the time has come

it's my last night in the dungeon.

while i still have three more days to work in the tower (yeah, there's a tower, a fortress and a dungeon, but there's no point in explaining all that now.) this is my last hurrah in cell block "D".

i took the job 2 years ago, shortly before i started this blog. it was a 2-year contract for which i will have served all but six days. and that's only because unlike last year, i'd like to spend Christmas surrounded by family, food and ripped-up wrapping paper, not cinderblock walls and whatever crusty substance growing inside the ceiling they so sweetly exposed by taking off all the panels:






working evenings, weekends and holidays is like being a ghost in your own life. you're present, but the world moves along without you. you communicate via email and telephone, even with ones who live in your house. people call you from parties while you're at work to tell you they miss you. and you can go six months without seeing friends in your own zipcode. there is no "dinner break," set "weekend" or "hours" (start times can vary by up to five hours and end times are at the mercy of the reports). i have rarely known my schedule much more than two weeks in advance, so making plans becomes a ridiculous guessing game you can only win by paying full-price for plane tickets. and i won't even start on the parking.

without unfurling the scroll on the rest of my complaints, i'll say that i've learned an immense amount during my time here. about the job, the industry, people and mostly myself. i can withstand some really tough situations and still come out standing, even if i'm walking with a limp. and i have met some phenomenal people here. it's unfortunate that in my discretion about describing work, i haven't been able to share too much about them. this job is not for the unintelligent, high-strung, lazy or faint-hearted. i've been very lucky to have been in their company.

we're all going out for a night of karaoke after my last shift because i'm intrigued by it and have never had the experience. and a few of them have promised to sing so it won't be people just standing around bullying everyone else to take the mic, but hopefully a very good time (which is another reason i'm putting this post up tonight and not early friday morning).

near the beginning of my time here, i was joking around with one of my coworkers about the boredom that is the dungeon. later that night, in desperation, i wrote a haiku on a piece of paper and put it in an unused drawer:

oh man am i lame
just sitting here all alone
contemplating death

as of today, there are three sheets of paper in the drawer, with 48 haiku scrawled on them by the poor souls who have done their time. here are some of my favorites:

Trapped in the dungeon
there's no hope for my future
Damn, i missed my bus

oh cursed first-offs
How I hate your evil ways
wake me for city

Say, it's a thin line
Between love and hate when it's
5 in the morning

(12:48 a.m.)
crap, crap, crap, crap, crap,
crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap,
crap, crap, crap, crap, crap,

I can't stand this shift
I went to college for this?
I want a refund!

A cold Mug root beer,
Flaming Hot Cheetos on desk.
I should be in bed.

no windows in here
can't even see the fireworks
watch the clock instead

If this room could talk,
What do you think it would say?
"I pity the fool!"

When 1:27 seems
early, you know you
have lost touch

a fridge full of beer
would make the time go faster
longing for Fat Tire

there are SNAKES! in this
mother-f*cking lonely place.
help me, Sam Jackson

"boss" should read haikus
then he would know what it's like
would he sympathize?

though counting the days,
a sickening twist of fate:
i might miss this place.

as for me, i don't know where i'm headed. but i cut a fat check this morning because i do know that the mortgage company gives breaks to no one. never fear, however, i'll continue posting. this blog would have never happened if it weren't for the dungeon. and i wouldn't have discovered all of you. for that i will be eternally grateful. well, that and the fact that if all goes well tonight, i'll have successfully eluded psycho blue-eye.

so long, dungeon.

melts in your mouth AND your hand

"did you hear they're making chocolate-covered Altoids?"

"eiw! really?"

"yeah, someone brought in some samples. they're dark chocolate-covered ginger, peppermint or cinnamon mints."

"oh my god, you weren't kidding."

"the peppermint isn't so bad; i didn't really like the ginger."

"i think i'll try a cinnamon one."

"they look like junior mints."

"junior mints are way better. these are gross."

"dude, they should have stuck with making gum."

sometimes it comes down to playing nice

awhile back i commented with some fervor about how my people had finally made it to reality tv. the specific individuals in question were vipul and arti of the amazing race as well as anchal from america's next top model.

vipul/arti got eliminated in the first episode. the one episode that i didn't catch. so i have nothing to say on that but that i'm disappointed in my peeps. better luck next time, though! hey, at least they got in some quality undisturbed time on sequester-island or wherever they keep people till it's over.

anyway, let's talk models.

i really was rooting for my homegirl anchal. she is beautiful in a traditional, not manufactured bollywood, way (read: snow white with light hair). and while some may have seen her as heavy, i thought hers looked most like a normal person's body.

but anchal's fatal flaw was her self-esteem. i backed the girl for a long time, but even i had to admit that, beauty aside, not believing in herself was killing her edge. granted, we've all been taunted growing up and she had to deal with haters among the competition. but whining that she couldn't do [insert task asked by judges here] was what did her in. people! it's a competition. we knew she had it in her when she laid the smack down on the bitchez of the house, but i wish she could put that energy toward proving herself to the judges. sadly, at the end of her run even i thought it time for her to go. however, she could still have a career in modeling, even if it's just running around among the trees in a sari for the india sari palace calendar. or she could go to medical school and collectively appease the worldwide auntie patrol.

the top model winner, caridee, was very likeable. she's quirky, insulted a judge and all that, but pretty and fun overall. the 2nd runner up, melrose, was the type of nasty ho who might slice somebody to ribbons in their sleep with an X-acto knife if it would ensure her victory. she was scary, man. and everyone hated her, including myself. but she did her homework and gave them everything she thought they wanted. throughout the competition, the judges praised her good work and rewarded her handsomely. however when it came down to it, they went with the loose cannon because she had more *natural* talent. i've gotta admit, guys, i felt just a little bit bad for melrose. yeah, she was snooty and snotty and kissed ass and rubbed everyone's imperfections in their faces, but girl worked her ass off doing exactly what was expected well, but still didn't win. so much for "if you bust your ass you can accomplish anything."

six that set me apart

RULES: Each player of this game starts with the "six weird things about you." People tagged must write a post of their own six weird things as well as state this rule clearly. They must then list six people to be tagged and notify them via comments on tag-ees' blogs. I was tagged by Lia and Syar.


1. As many of you know i have freckles on my tongue. family members have told me that with them comes the power to curse people. a doctor told me the fancy medical name for them and that they're harmless. i'm gonna go ahead and believe i have superhuman power, for which i should never be crossed.

2. i don't like when foods mix consistencies. the biggest offender? chunky peanut butter [shudder]. however, maybe i'm growing out of it, because i love bhelpuri, which mixes crunchy stuff with tomatoes and onions and potatoes and other good stuff. but i tend to give motherland food a pass. especially if i'm risking food poisoning by buying it from a street vendor. i think the danger is what tastes so damn good.

3. i usually like to play by the rules. i was always the annoying kid who made everyone wait while i read the rules on the inside of the box cover before we could start playing. i don't like cheaters, either.

4. when i was little i was terrified of cats. my parents used this to keep me in line, threatening me when i was behaving badly by saying "the mau is coming! you better get your shoes on right this minute! i think i hear the mau!" the same tactic was used to keep me from wriggling out of my carseat, but instead of the mau it was that the police would come if i didn't stay put. i still have a lingering mistrust of law authorities as well as cats. i take each on a case-by-case basis.

5. i was a copyeditor in a past life. as you can see by how i've edited the RULES above, i can't seem to turn it off and continually have to monitor myself when reading anything from billboards to a friend's wedding program. someone once told me "everyone needs a copyeditor" after snidely correcting an error i had made. i was miffed then but now i realize it's the truth, proven by every single one of my blog posts.

6. when i'm very tired and i'm falling asleep, i clack my jaws together like a nutcracker. i'm told it's not terribly loud.

my victims: ML, beeenz, highcontrast, ale, viking and becky. my apologies if you have already been tagged by someone else.

not a fan of Blogger Beta today

i have been reading your blogs, bloggerbeta people, but for the last two days i have been unable to comment. the error message i get is that my password is incorrect and continues to tell me so even after i went and changed it.

as i mentioned on omar's blog, i wasn't that kid in class with her hand always up (a la tracy flick in Election) but when i have something to say and i can't? that REALLY pisses me off.

so Blogger, i really hope you remedy this situation soon. because i was about to make the switch and now i'm having second thoughts.

if any of you out there can figure a way around this mess so i can add my 2 cents, don't hesitate to speak up. as far as i know, people should be able to still comment here. for now.

can always count on those lucky numbers

sunday i went with my parents to church for the first time in a very long while. it's an indian service held mostly in Hindi. for many years growing up, my parents insisted we attended the english-speaking church where we had catechism, but never missed a week at indian church so we could be around other people from the motherland. that's a pretty tall commitment, and believe me, i often thought it was a drag.

we don't have any family here; it's just my parents, my brother and myself. and when we were very young, that made for some lonely thanksgivings and christmases. i was always jealous of people who'd say they were going to their grandmother's house or if their cousins were in town. because my cousins live on the other side of the globe, the most i interacted with them were some mother-mandated aerogramme letters that followed the basic formula of "hi cousin. how are you? i am fine. my mom and dad are fine. hope your mom and dad are good, too. i like playing basketball. okay, gotta go. love cadiz." i'd recieve the same at best, and now that we're all old, we only hear about each other through our parents. most of them are younger than me and most of them are married, so we have even less in common today.

