Sharks and Me

Obviously this isn't a shark, but it was taken at the Long Beach Aquarium, where there is a large shark tank, and I'm trying to make an attempt to use only my own photos in this blog as of recently (shout out to those other people that took the photos I used). Anywho, onto the real deal.

I suppose sharks fall into my interests somewhere in between animal intelligence and disasters. They are intelligent, they are animals, and they can be disasters. I'm not sure where this particular intrigue began - perhaps when I was in high school and I caught Jaws on television. Quite riveting indeed. I know it was bad for sharks as a whole, and I know it's a cliched movie to love, but too bad, I do.

In college, a friend of mine had a screening for Deep Blue Sea. What a terrific film. So over the op ridiculous, so well done. One of my friends watching it was a devotee of Discovery's Shark Week, which I then got into.

I'm not ... afraid of sharks. I don't really have to be, I'm afraid of the ocean first (I almost drowned in the undertow at fourteen and our relationship has never been the same, I'm sad to say). I find them fascinating, these creatures of a world I'll never know. I really loved a book titled "The Devil's Teeth" which is about not only great white sharks, but also about obsession and the Farralon Islands, which, despite living in the Bay Area from ages three to seventeen, I had no idea existed. I also started reading "Close to Shore," but didn't finish it before the library wanted it back. It talked about how there had been this period of time in the 1800s in America where people were too busy and/or modest to go swimming in the ocean, and so it fell out of fashion. In that period of a hundred years before, we as humans simply forgot about sharks. Then in the early 1900s, ocean swimming came back into style and suddenly were being eaten by these horrible monsters. Can you imagine? Forgetting about sharks. How fascinating. I need to finish that book. And the other four or five that I'm reading. READ ALL THE BOOKS!

Anywho, sharks are a thing I like. I want to know more about them. I want to know more about most things, but sharks are near the top.

Preconceived Notions and Me

Being an only child and not having many gender restrictions put on me made for some interesting preconceived notions as a child. For instance, when I was in elementary school, we had a house with a fireplace in it (in fact, so did the other two houses we lived in before I left for college). My dad used to go out and collect firewood - although not exactly in a wood-sy kind of way. He used to find pallets of wood behind office buildings that had been thrown out, and he would take these home, break them up, and use them as firewood. Sometimes I was with him during these random excursions. Since I had no brothers, it seemed natural to me that I would be the one who, when I grew up and had a family, I would be the one who would drive around picking up thrown out firewood. It never occurred to me that it was a 'man's' job, even though I watched my dad doing it. I was happy to take on the responsibilities both my parents took on. It's not like I expected to be single all my life. It was more that I didn't know what skills my future partner would bring to the table, so in the meantime, I should probably just be prepared for anything.

Of course, now I live in an apartment, with a gas fireplace that turns on with a flick of a switch. The pilot light hasn't been lit since we've lived here. And there's a chance I'll never own a wood burning fireplace - they're illegal to install in newly built California homes. And I probably wouldn't burn wood even if I could, it's bad for the environment. The better choice is to put on a sweater - and sometimes a hat, even if it feels silly wearing a hat in my home.

This isn't to say I was a tomboy or anything - especially since tomboys are usually known for being good at sports. But I never minded being the brother in made-up story games with friends - like when a few friends and I were really into the Boxcar Children , I was happy to be the older brother. Responsibility, taking charge, knowing what was what - that's what I've always liked, and it seemed those qualities were always easier to get as a boy.

I also really enjoyed playing with dolls - Barbies specifically. And I enjoyed having long hair. And I enjoyed my stuffed animals. And I had crushes on boys. But I was always turned off by the color pink - more it's implications than the actual shade, and I never particularly liked to wear dresses, and I loved video games.

I also assumed I would go to Stanford, as I discussed in a different post, and I always knew that I would have a boyfriend eventually (discussed in the same post). One of those turned out to be true, and the one I would pick if I were pressed.

Now, I'm really glad I got to grow up doing the things I did, just kind of going along, being taught not to bother too much with what other people thought. It was hard in elementary school, and even harder in middle school, to be unique and totally me. But then I got to high school and it all payed off. And again in college. And I feel like it's served me well since then, although I'll admit to getting somewhat lost during my previous relationship. But, you know, what else are your twenties for if not losing yourself and then finding yourself again?

