Day 8 – Cindy

I’ve been a terrible person, and I’ve neglected my teeth…so Cindy is my new hygienist. I have to say, I’m glad that my teeth aren’t in all that bad of a shape after not having been to a dentist in a while. Cindy is 52 years old now and she has been in her job for 30 years, which means she actually found a job back at the age of 22 and somehow lucked out enough to really love it. She really wanted to teach back in the days, but I think she gets the same joy of teaching by teaching her patients how to upkeep their oral health. It’s nice to see people enjoying their job the way she does. She now wishes to impart on her two sons the knowledge that you should never be afraid to trust the detours in life and not choose a path and stubbornly follow it.
At some point I asked her how much more difficult is it to work on someone with a small mouth because I’ve seen some really small mouth and it seems like despite my huge mouth, it’s still a small space to work with there. She said, “Oh it’s not too bad. It’s actually the mentally impaired patients that are tough. And sometimes we get patients with Alzheimer's.” It’s weird how you don’t really think about people having to deal with certain things until they tell you. I don’t know who I feel more sorry for, the poor hygienist with the patients freaking out every five seconds or the poor patients who can’t understand what the fuck this person is doing to them.

1 Gallon Served & Day 7 - Mike/Susan

I told Brian, last night, we couldn’t close out the bar because I had to donate blood the following day. He laughed and said, wow, that’s going to be one part blood and five parts alcohol. Yes, PBR at that, that’s just classy blood. I told him about my plans to get on the elliptical machine for 25 minutes in hopes of sweating whatever PBR left in my blood.
So I went to the gym today and sweated my ass off for a bit. Of course I still haven’t bothered to make polite conversation to the nice desk people. Then I went to get a sandwich made and didn’t bother saying much to the QFC people...because I was in a rush to go give blood. Yeah, good excuse. I realize I have a ton of these everyday as to why I don’t bother to stop and say a few kind words to people. The sandwich line was slow as usual, but lo and behold, one of the guys from the front desk at the gym was there.
I walked up to him and demanded to know why he was holding up MY sandwich. He said he didn’t know why it’s taking so long. I whispered that they’re usually always a bit slow here. So it turns out this guy, Mike is a manager at my gym. He’s been there for a over a year now…I’ve always thought he was cute, but could be a dumb jock. It’s a bit unfortunate, but from the short moment that I spoke to him, that myth was not dispelled. He works full-time at the gym and starts the day there at 5a.m. I’m not sure he does anything else. He loves the job for being able to workout during the slow moments. He looks stoned, I wondered if he was stoned…stoned is better than dumb…maybe.
Edit: In hindsight, it is "possible" that he is a very intelligent communicative person, but he "maybe" could have thought I was stalking him. Maybe I was flashing him a creepy smile? I have a ton of expressions, I can make fun of and/or insult someone without saying a word. It's quite possible I've got a creepy maniacal "Gotcha, bitch!!!" smile that I don't know of. I doubt it though.
After, quickly inhaling my lunch I went to give blood. They told me I was on my one gallon today! I get a pin!
<---One gallon!!! Little ‘ol me!?? That's 8 pints!
My coworker Kevin was getting bandaged up as I was being prepped…he handed me the much appreciated print-out of random funnies. This nice nurse lady, Susan, who looks around mid-to-late- 40s, prepped me. Right after she finished prepping me, her phone rings. She answered it with an apology. Being that the donation truck was small, we couldn’t help but overhear her…towards the end she said, “Yeah, I was just about to stab a girl.” Kevin and I burst out laughing. She finished, “Okay, see you in a bit.” I was still laughing when I told her, I was wondering if she was going to mention that she was about to stick me. I asked if her friend was coming to see her.
Susan: *smiling happily* Oh that was my boyfriend. He works for the blood bank too. He drives the truck. He lets me stick him too.
*pause*
Susan: Wait…I don’t mean that way. I mean...nevermind...
Kevin and I were hooting with laughter.
Me: That came out wrong?
Susan: Oh my, I’m blushing. *blushing furiously*
Kevin: Oh, I’m going to tell him what you said!
Susan: *laughing* Don’t you dare!
It took me forever to give blood this time. My low blood pressure (9x/66--I heard this is a good thing) combined with my smaller veins just made things difficult. Kevin got there a bit before me and he was ready to go when I was only 1/3 done.
Kevin: Champagne, why are you so slow?
Me: I don’t know, my blood isn’t as eager to get the hell away from me like yours.
Kevin asks Susan: Why was I so quick?
Susan: Because you have big fat veins.
Me: Yes, and a bit fat head, now stop taunting me. Am I even bleeding anymore? Maybe I'm dead.
Susan: You're fine, maybe we could put some weigh on you to squeeze those drops out.
Kevin: You need bigger veins.
Me: Kevin, you’re much bigger than me. If I had a vein your size running down my arm it would look gross.
Susan’s boyfriend walks in.
Me: Oh so you’re the boyfriend. We were just talking about you.
Kevin: Yes, it was all good!
Me: So good, Susan was blushing.
Susan: *laughing and blushing* Did I mention today was two pints minimum?
Blood donating can be fun. People are fun. It’s really adorable to see Susan so giddy. It’s bad of me to say, “for her age”…but I guess you usually see people act so mature or nonchalant about relationships when they’re older. Happiness is seeing other people brimming with joy.

Ice Age 2 Sadness

So I just found out our company is taking us out to watch Ice Age 2 tomorrow at noon. Really really cool!!! But then I remembered I have a dentist appointment at 11a.m., still I could probably make it for the movie part. But I'll miss the best part...the coolest thing about us going to the movies is never the actual movie watching part. It's the pre-movie gaming. Because we specialize in making DS, pretty much all of us own a DS and a good few games for it. So whenever we all go see a movie together, half the theater contains people holding DS's yelling at each other. We've even coordinated our games for tomorrow by mass emailing. We have a line-up of Mario Kart, Mario Tetris, Metroid, and Bomberman. Alas, I will be missing out on this.
I know, I am sometimes a sad five year old boy. But I doubt there are that many others out there that would be yipping for joy when they're missing out on playing video games with their coworkers for a DENTIST appointment.