but over the years, the indian church sort of became an extended family i got to see every week. to begin with, everyone addresses their parents' friends as "uncle" or "auntie" regardless of blood relation. after the church part everyone hangs around and gossips in the hall over tea and salerno butter cookies. and of course there's the uncle who's always got candy for all the little kids and the old grandmother who pinches your cheeks. gathering with those people every week and dutifully greeting everybody with a handshake, a hug and a "good evening," became kind of nice. they had cake with us on our birthdays, congratulated us on our accomplishments, and most importantly they were always there at the hospital with tupperwares of food and thermoses of tea when my brother was admitted. just as my real family would have done if they could.

going back there felt nice. even getting ready (pulling out an outfit from the section of the closet that takes up the most space and finding the jewelry to match) sort of felt like coming home-- even though i've pretty much been home all this time. there were new people and weird people but the old regulars were there and it felt awkward. but all that melted away when the singing started.

all the dozers (i counted five, including the pastor's DAUGHTER in the first row who is 22 and should know better than to lean her head on her mom's shoulder. dude, at least not in the first row.) woke up to sing. good old numbers 39 and 24. proof that the best things never change. seriously, i've been to religious services of all colors and sizes, all over the world and the overwhelmingly unifying and awesome part is the feeling you get from the singing. i'll confess that it's what will keep me coming back always.

unfortunately, i mentioned this to my mother so now i will be performing on christmas.

ding!

you know that feeling you get at the end of school and there's about a week left and suddenly you find the energy between playing nintendo, watching Gummi Bears and riding bikes with your friends to do your homework before your mother yells at you for the third time? and how you just do it and think to yourself, "that wasn't so horrible. damn, if i had been doing that since the beginning of the year, i would have gotten much better grades. what's my problem, anyway?" ?

but you know what? your subconscious knows that you won't be having to do it anymore, so it gathers up what's left of your motivation and makes the remainder seem a lot more enjoyable than when it was such a chore.

it's like the last two years i've been incubating in the dungeon and waiting for my real life to start. and now that i'm properly cooked, i think i might be ready for it. unfortunately, everything is up in the air and i don't know where to begin.

all i know is that i'm going to have to think of something.

but i still stay up late

the last couple of days i've been working an earlier shift. i cannot begin to explain how functioning just an hour or two closer to everyone else's schedule has made me smile 4.5 times more than usual. it's amazing.

video speaks for itself.

people are probably sick of hearing about this UCLA taser thing. I heard about it in passing and wondered about it, but i don't think you really understand what it it's like to be tasered until you feel it yourself or at least see a video.

i won't go into all the details here, but i guess this guy didn't have his library card when approached in a random search and was asked to leave by university police. he was the only one asked and felt like he was being racially profiled, so he went limp. at this point he was tasered up to five times and repeatedly asked to stand up, even though loss of muscle control is one of the symptoms of recently being tasered. i watched the whole video, which was captured by someone's cellphone in the library, and it turned my stomach. sure, the guy yelled at the police, but some have reported that it was because they grabbed his arm and would not let go as he was trying to leave. sure people pooh-pooh this and say oh what are those liberals squawking about now or he mouthed off to police he had it coming, but bottom line, NOBODY deserves to be treated that way, let alone in an institution they've earned and bought the privilege to attend.

the guy is Iranian-American. and as someone who's been racially profiled myself, i know that it happens and it happens every day. terrorists have ruined our lives in so many ways we don't take enough time to think about. the whole thing would have been avoided if the cops took 10 seconds to card some of the white people. even if it were just to pretend they weren't singling this guy out.

there has got to be a better way. this is pretty damn clear if you read the comments posted about the video.

exit strategy

"so did you hear j just say she's leaving?"

"what? i was sitting 2.5 feet away from her all night and i didn't catch that! where is she going?"

"oh she's leaving the business completely, going to work for some law firm downtown on trial graphics or something."

"wow. can you imagine? must be daytime hours and a consistent schedule!"

"yeah, and she probably doesn't have to work holidays."

"i'll bet the pay is better, too."

"when's her last day?"

"next saturday."

"isn't it sad that when somebody leaves it just makes the rest of us think about what we'd rather be doing and instead of doing anything about it, we sit here and obsess about the fact that they had the exit velocity to make it happen?"

"and she's not going to have to go to the dungeon, either!"

"dammit. tonight is my last night after like SEVEN weeks. i hope they don't make me go back for her rotation, too."

ten years didn't do much

the high school reunion went down as expected. out of a class of some 696 (give or take a few), i'd day about 150 packed a cozy country club party room. at first mostly at the door-- likely stalling on actually going in-- and of course, at the bar.

right around check-in time (ri and her hubby, c, who were kind enough to give me a ride, forgot their tickets in the city and had to turn back) i had this text message exchange:

"have you left yet?"

"no, ri is driving and she's running late. why, are you there?"

"yeah, just checked in."

"are there a lot of people already?"

"yeah. but not the good kind. hurry up!"

that was with nika, who is the hybrid kind of family-friend who also intersects with your personal life here and there. six months older than me, she hung out with my parents before i did. we touch base every once in awhile and i get the lowdown about people i didn't know very well from school. it's funny, because by the time i got to the place, she seemed like she was doing just fine. i guess the right kind of people showed up, and several of them asked for her phone number and twirled her around the dancefloor. people who she said wouldn't have given her the time of day when we were in school.

walking around that hall was a little surreal. faces and nametags jumped out at me like dead bodies at a wake sitting straight up in their coffins. it was creepy, but familiar. i'm good with names and faces, but not necessarily together. so i'd catch a glimpse of someone and then spend 20 minutes trying to figure out if it was that cool girl in my gym class or that annoying cheerleader who would keep one leg on top of her desk in class so that pretty much anyone would take note of the orange underthing she had on under the uniform.

mostly everyone looked the same. well, to be perfectly honest, the women had fared much better than the men. they were sleeker, better dressed, better coiffed and looked the same if not more trim. the guys all seemed a little chubbier with hairlines a little farther back than they were a decade ago. granted, we can get away with a lot more in terms of flaw-hiding than the guys, but still.

there were exceptions, however. this broad who continually pissed me off in seventh grade-- namely for being an allaround snooty beeyatch as well as taking credit for singing the harder part in our duet during "the music man" (which she was supposed to sing but couldn't hit the high notes, so i had to switch parts) pretty much doubled in size. and then there was the one girl who lost control of her breasts and allowed them to lead her around that evening in a flimsy contraption that had to have been held together with doublesided tape. one guy even said, "dude, i'm GAY and i can't stop staring at those things." the but everyone else looked nice.

there were even a few eyebrow-raising moments, like when the boy one of my friends pined over for nearly all of senior year psychology asked one of us, "hey, who's that girl over there?" even though it was painfully obvious he knew very well and was trying to play it cool. i found that a pal from speech class works about a block from my office, and we may meet up for lunch sometime.

we schmoozed, but i ended up sort of sticking to my peeps. i'm not sure if i would have been more friendly if i wasn't starting to feel the deathflu take over, but i sure wish i had. because as cliquey as everyone was in highschool and even today, i think people were making an effort. those who had existing ties, like being neighbors or teammates or mutual friends obviously had an easier time mingling than those who ogled each other on the bus or cracked jokes in the back of english class. but there was a friendly vibe, even just a smile and nod as you walked by. most of us survived. most of us are pretty happy with where we are. and as kaiya put it at the end of the night, "you know, we were all really different and separated in high school. now, not so much. we're all pretty much the same."

maybe it'll take another ten years to really be true.

the secret life of blogs

whenever something ridiculous happens, one of my coworkers loves to say, "that's it. this is going on my blog." or "oh you'll have to read all about that on my blog," but he refuses to tell us anything else about it. i can't decide if the guy has somehow discovered this place and it's his way of teasing me or if he actually has a blog, and if so, why he keeps talking about it and refuses to give us any hints. i'm intrigued. because i've gone to such trouble to keep this thing a secret. but mostly because inquiring minds want to know. but at the end of the day i'm thinking the real reason he toys with us is because he doesn't have a blog at all and revels in the slow torture of unquenched curiousity.

get with the beat, daddy

so my parents are addicted to the indian version of "dancing with the stars." my mom records it on the satellite dvr and i'll catch it when i'm around. my father especially loves the competition -- celebrity couples (it's only proper) directed by a choreogapher every week-- as he's quite the music aficionado and comes home from work every night asking if it's currently on tv. now i can't stand the incessant, repetitive commercial breaks so i refuse to watch it live, but my dad? he refuses to watch it UNLESS it's on live. this doesn't make sense for several reasons: a) the commercials are properly annoying and a waste of time, b) it's not live ANYWAY because it was broadcast the night before HALFWAY AROUND THE EARTH and c) voting is not open to anyone outside India. not that he'd be voting anyway.

maybe it's the meds, but i'm baffled. the man just doesn't appreciate the beauty of a dvr.