Mardi Gras and Me

I'm not sure I even knew about the existence of Mardi Gras until well into high school. I think I might have started to notice it because back in the late 90's, Conan used to do his show with ash on his forehead on Ash Wednesday and I was intrigued. Also, my senior year of high school was my year of exploring the celebrations of other cultures - I finally had my own transportation and was able to stay out late. Never mind that I was also producing, writing and starring in my own cable access show, working four days a week after school as a nanny and taking AP classes. It's time to celebrate Chinese New Year!

Anyway, I got together my friends Claire, Alex and Jaimi (the four of us hung out so much that Alex called us collectively 'JAC' when speaking to his other friends) and piled us onto the light rail with some Party City masks to head to downtown San Jose, where there would be a celebration taking place. We arrived in something equivalent to a back alley, but it was super awesome. People were throwing beads off balconies, there was regional food to be consumed, and Alex swears he saw boobs but I never spotted any. At some point we called our friend Matt (on the ancient cell phone I had? Maybe, but more likely a pay phone. How weird!). He lived only a few blocks away, but was kind of a hermit and a crab-apple. They begged him to come hang out, he refused. I was secretly glad - he was my ex-boyfriend and at the time I didn't like him very much (there was a point where I tried to get back together with him, but I think that came later).

So there we were, eating exotic foods, enjoying the crowd, having a good time being something akin to adults, when - it started to rain. And the only person with an umbrella and raincoat? A weather man from one of the news stations. At some point it the festival was over, or maybe it's that it was raining too hard, or maybe we just needed to get back home, so we left. The walk to the light rail station was short. We waited under a large overhang in front of an old fashioned store. After a moment, two drunk college-aged women came running around the corner to where we were. One of them took a huge fall onto the pavement, it was quite painful looking. They announced they had to pee, and for god's sake, could we give them some privacy?! So we went and stood at the station, in the rain. The train didn't come before too long. We all started to peel off our masks, and my friends started laughing at me. What? They explained. My forehead was purple. From the cheap dye that was used to make my cheap mask. No one else had worn their masks for as long as I had, so they were safe. Once I arrived home, I scrubbed and I scrubbed, but it only lessened, didn't go away completely. And of course, Mardi Gras is on a Tuesday, so I had to go to school the next day. I can't even remember if anyone noticed - I was riding on the high from the night before. So much fun.

So for years afterward, whenever Mardi Gras rolled around, I thought of it warmly. My first Mardi Gras when I was of drinking age came along after I was already out of college. I was poor at the time. I think it was perhaps 2007 before I celebrated another one. This time I met up with a few friends at a bar in Santa Monica. It was fun, but nothing like the fun I'd had in high school. The next year, I did the same thing, though at a bar in the Pacific Palisades. That was a little more fun, but dampened by a guy showing up who I had attempted to date and it had just fizzled. In 2009, I held a party at my apartment, although on Ash Wednesday as I had improv class on Tuesdays at the time. It was better, but still missing something. The following year, I finally located a proper Mardi Gras party, this time at the Farmers Market at The Grove. I got several people to attend, and it was much closer to what I'd been looking for. At the end, we got pulled into a small parade of people while the band played When The Saints Come Marching In. It was fun.

Last year, I went to the same place, and showed up even earlier than I had before in an effort to claim a table within view of the band, but I wasn't early enough. Still a great time. At the end of the night, I waited for the parade to start back up, so I could join it - but it wasn't happening. The year before I'd seen a woman with a small umbrella, so I'd gone and gotten myself one, in Mardi Gras colors. I wasn't sure what it was for, but I found out that night - it was for leading parades! I opened it up, told my friends to follow me, and off we went, parading around the bandstand, people joining us, flashes going off, music in the air - it was exactly what I'd been looking for.

And now that I've found it - it's time to go elsewhere. There's a New Orleans style bar called 504 on Hollywood Blvd., and their Mardi Gras should be quite impressive. I'll let you know how it goes, on Ash Wednesday 2/28.

Fav Foods and Me

When I get my hands on an album I really like, I have the unfortunate tendency to listen to it again and again until I get sick of it. It's a problem. I shouldn't, but it's so good, I simply don't have the willpower to hold back.