Day 6 - Leah

Brian and I went to King Cora last night because that’s the place we go to when we haven’t hung out in a while. It’s one of my favorite bar for chatting because the place is a nice dive bar where you know the people are there for being there and not to be “seen” there. It always seems to have a nice mix of random people.
The weird thing about that place is, it really is such a dive, but we’ve always had such a good time there that I’m almost certain the place has magical properties. Check out that weird photo I took, the painting (yeah, that's an AT-AT) looks crappy in the crappy bar, but it looks magical in the photo. Maybe cameras can pickup the magic dust in the air there.

Almost immediately after we sat down, I leaned over and told Brian I was in love with the girl sitting across from us. There’s this blonde gal sitting across from us, reading the Stranger. She was sipping some kind of shot and drinking PBR. When she finished that first shot, she went and got another and started sipping that. Seriously, what’s not to love about this gal?

At some point during the night she was up next to place pool. In the span of time that it took me to pour beer for myself and Brian (who had left to smoke outside and I was too happy being warm to even consider freezing to continue our chat), the guy she was playing had gotten all but his eight ball in. She looked at me, I smiled at her, and she said, “Wow, he’s not cutting me any slack!?” I laughed and said, “Yeah, I’ve played those guys before, they don’t fuck around. But not only that, the table sucks, you have to know the par and the pockets are narrower.” Tis true, the table requires some pro-golfing skill, and those guys play there all the freaking time…and they take their pool game seriously.

She lost and they started another game since no one else was lining up to play some golf-pool. I asked her what she was drinking and she said, “Oh it’s Jameson, this place does $3 Jameson on Wednesday nights. I work nearby and I always try to come here for this on Wednesdays after work.” I'm so in looooove!

The gal introduced herself without me hounding her for a name as Leah (pronounced Lee-yah). She’s so damned sweet and friendly. She’s 22, works at a place called Cayenne (somethin’ like that) and has a boyfriend. For some odd reason they both work in Seattle, but they live on the east side.

Another reason I adore this gal, she’s very upfront about the fact that she has a boyfriend with all these guys that are playing pool with her. Still, a couple of them tries to put their hands on her, she puts them in their place in a very nice way.

After she left, I told Brian, “You know…she reminds me of Cameron Diaz in a way.” He agrees. It’s because she has that same, not so striking face, and okay body (yeah Cameron has a decent body, but not smoking by Hollywood standard)…but she’s so damned radiant. This girl, had I taken a picture of her, would have not looked like all that, but in person, you can not help but be drawn to her. No still image of this gal could ever hope to do her any justice…she just radiates charm and personality.

Day 5 - John

John is someone I've seen before in my sister's restaurant, but I don't believe I've spoken to him much before. Maybe it's because he always seems drunk, like excessively drunk...like he could stumble onto you at any given moment drunk. He was no different last night. He carries this giant backpack around with him all the time, which made me assume he was just coming from work, but no he just came from home. He doesn’t look like a homeless guy nor does he smell like one. I asked him what’s the deal with the enormous backpack that made everyone think someone was moving into the bar…he said, “Well, you have to always be prepared.” He mentioned how he might be caught in the position where he would have to save the day. “Like what if giant demon monkey attacked? I have some demon monkey repellent.” Well, isn’t that nice? I feel much safer now that I have excessively drunk guy with wild imagination watching over my back. I thanked him for keeping my sister’s place in his patrol route.

In other news, I’m back to planning to kill my sister. I have my usual morning routine of getting up around 8, get ready for work, then putz around for an hour or so reading some book or another until 9:30. This morning I ran the hell out of the house soon as I was ready to meet my sister because she had to drop off her rental car from her whole car-broken-into-then-was-in-the-shop incident. I get to the coffee shop, which was our designated meeting place, and she wasn’t there. I called her, and she said, “Oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot to tell you, mom can drop me off later.” I told her about my elaborate plans to kill her. I’m sure she will be buying me lots of drinks tonight.

My sister and I went back to Temple last night, partly because Temple’s Tuesday rulez (with a “z”) and partly because we wanted to congratulate their karaoke DJ Sherry for placing in the Seattle’s Star. We weren’t even aware of the fact that she was competing but the lady has an incredible voice. We only saw the announcement while watching the show at some victory party thingy-ma-bob for Amanda (another Star competitor) at Phoenix Underground. Yes, that’s me, I never watch TV except I seem to get stuck at parties where a bunch of people sit around and watch TV, it’s KIRO for fuck’s sake, not even cable. At least, they had really good free catered food. I’d like to take a moment out to bitch about the serving glass at Phoenix…that fucking glass is not a true pint glass, if you have Guinness on tap, buy real pint glasses already!

I’m happy for Sherry. My sister and I have been hearing her sing for a while now (almost every Tuesday). Some people karaoke, Sherry sings! At this point, even if she doesn’t win, I think she’s having a ball.

Day 4 - Tawa

I met Tawa at Temple while playing pool with my sister. Tawa said her name is of Nigerian descent, but in Togali it means "happiness". I’m not sure what the relation between places that speak Togali vs Nigeria is, but it’s still a cool name. She’s “visiting” from the land called Tacoma with her buddy Kenn with two n’s. Apparently, people from Tacoma visit Seattle when they want to relax, according to her. I didn’t think Seattle is such a grand adventure being that it’s 40 minutes away, but I guess there isn’t too much going for Tacoma other than stanky air.

We did speak to Ed, the bartender for a bit. Now, Ed…Little Ed, as the other bartenders call him there because there’s another bigger one…is a bit more reserved than the other guys so we never really spoke to him. The guy is getting married in the summer and he seems like a happy guy. The neat thing that he does aside from bartending is he does freelance writing for websites. He did some stuff for music sites which are fun, but he’s currently working on a site for cancer patients. How do you put a positive spin on cancer?

