No, no... Look away. Don't look at the baby. It's drawing so much attention to itself already. Oh no, I'm looking. I didn't used to look at babies. I can't help looking now. Why? It is not cute. It's spilling drool all over itself! It's creating a mess! Its annoying high-pitched wailing is piercing my eardrums! No, not cute. Why can't I stop looking? Don't look at the baby. It's too cute. No, I don't like babies! I don't want one. I'm too young to have one. No, that's not true anymore. Mom's looking too. Mom loves babies. Mom wants my babies! Stop, baby, stop!

I was having dinner. Chinese New Year's Eve. Same meal, same place, with the same people as on Christmas Eve.

I didn't end up going out last weekend because I got sick. I don't want to go out anymore. Not now, not this weekend, not for awhile. All I want to do is curl up on the couch and watch a movie that will bring me to tears or cause me to think about new and deeper things... then take some painkillers and fall sleep and dream. I want to hide within a cocoon. Maybe for a month or two. And emerge later on in the spring, transformed and rejuvenated.

Alright. Perhaps this is my latest realization... that I'm really not as happy as I keep on saying I am, and I really haven't changed much at all. I can't tell anymore...

My guy friends on AIM... I have conversed explicitly and naturally about sex with just about all of them at one time or another, or regularly. We all seem equally and easily open about it. We aren't freaks. Sex is just not a taboo topic. We aren't children. There's nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about.

I've never had as candid a conversation about sex with any of my girl friends, on AIM or in person. Well, how many girl friends do I really have?

The thing is, just 'cuz I'm open to talking about sex doesn't mean I'm open to having sex with each of these guys. Sometimes I think there's a little bit of a misunderstanding...

If you want some of this ass, you can start by telling me something interesting... I mean, truly interesting. I haven't heard anything truly interesting from anyone in a long time. Or try to share something with me. Not just your sorry dick. Share with me one of your passions. Try to impress my mind. Can you do that? Can you??

While I was at the doctor's office, one of the receptionists noticed my logo LV shoulder bag and said, "That's a really nice bag." I replied, "Oh, my girl friend gave it to me." She looked at me funny and repeated back, "Your girlfriend??" I clarified, "My girl *pause* friend, not girlfriend." The discomfort and suspicion disappeared from her face and she said, "You gotta be careful what you say these days, huh... Still, that's a really nice bag to have gotten from your girl friend. Very nice." "Yeah," I agreed. I didn't feel like telling her that it's actually a supercheap knockoff that my girl friend picked up while in China.

It bothered me a little that the woman seemed a little taken aback by the possibility that I have a girlfriend. I mean, you'd think she'd just nod and say, "Oh, how nice of your girlfriend to give you such a nice bag."... instead of trying to make sure she'd heard wrong. Sure, I was in an ob/gyn office, and most of the women they see there are on birth control pills or having babies. But that shouldn't lead to or excuse a surprised sort of reaction if one or more patients are lesbian or bisexual.

I got it! I just got a referral from my PCP to see a dermatologist on Feb 11.

I've wanted to see a dermatologist for years, but haven't been able to afford consultation fees or treatment. And I haven't had a good enough reason to get a referral until now... thanks to these latest scars on my face left behind by the poison oak rash. The scars aren't all that noticeable, but I figured now's my best chance to get a referral, if ever.

I'd heard it's hard to get referrals for these types of things. So I was ready to break down in front of the doctor, beg and explain why I really really need to fix my face NOW, not later... because bad skin has haunted me all my life, and I'm getting old, and I'm single, and I need to look my best now or never because I'm ready to start dating again, and I don't want to miss the boat and end up a lonely old woman... please please help me please! Shamelessly, and at the risk of being considered way too vain.

Luckily, it didn't come to that. Now we get to see what magic the dermatologist can perform on my face...

It's because I feel a need to tout my other values now... now that youth and beauty are no longer strong selling points.

Another day of being sick... And while I lie in bed, back on Nyquil, head swirling and body numb, all I end up thinking about is how much I've changed, how much what I say here has changed since last year... and how the thing that never seems to change is my obsession with my body - my skin and my weight.

In the absence of other important or urgent matters to settle or goals to pursue, there's always wanting and trying to look better. Doing what I can to stay strong and on top of the game, keep my chin above at least average, and combat the signs of aging that I'm not gonna deny or ignore...

I'm sick of thinking about how I look.

I think I'm losing sight of how I really appear... how I come across, on both the outside and the inside. Am I becoming unattractive? Am I also losing depth? I'm starting to bore myself; am I also starting to bore others? Maybe so, and maybe because I'm satisfied. Skin and weight aside, I feel good. Much better than ever. I'm always aware of that, even when I'm down. Like I am right now...