a well-oiled machine

i don't mean to harp on it, but i don't get this sick very often. in the last few days i've managed to fill the contents of FIVE extra-large boxes of Puffs Plus with the emissions from my face, have been awake roughly 12 hours out of 36 and have acquired a voice that, while certainly not as sexy, sounds a hell of a lot like Smurfette. but i have to admit, death doesn't seem around the corner anymore.

at the reunion, i spent a lot of time talking to croc and her husband. she and her college roommate were angels one of the last times i was this sick. they lived three floors above me our freshman year and we hung out nearly every day.

everyone knows that college dormitories are breeding grounds for all kinds of airborne viruses and sniffles and colds, but that year, i managed to pick up the death flu. all i can remember is that i thought i was going to die. because my roommate had gone home for the weekend and my impending death seemed like a real possibility, i took a swig from the NyQuil bottle, dragged my scraggly ass up to croc's room and basically collapsed.

their tiny room pretty much only had space for a bunk bed, two desks and a small tv, with an area to sit on the floor. so they inflated an air mattress and i pretty much passed out there. for 21 hours. at first they were careful to try and talk quietly and keep the television down, but because i had the blanket completely over my face and didn't stir, they got bolder. i'm told they were going about their business, rocking to music and laughing and talking on the phone even louder than usual. i didn't even flinch.

after i came out of my coma, i felt nearly brand-new. all i had needed was to be in a place with other people, even if they weren't interacting with me, just to recharge and let my body fight the demon. God knows what my roommate would have found at the end of the weekend, had i been alone.

thanks, croc! it was great to see you.

prevention? so much better

well, the cold medicine hasn't seemed to do the trick. the cough has gotten so bad that i've graduated to antibiotics and have spent the majority of the last 24 hours trying to sleep. hopefully the drugs will kick in and i'll be up and about sooner rather than later. but in the meantime, i may be in the market for a new lining for my throat. but damn, it's good to finally be home.

so take my advice, kiddies: load up on that vitamin c and Airborne! i wouldn't wish this misery on anybody.

homecoming

tomorrow i'm going home for the weekend. i'd be lying if i said i wasn't looking forward to the aroma of curry and the lumpy couch, upon which i will sit until my ass contours to the shape and catch up on all the shows i missed this week while i was in the land of the air mattress and canned soup.

but that will have to wait till saturday. because tomorrow is the high-school reunion. highcon went on a mission to find something HOTT to wear and has issued a mandate that we all walk in together with our hair breezing back in slow motion to some barry white background music. ri was going to buy new clothes and some of the others are fretting about dress code, too. from the beginning, i had decided to wear work clothes (the invite says "dressy casual"). is this wrong? i mean, i did go with highcon to barney's and club monaco and of course he didn't like anything there and ended up at banana republic per usual. but seriously? shave my legs at the end of november in chicago? for losers whom i probably won't remember? uh, no. i think a black sweater and grey pants will suit me just fine. it works in the office. of course, now that i've proclaimed it in such a haughty way, everyone and their mom is going to show up as if they're reliving the senior prom and i'm going to feel like a fool. whatever.

i've already decided that the people who will be there will most likely be a combination of those whom i see fairly regularly and those i couldn't give two shits about. you know the ones-- selfabsorbed twits who pretty much lived and died based on who was dating whom and how long they could continue making out in front of my locker before i smacked the back of one of their heads with my chemistry book. on accident. maybe. highcon talked to a few of our far-flung acquaintances and found out that many of them hadn't even heard about the event. granted, that's probably because of the whole ReunionMakers snafu, but you know this thing is going to be the spirit committee and their rippling circle.

eh, i'll be hopped up on cold medicine. it should be fun.

the ones that won't let you down

i was all set to write this really depressing post about how this Thanksgiving was going to be really crappy because i'm all alone downtown and i have to go into work just as my family will be sitting down to eat scrumptious food and how nothing compares to the way my mother prepares turkey with masala and all the indian side dishes AS WELL as mashed potatoes and cranberry and all that stuff. she's the best, man. but then i took a healthy dose of NyQuil and passed out. for like 14 hours.

but THEN! this morning came a knock on the door and there they were! my mom, dad and brother (who's home for the holiday) came in with all this fantastic food. i guess they were going to some auntie's house for the official meal, but my mom felt so bad that i was alone and would have to work that she prepared a small chicken for me and all the trimmings!

man, even though i couldn't completely taste it, i knew it was fabulous. when i'm most feeling down and out and too proud to admit it, i have people in my life who see through the bravado and do just the thing that i need the most. for that, i am utterly thankful.

i hope all of you had a rich and fulfilling holiday, too.

the cure is that ratty old couch

i woke up this morning with a scratchy throat. i watched Family Ties, Who's the Boss and The Facts of Life, ate, got ready and came to work. during my shift, my nose began to run. i took a break from the dungeon to go to the drugstore and buy NyQuil and ramen noodles. currently, i'm sitting in the dungeon and slowly eviscerating a box of Kleenex as well as the skin of my nose, waiting for reports. i'm not looking forward to standing outside and waiting for a cab in the middle of the night.

being sick is so much worse when you know you're not going home.

spend my time just making rhymes

it's starting to sink in.

i've been there since saturday, but spoiled because people came to help me bring my meager belongings (not staying long, don't need much). also, cc hung out and celebrated her birthday with me all weekend. but now she's back home with her family.

i've never *technically* lived alone, but for the last two years i've been awake when everyone is sleeping, at work when everyone is socializing and sitting around when everyone is at work. so really, i've been more alone than the average roommate-less person. yet somehow this sucks worse. probably because i'm doing all that same stuff but with a tv that gets 3 (THREE) channels, if i'm lucky.

in the middle of the night at home i know there are breathing bodies in the other rooms. i know that if i choke on a wheat thin and start to asphyxiate, i can run over and collapse onto one of their doors and they'd wake up and call 911. here, i'm surrounded by hundreds of people on dozens of floors, but somehow i think they'd be dialing different digits at 3 a.m. if i tried that maneuver.

i have wi-fi internet access from the lobby. but i'd describe it like having a three-legged dog with cataracts: you can walk him, but it's gonna take a lot of patience. never fear, i'm working the dungeon this week which, despite what it lacks (windows, humans, joy) has got a pretty damn fast computer. it's the only reason i'm still sane.

this afternoon, i got up early and went to an appointment. i walked around and peoplewatched and went inside. then i proceeded to watch 5 (FIVE) judge shows before i went to work. The People's Court was on twice. i can't even remember any of the other judges. but they were all witty and fair. even though the plaintiffs and defendants were insane. or scripted; i couldn't decide. the reason for this is because i somehow used up all my daytime minutes. so i cannot harass my loved ones at their places of business until monday.

so i'd better find something to occupy myself. at least before commuting starts looking good.

deja view

after 3 days of house-sitting, i have one resounding opinion about life in the high-rise:

it's appallingly like living in a college dorm. but without the crappy cafeteria. and, you know, the school.

a time to grow

"i haven't seen you girls in such a long time. i'm so glad we were able to meet up and celebrate cc's birthday."

"yeah and nothing says 'happy birthday' better than a yummy margarita. i think i'll have another one of these babies."

"dude, i've been in the dungeon too long. i haven't been out dancing in forever and i don't even remember the last time i had something with tequila in it."

"well nobody asked you to order the one with three different kinds of tequila in it, crazy."

"what? that's one of the drinks the waitress recommended! ray, you're the one who asked her opinion in the first place."

"that's only because i don't know what half this stuff is. you tell her what we're ordering; i always pronounce this stuff wrong."

"um, yeah. i think this drink is it for me tonight. i might not be able to even finish all this."

"cadiz! you cannot be telling me that your first drink is your last drink of the night. oh, grow some tits and suck it down."



happy birthday, cc. i hope i'll always have you to look to in mock horror when ray says something appalling.

testing out the waters

some of you may recall the problem with parking series i did last year. yes, parking in the city is a bitch. and though i've gotten adept at it, trolling around to find a spot is still not my favorite way to spend forty-five minutes worth of automobile fuel.

so i'm going to do something absolutely ridiculous and out of character. i'm moving to the city. okay, okay, for like a week. or so. maybe.

i'm going to be apartment-sitting in highrise downtown. this is big for me because a) i've never lived alone b) i've never lived in a city and c) i love my car, and i can't bring it with me. that last one is going to be rough if you consider the fact that i spend almost three hours in my car every weekday and sometimes on the weekends, too. the place is pretty close to my job, so i'll have an added two-to-three hours a day to myself, but my biggest fear is boredom because there's only a tiny, non-cable tv. it's going to be a cold-turkey cutoff from the dvr.

i'm not sure how long this is going to last, or if i'll even be able to cut it using mass transportation and remembering to feed myself. granted, i could just go in and check the mail/water the plants, etc and go back home to my cozy bed and chatty roommates, but i'm going to really try and give it a go.

don't fret; i'll keep you posted.

close your eyes and pay the price

i admit it: i am a procrastinator.