My sister commented that Nathan (Day 2 Person) had called her and said that I obviously didn't like him because I was being so mean to him. She explained to him that I didn't dislike him. I'm giving people complexes! Still, he offered to take us flying sometime (the guy is training to be a full-time pilot). Colin told me on Saturday night he felt bad for the guy because I was tearing him apart. Still when I asked if he felt it was undeserved, Colin said, "Oh, no, he was definitely asking for it." There you go. Nathan had mentioned that he was scared of us (us three girls) because we're so scary...and that his buddy had told him that "Asian girls are easy because they're so submissive and docile." He said that. Those words actually come from the guy's mouth after I had decided to go easy on him. I told him, "I understand your friend is an ignorant idiot, but you really shouldn't go around repeating the crap that he says." He apologized again, saying that he knows he keeps saying the wrong things but he felt he could speak his mind because he is amongst friends. I told him he is indeed wrong and to feel free to stop speaking his mind because he's digging his grave. My sister tried to be nice by saying, "Oh, we're all friends here, and don't be scared of me, I'm very nice." Jen said, "Yeah, I generally pretty nice too." I said, "Be afraid buddy, because I'm a raging bitch."

Seriously though, I like Nathan just fine. I think he's a blathering idiot, but I don't dislike him, he honestly tries a little too hard. I think it's important that I don't let him go off like an idiot without at least making an earnest attempt to correct his poor manners (if you don't think making endless bad ignorant racist remarks is poor manners, here's a one finger salute to you too).

Whoa...

So I'm either going to create a world of happy people or bitter jilted men. The guy I met at the bar yesterday called me at work...I guess he tracked me down through my coworker...he was transfered from within the company. He asked if I wanted to carpool to the pass with him next weekend. Hmmmm...no. I guess if I thought maybe he really only wanted to save on gas money, I would be thrilled at the prospect...but otherwise... And since he is a good friend of a really nice sweet coworker, I run this risk of pissing a bunch of people off if signals got mixed. Let's just nix the idea.
I feel terrible, he did sound disappointed when I passed on his carpooling offer. And it's not like I didn't enjoy talking to him, he was really fun to chat with...but it's a little eerie to get a call like that at work. Still, I'm definitely not interested in anything more than friendship with this guy.
Why can't we all have relationships like me and honorary day 2.5 person, Shana? I love Shana, my awesomely hawt Snowboard Connection lady...she loves to snowboard! We're a match made in heaven. I don't plan to call her at work any time soon. I just talk about how hawt she is in my blog and how she made my shopping day so happy. She was the love of my life for a moment. It stops there.

Baby Neck

After boarding for five solid hours yesterday I expected to wake up with some creaks and pain in my legs. Nope, my legs feel great, no aches, not even a muscle spasm. Awww, but my neck! Owwww! It feels like I had gone to a really good metal concert or raved for 12 hours. Baby neck! Yes, yes, I've got a bad case of baby neck...you know how when you pick a baby up, you have to support his/her head because they don't have working neck muscle yet...that's me. Craddling my stupid giant head to get off the pillow this morning. Good times. :)
Oh, and my abs hurt. So apparently I had imagined going snowboarding and working yesterday. I had obviously gone to the gym to do a hundred sit-ups followed by a rocking death metal concert. I must be getting old and forgetting actual events.

Day 3

I woke up at 6 this morning…a little hungover, extremely dehydrated. Looked outside, and I thought, fuck Snoqualmie. So I got up to get a drink, then packed up my gear and drove over to Stevens Pass.

When I got to the mountain, I didn’t know what the fuck to do with my board. I’ve never used these strappy bindings before. I marveled at the strappiness for a while before figuring out how to stick my feet in them. When I finally got myself all strapped in, I stood up and immediately fell over. How embarrassing. I laughed and stood up again. Fell over again. I was getting owned my board and I didn’t even hit the slopes yet. Still, once I got used to my new bindings, life was so sweet. The board was extremely responsive. Half the time, it felt like I just had to think about turning a certain way to get the thing to turn.

Around lunchtime, I was frozen thru and thru so I went to get some hot food and a beer. After, the meal, I was still feeling a deep chill, so I decided to hit the bar for a shot. Nothing warms a person up quite like a shot of tequila. Now José and I have not spoken much since college, and quite frankly, I still think he’s a fucker…his cousin Don Julio, on the other hand, is slowly winning my heart. I took the last empty bar seat between these two guys. Some guy just ordered this really good looking drink, like a frothy version of Irish Coffee, I figured that would also help in warming me up. The bartender had to roll out the rolling ladder to grab my tequila, which made everyone look over at me with a “What the fuck did you just order?” look.

One of the guy next to me, asked me about my order and so we discussed the merits of tequila. After a while of chitchat, I noticed he had closed out his tab and was supposed to be leaving, so I apologized for keeping him and told him maybe he should get back to his friends. He told me he came alone.

Me: Oh, you loser, you have no friends.

Dude: *laughs* Yes, I’m a loser.

Me: Hehehe, that’s okay, I’m a loser too. Let me buy you a shot since you were curious about this tequila.

Since it’s extremely rude to buy someone a shot and not do one, I had tequila number 2. The dude’s name is Kevin. Kevin travels like crazy for his job…he trains people to use certain software. Last year he spent a hundred something odd nights in hotel rooms. I mentioned I make games for a living…and oddly enough, he mentioned that someone’s someone’s neice’s husband, named Matt Turnbull was also in the industry. Small freaking world, Matt works at my company. After more chatting, Kevin feels like he should buy a round in return. Tequila #3 more than warmed me up…I was on fire. So after a bit more chitchat, I bid Kevin farewell to go back to the slopes.

You know how you figure out if you fell really really hard? When strangers come up to see if you were okay, then asks you “What’s 9 times 8?” to check if you’ve gone braindead.

Work was a big blur…I think I spent 2 hours trying to debug something, which I figured out in about five minutes after I left work. That happens all the freaking time.