I want new thoughts. I want a new passion.

There's currently no one in the entertainment industry and/or in the media that looks like me. At least I haven't seen anyone yet that does... If you have, point her - hopefully not him - out to me. I'd like to know what other people think I look like.

You know what this means... means I gotta get famous and get out there!

Hollywood, here I come!! :P

That I'm not domestically inclined was a self-propagated myth designed to deter people, especially ex's, from requesting or expecting such services from me. I sure as hell can cook, clean, launder, decorate... I've wanted to set that straight for awhile now, though I'm not entirely sure why. Lemme think about it, and I'll get back to ya...

I almost cried last night when Evan (aka Joe Millionaire) booted Mojo out of the house. For whatever reason, I felt for her. It made me sad to see her catted out by the other three women. Of them all, she was the most genuine, the only one who really seemed to be in the whole thing for the guy, not just the publicity or the money or the jewels or to come out of it with a new tall-dark-and-supposedly-handsome fling. She seemed to want so much to fall in love with someone, if not Evan, to find someone to love with her whole heart...

But Evan is a stupidass, and Joe Millionaire is a stupid show. And we knew that already. I just hope, for my own sake, that the majority of you guys out there aren't just as duh-uh and blind.

I hate when Blogger publishes a post that I haven't yet finished. I guess that's what happens when you mess up and have two Blogger windows open, and forget, and publish from one...

The post re: wolves will reappear here when I'm done with it.

I caught a cold Friday-ish or Saturday-ish... when I finally admitted to myself that I'm coming down with something. I've had a sorta sore, dry, and scratchy feeling in my throat for a little while now... since early January. I kept on shrugging it off as something else other than a cold. Then late last week, I started having what seemed like the makings of smoker's-voice... a really deep, low and husky, though not-quite-sexy voice.

I hope this one comes and goes quickly. I hate these things that have been coming up and setting me back, keeping me from getting back full-swing into working toward my metamorphosis...

Buying a house. Should I be thinking about it? Well, I've already been thinking about it for the last two weeks.

I thought about it seriously in the first year or so after I got out of college. Ah, so full of promise and so full of dreams. I planned to buy a house for my parents to live in. For me to live in later on, when they are old, and/or when they are no more. A house for mom. The kind of house I thought she always wanted... that dad never bought her. A nice big one amidst other nice big ones... with more than one story, with a sprawling, green lawn, with furniture that matches, with a spacious kitchen, fitted with all-new, modern appliances...

Cut to three and a half years later. I won't be able to put a downpayment on a tiny little house for another 10 years or so. And dad's business has picked up so that if he can get himself and mom a better house on his own.

So should I still be thinking about buying a house? Because it's a financially smart thing to do?

Yeah, because of that... and because I don't feel like playing a guts game, holding on to the "i-will-find-and-marry-the-perfect-rich-man-who-owns-a-house" card.

I don't envy about guys in this matter... I'd hate to be an amazing guy who's trying to woo or keep an amazing girl, but who has no money or means to buy a house and therefore gets shafted... or to be respected less by society in general because can't afford to own the roof over his head.

I watched two movies yesterday. Adaptation and In the Bedroom. These two movies are above-average, or my tolerance for unbelievable lines and inconsistent or underdeveloped characters has gone up. It's more likely the former.

I don't read reviews or commentaries about movies before or after the first time I watch them because I don't want my initial impressions to be influenced changed by them. Here, I'll write my own reviews/commentaries for these two movies... for you to choose whether to read or not.

Adaptation. Original, witty, entertaining, and almost never predictable. Plot-in-one-sentence: Kauffman and Orlean are inadvertently led into trying to find plots to their own lives while one generates a plotless book about orchids, and the other creates a plotless movie based on the plotless book about orchids. I haven't cared much for Cage's acting or characters since Leaving Las Vegas (I fell in love with Elizabeth Shue) and Face/Off, but in this movie, he plays the movie's own convincing fat, balding, pathetically desperate screenwriter - Charlie Kauffman. You hear your own thoughts in the intro and, thus, begin sympathizing with Kauffman from the get-go. Even the zany, hickish, front-toothless Laroche character is insightful and endearing. You're almost surprised that you are not surprised (strange as that sounds) when you, along with Orlean, begin to be taken up with him.

You're constantly wondering how the movie is gonna end, while simultaneously wondering how it's even able to go on. You imagine either a huge epiphany or huge anticlimax will occur when Kauffman and Orlean meet. Suspense mounts. When they finally meet late in the movie, it's smack-dab in the middle of an embarrassing, very unromantic, uninspiring, ultimately destructive moment. I loved it! They don't end up inspiring each other, but cause the deaths of the two people in their lives that do. It's satisfying to imagine that Orlean's life is ruined after the showdown in the swamp because you suspect all along that the happiness she found in her affair with Laroche is fake and temporary, brought on by the orchid drug and her addiction to its power to make her feel passionate about something... anything.