because of this, i am no stranger to the more than occasional all-night paper-writing/ project-finishing/ entire-book-reading that i liked to call "College." and you know on these endeavors i wasted even more time watching tom & jerry, arranging my socks, making the coffee *just* right and most of all (in what some have said were the very early precursors to my blog) crafting long, rambling e-mails at 3 a.m. from random computer labs to my twenty closest friends about the freaks who were up all night with me. i guess they were pretty popular, but i never really found out till people said they'd be missed after graduation. pp's boyfriend, k, was likeminded; we took turns napping on the couch instead of studying while pp, who always did her homework with time to spare, got a full night's beauty rest. every time.

but i have to say, without that "i did it!" payoff, pulling an allnighter just isn't that fun. especially when you're supposed to be on vacation.

in about 20 minutes, i will have been awake -- no naps and hardly any yawning, but three cups of tea -- for 24 straight hours. i don't know how it happened. it wasn't smart. but i did get a lot of things done. unfortunately, one thing is absolutely clear: i'm going to be HURTING for this tomorrow.

feeling like a million minutes

getting up early is a little bit like winning the lottery: you're wide awake, showered, dressed and ready to rock hours before your usual. you're walking on sunshine. you have ALL this time ahead of you to accomplish everything you've let lag for the last several days. because you're so rich, of course you can spare some time to sit through recorded episodes of America's Next Top Model, the news, Dancing With the Stars AND the finale episode! (i'm very pleased with the result, by the way).

but unfortunately just like lottery winnings, if not invested wisely the treasure trove of time slips out from under that sheen of hope and confidence and evaporates. that's the problem with becoming cocky.

so yes, i may have gotten up at 6 a.m. this morning. but now, six hours later, i have nothing to show for it but a full stomach, a less-empty inbox and fewer items left to watch on the DVR.

so much for all the work i was going to get done. sigh. might as well make the most of the time i've got left.

backwards body clock

dungeon duty allows me one week of vacation a year, so i have to be choosy. all year, i made grand plans for my time off-- during which i'd finally not be commuting or keeping such ridiculous hours. but the reality? i've spent the last several days in the house, doing some long overdue personal projects. the biggest of which is to change my sleep schedule back to that of normal human beings. sadly, my rhythm is so incredibly jacked that yesterday i saw the sun for the first time in five days. granted, daylight hours are pretty short here, but still.

i have tried EVERYTHING to train myself to be awake during the day and asleep during the night. i've pulled a couple all-nighters, only to pass out haphazardly and awaken in the dark with carpet marks on my face. and when i do manage to caffeinate enough to make it, i'm so jittery and loopy that i don't trust myself behind the wheel of a car, so nothing gets done anyway.

so basically, i'm torturing myself to switch my body clock to days. i will probably only manage it with little time left for any fun and then i'll go back to working nights and be all turned upside down again.

at least i'm not claiming Post-Its

okay, so the high school reunion spirit committee sent out a form asking for the particulars. you know, name, married name, kids' names, pets' names, address, blablabla. but then they wanted to know other stuff, too. stuff you really shouldn't be trying to come up with when you've been commuting/working for 14 hours on 3 hours' sleep. stuff such as:

favorite song from '92-'96? okay, that's pretty easy. i put "california love" by Dr. Dre/Tupac, but only because one of my friends mentioned it during a discussion on the topic, so i can't even take credit for that. however, i agree wholeheartedly.

what i should have said:
"california love" by Dr. Dre/Tupac


favorite high school memory: i grasped for straws and came up with an all-school coordinated waterballoon fight we had between 2nd and 3rd period during "freshmen hell week." (yeah, i got some great shots in, but we were sophomores then, and had been completely terrorized the year before by seniors who sprayed our hall with waterguns filled with fox urine and cut off random locks, emptying the contents and setting them on fire and having a live pig run amok. security protected the freshman the next year, so we got hazed as sophomores, too. and by the time we were seniors we had no energy to expend on traumatizing younger classes. but the balloon fight was still fun.)

what i should have said:
as my friend, ri, aptly remembered: our senior class trip down the western coast of italy, from Rome to Sicily. seriously one of the biggest eye-opening, horizon-broadening, taste-for-travel-inducing experiences of my life. it solidified my love for Spanish and my persona as the make-sure-your-giddy-friends-don't-do-stupid-shit-like-run-off
-on-a-ferry-with-strange-foreign-men schoolmarm. whatever. say what you will, but nobody got assaulted under my watch.

interesting fact about you:
this one stings the most. let's remember, i was on ZERO SLEEP so it was on my mind. i wrote, "i talk in my sleep." upon further thought, i am now positive everyone else's is going to be "i found the cure for psoriasis" or "i help starving orphans when i'm not improving the quality of anti-gravity space boots." even Mr. High Contrast is going to say he climbed the Himalayas, though we all know he was motionsick and on a donkey.

what i should have said:
SO MANY THINGS I COULD HAVE SAID INSTEAD! i could have talked about camping out in the Sahara with camels (come to think of it, i had food poisoning then too, so i feel ya, highcon.) Or seeing William "refrigerator" Perry perform his part of the Superbowl Shuffle literally ten feet in front of me. or you know, risking my life every night by working in a DUNGEON, for God's sake.

sadly, because of this halfass form filling, i will be remembered as the girl who blocked out all the fantabulous things she actually did and focused on what earned demerits. furthermore, i will be the broad who spent the decade after getting a diploma cultivating her frigging nocturnal oratory skills.

what i should have said:
i STILL can't think of the right thing to say until it's too way late.

back off with that baby, beeyatch

it's a well-known fact that my mother is awesome.

sure, when young people at her work started calling her "mom," i bristled a little bit. she's a sweetheart to nearly everyone and so damn loveable. however, they don't have to deal with her high expectations or her bitter disappointment. they don't have to fight against her reluctance to see the doctor when something's wrong or her rigidly low tolerance for ineptitude. and the guilt. don't get me started on the GUILT. they get all her sage advice, listen to her laugh and sample her fabulous cooking, all without fielding one iota of guilt. they get 8 hours a day with her, when all i get at best is a ten-minute phonecall because of our schedules. but i've made my peace with that. i've come to accept that aside from my brother, there are a dozen or so people who lovingly call the woman by our name for her. and it irritates me only slightly.

but this past week, one of those hangers-on crossed the line.

she came to our house and brought her handsome, well-behaved boyfriend, who wanted to ask my mom about India to gear up for his study abroad trip there. he came bringing cake and offering to do the dishes-- obviously well-trained. she also brought her handsome, well-behaved 2-year-old to eat neatly, play with his dumptruck on the kitchen floor quietly and sit in her lap adoringly. which was also fine by me at that point in the story. because i know this girl. she and i were lab partners freshman year of high school. and though our paths split then and went in opposite directions, somehow she's back in my life, calling my mother mom. which is okay, i guess.

what i do take issue with is the fact that she also has the kid calling my mother "grandma."

it's no secret that my mom would gladly trade two legs and a duodenum to have somebody of her very own to call her grandma. and that i've been taught, as oldest and as daughter, that it's my cultural obligation to have given her one like five years ago. but i haven't. because in some twisted form of logic, i believe that one should only produce grandchildren when one has found a suitable partner and only then if both parties are good and ready. but that doesn't stop my mom from hinting at how jealous she is of her friends who have them and it certainly hasn't put a damper on the one-woman babyblanket knitting factory she's running out of the living room.

don't get me wrong, i know what kind of pressure my mother's under. she's got the entire auntie patrol slyly insinuating that there must be something wrong with me, that i may in fact be expired in some way. and that it's such a shame. i'm well aware. and i'm sure she's only allowing this breach of namecalling ethics because she's just that nice. what's she going to say? "no, you can't call me that because my daughter will be jealous and bitter?" i understand that. but why confuse this poor 2-year-old? he's got a perfectly great grandma in his own house.

i know there's nothing i can do about this, save for going out and getting the woman what she wants myself. but that's just not the right thing to do at this time, nor the right reason. i've come to terms with sharing my mother, but i will be DAMNED if i will allow the children who are now just a sparkle in my eye to have to share their grandmother with ANYONE not bound by the law. i am not suffering the torture of guilt for nothing.

fine, then. mark this one half off.

"i don't think i'm hot anymore."

"what? you called me at work for this?"

"i never had this problem before."

"just how DRUNK are you right now?"

"i'm past my prime."

"you're insane. someone is probably going to hit on you later tonight and this conversation will mean nothing."

"sigh. well, it was good while it lasted."

"i give up."

how about some Armistice?

I guess i can't say "Happy Veterans Day," when there have been servicepeople dying in the war every day. So i'll just say thank you and i hope that you come home soon.

