happy halloween

This weekend was an intense one. I'm still recovering. The Carrie costume was a success, I was told by several people that it was the best costume of the night. But I didn't get any pictures. The strangest thing by far though was that I had to duct tape my boobs into the dress. I did to my chest what people do to their plumbing. And the craziest thing is that it works.

i'm it

I've been tagged by the fabulous Atomic Bombshell. Not surprisingly, we have many answers in common because as she pointed out a long time ago, we are cosmic twins.
So here goes...
Three ways that I am stereotypically female
1. I heart make-up, especially glittery drag-queen make-up
2. I am very emotional, I cry during commercials
3. I love to shop

Three ways that I am stereotypically male
1. I belch, quite loud, and am not the slightest bit embarrassed by it
2. I always try to give the firmer handshake
3. I will drive around lost for an hour before I stop and ask for directions

Three names I go by
1. Masil
2. Lisa
3. Azure

Three parts of my heritage
1. Korean
2. Cherokee
3. Irish

Three physical things I like about myself
1. My lips and teeth
2. My scars and tattoos, well I don't like one of the tattoos but it'll get fixed at some point
3. My eyes

Three physical things I don't like about myself
1. My lack of a waist and my spare tire
2. My feet, they're very scabby and always have blisters
3. The fact that my boobs will never be described with words like perky

Three things that scare me
1. The idea that I am incapable of happiness
2. Heights
3. Aging

Three of my everyday essentials
1. Ipod
2. Massive amounts of caffeine
3. Sleep, though because of number 2, not nearly as much as I need

Three LIES
1. I have self-esteem
2. I don't regret any of my choices
3. I really don't care what other people think of me

Three TRUTHS
1. My life is one big contradiction
2. I am a good cook
3. I have a really good memory

Three things I want in a relationship
1. Passion
2. Laughter
3. Friendship

Three physical things about men that appeal to me
1. Height
2. Necks
3. Eyes

Three of my favorite hobbies
1. Writing letters that the addressee will never read
2. Exercising
3. Listening to music

Three things I want to do really badly now
1. Fall in love, or at the very least...a deep mutual lust
2. Make more friends
3. Get board certified, the pay raise alone would make it worth it

Three careers I've considered
1. Museum Curator
2. Civil Rights Lawyer
3. Record Store Clerk

Three places I want to go on vacation
1. San Francisco, which has been a desire for a while and not for the reason that some might suspect
2. Brazil
3. China

Three things I want to do before I die
1. Burning Man
2. Start and finish an art project I've been thinking about for years
3. Feel an overall sense of satisfaction with my life

Three celebrity crushes
1. Johnny Depp
2. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
3. Justin Theroux

ceremonial

I completely forgot to mention that I saw the most random gorgeous thing last night. I was walking my dog after work and there is an empty space down the street where there used to be a vintage store (ie overpriced goodwill). There were people in the store and they were doing some kind of ritual, maybe to get rid of negative energy and bad luck. The ritual was replete with chanting and incense and robes. It was amazing to see and the fact that it was just so...well I already said random didn't I? Sometimes I'm amazed at the things that go on here, mostly because nobody else finds them amazing, I revel in what other people consider banal.

honesty is the poor man's policy

How does that idiom go...honesty has its own rewards? Well, whoever thought of that expression, I need to have a little talk with them. I try to be honest, in fact I try very hard not to lie. Mostly because I'm really good at lying and if I didn't control it, I would be a pathological liar. So today when I went to register my car, I didn't lie and use my mother's address, which I had actually planned on doing. But the guilt of the lie sort of got to me...that is until I found out that I paid an extra $140.00 because I used my address instead of hers. I asked the guy why it was so much more, and he explained it was because of some monorail tax that Seattle citizens pay. I asked him if I would have paid it if I used my mom's address, and he said "But you don't live there." And I said, "But you wouldn't have known that if I had lied to you." Then he went on about karma and my honesty paying off at some point, and I told him that sounded like a bunch of bullshit. But we'll see...maybe my not lying will pay off in the future, with dividends even.

insomnia

What do most people do when they can't sleep and it's three o-clock in the morning? Cyberspace is starting to get a little boring and television is nothing but stupid informercials. So lately, I've been working on exercising the part of my brain that I haven't really been using since I graduated...I've been doing puzzles. I forgot how fun they can be, it's not often that you have to look at the big picture and minute detail all at the same time. This is the one I'm working on now...I've gotten the easy part finished but now all the pieces pretty much look the same.