The movie didn't disappoint me until the end started unfolding... and when the woman (I can't remember her name - it might have been Julie) says "I love you too". By the time you reach this scene, you think you can guess the way the movie will end. You expect the woman to walk away and Kauffman to be left being what he loves and not what loves him. You know he's already changed, so the most you expect is a repeat of the HS scene Kauffman and his brother recount earlier. You don't need or want more. Hm... Maybe the fact that what you expect doesn't happen, even in the final scene, is...well...a gasping attempt by Kauffman to leave the audience with a last twist. But I dunno. The hopeful and sunny ending was still a bit of a letdown for me. In a movie that starts out the way it does, that sort of ending seems self-contradictorily trite.

In the Bedroom. Such realism. I enjoyed this movie less, though. The best part of the movie, for me, is when Dr. Fowler and Mrs. Fowler blame each other for their son's death. Kudos to the actors and the scriptwriters. I was almost disappointed toward the end of the movie, when Dr. Fowler actually kills Richard Strout. I expected or wanted more irony and surprise, but was satisfied with things being unresolved... with Fowler being haunted by the picture in the hallway of Natalie and Strout. It would've been pretty disappointed if the movie hinted that the Fowlers' lives were bettered and they were finally at peace after the killing.

Two other things the movie made me think about for a couple minutes... the young-guy-going-out-with-a-way-older-woman thing, and the fact that guys sit around round tables to play poker in a lot of movies.

A little sad that these movies are all I really have to blog about today, huh? I think I'd rather talk about some of the people in my life. Freely. But I can't. Not here.

She is really, really nice.

Today, I'm meeting my brother's girlfriend, Aileen, for the first time over dinner.

I've never met any of Josh's girlfriends. There haven't been very many. He's lived most of the last 10 years at home and single. Completely opposite of me.

Josh has been going out with Aileen for almost a year. She hasn't met any of our family yet, which, according to Josh, is starting to not sit well with her and her family. Understandably.

I don't know that much about Aileen, aside from what Josh has told me. Not having talked to my brother about girls much in the past, it feels awkward to ask about her. I only know that she is Philippino, has a lot of younger sisters and bad knees, and is "really, really nice" and "happy most of the time, no matter what." I haven't seen any pictures of her. I'm not sure what to expect.

I understand my brother's worries about introducing her to the parents. After all, his sister's brought home less than half of her boyfriends...

I really really really wish I could rock out. Play an instrument or sing in a band...

That settles it. I'm going out sometime this weekend. Let me know if you wanna join me.

Earlier today, I did a comprehensive search for any loose ends, but couldn't find any.

You are so f*cking unoriginal. Just thought you should know... You are a shameless copycat. Take a little bit of this from here, a little bit of that from there... Can you think up something new for a change?

No, I didn't think so...

It's too easy to do nothing for hours and hours these days... and still feel tired afterward.

I didn't go into the office today, and had lunch today with a few people who work at Siebel. Man, they can take long lunches. Well, I can work from home... We're all lucky we don't have strictly-one-hr-lunch-nine-to-five jobs.

The conversation turned to the subject of clubbing, and how we've been sitting out for awhile... either because we currently have nothing to wear because we've been seen in all of our summer stuff too many times over, or we're waiting for our favorite stores (A|X) to put out a better selection, or we've been hibernating, gaining weight, waiting to drop some pounds before we get back out in the seen-and-be-seen scene, or we're giving our livers and wallets a rest.

This conversation comes up every couple of months within our groups of friends because we're not yet too old to club (without looking like silly or dirty old people). We're still able to do the cycle... club like crazy for months straight, take a break, then make a grand come-back. But how long will we be able to do this? At some point, we'll be too old to go back, even if our livers are still healthy, and we're in great shape for our ages, and we have enough money to buy as many bust-boosting tank-tops and tight black shirts.

Time's a-tickin'.

Then what would we do? How/when/where would I get my club-dancing fix? Would I find something to replace it? Don't tell me tending to a hubby's needs, changing diapers, turning a house into a home, or cooking food for potlucks would do it for me then. I won't believe you. Until the fearful day that it does.

Chocolate will be my undoing. I am such a sucker for chocolate.

I haven't been on the dance floor on a long time, dancing to good music... I miss the feeling I get.

I took care of this issue this morning. 45 minutes, 4 people, lotsa yelling, a few angry tears (for the melodramatic touch), and one threat (yeah, you know me) later, I finally got unfair charges reversed and the APR lowered to what it used to be. I guess they finally realized that if I didn't get what I wanted, something terrible was gonna happen.