November: National GET BUSY month

okay, so i'm participating in this NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), which was inspired by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which also inspired NaKniSweMo (National Knit a Sweater in a Month) and NaSoAlMo (National Solo Album Month).

there's also Naplwrimo (National Playwriting Month) and NaNoMangO (i don't know what it stands for, but it's 30 pages of sequential art.)

and let's not forget National Diabetes Month , National Adoption Month, National Family Caregivers Month, National American Indian Heritage Month and National Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month

all of the above are November. (except NaNoMangO, which is november AND june.) and God knows what else is out there that i haven't stumbled upon.

my question to you is: why november? is it chock full of dead time that could be dedicated to things we always wished we did? is it biologically the best time of the year to be committed to something? if so, why aren't more people engaged or married at this time? are extra projects what is needed to burn off all that extra turkey? because let's face it, you know we're going to put this stuff off till the last minute and be scrambling during thanksgiving anyway.

personally, i think it's because november goes really well with naming things beginning with "Na" and ending with "Mo." but that's just me.

secret tesoro

i love spanish music. that includes music sung in Spanish but not limited to music that comes from Spain. several years ago, i started listening to spanish top-40 radio. there were a few stations to choose from, and i could enjoy the artists i already loved as well as discover new music.

but all that changed when the national radio corporate monster thought it'd be better to turn the stations i liked into all-reggaeton-all-the-time to appeal to a younger, hipper audience. today, the only options are channels that offer thumping and bumping reggaeton or regurgitated dance hiphop with some spanish sampling thrown in, or the more regional stations. (sorry, rancheras aren't really my cup of tea.) don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with a little reggaeton, but after three songs it all starts sounding the same to me. or maybe i'm just getting old.

i was very sad about this because all i had were my old cds and no way to discover new music (i have a dialup connection, so internet radio is out of the question). i guess i could follow the groups i like on the internet and buy their music online, but that requires a lot of keeping track of things, and i can't even remember to feed myself, let along check up on a band.

in true fashion, i forgot all about it. i continued listening to my golden old tracks and didn't think twice. until the day i was out visiting H, and he showed me the magical record store.

they have nearly everything! even more obscure stuff i only heard in Spain. and not just Spanish, but all kinds of crazy music. it was very cool. it definitely beats the selection at Best Buy or Borders and it's not as intimidating as going to the Spanish-only music store where people stare at you and tell you your accent is good. the first time i went there, i discovered that la oreja de van gogh was out with a new cd. the next time we went back, i picked up the latest from julieta venegas and maná. i'm happy and up to date. for now.



p.s. "tesoro" means treasure

maybe peggy sue will show up

in february, i got a letter inviting me to my ten-year high school reunion. it was scheduled for the day after thanksgiving. i've always planned on attending, if anything just to see people with whom i made small talk during class but didn't really see outside of school. plus it's always interesting to see if the so-and-sos have lived up to their potential.

i put the wheels in motion to try and get the day off (read: offered to work on thanksgiving and christmas to have that most coveted friday in november free). but after all that trouble, i got another letter in the mail, saying the reunion was canceled. i guess the agency in charge of planning it, ReunionMakers, went out of business. after they took a whole bunch of money from people.

so it looked like the whole thing was off. most of my friends didn't really care. our tightknit highschool group has managed to survive college, bad relationships, marriages and multiple cross-country moves and is now still moderately tightknit. but i was disappointed. working on turkey day for nothing? uh-uh. i wanted to see some acquaintance-types, dammit. you know, like j.w.. (i heard he gained a lot of weight and lost a lot of hair. but i'm sure his eyes are still crinkly.) i figured, if they already had the venue and the date/time set, why couldn't we cut out the shady middleman and put on the party ourselves?

now if you think i actually tore myself away from dungeon duty to attempt such a thing, you are sadly mistaken. but some girls from our class took up the task because they've got spirit, yes, they do. the cost has come down and it's turned from a formal sitdown dinner to 3 hours of open bar and appetizers. so i'm happy. now i just have to convince more friends. because if the whole thing is lame, we can sit in the corner sipping alcohol and talking smack about people.

C'MON. what else is a high school reunion for anyway?

you know what to do

we all know that the extremists on both sides will be out there, IN LINE, when the polls open, ready and eager to push their extreme agendas.

do we really want them picking the people who can potentially make our lives a living hell?

last march i started feeling guilty about my inconsistent voting record. i studied the candidates and the issues, got up early, stood in line and was late to work just to vote. but when i finally got to the front of the line, my name magically "could not be found" despite the older gentleman's use of some very fancy blackberry-ish voter information-locating equipment. i hustled off to fight traffic, grumbling the whole way, only to hear that three hours later my family members-- who live in the same precinct and have the same name -- got their ticket into the booth, no problem. and the lady had no trouble seeing my earlier invisible voter information right there on the list under theirs. she passed on her apologies, but i still didn't get my say because i was stuck in the dungeon.

maybe if enough people vote, they'll raise the bar for personnel quality at polling places. no offense, they're lovely folks; i just think they should be required to be able to see.

do it for the people who actually care about making a difference. but if you don't, you have no right to bitch.

damn domino effect

it really sucks when so much of a person's life can be dependent on decisions made by people who go about their business every day, completely oblivious of just how much they are leaving that person unable to get a full night's rest.

they should be responsible for the ulcer bills.

without both, you just get half

ever since my friend ri got married to her love in july, they've been cultivating all the things good marriages have, like divided chores, making time for dates, and most importantly, speaking as a unit.

"i'm so crazed with all the things i have to take care of lately that i'm losing my mind!"

"and her keys; before we left to come here, she lost her keys, her phone or both several times. all in the span of five minutes."

"ha ha! yeah, and this afternoon i left them hanging in the mailbox in the lobby! can you imagine? oh man, that was bad."

"especially because you came all the way upstairs without them."

"yeah! and i'm sitting here knocking on the door, thinking my husband would open it for me, but noooo."

"hey, i was in the shower!"

"don't lie, you were standing at the end of the hall, ignoring me!"

"that's not true, i thought you were a neighbor."

"you see, i left the keys in the mailbox downstairs in the lobby and went all the way upstairs. and c was in the shower--"

"and she realized she had no way of getting in. meanwhile, i'm coming out of the shower in a towel and hear a knocking on the door. i figured if it was ri, she'd just use her key, so i ignored it. what! i was in a towel!"

"so i had to go back downstairs, but i didn't want to haul all the mail with me. so i put it under the door."

"i see mail sliding in from under the door, so i figured it was a neighbor who got something of ours by mistake."

"it wasn't one thing! it was a whole pile with newspaper advertisements and everything!"

"yeah, yeah, and then i saw that one envelope had been opened and i said, 'man, the neighbors are going through our mail!' and i figured that's probably why they knocked, to apologize for accidentally opening it."

"but not at first! at first you thought it was a robber."

"right, at first i went for my baseball bat and thought, 'okay guy, let's do this thing.' "

"but it really was just me."

"yeah. ridiculous."

"yeah."

secret stash

"hey, what happened to that pile of leftover halloween candy that was sitting here on the counter? i have a taste for an almond joy right now."

"it should still be there... i don't know where your father hides it."

"geez! i mean, we all know that every year when he buys the candy he gets twice as much and then hoards some for himself. but he wasted NO TIME in snatching up all the leftovers, too! that man needs help."

"tell me about it, i've been dealing with his sweet tooth for 35 years. but there are bad habits that are a lot worse."

"yeah, i guess searching around the house for chocolate is a lot better than frantically trying to find where he's hiding the crack."

multitasking

so i'm sitting here waiting for reports, minding my own business. suddenly i get an e-mail chat from the ex-boyfriend of my good friend, with whom my friend has had some drama as of late. i'm just making small talk with him-- about work, the weather, maybe getting together for coffee sometime. that is unlikely to actually happen considering he a) is no longer dating my friend b) i work in a dungeon at night and c) he's a medical resident on call all the time. plus i'm not comfortable with the idea of hanging out alone with a friend's ex. so i continue along, hoping that my friend does not come up as a topic of discussion because, while i think this guy is sweet, i really don't want to get involved in their personal matters.

as i'm chatting away about superficial nonsense, another window pops up with a boing; it's the friend who i'm trying very hard not to talk about.

so i'm looking at two little windows next to each other, carrying on separate conversation with each and wondering what the odds are that these two (who live in different time zones) would be up so late and both in the mood to talk to me.

it gets more interesting. i tell my friend that the exboyfriend and i are e-mail chatting and ask if they've settled their issues. friend tells me, "we're on the phone. we're okay."

so not only are they talking to me via computer, they're talking to EACH OTHER via telephone, too. until magically, they both feel the need to end their talks with me and go to bed. at the same time.

i'm still trying to wrap my head around this.

typical 2 a.m.

you know, nothing's changed.

i'm still sitting here, in the middle of the night, waiting for reports.

i'm still browsing around the internet, chuckling at what other people have to say about their boyfriends, bad jobs, housebreaking puppies or america's next top model.

i'm still thinking about how fast i can safely get home without getting a ticket or killed to watch lost (even though i'm holding judgement on this season because the ratio of commercials to storyline is becoming more and more equal with each episode)

i'm still dartingly eyeing the corners of the hallway for anyone who may be lurking there to quietly strangle, dismember and stash the pieces that were me in a utility closet on some rarely used floor.

i'm still bleary-eyed because i didn't get enough sleep because i just had to watch the daily show AND the colbert report at 7 a.m.

i'm still craving a grilled cheese sandwich from the cafeteria downstairs, but won't go because the second i leave my office is when they'll bring me the reports.

i'm still feebly fighting off the idea that i traded my life for my television when i agreed to take on this job two years ago.