I do the same thing with food. When I discover a food I haven't really had much of before, but am suddenly really into, I'm pretty much powerless against it. It wasn't always this way (although I think I've always done that with albums). I wasn't exposed to a lot of different foods growing up (my dad doesn't like restaurants much) and I was fairly poor during college and in years afterward.

Then around 2007, I discovered New England Clam Chowder. Of course I'd had it before, I'd been to Boston and such. But they say that the taste buds, like the skin, change overall about every seven years. And somehow I wound up with a container of NECC from the Vons down the street. And it was a match.

I ate it and it ate it and ate it. I really shouldn't have eaten that much - chowder if full of cream, and cream is full of fat, and I have a condition where I convert most of the fat I take in to cholesterol, much more than your average human. But too bad. I wanted it.

The stuff from Ralphs was terrible (a little backward in general - Ralphs generally has higher quality products). It was a good day when I allowed myself clam chowder.

But one day the love affair was over. The package didn't show back up in my fridge. Sometimes I'll get it from restaurants, but we were pretty much done.

But that's okay, because around that time I discovered avocados. Same deal. I'd had them before. But now we were in love. There was a period of time where I used to bring an avocado into work everyday and split it with a very-willing-to-put-up-with-my-nonsense co-worker. There was nothing better than a fresh avocado with a bunch of salt, eaten at my desk with a plastic spoon.

And then things faded. Still like 'em ... but it's not the same.

There were other things ... saag. I'm kind of still in that love affair, although it's not as intense. Right now my thing is eggplants. The prob is that I've not yet mastered how to cook them myself. But I am capable of purchasing pre-made baba ganooj from the deli section at Ralphs.

There are also food items which I've always loved and have managed to met out slowly to myself. Inari. Burrata. Donuts. Things as such.

What will be next? What will my taste buds pick up on next? It's hard to say, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

Books and Me

My relationship with books is a complicated one. Kind of like a sitcom, it was on again off again until true love hit for reals.

Books and I were close when I was little. My mom and I would go to the library often. I would get books, she would get books, and we would meet back up. I had my own library card from when I wasn't yet old enough to know what a signature was. Back in those days (the 80s), the print outs that they gave you with the books didn't come with the titles, just with the number from the library's catalog. After my mom got fed up with me getting library books mixed up with my own and paying late fees and just general nonsense, the rule was that once we got home I had to go through all the books and write down the titles next to the numbers they corresponded with. At the time I thought it was tedious and I remember it taking forever. It really doesn't seem like that big a deal now, although I think I was actually writing out the entire titles instead of just one unique word. Well, joke's on me I guess.

Around middle school/early high school I kind of lost interest in books. Adult books were still too adult for me, so I didn't read those. I tried to read well-known kids books or books I remembered liking when I was younger, but my mom disapproved of that. She told me I needed to be reading things more appropraite to my age group. But the problem was that YA fiction is, mostly, about teenagers. And I hated teenagers. I didn't like them before I was one, during my time as one, and I don't particularly like the idea of them today. I don't know if she really expected me to read Sweet Valley High or some sort of sci-fi thing, but those didn't interest me at all. Sometimes I would read stuff like Jurassic Park and the sequel, but otherwise it was kind of a not very reading period. This time also corresponded with me having cable for the first time, and living across the street from my best friend. Read (ha, see what I did there?) into that as you will.

It was Star Wars that saved me. After I saw the re-releases when I was 14, I went, well, a little gaga for the whole thing. And so I bought books and got them from the library and read and read. And that slowly brought me back to the reading thing, although high school certainly tried to squash it out of me by making me read boring classics that I couldn't relate to in the slightest. Listen, Tess of the Durberville's, if I got raped in the forest by my cousin, I would say something about it, not be so vague that the teacher had to explain it to us the next morning!

When I moved to college I was still 17, so when I went to the library to get a library card, they wouldn't let me. I was so angry that I went straight to a bookstore and bought a Star Wars book. I still don't think I've read it yet (like so many people, after the prequels started to be released, my interest began to wane). Anyway, eventually I got a library card and life was good again. I didn't read a ton, school still had me reading quite a bit, but I was reading.

Shortly after college I moved in with my boyfriend at the time. Not a lot of reading got done then either. We lived in a one bedroom, and the only places to read where on the couch, where he was usually watching TV, or in the bed, which I did before going to sleep but not much besides that. Sigh. Dark time in my life.