And it's not 100% over yet. I'll be watching for the credits on my statements with an eagle-eye... I don't make empty threats. Heh.

When it comes to my money and my health, screwing me over is no laughing matter.

I am so freaked out.

At least, I think I should have one before I turn 28.

My god... TWENTY-EIGHT. One could be a grandma at that age...

I think I need to go get myself a boyfriend.

I would love to be lovely enough to able to saunter into the room and steal your eyes, hold them for the whole nite, make your heart race, your jaw drop, your mind entertain thoughts of having me, holding me... and just me...

I would love for you to make me feel like a woman (yes, I know that sounds corny)... make me proud to be a woman. A beautiful woman.

No one ever really has.

Everyone is wacked. Seriously. What's up with everyone trying so hard?

WHY?? Why? WhY? wHy?

I give up. I'm not going to try hard. Not for anyone. Not anymore.

I'm going to act like a 15-yr-old-girl blogger. Their lives seem colorful and interesting. Oh, to be young in these times... If I'da grown up with the web, man... maybe I wouldn't have grown up to be such a freak'n schizo. But then I'd hafta have a buncha stoopid girlie friends to hang out with and talk shit about. Christa and Vikki and Ashley and Jana. Teenage girls have the spiffiest sites! My blog template sucks ass. Need to fix it up. But do I have the time to? No.

WHY? why? Why?

(I don't make a very convincing 15-yr-old girl, do I...)

I've watched all three episodes of Joe Millionaire so far... which may be surprising to you, depending on how misogynistic you think I really am.

Seeing women go on dates with Joe kinda made me feel like I haven't been on enough dates. Though I feel I've had my fair share of boyfriends, I haven't really been on many dates. At least not the kind in which two people, who may hardly know each other, try to get acquainted for the sole purpose of possibly becoming a couple...

And I've never been won over by a romantic, heart-fluttering date. I sincerely don't recall ever going on an established "date" with someone I wasn't already interested in, that didn't turn into a relationship or a fling soon after. I went on a blind date once back in high school. But even that wasn't a real date; I just attended an event with a couple and their single guy friend, who was about as exciting as two hours of church.

Maybe a lot of the time, what the guy thinks is an actual date, I consider just a regular dinner or activity. Dunno if that's simply because the guys are cheap and easy, and/or they think I am cheap and easy. And I dunno that I'd wanna date just to date... Isn't my life full of enough guys already?

How frequently does the average single female go on a typical date? Maybe I'm not missing much at all...

I'm slipping again...

I'm upset 'cuz I haven't begun learning or creating anything since the start of the New Year.

People around me are signing up for classes for this and that... and I've signed up for nothing, bought no books (ok, two, but they haven't come in the mail yet), no supplies, no equipment, no instruments... thinking I can't or shouldn't spend to learn at this time.

I keep thinking that my task at hand is to keep myself alive and healthy past repayment of my debts... if that means I spend only/mainly/largely on things that will maintain my health. Good food. Medicine. Warm, yet cheap, clothing.

NO. I will learn now. I will spend to learn. I won't let my brain rot away. I won't just sit here suffering, depreciating, and atrophying. Be all that I can be, right? I will find the funds. Somewhere. Somehow.

Gonna cut down on the swearing. It's unbecoming... and not always necessary.

Money, money, money... you're always on my mind. So elusive, so unkind. Why d'you play so hard to get? All I want is out of debt...

I'm SUPERDUPER angry right now. Pissed off about some money matters. So angry I could maim. People & agencies... don't fuck with me when it comes to my money!

Know this... that I'm not afraid to get pyro on you!!!

I'm not often disappointed in people. I don't often expect very much from them. If you ever disappoint me, most likely it's because I like you a whole lot and/or I care about you a whole lot... and that's not your bad, it's mine.

Men. I admire their independence, strength, intelligence, and courage.

I would want to be more like a man. I would want to be a man.

But I am glad I am a woman, if only because I am, therefore, able to be enamored with men, make love to them, fall in love with them (possibly)... and vice versa.

My ex in LA got an AIM ID recently. We've had a few short conversations since.

He sounds like pretty much the same person... the same person he was 3 years ago when we went our separate ways. He still sounds a little bit bitter that I am happier and busier than he is. Despite, it sounds like the door's still open for me to re-enter his life.

But he's the same person he was. And I'm even more of the different person I was. Now I know I could never go back. It's hard to talk to him knowing that. I almost feel guilty for being better off.

So I played a few poker games last nite. (Not yet on the new felt.)

Sometime during the last time I played, I discovered/realized that these games have more redeeming value than possibly earning a some lunch money. They're a good way to see the fun/funny side of your friends. See them go through a bunch of real emotions right in front of you. Get to know new or quiet people better. Get big groups to hang out again. Unite the people!

