Swimming and Me

No, I have not swum in this pool. This is one of the famous pools at Hearst Castle - the one under the tennis courts. But I would like to swim in this pool. Perhaps someday I'll win a contest.

Swimming is big with me. I love it. I would swim all day if I could - although, I actually have done that and I wouldn't recommend it. It dries out your skin and leaves you incredibly itchy for days afterward. But I love it nonetheless.

When I was very little my parents took me to the beach and held me in the surf while the waves washed over me. Now, we all know that I have a few issues with the ocean, but that has not transferred over to your standard swimming pool.

I learned how to swim (ish) when I was still in diapers. I took swimming lessons in elementary school. I stepped on a bee on the side of the pool. I went swimming everyday for many summers when I was a child.

There's just something about being in a clear pool on a bright day, and swimming underwater, turned over so that you can see the sun glinting off the surface. Swimming is my favorite form of exercise.

Unfortunately, despite having lived in numerous apartment buildings, I have only lived in one place with a pool. And I didn't take much advantage of it - I think I only swam once or twice. Swimming alone does not appeal to me nearly as much as swimming with friends.

Mostly I miss the pool I grew up with, at the high school just a few blocks from my house. I remember how my membership card looked, how the locker room smelled, the Olympic sized lap pool and the diving pool. Sometimes they would close the diving boards and just let us kids swim around in the thirteen foot deep pool, and I would play and frolic and over and over swim to the bottom, despite the protests from my ears. I dream about that pool.

Sometimes I dream I'm swimming, but I can breathe in the water and it is delightful. It's like flying.

Updates and Me

So I said I would update this blog about how Mardi Gras went once it happened, and I decided that while I’m at it I can write updates about a couple of other things I’ve chronicled in here, namely, birthdays and Halloween.

Mardi Gras was … good. I liked the new bar. But I don’t think I’ll be going back. Although I have nothing against drinking, and in fact enjoy a Hurricane or three every so often, that’s not really what the holiday is about for me. I know it seems silly, but as I wrote before, the time when I fell in love with the holiday didn’t involve drinking at all as I was too young. So going to this bar, the vibe was just … different. It was like “who can wear the most outrageous outfit?” “who can dance the dirtiest?” “who looks most like Jesus?” The farmer’s market is more about traditions (besides the drinking one) and food and live, authentic music. So next year I’ll be back, even earlier than the year before.

Birthday’s since I turned 26 … well, my 27^th involved an epic Tiki party I held at my apartment. I wore a fake grass skirt, had Lilo and Stitch running in the background and made a ridiculous amount of food. My very good friend Sam made me a seven mini volcano bundt cakes, set on a large map of each of the seven islands of Hawaii. She poured 151 rum into the middle of them and set them on fire. Quite the sight.

Twenty-eight was a dance party I held at a nearby dance practice facility. I made seven mix CDs, borrowed some fancy lights and didn’t get so drunk that I couldn’t keep the dancing going until around midnight when they kicked us out.

Last year I had dinner at a jazz club, followed by drinks and games at a billiard club in Glendale, followed up with a stay at the hotel that was right above the jazz club. I wore a tiny pink dress that had pockets (I told everyone about the pockets). Also, the flowers above are from my boyfriend for my birthday last year.

Halloween! 2009: For one party, I put an onion on my belt. For another, I was the Lord Mayor of London Towne. Again, a gift from my grampa inspired the costume – this time it as a tri-corn hat.

2010: I dressed up as Homer from the chili cook-off episode.

2011: I was a slutty lunch lady.

And that brings us up to today. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find an appropriate ribbon to put on one of the Mardi Gras masks so I can put it back in the box and put the box in the storage cabinet.

Eyes and Me

I grew up with my parents needing contacts. And I was warned that I'd inherited not-so-hot eye genes. So when I was fourteen, in high school, sitting in my math class and having trouble making out the equations on the board, I knew what was going on. I told my parents, and before long I found myself in an eye-doctors office.