Gear = Happiness

I know it's bad to have some new sports gear make you happy because it's just minor instant gratification...but I just got some new boots and bindings and pants at Snowboard Connection and I'm just the happiest person on this planet. So happy that even sitting at work right now on a Saturday doesn't faze me. We have a milestone on Monday so I can't drive up to Whistler this weekend, but even that doesn't make me less chipper. I figure I can get up a little earlier at get to Snoqualmie Alpental by 9am tomorrow and get some rolling around the snow in.
Happiness from getting some cool gear is nice...it makes you fall in love with the person around you during that time, if I was born a dude or lesbian, I would sooo ask the adorable saleslady, Shana out. She is a sweetheart though...didn't try to sell me a board that I can't really use because their inventory is dwindling and what they have doesn't really suit me. She just recommended that I keep my board, then when I asked if they could tune and mount the thing, she offered to tune it for free (if this was REI they would have charged me).
So yeah, I'm happy. My car looks like it got in a fight with REI and lost.
Now before you go and think I'm suddenly anti-REI because this place tuned my board, think again. I was there a few days ago getting new bike pedals and I was asking the guy how to install them and what tool I needed for it. He told me they required special "tire wrench" which will set me back another $20 after paying $120 for the pedals. He was telling me how to install them, when I asked if it would be possible to just have them install it because me bike "happens" to be in my SUV. (Sometimes, I have to say, I really love my gas guzzler.) The guy was so sweet, he installed everything and greased it and whatever they do...lucky he did it too, because one pedal was stuck and he brought it into their shop to clamp things down to attack it. God knows, left to my own device, I would have just gotten one pedal on and called it finished.
Why new pedals? Because I realize these fancy clip-on pedals is not so good for a beginner like me, falling off every five seconds. I want to be thrown clear next time I come flying down a hill and not fly down a hill with my bike attached to my feet. The new pedals are a hybrid and could serve as traditional pedals and clips.

Happiness is being thrown clear in a mountain biking wreck.

Day 1 & 2

Sometimes, you're drunk enough to think you've met two very very special people in one night. Tonight, I do not believe I'm all that drunk, but I never really believe I am...yet, two in one night.
Person 1: I can not say enough nice things about this person. His name is Colin. Colin is a nice laid back guy. Hung out at my sister's place had some food. His family owned Owl n' Thistle for about 13 or so years, he's been there for about 11 of it. His family is actually from Galway Ireland...wow, real Irish decent, who knew. Anyhow, he does still have family in Galway, Dublin and London. Another, who knew moment for me--while I was in London I felt like subways were afraid to have rubbish-bins there because of angry Irish bombers...but no. Colin's thing is, people from Ireland moved to England because they wanted to make a living, why the hell would they bomb it. Good point. Go, Colin!
Person 2: Special because the dude rides the social short bus. Adorable as fuck...seriously one of the best looking guy, but so damned clueless that you have to believe he WANTS to be clueless. Hi to Nathan. So we all went to Owl n' Thistle where Colin plays the ultimate host in a not so pompous way and asks everyone what they want to drink including this Nathan guy who is a friend of our friend. I feel bad about ordering...but Colin is being nice...so Guinness to my weak heart. The dude, Nathan, ordered something than walked away. My girlfriend Jen said he was being a jerk. Colin agreed. I didn't understand...apparently while Colin asked what everyone wanted, Nathan thanked him by saying, "Thanks for the drink even though I didn't have breasts or a vagina." In THOSE words. I think Nathan might lack some skills in the tact department. So when he got back from the bathroom, Colin handed him a beer. And I remarked, "Colin, that's so sweet of you to buy him a beer even though he was being a jackass." Nathan was shocked. He wanted to know why I would say that about him. I asked him if he just made some off-handed comment about not having a vagina to someone buying him a drink, he said, yeah, but he thought he was being funny. So, I told him, "Then why the hell are you surprised I'm calling you a jackass?"
He looked hurt, he honestly thought he was being funny. I told him, "It's cool that you made a bad joke and didn't realize it was bad, but I still have to call you on it. Now that I've called you a jackass, we can both let it go."
We all sat down, Nathan tries to be nice by asking me, "So what nationality are you, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean?" I told him Chinese. He proceeds to marvel at my good English and asks me to tell him about China because he's a stupid American. I told him that I speak very good English because I've been here since 4 and that I know about as much as him when it comes to China. He then asks if my sister is Korean. I said, "Yes, obviously! She's my sister, so she must be the Korean milkman's daughter...but my mom has made some comment about finding her in the dumpster. So, yes, my sister is most certainly Korean." The guys is a serious goldmine of clueless comments, I had to stop him at some point because I was laughing so hard, and Jen was about to kick his ass.

TV Insanity

I need to find a good few TV shows or movies that I can watch with my little brother so that I don't go insane. The main house TV just died, so he has been hanging out in my room which is always nice, but the shows he watches bruise my brain. Don't get me wrong, they're generally good shows that teach kids values and such...like how to accept yourself for who you are and stuff. Yet to me at this point, it seems so common sense that I'm sitting there thinking, "Duh!? That girl is retarded, how could she not know that!?" I'm going to make a terrible parent some day.

Taking Over The World One Person At A Time

A week ago, I was working out at the gym, when I looked around and realized I’ve seen a lot of these people in the last year that I’ve been going to this gym. I never made any effort to get to know any of them. Granted, at the gym, everyone kind of keeps from making eye contact, myself especially because I know I’m not looking particularly human when I’m straining to get that last rep. Yeah, please don’t look at me while I’m working out. However, there are the people that work the front desk, that I say “hi” and “bye” to twice a week or even the people that make my sandwiches at QFC that I haven’t made an effort to throw a truly polite word at.

When I was younger, I thought I would achieve happiness by saving the world. Now that I’m older, I still hold onto a bit of that belief but I believe that the world starts with your immediate surrounding. I looked at my family after being resentful and bitter toward them for so long. I’m not even sure why I was ever bitter, nor do I care to figure out why anymore, I simply love them. I tried to help my family by providing emotional support, some days I might feel like I haven’t done the best job, but I know I’ve tried. Now, I’m hoping to expand that circle to people that I come across in my daily life.

That guy at QFC that sometimes look very angry at making my sandwich because he’s so swamped, I’m willing to bet if I made the effort to get to know his name and say “hi” and tell him I’m in no hurry and ask him how his day is going, that he will probably be a little happier for that moment. While I understand that could be fleeting happiness for him, and some people could just get annoyed, I think the overall end result would be a positive thing.

A few years back, my buddy, Brian told me he used to work for a suicide hotline, and he worked the worst shift of midnight to 6 a.m. People are usually most depressed during that time. He told me of an incident where this guy called him and told him that he didn’t call to have him talk him out of committing suicide, nor does he want any sort of help or advice from him. The guy simply wanted to let someone know that he doesn’t have any friends or family, but he wanted someone to know that he is going to kill himself. That was it, the guy hung up soon after. A couple days later, Brian read about the guy’s suicide in the papers.

People want to be acknowledged in their existence.