I've become so fucking soft... or it feels that way.

Purge. My collection of things is in constant state of purgence. I like to purge. No, not binge-and-purge. It's all about efficiency, conciseness, minimalism, and per-need basis. I enjoy having a few key, high-value things. I get a thrill out of getting rid of everything else, giving things away, selling things.... old, useless things, gifts which have lost or never had sentimental value, things that aren't representative of my current taste or personality, things that remind me of things I'd rather forget...

Must regularly get rid of these things, in case someone comes to new conclusions about me based on the things in my possession. Kinda like cleaning up my history... as soon after it's created as possible. Editing. Fastidiously. Out, out damn spot!

There's one thing in today's pile-to-purge that I'm not sure whether to keep or not. I bought a CD at the end of '99 just for this song. I've bought less than twenty CDs in my lifetime; I'm not sure what was thinking back then... (Was I crazy in-love, or what?) It absolutely pains me now to listen to the CD. The sap is waaaaay too sthicky! *shudder* Alrightee, it's been decided. To Goodwill it goes!

A picture may be worth a thousand words. But a song is worth at least a million words used to describe an emotion that a thousand pictures could only hope to express.

You may quote me on that!

I went to pick up some green felt for poker nite at Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts. Took one step in and felt like I was hit by a powerful wave of estrogen. Bam!

Kinda like the wave of horny that washes over when I sit in company meetings with the 40+ guys here at work...

It smelled really nice in the store. Smelled like moms and cloth and potpourri. At first I was taken aback... feminity overload. But when I passed the reds and pinks of the Valentine's Day knick-knacks and what-nots, I felt the woman being sucked out of my depths. Lookie all da cute liddle tings wit hearts and shtufff... luv... awwww...

I quickly got a grip on myself. I don't have time for any of this. It's not that I lack the skills or the talent to be a seamstress or a craftsmistress. I have confidence that I can make anything, and make it well, given the motivation. I'm anal. I'm a perfectionist. I'm always editing. I'm creative enough. But I'd never wanna make my own clothes. And I'd never make something for someone when something brand-name, factory-made, mass-produced, and pricey would mean helluva lot more...

Anyway, I asked for two 6x6feet pieces of felt, and guy behind the cutting counter said he could only cut me one 4x2yard piece that I'd have to cut in half myself. He said he couldn't cut me two 2x2yard pieces so matter-of-fact-ly that I didn't bother to question him further. The reason why must be something every woman buying fabric knows and understands but me.

Makes no sense. But who am I to question these things?

I had Persian food for the first time for dinner tonite (weds). It's my roommate's bday, and her boyfriend, also my roommate, who is Persian, suggested Shalizaar in San Mateo.

The look of the restaurant on the inside was fancier than I'd imagined it would be. I ordered Joojeh Koobideh, which was a dish of both chicken and ground beef kabobs. Every dish on the table, even the appetizers, seemed to involve the same ingredients: walnuts, parsley, onions, tomatoes... raw or cooked. All very plain. All served kinda as-is. Not many spices. Not much to them. I don't think I like it much.

But I mmm'd and ahhh'd, and told my roommates that I'd have it all again...

Well, the redeeming dish was the dessert, called Bastani Faloodeh. It may have been called Makhloot on the menu... a combination of Bastani, which is rose-water ice cream with pistachio pieces, and Faloodeh, which is something like an snow cone with small, thin coconut noodles meshed in. You squeeze lemon juice on top of the Faloodeh... the overall effect is a pretty tasty treat.

I keep thinking about how my life would be near-perfect if I was just 10lbs thinner... but going to the gym is such a bitch these days. If only lipo wasn't such a non-option...

Now I'm telling myself that I'll reward myself for getting thin with a trip somewhere nice 'n hot, where I'd hafta bare a lot of skin and enjoy doing so... somewhere like Hawaii.

You'd think summer out here and surviving singlehood graciously would be incentive enough...

My manager, Chandra, got one of several Outstanding Employee awards during our all-company meeting today.

He's the most congenial and understanding manager I've had since I got out of college. He's especially patient with some of the ignorant people we have to work with at Sun and with our customers. I'd say he's the best-dressed guy in our office. Most of the guys here dress pretty scrubbily; they don't know how to match their socks to their shirts. It looks like his wife dresses him. So cute. He's has kids, and it's obvious that he treasures them greatly. So sweet.

Sometimes he doesn't process my timesheets in time for me to get my paycheck on the 15th and the 30th, but that's a small thing. He makes up words like "updation" and "preponed," which I think is adorable. Sensical made-up words rock.

I've reached a point where 90% of the things I wanna say here, I don't say here... because of the one or two of you who I know come here every now and then.