I had braces as the time, so glasses were absolutely out of the question. My eye doctor wanted me to have soft contacts, my dad insisted I get hard ones. Hard contacts hold one's eye in its proper shape much better than soft ones do - this is why he wanted me to have them, they would help my eye not degenerate as fast as otherwise. I think my eye doctor's reasoning was that as a teenager, I wouldn't take care of hard contacts and that they're more difficult to adapt to than soft.

My dad won.

I'm glad he did - my eyes haven't deteriorated as fast as they would otherwise. I've actually only been to the eye doctor ... four more times since then. I'm sure an optometrist would wince at that, but I'm cool. I just went yesterday, for the first time in two and a half years. Ideally, hard contacts should be changed once a year, but she said I'm pretty much good, and my eyesight is almost the same anyway. I take good care of them. Take that, high school eye doctor.

Before I left for college, I decided I might need some glasses to take with me, in case my contacts were lost (knock on wood, I've never lost them) or if I needed to give my eyes a rest from the contacts (I generally wear them 16 hours a day and don't have an issue). But it's still nice to have them. When I went to pick out a frame, I believe I brought my friends Jaimi and Alex, and told them that whoever picked out the frame that I liked best, I would buy an ice cream for them. I think I found the frame myself, and bought us all ice creams anyway.

I'm sorry, future children. I do not have the greatest eye genes to give you. But perhaps you'll inherit them from your father.

Cats and Me

I would rather spend time with a creature that chose to like me, instead of with one driven to like me because of DNA that has been modified by my own species over thousands of years.

I mean, how much of an ego do we have?!

Perhaps being a cat person is genetic. I seem to get it from both sides of my family, especially my dad. I don't mind dogs, he seems generally less than enthused by them.

Cats are less likely to be interested in licking my face. They're less likely to stick their nose in my crotch at inappropriate times (which is, really, all times). And they're less likely to cause massive damage with a bite.

I will say that I got cat scratch fever as a child. It's a real thing. I was pretty outgoing towards cats in my youth, and some of them weren't having it.

Cats are picky and stuck up and often have no sense of humor. And I love them. They're precious and precocious and I am that person who can spend hours looking at lol cats.

I have personally owned three cats over my lifetime. The first was named 'Tack Cat, short for Attack Cat, because he liked to attack things. He was hit by a car when I was around ... five or so.

The next was named WaitABit, after the tree in the film The Gods Must Be Crazy, because she clung onto everyone. I didn't name her, my parents did - I was seven. She was a sweet cat, siamese and very loving. She was hit by a motorcycle. I remember opening the front door to a man in motorcycle clothes ...

Somewhere along the way there were a couple of hamsters, and then a lab rat named Scratchy. Then my friend who lived across the street had a cat who had kittens, and we wound up with one, whom I named Collar for the tiny white circle of fur around his neck. I was ten and in fifth grade.

Collar moved with us twice. He was the smartest cat I'd ever met. He tried to figure out how to open doorknobs. He could also get really angry. If I really pissed him off, he would sometimes jump up to my outstretched arm, then hang on it and bite me. It was impressive.

He died when I was 17. Hit by a car in the rain. I miss him still, and dream about him from time to time. He'll just show up, and he'll have been alive this whole time. Sigh. Wow, way to depress myself with a blog post.

Since then I've had a couple more rats, and of course the fish debacle, the tales of which can be found in this blog. I would love a pet, but I have no idea what my apartment's policy is, and my boyfriend is allergic to cats. It's cool, though, they're making a vaccine for that, and so eventually I will have another sweet cat to love.

Valentine's Day and Me

This may look like a picture of me feeding a carrot stick to a emu or llama, whichever gets there first, but I assure you it was taken on Valentine's Day three years ago.