i'm still sitting here trying to come up with something coherent to post while i wait.

the only difference? now i'm COMMITTED, which generally means any fledgling genius ideas have run for the hills to snuggle up with wads of cotton and leaves and nuts or whatever else hibernating things love to snuggle with. only to return in december. when NaBloPoMo is over.

i'm taking requests

while lurking around last month, i stumbled upon NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month. in the spirit of National Novel Writing Month-- when some really dedicated writers spin an entire novel out in thirty days-- these people pledge to post every day for the entire month of November.

so i thought i'd give it a whirl, too. i especially liked this part:

"If you don't want to participate as a NaBloPoMo blogger then your mission is simply to delurk and comment on one of the sites below, or another of your favorite blogs, once a day in the month of November as a show of support. This will also prove that you can read and that you think blogging is nice."
-- fussy, of www.fussy.org

so basically, i'm a sure thing daily for the next thirty days. regardless, if you go to the NaBloPoMo site, you'll see an ENORMOUS list of participants, including myself, and maybe you'll find a blog you like enough to follow the whole month through.

wish me luck!

i'll wrap your presents in orange and black

if you want to be born on a holiday, i think Halloween is the perfect choice:

a) no one goes out of town or takes vacation then
b) it's not an "family" holiday
c) it's not an obligatory holiday during which people make you feel guilty
d) people dress up and don't look as much like themselves, so they're more likely to let loose and really have fun
e) people will allow themselves to eat loads of things that are bad for them. i.e. birthday cake
f) it's a day people of all ages can enjoy
g) it's an occasion to be transient, so it's likely they can fit your party into their trick-or-treating/other party schedule
h) it's not a picnic holiday or a turkey holiday, so you can better control the menu
i) there's CANDY everywhere!

i happen to know several halloween babies. a girl from work who took the whole week off to celebrate; pp's boyfriend, k, who pp says is the "male version" of me -- which is probably why we get along so famously; and our very own blogger, jon.

and then there's my very own H, who puts the "H" in halloween and every other day of the year. at least for me. even from 2,000 miles away he makes me laugh and drives me absolutely berserk. he's quirky and smart and adorable. he isn't afraid to call me out on bullshit or sample weird foods at my suggestion. or tell me that the weird thing i suggested is disgusting. every day, i feel more love and support than i ever could have imagined and i'm thankful for all the happy accidents that brought us together. Happy Halloween, darling. i love you.

pumpkin pickin' on the west side

because i will be celebrating the fair holiday of All Hallow's Eve in-- most appropriate of all places-- the dungeon, this past weekend i went out to California to get my hot-apple-cider-and-pumpkin-gut-fix with H.

let me tell you, as a lifelong midwesterner who has seen her share of snow, sleet and even hail on Halloween-- and trick-or-treated anyway-- the idea of milling around a pumpkin patch in jeans, a t-shirt and sandals is absolutely ridiculous. sure, festivities on the west coast have the essentials: loads of pumpkins, dried cornstalks propped up in pillars, random bales of hay, apple cider, mini gourds, awkwardlooking scarecrows, indian corn, wheelbarrows and of course the obligatory hayride pulled by a tractor. but something feels a little off when it's EIGHTY-FIVE degrees outside. what? no sweatshirts? no runny noses? no mittens!? for goodness' sake, there's a reason they sell HOT apple cider and HOT chocolate at the vending stand. and there's no point in riding around on exhaust-spewing farm equipment if you can't at least use the cold as an excuse to snuggle up to someone special. geez.

so as i walked up and down the aisles of the patch, listening intently for a pumpkin to call out for me to scrape out its innards and cut holes in its head, i tried to get past the people wearing shorts. i was cranky and fuming about all the ways Halloween in the heat defies the laws of nature, and not afraid to voice my opinions. but then, as i lifted up a white pumpkin to check out the damage underneath, i spotted some people walking around with their babies dressed up in chicken suits. and all my irritation melted away. because really, Halloween is not about the temperature outside or the color of the leaves. it is a celebration of dressing our children/pets/siblings/selves in horribly embarrassing getups of which others will save photographic evidence to ensure the maximum amount of mortification at just the right moment. like when your date picks you up for The Prom.

besides, this morning when i got off the plane in chicago to find that it was SEVENTY degrees here, i realized that i definitely needed to lighten up. that and learn to hobble around town with my foot in my mouth.

so enjoy, you trick-or-treaters. if you decide not to get dressed up, at least get a little hopped up on the candy. live a little. quit being so cranky. take a moment to stop and smell the baby chickens.

and if you're looking for something a little more on the dark side, check this out. just a warning: it's not for the faint of heart.

enjoy!

she's crafty

"you know, i saw a button near the coat rack this afternoon and picked it up, thinking it's probably one of mine."

"who's is it?"

"sure enough, it's off the shirt i'm wearing."

"ah, well you going to take it home and fix it?"

"yeah, i'll probably have to do it myself."

"you know, every time i try to sew on a button, it seems to only last for only one buttoning."

"yeah, it never works right. i lost one off my coat last week..."

"i hate to interrupt you, gentlemen, but it might be sturdier if you go diagonal with those things."

"like when you're unscrewing the lugnuts on a wheel?"

"uh... yeah. sort of. actually, yeah! same sort of thing-- to make sure it doesn't fall off on you."

"so then, it's cool if i just bring it in for you to take care of, cadiz?"

sliver lining

there are some cases when everything seems to be going wrong, all you can do is worry what exciting NEW thing will go wrong tomorrow, in the off chance that your worry will make that thing turn around and go back from whence it came. but then tomorrow comes and it happens anyway.

that really sucks.

and though you don't really believe them when they say stuff like, "don't worry, it'll all work out," or "just try to stay positive," secretly, it's kind of nice to hear. if only for the tiny sliver of pleasure you get from disregarding it.

all new, three times

i got tagged by ML!

and no, i am not going to repeat what i said last time, because i am bored and i like this stuff.

3 things that scare me
losing hope
being jumped and choking instead of defending myself then having to live with the guilt or be dead because i was a coward
starting over

3 people who make me laugh
my brother
H
highcontrast

3 things I love
a really snuggly nap on a sunny day in the summer
shopping for baby clothes
my dvr

3 things I hate
the smell and taste of liver
the exponentially increasing amount of commercials they play during "Lost"
not knowing where i stand

3 things I don't understand
corporate effing america
forcing others to accept your beliefs
gadgets

3 things on my desk
a sewing machine
a blurry picture of me and my grandma from 1987 in Pomona, CA
a broken anklet with garnet-colored stones in it

3 things I'm doing right now
thinking about what i'm going to watch on tv when i get home
thinking about how early i have to wake up tomorrow
trying not to think about what i'm going to in the not-so-distant future

3 things I want to do before I die
meet phil keoghan at the mat
shed some paranoia
be someone's Dadi

3 things I can do
"cackle"
make round, puffy chapatis (but not rice, go figure)
knit booties

3 ways to describe my personality
sweet
spicy
savory

3 things I can't do
stand it when people hang out in the left lane and drive slowly
seem to want to use my mp3player
resist the chance to get nine more minutes' sleep

3 things I think you should listen to
my mom (in case yours doesn't give good advice)
railroad crossing signals
me, when i'm speaking. or else i will get VERY PISSED

3 things I think you should never listen to
television news (ALWAYS get a second opinion, and there are plenty out there)
telemarketers
teletubbies

3 favorite foods
cheeseburgers
sushi
my mom's recipe for [fill in the blank here, except liver]

3 things I'd like to learn
speedreading
to roll with the punches
my purpose

3 beverages I drink regularly
chai (i'm talking lipton, baby, not that commercialized shi-shi crap)
water
odwalla's green monster juice

3 shows I watched as a kid
duck tales
Cosby
tom & jerry

3 people I tag
highcontrast
becky
yo momma

just monkeying around

here's something H's sister sent to him and i've been playing around with while i wait for reports. i'm sure all you monkey fans out there will be pleased.

enjoy!

strong and sexy

today i get onto the bus about fifteen minutes before it was supposed to leave. i guess the driver was on break and was on the phone, helping her friend or somebody pick out names for a baby. i couldn't help but listen to her end of the conversation.