insomnia

What do most people do when they can't sleep and it's three o-clock in the morning? Cyberspace is starting to get a little boring and television is nothing but stupid informercials. So lately, I've been working on exercising the part of my brain that I haven't really been using since I graduated...I've been doing puzzles. I forgot how fun they can be, it's not often that you have to look at the big picture and minute detail all at the same time. This is the one I'm working on now...I've gotten the easy part finished but now all the pieces pretty much look the same.

dress-up

After some debate, initially deciding between a Catholic school-girl or Madonna circa Immaculate Conception...I've finally hit upon what I'm going to dress up as for Halloween... I've just paid for the dress (an ebay find), the wig, a tiara, and three huge bottles of fake blood (gotta love those Halloween super-stores). Luckily I already have the dirty pillows...

complimentary

Last night I chatted with some people (i.e. drunken conversation with strangers) while I was out and about. And I got the coolest compliment. Normally people compliment me on physical things like my teeth or hair (just like with a horse) and often times the things that come in pairs. But last night a guy told me that he thought it was hot that I was analytical. It was surprising and frankly one of the most flattering things I've heard in a long time.

park and ride

My first apartment drama just unfolded (if you don't count the dumpster diving drug addicts). I get home from work and there is a freakin' car in my reserved spot. So I drive around looking for a space on the street. Of course being the hill, there isn't one within a five block radius and after vainly searching for thirty minutes, I was ready to talk to the manager. I pull up behind my stolen space and go up the manager's apartment to see if she'll let me park somewhere else...but alas, she isn't home. As I'm going back out to my car to put it in the pay lot nearby, she's outside with her friend and telling me that she's going to have ME towed. I explain about the person being in my space and then she proceeds to call to have the other car towed. I felt bad about it, and really I just wanted her to let me take another space for the night. At any rate, the tow truck shows up and the person who's car it is shows up about the same time and luckily nobody got towed. Still I felt like I should pacify the situation, so I talked to the guy and told him I wasn't being vengeful and trying to have him towed and he seemed to take that okay. But I'm still totally paranoid that I'm going to find a brick in my rear window or a bunch of key-gouges that spell out bitch on the hood. And I'm pretty sure I'm not making any friends in this building now.

homeward bound

I just spent the last two days in Lakewood. It was a nice little visit, though I was a little sad that my puppy was so excited to be back there when he is so clearly depressed to be living in the city. Initially I headed down there because of the lack of clean underwear factor, but then as it turned out, my mom was having shoulder surgery so I needed to be down there regardless. She is doing fine, though because she's pretty tiny (which makes the fact that I am an Amazon even more stunning), she was pretty icky-sicky after the anesthesia.

And her doctor was a grade-A, top-notch asshole. I guess since he can't charge the insurance company for a good bedside manner, he didn't feel any compulsion to offer it. I worked for an orthopedic doctor for several years and I hope he didn't treat the families as crappy as this guy. But I DO hope that my mom's doctor's Mercedez gets broken into and set on fire.

My mom was hilarious after the surgery. The minute they pushed her wheelchair to the car, she bounded out of the chair before the transporter could move the leg rests and screamed, "I'm hungry, let's go to the Korean store." And when we got there, she ate with a fork. She's about as bad at fork-eating as many people are with chopstick eating. I ended up putting her food into nice little bit size portions for her to scoop up.

Then I spent the evening with my sister and ate some really good food. I can say, without any hesitation, that yesterday I had the first decent meal I've had since...well since the last time I went to my mom's house. Lots of yummy Korean food was consumed, even a delicious crab soup.And I totally scored a bottle of mommy's little helpers. I guess somehow my mom ended up with two full bottles of the good stuff, so she offered me one. Like the good and filial daughter that I am, I couldn't possibly refuse...it would be a total lack of respect to say no to my mother's generosity. I was only thinking about her feelings when I took them.