I wish you weren't reading.

It'd be nice if only the people who actually get something out of what's here, or actually want to get to know me or like me better, were reading me... a few friends, unlimited number of strangers, other bloggers, random visitors from search engines... But not the folks who read with closed-minds and closed-hearts.

I'll learn to ignore you. One of these days, I'll stop considering you... and I'll be able to post at-will/at-random again.

Silent All These Years - Tori Amos

Most definitely... to each his/her own. There's no one who everyone finds attractive, much less someone who everyone finds attractive and who they'd also wanna date.

You can't/won't win 'em all, you know...

I saw Catch Me If You Can last nite. Go catch it if you can. :P I think it's well-made, entertaining and touching. The short intro to the movie was, itself, captivating...

Why do men commit a lot more crimes than women? Not just the heinous ones, but also all the other ones too?

Certainly NOT because women are, by choice or by nature, the more moral, more noble, more humane sex? ...because women are weaker and less durable, physically and emotionally, less genius, less capable of becoming a evil masterminds? ...or simply because women possess a greater fear of and lower tolerance for discomfort?

Can the answer be summed up in one word... machismo?

What do women do, while machismo drives men to do great things, whether good or evil great things?

Collateral. Look pretty. Collect semen. Bear and raise macho boys to men to go out and do great things... Sometimes it feels that way.

Where are our movies... that say otherwise?

My brain feels like it's gonna explode.

I feel like fleeing. Where? I have nothing to flee from... no where to flee to...

Avoid the shrapnel.

Since I graduated college, I've met more friends than I met in all my years in college.

I don't try that hard with most people. They enter and exit my life as they please. I stand with open arms, but I hardly ever give chase.

Today is Eric's birthday.

There are few people I've ever worked as hard to dispel their preconceived ideas about who I am... even fewer that I've tried to win back into my life.

I met Eric in the summer of 2000. He was immediately interesting. I hadn't met anyone else before then who seemed to place an equal amount of value on certain aesthetics as I did. He teemed with potential that seemed to be hidden from others, maybe even himself, but not from me...

A couple months later, during a 24hr trip to Vegas, I'd managed to drink myself into a pleasant stupor... unpleasant for the others, especially for Eric, who was my designated carrier for the night. At one point, I must've been falling when Eric grabbed and held me in front of him...

A moment happened. A moment that was burned into my mind for a long time, until other moments were burned on top of it. It caught me completely off guard. He was staring into my eyes... eyes that could hardly focus back... were suddenly locked into a moment of crazy, profound connection and a rush of heat and euphoria. I felt as if he was looking into my soul and touching it with genuine care and the gentlest and sweetest of caresses... What??? How??? Why???

Two years later... I give alcohol all the credit. For that moment and all of my moments.

...kidding...

Today is Eric's birthday... and we're all going out tonite to celebrate.

Bottoms up, and twenty-five spanks for the birthday boy-no-more! :P

I am good. I am kind. I am sweet. I am better than you think I am.

It's one of those days in which I have the feeling that I'm waiting for something. I feel like I've been waiting for something to happen for awhile. I don't even know what, exactly, I'm waiting for...

I feel like I'm in "the-calm-before-the-storm" period... I feel as if things could go on terribly well or go terribly wrong in just seconds, minutes, hours, or days. I feel as if I'm overlooking something. Damn that feeling... It's a reoccuring one. It makes it hard to sail on a breeze for long without looking anxiously toward shore...

I used to run scenarios in my head. Pre-event... would not neglect the scenarios. Lots of scenarios. Over and over, until the worst-case scenario didn't seem so bad.... until I knew I would survive no matter what happened.

I haven't done that in awhile. And the paranoia chemicals are seeping out into my brain matter once again...

It seems far worse to be jobless than to be partnerless. In my experience, nothing murders the self-esteem as quickly and as brutally as being unemployed for more than a month.

I think being jobless while having a partner is worse than being jobless and partnerless. It's hard enough dealing with your own joblessness. Knowing your partner is also dealing with your joblessess adds more suckiness to a supersucky situation. When I was jobless and broke, I was constantly wondering for how much I could sell my bf... or how much more money I could save if he wasn't around. Just kidding.

(No, sadly, not just kidding.)

Looking for a job is analagous to looking for a partner, I guess, but still worse. You can't as easily have one-nite-job-stints, as you can have one-nite-stands. I guess contract work is sorta like having a reg'lar, in-the-meantime, out-of-necessity, minimal-committment, minimal-benefits booty call...

Now that's an interesting thought... Maybe I'm contracted out in more than one way. If so, am I going with the highest bids?

Group dynamics. I have been thinking a lot about them lately.