While I do not appreciate blatant commercialism, which is how Valentine's Day is essentially touted, I find nothing wrong with taken a day and making people pay a bit more attention to love and relationships. Why not, I say.

I've had good Valentine's days and not so good ones. The year shown in this photo was the first I celebrated with my boyfriend. The next year we went to La Conda Vineta, in hopes that perhaps Conan would be there as he likes to frequent that restaurant (he was not, but the dinner was lovely). And last year we went to an Indian food restaurant - low key and enjoyable. This year he'll be making us dinner. I'm looking forward to it.

The not so good ones seem to be in the past. In 2008, I spent the evening with my married friend whose husband was out of town, and we went to a party wherein I hit on a mormon (it didn't work out). That was all fine, I enjoyed myself. The year before that was my last with my ex, and we spent the evening in the emergency room because the appetizer spread at the restaurant we were at had walnuts in it, which he was lethally allergic to. Did I think to ask that that when they set it down with the bread? Of course, but he hated it when I made a fuss about his allergies because that's what his mom had done all his life.

To be honest, I can't remember past ones with him that well, which I guess is a good thing except it means I'm missing pieces of my life.

Anyway, I'm happy to have a day in which the world gives me a valid excuse to spend time with someone whose company I enjoy very much. And I don't remember being that upset by the whole thing in my single days. So I say it's all okay. Just don't buy me any flowers, we all know that's a ripoff.

Los Angeles and Me

So when I determined that I wanted to head to So Cal for collage, I made up a little plan in my head. It went like this: move to So Cal for college, move to LA afterward (if I wasn't there already), spend my single, wild days in that city, then move back to the Bay Area to "settle down."

Well, of course, like most plans, it didn't work out that way.

I did indeed move to So Cal for college, and I did indeed move to LA proper afterward. But by the time I moved here, I had been dating someone for about two years, and would continue to date them for another four. So, there went my wild single days.

After we broke up, I briefly considered moving back to the Bay Area, but I had just started a new job that I enjoyed - plus I had recently visited and decided things moved a little too slowly for me at this point in my life. I had friends up there, but life would have been different from how things were going in LA.

A little over a year later, I was laid off, but by that point I was dating someone new, and so the idea was still not going to happen. It's now been about three and a half years since that point, and I'm still in LA.

Would I move back? Maybe. I've met people who were raised in LA, sometimes I like them, sometimes I don't. Something tells me it's not just they're being from LA or not that determines how I feel about them.

I do like the weather. I don't mind being hot - it's much less distracting than being cold. I don't mind the traffic - there's usually some way to get there involving the subway, still such a novel thing for me, despite having taken it for a couple years now.

I like the valley, where I live now. People come up to you in grocery stores and tell you about crackers - not because they're crazy but because they're nice and want to give you cracker advice.

Another thing, that I've discussed with my boyfriend and other people, is that in LA, things are just looser. You'll see two people at a party, and one will ask the other "what do you do?" and the other will say "surf and hang out" and that's totally valid. The first person will walk away thinking "now that guy's got it figured out." I don't need things to be that loose for myself, but I like living in such a relaxed environment.

The Queen and Me

I believe it should be "The Queen and I" but oh well. And just to clarify, I checked, and this image is available for non-commercial uses.

Today is the Queen's 60th anniversary of her ascension to the throne - which also means, sadly, that it's the 60th anniversary of her father's death. I thought I would take this opportunity to expand a little bit on my interest in the British monarchy.

Of course I think the colonization of other countries by Britain was terrible. To be fair, they weren't the only people doing it. It was kind of a meme at the time - find some place "un-civilized" and civilize it. Everyone's doing it - get on board! Obviously it led to a lot of lost cultures, a lot of death and a lot of heartache. Eventually they figured it out and let people do their own thing (mostly - I'm sure you could find people who would argue that point).

