbruh for weapons, then have to write a film review or even make an attempt to write my history paper.

I would rather be holding out my hands to have my archenemy, the Green Power Ranger, give me paper cuts then write anything for my history class.

I would rather endure Britney Spears and Fed-Ex's mockery of a reality show "Chaotic" than have to sit this desk any longer.

I would rather do a combination of those above things: fight a scorpion while covered in papercuts and having in-ear pieces that play the audio track from Chaotic on repeat, then have to do homework right now.

It's been four or five months since I wrote an academic paper. Where in the world is my mind? I honestly don't know but I am sure that it's not in my head right now. It's probably off in Jamaica playing limbo with really hot and drunken college chicks, or something. So if anybody does see my useless brain, tell it to stay there. I don't need it. Without it, I am reduced to sleep and that's not something worth complaining about.

In recent news, I went to see Aerosmith for free. Was it worth it? Probably. The ride home was terrible as there was NO ONE whatsoever to direct traffic. So cars crammed into lanes and I just wanted to slash tires. Who the fuck tried to have four lanes merge into one via a corner turn? Ridiculous. Oh, but Steven Tyler was charismatic. I still wonder how his sperm produced Liv Tyler.

I think I'm also developing a taste for beer. I say that because I keep wishing I were at a pub, drinking the afternoon away. And if that isn't a sad outlook on life, I don't know what is. Perhaps if I were to sob into my beer and mutter, "Death, you are my bitch lover!"

I also still don't know what to with my life post-graduation. I'm beginning to think I should have a suggestion box. So please, email me with suggestions. As of June 2007, I will have a bachelor's degree in Sociology and a minor in history. I can also describe to you in full detail of all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Count 'em, SEVEN. Full detail. And if you're sick of me speaking in English, I'll talk to you in Spanish, Vietnamese, and by then, hopefully, Portuguese.

I miss Gang of Four. "Love will get you like a case of Anthrax, and that's something I don't want to catch."

Consolation

I've always been, and probably always will be, a passive-aggressive person. It's just now, at this hour, that I wonder if that's a damaging trait to have. And I'm also wondering how that's going to manifest itself.

I wish three day weekends occurred more frequently. Because I'm a selfish person. I want more time. 24 hours in a day just isn't suffice. I'm not asking for another hour or three. Just another moment. Just one more minute.

Christ, listening to Jeff Buckley at three in the morning is damning. That or damaging, I've yet to decide.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite...

I love tiptoe hugs because they make me feel like I'm trying to reach you. So I have to stand tall, as tall as possible that I might be on the level as you. Because some days, and some times, you just seem faraway. So I love hugs on tiptoes. And I love midday naps where I know the afternoon sun is on my face but the blanket is still wrapped around my legs like a chain to remind me to stay on earth instead of strange far off daydreams. Then there are the sad love songs that make me so happy because I hope that the writer was so incredibly and deeply in love that the loss was that devastating for him to write a song. He carved words from his melancholy and strung his sighs into a melody. And in his kindness, he chose to share his heartache with me.

But I don't love my words, not a bit, because I don't have much to share anymore.

What it is