Last year, two or three groups came together every so often to form one huge one... to play team sports, go clubbing/drinking, have houseparties, celebrate bdays, dine out, etc. There was a lot of excitement, enthusiasm, and momentum, while we were getting to know all the players, sizing each other up, figuring each other out... And the intensity was sustained for almost a year by semi-turbulent, somewhat-sensational interpersonal push-pulls, heightened by a significant amount of ambiguity and perhaps even some wishful/hopeful thinking...

Given a group with a fairly even ratio of young-ish men to women, throw in a little bit of time... and you really can't hope to avoid the Melrose-Place Syndrome. It's gonna happen. In a big group, in a big way...

The heyday of the huge group eventually ends. Unregrettably, since the antics were getting played out and players were getting old... The group is a shadow of its former self, has dissolved back into subgroups, and/or lies dormant, awaiting a Renaissance. And the aftermath is, to be honest, a little creepy. I'm creeped out, sometimes, when we get together in certain fragments these days. Oversensitive. I feel as if I know a too much, or I haven't forgotten enough...

Yes, I think that's what I need to do. Move past the year(s) past. Reminiscing past the new year is for pussies without a new act. GET CURRENT.

Through the changes in group dynamics, and though I'm up-and-down a lot about the people in my life, what stays constant is that I really do care... You all fascinate me to some degree, and I really do hope to keep every one of you around me for the rest of my life... (Why do I bother to say this?)

This morning, I helped Alex move her bed down from the den to the garage. The property manager and the owner of the house are paying the house a visit today. It's supposed to look as if only the three people on the lease live there. Alex is on the lease, and she's gonna be sticking around until the end after all...

I think one of my roommates is hiding a dead body in his/her closet or under his/her bed.

What else could explain this horrible stench I gotta come home to everyday? There's always sumpin stinky goin on 'round here... My room's fine, but the rest of the house is unbearable.

I hardly slept last nite. Still on Prednisone. Another 5 days to go...

The stuff allows you wander off toward the edge, takes you to your physical limitations, poops you out thoroughly... Then it so kindly denies you of sleep. All you can do is lie down, in bed in the dark... As long as you don't move a muscle, it doesn't seem matter that much that you can't shut off... 'cuz you feel fine, calm and relaxed, in that state for hours on end... the time stolen from your mind like it is when you're on Nyquil. Not many worries churn in your head as they do when you're experiencing conventional insomnia... 'cept the one that you are not getting enough sleep to last you another day.

I had one of those weekends in which I feel as if I did a whole lot, when in actuality I did a whole lot of nothing. Here are the mundanes...

Friday nite. I think I am able to take hot 'n spicy foods better than most of my friends, so I was looking forward to finding out how I stack up against them and the hotwings at a little joint in Santa Clara called Cluck U. I sampled the "Global Thermo-Nuclear" sauce, the hottest on the menu. Sweated a little. No snot out the nose. Didn't cry. But I was feeling uncomfortable even before I bit into the chicken.

Before the fluorescent lights and the wooden chairs, there was the tightness and the redness, the itchiness and the ugliness. And, for some reason, I wasn't vibing well with my friends. I could've tried a little harder to... but under current circumstances, I just didn't feel like it. I felt like resorting to me ol' remedie for me maladies... but this night wasn't heading in the direction of liquor. And I was disappointed in myself for being so weak...

You know how I love the game of poker, especially playing for money. I didn't wanna be a spoilsport, so I stayed out to play for a couple hours. I shared chips with someone; we were small fish amongst the "sharks." It wasn't a horrible time after all. We played a variety of games I'd never played before. Baseball, 7/27, criss-cross, bonecrusher (w/ rollover)...

Why play poker without stakes? I don't think it'd be half as fun without real stakes. You can have some fun finding out how clever/sly you are compared to your friends. But in the end, at the level you will ever play the game, winning is just about how lucky you are. Maybe you like to check that out every now and then... how lucky you are. (I already know how lucky I am.) By nature, you really can't do anything to increase your luck. Skill game... fwhatevers. You can't create better luck for yourself by getting better at the game.

Saturday nite. Had dinner at Thirsty Bear with a motley crew as motley as a crew could get. Some friends were in from out of town. We weren't wasn't gonna last the nite. I had a cosmo 'cuz I couldn't help myself, even tho the meds were already threatening to take me out before 11pm. Post-dinner, twenty minutes on the sidewalk, under pressure to just-do-something since it was a Sat nite, trying to come to a consensus about what we didn't want to do, and where we didn't wanna go... My face hurt from fake-smiling too much. My head was throbbing from the alcohol I shouldn't have had. I, at least, wasn't gonna stick around to witness the momentum of the others fizzle into the anticlimactic end-of-the-nite...