Besides all that, tho, I do appreciate the royals. I think it's neat that Queen Elizabeth II has this amazing wealth of knowledge that she can share with her prime ministers. I wish we had someone like that here, someone who was officially non-partisan who could just advise our presidents on policies by viewing things that had happened in the past - BECAUSE YOU WERE ACTUALLY THERE.

I find it really interesting that the kings between her and Victoria all died from smoking, but it still took at least another ten years after her father's death before people were like "oh, hmm, cigarettes are bad." I find it interesting that Edward the VII's first son died, and so they moved on to his second, George the V - and later his first son abdicated so they moved on to his second, who became George the VI. I find it interesting that poor Victoria hated childbirth, but had nine children.

In some ways, I guess, it's not much more than a soap opera - except that these people have enormous power (or did) and pressure (always). It's amazing to me that there's such an easy bloodline to trace from William, who is my age, to William the Conquer in 1066.

Can I just mention the Bayeux Tapestry real fast? When I was planning a trip to Europe back in 2005 with my boyfriend at the time, his mom told us we had to see the tapestry, and while planning the trip, our trip to the museum holding it fell on my birthday. I threw an uppity fit (because I did that sort of thing in those days, like every 22 year old does). So the plans changed, and we visited Paris Disneyland for my birthday instead. BUT THE JOKE'S ON ME 'CAUSE THE TAPESTRY WAS WAY COOLER. Look it up on the site I'm best friend's with, Wikipedia. It is awesome sauce.

Anywho, I would love to visit London for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee - and because I have a lovely friend who currently resides in olde London-Towne. But a) I've developed a fear of flying (which I've recently decided is PTSD from a terrible experience) and b) I've already been to London, and I feel like, if I'm gonna spend money to fly to another country and stay and such, I want to see someplace new. But it would be lovely to be part of the celebration, and see my fabulous friend.

For now I'll content myself to the British pub down the street - and the possibility that my friend will come visit the states before too long.

The Environment and Me

As a child, I was taught not to waste. At the time, I just followed how my parents acted, looking back I can see that it came from wanting to save money – but I also think my mom and dad respect that there is a limit to our resources. I remember being very excited when I learned that our neighborhood got an A in recycling. I was diligent about the process and remembered to sort. I also grew up during a fairly severe drought in my area, so I learned not to waste water.

These things were always on my mind – I continued to recycle, reuse, not overbuy. But I really didn’t think much about my own impact until (and this is so cliché) I saw “An Inconvenient Truth.” It was around there that I became aware of my usage of the planet and its resources. The movie also came out shortly after I graduated from college, when I was finding my place in society.

In the years since, I’ve only become more diligent. I am ashamed that my apartment complex doesn’t recycle – but my boyfriend and I do, at least what the recycle place at the store will take. But I know it’s more than recycling – after all, the only product that doesn’t use up more energy to recycle it than just making a new object is glass (although then you can get into the whole, well, using up energy is better than creating a new product all together – the same reason I still drive a ’95 Volvo instead of buying a new electric car – well, one of several reasons). Anyway, recycling is just a way of living that says “I pay attention to what I consume,” or at least that’s some of the idea.

And now it’s more than that. I take the subway when I can, bike when I can, I try not to turn on the heat, or the air conditioning. I try to buy local, I try to focus on which companies are better for the environment (this doesn’t mean I’m going to give you a shot, recently-better-at-environmental-stuff Walmart). And of course everything gets confused with all the other issues I’m trying to keep in mind. While American Apparel is good for the environment because it uses less oil to be shipped to my local store, they’re not using organic cotton. While I know they’re not using children in sweatshops, the owner has been accused of some pretty awful stuff. Plus, I don’t really appreciate the nearly pornographic ads strewn throughout my city.

If you’re in LA, there’s an amazing store called Green and Greener, and I love going there because I know I can just buy anything in there and not have to worry about where it came from and what’s in it and all that. It’s so much easier. Even at Whole Foods I don’t have that exact freedom.