"how about noel? that can be for a boy OR a girl! noelle is a great name!"
...
"mahan? what the heck kind of name is that?... oh, that's your momma's name? oh okay. well, that's nice, but you said you want her to have a strong, sexy name. i'll think of something. don't you worry."
...
"na na nah, I GOT IT! now get this: India. N, with the little swirly thing, d, y, i, a. India. now that's strong AND sexy! ... nah, N with that thing on top, d, y, i, a. i'm telling you, girl! that's a GREAT name!"

i don't know about you guys, but i sat there on the ride to my office trying to figure that one out. Ndyia. doesn't that look like it'd be pronounced "Nih-dee-ya"? and isn't it grammatically impossible to have a tilde n at the beginning of a word? help me out, you linguists out there.

i'm sure a lot of parents get their babies' names in a moment of clarity, but really, shouldn't people take a little more time to map it all out? that poor kid might end up being strong and sexy, but only because she'll have to be confident enough to correct people about her name all day long and have built up a tolerance for ridicule.

a wrench in the plan

on friday, i was driving along, humming to the newsradio themesong and listening for the weather report when suddenly there came a crunchy thumpthumpthumpthump from the undercarriage. i pulled off the main road and into an empty church parking lot to assess the damage.

after several rounds of kicking and no sign of hissing, i decided the tires were fine. but when i drove in circles in around the parking lot islands the suspicious banging only seemed to get worse. it sounded like something under there was dangling precariously close to dragging on the asphalt and making sparks that would ignite my fuel tank and toast me to a burnt crisp. so i called work to say i wasn't going to make it in and tried to roll back toward home slowly, hoping that if it was going to fall to pieces or blow up, my car would at least have the decency to do so within a populated area so someone would be able to identify me and call my mother.

needless to say, i made it home. i didn't have another way to go the 36 miles to work and back, but that didn't stop me from feeling horrible for the entirety of what would have been my shift. i never was good at playing hooky; the guilt sucks every second of joy i might get from the freedom, so i don't even bother.

however, today was a different story. i got in to see the mechanic and finally felt some relief. i can show the boss my big fat receipt for shiny new stabilizers and a brand-new front axle. if that had completely broken down on me in the middle of the highway, i think guilt would have been the least of my emotions.

show me that smile again

one of the reasons i knew in my heart that pp, my random college roommate, and i were going to get along great was because on October 12 that first year, she turned to me and said, "do you know what today is?"

i have no idea how i remembered this -- probably because someone i knew in jr. high was obsessed with him -- but i replied, "why, it's kirk cameron's birthday!" and that's exactly what she had been thinking.

so happy birthday, kirk. i may not agree with all of your beliefs, but you sure were loveable as mike seaver on growing pains.

we're onto you

one of my favorite people, mr. high contrast, is somebody i have known since freshman year of high school. when you first meet him, you think to yourself, "my, what an intelligent, successful businessman! and he's witty and goodlooking, too!" but what only a few people truly know is that the man is really a prankster at heart who takes sadistic joy in messing with people when they least expect it; like when they're in the bathroom and have left their e-mail account open. behold his handiwork, via an e-mail from my friend kaiya:

_____________

(no subject)

cadiz -
i'm over you.

Kaiya

_____________


i see highcon has been hacking into your email again.
cadiz
_____________


i cant believe that little [expletive] wrote 4 separate distinct emails. i dont know how he was able to craft A different non mass email email to people in FRONT of my own FACE!!!!
kaiya
_____________


HOW does he do this?

but it's so funny; some things just never get old.

hope all is well.
cadiz
_____________


and its funny how s, Kupsaroo and ale, like u, had no question in their mind... that an email straight from me... even if it was their first of a kind.... no question it had to do with highcon.

highcon told Kupsaroo... "can i tickle your pickle?"

_____________

bwahahahahaahahaa.

what did he tell the others?

_____________

"i wanna do you like they do it on the discovery channel."

"i want to run my fingers through your hair. i want to sing a song in my bra and panties."

"I'm over you."

"can i tickle your pickle?"

_____________

good LORD. he's hilarious.

_____________

somehow, this e-mail hijacking game never tires for our fair highcon. the first time there was a lot of confusion over kaiya writing such salacious things. but we caught on quickly and can spot him a mile away. all of these victims have known him for more than 8 years, some as long as 15. all are female. but what should be applauded is that the missives were sent out, unbeknownst to the real sender, in the span of what i can only guess was about 30 seconds.

nice work, hc. but next time, try to get the tone right; this prank was outright transparent.

my home will always smell of curry

this week post secret featured a postcard from an indian girl who secretly wishes she were white because she thinks "it would be easier."

reading that made me incredibly sad.

it's not *easy* for anybody in this world-- we all struggle to fit in. but her note just makes me wonder what the heck must have happened to her/in front of her bad enough to create a secret hope that she were someone else entirely. personally, i think it's all television's fault.

non-surfin' safari

so this past weekend i went out to cali to visit H. nearly every trip out there is an adventure, and this time we went on a google maps-induced goosechase to find this heavenly dumpling restaurant near Pasadena we'd sampled before and have been dreaming about ever since. after about an hour of driving around trying to follow directions that made no sense, we tossed those and found our own way. and despite the additional wait, it was well worth all the trouble.

the next day, we went on a safari-- of sorts. first we took a trip to Long Beach, passing some areas i have only heard of in rap songs. then we hopped on a very big boat and embarked for Santa Catalina Island.

Catalina's got wildlife: we saw dolphins jumping out of the water on the way in and took a submarine tour of Lover's Cove, where we fed fat, greedy and orange fish by "torpedo" and dodged kelp that can grow an inch an hour or 2.5 feet per day, given the right conditions if i heard the tourguy correctly. we also had to step over fish guts on the pier and sunbathers who didn't feel the need to remove their socks and running cleats while lying out on a "beach" virtually the width of a sidewalk. (or is it laying out? i'll never understand people who tan. or their lingo.)

then we took a two-hour rollercoaster ride up the mountain to the airport and back and saw some bison leaving presents along the road. it seems when they were making a movie there in 1924,('the vanishing american,' by zane grey) they hauled out some 1400 head of these huge, shaggy animals and didn't have the energy to round them up afterwards. turns out the beasts didn't even make the cut for the movie. so these hulking animals that look like buffalo but aren't buffalo because buffalo live in asia or africa so buffalo wings, 'buffalo' bill, buffalo soldiers and i guess the buffalo stance should all be named for bison instead. ok, maybe not that last one.

the beasts we really had to watch for zipped along streets and sidewalks, spewing exhaust and tooting their little horns. it seemed everyone and their mamma was driving a golf cart. and later we found out there's an 800-car limit for the whole island and a 14-year waiting list to get a non-golfcart vehicle.

but the best creature we saw on the trip had to be this adorable little girl who was about two years old. she was running circles around the square with her older brother and sister while her father ambled along behind, calling 'valentina, slow down!' she caught sight of me with my waffle cone and H with his twix bar sitting on a bench and stopped still in front of us. she cocked her head and smiled. i waved and H chuckled. then she turned around, put her hands on the ground and stared at us from between her little legs until the blood rushed to her head and she nearly fell over. then she'd run around in circles a few more times looking up at the seagulls gliding around, see us again and stop, flip over and smile. over and over.

looking at strange wildlife never gets old.

smooth talker

"have you talked to your brother today?"

"yeah, he was asking my opinion about whether to go to that florida football game he's been dreaming about for years or something."

"what did you tell him to do?"

"well, it sounded like he really wanted to go, so i said go, but cut back on spending so he doesn't break the bank. he obviously doesn't make much money working 6 hours a week."

"well he called me today, asking me for the money."

"that sneaky little rascal! you know what he said? when i asked if the tickets were really expensive, he said 'money's no object.' i should have known!"

"isn't it amazing how he tells each of us a different story?"

"but, you know, he never actually lies about anything. i didn't think to ask him how the heck he was so confident about the cash. i wish i had learned how to work it like that. he's got us all wrapped around his finger! i don't know where he gets it from."

"probably your father."

your baby with the bathwater

"hey, i'm going to throw all of these out. they're so raggedy."

"fine. but not those-- i can wear them when i'm working in the yard."

"i can't believe you're actually letting me throw something away for once."

"yeah, ha ha, why don't you just throw me out while you're at it?

"sure, someday."

this week in television

so i guess my team got eliminated in the first round of the amazing race.

sigh.

just means that i'm going to have to get off my booty and try to represent my peeps and hope to make it to round two. hey, at least anchal made the cut on america's next top model.

i'm not terribly heartbroken, however, because H and cc convinced me to watch arrested development on netflix. i thought i'd never get into it when i still didn't see the big freaking deal after six episodes, but suddenly the show became laugh-out-loud, freaking HILARIOUS.

i saw the season premiere of grey's anatomy, which i very reluctantly got sucked into even though i think the main character is not interesting enough to warrant all these guys being in love with her. it's soapy, but keeps me coming back for more.

and i finally got around to watching ghostbusters, which is has some pretty dirty references in it. however, i knew a lot of the premise from watching the cartoon the real ghostbusters as a kid. i was waiting for slimer to show up. it took 22 years.

don't worry; i'll still be running home on sunday night to catch TAR.

the flavor of my kind. finally.

ok, i had this big long post all set about how i'm damn excited that my favorite show, The Amazing Race, kicks off tonight and that i cannot wait to get home and watch it and how, since i got a dvr i refuse to watch commercials and i have no idea what kind of contestants they have. until i thought to myself, DUH self, go look it up online.