So…what I wanted to do is, just to try for 30 consecutive days to talk to someone new everyday. I have to talk to them to the point where I’m actually comfortable with asking for their name, whether I actually remember that part or not isn’t that important, the important part is that I’ve chatted with this person long enough to get to that point (now I don’t mean to do this in a creepy, pounce on strangers and ask for their names sort of way). I plan to write about every person that I’ve met and about the things I’ve learned about them. This has to be done from memory so that I would honestly pay attention to these people.

So, it has been a week now and I haven’t started yet. Why is that? Try thinking about talking to a stranger every single day…the idea is pretty daunting. I’m just mentally preparing myself at the moment.

Age Category

I went rock climbing with my buddy, William, last night. I haven't climbed with him in a long while, so it was nice to catch up with him. He mentioned he just started dating his ex-girlfriend again not too long ago. Red flags. I asked him why he thought things would work out this time around. He said he feels that he's a very different person now than he was two years ago...years of good therapy has paid off. I can see how this might be true, he does sound like a different William. He had this problem with being a bit clingy and co-dependant, he seems a lot more comfortable with himself these days.
Then he mentioned that his now ex-ex-girlfriend mentioned that she's now 39 and her clock is ticking. Major red flag! I started giving him my schpeal on how he's too good for a girl who suddenly finds him lifemate worthy when her clock starts ticking. He replies, "Champagne, you're talking from the perspective of a someone in a different age category. You have to understand, I'm over 40." That stopped me dead in my train of thoughts, I realize he is right. I've asked him before if he feels that there are more age milestones that I would eventually hit, and he was not so sure before, now I think this is one of them.
It's like how when I talk to someone that is 21, I expect that they're majoring in every fucking thing and they will "want" to save the world before bedtime. Cool. I can accept that about someone in that age category, if you're 31 and doing the same thing, I'll have to grab you by the shoulders and shake you really really hard.
I'm expecting that when I'm 40, if I have yet to find my lifemate, I will be happy with a good companion. It's not settling, it's taking the best that life has to offer and appreciating it, and honestly being extremely thankful for it. It's nice to hang out with people of different backgrounds and age ranges, they give you fresh perspective on things.

Anti-Lullaby

What goes thunk, then honk-honk-honk-honk-honk...in the middle of the night? That shit will wake you up with your heart pounding in your throat. Someone broke into my sister's car with the intention of stealing her rims. She has these super bling-bling 22" chrome rims on her Cadillac Escalade. My brother arrived at home right after her alarm went off...they broke her passenger side window and found her tire lock...in the process of searching for her tire lock they dumped out the content of her purse, there's close to $500 in cash scattered all over the front seat. Apparently someone wanted her rims really bad...screw this green paper thing, I spit on them Benjamins! Her car had cinder blocks under them (we could have almost had the white trash house of our dreams)...there's still a tire wrench attached to one of the tire lug nut. My brother called the cops when he saw this. In the end they only ran off with her empty purse and camera. It's a bit scary because we understand that whoever did this, REALLY want those rims... We also have a bad feeling our neighbors next door did this. Yeah, my sister's car was part in front of our house, inches away from their property. My brother saw one of the neighbor outside when he pulled up...the dude claimed to have gone outside because he heard people running between our houses. I sleep on that side of the house, I hear people running between our houses all the time. So yeah, needless to say, we're all a bit frazzled and not too sleepy.

Honesty is Funny

I went out to dinner with my sister and these two older gentlemen last night at the Waterfront Restaurant. They needed to have a pow-wow on this upcoming Seattle Film Festival opening night gala thing. I was having my pow-wow with my Grey Goose drink, Cucumber-Kazi. Cucumber-Kazi and I met about a year and a half ago...I still fall in love every time.
In the middle of random chit-chat, one of the guy (I'm pretty sure he's gay...like fabulous jazz-hand gay), said something about how he doesn't agree with how people are so okay with the whole Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie thing. I had to chime in that I thought it made perfect sense that they're together because they're two of the most beautiful people on the planet. Have you seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith? It doesn't matter if your gay or straight, male or female, you can't tell who you want to have sex with more...they're both that stupid hot! Not to mention Angelina Jolie can kick any gal off the Hot Girl Island...if there's any one girl that could make me re-think my being straight, it would be her. The other guy, Eric, agreed with me. The first guy comments on how that's a little unfair to Jennifer who had this marriage thing and that we should consider how she might be hurt by this whole thing. I reiterated that Angelina is smoking hot. He looked at me and asked, "Well, don't you think you're being a bit shallow here?" Without missing a beat, I said, "Oh, definitely. I'm not even making any excuse for my bad behavior."
Everyone laughed. I continued, "Really though, being shallow is like being a hypocrite, everyone has a bit of it in them. If you claim to never have been either, I'm not sure I want to talk to you because you're a liar." More laughter. Eric nods, and declares, "I love this girl!" It’s strange how when you say things that are in people's head, they find it funny.

Mission Impossible - Shoe Shopping

After I cleaned out my room of all the excess junk...I decided I needed more new junk. So I went shopping. My shopping trip today, like most of my trips, are not your typical girl shopping trip. I think it's more like a hostage rescue mission, without the cool black gear. I have an exact plan of where to go and what to hunt down. Go, go, go!
Except I need new shoes. I suck at shoe shopping. I own TWO pair of shoes, the black ones and the brown ones. They go with pretty much everything I wear. I mentioned this to one of my sister's new galfriend, Jo, who has a shoe fetish (seriously, she loves them, she loves showing them off, she loves talking about them). I think on the forth time that she saw me, she stared at my shoes like they offend her, and said, "Oh my god, you really DO own two pairs of shoes!?" Yeah, it takes a lot of mental coordination to lie, I'm saving that for something more important than my shoe collection...like whether or not I stole a bite of your food when you looked away.
Despite my lack of shoe collection, I just found out I still have some girly girl in me. The last time, prior to today, that I went shoes shopping was for some hiking boots at REI. The nice salesman went through a lot of trouble explaining the different types of hiking boots and how to match them up to the different types of hike you plan to do with them. Like if you're just a day hiker, like me, you need some lightweight boots with a price range of $50-100, so you can swift jaunt up and down mountains for a good daily exercise. If you plan on doing some heavy duty backpacking/camping hiking, you need these heavy burly boots to offset the backpack weight and support your feet with all that extra poundage, with price range of $100-200. Then there are hardcore mountaineering kind that he pretty much didn't bother going into. After all his recommendation and shoe trying on, I went for the pair that he didn't bring out because he thought it was not what I needed for a day hike. They were the most expensive and close to heaviest. He was a bit perplexed that I would chose these $200 boots over the nice $100 ones, I had to explain to him, "I'm a girl, and those boots are ugly, there's no way I would wear those boots even for hiking." Hiking boots are generally pretty fugly shoes, they come in hideous colors of poop brown and taupe. I got these nice dark gray ones...so sweet looking, they are a bit heavy though. The girl in me shows up at the weirdest moment.
Back to my sad two pairs of shoes, due to the extensive use I get out of them, they are in dire need of replacement. I just want new shoes that looks exactly like my current ones. No, luck. So, I bought a roll of duct tape and some chewing gum and called it done. You know you're shoes are in sad state when you're too embarassed to bring them to a shoe repair place. They're that beaten.