Today, I drove my dog down to Olympia to take him to a super special veterinary specialist. I swear, they have some script from vet school that they use to explain medicine use because every single veterarian ophthalmologists Iniki has gone to has said the exact same thing verbatim. It's very strange and getting very repetitive. Maybe I can convince them to mix it up with a hip-hop version or a tap dance.

homeward bound

I just spent the last two days in Lakewood. It was a nice little visit, though I was a little sad that my puppy was so excited to be back there when he is so clearly depressed to be living in the city. Initially I headed down there because of the lack of clean underwear factor, but then as it turned out, my mom was having shoulder surgery so I needed to be down there regardless. She is doing fine, though because she's pretty tiny (which makes the fact that I am an Amazon even more stunning), she was pretty icky-sicky after the anesthesia.
And her doctor was a grade-A, top-notch asshole. I guess since he can't charge the insurance company for a good bedside manner, he didn't feel any compulsion to offer it. I worked for an orthopedic doctor for several years and I hope he didn't treat the families as crappy as this guy. But I DO hope that my mom's doctor's Mercedez gets broken into and set on fire.
My mom was hilarious after the surgery. The minute they pushed her wheelchair to the car, she bounded out of the chair before the transporter could move the leg rests and screamed, "I'm hungry, let's go to the Korean store." And when we got there, she ate with a fork. She's about as bad at fork-eating as many people are with chopstick eating. I ended up putting her food into nice little bit size portions for her to scoop up.
Then I spent the evening with my sister and ate some really good food. I can say, without any hesitation, that yesterday I had the first decent meal I've had since...well since the last time I went to my mom's house. Lots of yummy Korean food was consumed, even a delicious crab soup.And I totally scored a bottle of mommy's little helpers. I guess somehow my mom ended up with two full bottles of the good stuff, so she offered me one. Like the good and filial daughter that I am, I couldn't possibly refuse...it would be a total lack of respect to say no to my mother's generosity. I was only thinking about her feelings when I took them.
Today, I drove my dog down to Olympia to take him to a super special veterinary specialist. I swear, they have some script from vet school that they use to explain medicine use because every single veterarian ophthalmologists Iniki has gone to has said the exact same thing verbatim. It's very strange and getting very repetitive. Maybe I can convince them to mix it up with a hip-hop version or a tap dance.

nightcrawlers

Right this very second, there are crackhead sized raccoons digging through the recycling bins near my window. Well, at least they're industrious. And not creepy like the guy who stood in the bushes of the building next door to mine while I was out walking my dog at midnight.

seattlite

The thing I love most about this city is how deliciously random it is. I'm sure all cities are like that, but for some reason this city just does it for me. I spent ten years running away from Washington, trying to find a home, only to realize that it had been here all along. Okay, again with the digression. I think I need to start carrying around a camera to capture some of the things I see that I find strangely compelling.
Like the other day, walking my dog with my requisite steaming latte, somebody walks past with two half-gallon boxes of ice cream and starts telling everybody she passes, "Hey, there's free ice cream at the Rite Aid." And indeed, out in front of the Rite Aid, there were two huge boxes filled with half-gallon boxes of ice cream. People were elbow deep in the boxes looking for their favorite flavor, telling each other to grab a mint chocolate chip if they saw one.
Today, walking over to the park, I was standing at an intersection waiting for the crosswalk's flashing approval and I look across the way and see a young girl and her baby stopped by a newspaper machine. In the middle of the day, without a care in the world, this girl was graffiting the paper machine. She was just so matter-of-fact about it, like it was the most natural thing in the world to leave her mark on the PI box. When she finished, she straightened up, grabbed the stroller and walked off. I have to admit, I was more than a little impressed. It's one thing to do that in the shadow of night, but at noon on a busy intersection...that's hardcore.

climbing the hill

I think it's pretty clear that I'm going through some kind of existensial aging crisis. And as I've said before, a lot of that is because I did everything backwards. While kids my age were going away to college, doing keg-stands, and skipping classes, I was waking up at 4 am to screaming drill sergeants and getting gassed just so we knew what it felt like (not good, in case you needed to know). While kids my age were just graduating from school, trying to find their first job and apartment, I was settling into a suburban middle-class married lifestyle, sorting through fabric swatches and finding missing pieces to my china set. Then when people my age were looking to settle down on a house and a partner, I went back to school, got divorced, and now with one foot nudged firmly in the door of my thirties, I'm trying to figure out how to proceed from here.So now that I've gone off on a huge tangent. Here I am feeling pretty young, doing the things that young kids do, and I get to work and realize that I am working on the old people's weekend. Nobody I work with is under forty. The other weekend has all the young kids. Yet again I am trapped in this weird middle ground between being young and being grown-up and I just don't know what to make of it. But I know this, the soothing sounds of smooth jazz does not a peppy night make.

mile markers

I just realized that I'm celebrating a milestone tomorrow. It's going to be a strange day, probably involving an emotional rollercoaster ride. Tomorrow, I will have been divorced for exactly one year.