MY PEOPLE HAVE FINALLY MADE IT TO REALITY TELEVISION!

ok, ok, i know that's not true. they have an all-asian team on Survivor! (oh yeah, but not south asian.) and i think i flipped through and saw some contestant on America's Next Top Model a few years ago who tried to blow off the pain of being cut by saying something ridiculous like she only really wanted to use it to get into the business side of fashion anyway. yeah, sure, she only said that to save face for the Aunties. and from the previews, i think there's someone from my region on the next season of ANTM, too.

the reason that i'm so unbelievably excited is because i feel it is my duty to put my heart and soul behind anyone who bucks the Auntie patrol. Tony Kanal, M. Night Shyamalan, Parminder Nagra, Sarita Choudhury, Naveen Andrews, Russell Peters and a host of others that i'm sure i'm forgetting that are more than worth mentioning. especially because they don't usually list sculptors, or journalists, or architects, or fashion designers, or professional chefs, or makeup artists, or dancers, or trombonists, or all the other non-approved careers on imdb.com.

these people take on the big job of veering off the accepted path that is medicine/law/computerscience/and-of-course engineering. which is why it took nearly a DECADE to get a southasian on the tv show ER. in that entire hospital, there was not one of my people for that long? not a single ultrasound tech or phlebotomist or orderly. wanna know why? because no indian parent's friend in their right mind would allow them to allow their child to pursue something as risky as acting. i know these people want the best for their kids (read: quickest road to grandchildren), but that just leads to grandkids without role models they can identify with who may form skewed ideas of what it means to be beautiful, successful and loved by the world. (i escaped this particular fate because my parents are all about bollywood music videos. my idea of what a beautiful woman means is to have long luscious hair and run about the trees in the rain. which is another issue in itself.)

anyway, thank you Jerry Bruckheimer and the casting people for Amazing Race 10. i see that not only do you have my peeps, but you have another asian team (the other kind) as well as devout muslims and a person leaping through life despite an injury. and of course some cheerleaders and pageant queens. i'm sure more than one of them is a "/model," so you guys aren't straying too far from the protocol.

so, as if i wouldn't be doing so anyhow, i will be running home every sunday night/monday morning to check up on my team. and i pray that my people don't do something like be nasty to each other or cheat or pick fights or get eliminated right away because i want America-- in its infinite openmindedness-- to think all of us are tough competitors who know how to bring it, fight fair, battle it out and KICK SOME ASS! because, you know, we're, like totally, all the same. which is why we have to support each other.

so vipul and arti, this time it'd better be you coming home with a million dollars. my rep is on the line.




************UPDATE*******
Imagine my dismay when, after having programmed the television and triplechecked that it was set to record, i hurried home to find that it most definitely DID NOT!
maybe it was the heavy storm this evening that blocked the satellite dish, but now that i do a search for the show under many different variations, nothing comes up. damn you, DirecTV!

please don't ruin the ending. maybe if i ask really sweetly, someone very wonderful will hook me up with a copy of the episode.

exhausted

i have a project to do. a really big one. it will require tedious attention to detail and a lot of-- what do they call it?-- "get up and go" to complete. very little of which i currently posess these days. and i'm terrified about failing. maybe that is why i have put it off for two months when i should have been about halfway through by today.

this is very upsetting. i spend a lot of time worrying and little actually doing.

never fear, dear readers, i am aware of how deep the vat of doo-doo is that i tread; it's just that for some reason, i cannot seem to muster the motivation to actually begin. perhaps it's a fear of rejection, inability to attain the impossible goals i set for myself or the fact that i tend to view anything short of said impossible goals as an utter failure and may be putting it off to be able to say it sucks so very badly because i had no time -- all classic signs of procrastination. even today, as i sit here at the computer on the one day off this week that i had fully dedicated to taking that tentative first step toward certain doom, all i can do is look back on all the things i HAVE accomplished in an effort to put the crying off a little longer:

checkbook? balanced.

house? dusted, vacuumed, swept up, tidied

grates that go over the flames on the stovetop? soaked, scoured and put back into place

do-it-yourself-home-improvement and myth-disproving shows? watched, sometimes two at the same time

big production dinner? made

dishes? done (that's a biggie)

laundry? currently drying

magazines/newspapers/junkmail? sorted and moved to resting places, final or otherwise

cds? organized

correspondence? caught up on

first half of America's Next Top Model marathon? enjoyed (although i've never really been into that program, when they show them all in a row, i just cannot find the courage to turn off the tv.)

ice cream? eaten

knitting project? more than halfway finished

facial mud mask? applied

toenails? repainted

horoscope? checked

newspaper? read

current issues of rolling stone, paste and salon.com? browsed through

blog post? soon to be posted

and although i've demonstrated a considerable amount of restraint in NOT watching Ghostbusters, which i have never seen but have recorded, i am now in a decent frame of mind to consider possibly getting started.

but i sure could use a nap, first.

page 123

I've been tagged with a book meme, by Lia, as follows:

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Scroll down to the 5th sentence.
4. Post text of next 3 sentences on your blog - name of the book and the author.
5. Then tag 3 people.

"And spineless. He went over it again and it looked the same. There was no way out, he would have to speak to her."

Atonement, Ian McEwan


let me just say that the sentence before this bit was seven --SEVEN-- lines long in a paragraph which didn't break for 21(!)lines. and that pretty much sums up the experience i had with this book, whose author had been so heavily praised to me that i actually went out and bought it. which i never do, because i don't like owning books i won't want to read again.

the story idea was good, but i think mcewan went to such trouble to set it up and drag out the reveal, i wandered away more than several dozen times. and when i finally made it to the big finish, i felt just a little cheated that it had been such a meandering road. rarely does it take two months.

ANYway, i tag:

jon
ale
highcontrast (who claims to have started blogging again. we'll see about that)

before you protest, remember, all you need is the NEAREST book. indulge me.

thanksgiving

so, you're 24.

but you know, to me you'll always be a smartass 3-year-old running around in smurf shorts, secretly recording cartoons over the best parts of of mom's betamax movies and feigning ignorance during the inquiry. and though you'd try to make me the fallguy, those dimples still betray you every time.

come to think of it, stealth has always been your modus operandi. like after you left for school and the alarms you'd secretly set on my cellphone went off 2 hours after i'd finally fallen asleep? yeah, thank the good Lord i couldn't reach through the telephone and yank out every last scraggly hair of your poor excuse for a goatee, pal. and at that ungodly hour, i think i would have ripped out the hair on your head, too.

i make the worst threats of bodily harm to those i love the most, baby brother. you squirmed into my heart to stay, back when dad would ask 'whose baby are you, mommy's or daddy's?' and you'd say 'cadiz's.' growing up, you pestered me to no end but i secretly loved the attention. you do great impressions. you know what i'm thinking when i look over at you during family parties with an eyeroll. and you're probably the only person on earth for whom i would endure the entirety of 'the benchwarmers.' (don't you dare ask me to sit through that ever again.) you gave me the best advice when i had my heart torn apart and you are the only one who can get away with calling me on my bullshit straight out. i don't think i can go more than a few days without a call-- peppered with madeup catchphrases from your crew such as 'latrix'-- telling me just how little is going on.

you've always made me an ally; even at a very young age you demanded i was present. despite the rules against children in the surgical area, you wouldn't let them start iv's without me there holding your hand and always asked for me when you woke up, often before you called for mom and dad. and even when we were fighting bitterly, the second there was outside trouble we worked as a team. you probably don't even remember those things, but they mean a lot to me. i'll always be there for you, no matter how far away you are.

on this day, H and i will be hanging out in your favorite place, wrigley field. don't be salty; it wasn't my idea for you to move all the way across the country for school. and believe me, if you were still in town it'd be the two of you at the game-- i'm only in it for a ballpark hotdog. but i think it's the perfect way to spend your day. because even though everyone's birthday should be marked with something special, each year that i can celebrate yours is truly a blessing.

listening out for a calling

truth is, i just happened onto this dungeon gig. when i was growing up, i thought i wanted to be a doctor. i even volunteered (candystriped dress and all) at a hospital before realizing it's definitely not the life for me. later i thought about art school, but my parents worried that i'd be an artist of the 'starving' kind and got into my head. i went to university and, after studying as little math as possible, found my way here. i like the job, but i'm still hoping to figure out what my *ideal* is so i can start getting there.

the other day i was on the phone with la mariachi. she plays in a band as a hobby, but is getting her teaching certificate. i asked her how she knew she wanted to be a violin teacher. she said it was what she was good at. and what made the violin better than, let's say, the oboe?

"math." she said.

at her grammar school in florida they only offered stringed instruments and if you took orchestra you got to miss math class a couple times a week. damn, if we had that system in my hometown, maybe i'd have actually practiced my cello and given yo yo ma a run for his money.

i still hope that one day i'll be walking down the street and be hit by the revelation of what my life's work ought to be. but i've resigned myself to accept the odds that i may never find it.

anybody want to buy a dusty cello?

that's the breaks

when i was a kid, i was a nailbiter. i'd chew on my fingernails while reading or watching television and sooner or later i'd have to spit out what broke off between my teeth. nasty habit, i know, and i kicked it. but that left me with fingernails that break or tear with very little pressure.

i normally don't care one way or another, but my best friend was getting married so i figured my hands should probably look decent in the event of any cheesy setup 'bridesmaid-y' photos (all the feet in a circle, all the bouquets, etc). so i applied strengthener on my nails and they grew nice and strong.

there were no such photographs, but i was impressed at the results. the talons lasted for a whole month. one morning last week when the alarm rang, i bolted up without noticing i was tangled up in the sheets and fell out of bed, landing on the tops of my fingers. ouch.

sometimes it's not even about will power.