When we broke up and I moved out, I knew it was very important for me to have a reading chair - something big and comfy that I would want to read in. So for $50 on Craigslist, I bought me a chair. And it is stunning. Big enough to lie across, so very soft, so very comfy. A little bit of danger in that I want to fall asleep in it, but mostly it's fine. I put it in the living room, at an awkward angle from the TV. I made a rule - I wasn't allowed to sit in it unless I was reading.

And so the reading began in earnest. And I got more obsessed with it and now I want to READ ALL THE BOOKS. But what are you gonna do?

Now the chair is in the bedroom, nowhere near a TV. And I love it. And books.

Biking and Me

You guys remember Big Wheels, right? When I was little I had one, and it was black and red and that make me feel like a badass 'cause those were boy colors. And of course I turned it over and cranked the pedal by hand and called out that I was selling ice cream - because that's what you did.

At some point, I wound up with a kid's bike, girl colors this time, with pink spoke covers. I got paid five cents by my mom every time I wore my helmet, and was docked five cents when I didn't. When I have kids, I can just threaten them with having to pay the fine that would be leveled at them/me when they don't wear their helmets.

I biked up and down my street all the time. On the sidewalk. It was just a block, so to lengthen the trip I used to make loops in everyone's driveways, if there were no cars parked. Once I miscalculated the loop and banged straight into someone's garage door. I took off and tried to look nonchalant.

At some point my mom decided I wasn't allowed to bike out of her view, although I'd done that many times before. Maybe there was some sort of kidnapper alert she didn't explain. Anyway, I decided it was a ridiculous rule, and I flaunted it by biking up the block, out of site, and then settling in for a nice sit at ... well, it was like just a trench for water that was mostly fenced in. And I sat there. And when I got home I was grounded for the first and only time in my life.

In middle school I outgrew my old bike (my knees were hitting the handlebars) and so we went and bought me a new one. My dad said he was only willing to buy me the fancy one if I promised I would someday be riding it around Stanford (sigh - pressure much?).

That didn't happen for two reasons: one - it was stolen my freshman year of high school, and two - I didn't go to Stanford. But I'm getting ahead of myself. After the bike was stolen from the bike lot at school, I used a bike that had been left at the house we'd bought. It was yellow. It was big enough. It was fine. I used it often, until I could drive to school.

I went off to college without a bike. My campus wasn't really big enough to need it, you could walk from one side to the other in ten to fifteen minutes, and parking wasn't really that bad.

I didn't bike again until I went to Japan in my sophomore year. Everyone used bikes. No one wore helmets. That part was terrifying.

Then again no biking until I went to Austria at the age of 23. Again no helmets. And just one quick trip.

Then more of the no biking until I was 25. I was living less than a mile from work and it seemed silly not to. So I bought a $50 bike off of Craigslist from a lovely Swedish woman who was going back to her country.

I biked to work while I was there, so a little over a year. Then I worked three miles away from home, and so I would often bike or take the bus. Then that job moved closer to me, so it was a little more than a mile. At that job they had a 'bike to work day' so I went and asked if they could put the handlebars up for me. They said they were already up - the bike was too big for me.

Then I started working at a different job, one that required the subway to get there. I could bike to the subway - but that adds on to an already long commute. But! I did purchase a used bike that was more my size, and gave my old bike to my boyfriend. It fits him well.

I need to bike more often - it will be easier and more enticing when it stays light after five. Maybe we'll go out for a ride on Sunday.

That Third Interest and Me

Okay, this is kind of a delicate subject. An interest that I have is ... well, I guess you could call it when things go wrong. I like to learn about how disasters happen. I need to stress that I do not enjoy it when lives are lost or people are injured. That part is, of course, horrible. I don't know numbers of disasters by death toll. I like to learn about disasters as a way to understand what happened and how we as a society, and me as myself could avoid them.

As for type, they're all intriguing. But I really like to know about more obscure situations, ones that people are less aware of. Like limnic eruptions - which are when really large, deep lakes have carbon dioxide and other gases at the bottom and something happens, like an earthquake or a landslide that releases those gases into the atmosphere. They spread out and can kill people, animals and plants. Crazy.