party monster

I'm going to stage an intervention for myself. I simply don't know how much longer this rockstar lifestyle can go on. I totally christened my toilet last night with streetside Polish sausage and then passed out on the bathroom floor in my underwear. However, when I left my house, the plan was to go out to a nice dinner. The road to hell really is paved with good intentions...and fruitylicious martinis.

significant other

Some might say I need a boyfriend for silly things like love, compansionship, a sex life, sharing of emotions and blah blah blah. But I really need one because I need somebody to hold my dog while I run into the grocery store and post office. A boyfriend would cut my errand time in half.

hair of the dog

I don't know who has a richer sense of humor, my fate or my irony. I also don't know how I can promise myself to only stay out for an hour, purposely not take a debit or credit card and only about twenty in cash...and still end up getting drunk and stumbling in at some ungodly hour. I would think it out but my brain is throbbing to some conga beat better suited for Carnivale rather than my cranium.

the new digs

I know you're all desperate to see my new crack-alley apartment...so I took a few pictures because it's 2 am and cyberstalking got boring.
Don't laugh at its lilliputian size.
Just remember, it's not how big it is, it's how you use it.

The bedroom-this is where all the magic happens...and by magic I mostly mean the part that happens in your imagination.

The living room-clearly I am in desperate need of some wall art.

The "office"-well, the corner that the desk fit into at any rate.

My sad, sad little refrigerator, with its second-hand condiments and bread with nothing to put on it.
But at least my little hobbit-sized appliance has some cool magnets.

weighty matters

I don't know exactly how this works in the world of physics, but I'm almost positive that the weights at my new gym are heavier than the weights at my old one. I'm so frikkin' sore from going to the gym for the last three days. I feel like I'm bordering on quadriplegic status here. But the thing is, I didn't lift any more weight than I normally do. I didn't do any more repetitions. I did the same routine I was doing when I left my old gym. I know one measly week off couldn't have taken that big a toll on my endurance.

blue lagoon

Something strange is afoot. My toilet water is blue, it looks like somebody added some tidy-bowl to the tank. I know for a fact that I didn't do it. So does that mean somebody is breaking into my apartment to put cleaning products in my toilet tank? Very strange...

copycat

Just because I'm this close to being in my thirties and single, does that HAVE to mean that my life has to be like an episode of Sex and the City? Last night I found myself being, as Carrie called it, emotionally slutty. I spilled far too many beans, I don't know what came over me... People were asking me personal questions and I didn't play coy or try to change the subject, I actually answered them. I'm wondering if that was the smartest thing to do. A total stranger probably wouldn't want to know your the results of your last pap smear, so why would they want to know intimate, personal things about your life? I think there are games you're supposed to play, and even though everybody says they hate them, they all seem to want to participate in them. This social life thing is going to take some getting used to.Although, it has by far and away increased since the move. It's nice being able to do things on the spur of the moment rather than having to plan days if not weeks in advance. And being able to drive home in fifteen minutes or less...priceless.

let me count the ways

I'm BACK!!! Oh how I missed this place, my little cyber-sanctuary. I almost went to an internet cafe yesterday but I thought I could make it one more day. I just got my internet and I've been spending HOURS going through all of my email. And let me tell you, once I get that bank account information set-up...that guy in Nigeria is going to make me one rich woman! And the deal on Viagra I got, WOW!So, I'm done unpacking. The apartment looks great. The walls however are paper thin, I can hear my upstairs neighbor peeing. And they don't seem to work or sleep, they're always home and always moving around. But I love it here. I love that I can walk everywhere. If I want a coffee, which I do almost every waking minute of the day, there are ten within a one block radius. And it only takes me five minutes to drive to work and I can walk to the gym.Speaking of the gym, do I ever have a story for you. So I signed up for a membership at 24-hr Fitness and you get one free training session. I had an appointment yesterday at 10:00 am. Naturally I was late, particularly since I didn't roll out of bed until 9:40 because I've been sick and had consumed half a bottle of Nyquil the night before. I get to the gym and ask for John, my trainer, and I'm waiting and waiting and this person walks up and I'm thinking, "Oh, that must be John, I think he's a trannie" because John was very manly looking but with some feminine features. A guy who works at the desk asks me if I need anything, so I point to John and say, "Yeah, I think I'm waiting for him." And he goes, "Oh, you have an appointment with Marybeth (or some girl name)." I was MORTIFIED! I mumbled something about just waking up and taking too much medicine, but I could feel my face heating up. How embarrassing, I felt like such the country mouse at that moment.