Sunday nite. On the way to a bday get-together, I thought about how all week and all weekend I've been suffering under this stigmatized-Jennie mentality... I've been all too conscious of looking sub-par. It's been in the back, if not forefront of my mind, whatever I was doing, wherever I went, whoever I was with... I should've been trying to have a good time with people l haven't seen in awhile, or taking advantage of my chances to get to know new people. But no... what was I thinking?

I'm happy now. I have faith in who I am. And I'm lucky. Yes, yes, yes. Progress. All good things. Yet, at the end of the day, after all is said and done, no matter how much I have or how well things are going, there still remains the fact that better looking people are treated better.

That's the way the world works. It all boils down to one's looks. There's always that little bit more respect that I could have... that little bit more attention, that little bit more love. That little bit of better treatment. The better looking people are getting it. Why not go for it too?

This game goes on around me, and I'm a part of it, whether or not I choose to or want to play. This game of better treatment. I won't just sit here pissed off that boring, stupid, robotic, unoriginal, untalented, undeserving, beautiful people are being treated better than I am. I'm going to work for it.

I'll have what she's having... and just a little bit more!

Sometimes I wish you would grab me suddenly and violently, and bring me closeup against your warmness... hold me tightly there, stroke my cheek and neck, and pull back my hair ungently... kiss me and undress me with a passion and conviction equal to mine... then proceed to fuck me as if you loved me...

My throat feels a little scratchy.

Yeah, yeah... you see past my complaints, don't you? You know I'd say anything so I could get hopped up on Nyquil tonite...

I don't remember when I last looked this crappy but felt this happy.

Face and body rashed and bloated on these meds... Hair sloppy, no style, color growing out... I've totally let go. Been too lazy and comfortable. I have a little too much faith, or something like it, these days... This faith is new, and it's awesome.

But I am so ready to begin my full-body makeover now. Been talking about getting back in the game for some time... It's time to walk the talk. And not because my future totally depends on it, 'cuz now I know it doesn't...

Back into the gym like a fiend, back on the road running... Gonna grow my hair out, and have Raymond cut me long layers again. Strategic makeup. Strategic clothing. While staying within the same tight budget I've been on for the last two years... I can do it.

I've got my motivation back. I'm still going for biggest piece of the pie.

Ladies, it seems to me that, if you are non-single, you are only worth as much as whoever you pick to be your partner.

So be careful not to pick a schmuck... or a half-wit, or a dolt, or a moron... if you think you deserve better. Once you've made your selection, you don't deserve any better. In my mind, you are only as good as the one you pick to stick.

Pick wisely, girls.

Think this is twisted thinking?

Alcohol's not mine, but it could be and probably would be if I didn't have what I have instead.

I have something muchmuch better.

I'm so tired right now. I can tell because I've got god-awful darkish-purplish bags under my eyes, and my eyes hurt like I haven't slept enough.

But otherwise, I can't tell I'm tired because I've been hyped up on Prednisone. It's crazy powerful stuff. Third day on it, and my skin is showing improvement beyond my expectations. I went to the gym yesterday, and felt like I was on Ripped Fuel all over again. Prednisone also makes one retain a lot of water, so I'm visibly bloated.

My mom was on Prednisone for two years after she had a bone marrow transplant. She had "moonface" due to the severe water retention. She also had serious insomnia.

I'm considering tapering off my dosage at a faster rate than the doctor prescribed. He said 3 pills for 4 days, 2 for 4, 1 for 4. I've already had 3 for 2 days, and I'm thinking of starting 2 for 3 days tomorrow, and 1 for 4 days after that...

Went to bed around 3am this morning, after ringing in the new year with good people, quality friends.

Ours was a clean, dry, and mellow little houseparty, if you could even call it a party. It sort of had the feel of a year-end extended family get-together, with an abnormally high ratio of coupled-up folk to single people.

Kinda felt like I was having the most fun of all of the other women there, though... Was I just imagining that the others looked a little bored, tired, or both tired and bored, while we were playing board games... as if they'd rather be out dancing and drinking, or having a romantic night with just their significant others?

I wouldn't have chosen to celebrate the start of this new year any other way.

Just watched Swingers for the first time. I'd always suspected I'd never seen the movie before, but every time I picked it up off the shelf at Blockbuster, my ex back then would say, "We've seen that already." I never really believed him, but wasn't absolutely certain I hadn't either, and didn't wanna argue...

Swingers is a movie about relationships that I would recommend to the few of you who haven't aleady seen it.

There's this one line in the movie, something like, "I haven't figured out yet what the avantages are of being single."

It's funny how being single seems to have many obvious advantages when you are not single, and you wonder why sad single people can't see those advantages and feel more fortunate in their situations. But when you actually are single, those advantages suddenly become hard to find, or they hardly seem to be advantages at all, really...