Anyway, I’m happy to help the environment, even if global climate change turns out not to be true (considering the weather lately, though ... it’s really looking like it is). I would love it if the United States could figure out how to break away from being a consumer culture. Just using up everything around us feels ... selfish and out of tune. It’s hard work, paying attention to where my clothes and food and cleaning products come from, but I know it will be worth it. Is worth it.

Tiki and Me

Do I feel a little bit bad about subjugating a culture? Maybe. But I think this is more about finding joy in the kitsch of the 1960s Tiki idea than anything else.

When I was fourteen my grandfather took me to Hawaii. Because he liked it there. And he decided I should see it. So I left my friends for spring break, but brought along my Star Wars video tapes. The place we were staying did turn out to have a VCR, and I was rewarded for bringing that extra weight.

But I digress. It was at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Honolulu that I learned that there are some places on earth where men wear skirts shorter than the women do. Quite an eye opener.

But it was probably my ex who got me more interested in Tiki. I don't know why he liked it - probably because of The Beach Boys? Nonetheless, he introduced me to Tiki Ti's, Duke's in Malibu, and we even took a trip to Hawaii.

After we broke up, I still wanted Tiki to be part of my life. So, with the help of a couple friends who have been slowly adding to my Tiki collection every birthday and Christmas, I have "Taken Back Tiki."

What is it that's so appealing, exactly? The colors, the lore, the flowers, the fun of knowing adults went nuts for this stuff fifty years ago.

Maybe it all goes back to when I was in elementary school and the local roller rink had giant Tiki masks up on the walls. Whatever it is, it makes me happy, if it's the Tiki Room at Disneyland, or a flower clip in my hair from a Hawaiian fair in Long Beach.

2011 Films and Me

To clarify, this is me dressed up as the train from the 2010 film Unstoppable, for an Oscar party. Movie related.

Okay, so here's what I saw in the theaters last year:

Paul

Because it looked fun. And cute. And not too intense. I don't like movies that make me all nervous. I can manufacture adrenaline all by myself, thank you very much. Kristen Wiig was fun in it.

Source Code

A friend of my boyfriend worked on it, plus it involved trains and explosions and looked smart and vaguely about time travel. Oh, time travel. How I love thee. I really need to start watching those special features on my new Back to the Future DVD.

Super 8

A lot of people got all upset about this film. Too Spielberg-y. Not good enough for JJ Abrams. Well, whatever. I liked it. It was a throw back, and they did a good job at that. The main kid in it is such a joy to watch.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

I'll admit that I didn't start reading the Harry Potter books until the first film was going to be released shortly. My best friend was doing this thing at USC with her roommates where they were reading the books out loud with each other, so I did the same at my school with a couple of my friends. Good times. I definitely recommend doing something like that with some group some time in your life. Anywho, I'm a devotee of Harry, tho not as devoted a fan as I am to, say, Star Wars. I thought this a worthy finish.

Cowboys and Aliens

People got all upset with this one too. Look, it gave you what it advertised. Do you really need more than that? No, it wasn't the strongest story I've ever seen ... but Harrison Ford! Being gruff! And sometimes sweet! Yes, please!

50/50

I told myself I should take a tissue box to this one and I didn't, and so there I sat, tears running down my cheeks and an ache in my heart. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is soooo good in this film. I've loved him since his 3rd Rock from the Sun days.

The Muppets

So it turns out that our sense of humor isn't genetic - that is, you don't just inherit it from your parents. But! Parents can influence their children's sense of humor by what media they surround them with. As a child, I watched a lot of Duck Tales, listened to Tom Leher and read Edward Gorey. And my mom had at some point taped The Great Muppet Caper off TV. Lordy, did I watch that film a million times. The Muppets are near and dear to my heart and I wouldn't have it any other way.

My first movie of 2012 was Hugo, watched last night. But you'll have to wait 'til next year to see what I though. I kid! Maybe just this fall.