Spring Cleaning and Clowns

I've finally decided to clean my room after ooooh...let's not talk about how long. I've found the perfect solution to figuring out what clothing to pack and give to charity. Here's what you do, don't clean your room for an entire year, at the end of a year, go in with two large garbage bags (edit: make that five), bag up everything that's still folded in various drawers and stuff that are still neatly hanging. Then wash and put away all the clothing on the floor. It's that simple. Remember you have to be strong! It has to be at least a year so that you know you've covered all the seasons and seasonal sports activity. Don't be weak and clean after a couple months because that will reset your timer. If you feel an urge to clean, just call up a buddy and head to the bar. Or better yet make sure you fill up every free moment with some random activity. Plan multiple day snowboarding trips! Meet up with friends across the country to go to a strip club. Start a blog. Play any MMO obsessively. In moments of desperation, think of something that you must do at work and/or work late!
Whew! I'm so glad I was so resilient in my fight against the neat freak in me! I’ve found all sorts of stuff in my closet that I’m wondering how they got there and why? Amongst them were a few company t-shirts, lots of random crappy game related shirts I snagged from E3. Then there’s this Pucker promo shirt that I got from some bar, I think I had to fight some fat lady for it, the thing is a small babydoll top…so I think I shamed her into giving it to me. I’m going to hell, all for a shirt so ugly I wouldn’t consider wearing. I’d like to blame the bar and my randomly competitive spirit. I found a bunch of tops that are still cute, but I just got bored of, so maybe I should ask my sister to wear them so that I could steal it back. It’s like the abandoned toy thing, except I’m no longer five, so it’s a bit less acceptable, but whatever.
The cream of the crop were these fluorescent pink and green (seriously, fluorescent) pants and shirts that my mom bought for me and my sister when she was in China. The day my mother gave them to me, I asked her if she bought them for us because she was afraid to lose us in the crowd and needed some overly bright clothes to identify us from 50 miles away. She insisted they were hip and trendy in China. I told her yes, but this is America, but I’ll keep the clothing in case we get in a fight and I needed something to wear when I runaway to join the circus. She laughed because she knew it was true. I showed my sister the lovely gifts from mom later, she looked at them and laughed, then ran away before I could throw them at her. This is like the creepy toy thing that no one wants to play with, ever!

Token Girl Friend

I just got back from hanging out with my ONE gal friend, Gigi, that I've had since high school. I always forget how refreshing it is to be around her, which is strange since I've known her for so long. Still, a big part of the reason she is the only gal friend I have left is because she understands that time has no meaning. There are times when I see her a few times a week, there are times when I see her once every few months...maybe even a year. She never brings drama with her when we hang out. We might talk about events in her life that are dramatic, but it doesn't unfold itself during the course of the night.
I don't know why I keep expecting that she'll be a drama queen like the rest, but I'm happy to see that she has always proven otherwise. I just can't believe I keep forgetting how nice it is to have someone that doesn't always see that life is always about the exact same bullshit. It might be similar, but it has to at least evolve so that we're not having a déjà vu night.
We hung out at my sister’s bar, where I dubbed some dude, “White Trash”. Seriously he earns this drunk-nickname, he’s this little Korean boy who slurs and picks up a hick accent whenever he gets wasted. It really doesn’t help that he keeps talking about his relatives in Bellingham or Auburn.

10 Rules of “The” Talk

I’m a straight woman that is slowly being driven insane by my female friends, sister and mom by their need to have “the” talk about everything. I can’t imagine this talking thing is doing the guys a favor either. So I’m thinking maybe there should be some kind of rules established.

1) No talking about problems that can NOT be resolved (e.g. the dude has a small penis). Live with it or move on. If the guy has a family member that you can’t stand, I’ll help you bury the body, but please don’t tell about what terrible new thing this relative-of-your-current-boyfriend did every time I see you.

2) The statute of limitation on complaining about other people’s or my poor behavior is 24 hours. Call me when I’ve sobered up to tell me I was being a little shit, I will apologize. If you’re telling me that something I did a week ago bugged you, I will pretend you didn’t say a word. If you’re telling your boyfriend something he did at this other party a month ago that irked you, I will cut in and ask you why are you doing this. Boys are like bad puppies, if you don’t scold them soon after the incident, you’ve missed your chance. Let it go!

3) If nothing has changed, you’re only allowed to talk about the same thing at MOST three times. I’m a reasonable girl friend; I understand girls like to ruminate. I’ve read enough studies to understand girls do this twice as much as guys. So yeah, let’s rehash a few things if you like. Just don’t sound like a broken record.

4) Unless someone died, don’t call me at work to talk about things. I’m sorry your kitty got pneumonia, I’m even more sorry that you have pneumonia, but I need to pay my bills. I work 10-6, M-F, you can call me any other time. I will be happy to bring you flowers after I get off work.

5) I reserve all rights to postpone the talk. It doesn't mean I hate you, it doesn't mean I don't care enough to talk to you about something that obviously means a lot to you, it simply means I wish to talk at a later time. Sometimes I recognize that certain talk will take longer than I have time for at the moment, sometimes I'm a little too hopped up to talk. Give me a moment and I will come back to you on that.