I think my interest started when I was a preschool teacher. At the beginning of the school year, I was trying to determine what the kids were interested in so we could start learning about something, anything (ahh, Reggio Emilio) and so I brought in some maps. One of them was of California, and while we were examining the map we came upon Lassan Volcanic National Park. The kids were interested in volcanoes, it turned out. So we spent the rest of the year learning about volcanoes. Sooo interesting.

It also might have something to do with the San Fransisco '89 earthquake that I was in at the age of seven. Kind of a lasting impression.

Anyway, it's a delicate subject. I think ignoring disasters is short-sighted. I don't take pleasure in them. I just want to know more.

Animals and Me

As promised! Today we shall discuss my interest in: Animals and their intelligence and their abilities to communicate.

I would have a hard time pinpointing exactly when this became an interest of mine. I guess maybe since I was a kid and I saw gorillas speaking sign language? It's become much more of an interest lately. Especially since reading Alex & Me, which is about a scientist who tries to determine how much language a parrot can learn. And Wesley the Owl, wherein another scientist took in a barn owl and wound up developing a very close relationship with him over the next 19 years. Both books are amazing, but will make you cry.

And also learning about Temple Grandin's work. I want to learn more - but at the moment I'm in something of a book debt. People keep giving me books as gifts and I want to read them - I do! - but that conflicts with my lifelong love of the library. Anyway, at the moment I have quite a few gift books waiting for me, and so another book called The Animal Dialogues that I got from the library will have to wait.

I just feel like, this weird thing where people think we're so awesome that we're the only ones who can communicate on a complicated level is so ... obnoxious. So full of ourselves. Other cultures in other times have felt closer to animals. Now we ignore their suffering so that we don't have to really think about the terrible things we do to them. It's tough, because I know animal experiments do help save human lives, but I hope there comes a day where technology becomes advanced enough so that we don't have to resort to that.

Anyway, it's a subject I'm deeply interested in and something I feel like there is so much more to know about. I don't currently own a pet, but it would be nice to, to try and develop a deeper, communicative relationship with something outside my human realm. Someday. More research and more hands on research!

We'll see if I blog over the weekend. Not that I have a ton of stuff going on, I just don't generally spend a lot of time on the computer on Saturday and Sunday. But I'll be back Monday, and I'll share with you the last of what I think of as my trifecta of interests.

Royals and Me

And now to introduce you to an new obsession of mine (new to you, if you don't know me very well): The British Royal Family.

Where did this start? Uhh ... I think I've always been vaguely aware that Prince William is about my age (I mean, not since birth or anything, I wasn't even aware of my feet). And then when I was fourteen, Princess Diana died. I was at my friend's house for a sleepover, and at some point a breaking news thing came on the TV and they were announcing she was dead. I was so upset I called my mom. She said that she'd heard. "Umm ... you okay, honey?" I suddenly realized how strange it was for me to be calling my mom over something happening an ocean away and to someone who was part of a monarchy we'd left centuries ago. I sheepishly said I was and hung up. What an odd reaction.

A couple years later, Vanity Fair came out with William on the cover, the picture for this post. I bought it (unlike me) and poured over the stories and glossy photos of the royals from around the world. I still have the magazine.

As time went on, I found it impossible to focus on more than one royal family, and so I stuck with the British. Eventually, I kind of forgot about that interest all-together, until one evening my boyfriend took me to see The Young Victoria. And it all came flooding back. And I mean flood.

Now I can't get enough of them. All of them. Every British royal. Of course I watched the Royal Wedding, live, at 4 in the morning with a fancy hat on - but I don't follow every movement of the newlyweds. I find it weird to obsess over people when they're alive. Much easier and less tabloid-involved to obsess after they're gone.

When I can't sleep, I recite the royal line backwards, starting with William. I also name their spouses (if I can remember them). I can get to Henry the VII, but after that things get complicated with the War of the Roses. I'm also a little fuzzy where Cromwell comes in ... something like between Charles I and Charles II.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is ... I like 'em. As for why ... well, it's an easy introduction to the history of the time. You can look at Queen Anne's relationship with her children and have an idea of what life was life at that time, at least one aspect of it. And of course it's dramatic and full of glitz and glam and it's well-documented.

Plus you know, generally obsessed with knowledge of all types.

Tomorrow I'll introduce you to another obsession. If I can remember what it is. Let me think ... this one, and that other one ... oh right. Yes. Okay. Yeah, tomorrow.