6) When I’m in crunch mode at work, leave me alone! Seriously, when I’m working 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week, it’s not because I hate talking to you so much that I would rather be at work. I would almost be willing to sit around and try to have an intelligent conversation with Flavor Fave, Vanilla Ice or Britney Spear’s husband, than to constantly work those hours. When I’m that overworked, the last thing I want to do is to explain for the 500^th time why I can’t hangout. This doesn’t happen that often, but I’m seriously not even human during this time, so why deal with me?

7) If there is an obvious solution, let’s not dwell on the non-solution. Most problems have a black or white solution, pick one. My friend has been complaining about a worker she hired since the day she hired him. A year later it seems like she’s had it with him, he’s making too much demands and not putting in enough work to make those demands. I said, “Fire him.” She pauses in shock after ranting about him for two hours straight, “Oh no, I can’t, I absolutely need him.” I’m wondering how many shots will it take to get me drunk real fast, and why the hell did we spend the last two hours talking about why he’s not a good worker. If the only solution is the keep him, then we should have been talking about how she can keep him happy without giving into all his demands. I don’t have another two hours to waste.

8) If you don’t honestly plan to do anything about it, don’t bring it up. Say your boyfriend is a lying cheating bastard or he can’t perform in bed, if you want to cry about it so that you’ll find the courage to leave him, go for it, I’ll buy the next five rounds of tequila, vodka, anything, your choice--I'll even do a rinse-repeat when you chicken out! If you want to cry about it just to cry about it and next day you’re smiling at the ass-hat, let’s just stop it right there.

9) Don’t develop solution amnesia. If we talked about a problem and we actually came to some kind of resolution, don’t bring it up again like we’ve never talked about it. If you’re prone to black-out drunkenness, don’t drink so much, it’s not good for you.

10) If it can be solved by us stumbling around town and getting completely smashed, do so. My five-foot frame would be more than happy to drag your drunk-ass around. If we agree to not “talk”, I’ll even buy you drinks all night.

I love you ladies. I like having female friends. I have a great relationship with my sister. It’s just that every time I have these “talks” with you, I feel so drained…like all my life force has been sucked out of me. I do care about you, I just know that your problems are ultimately yours to deal with and that while I’m being drained by this, I can’t actually “do” anything about it. Keep in mind, these are not hard and fast rules, I simply need more recovery time when rules are not observed. Let’s just keep all the talks and stuff to a reasonable limit. I’ve found that the older I get, the more I’m developing a Pavlovian response, I start cringing inwardly and feel this urge to claw at the door and run the hell out whenever I feel a “talk” coming on. I’ll accept “Never” as a reasonable time to have the next talk.

Female Problems

I feel like I've been poo for a sister. I felt so strongly about that, I took a personal day off work to spend with my family so that I can properly listen to them. After an entire day spent, I've decided I want to hang myself than listen to another woman whine on and on about her problem.
I suddenly remembered why I started telling my sister what to think. I suddenly remember why I got rid of all my female friends. You know why? Because a woman can spend an entire day/night telling you all the problems they have with their boyfriend/galfriend/whatever and then right when you say, "So you'll get rid of him/her/it right?" They'll suddenly think of ONE crappy random shit ass excuse as to why this person should stay...sometimes there's not even one actual excuse so much as she thinks there is not a "real" problem.
I realize with my gal friends, I just stop talking to them when they do that, with my sister, I can't exactly dump her, so I started telling her that her boyfriend/galfriend/bleh is a piece of shit and that she needs to rid that from her life, or she needs to shut the hell up and never bring up this person again in my presence. This is not working. I feel bad for manipulating her thoughts. I just need to remove myself from her for a bit. I really don't have the energy to do this anymore.
It's shallow of me, but I do prefer to complain about how my ugly yellow bruise still throbs like a mother fucker. Or how I told a guy he can't talk to me because I chugging a Guinness while he was drinking WATER...at a freaking death metal concert (MOD in case you're familiar with metal). Seriously this happened:
Dude with water: Aw...you're just giving me shit because you know you're hot and you think I want to fuck you.
Me: No, I'm really not giving you my name because you're drinking water at an awesome metal concert while I'm drinking Guinness. We obviously have nothing in common to talk about.
Dude with water: Well, I'm just drinking this because I'm hungover from touring with this band. I was drummer for the previous band.
Me: Ooooh, the band with the awesome chick metal singer. She was great!
Us: *random chit chat about that band*
Dude with water: I'm sorry, but I forgot your name already.
Me: Actually you didn't forget. I didn't tell you my name because you're holding that water, and I still won't tell you because I'm drinking Guinness.
Dude with water: Awww, you're still giving me the attitude because you think I want to fuck you, which I do, but really...
Me: Does this actually work for you, ever? You have zero game! *finish beer, walk off*

Awww, some days, no...most days, it feels better to be a bit shallow. I miss rock climbing, haven't done that in a couple months.

Motor Skill

Am I the only person that goes snowboarding all day, then gets in the car and tries to steer by leaning?

To Speak or Not To Speak

I was having lunch with my best friend today when I brought up a concern of mine...I'm worried that I'm having too much of an impact in my sister's opinion on matters that are important to her. He clearly understood my concern because he was with me the moment this came to my attention. Brian was out with my sister and me, when he decided to make small talk with her and just ask her some simple questions. He stated that he notices that she has a lot of friends and asked if she felt if all of them were "true" friends. She looked at me apprehensively as she answered, "Well, I think some of them are, but Champagne doesn't believe they are." I looked over and told her, it doesn't matter what I think, it's what she thinks that is important. She looked puzzled, and kept looking at me everytime my best friend asks her a question, like there's a wrong and right answer.
This breaks my heart to no ends. I feel like maybe my voicing my opinions around her has caused her to to stop listening to her own heart. That was never my intention. She came to me crying when a friend has treated her badly, and I explained perhaps this person is not a true friend or perhaps the friend did not realize what she did was wrong. People have different ideas of what is right and what is wrong when it comes to how they treat their friends, it's not always going to reflect how my sister treats other people. I had wished to be a good sister that offers sound advice...not someone that beats her opinion into others.

Snow dance!

It's only half past midnight and I'm home. I really don't enjoy being hungover on the slopes anymore. I did that way too often when I was a bit younger (wait maybe that was only a few months ago), but now I find the novelty to be wearing itself thin. I guess once you get to the point where you can carve decently and ride for a good hour straight, you like being sober.
For the first snow of the season this year, I did it such an injustice. My buddies wanted to drive to Crystal at 7 a.m. on the first Sunday the slopes opened. I was out till 4:30 a.m. at some buddy's going away party. I was still drunk when I left to find all my gear and drive to our meeting place. I got to the parking lot around 6 and crashed out until they got there. God, it was the best powder I've seen in my life, but it could have been soooo much better had I been less hungover/drunk.
My sister was pretty smashed when I left her bar. She was doing her usual Id personality and hating the world right before I left. I usually leave during that time because she gets blackout drunk, and everything I say to right the wrongs goes wasted. She never remembers the next day. It really makes me sad to see my sister constantly get blackout drunk, but I don't know how to help her. I've gone through every decent psychology book I've come across, but I'm not sure there's anything I can do to help...it's always up to the individual to want to change themselves for the better.

Woman's Listening Skillz

My sister has this weird way of not hearing me. I sometimes wonder if this is what men go through with their girlfriends.

My sister two nights ago: Hey, want to crash this party with me on Saturday night?
Me two nights ago: No, I'm going to keep it low key because WE'VE GOT SOOO MUCH SNOW in the mountains. Don't want to be all mangled on Sunday.

My sister last night while we were out: Hey, we should go back to Brasa tomorrow night and maybe go dancing, I miss dancing.
Me last night: No, I really have to be up by 5 a.m. so I think I'll pass on that.

My sister three hour ago: So Kaneda just called and we're on the guest list for Showbox. Let's go have couple drinks and go dance.
Me: No, I don't want to go dancing. Low key, sister, low key!

My sister one hour ago: Hey let's go get some drinks and maybe go shoot some pool, make a quick appearance at Showbox. Let's not be out too late. We can close out the restaurant by midnight.
Me: How do you always manage to wake me up when I'm napping? Did I mention I have to be up by 5 and I really didn't want to go out?

So, I'm about ready to head out now. She wins somehow. It's scary. Women say men don't listen enough...wait until the ladies want the guys to go somewhere. They don't even hear your answer unless it's a yes.

Vulgarizer

Here's a shameless plug for my best friend's band, Vulgarizer.

Just a warning, it's a death metal band, so if you're easily offended don't check it out.

My best friend (the scruffy faced one, in case you're wondering) is a totally awesome guy. He's the one guy in the world I can call up when I'm upset at 6 a.m. on some random weekday. I can show up with a bottle of Henny in hand and demand that he drink while I talk and he would do just that without asking why first. I truly feel so blessed.

Black and Warcraft

This is my excuse for sitting on my ass today and playing a ton of Warcraft. I need to do my stupid cooking quest. I will be snowboarding at Steven's tomorrow anyhow.
It's Saturday, and normally I wouldn't be hungover like I am now, and I would be mountain biking somewhere. Last Saturday, my buddy and I went biking over in St. Edward Park. Within 15 minutes of biking around, I took a steep turn the wrong way...one minute I was on my bike, the next minute I was hugging the ground. My buddy, Charlie, came over to check on me, then told me I was fine and should keep riding. I ignored him and scooted over to a tree and leaned against it trying to catch my breath. I had a huge dent in my thigh. My buddy started doing an instant replay of how I bit it and how I "should" have done the turn. I started laughing so hard I couldn't breathe, then I called him a fucker and told him that he missed the glorious replay on eating dirt. We rode around for another 2 hours or so without another incidence.
That dent, now a week later, is still an ugly yellow bump in my thigh. Some lady gasped at the sight of my thigh in the gym locker the other day. I think if I wasn't single, people would be calling the police on the poor guy.

Poison Sprout

This is one of the few pictures I have of myself. It was taken a couple years back at some Halloween party with my best friend of the time, Kerwin. I did the standard schoolgirl thing. *yawn* Yeah, boring.
I tried to do something a little different last year and got this kick ass Poison Ivy costume at some stripper store. I found out the hard way why it was carried at a stripper store. The outfit took at least 15-20 minutes to put on, but it would make an attempt at falling off if I do so much as shift in my chair. Still it was Halloween, and I feel that it's every girls' responsibilty to get all hoochied up that day.
The thing that sucked was no one could guess what the costume was.
My friend: What are you, the Green Giant?
Me: Fuck you, I'm 5' nothing, you think I would be giant anything!? I would be much closer to being Sprout if anything.
I think I did start telling people I was Sprout. One guy came up and told me I should just tell people, "I'm hot." I told him I figured that part goes without my saying. Yeah, I'm a modest bitch. (^_<)

Old and Hungover

The older I get, the worse my hangovers. This feeling like ass thing gets old.
I've taken up doing a lot more outdoorsy activity because it encourages me to not get wasted during weekends. If I made plans to go hiking or mountain biking with a buddy, I make a real effort to not get smashed the night before.
On days like today when I failed miserably in not drinking so much the night before, I sit on my ass and play World of Warcraft all day. So far I have 2 level 60 characters and a couple fistful of over level 30 characters. So yeah, I spend too much time being hungover.
There's something really comforting about sitting around, chasing your hangover with a beer and clicking on moving things on your screen.
Some days I watch "The History Channel", but it seems like recently all they talk about is the army. Forgive me for sounding ungrateful, but I get tired of hearing about our military. I love the specials they do on Rome or even better yet, Gengis Khan. My favorite thing I learned about Gengis Khan from this channel is how they kicked China's butt (I'm Chinese so I'm probably going to hell for saying that).
Get this, so his army rides up to Forbidden City, and he realizes he doesn't stand a chance fighting against this fortified castle. So what does he do? He camps out. He only knows how to do warfare on open field, so he camps. He camped for a good year, during which time he captures everyone that tries to enter the city. He then bribed some local Chinese engineers that understands how to build siege weapons and starts building them. During the year that he blocked off access to the city, the city weakened significantly. People starved to death and they didn't have space to bury them, so they had huge piles of bodies burning to avoid contamination from rotting corpse. So morale is at an all time low. Then he attacks. He uses his POW to man the siege weapons and throw them in the front line. The guy is a freaking genius...scary as hell, but genius.

First Post

I just found this blogging thing, so this could be interesting. I'm guessing this will end up being my space to do lots of drunken/hungover babbling. Hmmm...free psychotherapy.